The Awakening of Alexandria Read online

  He rolled the cart over to a small bistro set in front of the patio doors and unloaded their dinner.

  “You can stop pretending to be asleep now,” Nicholas said sternly. “Get over here and eat.”

  Allie tiptoed across the tiles and slid into the chair across from the one he’d taken. She didn’t look at him, but picked up her spoon but ate just ate a few bites of the psaro soupa.

  Nicholas was eating normally, enjoying his meal. He put his fork down. “You have not eaten since breakfast. That is unacceptable. Eat.”

  Allie looked up and met his eyes for the first time. “I’m too nervous to eat. Are you going to kill me?”

  Nicholas shut his eyes for a moment. “Alexandria, had I wanted to harm you I would not have gone to such great lengths to enforce your well-being. Now eat.”

  Allie picked up her spoon and tried but she was, for the first time since she’d been brought to the villa, afraid.

  When Nicholas put his napkin down and scooted his chair back, she put her spoon down.

  “I didn’t mean to hit you in your…” Allie gulped.

  “Where did you intend to hit me?”

  Allie head snapped up with a bit of temper left. “In the head!”

  “I am profoundly glad that your aim was off,” Nicholas admitted. “Had you met your target, I would probably be dead. What set you off?”

  She tossed her head. “You undressed me!”

  One eyebrow went up. “Alexandria, who do think attended to you when I brought you to my home?”

  She looked startled. “You said there was a doctor here!”

  “There was and he attended your medical needs. I attended your personal needs. I have washed you, I have dressed you, and I have handfed you. Yes, I have even seen your naked body. I know of every bone that sticks out too far, I know about the little birthmark on the inside of your thigh. I know about your small, but very lovely breasts. Even though I know all that, have I ever treated you with anything less than respect? I asked Mrs. Demetriouv to assist in your baths since you awakened to respect your privacy.”

  “If you attended me while I was unconscious, you didn’t respect my personal privacy. You had no right to do that.”

  “Perhaps not, but I did not want to involve anyone else in your care. You are in my home, under my protection, guardianship, and guidance.” Nicholas said.

  “I never agreed to that!” Allie shouted.

  Nicholas stood up. “Enough. You are here because you are a foolish girl who has endangered her life. I do not care if you have agreed or not. I am doing what I think is best for you and I will not be persuaded otherwise.”

  Allie made fists. “You can’t make decisions for me!”

  “I have already made those decisions,” Nicholas pointed out firmly. “I do not need your approval, or your permission. You on the other hand, young lady, seem to be in need of guidance and discipline. This afternoon I asked you to modify your vulgar language, and since then I’ve had to listen to another tirade after you tried to permanently disable me.”

  As he was speaking, he was advancing on Allie, who’d risen from her chair to back away. One hand was already behind her covering her backside and she was shaking her head.

  He took her hand in a firm grip and pulled her inside the bedroom. He bent her over the back of the chaise lounge, pushing her forward so she had to put her hands down on the cushions for balance. There was no way in hell could he put her across his knee or lap.

  “Don’t, please don’t,” Allie pleaded.

  “You have earned this,” Nicholas said holding her firmly. He lifted her chemise, pulled down her panties, and laid his hand across her bottom with a hard satisfying spank, and began a rhythm of spanking first one buttock and then another. His hand was large and her buttocks were small so each of the strikes delivered a powerful wallop and covered the entire area.

  Allie screamed and tried to claw her way away from the pain Nicholas was inflicting on her bottom, but he held her firmly in place. She tried to cover her bottom with her hands but he captured them and pressed them against her lower back with barely a missed beat. She bucked and kicked and it was use. She’d hit him where men were the most vulnerable and he paying her back with the same intensity of pain.

  As Nicholas gave Alexandria a thorough spanking, he was not thinking of his injury, he was thinking that she needed to learn a lesson. He was not to be defied. He ignored the wails, the cries and the sobbing until her bottom was completely reddened. When he was satisfied with the result, he stopped but he didn’t release her.

