The reception.

It took Clarisse an extra hour after she got back from Mia to get ready, I don't know why it takes her so long, she always looks the same. I know I've said this before, but women…

She and I were driven to the docks in a white limousine, which made light work of my masculinity because it had ribbons on the bonnet. Maurice came along with us, he sat on the floor being ignored by Clarisse, who was trying to seduce me. I found it funny that she thinks I'm bad in bed, but she's determined to have sex with me at any cost.

The ride to the docks took twenty minutes and I was relieved when we got out of the car, it meant I had space!

Clarisse took Maurice by his lead and led him up the ramp to the royal yacht, I had to link arms with her to make like we're a happy couple with no problems whatsoever. Nothing could be further from the truth. It was dark by the time we entered the dining hall and everybody had been waiting patiently for us to arrive. Clarisse and I greeted our guests and then walked over to our seats. She made a little speech that went something like, "Greetings dear friends, my new husband Joseph and I are so glad you could all be here this evening to celebrate our marriage. It means so much to us that you could all take the time from your busy schedules and celebrate the joy that is our love. To many of you, the sudden decision to wed came as a great shock, we realise you have many questions to ask and we will answer them all in good time, but tonight is a night for celebration, not interrogation. Will you please raise your glasses and join us in the celebration of the coming together of two unlikely soul mates."

Everybody did as instructed and raised their champagne glasses into the air.

"Oh and if you're prone to seasickness, you may want to exit the vessel within the next ten minutes, as we will soon be setting sail for the night and not returning until morning."

After the crowd started clapping, I leaned close to Clarisse and whispered, "How do you do it?"

Then she asked, "What."

Then I said, "Make up so much bullshit in such a short time."

She discreetly elbowed me (hard) in the stomach, then we all started eating.

After dinner we all went to the outside dance floor to dance under the stars to classical music. A selection of Bach, Mozart and Strauss was played including the first song Clarisse and I ever danced together to, 'The Emperor's Waltz.' When the orchestra decided to take a break, a DJ started up his machine and put on Conga music. There is no doubt in my mind that Clarisse requested it, at every party she holds she starts up a conga line – it's quite amusing and she's always at the front. I quite like conga lines too, because I'm always second in line. I guess she likes a change from her classical music every once in a while, there's no beat to dance to, unlike the conga.

At about twelve I noticed Mia standing alone holding onto the railing and staring at the waves rushing below. She looked sad and upset, I excused myself from Clarisse and walked over to her.

"For somebody who narrowly avoided an arranged marriage today, you certainly don't look happy."

"I'm fine, Joe."

"Why aren't you dancing?"

"Because my feet are tired and there's nobody here I want to dance with."

"Not even your own grandpa?"

"Not now, I have a lot on my mind right now."

I nodded my head and took a wild guess at what she was thinking about, "Nicholas."

Mia closed her eyes, "I haven't seen him since he left the church this afternoon."

"I'm sure he'll come back. A man always returns to the one who holds his heart."

"I feel so guilty for the way I've treated him."

"Don't dwell on it, princess, it's not worth loosing sleep over considering everything will turn out exactly how you hope it will."

"How do you know it will work out?"

I turned around and looked towards a smiling Clarisse, "Because I've been there."

Mia smiled and took my hand, "I think I'll have that dance now."

The princess and I danced together for only two minutes because Clarisse very rudely cut in. I didn't see Mia after that, I think she retreated to her room to write up her diary or something.

The party raged on until I think three in the morning, then everybody except Lord and Lady Devon left the dance floor. Oh and as usual, Sebastian Motaz lay passed out in the middle of the floor – Clarisse really needs to stop having open bars.

On a scale of one to ten, the party rated about seven on my chart, it was enjoyable, but nothing could top the New Year of 2000.

If being Clarisse's escort has taught me anything, it's to know when she's had enough and right then, she looked absolutely exhausted. I took one last sip of the champagne I was drinking and headed over to her, "Let us away, your majesty."

I held out my arm and waited until she took it before slowly leading her up the stairs to our top deck suite. I could tell she'd been drinking a little because she stumbled every now and then, but she wasn't drunk, just a bit tipsy.

She had the biggest smile on her face when I lay her down on the couch, she tried to pull me on top of her but I refused to allow myself to get into that position while she was intoxicated and while I was still a little pissed off at her.

I decided to get a drink for myself and walked over to the liquor cabinet, Clarisse became suspicious, "Alright, what is it?"

"What?"

"Something's wrong, what is it?"

"What makes you think something's wrong?" I asked sarcastically.

She sat up and clasped her hands together on her knees, "Well it's our wedding night, we're all alone in this beautiful suite, the whole country is expecting us to make love, yet you refuse to touch me."

"Have you not been paying attention to me today? I told you I won't touch you until we talk."

"This again…"

"Yes this again! I want to talk to you, hear all about your wonderful life. I want to know what your childhood was like, what your school days were like, what your love-life was like, what you're marriage was like. I want you to tell me things nobody else knows, painful memories, happy memories, things or people who were special to you. For god's sake just tell me something I didn't read on the Genovian Royal Family's website."

