Alicia's Misfortune (43 page)

By:
Steamy Reads

Owned by the Bad Boy Outlaw

© SteamyReadsPublishing 2016 – All
rights reserved

Published by Steamy Reads4U

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This is a work of fiction.
 
Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either
the product of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner.
 
Any resemblance to actual persons, living or
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Warning

This book contains graphic content intended for readers 18+
years old.

If you are under 18 years old, or are not comfortable with
adult content, please close this book now.

With her straw blonde hair waving behind her, Marie Anderson
clutched her black binder against her wiry frame as if to shelter herself from
the onslaught of cold stares and harsh voices that flew at her as she made her
way down the path at Brookfield University. They talked about how she still
lived with her mother, and how strange her mother was. They talked about their
strict beliefs and their rigid way of life. They talked so much that it was
hard to ignore the things that the students, and even the teachers said about
her.

She was
that
girl,
the kind that didn’t party with the rest of them and couldn’t go out on
Sundays. They all knew she was a virgin, so they called her Virgin Marie.
Everyone said it. They gawked at her homemade long gray skirts that went down
to her knees, and the way her glasses made her look like an old woman. They
laughed at her for being so clumsy, stupid and ugly.

She stayed away from everyone as best as she could. She just
hugged her binder to her stomach and tried to ignore the world around her. She
didn’t feel comfortable there. There were always prying eyes, but what mattered
were her grades.

With nothing but school and church to occupy her time, she
was able to maintain a 4.2 GPA, which was higher than any the school had ever
seen due to her vast array of extracurricular activities. Her academic prowess
was unheard of, but she never learned to relate to anyone. Her peers didn’t
understand her, and she didn’t understand them. They were all from different
worlds.

It was a cold winter morning, with ice and salt covering the
pavement. The school was one of the few places in the city that could afford
the expense of using salt on the pavement. They didn’t care that the salt
degraded the sidewalk. They knew that lawsuits were more expensive.
 

It was the kind of place that catered to its students. They
passed people that never should’ve gotten ahead. Idiots graduated every day
when they could do little more than read simple sentences. It was the hunger
for money that kept the school going, and as far as Marie was concerned it was
greed and avarice that fueled the entire planet. There was greed for flesh,
greed for wealth and greed for violence.

She saw the demon lust in every man that passed her, and the
jealousy in women’s eyes. She saw the carnal passion that moved through lovers,
like hellfire engulfing them in flames. They knew better, every last one of
them knew what they were doing, but they were all driven by their flesh. It was
just like Mama said.

Marie sat down under her favorite tree and reached into the
tiny hemp purse at her side. She pulled out a tiny plastic tube with a red lid.
This was where she found her comfort and escaped the mundane. She opened her
binder to a blank piece of newsprint. She closed her eyes and took around in
the tube for the right one to call to her. It was there, that tiny piece of
burnt carbon that opened a door to another world.

Through her charcoal drawings could shape beautiful flowers
and faces. She could create forests and waterfalls, or massive structures. She
felt like she was creating life, and that that life was whatever she wanted it
to be rather than the harsh reality around her.

When the sun started to set, she started to make her way up
the sidewalk towards the tiny neighborhood streets that would take her home.
Her mother would want her to help with dinner so she decided to pick up the
pace. The houses that surrounded hers on Gary Lane were all tailored and
perfect with short green lawns and little flowers in front, but they were sterile.
They didn’t look like they were lived in. They simply looked like they were
maintained. The flower beds had never grown food. The lawn didn’t have the
little path leading through the grass, or the little homemade wreath on the
door with the blue and white fake roses. They never painted their house, the
paint was chipping, but her house was whitewashed every two years. Nobody care
about those kinds of things anymore.

She opened the door softly, so as not to disturb her mother.
She walked through the quiet parlor, with its antique wooden couches and
kerosene lamps to the living room, where her mother was sitting in the dark and
quietly.

“Ow, child you scared me.” She looked down to see that her
mother had pricked her finger. She was wiry, like her daughter, but her hair
was auburn and always kept in a tight bun.

“I’m sorry, Mama,” she set her bag near the hard couch and
walked over.

“So,” Phyllis began, “how was school?”

“Alright. I aced a calculus exam.”

“Have you been able to avoid temptation?” The woman’s
straight-lipped face slapped Marie with an accusatory glare.

Marie was filled with embarrassment. She looked away and
said, “Yes, mama.”

“Only liars avoid their mother’s eyes.” Her mother put down
her sewing and stood up to walk past her. “You’re not a liar, are you, Marie?”
She got out a sterile dishrag from the sink and started scrubbing a spot off of
the counter.

“No, Mama,” she had a confident voice and an innocent smile.

“If you lie to me, child, He will know.” Her mother’s soft
voice was stern and determined. Her oratory manner was a constant staple in
their house, especially after Marie’s father died when she was 9.

