TouchStone for giving (The Story of Us Trilogy) by Sydney Jamesson Read Free Book Online Page B

for them, you cannot refuse.
    This you will find this out for yourself, I think.”
    At that moment it becomes apparent. For all her supermodel perfection, she’s just a 27 year old
    woman like me who is in love with a wonderful man. The difference is she knows she can never have
    him. That must be a crippling pain to ensure.
    “Sometimes, devotion is painful and the love of someone like Ayden comes at a price.”
    She faces me head on. I see a hazy mist overshadowing the diopside coloured flecks in her eyes.
    She is near to shedding a tear.
    “The last time we met I was quite rude I think and I apologise for that, but I tried to warn you. That
    night, when I saw you leaving without him I thought you’d be able to stand up to him. Was I wrong?”
    I cannot escape her stormy eyes. “No, you weren’t wrong.” I have no intentions of saying any more
    and she knows it.
    In the next room a phone rings. “Please excuse me. I have to take this call. Please feel free to look
    around.”
    I watch her glide into another room, leaving me alone with my thoughts and a lawless impulse to
    rifle through her things. Instead I tiptoe into the next room.
    Along the far wall are rows of framed photographs of her: she’s a vision of physical perfection,
    elegance and beauty. What strikes me is her ability to transform into a different person thanks to
    lights, costumes and skilled air brushing: she’s a changeling. No wonder Ayden had her by his side for
    six months. What an unforgettable impression she must have made on his business associates and
    friends.
    I catch my own reflection in the glass, stand back and superimpose my body onto hers. There is no
    comparison. I cannot fill the space with my slender frame and my blue eyes merely twinkle like stars,
    swallowed up in a cloudy sky. I cannot compete with her. I feel my insecurities clinging to my T-shirt,
    seeping through to my heart. What the hell does Ayden see in me?
    Quickly, I step to my right in an attempt to leave the self-doubt behind and saunter into a side
    room. Again it’s a shrine to Princess Alenka, only some of these photographs are not the kind you
    would want to put on public display. The primary colours, the African prints and the monochrome has
    been replaced by stark images of bondage and supplication. Alenka is either clad in what looks like a
    leather bikini or naked. I suppose they are what could be called ‘artistic.’ I’m not sure what to think
    but, before I can make my escape and return to the respectable covers of Vogue and Marie Clare,
    Alenka appears behind me.
    “For most of my photographs it’s my vanity that forces me to have them framed and displayed like
    this. I was, what do you say, the ugly duckling in my family. I had intelligence but was always too tall
    and too skinny to be considered attractive.”
    I turn around and give her a disbelieving stare. Where have I heard that story before?
    “You don’t believe me but it is true. I have most of them in this house to remind me that I am, in
    fact, a swan.”
    She tilts her chin up and strikes a graceful pose. I don’t know her well enough to be able to deduce
    whether she is joking or exhibiting one of the most assured displays of arrogance I have ever seen.
    “Well, no-one would ever doubt that Alenka.”
    “But these photographs are here for a very different reason.” She stares up at them longingly, the
    glow from the picture lights highlighting her features. “You cannot see it, but there is love here.”
    I take a closer look. One depicts her on her knees, blindfolded and bound to the end of a bed with a
    leather rope of some kind; head bent in a submissive pose, naked and exposed.
    To the right of it is a photo of her holding a striking pose. Again blindfolded and standing, stretched
    out. Her arms and legs are bound to a wooden structure and there she stands, in the shape of a human
    cross; her legs go on for miles, her breasts are fighting to get out of a leather