Skins

by Laura Rossi

  “Keep quiet,” Sebastian told us, as we stopped beside a car. He looked at Eddy and smiled. “Do you like this car?” he whispered

  My boy looked up at the grey SUV and nodded, his beautiful cheeky grin so contagious I couldn’t help but smile myself.

  “Good. Let’s get inside,” and with a strong pull, Sebastian opened the back door to let us in.

  It had taken him one minute to force the lock.

  The smell of new materials hit me and I immediately felt guilty, for taking it away from someone. But for us it was the only chance we had to make a safe run.

  It was now dark outside and hard to see anything, but Sebastian kept the lights off all the same, until we were on the road.

  We travelled in silence for a while, I could tell Sebastian was thinking of what to do next and I didn’t want to interrupt his reasoning.

  At some point, I watched him mumble something under his breath, before opening the car window and tossing his phone out.

  We were on our own now. No Alejandro telling us what to do, where to go.

  We couldn’t risk being tracked by the killers, Sebastian told me later.

  He kept looking in the rear-view mirror and I kept cuddling Eddy, who slowly drifted into deep sleep. It was midnight by then and we were still driving in little side streets in the middle of nowhere.

  “Where are we going?” I found the courage to ask him.

  “Somewhere safe, that I only know about. It’s going to take us another three hours, we must avoid highways and main streets, in case there are any police check points,” he told me and I nodded. “Try to sleep.”

  “I can’t,” I told him shaking my head.

  I just couldn’t give in to sleep. I couldn’t let my guard down.

  “This is a good moment to rest. It will take us a while to get there,” he pressed on and I knew he was right. I knew he was but still, my pulse wouldn’t slow down.

  The tension, the fear, were breaking me. I could feel I was breaking.

  “What are we going to do?” I whispered with the little energy I had left in me, but Sebastian heard me.

  “We will figure it out,” Sebastian said. “Sleep now Andrea. You need to rest, Eddy needs you to rest”

  I lowered my stare, my eyes focusing on my son’s curly brown locks, and I bent down to kiss his little forehead. He didn’t move, not one bit.

  How I wanted to be able to sleep like that, like the rest of the world didn’t exist. Like I was part of my own little dream world. Eddy was totally absorbed in his sleep, he looked peaceful like I knew I could never be.

  A war of emotions shook my core. I felt like the walls of my prison were finally closing in on me, leaving me no room to breathe.

  In the darkness of that stolen car, I started to think that maybe I wasn’t meant to get away. Maybe I was meant to die. Maybe I had been avoiding death all this time, changing the hands of my killer- first Alejandro, now gangsters from another clan. No matter who would kill me, fate was trying to tell me something.

  I needed to get Eddy somewhere safe. And that somewhere wasn’t necessarily meant for me.

  Someone opened the door, I couldn’t see who it was. It was too dark but I could tell it was more than one person.

  I stumbled, trying to move further into the car, in the centre where Eddy was sleeping but It was no use.

  Two, four, maybe six hands were on me all at once, pulling me by my legs and dragging me out of the car.

  I was on the ground within seconds. Grass, my face was on wet long grass. I desperately tried to dig my fingers in the dirt, trying to find something to hold on to.

  “Puttana,” “Whore,” one of them growled and someone pulled my hair.

  I screamed, at the top of my lungs, the car was far away already. I could still see it in the distance, the lights were on.

  They stopped dragging me and for a moment I stopped screaming, the only sound were those men panting from the run. They growled, roared like animals. I couldn’t’ see their faces but I could feel them staring down at me.

  And then just as someone tore my shirt open and pushed his body on me, I screamed again, my eyes back on the car.

  Hands were on me, everywhere, holding me down, spreading my legs, violating all of me but I kept my eyes on the car.

  Don’t cry, don’t show them that you are scared. They want you to die, they want you to die. You are not here, you are not here.

  But I was and I lost it.

  “Please,” I begged, my eyes watery.

  Someone took Eddy from the car. I could hear him scream, I could see him kicking, trying to run away but the man was too strong. He held Eddy tight and took him around the car.

  “No, please. No!!!” I screamed and heard the men groan with excitement.

  They thought I was begging them to stop. They thought they had me but I couldn’t care less, whatever they had planned for me. They had taken my baby. They had taken him, the only reason I was still alive, away from me. I was dead already.

  “Please!!!” I screamed again, hearing Eddy call my name.

  That was the last time I heard his voice. It all went quiet, as my eyes darted sideways trying to make out what was happening back on the road.

  That was when I saw his small, lifeless body being tossed to the side of the road.

  I screamed again, my heart, my baby, I was broken. I was dying. They broke me.

  “Andrea,” I felt his big rough hands on my cheeks and recognised them immediately.

  Sebastian, I opened my eyes quickly and saw his dark, handsome face watching over me.

  “You were having a bad dream,” he said and I just nodded, still in too much of a haze to be able to speak.

  I blinked a few times, my eyes still on Sebastian as he caressed my face- gently, slowly and with the sort of care I had never received from anyone in my life.

  How incredible- I thought- that someone everyone calls the Killer, can be so attentive with me, with Eddy.

