The Ravencroft Women Pt. 03

"...Right," said Isabelle, still staring at the floor. "You said you grew up in an orphanage." Then she suddenly looked up at me. "But that was good, right? I mean, it got you away from those...from your parents."

I shrugged. "Yes and no. For some reason, none of the other kids at the orphanage liked me and I found myself getting bullied for a while. The caretakers barely did anything about it so, one day, I finally got tired of it and started fighting back. That put an end to the bullying, but it also completely isolated me. It was crazy, being around so many people but still feeling alone.

"That feeling got worse whenever I saw one of the other kids get adopted. Watching them leave, smiling with their new family, always made me miserable. For some reason, none of the people that came looking to adopt ever took much interest in me. It made me wonder if maybe something was wrong with me. That maybe it was my fault my parents treated me the way they did..."

My voice trailed off as I realized the dark turn my story was about to take, but it was too late. The damage had already been done. Isabelle chewed her bottom lip as she stared at nothing, gripping the unopened water bottle tightly in her hands.

'Shit,' I thought. 'So much for keeping it light...'

I cleared my throat conspicuously before I continued.

"Well, after about eight years of that, I'd had enough. I dropped out of high school in the middle of my senior year, took the first job I could get, and moved in here. See? A happy ending."

Isabelle, suddenly turned to me with an indignant look on her face.

"...Is that supposed to be a joke?" she said with a frown. "How could you call this a happy ending?!"

"It's a happy ending because I learned that I could take care of myself," I said flatly. "That I didn't need to rely on anyone else. Not the fake family I had at orphanage and definitely not my real one."

Isabelle's face took on a pained expression, but I just held her gaze and finished making my point.

"Other people in my situation might not have made it this far, but I did, and I'm proud of that fact. Yeah, I work at a 7-Eleven, but at least I can pay for the things I want now instead of stealing them. Yes, I'm living in a shithole, but I feel more at home here than I did with my parents or at the orphanage. My life might not look like much to you but, for me, this is what a happy ending looks like."

Even though I believed every word I'd said, the persistent frown on Isabelle's face told me that she just didn't get it. I guess it was too much to expect one of the super-rich to be able to relate to someone living just above the poverty line. She took another slow look around my apartment before returning her gaze to the floor with a pensive expression on her face.

Just then, the intercom rang out. After sparing Isabelle a quick glance, I rose from the couch and pushed the button to answer it.

"Hello," I said.

"Oh, Master Nathan," said a familiar voice. "It's Bartholomew. I'm here with your groceries, sir. If you would be so kind as to let me in..."

"Uh, yeah sure," I said.

"Thank you, sir."

I pushed the button to let him in. After returning to the couch, Isabelle and I sat in silence. She was staring at the floor again, lost in thought. I wanted to say something to pull her out of the foul mood she'd fallen into, but I couldn't think of anything so I just sat there with her. A few minutes later, there was a knock at the door. When I got up and cracked the door open to see who was outside, I found Bartholomew standing there, his arms loaded down with several bags.

"A pleasure to see you again, Master Nathan," he said jovially, the climb up the steps seeming to have had no effect on him.

"Yea, you too," I said. "Gimme a sec."

After unlatching the door, I took several of the bags from him and walked them over to my fridge. Isabelle's change in attitude had distracted me so much that I didn't even think about the fact that I had allowed yet another person to lay eyes on my apartment. That all changed once I turned around.

Bartholomew was standing just inside the doorway, his eyes following the same path as Isabelle's when she had first entered the room. The shock was clear on his face as he looked around him, but he quickly hid it once he realized I was looking at him.

"Ahem."

Bartholomew cleared his throat conspicuously before addressing Isabelle and me.

"Miss Isabelle, Master Nathan, might I suggest we continue this back at the estate?"

I stood there quietly enduring my second dose of embarrassment for the day. Bartholomew was doing his best to be polite about it, but that only made it worse. I didn't even know what to say to him but, surprisingly enough, I didn't have to say anything at all.

"No, that's fine, Barty," said Isabelle out of nowhere. "We'll be staying here."

"But Miss Isabelle, surely it would be better to-"

"I want to stay here, Barty," she said, interrupting him in a kind but firm tone. "Really. It's fine."

