The Mistress, Part Two

by Lexie Ray

  She cringed. He always had that effect on her. He could use his looks and charm his way out of pretty much any situation imaginable. Not this time, though. This time he definitely couldn’t. She no longer trusted the blue eyes that entrapped her body and soul and charmed her heart into loving him for so many years.

  Those eyes. They shined brightly with eagerness and enthusiasm when they worked together in that distant memory of so long ago. He asked for her number so that they could continue their project after class, and being the naïve college girl she was at the time, she didn’t see it as anything more than an invitation to do class work.

  However, when he called her and asked her out for a dinner date that very night, she started to understand his real intentions may have been a little more hidden than she had initially thought. In fact, they were probably almost completely hidden, but that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Not to her. Not at the time.

  He was good looking, after all, and he innocently enough asked her out. She thought she would – at the very least – humor him, and there wasn’t a day that went by that she wasn’t grateful that she had. Because after her acceptance of his innocent invitation, she was able to discover that he had more than trumped what she was expecting. In fact, the evening turned into rather the staple of romantic memories that she possessed of him.

  There was no promise of anything more than the company of her, and he wasn’t trying to make amends for anything. He was just being Preston. She remembered the night so well, but more than anything she remembered the setting.

  He had strung up Christmas lights in his dorm room. In fact, she remembered comically musing on the idea that he must have gone room to room and compiled everyone’s spare pillows and blankets just to have enough for the huge pallet he had made on the floor. All the fabrics were mismatched, and in all honesty, it would have probably looked like a disaster zone to anyone other than an infatuated girl.

  But it had all been sweetly set up, and though none of the fabrics seemed to go together, they all held one common goal: to be comfortable. They were all meant to give her comfort and support as she ate the dinner he had so graciously prepared in such a small and awkward space.

  A strange array of crockpots and rice cookers had all been compiled together as well to aid in the cooking of a dinner fit for kings, and soft music even played in the background. The source of the music came from a boom box with only one single speaker – the left one – working, and it had been tucked away in the corner of his dorm room beneath his desk. It really was a poor man’s date, but it was magical, and it held a spirit about it that she admired; he held a spirit about him.

  She felt so special in that moment. Not only had he cooked dinner for her, which was more than any other man had ever done, but he also went through the trouble of creating an atmosphere. He had strung Christmas lights, set the mood with something soft and melodious, and also seemed to go through the trouble of collecting the odd assortment of blankets and pillows that were strategically placed throughout the floor of his dorm room.

  There wasn’t much room in the dorm overall, but it seemed to flow well. The room was as a mirror of itself. Each side of the room held a dresser, a desk, and a small twin size bed in the exact same positioning as the other side. The blankets and pillows he had collected were placed directly in a walkway positioned in between the two beds to provide the most room for the two of them as possible, but she couldn’t help but wonder where his roommate was.

  She remembered musing that the boy would have not had much room to walk through to even make it to his bed if he had come in during their dinner date. It hadn’t even registered – for even a second – that there was a possibility that Preston had asked him to make himself scarce.

  They had eaten the meal he had prepared in all its hilarity over the course of an hour. He made cheese fondue, which had burnt dramatically and seized up, creating a grainy texture, and a chocolate fondue reciprocating the former almost identically. For all intents and purposes, they were disasters – but they were beautiful disasters. The taste was almost there, but the thought – which was the most important part to Marissa – was definitely there.

  After they had giggled their way through the entrée of crockpot chicken and rice cooker cheese fondue, they reached for the seized up chocolate and wilted strawberries. “So, the food isn’t quite five stars – but the effort?” he asked, a smile plastered on his face instead of the smirk that she had noticed him cockily sporting in class and around campus. It was something different, something a little more sincere.

  It was then that she felt the classic fluttering of her stomach and the strong pounding of her heart beating against her chest. She – not him – leaned forward and kissed him. Hard. Full of strength and longing. Running on complete impulse, she grasped at him and begged with her tongue for entrance into his mouth. And when he had granted passage to her tongue, she had soon realized that she had also – unknowingly – begged him for entrance into his life, into his heart.

  As their tongues danced together in swift movement with the horrifically crackling speaker’s music, they moaned into each other. Fueled with adoration, she suckled on his bottom lip until he unlocked himself and leaned down to reciprocate the action – only onto the nape of her neck, and it was then that the air wafted into her nostrils and tickled her senses. Vanilla and some sort of strong spice filled her nose, and she immediately locked that smell away as a beautiful favorite within the very core of her memory to hold for all days to come. She never realized that the smell would come to haunt her as it did in this moment – a young woman never realizes the weight of storing such a memory away.

  She never dreamed the burden it would cause, because now as she took each shirt off its hanger, she was intoxicated all over again. Despite her anger – despite every fiber within her detesting the smell because it was his smell – she knew that she would always love the scent just as much as the first day she had smelled it.

  The click of the knob to the door from the garage into the kitchen was amplified and knocked her from her sad reminiscing thoughts. She heard it all the way from the bedroom, in fact. It was as if her ears’ sensitivity was heightened to an incredible degree. He was home.

