Proserpina
The course of the days in my life altered radically.
Earlier, I had been a carefree student, with my life caught up in my studies, cooking for my roommates, and enjoying it.
Now my life revolved around Lucien. All of a sudden, my schedule was pushed to the background; Lucien's timings and his convenience were foremost.
I began to miss classes, my submissions were delayed, and my professor called me for a long chat to try and understand what had happened to his most dependable student. But I was giddy in love, imagining a future with the man who seemed to be besotted with me. At first, he spent every night at the little house, and our lovemaking was as intense and passionate as it had been on the first occasion when he had taken me on the floor of his study at the club. It was as though he could not have enough of my body, and I revelled in giving him pleasure. He could bring my body awake with a look, a touch, and I was helpless before him...
***
A million little alarm signals were going off around me, but I was blind to everything except my adoration of Lucien Delano.
Lucien was not interested in my life or who I had been before I 'came into his life'. [His words]. I found that a little saddening...
When I tried to talk about my mother he hummed in a bored way and I fell silent.
But I told myself that over time, perhaps after he had married me, he would come along to visit my aunt in the little town that I sometimes thought about. I dreamt of the day when I would proudly flaunt an engagement ring; for now, the trinkets he carelessly bestowed on me kept me bubbling with joy. He dominated me in bed, and I was only too eager to please him.
Talk about the foolishness of a teenager...
***
Once, when we were lying in bed after a passionate round of lovemaking, I raised myself on an elbow, my love for him shining in my eyes. He had looked at me, the grey-blue eyes like slits, a small smile playing on his lips.
Trailing a finger down his chest to his manhood, I placed my palm on his chest, resting my cheek on it.
'What happened to your leg?" I asked innocently, stroking his hair-roughened chest.
The stiffening of his body alerted me to the fact that he was annoyed. But when he pushed me away roughly, I was startled.
More than a little frightened, I stammered,
"I...I was just...wondering..."
He rose to his feet in a fluid movement and began to pull on his clothes. His terse actions made me bite my lip in consternation. I had angered him inadvertently.
Wide-eyed, I stared at him.
As he turned to leave, his eyes slid over my nakedness, barely covered in the quilt that I was clutching to my body, my eyes wide in hurt and puzzlement.
With an oath, he bent down and gripped my chin, tipping my head up. There was no gentleness in his action, and I gasped in pain. Gripping my head, unheeding the way he was wrenching my long, unbound hair, he lowered his head to look at me. The blue eyes, almost grey with anger, glittered ominously as he stared at my startled face.
"Why do you want to know, little girl?" He was breathing heavily and I whimpered in fear as he went on,
"Does it hamper my sexual drive, eh?"
Thrusting me away with such force, I toppled backwards, he went on, sneeringly, " But then, I know that I don't just satisfy you; I have you begging for more despite my being OLD (he sneered as he said the word) and having a limp."
He stepped forward and jerked me up, holding my arm with such force, I knew he would leave a bruise. Lowering his head, he kissed me hard, punishingly before he flung me away forcefully.
When I fell back onto the bed, my mouth was swollen and I could taste blood. I stared in shock as he swept out; soon I heard the front door slam as he left.
I hurried over to the window and peeped out; to see his large car followed by two others, turning the corner of the street with speed.
Fighting back the tears that were threatening to spill, I wondered what I had said to make him fly into such a cold rage.
***
It was only once that Lucien let drop that the limp was because he had been shot. Who had shot him and why, I was left with no answers, so I stopped asking. The cold, hard shell he was encased in only vanished when we were in bed together, our bodies on fire for each other.
Yet I continued to delude myself, shutting out the harshness that came to the forefront of his behavior on more than one occasion.
***
He had explicitly forbidden me from meeting my old roommates. Every day, I was dropped to college by a chauffeured car; and driven back home as soon as my classes ended. While earlier I had cycled to university, taken a bus, or walked to my classes, now I was escorted by a silent man, called Jamie who towered over me. He avoided meeting my eyes or speaking to me, not responding to my initial attempts at being friendly either. But his burly build and the way he carried himself made me realize with a sinking heart that he was one of Lucien's men. It made me feel proud at first and I basked in the importance. But after a while, I longed to be free, to walk home, to listen to music, to stroll along the park. Yes, I missed the feeling of being in charge of my life.
