005 - A LONG SHOWER

When Kiara woke up, she looked around to see that she was in an unfamiliar environment. Everything looked very expensive, from the curtains, the furniture in the room, the carpets and the gold-rimmed mirrors.

"Where am I?" she spoke out aloud, asking no-one in particular.

She looked around the room and saw a door leading to a bathroom. Checking inside, there was no one. Her phone lay on the headboard, and it was off, most probably out of battery.

"Where am I?" she screamed out loudly and plunged on to the bed helplessly.

And the events of last night began to come back. She failed to understand what had happened. But her mind told her that at some point she had thought that she was with Jeremy. So…so then what happened?

"No!! Did I sleep with that Pinkerton boy? Oh no!! What have I done? What have I done?" she wailed in fury and pulled at her hair as if she intended to uproot it.

"What have I done? What have I done? Was I raped? Was I raped by one person or by many?" she cried bitterly and threw herself down in massive sobs.

"Jeremy will never forgive me!! Jeremy should never know about this!!" she continued to cry a lot.

There was a faint knock on the door, and a housekeeper came in.

"Madam, good morning," she smiled. "The Pinkerton heir left something for you. Here," the lady handed over an envelope.

Kiara nodded her head and took it. She did not say anything.

"I'm sorry I had to come here to disturb your sleep. He said I must make sure to hand it over to you, and seeing that my shift is almost over, I decided to give it to you before leaving." The lady explained.

"What time is it?" Kiara asked in a hoarse voice.

"It's ten minutes after two, ma'am," she was looking at her phone.

"What is your check out time?" Kiara's eyes widened as she failed to imagine how much money she might have to pay.

"The young master said we must put everything on his account. This hotel belongs to the Pinkertons, so he said we must allow you to stay for as long as you want. If you need any meals, please let us know, madam."

Kiara looked aside, hiding her tears.

"If there is nothing more, I will take my leave, madam."

"How many girls has he brought to this room? Or to this hotel?" Kiara asked in a high, angry voice.

"Pardon?" the girl moved closer.

"Your young master or whatever it is that you call him; I am asking how many girls he has brought to this room?"

The girl moved inside and closed the door behind her, then said, "to be honest madam, you are the first lady he has ever brought here. I've worked here for four years now, young master Pinkerton has never brought a woman in."

"That cannot be true!" Kiara screamed in anger.

"It's the truth, madam. Master Vine might be spoilt and all, but he is not the type that sleeps around. I have never heard any such rumors about him."

Kiara failed to hold in her tears. She cried bitterly, and the housekeeper held and comforted her.

"Calm down madam, what is it? Did he sleep with you against your will? Even if he did, you can always go to Lady Pinkerton and tell her." The housekeeper looked around and continued in a whisper, "you do know that young master Vine is the only heir…of course there is master Pinkerton himself, but how long does he still have; he will be dead any time soon."

Kiara lifted her eyes to look at the lady, and the latter did not seem to care. She carried on, "I hear lady Pinkerton is desperate for the young heir to give her a grandchild. A grandson, to be specific. She yearns to see the child before she dies."

Kiara's heart almost stopped beating. The thought had never crossed her mind.

Pregnancy!! What if…what if she fell pregnant!! Oh no!! Cheating on Jeremy was bad enough…and to think about pregnancy!! She tried to count her period days, and did her best to convince herself that there was no way she was going to fall pregnant.

Oh no no no no no!! Kiara cried all the more, throwing herself onto a sofa and crying her heart out.

The housekeeper tried to comfort her but she chased her off. Alone in the room, she cried her soul out. It was after a long time that she managed to calm down and opened the envelope to see a lot of money inside.

"I am not a prostitute!! I am not a prostitute! He is insulting me; paying me for sex?"

The crying started afresh.

It was only after 5PM that Kiara walked out of the hotel. With her phone off, she knew that many people had tried to call her, but she did not care.

