1. Mr. Whitlock
How do you help yourself when you don't realize what you're doing wrong?
I never knew that half of what I did was bad, frowned upon or anything of the variety. No one told all just whispered as I walked past in my thigh high boots and mini skirt saying what a whore I am and how I should be avoided.
Probably true, except the whore part, you can't be a virginal whore.
I suppose with no other frame of reference I always assumed what the girls on TV were doing and wearing was acceptable. Apparently it's not.
Most girls have a mother or a protective father, someone to yell. "Young lady, you are not going out in that." when you come down the stairs with a pair of Jimmy Choo's and a skin tight dress as the only things covering your genitals from the world.
My mother died having me and my father went back to work three days after I was born. As soon as he could find a nanny willing to care for a newborn. I never called him daddy, it was always Bryce. He said that if I wanted to be spoken to correctly that I would act like an adult, otherwise he would just coo nonsensical words at me. I was three when I was told that.
Once a week I get given two thousand dollars to entertain myself and having never had anyone to tell me to be frugal with my money or to perhaps save in case of an accident, I usually bought whatever was the latest thing going around then discarded it a week later.
Spoilt? Hardly. I'm more neglected then spoilt. My nanny was a Vietnamese woman who only said three words in English. "Rosa-wee" and "Where woo?".
Expensive schools never interested me, sure, I was relatively smart, I had to be to live. How that woman never poisoned me as a baby I'll never know but I did live. But once I picked up the gist of what that dumbass teached was jabbering on about I really had nothing else to do.
I didn't socialize well so I didn't bother even trying, probably something to do with the fact that I was around adults my entire life. I never even saw another child till I went to school, I just assumed I was some oddity that was shorter than the rest of humanity. I was not aware that their were others like me, slowly growing.
My first and only friend stopped talking to me because I asked her what happened to her legs and why her arms were so small. I didn't understand the concept of needing to grow to become like the adults.
Her mother said I was a horrible girl and of course I believed her.
That mightn't have been such a bad thing if I hadn't taken her literally. She said I was horrible so I put all my five year old efforts into being really good at being horrible. If I was horrible I was going to do it properly, be good at what I did. I watched TV, my educator, when ever someone said that a person was horrible I made a note that I should do that. It was the best way to become what the woman had said.
The teacher never understood why I started biting everyone who pissed me off. Someone tried to take my cookie at lunch so I whacked her in the face with my lunch tray, it was the only rational thing to do.
In sixth grade this boy, Trey I think his name was, said I hot. I naturally went home and Googled hot. Up popped pictures of scantily clothed women and buff, well muscled men. They were hot. Ok, if I was horrible and hot then I would be both. I wore shorter skirts, tighter shirts, higher heels and more make-up. I was going to do hot well.
After the lunch tray incident I was banned from all private schools in the state so I went to a nice public school where there were metal detectors inside the doors, huge fences topped with barbed wire and a nail file was a weapon.
My first day back at school after my boning up on hot was quite eventful. I walked into the classroom, all of eleven years old. Two inch heels, tartan mini skirt that was very popular on the websites, a white shirt tied around my stomach and two socks down the front of my bra seeing as I didn't properly fill an A-cup at that stage. The teacher didn't know what to say. I sat down at my desk and waited for him to start teaching the class but it seemed all he could do was stare at my pre-teen thighs.
I think he might be a paedophile.
When he took me down to the office and they called my father, he said he was busy in a meeting and asked one of the office women to find me something regulatory to wear. Out of the lost and found I was placed in a too-big pair of boys pants and a black shirt that had a picture of an apple on the front.
This was definitely not hot.
By the time I reached high school I was a horrible, hot, slut with an attitude problem that needed readjusting and just recently I'd been labeled a whore. I didn't know how to better myself at that without cancelling out the other ones.
You can't be a slut if you ask people to pay for it. Maybe I could be a cheap whore.
For Halloween, most girls dressed up, I just walked to the door in Victoria's Secret lingere and a robe, opened it and asked for the candy. I either got called a whore, which I was working on, or I got the entire bowl tipped into my bag. It was a good year.
"Hey, Slutalie." A guy called behind me. I turned on my toes and faced him.
"What can I do for you?" I asked, one hand on my hip.
"You can open your mouth and bounce it up and down a few times on the one-eyed snake." he answered, his friends laughing behind him.
"That's what you want from me?" I asked, raising my eyebrows.
"What else?" he asked, shrugging.
I walked forward, sexy smile on my face as I closed the distance. He looked back over his shoulder and smiled to his friends as I drew closer. I stopped a few inches away from the boy who's name I couldn't remember.
"What's in it for me?" I murmured.
