The Girl in the Tower

By Penny Blush

Rae

I have spent my life locked away. A prisoner in my own life.

My crime, living.

My sentence, life without the possibility of parole. High above the world, in a tower is my prison.

I am trapped here, hoping someone will save me.

Flick

I have spent my life on a less than straight and narrow path, but if I ever want to get out of this damn kingdom, I need to keep my nose clean. I took a job delivering packages to a recluse living in   a   tower   in   the   middle   of   the   forest. I thought it was a freak doomsday survivalist. It's not.

There's a beautiful princess being held captive. Not everything is as it seems, but I do know one thing for sure……

I have to save her.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Penny Blush
• Release date: Jun 24, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393730026

Penny Blush

My name is Penny Blush, I love all things book and book related. I’m hoping that the people who make the James Bond movies will call me to ask to use my name as the next Bond Girl *Fingers Crossed* When I’m not hoping for the Bond people to contact me, I usually can be found with my nose in a book getting lost in a story or thinking about stories I would like to write. I’m Australian, I love to sing, and Christmas is my favourite time of the year. I believe in magic, fairies, the power of the universe and that everything happens for a reason. Basically, I’m a crazy person, and I’m ok with that. At least my life is not boring! Author Links Author Page:  https://www.facebook.com/PennyBlushAuthor   Reader Group: www.facebook.com/groups/1068654519902946 Instagram:www.instagram.com/pennyblushauthor Pinterest: https://au.pinterest.com/pennyblush/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/pennyblushbooks Goodreads:www.goodreads.com/author/show/17139863.Penny_Blush

Book preview

Chapter 1

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR stopping by, I hope you enjoyed yourself. I know I did, I said trying to catch my breath while making love to the camera. Don’t forget to leave a review and tell your friends how much you loved watching The Girl in the Tower, until next time, I winked, blowing the screen a kiss before shutting off the camera.

Another day another couple of grand.

Once I knew the video feed had disconnected, I flopped back on the bed stretching out my deliciously weary muscles. I think this session was a new personal best; three orgasms in ninety minutes. I get as much out of the sessions as my viewers do. My viewership has been growing over the last few months, ever since I added a viewer suggestion session to my repertoire. My viewers suggest things for me to do, ways they would like to see me pleasure myself. If it’s something I am comfortable with I will try to make their fantasies come true.

By the end of the day I am always exhausted, happy but exhausted. Earning money doing something I enjoy while running my business gives me an immense sense of pride.

I lay awake at night dreaming of all the things I could do with my hard-earned money, all the holidays I could go on, all the experiences I could have, the silly things I could buy just because I have the money and means to do so. But unfortunately for me, the money I earn sits doing nothing except gaining interest in my account. My earnings sit untouched in an offshore account, buried so deep under a mountain of red tape and dozens of shell companies that there is no chance anyone would be able to trace it back and link me to it. 

It needs to be that way; my life needs to be this way for my protection. I need to make sure she doesn’t get her hands on what is rightfully mine.

You see, I am a prisoner. I am a prisoner in my own life. 

My crime, living. 

My sentence, life without the possibility of parole. 

I am trapped here until the day I die. 

I live in a cage, a gilded cage but a cage, nonetheless. 

My cage is a castle my mother built especially for me. How lucky am I to have a mother who cares about me so much that she built me my very own castle?

Trust me luck has nothing to do with it.

It’s all to keep her little princess safe; or so she says.

You would think living in a castle would be the stuff of fairytales. Sleeping in until noon, personal chefs to make you anything you want for breakfast. Maids to set your clothes out and help you dress, someone to do your hair and makeup, parties every weekend, doing whatever you want, whenever you want.

But that is not the case.

Rowena calls this place a castle. In reality it is anything but. At the base of the tower there is a small square stabilising building, then in the middle is a single round tower twenty stories tall. The tower is my home, my sanctuary, my safe haven, my prison.

My living space consists of the five highest rooms of the tower with a view out over the entire kingdom. My mother tells me not to complain, I have everything I could ever want, my bills are taken care of, someone does my shopping for me, as long as I remain contained within the tower, I am free to do whatever I like, whenever I like, however I like.

All except leave.

I hate it.

I am trapped in my own life.

I know what you’re thinking, suck it up princess you live a charmed life with everything taken care of and you want for nothing; but I want more. Again, I know what you’re thinking, if you hate things so much do something about it. Trust me it’s the same thought I’ve had since the moment I turned eighteen, Rae your twenty-three move out of your mother’s house already. Go out explore, see the world, live a life of your own.

If only it was that easy.