Clarisse stood up and held onto the couch to prevent herself from falling over, "Have you ever thought that maybe I want to know more about you? All I know is that you were born in a country I despise, got bullied at school, fought back, slept around with every woman who'd have you and then came to work here. That's not exactly a great deal of knowledge, at least you had a website to work off!"

"I'm willing to share my personal details with you."

She pointed at her chest and practically shouted, "I would be willing if you weren't so damn impatient! I told you to wait until I was ready, I'm not quite there yet."

"Well fine," I said, opening a bottle of whiskey and taking a large gulp, "We'll just keep our personal lives out of this marriage then, shall we?"

I took my bottle and stormed into the bedroom, she didn't follow me, instead she took a shower. I drank very little of the whiskey, I wasn't really in the mood for it, I just wanted something to ease my stress and send me to sleep. It didn't work, I was still wide awake when Clarisse entered the room half an hour later.

She came in quietly, tip-toeing into the room and sliding on a skimpy nightgown. I was faced the other way so I didn't watch her dress, instead I stared wide-eyed out the window. Neither one of us spoke, we just ignored each other as she climbed into bed and lay still, then…

Silence.

Not a sound was to be heard apart from the waves crashing against the yacht and the soft breathing of the woman next to me. I wondered if she was going to speak, it was after all, a time where words were absolutely necessary.

I was almost in the land of nod when she finally started talking, I was dead tired, but I listened.

"I was born Clarisse Moncella Preston, May 27th 1935 in Pyrus, Genovia. I was the first and only daughter of Madeline and Harold Preston, two high court lawyers from the suburbs. We lived at 32 Main Street with our pets Princess, a white cat, and Lucifer, a black Labrador. The earliest and most painful memory of my life was the day I came home from school and discovered my beloved cat was missing. I spent the whole afternoon looking for it, but didn't find it anywhere. When my mother came home from work she told me she'd taken it to the pound, I asked her why and she told me she was sick of finding its white fur on our navy blue lounge suite. She could talk, the bitch used to shed like a Persian."

I turned around to find her lying with her arms tucked behind her head, she smiled.

"On of the happy memories of my childhood was setting her hair on fire, it was like an accidental revenge. You see, one night there was a power outage and we were forced to use candles, when my mother came and tucked me in, I hugged her with the candle still in my hand. The smell was terrible, I was the first to notice it, not that I said anything about it mind you, I just sat in bed and watched fire grow. It spread as fast as lightning on account of the fact she wore so many chemicals in her hair. Screams were heard throughout the whole neighbourhood and panic ensued as she discovered it. I blew out my candle and pulled the doona over my head, giggling softly as I listened to her curse at me from the bathroom. The next morning was very hard for me, I had to keep myself from laughing at her partially bald head, "I'm not going to let you get away with this, Missy," she said, "You're grounded for life."

Then I in my oh so innocent voice said, "But mummy, dearest, it was an accident."

My father was kind enough to stick up for me, I heard them later on that night arguing over me. I started to hate my mother because she always made my father angry, he wasn't intentionally angry at me, but after speaking to her he'd be in a bad mood. I still loved him though, he was my favourite parent by far. Mother wasn't joking when she said I was grounded for life, it lasted well into high school. She would lock me in my room as soon as I got home from school and tell me to study. I wasn't allowed to go out with my friends, I was confined to my bedroom.

Not being able to socialise really took it's toll, nobody wanted to speak to me at school because I was what they called a 'Nerd' or a 'Teacher's pet'. Often at lunchtime I'd sit in the detention room and type up all my extra credit assignments on the typewriter while Mr. Baker dealt with his detention students. I never paid any attention to them, until one of them started paying attention to me. He was an older red-headed boy who seemed to get into trouble everyday, no prizes for guessing as to whom it was."

"Chester," I mumbled.

Clarisse closed her eyes and nodded, "He'd been in detention for a whole week before he started talking to me, he waited until Mr. Baker left, then sat next to me. Our conversation started off by him saying, "What did you do? Must have been something bad."

I stopped my typing and looked at him, "What do you mean?"

"Well you've been here for over a week, you must have done something bad to end up with a detention that lasts for that long."

"On the contrary, I am here of my own free will."

"Nobody comes to detention of their own free will."

"It's not detention, it's study."

He looked at me, disgusted, while I continued typing.

"You can't be serious? What are you? A nerd?"

"Nerd is a term used to describe a capable human being."

"What's your name, nerd?"

"Clarisse Preston."

"I'm Chester."

"I'd like to say it's a pleasure to meet you, but it's not. Why are you in here anyway?"

"I egged the principle's car."

"Why on earth would you do a terrible thing like that? It's vandalism, it's against the law."

"I felt like it."

Mr. Baker came in and Chester moved back to his own seat, thus ending our first conversation. I thought he was so pathetic, not the sort of person I should be talking to, yet the next day he spoke to me again and, well, I spoke back.

