A Star in My Life

by Victory Storm

  “Sure?” he provoked her still further with a honeyed voice, taking her hand and leading her in the sitting room.

  “Where are you taking me?” could say Berenice, imagining to be lying on the sofa with Marc’s naked body clung to hers.

  “What do you think?” he asked ironically, making her sit down on the sofa. “Or maybe did you prefer to do it in bed?”

  Berenice let out a hysterical laughter.

  Is all that happening really to me?

  She saw Marc sit down so near her that she could feel his thigh clung to hers, while she felt enveloped in his hug.

  If before dinner she was so tired that she could hardly eat, at that moment she felt a surge of adrenalin in her veins like a missile gone haywire.

  “Berry, are you ready?” he whispered, running his forefinger down her purple cheek and forcing her to make eye contact with him .

  Berenice nodded imperceptibly. That tiny reaction was the only thing she could do, since her brain had just collapsed under those emerald eyes that gazed her as she had ever wished to be looked at by a man.

  And all that was done not by an ordinary man, but by Marc Hailen, that violinist who made her heart race every time he played in The Dark Angels’ concerts.

  “Can I switch on, then?” went on Marc with persuasive words.

  Switch on? What does it need to be switched on when she already felt like an incandescent and bright bulb?

  She saw him take the remote control and suddenly all that heat that made her feel being on fire sharply dropped.

  The tv and dvd player were booted up lighting the room with the imagines of Marc’s first movie. It was Just for You, a romantic comedy that she had loved and already watched thousands of times.

  Watching Marc who played the boy in love made her remind the seductive look he had just had with her.

  He had played Casanova to poke fun at her and made her believe he wanted something more intimate from her, as if that could have ever happened.

  At that moment she felt the most stupid woman in the world!

  How could she have considered Marc really wished to stay with her even if for one night only?

  She said to herself to be a stupid and blamed herself for… believing in that? No, hoping that. She had hoped someone could really like her. Someone like the handsome Marc Hailen.

  “Hey, is everything alright, Berry?” asked Marc worried, seeing her so sad. She seemed to be near tears. Did he play a trick so nasty to hurt her like that? He said to himself to be an idiot and when he saw her look up to him, he really felt let down .

  That adoring and a little embarrassed look she always had with him had disappeared.

  “Yes, I’m a little bit tired. I’d better go to bed,” she said, trying to get off the sofa.

  “And the movie?” he attempted, persuading her to stay.

  “Having one Marc Hailen at home is already hard. Having two is a mission impossible,” defused Berenice, struggling to smile at him. She had realized Marc had noticed her mood swing, but she did not want to make him guess her state of mind.

  “Can I kiss you goodnight at least?” he whispered, smiling back at her and brought his lips nearer to hers. At that moment he felt the need to kiss her, to establish a contact with her again. He sensed that barrier she was building between the two of them, which crossed him. I did not absolutely want to lose his bewitching power on her.

  But she went off. The wall was already erected.

  “Goodnight, Marc” she said while getting off the sofa before heading for her bedroom.

  Only when she closed the door behind her, Berenice could breathe again.

  Marc was about to kiss her. He was really about to kiss her.

  She had to put all her efforts and neurons to force her body to refuse that kiss and get off the sofa.

  How she wished to feel his lips on hers!

  How she wished to be lost in that kiss!

  Yes, she wished that, but Marc would have gone away soon and what would be left to her?

  Only a sweet and beautiful memory that would have teased her and give her pain whenever she had switched on the tv or thought again about those days that they had spent together, which meant always.

  She had never allowed any man to make her cry. She had never let any boyfriend come in her soul so much to hurt her.

  Berenice was not like that. No, she differed from those stupid girls who were ready to be carried away on the wings of love and then to crash to the ground.

  In her opinion, love was, yes, flying on its wings, but with a hand on the safety-catch of the parachute that she always brought with her.

  So that was not supposed to be different with Marc Hailen.

  7

  The following morning Berenice got up late.

  She got little sleep for the surge of adrenalin she felt in the previous evening.

  She never suffered from insomnia, but since Marc Hailen had invaded both her house and her routine she did not know any longer what being easy in her mind and at peace with herself meant.

  Trying to make no noise, she got off her bedroom still dressed in her blue pajamas with printed white kittens.

  She sneaked a quick look around. She did not see hide nor hair of her guest.

  She was about to come back to her room, when she heard a thud followed by several curses coming from Marc’s bedroom.

  She got worried and knocked at his door.

  “Marc, is everything alright?”

  “No, it isn’t,” he shouted with a furious voice.

  Oh, my God! I beg you, tell me you didn’t get hurt! All I need is to fork out more money!

  Scared, she opened the door without asking his permission and came in the room.

  Marc sat on the ground next to a footboard.

  He was massaging the aching shoulder.

  Berenice rushed to his aid and leaned over him in a state of alarming anxiety.

  “Did you get hurt? Did you hurt yourself? Did you dislocate your shoulder? Is it broken? Did you…” she bombarded him with questions.

  “Calm down! I’m fine. I was just pumping iron with your bro’s gymnastic apparatus, but I’ve gone too far and maybe I pulled a muscle.”

