I have tried the knob so many times I can't even recall the number of times I've called Marcel's name in anger. Nothing worked. I'm stuck in this little bathroom with nobody hearing me over the music. This is fucking crazy! I don't understand Marcel's behaviour. I don't understand why he would lock me up and hide me from anyone. But I've just given up. I've been sitting on the cold floor for maybe twenty minutes now. I can't believe nobody wanted to use the loo for that long.
I hear the knob click and I bring my attention to it. I instantly get up and rush myself to the door. I try it again for what seems like the hundredth time. It works!
I get out of the bathroom and head instinctively to the entrance until I realise I am half dressed and Marcel has all of my clothes. I roll my eyes to the realisation that I am so dependant of him yet again. I look for him through the room and fail. I am mad and seeing red. Where the fuck is he? I can't leave dressed with only his jacket. I need to find him.
Instead of seeing him, I find Ratchett. I immediately head to him. He has a glass in his hands and looks the other way. He is leaning on a wall, but straightens and looks at me once he hears my heels clapping on the old wooden floor.
"Mmh Miss Poetry, what can I do for you?" He smirks at me as I get all of his attention and he turns his back to the scene he was watching.
"Have you seen Lost Poet?" I keep it short, to not make a scene even though I would blow the roof off of this flat.
"I think everyone has seen him. You two put quite the show together. It was beautiful. If you ever want to try what a real Dominant feels like, let me know. I'm on FetLife." He says and it makes me furious that anyone would even think that it's okay to be unfaithful. Even though I am terribly mad at Mace, I still love him. There's no way I would ever play with anyone else but him, but I let it be.
"Duly noted. But do you know where he is?" I press him to answer as my patience is running thin.
"Of course, Fallen Angel and him always put on the greatest show. Nobody ever miss their chance to see them in action." He steps back and looks back the way he was minutes ago. I follow his sight.
I think I hear my heart breaking. It's fucking disgusting. I barely look a second. Kate is fully naked in front of Mace. I can't bare to see more. I don't know what they do to each other and I don't fucking want to know. He's a fucking traitor! And a liar!
I think I let out a gasp of surprise when I first looked and now curiosity is eating me alive. The second glance I give freezes the blood in my veins. Kate sees me and smirks my way. She is so fucking proud! She is manipulating him like a puppet!! Mace do something! You're worth better than her and her twisted games!
My anger for her overtakes the anger I have for Mace. I can't just stand on the sidelines and do nothing. I feel so strongly the need to get him out of this poisoned situation. I don't know what to do, but my instinct is to protect and fight for what is mine. He needs somebody to always be there for him, not only when they want him.
I make my way to the scene at the center of everyone's attention. Kate has her ankles and wrists tied up on a St.Andrew's cross. Mace stands behind her with a special kind of whip that I've never seen before. It breaks my heart that I even have to do something. He should choose me on his own will. I shouldn't be telling him to stand by me. I should be somebody's first choice. I know my worth now... and I thought he did too.
What are you doing Marcel?!?!?!?!?! ARRGGGHHHH!!!
I walk by all the spectators that have assembled around them. Just like they did with us. I try to keep my head strong. I'm too furious to feel the need to cry. I see his satchel and walk to it to pick up my dress. I put it on quickly and don't bother giving his jacket back. I'll need something for the cold outside. He finally sees me the second I get up from taking back my purse on the ground. He goes still. How the fuck did he not expect me to see him?! He couldn't have thought I would have stayed hidden in the bathroom all night?!
I read through his eyes. I feel strong and powerful and I clearly have the upper hand now, because he feels bad. I see it in his eyes. He loses control. But he still doesn't say a fucking word. I take care of that part, because I can't stand the sight of him.
"I'm leaving. The dungeon and you. You need to grow the fuck up and decide what you fucking want." I tell him on a firm tone, but hushed so that I don't cause a scene. "You need to stop using your demons as an excuse."
It breaks my heart to have our relationship so easily trashed and wasted all because of one decision he made. We've talked about this. I don't get why he would want to be unfaithful right to my face. I thought that was what he wanted, finally to have a loyal relationship because she didn't believe in monogamy. I stop fighting. This is his karma to live. He made his choice. It's his turn to live with the consequences of his actions.
Right when I am about to leave, I hear her laugh. I stop instantly. That motherfucking whore!
