Uncertainty descended. She had no clue who she was angry and frustrated with now. It wasn’t even Jim or this situation. Although they did feature on her screaming list, but the main focus was her father. She wanted to hurt him, like he’d hurt them, but he wasn’t there. Jim was though and he’d manipulated her and made her vulnerable. Weak. A victim. Like her father had. She knew Jim hadn’t intended to make her feel those things, but did that make it better or worse? She thought when Jim talked about hersmartmouth it was usually light-hearted and almost complimentary, but her father never called it smart. He called it vile, poisonous, toxic and too fucking clever for its own good, but that was usually as he hit it. Maybe Jim was the same, but different. Maybe as he viewed her as being his property he thought this was okay and she would have to dance to his tune now rather than her dad’s. Were they two sides of the same coin?
“I bet Doogie Howser would come to my rescue and you’ve left my phone.” She spoke with the venom she’d so often been accused of as she goaded him for a reaction.
“But I took his card.”
Suddenly, she detected no warmth in Jim’s voice, just a cold detachment. She shook her head. She was in no way equipped to deal with this. Another person would have been prepared for Jim’s response, but she hadn’t expected it. She had been hoping to incite some discomfort or a sense of wrong doing on his behalf. Her hopes for some kind of acknowledgement of his misjudgement and wrong doing in this situation didn’t seem to be forthcoming.
Tasha heard the sound of her own laughter, hard and ironic as she reviewed her whole sorry life.
“Of course you did, you think of everything don’t you, unlike me. I never think of anything; too stupid, too self-centred meaning I will never amount to anything. All I am is tits, an arse and a cunt…if it looks like shit and smells like shit, it’s Tasha.” She was rambling and beginning to cry uncontrollably as she thought of all the times her father had said those things to her and worse, him and Liam.
Gerry had saved her or so she’d thought until she found him in bed with her best friend. Maybe she was the fuck up, not her dad. After all, she was the common denominator and she was the one who was naked and stranded in the bedroom of a man she barely knew and yet couldn’t imagine being anywhere else. That couldn’t be right, could it? Nobody knew where she was. None of her people had any idea of her location even if her people were limited in quantity, as the people she cared about most seemed to make a habit of letting her down. This was all wrong. How could she ever have thought she’d be worthy of these surroundings, of this man? There was always a cost. Even when she was only on the receiving end of crap, she always had to pay. It seemed her current poor choice was the controlling man whose bedroom she occupied, naked. The same man who’d abandoned her, punished her for no reason she could fathom beyond the fact she needed reminding that she was his to do with as he pleased. Was Jim really like her father? She didn’t know because she didn’t know him, not really, did she? She was hugging herself tightly and crying gently when she realised she was still on the phone.
“Natasha, speak to me, please, baby. What are you talking about?” He sounded very concerned at her outburst. “Look, I’m coming home now. Amanda, cancel everything for the rest of the day, Marc I have to go.”
She heard him speaking as she tried to compose herself again. “No, it’s fine. You shouldn’t cancel your work, not for me. I’m fine.” She aimed for insistence as she knew his work was of greater importance than her, everything was of greater importance than her, especially now she’d allowed him to see a glimpse of the mess she really was.
“You are far from fine, Tasha. Please, talk to me, honey,” he pleaded.
“Okay, but you stay at work as you’d planned, please. I’m sorry. I don’t do that. I don’t cry and I don’t have meltdowns anymore. Can we go back to the bit where you took me off speaker phone and we will both laugh about this and just accept you’re a crazy control freak and I’ll wait here watching the TV naked. We could text and get answers to questions and talk about life after Friday, please.” She could hear how close she was to hands and knees begging, but didn’t care because she needed him to remain at work. Moreover, she needed him not to see her this way. “Assuming you still want life after Friday.”
“Okay,” agreed Jim hesitantly. “But I will drop everything for you if you need me to, ever,” he said sincerely. “Oh, and I can think of nothing I want more than life after Friday, honey.”
She could feel the tears threatening to reappear because nobody had ever done that for her, ever, not really. Nobody had ever put her first without question. Some of her tears were suddenly guilty ones for thinking Jim viewed her like her father did or worse still, that he was simply another version of him.
“Thank you.” Her voice shook slightly. “Even if I had Howser’s number I would never have called him,” she promised, desperate for him to believe her.
“I know, baby. You were pissed with me, I get it and I never took it anyway. Text me whenever you’re ready and remember, I like you very much.”
“Ditto,” she whispered as she hung up and allowed all of the tears she had to leave her body, somehow feeling calmer with each violent wrack of her body.
She splashed cold water on her face and as Jim had also removed every towel in the place dried her face with toilet tissue. She brushed her teeth, her hair and sprayed deodorant, body spray and perfume. She was only missing clothes now, but found nakedness slightly liberating once she accepted it. She picked her phone up and checked the two messages Jim had left unopened. One from Angie telling her about her call to Marc. She laughed, thinking Angie would love to know Marc was in a foul mood now.
She replied with a simple, ‘Lol x’
Then the next message was from Gerry.
She considered her reply and then decided to come back to it. She would text Jim first and hopefully lighten the mood between them.
She laughed in amusement and disbelief. She really had called him all of those things.
How could he know how she sounded in a text? He was far too clever for his own or at least her good.
She waited for Mr Possessive to reply.
