Marley's Twisted Arranged Marriage

A week later, my missing clothes were returned. They were folded neatly on my bed, already cleaned. But you know what really sucked?

He took more clothes.

I say ‘he’ because, by then, I knew it was Damien who was taking my things. I mean, who else would? I had asked the maids of the house and Caroline and they didn’t know anything about missing clothes. Conrad was fuming when he knew for sure it was Damien, but I assured him it didn’t even matter. He wasn’t harming anyone. Frankly, I just didn’t want more drama. So what if he takes my clothes and keeps them for a week before washing and returning them? Can you say free laundry service?

I had called Grace the day we discovered my first missing items. She told me our parents had said three words that changed her life completely.

They finally said “I love you”.

If it wasn’t to me, then I sure am glad they said it to Grace. She needs love and support from our parents at such a young age. She also told me she missed me and loved me and begged me to come back home. I almost broke down when I heard her crying through the phone, pleading with me to come back. I loved and missed her dearly, but I couldn’t go back.

When I told her she could come here whenever she wanted, she cried tears of joy. My heart fluttered to hear her to happy. She informed me she wanted to come out and visit me as soon as possible.

I told her about my life here – Conrad and I dating, Andy and I being friends, Caroline being a mother to me, and Damien crushing on me. I carefully left out the parts about Damien being obsessed and me not being a virgin anymore.

She was happy that I was having a good life here.

I almost regretted ending the call. Even if that was last week, I couldn’t stop thinking about my little sister. I love her so much.

Anyways, now I was wandering around the house by myself. It was around two in the morning, but I couldn’t sleep. I just wasn’t tired.

I shivered involuntarily and debated turning around to change my choice of pajamas. I had on a pair of purple plaid shorts that, thankfully, covered my butt, but were still kind of short. My top consisted of a pink tank top. I didn’t care about exposing skin when I purchased them.
They’re pajamas and made to sleep in. Not wear around for the world to see. I finally decided to just keep them on – no point in going back to my bedroom just to change to wander around the house at night.

I found myself in the kitchen in no time and didn’t bother to turn on any lights besides the dim one above the stove. I didn’t want to wake anybody up by turning on a bunch of bright lights.

I strolled over to the cupboards and grabbed a glass. As I made my way to the faucet, I heard a shuffling in the room. I turned around and looked toward the dining room table where – sure enough – someone was sitting. I could see the outline of their silhouette.

“Who’s there?” I asked, not taking my eyes off the sitting silhouette. They stood up from their seat and walked closer to me until Damien’s face appeared, only an arms-length away from me. I pushed away the churning feeling that came to my stomach and chose to not show my fear in front of him. The last time I’d seen him was two weeks ago when Conrad confronted him about my missing clothes. He mostly stayed locked away in his room doing who knows what. He probably masturbates to my stolen dirty clothes.

“It’s just me, Marley. You don’t have to be worried.”

Everything about that sentence made me worry.

“Oh. Hi, Damien,” I quickly filled the glass of water and regretted the decision I’d made to not change. I was showing so much skin and I could practically feel Damien’s eyes stripping me nude as I carefully kept my gaze on the glass of water in front of me.

Once it filled to the top, I shut off the faucet and turned to leave. “Well, I’m just going to go to bed now. I’ll see you later,” I didn’t even bother to face him. But before I could even make it through the threshold, a large and strong hand seized my forearm a little too strongly for my liking, but not hard enough for a mark to be left.

“Leaving so soon? Let’s talk, I feel like I barely know you and you’ve been here almost two months,” Damien’s voice had this I’m-trying-to-be-soothing-tone to it whenever he spoke to me. I think that’s what mostly made the alarms go off in my head.

“I should really go to sleep. Caroline wants to take me dress hunting tomorrow so I have to be well rested.” I tried to yank my arm from his grasp, but he wasn’t having it. He moved me so my back was to the counter and he was standing in front of me.

“Come on, I won’t bite. I just want to get to know you a little better.”

My stomach felt like it was going to shrivel up inside me because of how much it was twisting and turning. I felt a lump in my throat and I was officially terrified….. But I wasn’t going to let him know that.

“Okay,” I said uncertainly, looking at the ground to the right of him. “What do you wanna know?”

He smiled. His smile reminded me of a crazy child’s smile who wanted to kill their parents.

“Why do you like Conrad? He’s a jerk and he’s just using you for sex. I don’t know when you’ll realize he doesn’t really like you.”

Somehow I knew the conversation would go this direction, I just thought Damien might be a little more subtle at getting toward the subject. Nonetheless, I sighed annoyed and conjured up a response.

