BRITNEY ASTON.
9:36pm. Friday, May 13th, 2022. An electric night at the club. You might be surprised I still remember the exact date and time. How could I not? It was the first time I felt that strong attraction towards someone in ages. Tall, fair skin, dirty blonde air, icy blue eyes that shone in the multicolored disco lights the club had to offer and well built body well decorated with tattoos- his body was no joke. The type to make you lust and immediately lose your senses. The type to make you do things you never imagined doing. The type that made a 19 year old innocent girl like me lose every last bit of innocence left in her. Clubs weren’t my favorite places to be. But when you received a request, okay not a request, an order, from your mum asking you to move out of your apartment in New York simply because she had gotten remarried and now wanted to live as a happy family, it definitely became a must go place. My mum and I never got along well resulting in me living the majority of my life in New York while she frolicked around the world in search of true love. It was always a hilarious quest for me considering how hurt she was after my dad left her. Apparently, he couldn’t stand her lifestyle which was exactly the reason he married her in the first place. And instead of changing that “lifestyle”, she simply became more prominent in it and spent the majority of her days wandering of in search of a new lover. And apparently, her search had paid off. She finally found love. In an entirely different country at that. London.“Oh my Goodness, Britney,” my best friend, Jane, gushed by my side, realized the guy I’d been staring at finally turned to give me a not so quick glance. “He’s looking at you. Oh my God, he’s walking over here!” “No way,” I shook my head refusing to look in his direction. “He cannot. And how do you know I’ve been staring at him?” “Because I have eyes, duh,” she rolled her eyes. “I saw you eye-fucking him ever since we walked into the club. Come on, don’t be so boring. We graduated high school and heavens know when next we’ll get to be like this again. Let’s just loosen up and try to have the best fun of our lives tonight, huh?” She was right. I should just ignore the fact that it was my last day in the city I loved and last night with my best friend before getting shipped off to a country obsessed with tea and kettles. “Sure,” I mumbled and immediately caught him indeed walking towards me. Shamelessly, I blushed bright red and on noticing my reaction, Jane skillfully danced away from my side to give room to handsome guy who was now in front of me. “Shit.” “Hey, beautiful.” For heavens sake, even his voice was just as attractive. “Hi, handsome,” I gave flirting a try as I raised ny head to meet his eyes. Like it was magic, the minute our eyes met, I felt every word I had rehearsed in my head go up to smoke, replaced by about a million butterflies erupting in my stomach. “Oh, um, hi.” “Are you alone?” He took a sip of the beer in his hand, my eyes glued to his Adam’s apple for a while as it bobbled. “Um, no,” I shook my head, grateful I was still able to come up with words. With every second that passed, he seemed to be closing the distance between us, consciously or subconsciously, allowing my body ooze an unexplainable kind of heat. “No, i came here with a friend. Jane. Jane, is her name. A girl.” God, I was so embarrassing but I couldn’t help it. “Oh, I see,” her corner of his lips raised up in a smirk and I could swear I immediately swallowed, my mind racing at the thought of the other things those lips could do other than form that perfect, gorgeous, smirk. “I asked the wrong question then. Are you single?” “What?” I stuttered, finally catching him as he took another step towards me. There was finally almost no distance between us, his bottle of beer being the only significant object keeping our bodies away from each other. To make it worse, he held it close to his chest, having my eyes immediately lurk around his chest. He had a black shirt on, the buttons clearly having no use as i could see his well defined abs on display. Either from sweat, the light, or just another one of his numerous attractive features, his chest was glistening in a way that made me imagine if my hands would be smeared with glitter if I ran them through it. “Oh, um, no, I-“ “Okay, wrong question, again,” his smirk was accompanied with a chuckle this time. “Are you a virgin?” I almost choked on my saliva. “I mean, don’t get me wrong,” he