Lost Ones

by Nicole French

  I’m about to saying “nothing,” but that’s not true either. My heart squeezes as I admit to myself that Nico will always be someone to me. And that all I can do is try my best to be present with the person I’m with instead of the person who never wanted me like I wanted him anyway.

  Giancarlo has stopped pacing, and is now standing in the doorway of the kitchen, arms folded across his chest. He’s breathing normally now, like somehow my outpouring of emotion tempers his. Maybe, I think, he just needed to see I cared.

  Slowly, he approaches me and raises his hand. I flinch, and he arches a thick eyebrow in response.

  “You are afraid of me?” he asks in a low purr.

  My jaw trembles, and I swipe at the tears falling down my cheeks. “N-no.”

  Again, the eyebrow rises. “Maybe you should be.” He glances at my reddened wrist. “Now you’ll learn.”

  The words land between us, and I’m not sure if they are a threat or a warning. I freeze, feeling again like prey, except this time the predator is someone I know intimately, not strangers in a car. Giancarlo maintains his penetrating stare, and it feels like some sort of test. But in the end, his shoulders relax.

  “You are sorry?” he asks.

  Miserably, I nod.

  “You want to…how do you say…make it up for me?”

  A bit less certain, I nod again.

  His gaze flickers over me, like he’s measuring me up. He huffs. “Okay. Tomorrow.”

  I blink. “What?”

  “Tomorrow,” he repeats more firmly. “I have some money that needs to be taken to a store in the Bronx, but I can’t go because of work. It’s a payment for something my boss bought for the club.”

  I frown. “What did your boss buy––”

  “What does it matter?” he spits out curtly. “Televisions. For the walls. It’s none of your business, only a way for you to show me I can trust you. Can I trust you, amor?”

  I look up. There’s that word. Love. For all his anger, Giancarlo uses it so freely. From the beginning, he’s been dedicated to whatever we are, jumping ahead and waiting patiently for me to join him. Maybe his anger is related to the fact that I’ve been holding back. That in my heart, maybe I’ve been waiting for someone else.

  “Okay,” I relent. “Sure. I can take it.”

  He relaxes visibly, then takes my hand and pulls me into him, turns me around so my back is to his front and he can press his face into my neck.

  “Oh, my love,” he whispers, before he launches into Spanish colloquialisms I can’t quite understand. “You make me crazy, do you know that?”

  I soften into him, desperate for the touch. My eyes close, and I sink into the feel of a body sheltering mine.

  His hand slides up my back and into the hair at the base of my neck. But just as I relax a little more, he grabs my hair and winds it around his wrist, pulling it taut so my neck is cranked back, exposed to him.

  “Go,” he says before he draws his teeth across my bared skin. He yanks at my hair, jerking my neck up, and points me down the hall. “Into the bedroom. Take off your clothes. We will finish this in there.”

  In the end, I follow his orders. I walk into the bedroom, remove my clothes, and curl up on his faded, peach-colored sheets, feeling as naked inside as I am out. My skin pebbles in a room that’s never quite warm enough, and I wait for what seems like forever until Giancarlo finally follows me in. Outside the windows, a siren sounds.

  Giancarlo looks me over and nods with approval, then strips off his own clothes. I can’t help it––I compare him to Nico. His body isn’t as cut; Giancarlo is long and lean, but he’s no athlete. His pale torso is softer, lacking the definition and raw strength of Nico’s even though he’s several inches taller. He removes his glasses and sets them next to the bed, then kneels in front of me on the mattress and takes a handful of my hair, pulling my head back. Pain prickles through my scalp.

  “You want me to kiss you?” he asks in a voice that’s low, still laced with threat.

  I gulp. Then I nod, although I’m not so sure. But I need something to replace the imprint of lips still throbbing on mine.

  Giancarlo inspects me, his dark gaze traveling over my body. “Maybe later,” he says. “If you’re good.” He continues his examination. It strikes me how little we’ve really been like this together. Most of the times we’ve had sex have been in the dark, shrouded by alcohol and other ways of blurring the moment.

