“Sure they have lovely there,” Gemma said with a smile. “I’ve never lived in the ghetto, or any hellhole either for that matter, but I’m sure they have love there. They have lovely everywhere. Just as they have evilness and hatefulness everywhere too. In mansions. In churches. In chief of police houses.”
“Would you care for something to drink?” Rita quickly asked, certain that Gemma didn’t realize that she’d just put her foot in it now.
It worked enough that Benny didn’t immediately pounce, but Sal could see the anger in his eyes.
“Nothing for us,” Sal said as he motioned for Gemma to sit down. He looked at his father. “Sit down, Pop.”
There was a slight hesitancy in Benny, but he did take a seat in the flanking chair.
“Want anything Big Daddy?” Rita asked, and Sal couldn’t help but smile. Which only angered Benny more.
“How many times did I tell you not to call me that?” Benny asked his female friend.
Gemma could see a blush of red appear on Rita’s face. “I didn’t mean anything by it.”
“How many times?” Benny asked again.
“Many times.”
“Then why the fuck you’re still calling me that for?”
“Sorry, Big, sorry, Benny, I didn’t mean anything by it.”
“Just get out of my face,” Benny said angrily and Rita quickly went over to the high-back chair across the room, and sat down there. Sal wasn’t at all surprised by her subservience to his father, but Gemma was astounded.
“So he told you I’m the chief of police?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
Benny nodded, looking at her. “And you’re his lady. His girlfriend?”
Gemma would have said that they were getting there, but she wasn’t about to nuisance anything with this man. “Yes,” she said.
“You’re a lot younger than my son, aren’t you? What are you, twenty-four? Twenty-five?”
Gemma thought it was awfully rich that a man pushing sixty and fooling around with a woman barely thirty would so much as mention any age difference. “Twenty-nine,” she said.
“Twenty-nine years old,” Benny said loudly. “She’s twenty-nine years old and already figures she knows it all.”
“Knock it off, Pop,” Sal said.
“No, it’s alright, Sal,” Gemma made clear. And she meant it. She wanted to see this man in full, and the only way she was going to truly know who she was dealing with was if Sal let him be himself. In full.
“Twenty-nine years old and figures her shit don’t stank,” the old man continued.
Gemma laughed, to Benny’s surprised. “That’s a good one,” she said. “A real good joke. Where did you find it, sir? On the internet?”
Sal smiled and then chuckled. His father stared at her.
Then he spoke again, this time his charming, upbeat tone was far more measured. “I had a case once,” he said, “when I was just a rookie. A case that reminds me of you, Gemma.”
Sal looked hard at his father, ready to pounce. But Gemma touched his hand, ready to hear his father out.
“What was the case?” Gemma asked him.
Sal looked at her. But the look in her eyes, as she stared at his father, made him know that she could handle it. Right then and right there he knew she could easily handle this.
“It was a case involving this guy who broke into this lady’s house. I was walking the beat then, minding my own business late one night, when I saw him. Black as the night this guy was. Blacker than the night. Declared he hadn’t broken into anything because he wasn’t even there. Thought he was slick, or I was stupid.” Benny looked her dead in the eyes. “One of the two. But I saw right through his ass and cuffed him, frisked him, and arrested him for bullshitting alone. The guy was black as the night,” Benny said with emphasis, staring at Gemma. “He was blacker than black.”
“Yet he was light enough that night,” Gemma said, “that you could see him well enough to cuff him and frisk him and see right through his bullshit.”
Sal laughed. Benny looked at her. “What are you implying?” he asked.
“What are you implying?” she asked.
“I’m not implying anything.”
“Then neither am I.”
“Don’t you talk to me that way!” Benny roared with anger in his voice. “Who do you think you are? You think I’m going to sit back and let some female talk to me that way?”
“You’d better watch it, Pop,” Sal warned.
“Don’t you tell me what to watch! What is she doing here anyway? Why did you bring her here anyway?”
“So she could see,” Sal said.
“So she could see? What kind of answer is that? So she could see what?”
“Just how fucked up you are,” Sal said so heartfelt Gemma could feel his tremble, “and how it fucked me up!”
It affected Benny too. He looked at Gemma. Sal thought enough of her to bring her around him, and now he saw why. And he and Gemma shared a stare, an almost stare-down, that made it crystal clear that he was not to be trifled with, yes, but that she wasn’t to be trifled with either.
It was a sobering realization for Benny.
“How long have you known my son?” he asked her, still staring at her.
“I’ve known him for a minute,” she replied, still staring at him. “How long have you known Rita?”
Benny was unaccustomed to anybody treating him the way Gemma was treating him. Who did she think she was? She was behaving as if she was his equal; as if she was right up there with him. He was, in truth, dumbstruck.
Sal, too, was inwardly amazed. And pleased. He was terrified that Gemma would run, not walk, but run away from him just from his father’s hatefulness alone. But she was holding her own. “Yeah, Pop,” he said, holding it with her, “how long have you known Rita?”
“How long I’ve known Rita is neither here nor there.”
