by Mj Fields
I grab the t-shirt and throw it on, then quickly shove my feet back in my boots and get out. I look back to grab the keys and she has taken them. It rubs me the wrong way for two reasons; the first is that she took them. I mean, how the hell did I let that happen? How would I get away if she did call the police? Second, because it’s a sign of ownership and I have worked hard to become who I am and earn what I have. The only reason losing it all will not be hard is because there is no greater satisfaction in the fact that he is fucking dead.
Part of me is terrified that she will betray me. But then, the rest of me is just exhausted and numb at the thought that I might finally be free. Except for being wanted by the police, possibly for murder, now.
Honestly, I don’t even really care about that.
At this moment, I really only care about one thing: Salvatore Efisto is dead.
He is lifeless, powerless, gone. His reign of terror and corruption is at an end. And, most important of all, I have finally avenged my Mama’s death. I can finally go to sleep knowing that I did one thing to earn her pride in heaven. I may not have been able to save her, but I at least could avenge her.
Feeling light-headed with hunger and hope, I stretch my arms and survey the little roadside ‘cafe.’
I picked this place because I knew that there was no way in fuck that they would have cameras. It was a dump. I would never have thought, in a million years, that I would pick a place like this to celebrate the news that Salvatore was dead. But now, it doesn’t matter where I am. All that matters is where I am not—under his sway.
And, I suppose, it does not hurt that Melyssa is with me.
When I walk in, Melyssa is squatting down, helping an old woman pick up at least a hundred straws that are scattered across the chipped tiles on the floor.
“There,” she smiles, handing over the last handful and patting the old woman’s back. Although I hadn’t made a sound when I came in, she immediately looks up at me.
“Hi.”
“You were gone for a while.”
“Oh yeah, well...Nadia here was trying to convince me she served the best chicken and dumplings in the world.” She looks back at the woman with great fondness, even though they were strangers moments before. “She thinks I look hungry.”
“Looks?” The gray haired round woman shakes with laughter. “No, sounds. Stomach like monster, rumble, rumble, rumble. You both sit, eat.”
“I think we should probably—”
“No,” she interrupts me, and I give her a look. “No stink eye, either.”
I am at a loss. The old Czech woman—if I’m not mistaking her origin—laughs and walks away, towards the back of the shack.
“Let’s go,” I say quietly.
“She wants us to eat.” Melyssa sounds like a pendulant child. “Besides, I’m hungry.”
“Then we go somewhere that doesn’t smell like—”
She walks to a booth and sits. I follow her.
“Are you disobeying me?”
She nods and raises her eyebrows. “What will you do, kidnap me? Threaten me with a gun? Oh, wait.”
“I will punish you. Just as soon as we get out—”
“Sit, boy. Is ready!” The old woman walks out of the kitchen carrying two heaping plates of food. “He hard to hear?”
Melyssa laughs and shakes her head. “He’s just in a rush.”
“Well, he need nourishment before.” She stops, cackles, and flashes a toothless grin. “Make baby.”
“Oh no, that’s not—”
“Thank you, Nadia.” I sit and look down at the plate, and then up at Melyssa, who is unwrapping her silverware.
“He grumpy all the time? Life’s too short. Beautiful man, beautiful, sweet young woman, embrace it!” She waves her chubby little nubs in the air. “It is not much, but it is ours. All we have is Nadeje, and we praise Lord for this.”
I give her a polite smile, the best I can muster. Finally, she wobbles away and I look at Melyssa. “You’re truly not going to eat that, are you?”
She sticks her fork into the mountain of food, shovels it up, smiles at me and pushes the whole glob into her mouth. Her eyes light up, her lips curl slightly and she sighs as she chews. She sets the fork down and grabs her glass of water, bringing it to her lips.
“If you get sick....”
“It’s delicious,” she mumbles. “Seriously, you should eat.”
“This place is not clean.”
“On the contrary.” She waves her fork. “Smell the air, you’ll smell Clorox. That bathroom is the cleanest public restroom I have ever been in. I almost didn’t even bother lining the toilet with paper. Heck, I even thought about sitting down instead of straddling the thing.”
She takes another bite.
“So, if you get an STD, it is no longer my fault?” I smile slightly, but my amusement dies as I stare down at the plate, pushing the food around with my fork.
I look up when she coughs. She grabs her glass and takes another drink. Then she gasps.
“Are you all right?”
“Fine, I’m—” She coughs again.
She is clearly not fine. “Your face is bright red. Melyssa. Are you sure you can—”
“I’m fine.” She scowls down at her plate. “Actually, I’m not fine.”
I start to stand.
“What are you doing?” she whispers.
“Do you need something, Melyssa?” I try to remain calm. If she causes a scene, the old woman may get suspicious.
“No,” she whispers. “I have no idea what you want from me. I can’t even fathom what’s go—”
“Okay.” I sit back to appear calm, because I don’t want her to get worked up. “I will tell you. I need something from you. You will be well compensated.”
“I’m not a hooker,” she tells me, eyes wide.