"Don't you want to join us, Grace? Oh no, wait, you've had your fun. Now it's time for the grown ups to play. Let us show you how it's done." She smirks at me and I can't help myself. I take a fist full of her long blond hair and yank it hard away from the cross. Her bondages keep her tied on place, so she has no control however dominant she might think she is. I make sure that I hurt her bad.
"You're just a pitiful old whore in need of desperate attention. No matter the control you have on him, it doesn't work on me. I might be small and fat, but I'm a hell of a passionate woman. If you ever come in my way again, I will not hesitate to make you regret it." I whisper to her ear pulling her head to my lips so that she undeniably hears me. I was about to let her hair go when I catch a glimpse of Mace and get terribly sorry. "And he deserves so much more than you."
I wasn't expecting a response, but that bitch clearly wants to dominate not only Marcel but this argument as well.
"You're just being pathetic because you know he'll always find his way back to me." She spits out like venom and for the first time, I see clearly.
"You don't get it at all. You think you know him but you don't. You use him and he lets you because he doesn't know who he truly is. You offer him something he likes and he hides behind the side of himself you bring out because he is scared to face the truth. But he will never fully be happy, not as long as you keep tying his wings. I'm only pathetic because I hoped he would see through your manipulations. Shame on me to have believed in him... You both deserve each other!"
I let her hair go and face Mace a last time before I walk away from everyone. I am tired to fight for something that isn't worth being so emotionally invested in. His eyes stay in my mind for a very long time. I exit the building and I still see them in my mind. I can't figure out his thoughts. He looked both indifferent and sad. My heart aches so much. What did I ever do to deserve that!?
I feel so lost, both geographically and emotionally. An hour ago, I felt so strong in what we had. I loved him so much. He really felt like he was the perfect man for me. He felt like my perfect match, my other half. I still love him, that didn't change, but I'm fucking hurt and disappointed. I feel betrayed. I thought we were done with the ups and downs and the fucking drama.
I finally find a tube station and I feel partially relieved. I'm making my way back home and it has never felt more like home than now. My flat with Sophie is truly my home. Just like that, I realise that I'm supposed to head to dinner with Mace at his childhood house tomorrow night. Fuck that shit! It's not like Edith knows that we were together anyway.
Why the fuck would he succumb to Kate again? Why would he want to play with her again? Was I not satisfying enough? Maybe he is polygamous as well. I'm just not playing the same game. In fact, I'm not playing any game at all... I went into this relationship with all my heart. Was his love just an act of trickery? What would he get out of hurting me that way?
The only motivation of some sort that I find is to listen to some music. And since The SOS's album is all I listen to, this is what I put on again. I'm not in the mood for some Bon Jovi or Elvis right now. I need something more emotionally charged, but not sad songs.
I make my way home like a charm, being as emotionally cold as I have ever been. I feel both strong and weak at the same time. I just crave comfort and my bed is calling me. I feel so terribly delighted to see that there are still buses at this very late hour. I need to wait a good twenty minutes for it to come at the Heathrow airport. I'm just thrilled that it's almost over and I get home.
Among the many stops the bus does, I get lost into my own thoughts and realise that my heart aches when I get a sniff of Marcel's perfume on his jacket. I was doing so good until now! Why did this have to shake my indifference and my confidence towards everything that happened?! I am just so exhausted that the tears fall effortlessly. I am so glad the bus is empty and nobody sees me. I stand up near my stop and say thank you to the driver as I get out. The wind is strong, but not as cold as these past couple of days have been. Very few people wander in the streets tonight. Mostly, they hang by the bar where I met the boys the first time. I turn the corner to my street and wipe the last tears that had fallen from my eyes. This peaceful moment alone in the streets helped to clear my head. I will deal with all this drama tomorrow, for tonight, I have had enough.
I have been so intensely in my head that I don't notice the car parked right across the street. It's just when I come face to face with him that I see him. Marcel is standing in front of my door, where he must have been waiting for me a long time from the reaction he has when he sees me.
"Grace!" He lets out, a weird hopeful expression on his face. I don't know why he would feel hopeful at all, I don't give him any reason to be.
"Save it, Marcel." I exclaim arrogantly and get my keys in my purse as I walk passed him to unlock my door.
"Let me explain..."
"You shouldn't have to explain. You made your choice, now fucking own it!" I get inside the building and climb the stairs, my back facing him as he annoyingly follows me to my flat.
"I did. I chose you. I left her."
"This is something you should have done long ago. I don't get why you would even go back to her if you ever wanted me. Is this all a joke to you?!"