  Game time.

  She amped herself up for only a millisecond before she furiously trampled off across the room, ready to attack with the ferocity of a puma in heat. She rounded the corner of the hallway to the living room and met his gaze suddenly – and surprisingly. She hadn’t expected him to have already reached the living room. She was quite caught off guard, actually. She breathed heavily in response to his eyes befalling her own. Though the breath’s intent was to calm herself, it almost seemed to fuel a dragoness fiery breath from within her obviously flaming core.

  His blue orbs seemed to widen with concern at her dramatic entrance, and just as his lips began to move in speech, she cut him off with a single word: “CHEATER!”

  She bellowed so loudly it echoed across the walls of the high ceiling, reverberating off of the highest beams. It was so loud, in fact, that she likely had alerted the children to her anger and their father’s presence as well. She wished she had prepared something a little more effective, and a little less crazy-sounding, but she worked with what she had. And what she had was a shit-ton of anger.

  His eyes squinted in response, and his lips scrunched in a silly facial expression as if to patronize her and say she was crazy. The nerve! “Don’t you DARE say that I’m crazy!” she screamed as she pointed to him angrily and stepped towards his frozen, statue-like form.

  “Honey, I didn’t say anything. This behavior is unlike you. It is crazy. However, I merely wanted to protest these horrible accusations that you have somehow concocted in your mind. Do I not at the very least have that right?” He spoke calmly, and with every word Marissa felt more and more condescended to and disgusted at his manipulations. How was he speaking so formally? She fucking hated how formal he sounded sometimes. It was as if he was con
stantly patronizing her. She was just disgusted at all of it. So disgusted, in fact, that she shook her head and calmly walked away.

  It wasn’t long though that he was on her tail, trailing behind her with just as much force in his steps as she possessed in hers. “We have to talk about this!” he screamed from behind her just before she reached their bedroom door. Suddenly she felt his hands forcefully grab her arm from behind, and he jerked her towards him quickly. His hands gripped at her biceps, securing her in place, but before he could speak, she decided to end the conversation.

  “Ask Haley,” Marissa spat out just before shaking loose from his grasp. And there he stood, dazed, confused, and with a hint of anger still present across his face as she walked away.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  Haley made her way back home that evening after sulking about in a daze for hours. She had wandered, hoping to be lost in the chaos of the world. Just so that she wouldn’t have to step foot inside of her apartment again. As far as she was concerned she was a man without a country. She had no home. She had no safe haven, nor did she even deserve it.

  She was foul. She was scum. She was lower than the dirt. She was whatever saying any person could muster up in regards to a slutty mistress and betrayer of friends and family. She was every insult in the book. She was nothing, but as nothing, she knew that she couldn’t stay outside. She knew she had to go back to her apartment.

  Her phone had vibrated continuously for an hour, and all calls were from him. There was no way that she was going to answer. She knew that, by now, he was home, and that it was likely that Marissa had confronted him. She wouldn’t answer to find out for sure, but she assumed quite valiantly as her phone continued to buzz against the muffling cheap black fabric of the couch.

  She supposed that despite her unwillingness to name her apartment “home”, she could truly only thank her lucky stars that she had moved out recently and this all hadn’t come to its head while she was still under the Lancer roof. She laughed. The very idea of lucky stars was comical to her now.

  She remembered when she was a little girl and she believed in lucky stars: shooting stars with wishes attached to their tails, waiting for the first person to spot it to capture that wish with their eyes. She thought when she was a little girl that she was just never the first person to spot it – she thought that some other boy or girl was lucky enough to get a wish. She never dreamed that it was all bullshit. There were no lucky stars. There was no such thing as luck at all, for that matter.

  This time, though, and only this time, she really was genuinely glad that fate – if she could even believe in such a notion anymore – had seemed to allow for the relationship between her and Preston to be postponed until she moved out. She was glad that it hadn’t occurred when she actually lived with them.

  Even if it wasn’t home per se, she was glad that at the very least, she had the solace of her own apartment to return to; even an un-cozy and unwelcoming one. She sighed as she folded her legs beneath her on the couch and ground her hips into the thinly covered uncomfortable plywood arm. Grabbing her remote, she flipped the volume rocker in an upwards motion so that she was able to drown out the sound of the incessant buzzing phone beside her.

  Chapter 2

  The bonds of Marissa’s family were unraveling fiber by fiber, thread by thread. It had been the longest day in the history of long days, and she felt as if she was losing everything. Somehow she had found herself head deep in the closet, sorting through all of Preston’s clothing. She couldn’t believe how dull and uninspired her reaction was, or how completely callous and uncaring he seemed. He wasn’t even present for the traditional throwing-out-of-the-cheating-scumbag’s-clothes ritual that every betrayed wife seemed to embark upon.

  They still hadn’t spoken since she had told him to ask Haley what she meant by the word “cheater” over an hour ago. Marissa assumed he was trying to cover his tracks and gain information on what she had really said to her – in its entirety – so that he could be more condescending by trying to manipulate her further.