“It’s here and there. Because it fits the pattern, doesn’t it? But it was a week after I dumped her, hun? This time it took you a whole week? You see, Gem, Rita’s not the first female of mine my old man has claimed. He’s claimed quite a few of them actually. Not all, because many of them found him too creepy to even entertain. But he’s claimed his share. And he’ll wine and dine them, fuck them shitless, and then toss them out for the next chick. It’s been that way since forever. Even since high school. Something about my leftovers that turns him on.”
His father leapt from his chair as if he was still a young man, grabbed Sal Luca by the catch of his collar, and slammed his fist across his face. Sal went sailing, over the sofa, and ended up on the other side.
“Oh, my Lord!” Gemma said she jumped to her feet. Rita jumped to her feet too.
“Oh, son,” Benny said as he hurried to the back of the sofa just as Sal was rising to his feet and brushing himself off. “Did I hurt you? I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“Get away from me before I kick your ass!” Sal yelled and pushed his father away from him. It took every ounce of restraint he had not to knock him senseless. But he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t do that to his own parent.
But Benny reached out to Sal again, to help him brush himself off, but Sal pushed him away again. “Get the fuck away from me!” Sal yelled.
His father backed off, and then he began rubbing his forehead and pacing the floor.
Gemma grabbed her purse and hurried to Sal. She knew he was showing enormous restrain. She knew any other man would probably have been damn near dead if they would have cold-cocked Sal the way his father had just done.
“Let’s go,” she said to him as she placed her arm in his arm and wasn’t about to take no for an answer. She began escorting him out.
His father turned around. “Why are you leaving?” he asked, and Gemma looked at him incredulously. But she didn’t stop walking with her man.
“Salvatore,” Benny said, “why are you leaving? You don’t have to leave. You just got here!”
“Yeah, wel
l,” Sal said, heading for the door with Gemma, “I lasted longer than the last time I came.”
Benny watched as his son and his son’s girlfriend made their way to the front door. His heart was pounding. Because Gemma just changed the dynamic. Just by her willingness to go toe to toe with him alone, she changed the game.
Just as she walked through that door and Sal was about to follow, Benny couldn’t hold back. He spoke up.
“Salvatore?” his father asked.
Sal didn’t want to do it, but he stopped walking and turned around. The pain in his father’s eyes stopped him cold.
“Yes?” he asked, when his father didn’t say anything.
“So you’ve given up the airheads,” Benny eventually said. “Got you a real woman this time. Is that what’s going on?”
Sal said nothing. He glowered at his father.
Then Benny nodded his head. “That’s good, son,” he said. “That’s real good.”
Sal just stared at him. He’d never understand that man. He tried, oh how he tried, but he never could figure him out. Tommy was always his favorite. Tommy was always the one he praised and loved with an undying affection. Sal was a nobody to him, and a brute rather than a son. Sal always had to do the dirty work for his old man. But Tommy was his angel. Tommy gave him his ass to kiss. Tommy hadn’t bothered to so much as say hello to him in years. But Tommy was still his favorite. Whenever he was sick in the hospital, he always told them to call his boy Tommy. Never Sal, but Tommy. Yet Sal was always the one to go and see about him. Sal was always the one to call him to make sure he was okay. To worry about him at night. To endure his abuse for a few minutes, time and time again, just so that he could be in his presence again and hope that he could still figure out how to earn his father’s love. Even at this late date.
He stared at his father a moment longer, knowing that it all had changed now. Now that he met Gemma, it all had to change. There was no way in hell he was bringing her back to this. Enduring this once was all she was going to have to endure, and even this one time, to Sal, was too much. And he left. That was why he slammed the door as he did.
Even Benny, who lived by his instincts all of his life, knew it too. The slamming of that door, the definitiveness of that slam, was Sal’s final nail in his father’s coffin. Benny already could feel the suffocation.
CHAPTER NINE
Sal woke up early that next morning and spent nearly half an hour in bed doing nothing but staring at Gemma.
They spent the night at his penthouse. They showered together and went straight to bed. Both were emotionally spent. Although they spend very little time at Benny Gabrini’s house, it felt like they’d been there for days. And they felt burdened down for being there.
But after they showered and got into bed, Sal completely expected to sleep a little, and then fuck a lot, to release all of that tension. But he didn’t touch her. He didn’t want to have any memory of making love to her associated with his old man. So when he woke up in the middle of the night, he held her even tighter instead. And kissed her on her beautiful forehead. And went back to sleep.
Now he was awake and staring at his sleeping beauty. She didn’t sleep like any angel. Her hair was wild on her head and she had both arms flapped over it, and her sexy body was contorted too. Sal smiled and was warmed by how she slept. He’d bet big money that she didn’t have nightmares like he still had whenever he slept alone. She had good parents who raised her right and now he had this sweet, tough, special lady to enjoy. And she, he thought, with anguish in his heart, had him.
When she finally stirred and then opened her eyes, and saw Sal staring at her, she smiled. She’d never know how wonderful that made him feel.
“Good morning,” he said.
She turned sideways, toward him. “Good morning.” She placed her finger on his lips. “How are you this morning?”
“I’m better. And you?”
“I’m good. But I have one problem.”
Sal’s heart pounded. “Do you?”
“I do.”
