by Zoey Parker
Katie leaned in close, and Gio felt the warmth of her breath tickling his ear. “Because you can do absolutely anything you want to me, no matter how fucked up, and I'll love it and beg you for more. How's that sound?”
Gio looked at Katie again, her eyes glittering darkly, her smile growing wider. She looked hot enough, but there was something else about her that seemed off. Still, he couldn't figure out what it was, and he knew he probably wouldn't find a better offer that night. The other women there might be more gorgeous, but would they do even half of what he needed to get the satisfaction he craved?
He doubted it. And what good was sex if he couldn't do the things he really wanted?
“Come on, Daddy,” she pleaded, tugging on his arm. “Tonight's your lucky night. Let's go.”
Gio thought it over for another moment, then beckoned for her to follow him to his car.
Chapter 4
They left the party together and Gio unlocked the silver 1978 Corvette he kept in perfect condition. She slipped into the passenger's seat and immediately took off her high heels, putting her bare feet up on the dashboard and wiggling her toes.
“Take your fucking feet off the dash,” Gio snapped. “It's a Corvette, not an ottoman.”
“Sorry,” Katie said, rolling her eyes and putting her feet back on the floor.
As Gio pulled away from the house and got on the road, Katie reached into her purse and withdrew a joint. She put it between her lips, lighting it and inhaling deeply.
“No smoking in the car,” Gio said.
Katie giggled, rolling the window down. “It's cool,” she insisted. “I can blow it out the window, see?”
Gio reached over and grabbed the back of Katie's hair, twisting it hard. He expected her to react with a cry of pain, or even anger. Instead, she was silent, her head rearing back to expose her neck. “I said no smoking,” he growled. “Now get rid of it before I hurt you.”
“Yes, Daddy,” she agreed mildly, pitching the lit joint out the window.
“And stop calling me Daddy,” Gio added, letting go of her hair.
“Okay,” Katie sighed. “What do you want me to call you?”
“Nothing. Don't even open your mouth to speak to me unless I tell you to.”
Again, Gio expected some small flash of defiance from her. Instead, she simply nodded and stared out the windshield blankly for the rest of the drive, her hands fidgeting in her lap.
When they got to Gio's house, he ushered her inside. “I need to use the bathroom before we get started,” Katie said.
“I thought I told you not to speak until spoken to,” Gio snarled.
“Yeah, but I gotta go,” Katie whined. “I'll just be a sec, okay?” Before Gio could answer, she clip-clopped down the hall in her heels, looking for the bathroom. As she did, she reached behind her to pick at her thong.
Gio grimaced. Clearly, she had no class, but unfortunately, that was often how it went when trying to find sexual partners—the ones who were willing to cater to desires as warped as his were usually trashy by definition.
A minute later, Katie emerged from the bathroom without flushing, and Gio noticed that she was sniffling and gingerly brushing at her nostrils.
“I don't want you high for this,” Gio said disapprovingly. “I want you completely awake and aware of every moment while I break you.”
Katie shrugged nonchalantly. “Okay,” she slurred.
“Do you have a yellow word you prefer to use, or a red word?” Gio asked.
Katie cocked her head like a dog being shown a card trick. After a dazed moment, she said, “Oh, you mean, like, safe words? No, that's cool, I don't need 'em. Nothing's off limits on this bod, haha.” She sniffled again.
Gio flicked on the lamp in the room and surveyed Katie, noticing many details he hadn't picked up on at the party. Her bare arms were crisscrossed with old scars in patterns that looked self-inflicted. The insides of her elbows had small clusters of angry-looking red needle marks. Her hair was coarse and matted, her pupils were pinpricks, the skin under her nose was chapped, and the muscles in her face seemed slack.
“Get over here,” Gio commanded.
Katie trotted over to him, losing her balance once halfway across the room and snorting out a laugh.
Gio hated not being taken seriously. He felt a burst of rage and seized her by the throat, desperately wanting to see her face contort in surprise or anger. He pushed her backward, holding her down against his coffee table.
“You're mine, you fucking dirty slut,” Gio told her between clenched teeth. “I can do anything I want to you tonight. I can kill you. You wouldn't be able to stop me, and no one would ever know.”
He'd made such threats to his playmates before, and he always relished the awe and panic he saw in their eyes when he did. He loved the power that came from knowing that their lives were in his hands, and that they knew it.
But even as Katie's face flushed and started to turn purple from lack of oxygen, her expression remained dead, her eyes as empty as broken camera lenses as they stared up at him.
Gio eased up his grip on her throat so she could have some air. As he did, he used his other hand to reach into his pocket for a cigarette and lighter. He lit up, blowing the smoke into her face.
“Now pull your dress down and show me your tits,” Gio said, “or I'll crush your fucking windpipe.”
Katie reached up and pulled down her dress. She wasn't wearing a bra, and Gio slowly lowered the lit cigarette to her left breast, expecting her to draw back, to struggle, to try to fight him off. He was eager to see her skin overrun with goosebumps, her nipples erect when he pressed the smoldering tip of the cigarette against her flesh and savored her sounds of pain.
