Proserpina
I came awake suddenly. Something had disturbed me: what was it? a noise? A touch?
I opened my eyes and almost screamed.
Lucien stood a little away from me. The charcoal grey suit he was wearing was slightly rumpled as though he had dressed in a hurry. His pristine white shirt was open at the throat, revealing his neck, that tanned throat and the hint of his hirsute chest that I had cuddled into on many an occasion in the past.
His grey-blue eyes were ringed with exhaustion and he looked as though he had aged at least ten years, that firm mouth a straight line...
I shot up in bed, huddling into my comforter, enraged. HOW DARE HE COME INTO MY ROOM, I thought.
"What are YOU doing here?' I demanded fury and fear mingling in my voice.
He stood looking at me silently, swaying slightly.
Drunk as always, I thought, my lips curling in derision.
He noticed the contempt in my face and the expression on his face darkened...
"What are you doing here?' I hissed again, and then, tauntingly, "Have you run out of whores to service you? Is that why you have come to me?"
***
Lucien
Lucien flinched at the contempt in her voice. The hurt that was barely concealed by her angry words drove straight into his heart.
"Get out!' she screamed raising her voice and sounding like a person who was beside herself with grief and anger, her eyes wide with pain,
'Just get out of my room and my life, Lucien Delano, you bas*ard! Leave me alone, for the love of God!'
Despite himself, he felt a wrench as he took in the small figure, hiding beneath the comforter, glaring and spitting at him.
And a deep feeling of sadness suddenly engulfed him.
He deserved it, he told himself wearily, a feeling of loss and sorrow weighing on him.
Yes, he had destroyed that laughing, cheery, bubbly young girl who had loved him so totally.
Instead, he had created this woman who looked harassed, her soft mouth trembling in anguish as she hurled abuses at him.
That cut him to the quick.
She had never used foul language ever, his chaste Buddhist nun. Now she was swearing at him and he hated himself for turning her into the vengeful spitfire who was glaring at him with hate in her eyes.
***
Proserpina
"Don't you dare come to me.' I spat at him, tossing aside the comforter, and getting to my shaky feet on the other side of the bed, and almost in a choked tone, I whispered, ' You lost that right...'
My voice broke as I thought of that hateful night and then, anger surged through me anew as I remembered what he had done to me and what that night had resulted in.
He, this man standing there with the glassy-eyed look, HE was responsible for my misery and my pregnancy.
In a sudden burst of unprecedented fury, I reached out and grabbed one of the pristine crystal figurines on the shelf beside my bed and hurled it at him.
He was probably dead drunk but the swiftness of his reaction was as quick as ever before. He ducked and it flew past him, shattering loudly as it hit the wall and fell onto the floor.
Lucien raised expressionless, bloodshot eyes to my face.
And then, to my utter astonishment, he turned and left the room silently, the broad shoulders bunched under the jacket.
I sank back into bed, gasping with reaction; the Lucien I knew would have been at my throat, snarling with rage, bellowing insults at me.
This man had simply walked away.
Somewhere, I had wanted him to react so that I could purge myself of this great grief and pent-up anger.
Instead, he had cheated me of the opportunity to lash out at him. He had simply stepped away.
Beatrice and Sita appeared out of nowhere. Sita was shoving something into her waistband as she strode in and somewhere in the back of my mind, I wondered why she was in her trousers and shirt at a few hours past midnight.
But thinking too deeply was beyond me that night.
Taking in the situation, Beatrice took charge.
"You're working too hard, luv.' She said kindly. Stepping forward, she held out her arms and enfolded me in a hug that only had me break down and sob broken heartedly although why I was crying was something I could not figure out.
I was dimly aware of Sita moving around, the maids who had appeared to clean the mess as I was led away to the spare room by Beatrice who helped me to settle into bed.
***
Lucien
In his enormous bedroom two floors above, the Mafia Don was wide awake.
Lucien Delano lay in the huge bed trying not to think of Proserpina and the way she had reacted to his presence.
He had destroyed the loving girl he had taken so ruthlessly, the exuberant girl he had dragged so callously into his life...
The thought haunted him and he was still awake at dawn.
***
Proserpina
I sat in the sun on a deckchair near the swimming pool. My eyes were on the children splashing happily in the water. As always, I thought, smiling ruefully as I watched poor Piers getting thoroughly bullied by his twin sister. The two young sons of the gardener stood close by, giggling. They were Ria's henchmen in every prank she played. She lorded it over them. The older boy, gangly Phillippe would have done anything to keep her smiling.
Usually, I would be beside them, sometimes swimming with them in my modest two-piece.
But today, I had no energy to join them. Instead, I sat there, my legs curled under me on the deck chair, leaning back, allowing the soft winter sun to warm me.
The deadened feeling in me was intensifying with each day.
I went about the motions of living, loving my children for anchoring me to life for I had no desire to live anymore. I merely existed. Beatrice watched me grimly as I picked at my food, having lost my appetite completely. Grace and Danielle had been to see me and the children but I barely listened as they spoke. Although she watched me curiously, Sita never said a word.
Grace kept coming, sitting by me, and stroking my hand, crooning softly. She understood my pain, my heartbrokenness. Danielle rarely appeared. She seemed to hold herself responsible for the showdown I had had with Lucien about the sex toys.
The harsh words that Lucien had spoken to me on that day were branded in my memory. I kept thinking of how foolish I had been, colossally so.
He had only spoken words of cruelty to me after my return from Bhutan. Called me a slut, a whore...and I had taken it all, imagining that he would grow to love me someday.
Why did he want to hurt me? I wondered the tears trickling down my cheeks absently. To punish me over and over again?
Why? Why?
If so, I thought bitterly, he had succeeded. I was now like a lifeless doll. Staring at nothing in particular, living because there was no way I would leave my twins and go. My work could appease the pain in my heart to a certain extent, but that was all.
I had been stupid to think that I, a naïve young girl of eighteen, could make such a cynical, abusive man understand my love for him. I felt a sudden twinge in my stomach, a sense of discomfort and shifted in the chair.
There were days when I longed to be rid of the child growing in my belly; it had not been a seed of love which my lover had planted in my womb; the father of my unborn child had used me ruthlessly that night, to teach me a lesson, to satisfy his urges.
And I?
Worshipping him as I did, I had been drowning in him, too stupid to stop my surrender.
Looking down at the very slight swelling of my stomach, I shook my head.
No, I thought, I did not want to think such a child would be born from me. A child of lust. Not a child of love.
Hugging myself, I bit my lip to stop the sorrow that was engulfing me from overwhelming me.
***
These days, the face that was reflected in my bedroom mirror was that of a pale-faced, wraith-like person, her haunted brown eyes devoid of sleep and happiness. The long deep brown hair seemed listless and dull.
I longed to be a girl in her early twenties who could choose her likes and dislikes, to do what she wished. Instead of being imprisoned by an indifferent man who cared little for me, who would not hesitate to throw me out, or worse, pass me on to his friends if the fancy took him. I shuddered and buried my face in my hands, trying not to give in to my sorrow.
Even my work was suffering, and I had been forced to request the professor for a few days off, on the pretext that I was ill. The old man had been genuinely upset. He would, I thought, have hurried over to see me if he had been in the country. But he was currently touring the Far East and would not return for a couple of months.
The excitement that I had been feeling over my work seemed to have died down. These days I simply wanted to sit, staring into space.
Finally, I got a grip on my feelings
Turning my face to the mild autumn sunshine, I longed with all my heart to be back in Bhutan...