Moms and Dads

"The Dark Stranger" © VeGirl 2014

Damian takes Esme with him to his place; wherever that is and Vincent and I am relieved to get some privacy.

I am still feeling slightly nauseous and Eddie refuse to let me back to work. "I think you have to get somebody to check that. If my customers get sick it will be on you!"

I see her point. "I'll better stay put for another few days." I sigh resigned and am actually relieved to spend a few days in solitude with Vincent.

He is reluctant to leave my side and that works just fine by me. Guarded we go on grocery-shopping now when Esme has run off and taken her instant food ability with her. Since nobody seems to follow us we gradually relax.

The old way where Vincent cooked us dinner returns and I sit on the counter sipping ginger ale, while he is cutting vegetables and stirring in the pots.

Worrying about Aoleon fades away as I wrap my legs around his waist and he kisses me until my head spins again.

The burnmarks on his body has faded some more and he has stopped wincing as soon as I touch him.

"Take me to bed or lose me forever," I mumble against his lips.

"I thought you said you would die if I didn't feed you?"

"I think I'll live." I smirk but my eyes flicker to the stove as the scents seduces me. "If I can just have a little taste of that sauce of yours..."

He raises his brows and I realise what I've said. "I mean the stew!" I hurry to say.

"You can have both," he says in his sultry voice and kisses me; I am instantly on fire.

Right when passion hits me I don't reflect that much, but afterwards I wonder what's happening. The slightest touch from his hand makes me flare up like a dry twig and I am ready to shred my clothes regardless of our surroundings. My best guess is that I've been bereft of both physical and mental contact during my visit upstairs and am starving. Damian claims that the side-effect of his blood should have passed our system by now, but the symptoms remains.

It can be that I'm just horny, can it?

On this particular occasion both Vincent and I are immensely relieved to have the house to ourselves and that might work as an accelerant.

He holds my face between his hands and I swiftly jump up and circle his hips with my legs. The way his hands quickly changes place to hold me still and to grip my bum at the same time is no bad side-effect.

The kiss we share is deep and hungry

"Let's get upstairs," I mumble against his lips.

"I think I want to do you right here on the table first," Vincent murmurs, making me snicker. "If you don't mind..." He kisses me along my neckline and all my pretences simply evaporate.

"Please do..." I exhale and lean back as he has already carried me to the diningtable and put my butt on the edge. I moan in delight as his hands roam over my body. Swiftly I reach up to him and rip his shirt open; buttons fly in every direction while he chortles.

"Come her you minx."

I snicker and wiggle on the table as he grabs me to carry me upstairs anyway.

My phone has the annoying trait to once again interrupt us and I start to think it's a complot as I get on my feet and walk away from him to answer. "Yeah, this is Sam," I utter breathless and giggling.

"Hi baby, can't you come visit?"

I snicker. "It's equally long in this direction, remember?" I tease my mother.

"You keep saying that, but if you come here you'll get homemade dinner." She pulls the card I've been falling for in the past.

"Vincent can actually cook," I say and glance into the kitchen where he is still stirring the pot, checking the pasta and sprinkling spices into it.

"He can cook?" My mother sounds delighted. "When are you introducing us then?"

"Err..." I do to know what to say.

"Can't he come with you?"

Another pause in my brain makes me peek into the kitchen again. "My mother and father want you to come with me so they can meet you."

"Really?"

"Yes, they are curious and are probably dying to show baby portraits to embarrass me." I do my best to cover the phone with my hand.

A slow smile appears on his face. "I'd love that, I haven't seen you as a baby."

His sultry look distracts me for a short while before I realise I still have my mother on the line. "Sure mom, we'll be there."

* * *

Three days later Vincent drives us south to my old home town. "I'd love to have met you during highschool," he says as I point and explain where I used to go to school.

"No you wouldn't." I am convinced. "I was still lost in the world."

Pain shadows his features. "I wish I could have been there to guide you."

"Yeah, me too..." I mumble while thinking of how my classmates had held their distance as if I had some disease the first year, and how they started to mock me the next. A certain scenario where they had started to get physical flows through my mind and how my own anger had exploded and thrown them off of me.

Vincent gasped and I snap my head towards him to realise I'd been projecting those thoughts loud and clear.

"Wow! I didn't remember that I had done that before!" I say amazed and had already forgotten those painful years. "They pretty much held their distance after that," I add to milder his grim look.

We stop outside the house I grew up in and it feels strange to have Vincent there. This somehow connects different parts of my life and I feel a bit nervous that they won't like each other.

How original!

Vincent's hand is caressing mine as we walk up the path and my mother open the door to welcome us.

"Hi baby." She hugs me tight before she turns curious towards my husband. "Hi Vincent, it is so nice to meet you." My mother beams towards him as if he was some European prince or something. "I'm Reba."

"Hi Reba." Vincent grabs her hand and gives it a shake before he kisses her cheek. "I've been looking forward to meet the people who raised Samira into the beautiful woman she is today."

"You don't have to suck up to her like this," I say with pursed lips and a sarcastic tone.

