The feeling of fingers caressing my cheek woke me up. Blinking my eyes, I saw Malcolm sitting on the edge of the bed. Quickly sitting up, I pushed myself away from Malcolm, my eyes shooting daggers at him.
"Did you sleep well?" He asked me.
"Let me out," I demanded, glaring at him.
"No," he replied, taking off his shoes and jacket.
"I'm serious, Malcolm, I don't want to live with you, so let me go," I said to him.
"And I'm serious when I say that you're not going anywhere," he replied before getting on my bed. He crawled over to me, like a panther crawled towards its prey. I tried to back away but my back was already against the headboard.
"Let me go," I asserted.
"You look tired and you have dark circles under your eyes," Malcolm whispered brushing his fingers under my eyes, causing me to flinch at the sudden contact. Malcolm never touched me before, other than that one night when we had sex. All this time he had treated me like I had some sort of a contagious disease.
"It's none of your business, leave me alone," I shot back. It was strange that I was feeling so tired when I had only just woken up.
Malcolm raised his eyebrow. "How is it not my business. You are the mother of my unborn child and I don't want you exhausting yourself," he said.
"Look, stop playing with me, okay? We both know that you consider me nothing more than cheap trash whom you made the mistake of impregnating, so don't act like I'm anything more to you than a carrier of your baby and stop acting like you care about my health," I snapped in frustration.
In response, Malcolm grabbed my wrist gently but firmly. His actions left me bewildered and shocked. I sat there frozen, as Malcolm gently caressed my wrist.
"Why are you not being sweet? You're always nice to me, why are you snapping at me?" He asked.
My confusion mounted. Was this man for real? After everything he had done, he expected me to be sweet and kind towards him, was he insane? And why did he even care whether I was nice to him or not, he didn't need me, he was only putting up with me because of the baby.
"I like it when you are nice to me, when you care, I don't like this angry side of you," Malcolm muttered when I didn't say anything.
"You made me angry, you hurt me, and please stop with the act," I responded bitterly. I knew what he was doing; he was being nice to me in order to dissuade me from leaving. He had grown accustomed to insulting me and having me around as his maid.
"If I'm nice to you...will you go back to being nice to me?" By now I have had enough of Malcolm and his twisted change in behavior. I was tired of this sudden change and I wanted him to leave before he did something else.
"If I say yes will you leave me alone?" All of a sudden I felt so tired, I just wanted to sleep.
Malcolm nodded. "Yes, I can see you're tired and need to sleep, so if you promise to be nice to me and not leave me then I'll leave you to rest," he told me.
Wow, he was good. He had so easily laid out his terms, he clearly had every intention of destroying me.
"And if I don't agree?" I asked him.
"Then I'll stay here until you do agree," he told me.
I groaned in frustration. This man was impossible. I cursed myself for agreeing to a blind date with him. People were right when they said that blind dates were the worst.
"Okay fine, go now, leave me alone," I said, wanting Malcolm to leave me in peace.
"You promise to be nice to me and not leave?" He enquired.
"Yes." I sighed. "Now please go, I'm tired,"I pleaded, feeling drained after talking to Malcolm for just ten minutes.
"Okay, you sleep, and no need to worry about cleaning the place or cooking lunch, just relax," he told me, getting off my bed.
Without saying anything, I turned to my side, giving my back to Malcolm and closed my eyes. I didn't understand how my life had taken such a turn for the worse, and I didn't know how I was going to get myself out of this situation. Maybe after I'd wake up I would ask Malcolm to call a lawyer for the papers of joint custody; there was no way I could survive living with Malcolm for the rest of my life.
Just before I closed my eyes, I felt Malcolm's lips brushing my cheek. My eyes flew open when I realized he had kissed me. Shooting him a confused glare, I sat up.
"What was that for?" I shrieked. He had no right to do that.
"Did you already forget about your promise?" Somebody please kill me.
Breathing heavily I tried to control my anger. I wasn't a violent person, and it took a lot to get me angry, but Malcolm's behavior was driving me nuts.
"I'm sorry," I muttered before laying down and hiding myself by smashing my face in the pillow.
Sleep came easily to me when I ignored Malcolm's lingering presence in my room. And when I had finally succumbed to sleep, even then Malcolm did not leave my room, and I had no idea when he did.