After ages I felt like everything was going to be alright. It was stupid of Norberto to ask me to leave thinking that that would make me happy but, in the end, it turned out for best. If not for his ridiculous suggestion, I might have never been emboldened enough to express my love and feelings so openly, something that would made his nuthead accept that I was never leaving him again. I couldn't even say I blamed him completely, cause my past actions did speak for deserting habits, leaving him high and dry when he least expected. So may be he didn't want to leave things to me, to blow him another hard one yet again.
So though it was disturbing, eventually I was happy this happened. Apart from the fact that I had never taken lead in expressing my love, his health may have also led to me holding myself for longer. Lying in his arms on that couch in his studio, the exact place where it all started, place where once I had hated him, I felt we had come a full circle. I had finally fully accepted I was in love and I was finally happy.
There were still many questions between us, still some misunderstandings that needed to be resolved but I believed we could handle it together. Getting up from the couch, I was about to ask him when he pulled me back in his arms and threw me off with this his sudden question. "How did you know I had been fucking starving for you," he asked impatiently.
This wasn't what I was expecting but then overcoming my surprise, I chided him for his lack of initiative, something that had been troubling me since the day we had got married.
"Your actions hardly show that," I tried to reply nonchalantly not knowing that I was pouting without being aware of it.
"Let me correct that mistake. Let's go to the bedroom."
"Now? But we just-"
"Mrs Fritz, you underestimate me. You are not coming out of that bedroom any time soon."
"One would have thought you would have aged with years, how old are you now?"
"Old enough to still fuck you. After that touching declaration from you, it would be a crime not to do so."
I turned crimson at his words. Trying to cover up my discomfort-cum-pleasure, I asked, "What about Raul?"
"Josh will understand. He will keep him busy."
"Oh, yes! Your Man-Friday. Has this also been part of your training? Was he always so helpful when you would entertain your friends?"
"You know I don't have friends."
"Well, what should I call them then, your lovers?" I asked lightly, though I was feeling anything but easy with the way our conversation was heading but it was time to let all the skeletons out of the closet. It wouldn't be easy but there was no other way than full catharsis.
"Lovers? Let's see whom did I ever love?" Norberto started, feigning deep thinking, but it had already gone too far to pull back now.
"Greta?" I asked tentatively.
"You must be fucking kidding me. You seem to be in love with that woman to bring her up in crazy conversations!" He snapped in irritation.
"You think it's easy to talk about your husband ex? Especially when they tend to keep coming in the present. Or have you forgotten, I found you and her in your bedroom? In your bed?" I asked, unable to keep off my hurt from my voice.
It was precarious to bring that up when we had just sorted out differences but like I said, I was in mood for full catharsis. And it was ridiculous if not hurtful for him to be getting so upset when I was the one who had to endure watching him with his mistress when he wouldn't even bother to look at me. And the man says he was starving for me!
"You really want to do this now? Didn't I say I had plans?"
"I just want us to be honest with each other. Always. Even if it is difficult, its important for us to learn to start speaking to each other honestly."
He didn't reply anything immediately, so instead of asking again, I started putting on my clothes. I didn't want to nag. He dressed up too and walked slowly to his cabinet. Pulling himself a whiskey and two glasses, he came back to me and said, "If we are going to talk about it, we will need this."
I was not sure if it was a good idea for him to drink but knowing it would be difficult to go on without some support, I kept my head down. He handed me a glass for which I was grateful. I needed the strength to hear him while he spoke about his ex-lovers, may be more.
Drawing a large sip from his glass, he settled back on the couch next to me. "You know I don't have a family. I never did. At least not one that could be called a family. I had started living on my own long back and decided that's how I wanted it to be. I fucked women, lots of them, but they meant nothing to me. I don't regret any of that because those women knew what I was, what they were getting and so there were no emotions, no complications. Painting was the only thing that was real to me and I didn't need any real relationship."