  “You’re beautiful,” he says, like he’s surprised.

  I look down my body. I haven’t been exercising as much as I usually do, since the time away usually earns Giancarlo’s ire, but I think I look okay. “Thanks.”

  He reaches between my legs, slipping his fingers inside suddenly. I arch against the intrusion, ignoring the way I want them to feel like someone else’s. I ignore how clinical it feels, how his fingers actually pinch a little inside me, having not taken any time at all to ready me. My body squeezes in response, and not in a good way. It curls inward, trying to protect itself.

  “Does that feel good?” Giancarlo asks as he presses a thumb on my clit. He watches the movement distantly, like he’s observing a lab rat or something, though his cock stands upright, pointing directly at me. “Do you like that?”

  I nod, closing my eyes against the feeling. I frown, ignoring the way the tip of his cock brushes against my leg. His fingers are pressing too hard, pushing too far.

  “Hold on,” I say, reaching down to take his hand.

  I pull it back a little bit, urging a lighter touch, and Giancarlo stops completely.

  I open my eyes and look down. “What?”

  “Nothing.” He looks away. His erection softens, and I already see the anger building on his face.

  “I need to go,” he says suddenly, standing up. “You are not in the right mind for this tonight. Maybe I need to give you time to get your head right.”

  For some reason, the words stir something deep inside me. A jab to my heart. I couldn’t tell you why. I couldn’t have even explained it to myself. But the only thing going through my head was not again. I spring forward and grab his hand before he’s off the bed completely.

  Giancarlo turns around. “What?”

  “Don’t go,” I say. “I’m sorry. It was my fault. Sometimes I act before I think. I didn’t mean to make you feel bad.”

  His eyebrow quirks. “I don’t like that.”

  Don’t like what? Being challenged? Being corrected? But I don’t say any of it––just swallow my words and nod. “I understand. Please. Let’s start over. Let’s make up.”

  He sits back on the bed and beckons for me to sit on top of him. When I pause, he frowns. Immediately, I scurry forward and obey when he moves my legs so that I straddle him. But when I lean forward to kiss him, a hand closes around my neck.

  “I didn’t say you could do that,” he says. “Not yet. You don’t deserve it yet.”

  I wilt, and the guilt still lodged in my stomach blooms.

  “Are you going to listen to me?” he says as his hand slides up my throat and takes hold of my chin so I can’t look away.

  I blink slowly. Then I nod. “Oh-okay.”

  His eyes are actually brown, but right now they look black. They always look black, deep and foreboding.

  “Good,” he says. “Now, take me in your hand. Get me hard.”

  When I don’t move, his eyes flash dangerously. The hand at my chin slides down my neck, and his long finger wrap around it and squeeze slightly.

  “Giancarlo,” I say, my voice cut off a little from the pressure. “I can’t––I can’t breathe.”

  “Do what I say,” he prods.

  My heart pounding in my chest, I reach between us. Giancarlo intercepts my hand and squeezes some lubricant on it, then nods for me to continue. I rub my fingers together, then take his soft penis in my hand. It’s squishy, like holding an overripe banana. Giancarlo’s hand around my neck loosens its grasp, and I can breathe normally again. His fingers drif
t over my skin. In the mirror over the bed, I can see the slight red marks left there, quickly fading away.

  In my hand, he turns harder.

  “This is what a woman does for her man.” He looks down, entranced by the movement of my fingers. “I want you to come,” he orders as he places his thumb on my clit and starts to rub it meditatively while keeping his other hand around my neck. It’s an odd position, sort of being held like a puppet in reverse.

  We continue touching each other, his eyes boring into me, expectant and fierce. I already know there’s no way I’m going to orgasm like this.

  Giancarlo swears in Spanish, a phrase I don’t recognize. He’s fully hard now, watching. His thumb on me presses harder, just a little too hard to feel good as his finger slides inside me again.