"I am completely honest with your mother, Samira." Vincent gives me a stern look. "She has done a great job." 'I sure know what she's been dealing with' he adds and I realize that he actually does.

I turn and give my mother a hug. "Yeah, she has been and still is the best mom a girl could want." I wrap my arms around her again for a hug.

"Okay... what do you want?" My mother narrows her eyes, making both Vincent and me snicker. "Please come in!" She gestures inside and we step into the cool airconditioned house.

"You have a lovely home," Vincent says even though it isn't that much. It is quite small, but it's been filled with love during my childhood and is still oozing comfort and family. All the memorabilia is still adding that warmth that makes it a home instead of just a house.

"Thank you. I like you!" My mother smiles wide.

"Puh!" Vincent pretends he sighs relieved. "Lucky me!" And we all snicker.

My mother serves us coffee with a side dish of embarrassing childhood memories but I'm not ashamed. Vincent has seen the most painful scenario through my mind and the rest is just cute. He is the one that already knows about the hard stuff and several times he flicks in sweet comments through our private line.

A couple of hours later, Mom has dinner ready for us and my father comes home from work. "Pumpkin, is that you?" he calls from the hallway before he steps into the livingroom where we sit.

"Hi dad." I'm encaged in the warm fatherly arms that have been my comfort many times. "Dad, meet Vincent," I say as soon as he releases me.

"Good evening sir." Vincent is very respectful towards the man who has been my father since I was ten.

"Please don't call me sir; I'm Camron and you make me feel old." My father flashes a smile at Vincent who is in fact so much older.

"It is nice to meet you Camron."

My father seems to take an instant liking to Vincent and my mother has already had the albums out to show the serious darkhaired girl who rarely smiled. Vincent is growling internally with threats for Esme who hadn't been looking out for me as she apparently had promised to do.

"But this girl had a thrive that made her top of the class and valedictorian, and she managed to land a full scholarship for college." Dad has pride in his voice and it twinkled in his eyes.

"Yes, and daddy is a little disappointed that my communication journalistic major has resulted in a job in a bakery..." I raised my brows a little provocative.

"Yes, with a photojournalism major!"

I snickered at his frustrated mimic. "But I love working with Eddie, I get to use my creativity and to meet interesting people..." I did my best to make it sound positive in a way that would probably get a complimentary mentioning in the CLIO awards.

"And who knows what you'll do in a couple of years?" Vincent tries to mollify my father. "Life is long and filled with possibilities."

"It sure is..."

We decide to stay the night and to my surprise, mom and dad allow us both to stay in my bedroom. I feared that they would try and separate us, but perhaps they understand that I'm an adult now, even in their eyes. Perhaps they're scared that Vincent would be offended?

* * *

Breakfast next morning is about as awkward as you might expect. Curious glances put my mood in a seriously bad place.

"So, how long have you known each other?" my mother asks curiously.

"Didn't we go through this yesterday?" I sigh.

"Samira, there is no need for you to be rude to your mother," Vincent is chastising me to all of our surprise. "I don't know what is wrong with you...?"

I look surprised at him; he is right that my temper has been flying off the roof, but to my defence I have had a lot to deal with lately. "I'm sorry mom; I didn't mean to be rude," I say and I actually mean it too. "I've had some stuff to deal with lately."

"Yeah, Layla came back quite upset; some guy had been stalking her... Was it the same to you?"

"Yeah... but to his defence, I think she stalked him first..."

My mother sighs smilingly. "Probably..." she then narrows in in Vincent again. "So...when are you going to tell how you two met?" By now Reba has a wide smile on her face.

"We met a long time ago, Reba," Vincent reveals. "But we went our separate ways for a while and now when we reconnected, everything was perfect." He has my hand in his and his eyes project so much love at that moment, that when he raises my hand to his lips and gives it a kiss, my eyes pool over and tears trickle down.

"Aww... that was so beautiful!" My mother is teary eyed as well.

"Yeah...he's my dream-guy." And that statement is very true since I did dream about him in the start. "We're heading out for a while." I feel the need to talk about something else to distract myself. "Vincent wants to see my old hometown."

"Sure! I'll have coffee ready when you'll be back," mom says and I suddenly recognize a nervous streak in her. Isn't she a little more upbeat than usually, a little forced?

I shove it off with Vincent's company and we head out in this small town.

"So, this is where you were mistreated and bullied as a kid?" His tone is cold as ice when we walk through my old highschool grounds.

"Yeah, but also where I got my first friends and where I held my own academically."

"Yeah, yeah, but who kissed you under the bleachers?"

"Married to a hot guy and only want to kiss him," I mumble against his lips as I snake my arms around his neck. "This is so worth the wait to kiss you here where the it-crowd gathered." I smile against his lips.

"Yeah, you're it for me," he murmurs back.

"Sam?"

I snap out of the kissing mode and look up to an old frenemy walking towards us. "Kaylee?"

"We keep running into each other..." she snickers.

"Yeah, that's strange when we haven't seen each other in years."

She seems to just then notice Vincent. "Hello," she says in an appreciative sweet tone of voice. "I'm Kaylee, I used to be a bitch in highschool."

