Mistakenly Eaten

85. Depend on as a friend...

Nicholas held a soft smile on his face, as Althea’s previous words reverberated inside his mind.

He remembered listening to her tell him, how things like physical appearances don’t matter, if someone truly loves you for who you are.

A flashback of a moment, involuntarily played inside his head.

He remembered being on a trip to Europe with Cheryl, where the two had eaten a lot and most spent their time on cruises, having very little time to walk or even go the gym, which had ended up for him gaining quite a few pounds, that resulted with him attaining a slightly bulging belly.

He remembered the exact moment, when he had taken his shirt off, to perform s*x with Cheryl, who laid naked with her legs opened up immediately shut them close, the moment her eyes landed on Nicholas’s belly.

“Oh my God! What is that?”

She tossed her light yellow hair over her back, as she straightened up and kept her gaze intact over Nicholas’s tummy.

“Umm… my body?” he pointed out and she simply scrunched in disgust.

“You’ve grown fat!”

“I guess so.” He shrugged, leaning further to plant a kiss on Cheryl’s lips but the girl, simply lifted her hand up and held it against Nicholas’s mouth.

She pushed him away and got out of the bed, throwing on her silk robe and tightened its belt around her waist, gesturing it off clearly to Nicholas that there was no way the would be performing any further s****l activity.

“What happened? Where are you going?”

“I am not going to have s*x with you!”

She pointed sternly.

“What? Why?”

“Because look at yourself Nick! You belly is all bulging out and then look at me.”

“I guess, I ate a lot during our trip and didn’t get to go to the gym so…”

“So? Nick, I was with you all that time and yet look at me. I in fact lost three pounds. You know how hard it was for me but you could’ve done that as well. You should’ve seen it coming when you were engulfing steaks after steaks and masticating pastas with your mouth. I…”

She breathed in exhaustion, suddenly becoming the victim in the entire play.

“Nick! You and I are perfect the way we met. If I end up losing my image and so do you, don’t you think our love would evaporate?”

Nick squinted his eyes, at Cheryl’s words.

“I get that we did look a certain way, when we met each other but Cheryl we didn’t love each other and now that we do, I feel like it is fine if we gain or lose a certain amount of weight. Our looks shouldn’t bother us anymore and…”

Cheryl shook her head, perching down on the bed next to Nicholas and gently touched his face.

“Nick! This is beyond just a certain way we look. I feel for you and if you continue gaining weight, this won’t be good for you. Have you forgotten that you dad had diabetes and it makes you borderline for that disease? I just want you to be healthy.”

Nicholas understood that concern that arose from Cheryl’s heart and leaned towards her, gently pecking her lips.

“So, help me burn some calories.”

He tried to pull her back on the bed but the girl simply turned her face away, making Nicholas hit the crook of her neck with his nose.

“We’ll hit the gym in the morning. Even I am tired now.”

With that, Cheryl got up and left for the bathroom, making Nicholas slump down on the bed in dejection.

If anything, he had become even more motivated and enthusiastic to lose weight, once he was made to realize that he wouldn’t get any in bed, if he didn’t look just the perfect.

Once he was back in shape, not only did Cheryl pleased him extra in bed by giving him a blow job every once in a while, but also initiated s*x with him multiple times, which further checked his theory that Cheryl would definitely only be interested in him if he looked physically perfect.

He also remembered that every time he would be in one of his gatherings with Cheryl’s friends, they would remind him every now and then that how Cheryl is very particular about the way Nicholas must look or else she would not be interested in him at all. Even when he got a bit leaner, Cheryl would get emasculating about his physical appearance and Nicholas always made sure to follow a perfectly balanced diet.

And somehow, that pasta in Gragnano was actually the first thing he saw Cheryl enjoying other than a salad as well and it was perhaps the most delicious thing that even Nicholas had ever tasted.

That’s why, he was yearning for it. He regretted not eating to his heart content during his relationship with Cheryl and he had become so selfless that he let her walk all over him to the point that he had even forgotten how to enjoy simple and little things in life.

Cheryl was always strict and particular about what she ate, where she went, what she wore and how she looked and how the so called ken, who would get to play her boyfriend be.

Nicholas played the part to be the perfect boyfriend for very long and every now and then, he would fight with Cheryl over the very same thing, that she could get extremely demanding and controlling and even during their wedding preparations, Cheryl would get out of control and demand things to be perfect.

Nicholas on the contrary, wanted peace and tranquil. He simply didn’t want things to be too much in detail and perhaps, the blitz and bling that his work place was, where he was looked up to be entirely perfect and also had to play the part of the chic and classy suave man, who wore custom, tailor made, designer suits and nothing less.

He just wanted an escape from that life and didn’t want to live that life out of his office as well.

He wondered if Althea promised him that walk out of monotony and an entrance in to a life full of spectrums of multiple colors.

He smiled, thinking about how the night before was incredibly beautiful.

