Page 37 of Save Me
“And you won’t,” he says and continues to smile. “However, I am prepared to drip feed you with snippets. All very confidential, of course.”
“Of course,” I agree, “so what are Mayfield women expected to do?”
“Mayfield women are expected to be ladies, obedient, and modest; to serve their husbands.” He looks at me with a meaningful expression, one that tells me that this is what he will expect of me. “In return, Mayfield men are expected to look after their wives and to provide them with a certain level of comfort, wealth, and affection. They may take on mistresses, but their wife is of top priority.”
“And what about wives? Can they take on lovers too?” I only ask to try and gauge his reaction. To poke the fire and see how much it flames.
“No!” he snaps, telling me there is no room for argument in this matter. “They are only for the use of their husbands.”
“Use?!” I cannot hide my disgust over his choice of words. It escapes my lips before I’ve even had a moment to think about it.
“My apologies,” he smiles tightly, “what I mean is, they may only have a sexual, loving relationship with their husband. Your grandmother would have been brought up with all this information from an early age.”
“My grandmother?!” I gasp, letting my fork fall to my plate with a loud clatter. “What has my grandmother got to do with this?”
“Snippets, Beth, snippets.” He winks and continues to eat. I instantly want to punch him in the face, more so than usual. “Perhaps, you should ask your father to show you the small birthmark he has on the inside of his wrist, it looks a little like this,” he explains before turning his own hand over to reveal a small, feather-shaped mark.
“But you can’t say something about my family and not tell me,” I argue, completely ignoring his ramblings about a birthmark. “Why should you know more than I do about my own family?!”
My temper is beginning to rise to blood boiling levels, and even though he scares me, I am beginning to let my anger win out.
“It’s the way it has to be for now, Beth,” he replies calmly, not the least bit concerned over my evident temper. “Now eat your dinner!” he orders, pointing at my barely eaten plate.
“I’m no longer hungry!” I reply and defiantly push it away. I let my arms fold in front of me with an expression that could probably freeze lava.
“Very well,” he says with a shrug and a tight-lipped expression. He the continues eating while we sit in uncomfortable silence.
After about twenty, long minutes, during which I picture him choking on each of his perfect mouthfuls of food, or drowning on his sips of red wine, he places his knife and fork down onto his plate.
“If you have finished your little temper tantrum, perhaps I can show you the rest of the house,” he says as he arrogantly throws his napkin onto the table. He then proceeds to get up and demand my hand with his outstretched one. Unfortunately, I’ve had twenty minutes of winding myself up into a state whereby I would stubbornly give him the finger while he pointed a gun at my head, so merely sneer at his meaty digits with disdain.
“Don’t test me, Beth,” he whispers, “you are mine to do with as I please, so you can either have me continue to play nicely, or I can turn very, very, nasty!”
We stare at one another for a few moments, with me withering under his threat, and him giving me an expression that more than convinces me he will follow through with said threat. With little option, I place my hand inside of his and stand up to meet his smug, self-satisfied smile. Without any more words, I am led like a pet dog into the kitchen. It is surprisingly industrial-looking, not at all homely like the one at my house. He explains to me that Mayfield wives of wealth are not expected to use the kitchen, that we will have servants and chefs to cook for us. I may sound like an ungrateful princess when I say this, but his words only make me feel emotional, and not in a good way. At home, the kitchen is the center of conversation, family congregations, and a place whereby you’ll nearly always find one of your parents to help solve even the ugliest of problems. Apart from this one. This one is beyond ugly.
Oliver takes no note of my reaction, simply pulls me onto the next part of the house, which horrifyingly, is upstairs. A crooked, almost leering smile graces his lips when he begins to mount the steps with me following behind. The whole time my heart is thumping painfully inside of my chest, while a solid, hard lump sits tightly inside of my throat. I don’t want to go up there. There are only certain rooms up those stairs. Rooms I don’t want anything to do with, not in this house.
The first room I am taken into is large, airy, and strangely feminine in comparison to all the others. White, gossamer curtains fall gently across the windows and a four-poster bed with white linen takes center stage. A dressing table with an ornate mirror sits against the white wall next to another door. This door leads into an en-suite bathroom.
“This is your bedroom, Beth,” he informs me, “this is where you can stay when I am away, or if I need to work late, or if-”
“If you have a mistress over?” I ask him, still feeling a little brazen after my temper at dinner.
I try not to look at him, but his soft laugh takes me by surprise, so when I do, I only see a smile fall across his lips. He looks amused by my obvious disapproval over such things. He doesn’t say anything else, merely takes me back into the long, shadowy corridor with portrait paintings lining the walls. A sad place for them to end up, where no one will bother to look at the artistry for more than fleeting seconds as they pass through.
Oliver marches straight toward the double doors standing before us at the end of the hall, both daunting and masculine in their appearance. They make me want to run back to the white linen of my own bedroom. Whether he’s conscious of it or not, his hand tightens around mine before he very proudly throws both doors open at once. He then yanks me inside to show off the five-star grand hotel of a room before us. The words ‘massive’, ‘luxurious’, and ‘lavish’ do not do the room any justice. In fact, having to describe it with only words is near-on impossible.
This bedroom is at least the size of my house’s entire ground floor, and the perimeter of the bed only adds to its proportions. It’s adorned in black and grey satin sheets and made up to look like something that’s to be featured in the center pages of a Beautiful Homes magazine. The soft furnishings around it are delicately balanced with greys and whites; it has clearly been professionally decorated.
The en-suite is equally as impressive and still bigger than our entire living room. All covered in marble, sleek, modern fixtures, it houses a deep-set jet-bath that sits grandly in the middle of the floor. The final door, leading off from the main room, leads into a walk-in wardrobe. It looks more like a boutique storefront, with several full-length mirrors to complete the aesthetic.
Oliver’s clothes fill half of cupboards and drawers, all neatly folded and methodical, with everything organized to within an inch of his obsessive life. The other half is empty with bare cupboards and hanging rails, all loaded with a hidden meaning that leaves me shackled to this life.
On the opposite side of the bedroom, a set of French windows lead out onto a large, stone balcony that overlooks the beautiful gardens below. The garden itself is bordered by tall, imposing walls, designed to keep intruders away, and me from getting out. I explore each area with awe and wonder, leaving my mouth agape over every single detail, because, in all fairness, it is the most impressive room in the entire house.
Oliver, meanwhile, perches on the end of the bed, smirking arrogantly while he watches me move throughout the different spaces with a myriad of emotions that I can’t quite distinguish from one another.
“Well?” he asks when I come to a stop before him. “I’m sure you can guess which room this is.”