Sebastian - Dark Bonds (10 page)

“I told you last night that I would explain why I am going to punish you,” his voice is stern, cold and detached.

“So that you understand what it is you have done to displease me and so that you know not to do it again,” he continues.  “So, Elizabeth, do you know what you have done wrong?”  I’m hanging over your bloody lap it’s hardly the time for a chat about my misdemeanors.

“I told you I wanted to go for a walk.  It’s not my fault you rugby tackled me on the bed,” I reply, and clearly that is not the answer he was seeking.  He sighs, loudly.

“Number one: you fail to talk to me with respect.  Number two: you fought to get free from me.  Number three: you kneed me in the back, causing me pain.  Number four you didn’t ask me if you could go for a walk.  Do you understand that none of those behaviours are commensurate with submission?”  His voice still cold, his words spoken in a monotone and dictatorial manner.

“Yes,” I hiss back at him, the blood now rushing to my head.

“Yes?  Yes what?”  Double crap, now the venom has returned to his voice.  I’ve made him madder than ever.

“Yes Sir.  Now can you please pull me up, my arms are going numb and I’ve got blood rush,” I whine.

“You don’t seem to be grasping the point I am making so I will demonstrate my point instead.”  He twists on the bed so that my legs fall to the floor and my upper body now rests on the bed.  Better.

“Thank you Sir,” the sarcasm in my voice is met with a further sigh. 

“Because you have to learn cause and effect, and clearly you can’t understand these verbalized, I’m going to deliver six hard slaps to your beautiful behind.  You will count after each slap.  When I reach six, you will apologise and mean it.”  I wriggle but he has me firmly pinned, my buttocks exposed and waiting for their hiding.  I feel a plethora of emotions – humiliated, angry, fearful, aroused, and the arousal shocks me.  I feel like laughing but also crying.

Slap.  “Count Elizabeth or I’ll add six more.”

“One,” Ouch! That stings.  How humiliating. 

Slap.  “Two.”

Slap. 
“Three.”  I bite my lip, hard.

Slap. 
“Four,” I’m going to cry. 

Slap. 
“Five.  Goddam it Sebastian.”

Slap. 
“Aagh,” That was harder than the rest.  That really hurt. 

“Number six was in response to your cursing after number five.  Cause and affect Elizabeth.  You’ve forgotten my apology?”

“I … I’m sorry, ok? I’m sorry,” I sob.

“Sorry what?” 
For fucksake, I’m sorry I ever came here
.

“Sorry.  Sir.”  I sniff, wiping my nose with the back of my hand as he helps me to sit on the bed beside him.  I don’t want to be near him.  I want to run away from him.  This is the monster I fled to in my quest for peace after all I’ve been through losing my son and my husband.  What have I done?  I’ve bought Bella to this house.  It’s not just me, I’ve done this to her too – bought her to this house of weirdness and depravity.  The worse thing of all that I’m most ashamed of is that I was aroused.  Of course that was before it hurt.  Before he so callously beat me, so coldly, for something so trivial.  I need to get away.  Where will I go - home?  To my house, which holds such painful memories?

“Penny for them,” says Sebastian, handing me a tissue from the nightstand.  I don’t want to talk to him.  Hell, if I say the wrong thing, he’ll beat me again.

“I’m going to get dressed and I need that walk,” my voice is little more than a whisper.  My buttocks are smarting - it’s sore sitting down.  “Is that ok?” I ask as an afterthought.

“Yes, it’s fine.  I’ll come with you.”

“No.   Thank you but I need some time alone,” he’s quiet, pensive and so difficult to read.

“Elizabeth don’t hate me,” his voice is reticent, gone is the dominance, replaced with insecurity, remorse?

“I don’t hate you.  I just don’t understand you, why you’d want to hurt someone you care about … presuming you do care?”  He takes my hand in his and strokes my palm.

“I care more than you know.  That’s why I want you to trust me with this.  Everything I do, I do for your own good.  In time you’ll see that,” he’s more deluded than I gave him credit for.

