Becoming His

Hi all! Thanks so much for your continued readership, votes, and lovely comments. I really appreciate all of the feedback. This is Chapter 3 of "Becoming His," which is a long-form age gap erotic romance featuring an eventual BDSM and romantic relationship between the two main characters. The "spice level" of this chapter is still on the lower side, but the next few chapters (which I'm aiming to get out in the next couple weeks or so) will elevate things... If you like character-based drama and the promise of something more peeking over the horizon, then this is the story for you!

If you haven't read Chapters 1 and/or 2 yet, I highly recommend that you read them first, due to the novel-style nature of this work:

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

As a recap of Chapter 2, Cameron plays an unexpected role in Lila's high school graduation. Afterward, they have their first kiss and share a tense dinner with Lila's mother and stepfather Robert. Cameron has to resort to breaking a window in order to get Lila back into Robert's house that night, and she learns that he will be traveling for business over the next week. This chapter picks up the next morning.

I'm having a blast writing this story, while in recovery from first-drafting a very long fantasy novel, and I hope that you will enjoy Chapter 3! Without any further ado...

***

Lila woke to a pounding on her bedroom door and Robert's angry voice outside.

"I can't believe what you've done! You owe me a major fucking explanation for this! Do you hear me? Open the fucking door!"

She scrambled to her feet, bedclothes trailing behind her. She was reaching for the door handle when the door burst open with considerable force, hitting her and knocking her backward.

"Oh, Jesus," Robert said, momentarily shocked out of his anger. His frame filled the doorway. "I'll get you some ice for that. What the fuck happened to my back door?"

"It was Cameron," Lila said, her voice thickening as her lip began to swell. She put a hand up to it. "We went out to practice driving, and the doors were locked when we got here."

"Why the hell didn't you call me? And your mother was asleep just inside!"

"We did call you. He tried. Check your phone, you'll see." She caught a glimpse of herself in her vanity mirror. Her lip was swelling, turning purple. "I need ice. Mom was drunk. She didn't even wake up when he broke the glass. He said you can send him the bill."

Robert swore, turning away from her.

"What a fucking stand-up guy, huh. He could've at least texted me about it. Now I have a hangover

and

I have to call the handyman. Let me get you some ice for that."

Downstairs, he gave her a small ice pack. She pressed it to her face in the bathroom, her reflection staring back at her from the mirrored medicine cabinet. Just last night she'd stood here with Cameron, watching him pull glass from his cut. It turned out she had had a price to pay, too, in the form of a busted lip. She looked like she'd been slapped. She had been slapped, just not by a hand. By a door. A fucking door. Thank God graduation had come and gone.

She absolved Robert of it. He had become more apologetic, anyways. After he called the handyman, he leaned over the kitchen counter, looking at her. She avoided his gaze, staring instead at the yellow roses, confirmation that yesterday's events had been real and not imagined.

There was, of course, also the broken door, through which a pleasant morning breeze issued.

"At least you cleaned up the glass," Robert said at last, and let out a short laugh. "I didn't even realize you went driving with him. Just knew the two of you took off a little while before us. I must've been so busy keeping track of your mother that I missed you, girlie."

"Where's Mom now?" Lila asked.

"Sleeping it off upstairs." He exhaled loudly. "What a night, huh? He's a real stand-up guy, that Cameron Winthrop. And he's taken a shine to you, wouldn't you say?"

Lila shifted back and forth where she was leaning against the counter, uncomfortable. She searched her stepfather's face for any sign that he knew more than he should, but the question seemed an innocent one.

"Yeah," she said. "I mean, I'm glad he's teaching me to drive."

"I'm glad, too." Robert rolled his eyes to heaven. "Now I've just gotta convince the man to sign me over some money as a grant for the new project."

Lila felt slightly ill at the thought. She went over to the cabinet and took out cereal, then got the milk from the fridge. It was skim, and she wrinkled her nose at it.

"Want some?" she asked Robert, who was scrolling through his phone.

"Sure," he said, glancing over. He looked a little skeptical. "So you've developed an appetite, huh. Doctor will be happy."

