He appeared in the doorway, auburn hair spiked with gel. He wore a muscle-defining polyester shirt, three buttons opened to reveal a pair of bronzed pecs coated in fine, dark hair. A gold cross dangled from a thick chain draped tightly around his neck, diamond rings glittering like beacons on four lithe fingers.
He stepped forward, muscles flexing and ready to spring; his heated enthusiasm was unmistakable, reddening his grinning features. Testosterone bled from his pores like sweat, creating a nimbus of heat that strived to reach out and grab her.
She smiled back, so…so hot.
This was it, she thought. Her fantasies, two month's worth germinating in her mind and body, now about to be fed upon. She felt every gland in her body throbbing with excitement, swelling against the warming silk of her nightie. She ran her hands through her freshly washed hair, allowing it to cascade along her fingers, and down her shoulders.
She said, "I want you, Tommy."
He grinned, uncomfortably it seemed, then asked the inevitable: "Where's Vito?"
"Not here. Busy with something, I'm sure. Isn't he always?"
Tommy nodded. "I tried calling his cell. There was no answer."
"Which means?"
"Which means he's busy with something."
"Like I said." She stood up. The nightgown fell to the floor, revealing her tanned nakedness to Tommy.
Tommy's eyes swam up and down her body. He smirked lustfully, then uttered, "Ho-ly shit."
"Like what you see?" she asked.
"I do, but…" He peered back out into the hallway, then around the room. "This is dangerous, Jo. If Vito ever finds—"
"Vito won't find out," she interrupted. "I promise you."
"He'll kill us both," he finished, ignoring his own warning as he sauntered smoothly toward her, unbuttoning his shirt.
She placed a gentle finger across his lips. "He won't find out."
A minute later, Tommy's clothes were piled alongside the bed on the plush carpeting. Josie was kneeling on the bed, admiring her living fantasy: chiseled abs, rock-hard biceps, defined pectorals.
And…his dick. Nine inches of manhood standing red and erect. He was beautiful, she thought. God's gift to women. Why he needed to lead a life of organized crime when he could use his looks for financial gain was anybody's guess. But then she reminded herself, because he's a sociopath. A murderer. And that's why I want him so badly.
He stood before her, awaiting instruction, as though he knew Josie would be calling the shots. She smiled playfully then leaned over to the nightstand and pulled open the drawer. Inside, nestled atop a crisp white handkerchief, was a gun.
"What's that?" Tommy asked, eyebrows knitted with sudden concern.
"My husband's gun."
"How come he doesn't have it with him?"
"He has more than one, silly. Don't you?"
Tommy nodded, watching her as she lay back down on the bed. He asked, "What's it for?"
"It's for you," she answered, spreading her legs.
"For me?" He sounded like a disbelieving child spotting a new bicycle in the living room on Christmas morning. His eyes ping-ponged between the gun and Josie's exposed womanhood.
She nodded. "Grab it."
"Josie—"
"If you want me, do as I say."
He leaned down and took the gun.
"Good," Josie said, sucking on a finger. "Now, I want you to come fuck me…but, while you do it, I want you to hold the gun against my head."
Josie could see the hesitancy stirring in Tommy's face. It didn't show in his erection, however, which had reached a hardness on par with the weapon in his hand.
"Are you kidding me?" he asked incredulously.
"Never been more serious…but don't worry, baby, the gun isn't loaded. I just want to fantasize that it is while you press it good and hard against my head. And then, Tommy, when you come, I want you to pull the trigger. Can you do that for me?" She rubbed her saliva-coated finger against her shaved clitoris. "Can you?"
He flipped open the chamber, turned it slowly, checking each slot carefully, confirming them to be vacant. He spun it, then closed it. "You are one kinky bitch," he said.
She giggled, signaling him with her index finger in a come here gesture.
He took two steps forward, and mounted her.
She felt him enter her, filling her and sliding slickly in and out like the good boy that he was: this fantasy man from her dreams, her husband's revered Numero Uno who apparently wasn't as loyal to the boss as he was reputed to be.
