Always - A short tale of erotic discovery

  Always

  A short story

  By Scarlett Redd

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof

  may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever

  without the express written permission of the copyright owner and the publisher

  except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual people and/or events is purely coincidental.

  Adult Reading Material (18+)

  Contains some scenes of sex and domestic violence. Unsuitable for people under 18 or people who may be upset by these themes.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Copyright© 2015 Scarlett Redd

  Acknowledgements

  I’d like to thank my awesome editor Paul Jennings. Thank you for all the hours of your time spent fixing my story and making it fantastic. Without all your poking and prodding encouraging me to write, I would never have put my work out there. Thank you for all the encouragement otherwise I would never have hit publish without you. I’m glad to be able to call you my friend and treasure all the hard work you put in for me and still do. Managing to even find time to help me with some great teasers and bringing my book cover ideas to life.

  I’d like to also thank the readers who give me a chance and take time out to read my work.

  Let me introduce myself. My name is Belle. I’m a twenty two year old brunette that many consider to be pretty but I don’t believe that. I am just me. I work as a waitress in Café Rouge in the town of Grassville, south of Bellingham, the 125th largest city in North America. I am the oldest daughter of 5 children.

  This is my story. In my own words.

  I have lived a hard life from childhood due in part mostly to sketchy and violent parenting thanks to my father. Unfortunately all the side effects of that carried on into my adulthood and greatly affected my love life. I cannot say that I had a happy childhood, not even close. I have a real problem trusting men. And I blame my father. My father worked during the day at the local lumber yard under a terrible boss and at night, he ruled at home like a terrible father with an iron fist with all the frustration his angry loud voice could deliver. When he wasn’t hitting my four siblings or me, he would be yelling at us fueled in part to his heavy drinking or severe frustration in having to be the sole parent. Too often just for little things. Stupid, unimportant things. Whether it was leaving crumbs, streaks or missed corners while cleaning up or doing our chores, or boisterous horseplay, he would blow his top according to his mood. He was also pretty skilled with the insults and put downs; when words failed, the hitting would start. That usually left us with little self-esteem but many bruises.

  As I developed as a young woman, I am certain he had designs on me to fill a void in his life having been long without a wife or girlfriend. He did try to do more and come on to me but I don’t want to get into that. I have put that in a vault and will never open it. It’s painful to live but even more painful to relive it but talking about it, I am not ready yet.

  I am positive my older brothers had their own issues. I was too wrapped up in mine to notice theirs. However, as my two older brothers got bigger and wiser than our father, he tended to leave them alone knowing they might hit back. Harder and more often. That left my two sisters and me being too often the only targets he continued to pick on knowing we couldn’t fight back or too afraid to tell anyone.

  My mother had died years earlier when I was younger, too young to remember. We never knew what took her and any questions, well our father would never elaborate on the matter should someone dare to ask him. I did have some vague memories of my mother remembering her delicious cooking and her loving arms, always hugging us and taking care of life’s hurts. Some say I even looked like her. Alas the more that time passed, the more I forgot about her, her touch and her smell long fading into a distant memory. Any photos that may have existed had disappeared over the years as if my father wanted us to totally forget her, or that he wanted to forget forever. I know I had one picture that mysteriously disappeared.

  I was glad when I finally left school. I did surprisingly well at school although most was just a quick series of events I soon wished to forget. I was very studious but socially inept. I was quiet and tended to blend into the background often. I never had many friends and the few I had, I would never ever have been courageous enough to have any of them come over. And boyfriends, forget that. I would have been too embarrassed and afraid that my father getting a hold of them, would mark their lives so badly and I wouldn’t be able to live with the guilt. I had one thought in mind and that was to be free of my father’s grasp and be independent, as fast as I could.

  I got a job quickly at the café in town with one goal in mind: trying hard to save lots of money as quickly as I could. I wanted to leave home as soon as possible. That was my main goal. My only goal. I didn’t think about where I would live and how I would make ends meet, I just wanted out. Out of the house, away from my father and all the bad memories. I felt terrible leaving my siblings there but I figured they could fend for themselves as I had. Hopefully having learnt some of my survivor skills. I wasn’t and couldn’t be much help to them. Whatever advice or help I could ever give would soon be forgotten as soon as our father detected a challenge in his authority and applied himself to crush any hope for a change.

