“Etcetera?”
“Trust me, this is the easiest way for me to do this.”
“What’s the alternative?” she asks as she pushes out of my grasp.
“The alternative would be…painful.”
She swallows. She’s wringing her hands. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
“You’ll be fine. It’s just a few pictures.”
She shakes her head, rubs her face. “No.”
I point to the bathroom, and when she walks out of the room, I resume my seat on the couch. She doesn’t come back for a full ten minutes, but when she does, her fear seems to have lessened, or at least it’s well hidden behind eyes of fire.
She’s pissed.
“You want dirty pictures?” she asks, spitting the words.
I casually shrug one shoulder. It’s sort of funny to see her like this. I wonder about the pep talk she must have given herself to get so worked up because she’s so mad she’s practically shaking. “You think you’re going to blackmail me?” She takes a step forward, then back again. “Huh? Pervert?”
She’s bouncing from one leg to the other like a boxer. I chuckle at the image but it only makes her angrier. She finally stands still, fists her hands at her sides, her face going bright red.
“Well you can try and make me.”
I lean deeper into my seat, consider her, wonder if she’s realized how much more interesting she’s just made this. Taking my time, I unbutton the cuffs of my shirt, roll the sleeves up to my elbow before I reply. “You sure about that, sweetheart?”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Are you?”
“Fuck you.”
“And you seemed so sweet,” I say, standing.
She spins to run from the room, but I catch her easily, my hand wrapping around her arm to halt her. I pull her into my chest. Cock my head to the side. “I was thinking I’d get a slow strip tease, but this will be much more fun.”
“Let me go!”
I lean in close, inhale the scent of her. Smell the fear creeping back up to the surface. Make a point of doing so. “Just remember, you chose this. It could have gone easier.”
4
Natalie
He’s too strong to fight off, but I try. I can’t not fight. Thing is, I know he’ll win. He’ll get the pictures. But maybe I can hold on to one shred of dignity if he has to make me.
When I went to the bathroom, he must have taken his suit jacket off, and watching him roll up his sleeves a minute ago, seeing his thick forearms, it just made me realize how weak I am. I wonder if he expected this. Expected me to fight. Because he was ready for me.
The Henley’s first. I hear it tear as he forces it from me and I stumble back when he does, hit the back of my knee on whatever’s behind me. I fall backward. It’s an ottoman. I fall onto the ottoman and Sergio Benedetti comes at me with that grin. It’s wicked and dirty and makes his eyes shine bright. And when he drops between my legs and grips my boots, I kick at him.
He laughs. He’s actually laughing.
“Stop, you’re sick!”
He gets my boots off. Then kneels up, grips my wrists and twists my arms. “Sure you don’t want to give me that slow strip tease?”
“Go fuck yourself!”
“I’ll be honest,” he says, pulling me in close. “I like this better. I like it rough.”
I don’t know why but I’m shocked. Why would that surprise me, though? He’s got my jeans undone and I slap at him as he tugs them over my hips, down my thighs, off my feet.
“Stop!”
“No.”
He stands, pushes me backward so I’m laying on the seat of the chair behind the ottoman.
“It’s enough. You can take pictures like this.”
“No, not enough.” He reaches down and with one flick of his hand, my bra is ripped in two and hanging off my shoulders.
I cup my breasts to hide them from view. “Stop! Please stop. I’ll do it. Please!”
He leans down over me, holding me with one hand. “Too late, sweetheart,” he says as he strips my panties from me and just like that, I’m naked. I’m naked and he’s standing over me and looking at me.
I sit up. Cover myself as best I can. “You bastard. I hate you,” I spit, but my voice is weak.
“He takes out his phone and snaps a photo. Then another. “Arms at your sides. I want to see it all.”
I slide off the ottoman, but he comes at me with that stupid phone snapping away. Picture after picture.
I hit the wall, the corner. There’s nowhere for me to go. “Please stop,” I say. “Please.” I wipe my face with the back of one hand. “I’m sorry. I just needed to see the stupid warehouse and it’s not even going to matter anyway. I’m so sorry.”
He ignores me and I cower, and only when there’s no more flash do I dare look up. He’s stepped backward, just one step, but he’s still looming over me, all dark hair and blue-black eyes and danger. He can make me do whatever he wants. Anything he wants.
I’m hugging my knees, using my legs, my hair, anything, to hide myself.
He studies me, just watches me for a long time before snapping another photo.
I turn my face away simultaneously. Hide myself from him.
“Take your arms away,” he says. His tone is different. Serious.
That shift in his mood changes things. I don’t know why, but it does. I know there’s no way out of this. Only through it. I’ve known it all along.
“Do as I say, Natalie.”
And so, I do. I move my arms away and he takes a photo. I look at him. He’s not grinning anymore. That cocky expression on his face is gone. He’s not making fun of me as he does it. He’s just taking pictures. I’m actually not even sure he’s enjoying it.
“Stand up.”
I do, but I can’t look at him. Not at his eyes.
“Turn around and put your hands on the wall.” I do that too. “Higher. Good. Walk backward.”