"The gun…against…my…head," she managed between moans.
And here was her ultimate fantasy come true, Tommy Cato, finally playing his role in the flights of her daily imaginings to be forcefully manhandled in the bedroom. The bed creaked as Tommy grunted, the gun's barrel pressed firmly against her head, growing warm and slick with her perspiration as she reached orgasm, once, and then, twice. In a matter of minutes, Tommy's feral grunts reached a crescendo and climaxed with a final thrust that commanded his sweaty index finger to pull repeatedly on the trigger, snap, snap, snap, snap, snap…
The moment immediately wound down. Tommy rolled off her sweating body, laying prone to the elements in the boss's bed…next to the boss's wife.
"Jesus Christ…what did I just do?" He slapped the gun against the pillow, and rubbed his eyes with his free hand. "If Vito ever finds out…"
Quickly, Josie stood up, went into the bathroom, and shut the door.
"What are you doing?" Tommy called, his paranoia now at center stage with the post-orgasmic lethargy settling in.
"I'll be right out," she replied, opening the cabinet beneath the sink. Here Vito had had a small bar installed so he wouldn't have to go downstairs should he want a middle-of-the-night cocktail. She poured two whiskeys on ice, stirred them vigorously, then returned to the bedroom.
Tommy was still naked, sitting on the edge of the bed. "That was amazing," he said, looking up at her.
She smiled. "Yes, it was…and thank you for playing my little game with me."
"The pleasure was all mine."
She handed him one of the glasses.
"Thanks." He placed the gun on the bed, then downed the whiskey in two gulps.
"Good?"
He nodded, then said, "Jesus, Jo, if Vito ever finds out—"
"Will you please stop saying that? He's not going to find out."
"Well, if he does, then I'm a dead man." He looked up at her like a lost child would a stranger at the mall.
She pinned his gaze, grinned cockily, and said, "Well, yes…that you are."
His face blanched, drawn suddenly of its color. "What? What the hell are you talking about? You told me Vito won't find out!"
"Oh, he won't."
He shifted to the edge of the bed and moved to sit up. He looked suddenly sick, his face paling from white to green now. He collapsed to the floor.
"Jesus," he sputtered, saliva bubbling at his lips. "What the fuck is happening to me?" His body spasmed slightly, then went motionless. Only his eyes shifted as he peered accusingly at her. Lips barely moving, he asked imploringly, "What did you do to me?"
"I gave you a taste of your own medicine," she answered. "Rohypnol. You know, the date-rape drug? You and Vito have been importing it from Turkey and dealing it at Princeton for years now. You should know that when you mix it with alcohol, it has quite a numbing effect. Especially if you quadruple the dosage."
"You bitch…" he slurred, eyes fluttering.
Josie grinned at Tommy, who coughed a few times, then fell face down on the carpet. His mouth stayed open, saliva trickling out.
She opened the top drawer in her bureau, where she took out the change of clothes she'd left there: a red nylon bikini and matching floral cover-up. She got dressed then tiptoed over Tommy, who she estimated would be dead from cardiac arrest in less than thirty minutes.
More than enough time.
Going back into the nightstand next to the bed, she took out th
e hanky from the still-open drawer and gently picked up the gun, careful not to wipe away Tommy's prints. She placed the gun alongside Tommy's body, next to his hand, two fingers touching the handle. She folded the handkerchief, placed it back in the nightstand drawer, then opened the doors to the walk-in closet next to the bed.
And smiled at her husband, mob boss Vito Scarelli, sitting on the floor of the closet. He was in his underwear, head pressed against the wall, tufts of hair stuck in the spray of blood that had burst from the exit wound in the back of his head.
Tommy Cato had checked the gun to see if it was loaded, and it wasn't. But it had been loaded, with only one bullet, and Josie had used it at point blank range against Vito's forehead before wiping it clean and putting it into the nightstand drawer.
Luckily enough, Vito had fallen back into the closet, so all she had to do was close the door and shut him out.
I'll kill you if you ever dishonor me again, he'd told her once before.