She flushed, before realizing that he likely didn't remember the exact nature of the comments he had made to her the night before. She expected that both he and her mother had a spotty memory of their evening experience, and maybe it was for the better. They ate their cereal in uneasy silence. It was near nine o'clock, and bright sunlight streamed in through the window over the sink.

"Could I borrow some trash bags and the vacuum?" Lila asked presently. "I'm going to clean my room this morning."

Robert raised his eyebrows at her.

"Maybe all the good company's rubbing off on you," he said with his mouth full of cereal. "I'll pay you ten dollars to take care of the master bath, too. Your mother forgot to schedule the cleaners again."

Lila found herself upstairs on her hands and knees in the master bathroom, scrubbing the tiles. She was certain that Robert paid the cleaners more for this miserable work --

and

they had a Swiffer. She had set her phone on the edge of the tub, and kept glancing over at it. Cameron hadn't said what time he flew, but she was hoping for a text. Her mind wandered, verging into daydreams.

She was dusting off the toilet when her phone buzzed and fell backward off its perch into the tub. She lunged for it, her heart leaping.

But it was Victoria, not Cameron, confirming her own departure from Logan International Airport. She was headed to Bali with a couple of old prep school pals (Victoria had attended prep school until her expulsion in eighth grade) for a two week getaway, all expenses paid by her rich lawyer father. Lila and Emily had been invited, of course, but Robert would not have it, and Emily, being the stalwart best friend that she was, had agreed to stay behind as well.

Lila set her phone back down, on the freshly-polished floor this time, and drew a breath, taking a moment to lean against the wall and close her eyes and think about the events of the day before. Her head spun when she thought back to the breathless moments in Cameron's car. Her first kiss, so soft. But later, the intensity, the darkness, the light. She thought she had gotten closer to him then, to the heart of him. And that was what she wanted. It was a crazy thought, bordering on madness, all-consuming. She wanted to know him, every bit of him.

She stood up, a little bit breathless.

From the bedroom she heard the sounds of stirring, and then the slow trudge of feet to the bathroom doorway. Her mother peered in, her hair stringy about her face, her silk slip askew.

"Oh, it's you," she said when she saw Lila standing over the double-sink vanity, preparing to spray down and scrub the marble. "What happened to the door? I almost had a heart attack when I woke up. For a moment I thought there was an intruder in the house. Then I noticed that the glass had been cleaned up, so I told your stepfather you might know something about it."

Lila sank her teeth into the inside of her cheek until she tasted blood. So these were the events that had precipitated Robert's angry outburst that morning.

"What happened to your

face

?" her mother asked, looking at her more closely. She let out a snort. "Jesus Christ, you look like you've been worked over. He didn't slap you, did he?"

"No," Lila snapped. "It was an accident. My bedroom door hit me in the face."

Her mother only shook her head and moved along to run the faucet in the adjoining sink and stare in the mirror at her pallid reflection. Lila listened to the sound of the running water. She couldn't say what her mother's reaction would have been if Robert

had

slapped her in the face. She liked to think it would have been the final straw, but that probably wasn't true. Out of the corner of her eye she watched her mother start to remove her makeup from the night before with a warm washcloth. The hot water steamed up from the bowl of the sink.

"So what happened to the door, then?" her mother asked, breaking the silence. Her voice was muffled by the cloth.

"Cameron broke it to get me in," Lila said shortly.

"To get you in?" Her mother turned toward her, dropping the cloth. The expression on her face was comical. "But you were already in, weren't you?"

"I didn't go home with you, Mom," Lila muttered. She slapped her cleaning rag down on the sink. "Cameron drove me."

"But I could have sworn -- " Her mother laughed aloud. "I swear you were in the backseat!"

"I wasn't. We left before you. I practiced driving. I drove all the way home from the parking lot on Main Street, actually," Lila said.

"That's good," her mother said dismissively. "He's an interesting man, isn't he?"

Lila looked at her mother. Yes, he was a very interesting man. She wanted to say so, but held her tongue. It was better to be safe than sorry, and she hardly thought that her mother would approve of her burgeoning relationship with a man twice her senior, even it would be a hypocrisy: Robert was twelve years older than her mother.