  Soon, through hard work and well-earned tips, I eventually had enough saved to share an apartment with my best friend Baylee. I was proud of myself. My friend Baylee and I have been best friends since kindergarten. We were always hanging out together. Over the years I spent a lot of time at Baylee’s often trying to keep out of my father’s way with his temper and drama of the day. Along with the never-ending personal attacks, he made me feel shame with the result being it made me feel totally worthless and unwanted. Luckily for me her parents were very understanding allowing me to stay the night if I needed to flee. And flee I did, often. I always wondered if my father missed me or didn’t care. He had other victims he could pick on. Plus his alcohol fog he got into every night probably dulled his thinking anyway. I’m not sure how he managed to forget I was missing but he never said anything about my absences but his verbal and physical abuse would just pick up from where we had left off.

  I was glad to leave home as I knew it. Sure there was lots of words about how I would fail, ungrateful and uncaring whatever. Sure my father objected, sure he wanted me to stay home and contribute to the household income, do more cleaning and cooking. It almost got physical but my brother Shane stepped in and off I went never looking back once. It was difficult adjusting to this new life but the long hours, the sore feet and sore bottom from the overly flirty gentlemen seemed to be a breeze compared to the life I had left but I didn’t care. My goal at the moment was to be free to choose whatever I wanted, enjoying my new living arrangements with Baylee and having fun, finally. I had decided to leave and start a new life and I would do what it took to make it work. And with my best friend Baylee, I felt safe.

  But life happened, reality set in and boyfriends started to pull us apart. Baylee met her Mark and was away more often
than not and I met Davy having relented after a long and intense pursuit on his part. I so wanted to live everything he was promising and fell in love.

  Once he got me, Davy turned out to be a real asshole. The novelty of our relationship soon faded. The moment we moved in together his attitude toward me totally changed. I became his doormat. Just a piece of shit to scrape off his shoe. He bossed me around. Telling me what, where, when, how to do things according to his strict unrealistic standards. Also very controlling on how I should do things around the house. His house. All that despite the fact I was paying for almost everything. His control reminded me too much of my father and I felt trapped. Baylee could not be of any help, when was so wrapped up with Mark I doubt she would have heard anything I would have said.

  When he started telling me what to wear, it finally started breaking me. No woman of his was wearing something like that out in public. A couple of months into our relationship, he lost his job and things became even worse. He would sit home all day doing nothing. Just sitting there all day drinking or smoking dope, either alone or with his friends. He couldn’t even put himself out doing anything which resembled a chore. No cleaning, no laundry, no shopping for groceries, nothing. Not even lifting a finger to start prepping for dinner. I’d come home from hard day at work being run off my feet then having to cook dinner, the clean up after him and his mates was just getting to be too much. I hadn’t signed up for that.

  Dinner would be another whole battleground. Should he decide what I’d cooked wasn’t good enough or wasn’t what he felt like, he’d yell at me. If I was lucky he’d empty his unwanted dinner in the trash. If he was in a really angry mood, he would just throw his plate food and all in the sink. If he felt like it, his plate would get thrown at the wall. Just pushing his plate on the floor from the table gave him great delight since he smirked at me while doing it. Deja vu. I had lived the same thing at home and now here it was again. It felt as if I had traded one barbarian for another.

  As for sex he just took whatever, whenever he wanted it. I was naïve and inexperienced and I hated his idea of sex. Too bad if I didn’t want to or I was not ready for it, he came first, well he was the only who came. Just grabbing me to do the deed in under a couple of minutes if that, before rolling over going to sleep. Leaving me laying there hurt, deeply unsatisfied and wanting with tears rolling down my face. Every time. Not exactly what I was hoping it to be.

  After a while he got sick of that for entertainment, he started hitting me. Always very careful making sure it was where my bruises wouldn’t show so no one else would see them and question me. When I went out in public or to work it was very hard for me to contain my unhappiness and fear too. I felt so trapped. Things were getting more difficult for me to snap back to normal. I tried to cope with everything happening just like I had before with my father hitting me. Now it was the one that was supposed to be the love of my life. I eventually gathered up the courage to tell Baylee what was going on at home. She was horrified often repeating to leave him straight away and move back in with her. I tried to tell her I’d think about it. I always had the hope things would get better. Of course she was having none of that nonsense. And I was beginning to believe it was nonsense; it never would get better.

  After some more coaxing, she convinced me to come live with her the next day. Since I wouldn’t go with her that night. It meant it would have to be after I had finished work, I’d escape with nothing but the clothes on my back she told me. She had a wardrobe full of clothes I could go through. Luckily we were both the same size meaning I could fit in her clothes she had. I wouldn’t need to go back and collect anything. She would have never let me anyway.

