What the fuck...

 ...did I do to deserve this Karmic revenge?  I feel like I did some serious shit to someone in a past life that THIS life is where the karma bus dropped me off and told me "good luck" and drove away.

So Mildred died Saturday.  It was not a surprise. It w as very expected.  We all knew it was coming Saturday was a great day.  One of the bests that I have had in a long while. But Sunday?  What the fuck and where the fuck did that come from.  Dell called me to tell me about her mother and I was quiet and went on.  I don't know if it didn't hit me then or what.  But I don't think that's what this past few days is about.  Sadly, I think it was the trigger.

Since Covid started, my mother has become this recluse that acts like I am her one and only lifeline to the outside world.  If I step away for even a second, she will drown.  Like literally drown.  If I work more than my normal in her eyes, she suddenly needs to call me EVERY DAY and sometimes during work.  But if I answer and tell her I'm at work, se's like "Oh! I'm sorry!  I forgot!" but then has to have a conversation regardless and if I insist that this can be done later, she gets all moody.  Even if I call her back when I'm not at work, moody.

I don't understand this at all.  Like AT ALL.  I was raised by a no nonsense, I-can-do-it-all-by-my-damn-self woman who raised me not to be needy.  As a result, needy people annoy the ever loving hell out of me.  I even raised my kids to be self sufficient so that they aren't needy.  Well two of my kids at least... well one... Fuck it, I don't know.  So my mom suddenly needing me every goddamn day is throwing me and when I try to distance myself just a little bit because I don't want to snap, she makes it seem like I'm leaving her on a island all by herself and sailing away for parts unknown.  Never to be seen again and this causes a panic attack. which makes her call and whine and need me.  I don't even know what happened Friday but not being able to catch her breath and me not responding in the manner she deemed appropriate for the situation caused a whole host of problems.  It went into t Saturday but when she checked the location on her phone to see that I had flitted all the way down to South Carolina we went back to me sailing away and leaving her on an island all alone and BOOM, instant full blown, I can't breath, I'm scared and you aren't here I need you help me whoa is me episode. Sunday, much of the same but I was local now so it wasn't THAT big of a deal.  Monday, her doctor called her back and told her it was a panic attack and guess what?  She's fucking fine.  Oh but not before she ordered a medic alert panic button.  Yay.  We have to cancel the trip to Cherokee.  My time in the mountains with no one but me and a stream and a rocking chair?  Oh that's toast.  No, she doesn't think she should be around the smoke and she won't be able to walk tat far and cue violins but maybe... since it's her birthday this weekend I can take her by the new casino at kings mountain where she's been wanting to go for weeks now.

Does anyone see what she did here?  Guilt trip.  It's my birthday so I HOPE you'll come by.  I'm feeling better now and when I feel better I get so LONELY.  Instead of going all the way to Cherokee where I won't be able to walk the casino, maybe we can go the one twenty minutes from my house that's equally as huge but you'll be WITH ME when I have to sit down because I CAN'T BREATHE.  I don't like it when YOU are down.  It makes ME feel bad.

I swear my mother could give a Jewish mother from the sixties a master class in how to successfully throw a guilt trip.  Any one of the mothers on sitcoms from that era have absolutely NOTHING on my mom.

And I absolutely CANNOT vent to my friends because they don't have moms anymore so no matter what, even when they say I can vent, I feel like world's most ungrateful person because they're moms have gone on to god and I'm here complaining about mine.  

It is so hard for me to ask for help.  I don't know how and if I manage to  get the words out for one time in my life, I get platitudes.

why doesn't anyone understand that I just need to walk away?  From all of it.  Create a new life in a place that no one knows me and not do this anymore.  What scares me the most is that my mom is 76 this year.  I don't have many more years left with her and when she's gone, I am probably going to do just that: Walk away into the sunset and not one bloody person will be able to find me because I am so over this.

Like I said, I think Mildred dying was the trigger that set off a bomb that's been smoldering for a long time.  I don't even like my job anymore.  Death has always felt like a sinking ship to me.  A sinking ship that drags everyone around it under with no hope of getting back to the surface again.  I usually walk away before death swings his scythe.  But I couldn't this time and this time, it dragged me under and took all the compassion I had because I can't tell you right now that I care about anything.