  “Alexandria, even if it kills me, I will teach you speak like a lady. This is for your profanities.” He concentrated these spanks solely on the under curve of her bottom, reddening it further, but he hoping this lesson would sink in. He would not tolerate her foul language.

  When the spanking was over, Allie was sobbing uncontrollably. He sat down on the chaise, pulled her into his arms, and let her cry.

  Chapter 4

  Allie leaned her head back against the little headrest of a golf cart and enjoyed the wind rifling over her face. She loved to drive, and she loved to drive fast, not that there was much speed coming out of the golf cart she was riding in. From what she’d seen from her balcony, golf carts were the only type of utility vehicles used on the island. Nicholas said he was taking her for a treat. He’d brought her an outfit for today’s outing and since it consisted of a simple one-piece bathing suit, a wrap, a hat, and a pair of flip-flops, it was pretty obvious where they were going.

  Something had shifted slightly. She had hurt him physically, and crossed a line. He in turn had drawn a hard line, one that she knew that she must not cross again. It had been two days since Nicholas had spanked her and she was still tender.

  She didn’t fear for her life. She didn’t fear rape or physical harm. He was a man who prided himself on his civility. Allie looked to Nicholas and he smiled at her. He really was a very nice man, if you could discount that he was a kidnapper and a miscreant that believed he had a right to spank her – a concept only outdated by about a hundred years even if it was a concept that was sexualized in many forms of writing. There hadn’t been anything sexual about the spankings he’d given her, though. Those had been painful, especially the last one that still served as a reminder of who was in charge.

  Nicholas pulled the cart over, cut the engine, and came around to offer her his hand to get out.

  “You are miles away Alexandria. What are thinking?” Nicholas asked softly.

  “I was thinking that except for being a kidnapper and a miscreant, you are quite a nice man.”

  Nicholas smiled and pulled a basket and a blanket out of the cart. He walked her down to a beach of white sand and spread the blanket.

  “Miscreant,” Nicholas said drawing out the word. “Do you think I’m a scoundrel, or a villain?

  Allie grinned. “I’ve decided that you are a throw-back to the Victorian Era when men thought they owned their women and treated them like children.”

  “Aw,” Nicholas said kicking off his sandals and lying back on the blanket on his elbows. “We are back to the fact that you don’t like being spanked.”

  Allie blushed. “Who would? I know you’re mad at me because I hurt you. It probably offended your masculine pride or something, but it wasn’t right to take your anger out on me.”

  Nicholas sat up. “Is that what think, Alexandria?”

  “Yes, it’s true!”

  Nicholas shook his head and ran his fingers down her jaw line before cupping his palm under her chin. “No, that’s not true. Yes, you hurt me, and I was very angry. Any man would be, that is a simple fact. I was very careful not to bring that anger into your room. I spanked you because you were behaving irrationally. You were running blind, and you have no concept of how many dangers exist here. This entire island is a mass of volcanic rock, cliffs, and caves, dangerous tides and pools. I could not allow you to hurt yourself. I will not allow you to hurt yourself. I span
ked you so you would understand that what you did was unacceptable behavior. I spanked you because I care, and Alexandria Mason, you need to know that someone cares enough about you to stop you from self-destructing.”

  “That doesn’t make sense,” Allie said shaking her head. “I don’t understand why you think my health is your responsibility.”

  “Have I harmed you in any way?” Nicholas held up his hand. “Other, than spanking you for misbehavior?”

  Allie shook her head. “If I don’t count those, no, but I do count those. You have no right. I’m an adult. I have managed quite well on my own for years. I don’t need a Herculean hero to step into my life and take it over. I will admit that I have neglected my health issues and let them get out of control, but that’s not your business. I’m not a child that needs to be told when to eat and sleep and exercise.”

