Yes, Master

Chapter Sixteen: Thawed

   The next day, I walk to work after a sleepless night. I was tossing and turning the whole night with the worry that Alexander would turn the tables and tell his mother that I wronged him somehow. It would be such an Alexander thing to do.

  I come in and my mistress hands me a to-do list, regarding me with her usual cool, unspoken disdain. No more, no less. No, "You're fired."  No, "We need to talk.".  I breathe a sigh of relief. Lowly Rosalie: 1, Alexander: 0.

   Alexander passes me by as I'm mopping the hall.  Barely meeting my eye, he whispers, "The party's in two days. You better not tell anyone." This time, I have the good sense to question him. I just nod. Obedient. Quiet. Cautious. Just what he wants me to be.

  The work day is uneventful, filled with the usual cruelties from my mistress. At the end of the day, I push open the mansion's doors, in to the freedom of a rare sunny day. I gasp when I see someone standing right by the door. I take a moment to recover from the shock, then see that the person is Curtis. "Why are you here?" I ask.

  He just looks at me, his eyes squinting in the sunlight.

  I sigh, exasperated. I grab his shoulders. "Curtis," I say slowly, staring straight in to his eyes, "why are you here?"

  He grabs my hand and walks inside the house purposefully. He strides down the halls of the house confidently, as if it's his own home. "Why are we coming back in here?" I ask, fearful.

  Curtis looks back at me, his eyes filled with fire.  His usually placid green eyes have hardened in to angry green emeralds. Yet again, he doesn't answer, but he lets go of my arm and begins to walk faster. 

  "Curtis!" I shout frantically. "Tell me what's going on!" Once again, he spins around and stares at me. He looks so handsome, so manly, even though he's frustrating me to no end. 

  "Fine. If words can't get you to speak, maybe this will," I say. With that, I stand up and kiss him passionately. He at first is stunned. But then he begins to kiss back, in his soft, sweet way. While we kiss, I feel like he's morphing back in to my sweet Curtis for a moment. While we kiss, he isn't this angry, brooding, silent man. He's my sweet, caring Curtis. That I know. And maybe love.

  We separate and continue down the hall. Curtis still isn't talking. But, for a moment, he turns back to me and his eyes soften. Just for a moment. I know I have thawed him a little, even if he's still silent. Eventually, we pass Alexander. Curtis grips his shoulder, spinning him around. He steps very close to him.

  "What did you do to my girl?" he asks, speaking slowly and calmly, carefully enunciating each syllable. Curtis is broader and taller than Alexander, and I see that Alexander is pretty intimidated already.

  "N-nothing," Alexander stutters out.

  "Don't lie too, asshole. What you've done already is bad enough," Curtis barks.

   "I-I touched her. But I'm sorry. I'm really sorry!" Alexander says, practically trembling.

   "Well, you're about to get a lot more sorry," Curtis threatens in a low, rumbling tone.

   Nervously, I venture forward. "Curtis, please don't. I asked you not to,"  I say quietly, gently laying a hand on his shoulder.

  Curtis turns towards me and again I see his eyes soften for a moment. "But, he hurt you. No one can hurt my girl without getting hurt right back," Curtis says.

  "But doesn't the girl have a say-" I stop short. Curtis has already turned back to Alexander and has his hands balled in to fists. At this point, I'm not sure what I can do.

   Curtis says, "If you're man enough and brave enough to do that, let's see if you're man enough to fight."

  He pushes him up against the wall. Alexander strains to push him off of him, but Curtis has him pinned. Curtis yells, "No one does that! No one but dirty bastards do those type of things!" To punctuate this, he punches Alexander square in the jaw, then again right in the cheek. Then he grabs my hand and we run out.

  "Curtis, I might lose my job because of that!" I hiss once we slow down.

   Curtis puts his hand on the small of my back. "Rosalie, please don't be mad. I just couldn't handle the thought of someone else touching you. I lo-like you too much to let that happen. I know it was stupid."

   I look at him. He looks so apologetic, so sweet, so sincere that I decide to forgive him. What he did was stupid.  But because he acknowledged his wrongs, because he was so apologetic, and because, truthfully, I was a little flattered, I forgive. But now, all I can do is pray that I can keep my job.

  We go home and Mr. Davies is waiting outside the shop. "I let you go meet your girlie, but you both have to work tonight," Mr. Davies says. We both agree and walk in to the shop. We set to work. It's a slow night, so we mainly just mix more of the lotions and medicines. Just as we're finishing our work, Lily skips in to the shop and asks us where we were. Curtis gives her a dramatic reenactment of what happened with Alexander, accompanied with lots of swinging of his fists, and Lily swoons over the romanticism of it all. Later that night, Curtis kisses me good night and we got to our rooms. Lily of course interrogates me about what I thought of the whole fight, and then we drift off to sleep.