"A protein shake and some deep throating practice." he laughed. I smiled as if that appealed to me and reached my hand slowly forward. I'd had this happen before, they're all talk. I grasped his flacid penis through his jeans and gave it a small squeeze, a pleasurable one that wiped the smile off his face.
"Oooh, sorry, I don't blow mini gerkins." I smiled apologetically and turned back around. Leaving him to deal with his friends who were now all under the impression that he had a two inch penis. It wasn't really that small but now he'd always question the size of his dick because that girl in high school said it was small. Oh well, there's the horrible coming through.
I walked into my last class before lunch and took my seat, swinging my legs up onto the vacant chair beside me as the classroom filled with my fellow students.
"Alright, alright, I know we're all very excited to be learning but could I have some quiet please?" Mr. Malloy asked. He was a relatively relaxed guy, early fourties, slightly grey at the temples on his otherwise blonde hair. "Miss Hale, feet off the seat." he said without looking up to check. I always did it and he always told me off. I don't think his day would be complete without saying those words. So I let him, just a little free service I throw in.
Mr. Malloy started babbling away about some shit, I looked at the book, saw a blown up picture of some bug and tuned out. I have no interest in getting into anything to do with insects so he can stick this lesson up his rear.
A knock at the door had my attention, anything that didn't have six legs had my attention. Before Mr. Malloy could respond the door banged open and in walked sex on a stick in a leather jacket and light blue jeans.
I almost passed out.
"Excuse me!" The somewhat startled teached said.
"Where are you going? I just got here." The mystery man said, his sunglasses were extremely dark, hiding his eyes but the blonde hair with what looked to be natural brown highlights hinted that his eyes were probably blue.
"Nowhere... um, who are you?" Mr. Malloy asked, putting down his whiteboard marker. Every head in the room was turned to our visitor, I assume anyway, I couldn't look away long enough to check.
"Your new student." he answered sarcastically, handing the piece of paper he was holding to the dumbstuck teacher before turning to look at the class. "Hey boys and girls." he waved. Confidence fucking personified. One more word and I'd come in my seat.
"Well Mr. Whitlock, welcome, please take an empty seat and take off the sunglasses." Mr. Malloy started hastily writing on the slip as he spoke, returning it to Mr. Whitlock before he walked off down the center aisle. He took the last empty desk right in the middle of the back row, dumping his books on the table before sitting down, looking totally comfortable instantly.
"I do believe the teacher is at the other side of the classroom but it's nice to see you guys too. I love you all already." He waved to the front of the classroom, everyone had turned to watch him walk to his desk.
"Ahem!" Mr. Malloy cleared his throat. All twenty-five heads snapped back to the front as if electrocuted. I'm sure they were just embarassed to have been caught staring. "Mr. Whitlock, the sunglasses."
"Oh, no can do. Severe light sensitivity, I have a note from my optimologist and your local doctor in case you don't trust people you've never met." He whipped out two pieces of paper and held them out in offering.
"Oh, well no problem. Don't let me catch the rest of you wearing sunglasses in class unless you too have a medical condition." He moved his eyes over the class in a warning look then turned back around and continued the lesson. I could hear everyone shuffling in their seats, trying to get a glance at our new classmate.
I resisted, he was just some insanely gorgeous guy who would no doubt start calling me a slut soon enough. I spent the entire class with a piece of paper on my tongue, trying to wet it enough to make it disintergrate in my mouth.
The bell rang and we all filed out of the room, Mr. Whitlock staying behind for some reason, not even attempting to move.
I took my usual table in the back right-hand corner with my lunch, a rather interesting blend of cuss-cuss and chicken in a white gluggy sauce. Yum.
The table jarred all of a sudden and when I looked up I almost choked on my own spit. There it was! The leather clad definition of unstimulated orgasm.
"Hey, so what's your deal?" he asked, no preliminaries, not "My first name is...."
"What?" I frowned, putting down my fork.
"Are you some kind of freak or something? Everyone in that class stared at me like a science experiment and you just lost interest when I sat down and then you started... eating paper." He smirked and his light eyebrows pulled together over the black sunglasses.
"I wasn't... eating, um..." What the fuck is going on? I steadied myself before I continued. "I wasn't eating it. Why would I stare?"
"Oh, I don't know, because I'm something new to look at and relatively breathtaking." He smiled slightly, his white teeth peeking between his full pink lips.
"Modest huh?" I laughed nervously.
"Not really," he shrugged. "Are you too good for me or something?"
"I'm sorry-"
"For what?" he cut in.
"Who the hell are you?" I asked, finally saying what I was wondering about for the whole forty-five seconds of this bombarding.