"But my paintings, how do I put it, they portrayed my very true self but they also brought out the dark, the worst, in me. I mean that's all I had in me so it was no big surprise but the kind of life I have been living, the dark only got darker. I was compelled to paint, as if painting was the only way I could release myself from that darkness but the more I painted, the more I was hooked onto that evil life."
"It not easy to accept but I would only paint nude women and then I would fuck them. I hated women and I hated myself for hating them. It was my way of punishing all the women and myself. It was all kinda twisted but I wasn't bothered about what I was because I had no scruples. The women I worked with knew who I was and what I did. They were not much different from me in that aspect. They had their priorities clear and were willing to pay the price for them. So it was all mutual. I don't know if they were really okay when I was done with them, but I never cared. None of them made me think twice. Now that I think about it, a lot of that thought process was strengthen based on women I had met very early in my life. My mother, my nanny, my care giver had all formed a very dark repulsive image of the entire womankind in my mind and the more women I met, the more I was convinced of their selfish conniving nature. My whole being believed in this to be biggest truth of the world. So I used them the way I believed they used everyone around them. That's the kind of life I had settled into. Till you walked in."
At this point he looked up and I saw grey eyes burning up as they looked deep in mine. "I hated my life but I never regretted it till I fucked it all up with you." Turning his face away he stood up and walked back to the glass cabinet. His gait had improved, leaving just a slight limp. I knew he was struggling and this wasn't a common sight. I was having my own struggles, making me focus on everything but his words till he said that name.
"You saw me working with Greta. Greta was just like all other women I had worked with, knowing what she was getting into. Only difference with her was that she had attuned herself very well to my style of working. When you met her, she had already done three exhibitions with me and I kinda got used to her. I still worked with other models but most were not able to keep up with me. I rejected most of them and became extremely choosy whom to work with. Greta made best of situation. She started making her own contacts through me. I was lost in my own world and never paid attention to what she did outside the studio but Albert was watching it all. He knew my over dependence on Greta was not good. He had an inclination of what she was up to and that's why despite my refusal, he kept sending new models and I kept on rejecting them, till you walked in."
"He would have obviously seen that even though you had no experience of modelling, I would not reject you. We were not best friends for nothing. He knew what I wanted, sometimes even better than me. We shared so many interests, and even though we fought like crazy, we would eventually agree on the same thing. At that time none of us knew of what was to become of us, that three of us would be entangled in the worst kind of a love triangle, something must have clicked when he met you, leading you land up in my studio. Both Albert and I were responsible for duping you into this sucker of a life. It must be for that sin that both of us fell hard for you and went on to suffer through our miseries so that we would pay for sins."
Tears were welling up in my eyes as I was finding it difficult to keep it together. Of course I had made my share of mistakes, lots of them. And so even though Norberto was right in saying he did me wrong, I couldn't wash off my hands to everything wrong that happened in our lives. We started wrong but we could have sorted it out only if I had let myself move on.
I had finally confessed my love to him, more than once, it would still take a lot of time before all would be forgiven and even longer for all to be forgotten. Perhaps never. But we needed to let all our pains out in open so that they could heal with time. And so I kept quite as we both let our wounds speak up.
"But coming back to Greta, no, I never loved Greta. She worked for me and I slept with her but I never really felt any emotion for her. When she walked out on me I felt angry for letting her get in that position where she mattered for my work. It was still not my heart but my ego that had taken a beating. I was furious at finding yet another woman who had betrayed me and reinforced the darkness I was filled with against that part of the society. That negativity, rekindled at Greta's backstabbing, rubbed off on what I thought of you too. Can you believe Greta moved on with a film producer she had met in one of my exhibitions? She nagged me to introduce her to him and the moment she saw an opportunity to star in one of his films, she was no longer interested in being my model. Its another thing that the movie never took off and the producer also tanked out, making Greta jump to another man, but she had spoiled my already disastrous opinion about women. I got darker almost to the point of being evil. You saw it and faced my wrath. I guess God saw me and decided I needed an angel to be freed of all that darkness and so he sent you to me, my angel."