"He's fine, I guess," Lila said, giving the most noncommittal response she could think up.

"

Fine

?" Her mother's eyes popped out of her head. "I know girls your age go after the wrong things, but this guy is smart, fucking gorgeous, and filthy rich. If I were a couple years younger..."

She snickered at her reflection in the mirror. Lila stared down at the sink bowl, mortified.

"I was a little nervous when he wanted to take you out driving the first time, but he seems like a safe pair of hands," her mother announced after a moment, dabbing foundation across her face. She glanced sideways at Lila. "Maybe you can take a couple pointers out of his book. Your stepfather's trying to get him to sponsor a grant, you know."

"I know," Lila said tiredly.

Her mother pursed her lips at her reflection.

"I, for one, have high hopes," she said. "After what he did for your school. That was sort of unexpected, wasn't it? I wonder what on earth possessed him."

"Yeah, I wonder," said Lila. She glanced up at her own reflection.

"So what about school in the fall?" her mother asked, abruptly changing the subject. The tenor of her voice had changed. "It's not too late for you to get back in touch with the Dean of Admissions at Tufts and tell them you changed your mind about deferring."

"I know it's not too late," Lila snapped. "I want the year off. You know I'm thinking about art school."

"Robert isn't gonna have it, honey," said her mother.

"Then I'll get a scholarship or something," Lila said, holding back angry tears. They had had this conversation so many times that she began to cry with frustration within mere moments of its mention.

"From who? Just give it up, sweetie. You can take art classes at Tufts and get some decent degree. Economics, maybe. Or English. What about becoming an English teacher? Robert and I were talking to your National Honors Society sponsor... What's his name again?"

"Mr. Halsey. No, I don't want to become an English teacher," Lila said. She gave the sink bowl a final wipe down and eyed her mother. "Can we switch, Mom? I have to clean the other one."

"Since when are you so helpful?" her mother asked, sliding over. Then her expression cleared. "Oh, Robert must be paying you."

"Yeah. Ten dollars," Lila said, her voice sullen.

"Don't sound so ungrateful," her mother chided. "He doesn't have to pay you anything at all. It's like what he said, you should earn your keep. You're all grown up now."

"And what do

you

do to earn yours?" Lila asked in an undertone.

Her mother let out an airy laugh, adjusting the fallen strap of her slip.

"Oh, I do

lots

of things," she said, her meaning clear.

Lila said nothing. In that moment she was revolted by her mother. She didn't hate her; no, it was something more like pity. She finished up the second sink and picked up her phone from the floor, and it was then that she noticed that Cameron had texted sometime during her conversation with her mother. She left the bathroom quickly, her heart fluttering out rapid little beats. By the time she reached the quiet of her bedroom, she thought she might pass out, and lowered herself faintly down onto the edge of her bed.

Then she read the message.

Didn't want to bother you any earlier, but I just touched down in New York. First meeting in a half hour, busy day ahead. I'll try to call you tonight, but no promises.

Her heart felt light, and then heavy.

No promises.

Fingers trembling, she found herself tapping out a return message immediately, and she'd already sent it by the time she realized how desperate that might seem.

Have a good day. I hope that you can call!

She waited with bated breath to see if he would make any reply, but nothing came in the next five minutes, and she diverted her attention to her room in an attempt to quell the anxious energy in her stomach. Only one corner was relatively neat, and that was the corner where her paints lay across her workbench and her easel stood, replete with the half-finished canvas she'd been working on for weeks. Before she'd taken it home from school, her art teacher had suggested that she liked the look of it unfinished -- and that was how it had remained ever since taking up occupation in the corner of Lila's bedroom.

She stared at the incomplete angles of her face, and they stared back at her.

Then she cast her eyes across the rest of her room, the floor strewn with clothes, the hamper overflowing, books spilling from the shelf. Out in the hall by the washer and dryer, she grabbed two laundry baskets. She had neglected this chore for too long.

It was true, of course, what she had said to Cameron the night before, that her room was dirty. But it had also been a feeble defense. Her face heated when she thought of it. He had asked to see her work with such insistence, and she'd leaped on the first opportunity to deny him.