  Unfortunately for me that night. He must’ve had a bad day or sensed something was up. He was in a really foul mood. Everything I did or said was wrong. Dinner was the worst thing he’d ever tasted. He even accused me of trying to poison him. This time, instead of the wall, he decided to throw his plate at me. Unfortunately I didn’t have enough time to react and his full plate hit me in the head knocking me out. Thank god so I didn’t feel any pain and was oblivious to whatever he did to me next.

  Sometime during the night I must’ve come around as it was dark and quiet. I was in so much pain all over my body. I could hardly move. I managed to drag myself through the kitchen over to my purse on the floor. Luckily my cell was still there with some charge left. Whatever money I had was gone as Davy was too. I managed with my shaking fingers to call Baylee telling her I needed help. I hadn’t finished my sentence and she was on her way.

  He’d beaten me real bad. I ended up spending a week in hospital with my injuries: multiple bruises, broken ribs and a broken arm. While I recovered, I had asked that I have no visitors except BayIee. The police were called. They wanted me to press charges but I was too afraid what would happen next. I can’t remember if Davy tried to see me but I was so sedated, I didn’t care. I thought one day I was hearing a commotion at the nurse’s station not knowing if it was him or my father trying to see me. They did tell me my sisters came but again, I was sedated, dreaming no doubt and in my own world in a deep haze. My hospital stay lasted about 3 weeks.

  As soon as I was better, I swore off men from that moment on. I had plenty of time to ponder that while I healed. My plan was to close my heart off with a wall of steel. Not wanting to ever feel anything for anyone again. Just going to be only me for the rest of my life I decided. Since it would be safer for me that way. Much safer. I could work on dropping my fear leaving me to work on my self-confidence. The men I had trusted in my life had let me down and I never wanted to feel that way again.

  I left Davy and had a restraining order against him which he broke in record time and ended up doing jail time for. I really didn’t care and was just too happy not to have him in my life anymore. It took me a long while to stop looking over my shoulder should he ever jump me but eventually I began to feel better, stronger and safer somewhat. Last I heard is when he got out, he quickly moved out of state and thankfully disappeared.

  Davy had put me off ever wanting another man. But time passed. Lots of time. I guess time does heal after all. It wasn’t for want of trying though. Many guys had tried over the years and kept trying but I would have none of it. Men were always asking me out but I always turned them down. Politely but firmly. Working in a café, lots of men noticed me but I never ever gave them a chance to know or hurt me. After a few years I felt maybe I was ready to finally have someone in my life once again. I decided I didn’t want to end my life as a lonely bitter old woman who lived in a house full of cats. My past was behind me but not forgotten. I needed to look to the future and be happy again. I needed to finally move on. I didn’t want to be alone any longer. This time round though I was going to be very cautious. It was going to take a great man to break down the steel walls I’d built around my shattered heart this time.

  I wasn’t like the other girls in town who were looking for a man with money along with all the accessories or toys that came with it. No! I was just happy looking for a real man. One who would love me? I didn’t care if he had nothing. So long as we had love. True love was the key to all this I thought. We would be so happy together in my dreams anyway. That would be enough for me. Were there any real men still available on the planet? Why do we fall in love so easily? It makes it so hard when things go horribly wrong as your whole world shatters around you?

  I moved back in with Baylee who by that time had lost her precious Mark to a checkout girl who worked at the Foodmart. We were going to heal our wounds together.

  One night, a month after moving back together, Baylee and I decided to go to the Club Fairplay in the next town of Defiance. Since there weren’t many entertainment possibilities in our small town of Grassville, we had to expand our options. We just felt that we needed a girls’ night out and this was the night we were doing that. Baylee was working long hours at an out of town lumber yard and me, well still at the café; we worked hard and wanted to play harder.
br />   Little did I know, that night would be one that would change my life forever?

  We were having a great night, enjoying ourselves, and drinking shots. Many shots. Even guys bought us some but that’s all we would accept. There were a quick pass here and there but it was all good yet creepy. Dancing all over the dance area and checking out all the cute guys wondering which would be a good match and which we should avoid. Being polite dancing with them when asked but none of the guys I had danced with did anything for me. Either I wasn’t interested due to their personality or especially if they were the groper type which put me off straight away. I couldn’t get away from them fast enough. I hated people touching me at the best of times, let alone someone I didn’t know. Sins of the father.

  Around midnight, he came in taking my breath away.

  He was around six feet tall, blonde hair down to his shoulders. Along with abit of scruff on his chin, which I especially love on a guy, he was wearing tight jeans, a Metallica t-shirt, with a blue shirt with the buttons undone over the top of his t-shirt. When he got closer he had the deepest chocolate brown eyes making me melt and sigh.