The receptionist

The next morning wasn't so pleasant. I walked into his room to serve him lemon water, as I heard it helped with hangovers. He was already seated on his bed, holding onto his head like he was having a migraine. I served him the water reluctantly, knowing fully well that his response might not be in my favor, but to my greatest surprise, he took the cup from my hand and drank the contents of the cup. I brimmed with delight but I made sure he didn't notice it. As I turned to leave after he was done drinking, he held onto one of my hands, stood up and walked closer. I could hear my heartbeat and feel it race, along with the weird spark I felt while he held my hand.

"I hope you don't expect a thank you?" He asked, his voice as cold as ever.

"You just said it" I answered and his grip softened. I released my hands and made my way out of his room.

I wasn't sure, but I knew my reply stung like a bee. If he was going to take me to hell, I might as well make sure he was also uncomfortable. That was my new plan, but it soon backfired. His daily punishments were becoming more painful and unbearable as the day went by. He even made a checklist for making sure he had punished me daily. Most times, I didn't even know what I was being punished for.

One morning, I went out to get snacks and a few things we needed at the hotel, since he wasn't ready for us to go back to our apartment yet, and there was no need to get groceries, mostly because we didn't have a need to cook at the hotel. Rick had quite the appetite for snacks, especially doughs, so I guess I wanted to please him enough, just so I could avoid his punishments, at least for one day.

I was so engrossed in going through the list of items I had written, that I didn't notice the car coming in at full speed. Luckily, someone pulled me out of the road before I could get hit. When I turned to thank my savior, a bitter feeling sank to the bottom of my stomach. It was Rick. Had he been following me? My question was immediately answered when I spotted the receptionist waving at him from a distance. What was wrong with this woman?.

"We'll settle this at home" he said, after he had seen the receptionist and given her some kind of signal.

"You…" he said, pointing a finger at me "and me" he pointed the same finger back at himself. I didn't need a soothsayer to tell me what that meant. I was in big trouble.

When I got back to the hotel room, after sneaking out again to get those items on my list, I was surprised to not find Rick sitting on the bed, waiting to serve me something new. Whoever that receptionist was, she was taking all of his time and attention. He only ever gave me attention when he wanted to watch me agonize or scream in horrific pain. Nevertheless, something felt off about her. She looked very familiar each time I managed to get a glimpse of her, but I remembered how much of his business I had to stay away from.

It was close to midnight and my 'darling husband' wasn't back yet. Was I worried? Yes I was. Finally, a few minutes to twelve, I heard a knock on the door. I quickly adjusted my nightwear, headed straight for the door and opened it to find Rick drunk, again. This time around, he seemed to have drank a lot, because he was having a hard time maintaining his composure. I managed to help him get across, to the bed, by placing one of his hands across my shoulders. I let go of him once I placed him on the bed, but he held onto me.

"Where are you going?" He asked

"Uhm…uhm…no…nowhere" I managed to reply. Rick had been coming back to the hotel drunk for a few days, but never this wasted. But for some reason I was glad that I had been able to escape the day's punishment.

I tried to escape his grip, but he held onto me even more. He pulled me on the bed and gripped my second arm, before adjusting it to my wrist and pinning it to the bed, while he sat on me. He adjusted his position again to just kneeling above me, while he got close to my ears and whispered the words "I hate you, shell". He was totally drunk, but that didn't stop those words from hurting me whenever I heard it.

A few seconds later, I felt his lips on my neck. A gentle kiss that sent a weird wave of electricity flowing throughout my whole body. He turned his head again and gave me another kiss on the other side of my neck. I didn't know if it was wrong of me, but I wanted more.

"I have a question for you" he whispered again in my ears before turning to face me directly, but I didn't say a word, mostly because I couldn't.

"Who do you belong to?" He asked, as he used one of his hands to pin both my hands to the bed, while he used the other to run his hands gently on my face, causing my entire body to shudder. He ran his hands through my hair a little and then closer to my neck, but still I gave no response.

"Who do you belong to?" He asked again, this time with a little bit of aggression, and I could feel it from the way he held my neck.

