Laura Ch. 03

He turned over in his mind the story she had told of her childhood, never really feeling like she belonged, being moved on from one foster family to another until there was no family to move onto and she was on her own. His heart broke for the little girl she must have been, and understood now why she put up with her husband hurting her, for the bastard must represent family to her, the only family she had. Without him she was on her own again.

Realising that it would take her courage and confidence to make any changes in her life, whatever they may be, Chris decided that he would be a real friend, show her that she was not alone, that there was someone who cared and she could turn to, but not add any complications. He would have to sublimate his needs and be careful that she never guessed at how he felt.

It would be so difficult, but it would be his gift to her.

*

The receptionist at the hotel handed the man his receipt, circumspectly looking up at the young woman clinging to the man's side. 'A different one this time from the last one' he thought 'and that one didn't last too long.'

He also wondered to himself how long this one would last.

Over the years the man had come with a string of young women, staying overnight three or four nights a month. Different woman who lasted only a few months, each one very young, and each one clinging to his arm, until they disappeared and were replaced by the next one.

*

Monday at the office Julian sat back in his chair, hands behind his head, smiling and listening to Roberts's description of the office junior and just what he did to her in the hotel room. He was used to these bragging sessions, taking much of what he heard as confirmation that the man at the desk opposite him was a complete and utter bastard.

Last week at the bar he noticed the bruise on the cheek of Robert's wife, even though she was trying to hide it with makeup. That wasn't the only bruise he had witnessed on her over the past few years. During the summer he had seen the marks she tried to cover up on her arm, marks that looked suspiciously like a hand squeezing her very tight, and he bet the cast on her wrist last year wasn't from a fall.

There was something decidedly cold about his colleague. It was if he felt all women were his to treat as he felt. His attitude to the other women in the office was condescending and patronising, and that was why Julian knew Robert had missed out on the promotion that last time. He also suspected Robert of engineering somehow the sacking of George Reef, the man who was promoted. He couldn't prove it, he wasn't sure how he did it, but he just felt that Robert somehow had a hand in it.

As his colleague rattled on about how she got on her knees in front of him and how he taught her what he liked, and how to give a good blow job Julian smiled and thought to himself, not for the first time, that he needed to keep on Roberts' good side, as he would be a bad enemy to make.

Robert mistook the smile for approval, and leaning forward over his desk said "You're a fool for staying faithful to your wife, there are plenty of willing little sluts out there, and if a woman gives you hassle you should show her who's boss in your home. You do wear the trousers in your house Julian, don't you?"

"I didn't marry Rachel to show her who's boss Robert, and I get more than I can handle at home thank you very much." Then leaning forward to look the man in the eye that was leaning towards him with a mocking smirk on his face said "besides I get a kick kneeling in front of my wife sometimes .........maybe you should try it!" and got back to his work.

*

Walking across the office floor the young girl saw Robert and Julian talking and she blushed, she hoped they were not talking about her. She worried that Robert would tell people just what they did Friday night. A hot sweat broke out up her back at the memory of the night in the hotel room. Robert had asked her to do things she had never done with Dave. Things she had heard about but never thought she would do.

She had felt so sexy in her new underwear, like in the magazines she saw on the top shelf of the newsagents round the corner from where she lived with her parents. Lying to her parents about where she was on Friday night came easy. She often stayed over at friends at the weekend, and Robert had already said that he would book another night's stay at the hotel next week.

Standing at the copier as she fed the training manuals for the new product through it she coyly looked over her shoulder at were Robert was now at his desk on the phone, leaning back and gesturing with his hand as he spoke. He looked so handsome to her, and powerful. He had been so experienced and confident on Friday night, and staying in the hotel had been a real experience. She had loved the bathroom and the little bottles of hair and body shampoo they supplied, and having breakfast in bed served by room service was so lovely, something she had never done before.

Her heartbeat raced a little as she remembered how she had dropped the towel that morning and gave Robert the release the way he had shown her to do the night before, and how he had breathlessly told her between groans how good she looked with him in her mouth.

*

Over the following week Laura settled into a new routine, arriving she was met by Chris and they sat and chatted on the wall by the bus stop for a few minutes, talking about nothing in particular. Then as she walked to the house, and stood by the gate he would walk over to the motorbike parked waiting on the road, swing his long denim clad leg over the seat, strap on the black helmet, and with a downward kick start up the engine, and with a final wave swing the bike out into the morning traffic.

Laura would watch as he disappeared into the distance and then turning she would enter the house and started looking after the old lady.

*

Each day would bring her escape plan a little more into action, buying the black hair dye, finding out where she needed to go to collect the lottery money, checking at the mail drop to see what post had arrived, and bringing back those letters that were there belonging to Mrs Jackson. She contacted by phone some letting agents in various towns, far away, to assess the cost of renting a small bedsit, and with Mrs Jackson talked about where best to go, what she should do in the future and how she could leave without a trail for Robert to follow.

But as each day passed, and her friendship grew with Chris, the urge to confide in him, to tell him her plans grew. She didn't want to lose that connection, to lose the friendship that was blossoming. The first real friendship she had ever had with a man.

When she confided to Mrs Jackson that she was going to tell Chris, the old lady agreed, but cautioned her to leave it a while and to tell him her plans just before she went, just not yet. The old lady had seen the look in the man's eyes as he came round at the end of each day, waiting to walk Laura back to the bus stop as she waited for her bus home. Each day he would spend some time with Laura and herself, making them laugh with his outrageous stories and teasing remarks, and she would watch him watching Laura as she walked across the room, or as she stood putting on her jacket, unaware of the big man watching her with a hungry longing in his eyes.

