Her first actual punishment.

 "Morning shell" I woke up to Rick's voice first thing in the morning. He was holding a tray with omelet, waffles and tea, as he walked into the guest room and placed it on the table next to my bed. What was happening? Maybe he was being nice because he yelled at me last night.

"Your breakfast" he said, sitting down on my bed and beside me as I was still trying hard to get up from bed and rest my back on something comfortable. 

"Uh…thank you?" I didn't know what else to say. His sudden chivalry was weird. He said he wanted to bring me down to hell, but who does that with breakfast in bed, or maybe we read different dictionaries and comprehend phrases differently.

"Well hurry up, you don't wanna be late" he said as he was walking out of my room.

"Late for what?" I felt compelled to ask. Instead of an answer he just gave me a weird smirk and then winked. 

"I prepared them myself" he said and then left the front of my door completely. I took a bite of the waffles and drank a bit of the tea "of course he made it himself". The meal was hopeless, it was like drinking water and eating pale bread. He was kind enough to make it and so I didn't waste it. Couple of minutes later, I came out of my room dressed for whatever he had planned and I saw him walking down the stairs. It took a lot from me not to open my mouth in awe. His hair was roughly arranged as he wore a black, white and blue striped shirt with a black chiffon trouser, paired with a blue sneaker. The glow in his eye was hidden because he wore sunglasses. His entire movements were played in slow-mo in my head, as he walked down the stairs flawlessly.

"Wrong dress" my constructive slow-mo imagination was cut short by his words.

"Huh?"

"I sent Gideon to place the dress for today, in your room"

"Okay" I said as I walked back to my room.

"Hey…" I stopped and turned to listen to what he wanted to say.

"No dress at all but that one, okay?" I nodded and he smirked, again. 

Something was off and it didn't take long for me to know what it was. There was a blue dress on my bed, but not the kind I'd love to wear. It was tight, short and hardly covered the naughty bits. Seeing that dress, I figured out that the breakfast was merely him trying to be annoying and now he was welcoming me to hell. I hurriedly adjusted every bit of make-up that I had to, soon after I heard him call my name. I walked in and noticed his countenance changed a little, but he switched back immediately, classic Rick.

We got into his car and I tried working out the seatbelt on my end but it was stuck. He looked at me and then at the seatbelt, pulled his, fixed it and then drove off with speed. For a moment, I thought he was going to help, but I kept forgetting who he was. At different spots, he would pull the brakes in the middle of his speed ride, which was already terrifying, and I'd hit my head on the car or try hard to maintain my balance while he laughed. He was finding this funny, really?.

We finally arrived at what seemed to be a hotel, with my hair totally disorganized and looking like a witch in movies from the 80's.

I managed to arrange it and then stepped out of the car. We walked into the hotel and got to the reception, where we were allocated a room he had already booked. What was he trying to do? Force me to bed? I stood there for a couple of minutes, staring at the aesthetics of the hotel. Once I managed to look back at him, he was flirting with the receptionist, right before me, his wife. I gave the receptionist a cold stare and it didn't take long for her to understand that she had to stay five feet away from my husband. As much as I didn't love him and still despised him for what he and his family had done to me, it didn't mean that I was comfortable with other girls gushing over him.

He noticed what I had done and when we got to the room, he pushed me on the bed. He got on me with both his hands trying to maintain both balance and distance, while his legs had both of mine in between, as he knelt on the bed. I was a little horrified, but it wasn't all horror I was feeling. He took his right hand and ran it through my hair, stopping halfway, he grabbed it. I could feel pain as much as I could feel lust, but then he tightened his grip.

"Jealousy won't get you anywhere, Shell.So stay away from my business," he warned as he let go of my hair and got out of the bed. It took me a few minutes before I got up too, but not out of the bed. I sat down for a while. He walked out of the room without saying anything and I couldn't gather enough courage to ask him either. It was his business and I needed to stay away from it. Our first day on our honeymoon and I could already feel a little bit of tears wanting to escape my eyes.

It was 6:30 and he still wasn't back. I was getting worried, before he called and asked me to find my way to the hotel's club, making sure to remind me not to put on any dress except the one he sends. 

"Another short dress, I presume" the words slipped my mouth so fast, I couldn't stop home from hearing it.