The house lost its vitality when Herman died. Now it was
nothing more than quiet sewing and dark rooms. There was dust gathering in the
parlor, and he mother became more and more insistent about the way things
should be. She was strict, but she knew the way the world was, better than
Marie knew her own body, and she was protecting her daughter.

Phyllis turned around as Marie looked longingly at the chair
behind her. It had been a hard day. The woman opened the refrigerator to assess
the situation. ‘We’ll need some eggs and some butter. I don’t want the
expensive kind—get spread.”

“Yes, Mama.” Her mother reached into the little Mason jar at
the top of the refrigerator and pulled out a five dollar bill. “Get nothing
else, now. I’m making chicken and potatoes tonight, but we’ll need the rest
tomorrow.” She handed the crisp bill to her daughter, along with the whistle on
the top of the fridge. “You take your whistle and you use it if you have any
trouble.”

“Yes, Mama.” Marie made her way out into the dark
night.
 

* * * * *

Phyllis hummed softly to the sound of her favorite choir on
her tiny record player. It had been her mother’s. June had never needed to have
the firm hand of a father the way that she did. She couldn’t think about that.
She felt the familiar stabbing feeling in her gut and she double over—nearly
collapsing onto the cutting board where she had been cutting the chicken leg quarters.

He had been so strong. He could’ve held them up in a way
that she never could’ve. He could’ve guided Marie. She felt like she was
constantly trying to hold onto what little control she had. Women are flawed,
Phyllis knew that. They didn’t have the strength that men have, and only a man
can instruct a young woman in the true ways of chastity.

Phyllis knew that one day it would happen. Marie would find
a man who wanted to lead her away from home, but in this world, with the way
that things were, she could never be sure that her daughter would remain pure.
Temptation was always around the corner, and she had to fight righteously to be
sure that her daughter wasn’t getting caught up in it.

Marie didn’t like walking at night, when the demons of
liquor and smoke made their way through the streets. She saw the boys in their
twisted caps and tight shirts swaggering around the streets. She knew these
creatures; so intrinsically intertwined in their animal desires, they could
hardly see. Their lives were made up of the constant pursuit of pleasure, so
much so that they couldn’t hold on to money, or oftentimes even a place to
stay.

They stole form girls like her, and as she made her way up
to the store, she kept her eyes straight, trying to avoid the gaze of the men
that walked past her. Some looked, a pale man with a thin face and a jersey stared
as he stood against the corner of a building.

“Hey, babe,” he walked closer to her and she jumped. No cars
were coming so she ran across the street and he stood at the curb laughing. She
was frantically running. She didn’t even see him stop. But she did here him cry
out, “I just wanted a taste of that pretty little thing!”

The General Market was less than a block away and she got
there as fast as she could. It was rush hour so the place was crowded with
people getting dinner before they headed home. She got a shopping cart near the
door and ran in so she could get what little she had to buy. She ran to the
back, snatched it up and turned around and bumped into Lucifer.

He had on a pristine white shirt with dark hair parted down
the middle and a black jacket made form cow’s skin. His pant—she couldn’t think
about those. She darted to the right to get by and he darted to the right. She
moved to the left and so did she. “I’m sorry. Excuse me.” She went to move past
him and he blocked her with his round lips so close to her face—hellfire was
burning in her stomach. His breath was fuel to the flames.

“Virgin Marie, his cocky grin spelled danger. “How about I
come see you sometime, huh?” He put his hand in his pockets and thrust his
pelvis forward.

She was shivering and shaking all at once and didn’t miss a
single second of it. He was staring at her, with his dark brown eyes, so
intently that she felt like he could read her mind. He was an obstruction stuck
in the middle of her path to righteousness. “I—

“I’ll see you tonight.” He turned around and walked away.
She couldn’t watch. She tried to move her eyes up, to the right or to the left,
anything to keep her from looking at him walk away.

I must avoid temptation, she thought. I must avoid
temptation.

Over and over she repeated her silent mantra as she made her
way to the checkout line. She paid the meager sum and carefully placed the
change in her hem purse. She had little control over her thoughts. She was off
in a different world, where her body could intertwine with another’s and she
could capture his breath with her lips. His mouth could linger where it
shouldn’t.

I must avoid temptation.

She could be sheltered in those muscular arm where she would
be safe and warm. She could feel him inside of her.

I must avoid temptation.

She wondered what it would be like to have a man overtake
her completely, finally giving in and letting the dam break. She knew that
there was pleasure out there, pleasure she couldn’t even imagine.

She made her way out the door and he was standing there to
the right with a cigarette in his hand and the other in his pockets. He was a
demon, come to take her away from the path of righteousness with his sheer
masculine beauty.

She tried not to look when he grabbed that place and smiled
at her. She didn’t want to see that bulge that could move her in ways that she
never thought possible. Instead she kept walking and he laughed again, while
moved behind her like some infernal phantom.