continued with a light laughter. “I noticed how you’ve been staring at me ever since you walked into the club. Sure, I know when someone wants my dick but you just looked more of fascinated. Is this new for you? Clearly, you can’t take your eyes off me. Even now, your eyes are fucking my body so yeah, are you a virgin? Do you want me? Do you want to- you know. I could help you with that.” “That is, of course, if you’re down. No strings attached. Just two attractive people giving into the law of nature.” And just like that. All it took was a couple of sentences from him. I wasn’t drunk. No, it wasn’t the few sips of alcohol I had about an hour ago. It was something completely different. An attraction I’d never felt before. A spark that ignited into a fire so alive, it consumed every bit of me. In no time, we were in his hotel room. Few minutes in, we were kissing. And in a couple of seconds later, it transformed into a fully blown make out session. The way he kissed me. The way his tongue explored every corner of my mouth. The way his hands roamed every single of inch of my body and how I arched my back in pleasure at his every touch. The sequence in which it happened would forever be a mystery but the next thing I knew, his hands were tugging at every piece of clothing on my body until he completely stripped me naked. Shamelessly, I did the same, taking short moments to appreciate his body that looked like something that came straight out of a Calvin Klein ad. By the end of the night, we were entangled in each other’s arms, my breathing heavy from the several rounds of sex we had. Every inch of my body was sensitive from his skillful touch- my nipples, my bud, my lips, my neck- to name a few. It was absolutely magical and for a great deal of time, I was sent into a land of nothing but euphoria, forgetting the dramatic turn my life was about to take. He kissed my forehead and I pressed my head on his chest, the two of us enjoying the warmth from our naked bodies as we bathed in the afterglow of mind blowing sex. I wished it could last longer but the following morning, the minute my alarm rang, I was pulled back into my senses. And like a lost puppy, I scavenged the room for the last bit of my clothes, threw them on and immediately took to my heels to run out of the room. For heavens sake, I had a flight to London set for 8am. And definitely, having sex with a guy whose name I didn’t even know barely twenty four hours ago was not going to be enough reason for my flight and new life to get postponed.BRITNEY ASTON. “Ladies and gentlemen, we’re about to begin our descent. Please fasten your seatbelts and seatbaack as we prepare to land.” If there was one word to perfectly describe how I felt, it was going to be “Jet lagged”. The after effect of long flights with your whole body feeling pretty much fucked up. But rather unfortunately for me, I couldn’t completely put the blame on the plane. The several hours flight I’d just embarked on was barely enough to birth such strong nausea and jet lagged feeling in me- my new life was. Standing at the Heathrow international airport, my phone in one hand, barely tidied luggage in another, I wanted to throw up. For a second, i impatiently couldn’t wait for my mother to finally show up and drag me to her new house and my new life but few minutes later, I hoped she’d just take her time and show up several minutes later. At least, late enough for me to have pulled myself together. “Britney! Oh my goodness, Britney!” I could have cried as
BRITNEY ASTON Within the span of barely 24 hours, I’d gone through a series of emotions. It had been a roller coaster, ranging from happiness, sadness, lust, despair, anger, frustration, hope, intrigue- the list could go on. But not even a single one of them could match up to the emotions that suddenly overwhelmed me as I stared at the good looking stranger from the club introduce himself as my step brother. “Why are you two silent?” My mum asked, effortlessly clueless. “Britney, say something. Aw, are you shy? Travis, say hi to your new sister.” She kept on talking to us like we were kids who were incapable of making up words ourselves. We probably were because at that moment, I couldn’t come up with a single word even if I tried. I was horrified, to say the least, memories I’d uselessly tried to get rid of resurfacing in the worst possible manner. I couldn’t get it out of my head. Especially not when the main character of all my dirty thoughts was only a few inches away from me.
