Chapter 4. Noelle

2011

With shaking hands, Noelle sat down on the toilet and peed. She had been outside in the garden and every time she had tried to get away to escape to the bathroom, her dad had called her over to introduce her to some other old geezer she had no interest in knowing. She knew it was all for show. Robert Drummond Spencer III. Father of the year. Of the decade even. She wished she had some balls. Big ones so she could scream in his face and tell him how much she hated him.

Noelle wished she was more like her best friend Amelia, from school. The daughter of a very successful actress and her much older husband. Amelia was the youngest of three kids and she had learned early on that the only way to get attention was to act up, which is why she was attending the exclusive boarding school away from the people her parents deemed a bad influence.

Amelia had arrived shortly after Noelle to the almost empty school, where most students were on summer holidays with their families. The girls had bonded instantly. Noelle told Amelia she hated her dad. Amelia confided that she hated her brothers and that her uncle had a bad habit of ‘accidentally’ grazing her small breasts. Amelia was two years older than Noelle and with the age difference came a world of experience. She had lived. She hadn’t been shut away in a mansion with nothing but two nannies to keep her company, only leaving to go to ballet lessons, piano lessons, or church.

Noelle loved listening to Amelia’s stories. They would huddle together on her bed, long into the nights, giggling and gasping in shock as her new best friend shared her knowledge about boys. Something Noelle had no experience with, and considering the boarding school was an all-girls school, she wasn’t likely to learn much more there.

And here she was – seven years later – an eighteen-year-old virgin, almost hyperventilating from seeing her very first real penis. She didn’t know what was considered normal, but there was no way that monstrous thing was how most men looked. She shivered at the thought and rubbed the goosebumps on her arms.

Admittedly, the man the monster-penis was attached to didn’t look like most men either. He was simply gorgeous. Breathtakingly so, and when her eyes had met his, she had frozen completely for a moment. She had been completely lost in those stormy gray eyes staring back at her with a slightly apologetic, but also amused look. Yes, she had been lost - until her eyes had dropped down and noticed his huge appendage sliding into the mouth of the kneeling woman at his feet. That’s when she had acted like a little girl and screamed. She groaned and put her face in her palms. No wonder he’d said what he said.

“Sorry, little one...”  “Run along, little girl…”

Little one. Little girl. Noelle groaned again. At least she had stopped shaking. She finished her business on the toilet and washed her hands.

The ornate black framed mirror next to the sink, stretching from the floor almost to the ceiling, was mocking her. She saw herself through the eyes of that ridiculously attractive man in the powder room upstairs. Le sigh. She looked like a kid. Noelle’s father had picked out the dress she was wearing. It was cute and summery. But it was cute. Not sexy. Tiny flowers adorned the soft fabric and it was fitted through the bodice with a flouncy full skirt. It was the kind of dress a twelve-year-old would wear. It showed none of her slight curves, and barely any of her long, slender legs. The dress mixed with the high ponytail and the very light make-up she had applied sealed the deal. She looked like she was fourteen. Oh, how she regretted having agreed to her father’s choice of a dress.

She scrutinized herself some more in the mirror. Her cerulean blue eyes. The dark blonde hair. Her high cheekbones and a small, straight nose. Did she look any different? She had just seen a couple in the middle of oral sex. She felt a bit strange. Like she had matured over the past fifteen minutes. The color of her cheeks were the only thing giving her away now. The stubborn blush that refused to go away because deep down she wished she had stayed in that room with them. She wanted to watch him more. With a slight throb between her legs, she realized that she wished she had been the girl on her knees. She sighed and shook her head to clear her mind. She needed to stop thinking about it, or someone would surely be able to tell where her mind was.

Noelle fished out a tinted lip gloss from her small purse and applied it to her plump lips. She glanced in the mirror again and covered her warm cheeks with the palms of her hands. Then she leaned closer until her nose touched her reflection. She pressed her lips to the cool surface and wished it was his strong-featured face in front of her. His impossibly masculine face with the sexy dimple she had noticed as he told her to run along. She even noticed his strong hands on the door as he held it open for her. 

She sighed again and leaned back. Her lip gloss had left a perfect pouty mouth print on the otherwise flawless mirror. In a spur of the moment act of rebellion, very unlike her, she didn’t wipe away the shiny lip print from the mirror. She grinned at her reflection and tried to push her small boobs up a bit before she left the bathroom. Why she wasn’t sure. It’s not like anyone would notice in that pre-pubescent summer dress she was wearing. Feeling discouraged and irritated, she went in search of her father.