“I don’t see that.  I see you abusing a woman who is vulnerable, who’s been through a traumatic five months and who came to Penmorrow as a place of safety.  To find peace and tranquillity, instead you’ve turned it into something sordid and dark.”   Wiping the tears from my eyes, I stand and walk to the chaise at the foot of the bed, removing the bathrobe, which is strewn across, and shrugging it on.

“We need to discuss your feelings, Elizabeth.  What you feel is normal, you’re learning and some of the lessons are hard, painful but you’ve not yet experienced the pleasure and the sense of freedom.  Give it time.  Give me time, let me lead you.”  He stands and paces over to me, reaching for me, but I step back toward the bathroom door.

“I’m going for a walk.  Please just leave me, I don’t want to talk about it any more,” I plead.

“Fine,” he runs his hands through his hair, seemingly at a loss to know what to say to me.  “You’ve got thirty minutes until breakfast.  Please be back by then.”

“You’re still telling me what to do!” I exclaim. 

“Half an hour.”  He turns and, grabbing his robe from the hook behind the bedroom door, he leaves the room.  Aghast, I collect my clothes and lock myself in the bathroom.  I have no intention of returning in thirty minutes.

15

Freshly bathed and wearing jeans and a long sleeved tee shirt and pumps, I make my way to Bella’s room.  Sebastian has allocated Bella the room in which I stayed for the ‘Women In Business’ team-building weekend last winter.  It was my first visit to Penmorrow, where I met Sebastian, and I have fond memories of that room.  It’s a beautiful room with antique half tester bed and gold damask comforter, and fabulously high, corniced ceilings.  It’s too grand for a teenage girl to appreciate, especially Bella.   Knocking I enter and am pleased to see that she’s awake, busy on her tablet.

“Mum.  Good morning, what’s up?”  She can see that my face is blotchy from crying.

“Oh nothing, just missing Joe,” which is of course the truth but not in its entirety.  “I thought I’d take my daughter out for breakfast,” I smile, belying my feelings.

“I miss him too Mum.  Is Sebastian coming with us?” she asks hopefully.

“No.  I thought it would be nice to have some mother-daughter time.  It’s been ages.  Maybe, after breakfast we could hit the shops, that’s if we can find any out here in the sticks.”

“Sounds like a plan Stan.  Let me get dressed and I’ll meet you down in the kitchen,” she climbs from her bed and pads to the bathroom, scooping up black leggings and gypsy top from the floor as she passes.  “Give me five minutes.”

“I’ll wait here for you,” I do not want to face Sebastian in the kitchen, knowing that there will be hell to pay if he knows that my plans have changed and don’t include him and I don’t need his damned permission.

Bella and I manage to leave Penmorrow without being seen.  Thankfully, Bella hasn’t realized that we are fugitives on the run – albeit for a couple of hours.  The drive to into Padstow takes fifteen minutes and is a spectacularly scenic journey.  The narrow lanes wind through tiny hamlets and past acres of woodland and the smell of the sea is always just a breath away.  It’s picture postcard perfect.  The village is sizeable for the area.  We park up outside the largest of three pubs but it looks closed.

“Damn, its so early,” looking at my watch I realise it’s still only eight fifteen.  Spotting a newsagent across the road I venture inside and ask the aged proprietor where we can find an eatery for breakfast. 

“Come with me, lover,” he says in his broad West Country dialect.  Pushing me back outside the shop door, he points to the far end of the high st
reet, if one can call it that. “Go a yonder up there and you’ll find ‘Dick’s Transport Café,’ he’ll be open and ‘e does a cracking breakfast pasty,” he scurries back into the shop and slams the door behind him.  I wonder if we have in fact, been teleported by time travel machine back to the nineteenth century.

Dick’s Transport Café is as salubrious as its name infers.  Sited on the fringe of the town and adjoining the only petrol station, it is a grey 1960’s stone box with plate glass windows through which it’s impossible to see due to the copious burger posters tacked on the glass.  Bella hesitantly pushes open the door, rolling her eyes as she takes in the shabby interior.

“Come on darling, I’m sure the breakfast pasties are to die for.  Literally!” I joke.

