You Got Me Thinking

𝐌𝐎𝐍𝐈𝐐𝐔𝐄

"I swear, lady Monique. It was so good." Gina was telling me about some crazy show she watched during the afternoon hours, but Lord knew I paid her no attention. I was waiting, waiting patiently for a knock on my door. My countenance, and the way my body moved was very much evident of that fact, but once it came to her favorite shows, Gina didn't give a care in the world if one was listening or not. All she required of you was that you be there, although she did get mad if she she asked you a question about her supposed show and you couldn't answer it.

I failed to realize that Gina had been calling my name for a while and it was until she clapped in my face before I left the state of trance that I was in. 

"Lady Monique?" She snapped her fingers this time around, the tip of her middle finger and her thumb clashing. 

"Yes." I shook my head and used my hand to wipe my face. 

"Is everything alright?"

"I'm good, Gina, it's just the regular mood swings. With time, I'd be fine." I'd never told Gina a lie, not ever. I was guessing there was a first time for everything. 

"Do you want me to get you water?" 

"No, not at all. I'll be fine." I shook my head again. 

When I replayed the conversation in my head, none of it felt real. It probably was one of those uninteresting conversations little children who cared for each other asked. 

"This is so fucking weird." Gina hissed and shook her head.

It sure was. 

There was a knock on the door and Gina walked to open it, and there he stood. The one who had me thinking all day. It wasn't going to be a sensible thing to ask if I was going to employ him. Of course, I was going to fucking hire him. He seemed like the perfect distraction from all of the absurdity that was going on in my life. 

"May I come in?" He asked, poking his head in like he hadn't already put a part of his body inside. As far as I was concerned, his head was everything. 

"I'm sorry, who are you?" A very confused Gina asked. The look on her face made it seem as though she was missing out on something. 

"Let him come in, Gina." Gina threw me a befuddled look as if to say 'what the fuck is happening here ?'

Marcus's steps were very brisk. I knew he was huge when I first set my eyes on him, but I noticed a few other things about him as he got closer. He still wore the same stained white shirt as before. He had amber-colored eyes and I noticed that the shirt had torn a little at the back. Very rugged, he looked. 

"My lady." He dropped the platter of covered food on the nightstand before taking a bow and then proceeded to take his leave. I couldn't help but adore the way the muscles in his back were depicted by his clothes. This man made me think crazy things, and it wasn't even 48 hours that I'd known him.

"Do you wanna start talking, or?" Gina's hands were now folded across her chest as she walked towards me. 

            

                                   ♚

It'd been about a week since I heard from the noblemen. I supposed they were giving me some space. Maybe my countenance during our conversations showed that I had little or no interest in what they spoke of and neither did I have anything to come up with.

I hadn't had good sleep in a while and when I was finally blessed, some asshole deemed it fit to make that the perfect time to knock like a mentally deranged person on my door. 

Incipiently, I disregarded whoever it was even though the person had sent sleep packing. The knock became persistent and the pattern of the knock doubled like another mentally ill person had been invited to join in on the knocking party. 

"What the fuck?" I mumbled and stared at the clock hanging on the wall. 

Shit. I'd never overslept this long. It wasn't even 8:00 am and neither was it 7:00 am. By 6:30 am every morning, I was always up, but I needed someone to explain to me how the fuck it was a few minutes past 11:00 am and a series of knocks was what brought me out of my slumber. I probably would have continued sleeping if no one had knocked on the door. 

There were lots of things that needed to be ticked off my list today. I was well aware that the day would be a bad one already since I'd slept past the normal time. 

Scooting out of bed, I put on my fur slides and walked towards the door to open it. 

Throwing it open, I found two people. 

"My lady," they said, both bowing as though they'd rehearsed it. 

I loathed all of this with a passion. I didn't sign up for a life where people would bow down to me like I was some kind of supernatural being, but they took it as a sign of respect. It was hard to change something that had been going on for so many years. 

"Please," I held my hand up. "do not bow down to me. I'm human like you." I shook my head before I began to think about how I was going to ask them the next question that came to mind.

"You're the next in line and we have to give you as much respect as you deserve." One of them said.

I had never seen any of those two in my life. What exactly were they doing on my doorstep?

"Yes, how may I help you?" I tried to make my tone sound as subtle as it could be--I tried to go easy on them. I didn't want anyone saying Monique Jenkins was a rude brat. 

"Breakfast." One of the females said. 

"We're here to make inquiries on what you'd like for breakfast." The other seconded. It was then I became certain that they'd practiced before knocking. 

"Umm. I don't know." I swallowed what seemed to be a thick bone in my throat and tightened the belt of my robe so it was all the more tighter. I felt a feeling of nakedness and vulnerability as those two ladies stood, expecting me to give them an answer. Truth was that I didn't even trust anyone to make my food. I had a perception that if I did, I was going to die of food posioning. 

My thoughts wandered to how I let a stranger make food for me because I was so caught up with thinking about his physique. Gina had been the one who made my food since I got here. She wasn't the best of cooks, but I couldn't deny the fact that her cooking was so much better than mine, so anything she made me was quite tolerable. On the other hand, her coffee was to die for. It was something that I always looked forward to even when anxiety and depression lurked around or when I was having a bad day generally. 

How did I get so distracted and let a man I barely even knew make food for me and worst of all, I ate it all. I ate every single bit of the dish that I didn't know what it was called that he made me and oh... I enjoyed it. There was no denying of that particular certitude. 

There was no contradicting of the verity that the man could cook. I sat here regretting why I'd eaten all of the food he'd made me when I knew so damn well that if he cooked for me again, I would not give it a second thought before eating it all. 

Fuck me. 

"Where's Marcus?" How that came from my mouth, I didn't know. 

"I'm sorry, who's that?" The taller one of them cocked an eyebrow like I'd just woken up from a dream. Indeed it must've been a dream because heaven on earth was hard to find in a place like this. I'm sorry, but did I just call a man that I barely knew heaven. Hell, he even looked so much younger than me and I couldn't get the thought of him out of my head. Not even for a single minute. Talk more of seconds. 

"Is it the tall guy that came in late yesterday?" My pondering was interspersed

by the voice of the other female. 

"Yes." I simply responded. I still felt a sense of distress where they stood. It felt as if danger wasn't far away from them. From where I was standing, I perceived trouble. 

"Oh, he's doing the dishes. He just made us food and we ate. I'm really hoping you employ him and make him the head of the cooking department because Jesus! That man can cook." The taller one of the two said. My mind pondered on where exactly she could be heading to because I knew so damn well that it wasn't coming from a mind of her wanting me to employ him because of his good cooking abilities. There was more to it and even a human with disabilities to see would know that something was up.

"Well, thanks for coming to ask me what I'll love to eat. I'll want Marcus to make something for me. Tell him I said so." How I was able to blurt that out from my mouth in only a matter of seconds, I didn't know. Only a few minutes ago, I was thinking about how I let a stranger make a meal for me, and here I was not so long after, telling two people to tell him to make another meal for me. It's just so hard to get a grip on yourself when it comes to him, isn't it? 

Maybe it wasn't really the food, maybe my eyes just wanted something hot to feed on. And just like that, I'd admitted he was hot! 

Shit. 

The ladies turned to leave while I slammed my door shut. Regardless of the fact that I could no longer see them, I could still hear all of the tittle-tattle coming from their mouths. Things like that never really got old, did they?