My job annoys me, my mom annoys me... but here's the kicker, if you tell her you just need space, she gets moody and remember that little goddamn island and me sailing away...?, the fact that my kids refuse to knock before they bust open my door, yeah that annoys me too.  My animals annoy me.  The fact that that fucking kitten has managed to most likely get Satan's mistress pregnant and I'm going to have to deal with that soon annoys me.

I don't have a pastor that I can talk to because Hagwood, not that personable and guess who is good friends with my mom?  Can't talk to anyone in the church because guess who they're ALL good friend with?  Don't have a man that can just give me one of those man hugs that fix shit because I am only a fuck friend.  Derek, on'y wants to fuck me.  Doesn't want that emotion shit.  Donald?  Only wants to fuck me.  Like he won't even read a text I've sent for a whole fucking week.

Fuck this!  Fuck it all!  What the fuck did I do to someone in a past life that this is my penance? I can't find love.  Like he's not out there.  I don't believe any of it anymore.  He's not.  I'm going to die alone.  I am going to be singing all by myself until the day that I can finally finally FINALLY lay down in bed and close my eyes and wake up in a new life.

And please God if I did anything to anyone in THIS life that's going to screw the next life just let me be someones guardian angel of something.  Please don't give me another life like this.  I might just have to fall from grace and defect because damn, it is incredibly had to associate the God that church tells me loves me with any deity that would let this life continue like this.  How can I believe that some unseeing force of whatever WANTS me to be this miserable?  

Just please tell me what did I do?  Why is this my life?  Who did I screw so cosmically over and where can I find them to apologize?

I can't do this much longer.  I just can't...

Growing up

 So I told my mom when I got the new car, it would just mean me having to grow up.  Gone are the days when I can choose not to work until noon or one pm and be off by five.  I have to grow up and take the morning hours so that I can afford the adult car.

To that end, last night I started a new bedtime routine.  I take my pills at nine and go to bed by eleven.  At 10:45 last night I shut down my computer and climbed in bed.  At 11 when the bedtime alarm went off I turned off my phone and rolled over.  Did I go right to sleep? No.  But I didn't give up and go back to my phone I laid there and eventually it was five AM when the rain started.  And then it was 8 am.

I don't feel like I wanted to stay in my bed forever, and I don't feel the least but tired.  I almost kinda hopes that this will become my new normal.  It's not a bad feeling.

But I have to go. It's raining again and that means people in Charlotte will completely forget how to drive. So one must be on her p's and q's today.  Today is the 8 hour day so let's see how this goes.  

Smell ya later... Hey now, you didn't really expect me to jump totally into Adulthood did ya? LOL

Ta!

Why

Why does no one ever listen until you find yourself screaming?  Bald from where you e pulled your hair out not that it matters anywhere because stress is causing it to fall out anyway?  Clothes are falling off of you because you e list so much weight because you don’t even have the desire to eat even enough to keep yourself alive because if you’re alive that means this just continues.

I want to die.

I don’t even want to run away anymore I... I just want to die.

My mom is going in for surgery and as per her usual her being scared that she won’t make it out alive means that she feels like she had full god given permission to treat me like shit.

I am never going to be the daughter she wants.  I don’t call every few hours.  I don’t go visit her.  I don’t make her my number one person all day every day.

During this fucking pandemic shes has closeted herself in her house.  She won’t go anywhere she won’t do anything.  But me, the essential one is supposed to drop everything and run out to Gastonia and visit her.  At no time did it ever dawn on her that she could climb in her car and come see us.  Why?  Because my house is a mess and my lawn is not awesome and it’s such a long way and yada yada bullshit.  I mean, even if she just sat in the driveway to chat isn’t that a reasonable compromise than me trekking out to Gastonia all the damn time?  

This year on her birthday she pretty much demanded we come out to her.  That would have been fine and great since it was her birthday and no one would have minded but doing that meant that three people had to call off work because she wanted us ALL DAY and when I mentioned maybe half the day she pulled the “But it’s my 75th birthday!” Card.

In June I went away with my friends for one weekend and I didn’t call her every night of that mini vacation so by the time I got back she was butthurt  and didn’t want to speak to me.   

I wish it was just my mom this time.  It’s never just my mom. And I’m old enough to realize that my mom only gets under my skin when something else has already broken the skin.

