by Sunniva Dee
I grin, taking a right on his dirt road. I talked to Mom this morning too. She slept fifteen hours straight, and Paul is with her, helping her plant tomatoes. There was no mention of robots during the entire conversation. Life is good!
I press in the code, and the gate glides open to the soundtrack of an old Madonna song on the radio. Sunshine outside. Sunshine inside.
There’s a gleaming red convertible in the driveway. Did he get a new car? It looks new. Oh wow, he’s home! My heart hammers happily.
Instead of pulling up all the way, I park at the far corner of the guesthouse. I’m so excited I leave the raw fish in the car and don’t remember until I’m at the front door. It’s ajar. Strange.
I hear Princess’ happy panting upstairs and light footsteps. He’s murmuring something to her. For a moment, I think I hear a woman reply quietly. The thought is all I need for my jealousy to surge again, and I need all my brainpower to flush it off. He has never given me any reason to doubt his intentions. Me, me alone. Plus, he never brings work home.
Then again, we’re not actually together, which means—why would we be exclusive?
The wooden steps don’t sound under me. Only because I want to surprise him, of course. Either way I’ll surprise him.
There’s a sob up there. A small sob. That’s not the sound of him. Neither is it Princess. God. Is he pleasing another girl?
Princess barrels to the gate. I stare past her as she wiggles, whimpering with glee over my arrival.
In the middle of the room stands the man who was supposed to become my boyfriend today. He’s a silhouette against the light outside. He holds a woman in his arms. She’s tall, slender, her neck ballerina-like as she leans against his shoulder as if they’re dancing.
They’re instinctive together. Oh they’ve been like this before. Long, elegant fingers thread into his hair as she pulls him toward her, every inch of her body pressed against him.
He murmurs to her, against her ear the way lovers do, and this is not the place for work and it is not, not work.
I gasp. His head jerks up, and he drops her so all that long, white hair flows down her back from the recoil.
“Savannah!”
“No,” I say, pivot, and start on the stairs. I’m halfway down when he grasps my arm.
“Please, you need to meet my ex.”
“That’s Silk?”
“Yeah.”
“What the fuck!”
Her eyes are a sea green, a deeper shade than his. Her face is absolute perfection, with a small nose, the smoothest skin you’ll ever see, and her mouth is formed like a semi-open rose. She’s every man’s dream.
Silk doesn’t look like someone who’s been through a lot in life. No, Silk looks like one man would catch her and keep her with him forever because he’d know she was the rarest prize, the best thing that could happen to him.
The shape of her body, the slightest hourglass, made to be drawn or touched by someone like him. She’s a goddess sprouting from a seashell in the Mediterranean, Venus personified, damn the two of them.
“I don’t know what I was thinking,” I say, not wanting to shake her hand. Her eyes are glossy with pain and love. She loves him so much, still. I see it. “I shouldn’t have come here unannounced.”
“No, I gave you the code for a reason. You’re welcome whenever you want.”
Even “welcome” enforces distance.
“Silk, this is Savannah. My...” He sends me a glance, hesitating. “A friend.”
And he’s right! We’re nothing but friends. He wouldn’t say “with benefits,” now would he? As tacky as it sounds, I almost wish he had.
Silk swallows, a subtle bump on her throat forcing her pain down. She’s so lovely even I want to comfort her. “I thought you lived in Europe,” I say.
“Yeah. I...” She floats a look up at Ciro, dark eyelashes covering half of the seagreen. It only makes her more alluring. “I needed to see Ciro. He’s sort of my harbor.” She lets out a breathy laugh and lifts in a dainty shrug. “I guess that’s what having a history does to you.”
Ciro’s hasn’t let go of me, and it’s bittersweet that he doesn’t want me to leave.
“Well, I better get goin’. Got stuff to do, and you guys were busy.”
“Actually, Silk was just leaving,” Ciro says.
Surprised, she peers at him. “I don’t have a hotel or anything. I figured you’d let me crash...” She trails off, her voice the purr of a cat. “I don’t want to be of any bother, of course.” I hate her loveliness. I hate every ounce of her perfection.
“Silk, I think it’s best you leave.”
Her eyes fill with tears, and I want them to be fake. But there’s that pain again, the deep type of despair that can’t be faked. “I don’t know what to do.” Her pitch breaks, and I jerk free and walk toward the stairs.
“Savannah!” He’s got me again. He pushes me against the wall and kisses me hard on the mouth in front of this goddess. Why? It’s going to make her feel worse. Wait, no, because she’s in the business. This is just business for them.
I’m so confused. My lip wobbles. I can’t hold back my own tears. “You don’t know why I came today,” I whisper.
“No, tell me,” he whispers back, and I hear Silk move softly in the background. She’s not moving toward the stairs.
“No. It doesn’t matter anymore.”
“It does to me. Why did you come today? You look gorgeous.” He kisses me again, not letting me breathe. When he stops, I’m panting, and he’s crucifying me to the wall, arms and legs chained by him.
“Ha, gorgeous?” This conversation is too private for her. “Gorgeous means nothing with her around.” My voice is so low he tilts his ear to me.