When Aletha saw her daughter, she was alarmed and instantly demanded to know what had happened.

"I worked for the whole night and in the morning they said if I wanted I could take another shift. Since I needed the money, I took it," she spoke while she headed to her bedroom.

"How much did they pay you?" Aletha asked, following closely behind her daughter.

"Here," Kiara handed over all the money from Vine.

With widened eyes, Aletha counted it.

"All this money? Is that little hotel able to pay this much?" Aletha sounded very excited.

"The Pinkertons paid us," Kiara said and closed the door.

In her room, she removed her clothes and threw them on the floor. Wrapped in a bathrobe, Kiara headed for the bathroom and stood in the shower. She cried a lot, while scrubbing her entire body.

"I hate myself," she kept repeating those words.

The water continued to beat hard on her head and neck, and as it flowed, so did her tears. She cried until there were no more tears, but still she was standing in the shower and scrubbing her body, turning her skin red.

There was a knock, and Aletha slightly opened the door.

"Are you well, sweetheart? You have been in there for too long," she called out.

"I am fine," Kiara tried hard to steady her voice.

Aletha stood for a few seconds before closing the bathroom door and leaving.

The young lady closed the shower and stepped out to dry herself. She headed to her bedroom and applied some lotion on to her skin. She walked to the calendar on her bedroom wall and checked to confirm the last date of her monthly period. Since her period always came at the exact time, not a day too late, not a day too early, Kiara counted the days and saw that her period was supposed to come on the 7th of April.

"Seven April, please please, bring my period!" she began to cry again.

She walked to her bed and sat on a pillow. Her eyes met the very familiar photo. It was a large framed picture of Jeremy and herself, taken when the former was just six days old. In the picture, two year old Kiara was seating on a couch, with her legs spread out in front of her. Baby Jeremy was in her arms, and while she looked down at him, a few strands of her hair fell on his face. The baby's eyes were tightly closed, with his little mouth twisted as if he was about to let out a sharp scream.

"I am sorry, Jeremy," she cried. "I don't know if I will ever be able to tell you what I did. Will you ever forgive me, Jeremy?"

After a lot of crying, Kiara fell asleep while in the sitting position. When Aletha called her for supper, she said she was not hungry.

"What happened, my child? What did they do to you at Two-Sons Hotel?"

"Nothing," she quickly looked aside.

"You look very stressed ever since you came back. You can talk to me Kiara, I am your mother." Aletha tried to convince her child to talk.

"I'm just tired. We worked a lot and I feel exhausted." She was fighting her maximum best to keep in the tears.

"Can I make you something nice and hot? A cup of tea, maybe? Or some soup?"

"No thanks mum, I will be fine," she sniffled.

"Are you crying, Kiara?" Aletha stretched her had to touch her daughter's chin.

"No," a tear rolled down her cheek.

"Kiara what happened?" Aletha was beginning to get extremely worried.

"It's…it's just that, the manager at the hotel was rough. She was scolding me and made me feel worthless."

"Aww, I am sorry my child. We may need to go and talk to her…"

"There's no need, mum. I'm happy that I was paid a lot of money, and I won't ever have to go to Two-Sons Hotel again."

"Did you overwork yourself? Your phone was not reachable, but Jeremy informed us that you were working overnight. And I did call Two-Sons to confirm the event."

"To confirm? Were you doubting me?" she asked.

"No. I wanted to check if you were safe. I spoke to the events manager and she confirmed that you were working throughout the entire night, until today." Aletha explained lovingly.

She hugged her child and they chatted a bit more before the mother left her child's bedroom.

Sitting on her bed with her legs curled up under her, Kiara was looking at the calendar on the wall, with her eyes fixed on April the 7th. A soft knock was heard and Aletha peeped in again.

"Jeremy is here to see you."

What!! No! Not Jeremy! How on earth will I face him?

While she struggled with her thoughts, Jeremy walked in, carrying a satchel on his back.