  Nicholas took her chin in his hand. “That is true, except that you have neglected your health to the point where you needed an intervention. Did the doctors not ask you to check into a rehabilitation center?”

  “Yes, but he was claiming that I had an eating disorder and I don’t. Some people live to eat and others eat to live. I’m in the second category. Food has never been that important to me, and if I get busy I forgot to eat.”

  “That I do not understand. A good meal, good conversation, it is the gift of life. You say you have managed your life quite well. I disagree. Human survival should be at the top of everyone’s priority list and it was not on yours. You are a beautiful, headstrong woman who at this point in her life needs guidance and structure and yes, sometimes discipline. Alexandria, you are a woman and I am a man who cares for you.”

  Nicholas leaned over and kissed her, first with hunger and then with gentleness. Then, he got up and walked down the beach.

  It was twenty minutes before he came back. He pulled her to her feet and they walked together.

  “Tell me about when you were a little girl.” Nicholas asked.

  Allie started to shake her head, to deny, as she always denied, but then she accepted that telling Nicholas would not harm her. “I don’t remember much before seven or eight or after truthfully. Most of my childhood memories are just bit and pieces. My parents died in a car crash when I was six. I don’t remember them. Not their faces, not any particular scenes of family. I remember the dialog of arguments, of shouting matches. I remember them shouting at me. I remember being left alone, thinking they weren’t coming back. They always did, until that last time when they didn’t. After that it was foster homes.”

  “Even if you were in foster homes, you must have had a childhood,” Nicholas said.

  Allie nodded. “True. I know I did well in school. I know I learned, because the information is there in my brain when I need it, but I don’t particularly remember how it got in there. I don’t remember teacher’s names. I don’t remember childhood friends, if I had any. I know I’ve blocked those memories out. I don’t know why and I don’t particularly want to find out why. The human mind is a strange place and I think mine is stranger than most. I can remember the first book I read, Little House in the Woods, by Laura Ingalls Wilder. I was six. I can remember every word of it, including the illustrations. It’s as if it was imprinted in my brain. Actually, I can remember every book I’ve ever read, not all the words, of course, but sometimes paragraphs or sentences that made an impression. I can pick up any book that I’ve ever read, read the first paragraph, and remember the characters, and the plotlines. I’m not one of those people who has read ten books in their lifetime. I have read thousands and thousands of books. I remember the first story I wrote word for word, but if you asked me what I wrote last year, I wouldn’t be able to tell you until I looked it up. If I read the first paragraph, I would remember.”

  “Do you remember if you were happy as a child?” Nicholas asked.

  Allie shook her head. “Not really. There are a lot of holes in my memory.”

  “Okay, tell me about the first story you wrote. How old were you?”

  “Very apropos,” Allie said as they walked into the lapping waves. “I was seven years old and in second grade. It was first day of school. The topic was, ‘What You Did on Your Summer Vacation.’”

  Nicholas smiled remembering the age-old topic that he had also been required to write essays on in school. “What did you write?”

  Allie stopped, turned, and faced him. “I didn’t write it, they wrote it.”

  Nicholas halted and very carefully asked, “They?”

  Allie walked far enough up the beach to reach dry sand and sat down. She smiled at Nicholas, but it wasn’t a happy smile, it was one of trepidation. “I have voices talking in my head, Nicholas, lots of voices, all the time.

  “I’ve talked to other writers. I’ve taken classes in writing. It seems to be a clinical process in most cases. They figure out what they are going to write, outline it, plot it out, and then sit down and fill out the details. My process is much different.

  “I’ve done a lot of research, and I believe I have some form of autism, highly functioning. Children have a way coping when they feel different. They have the ability to conform to what the adults around them consider ‘normal.’ Children can also be quite devious in dealing with adults. The adults in my life couldn’t adapt to me, so I adapted to them until I was old enough to live my life as I chose.” She stopped talking and simply looked at him, waiting for a reaction.