But her arms hung limply at her sides, and when Gio looked down, he saw that her nipples were still soft.
He also saw that she already had two cigarette burns on her breast, and several more high on her neck.
She was still looking up at him expectantly, her eyes as glassy as a doll's.
Gio snuffed out the cigarette in an ashtray without burning her. There was a part of Gio that wanted to reach under Katie's dress and rip her panties off, to shove himself inside her without warning or mercy, to violate her as hard as he could, to punish her for her disappointing apathy.
But he knew he might as well fuck a slit in a piece of meat for all the satisfaction it would give him.
She was a sub, yes. She would let him do whatever he wanted to her, yes. She'd call him whatever he wanted to be called and obey any rules he gave her. But she was burned out and drugged out and used up. She couldn't be shocked or hurt anymore. There was nothing fierce left inside her, nothing to bend to his will.
Fucking her would be as cold and joyless as fucking a corpse.
Gio released her and straightened up. “Go on, get the fuck out of here.”
Even then, there was something inside Gio that wanted Katie to react with confusion, anger, or hurt at being dismissed so suddenly without any explanation. But instead, all she did was shrug again, get up, grab her purse, and walk out the door, shutting it behind her. He heard her heels clicking down his driveway, and her voice as she called one of her friends to pick her up.
Gio trudged up to the Special Room in the attic and sat among his strange furniture and torture devices, contemplating the array of sex toys displayed on the walls.
This should have been the happiest night of his life. He was finally a real member of the Mancini family, and his place as its leader someday was assured. He had true power and respect. Most of all, his father had expressed genuine pride in him, and his friends had even shown their support for his unusual hobbies by trying to offer him the kind of woman they thought he'd want.
So why the hell did he feel so utterly misunderstood, out of place, and alone?
Chapter 5
Carla
Carla looked in the mirror at the sleek pantsuit she was wearing, as well as the expensive makeup, fashionable hairstyle, and
tasteful jewelry. Federal agents didn't make much—she usually bought her own clothes at Target or JC Penney, and she rarely concerned herself with makeup or accessories. The teardrop diamond earrings they'd given her cost more than she earned in six months. Now, as she examined herself, she felt like a completely different person.
She caught herself wishing she could ask to keep her costumes like movie stars do, and stifled a nervous laugh. Why shouldn't she be allowed to hang onto them if she managed to survive this undercover operation? Meryl Streep may have been unparalleled at transforming into the characters she played, but it wasn't as though an unconvincing performance could lead to her being beaten to death with a crowbar and dumped in the river.
Carla smoothed the front of her blouse to make sure the tiny microphone underneath didn't ruin the line of her outfit. Then she turned to Don, raising an eyebrow. “Well? What do you think?”
Don favored her with a toothy grin. “Darlin', you look like one of them business gals from Houston who never said yes when I asked 'em out.”
“Their loss, right?”
“Damn straight,” Don chuckled.
Louie Grammatica stood in front of the mirror next to Carla's, carefully shaving his chest with a trembling hand. The Mancinis' family lawyer was a short, stocky man with graying hair and heavy bags under his eyes. He nicked his left nipple with the razor and hissed as a drop of blood welled up. “Goddamn it! Will you two stop gushing about her clothes? You're distracting me.”
“Say, what's the matter?” Don drawled, his eyes glinting with amusement. “I thought you gay boys didn't have no problem shavin' off your body hair. Puts you more in touch with your feminine side, right?”
Louie shot him a venomous look. “You're thinking of Olympic swimmers. Lots of gay men don't shave their body hair. And for the last time, I'm not gay, okay? I was...”
“...'you were there to deliver a message to someone, you'd never been there before in your life, and you were just wearing that outfit so you'd blend in,'” Don and Carla finished with him in unison. He'd made the same claims at least five times already that day.
“But I don't reckon any of that'd hold much water with Mario if'n he saw the location typed on your arrest record, right?” Don added.
“I imagine he'd at least want to know who you were delivering a message to,” Carla pointed out. “And why you seemed so certain you'd find the message's intended recipient in the glory hole booths at the back of the club.”
“Oh, an' how he knew which outfit to wear so he could 'blend in' if he'd never even been there before,” Don continued. “You startin' to see our point here, Louie? 'Cause we can keep goin' if you like.”
Louie scowled and went back to shaving his chest. “Yeah, fine, okay. Just remember what you guys promised. When you take Mario down, Witness Protection had better put me somewhere no one's ever even heard of the fucking mafia outside of a Coppola flick.”
“Sure, sure,” Don nodded. “Now hurry up an' finish shavin' those titties of yours so we can tape a mic to 'em. We ain't got all day.”
Don motioned for Carla to follow him into the next room. She did, smoothing out the front of her pantsuit again. She wasn't used to wearing anything this nice, and she didn't want to get it wrinkled and spoil the disguise.