"Yes, a fallen angel!" I laughed off at his description for me but my heart was in fact glad hearing, he never felt anything for Greta. But then suddenly I was reminded of that image of Greta lying on top of him at Gregorian Castle. Should I?
"So you never felt anything for Greta but did you... I mean were you... were you attracted to her?"
"I am not very proud to say cause I may sound like a douchebag, but I was a hot blooded man and I slept with countless women. Women that served my need. Greta was one such woman. And she served her role well. But no I was never insanely attracted to her. Not like the way I was crazily attracted by an angelic maiden," he smiled dryly, drowning the contents of his glass all over again.
I was still not convinced and missed what he was trying to say. I didn't need any painful reminder of that image but it kept flashing back in front of my eyes. If he didn't feel anything for her, then why did he let her in his bed?
"Then what was she doing in your bed in Gregorian Castle? She was... she was all over you," I couldn't keep the hurt out of my voice as I tried to question without expressing how painful it had been to watch them together, especially he wouldn't even look at me.
"Let's just say Greta was also not fully convinced that she didn't do a thing to me. Just before you walked in that day, I had asked her to leave and she was looking for ways to prove why it wasn't a great idea. My lack of interest would have proved her wrong and she would have eventually left but you came in right at that moment and got it all wrong. Greta, being the opportunist, turned her defeat by fueling your mistake further," he replied neutrally.
"You didn't try to correct the situation too. You helped her fuel the envy," I complained.
"Don't you remember we weren't so much talking terms and I thought it was better of you to think low of me. That way you would stay away from me and I wouldn't be tested to control myself. I had almost been roasted by just looking at you, not to forget, you had been using every opportunity to remind me of what I was missing. I didn't want you to parade in my room in all your loveliness, so yes, I thought this would make you hate me even more. Like i said earlier, I was a douchebag!"
"I can't say I disagree. Did you... did you know I had come to your room that night to tell you... to finally confess my feelings to you. It had all been bubbling up inside me since we got married and I had always thought of feelings for you to be full of hatred or even worse, indifference. But living with you again, I was quick to realize, I had been fooling myself. I was no longer able to control or hide my feelings any more. It was as if my whole life, my whole existence had turned itself on its head when I learnt I loved you and nothing would let me go on with my life imagining things were otherwise. I wanted... I wanted to tell you everything and then hope if there was something, anything of a future for us," I told him, reliving all that I had gone through back in those days and all that followed after it.
"You.. you.. loved me... even then... I can't believe I have been such an idiot. I thought you hated me and couldn't stand me. Oh when it comes to you, I had made a fool of myself repeatedly! Again and again and again! Its a wonder, I wish I am not dreaming, that you are finally in my arms," he said pulling me up in his arms.
"I know I don't deserve you, but will you ever forgive me for all my delusion and all the mess I caused, Mela?"
"You know I already did. I finally forgave you and that's when I could recognize the love I always carried in my heart for you," I replied with all my heart and soul.
We were soon lost in each other's arms. Only thing I remember before closing my eyes was Norberto whispering in my ears, "Now for those plans in our bedroom."
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Dear Lovely Readers,
Time for getting to know some mysteries. Why Norberto is the way he is, why he did what he...
Did you like hearing things from his perspective?
To be really honest, I am not very happy with the way this chapter has turned out. I would have liked a little more order, at the same time, a little more drama. Instead I feel, I am going all over the place.
But like I said earlier, time to write drafts and then improve them is over long back. I don't want to keep you guys waiting for the updates any longer than I already do. (I know I have been taking ages, but with everything going around, its getting more and more difficult to follow a fixed routine.
I hope you guys are keeping yourself safe and taking all the precautions for your good health and safety. That should be first priority for all of us. Stay at home, stay safe.
And don't forget to share your love and support through your votes and comments. Believe me it brings a smile on my face every single time and we all need as many smiles as possible in these testing times, isn't it?
Till next time, lots of love and best wishes,
Anna