Let me explain.

First, in the backwards ass land in which I live, a person is not considered an adult until the age of twenty-five.

Twenty-Five!

How ridiculous is that?

Until I turn the ripe old age of twenty-five, in the eyes of the law I am still a child. There’s nothing I can do to change my circumstances until my twenty-fifth birthday. I know, I am one hundred percent certain. I’ve checked, I’ve researched, I’ve sought legal advice. Sure, I could apply for early acceptance into adulthood, unfortunately, you need a royal decree for emancipation from your parents. To apply for a royal decree, you need to partition the royal court, in person.

Which brings me to my second point, I cannot leave my tower, it is physically impossible. You see, the world outside my tower is trying to kill me.

How do I know this? Because my mother, my adoptive mother, told me in excruciating detail how if I leave the tower I will die.  Rowena, yes, she makes me call her by her first name; even as a small child. I had to call her Rowena because, as she constantly reminded me, she is far too young to be anyone’s mother. In reality, she is older than God, the only things about her that are ‘young’ are the many ‘upgrades’ she has had. Rowena has been telling me as long as I can remember that I’m a freak and because I’m a freak of nature, my birth parents didn’t want me. The second they could get rid of me they did. Tossed aside like an unwanted piece of luggage.

I’m an unwelcome freak who can’t interact with the outside world like normal people.

Rowena told me my birth parents gave me up because they couldn’t handle my intense medical condition. I was in and out of the hospital as a baby and it was too much for them. They bundled me up and left me in a basket on the doorstep of the local church. A note pinned to my blanket asked whoever found me to find parents who could handle my needs and provide a better life for me.

I was a broken kid, and they threw me away.

You see, I am sick; I have a conditioned called Mast Cell Activation, MCA for short. Basically, I am allergic to the world. Anything could trigger an anaphylactic reaction. I leave my tower and I will die. Literally everything is trying to kill me.

Grass - Die

Dust - Die

Pollen - Die

Animals - Die

Mildew - Die

Non-organic food- Die

Living an actual life, that involves interaction with other human beings - Die, die, die, die, die, die!!!!!

Rowena likes to remind me at every available opportunity that my parents couldn’t cope because I was such an enormous burden. Then she, being the saint, she is, graciously took on the massive hardship that is keeping me alive. It didn’t take her long to get over having to look after me.

It didn’t take me long to figure out I hadn’t won the adoption sweepstakes; I had in fact won the booby prize.

It pissed-Rowena-off no end, that she was always having to take me to the doctor or hospital. I was a stupid little kid - her words not mine - who was dumb enough to pat a dog, or I brushed up against a bush or hug another kid, sending me into anaphylaxis and inevitability, the hospital. It was after my last discharge from hospital, she built my tower. She built it in the middle of a forest, a million miles away from everyone, twenty stories high so it was above the treeline and away from anything that might kill me and therefore I would stop taking up so much of her time.

Rowena had a way in, but I didn’t have a way out.

I remember none of it. I don’t remember ever being in an ambulance. I don’t remember going to the hospital or seeing any doctors. Rowena says because my ‘attacks,’ as she would call them, were so traumatic and I was so sick, the doctors had to give me heavy amounts of medication, causing brain damage and that damage is affecting my memory.

Rowena likes to think I am an idiot because I am blonde. She doesn’t hesitate to wheel out the ‘possible brain damage’ card at every opportunity. She feels power in making me feel small and insignificant.

Rowena is a controlling cow, who I would totally bitch about with my friends - if I had any, but I don’t, not really.

I see my doctor via video conference and had to engage a lawyer to manage almost everything else for me. Because of the complexity of my medical condition, I couldn’t leave home to set up a bank account, register for school or college, my lawyer had to do all that for me, explaining why I couldn’t be there in person. I have no visitors who drop by for a cup of tea, people I can talk to face to face, anyway.

I can’t even go shopping.

I’ve seen footage of an organic farmers' market online. It looks amazing. Oh, how I would love to walk barefoot on the lush green grass, through the stalls on a warm spring day looking at all the produce options. I like to imagine the conversations I would have with the vendors while sipping on a farm fresh juice while the sun kisses my skin.

Unfortunately, that is not the case, apart from the fact all the pollen in the air, plus the hay bales would have me sniffling, sneezing, coughing, and itching, my skin would bubble like melting plastic because you guessed it, I’m allergic to the freaking sun!   

Apart from Rowena coming to visit whenever it is convenient - which is so rare I’m convinced I will see Halley’s Comet again before I see her. There is one other person I have any sort of contact with,