I had to admit, that caught me off guard. But, while I was frowning at her in confusion, Bartholomew just accepted her words at face value.

"Yes, of course Miss Isabelle," he said with a bow. "As you wish. I'll be downstairs waiting in the car if you need anything else." But before he left, he turned in my direction and offered me the same bow he'd just given Isabelle. "Masther Nathan," he said, acknowledging me. Then, after casting one more dubious glance at my apartment, he left without another word, gently pulling the door shut behind him.

Isabelle retrieved the two remaining bags and carried them over to the fridge. After she threw away what remained of my expired food, we began playing tetris with the groceries, trying to fit as much of it in as possible.

For the most part, we worked in silence, but it was an awkward and unnatural silence. The glances I stole at Isabelle's face told me that she was still mulling over the things I'd told her and she didn't seem to be getting any better. I was groping around for some way to lighten the mood when she suddenly hit me with an odd question.

"Do you ever..." she began hesitantly. "Do you ever think about what it would have been like...if you had different parents?"

I stopped wrestling with the contents of my overstuffed fridge long enough to frown at her, then went back to it.

"Nope," I said flatly. "No use crying over spilled milk, right?" Then, after a brief pause, I added, "Besides, I don't think I turned out too bad. Better than being some spoiled rich kid."

Isabelle squinted at me with a side-long glance. "Was that a personal attack?"

"Hey, if the shoe fits," I said with a grin.

Isabelle immediately punched me in the ribs causing me to groan in pain. But I also laughed. Mostly in relief. The tense atmosphere had been suffocating and I was glad to be free of it, but I still needed to direct the conversation away from me and my past if I wanted to keep it that way. It was time for Isabelle to hold up her end of the bargain.

"So," I said casually, "it's your turn. What are your parents like?" Then, to steer her right in the direction I wanted her to go, I added, "Do you get along with your dad? Even if you don't, he must be better than mine?"

I continued messing around with the fridge but, in reality, Isabelle had my full attention. I was listening for anything she might say that would let me put this mystery to rest. However, she shattered all my hopes with a disinterested shrug of her shoulders.

"Don't know. Never met him," she said with an unreadable expression. "He died before I was born. All I have are pictures..."

'Well, shit,' I thought. 'So much for that theory, Sam...' I was about to offer her my condolences when Isabelle suddenly turned to me with a bright smile on her face.

"But my mom is awesome, though," she said excitedly. "Like, she can do anything. I mean anything. My family owns a bunch of different businesses all over the world and she practically manages all of them by herself. She's really amazing!"

Her smile was so bright as she talked about her mother that it almost made me forget about her gloomy mood from a moment ago. However, she caught me off guard when she suddenly looked at me with mischief in her eyes.

"Hey," she said with a dirty grin, "wanna see her? She's hot."

'Ah...' I thought. 'So that's why she was grinning before. She was probably planning on messing with me like this from the very beginning.'

I laughed at her dismissively, refusing to fall for her trap, but then I realized she was serious when she pulled out her phone and started swiping through her pictures. I silently gaped at her, but, despite how weird I thought it was for the girl I was fucking to show me pictures of her 'hot mom', I didn't interrupt. I was curious to see this 'fearsome businesswoman' who single-handedly provided Isabelle with her lavish life-style. That, and I wanted to know what she looked like so I could run the other way if I saw her coming. I doubted she'd approve of my relationship with her daughter.

"Here, look," she said, sounding oddly excited as she showed me her phone. I don't know what I was expecting, but I was completely unprepared for the woman I found staring back at me.

If I had to describe her with a word, I would have said she was beautiful. But it was a severe kind of beauty. She had a square jaw that made her look strong without diminishing her femininity, and intense grey eyes that were so striking I almost forgot I was looking at a picture.

'Yeah,' I thought. 'Definitely going the other way if I see this one coming.'

The only things that softened her were her long black hair, full pouty lips, and the little smirk she had in her eyes even though she wasn't smiling. The photo only showed her from the shoulders up, but I could tell that she was pretty stacked from the way the fabric of her shirt seemed to stretch and strain. As I raised my eyes from the picture, I found Isabelle staring at me with an expectant look on her face. I figured she was waiting for me to say something.