"Of course it isn't! Grace, you know I love you."
"Then why did you lock me inside the bathroom to go play with her?!"
"I wanted to hide with you until it was OK for us to leave, but she saw me."
"And what then? She stripped naked by accident and you were ready to play just because!? I'm not a fool, Marcel. This ends now. I don't want to talk to you anymore. I'm heading to bed." I unlock my flat and get in with the final hope that this will be all for tonight, but he sneaks inside and locks the door behind him, leaving me furious and puzzled.
"Alright then, don't talk, just listen." He says as I don't acknowledge him anymore, I just head to my bedroom and strip down to put one of my Rolling Stones tee before I slide between the sheets.
He sits on the bed and looks at me without saying anything. I get comfortable sleeping facing the wall to not have to look at him. Hopefully, he will get tired of my indifference and leave or I will fall asleep. I don't even know why I let him in or why he is here at all?!
"When my dad got murdered, I was searching for myself. All my life, I have aspired to be just like him. I lost my model, my best friend and I ended up alone. Mum filled that void a bit, but her responsibilities in the company became more important than me. I got to work with Kate. Every time we were working together, I was asking questions about my dad because she had worked with him very closely for many years. She was an intern of his and he employed her when she graduated. She eventually became an editor alongside him. She was the only living glimpse of him that was left. I hung on to that. She was so nice and she gave me the desire to become an editor like my dad. I was so young and she was so elegant and beautiful. She charmed me and even though she was much older than me, I fell in love with her." He sighs with an heavy heart before he continues. His tone is hushed, but I can understand every word.
I don't move an inch. I listen to him, but I'm still very annoyed. So I don't move to not hint him that he has my attention.
"Mum noticed that I was spending all my time with her and fired her. I went to the RAF right after because my dad had also did when he was younger. I was barely sixteen. I learned how to fly and it distracted me until I learned that Kate was getting married. I got back because she had invited me to her wedding. I was so jealous. I couldn't bare the fact that she was going to marry a man that wasn't giving her half the attention I was giving her. She was my first love. I had read so many romantic novels as a kid. I was a sucker for Pride and Prejudice and Jane Eyre and so many other classics about forbidden love that it drove me to make the big jump. About twenty minutes before her wedding, I got her alone and confessed my love for her. I used Romeo and Juliet as an argument I think. I was a desperate romantic mess. But it worked. She told me she had to marry him, but that there was a part of her that would always love me too. So she kissed me and she took my virginity right then and there. It only made me love her even more. And I felt so strong, because I would always have known something her husband never would. She loved me. When she got back from her honeymoon, she got in touch with me saying she couldn't forget about me that she wanted to see me again. She's been cheating on her husband with me since then, but as I was getting more and more obsessed with her, I was getting desperate also. She never wanted affection. She was playing rough. She didn't want a man who's sweet and vulnerable, she wanted a Top but still remain the dominant in the couple. And I was agreeing to her conditions, because she was always the sweet Kate I had met when I was fifteen in my eyes. I loved her with everything I had and this was the price to be with her. I agreed to it all. But as the years have gone by, I got firmer and harder. I turned into exactly what she wanted and her thrill to see me like this was my drug. She worshipped me as much as I her. The highs have always been worth the lows, even though I had to sacrifice a lot. She was part of my routine. She was a part of my life for almost half my life. And now... You've come along."
Throughout is monologue, silent tears have slid from my eyes. I don't weight as much as the history he has with her. I realise it now. I try my best to stay silent so that he doesn't hear me cry, but instead I hear him cry. He sniffs back his tears and it takes everything in me not to turn around and hug him, but I don't. I shouldn't.
"I read your story and I suddenly became that fifteen year-old again reading novels like Wuthering Heights and Notre-Dame de Paris. I was again that romantic and naive little boy through Darcy's character. And then, you had Harry's character that was a perfect personification of who I became. I found myself in your book, Grace. I fell in love with it as much as I fell in love with you. You don't ask of me to be anyone but my true self. You so openly love me for all of me. You like my scars maybe even more than you love what's beautiful about me. I have never felt more myself than I do when I'm with you. And I realised that when you stood up to Kate. You are so not selfish. You care about what is right and you were right. You see me. You understand me. You are the first person that stops and really tries to get me. I have always felt misunderstood, even more when I was with her. I was content when we were fucking, because it was great. But the rest of my time, I was aching of what was missing of our relationship. With you, I have everything. I have denied my true self for so long. I've written a whole thesis convincing me that literature has shaped our vision of romanticism, that we have expectations of behaviours when we're in a relationship. It is true, undeniably, but it doesn't make it any more wrong. I want to spend evenings just holding you, not because it's what lovers do, but because I feel loved for the first time in my life. I have spent so much of my time being what somebody else wanted that I eventually became that person. You open my eyes to what truly matters..."