He saw colors, fireworks and rainbows in his head, while he was inside Althea and the way he released himself. He didn’t even remember the last time, he had such a hard and strong c****x. He felt like his entire soul was suck out and the minute flash of his body meshed up on top of Althea and the feel of her soft skin next to his sweated ones, was enough to stir up the feeling of hotness inside him, making blood rush to his groin.

He sighed, smiling to his own self and shaking his head as he needed to start the day and get some work done quickly so that later on he could get to spend some time with Althea.

Whom, he only smiled thinking about and wondered what her reaction might have been the moment she must have seen her self in the mirror.

The girl in question, stood dabbing her neck with a thick round sponge that she heard her sister call beauty blender at times and she realized that it was called blender for a reason, since she blended layers of foundation and concealer that she found in one of the drawers in the closet.

She was glad for whoever decided to put makeup in the guestrooms.

Each liquid product had a variety of options in complexion range, with two options provided in the lightest shade and two in a mid tone one and two in the darkest shade.

Althea could tell that none of the shades were a perfect match for her and as she applied some she thought were closest to her shade, one could clearly tell that she had applied some sort of product on her body and the spots that she was choosing to apply them on, also made it quite the conspicuous and dubious state.

At first she went in entirely donning one of the shades on her body and ended up looking double toned. With her face, looking darker then her body, making her look as if she had only tanned her face somewhere.

She then applied a darker tone on top of the light one and it only made her look like a burnt melon.

She once again washed herself off and this time, put a foundation of a light tone on the back of her hand and added a few drops of the darkest shade, blending it with the back of a brush that she found in the drawers.

She then carefully applied the foundation on her body and chimed as she got the perfect match.

“It’s so easy! Its just like mixing ingredients, while you’re cooking.” she wondered.

It wasn’t like, she was applying makeup on herself the first time. She just didn’t own that much products and usually had the ones that Irene would get bored of and pass it on to her.

Once she had completely camouflaged her bite marks, that showed Nicholas’s voracious activity on her, she put on a high neck seamless dress, that covered her arms and even her legs up till her ankles, also hiding the love marks that Nicholas had given her on her thighs. She decided to wear that dress, as an extra cover just in case no one would be able to even look through her makeup and identify the love bites on her body.

She only wondered how wild the man had gone in just a single position and sort of feared what he would be able to unleash if they went on to continue and explore different positions as well.

The thought alone was enough to excite something inside Althea, making her clench her inner thighs tightly, as she felt a sense of wetness building up in between her p***y lips.

She cleared her throat and shook her head, fanning her face away.

She knew that her day would become hard for her to survive, since the thoughts from the night before would keep on flushing her mind. So, she applied some blush on her face and at the same time, decided to get a little rebellious, as she applied a maroon shade of lipstick as well and looked at herself one last time in the mirror.

She did look spectacularly different than she usually did but that was the whole point and agenda of her day.

She was trying to look more radiant, because she felt like so.

Getting out of the closet, she walked towards the bedroom but stopped one last time, when she noticed that she had pulled her hair up in a lose bun.

She took out the claw clip that she had used to tie her hair up and let her hair flow down her back in their natural and wavy form.

She walked up towards the bedroom door and had just opened it when she shrieked a little finding Salva standing right in front of her, with his hand in the middle of the air, fisted gently, signifying that the poor lad was about to knock on the door when Althea had taken him by surprise and had already opened up the door.

“Oh! Salva! What are you doing?”

She asked in sheer bewilderment but Althea suddenly opening up the door wasn’t the only thing that caught Salva by surprise.

He was totally taken aback, watching Althea in that tight dress, that clung on to her body. Even though it was full sleeves and even high neck but still there was just something about how her hips were accentuated by that dress, emphasizing on the deep curve of her waist, coupled with her long cinnamon brown hair that fell down till her back and the fact that she paired that greyish dress with that dim maroon lipstick and slight flush of blush on her face.

“Salva!”

Althea waved her hand in front of his face, snapping him out of his trance of staring at her cumbersomely.

“Are you alright?” she asked, noticing a sense of lostness in his behavior.

Salva immediately shook his head, snapping himself out of his trance.

“Yeah! Umm… I was just taken aback a little. You look different today.”

Althea rolled her eyes, promiscuously taking Salva’s indiscretion in good fun.

“I know! I know! And I’m also pretty sure that you are not the only one who is going to get to say that to me today. I don’t know what I was thinking. I found some makeup in one of the drawers and got carried away so…”

“You look nice.” He complimented nonchalantly, making Althea smile at him.

“Really? You think so?”

She had always known of Salva as the most honest guy that she had ever come across of.

And the fact that he was simply praising her for looking different after she had actually put up an effort showed that the man must be truly praising her from her heart.

“Yeah! Of course you do. You look different and you look nice. You have applied some makeup today that makes you look pretty, I guess.”

“Aww! That’s so nice of you to say that and honestly, around the entire house, you are the only person I can trust to always speak the truth.”

“You can?”

