Alicia's Misfortune (60 page)

By: Naughty Nicole

The
Naughty Teacher

© Naughty Nicole 2016 – All rights
reserved

Published by Steamy Reads4U

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any
form, including electronic or mechanical, without written permission from the
publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles
or reviews.

This is a work of fiction.
 
Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either
the product of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner.
 
Any resemblance to actual persons, living or
dead, or actual events are purely coincidental.
 
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only.

This book may not be resold or given away to other
people.
 
If you would like to share this
book with another person, please purchase an additional copy.
 
If you are reading this book and did not
purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, please return it to the
seller and purchase a copy.
 
Thank you
for respecting the author’s work.

Warning

This book contains graphic content intended for readers 18+
years old.

If you are under 18 years old, or are not comfortable with
adult content, please close this book now.

Every morning at 6:00 am Tricia woke up and made her husband
the same thing. He wanted hard scrambled eggs, slightly blackened toast and
thick black coffee. He didn’t want jam or butter and he certainly didn’t want
cream or sugar.

She moved expertly through the pristine bedroom and into the
bathroom where she brushed her teeth, threw in a bit of mouthwash and put her
shoulder length blond hair in a ponytail. At 50 years old, Tricia had managed
to maintain most of her good looks, her athletic body and her soft complexion.
She was a worker. She walked downstairs and maneuvered through the kitchen
performing her mindless tasks until about seven when her husband, Rick walked
downstairs with tired eyes and a robe. Rick wasn’t a worker.

“Good morning, sweetie.” She set down a glass of orange
juice in front of him.

He slammed it and yawned loudly without responding. She
softly set the plate down and gave him the newspaper she’d brought in earlier.

“Did you sleep well?”

His mouth was full, but he nodded his head. She looked at
him and smiled then walked back up to the bedroom to change and shower. When
she got downstairs, he was still eating and he only had an hour to get to work.
She decided to pick up the kitchen.

“You almost done, sweetie?”

He didn’t say anything. He just kept his head in the
newspaper.

“You only have an hour to get to work, you know.”

He slammed the paper down and glared at her. “I’m not going
to listen to his every single morning, Tricia.” He stood up and slammed his
plate into the sink before he ran upstairs to mope and get dressed.

She leaned against the counter to take a breath. She didn’t
want any of this to be happening to her, but it was like this every single day.
He was constantly yelling at her and mocking her. He’d have that sour face and
that mocking tone. It was terrible. She didn’t know what she was doing wrong.

She decided to walk upstairs and try to talk some sense into
him. She tried to open the bedroom door but it was locked. She knocked and
there was no answer. She knocked again and he screamed, “Go away!” It sounded
like he was close to the door so he must’ve been just sitting on the bed.

He had no work ethic, no sense and he had a temper like a
lion. She wasn’t going to put up with it for very long. There was $800 taped to
the bottom of the driver’s seat in her car, and soon she would get out, but
first she was going to burn his entire world to the ground and piss on his
grave. He’d pushed her so far, with his bitter attitude and his slave camp home
life, that she knew for certain that there was nothing in the world that could
stop her from tearing his life to shreds.

She wasn’t going to burn his clothes or destroy his car. She
couldn’t burn the house down no matter how much she wanted to. Those things
would make her look crazy, and she wasn’t crazy. She was driven. The man she
loved, and she did love him, had trampled over her for more than six years. She
had to make sure that he looked back and regretted every bit of it, and she
needed to break his heart good.

If she did something that made her look crazy, he would
write her off and move on with his life, and he wasn’t allowed to move on. She
understood why Diana left him, and his daughter refused to speak to him for
years. The man was incorrigible. She was bitter, hateful and he didn’t care one
bit about her.

Even now, she was crouched against the bedroom door, with
tears streaming down her face. She was mourning what could’ve been and what
would never be. She loved this man and she could try. She might still try to
make it work, but she knew it wouldn’t. He hated everything and everyone that
ever came into contact with him.

She closed her eyes and tried not to think about that
candlelit dinner at Vito’s when he handed her a bread stick and with a silver
band encrusted with diamonds in the center. She couldn’t take it off. It became
a slave’s collar that she couldn’t take off from around her finger, and no
matter how hard she tried, it simply wouldn’t go away.

The door flew open and she fell to the ground. Her eyes were
wide and his sour face was staring down at her. “Get up! Stop, Tricia, just
stop,” he barked. He was acting like she was doing something to him, but he was
the one that made her life a nightmare.

 
He stepped over her
and barely missed her hand. He ran down the stairs and slammed the door without
even apologizing or telling her that he loved her. She’d never felt this kind
of despair before, and she knew that she couldn’t allow herself to feel it
again.

She didn’t know if she had the strength to do it. She loved
him too much to let him go. It started small. She’d take a few dollars from his
wallet when he was sleeping or get a bit of cash back when she went to the
store. She’d make up excuses and tell him that things were more than they
should’ve been. Over time, the money started to add up.