Don noticed this as he closed the door behind them. “It's gettin' rumpled on you 'cause you slouch,” he said, as though reading her thoughts. “Try to keep your neck an' your back straight, an' your shoulders squared off. Posture, that's the key. You want to look like someone who spends half her life walkin' into courtrooms like she owns the place, 'stead of someone who mostly sits in front of computer screens transcribin' surveillance tapes.”
Carla stiffened her spine and threw her shoulders back. “Like this?”
Don laughed, shaking his head. “Now you look like some kinda robot.” He positioned himself behind her and gently moved her shoulders into a more natural position. “There, that's more like it. You want to be poised without lookin' like you're trying too hard. It's like my old yoga teacher used to say: You just go on an' picture an invisible wire extendin' from your crown chakra up to the sky, an' all them other chakras in your body are gonna align right under it. You keep that up, an' soon it'll feel so natural you won't even realize you're doin' it.”
“You do yoga, Don?” Carla asked incredulously.
“There's plenty about this here Texas boy you don't know,” Don replied lightly. “Shoot, just 'cause a fella likes his Wild Turkey don't mean he ain't tried wheatgrass a time or two.”
Carla closed her eyes and tried to picture a cord attached to the top of her head, lifting her entire posture. After a moment, she could feel it working. Her shoulders straightened effortlessly, and her body language was able to project confidence without seeming rigid.
“Thanks,” Carla said. “That feels better already. You missed your calling. You could have been a chiropractor.”
“Yeah, I figure there's about a dozen things I coulda been,” Don agreed, “an' about ninety percent of 'em would have made my momma happier than me endin' up a G-Man an' gettin' shot at.”
“So, you just called me in here to give me tips on how to keep my suit from wrinkling?”
“Well, watchin' Louie in there try to amputate his own nipples was gettin' to be a bit much,” Don said, “but naw, that wasn't the reason neither. I'm guessin' you must've heard about five hundred hours of taped conversations between them Mancini boys since you started this case, right?”
“Probably something like that,” Carla agreed. She felt herself growing uneasy about where this was headed. When a straight shooter like Don started asking questions he already knew the answers to, it usually meant he was circling a topic that made him uncomfortable and trying to find the most tactful way to broach it.
“So you, uh, probably heard a tale or two 'bout Gio's habits with the fairer sex,” Don continued.
Carla nodded. “Sure. The rumors say he's a compulsive womanizer who's into S&M, with an emphasis on the S. The other goons like to trade colorful gossip, but they mostly look the other way since there's nothing about his behavior that'd compromise him or make the Mancinis look weak in front of the other gangs.”
“Uh-huh,” Don confirmed. “An' just how do you feel about that?”
Carla regarded Don warily, uncertain of where this was going. “I don't know, Don. How do you feel about it? Are you trying to give me some kind of hint here, or...?”
Don sighed. “Do you happen to remember Patricia Kurtz?”
She blinked, confused. “Sure, I guess. I mean, mostly by reputation. She went undercover with the DEA and Immigration a few years ago, right?”
“Yup, that was her,” Don affirmed. “They sent her south of the border to infiltrate a ring of coyotes bringin' in illegals an' meth.”
Carla nodded. “Coyote” was law enforcement slang for someone who helped people cross the border into North America illegally.
“So she gets down there,” Don continued, “an' at first, everything's goin' just fine. Her espanol es muy perfecto, an' with some dye in her hair, she's able to pass herself off as a poor Mexican lady who'd do anything to make it to America. Trouble was, she played desperate so well that the coyote ended up givin' her the same choice he gave all the cute senoritas who came to him...”
“On top of the fee, she had to agree to sleep with him or he wouldn't take her across the border,” Carla guessed.
Don snapped his fingers. “Got it in one. Now strictly speakin', that kind of stuff's against Bureau rules. But Patty'd made a damn fine career for herself up 'til then, an' she figured if she made this bust, the sky'd be the limit for her...promoted to Assistant Special Agent in Charge, maybe her own field office some day, an' after that, who knows?”
“So she did it, right?”
“Uh-huh,” Don said. “She could've just told her handler what was goin' on, an' she'd have been taken outta there pronto. But instead, she went ahead with it on her own. Brought down
their whole operation. Even got herself a medal for it.”
“Then she was right,” Carla insisted. “She did what she had to, and she was a hero. Are you telling me I should be prepared to do something like that?”
“Not quite,” Don replied. “You said you knew her by reputation, mostly. Never met her, though, did you?”
“I heard she left the Bureau a while after that. Went into private practice as a law enforcement consultant.”
Don nodded. “See, she may have cracked the big case, but she never did get tapped for no promotion after that. In fact, they ended up parkin' her ass right behind the same desk she came from, medal an' all. An' them fellas who make the decisions 'bout who gets to have a career an' who don't? Well, all they could see was a woman who used sex to get ahead when a man wouldn't have. Shoot, there were even a couple guys who said the medal should've, uh...”