by C. D. Reiss
“This what you like, Princess?” Paulie grunted. “You like a thug? You think you can make him into a gentleman?”
Antonio pulled his gun out and leaned it against Paulie’s head. “I should kill you for what you did already.”
As if knowing where his bread was buttered, Paulie relaxed his body and kept his eyes on me. “Theresa, you see what he is? Go back to your lawyer. It’s safer.”
“Contessa. Inside.”
I didn’t move. I couldn’t. He was going to shoot him. It was clear as day.
Antonio leaned his elbows on Paulie and chambered a bullet. “This is for the good of everyone,” he said.
“After what we been through, it comes to this? You’re going to shoot me for a woman? I killed for you, man. I stuck a dead dick down a dead throat for you.”
“Antonio. Don’t.” I was whispering, but I knew he heard me. At least, his ears heard me. There was nothing less than murder in his eyes. “Please.”
“I wish I coulda tasted that magic pussy, Princess,” Paulie said. “Must be something.”
“Inside, Contessa. Don’t make me say it again.”
I stepped back into the doorway, into the shadows, shaking my head and mouthing the words don’t do it don’t do it…
“Pray, Paulo,” Antonio said. “Say it with me. Ave Maria, piena di grazia.”
I could still see them in the slit of light between the jambs. Paulie cringed. “The Lord is with thee.”
Antonio stepped back and aimed the gun.
“Tu sei benedetta fra le donne.”
“And blessed is—” Paulie’s voice hitched, and he continued. “The fruit of thy womb, Jesus.” He leaned into the wall, but sagged, eyes shut tight.
“Santa Maria, Madre di Dio, prega per noi peccatori.”
“Now and… now and…”
I stepped into the sunlight, softly. Antonio had moved backward, to the Ferrari. He leaned in the window and quietly removed the gun, his own weapon still trained on his partner.
“Finish, Paulie.”
“At the hour of our death.”
Paulie opened his eyes.
“Amen.” Antonio pulled the trigger. A spray of brick dust flew out of the wall above Paulie’s head, dredging his hair, and he barked a sound that was neither consonant nor vowel but a mingling of both.
Or maybe I made that sound.
“See?” Antonio said. “I shot over your head.”
Antonio grabbed me by the arm and pulled me out of building. The last I saw was Paulie stumbling back as if he couldn’t believe he was alive.
Antonio practically threw me into the Mas, taking off before the helicopter got over us. I had my hands over my mouth to stifle all the emotion that wanted to spill out.
“Contessa,” He rolled the top up and drove slowly and legally. “What?”
“He’s right,” I choked out. “If something happens to you, it’s my fault.”
He pulled over, slammed the car into park and took my wrists in his fingers. “Listen to me.”
I couldn’t see him. I couldn’t see anything. It was all too big. Too overwhelming. He was ready to shoot his best friend, right there, for me.
He pushed into me until all I could see was his face, his hands cupping my cheeks in my peripheral vision. I inhaled his smell of burned forests and charred cities, his voice of salted caramel. He was my world, right then, and my heart rate slowed.
“Listen. To. Me.” He took a deep breath, and I felt it and mimicked what he did, calming myself by tuning my body to his. “I am responsible for the years of my life,” he said. “Nothing you do will change them. This position I’m in is my own. And now, you’re in it. We can talk about that later. But now, do you hear the sirens?”
I listened. Nodded.
“The shop is almost a kilometer away. We have only a minute to leave or we’re going to be found here.”
“We didn’t do anything. We were just standing—”
“If I’m here, there are questions. If I’m not, there are layers of paperwork between those shots and the owner of the building.”
The thup-thup-thup of helicopters was a few blocks away, over the store. Paulie would have left the scene, and we were just two people in a parked car, but we couldn’t ignore the impending descent of the law.
I took a long blink. The crisis was over, and there were only three things left: Antonio. Me. And God.
Could I keep two realities in my head at the same time? Could I believe he was good and sound, even though I knew he committed murder while he was with me? I feared it would become too much, some day. The struggle would eat my soul until all that was left of me would be my body, the physical manifestation of ache, need, and desire.
thirteen.
theresa
knew there would be ramifications to Paulie’s near-death experience. I’d have to deal with all of it, and yes, I was going to have to deal with my responsibility in his current state of affairs. I breathed once, twice, and I put my fear, arousal, and self-loathing behind a thick shell of ice and control. I knew it swirled underneath, an ever-growing, self-propagating ball of hysteria.
The size and power of that ball terrified me. Once we were in the car, I hardened the shell around it. Blinked. Breathed. Swallowed. Became myself.
Antonio drove like a model citizen. The police sirens died out; the thup of the helicopter faded away. I could tell he was trying to be calm and to breathe evenly. Eventually, his grip on the wheel loosened, and he leaned his head back on the seat.
“Will they find us?” I said. “Or Paulie? Or anything?”
“The building is owned by an offshore trust.” He took a pack of cigarettes from his jacket pocket and poked one between his lips. “The police will find nothing. The insurance company will get a bill.” He offered me the pack, and I declined. He pocketed it and pulled out his silver lighter. “Case closed.” He lit his cigarette and snapped the lighter shut with a clack.