  “Pulled a muscle? But are you crazy?” she snapped, exasperated.

  “Berry, please calm down.”

  “Calm down? You’ve a ten million dollar insurance on your body and go on getting hurt! Damn it! You really want to destroy me.”

  “Berry, you’re overreacting.”

  “Overreacting?! I haven’t had one moment of peace since the day I met you!”

  “You do drag on!”

  “I’m washed out by dint of being always worried about you. A person with such insurance should keep still in a crystal case, not bat around doing something silly.”

  “Well then, why don’t you put a collar around my neck and keep me in chains somewhere?” he provoked her.

  “Because, silly as you’re, you’d choke to death after two minutes,” she replied, not feeling like joking.

  “Listen, if you got out of bed on the wrong side…”

  “I got out of bed on the right side, so I was fine as long as someone tried to kill themselves with a piece of apparatus.”

  “It’s just a muscular contracture. It needs some cream and it’s gonna sort itself out. Berry, what’s wrong with you?”

  “Nothing,” she hastened to answer, although she knew that being so nervous was not worthy of her. And she was not even in the premenstrual phase.

  A moment later they were struggling with some arnica gel, an excellent remedy for that kind of inflammation.

  “Well, are you gonna spread me some ointment?”

  “Take it,” she handed it to him roughly.

  “Won’t you do this?”

  “No, I won’t,” refused Berenice, rushing out the bathroom.

  She locked herself in the bedroom again thinking about the reason of her behavior.

  She had spent all night
repeating herself that she did not want to suffer, to end up by falling in love with Marc, to let him get even closer; she did not want him to cross the barrier that she always built between her and the surrounding world, as well as she did not want to feel lonely and vulnerable.

  She would like to have stayed in bed for all weekend, but the pangs of hunger finally had the better of her.

  When she went out the room, she found herself in front of Marc who was wrapped only in a towel clung to his hips, still wet hair and damp and perfumed skin.

  He had just had a shower and now was preparing some wholemeal rusks with raspberry jam.

  “Today aren’t you going to work or are you going there with that rompers for five-year olds?” he asked sarcastic, catching sight of her at the door of the kitchen.

  “This is a pair of pajamas, not a pair of infant rompers. Anyway, today I don’t work. It’s Saturday and the office is closed.”

  “Fine, then come here ’cause I’ve prepared breakfast,” ordered Marc without fuss. He seemed to be still angry with her.

  Berenice got near the counter where she found two small dishes full of rusks, two fruit salad bowls and two cups ready to be filled with coffee.

  She was about to sit down when felt herself grabbed by the arm.

  She was just in time to turn to Marc to see him squeeze the tube of the arnica gel on her hand.

  He squeezed a generous dose of cream and then led her hand on his shoulder.

  “And now spread. Well,” he ordered with determination.

  “Do you know to be a real bully?” she got angry, spreading the cream along the boy’s shoulder without applying herself as she should.

  “If I ask for something, I’d like to be satisfied.”

  “The same goes for me, but it isn’t always like that.”

  “It is to me, above all when I don’t understand why you have such aloof behavior towards me. Is it about yesterday night? Did I do anything wrong?”

  “No, you didn’t.”

  “ Is it about my attempt to kiss you?”

  “Stop it,” got nervous Berenice, who was already restraining all agitation by which she had been overcome since she had found Marc half-naked in the kitchen.

  “Can I kiss you now, then? Of course only after you got changed because in that pajamas you look like a child and I’m not a pedophile.”

  “No, you can’t,” forced herself to answer Berenice, trying to not cherish the happiness to be asked to be kissed by the most handsome man she had ever met.

  “Why?”

  I don’t want to get hurt.

  “You don’t like me.”

  “What a liar!”

  “Marc, cut it out.”

  “Are you scared?” he teased her, pinching one of her sides, sure she would have sprung up for that.

  “Stop it” she got more nervous, standing back.

  “You’re scared. Face it!”

  “Of you? Forget it.” She would have never let him have such influence over her.

  “Not of me, but of falling in love with me.”

  Bingo! How was it possible that Marc could always understand everything?

  “Poor fool,” laughed bitterly Berenice, going back to her bedroom to get changed.

  “What kind of pullover did you put on? It’s so large that I too could slip into it and there would be enough room for a third person,” scolded Marc as Berenice appeared again in the kitchen to have breakfast.

  “It’ s a comfortable garment,” defended herself Berenice, shrinking in her pink pullover that covered her almost up to her knees.

  “It’s huge. If among your favorite websites about how to dress to look thinner this look is advised, maybe you should change route,” went on Marc horrified, without taking his eyes off her, while she pretended not to listen to him.

  During the whole breakfast Marc did nothing but criticize her look, whereas Berenice was in absolute silence and forced herself to focus more on the fruit and jam taste.

  Once they finished to eat, Berenice went to the bathroom for a shower while Marc went on sermonizing and pouring out all that he had learned in those years in the showbiz.

  Still stunned with Marc’s endless scolding, that she had perceived more as an annoying buzzing than as a real attempt to talk sense, she slipped into the shower stall.

