Chapter 23: Trouble in paradise

Crystal Allen

I knew very well what people were saying about me, and I knew very well what they would say if, in this case, they knew that I had actually exchanged my life with Lea's, but I didn't care about people's opinions about Crystal. Allen and Lea Sunfish, I didn't care what people would think about the decision I made; I was fighting for my happiness because, as much as people talked, no one saw the torture I went through with my hateful stepmother and my idiot father.

I had never been happy in that house and I didn't care if I had given up my family's money, the nobility and everything else, I had all of that for all eighteen years of my life and none of it made me happy, it only brought me sufferings, that's why my happiness was on the sideof the man I loved, who was this man who was calmly smoking his opium after the good sex I had given him.

My days with Ansel Hughes in these last few months I had to recognize that they were incredibly not as rosy as I had thought they would be, there were dark days too: for example when he didn't sleep at home because he was working all night; or the times hedefended his insufferable maid when she and I fought. (Ansel said that I was not used to treating employees badly with my air of greatness, but I wasn't entirely to blame either when that inferior girl wouldn't lower her fucking head when she spoke to me and she thought we were on the same level ). There were stressful days and they weren't few, but I had a great desire to make our relationship work because I loved him despite everything.

"I know all that," I replied to him about him calling me Lea Sunfish, "but I would like you to call me Crystal, even if it's only when we're alone. You know I did all this identity-switching madness for you, for us, for our relationship." He knew what I was talking about. My father would never accept Ansel as my husband because of his lower social class; that's why I had to make sacrifices for our love.

He laughed and shook his head. "I won't call you Crystal Allen, consider that your dead name. Besides, you turn me on even more when I call you Lea Sunfish." He spoke so shamelessly and I rolled my eyes, not liking his stupid joke.

"Except I'm not Lea, I'm Crystal and it's me you're with now, not her." I practically shouted at him, I didn't understand why the hell he always insisted on my maid.

Since the time I had to grant his wish, because he wanted to make love to my maid so he could be with me and impose this condition on me, I had thought that that would be the only time he would ask for that, but Ansel always continued asking Lea to go with me to themy secret meetings with him at his house.

Just to give you an idea, he didn't even take long when he was inside me, claiming he wasn't horny enough, but if I brought my maid to serve him, he would take longer. So I had to carry that stupid Lea with me whenever I went to Ansel's house on the sly, where he could fuck her first and then fuck me, or fuck both of us at the same time. Before I couldn't understand that and I kept thinking that maybe all men were like that, that didn't bother me since I was having him for myself, so that he used my maid's body to satisfy himself and I didn't care.

But now that Lea had gone to hell and so we can be just the two of us together, he's still naughty about her name, moaning her name whenever he's fucking me or even always bringing her up in our conversations. Things like: "Your lips aren't as full as Lea's, and you know I prefer full lips for kissing." Or "Do you remember that time Lea made those delicious garlic breads? Oh, how I miss her fairy hands." Or even more "That Lucca Moretti guy is lucky to have Lea as a wife, you should have gone there and not her."

These lines of his made me upset, but he always said he was just joking and that he really had a broken sense of humor. But sometimes I had the impression that maybe he didn't love me and it was me who was insisting on this relationship.

"You're so right that you're not Lea Sunfish and you'll never be her, but I still like to think you're her." He puffed in my direction as he answered me, the sweet smell of opium permeating the room.

"Why do you always cum outside?" I asked so suddenly to change the subject, I didn't want to talk anymore about that disgusting servant, that she was now dead and buried by that weird count. Ansel looked at me, visibly surprised by the subject addressed so suddenly, I had never asked him about it, but I had already noticed this pattern in him of always ejaculating outside my intimacy when he reached his peak. Now he just shrugged and said.

"Because I don't want you to get pregnant." He spoke so naturally that it scared me, and on top of that he started smoking again as if he hadn't dropped such a bomb. So was that what it was about? He didn't want me to give him children? But why wouldn't he want such a thing? I was at the age of having children and since our relationship was very serious for me, I didn't see any harm in having his children.

"What do you mean you don't want to get me pregnant?" I asked completely shocked. What was he thinking anyway? I was his wife and we didn't have that much time, as life expectancy isn't very high in London these days. Why would we be wasting time while I was at my perfect childbearing age? "Why?"

"Because I already have children." He responded calmly, not even acting like he was revealing this to me for the first fucking time.

"What?"

"I already have three children, or four, I don't really know how many there are, but I know I have children." He told me and my floor almost fell completely at that point. How did he keep this from me for so long? Where was the sincerity in this relationship? I told him everything, but he kept secrets from me? What else would he be hiding from me?

"Do you already have children…!?" I asked perplexed.

"Don't be as surprised as if you thought I was a virgin when we met. I'm nearly thirty, damn it. A life almost made up. What did you expect from me?" He accused me with his words, I was blinking my eyes repeatedly trying to organize my thoughts. The blow had been too big.

"I'm just surprised to hear about this, I thought you had at least made a plan in your life to have a good marriage and children soon after…" he interrupted me with a mocking laugh.

"Plans are for those who have hope, my flower, and hope is for those who are born rich. When you are born and grow up in a poor and miserable life like the one I grew up in, you live only in order to enjoy the maximum pleasure that this life can give you before death finally finds you.

I was disturbed by his words not knowing what to think, he didn't want to have any more children. So how was I going to tell him that I was already expecting his child?