He laughed once and held out his right hand. "Everyone calls me Jay, if you get to be a good enough friend I'll tell you the full name. Or you could just break into the school records."
I shook his hand hesitantly, noting the soft skin despite the callus's on his palms. "Rosalie, that's my full name." I pulled my hand away, mentally debating whether to wash it ever again or just use it to pleasure myself for the rest of eternity.
"Well Miss Give-Everything-Away-At-Once, do you not find me interesting?" He took my bottle of lemonade and unscrewed the lid. "You don't have herpes do you?"
I shook my head. "No."
"Cool." He took a swig and put the lid back on, pushing it back beside my tray.
I could feel every pair of eyes in the place on me, the weird-ass girl with no social skills, sharing a drink with the new hottie.
"Don't look at them, it's rude when I'm talking to you." He snapped his fingers to regain my attention.
"Um," I looked back and swallowed hard. "I don't know you to find you interesting." To find you stroke causingly attractive I just have to look in your direction.
"Would you like to?" he asked, his eyebrows raising over the dark lenses.
"Not really, I don't do human contact." I answered before I could think it through.
He paused, not expecting that, lost for words. "Okay, well I'll leave you as you were then. See ya, Rosalie." He got up and left as quickly as he arrived.
I had to remind myself to breathe. "What the fuck?" I questioned out loud.
I spent the rest of lunch pondering my every breath, every word that transfered between us, the way he'd just appeared and then disappeared in a moment.
The next two classes were a blur, I didn't see him for the rest of the day or in the parking lot after school. Had he gotten out here and left before me? Was someone else driving him, in a car I wouldn't not recognise so I could peg it as his?
"Rosa-wee! Where woo been?" Min Lin knocked on the window of the car, apparently I'd driven myself home without crashing or watching where I was driving. Huh, she learnt another word, good for her.
"School, where I always go from Monday through Friday." I rolled my eyes and turned off the engine.
"Rosa-wee..." And then she started jabbering away in Vietnamese.
"Ah huh." I nodded. I got out of the car and walked inside, up to my room where I promptly slammed the door in her face. Not that she shut the fuck up or anything.
"I like her." A voice said behind me. I spun around and sucked in a nice breath to scream with but a hand clamped over my mouth. "Jesus girl, freak out much?"
I noticed the sunglasses first, then the hair.
"Wha da fut argh youph doing 'ere?" I asked, my voice mumbled by his soft, lotion scented hand. Not lotion, it wasn't floral or feminine, moisturizing soap?
"Your house keeper let me in, seemed quite pleased that someone other than your father and yourself was here. Extremely pleased when I could speak Vietnamese. Can I take my hand off your mouth now, it's getting quite wet." he asked.
"Ah huh." I nodded slightly.
His hand went away from my face and he wiped it on his jeans. "She took the time to show me your bare behind when you were a baby. Taking special care to point out the fact you have the same shaped ass as your father."
"Well as disturbing as that is it still doesn't explain what you're doing here or how you knew where I live." I glared up at his shaded eyes, he smirked at me and shrugged.
"I don't have a problem rifling through school records. I figured you'd want to apologise so I'd give you that chance." He took a step back and folded his leather covered arms.
"Well you took the initiative for no reason, I don't want to apologise for telling the truth. I don't do well with people and I don't want to know more about you. If I did, I'd hire a private investigator." I walked over to my bed, knowing I had pepper spray in the top draw that I could pull out easily if he tried anything less than innocent.
"You've got a bit of an attitude, don't you?" He smiled as if that were funny.
I rolled my eyes and shrugged. "I guess."
"So you don't want to apologise?"
"No."
"You're rude."
I scoffed and shook my head. "This coming from the person who shows up unannounced and uninvited then enters a persons bedroom rather than staying in public areas of the house."
We stayed silent for a minute or so till he sighed and unfolded his arms. "I suppose that was rude, I apologise. Do you accept?"
I shrugged. "So long as there won't be a repeat offense." I nodded, accepting his apology. "What's your name again? I can only remember your last name."
"Jay." he smirked.
"Just one letter?" I asked, raising my eyebrow in slight amusement. He has no name, just a letter.
"Well no, I spell it J A Y so... it's just a nickname like I said before." he reminded me of our hasty first conversation. Not that it had been off my mind for the past two and a half hours.
"Hmmm." I nodded with pursed lips. "So is that all?" I asked, looking back up to the black glasses hiding his eyes. Is he really light sensitive?
"So ready to get rid of me." he mused. "Well I guess so, see ya, Rosalie." he waved his hand deliberately then walked over to the door.
"Wait!" I stood up, preparing to go after him for some reason I didn't understand.