“I love him. He’s amazing and the best kind of guy I could ever ask for. I get that he’s made mistakes, but everyone does. He’s only human. He loves me too and I trust him. He makes me feel different than any other guy ever has-“

“How do you know he makes you feel different than how you feel with other guys? You’ve only been with a few other boys.” He defended. I was surprised and freaked out that he even knew that.

“Damien, how do you know that? I’ve never told you about my past love life before,” He wasn’t looking me in the eye and I could tell he was trying to find a plausible response. My eyes widened when I realized how he knew.

“Have you been eavesdropping on my conversations? Have you been spying on me?” My voice raised an octave higher and I was officially creeped out.

“Look, I’ve been trying to deny the fact that you’re obsessed with me since the day your Mom took me shopping with her, but I don’t think I can ignore it any longer. You have to stop, Damien. It’s unhealthy to fixate yourself on a girl like this. Your whole family is scared for you – along with me – and Conrad can’t be near you without wanting to hurt you. I can’t stand to see you hung up on someone you don’t have a chance with. I’m sorry, Damien, but I’m happily taken by your brother.” I made sure to lock my eyes with his so he could understand the seriousness of the situation.

He furrowed his brow and gnashed his teeth together, pursing his lips in a thinking face.
Without any warning, Damien brought his lips down to mine forcefully and quickly so I didn’t have time to reject him. I was scared and tried desperately to scream and fight him off, but he was unfazed. His hands ran all over my body and he lifted me up onto the counter and stood inbetween my legs before I could slam my knees together. No matter how much I leaned away from him and thrashed around, he found a way to keep the kiss ongoing. His hands stopped moving when they reached my inner thighs and he was dangerously close to my private area.

I froze. I couldn’t move any more. It was like him coming so close to my area was a switch that turned off the fighting and cranked up the fear and sadness. Would he actually go as far as to rape me, just so he could make himself believe I wanted him? I couldn’t fathom how his brain worked. What kind of guy was so persistent with getting a girl who would never – under any circumstances – be with him?

His hands crept further up my thighs until they rested on my crotch. My eyes widened before I squeezed them shut to stop the tears that threatened to spill down my face. I was so tense and motionless and I was wondering why Damien hadn’t stopped kissing me yet; it must’ve felt like he was making out with a brick wall.

His finger etched its way into the elastic top of the shorts hung there, inbetween my skin and the fabric.

I finally gained back my common sense and could move my limbs freely. I thrashed and kicked and shoved harder than before, a rush of adrenaline kicking in. I managed to kick him in the abdomen and shove him away from me. He stumbled backward, finally tearing his lips away from mine, and I wasted no time in jumping off the counter and sprinting upstairs.

It wasn’t even a minute before I heard footsteps that were gaining on me from behind.

“Marley, come back! I know you were enjoying yourself. I can make you feel better than Conrad ever will,” Damien’s voice was closer than I thought and I picked up my pace. My feet crashed against the tile floor each time I stepped, my arms chugging along side me. My heart was on frenzy mode – from running so quickly and from fear.

I finally found my bedroom door and bust through before slamming the door closed behind me, making sure to lock it securely. I heard Damien come to a stop directly on the other side of the door. I leaned my back against the door and struggled to catch my breath.

“I know you’re there. And you will be mine, Marley. Just you wait.”

The intensity and seriousness in his tone made me flinch and I heard his breathing on the other side of the door for a few more moments before he retreated back into his bedroom. I let out a large sigh of relief when I heard the sound of his bedroom door shutting. I slumped down onto the ground with my back to the door and pulled my legs into my chest, wrapping my arms around them and placing my forehead on my knees.

I knew one thing for sure.

I couldn’t let anyone know about what happened.

I knew that if I told Conrad, he would gouge Damien’s eyeballs out with a plastic spork and force them down his throat. Andy would go to extremes and super glue our sides together so he could always watch over me. Caroline would do something motherly like ground Damien or something, but grounding him would just give him more time to be home and stalk me.
And I had absolutely no idea what George would do.

I decided to just keep the incident to myself. It would save the trouble of having to hide a murder.

Maybe if I just avoid and ignore Damien at all costs, he would leave me alone. Maybe he would finally understand that I don’t want him like that.

I sighed again and trudged over to my bed, falling onto my back and glancing at the clock while I did so. The red digits flashed 2:48 A.M.

My eye lids suddenly grew heavy and I fought to keep them open long enough for me to situate myself under the covers of the warm bed.

Sleep overcame my body and soon enough, I found myself drifting into complete and utter oblivion.