That was about six months ago, but she wasn’t going to stop
there. She’d earned a lot more than a thousand dollars working for this man.
She had a full time job dealing with him. She cooked all of his meals and
polished their sterile cookie cutter house. All of her devotion and all of her
heartache were worth more than he made in ten years.

 
She vacuumed and
scrubbed until her hands were raw. He worked her ragged. He used to sit at the
kitchen table or on the couch and point out stains for her to clean for him.
She did it too. She scrubbed the baseboards and the carpets. She scoured the
countertops in the bathroom and the kitchen. She was still devoted to him; even
now after all these years.

Tricia got up and hopped in the shower. She let her worries
and pain wash down the drain and soaked in the hot steam and refreshing body
wash. It was her morning ritual. After their usual fight and her ensuing
sadness, she would comfort herself, even run her fingers where his would never
go, and then she would towel off and look in the mirror to find the tired face
sitting in front of her. She would get through—she always did.

Once her hair was dry, she dawned her t-shirt and track
pants. She laced up her running shoes and headed out into the balmy east coast
cold. She got her blood pumping by stretching then running in place then she
made her way down the steep driveway and onto the sidewalk where she headed out
down the hill. She loved to have the cold air passing over her.

 
Running was her
comfort. It kept her going and allowed her to be alone with her thoughts. When
Tricia ran she could do anything. She was the master of her destiny. She could
stare at a spot in front of her and say that that was her finish line and she
would get there and then she kept running. It told her that she could overcome
any obstacle—no matter how hard.

“No.” Jake was standing firm on his position. Nicole didn’t
want to hear it. This was the sixth time she’d called him, and all he was doing
was sitting at home and playing Kingdom’s Journey. He was going to their house
if she had to drag them there.

“I’ll be there in twenty minutes. Just throw some old
clothes in the washer real quick and I’ll help you with the rest.”

Nicole checked to make sure her short black hair and bright
red lipstick was perfect then she grabbed her luggage and headed over to Jake’s
in her new black sedan. She knocked on the door, which was partially open and
he didn’t answer. His 2
^nd
floor one bedroom was filled with smoke
and the pungent smells of old gym socks. He was a 27 year-old frat boy and he
didn’t plan on changing. She just walked in like she always did and she found
him on the lime green couch with a cigarette in his hand and a beer in the
other hunched over and continuing his never ending quest to level 99. The click
of the controllers was the only sound when she walked past into the kitchen to
find a pile of rancid dishes and a black suitcase already filled up on the
ground.

His charcoal hair was already spiked in the middle and he’d
changed into his good black gauge earrings. He was ready before she even
called. “Seriously,” she yelled out from the kitchen as she stepped over a pile
of pizza boxes from the living room. He took a quick slurp of ramen so he
didn’t answer right away. She stared him down. He wasn’t going to get out of
those six phone calls worth of trouble. He went back to laying and pretended
not to hear her. But she walked straight in front of the television and he gave
her the look of death.

“What!?”

“Don’t you what me!” She had her hand on her hips like a
mother scolding her son. “You said that you were staying and you hung up on me
six times knowing just how important this was to me. She needs my support,
Jake.” She noticed that he had a clean shirt on, fairly clean pants and he’d
showered and put on his shoes. He was ready the entire time.

She had him and he knew it. “Fine. I knew you’d make me go
so I put up a fight just in case I could get out of it then I got ready so I
wouldn’t have to fight forever with you while I got ready.”

This was typical Jake. He was always prepared so he could be
as lazy as possible. Nicole never knew whether to slap it out of him or foster
it, but she knew for certain that it was the strangest quality she’d ever seen.

“Alright. Get up. We’re leaving.”

‘Aw, come on. Lemme just get to another level.” His fingers
were moving as furiously as possible as if the digital world were about to end.

She walked out the door without responding. He knew it would
be Armageddon if he didn’t follow her so he was saving the game before she was
down the driveway and in the car before she had the keys in the ignition.
        

“Jake,” Nicole asked as they pulled out onto the major
street, “when you were a kid, did you ever fall asleep in the clothes and shoes
you were planning on wearing the next day.”

“I left the shoes by the bed.” Of course he did.

He looked out the window in order to encourage silence.

“Do you know why we’re doing this?”

Jake sighed. “Your dad’s a terrible person, Nicole. I get
it. I know his life story and we’ve psychoanalyzed the man for months now.
 
That doesn’t mean that I agree that you need
to get your stepmother to leave him.”

“You don’t know what it’s like, Jake.” Every time she closed
her eyes she saw his red contorted face, and how he’d scream at her for hours.
He mocked her, he beat her sill when she was small. She remembered the way
she’d run out innocently to the fridge when she was little to get him another
beer. She loved doing it just to please him.

Nicole knew how her stepmother felt. It was that same desire
she had when she was a kid. She just wanted to make him happy, but he would
never be happy.
 
He pushed every single
woman he met until she either left or went crazy.

“How long does it take to get there?”

“Three hours.” Jake didn’t react, but she could tell that he
thought it was too much trouble.”