"You" my answer came out as a moan, not entirely how I expected it to.

"Good. Another question" he said, as he pulled down the hand of my dress, touching my skin in such a way that all I could feel were the tingles on it.

"Who else gets to touch you except me?" His words came out in such a way that it made my toes curl.

"No one else" I gulped a handful of saliva after my words left my mouth in yet another moan.

"Good girl" he said, taking down the other hand of my night dress. Before I could say another word or move any part of my body, I felt his lips pressed against mine. I could hear my breath, as we devoured each other's lips. Whatever was going on, I had no intention of making it stop. He ripped my dress apart, hungry for more.

Wait! This is a couples time, so I'll fast forward to after we had a nice night.

The next morning, I had already gotten out of bed, mostly because I got angry. When I woke up that morning, I heard him unconsciously say "Thanks for last night, Mia". I was pissed. He thought that he had sex with his dead girlfriend. We had been married for a month and yet I was living like a 'do what he wants' bride.

"Where did you sleep last night?" He asked, the moment he got up from bed, squinting his eyes, probably because he was having a hangover.

"On the sofa" I lied. Rick and I had never slept on the same bed, except last night, no matter where we went. At the hotel, he slept like a prince of the bed, with absolutely no knowledge of the term 'being a gentleman' while I slept on the sofa, how brilliant. Apparently, whenever Rick was drunk, he had little or no memory of what he had done while he was drunk. I couldn't risk getting punished over one of the most beautiful nights since our marriage began.

"Where are you off to?" I asked for the first time, not minding if my question would get me in trouble, the moment I saw him getting dressed.

"It's none of your business" he replied rudely, walking towards the door.

"It has something to do with Mia, right?" He stopped all forms of movement once I asked that question.

"It took me a while to remember, but I finally realized why that receptionist looked so familiar and why you've been seeing her. She's Mia right?" I asked again, but he said nothing. I had been trying hard to figure out who she was, but when he mentioned her name earlier that morning, something clicked. I checked our school's website to get pictures of her and that was when I found out.

"I thought she was dead…"

"She wasn't" he cut-in.

"Her parents were paid to leave the country with her, so we couldn't be together. So they lied to the school about her death and moved away. I only got to find out because she called" I could hear his voice breaking, but he never turned to look at me.

"I'm so sorry…I…I…didn't…I didn't know" I tried explaining, but he just stormed out of the room and slammed the door behind him.

I knew his pain. What it felt like to be alone, far from the only person who understood you. My mum was that person to me, and her betrayal, well it broke me to bits. I was learning to accept my fate after what she had done, but right now, I couldn't. My husband was in love with someone else, my mum was in prison and I had nowhere else to go, except the houses and hotels this marriage had brought me to. There and then, I decided that once we got back from our honeymoon, since I didn't know my way around Italy, I was going to run away from everything. I couldn't live with someone who loved someone else. It would've been different If he loved no one at all, I would've worked on that or with that, but now I couldn't. I couldn't file for a divorce because his family would never agree, and he did whatever they asked without fighting for his end in all of it.

I didn't tell Rick about my decision because I knew that as much as he would've loved it, he'd kick against it, for his family's sake.

Rick didn't come back home throughout the whole day. As a matter of fact, he came home three days after our first real squabble. The moment he came inside, I didn't utter a word. I just sat down on my bed, a.k.a the hotel's sofa, as he walked straight to the wardrobe. After a while of total silence between us both, he asked me to pack up everything I had, and I did. When we got downstairs, I didn't spot Mia anywhere around. We headed back to his apartment and that was when I realized he had booked our tickets back home. It should've been a relief. I was finally going to act on my plan and be free, but a part of me wasn't ready for it yet.

His chauffeur, Diego, put all our stuff in the trunk of his car and we headed straight to the airport. I was confused. Our honeymoon wasn't over and he had enough time to spend with Mia, so why was he risking it and going back home. I had lots of questions to ask, but I didn't know how to without stepping on his toes or snapping a nerve.