"Hmph" he scoffed "you'll see" that response alone was a death sentence. Whatever he was planning wasn't good and I could feel it, but I didn't know how to escape it. 

Soon after the call, I heard a knock on the door and someone was outside with a package. I took it inside and placed it on the bed. As curious as I loved being, this was one of the first times I wasn't. I took in a deep breath and then released it as I struggled with the package until it was finally opened. It was a black dress. I put it on and immediately felt like ripping it off. It looked like a children's gown. It was so big and had flowers at the end of the dress, in a straight line that went round the dress and the same pattern was repeated, thrice. What did he want? He had already had enough laughs for today. 

After a while of pacing around the room, with anger and resentment, an idea struck and I implemented it immediately. I had a corset worn on the other dress, he made it tight enough so I wouldn't breathe properly and asked me not to take it off throughout the ride, so I wore it on this one, and it gave it a nice fitting, after I had adjusted it a little. This way, I was obeying his order, and wearing what he wanted me to wear without having to look so stupid. Who was the smart one now, Rick.

I walked into the club and searched around for him. After a while, I spotted him with the receptionist from earlier, and I felt this weird feeling, like bugs were going through my tummy. Was I jealous? "Definitely not. Why would I be jealous seeing Rick with someone else, someone way prettier" I shushed the thought. I got closer to where he stood, and I could swear his jaw almost dropped. The flare in his eyes, lack of composure due to anger, I could see him boil in anger with no way to express it. The receptionist excused herself from where they had been standing and for a split second she looked familiar, like I had seen her before.

As I walked closer to where he stood getting drinks, I was cornered by a man in sweatpants. He was trying hard to get my attention but I just kept walking, until he pulled me by the arm.

"Let me go" I said, struggling to get my arm off his grip, but he didn't release me.

"No, why would I?" He asked with an evil grin, as he pulled me closer. I knew I had to get myself out of his grip by myself because Rick wouldn't help. 

"Let me go, you freak!" I yelled but he just tightened his grip. Gosh! What was it with men and gripping things hard?

"She said, let her go" I heard Rick's voice from behind me.

"Hey look, it's Superman" he mocked, but I could see the anger in Rick's face. Someone was gonna die and I was glad it wasn't me this time. He pulled his hands away from mine, releasing my already tired and pain-filled hands, and punched him in his gut and then on his face, as he held one of his hands to stop him from moving. He grabbed his head and used his knee to hit it from below, time and after time, until the guy was on his knees. I had never seen him this angry before. Finally, he let go of the man's hand but stepped on it immediately and it got to the ground. The guy was probably drunk, because he wasn't fighting back. I tried to get Rick to stop laying punches on him because he had fallen on the floor, with blood coming out of his nose. He pushed my hands away but soon stopped. He had been punching the man while he was on him, and so he stood up slowly, looked around, and then dragged me away from the club and straight to our room.

He opened the door with so much force, I was scared it was gonna break, after which he took me to the kitchen, switched on a hot plate and put the palm of the hand he had been holding, on the hot plate. I quilled in pain but he didn't give in to my tears. He was punishing me for a mistake that wasn't mine. The hot plate grew hotter by each passing second, and my tears and screams also increased, until he felt satisfied and swung my hand away from the hot plate and switched it off. My palm was burnt. He looked at me but said nothing. Instead, he just picked up his jacket and stormed out of the room. 

I attended to my burn by myself, not caring about whatever might have happened to him or anyone that might have to cross paths with him in his angry state. Although, it didn't stop me from staying awake to wait for his arrival. I was accustomed to doing this with my mum, every night she had shifts. The thought of my mum at this moment hit me so hard that tears escaped my eyes again. I was going through all of this because of the one person I considered to be my everything.

At exactly 1 am the next morning, Rick walked in, drunk. So drunk that I could perceive the booze from where I laid down. He was trying hard to maintain his stance and stamina, but the fluid he consumed had already started its honorable job. I tried helping him out, but he kept resisting by pushing me away. In a way, he could control himself a bit during this time. He wasn't tripping or blabbing, like most men would do while they were drunk, instead, he just got to the bed and sat down.

"Shell?" He called.

"Yes"

"I hate you, I always will, remember that" and with that his voice was lost, he was asleep. I heard that people usually tell the truth about what they feel when they are drunk, and he just did. I didn't care though, but for some reason those words hurt, like a spear passing through my chest.