Aniya was on her knees on the bed, resting heavily on her two hands as they held on to the sheets tightly while her silky black hair fell over the sides of her face, wet and glistering with sweat.
Her full breasts dangled slightly as the man behind her thrusted into her over and over again. She took it all in, her eyes closed, her pink round lips, slightly parted.
All the room had to light it up was a dim lantern on the dressing table, yet the images before Belladonna seem to burn her eyes.
"Oh... Lytio." She heard Aniya whisper through trembling lips and she looked up at the face of the man that was behind.
Indeed, it was her Mr Perfect.
Lytio's hairy chest was glistering with sweats, his slim hands firm on Aniya's small waist, pulling her closer to himself, all his attention on what he was doing.
Belladonna took a step back instinctively, her lips pressed together tightly, her eyes blank while her heart crushed into many pieces.
"Oh... Lytio." Aniya moaned again and she opened her eyes. "Ly--" her voice trailed off when she saw Belladonna by the door.
Her big brown eyes widened with shock and their eyes locked as they shared an intense gaze.
One was of fear, shock and shame and the other, just blank.
But this lasted for only a second.
Because despite the initial shock, at that moment, Aniya's body gave into pleasure, she arched her back and her eyes rolled shut. Tears running down her small checks as her loud moan filled the room.
Belladonna gulped, walked out slowly then closed the door.
She had seen enough.
While she tried to maneuver through the dark in her voluminous gown, she accidentally knocked over the small table in the sitting room and a bottle smashed to the ground.
The smell of alcohol filled the air. She looked back at her door, knowing that the noise would have now alerted Lytio of a presence in house asides them, but she didn't want to see him.
So with her face firm and determined, she raced out of the house.
While she ran and ran, she couldn't stop thinking about everything she had just witnessed.
She knew she was hurt but some how, some way, she just couldn't cry. She couldn't scream, she couldn't do anything.
She had spent two years of her life with Lytio, being with him ever since she was 19 and she had been sure that he loved her and only her.
All her life, she had loved her sister too. In whatever she did, she had always thought of Aniya first.
How could they do this to her?
At that moment, her gown got intertwined with a twig on the floor, she tripped and fell on her back into a puddle of mud.
She didn't struggle to get up, instead she laid in the mud like that, allowing it to soak into her gown and her hair, while she looked up blankly at the stars in the sky.
How could they do this to her?
She couldn't process her feelings but she knew they were overwhelming, so much that she felt numb. She wished she could be angry or sad or something.
Anything.
But she couldn't be any of that. She just felt really numb.
How dare they do this to her?
***
After what seemed like hours, she stood up and looked around only to discover that this was the children's open playground.
No wonder no one had been here to question her presence.
She started walking back home, not paying attention to anyone she met on the way.
When she got home this time around, the door was locked and she had to knock to get in.
The sitting room was lit with a bright lantern set on the table.
Her parents were sitting on one end of the only long chair in the sitting room, talking to Aniya who was sitting on the other end of the same chair, though naked, was now wrapped in Belladonna's bedsheet.
She looked up at Belladonna and quickly looked away, her eyes planted on the floor, her fair skin giving her away as her cheeks turned fairly red with embarrassment and shame.
Immediately they noticed her presence, they all became quiet.
Her mother, Isa - a plump, short woman, with big brown eyes and black low cut hair- eyed her with a disgust.
She pinched her upturned nose together and shook her head. "You look hideous, child. It was just cheating, the world hasn't ended yet."
Belladonna smiled, making the dry mud that had splashed on her face crack a little bit.
That wasn't surprising at all. Her mother had never been one to support her in anything.
"Do you have anything to say to me, Father?" She looked at Jasper, the forty-one year old man sitting next to her mother. He had a pot belly that his fading brown buttoned shirt managed to hide away, and small strands of grey in his low cut hair. He was a little fat too but taller than Isa by a couple of inches.
The man sighed heavily and shook his head.
Belladonna wasn't surprised by that either. He hardly ever had anything to say.
"Goodnight."
With that, she left for her room. As she moved away from them, she heard them starting to talk again in hush whispers.
When she got into her room, she didn't take a bath though, she just laid down on her bed - the very one Lytio and Aniya had betrayed her in.
It made her question herself.
How long had they been meeting each other?
How long had they been doing this behind her back?
Had she been foolish all along?
***
Belladonna woke up the next morning but instead of feeling as dirty as last night, she felt a little clean and even smelt different.
Her body didn't feel sticky with dry dirty mud, nor did her hair smell of it.
She yawned, then opened her eyes.
Like a dream, Lytio was looking back at her with those dreamy chestnut eyes and wonderful smile.
She smiled back at him, raising her hand to touch his oblong face.
This must be a dream though, she was sure of that because there was no way Lytio was in her room. He had never even been inside her room before.
She looked down at the loose white shirt he wore and his black pair of trousers.
Her smile fell slowly as an image of his naked beige body pounding into Aniya, flashed in her mind.
She withdrew her hand, one that never made it to touching his face.
She remembered everything once again and her face became grim.
She sat up slowly, resting her back against the wall, her face blank.
Sensing the change, Lytio took a step back, looking around the room, his hand drove through his golden curly hair before scratching the back of his neck.
"You are finally awake, my love." He smile nervously, revealing his perfect white teeth, but her face remained blank.
He had never seen her like this before.
"What are you doing here?"
"I snuck in through the window to see you early this morning but..." he subconsciously looked out the window at the raising sun and back at her. "You had so much mud in your hair, your clothe and your..." he pointed at her bed instead of saying it, because he suddenly lacked the courage to. "I helped you to get it out."
"What do you want, Lytio?"
He blinked, tears misting over his black eyes. "I love you, Bell. I would never do anything purposely to hurt."
She scoffed.
"You don't say. I wonder how long you two have been rolling naked in my sheets."
He gulped, his eyes filled with hurt. He took a step forward.
"Once, just once and it was a mistake. I swear on my life."
She arched an eyebrow at him. "I heard that is what they always say when they get caught."
He sighed heavily, mumbling underneath his breath and pacing in front of her before he stopped and stared back at her.
"Everything that happened yesterday night was a mistake, you have to believe me."
She curved her lips sideways, then shrugged nonchalantly. "The way you held her waist yesterday to me seemed pretty intentional. Are you sure about that?"
"I was here to look for you because the seamstress told my father that the changes you requested for had been made to your gown. I wanted to take you along to go and try it on and confirm that everything was to your liking. It was getting dark, you were not back and your parents invited me inside.
They offered me food and a bottle of alcohol."
Belladonna squinted her eyes at that statement, she remembered the bottle of alcohol she had accidentally broken yesterday and she went still.
She knew where this was going and she didn't like it one bit.
"And I refused because I don't drink. You know I can't, I'm really lightweight."
She knew that.
One shot of alcohol was enough to make a complete fool out of him.
"They agreed with me and offered me juice instead but then, the juice tasted a little weird." His breathing was start to get louder.
It was obvious that this was laborious for him to explain, that this was killing him.
"After a while, they left and your sister arrived. I started feeling really strange, I needed to lay back. She helped me to your room, so I could wait for you there but she started behaving strangely and..."
"You decided that while you waited for me, it wouldn't be so bad if your penis," she casted a quick glance at that part of his trousers, then looked up to his ashen face, "...took a little trip down Aniya's vagina."
His golden bushy eyebrows shot up in anger and frustration. He dashed forward, towering slightly over her, as he held her face in-between his sweaty wrinkling palms.
"Bell, this was all a set up! Don't you see?!"