“I never said you were,” I lean forward again, putting less space between us. I’ve learned that when Melyssa is nervous, she tries very hard to give off the impression that she is in control. But inside, she is exactly the opposite, a complicated bomb of emotions. I should run for the hills.
This never happened to me before. I was always a very good judge of a person’s desires. But with her...she is what Americans call a ‘hot mess.’ She doesn’t seem to know what she wants, from one moment, to the next.
“Will you let me ask you a few questions?”
“Will you let me?” She leans in, furrowing her brows, like she is trying to intimidate me. I am growing tired of the game she plays with me. If she were one of my girls, I would tie her up and flog her ass. Possibly even fig her.
“Why don’t you just tell me what it is you’re waiting for,” I say.
This seems to catch her off guard. “I’m waiting to be let go,” she says. But she doesn’t sound sure. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I should stop waiting. Heck, I could scream, cause a scene, call the cops—”
I am getting angrier by the moment. More at myself than at her, though. It seems I was very wrong about her before; she isn’t as intelligent as I believed her to be.
“I could pull the gun out and blow Nadia away.” I say, calmly. That shuts her up immediately. “No one would know for days. I mean, look at this place. Then, Melyssa, I could do whatever the hell I wanted to do to you, and no one would know.”
She looks off-balance and afraid once more.
I smile. “Eat.”
“No.”
I don’t say another word. If she wants a fight, childish behavior is not how she will get me to rise to the challenge. I look away, down at the food again and finally decide to take a bite.
“Are you in love with Valentina?”
I nearly choke at her words. “That’s insane.”
“Not really.” She picks up her fork and pushes her food around. “She’s beautiful.”
“Attraction is physical, Melyssa,” I say and take a drink. “Love is an illusion.”
“She likes you. She brought you up a few nights ago, when
I was over there. She said you were a ‘stallion.’”
“Is that so?” I dispassionately take another bite.
“She said you two have been together before, in Italy, at a concert.”
“Why is this important?”
She shrugs and forks more food into her mouth.
“Valentina is a pleasure seeker,” I tell her. “She likes anything, as long as it gets her off.”
“So...she’s a submissive?”
I hesitate, because I do not feel like going down this path. Not now. Not with her.
“No. She’s no more a submissive than you are. Let’s eat and get out of here.”
She glares at me accusingly. “You like it.”
I raise my eyebrows.
“The food, I mean.”
“It’s fine.” I shrug.
“Right.” She rolls her eyes.
*.*.*
I decide it is best for me to drive from that point on. We strike out again, in search of a seedy little dive where truckers and married lower class people go to hide an affair.
I spot the place an hour from the time my decision is made, but then I drive past it and find one of those discount stores. Because if Melyssa is afraid of contracting a disease from a public toilet, I know she isn’t going to be at all pleased with where we will be staying.
I park in the lot, keeping a sharp eye out for security cameras.
“What are we doing?”
“Picking up some supplies.”
As we walk toward the super store, it is more than clear that we are not a couple. With my limp and her scowl, I worry that people will start to notice us. Standing out at this point would be a very bad thing.
“Melyssa, take my hand,” I hold out my hand for her.
“No thanks, I’m fine.”
“It wasn’t a request.” I take her hand and tug her toward me. “This way, we won’t look so suspicious.”
“And when you get arrested, I will look like an accomplice,” she hisses into my ear. “This isn’t fair, Sabato. I didn’t ask for this.”
She was right, she didn’t.
“That’s neither here nor there. Do as you are told.”
“Say please.”
I am amused when it hits me, she always whispers when she is feeling brazen. This gives me hope that her behavior can be worked with, with proper training of course.
“Please,” I say and keep walking.
“That’s better,” she whispers again.
Once inside the store, she points to a cart. “We’ll need one of those.”
I admittedly have never in my life seen a shopping cart that was not a picture in the upper corner of a web page. I have never done my own grocery shopping. And I never will again, if I have any control over it.
“You have to let go of me, so I can push this thing.” Melyssa pulls her hand away and starts pushing the basket on wheels. It squeaks and one wheel keeps trying to go in a different direction than the others.
“If you’re going to blend in, you should probably try to look a little less disgusted.”
I nod, slowly.
“So,” she huffs. “What are you after, sir? Bullets, duct tape, rope?”
“Sheets, bedcovering and disinfectant.” I lean in and whisper seductively, “also, clothing.”
“Clothing?” she sputters. “How long do you plan on...keeping me?”
“As long as it takes,” I answer as we push the cart forward. “Let’s get going.”
She walks through the store as if she already knows where she is going. I am alarmed by the amount of people she is weaving in and out of. No one is paying attention to us. I am disturbed by the fact that so many parents would bring their children to a place like this. Although, when those parents are wearing pajamas and socks with sandals, I should just be impressed that they know how to procreate.
“Everything okay?” Melyssa asks. We stop in an aisle, waiting for a little fat kid to stop rolling around screaming, throwing a tantrum because apparently he wants birthday cake flavored Oreos. I watch as his mother drags him by his chubby little wrist across the filthy floor. Disgusted does not begin to explain how I feel. Though...I suppose she did better by him than my father would have by me, if he’d ever taken me shopping.
