C of Cinderella

by Kris Buendía

  “You have what you wanted.” I continue though his hands are squeezing my thighs. “We both realised that you can sleep with me and move on.

  Your theory of not overcoming has been vague and nul , now, let me go.”

  He says nothing, but he is angry. That can not hide no matter what personality he decide to use. I am cornered on his legs and the more look at him, the more feel his erection growing to the point of…

  “Gideon!” I scream when I feel that he lift his hips and dig into me again. He is not moving and so am I. Tears flood my face and that alarms him.

  “Have I hurt you?” He ask worried with that tone of voice that I like. The tears are of excitement. He could not hurt me this way, not this way.

  I shake me head and look at him. He grabs me by the hair and pul s me close to his face.

  “No one has never given to me something so precious.” He whispers in my mouth and gives me a chaste kiss. “Do you think you can run away from me? Do you think I can let you go? That is what I want, that is what I wish, that is how it works. I make you mine and you leave. But with you, El a”

  Releases his hand and carries it to my ass. “Since I met you, I knew you were going to screw everything. And it is a pleasure for me to be able to let you do it. Do you feel that?”

  I do not know what he is talking about. I feel many things right now with everything he says.

  “This is me.” Answers to his own question.

  “The one who can not overcome having fucked you, the one who can not overcome having made you a woman and the one who refuses to only stay one night with you. I do not care who are you, Cinder El a Mattis, please… stay.

  I start to move up and down without feeling any pain, only pleasure. My pleasure and his being one.

  I do not know what al this has come up with. I want to think that it is his lust that speaks for him. Not in a mil ion years can someone like me, change someone like Gideon Graysson.

  I wil stay tonight and I wil continue with what was agreed.

  10

  The first thing I felt when I opened my eyes at dawn, was Gideon's hand inside the sheet that covered my body, touching one of my breasts, precisely, on it without even moving it. He was completely asleep, my back was stuck to his naked torso and his breathing was on my neck. I liked waking up like that even though I real y felt uncomfortable. For the position and because I should leave.

  I walk through the house, trying to find out my clothes until I gave up and I went into his closet. I have only found my jeans and none of my underwear or my shirt. I cursed under my breath and slipped into my jeans and borrowed one of his white shirts. Even dressed, I felt naked, but the good thing were that my breasts were smal enough not to be noticed in such a large shirt.

  I went to the kitchen and drank some water.

  When I opened one of the drawers looking for paper and pen, I had no luck. So I went to his office very careful y and took one of his notes with his initials engraved in gold. I took a pen and wrote: The reality is my enemy. It does not matter what you said about not overcoming it. You will do it. You are Gideon Graysson and me, the girl who has served your coffee twice. Do you see the difference?

  Goodbye Gideon.

  Xx

  PS: I borrowed one of your shirts. I do not promise to return it to you, I think you have many. You will overcome it too.

  C

  When Gideon wakes up and does not find me on his side, he wil have a heart attack. But like I said, he wil get over it. He has been drunk during the day and also the night he was with me. I just hope that not finding me wil not be a cheap excuse to hide in what surely always does.

  Drink.

  Gideon

  I woke up this morning and she was not next to me. In her place, a fucking note written with a very beautiful handwriting, by the way, rested on the desk in my office.

  The reality is my enemy. It does not matter what you said about not overcoming it. You will do it. You are Gideon Graysson and me, the girl who has served your coffee twice. Do you see the difference?

  Goodbye Gideon.

  Xx

  PS: I borrowed one of your shirts. I do not promise to return it to you, I think you have many. You will overcome it too.

  C

  What the fuck?

  I am going to be damn angry with her if she thinks I am a superficial man and that I care too much about what she does . She is a woman who works in a cafe. God knows why they hired her, but the coffee she prepares tastes like shit. But it is not the only thing she knows how to do. I also managed to see her drawings.

  I do not know if she is an artist or she likes shoes a lot, but that combination only means one thing: She has the gift to design.

  Maybe she could not finish school. Or she works to pay it off. Why the fuck I do care?

  The girl has talent and should not be wasting her time in a cafe that wil not take her anywhere.

  Even if my reaction is to go out and look for her and tel her that I do not care what she does and what people say about me, part of me tel s me to give her her space.

  Damn fucking space!

  She is mine! I made her mine!

  One night.

  One night was enough for me to screw everything up, and I mean the night at that party where no matter what she wore, what I saw in her eyes was enough to fuck me, enough to want to see her again and wish do make her mine. But she had to screw it up more.

  She had to choose me as her first man to make her a woman.

  “Why, El a?”

  Now I wil have to settle and count the hours to see her again. But first, I have to visit someone and find out what I want.

  “Gideon?”

  “Do not be surprised to see me here, Mona.” I say sitting down in front of her new desk. “You work for me after al .

  Congratulations for your promotion.”