I recently got insurance through my job.  Which is awesome but to maintain it you have to work an average of 35 hours a week and no matter how many times I try to tell them I am tired and hurting and need to keep it at that 35 maybe 40 hours a week, Linda keeps loading me up to the point where last week I hit 58 hours and this week is rolling up on the 50 mark.  I even said I wanted to make Saturday my one day off.  The one day where I could just take it down.  That email was responded to by say lol ok and could I work next Saturday...

I just need it to stop.  All of it.  Stop.

I have runner tendencies and I really feel like the day after I lose my mom people are going to look up and I’m going to be gone.  Slipped away without a word to anyone to a place where I can finally take a deep breath and exhale.  Someplace where no one is constantly nagging me, asking me for anything, or demanding anything from me.

Someplace where only those who have been paying attention will even think to look.

Away.

I guess she's gone

So I'm guessing Roxie is gone.  No goodbye to me or anything.  Not even a random bag of Candy Corn left on my desk.

But I guess that's okay too.

So I'm pretty sure I'm ready to talk about it without crying too much and if I or she talked about it I apologize for repeating myself (Ourselves?). But Monday night was unofficially the last time I will ever set foot in a Pizza Hut again.

Monday, and understand that this is the last night that Roxie and I were together, we get this call from a friend at another hut telling us that the manager there was telling someone how he was taking over Arboretum the next day.  That was our store.  She called us to warn us that we were getting fired.  So we called Brad who, of course, sent us to voicemail but answered the "Am I getting fired?" (Because he refused to acknowledge the DID diagnosis) and he answered with "no but we need to talk tomorrow". Our response was that we were off tomorrow.  Never once did we ask if we could meet Wednesday or anything and never once did he offer to meet us somewhere Tuesday.

Wednesday morning, I woke up.  Just me.  Roxie was there but she was chilling.  It was a day off so she wasn't needed. I could feel her but not to the point where she was in any way in control.  And I spent the day cleaning and doing laundry and whatnot.  Brad texted and asked me to meet him at the Bojangles behind Mountain Island at 930 am.  I asked is this a meeting I had to dress in uniform for.  He said yes, I said okay.

Wednesday Morning, again, I woke up.  But instead of knowing Roxie was there, I didn't.  I even sat in the car and asked her if she wanted to do this or did she want me to do this and I got no answer.  None whatsoever so I figured if I needed her to handle this she'd come out.

I was wrong.  Roxie apparently decided it was time for me to start living and handling shit all on my own.  Admittedly I still kinda low key resent her for that but in a way, I can't really blame her because I know now, that I was hiding behind her.  Anyway, I walked into he restaurant and brad came in shortly after.  Without preamble he slid a sheet in front of me and told me in the most clinical and cold voice that I have EVER heard that I was being demoted to a shift leader.  Not assistant manager not being given the help I need.  Not even going to be working with the guy that said he was taking over my store. I was being demoted and sent back to prosperity.  The store I was shot at over some damn chicken wings.  And I was being demoted to a pay rate lower than that that I had hired my own shift leads at.

Understand that at this point they have more than doubled my rent, taken away my food stamps and for days I had been living without water because I couldn't afford the bill.  Not once did Brad ask me if everything was okay.  He's over there every damn day asking if Diamond was okay and texting her all the time but never once did he ask me if I was okay to which I would have probably not said yes for the first time.

Not only was he sending me back to the store I was shot at, he was cutting my pay in half if not more and telling me that sometimes I'd even be a driver.

I cried for Roxie.  I signed his paper because I thought I could do it and maybe then I thought I could do but I signed it and left.  I got in the car and I begged for Roxie to answer me but all I got was silence so I went to housing and showed them and then I went to Kelley who reactivated me as a Keeper.  So didn't have a gap job wise.

And then I went home and commenced drinking.  You don't need to know the gory details of it but apparently I am a very... uh... social drunk and called a lot of people.  In the end, Kat had to come from her job and put me to bed.  Also... Apparently Roxie said goodbye to her.  She said that I had been asleep for awhile but I looked her in the eyes and said Thank you for helping her, I can sleep now.  So Roxie said goodbye someone.

Not that I'm not used to it.  Usually when Roxie goes away for long periods of time she doesn't say goodbye in the traditional sense.  I usually get what I feel like is a random hug and then she's gone and I don't know when she'll be back.  If she'll be back.  How to bring her back.

