The Turbulence✔️ (#1 in the Our Side of The Dice series)

8: The Mish-Mash

Christopher
Bonn, Germany

"What happened at the alehouse that night?" the woman repeats my words in her best imitation of my vexed tone. She narrows her eyes at me as we are only a few inches apart. "Tell me you don't know what happened."

Just then, the woman moves closer and reaches for the collar of my shirt. Before I can comprehend what's going on, her hands are roaming all over my chest. The woman bites her lower lip in a way she feels is seductive. The woman starts to play with the first button of my shirt in an attempt to snap it open.

And what am I doing to stop it from happening?

Right! I'm just staring, wide-eyed. My eyes are following the movements of her hand on my body.

Now that you know you're doing nothing do something!

I yank the woman's hands away from my body. Irritation begins to build up in my gut like the fizz in a soda can, ready to explode once you open the lid.

"I don't know what happened, and that is why I am asking you. Who are you? What do you want from me?!"

I slam my fist against the bonnet of my car as a means to control myself from lunging at her face. At least, I can't hit her while I'm still at the police station's premises. That movement of her jaw and the mock expression of fear and curiosity on her face makes me want to punch her already.

"Oh, pray, tell me, how do you want me to phrase the actions of getting hot and sweaty with someone, particularly of the opposite sex?" The woman raises a brow, smiling widely at me with a far-fetched aim of outshining the sun. The woman waits for me to say something, but when she witnesses the slight twitching of my fingers, she decides against it.

"Well...since I am dressed like a young Victorian, then maybe the terms, dancing the fandango de pokum, or...doing the beast with two backs would do?"

I take a deep breath. Hot air escapes from my lips as my palms grow inexplicably cold. "Who. The. Hell. Are. You?" my jaw begins to move.

If this harlot doesn't stop speaking nonsense, and more importantly, if she doesn't leave my sight soon, I will have to use some degree of violence.

"Well, I will introduce myself to you for the second time since you were pretty passionate and willing to get down with me that night at the alehouse. My name is Irene, and I am your ordained, beloved partner, or shall I say, your betrothed wife? And you know..." she raises a brow and rolls her eyes ecstatically — as if in a fancy dream.

She let her words linger in the air for a second with a sensual purpose. Then, she gathers the audacity to touch me faintly across my cheek. "...I've been searching for you for a very long time. My dad has been pressuring me to find you in any way I can so I can take you home with me and tie the knot. Hold on. Will tying the knots be the appropriate term to use? Haha! The knots have already been tied. Tightening them so they never loosen would be the good phrase to use," her hot breath fans faintly past my ear, making them tickle for a cringe-worthy cause.

Why exactly isn't she scared of me? Are my glares not deadly enough?

"And that is never going to happen, you daughter of Jezebel. I am happily married. Whatsoever betrothal I must have been involved in the past has been eliminated to the very best of my perception, and if it hasn't, I wish for it to be eliminated right away!"

The thought of this woman being my betrothed wife and the possibility that our engagement hasn't been terminated makes my heart twinge, but I try my best to mask it in with an icy glare.

"Hmm. Is that so?"

I swallow hard. It becomes more challenging for me to maintain a cool look.

"Well, there's only one I know of, and that happened as a result of a financial issue. My mother wasn't financially stable enough to make refunds for the damage done to a particular company by my dad, who was a firefighter, so she begged to have me betrothed to the daughter of the man. The latter owned the company, so the betrothal dissolves once the money is refunded when I'm grown and financially independent. So if you are that girl—"

"Yes, I am that girl. Your betrothed lover," she says as she moves slowly closer to me.

"Then it's a good thing that you searched for me relentlessly. I forgot that I used to have an engagement with someone while I was little, and now, my mother has been threatening my peace. Take me to your father right away so I can clear the debts!"

"Haha! Your mother and I beg to differ,"

I jerk the woman's hands off before she gets to rest them on my cheeks again. I press my back harder against the metallic body of my car.

"What do you mean by that?" my heart races faster.

Why exactly am I still discussing with this lady? Oh right! To get this over with so I don't get to see her face again, but there's only so much I can tolerate. She's irking me way more than I can handle.

"What do I mean?" she scoffs. "Even after what we shared at the alehouse? After waking up bare in the room? After showing up disguised as an Englishman from the nineteenth century to bail you out from jail? Come on! A grown and wrongfully married man like you should know better, of course. This is certainly beyond clearing your debts with my father!"

Wrongfully married?

I was going to ask further questions to know what she was insinuating, but when my ears catch those words, I lose it.

With the rage already stored within me, now full to the brim, I push her off me — strongly enough to have her stagger, missing her calculated footsteps on her heels, making her wobble and flail her hands in the air like a confused duck.

As she staggers backward, I wish that she will hit her head against the building behind her and die immediately, but when she fixes one of her hands on the wall instead, holding on steadily and gaining her stance, my insides burn with fury. All I see is red, with perhaps smoke emanating from my ears.

"DON'T YOU EVER SLANDER MY WIFE, YOU MISERABLE HARLOT! AND LET ME TELL YOU SOMETHING. NOTHING HAPPENED BETWEEN US IN THE HOTEL ROOM!"

My words sound ridiculous and contradictory to my hearing. Still, I had to make it clear to her because there's no way I can picture myself with someone that isn't my wife, and so long as I am unable to, then there's no way such a thing must have happened. Call me delusional for thinking that nothing sexual happened even after waking up naked in an alehouse, but that is what I choose to believe and stand by.

But I was wrong. Gravely so.

Soft lips filled with blazing red lipstick come down on mine before I can figure out what's going on. I had only managed to get into the driver's seat of my car so that I can leave the area, but I am now unable to, and it makes me so, so enraged.

She is kissing me, making me understand that whether I can picture it or not, it is happening. I am mish-mashing sacred parts of my body with someone who isn't my wife, and I'd let it happen more than once just because I was inebriated, allowing alcohol to make such a mockery of me. I'd let her have a way because I created a room for it.

If I weren't drinking heavily that night, If I'd chosen to look for another civil way to alleviate the misery I was floundering in, or if I'd just communicated with my wife before leaving, all of this would not have happened.

The trap had already been set. I'd only made it easier for the captor by walking directly into it like a softy, and now that the reality is dawning on me, Irene's lips are working on mine very skilfully. Even in total consciousness, she is kissing me in my car with her body above mine, without my consent and I, a wussy who doesn't know how to handle bad situations, is stuck and letting all of his emotions overwhelm and cloud his reasoning abilities.

The worse part is, it's getting harder by the second to keep my lips sealed and repelling to her kisses. With her body so glued to mine and her slender fingers keeping a surprisingly strong hold around my arm, I have no means of defending myself or even freeing myself from her grasp.

Will I always be like this? Will I always be this vulnerable? This much of a victim?

Why will I not act for once?!