  “I’m intrigued. Go on.”

  “I was seven years old when the voices started talking to me. At seven, I accepted it. Someone was telling me a story, a very good story about going to the beach. I’d never been to a beach, but the voice told me what to write, and I wrote it down. The teacher, in all her great wisdom, called me aside, called me liar, and told me go stand in the corner. After a while, more voices came, and I talked them. I guess the foster parents or my teachers must have reported it to the social worker in charge of my case. I was taken to counselors and that started a whole round of psychological testing. From that experience, I learned. Lesson one, don’t call them voices. Lesson two, don’t talk out loud to them. Lesson three, don’t tell anyone about them, ever. Are you scared yet?”

  Nicholas shook his head.

  “Had I had parents, all my characters, my voices, would have probably been indulged as my having an imaginary friend or something like that until I was old enough to understand that I shouldn’t talk to them out loud. Because I was in the government system, it was taken much more seriously. Therefore, I had to hide a vital part of who and what I am, which is a writer.

  “I believe I was born to be a writer, or at least a conduit to my brain which happens to write. This just happens to be the way my mind works, how I process the information from my brain to the written page. I hear voices. I listen to them, I learn from them, and I profit from them. I have hundreds, if not thousands of voices, or characters, bits of plot, bits of dialog, and character profiles all floating around in this big space in my mind. They’re not connected, or outlined or plotted together until the voices are ready to tell their stories. When they are ready, they come to me. One or more of them will fight their way to the top of the pile, and it’s their turn to have their stories told. When it’s time, it’s my job to write it down, get it on paper. When it comes together, it comes complete. All those bits and pieces that have been floating around disconnected suddenly connect and they write the story from beginning to end. I know it’s my mind pulling it all together, but I can’t explain it any other way.”

  “So, did you write down all these stories when you were a child or just store them in your head?” Nicholas asked.

  “You’re describing my brain is a computer,” Allie laughed. “I often think of it in the same way.”

  “All our brains are mini-computers,” Nicholas replied. “They simply don’t all function in the same manner. Did you write them down?”

  Allie nodded and laughed. “Some, but most of them, I stored away in my head, my mini-computer
. As a foster child, nothing really belongs to you. Without warning, a social worker comes in and moves you from one home to another. Generally, there is no explanation given, and you’re allowed to take one bag. My stories were safer in my head. The children’s books were published under the name of Hilda Berryworth, after I turned eighteen. My stories progressed in age, as I grew up. The adolescent/young adult category books were published under the name of Barry Simpleton. They’re still very popular.”

  “My God, you’ve been writing since you were seven?”

  “Yes,” Allie nodded. “Of publishing quality, since I was eight. I couldn’t do anything with them as a child, except keep them hidden inside me. I was already labeled by the system as possibly being mentally unstable, which is ridiculous, but that’s the way the system works. I had to wait until I was old enough to be legally free before I tried to publish. I was lucky. I self-published and the books sold like gangbusters on the Internet. There’s nothing that interests the publishing world more than an outsider who is making money. They want their piece of the pie, even if it wasn’t their pie. Of course, by using a well-known publisher with the added publicity, marketing, and connections, my piece of the pie got larger too.”

  Nicholas pulled her into his arms and hugged her. “I can’t imagine what you’ve have gone through. Unlike you, my imagination is underdeveloped. It’s mind-boggling that you had the coping skills at such a young age to endure and succeed.”

  “They helped, they were all I had,” Allie said backing off and rubbing her arms

  “Not anymore,” Nicholas said seriously. “You have me. A wind has come up and you are chilled. I think you’ve had enough of an outing for today.”

  * * * * *

  Nicholas stiffened and then rolled his shoulders before giving a light knock on the door. This would be round three for this afternoon. After they’d returned from the beach, Alexandria had protested taking a nap, but had fallen asleep almost as soon as her head hit the pillow. Several hours later, she’d started her battle of wills about using of her computer.