3.
~ Ariadne couldn't sleep. Something she couldn't put a name to was clouding her mind, and she couldn't seem to shake it off.
She rolled over and looked at her daughter in bed with her.
Olivia was sleeping the untroubled sleep of youth. She didn't know, understand or care about the wedding tomorrow. She couldn't be made to know that Arthur had taken care of them beyond the grave.
Ariadne let out a deep sigh and wished Arthur was there.
She wanted someone rational to talk to. Someone who knew just the right things to say. Arthur was always rational, but seldom knew the exact comforting words to give her. Still, she missed the sounds of his voice. How reassuring he could be. How safe she always felt with him.
Fredrick was a nice man, but he never made her heart flutter like Arthur always did. With Arthur, she never knew if she was mad at him, or madly in love with him.
On a more primal level, she missed the feel of her husband next to her and know Fredrick could never take his place.
Ariadne decided to abandon sleep. She put Olivia in her crib and took a walk.
~ It was late, past midnight, and the house was still.
She had never roamed the house all alone in the dead of night before. As this was her last night at Blue Rivers, she soaked up every historical detail.
After wandering the grand halls, her feet took her to the conservatory. There were only so many haunts she favored, and the conservatory was her favorite.
She saw the glassed room was not dark and empty however. A dull light was coming in through the stained glass doors.
On silent feet, she stole into the conservatory and spied Eames typing.
Her friend was more proficient on the typewriter than she was. His fingers punched each key in a nice steady rhythm that sounded like horses trotting on the streets.
He was immersed in whatever world he was creating and she didn't want to disturb him. She knew one sound from her would make his world collapse; like being woken from a beautiful dream.
Finally, he stopped, looked over his work and ripped it out of the typewriter. He crumbled it up and tossed it away.
"Still having trouble writing?" Ariadne asked.
Eames didn't seem shocked to have her suddenly there. He barely turned around to see her.
"Some what." he said dully.
He placed a new clean sheet of paper in the roller and started over.
"Shouldn't you be sleeping? You've a big day tomorrow." he said. "Not everyday a girl marries her price charming."
"I couldn't sleep." Ariadne explained. "Did Cobb tell you? About the money?"
"About how Arthur's money is not apart of Blue Rivers estate? Yes, he told me. Charlotte took it the hardest. She was gone before dinner." Eames laughed.
"I'm sorry." Ariadne whispered.
"I'm not. She's a horrible woman." he said and leaned back in his chair.
"But you liked her. I mean, you were going to marry her." Ariadne said and took the chair next to him.
"I only got engaged to her to make you mad. Because you're marrying Fredrick." he said with an exhausted sigh.
"Oh." she whispered.
They said nothing as Eames tried to re-group his writing.
"Will you move to London? While he's in the war?" Eames asked.
"It's what Fredrick wants me to do. He made it very clear my job was to take care of his son while he's gone and to look after him if he dies." Ariadne said sadly.
Eames nodded.
"I see." he said.
"You do?" she asked.
"It's not the first time a man has married you for convenience. You should be used to it by now."
"I thought he liked me." she said. Full of her own self pity.
"I'm sure he does, but practicality will out." Eames said and didn't look at her.
"I want him to marry me because he loves me."
"Then don't marry him. Stay here." Eames said.
She gave him a laugh.
"Your mother and Lady Percy don't want me here." she told them.
"They don't even want me here, if you want to know the truth. They want their living conditions safe guarded. That's all they care about." Eames said. "They want you and Olivia to stay and Harold to if it will mean the money stays."
Ariadne let out a sigh as she noticed Eames' eyes were blood shot. She looked over the little table and saw the crystal decanter from the library, normally filled with some kind of vile liquor, was almost gone.
"Have you been up all night drinking?" she asked.
"You have no business asking me that. You're not my wife." Eames snarled.
"I thought, after you drank yourself nearly dead, you gave it up." Ariadne said.
Eames shook his head.
"My bride left me, I'm going to war in a few days, my family home is no longer secured and the one woman I love is marrying a man who doesn't love her and needs her only as a live in governess." he growled. "It's an excellent time to drink."
"Eames." she whispered.
"We could leave." he said suddenly. His face and voice changing to an almost child like hopefulness. "We could leave tonight. Take the car, drive to London. Go to America and live free. Change our names even. You have your money, we would be free of all our obligations."
"Eames, I've told you before." Ariadne said with difficulty. "I don't love you."
Eames let out a laugh.
"You're right. You can do better than me." he said soberly.
He looked at his type writer.
"You know something admirable about Charlotte? One thing I did like about her?" he asked.
Ariadne sniffed slightly and shook her head.
"She wasn't a tease. She knew what she wanted and went after it. She wasn't a coward, like you." he said bitterly.
She looked up at him. The look of hurt on her face so plain Eames sat back a little.
"You know what we did while we were alone in the library? Hmm? Very imaginative and degenerate things, darling. She didn't push me away with one hand while pulling me closer with the other. She knew she wanted my fortune, to be mistress of Blue Rivers, so she was quick to undo my pants and-".