This episode in "Down the Rabbit hole" has taught me one thing though.....  As a person, you expect certain people to always be there and some others to at least not run away but more than two of the people that I had hoped would at least try to help me, ran.  And I don't mean ran with small letters I mean RAN with capital bold letters.  One of whom I, Claudette, really liked.  And honestly, I think him running away hurts more than Roxie going away because I know one day, Roxie will be back back but him, he, he won't be because I think I'm smart enough to realize now that when the chips are down, he will probably cash out and walk away from the table.  And I don't think I can feel that hurt anymore.  Realizing that he could do that as coldly as Brad and his meeting hurt almost as bad as Brad and his meeting and I can't feel that way ever again.  I don't want to feel that way ever again.  Either you are there for it all or not there at all.  I forgive him though.    If I had readers out here, I would ask if it's possible to even feel like a friend to him but I don't have readers.  Silly Dette, Readers are for popular people! LOL.

I mean, can you call someone that drops you that bad a friend?  Can you?

One friend gave me his honest open opinion about the whole thing and I respect him.  He's still my friend.  I may be feeling a bit salty towards him but he's always been my friend, he's always given his whole opinion and he's never lied.  So yeah, he's a friend.

I have to think on the first guy.  Probably to be blogged about another time because that's going to have to be a conference between my head and my heart and right now, my heart is on crutches hobbling to and fro and my head is being stubborn and telling my heart to suck it up while it goes through stacks of paperwork for the last few weeks trying to sort out what the hell just happened.  How we went down the rabbit hole how we called out Roxie, how the last few weeks just happened because I'm going to be brutally honest, There are somethings that Roxie did that I have no memory of except snatches of conversations she may have wanted me to hear or text messages between her and whoever.  Right now my brain feels like the most overworked secretary in the world.

But I'm able to function again, so Roxie, if you're out in the ether and you surface long enough to read this, Thank you and I love you because if you hadn't been here these last few weeks I'm pretty sure id be dead right now.  So thank you.  Thank you for being the Wonder Woman you apparently always have been.

Ciao Bellas. Have to take the minion to work.

R- Let’s talk about sex baby...

Let’s talk about that for a second.  

I mean.  I just stood in the mirror looking at this body for like twenty minutes.  It’s got some curves and some dents but it’s not bad.  The boobs are about palm sized and not hard, the nipples are kinda responsive.

It’s not a bad body, so why does no one want it?  We need to work on that.  Yeah.  

I wonder...

When people decide to kill themselves, do they contemplate it for awhile, then decide they aren’t going to do it, then decide to change their lives, then something snaps and boom?  Life over.

Problems for them done, problems for everyone else just beginnng?  Like is there a thought process?  Stages?

I’m pretty convinced that if there are stages, I’m at the life affirmation, deciding to turn it all around stage.  That being said I wonder what stage is next?  The one when you get extremely angry because you realize your ass is stuck?  The one where you jus decide fork it?

I wish I could just kill me and not Roxie because it’s me that’s depressed.  She’s not depressed.  She’s angry that I can’t pull myself out of this depression.  Not even having probably the best weekend of my life can pull me completely out of this hole.

And believe me when I say it was the best weekend I have had in so long I can’t remember a better weekend.  But I was only halfway out of my hole when I had to go back to work and got blamed for shit that I wasn’t even there for.

My inventory was off.  No prep was done.  Truck was still in the floor.  The computer was frozen. There was expired product in the walk in because of the two managers there, not one person realized that he sixteenth was two forking days ago and that the tenth was over a week ago.

But it’s my fault.  Because I’m the general manager.

I’m both relieved and terrified to say that it took Roxie point five seconds to decide fork the cohabitation thing and shove me back in my black hole of nothing which is oddly becoming quite a comforting place since nothing and no one can seem to hurt me there.

Well the cheese can.  The cheese and the hut can hurt me no matter if I’m in my deep dark blackness, at the beach frolicking in the waves, trudging through sand dunes tonsee a ighthouse that admittedly was really pretty, or even having a drink for my goddamn birthday.  The cheese can hurt me.
Something happened to all the wings.  I wasn’t there but it was my fault that we only had three bags this morning.