"I'm Vincent, her husband and I hate bullies." His up front approach takes her aback for a moment, before she laughs.

"Good for her to have a guy like you. And FYI, I try to do better now." Kaylee smile wide and I laugh.

"She sure is trying to do better."

"Yeah and it is easy to do better when I was so bad..." She rolls her eyes at herself. "Good with a little self-distance," she ads and comment how nice it is to see us but that she has to get to work. "Take care gorgeous!" She kisses my cheek and takes off.

"Wow; energetic."

"Yeah, she's like a tiny force field that would make it possible to light up the entire Milky Way with led lights."

"I think you're right about that."

Slowly we walk back to my parent's home.

"Hi honey, we have company," my mother calls and I walk to the livingroom while Vincent heads for the bathroom.

To my utterly surprise, my so called biological mother is sitting on the couch and I freeze midstep. "What is this?" I spit out, staring at the immaculate dressed woman with a posture of royalty.

"Sam, this is..."

"I know who she is; what is she doing here?" I snap.

"I couldn't stay away longer, not when I finally found you." Amitiel does the performance for an Oscar award. "I have looked for you ever since I got my life together."

"Yeah, well... Forget it!" I spit.

"I just wish that you'd give us both a chance to get to know oneanother." She looks like she is speaking the truth, but I've seen her in other parts and know that this is a performance. "To at least be friends..."

"I don't want anything to do with you," I snarl.

Vincent comes walking through the door and halts the second he lays eyes on my angelic mother. "What are you doing here?" He has suddenly taken on a protective stance where he has both me and Mom slightly behind him.

"Vincent!" My mother, well my adoptive mother Reba says with an appalled look at him.

He simply ignores her while nailing the smug looking woman in her expensive clothing. The conversation is fierce and Reba understands nothing since it is held in Enochian.

"Do you know her?" Reba hisses but Vincent is still ignoring her and focus on the woman we both see as a threat.

"I will not let you take her that easy this time."

"This time...?" The woman I've grown up with is very confused. "Have you met before?"

I look at the woman who opened her heart to a dirty and scared ten year-old in an orphanage years ago. "There are a lot of things going on that you don't know about, mom." I raise my brows apologetic.

"Would you care to fill me in then?" she snarls, annoyed to have been kept in the dark. Her brows are knit in a tight line, but what can I do more than keep her in the dark?

This is too much for a poor woman to deal with and however much I want to tell her everything that is now fucked up in my life and let her wrap her warm motherly arms around me, I can't.

"We are not interested Abaddon!" Vincent interrupts my internal battle.

"Amitiel!" she snarls undignified and I understand Vincent's deliberate fluff by calling her the angel of destruction. "You don't have a saying in this, boy! You are beneath me and we both know it!"

"What is going on here?" My father's stern voice shoots through the room and we turn our attention to him and Nick standing by the door. "What is going on?"

"Hi dad." I walk towards him, further isolating Amitiel behind Vincent to protect my family. "This woman claims to be my birthmother, but I am not interested in any contact with her."

"Your birthmother?" both Dad and Nick ask in union while peaking towards the woman. "How did she find you here?"

'Because she is a sly bitch' sifts through the angelic hotline and the bitch in question gasps undignified. "I just hoped we could retain some kind of friendship," she claims annoyed.

"I have a family and I have the friends I want. I am not interested in any kind of relationship with you." I have stepped forward and am now fixing the intruder with my gaze. "I'll contact you the day I am ready for it, Amitiel," I say and add a silent 'don't expect it for the closest thousand years' for her ears only. "So if you'll be so kind to leave these premises I'd be grateful."

She looks more insulted than I thought she could. "I am sorry you feel like this," she manages to press out.

"I suggest you take the hint, lady," my brother says and I find the three men standing behind me like a solid wall. The gesture is comforting even if I ponder the possibility that Vincent and I can take her down ourselves. I'm not sure of her powers, certainly not here on earth.

Amitiel purses her lips. "I am sorry to have taken your time, and I do hope you will change your mind, you are my only daughter."

"I might be, but you are not my only mother," I say clipped, while ignoring her angelic plea for me to come home and rule by her side. 'Find somebody else' I send to her 'Or make another child who can be the sole heir to the throne'.

Her eyes widened by my disregard over what is important. 'I...I... You are the firstborn!' she sends to me but I start to look around at my family who is wondering why we keep staring at each other. "Good bye," she says in a sad tone and is escorted out the door.

"What the hell is going on here?" My mother Reba asks in quite the tone as soon as the other mother, aka Amitiel has left us.

"Mom... a lot of things have happened that I can't talk about..." I smile apologetic towards her. "It's a custody-case and I'm legally bound to keep a lid on it."

'Good thinking!' Vincent sends impressed.

"What do you mean custody?" My father wants to have a saying in this. "You're an adult!"

I turn towards him. "Thank you dad for pointing that out." I smile. "This has something to do with a stupid position as heir to a title and some money I think." I sigh. "I just don't want her influencing my life; I'd rather be without the money and title."

.