Antonio drove. Smoked. I wondered if this would be our new small talk. Instead of the weather or the financial markets, would we share a quick description of police activity and the traceability of ownership?
Since the Mas had been parked in the back, no one would know it had anything to do with the shooting. If they did know, they expected it there. The possibility that everyone in the neighborhood kept silent for their own protection occurred to me.
Antonio coiled like a spring, pushing on the steering wheel, even as he drove like the sanest, soberest man alive.
“I am going to fucking kill him.” He slammed the heel of his hand on the steering wheel. “What did he think he was doing? Son of a whore. He could have killed you.”
“I’m fine.”
He put his hand on my cheek. His touch lit my skin in a crackle of firing nerve endings. “I’ll rip him apart if anything happens to you. If he scratches you, I’ll drive a knife into his heart. Do you hear me? He’ll be dead before he hits the ground.”
I groaned. I didn’t want him to kill anyone, but I didn’t want him to stop talking. “You don’t need to kill for me.”
“Killing him would be kindness if he hurt you.” He curled his fingers into a fist. “If anyone hurts you, I will kill them.”
Our lust was all mixed in with viciousness. I wanted to take it and swallow it without reservation, even if I blew apart from the intensity of it.
I took his hand and put it on my breast. “What if you hurt me?”
“Basta.”
“Take me, Antonio. Hurt me bad.” I slid my hand between his legs. He was hard.
He turned a corner, and I saw the yellow-and-black East Side Motors sign. It had a dusting of soot on the bottom. A trailer with a logo for LoZo’s Construction had been pulled onto the lot, a man sat in the back of the truck, feet dangling, eating a sandwich. Charred wood and plastic were piled to the left; burned-out cars had been moved to the right. The office side of the building was burned to the beams. The garage fared better, though there had been some
damage. Antonio pulled into the garage. It stank of grease and flame. Thickness and sharpness stung the back of my throat. If black had a smell, it would be the inside of that building.
Antonio got out of the car and lowered the gate, shutting the space in darkness except for the wall connecting the office, which had burned off at the top.
I got out of the car, feeling my way along the side of it.
“Antonio? I—”
I felt him beside me a second before his hand grabbed a handful of hair and bent me over the hood of the Maserati, holding me there.
“You want it to hurt?” He pulled my skirt up and dug three fingers into my pussy as if he owned it.
“Yes, yes. Do it.” I was pinned. He yanked my panties down halfway then put his wet fingers back inside me without warning.
“If you scream, there’s no one in here to hear you. And you’re going to scream loud enough to bring the rest of this building down.”
I pushed my hips against his fingers, feeling violated and needy at the same time. I needed him to go deeper, to touch me where it hurt most. I was going to break from the inside out of he didn’t bend me into nameless shapes.
He took his hand off the back of my neck and pulled my thighs apart. A gust of air cooled the wetness between my legs. He spanked my ass.
“Open your legs.”
I didn’t have a chance to obey before he kicked my knees apart. His tongue descended on me, the flat of it taking me from clit to asshole. His fingers worked inside, gathering moisture as his tongue worked my clit, not gently, but sucking like he meant to eat it, teeth grazing painfully, leaving waves of pleasure behind.
“Fuck me, Antonio.”
“Not yet.” He sucked on my clit then licked it, drawing his tongue over my ass. I’d never felt anything like it, and I cried out.
He used his fingers to wet my ass while he gave his tongue to my clit, sucking hard, then licking.
“I’m going to come, you fucking—”
“Come.”
“Make it hurt!”
He shoved two fingers into my asshole and I came, pulsing around him, arching back and pushing my pelvis against the car.
“Stay still,” he said when I shuddered and twitched. His cock slid into my ass, which was smooth from saliva and pussy.
“Yes!” I shouted. “Fuck!”
“Does it hurt?” he said in my ear then bit my shoulder.
“No.” I wanted to hurt, to break, to get lost in pain. I was crusted and black, hardened to steel on the outside, while inside, a molten swirl grew every day I was with Antonio. The pressure of it bloated me, and the gunshots in the store had only tightened my hard-bitten skin into a translucent, paper-thin shell. He had to break it. He had to crack me and let it spill.
He jammed himself in harder, but I was too ready and too needy to think of the stretching as anything but pleasure.
“Do it until I break,” I hissed. “Make me cry.” I swung back at him, but he took my wrist and twisted it, pinning it against my ass.
“You’re going to cry, Contessa. But not in pain.” He put my knee over the hood of the car, and he got in even deeper, groaning. He went slowly, rotating his hips gently.
“You won’t weep from being hurt. Not from me. You’re going to shed tears from coming so hard you forget who you are. And when you return, you’ll remember you’re mine, and you’ll cry then too.” He pumped me hard, once, and I screamed in surprise. “And you’ll cry again.”
“Harder.”
He didn’t go harder; he slid carefully out and back into my ass, letting me feel every inch of him. I cursed him. He intended to make good on his promise but took his time with it, shifting my hips downward until my pussy was pressed against the hood of the car. It rubbed against the hard metal.