He didn't turn around or take his hand off the doorknob. "Yeah?"
"Why do you wear those inside? The sunglasses?" I asked, my voice timid.
He dropped his head forward just fraction and opened the door. "For a reason I guess you'll never know. Laters."
He walked out before I could work up a response.
I ran my fingers through my hair and sat back on the bed. "What the fuck?" I repeated for the second time after he'd left in one day.
***
"Good evening, Bryce." I smiled as I walked into my fathers study, attached to the side of his bedroom with two doors leading to the hall and his room.
"How was your day?" he asked, smiling a fraction as he looked up from his work. He was always working, all day at the office then half the night at home.
"Tolerable." I shrugged, taking a seat on one of the overstuffed chairs opposite him. "Yours?"
"Busy. So do you need my signature for something?" he asked, still looking over papers in front of him then up to the computer screen after writing something every few seconds.
"No, just wanted to make sure you're okay." I explained my presence. I pulled my feet up onto the chair and leant over the arm partially till I wasn't leaning on any hard bits.
"Why wouldn't I be?" He frowned, perplexed.
"It's a figure of speech, I was making sure you're here, safe, well, you're my father, I care." I took a deep breath. How I managed to communicate so well with a non-english speaking nanny and an absent father I'll never know. It's amazing I speak english at all.
"Well I appreciate your concern. Yes, I'm fine. You're alright I trust?" he glanced up, taking in my appearance and looked back down once more when he didn't see anything wrong with me.
"Same as usual." I nodded. "Should I have learnt Vietnamese? To be able to speak to Min Lin, I never picked it up oddly enough. She let a stranger in today because he was able to talk to her."
"She did what?" He looked up with a start. "A stranger?"
"Well I go to school with him, I guess." I tried feebly to explain, not wanting the psychotic woman fired after all this time.
"You guess?" he put down him pen and stood.
"I do, I just don't know him very well. He came over to speak to me." I put my feet down in case I had to chase him through the house while he looked for Min Lin.
"And she just let him in?" he frowned.
"I gather he explained the connection to her." I shrugged, trying to calm him with my front of indifference.
I pulled my feet back up in an attempt to look like I was settling back in, it worked some because after a moment he sat again.
"I'll have a very strong word with her later. And no, you shouldn't need to speak with the help. It's my job to handle them." he picked up his pen again, another sign he'd relaxed a bit.
"Please don't fire her, Bryce. I've become somewhat attached to the crazy little thing." I requested with a hint of playfullness.
"I don't intend on firing her." He reassured me. "Just making the rules of the house a little clearer."
"Okay." I nodded. "May I ask for something?"
"Of course." he nodded, now engrossed in his work again.
"Do I have to call you by your first name? It makes me feel like I don't actually have a parent." I looked down to avoid seeing the look he probably had.
"I'm your father no matter what, why would you want to call me juvenile parental titles?" he asked.
"I don't know, it's just strange, hearing everyone else call their parents mom and dad even when they're my age and I can't." I fidgeted nervously in the seat, twisting my fingers around each other.
"Don't children now days call their parents by their first names as an act of rebellion? I would think you'd be comfortable with it by now. But, I suppose if it would please you, you can call me dad." he agreed, his voice lighter.
"I rebel in other ways, more discreet. Like the tattoo on my ass that says 'Bitch'." I joked lightly.
"You would show some strange man your ass so he can repeatedly stab you with a needle? Well if you can do that then enjoy your strange way of defying me." He smiled the same half smile as before.
"Well it's no fun if you're not mad." I scoffed.
"That would be why I didn't get angry, I can take the point and fun out of it with my reaction and your left with a profanity on your behind." he looked up at me, his eyes a little creased in the corners in a rare smile, a full one.
"Lucky me." I chuckled softly.
"Yes... Look, Rosalie, I don't mean to push you away but I have to do this before morning and I would like a few hours sleep." he looked up with an apologetic expression.
"No no, it's fine. It was nice talking to you, dad." I watched his reaction carefully but he didn't falter.
"Goodnight, Rosalie."
"Night." I smiled, stepping up and walking back out into the hall.
I walked back down to my bedroom and climbed into bed, lying flat on my back on the soft mattress, swathed in expensive linen. I still didn't feel comfortable for some reason, something bugged me, something about Shades─as I'd come to think of him throughout my obsessing today, that and I couldn't remember his name/letter without deliberately thinking about it─was bugging me. What was making it worse was the fact I couldn't figure out what that was. I fell asleep after about thirty minutes of making my head hurt trying to figure out what made me so enamoured with him.
Reviews are like Shades in a leather jacket, completely mouthwatering...