I shake my head.
“Yes, let’s continue.”
A few moments later, I am standing in front of a wall of bedding, feeling lost. None of the brands I am used to are here. I look at Melyssa for help and she looks somewhat entertained.
“Is there something you prefer?” I ask, shifting my weight off of my injured leg.
She looks down at my leg. “Does it hurt?”
“It doesn’t feel good.”
She looks away again, to the wall. “We’ll get skin adhesive for your leg. And I don’t care about sheets, you choose.”
“I would prefer if you do it.”
“What size?”
I have no idea, so I just tell her to get the biggest size, and a mattress pad.
We walk away with dark blue sheets with a thread count of 200, a comforter and pillowcases, all sold together in a bag. A fucking bag! I am already well aware that sleep is going to be nearly impossible.
“Toiletries.” I say when she looks at me again, questioning.
“And pharmacy,” she adds. “You need to get something for pain. Also, bandages. The wound needs to be cleaned and dressed and—”
I shake my head. “Valentina took care of it.”
Her lips formed a straight line and she looks like she wants to hit something. I try not to smile. It is amusing that she seems jealous of Valentina. I know I can use that to my benefit in the future.
“I’m sure she did,” she whispers, in that brazen way that makes me want to spank her.
We are in the pharmacy aisle next, when she starts throwing things angrily into the cart: alcohol, hydrogen peroxide, antibiotic ointment, pain relievers, skin glue and bandages.
I looked down the aisle, and go to the condoms, grab two boxes, bring them back to the cart and set them in.
She looks at them, for a long moment, then up at me.
I meet her gaze with a challenge. “Is there a problem?”
She looks around and then leans in. “Why?”
“You’re the one who is worried about STDs,” I say. “I don’t want you to worry.”
“Hold up,” her face is slowly turning red, as she whispers. “You...you think after all this, I am going to sleep with you?”
I throw another box in the cart just to fuck with her.
“Don’t play games, Melyssa. You and I both know we have unfinished business. I promised you I’d punish you, remember? So you’ll be getting what you asked for. Unless...you’ve decided on the flogger? Where do you suppose they keep them in this store?”
She gasps in horror, then turns and pushes the cart down the aisle, leaving me standing there to feel impressed with myself. She didn’t even whisper a snide remark. Adding to that the way her nipples pushed against her shirt and my dick stirred, I think the next few days may turn out to be bearable, after all.
I hurry to catch up to her and she is still red faced when I do.
“I need to know how long.” She bites her lip, staring only at the toothpaste.
“As long as it takes,” I answer.
“How will I know what to get?”
“Get a week’s worth of supplies. If it takes longer, I will make another trip.”
“A week!” This time she is loud enough to cause an Asian couple to stop and stare.
I try to grab her hand, but she pulls away. “Why me?”
“Why not you?”
I am now annoyed and in too much pain to indulge her pretense.
“Let’s go.”
We walk by the same woman with the chubby kid who was rolling on the floor fusing over cookies. I grab a box of condoms out of the cart and throw it in hers.
“Oh my God,” Melyssa gulps.
After we leave the stor
e, Sabato seems to decide on the spur of the moment, where we will be staying.
About five miles down the road, there’s a turn off leading to a very isolated camp ground, with a few tiny cottages. According to the peeling wooden sign out front, all of the cabins have a small kitchenette and a separate bedroom. I suppose it’s better than a seedy motel would have been, but it isn’t very homey, either. Homely, maybe, but not homey.
After we check in to our very own shitty cabin, I open the curtains and sit down on the bed, hugging my knees. I look out the window at the forest and finally decide to try and process the events of the day. More importantly I was trying to process my feelings about the day—or, days, actually—since all this happened. Mostly, I thought about the fact that I was being forced to be involved in…whatever the hell was going on here.
When Sabato walks into the room behind me, I refuse to look at him. I can’t face his careless disdain, not when I feel like I’m about to start crying and never stop.
“We need to talk.” He crosses the room and closes the curtains. “We need to keep these shut.”
I don’t reply. I’m too afraid that if I do I’ll explode.
He pulls the chair from the corner to the foot of the bed and sits down.
Now that he’s taken my view of the trees, I keep my eyes glued to the floor.
“Did you hear me?”
I nod once. My face gets hot. I can feel his eyes penetrating me.
“I have a business proposition for you, Melyssa. It is one that is mutually beneficial.” He sets a gym bag on the foot of the bed and opens it, pulling out a large file. “I know that you are carrying a lot of student loan debt from your time in college.”
I am completely taken aback, so surprised that I forget I’m supposed to be ignoring him. But the shift in tone is so abrupt, I can only stare. And frown. And stare. “You have nothing to say?” He sighs. “You’re not curious as to why I looked into you?”
“Oh, so now you give a shit about my education?” I snap. “I am enrolled in an intense summer program, which costs more than I can even wrap my head around and you are literally screwing me out of that education right now.”