“And what problem is that?”
She stopped rubbing his lips.
“What?” he asked, his heart beginning to race.
“You didn’t feed me last night,” she said.
He smiled as relief washed over him. “I know.”
“You know it, but I don’t see you doing anything about it,” she said playfully to him, but completely serious to her. “So what are you waiting on? Get your ass up and feed me breakfast!”
Sal laughed. “Yes, ma’am,” he said.
And then he stared at her. He didn’t deserve her. He was going to ruin her life if she hooked up with him. He reached over and kissed her, expecting to give her a morning peck and then get his ass up and feed her. But his emotions overtook him, and he pulled her into his arms.
After eating and then showering and dressing, they made the drive back to the hotel so that she could conduct her class.
The drive was a slow one. Sal, again, seemed contemplative. But this time he needed to talk to her. He had something to say to her.
“What is it?” she asked him as she rode. She knew he had something to say. She was dying to know what.
“I’ve been thinking,” he admitted.
“About last night?”
“About us. And I think we need to do this right, Gem.”
That sounded hopeful, she thought. “Do what right?” she asked.
“This relationship. You and me. I think an open relationship is out.” He looked at her. “Period. No joker other than me is ever touching you. That’s out.”
Gemma wanted to shout. Her gamble was paying off.
“You’ll be exclusive to me. Understand?”
She nodded her head. “Understood.”
“Even after last night, after meeting my old man, you’re still onboard?”
Gemma exhaled and stared forward. “He was a handful, I won’t even lie. Can I handle him? Yes. Do I want to have to handle him? No. Hell no.” She looked at Sal. “But he’s your father. We don’t get to choose our parents. If you can live with it, I can too. Easily.”
He smiled and touched her hand. “You’re a gem, Gemma.”
Gemma smiled too. She would be a millionaire if she could count the times some man said that to her. But every time Sal said it, she believed it. It felt as if, with Sal, it was coming from the heart. Not just a cute thing to say, or a clever thing, but a heartfelt thing. She placed her second hand on top of his.
And they continued that way for the vast majority of the trip to the hotel. But the more Gemma thought about exactly what he had said, the less satisfied she felt. There was a one-sidedness to what he said.
She looked at him. “So it’s settled then,” she said. “We’re going to give exclusivity a try?”
“You’re going to keep yourself for me and me alone, right.”
She was right. She stared at him. “And you’re going to keep yourself for me and me alone. Right?”
Sal continued to drive.
“Right, Sal?” Gemma asked, her heart racing. “You’re going to keep yourself for me, too?”
Sal exhaled. “I’m a man, Gem.”
Gemma frowned. “Who said you wasn’t a man?”
“There’s a difference, is what I’m saying.”
“I know what you’re saying. And I know there’s a difference. But what do you mean?”
Sal braced himself. “I’m older than you are.”
“And?”
“And I’ve been around that block a few times, that’s all I’m saying.”
“Sal?”
“The idea that a man like me could just. . . That I could just. . . ”
“That you could just what? That there’s no way that you could just fuck one woman exclusively?”
Sal looked at her with a glowering look. “Don’t be so crude,” he said. “I don’t wanna hear those kind of words coming out of your mouth ever, you hear me?”
“But that’s what
you’re saying. You’re saying one woman isn’t enough for you.”
“You don’t understand.”
“You’re saying I’m not enough for you.”
“Whatta you talking? Of course you’re enough for me!” Then he settled back down. Gemma, however, had not relinquished her stare. “But,” he continued, as she expected he would. “But I get around, Gem. I’m all over the place. From the U.S. to France to countries in Asia. You’re gonna be back in Vegas doing your thing. And I’m gonna be here, and there, and all over the place. What do you expect me to do?”
Gemma frowned. “What do you mean what do I expect you to do? I expect you to be faithful, Sal! If you want to give this relationship a try, if you want me, I expect you to try!”
“I am trying! I’m going to keep trying!”
“If you cared anything at all about me, about what I thought we were going to try to build here, it wouldn’t be such a burden for you. If you cared.”
“I do care about you, what are you talking? Why do you think I’m bothering if I didn’t care? I want you.”
“Yeah, sure you do,” Gemma said, now convinced that her gamble didn’t pay off at all; that she had completely misread this joker. She folded her arms. “You want me, all right. You want me in bed, yeah I know you want me there. Me and all of those other skanks too.”
“What’s your problem?” Sal asked as if he was genuinely surprised. “You said it was okay! Just two days ago you was all for an open relationship. Have all the females you want, Sal. That was you. Now that I closed it ---”
“Don’t even try that, Sal. You didn’t close it for yourself.”
They arrived under the portico of the hotel’s entrance. Although the valet hurried to assist Gemma out of the car, neither she nor Sal made any move to get out. The valet could see a heated conversation was taking place, so he quickly backed off.
“You closed it for me,” Gemma continued, “but you didn’t close it for yourself. I can’t do shit in Vegas, just sit around like a nun, while you whore it up all over Seattle, and all over the world let you tell it. That’s what you’re telling me. You’re telling me to keep myself pure and ready for your personal use, while you roll with the fleas like a big dog.”
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