And she'd told herself, My dear husband, I shall do the same.
She checked the room one more time, then reached under the bed and pulled out the plastic bin where she stored all the lingerie she never had a chance to wear. She popped it open, dug through the layers of silk garments until she located the small silver combination lock box hidden inside.
She opened the box, looked at the contents, and smiled.
Inside were over a dozen mini-cassette tapes, each one containing conversations Vito and Tommy had had in the foil-lined cedar closet.
Where she hid the micro recorder over six months ago.
She took the tapes out and placed them on the dresser, then blew out the candle and went downstairs.
She sat on the barstool in the kitchen, looking at the pictures of Vito and Tommy in still-open photo album, posed arm in arm, donned in their black Armani suits.
Partners in crime, she thought. And so much more…
So much more…
Josie Scarelli laughed out loud. Imagine what La Famiglia will think when they find out Vito Scarelli and Tommy Cato had been having a torrid love affair…
She did her best to suppress her giddy laughter, then called 911, reporting the lone gunshot she heard while sunbathing in the backyard.
Pool
Let me start by saying this: I've been teaching tenth grade for fourteen years, and not once did I ever stick around after school to grade papers. Even if I had a tremendous amount of work to do, I always surrendered the institutional walls of the classroom for the serenity of my living room, marking tests in front of the television, or before a steaming plate of pasta.
But this week, I stayed late. Maybe I needed a change of atmosphere, maybe I wasn't in the mood to take anything home with me. I can't give you any specific reason other than 'I just did'.
And because 'I did', I ended up changing Donny Wilson's life forever.
With spring approaching and the weather warming, I'd started riding my bike to work. The school is only a mile from my home, and it's much easier for me to pedal along the sidewalks than to wait for the traffic lights to change during rush-hour.
Donny Wilson was in my class. He'd begun the year in September as a straight-A student, living up to the impressive reputation he'd garnered in the ninth-grade. But slowly over the last six months, the once clean-cut mother's dream of a boy had taken a noticeable turn for the worse, deteriorating into a rather mixed-up child whose tired drawn face and sagging grades implied some deeper, personal problem. His mother didn't seem to notice or care, taking a bit of an offense to my butting in when I brought it up at Parent-Teacher Association night. After all, I was only his teacher—that was the attitude I got from her.
In the past I'd seen Donny walking home via Jackson Place, the main road that led into town from the school lot. His house was one of a hundred or so split-levels lining the middle-class neighborhood road. You've seen it all before. Blacktop driveway, picket fence, children in the street. A real American Dream.
So call it a coincidence, but I stayed late every day this week, and it was on Wednesday that I left through the back doors of the cafeteria because it was raining—I figured I could cut through with my bike, thereby taking a few hundred feet off my journey home—and saw Donny Wilson standing near the edge of the woods at the east end of football field. He was peering in at something. He then stepped forward around the trunk of a large elm and disappeared into the woods.
Despite the cool rain, I got on my bike and pedaled across the field to the spot where I saw Donny.
I got off my bike and leaned it against a tree. I looked into the woods and I could see Donny from where I stood. To avoid being spotted, I crouched down behind a mulberry bush. He was standing with an older boy, a man I should say—the guy was probably nineteen or twenty years old, certainly older than Donny. He was red-haired, heavy-set, and had a rough-around-the-edges look to him. You know the type: scruff on the chin, denim jacket, black tee-shirt displaying the heavy-metal band of choice. Every community has its share of these ugly types, but we worry little about them because they usually keep to themselves, smoking their butts and frequenting the local watering holes.
But...this was a meeting of two different worlds. I figured that meant trouble was brewing.
Donny had his arms at his sides. He was clawing uncomfortably at his jeans. The big guy—Big Red I called him—yelled and although I really couldn't hear what he was saying, it made no difference because his actions spoke louder than his words. He was lambasting poor Donny, who could only fold his meek arms across his chest in powerless defense. Big Red had no trouble wrestling past Donny's shield, shoving him hand to face, right to the muddy ground. He swung a fist into Donny's thin chest, then grabbed him by the shirt and heaved his lanky body up and down, the back of his head splatting the earth at least a dozen times. When the guy eventually let go, my once-star pupil cowered and curled up on the ground like an armadillo, eyes shuttered, knees to his chest and trembling.