It wasn't that she was wholly uncomfortable with the idea. It was more that her art was something she had never really shared with anyone before. Sure, Mrs. Johnson had always given her tips and feedback here and there, and encouraged her to keep up the good work. But Lila, being one of her best students, had mainly received praise. Her friends, while they had seen examples of her paintings before, never had anything critical to say, only glowing commendations.

You're such an artist!

Tori had burst out freshman year, one time when she'd stayed after school to visit Lila in the art studio and watch her paint.

She imagined showing her work to Cameron might prove a different experience. She was certain he would have

something

to say. There might be praise, but it would be nuanced, perhaps laced with criticism. Constructive criticism, she was sure, but it would come directly, as everything did from him.

It wasn't the criticism that she was really afraid of, though. She addressed that within herself while dumping armfuls of clothes into the two laundry baskets, sorting whites and colors. No, it wasn't the criticism, it was the closeness. The intimacy. In this room, she had many works that she had never shown anyone. They had begun life in this room under her watchful eye and remained here ever since, and never had anyone seen them before. They were as much a part of her as the inner workings of her mind, and these were not things made for easy exposure.

She hauled one basket into the hall and loaded it into the washer. She liked to think that her mother and Robert wouldn't have let her be alone with an older man in her room, but it seemed that her mother was clueless, and that Robert was convinced that whatever dalliance existed between Cameron and his teenage stepdaughter would play toward his benefit. She wondered briefly whether Cameron knew that her stepfather was trying to use him for financial gain, and then decided that he must. Those stormy eyes never seemed to miss a beat.

She shivered.

Distantly, she heard the sounds of her mother and Robert arguing somewhere downstairs. It was not a loud argument, but one of the quiet ones they had often, which ended quickly as soon as her mother gave in to Robert's demands or point-of-view. She listened, and sure enough their voices faded within a moment, leaving the house quiet again. A little while later she heard the front door open and close, and then her mother's voice at the foot of the stairs.

"Let's go, Lila! We're going to the soup kitchen!"

Tiredly, Lila deposited the rest of her laundry into the second basket and cast her eyes around her room, which looked much cleaner already. The floor shone golden and bright beneath the sunlight filtering between her curtains. She flipped the light and stood in the dim for a moment, looking again at the unfinished self-portrait on the easel before following her mother's voice downstairs.

***

The soup kitchen was bustling. Lila carried the big pot she'd been allotted in one arm, her muscles aching. It was split pea today, and it looked gloopy but smelled pleasant. She imagined that it was very filling, and that was probably what the people who came here came for.

Her mother and a couple other ladies from their church were spending more time gossiping than making a pot of chicken noodle, which should have been done by now. Lila heaved her pot of split pea onto the counter and smiled at the line of hungry faces and the paper containers in their hands.

"Anyone for split pea?" she asked brightly.

A couple hands went up. She dolloped soup into their containers and watched them shuffle off. One woman stood out to her, because she was jouncing a little child, who couldn't have been more than two or three, against her shoulder. Her face looked weary and lined, but when Lila came to fill her container, she smiled.

"Nice to see a young'un helping out," she said. Her smile was kind. "And what's your name, sweetheart?"

"My name's Lila," Lila said. She wiggled her fingers at the toddler, who was reaching toward her with a curious hand. "Your baby's so cute. What are your names?"

"I'm June, and he's little Anthony. Say hi, Anthony." June smiled again. "Lila's a beautiful name. I hope we'll see you again, honey. We're new to town and living in the women's shelter down the street."

"I'm here most every Saturday," Lila said, smiling back.

She watched them turn to go, and then it struck her. Reaching into her pocket, she felt for the ten dollar bill Robert had chucked at her while in the car driving over. She could see him now, standing across the room with the guy who managed the soup kitchen.

"Hey, wait!" she called after June. "Could I give you this?"

June turned and stepped back up to the counter.

"Oh, honey, you don't have to," she said when she saw the bill in Lila's hand. "We're getting along just fine."

"But I want to," Lila said. She pressed it into the older woman's hand and closed her fingers over it. "For your baby, at the least. I'm sure you're doing right by him."