Noelle caught up to Robert by the bar. Big surprise there. He seemed to drink more these days, at least as far as she could tell during the times she was allowed to be around. Fortunately, her wicked stepmother was on one of her many vacations and was not attending the event today. Noelle took her place by her father’s side with a polite smile and listened as he droned on about her academic brilliance and the huge feat of getting accepted to Oxford. The oldest and most esteemed university in Great Britain.

“Blah, blah, blah…as early as the 12th century...” Robert kept on about the amazingness that was Oxford, and Noelle tuned out.

Sure, she was excited about continuing her education at such a fantastic university, and it was helpful knowing it was co-ed and she might finally get a boyfriend, but Robert’s pride was no more than an opportunity to brag to his peers. Everything was for show. 

She wondered how her father would react if she brought up the subject of a boyfriend. Not good she suspected. It seemed he would do anything and everything in his power to keep her away from anything fun in life. No concerts. No festivals. No overnight trips without a chaperone. Not even a sleepover at Amelia’s without her nanny present. Especially not after Noelle accidentally let it slip that Amelia had two older brothers.

With nothing to look forward to on her agenda of life, the years had gone by slowly in Switzerland for Noelle. But here she was. Eighteen years old finally. She had raised herself - in a way - and done a pretty good job, she figured. She was polite and kind to others. Maybe that was thanks to her nannies though, but they were still good qualities to have, she knew. She had worked hard and become an expert horsewoman. Dressage, jumping, or cross country - she was comfortable with it all. She had been invited frequently to equestrian events at her classmate’s family estate in the Cotswold’s, and she had been allowed to join under the supervision of a chaperone. She loved the thrill of the hunt, and she loved betting a few pounds on horses at the Cheltenham races. Aside from the horses, she had also taken lesson after lesson and was now a decent skier. She had even started to enjoy the frequent student trips to the slopes in Gstaad. She was fluent in French, German and Spanish. Her table manners were impeccable and she handled ballroom dancing like a champ.

Noelle wasn’t stupid. She knew she was being groomed to become a perfect wife to someone like the guy who was getting engaged tonight at the party. A guy with a weak chin and a strong stock portfolio. She knew she was expected to wait until her wedding night to have sex. She shuddered and wrapped her arms around herself when she thought of the guy in the bathroom. He had affected her more than anyone or anything ever had.

“Are you ok, sweetie? Are you cold?” her father asked. The false concern made her sick to her stomach.

“I am fine, thank you, Father,” she responded sweetly.

He turned back to one of his investors and continued to talk. Noelle tuned out again. When she had come back the summer after her fifteenth birthday, she had called him Robert instead of dad or father. It hadn’t been pretty. Her stepmom had sneered over her glass of wine and Noelle was pretty sure she saw a smile when Robert sent her to her room without dinner.

Like she cared.

Each summer the time at home got shorter and shorter. At first it was six weeks. Then five. Then a month. Three weeks. The last couple of years her father had arranged vacations in Greece and Italy with her nanny to accompany her, under the pretense that it was educational for her to visit all the historic sights there. She hadn’t made it back to the US at all. Thank goodness Amelia had met up with her in Europe and spent some time with her, or she would have lost her mind.

Now Noelle was home for a few weeks before moving into her shared apartment at Oxford. She had been paired up, courtesy of her father, with a girl who came from an excellent family and had passed the required background tests. She couldn’t wait to get to know some of her new classmates. Preferably good-looking ones. With a penis.

The thought brought out a small smile on her face. She waited for her father to pause enough in the conversation so she could get a word in, and asked if she could have the driver take her back home so she could get some rest. He waved her off with a nod and Noelle swallowed the usual resentment she felt when he showed how little he cared. She turned away from him and headed toward the front of the house where the valet parking was set up. 

That’s when she saw him.

The sex god from upstairs was walking right toward her, a glass of something amber colored in his hand and a cell phone in the other. The woman he was with earlier was nowhere to be seen. He came closer and closer, and Noelle was frozen in place. Would he say something to her? She considered bolting in the other direction, but she couldn’t seem to move. He walked with confident strides, rapidly approaching her where she stood. There were people all around them, and now there was no way for her to escape. There was nowhere to go. Noelle gasped when his body came in contact with hers, pressed toward her by the crowd on the other side of him. Her mouth opened slightly, her blood pumping through her body, heating her up from the inside.

Please touch me, she tried to will him as the scent of his cologne invaded her nose and made her knees weak.

When his hand clamped down around her upper arm she almost jumped out of her skin, but she collected herself quickly and turned her face toward his with what she hoped was a sensual smile, just as he offered a quick, “Excuse me” and squeezed by her before joining a group of guys who were laughing about something over by the pool house.

Wow. She was so forgettable, he hadn’t even recognized her.