  “And I am your best friend.” She ends. “A very secret one by the way, who which you did not send flowers for her new promotion, thank you very much. What do you want? If you come to ask me to help you take another woman off, you can do it alone, I will not lend myself for it.”

  I put my eye white.

  Mona is the only woman who works for me and who never had interested in sleeping with me. Or rather, I had interest on her. I see her as the older sister I never had, although the oldest one here is me.

  “Done.” I lock my phone. “I have ordered two dozen roses for you. Happy now?”

  “Very funny, Gideon.” She does not take her gaze from the computer. She looks nervous and I imagine why. She thinks herself very smart, but I know her enough to realise that is hiding something.

  “You are going to tell me right now who Ella Mattis is.”

  That licks her attention.

  “Ella what?”

  “Cinder.” When I say her name she pales.

  “Cinder Ella Mattis. I know you know her, you may even be her best secret friend. The correct question is: Who is she? Where did she come from? And why was she at the party that night?

  “You ask too many questions, Gideon.”

  “I have all the time in the world.”

  I cross one leg over the other and wait for her to start talking. If it is about Ella, I can be here as long as necessary. I need answers, I need to know what woman has come to fuck everything up.

  “Cinder is my friend. We studied together at university and I invited her to that party for her birthday, I owed it to her. Or rather, she to me. Either way, Gideon, she is out of your reach. With Paris around you, it is impossible for you to have anything serious with her.”

  There we go again.

  The obsession or whim that Paris has with me, does not bother me. I have never touched her, nor will I. As beautiful as she is, the woman is crazy and if she was not so good at her job and because her mother is a friend of mine, I would not have to bear with her anymore, neither her or her madnesses.

  “What has Paris to do with this?”

  There is some
thing she is not tel ing me. I know Mina enough to realise that she has made a mistake in mentioning that woman.

  “I do not like Paris.”

  “The feeling is mutual, but you have not answered my others questions.”

  “Why do not you tell me better what you want, Gideon? I understand that you like Cinder, or Ella as you say. But…”

  “Am I twenty years old?” I say offended. “I do not like Ella, she has me completely screwed.”

  Mona laughs and I do not find it funny at al . She is lucky that she is my friend and that I can tell her a little for not saying everything happens to me.

  “Appears and disappears. Do you have any idea what that means to me?”

  “You fucked up last time.”

  “And how do you know?” She realises that it was a mistake to have said that. I knew it, they are closer than I thought.

  “She is my friend, she is not mute. And you also kick her out from your house, barefoot.

  Remember?” Now she gives me a look I do not like. “Don't you remember? Yes, you were probably too fucked up thanks to what you call mental peace entitled as: A problem of alcohol.”

  Again, there we go again.

  “Do not think that by saying that you are going to make me leave and let you work. I am used to you defending yourself with my alcohol problem, according to you. I can stop drinking whenever I want, I am not an alcoholic. But your friend, she can be an addiction problem.

  Mona, Ella has me completely screwed. I am not like that, you know what women mean to me. I have not been a womaniser since…”

  “Gideon.”

  Remembering what happened years ago marked my life in a way that only darkness and alcohol became my accomplices. I have waited death sitting on my throne. I have looked forward to it and it never comes for me.”

  “I just want to know what Ella has caused in me. I have never been a capricious man. I know for a fact that there are many differences between her and me and one of those has pissed me off.”

  “The money. I understand her and I understand you. Give her time and do not try to control the situation. Let it flow, just as it came, it must be. The only thing I can tel you is that Ella has suffered enough to suffer for an episode of yours. Today you can be interested in her and tomorrow you can fly to England and take care of your other life.”

  »With Ella, it is different. What you saw is what she is. Just as we have taken our friendship, you and me. That is how I separated her from you. It is what we agreed.

  That anybody knew that there is something more than a employment relationship between you and me. I never understood it but I respected it. You are a reserved man and she has taken care of men like you, always.”

  Why does she sound so sad? I do not know what happened to her for Mona to protect her in that way. I have never wanted to hurt her. I have gotten my nose for my greed. For the son of a bitch I carry inside and no matter what part of me is with her, my Cinderella has more guts than me.

  “I made her mine.”

  Mona's silence makes me look at her. She does not seem angry, rather I think she has not processed it. Mona must know that her friend was a virgin and that she has given herself to me. Women have that habit of telling everything, even those things. And I do not care. I am telling her right now so she understands why I am desperate to know more about her. I have not had time to know her better. This is how it works, although I have skipped al that shit of pretensions and hearts in the air.

  “I will take your silence as you have understood.” I stand up and fasten the button of my jacket without taking my eyes off hers. “I will not let her keep running away. If you see her, tel her I am not finished. She will understand.”

  I go to the door and stop when Mona says:

  “Both of you are my best friends, Gideon. I know how much you and she have suffered.”

  “What does that mean?” I speak without turning to see her.

  “Do not make me choose between you and her. Because I will always choose her.”

