My lower lip trembles as the waves of emotion rise and fall.
Angelo sighs and leans his head back against the headboard. “Bobby, Mark, and I, we are closer than family. We are lovers. I kept you for myself, but I knew it would not be long before the other showed interest.”
“I thought they were gay.”
“We're not really label people,” Angelo says. “We take what we want. And we want you.”
I wonder if Mark is included in that we, but I’m not going to ask.
“So I’m not in trouble?”
“You’re in trouble, young lady.”
“But…”
“It’s not what you did. It’s why you did it. Bobby wanted to be with you to defy me, and I think you may have wanted to be with him for the same reason. I don't tolerate disobedience and defiance.”
“Or I think he’s hot.”
I don't usually make bold statements of that nature, but I find myself just blurting it out.
“He is hot,” Angelo agrees, laughing. "And he can be very persuasive when he wants to be.”
“Yes!” I agree. “I had no chance of resisting his seductive powers.”
Angelo smiles and shakes his head.
I don’t think he’s going to punish me. I think he’s going to show me mercy.
“You and I share the same weaknesses, it would seem,” he says, stretching his legs out on the bed next to me.
It is very late. I am very tired. And I feel so impossibly safe with Angelo, who is possibly the last man on Earth I should feel safe with, yet here we are. Sleep comes slipping over me, finding me warm and cozy in Angelo’s arms.
Chapter 18
Angelo
I wake up in a pool of blood. It is not my blood. It is emanating from the sleeping beauty beside me.
“Tilly…” I rock her awake gently.
“Mmnnghh?” She opens her eyes and looks at me, sleepy and confused.
“I think you’re bleeding.”
“Wha?” She looks down, then leaps out of the bed with stunning athleticism for so early in the morning.
“Oh my god, I am so sorry!”
She’s blushing.
“It’s… I must have… the pill or…”
It takes me a moment to work out what is happening. I know the basic biology of women, but I was led to believe it was a relatively small amount of blood which escaped during their cycle, not half the Ganges.
“This is a lot. Are you okay?”
“Yes. I’m fine. I guess my cycle is all out of whack because of the stress and the sex and the pill maybe didn’t help, and…”
“It’s okay,” I say. “Go take a shower. I’ll take care of this.”
“You will!?” She stares at me. “But. Oh my god. I’m going to literally die of embarrassment.”
“Tilly. I’ve cleaned up worse.”
A little blood is nothing. I’ve wiped viscera off my favorite watch and had to throw out shoes because they were coated in people. This is a minor spill at best.
“Okay, thank you. I’m so sorry.” She makes her exit blushing and apologizing.
“Mark! Bobby!” I call my boys when I have the sheets pulled from the bed. The mattress is going to need replacing. “Grab a mattress from one of the spare rooms, would you?”
“Why?”
Bobby always asks why. It is his greatest weakness.
“Because Matilda needs a new mattress.”
“Why? Did my come penetrate the mattress too?” He gets all smirky and stupid, a bold move for a young man with a black eye and swollen lip from having dared touch her.
“My god, Bobby,” Mark sighs. “Are you trying to get your ass kicked?”
“Go change the mattress.” I repeat what should be a simple order. “And make the bed. She’s going back into it.”
“Why isn’t she getting up? What’s wrong with her? Did I fuck her so hard she broke?”
Bobby is clearly looking to be obliterated in the next ninety seconds, but I don’t have time for that right now.
“She’s bleeding.”
Bobby’s eyes widen. I can already tell where his train of thought is going, right off the rails. “Oh god. What did you do to her?”
“She’s bleeding because of you, boy. I should have you fixed.”
“I didn’t cut her.”
“She took the morning after pill. Because you fucking came inside her.”
Bobby looks blank until Mark prompts him.
“Periods, Bobby. Women have periods.”
“Oh. I forgot about those.”
“Does she have supplies?” Mark asks a good question.
“What kind of supplies does she need? Like rations?” Bobby’s question are not as good.
“Tampons. Chocolate. Hot water bottles,” Mark replies.
“Let’s get her what she needs,” I say. “Everything she needs.”
* * *
Tilly
I’m lying in bed with a hot water bottle on my stomach and a bottle of Advil on the bedside table. My periods have always been brutal. This one is nastier than most. I could blame the pill for it, but it’s probably just stress.
By the time I got out of the shower, the bed had been remade. All I had to do was crawl inside it. I’ve never been taken care of this way before. I wouldn’t have thought Angelo had it in him.