The Gamble

I didn’t catch a glimpse at the time so I asked, “What time is it now?”

“Six thirty.”

I felt my eyes get wide and my body jerked. “Oh no! I have to start getting ready!”

I tried to pull out of his arms but this not only didn’t work, he rolled again, this time into me so he was mostly on me.

Then he shoved his face in my neck and announced, “They don’t get fancy Nina.”

Then I felt his tongue where his gravel-voiced words just sounded and goose bumps came up on my skin.

“Max, everyone gets fancy Nina,” I informed him, ignoring the goose bumps. “I am fancy Nina.”

His hands started moving on my body and his lips slid up to my ear. “They can get wet-haired, makeup free Nina.”

I gasped, not in shock at his words, in something else when his fingers curled around my breast.

“Max –”

His mouth came to mine. “Shut up, baby, and kiss me.”

“Max –”

His thumb swiped my nipple and he repeated his demand, “Kiss me.”

His thumb swiped back and I did what I was told.

* * * * *

“Nina, Jesus, babe, get a move on!” Max shouted from downstairs.

“Be right down!” I shouted back and I looked at myself in the mirror above the bathroom basin.

Getting ready, I noticed that bruises had risen around the scrapes on my leg and it ached in a dull way. That was the bad news.

But the good news was, no one could see that with my jeans on and the bruise on my cheekbone was mostly faded and light makeup covered it completely. This was good because I didn’t want Niles to see the bruise and jump to the same conclusions Dad did.

I grabbed my empty coffee mug which had been filled and brought up to me by Max. This was after Max had made love to me (again), slower this time and with nothing between us which, even for me, felt better. Then Max went downstairs, made coffee, came back, we had a shower (together again), he’d gone back downstairs, brought up two full mugs and shaved, wearing nothing but a pair of jeans while I stood at his side putting on my makeup. I found, although it was single basin sink, the counter was wide as was the mirror so dual occupancy was quite comfortable. Not to mention nice.

Especially when I could see Max’s chest in the mirror and right beside me.

Ready well before me, he’d left to do Max things which I discovered, when I’d left the bathroom to go get my clothes, didn’t include making the bed. But on the way back to the bathroom when I looked out the windows, I noted it did include shoveling the steps to the house. So I made the bed, got dressed and did my hair.

Max could be dictatorial or, I should say, just plain was but I was ignoring his wet-hair, makeup-free edict. As ever, “fancy Nina” would be in attendance at the breakfast meeting that day. This was habit but it was also the fact that I was confronting my Dad and I needed fancy Nina. Fancy Nina didn’t take anything from anyone (anymore). I’d never tried out wet hair, makeup free Nina. There was no telling what she’d do. She might be a wimp, who knew?

So I’d put on a designer sweater I’d bought at Harvey Nichols. Full price, it was a small fortune but it had a snag so it had been marked down and then put on sale (and I had a friend who was a dab hand at knitting so she fixed it and you couldn’t even tell). It was a soft taupe with a hint of rose, loose-weave and a bit see-through. It had long, wide sleeves, a deep vee neck that showed serious cle**age and a fair amount of chest thus it necessitated a camisole. Therefore I wore a fitted white one under it which only seemed to pronounce the cle**age. I also wore my Colorado adventure jeans, my high-heeled tan boots and the silver earrings and matching ring Max bought me. In fact, I’d never taken Max’s ring off.

I walked into the bedroom and saw it was two after eight. It took fifteen minutes at least to get to town. We were going to be late.

Normally this would put me in a panic. I didn’t like to be late nor did I like it when others were late, late was the worst, unforgivably rude. But since this was my Dad and he was a jerk, I didn’t much care. Though, to be fair, it wasn’t nice to make Niles wait however, to be unfair, I wondered if he’d even notice.

I scurried to my suitcase and gathered some clothes for the laundry, lights but I didn’t have enough so I opened the walk-in closet and found a massive pile of Max’s dirty clothes strewn all over the closet floor.

I stared at the mess, deciding he seriously needed a hamper.

I picked through them, finding not many lights so I gave up on the lights, dumping them in a tidy-ish pile in the closet. I grabbed some darks, Max had loads of darks, going back to my suitcase to get my own.

“Nina!” Max shouted.

“Coming!” I shouted back and rushed to the stairs.

I went directly to the back room, shoved in the clothes, measured in soap, turned on the washer and heard voices.

I walked out, still carrying my empty coffee mug and turned the corner to see Max in the kitchen, talking to a plump, petite woman with mouse brown hair which I decided in an instant would look fabulous with highlights.

I walked toward them, my heels sounding on the wood floors and Max’s eyes came to me then they dropped to my cle**age and stayed there. I ignored Max and looked into the warm, brown eyes of the woman to see she was smiling at me

“Hi,” I said.

“Hiya,” she said back.

“Babe, this is Caroline, Caroline, you’ll probably remember Nina,” Max introduced.

“Hi Caroline.”

“So cool to meet you!” she exclaimed. “Last week, you were o-u-t, out. Never seen anyone that out and my kids get sick all the time. You even slept through me vacuuming, not just down here but the rug under the bed.” I stared at her in horror when she informed me of this tidbit but she just kept talking. “Good to see you’re feelin’ better.” I’d hit the mouth of the U of the kitchen and once I did I lifted my hand to pull my hair away from my face to hide my embarrassment that she’d vacuumed around a bed I’d been o-u-t out in, opened my mouth to say something but her eyes zeroed in on my hand and she cried, “Oh my God! You have Jenna’s ring!”

Before I could react, she rushed forward and grabbed my hand, pulling it down and yanking it to her.

“Um…” I muttered, her head snapped up from her study of my ring and I saw she was wearing no makeup and she had the most beautiful peaches and cream skin I’d seen in my life.

“Jenna only makes these special and they cost a fortune!” Caroline cried out this information in an excited tizzy. “She says it’s ‘cause they’re a pain in the ass to make, seein’ as they’re rings and all. They cost more than the earrings which are a whack. I don’t get it, it’s less silver but what do I know? I’m no jewelry designer,” Caroline told me.