  “Are you close?” he asks as the fingers around my throat tighten just a little, though not enough to cut off my breathing. I shake my head, but the hand remains.

  “Are you close?” he asks again, this time with more of an edge.

  I’m scared to say no. I’m scared to tell him the truth, tell him that I’m miles away from where he wants me to be. But I’ve hurt him enough tonight already, and it seems like this means a lot to him, this control. He’s looking for something I can’t produce, and what he’s doing with his hand isn’t going to get me there. I can’t just come on demand.

  But I can fake it.

  “Yeah,” I whisper, purposefully breathy, sounding almost as though he’s squeezing my windpipe all over again, even though he’s not.

  Giancarlo sighs, his chest shuddering as he grows even harder.

  “Do it,” he says. “I want you to come. Right now.”

  Um, what? What the fuck kind of fool thinks that women can just come on command? I know it happens in shitty romance novels, but this is real life.

  I know it’s a bad precedent to set. I know if I do this, he’ll expect that his commands will undo me every time, when just like anyone, I need so much more than that.

  But all I want is for him to stop looking at me like I’m a terrible person. Or maybe I just want to stop feeling like a terrible person. I want him to look at me like I’m precious and important. And Giancarlo, despite his flaws, has always needed me. He’s always done that.

  “Oh, GOD,” I shout, manufacturing desire with the best imitation I can. It’s hard. When I come, I’m not usually conscious of what I actually sound like. I’m just…in the moment.

  But instead, I will my body to shake––not actually that difficult with all the emotions coursing through me. I toss my head back and moan toward the ceiling, ride his hand as if it’s undoing me for real.

  “I’m coming!” I shout again and again. “Oh, God! I’m COMING!”

  And then, slowly, I let myself come down from the manufactured high and fall forward onto his shoulder. Honestly, forcing myself to mimic the relaxation of post-coital haze is harder than pretending an orgasm. Especially when I’m still so tense. So worried. So needy.

  But Giancarlo doesn’t seem to notice. Instead, he pushes me back upright, then fixed his hand back around my throat and urges my hand to keep working his cock.

  “Slap me,” he orders.

  My hand stills. “What?”

  “Hit me. I want you to.” Giancarlo sticks out his chin, like he’s daring me to punch him, then turns his face to the side. “Do it. Now. And don’t stop with your other hand.”

  Slowly, I keep rubbing his cock, which is now basically stone. Is he serious? He really wants me to hit him? I can’t imagine doing that to anyone I care about, ever.

  “Layla.” Giancarlo growls. His eyes bore into me, two black rubies that glint under the fluorescent lighting “Now. Hard.”

  So I do. Slowly, I draw back my free hand, watching as anticipation grows on Giancarlo’s angular features. He nods slightly, and like a spring being let loose, I whip it forward and land it straight across the side of his face.

  “Fuck!” he shouts. In my hand, his cock spasms, jetting a sudden, sticky release on his stomach and my thighs. The hand around my neck flops down, then he grabs my hand and continues sliding our fists together up and down his cock until he’s finished completely.

  “Fuck,” he murmurs, looking down. “Look at this mess.” His gaze returns to me, dazed, but still hardened. “Clean it up.”

  Again, I look up, unsure if he’s serious. Jesus, he’s not asking me to lick it up or anything like that, is he?

  “What are you waiting for? Take care of your man. Go to the bathroom and get me a towel.”

  Without saying anything, I slide off him, then tiptoe out of the bedroom. When I return, dampened washcloth in hand, Giancarlo has already mopped off the mess with his t-shirt, and is waiting expectantly for me, rubbing himself and already partially hard again.

  “What-why did you have me get this?” I ask, holding up the towel.

  “For later,” he says. “Put it on the nightstand and come here.”

  I follow his orders, and when I reach his side, he puts an arm around my back. He looks at me, up and down, the blackness in his eyes softened slightly from before.

  And it’s then, finally, that he kisses me. His lips are soft, though not as soft as the ones that kissed me before. His tongue is firm, though it doesn’t quite move in that way that makes me melt. But his hands stroke up and down my back gently, with a softness I’ve been craving.

