Breakfast In Bed (Fully English Sequel)

Chapter 9

My mother and Wren are gone. When I get to the house and knock on the door there is no answer. I wait 18 minutes until I realise that nobody is coming. Falling to my knees, I grab a pebble and aim for my mother's window but there isn't a stir even after the clatter. She is not in. And neither is my daughter.

Panic consumes me. The cab driver is waiting behind me on his phone. My plan was to get him to wait as I grabbed Wren from my mother and shackled her into the car but there's been a lapse because nobody is in the house. None the wiser, he is preoccupied. I have promised him payment for the minutes I am wasting and Reece continues to call asking for my whereabouts. Back in the car, I accept it on the last ring and force an even voice.

"I've been calling you non-stop," he sounds annoyed at the fact that I finally picked up and I suddenly wish I hadn't. "Where the hell are you? Where's Wren?"

I don't tell him I don't know. That will surely just frighten him. "She's staying at my mum's for the night."

"That's not what we agreed," he retorts in that anal manner of his. "We have to agree on these things."

"Oh come on Reece, it's my mother we're talking about, chill the fuck out. She's seen your family loads, let her spend time with mine."

His pause stretches into feeble silence. "Well then I'm fucking the shit out of you tonight you do know that?"

The smile that creeps to my face cannot be subdued. "Alright baby."

"I'm serious," he says in that deadpan voice. "I'm gonna have you screaming."

I see the driver's eyes appear in the rear-view mirror and fear for a moment that he hears what I'm saying. Then I remember I am an adult and this is not embarrassing and let my grin widen.

"I'll hold you to that."

Laboured breathing begins to sound on Reece's side of the phone and my mind flits back to my mother and Wren. I know I should be worried but I'm not. There was nobody to alert of the situation because nobody would know. My mother was a recluse. A call to the police also seemed a far fetch. Whatever was going on would surely be clearer by the morning. Maybe the two of them were deep asleep and I was just unable to rile them with my knocking.

"Where are you now?"

We are turning into my street and I tell Reece to meet me outside with the cash. There is an exchange between the driver's and Reece's hands before finally we are in our house and quickly taking off our clothes.

"I can't breastfeed tonight," I say breathlessly.

Reece is all over me, tearing every shred of clothing until we are both just in our underwear.

"Why?" He is on my neck, purring.

"I've had too much to drink."

The alcohol in him is potent too: I smell it bursting through his skin and vacating in his eyes. It's like he is not here. But the searing throb in his boxers is and it is pulsing.

"Get on the bed," he orders. "All fours."

I don't even know if he puts on a condom as I am left staring at the headboard, continually doing everything he said I would: screaming his name, begging for more and remembering that I can't express milk for Wren until Monday. Hopefully by then I'd have her back.

*

By the morning, Reece is gone again. More work. And I am left alone to do house chores and cook and not express milk. There is still no word from my mother so I take a cab over to her place again and stand in front of the door in hopes she will appear. When I knock, she does, fresh-faced with Wren in her arms. She is not smiling but there's an exuberance about her I cannot place.