Falling Slave to Lust

A Story by Jodelle

A short story about Connor who dreams for a life he believes he deserves with his girlfriend Holly but gets more than he's bargained for.

“Redington Road?”

I try to swallow the words that throw me off balance. One of the most prestigious streets in London and all I can do is clench at the steering wheel and gaze into the porcelain clouds.

I've been trying to persuade Holly to move to the street ever since we graduated. I prized on telling her who our neighbours would be, who’s famous brat our children would be sitting next to in the elite prep’s nearby and shopping for groceries at Waitrose, the ultimate dream come true.

“It’s not a practical choice right now Connor,” groaned Holly, as she threw her briefcase into the sofa of our ‘cosy’, one bedroom apartment.

“It will be practical Holly! You've got to think about our future, think about it. If I get my big break at Tesco’s we won’t even have to worry about practicalities!”

“You've only managed to get the appointment, you haven’t even built the bloody product.”

The evening was still warm and the high street was noisy with crowds on every corner. Every Crouch End local was looking forward to the street carnival exploding on Saturday, everyone apart from us.

“See! We don’t get noise like this in Hampstead!” I swing my hands in the direction of the sounds of animals roaming free from their escape from the zoo. “If I get time between the driving and actually getting some proper sleep then maybe I will, just at least look at this Holly. Five bedrooms, three are en-suite in a gated development with a double garage and half an acre of greenery at the back! There’s even space for a chicken hut!” I pulled the brochure out right into her face and re-read the information without even glancing at it.

“We just can’t afford it Connor and anyway what about my work? Hampstead is just too far from Highbury, and why on earth do we need five bedrooms? It’s just me and you! Did you even make any dinner?” She pushed the paper out of her face and swung the cupboards open, blowing my dreams into the humid air.

Our arguing isn't the only irritating thing about the situation. We live above a busy, traditional Turkish restaurant. This means fairly jolly raucous music blasting into our living room; the bass rearranging our furniture and droning out the TV which we've sold now since there’s more entertainment outside like the Turkish Eastenders. At the back into our bedrooms; volumes of Turkish swear words, clambering pots and china meshed into one and the smell of fragrant Turkish delicacies seep through the floorboards. The situation isn't fairly easy, particularly today as my journey takes me to drive to the best and expensive neighbourhood in the UK.

I look into the rear mirror to see my client and a blonde woman settles herself into the car cuddling her rat-looking pooch and adjusting her oversized sunglasses.

“Are we waiting for something?”

“No! sorry,” back into reality, I push the gear into drive and the BMW glides off into the traffic.

A quarter of a mile down and we are stuck in the school rush. The traffic service on the radio is the only thing that keeps us company.

‘The A14 will be closed from Junction 30 as there was an accident earlier on.’

“Sir?” I only now notice her sweet American accent. I look up into the rear view.

“Is there anything else on the radio we could listen to?”

I can either try to be suave and pick up a more interesting conversation or I can flicker through the stations until an appropriate one became available for her and continue to keep an eye on the road.

“What do you like to listen to?” I call out in a professional tone that I can quiver underneath my nerves.

She raises her eyebrow over her jet black sunnies. It’s hard to tell her reaction to my ice-breaking conversation starter. She purses her lips, which are coated in frosted pink lip-gloss, her lips are stunningly large but it doesn't overtake her oval frame. What am I doing? Concentrate.

I turn my head back to the road and it’s eerily empty. I look in the wing mirror and realise I'm the one creating the traffic. In a state of panic I grip the gear and stamp my foot into the accelerator as hard as I can, thwarting us towards the roundabout ahead. How long were we staring at each other for? It didn't seem too long. I feel light headed and a groaning pain bursts into my abdomen. Either I need the loo or she is making me feel something. S**t.

“Well I do like a bit of…well I'm embarrassed to say” she giggles and it makes me shiver.

“I'm not here to judge, just to drive. What is it? Hip-hop?”

“It is actually,” She takes a breather from her laughing fit and clears her throat in surprise. I try so hard to not look back into the rear mirror to stare at her in case my eyes become glued to her reflection and we crash into the cyclist riding ahead.

I slow down in an attempt take a quick glance at her. Her sunglasses are off. I'm mesmerized by her turquoise gems. Unconsciously, I smile gradually at her and she fans her dark eyelashes slowly in an attempt to return the favour. She catches me off guard. It feels weird to know she’s taken an interest in me. It feels great in fact. She’s giving me all the right signals, raising her eyebrows and putting all that attention to her lips. It feels like a radical moment where my heart has pumped a new sensation of blood into my body, we communicate just by staring at each other. I've forgotten who I am, where I've come from; the son of an ex-army solider and a single parent. The man with a dream to-Smash!