BRITNEY ASTON “What?!” I could have sworn I yelled, my already flushed cheeks getting even more colour. Red as a tomato, I immediately pushed him away from me, bewildered and flustered to the core. “What the hell are you talking about?!” I almost couldn’t believe him, my entire body reaction serving as more than enough proof. What was he thinking? How could he even manage to birth such thoughts? In contrast to me, he simply let out a chuckle, taking a step backwards to regain composure after I abruptly shoved him away. I could tell he was amused, the corner of his lips curling into a smirk as he made his way back to his bed. How did I not notice how annoying he was the night we first met?! “Nothing like that would happen between us again!” I had to say, watching him begin to focus on his phone once again. “Do you get it? I didn’t come here to ask you to- No. I only came here to tell you what happened between us was nothing but a mistake. A one night mistake. One that’s never g
BRITNEY ASTON Though I hated to admit it, my mum was right. Remaining locked up in my room simply because I didn’t want to run into Travis was becoming very suffocating. Especially when I knew well enough I was going to eventually run into him whether I wanted to or not. So after spending a couple more hours in my room without doing anything, I eventually pulled myself out of bed, got freshened up and decided to head out. My mum was nice enough to spam my messages with nearby places I could visit. Malls, restaurants, the bus route to take- it was all she flooded my phone with and honestly, I was glad. Dressed in a casual jeans and crop top, I stepped out of the house and in no time, found myself not as lost as I was on my first day. My mum’s direction proved to be really helpful in navigating the city and helping me get familiar with the popular landmarks and destinations she had in mind. Truly, London was a beautiful place to be. There were tons of places to explore and tons
TRAVIS LEWIS My phone vibrated, immediately followed by a hiss escaping my lips. The vibration was signaling a text. A text from my father. VC: Come to my office. I need to talk to you. There were various perks of having my father has the vice chancellor and honestly, I hated it all. Though I loved being popular, I hated the extra popularity being associated with him brought. Simply put, I hated being associated with him. He was my father and was nothing more than that. He was simply the man that slept with my mum, got her pregnant and for some reason unknown to me, the man she decided to get married to. Ever since I was little, we never shared a normal relationship. We never had a reason to be close to each other, not even when my mum died, and quite frankly, I’d gotten used to it. More than used to it in fact, making his new attempts at trying to suddenly be more than just the man partially responsible for my existence nothing but irritating to me. “What is it?” My closest f
BRITNEY ASTON The weekend went by slowly. Rather slowly. It was finally Monday and I was expected to finally resume college as planned but I didn’t feel even the tad bit excited. Instead I felt a whirlwind of emotions, confusion and anxiety topping the list. I’d spent the past two days in the house, alone. Though my mum and Jack were home, occasionally calling me out of my room for breakfast and dinner, it didn’t count- the house still felt empty. And it was all thanks to Travis’ absence. Considering the fact that I desperately wanted to stay away from him, it was supposed to be a good thing. But strangely, his absence didn’t feel good. Not in the way I expected. Instead of relishing over the fact that I finally had moments to gather my thoughts, I spent my time wondering where he could be and why he just wasn’t showing up at home. Given his reputation, I wondered if he was spending his weekend with different girls, sleeping around and being as shameless as possible. For some
BRITNEY ASTON I watched Travis drive away, a wave of confusion washing over me. It could swear I was confident the feeling of confusion wasn’t going to last. After all, I was finally at school and was naturally supposed to find something else to catch my interest. But that didn’t happen. At least, not immediately. With the brochure in my hand, I managed to navigate my way around my faculty in hopes of finding the classroom lectures were supposed to hold. However, it was quickly proving to be harder than I expected, as an unsettling feeling began to linger around me. It felt strange and completely bizarre but I was confident it was happening. For some reason unknown to me, i could feel eyes on me as I took my every step. It was almost like I was the new topic of fascination for everyone I walked past. Slowly, it grew past the eyes and turned into whispers, fingers slowly pointing in my direction as I moved. “What is going on?” I muttered to myself, wondering why everyone had su
TRAVIS LEWIS. If there was one thing I was slowly bringing myself to accept, it was the fact that I couldn’t completely wrap my head around the type of person Britney was. One minute she’s acting like she didn’t care about me and I could swear I felt the same and the other, she’s acting all bothered about me and in return, leaving me equally bothered about her. Maybe it wasn’t necessarily ‘bother’. Maybe it was more of intrigue. More of me wondering what type of person she was. How she could wrap her head around the whole scenario of her mum getting married again and be so cool with it. How she could manage to stay in the same room with my father and not notice he was basically sheep in wolf clothing. Or maybe, it was something more about her I considered fascinating. But whatever it was, it was intoxicating and extremely disturbing. Staring at the empty wine bottle in front of me, I clicked my tongue and contemplated fetching another one. After all, it was all I could think of