I stood my ground. I didn't want to interrupt, not yet anyway. It was apparent to me that Donny had gotten himself tied up in somebody else's business, either in a place he didn't belong or doing something he shouldn't have been doing. Of course I wanted to find out what it was, but now wasn't the time or place.
I wiped the collecting rain from my eyes, and watched as the big bully grunted and shoved Donny with the toe of his brown work boots. When Donny didn't move, he gave him a swifter kick. That got his attention. The kid rolled over, face-up and gasping, body twisted to the side as if in a yoga pose. Big Red picked up a healthy handful of leaves and shoved them into Donny's frightened face, painting it with mud and brown rain-water. He then trampled away into the woods, leaving Donny with nothing more than the painful memories of his actions.
Donny rolled around a bit then sat up, brushing the leaves off his clothes. Put aside some bumps and bruises, it appeared he would be all right. Thank God.
Finally, he climbed to his feet. Wet and dirtied, he staggered in my direction and I jumped back on my bike and rode away before he saw me. I turned only once to see my once-prized student escaping the woods and taking his usual route home down Jackson Place. I wondered what his mother would think when he arrived there today, nearly two hours late, and in not-so-perfect shape.
The next day in class, I had my eye on Donny. He went about the hour in very Donny-like fashion. The Donny of late, that is. Quiet, unsociable, simply going through the motions like a bored office worker. The rest of the class had resigned themselves to the fact that Donny no longer took interest in them, perhaps due to the attitude they assumed he acquired upon reaching sixteen years in age.
Of course, I knew, there was a lot more to it than that.
At three-thirty, class was dismissed. I'd purposely skipped over Donny while handing out last week's exam, hoping he'd investigate as to why he didn't have his returned.
He didn't seem to notice, or care. He filed past my desk, and I had to call out to him three times before gaining hi
s attention.
"Can I see you a moment?" I asked.
He seemed nervous. Reluctantly, he approached my desk.
I stared at him long and hard before saying anything, hoping he'd break before I decided to work it out of him. No dice; the kid was as stoic as a sentry.
Finally, I said, "How's it goin', Donny?"
"Oh, I'm good."
"I tried calling your house last night. There was no answer. Were you at home?"
"Mom works nights. I went to the diner for supper."
Donny's mom is a strange bird. After meeting her at parent-teacher night I knew the kid must've gotten his brains from his father, who, as I was told from his math teacher, had upped and left the family when Donny was still in diapers. She was a fixture at the local mill who, like every other employee, performed her clerical duties in the semi-robotic way that was required of her. More than likely her income covered just enough to support the two of them, although I'd just recently heard the mill discontinued their medical plan, leaving most of the blue-collars scrambling to make ends meet.
My guess was that if things got worse for Donny, he'd be needing some medical attention soon.
"You don't look too well, Donny. You feeling okay?" My goal was to make the kid feel uncomfortable. It was working. He started to fidget.
"I feel fine."
"No, I don't think you do." I placed his graded exam on the desk, a big "F" circled at the top.
He licked his lips as he eyed it, then looked down and said, "Can I go now? I'm not feeling well. I have a stomach ache."
"Donny, listen up. I want you to tell me what you were doing in the woods yesterday."
The kid's face went bloodless. His bottom lip started to quiver.
"And I want to know who you were with. That big guy, with the red hair."
He closed his eyes. Stayed silent for a long time. Then, he began to speak.
When I asked Donny whether his mother knew about this, he shook his head no. Clearly he was too scared to tell her. Although he begged me not to interfere, I felt it was my duty as his teacher to, at the very least, notify her. I'd tried calling a few times. Like the night before, I got an answering machine. I left no messages. Once Donny himself picked up the phone, but I hung up.
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