He sighs so profoundly, it shakes me to my core. My cheeks are damp with tears. I understand, but it doesn't make it any less wrong. Why would he agree to play with her if I'm so special to him? He might have fucked up, I get it, but it still hurts.
"Grace, please Love, look at me. I'm so sorry." He begs me and part of me can't do what he asks of me so easily, but I just want to take him in my arms.
I oblige, but don't do anything more. I just roll on my other side and look at him, our sight veiled by the tears in both of our eyes. My heart is so heavy in my chest. I have never seen him so defeated. I just want to take his pain away, but mine just asks to be revenged and make him pay.
"All I have and all I need is you. You hold my love in your hands." He is being more vulnerable than he has always been. I see him, but will it only leave me broken later? Will he betray me again?
He leans in to kiss me and I can't return it to him. It frustrates him that I don't kiss him back, so he gives up with saddest grin on his face, new tears falling from his eyes.
He sneaks his hands on one of mine and brings it to his lips to peck repeatedly my skin. I see the real truth in his eyes. He seems so lost, but found at the same time. I know, because I feel the same. I understand him too well, because I have been through the same thing. I have changed myself to please Steeve. The difference is that Ash made me realise what I wanted and who I was. I am that person for Marcel. I realised on my own how unhealthy was the relationship I was in. Marcel would still be in that relationship if it wasn't for me. He doesn't realise totally how manipulated he has been and still is to this day. She still has her claws hooked in him, not as deep as before, but she's still in there. I need to help him through it. I need to make him realise how poisonous she is. I need to make him realise he deserves so much better than that. And it begins by being loved by the purest of hearts, one who won't manipulate him, one who only wants his well-being, one who'll forgive him and fight his battles with him.
I look at him and sigh. I have never seen him cry before... I reach for his cheek and wipe my thumb under his eyes softly. My heart is very big in my chest. I love him with everything that I have and it pains me to see him this way. One last look at him makes me realise that I truly do forgive him. And I love him more than anything in this world.
I slide my hand from his cheek to take one of his. I look back up into his eyes and squeeze it three strong times. His eyes get lost an instant until he realises what I've just told him. I see him explode in sobs with a large grin of happiness on his entire face as he rushes his body over mine. His lips take mine captive instantly and I return his love. He is so heavy on me not supporting himself at all but having both of his hands on my cheeks instead. His kiss is pure and so terribly thankful and happy. For the first time since I meet him, he doesn't seem haunted. He was so deeply into his thoughts every time we were together. He was never truly carefree or spontaneous. He always had something on his mind. Now, I feel him free.
I welcome him with an open heart I didn't think I would have after what just happened. It will be hard work to suck the venom out of him entirely, but I love him too much to let him suffer all alone without doing anything. He helped me with my demons, I will help him with his.
"I love you so much, Grace." He mutters against my lips, still showering me with kisses.
I embrace his body with both my arms and pull him to me with a racing heart.
"I love you, Marcel Wright, but don't you dare ever do that to me ever again!" I cry under him, tears of stress and exhaustion leaving my body.
"I wouldn't bear losing you..." He hovers his head over mine a couple of seconds and he gives me a last and longing kiss before his sight gets lost on my face. He holds his body up with a single hand and he wipes my soaking cheeks. "You're so beautiful. I'm so so sorry."
He falls to the side and I straighten myself on the bed to take off his shoes and socks from his feet. I throw them out of the bed and do the same with the rest of his clothes. He sneaks between my sheets and pulls me to him. It feels good to have his arms around me. I feel his love radiating through his entire being and I trust his heart a thousand percent. I hum the perfume on his skin and nuzzle my head deeper against the crook of his neck. I kiss tenderly his skin and taste the salt held in his tears. My arm embraces his body tighter and he presses his lips to my forehead.
"You can tell the devil she is wasting her time, because I have found my heaven." He murmurs against my forehead.
I smile gently and think every of his words through. It makes me happy. I won't forget what happened tonight, but I do feel content and confident about his love and his devotion towards me. It'll be hard work, but I'm in for the long haul.
.