***
There was a new housekeeper who had appeared hours after the unpleasant Ms. Gomez had marched out. This was a seemingly taciturn Latino named Ana Sofia. She never looked me in the face and bowed her head as she went about her work. I guessed that her English skills were poor and that increased the feeling of being alone as I sat in the house, waiting for Lucien every evening. Ana Sofia was adamant about one thing; she positively disliked having me in the kitchen, and the will of an eighteen-year-old was no match for a stubborn, thirty-something, plump matron like her. When I tried to make a cup of coffee the way I wanted it, she stood, arms akimbo, looking so fierce and affronted that I fled with as much dignity as I could muster.
As for Tanya and Rachel, at first, I accepted Lucien's stricture against meeting them, but gradually, I began to long for someone to chat with, to listen to, and to laugh with abandon over the silliest things.
But my lover was firm: no contact with my old friends or my family, whatsoever.
***
Days slipped into months, and soon it was almost a year that I had been Lucien's woman.
I had gotten used to the fact that he was not someone who would be with me all the time; I was someone he cared for but in an impersonal way.
And I was content with that, I told myself firmly.
Lucien came to me when he wished, and I knew better than to ask him anything. I made the mistake of innocently asking him about what he did and why he went around with bodyguards and always carried a gun, at the start of our relationship. The vehemence, the aggressiveness of the anger with which he lashed out took me by sheer surprise.
Shaking me roughly, he had pulled me to his deep chest, but there had been no passion, just a dangerous fury.
"Don't you ever dare question me, girl," he had growled, bringing his face close to mine, eyes glinting with barely controlled violence. "You are here because I want you in my bed."
And as my eyes filled, he went on cruelly, "Yes. That's all."
Flinging me away from him in contempt, he left the room and I lay on the floor where I had fallen, too shocked and hurt to move.
***
But like a moth to a flame, when he returned to claim me in a violent mating a few weeks later, my traitorous body gladly surrendered to him. He took me repeatedly that night, relentlessly, riding me hard and mercilessly. My soft, curvaceous body and my whimpers seemed to goad him to greater heights. When he finally left a little after midnight, I lay on the downy mattress, my body weak with pleasure and pain. Staring at the cloudy sky which threatened rain at any moment, I realized that he had barely said a word to me throughout the entire night. He had been too busy satisfying his almost bestial urges. I ran my hands over my full breasts, which still ached from his frenzied nipping. The core of my womanhood was still wet and painful from the fierceness of his copulation.
Resting my cheek on my palm, I gazed at the sky pensively, the tears trickling down my cheeks forlornly.
What had I become?
A woman who lived to pleasure a man: a man who barely cared for her.
***
On good evenings, he would arrive soon after dinner; we would make love almost at once, and then he would stay for a while, listening to me with half an ear as he attended to the incessant calls on his phone.
At first, I tried to get him interested in my life, my college, and my dreams for the future. Somewhere along the way, I figured out that he had not listened to a word I had said. His only interest in me revolved around my body. At times, I had the feeling that he almost hated himself for the weakness he had for me.
These days, I lay beside him, silently running my hands over his hairy, muscled chest with the scars. He would wind his fingers in my hair or absently run his hands down my body as he attended to his calls and barked orders in that clipped manner of his; soon he would be aroused, his thick manhood rearing in anticipation, demanding gratification.
And I? I would welcome him into me, eagerly parting my legs to accommodate him, at times biting my palm to prevent a cry of sharp pain as he used me savagely...
Or I would eagerly take him in my mouth, pleasuring him as he grunted and released his cum.
For, once he placed his large hands on my body, I melted, swept away into a world of mindless passion. He was rough; there was never a word of love spoken by him. But I could not stop repeating his name breathlessly every time we made love.
***
Once, when I timidly asked him if I could meet my old roommates someplace or ask them to come over, the glacial look on his face made me tremble.
I hastily changed the topic but the look of anger on his face at having his decree questioned created a frisson of anxiety in me.