Have you ever seen two personalities fight over a text?  I assure you it’s actually kind of funny.  I mean when my ass began to get cheeed this morning I was like "but I wasn’t even here how is this my fault?" But Roxie was all like "You can kiss the part of my ass that I haven’t wiped after eating four day old Mexican food!" We typed the response text so many times and deleted it to rewrite it, that we actually got a text in the middle of it asking if we had an answer.

Sadly or maybe not sadly, an edited version of Roxie’s text is what got sent...  the boss realized later in when she went off on the other managers for ignoring her but sitting up and clapping for the batshit crazy phsycho manager that is allowed to quit every damn day for two weeks and still have a store show.  I swear.  Roxie’s pissed off was felt in like six stores and the dm’s office/car today.  She asked three times if anyone had any wings and no one bothered to answer.  So finally she asked if she could be taken out of the chat because she was tired of being ignored.  That she was always there if they had a question that she might be able to answer but it was amazing how when she needed one goddamn answer suddenly everyone’s phone was dead. She was immediately answered with no no one had any spare wings and the dm telling her to order some from the warehouse and he would personally go pick it up.

I can’t say how I came out of my black hole that Roxie places me in for my own protection but I’m out.  Probably because she worked hard to correct the mistakes in the store today and when she’s tired here are less barriers for me to get through.

It’s okay Roxie.  You sleep now.  Tomorrow I will see the doctor and try not to sound like a blubbering mess that’ll get us locked up in an asylum when I try to explain how stressed we are.  I never get to say this to you, but I got you.  For right now.  I got this.  You rest.

I’m not out of the hole that threatening to swallow us both, but I’m out of it enough that for this one time, I can hold you and tell you it’s going to be okay for tonight.

It’s an aside, but everyone knows that losing someone very dear to them is horrible and there’s levels to your healing process but telling someone to stop complaining that they looked ugly on the morning of their fortieth birthday because every birthday is a gift and her husband didn’t get that gift is not okay.  Not okay like at all and the person who pulled that stunt is so very very lucky that both of us have an immense amount of respect and didn’t go off in her for it because it was done to us at the worst possible time today.


I’m tired now.  I think going t bed is the best possible thing I could do.

Ciao Bellas

Not waking up

It’s hard to show who’s typing right now because both of us are wondering what hat it be like if we’d never been born?  What what it’d have been like if we never split into two and what would it be like if we took the rest of this bottle of clonazapam and a handful of tradodone and just... didn’t wake up...

It’d be like going to sleep right?  Dying? Leaving all the pain behind and for once not feeling like we’re no good enough, not pretty enough, not competent enough, or just to put it simply not enough...

The mother unit would be broken, there’s no doubt about that. But unlike us, she has God to turn to. He still talks to her.  Or maybe it’s that she still talks to him.  We’re not really sure how the religious thing works anymore.

The kids would be mad and sad but they’d have their dad and Gabby to cling to.  He’d get to be the only parent whichbhes wanted for as long as e can remember, she’d get to be mom to all of them.  Well probably just Livy and Jojo.  We don’t think she really ever cared for Kayla but we did and that was enough.

Kay would blame Pizza Hut and we feel that somehow this would break her more than it would break anyone else.  For that we apologize.

The father unit.... ell bless him but he’s just come back into our lives and he’s never been aware that there’s wonof us and he’d probably say I was Gods plan and the mother unit would finally beat he shit out of him because there is no plan that her God could have that would rob her of her baby.

The Hut wouldn’t feel a damn thing.  They’d replace us without a second thought although if we ever did this there would be a note telling one and all that he Hut precipitated this cation of cowardice.

Of all the people we would feel for... not sorry... but feel in our eternal soul... would be the friend units that have always been there and have bent over backwards to try and pull us out of our holes.  They have talked us down, talked us up, takes to us t our lower points, laughed with us at our higher points.  For them we would probably hate what we’d done.

But we’d be free.  And maybe finally the two different people that we are.  Claudette could see what Roxie looks like and vice versa because we thing if we ever got separated we might look like very different.

We apologize.  But this is something hat we’ve been thinking more and more about every day that life tells us we aren’t good enough.  We apologize if we ever do this but the pain is getting too much and we can’t hold on much longer.  We’ve been holding on as long as we can and pretty soon our grip is going to slip and when it does....

We are truly sorry.

Grey walls

Roxie here... so I did a thing.

  A couple of things actually.  I asked someone for a play date but he said he was busy so I was faced with a couple of options.

One.  Deal with it.  Nope.

