Let's Play

Mystery

Jessika

Not soon after we got back to the house Damien's phone rang. "I'm sorry, I have to take this. Its a potential business partner" he said, kissing my forhead softly before retreating to another part of the house.

I sat down on a nearby couch and pet the dogs as I waited, but curiosity got the best of me and I decided to explore Damien's mansion a bit.

I turned down a hall to my right first. It was a very long hallway with doors on either sides and expensive artwork on the walls. I found it a little odd that there were no family pictures whatsoever, but maybe Damien was just going for the aesthetics. I took a couple steps forward but stopped in my tracks when I heard Damien's laughter booming from an open door a little ways down. He was still on the phone call and I didnt want him to be distracted by seeing me snoop around his house.

I turned around and went up the stairs instead. Once you got to the top of the winding steps, Damien's bedroom door was the only one at the end of the hall to the right. To the left, there was another hallway with a few more doors and I decided to check them out.

The first door I opened was a laundry room. A damn big laundry room. I chuckled to myself thinking about how his laundry room was bigger than my own apartment. There was multiple touch screen washer and dryers, and the adult in me wanted to use them even though I didnt have clothes to wash. I closed the door and moved on to the next.

The next door opened to a large bathroom. There was a walk-in shower against the back wall and a jacuzzi tub on my left. To my right was a large mirror and granite countertops.

Moving on, I reached the final door at the end of the hall. I went to turn the doorknob but found that it was locked. My heart rate picked up as I imagined what could be beyond the door. Was it another sex room? How could this man have more than one? How much sex does he have?!

I thought about giving up and going back down stairs, but the devil on my shoulder convinced me that I needed to see what was in that room.

Unlike Damien's penthouse, this door actually required a key and not a pass code. Finding a key would definitely be easier than trying to guess numbers. I got up on my tip toes and felt along the door frame but found no key. I thought about where the most basic place to keep a key would be and my mind instantly when to his nightstand.

I ran swiftly down the hallway and into Damien's room. He had a nightstand on either side, and while I didnt know what side he normally slept on, I chose to look in the one on the left side of the bed since that's where he was last night.

I pulled the drawer open and found a stack of papers. After shuffling the papers around I saw a small, silver key located in the back corner. I grabbed the key and attempted to move the papers back to their correct place to make it look like it hadn't been touched.

I ran back across the hallway and stopped in front of the door. My shaky hands were barely able to put the key into the lock, and my heart was pounding harder than ever before when the key started to turn.

I opened the door slowly, and of course the door had to squeak when I was trying to be quiet. I cursed under my breath and squeezed through the crack in the door, not wanting to make any more noise.

I stopped and surveyed the room, and it was not at all what I expected. What I thought would be a dark, intimidating room was actually a bright, cheerful room with animal paintings along the walls. What I thought would be a large, adult size bed was actually a small, twin sized bed with spider man sheets. And what I thought would be adult sex toys around the room, were actually children's toys.

I took a few steps forward cautiously towards the bed. There was a small nightstand in here as well covered in spider man stickers. On the top of the nightstand was a framed photo. This was the first photo that I had seen in this house.

I picked up the photo to observe it more closely. There was a layer of dust over the top and I used my sleeve to clean it off. In the photo was a younger Damien. His smile was so genuine and bright that I felt my lips curl up into a small smile of my own. His smile was infectious. To Damien's right was a boy. He had to only be about 4 or 5 in this photo. His hair was blonde and curled around his face just like Damien's. My breath caught in my throat when I saw his face. His eyes and his smile were an exact copy of Damien's. They looked so similar, I wouldn't have been surprised if it had been photo shopped. To the little boys right was a woman. She was gorgeous. She had the same blonde hair as the boy did and her smile was just as wide as the boys.

I felt tears come to my eyes as I continued to look at the photo. They looked like such a happy family. Why weren't they around anymore? Why wasn't Damien active in his child's life? Surely he wouldn't be working as much as he did if he had a child to take care of.

My emotions were so mixed. I was angry that I didnt know Damien had a family. I was scared about what the story behind this was. And the worst emotion of all, I was jealous. I wanted to make him smile like that. I had no right to even be jealous but I was.

I felt a tear slide down my cheek and land on the photo. I quickly wiped off the picture again. I set the photo down where I found it and walked over to the other side of the bed. There was another picture hanging on the wall, but this time it was just Damien and the little boy. The boy was dressed up as spider man and Damien held him up in his shoulders. Again, he seemed so happy in this photo.

My knees started to shake so I sat down on the bed beside me. To my left was a Teddy bear dressed up in spider man clothes. This kid clearly had a thing for spider man. I picked it up and held it in my hands. The Teddy bear was well loved, and had stains and patches all over it. This made me even more confused. No kid would leave that behind.

The door behind me slammed open, causing me to jump from my seat. The Teddy bear fell to the floor, and a small cry came from Damien's mouth.

"You ruined it!" He yelled. He quickly ran over and pushed me to the side. My body slammed against the wall and for a few seconds I saw stars.

When I was finally able to focus, I saw Damien gently placing the bear back on the bed, trying his best to place it exactly where it had been on the bed. His shaky hands then attempted to straighten out the sheets where I had been sitting.

"Damien, I-"

"Enough! You have done enough!" Damien yelled. He looked up at me and his eyes showed nothing but panic and anger. "Get out. Now."

"I'm sorry, Damien. I don't know-"

"Why the fuck did you come in here?! Its locked for a fucking reason!" He screamed, pacing across the room as his hands tore at his hair. "Please. Leave."

My body was frozen in place as an icy chill passed through my body. It didn't feel like he was asking me to just leave his house. It felt like he was asking me to leave his life.

I took a shaky step forward to make sure my legs wouldn't collapse before bolting out of the room. I stumbled slightly on the stairs, and barely caught myself on the rail. I continued to run as tears burned my eyes. I threw open the front door and ran down his driveway. It wasnt until I was at the very end, his house a small view in the distance, that I collapsed and really let myself cry. Sobs shook my entire body as I lay down on the grass.

I'm sure neighbors were staring, but they were the least of my concerns. I barely noticed as a black SUV pulled up next to me. I heard Charles' voice as he stood me up and placed me in the back seat. "I've got you Ms Blake. Let's get you home" he said.

I couldn't stop the tears from flowing. It felt like my heart had shattered into a million pieces. And the only way for it to have shattered was if Damien had my heart in the first place.