"You're in here again?" He asked, "Wouldn't you rather socialise with your friends?"

"I don't have any friends."

"Oh so that's it."

"What?"

"That's why you're in here every day."

I didn't reply.

"I feel sorry for you, you should hang around with me and the guys."

"No thankyou, if it's all the same to you, I'd rather study."

"Right, then I'll just have to deliberately get detention so I can visit you and persuade you to change your mind."

"You wouldn't."

"I would. I don't like seeing beautiful young girls waste away their youth."

I don't know what it was about him calling me beautiful, but I suddenly found myself anxiously awaiting his next detention.

He came in the following day and again waited until the supervising teacher left the room, before sitting next to me, "Hello again."

I stayed quiet and avoided eye-contact with him.

"What are you doing?"

"Extra-curricular mathematics assignment."

"Fun. Here's the deal, this is my last day of detention, you can meet me at the dining hall tomorrow at morning tea."

"I beg your pardon?"

"You and I are going to hang out with each other."

"I'm sorry, I have an English assignment due next month that I must finish tomorrow."

"You're a fucken geek! If you're in here tomorrow, I'm going to get myself a lunchtime detention."

I laughed at that, but tried not to let him see. He was so determined to get me to befriend him."

Clarisse smiled and rolled towards me, obviously seeing if I was still angry with her, I wasn't really, I was quite glad she'd decided to talk to me about her private life.

"I didn't show up at the dining hall at the said time, instead I stuck to the usual routine of doing my homework. He did end up deliberately getting a detention and we spoke again, he asked me to come out into the yard, I declined. The next day it was the same thing, as was it the next day and the day after that. He made sure he had detention every day until one day I decided to give in. It was far too hot to stay inside because air conditioning hadn't been invented, so I met up with him in the courtyard and he jumped for joy. We ate lunch together and talked about our lives, he must have found me extremely boring, but he didn't let on. I think he just liked hearing my voice. He told me a lot about himself and I told him about me, we seemed to get along well. We got along so well in fact, he asked me to the school ball. My mother was surprisingly excited about me getting dressed up and going to a ball, she said it would give me a chance to show off all the dance lessons she'd made me take as a young girl. She had one of our maids make the dress for me, I was a vision in blue. Chester liked my dress, he commented on it when he came to pick me up on his motorcycle. My father didn't like the idea of me riding on a motorcycle or going out with a boy, so he had a limousine with bodyguard to take us there and keep an eye on us. Chester didn't like the idea of us being watched, so when I was at the dance speaking to my teacher about the following week's assignment, he punched out the guy and took me outside. I asked him what we were doing in the night air and he told me he wanted to be alone with me. When I asked him why, he kissed me. For a first kiss it wasn't a very good one, I kept looking around to make sure the bodyguard wasn't watching because at the time I didn't know he was unconscious. Our kiss lasted for only a few seconds because I pulled away out of shock, "What was that about?" I asked, "Why did you do that?"

"I've wanted to kiss you ever since I met you. You're such a beautiful young lady, I don't know why you hide yourself away like you do."

He went to kiss me again, but I didn't let him, I said, "Please don't, I'm not ready for this sort of thing."

"But you're of age."

"I'm not that sort of girl.

He tried to kiss me again, but I pushed him away and ran, he chased after me for a while, but he was too slow and couldn't catch up. I ran all the way home despite the fact I shouldn't have on account of it being dangerous and far away, but I had to get away from him. When I got home my mother yelled until her lungs burst because of the state of my dirty, ripped and beyond repair dress. I'd never seen her more pissed off apart from the time her hair was on fire. Something strange happened after she went to bed, my father took me into the lounge and yelled at me, aswell. I wasn't used to him yelling at me because he'd never yelled at me before, he was the loving parent. Hearing my father raise his voice to me broke my heart, his yelling consisted of, "You shouldn't have come home on your own," and, "You could have been kidnapped…or worse," also, "You're never seeing that boy again," and the one that hurt the most, "I never thought I'd have to say this, but I'm very disappointed in you Clarisse."

After he said that he turned away and wiped his face with his sleeve, the thought of losing his only daughter must have brought tears to his eyes even though he'd never admit it.

I cried that whole night, I didn't like my father being angry at me, it's like it wasn't him at all."

Clarisse wasn't crying when she told me about her life, I would have expected her to cry, but she didn't. I guess she was on the verge of tears though because she asked if we could bring the conversation to a halt. She claimed to just be tired, but I wasn't so sure. She says she'll tell me more about her life later on, so I'll be looking forward to that, until then I shall sign off.

Ok, reason this was extremely late is because I had internet problems/other miscellaneous computer problems. When my computer was having these problems, I decided to type on my very old laptop, but when I'd almost finished this chapter, it deleted itself off the floppy disk and I had to type the whole f… thing again! It turned out better this time though, so it wasn't a complete headache. I would have had this finished last week, but since I no longer have school I have to work and I've been working long, long hours.

Anywho, R & R.