Two: respect his request for monogamy and find something to do with our time.

Three: screw his request for monogamy and go find us a plaything which would likely get us caught up in something we didn’t want to be in and the play date requested would find out and that would be the end of that.

We chose option two.  Or rather I did.  I chugged a shitton of starbucks and painted a wall.  With glitter.

And I only half finished it.

Claudette was a little peeved.

I need a play date.  I don’t think Claudette will handle it well if I paint anything else...

Government issued dick where r u?

I’m reaching that point where the government issued fuck boy should be getting ready to be shipped to my house any day now.

I mean seriously, why isn’t this a thing?  Why can’t the government just make this happen?  They can regulate everything else...

I’m about to go watch fifty shades of kinky fuckery again just so I can remember what sex between two people is because self serve sex is NOT sex.  I don’t care what people say.

I’ve screamed my own name so much even the neighbors know when I’m using the self serve lane...

Excerpt of Catching the Duchess

Just because I want to be obtuse....

She stalked back to the stairs and back up to the kitchen muttering about men and their stupid ways.  Rosa didn’t even look up as Paige stomped through.  Andrew met her at the stairs and quietly pressed himself against the wall for her to pass.  She muttered all the way to her room where she slammed the door hard enough to make the pictures on the wall shake.  

She barely been in the room when the door opened and Milo came in.

"You are the most bull headed woman I have ever met.  Do you ever listen?  At all?"

"Yes I listen but I don’t take orders.  You can’t order me around like I’m one of your subjects."

"I know you’re not one of my subjects.  They listen!"

"I don’t do blind obedience."

"I’ve never asked you for blind obedience.  Never once!"

"No you just wanted me to be blind!" Paige yelled.

"How do you figure that?"

"I was supposed to be blind to the fact that you hired me a bodyguard so you’d know where I was all the time?  I was supposed to be blind to you paying my bills? I was supposed to let that poor kid that Rogan beat up rot in jail or let you hurt him more?"

"I hired Rogan to make your life easier.  I paid your bills because I love you and I want you to want for nothing! And for the last time, He SHOT YOU!  Of course I was going to beat him as badly as I could."

"This is what I’m talking about!  You run roughshod over my life like I can only hurt myself if I’m in charge of it!"

"What the hell?  How did you get that impression?!" 

"His gun shot me.  It didn’t shoot you!" Paige yelled. "I let him go because he didn’t mean to shoot!"

"How exactly do you hold a gun to someone’s head with no intention to shoot?"

"He was a teenager who needed money!" Paige yelled "He was desperate!"

"Oh My GOD you have such a bleeding heart!  If it had been anyone else he would have shot them, taken their wallet, and gone about his business."

"If it had been anyone else and he’d meant to shoot them he’d be in jail now."

"Exactly!"

"Exactly what?!?!?"

"He meant to shoot you!" Milo yelled

"I wouldn’t have even been in that damn park if you hadn’t hired me a bodyguard that I needed to sneak away from!"

"Will you stop jumping around on subjects!?!?"

"Will you stop trying to control me like one of your subjects?!?"

"I DO NOT control my subjects!"

"If you say jump, do they ask how high?"

"If I were stupid enough to make such an asinine request, they might!"

"Exactly!"

"Exactly what?!?!?"

"You!  You can’t control everything!  You have been pulling the strings since the night I met you!"

"Besides trying to protect you, name one thing, one thing that I did wrong."

"You could have told me who you were!"

"We’ve been through this!  You wouldn’t have believed me and when you finally did you would run away!"

"Who says I wouldn’t have stuck it out?"

"My grandmother told you who I was and you ran away.  And not just ran away, you ran around the whole damn world and back again!"

"Because I wanted you to give up!"

"I will never give up."

"You have to."

For a second, Milo had to take a step back.  As she‘d said the last sentence color flooded back into her eyes.

"Why?" he asked gulping.

"Because you and I can’t be together."

"Give me one good reason."

"You’re a Prince in a country that’s still a monarchy."

"So?"

"You need to go back to your people.  You’re going to be king someday.  They need you."

"I need my queen."

"The Queen, your grandmother, has made it abundantly clear that I’m not good enough for you or her country." Paige replied.

"Then my brother will have to be king."

"You think it’s a simple as that?  I will not be made out to be the modern day Wallis Simpson.  You will not abdicate your throne.  You will go back to Dalistos and we’ll forget any of this ever happened."