He got on his bike with his eyes never leaving her form and
when the thunderous engine sounded she jumped. He could show her that pleasure,
but she couldn’t let him regardless of the liquid dripping down her legs or the
pressure building just below the surface. She didn’t want to see the images,
the moments of passion pulsing through her mind, but they wouldn’t stop—she
couldn’t allow them to stop.

Instead, she just kept walking down the street, trying to
keep her eyes open because every single time she did, his cocky smile was
staring back at her. What did he mean that he’d see her tonight? That was the
scariest part—the biggest thrill.

This was fantasy, and nothing more. He didn’t really want
her, the mousy girl that didn’t fit in. She was too strange. She didn’t talk
like everyone else. All of her clothes were homemade and her hair didn’t have
any color in it. She never wore makeup—he mother forbade it. She was to dress
as plainly as possible, and that was why her mother made all of her clothes.
She didn’t wear color, like the other girls—vanity was the greatest of all
evils. Instead, she wore drab grays, black and whites. She was allowed some
color, like pale blues and navy, but what little she did wear only added to the
effect.
 
He didn’t want her. If he wanted
anything, he wanted to hurt her.

They always hurt her. One day, when she was in high school,
her locker was covered in dark red sludge saying, ‘Virgin Marie.” There was
disgusting smell coming from it and inside she found dirty pads, covered in
blood and filth.

She was the Virgin Marie to him. She wasn’t the kind of girl
that he wanted. He was the kind of girl he hated, because she wouldn’t give it
up. She wouldn’t do it, no matter how hard it would be resist the assault to
her senses. She was determined. She knew that in the end, she would get past
this.

When she finally arrived at home, the safety of the yellow
lights peeking through the thin curtains put things in perspective. She
couldn’t be hurt by him, and temptation didn’t enter her sanctuary.

“Marie, is that you?” She heard her mother’s voice calling
from the kitchen.

“Yes, mama.” She walked in to find the smell of boiling
spinach and potatoes reminding her just how hungry she was. She handed the
butter and eggs over to her mother and they began the process of dredging the
chicken and getting it ready to fry.

“Did everything go OK?”

Marie looked down. She didn’t want her mother to see it
inside of her, that growing ball of lust. She knew she could anyways. She saw
everything. “Yes, Mama,” her mother didn’t look convinced. She dropped what she
was doing and rushed around the counter to the kitchen table where she was
standing.

Marie felt bony fingers grab her chin and pull her face up
with the force of a lion. Her cold eyes were searching Marie, staring through
her and trying to find the source of her obvious indiscretion. Her mother had
never seemed so menacing before. “What happened,” she quipped.

“Nothing happened, Mama.” When she lied she was stabbing her
mother in the heart and by the way she cocked her head, her mother knew she’d
done it.

Her hand shot up so quick, Marie didn’t know she’d been
slapped till she felt the sting on her face and saw the dots on her eyes. “One
more time, child.”

“This bo—

“BOY!?”

“He ran after me in the stre—

“You
tempted
somebody,
you filthy creature.” Phyllis spat in her face, and Marie could feel the tears
falling down her face, like the pleas of a child.

“Mama, I didn’t tempt anybody.”

“It’s your fault. You’ve done something terrible. Now, go to
your room, and we will speak about this later. Think about what you’ve done.”
Phyllis turned around and went back into the kitchen. Her limp made her even
more menacing, as though the woman were a monster trying to hide its true form.

She was an adult being told to go to her room, and the irony
of it wasn’t lost on her for a second as she slowly made her way to the second
door on the right to her sparsely furnished sanctuary, which was to be
vacuumed, morning and night, with the sheets washed daily. She hated her mother,
she had for a long time. She loved her in the sort of sentimental way that
every child loves their parents, but she would rather see the woman burn than
stay a second longer with her in this house. She shouldn’t be bound here by the
hateful woman. She should be out exploring the world and enjoying her
surroundings. She should be starting her life, but her mother didn’t think it
was right for a girl to leave home until after she was married. How would she
get married, though, if she wasn’t allowed to talk to boys, and she wasn’t
allowed to wear good clothes?

She could be modest and still wear things that were nice.
She could live purely and still talk to men. She knew what her mother was
trying to avoid, and she understood, but she didn’t think it should be like
this every single time a boy talked to her.

Life should be easy. Instead, she was being stretched thin
trying to adhere to her mother’s strict moral code. She laid down on her hard,
cheap mattress and dug her head into her pillow. That was her one escape, the
place where she could find some comfort, then when she got up, she would have
to make the bed and be sure there weren’t any wrinkles on it.

The sound of that bike haunted her. It was like the hounds
of hell howling. She wondered what it would be like to have her arms around him
and ride past this terrible place. She was going to leave if she could. She
could still pure and live somewhere else. She didn’t have to be like her
mother.