"Uh...yeah," I said. "She's beautiful."

At those words, a big, radiant smile appeared on her face.

"I know, right?" she said. "Wait a minute. I have a bunch more."

Once again, Isabelle swiped through the photos in her phone before handing it to me with an eager look in her eyes.

"Why do you want me to look at your mom so much?" I asked.

"Oh, shut up! Come on, look! Look!" she said as she urged me to take her phone. I took it from her with a frown, wondering at her strange behaviour, but those thoughts quickly left my mind once I saw what was on the screen.

It was a picture of Emelia at some kind of high-class party. In the background, I could see several well-dressed men and women, all of whom were now immortalized in the photo ogling her. But, to be honest, I really couldn't blame any of them. Isabelle's mother was very...distracting.

She was wearing a tight red evening gown that seemed to be custom made to highlight the curves of her body, and god, did she have some curves to highlight. I'd been right about her breasts. The two massive globes sitting on her chest looked invitingly soft as they strained against the fabric of her dress. The contours of her slender waist and wide hips were so erotic that I found myself staring at them, completely forgetting that Isabelle was still watching me. Emelia was more than just beautiful. She was drop-dead fucking gorgeous, and I could tell that she was well aware of that fact.

She had this smug, self-satisfied smirk on her lips as she looked into the camera. She knew she was the centre of attention and she was clearly enjoying it. But even as she was putting her sexuality on display, she still managed to give off this aura of strength and confidence and I could see that reflected in the way everyone was giving her plenty of space. It was actually impressive, in a scary kind of way.

I swiped to the left and found another photo taken at the same party. However, this time it showed Emelia from the side instead of the front and that simple shift in perspective made my jaw drop.

Her tits...her tits were really ridiculous. Seeing them from this angle really drove home just how big and perky they were. They couldn't have been double Ds. They were way bigger than that. Maybe Fs? I mean, they looked like they were the size of my head. And her ass! Usually women with big tits weren't much to look at from behind but Emelia had a nice, round, heart-shaped bottom that fit perfectly with her wide hips. Really, no woman had any business being this perfect.

I kept swiping, passing by a few more photos of Isabelle's mother at the party, until I came to a photo showing her at a different setting: the beach. And, of course, since she was at the beach, it was only natural for her to be wearing a bikini. It was only then that I realized just how amazing Emelia's body was. Her skin was pale and perfect, just like her daughter's, and her toned physique and just barely visible abs showed that she was a regular at the gym, just like her daughter. No matter what angle I looked at her from, I couldn't find a single flaw.

I slowly swiped through the photos of her in her bikini as I felt my cock slowly beginning to grow. She still looked intimidating, even in a bathing suit, but that just made perving on her pictures more exciting. I continued to swipe back and forth through the images, spending particular time admiring her ass in the thong she was wearing, until I suddenly notice that Isabelle had been eerily silent for a long time now. When I looked up to see what she was doing, I nearly flinched in surprise.

She was staring at me with a dirty grin on her face. I'd seen that smile a few times now, but this time it had more of an edge to it. She clearly wasn't bothered by the amount of attention I'd been giving to her mother's pictures. In fact, she looked pleased.

"Dirty boy," she said playfully. "Perving on mom like that. Naughty, naughty. I'm gonna tell."

A little shudder ran down my spine when she said "I'm gonna tell," but I brushed it off when I realized that this was just another part of her little game.

"Yeah, whatever," I said, somewhat reluctantly handing her phone back to her. "Anyway, you're mom looks really young. How old was she when she had you?" I was expecting her to be in her mid to late thirties at the oldest but, as it turned out, I was way off.

"Um...," she said as she looked up thoughtfully, "37, I think."

"Thirty-what!?" I did some quick math in my head. "Wait. Are you telling me that your mom is 56 years-old?!"

"Roughly. Yeah," she said matter-of-factly.

I gaped at her dumbly before snatching her phone out of her hand and scrolling through the pictures again. Isabelle laughed at me as I frowned in naked confusion at the unreasonable youthfulness of her mother. The bikini pictures in particular were now blowing my mind for an entirely different reason.

"How the hell does she look this young?" I demanded. "What is she? A fucking vampire?!"