  Everything about him screamed danger- his looks, his worn-out face, his strong muscular body- and yet his hands touched something inside of me, making me feel at peace. Cherished.

  “Where are we?” I eyed Eddy to the side and smiled wide.

  He was awake and his face was covered in cookie crumbs and chocolate.

  As If he could sense my eyes on him, he turned and smiled wide, his teeth dirty with the food, and I think my heart must have burst then.

  He was alive, he was eating and we had survived the night.

  “We just arrived at the place I was telling you about,” Sebastian said and I sat up on the car seat, to scan the surroundings.

  A big, yellow building rose in the middle of a wide yard. The gate and fencing were a little rusty, the grass hadn’t been cut in a while. It looked abandoned and far out from any city. I couldn’t see any other houses nearby.

  It’s perfect.

  “Is it safe?” I asked, once we were out of the car, Eddy skipping around us with another cookie in his hand.

  “Nobody can find us here,” Sebastian reassured me, taking my hand.

  I held it tight and smiled, a real smile for the first time in years.

  In that moment, I wanted to believe the lie. I wanted to live the lie.

  The nightmare, I wanted to forget all about it.

  Chapter 13

  Saint Catherina is where you can’t feel

  Sebastian

  Time goes by, fast, slow at times. You age, you grow up and live through things you had never imagined you could. And yet some things never change, never really age.

  The Saint Catherina school looked exactly the same as to when I was one of its scholars.

  Maybe the railings and the gates were rusting a little, but inside the place was exactly as I remembered it.

  Stuffy, bold, anonymous, like you were meant to neither love it, nor hate it.

  In the end love and hate were both sins, both part of the same coin, just different sides of it.

 
The nuns there didn’t let us love nor hate. They just wanted us to be like them. They didn’t want us to be happy nor sad.

  They prayed, ate, studied, prayed some more. Dull, meaningless doctrine. That was our life in the Saint Catherina school.

  Of course I wouldn’t hear of it. I came from the streets, for fuck’s sakes.

  I knew what it was really like out there, what the world was like. My attitude drove them mad and they punished me, slap after slap.

  It was as if I could still hear the sound of the sister’s hand hitting my cheeks, when we stepped inside the place.

  “This is where I went to school for a while. I lived here for a few years,” I told Andrea and watched her stunned face turn my away.

  “Are you serious?” she asked, not hiding her surprise.

  She must have caught sight of the crucifix on the wall. I chuckled.

  “I am serious. Nobody comes here anymore, they moved the school to the centre of Naples, this is too far out.”

  We circled the big empty room at the entrance for a bit, kicking the dust and taking in the little furniture that had been left behind.

  “Can we explore?” Eddy’s eyes were wide with excitement.

  He kept jumping up and down, like we had just taken him to a theme park or something.

  The conversation I'd had in the car with him that morning, when Andrea was still sleeping, had helped.

  I had pulled the car into the parking lot of a small mini market and I had asked Eddy to come with me inside to buy some food and stuff.

  “Pick whatever you like,” I had told him first and watched him wander around the store for a good ten minutes, asking if he could have this and that, but only if it was okay with his mommy.

  I nodded and took him in my arms. There was no need to hold back, nobody knew who I was there, who he was.

  “You can take anything you like, make sure to choose something your mommy wants too. Ok?” I had told him and then I had made my move. “Everything is going to be okay, Eddy. We are just going on a small trip. We need to get you and your mommy in a new place, where you can be happy.”

  Eddy nodded, with this solemn ‘little man’s’ face I had become familiar with over the past week. It looked as though he held all the wisdom of the world all of a sudden, all at once and with the most determined voice I ever heard from a three-year-old, he said:

  “I want my mommy to be the happiest mommy in the world.”

  Torture and ecstasy, that’s what I think kids are like.

  I wanted the same thing and he understood me perfectly well.

  I had bought food supplies, clothes, soaps, covers and I had bought him all the cookies his heart desired.

  Eddy deserved to be the happiest boy in the world, too.

  Her skin was a little red for the cold, just under eyes and nose. And she looked absolutely amazing, as always. Just cold, very cold.

  “I am going to get more wood for the fire,” I announced standing up from under the blanket we had pulled over us.

  Eddy was napping, tired again after running around the place all morning.

  We had explored every floor, basement, attic, closet visible to mankind, followed by the inevitable ‘what is this? and ‘why is it there?’ or ‘how does it work?’ enquiry.

  I had those answers, those questions had been easy and Eddy had stuck to them, not asking why we were there.

  It was all new, he was excited. I wondered how long it would last.

  “No, stay,” Andrea grabbed my hand and smiled a little, but something crossed her eyes.

  Worry.

  “I am just going out the back door to the shed to cut some more wood Eddy and I found in the garden. I won’t be long,” I reassured her, bending down to kiss those parted lips of hers.

  I tasted her, all of her, the warm sweetness of her mouth and made a mental note.

  One of the things worth living for, fighting for, was the taste of Andrea’s lips.

  The fucking eighth wonder of the world.

  The sun was going down and the air was getting colder. The humidity tingled my hands, as I pushed the door open of the shed and set the wood to cut for the fire.