"No."

"No?"

"You heard me.  I snuck off the island to find you.  I followed the plan of a teenager to get to you.  I am not going anywhere without you."

"Why won’t you see reason, Milo?"

"Frustrating woman!  How many languages do I have to say it in?  I love you!  Ti amo!  Ik hou van je!  Rakastan sinua!  Eu te amo!  Seni seviyorum!  Je t'aime!  Jeg elsker dig!!  Nakupenda!"

Paige stepped back from Milo.  With every language his voice got louder.

"Okay I know French and the Italian, but I’m sure a few of those you made up." She said.

"In order, English, Italian, Dutch, Finnish, Portuguese, Turkish, French, Danish, and Swahili.  I’m pretty sure that I can find a few more languages both made up and real to say it in but the point is that I love you and I’m not going anywhere until you agree to be my wife.  From the moment you snuggled against me after the first night I knew that you were more than a one night stand.  When you cried in France I knew I had moved too fast but I couldn’t stop.  Heaven help me, I wanted for you never to want for anything in your life.  I wanted for you to know unconditional love from a man and no strife or heartache.  I can’t apologize for the way I went about it but I didn’t know any other way than to give you the same comforts I have.  My grandmother is a witch.  She always has been.  She had to be.  After my father died she was faced with having to raise two grandsons and she had already spent half of her life to that point raising a son to be king.  So she’s bitter.  It doesn’t excuse what she said to you, nothing will.  But she’s on the island.  If you won’t go back there, I will abdicate and stay here in England.  Dominic will be king and you and I can live our life in peace but you have to believe me when I say, for the last time,  that I am sorry for everything in the past and that I love you." Milo said. "I’m not going anywhere."

Milo finished and pulled Paige to him in an Earth shattering kiss.  It started as an act of dominance but quickly turned into a struggle of mastery.

He put both hands on the collar of her shirt and ripped it apart, sending buttons flying.  She did the same to his t-shirt.  He ran fingers around the waist of her skirt and yanked.  The silk tore away leaving Paige in her bra, underwear, and pumps.  Paige shoved his shorts and underwear down with one push and he sprang free against her stomach.  He grabbed her hair and pulled her head back.  As she gripped him in her hands he ran his tongue and teeth down her neck.  Suddenly Paige pushed back from him and out of his embrace.

They glared at each other for a moment in pure lust. As they stood there, the clear sapphire that was Paige’s normal eye color deepened into a fathomless pool of blue so dark he couldn’t make out the pupil.  Before he could adjust, Paige whipped a stunned Milo around and shoved him down to the bed.  As he sat on the edge of bed staring up at her, Paige sunk to her knees and took him into her mouth.  He grabbed the bed post tightly as Paige took him to the very back of her throat and purred.

"Ah God!" Milo choked out.

With hands, tongue, and lips, Paige worked to bring him to the edge.  Just when he thought he was going to go careening off the mountain gladly, she would ease up and take him back down.  The fourth time she brought him back to the edge, Milo put his hand on the back of her head and refused to let her stop her sweet torment.  When he could stand it no longer, he took his hand from the back of Paige’s head and grabbed the bedspread.  She came away just as Milo growled her name and came over her hands.  Paige sat back on her heels and looked smug as he spiraled back down to earth.

Satisfied that she’d won the upper hand, Paige got to her feet and walked to the bathroom, but she didn’t make it far.  Milo shot up and grabbed her hand.  With a devious smile and more energy than he should have, he threw her down on the bed.

"My turn."

"Show me what ya got." Paige taunted.

Slowly, as if he were a tiger stalking his prey, Milo crawled up the length of her.  He pressed her into the mattress with a kiss but came up as she caught his bottom lip between her teeth.  He tugged it free and started his descent lower.  Slowly he pulled the straps of her bra down each arm until, too late, Paige realized that in her position, her arms were now trapped.  Slowly he pulled the cups on the bra down so that her breasts freed themselves.  He took one nipple into his mouth and tortured it with his tongue; relishing the way it came to life and hardened in his mouth.  His tongue flicked back and forth over the ultra sensitive bud until Paige was squirming.  Then he moved to the other breast repeating his sweet ministrations until she was panting from the sensations.  He moved up to kiss her again.