He asked, suddenly so smitten and proud of the little remark that Althea had given him.

“Yes! I trust you and I believe that you are an honest man, who is full of integrity and nothing but purity and genuineness towards others.”

Salva smiled softly, as he felt his heart melting right inside his ribcage at Althea’s sweet little compliments.

“So, what are you doing here? did you need something from me? Help or assistance in something?”

She asked, inquiring about Salva’s early morning visit to her room.

“Oh! Yes…”

He cleared his throat and finally remembered his reason to visit Althea at that early house, which he had completely forgotten, the moment he laid his eyes on her beautiful face and body.

She had the tendency to make anyone forget even about the world with just her presence, that was how strong her radiance and her glow was.

Salva only wondered why she had been single all that time and why no guy ever tried to even pursue her.

He did know about her ex boyfriend, the fractiously venal man, but Salva also knew that there had to be other guys around the town, that must had tried to woo the girl. There was no way, that men might not be after the girl. There had to be something sinisterly about the town, where women like Althea might be suppressed and some sort of rule did degenerate her position as a woman.

Althea snapped her fingers in front of Salva’s eyes, once again startling him out of his lost zone.

“Again! Salva, are you alright? because you keep on disassociating and zooning out. You were about to tell me what you were doing here? do you need something? Because I kind of feel like you do.”

Salva shook his head, immediately marking down the investigation on what was going on in Gragnano, in the back of his mind and cleared his head at once, finally elucidating to Althea, the reason of his early morning visit.

“I am sorry, I just have a lot on my mind actually. Yes, I came to see you before departure.”

“See me before departure? Why? Am I going somewhere? Are they eliminating me because of what happened yesterday? Didn’t the organization decided something on what would be done with Garry and am I getting punished for initiating a fight with him? Listen, I can apologize to the organization if required or…”

“No! hold your horses.” Salva laughed, sensing how panicked Althea suddenly got. “You are not going anywhere. Garry was given an earful yesterday and after that, the competition will resume on regular basis from today. Actually, I am leaving.”

“What? Why?” she asked, suddenly feeling gloomy with the news that she had received.

“I am just leaving for a few days. Maybe a week or so. But I am leaving for some work and going to Spain for a few days.”

“So, how will things be managed here? You look after everything and you are here during every cook off. Things will be chaotic without you.”

Althea’s low tone and her lack of spirit to bid Salva a farewell was enough to tell the man that he will surely be missed and that thought alone was enough to raise Salva’s spirit up and high to return back to Island as soon as he could.

“Is everything alright? What important work does it have to be?”

Salva nodded, “Just going on a personal visit.”

“Is everything fine with your family?”

Salva nodded with a soft smile, “Thank you for showing such concern but everything is alright. I just decided to visit my family and take a few days off. Managing everything had been quite exhaustive here. So, it would be sort of a leisure escape.”

Althea sighed, frowning her lips. Her heart was not ready to accept the fact that Salva was leaving the island and she wouldn’t get to see him for the next few days to come ahead of her.

“Do you really have to leave?” she asked in a much pressing tone and Salva only laughed out a little.

“Consider this as an emergency but I promise to be back within the next few days.”

“You better.”

She held her pinky finger out, urging Salva to make much more physical and firm assurance.

He snorted out a little as he tried his pinky finger with hers.

“Promise.”

“Good!”

“Now if you may, I’ll get going and…”

Salva only had turned around to leave but Althea held his arm and halted him from taking another step away from her.

She turned him around and pulled him in for a hug.

She leaped her arms around his neck and hugged him tenderly, showcasing her warmth towards him.

Salva froze for a moment, standing still and wondering what next was he supposed to do.

He didn’t make another move but as Althea leaned her face over his shoulder and smiled feverishly.

“I will really miss you a lot. I don’t have much friends but suddenly and recently, I have started to feel like I have someone new and someone much more generous in my life that I can now depend on as a friend and can call someone more than an acquaintance. I can call you a friend, with extreme confidence and be happy about the fact that I know you. Come back quickly. I will miss you.”

She then stepped back, letting go off Salva and waved at him, urging him to take a step ahead and leave.

Salva’s mind and heart, for the first time felt like they were on the right page.

They were both confused yet somehow felt that he was extremely precisely at the very right place where he needed to be.

He smiled sheepishly and turned to leave.

Althea also smiled and turned in to the other direction, walking away from Salva.

She turned to look at him and smiled over the fact that she had achieved someone in her life that she believed was someone extremely close to her and truly a friend.

But just as she turned her face away, Salva stopped and turned to look at Althea, watching as finally disappeared away from his gaze, when she turned down the hallway, reaching out for the stairways.

Salva held a profound smile on his face, as he sensed that in his heart, for the first time, for a girl, he was forming a bond. A bond, weak or strong but it was there. He was finally feeling something for a girl and perhaps, a friendship was just the beginning and he only wondered if that friendship could be elevated to another level.

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Well, what do you think about Salva's feelings for Althea?

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