“Shiny hoods can’t hide faulty motors for long. You’re what’s gorgeous to me. Tell me what you came here for.”
I don’t tell him what I came for. Numb, I accept a glass of wine with them. I don’t even think Silk has mascara on those eyelashes.
She’s been banished to one side of the L-shape in his sunroom, and he has me pulled down next to him. Silk holds out her glass for a refill, and Ciro has to detangle from me to oblige.
Whenever I’m not looking, I feel her scrutinize me, moving from my legs and up my body to my face and hair. I bet she wonders what he sees in me when he has someone like her.
We speak shallowness after the initial explosion. There’s so much tension I pour myself another glass too. Ciro massages the stress in my back. It’s not working. We keep hitting pauses in the forced conversation. I keep saying, I better get going. Each time, he pulls me back down into his embrace.
“Silk. Please tell Savannah why you’re here.”
The sea of her irises darken with insecurity. “Ciro...”
“She knows your story. I told her what happened to you.”
Even the unconscious flutter of her lashes is achingly beautiful. Just—how could he leave this woman? That is what she is, a woman through and through. I feel like a school girl in comparison, a kindergartner against Marilyn Monroe.
“She does?”
“Yes. Silk, I need you to do this for me. Tell her.”
Her eyes arch, wide with grief. Her fingers tremble when she covers her mouth. “I can’t.”
“You want me to?”
“Please…” A section of hair sliding over the side of her face in a sensual arabesque.
“Silk has been working for Angels Visual, a Dutch film studio. For the last three years, she’s been the girlfriend of the owner, and she never told anyone about the bruises he gave her.”
She stares into her wineglass. “Ronny knew.”
“Your makeup artist?”
“Yeah, Ronny used to be security only, but Brahim trusted him with me too after a while. He took care of the general cover-up before I got in
the chair for regular makeup. That wasn’t necessary for BDSM shoots, of course, which I’ve done a lot of since Brahim began losing his patience with me.”
“He hit you?”
“Physically abused her. She didn’t even tell me.”
“Because what could you have done, Ciro?” Her cadence is the female version of his. There’s so much music around me.
“Did you love him... I mean, once?”
Silk shakes her head. “It was more about how good he was to me in the beginning. He was really nice the first year. He’d stand up for me if one of the guys were too hard on me, and he’d make sure everyone knew I was his number one girl.
“I used to be treated better than everyone else, actually. Brahim liked having me around, and he liked how I pulled viewers to his films. But Ciro is the only one who has ever loved me.”
“Silk, stop.” He’s admonishing. Loving. My brain understands that you’ll always care deeply for someone you once loved. My heart has no sympathy.
“Back then, you and I were good for each other. We had something to give each other.”
“We did.” She lets out a hiccough, and I see why he lets go of me to hug her.
“You’ll be okay. You’ve left him. You’re in America. He can’t catch you here. That beating was the last one. Just don’t let yourself be owned again, you know? That’s what he did. He owned your ass, just like before. You see that, right?”
My hands twist in my lap as she melts into his body, face deep against his throat and shoulders hunched inward. With delicate fingers, she grasps his biceps, slides upward until her arms are around his neck, and he rocks her.
“I’ll get you set up. Plenty of studios will be happy to have you here.”
“I don’t want to do BDSM anymore,” she sobs out. The sound cuts my heart in two, as does his, Shhh, you’ll never have to do that again, ever. I’ll make sure of it.
Silk sleeps over.
I do not.
Is this the universe’s way of pressing all my buttons at once to see what I can endure for love? Well, this is it, where my limit goes. Poor Silk. Poor, beautiful, made-for-sin Silk, who’s sleeping in Ciro’s house and needs him the most.
I read somewhere that on average, there are six other people in the world who looks exactly like you. It also said you have a nine percent chance of meeting one of them in your lifetime. I wonder if the statistics count for men you meet too. Like, what are the chances I meet a replica of Ciro, and if I did, would he be as superb on the inside as the original too?
“Hey, are we on for tonight?” Ana squawks on the phone. “Remember, the latest installment of Firefox Renegades is out? We could go ape and get two buckets of popcorn and have the guys sneak in tiny bottles of champagne. To celebrate, you know.”
It’s Ana’s thing now. Since we celebrated Ciro and her film, she’s wanted to celebrate everything with champagne. We have, however, stepped down to cheaper brands since then.
“Naw, I don’t think so.”
“What, are you working after all?”
I can’t even lie. “Not exactly.”
She quiets at first, but then she asks, “What’s wrong? Please tell me it isn’t about you and Ciro now that Aaron and I’ve found you.”
I groan, close my eyes, and roll to my back on my hyper-unmade bed.
“His ex is in town.”
“What? Silk is back?”
“Yeah.”
“But why? They’re not together, though, right? They were so over.”
“I don’t know.”
“Listen. Can we meet up? Have coffee or something? Are you walking the dogs this morning?”
“Yeah.”
“’Kay. I’ll see you at the dog park.”
I pull my fingers through my hair. It needs a wash. I wonder when I showered last. I think I did yesterday, but I might have forgotten my hair.