  She was accustomed to come under fire and over the years she had learned to cut herself off the world when that happened.

  She let the jet of water wash away all that negativity by which she was assailing and relaxed under the hot shower.

  Only when she made up her mind to soap herself she realized there was no shower gel left, so she had to wash herself with Marc’s oak shower gel.

  Smelling that fragrance that just reminded her the inaccessible man who stayed at her home made her feel worse and finally she had to have a quick and less hot shower.

  When she finished, she placed her hand outside the stall searching for the bathrobe, but she didn’t find it.

  “Take it. I’ve brought you a towel,” advised her a male voice that she would have recognized at once. The man handed her a very large towel.

  “What are you doing in the bathroom?” started in fear Berenice, upset about being seen naked by Marc.

  “I’ve come to bring you a towel. I used the bathrobe since I had forgotten my towels in the bedroom.”

  “I want the bathrobe” that covers more of me.

  “No, it’s all wet. Take this and stop being a pain in the neck.”

  Finally she was obliged to accept that towel that she wrapped well around her body, covering her from her breasts up to her knees.

  “Who gave authority to come in the bathroom while I’m having a shower?” attacked Berenice, immediately going out the stall and trying to hide the shame she felt.

  “I wanted to help you, but maybe you preferred me to stay in there waiting for seeing you rushing to your bedroom naked and searching for something that covers you.”

  “You could knock, for a start,” tensed Berenice, checking the tempered pvc walls of the shower stall: enough clear to see her silhouette, but not enough clear to catch her details.

  “Are you ashamed? It’s not a problem to me,” he tried to calm her, sensing the girl’s main concern.

  “To you it isn’t, but to me it is,” got annoyed Berenice.

  “Well, it’s your business,” pontificated Marc, shrugging and coming out of the bathroom.

  Berenice took fifteen minutes to dry her hair and other fifteen to calm down.

  Just dressed in her plain towel she set out for her bedroom forcing herself to affect composure.

  When she realized to be alone, she heaved a long sigh and only after locking herself in the bedroom could stop trembling.

  Calmed down at last, she searched for some underwear in the bureau.

  Marc was right: she had only black bras and panties, except for a pair of white lingerie sets that she rarely put on. But it was no fault of hers if the black color made people slimmer. Couldn’t it be pink? Blue? Red? No, only the mournful black.

  Demoralized and disappointed for her anonymous lingerie sets and with the underwear manufacturers who only favored the anorexic beauties, she took off the towel and hurriedly slipped on her usual serially manufactured panties she had bought. At least they were slightly trimmed with lace and the matching bra was a little more embroidered, although it had nothing to do with those beautiful lingerie sets she always saw on life-size dummies, with push-up or double pudding bras… as if she really needed them!

  Her breasts were the only ample thing of her body that did not dislike her, but without exaggeration.

  She was about to bent to open the lower drawer and take some tights, when she felt on her side the usual pinch that Marc gave her, making her furious and feel uncomfortable every time.

  The scream she let out of her mouth made Marc jump too.

  “With such high note you could even break the mirrors of the house.”

&n
bsp; “Marc, what the hell are you doing in my bedroom?” shouted Berenice, trying to cover herself with the towel that she had put on the bureau.

  “I was in the closet choosing a dress to make you put on, when I heard you come in. I wanted to warn you, but then you took off the towel and…”

  “You… saw me… nak…”

  “Naked? No, not exactly. I’m a gentleman deep down, so I turned away as long as I heard you tinker with the bra.”

  “Really?” she asked, suspicious.

  “Yes, more or less.”

  “You gave me a shock!”

  “I saw,” he said, bursting into laughter.

  “Don’t do it any longer and now get out of here.”

  “Why?” he asked, looking as if butter would not melt in his mouth.

  “There’s a thing called privacy.”

  “But I’m too curious to see how you look in this dress,” he informed, handing her a white dress with lilac florets that Berenice noticed only then.

  It was a quite low-necked and close-fitting dress she bought once by mistake.

  Although it was made of soft material, she had never put on it because it tended to be too close-fitting and highlighted her voluptuous bosom, broad hips and prominent backside.

  “You’re crazy if you think I’ll put on that dress.”

  “It would look perfect on you. I’ll be bound. Try it on at least. Do it for me.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Well, in this case I’ll stay in here watching you look for some huge disgusting thing with which you’ll cover your beautiful body.”

  Beautiful body…

  “Marc, stop it. I won’t do it.”

  “Ok, do what you want,” he surrendered, setting out for the door. “Put on whatever you like. Just know that my nose hurts like hell. Not to mention my shoulder… I really don’t know whether I recover. I think you’ll have to pay me a lot for damages if my nose doesn’t come back like it was before.”

  “Are you blackmailing me? Your nose is quite completely healed.”

  “Berry, I never blackmail. I just make promises,” warned Marc, a strange light in his eyes, coming out of the room.

  Berenice wished she had shouted, torn that damned dress off, killed that arrogant bully… but finally she slipped into that damned dress, tidied up her hair, put on her contact lenses and set off for the kitchen where she heard the noise of the blender.