  My body softens toward him.

  “I need you,” he says, over and over again. “Don’t you need me too?”

  And in that moment, those three words are the only things I want to hear.

  “Good,” he says as he grazes his teeth up my neck. “Now turn over.”

  And I do. Feeling like a shadow of myself, I let Giancarlo take out what he needs on my body, alternately soft and harsh as his mood evolves. At one point, he turns me over, claps his hands on top of mine and barely lets me move against his mattress. Shouts his dominance while he takes me from behind, while I bury my silence into the pillow, waiting for it to be over. It isn’t an act of pleasure; it’s an act of penance. Like a priest, Giancarlo has determined my punishment. And now I have to take it.

  ~

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Nico

  I dump the box of old magazines into the dumpster and then jog the rest of the way up the stairs. Gabe, Selena, and I are all helping Ma clean out her apartment. The lease––the lease in my name––is up at the end of the month, and for the first time in almost ten years, the landlord asked me for verification that I live here and wanted all residents’ names and ID numbers on the new lease. I checked, and he’s been asking everyone in the building for the same thing.

  Bastard. He knew exactly what would happen. He knew there was no way in hell my mother was going to put her name on any kind of legal document. He knew she would move out, leave her home––tiny, run-down home that it is, but still a home nonetheless––before she made herself vulnerable that way.

  I have a couple of days between my interview and my physical, and even though I’ve worked out a few times, a little extra labor is the best way to get rid of the jitters I feel. Well, there’s one other distraction I can think of, but she won’t have anything to do with me.

  I tried to call Layla this morning, when I thought that maybe she’d have cooled off enough to accept my apology for last night. If I’m being honest, I’m not really sorry. I don’t care if she’s with someone else, I’ll never be sorry for anything we are together.

  The only thing I’m sorry for was the look on her face when she said that loving me hurt. That pain makes me feel like my guts are being torn out.

  Which is why, in the end, I didn’t call her again. I don’t want to hurt her, even if it’s physically painful to leave her alone. Knowing she’s probably staying a few blocks from where I am made for a night of really shitty sleep, I can tell you that.

  “I still think you should just tell her your plans,” Gabe says when he confronts me after I tell him what
happened. “They’re going to hire you. Peter didn’t even get an interview yet,” he says, referring to his friend who also applied. “In six months, you’ll be a fuckin’ firefighter for real. FDNY, man. That’s the shit.” He nudges me in the shoulder. “You’re the shit.”

  I smile at the ground and rub the back of my neck. “We don’t know what’s going to happen.”

  And that’s the truth. I hoist another big box of linens down the stairs so my brother doesn’t have to see how scared I am that I’m going to get to this final stage and not make it. It’s the same reason I haven’t told Layla. I don’t think I could take getting her hopes up that I’m coming back to New York only to rip them away again.

  I want this so bad. I’m scared to admit to myself how badly I want it––more than anything I’ve ever imagined for myself. I want this more than I wanted to get out of juvie, back when I was seventeen and locked in a jail for kids. I want this more than I wanted the job at FedEx, which was the first time I was ever given a legit job. I want it more than I wanted to leave New York…and I never thought I’d want anything more than that.

  For the first time, I feel like I’m on the precipice of doing something great. Not just a change. Not just something to help me or my family get by. But something truly worth doing in my life.

  I never had that kind of opportunity. And now that it’s here, I don’t know how I’ll handle it if––no, when it does get ripped away.

  “Yeah, well,” Gabe interrupts my thoughts as he arrives at the rented truck with me. “I guess she got Lurch anyway.”

  I look up from the back of the cab, frowning, and turn my cap on backward so I can look at him. “Who the fuck is ‘Lurch’?”

  Gabe blinks uneasily. “Um, Layla’s boyfriend. At least, that’s what I think he looks like––that guy from The Addams Family. He lives up by CUNY. Maybe five, six blocks from our place.”