I take two tiny steps, but it’s enough. I know what he wants. My ass.
“Now look at me.”
I shake my head once, feel my hair on my naked shoulders. Wonder when it fell out of its clip.
“Look at me,” he repeats firmly.
I glance at him over my shoulder. I wonder if he wants my tears too.
“Good.”
I see from the corner of my eye he’s aroused. This could be worse. He could demand another, different sort of payment.
Who says he won’t?
“Get on the couch. Hands and knees. Ass to me.”
I want to weep. I want the earth to open and swallow me whole.
“Do it.”
I do. But then his hand is on me, on my hip, and I jump. He slaps my ass, snaps a picture.
“Just pictures. You said—”
“It’s just pictures.” His voice comes out hoarse, like his throat is dry.
I crane my neck to look at his hand. At the ring there—something big and ornate and old looking. There’s a dusting of dark hair on his arm and his watch is expensive. I can tell. It’s what I try to focus on until, with just the smallest tug of his thumb, he opens me. And I don’t know how or why because it makes no sense, but my belly feels strange and I’m holding my breath and when I look at his face, he’s got his eyes locked on my ass. He looks different again. He’s aroused, that’s obvious, but there’s more. There’s something darker about it.
He’s not taking pleasure in my humiliation. It’s something else now. And the second he snaps the photo, he seems to hurry to shove the phone into his pocket and get away from me.
“Get dressed. We’re done.” He walks out of the room. I hear him go into the kitchen. Open a can of something. It takes me a long minute to move. My dignity is in tatters, like my clothes. I pull my underwear and jeans on. Tuck the ruined bra into my pocket and draw the Henley over my head. There’s a hole at the seam. I finger it, try to think only of it. I don’t want to think about what just happened.
; I can fix this later. Sew it back up. It’s not hard.
By the time I put my boots on, he’s back and he’s already got his coat on. He’s holding mine out to me.
I can’t look at him. I take my coat and put it on and zip it to my chin and, obediently and meekly, I follow him back outside. I get into the car when he opens the door.
“Where do you live?”
I give him the address. He starts driving and neither of us talk. Not during the drive. Not when he pulls up along my street. I live on Elfreth’s Alley, a historic street in Philadelphia. Vehicles are restricted and I’m grateful for it, especially tonight.
When I reach to open my door, he finally speaks.
“Remember what I said will happen if you talk.”
“I wasn’t ever going to talk.”
I slip out, my purse in my hand. I dig for my key in my pocket and he doesn’t drive away until I’m inside and Pepper, my fourteen-year-old German Shepherd greets me, and I’m sobbing. Sobbing on the floor of my kitchen.
5
Sergio
I go straight into my study when I get home. Even though I’m alone, I close the door out of habit. I sit with just the lamp on the desk turned on and I look at the photos. I scroll through each one. Study her face in them. I see her anger. Her fear. Her humiliation. I see it in that order. I study more too. More of her. And my dick’s hard.
“I wasn’t ever going to talk.”
I knew that. I knew it all along. She’s right. I am a pervert. Sick. Only a sick person would do this, would violate an innocent like this. It wasn’t necessary to do what I did. I just wanted to.
But I came to terms with this darker part of me a long time ago. And I’m not psychoanalyzing it now.
The last picture, the one with my hand on her hip, has my attention. The Benedetti family ring is prominent on my finger, my hand big, masculine and rough on her softly curving hip. It’s not even the gleaming pink of her pussy that’s got my eye. It’s how she’s looking at me. Watching me with those dark eyes through that veil of hair. Like she’s seeing me. Really seeing me.
I stare at them. I can’t look away. What I see, it’s not what I expect. Not hate. Not even fear. Something else. It has me curious. It’s almost as if there’s something familiar about her.
I can still smell her if I try. Was she aroused or is that just my sick brain at work? Making something up that wasn’t there. I wonder if she’s thinking about it now. If she’s lying in bed with her fingers between her legs remembering my hands on her. My eyes on her. She’d hate herself for it, I know.
I scroll back to the first image. The one of her sitting on the floor, knees pulled up, hands covering as much of herself as she can. Her chin is bowed into her chest, her hair like a curtain hiding her face from me. But if I look close, I see her accusing eyes through that fall of hair.
There’s something about this girl that I can’t put my finger on. Something that’s got me thinking about her long after I should forget.
“Insurance,” I say to myself, standing. I turn on the printer and send all the photos to it. Listen to the slow hum and buzz as each one prints. Watch Natalie’s face as each slowly slides out, stacks on top of the last. When they’ve all printed, I put them in a locked drawer of my desk before going upstairs to jerk off.
The next afternoon, I go to her house. It’s a little after four and the shadows are already growing long. Winter days are short. I don’t mind them like most people do, though. I like the dark.
There’s no doorbell so I knock on the crooked wooden door, peeking in through the lace curtains of the window beside it. The kitchen is empty but there’s a light on deeper in the house. I knock again, louder this time.
“Hold your horses,” she calls out as the lock turns and she pulls the door open. She gasps, and the instant she sees me, she goes to slam the door shut.