  I wanted to be as fast as possible, I wanted to go back to Andrea, to the eighth wonder of the world and kiss her again. And maybe tell her how incredibly beautiful she was.

  Hit after hit, the axe became slippery in my hands, the heat spreading across my chest and face.

  It was too hot in there, I pulled the shirt off my head and hung it to the door knob.

  Two, three, four pieces. I cut all the wood we had brought in and started piling it to the side, choosing the driest one to take inside first.

  It was a big building, we needed to keep it warm. It was still the end of February, it was still winter and we were now in the countryside.

  The air was humid, icy cold. I still remembered how it felt to run around the place in shorts, with snow on the ground.

  With one hand I piled the wood, with the other one, I wiped the sweat from my forehead as I bent down again, only to stand at the sight of Andrea walking through the door.

  She stared at me, her back to the door, both arms behind lingering around the doorknob.

  She was still my Sad Eyes, she was still the same- gut wrenchingly beautiful in her emotional aura. Andrea swayed towards me, with the same look she'd had years ago. She was still worried, lost and running away from something.

  She was exactly my Andrea. Only now I was running with her, I was fighting with her. For her.

  “Are you okay?” I asked the moment our bodies touched.

  Andrea nodded, tracing her fingers on my chest. My stomach twisted in a knot.

  Gently, I took her by the shoulders and noticed how thin she felt in my hands, the jumper she was wearing loose on her.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” I said and smirked, looking straight into her eyes.

  “Like what?” she asked and smiled back, her body slowly relaxing under my hands.

  She moved closer, her hip brushing against my side, her hands, moving to my back. Those eyes of hers, so tormented, so true to her soul, were impossible to lie to. They were calling out for my touch, screaming for my lips.

  I was quick, I was under her shirt in an instant and explored the perfection that was her smooth back. I played with every line, every curve, my heart racing.

  One hand snaked to the front and cupped her breast. Andrea sucked in a breath, I stared at her with a fiery look in my eyes. She was a goddess, her head tilted back like that, her eyes half closed, staring into mine.

  “Make love to me,” Andrea panted, pulling me down to her mouth. “Make love to me. Now, here. I want you. I need you.”

  I kissed her then, hard, long, feeling all of her.

  There was no one there to stop us, nobody to hide from. We were free to be what we wanted. And I wanted to be hers. I wanted her to be mine.

  No rush this time, no impediment. I wanted to fuck her slowly, long.

  Her jumper and bra were on the floor in a second. I wanted nothing on her, to feel her soft skin against my hard chest.

  “Turn around for me, Andrea. I want to look at you.” I mumbled, my pulse quickening in anticipation.

  She eyed me wearily. Deadly, that look of hers was deadly.

  Flipping her hair as she turned, Andrea placed both hands on the wall in front of her and breathed in and out, quickly, her body quivering as I traced the hem of her jeans, all the way to the front to her zipper.

  Down, I pulled them down, all of it, underwear too, and kneeled to the floor to help her out of her clothes.

  I took my time, looking at her toned legs, thin ankles and firm buttocks. My fingers traced her skin, up and down, slowly, getting a buzz every time she moaned.

  My hands were halfway up her thighs when I heard Andrea make another sound, acute, raspier this time and I knew I had to taste her. Right there and then.

  It was like a thunder, her body shook under my hands, as I sl
ipped my tongue inside of her. Sweet, smooth perfection.

  “Sebastian,” Andrea cried, arching her back, pressing harder against the wall.

  That was when I stood and took her body in my hands. I held her firmly against me, one arm around her neck, one around her waist.

  Each thrust, each moan I never stopped looking at her.

  “I love you,” she moaned, wrapping an arm around my neck and I felt the fire build up inside me.

  I always thought it was easy to fuck a woman, fuck her body and just enjoy it. The joy lasted as long as the intercourse. Ended nowhere.

  But that’s not what I wanted with Andrea. It never had been like that with her. It was always about her. It wasn’t just about her body, it was about her. All of her.

  Would have I thought of her all those years if it had been just about her beauty? Her body? Would have I craved her, dreamed of her, thought of her for so long?

  You can forget about a beautiful body, but not about a beautiful tormented soul. Not when you cross one like yours. We were beautiful tormented souls, both trapped in our harsh lives, tricked by the enchantments of the flesh.

  You recognise a soul like yours when you see it. Andrea was mine and I was hers in every possible way, in this crazy life we were living. I knew nothing, had nothing, but my heart was bursting, my hands were full. Full of her.

  Andrea

  Stop the time. If I could, I would have.

  When had I ever felt so at peace? My mind could trace back to years and I still couldn’t find a single memory.

  I sat there on a little wooden chair, on top of Sebastian in the middle of the room, our bodies sweaty and still tangled. He was still inside of me, I couldn’t find the will to let go of him. He wouldn’t let go of me.

  I knew that silently we were hoping for the same thing. Stop time, just stop.

  Our breathing was slowing down, going back to normal as we stared at each other, both smiling, still mesmerized by our love making.

  Sebastian’s hand slipped down to my thigh and slowly he shifted to the side. He was out of me but he kept me there, on him, unwilling to let me stand.