"Stop it!" Ariadne cried and stood up.
She brushed the tears off her face.
"You have no self respect. Why would you tell me such lies? To hurt me for marrying Fredrick?" she cried.
"They're not lies." Eames said and helped himself to another drink. "I want you to know I pretended it was you the whole time she was sucking on me. It's important for you to know that."
"I don't want to know that! I don't' care!" Ariadne shouted at him.
Like a light switching on, Eames was a different person.
In one graceful movement, the crystal decanter was in his hand and over his head, smashing the expensive glass wear to the floor with the force his whole body.
Ariadne screamed from the shock of it.
"You should care!" he growled as he marched to her. His shoes treading on the glass. "You should care about a man who actually loves you! I'm not a man who marries a woman because it's convenient. I'm a man who marries for love. But you don't care about that, you heartless bitch!"
He grabbed her with a force she had never known before. His hands stronger than she thought possible as she felt her wrist almost break from the force of his hold.
"Eames let me go!" she cried feebly as he forced her across the room to their sitting area.
His body was like a rock, and she wasn't strong enough to break free as he pushed and almost dragged her to the sofa.
"All I ever wanted was to love you." he growled as she tripped and almost fell to the floor. Eames' strong body picking her up and she cried out at the roughness of it.
"Ow! Eames!" she screamed as he shoved her to the sofa.
"When Arthur died, I was glad." he hissed as he pinned down her arm. Her body was forced to lay half on and half off the sofa with no ability to move or escape.
"Eames!" Let me go! You're hurting me!" she cried as she tried to push him off.
"I though, I'll have the woman I love. I'll finally have her. We can be a family. We can live the life I've always wanted. But you..." he snarled like some kind of beast. "You wouldn't have that. I'm not good enough for you. So instead, you tormented me, you teased me with what I can't have."
"Eames!" she screamed as he roughly held her in place.
'Oh God.' she realized. 'It's going to happen. He's going to do this.'
The idea came on her very suddenly that her best friend was going to force himself on her. She could see it in his eyes, he was holding her down and justifying raping her.
She had no idea why she was so calm. Why her breathing slowed as he he held her arms down with both hands.
She wasn't crying anymore. Wasn't fighting back. She could smell his drink on his breath as he kissed her and his hands went to her night dress.
The fabric tore effortlessly in his hands and he once more exposed her breasts.
"Who are you to tell me what I can't have?" he whispered as he held her hands down and his lips touched her nipple again.
It was like it was happening in slow motion.
The opportunity was so perfect, she seized it.
Eames was relaxed and unguarded, his hands holding her down. He had thought she had given up the fight and he wasn't looking for her resist him anymore.
Her leg shifted and she aimed her foot at his groin.
She kicked him as hard as if she meant to knock his manhood right off his body.
Eames immediately closed his body up like a frightened turtle.
He gave out a loud grunt and let her go.
Ariadne we scared. She had angered him now. Would he get up and hurt her? He was so much stronger than she was and now he was angry. He would recover and come after her now that she had hurt him.
Maybe she should have just let it happen.
As she crawled away from him and managed to cover her chest, she saw he wasn't in any condition to hurt her again.
He was breathing hard and his hands were covering the tender spot where she had kicked him.
Tears were streaming down his flushed face.
She suddenly felt victorious. She had won.
"Tell me again how you love me!" she taunted him as she realized she was also crying.
"Ari-" he gasped as he couldn't seem to fight the waves of pain coming from her kick.
"Tell me again how much you love me! Show me how you love me by forcing yourself on me! Trying to seduce me while my husband was still alive! That's how you love women, isn't it? I'm marring Fredrick tomorrow and I will never come to Blue River again!" she screamed.
Her rage felt like there was glass in her blood. She stood, gave the wounded man a good kick in his back, and made to leave to conservatory.
She spotted his precious typewriter on the table and, in a fleeting moment of revenge and power, she picked up the heavy "portable" device and heaved it to the floor.
It's bell gave a defeated chime as it broke next to the smashed crystal.
"Ariadne!" Eames growled from his fetal position on the floor. "Please!"
"Go to hell!" she snarled back at him. "Go to war, and never come back!"
Bad News Kids! Hate to leave you on a cliff hanger, but I don't know for sure when I'll be able to update. My computer, which I love more then anything in the world aside from my iPad and my iPod, just CRASHED. I think it was a virus and when I went to stat it in safe mode, it didn't go away.
Best case, I can have it fixed by Monday. Wost case, I may have to buy a new computer. I don't think that will happen, but I've been wanting a Mac anyway.
SOOOO, what that means for us is that I will have to try and write and post as best I can on my iPad. I have a special key pad for it. BUT it's kinda a complicated thing to do on my iPad and I've never done it before.
It's frustrating cuz, like many of us, my computer is the only thing I use. EVER. I watch movies and TV on it and write and when it's down, even tough I have computer access and netflix access on my iPad, it's still horriable!
So, if I can't update soon, this is why.
I hope they can fix it and I don't lose any data. I have almost two years worth of writing on my computer. I'm just glad I uploaded this chapter before the thing happened.