"Is that all you’ve got" Paige taunted when he’d pulled back.

"Oh no.  Not by a long shot."

He went back to her breasts but this time, the hand not supporting him worked its way into her lacy underwear.  With his index finger he began to play with her bud, coaxing it from its hiding spot.  He’d flick his tongue then he’d circle his finger.  Paige moaned and bucked but he held on.  Slowly, Milo slipped his middle finger into her, working it in a circular motion.  Presently he slipped his ring finger inside the tightness.  Paige bucked harder, but it only made his fingers sink deeper.

"Ah!" She moaned.

After her nipples were sufficiently suckled and in no danger of ever retreating, Milo, still working his hand began to work his mouth down her body.  For a fraction of a second, he removed his hand only to turn it and begin ministrations again.  With his free hand, he slipped the bit of lace down and began a slow, sweet reign of kisses up her inner thigh pausing to circle the tender flesh at each kiss site with the point of his tongue.  Paige buckled and twisted, trying to escape, but nothing could free her but the orgasm that seemed to be just out of her reach.  As his kisses reached his hand, Milo let his tongue replace his thumb as he began working her clitoris. Slow swipes with the tip of his tongue and it came out to play only to have Milo blow cold air on it for it to retreat.    It was when he began to suck at it in earnest that Paige shot like a rocket to the top of her peak and prepared to jump off.  The slight tension around his fingers tipped Milo off and he ceased his ministrations completely, sending Paige sliding back to the base of her mountain.

"No!" Paige groaned. "No! No! No!"

To which, Milo responded by resuming his torture by returning to her breasts and starting from the top.

In answer to the four times Paige carried him to his peak and denied him release, Milo worked Paige up only to deny her the very same jump into oblivion.  She mewed, groaned, and even cursed him roundly but he refused her the final break.  

"Please…" She mewed.

It was the tone Milo had been waiting for.  He left her breasts one final time and moved his face down between her legs.  Silently, he curled his middle and index finger into her and circled all while using his tongue to draw her bud out to play again.  She tightened around his fingers, her bud came out to play, and she spiraled off into oblivion calling his name as she broke into a million pieces. Before she could touch back down to earth, Milo’d unhooked her bra, freed her arms, laid back on the bed, and pulled her astride him.

As Paige’s senses touched back down, Milo slammed her onto him and grabbed her hips setting a breakneck speed.  Not one to be outdone, Paige held on letting the sensation build.  Suddenly, Milo withdrew from her causing Paige to half scream, half whimper.  He bent her over and took her from behind.  He leaned in close as if he were going to stretch and kiss her, but he wrapped his hands around her middle to finger her as he thrust, sending ripples of desire through Paige.  

Every time one of them was close to that epic, final jump into oblivion, Milo would stop and reposition them.  After taking her from behind, he went to her on top but backwards so that when she lay back, he had free reign on her breasts.  When he felt her tightening again, he swapped them around again, so that he was on top and able to make it as slow as he pleased.  To her credit, Paige tried everything in her power to speed him but the more she tried, the slower he went until, at one point, he was pausing between each thrust of his hips.

"You can’t continue this forever." Paige breathed. "You have to let go sometime and when you do…"

"I’m taking you right with me." He replied as he thrust into her one more time. "Do you yield?"

"Never."

He ripped himself from her body only to fall to the bed and drag her on top of him.  She tried to get on him but he kept moving from her grasp.

"Do you yield?" he asked.

"Never." She replied catching him and holding him straight as she sank onto him.

This time Paige set the rhythm for a bit before Milo took her hips in his hands and began pumping her harder.

"Do you yield?" he asked

"Never!" but there was much less conviction to the word than before.

He began to thumb her clitoris again as he grinded her atop him.  She was powerless to escape the iron grip he had on her hips with his other arm and he could feel her tightening around him once more.

"Do. You. Yield?" He ask forcefully thrusting himself into her more fully with each word.

"I yield!" She screamed with her head thrown back.

Milo grabbed her hands and they both jumped over the edge.  Spent and unable to move on her own accord, Paige flopped onto Milo’s chest panting.  With extreme effort, Milo wrapped his arms around her and rolled to the side.

"Now, will you marry me?" He asked.

"Uh huh." Paige sighed.

"Ti amo, amore mio." (I love you my love.)

"Ti amo, troppo." (I love you too.)