* * *

It started small. At first it was little things that he
wanted. He’d ask her to get him a glass of water or a beer. Then he moved onto
bigger things like what they should eat for dinner. Of course, she had to be
instructed as to how he wanted it. Then he was too tired to do the dishes. Then
could she clean that spot off the carpet? And why wasn’t the house straightened
up when he got home from work?

The little things turned into larger discussions about how
the house should be run, how dinner should be made and what chores should be
done when he got home. When she completed them, he didn’t say anything. When
she didn’t do it, he screamed at her and blamed her for all of the little
things in his life that bothered him.

Rick did give her little bits of reinforcement at times, but
it was mostly just talk. He never gave her anything. He didn’t even let her
have her own life.

It was all perfectly calculated. He knew exactly what to do
and how to do it in order to have his own personal slave—that’s what she was.
The sick part was, Tricia realized as she vacuumed the living room, she knew he
was doing it the entire time and her love and devotion to him kept her from
stopping him. If she did something to defend herself, she’d be betraying him.

An old Bee Gees record was blasting songs about life and
love while she tried to get things done and avoid her resentment.

She told herself that it wasn’t over, that she was imagining
things and that she should just live her life, but the way he spoke to her.
There were so many times when he was sure she was going to hit her. She didn’t
know how long he’d hold back. He drank too much. He always had one bottle of
liquor going and a twelve pack of dark beer.

The music was so loud that she hardly noticed the phone
ringing till she saw the light flashing on the receiver. He was almost home,
but she could risk it. It was definitely Nicole.

“Hello?” She whispered even though she knew that nobody was
around. That was the effect he had on her.

“Hey, Trish. You doing OK?”

“You know, thank you so much for this, Nicole.”

“It’s alright sweetie. I gotta. I know what it’s like.”
Nicole was her only comfort. She was estranged from her father for more than 7
years, but she found Tricia on FB. At first it was simple correspondence until
Tricia finally snapped and told the girl everything. She told Tricia that was
why she got in touch with her. It made sense. She never wanted her father to
know that they spoke.

 
“Where are you?”
Tricia felt like a secret agent. She ran to the pantry in case he came in. he’d
be home any time now.

“We’re about an hour away. When does he leave for his trip?”

“I’m not sure. I can call you later when he leaves.”

“Can’t I just come get you now?” Nicole was ready to get the
whole thing over with, but Tricia wasn’t even sure what she was going to do it.
There were two urges, both stronger than her, leading her in two directions.
She couldn’t resist the need to leave any more than she could resist the
devotion that kept her there. She had to act and she had to act quick because
this might be her only chance.

“Nicole I do-

The door opened wide and Rick grabbed the phone away from
her in a flash. “Nicole!?” He slammed the phone shut. She clearly hung up on
him. Tricia had no idea what was going to happen, but she knew it was going to
be bad. He slammed her against the wall, with his breath drenched in cheap
whiskey. He shouted, “Why are you talking to her!?” He raised his fist and she
slammed her foot into him.

“Did you just do that? To me? Oh, you don’t wanna keep on
living, boy.” She ran upstairs faster than he could follow her. She opened the
vent and pulled out her money and the gun that she kept there just in case. She
ran into their garage and grabbed a suitcase full of clothes and ran out the
front. No doubt Nicole would drive up any minute.

Rick rushed out the door after her and started screaming, “I
loved you!”

“No, Rick, you didn’t. It’s over. I’m through.” At that
point, after he lifted his hand, she didn’t care. The universe imploded and
there was nothing left but a broken shell of their lives together. Even if
Nicole didn’t show up, she wasn’t going to spend one more second with him.

“PLEASE!” He slammed down onto the ground and started
balling. He pounded his head into the grass, and all she did was watch
silently. She was thoroughly pleased be his reaction, but it wasn’t over until
he had a pill bottle and a razor blade in his hand.

Nicole did in fact pull up at that moment. They’d never met
and Tricia had never seen her car, but somehow she knew it was her. She grabbed
her bag right before the girl slammed on her brakes and jumped out. She ran
over to Tricia, who was getting a bit teary eyed, and gave her a big hug. “You
alright, sweetie.”

“I am now. Let’s go.”

“There’s one more thing I have to do first. This is the last
time I’m ever going to see him.” Nicole ran over and kicked her father square
in the face then she said, “I love you daddy,” in a mocking tone. There was
blood running down his broken nose.

Tricia walked up to the passenger side door and opened it.
There was a punk kid with his face firmly glued to a game system in the front
so she had to sit in the back while she waited for Nicole to get in.
     

“Where are we going,” Nicole asked when she pulled away.

“A couple years ago, he put his beach house in my name to
avoid tax trouble. You guys wanna spend a few nights there?”

“I do.” The young man had been silently moving his thumbs on
the controller the whole time. This was the first time he spoke up.

“I guess we could go. I got time off work. Did you get off,
Jake?”

“Uh, yeah.” Jake clearly didn’t care whether he had it or
not. He was definitely in his early 20s, but he was easy on the eyes, so Tricia
didn’t mind having him around.