Mrs Jackson knew that Laura would need the space to find herself, and to grow into the person she should have become before Robert got hold of her. But she guessed that if the young man knew her plans he would try to take the responsibility for her himself, and for Laura to become really strong and complete again she didn't need to go from one man to another. She would need to learn to love herself first, to build her strength and believe in herself.

*

Each day Chris would meet her in the morning, go into work restoring the old house, and he would find himself smiling as he worked, or sitting drinking coffee and talking with the rest of the crew working there.

As he stood going over the plans with the John, the project manager, his mind would wander to Laura and that morning's conversation, what she was wearing, her gentle smile, her endearing habit of blushing when he teased her.

As she sat next to him on the wall each morning he would sit there, holding himself in check, so as not to frighten her, wanting to put his arm around her and hold her, kiss her, tell her how he felt, but not daring to.

Although he treasured these moments and the building of a true friendship with Laura, his body needed to feel again her body against his, like the time in the kitchen, and his protective instinct to keep her safe and not follow her home and confront her husband had to be kept under control, as although he was not a violent man, he was not afraid of confrontation when called for.

*

Whilst Chris and Laura were getting to know each other, someone else was hurting inside. Tricia know knew that Chris was in love with someone else, that he would never be totally hers, but she hoped that he would see she was really the right woman for him eventually.

They had met up a couple more times, going out for drinks and meals, relaxing and laughing together. Chris had made it clear that he felt it wrong to string her along, but she had pointed out that it was her choice, and that she knew where she stood. But in reality she was hoping he would realise that they were good together, and unlike the woman he said he was in love with, held no complications.

Since that night last week they had not made love, he would rest his arm around her neck as they walked along, her arm across his back, and when she rode on the back of his bike, her arms would encircle his waist from behind, her body snuggled up against his back, but he seemed to have made a decision and the line in his head could not crossed.

*

Each night Laura would return to her home, and the feeling of being safe, of having someone she felt comfortable with changed to one of unease, of dread, not knowing what mood her husband was in, whether he would suddenly explode into fury.

Carefully she kept the house as tidy as she could, making sure everything was in place, that the food was as perfect as she could make it for him, and that she looked just as he liked, her hair up, her clothes slightly revealing without being too tarty, her makeup perfect. Yet each night there was something wrong, on one night he found the large pottery urn in the hall turned slightly askew, another he complained that the towels were not hung exactly right, and each time he would shout at her, how incompetent she was, how anyone could do it right and why couldn't she.

*

One night towards the end of the week Robert stood up close to his wife, standing there facing him, her arms wrapped around her waist, her eyes the size of saucers as she quivered before him, his nose an inch from hers as he screamed at her "You useless hag, can't you do anything I ask properly, no wonder you're in a dead end job, no one would employ you, they couldn't trust you to do anything right." And he threw the plate across the room, food flying everywhere.

Picking up the large knife on the counter she had been using to cut up the pineapple for dessert, he held it menacingly up at her throat and screamed, "It would be so easy, no one would miss you," and grabbing her arm and bending it to the side away from her body, making her lean into that direction to alleviate the pain, "I don't know why I married you, you're nothing without me." Then letting go of her arm stalked across the kitchen stepping into some of the food now strewn across the floor, "Clean this bloody mess up you cow." He threw the knife across the room towards Laura and stalked out the house slamming the front door behind him without a backward glance.

The knife hit her sideways on, then as it fell down the sharp edge glanced off her left hand cutting a small gash before bouncing down to the floor.

Laura gasped in pain and shock, as blood started to leak from her hand running down her fingers and dripping onto the floor and her clothes. Turning to the kitchen sink and holding it there she turned on the tap with her other hand running the cold water over the wound, and then grabbing a towel and wrapping it around her hand tried to stem the flow of blood.

Shaking now with reaction, she stood watching the towel turn bright red as the blood soaked through, Again she ran it under the tap, watching as a mixture of blood and water swirled down the plug hole, unsure what to do next.

Wildly looking around the kitchen at the mess on the floor, the broken plate, and then back at her hand, the blood soaked towel laying on the draining board next to her, the tears fell, her chest heaving with sobs, she sank to the floor in a heap, her bleeding hand in her lap, as a bright red stain appeared on her skirt and stockings and leaked down onto the tiled floor.

She sat there crying for ages, unheeding of the pain in her hand or the fact that the blood oozing from the wound had slowed down to a trickle, a clot forming as the air reacted with the blood around the wound.

As she calmed down and her crying ceased, a weary sigh escaped from her mouth, and running her uninjured hand through her hair, sweeping it away from her tear stained face, she pulled herself up holding onto the edge of the counter and wrapping her hand in the bloody towel, gingerly stepped over the food and out of the kitchen to the stairs and up to the bathroom cabinet to find a dressing for the cut on her hand. She was unsure whether it needed stitches, but somehow couldn't face getting to the hospital and trying to explain another 'accident' to the staff there.

Putting the towel on the side of the bath, and sitting down perched on the edge, she placed a large dressing over the wound, sealing it with the plaster and slipped out of her skirt and stockings, placing them in the hamper along with the towel for washing.

Finding somehow the strength to go downstairs after she had slipped on another skirt, she cleaned up them blood, food mess and the broken plate, being careful not to knock her left hand.

Then climbing up the stairs again she clumsily favouring one hand removed her clothes, and climbed into bed falling quickly asleep with exhaustion and shock.