“Take a seat lovelies, I’ll be with you in a tick,” the young waitress indicates to a table by the window and we each pull out a pine chair and sit, resting our hands on the green gingham plastic table cover which is sticky under our skin.  I wince, as the hard wood is unforgiving on my tender buttocks.

“Mum you take me to all the best places,” Bella laughs.  “Do you think everyone in this town is related?” She whispers.

“Interbred, for sure,” I giggle, just as the waitress appears at my side.

“Ready to order?” We haven’t even looked at the menu but I suspect it comprises copious quantities of cholesterol.

“Do you have any breakfast pasties please?” I ask, hoping she’ll say no.

“Two breakfast pasties.  Yes. Mug of tea with that?”  Wow this place gets better.

              “Perfect, thank you.”  I can’t look at her or I will laugh.  Her ample bosom sits at waist level and I’m sure she tucks them into her panties.

“Ketchup’s on the counter if you want it,” she adds helpfully, before she and her breasts sway off to fetch our food.

“Hilarious,” chuckles Bella.

The only other customer puts his grease covered plate on the counter and bids a cheery goodbye to Big Boobs, before leaving, dragging along his flea bitten dog.  The bell above the door jingles as he goes.  The tinkling bell merges with the ring tone of my phone, which I don’t immediately hear.

“Mum, your phone’s ringing,” Bella pushes my handbag across to me and I fumble around, finally retrieving the mobile phone as it stops ringing.

Sebastian missed call.

Oh crap.  He’s going to be mad at me – why does that thought turn me on?  I’m so cross with him.  My phone beeps.

Sebastian new voicemail.

I put the phone to my ear, first turning down the volume so that Bella can’t hear the undoubtedly shouty message.

“Elizabeth.  I see your car’s gone.  Call me immediately.”
   His voice is clipped - anger tinged with anxiety.  He can stew, I think, let him worry then maybe he’ll realize how wrong he was in smacking me.

“Who was it?” asks Bella.

“It was nobody.  Wrong number,” I lie.

The breakfast pasties are surprisingly delicious, the warm flaky pastry crumbling onto our laps as the scrambled egg, onion, bacon and melted cheese leave a greasy sheen around our faces.  We devour it all, washed down with mugs of milky tea.  My phone beeps just as I replace my paper napkin on the table next to it.

If you don’t call I will presume you’ve had an accident and will come looking for you.  Why did you take Bella? S

Touched at his concern but still angry, I delete his message.

“Mum you should call him,” Bella frowns at me.  “Have you two had an argument?” She asks.

“No love, of course not.  He’s just a bit possessive so I wanted some time out that’s all.”  She doesn’t look convinced.

“I can’t go through that again Mum,” she warns and I know that what she fears is a repeat of the rows between my late husband Alan and I.

“Don’t be daft, Bella.  Sebastian and I just need a little time to adjust to being together.  We’ve not seen each other much over the past few weeks and have never lived together like this.  Just give us time, you know I adore him.”

“I adore him too,” she replies with a faraway look in her eyes.  “He’s quite possibly the most perfect man I’ve ever met.  When I get married, I want to meet someone just like him.”  She has a teenage crush on him.  How does he have this affect on every woman he meets? It’s because Sebastian is the archetypal alpha male – tall, dark and handsome with chiselled features and a commanding demeanour.  He exudes power thus women feel he’s a protector.  Conversely, no woman is safe from this predator.

“Keep the change.
”  The waitress regards the ten-pound note in her hand and grunts unappreciatively before removing our plates and mugs.  The bell jingles and I turn my head absentmindedly to see who’s entered. My mouth gapes open as my eyes lock with Scarlett’s. 

16

She takes a seat next to me and plays with the cuffs of her black dress, nervously.

“Scarlett.  What are you doing here?”  This is clearly not a coincidental meeting.  “He’s sent you to find me?” I ask incredulously. 

She nods her head meekly.  “He’s very worried, Mrs. Dove, he wants you to come back immediately.  He’s worried about Bella too.”

“For heaven’s sake, call me Beth.  I’m enjoying breakfast out with my daughter, am I to be a prisoner at Penmorrow?” I huff irritably.  Scarlett fidgets on her chair, nervously but doesn’t reply.