  She wanted to laugh. He was all too predictable. It was that predictability though, and the reality that he still had not come to a defense of an explanation – any explanation – that honestly made her want to just fight with him.

  She unburied herself from the mound of clothing that surrounded her and forced herself to her feet within the now disastrously jumbled mess that was her closet. Her hair tussled, and clothes crumpled, she staggered out of the clothes-strewn floor of the walk-in and leaped across the room with vigor. She was quite eager to reach her new destination. Wherever the hell he was.

  She remembered hearing a joke about a similar situation once. It was after a relationship fight about nothing in particular, and once the man started stewing on what the woman said – just to get under his skin – he decided to go through the entire house looking for her, just so that the two could fight some more. Obviously it was funnier when she heard it as a joke from a comedian on a stand-up show rather than the retell from her own imagination.

  She remembered the joke as she crossed over every threshold and opened and shut every door. This was exactly what the man went through in the story: his head muddled with fury, he had even checked the cabinets and pantry for her by accident. And although she didn’t check the cabinets or pantry, she could definitely relate to the feeling of forgetfulness of her own layout.

  Marissa exhausted all possible hiding spots, and eventually her journey allowed her to reach the upstairs. It was then, as she angrily stomped atop the top step, that she remembered the children, and instantly her face went white and her heart sank. Adrenaline had taken over before, but now she was really thinking about the repercussions of her outbursts – not only at Preston – but during her search for him as well. She also remembered the door slams that more than surely had occurred and been heard from the upstairs bedrooms.

  She tried Sophie’s room first, and much to her dismay saw the little girl at her small piano, tear trails etched across her cheek. The woman sighed and sadness filled her, as well as a little disappointment in herself when she saw the nature of her child, the nature which she caused by her own carelessness.

  The little girl continued to play Beethoven’s classic Für Elise and barely acknowledged her mother until she kneeled down beside her and placed a loving hand on her shoulder.“You and dad never fight,” Sophie whispered through slightly gasped breath after she had ceased playing completely. The woman’s heart broke even more as she looked to her daughter. She was so upset, and she didn’t understand why this was happening; how could she?

  “True… but grown-ups fight, sweetie. I shouldn’t have acted like that at all – especially with you and Lucas in the house,” Marissa responded, pulling the little girl into a sideways hug. The small wooden child’s bench creaked under Sophie’s weight, and Marissa smiled. She was getting too big to play on a child piano and sit on the bench. Before long, she’d need a full-sized.

  “Oh, Lucas isn’t here...” Sophie replied, pulling away so that her little hands could be freed from her mother’s grasp just long enough to rub the tears from her eyes and cheeks. She sniffled a bit, not really understanding that what she had just said required a bit more explanation. Marissa was frozen, and she stared wide-eyed at the little girl, awaiting an elaboration on the matter, but she knew that one wouldn’t come freely.

  “What do you mean, sweetie? Where did he go?” Marissa asked; she felt like she was on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

  “Just out. He likes to climb out his window,” Sophie replied nonchalantly, and Marissa’s face went blank of all expression immediately. It was obvious that Sophie didn’t understand what she was telling her mother could actually get Lucas in trouble. She didn’t understand that what he was doing was wrong. It was obvious that she thought it was no big deal, like nothing had happened, and that was probably because Lucas had been doing it for a while now.
>
  She questioned her children’s sense of self-preservation and started to worry. Lucas and Sophie’s bedrooms were on the second floor. Did he not know that? Did he care? What in the hell was he thinking? Not only had he been going out without permission all this time, but he was also sneaking out from a second story window! And to top it off, his little sister knew about it. What a great fucking role model.

  “Do you know where ‘Daddy’ is?” Marissa asked sweetly, despite her instincts to scrunch her face in disgust when referring to him.

  “No. I haven’t really been downstairs, and I haven’t seen him at all since he came home. He’s not been up here,” Sophie said.

  Marissa looked down and reached into her pocket, ready to dial Lucas’s cell phone number before Sophie spoke again.

  “Mom, where’s Haley?” she asked, as if she had secretly known. Marissa wondered if Lucas had told her – because she assumed that he had heard the ruckus from earlier and was likely upset about it; which would explain his disappearing act from a second story window.

  Marissa looked away from her phone; her eyes were beginning to swell again. She didn’t dare meet Sophie’s eyes when she responded, “I don’t think Haley is going to be here for a while, sweetie.”

  With that, the woman lightly squeezed her daughter’s thigh and made her way to her feet. She went to continue her search for Preston; only this time, she was much quieter with her seething anger. She was much more reserved. She just wanted to know. She wanted to know everything, and this time she wasn’t going to walk away. This time he was hers to torture.

  Chapter 3

  Marissa could feel the spit spew from her mouth as she screamed incoherencies at him. She could feel her blood boiling and her nerves racking with a quaking exuberance. Once she had finally found him, his smug face planted into a computer screen in his car, she had made damn sure they sent the kids with her sister so that they could exchange their not-so-pleasantries.