Taming his obsession

(Doreen)

I waved Rosie bye as she drove off the compound in her cream-coloured SUV.

"Get back inside already, darling. Good luck with presenting tomorrow", she said loudly, sticking her head out of the car window.

"Be careful", I bellowed back. Rosie is such a sweetheart, I thought to myself as I watched her drive outside the gates. I lingered there for some more seconds.

The guard who opened and closed the gates for Rosie's car turned around and gave me a slight bow, then walked back to where he stood before going to get the gates.

Speaking of the extra faces I see in the mansion every day, I have no idea how many workers there are here. I see a new one every day. Do they pass nights here? I have no idea.

I'm not even sure of how big this whole place is. My movement routine for the past week had been between the living room downstairs, kitchen, library, our bedroom, the garage and through the gates.

I still have a lot of time. Time to learn more about my husband, Leo, time to get accustomed to my new family and my new home. I headed back inside.

Back in the majestic living room, my eyes naturally turned to the face of the gigantic digital wall clock up on the wall, my favourite piece in the entire house. I mean, the part of the mansion I've explored. It was a few minutes past the hour of five.

I felt a bit hungry. I didn't have to make dinner as they were professional in-house chefs who handled the cooking. So, I was left to choose between going upstairs to rehearse my script again for tomorrow at the broadcasting station and clearing the table of the wine glasses I used with Rosie.

I contemplated calling the attention of one of the workers of the mansion to the glasses, but on second thought, I decided to do it myself.

I appreciate the fact that I don't get to lift a finger in my husband's mansion, regardless, rinsing out two wine glasses shouldn't be that big of a deal. I picked up the wine glasses and headed to the kitchen.

I met a kitchen worker using the sink when I walked in. Oh my God! I thought to myself, I guess this is where I give up on the the wine glasses I held in both of my hands, one on the right, the other on the left.

"This is the last dish, ma'am", the worker said, raising slightly for me to see a fine glass bowl she had just wiped before placing it carefully in the dish rack. I returned a small smile as she bowed and left the kitchen.

I was too slow in telling her to take over the wine glasses or perhaps, she was too tired to wash an extra thing after the day's work. As I dropped the glasses in the sink and made to turn on the faucet, I heard footsteps behind me.

"Hi, honey", came Leo's voice, a bit loud, accompanied by tiredness mixed with excitement. I flinched so hard and almost jumped out of my skin before turning to face him, my back to the wine glasses in the sink.

"Leo, my goodness. You scared the hell out of me", I said, letting out a sigh of relief to see that I trembled for no reason. I didn't expect him to be back at that time and I must admit, the mansion is so big and eerily quiet most times, I flinch at every unexpected noise.

"Welcome, Leo; how was your day?" I said to him again, still breathing hard from the jump scare he caused me. Breath in. Breath out. Why did I have to even jump like that? I'm such a scaredy cat. I thought to myself.

"What have you been up to?" came his response in the coldest tone as he walked slowly towards me. I moved from the sink forward, with my hand extended, inviting him in for a hug. I wasn't quite sure of the reason for his sudden change of tone.

On getting to me, he held my hands and brought them down and back to my sides. He walked past me, straight to the sink and picked up one of the wine glasses I had left in there earlier; he brought it up to his eye level and looked at it intensely, examining its content.

From where I stood, I could see the dark liquid remnant of Wine de Beau move from one part of the glass bottom to another. Dropping the glass back in the sink, he asked, "Who is he?", that coldness still in his voice.

"What!", I gave a little laugh and started to walk back to where he stood now.

"C'mon, Leo. You don't pose to me as the jealous type". Silence. "You love me that much?" I shouldn't have said that.

On returning his gaze to my face from the kitchen sink, his face had turned sour. His eyes were steady. His white blonde hair stood. Thin lines formed in his forehead and his chest rose and fell slowly as he walked towards me to close the little distance left between us.

What's going on? I thought to myself. As he approached me with his face close up on mine, I didn't see the need to take any step backwards until his muscular hands grabbed my neck.

My right foot took the first backward step I had delayed taking earlier as I struggled to breathe. My mouth was opened to allow every air I could manage to take in.

My hands were trying to free his hands from my neck to little avail. "You let a man into my house and even had wine in tall glasses with him", came his voice again to my ears. This time, void of any emotion but anger and bitterness.

His grip on my neck tightened. My throat hurted so bad. My stomach began to feel weird and in an instant, a generous amount of Wine de Beau came flying out of my mouth to his body. His hand came off my neck almost immediately and I felt alive again.

In the next few seconds that followed, I didn't care about anything around me at all. I coughed severally, rubbing my throat and breathing heavily.

When I felt a bit better and everywhere started to become meaningful to me again, Leo stood in front of me, his head bent to his crisp white long sleeves, now terribly stained with the wine I had unintentionally thrown on him.

My shoes were strewn on the floor between us, and I was leaning on the black giant oven opposite of him. It was then I realized I had, in the bid to survive, moved away from him as far as I could after he released me, giving the space between us now.

"This is not happening. Doreen. Damn!", he said the last word with so much weight on his voice and a quick angry swing of his right hand.

I watched him walk out of the kitchen and after a moment, heard him climb up the stairs leading to the room area.

"Damn!", I heard him say again, from a distance, and again, I flinched.