“Wow, baby. You don’t look so good,” Ana says. “What is going on between you two? I don’t understand. Is this because Silk is in town? Does she have a project here?”
“She fled an abusive relationship and right into Ciro’s arms.” I’m not exaggerating. I left the house right when he was hugging her and letting her nuzzle his neck. I can’t. No way I can deal with that.
“Wow. I think she was with that Moroccan studio owner, Brahim Kantari. So he smacked her around? He’s big as a bear and furry like one too. I remember thinking I’d never work for him just by his eyes. They’re like black, evil pieces of coal.” She chuckles, and I do too, because that does sound horrifying.
“When we saw them at film festivals and conferences, Silk was the beauty and he was the beast. It’s unbelievable that she stuck with him for that long. What’s she doing now? Licking her wounds?”
“I don’t know. You should’ve seen them. He still loves her.”
“No, no, no. There’s no way he loves her like that. Haven’t you seen him with you? Ciro is a one-woman man. I know him, and I’m telling you: he loves you.” The determination in her gaze causes my dead heart to cough. My brain remains cold though. There’s always a fight between the two of them lately, and it’s exhausting.
“I don’t know, Ana. I feel empty. Super-alone,” I add, which doesn’t even make any sense.
In my peripheral, Bella’s stirring up trouble with a Great Dane and a Huskie. Thankfully, their owners herd them off before they’re past the stage of surprise.
“You’re not alone.” Ana pulls me into her little body and big bosom, hugging me tight. “You’ve got me and Aaron. I’m one hundred and ten percent sure that if we— Wait, you guys are still speaking, right?”
I shake my head. “I can’t.” A few tears trickle along the bridge of my nose.
“Well, then I’m one hundred and ten percent sure that he’s suffering as much as you are. You know what’s interesting?”
I emit a half-groan, half-grunt in response.
“You were always so strong. Typically, girlfriends from outside are insecure of their guys, but you weren’t like that. I was so impressed I even told Aaron about it, so don’t go and wimp out now just because you’re in rough waters for a little bit.”
I sniffle.
“Ana.”
“Hmm?”
“I have to admit something to you. If they had awards for insecure porn-star girlfriends, I would win the big gold one with all the bling on it. I’m so insecure that I stopped being his girlfriend the minute I found out what he did for a living.”
“What are you talking about? You guys...?”
“We were ‘friends plus-plus.’” I laugh at my own use of Ciro’s expression. “That was it. He did everything he could to change my mind. He even proposed to me once. And you know what the most ironic thing is?”
“What?”
“I surprised him at his house. I was dolled up like an idiot to tell him I was finally ready to cave in and be in a serious relationship with him. That’s when I found him holding Silk in his arms.”
Frieda is my best friend again, not Charlotte. Charlotte thinks I should talk things over with Ciro, because it wasn’t his fault that his ex landed on his door with all her problems. She still lives there, I’ve heard.
Charlotte hands me the phone whenever he calls hers because I don’t pick up. Charlotte opens the door when he reverts to his old ways of buying me phallic flowers, only now he hand-delivers them.
I don’t accept his flowers. He leaves them on the front porch. I’m a sucker who keeps reading his quirky love poems.
Please forgive
My fuckups
My ragged-up past, my now
My lameness, my stupidity
I need you, need you, need you
Then:
I love you
So hard
The moon doesn’t stand a chance
You, I love
You, just you
Then:
I want to haul the moon down for you
Then:
I’m working on the moon for you
Then:
Now, marry me?
The sorority girls across the street have standing orders to pick the bouquets off the porch. After the fifth one, I send him a single cactus with the inscription: Stop.
I get what I want. It’s quiet for two weeks. I hate how quiet it is. No phone calls, no flowers. I go to the dog park every morning. On the third day, Ana is there too.
“He’s in Istanbul,” she says. “He asked about you.”
“What did you tell him?” The hole in my heart won’t change size. “Is he there with Silk?” Rough drops his ball at my feet and stares pleadingly.
“No, she’s in San Francisco. He got her an in with Harmony Femme. He says she has an audition this week. She’s a great performer, so I bet they’ll take her.”
“I bet,” I say and toss Rough’s ball too hard. It bounces off a picnic table.
“What kind of company is Harmony Femme? Hopefully not BDSM,” I find myself saying.
“They specialize in erotica geared toward women. They’re awesome to work for. Ha, I’ve worked for them twice, and those movies are the worst for Aaron. He says the guys always look like they love me, and he’s not into that. Doesn’t like my acting in them either.” She winks.
“Oh geez, I can imagine.”
Ana smiles brightly. “I don’t take jobs with them anymore. He’s got me whipped.”
“Ciro better never work for them anymore either.” I groan. “No, I mean. That’s none of my business.”
Ana bursts out laughing. “Yay! Oh I’m so telling him this.”
“Don’t. Shit, I messed up.” And then I’m laughing too, and I feel freer than I have in a while.
“So... San Francisco, huh? Is she moving for good?”
Ana crosses her fingers and holds them up for me. “Here’s to hoping she gets a contract.”