I didn't get an answer. Instead, Isabelle started laughing so hard that she was practically rolling around on the floor. I ignored her and continued looking at Emelia's photos with fresh eyes until, suddenly, Isabelle's phone started ringing in my hand. Instantly, the pictures of Emelia disappeared as the name of the caller was displayed on the screen.

'Noah.'

The mystery man was calling Isabelle once again.

"Who is it?" Isabelle said, wiping the tears of her laughter from her eyes. I wordlessly showed her the screen and saw her scowl in response.

"Ugh," she said, rolling her eyes as she took the phone from me. "Hold on, big brother. I need to take this." After accepting the call, she walked away and I did my best to eavesdrop on the conversation. Not that I needed to. Isabelle didn't bother lowering her voice in the slightest.

"What do you want, Noah," she said a little impatiently.

"..."

"Yes, I am."

"..."

At this point, Isabelle heaved an exasperated sigh.

"Well, maybe if you weren't working all the time we could-"

"..."

"I'm doing my part, Noah! The rest is up to you! It's not like you can't just-"

"..."

"What do you mean I need to do more?!"

"..."

"Oh my god! Why are you like this?!"

Isabelle's back and forth with Noah continued for several minutes. Whoever this guy was, he really knew how to get under her skin. Now that I knew that he wasn't her father, I was back to assuming he was her boyfriend. But I was getting tired of making assumptions. I don't know if it was the remnants of the tense atmosphere influencing my thinking, but I felt a strong urge to lay everything on the table and just ask Isabelle who he was. And, judging from the way the conversation was going, I was about to get my chance.

"Alright, Noah! Fine! Fine! How can I be of service to you?" she said, her voice thick with sarcasm.

"..."

"...What? Is that all? That's really all you want?"

"..."

"What do you mean, 'For now'?!"

"..."

"Ugh! Whatever! Yes, yes! I'm coming now! Goodbye, Noah!"

After that, Isabelle hung up the phone and groaned in annoyance as she turned to face me. It was now or never.

"I'm sorry, big brother, but I have something that I need to-"

"Isabelle," I said, cutting her off. "Who is Noah?...Is he your boyfriend or something?"

I had thought that catching her off guard was my best chance to get the truth out of her; however, as it turned out, Isabelle wasn't that easy to put of balance. She stood there blinking at me in surprise for a second but then she quickly collected herself, folding her arms under her breasts and fixing me with a smug smile.

"Ya know, big brother, you've been calling me 'Isabelle' for a while now. I'm beginning to think you've forgotten about our agreement."

"I'm serious," I said, not willing to let her dodge the question.

"So am I," she shot back, her voice taking on that cold, business-like tone from yesterday. "You've known me for two, maybe three days if I'm generous. We're strangers, Nathan. You're not exactly in a position to be asking me about what I do in my free time or who I choose to do it with. That's my business, not yours."

...It was a good point. So good, in fact, that I was left momentarily speechless. But I wasn't going to let something like social norms stop me and, much to my surprise, neither was Isabelle.

"However," she continued, her voice returning to it's usual playful tone," if my 'big brother' was asking me, I guess that would be different." Isabelle then put her hands behind her back and looked at me expectantly with a bright smile on her face.

'Jesus' I thought. 'This girl is the embodiment of crazy.'

"Fine, Izzy," I said, putting as much emphasis on her name as possible. "Is Noah your boyfriend?"

"Nope," she said, right on the heels of my question.

I frowned at her. "Really?" I said.

"Really," she said, once again barely giving me enough time to get the word out of my mouth before she responded. "Noah is not my boyfriend." Then she appeared to think about it and added," I do fuck him sometimes, though."

I still wasn't satisfied. "So he's just a fuck buddy to you? That's all?"

I was half expecting another quick response but, this time, Isabelle hesitated.

"Yeah," she said finally. "Pretty much."

"Pretty much, huh?" I said, not bothering to hide the suspicion in my voice.

"What? You don't believe me?" she said, sounding almost indignant. I just folded my arms and cocked an eyebrow in response.

Isabelle laughed humourlessly before copying my stance. We stood there staring each other down for several seconds until, suddenly, her eyes lit up like she'd just realized something. Then a slightly unnerving smile began spreading across her face.