I grip it, stopping her.
“Pepper!” she calls out.
I’m confused for a moment until I hear a lone, tired bark and the sound of a dog’s nails clicking against hardwood floors. Pepper barks again, sticks her wet nose into the narrow opening of the door. She’s old and not very ferocious from what I see.
“What do you want?” she asks. She’s got her back to the door so I can’t see her face, but feel her weight against it.
“I have something for you.”
“I don’t want anything from you.”
“Let me in, Natalie.”
“Why? So you can take more pictures? Freak.”
“That’s done,” I say. “Let me in. Last time I’ll ask nicely.”
“I said no—”
Before she can finish her sentence, I give a shove and hear her small, surprised yelp as she stumbles forward. I step inside. The dog wags her tail and I get a look at the tiny, ancient kitchen, then at Natalie’s startled face.
“You should close the door,” I say to her, unbuttoning my jacket. “You’re letting the heat out.”
“What do you want?”
I reach into my pocket, put the box on the table. It’s a brand-new iPhone.
“Here,” I say. “Upgraded to the latest model.”
She looks at it, confused, then angry. “I don’t need you to give me a phone. I need you to get out.”
She’s wearing an ugly, oversized sweater and jeans. She doesn’t have shoes on and her hair’s wet like she just had a shower.
“I said get out!” she repeats, holding the door wider.
“Truce, Nat.”
“Don’t call me Nat. We are not friends.”
“For Christ’s sake,” I say, taking the door and closing it myself. She backs toward the coat rack beneath the cabinets and reaches behind the array of coats, and a moment later, she’s waving a wooden baseball bat at me.
“What do you want? Why are you here?”
“You’re going to hurt yourself with that,” I say, one eye on the bat while I pet the dog who’s sitting beside me watching the spectacle. “Good girl,” I say to her. “Not like your owner.” I try not to laugh outright at Natalie with the bat, Natalie who has so obviously never had to confront someone like this before.
“She’s not mine. I’m dog-sitting. And get out,” Natalie says.
“Put the bat down, Nat.”
“Fuck you.”
“You told me that last night too. If you’re not careful, I’m going to think it’s an invitation.”
Her mouth falls open and she has no response. I take the opportunity to reach for the bat. She tries to swing, but I catch it, tug it and her toward me, relieve her of the thing but keep hold of her.
“Truce,” I say. “I’m just here to replace your phone.”
“Why?”
“Because I broke yours and figured you might need a new one.”
“I can buy my own phone.”
“You always this stubborn when someone gives you a gift?”
“It’s not a gift when you’re replacing something you broke on purpose.”
“You know why I had to.”
“I needed those pictures.”
“I’ll take you to get new ones.”
She stops. Gives a little shake of her head. “What are you doing here, really?”
I shrug a shoulder, release her and peek into the next room. “I’ve always wanted to see the inside of these houses,” I lie. I could give a fuck.
I’m here to see her.
6
Natalie
“You’re here for a tour of the house?”
Sergio Benedetti, looking like a giant in my tiny kitchen, shrugs a shoulder.
I am so freaking confused. Yesterday he stripped me naked and took dirty pictures of me to essentially blackmail me into keeping silent, and today, he’s here giving me a gift of a brand-new iPhone and he wants a tour of the house?
“I don’t believe you.”
“All right, a tour and coffee,” he says.
“Is this a joke to you?”
“I’m not much for
joking.”
“What, you want more pictures?” I cock my head to the side, fold my arms across my chest. “Not enough material to jerk off to?”
He chuckles. “Plenty, actually.” He winks, his eyes are practically glowing, the look inside them telling me he means exactly what he said.
I clear my throat and look away, embarrassed.
He mistakes my silence for an invitation and next thing I know, he’s hanging his coat up beside all the others.
“You have a lot of coats,” he says, looking through the collection.
“They’re not mine. I’m house-sitting for friends of my parents while they spend the winter in Florida.”
“Ah. Makes sense. I didn’t imagine a university student could afford one of these houses.”
“What I can or can’t afford isn’t any of your business.”
He holds up his hands in mock surrender. “I didn’t mean to offend you. Just an observation.”
“Are you really not going to go until I give you a tour?”
“And coffee.”
“Why?”
“I’m thirsty and I want to see the house.”
He can’t be serious. “That’s all?”
“That’s all.”
“No strings?”
“No strings.”
A voice in my head tells me that’s not quite right. That there are strings. That there will always be strings with him. But I shove that voice aside. There’s something about Sergio Benedetti. It’s not that I like him. I don’t. You can’t like someone after they do what he did to me. I don’t know what it is, though. I don’t know why I’m not really scared he’ll hurt me, even though I know who he is. He won’t. And there’s something else. Something about him that makes me want him to stay, as little sense as that makes. I wonder if it has to do with before, with the robbery. When he was the hero, not the villain.
“I want the pictures back,” I say, knowing it’s a long shot.
He shakes his head. “Can’t do that.”
“You can’t ever share them. It’ll hurt my parents if they ever thought—”
Sergio: a Dark Mafia Romance Page 3