“You think you want me to hurt you. You don’t even know what that means.” I felt rocking, rocking, his hips and mine, the hood of the car, his hand holding my arm back, the escalation of pleasure on my clit, my empty pussy throbbing for something to fill it. “You have never tasted death,” he said into my ear softly, as if it were a secret.
“Make me taste it.” I heard the desperation in my own voice, the pain of need.
“I can’t bring you back.”
“Put it on my tongue. Take me all the way. Please.”
“No,” he said.
In the dim light, his face close to mine, I saw his jaw clench, his eyes get hard. He pulled me back by the throat and put his other hand between my legs. I don’t know how many fingers he wedged into my cunt while his dick was in my ass, but I was full and covered too, with his warm wrist on my wet clit and his body above mine. I felt protected under his thrusts, even if I’d never be safe again. I let myself crack. The fissure opened and the molten lava poured, pressing against the blackened case of control, smashing it until I screamed as if I were being rent open.
I was made of heat. The cold shell shattered into sharp-edged chips and floated away in the fiery river. I was consumed so completely I screamed in the pain of loss and pleasure of emptiness.
Antonio, the catalyst for my dissolution, the destroyer of my façade, put his lips to the back of my neck. I didn’t know who I was anymore, but I was his.
And I wept.
fourteen.
theresa
wo bathrooms had survived the fire. Antonio let me take the nicer one. I washed up and came out sore and emotionally drained. I didn’t have a thought in my head, only a need to see him.
I heard him before I saw him, rattling off in Italian. I’d never had a talent for languages, but right then, I wanted to learn to speak to him in his. I wanted to sing with him to that same song, to tell secret jokes in the same melody.
I followed his voice to his burned-out office. He was freshly scrubbed and brushed, poking a charred two-by-four with the toe of his dress shoe. I kissed him. His mouth was minty and soft. His face was clean, and when he touched my cheek, his tenderness was a balm on the damage he’d inflicted with those same hands.
He said a few short words over the phone and clicked off.
“What would you say if I sent you away?” he said.
“Sent me away?”
“Back home. My home. I think if I can’t protect you, my father can. Until things blow over here. Or until I can go back there.”
“There is no way, Capo. No way in hell. I have a family here. I have friends. I can’t just get sent away. It doesn’t work like that. And I won’t be away from you.”
“If Paulie ends up running an empire, whatever happens will be my fault,” he said.
“The last thirty-four years are my own. And the last couple of months are mine, as well. If something happens to me, it’s not your fault. It’s mine. I own this.”
“No. You don’t. I dragged you into hell. Now I have to get you out in one piece.”
He put his arm around me, and we looked through the space where the window had been, onto the broken glass and carbon chips that made up his shop, like an old couple on a porch, reminiscing about how the neighborhood used to be.
“What are you going to do?” I asked.
“About?”
“Your accountant?”
“Dime a dozen.”
“He went to Paulie?” I asked.
“Everyone loves a winner.”
I leaned against a circular-saw table and crossed my arms. Antonio put his hands in his pockets.
“You just nearly blew Paulie’s head off,” I said.
“Give me credit. If I wanted him dead—”
“And he shot at us.”
“He was aiming over our heads.” By his tone, I could tell Antonio wasn’t defending Paulie but mocking his excuse as one would mock a child who blamed his baseball bat for yet another broken window. “Asshole. I don’t want to kill him; I want to rip his heart out.”
“I mean it. We have a deal.”
“I know, Contessa. We have a deal. I hope to God that you live to be the most beautiful old woman in
history.”
“I need you to end this, Antonio. Before I lose you. This has to stop.”
I put my arms around his waist, and he held me so close I felt the blood in his veins.
fifteen.
theresa
woke up the next morning in a panic. My rib cage felt like a twisted coil around my lungs. I needed to get out of bed, or my spinning brain was going to lift me six inches off the mattress.
I couldn’t think about Antonio, where he was or who he was meeting. He’d conducted his business his whole life without getting killed. I had to assume he knew what he was doing.
Daniel was a talking head again. Polls were looking better, but the outcome was touch and go. The local elections were scheduled for March. Four months. I knew Daniel. He wasn’t done with Antonio and me. He was gathering clouds for a February storm.
My phone buzzed. I snapped it up without even looking at the caller.
“Tee Dray,” said a familiar voice.
“Directrix. How is it going? Do you need me?”
“Uh, yeah. Have you ever been in for questioning?”
“By whom?” I asked.
“LAPD. I lost half a day of edit.”
“What did they want?”
“Why don’t you come by? I have some questions about your notes. It would really speed things up if I had you around this afternoon.”
***
Katrina hadn’t been sheltered as a child. Her parents hadn’t had a lick of money until middle age, and by then, their daughter had been exposed to enough of the realities of Los Angeles. She knew how to answer questions from the police, something I’d given exactly zero thought to my whole life.
“What happened?” I whispered as she walked me down the hall.
“Remember the day your hot boyfriend came with food for the crew?”
“Yeah?”
“They wanted to know about that.” She stopped at the editing-bay door. “They wanted to know what he was wearing, where you went for dinner.”