  That does make me look over my shoulder.

  “Why do you think you are going to choose?”

  “Because I know that in the end you are going to be the one to fuck it all up.”

  She is right on that, but I hope she is wrong. It is not me who has been fleeing since I met her. I must earn the benefit of the doubt.

  She wil be intel igent and she wil do it. I know she will.

  When I leave her office I see a girl from the service in the distance. The same of the dirty overalls, cleaning. And the one that once saved me from being run over if I had not been pushed out.

  She run away without looking back and I never cared to thank her. Hardly and I remember, and sure she forgot it too.

  If I cared enough, I would report her behaviour for breaking the rules. But I guess she is clumsy, it is not my damn problem. Let other person who cares enough to report her.

  I enter the elevator and some blue eyes, more blue than the sea and the sky come to my mind and I take my hand to my erection already beginning to hurt.

  I need to see my blue-eyed girl. I need to know why she is still determined to run away when all I want is for her to stay.

  For her to stay by my side long enough to know if she is capable of lifting me out of the darkness that torments me.

  11

  What is Gideon going out of Mona's office? It is weird to see him around here, unless he is investigating me and the only person who can tel is Mona.

  Shit.

  I go there without knocking and I go in. I lock the door in case Gideon decides to return and I leave my cart in the corner where no one can see it.

  “Hel o for you too.” Mona mocks. “You are like the movie «impossible mission» to hide.”

  “If I had come minutes before I would have encountered with Gideon face to face.”

  She looks at me from head to toe and crosses her arms over her chest. She looks beautiful today in her black button-down dress and loose hair to one side. My brunette friend is an executive and I am proud of her.

  “You look beautiful today.” I tel her.

  “Thank you. Do you have something to tel me?”

  I drop into her chair and look at the ceilings of her office. White. What the hel goes through the heads of those who choose an office or housing style? Gideon’s house, for example, is al white.

  Except for his room and his office.

  “You did not tel me that having sex was painful.”

  Mona's face is a whole poem. I do not know if she is going to yel at me or she is going to cry like somebody died.

  My virginity died but is not to cry.

  Now, what it is to cry is with whom I lost it. I should be in the clouds, but no. I am realistic enough to accept that my first time was magical and like everything magical, it disappears.

  “Are you okay?” I ask her why she does not say anything. “Are you not going to have a heart attack or do you?”

  “Oh my God!” Screams of emotion. “It was time! But wait. Gideon? You know he came to ask for you, right?”

  “I imagined that. But you knew how to lie to him. If I had told him the truth, he would have recognised me in the corridor.

  “He stil does not know?”

  “Nope. He knows that I work at Le Dome. But that is it. It is not good idea to tel him that I also work here. I wil never tel him because that ship has already sailed. There is no more Gideon in my life.”

  I want to believe my own words. Enough to make Mona believe too, bur she does not believe it at al . Me neither. My heart jumps every time I pronounce his name. And now, seeing him go with his perfect dark suit, perfectly combed hair and that beard that drives me crazy. I realise that I am stil not ready to forget everything. But I have to do it.

  “Do you feel good, Cinder? Because you do not look good. No woman who has just lost her virginity acts the way you do. You have had many dates, many men have fal en in love with you and Gideon you have known him for so lit
tle…”

  “Are you judging me?”

  “No!, God, Cinder. I want to think that pride you have is the one that speaks for you. But Gideon has just left, and he does not act with pride, he is desperate to know more about you. I see him interested. I had never seen him like that.”

  Never?

  “Is there something you want to tel me?

  Because the truth is that the way you always talk to me about him tel s me that there is more than a professional relationship between employee and boss. Maybe you and him…?”

  She opens her mouth as much as her jaw al ows. Wel , it seems that they did not had sex because if it was that way, she would be jealous.

  Rather I see her worried and a little disappointed.

  “For God's sake, Cinder!” She almost shouts at me. “Of course I have not slept with him. Who do you think I am?”

  “Eh, I do not know. A pretty woman. A handsome man, you work together and…”

  “What a couple, fuck! No, no and no. I have not slept with Gideon.”

  “Then why do you react like that because I did it? I thought you would be excited. Your best friend was missing something good. If you did not slept together, why do you react like that?”

  She closes her eyes for a moment, closes her laptop and now seems to want to cry. I have known Mona for years and I know she would never hide anything from me. Now I am not so sure about it and it is starting to worry me.

  “I am… Gideon's friend.”

  “What?”

  “Indeed, his best friend. I know him forever, for years. Thanks to him I got to work here.”

  “What?” I want to believe that I have heard wrong. Does my best friend have a best friend?

  And I did not know it. Now more than anything, I hate Gideon.

  “If you want, you can get mad at me al you want.”

  “You are my best friend!” Now I am the one yel ing at her. “He is a snob!”

  “I agree with you.”

  “You are my BEST FRIEND!”

  “Wait. Are you jealous of him or me?”