Chapter 7 Mia #2
“I can see your reactions, of course, you judge.”
“So, tell me, what do I think of you?” she asks challengingly. “And just so you cannot tell I lie, I’ll write it on a piece of paper—“ Victoria gets up and walks over to a spindly table with an armchair next to it and gets the notepad lying on it.
I watch her write quite a lot, and I’d like to evaporate into non-existence at this point.
“Tell me what you believe I am thinking about you,” she says as she sits back down, folds the piece of paper and puts it on the table.
“Well,” I say awkwardly. “You think I am less of a person because I am a nobody, a wallflower. I’m basic and can’t live up to your standards.
” With every word I say, I become smaller.
“I’m also boring and messy, and have issues with my mother.
I am too young and without self-worth, otherwise a simpleton. ”
Victoria looks at me with an unreadable expression.
“Oh, dearest,” she says. “Who made you believe you to be all that?”
“I don’t—I didn’t say—“
“Yes, you did. You described yourself the way you learned to see yourself through another’s eyes,” she says, and a shudder runs down my spine, as another wave of discomfort rolls through me.
“Someone who didn’t value you because their eyes were tainted.
Their image of you has nothing to do with reality. ”
I am not properly processing her words.
“What I think about you couldn’t be any further from what you just described,” she says and takes the paper.
“Miss Phillips, I see this beautiful diamond,” she reads from the paper and heat surges through my entire body.
“Raw and wild on the inside, tamed and silent on the outside. I imagine myself touching her, uncovering her, guiding her, showing her the preciousness of existence. I cannot help but think of how good she’d look kneeling for me, undressed, liberated, in trust, as herself. ”
I am rendered completely speechless. My mouth drops open because while it was unbelievably sensually written and I heard the words, I am unable to process them properly. I know what she said, but I can’t process the emotional impact it has on me.
I have never been in a situation that went in any sexual direction. I also feel extremely vulnerable right now, unable to cope with the fact that Victoria Fitzroy somehow desires me from the sound of it.
“I—I am not desirable,” I stammer, “I am just—Mia. Just Mia. Boring. A nobody—”
“Just Mia,” she says with a huff. She carefully places the paper onto the table before she stands up with a graciousness I have not seen anywhere before. She is tall for a woman, maybe 6 feet, even barefoot, and compared to me, with my 5’5, I feel so small.
She takes a step closer to me, and my eyes shoot down as her legs touch mine. I stare at my hands in my lap, wrestling with sensations I am not familiar with.
She is so close now. I can sense her, scent her prepossessing perfume washing over me.
My chest heaves up and down, whether I want it or not; I can’t control it.
“Look at me,” she says and pulls up my chin. I let her, reluctantly. My entire body is so tense.
“Whoever made you believe you are something less, I will ruin them without so much as a second of hesitation,” she says, and I melt into her touch.
She is impressive as she is, but the way she talks, the clarity, the way she draws me in—those eyes.
The strength.
The confidence.
She pulls me up by the chin. Goosebumps spread over my arms, and something deep within me flutters. I lose myself in the moment, and I close my eyes for an infinite moment, where I only feel.
My mind is turned off entirely.
There is only her touch.
The sensation it causes me.
I don’t have to think right now.
I am only existing.
Being.
She slightly pushes my head to the side, and I feel her lips against my neck. I shrug as a shiver runs down my spine from it. Her warm breath caresses my skin like a summer breeze, and yet the hair on my arms stands up.
“You are something so special,” she whispers in my ear, “Something I cannot stay away from, even though I should.”
Her hand wanders over my chest, over my collarbone, up to my throat, to my neck, until she grasps my face on the side. Never have I felt anything like this before. My entire body is covered in goosebumps by now.
She pushes my head back into its vertical position. I am simply a marionette. My chest is heaving up and down like after a run up the stairs as I flash my eyes open.
I gaze into her eyes, lost in whatever limbo of space-time this is happening in. My eyes wander ever so slowly down to her lips. The lips that just caressed over my skin. They look so soft, so—
My eyes flash back into hers.
Please show me you feel that, too, I beg in my mind.
She pulls herself close.
My arms hang down, and I don’t even know where my body ends and begins at this point.
She bends down.
And her lips meet mine.
I close my eyes as a lightning bolt rushes through me.
My legs feel like pudding.
I have never kissed anyone before.
What I feel right now consumes my body, and I let it.
My hands shoot up. I somehow want to touch her, hold her close, never let go of the feeling.
The tips of my fingers hover over her chest.
I can’t bring myself to touch her.
I don’t know what to do.
I would break the dam between her and me.
Decisions. Bloody decisions.
“Do it,” she orders me in a demanding whisper against my lips.
And I do.
It is so easy to just do what she tells me to.
I rest my hands on her chest, and the moment I do, my stomach flutters. It feels so unbelievably good.
Her other hand grasps my neck, and she pulls me even closer. Her body pressing into mine.
There is so much longing.
A moan escapes my throat.
One, that scares the hell out of me.
My body tenses, and I freeze.
What am I doing here?
Kissing a woman who is more than double my age?
A woman who lives in an entirely different world?
This is so stupid.
This can never work.
The moment my mind is back on, everything gets rigid.
I lost myself for a moment.
I lost control.
Victoria lets go of me, and my arms shoot up in front of my chest to protect myself.
I take a step back.
I need to get out of here.
“That mind of yours truly is a bastard,” she says, a weak smile on her face. “It is the only thing that keeps you from being who you truly are.”
I don’t even know what to say to that.
“I’m sorry,” I say, turn, and run.
I run out the door, down the street, and only stop when I am so out of breath my lungs hurt.
It is then that I realise I have left my coat and shoes, and am indeed running through Belgravia, of all places, in socks. Like a total idiot.
Why am I such a mess? I ask myself when I sink to the ground, leaning against one of the concrete walls framing Hyde Park Corner. I pull my legs close and hide my face in my arms as tears fight their way to the surface.
Never in my life have I felt so humiliated. Not even when nasty Tom Burland pulled up my skirt in 6th year in front of the entire class.
Audible footsteps very close to me shift my focus from my inner world to the outer world.
A hand on my shoulder, and I look up only to see the valet, Henry.
“Miss Phillips,” he says, “I believe these belong to you,” he adds, and hands me my coat and shoes.
I wipe away my tears as I get up to take it. The embarrassment is crushing me like chains choking my neck.
“I was instructed to take you home,” he says. “If you’d please follow me to the car.”
“I—please don’t. I can take the—“
“It was an order, not an offer,” he says.
“I really don’t—it’s not necessary—you must have a million better things to do.“
“I don’t,” he says. “I do my job properly, which includes following my orders. You are my priority right now, if you may now—” he says and gestures for me to leave.
I sigh as I follow him.
In the corner of my eyes, I see people looking at me.
This was the last time I ever set foot outside of my routine, I swear to myself.