I hit the break and the rat pooch winces at the clutter on the side of the pavement. The car loses control and corners the cyclist and he’s reacts like a beast- roaring and climbing onto the dashboard. I'm unsure whether I've force him to climb onto it but nevertheless it has become part of the bewildering attraction.

The car comes to halt finally and I climb out of the car with a tomato face, ripe and growing into a walking embarrassment, I proceed to apologise. Not until the cyclist throws his fist square into my nose.

He bellows “You f*****g prick! Are you blind! I could sue you!”

His marble fist thwarts me back into the driving seat where the woman gasps in terror. At this moment in time a tomato could not possibly justify the colour of my nose let alone my skin.

“Oh my gawd are you okay?” She covers the rats eyes as if the last couple of scenes were so traumatic they should be censored.

At this point in time a crowd has gathered, a group of teenage twats are goading the cyclist to throw me across the floor WWE style while one of them flicks his phone out to record.

The cyclist on the other hand is enthralled by his audience and decides to grab me from inside the car and smash my body against the bonnet.

“See! You don’t like it do you? Do you know how close you were to me?”

The lads start laughing and more people gather round to watch like an illegal pay-per-view sitting. I can’t bear to think what the woman thinks of me, funnily enough that is the only thing I'm embarrassed about- not that there’s a middle-aged man sitting on my crotch and yelling abuse or the fact that I'm about to become a viral sensation unwittingly. Frankly the only thing I'm worried about is shitting on my bosses BMW.

“Hey! Leave him alone! If ya didn't look like such a twig on the road with your stupid skinny bike we wouldn't crash into you!” A strong but girly voice hails from the back seat. The man hears the sweet sensation, not keeping in mind the insults she’s hurled and clambers back down to the pavement.

“I-I'm sorry, I didn't realise there was a passenger back there.”

“Yes! There was and next time don’t be such a dweeb about it, you've hurt him more than we hurt you and we didn't even hit you pal!” The power in her voice is so demandingly sexy that everyone stares as her lips move, you could mute her voice and be mesmerised at the seductive motions.

I get up, fix my jacket and check in the wing mirror that my nostrils are not streaming blood-too much blood anyway. As I clamber back into the car my nose shoots multiple bursts of pain into my head, making my temples pulsate with a throbbing ache.

“Are you okay?”

“I think I might need paracetamol,” I adjust my tie in the mirror and I quickly glance at her, her sunglasses are back on but I could still sense the empathy in her expression.

“You mean aspirin? I've got some if you want. I get these really bad migraines from time to time.” She scuffles inside her feather bag, the hairs dropping and making a mess everywhere on the carpet. She pulls the last packet and I realise I have no water.

“I'm really sorry but is it okay if I get some water?”

“Sure! No, no problem at all. We can go for something…stronger if that…helps.”

Three and a half wine glasses for her and two bottle’s for me later we’re laughing about the accident. Chuckling as the alcohol invades our veins and gazing at each other at the terrace of a bar. I've always persuaded Holly to go here but she hated the attachments the upmarket place had.

“And so I told Mr Nicholson that as a Lakers fan you've got to go to every game, otherwise your just a sore loser buddy!” We erupt with laughter, me slapping my thigh in pain from my chest gasping for air and her leaning back so far she almost slips and I grab her hand. This is the first time we've touched, her palms are so soft, they almost feel slippery like a bar of soap. Her smell is delicate but strong; from far you wouldn't smell a thing, but if you were lucky enough to get close then you would smell what I'm smelling, something Holly would hate because it was so pricey. I gaze down at her arm and my eyes travel all the way from her shoulder to her eyes mine and I can feel the heat of the magnet weighing us in together.

“You’re pretty strong to catch me,” She lightly squeezes what’s left of my biceps, clears her throat and I make sure she’s settled back into the chair.

“You’re pretty confident to say that to him in front of thousands of Laker fans!” I take a swig of beer to settle my hormones down.

“Well in some situations you gotta say something. Like today with that idiot bike guy, I mean look at me, you don’t expect me to say anything at all, you all expected me to sit there and stay pretty. I was not raised that way.”

“Oh really, your mum was a gangster?”.

She chuckles as she takes her final mouthful of wine, “No, but she controlled a lot of people when I was growing up. I mean my family owned half of Beverly Hills.”

“Why on earth are you here in London when you have beautiful California?”

“Well when my ex-boyfriend moved to London at first I was like ‘I can’t do it.’ Starting fresh is really difficult when your used to going to the same boutiques where people know your name, getting around easier and you guys drive on the right I just couldn't take that at first. But then Tony was telling me I gotta stop being stuck in my own ways. I gotta stop being an American a*****e and leave the tradition behind.”

At the corner of my eyes strolls a Romanian woman with a bouquet of roses, plenty are wilted and the petals drop as she walks towards us.

“Please, rose for your wife?” She yelps and bows . Marissa looks at me with the same sympathetic forlorn look the old woman has on her face.

“No, no, no she’s not my wife. But Marissa, would you like a rose?” Marissa was at least 21 or 22. It was the least I could do since she cheered me up, in fact, this is the happiest I have been for a while.

“Aw that is so sweet. I would love a rose.” Clearly she didn't mind her calling us a couple which has given me even more confidence.

I pull a fiver out and question the price, “How much?”

She looks up sternly and says “Rose”.

“No how much?” I smudge the my fingers together to signify the price.

“Rose.”

“Here” I stretch my hand to give the fiver out, she snatches the fiver and hands me the most wilted rose, half of the petals surrounded by us and walks out. We burst into barrels of laughter at the fraudulent exchange.

“I think she knew exactly what she was doing!” Marissa chuckles.

“Yeah me too!”

She overlooks her watch, “Oh my gawd is that the time?” It’s well past ten o'clock which means we've been here for four hours.

“Jesus! I was meant to ring into work to let them know I've dropped you off! I can’t even drive you home I know I've gone over the limit. I'm really sorry, the least I can do is pay for your cab fare home and refun-“

“Stop your waffling, you've done way more than enough tonight. Lucky for me that Redington is only a block away.” I pretend to know what a block is and persuade her that I will walk her home.

We leave the bar, wobbling and still giggling over nothing and the air hits us with a power that makes us feel refreshed and carefree. We start waving to passing cars and making silly faces at the buses that audibly rush by. Every breeze gives us a breath of life.

We turn into the top of Redington Road, which is strange as it turns out to be a hill. As I look overhead the beautiful radiance of Central London in July settles. The sun is sleeping on the pillows of the sky behind the horizon of the BT tower. The leafy green suburbs are ushered by the chimes of tiny birds. Rows and rows of grade I and II listed properties poise proudly as we stroll down the hill, her heels click in unison with mine. This is the perfect scenery but it feels wrong at the pit of my stomach to be here with the wrong woman. Me and Holly should be doing this, walking to our home after a brilliant night where we looked into each other’s eyes and felt exactly how we did years ago.

“It’s so beautiful walking down here,” She gushes.

“I know you lucky people. I've tried to get my girlfriend to come here but I think she’s scared she’s gonna fall in love.”

“Oh..” Her voice lowers. I completely forgot she didn't know about my relationship. Yeah I was lucky to find Holly when I did. It took four long years to fight for her with that excuse of an ex-boyfriend. “She’s a lucky girl. She’s with a guy who has dreams.”

“Well, I’ll give you that, but I'm still just a regular guy with a salary that students would probably turn their nose up at.” I start flicking my foot against stones and litter to distract myself against the burning magnet forcing us in.

“I don’t know about that, you seem so, passionate about your car key holder, its innovative and I think it’ll do really well. It’s like there’s something’s holding you back.” She strokes BamBam my newly found friendly pooch. We look like two stupid kids scared of holding hands let alone talking to each other.

“I don’t even have to tell you. I love Holly, she’s absolutely amazing, but she’s not got the vision like I have, sometimes reality just gets to her.”

We turn right into a sprawling crystal white mansion. Onyx steel gates, a sculptural golden water fountain and a glossy red Ferrari parked right outside the front door.

“I mean it sounds like she doesn't want you to be successful. If my father had the same mentality of your girlfriend I honestly don’t think I would be standing here today.” We come to a halt and she drops BamBam and declares, “Well this is me. Connor I want to thank you so much for today. Please don’t worry about the whole incident, I'm sure your boss will understand.” She strokes her hand on my arm and I can feel every touch through my cardboard shirt that is possibly going to be damp due to the sweat bullets shooting out of my pores.

“Honestly it’s no problem, I just want to make sure you got home safe.” I start to feel her pulse and I can feel the adrenaline surging through her veins.

There is a touch of silence. It feels like it’s only me and her in the entire world. The closer she gets the more familiar the apricot aroma traps me in. I try carefully not to crush her slim frame, and place my hands softly behind her lower back. We hold each other for length of what feels like the whole day. God, she’s irresistible.

She breaks the hug but still stays within a close enough range to kiss. I can’t stop staring at her frosty-pink` lips and she continues to gaze at mine. The strangest thing is there’s no turning back from this. It can’t end here.