Slay Belles & Mayhem: A Medley of Dark Tales

by Dani René

  Without a word, she laid down and stared at her plastic cup that sat on the nightstand. For some reason, this cup was so valuable to her. I think she was afraid when she woke it would be gone, and everything she could comprehend would be gone, too.

  How could something so simple be so significant? Her life must have been like nothing I can truly imagine.

  Noticing I was struggling to swallow, Sal casually said to me, “Hey, Angel, how about we both sit in these chairs and watch over Scarlett’s cup while she sleeps?”

  Her eyes lit up as she waited for my answer.

  Sucking on my lips, begging myself to force out an answer, I finally choked out, “Sure,” and sat down in a chair facing her.

  “Perfect!” Sal turned off the lamp. “Try to sleep, Scarlett.” He sat in a chair in a corner.

  The moonlight was all I needed to watch her. Staring at Scarlett’s face, the fact the men called her Scar was perfectly clear. This young woman’s beauty was so exquisite she could ruin any man from all other females walking the earth.

  Relief filled my chest when her eyes eventually drifted shut.

  Throughout the night, Sal and I would wake in our chairs to Scarlett struggling in her sleep. Sal covered his gaping mouth when we watched all her scared movements with her wrists together as if they were still tied.

  I promised myself, I will murder each of those men, slowly.

  In the morning, Sal and I woke, startled when noticing Scarlett was missing. On our feet, running for the door, we both jolted to a stop when finding her sleeping on the floor, in a corner, her plastic cup clutched to her chest.

  I walked to the window, rubbing the back of my neck, begging God for guidance.

  Thankfully, he gave it to me.

  Chapter Five

  The Found One

  Patience. Patience is what it took to be a part of my life. And my Angel had it… May have only had it for me, but he was exactly what I needed. A disciplined man who gave me all the time I required. There were so many hurdles in the beginning.

  First one? My son.

  It was easy to convince me he wasn’t in physical danger after what he had done to me and what I saw he had done to that beautiful grey-eyed young woman. Sal and Angel begged me to become stronger so that, if my son could be saved, I would be able to take care of him. They explained that they believed Seth would need a lot of counseling. They begged me to trust them.

  I did. Not because I had no choice, but because of their sincerity. My instincts told me to let them lead the way, for now. There were so many introductions I needed with each and every aspect of a world I was clueless about.

  Every bit of growth brought happy, sad, or hostile tears. There was an abundance of emotion inside me, desperately searching for a way to escape. And every tear was needed for me to learn how to move on.

  Even things as simple as clothes. I hadn’t had any in so many years, so material against my skin felt absolutely foreign.

  Rain? It was monumental. I hadn’t touched a drop in twenty years. Imagine that. Something so simple, yet so precious, as water falling from the sky. Finally being mine to enjoy again.

  The wonders of a ‘kitchen’ were both mindboggling and fascinating. So many foods now touching my tongue—once I was able to eat more than bland foods, such as broth.

  Television?

  Sal and Angel chuckled the first time they turned one on and I got up to touch the huge TV mounted on the wall. I had to! My brain couldn’t fathom what I was seeing.

  When I found a bookshelf, I was mesmerized… Then angry that there were so many words I didn’t know.

  Sal was so kind. “Would you like me to read to you?”

  Mama…

  As if I were a child again, I nodded, fighting tears and memories.

  Sal grabbed one off the shelf. “Oh, this looks good.” He walked back toward the living room. It was so big it outsized the whole house I grew up in. That made it overwhelming as I had mainly been confined to one barren room.

  After he sat on the couch, propping up his feet, he was shocked when I crawled into his lap. “Uh, okay.”

  So ready for this treat, I opened the book he was holding, and then I laid back against his chest and burrowed in. When he didn’t start reading right away, I tapped the first page, stumped that he didn’t know the routine.

  “Uh, yeah.” He peered over his shoulder and mumbled, “This is going to fly like a lead balloon.” He then began to read the book.

  A few pages in, Angel walked into the living room. He jolted to a stop.

  I waved. “A book!” And pointed. “Sal is reading it to me!”

  My nose scrunched as I tried to imitate Angel’s flaring nostrils.

  Sal asked Angel, “Who was I to say no?”

  Italian mumbles echoed as Angel walked out to the back porch, with a view from where we were suspended high in the mountains. Feeling drawn, I was like a moth to the moon, leaving Sal’s lap behind to see such beauty. Through a glass door, I walked to Angel’s side. He stood at the railing, staring at what I wanted to touch. I even reached out my hand. “I have never seen a mountain up close before.”

  Angel didn’t say anything.

  “Have you?” I asked.

  His deep voice made my chest tingle. “Yes.” He sighed. Maybe because he found it hard to stay angry with me. “Yes, I have. Different countries. Different mountains.”

  “Maybe I will get to see them with you someday.”

  “You will see Italy’s soon enough.”

  Movies, TV shows, and the news became another way for me to learn about the world, without being placed in danger from any of them. Distanced, I learned just how detailed and complex the world was.

  Angel and Sal had fallen asleep during our movie ‘binge’ late at night. Neither of them were awake to change the channel—as they often did, for reasons unbeknownst to me back then—when a ‘love’ scene unfolded. To most moviegoers, it was a beautiful moment between two characters in love. To me, it was horror in its purest form. It was the truth of what I had never known. It was the ultimate example of how all the sex I’d ever had was possibly all wrong. I found myself bitter and longing for something I was confident I had missed out on.

  Two captain chairs slowly came to their upright positions when Sal and Angel woke to me standing in front of the flat screen, crying in disbelief and anguish.

  Epic confusion, laced with a building torment, almost corrupted all the growth I had experienced so far.

  Sal attempted to lay a hand on my shoulder, but I pulled away, pointing at the screen. I fought the growing resentment in my voice. “Why do her tears look happy when that man has sex with her body?”

  These two men, in our luxurious hideaway, were not ravishing a woman—me—because they were rich, as it may have appeared to the realtor and maid we had. Sal and Angel were trying to glue together pieces of the broken girl I was, in an attempt to make her whole. They were gently teaching me things, such as the difference between happy and sad tears. They were trying to give me tools to cope with from all I had to heal.

  Pointing to the TV, I groaned, yanking on my nightshirt, “Why is that man not hitting her?”

  Angel and Sal just stood there, staring at me, so many thoughts passing through sympathetic eyes that I didn’t want.

  Deep down—from the darkness trapped inside me—I screamed, “Where is her rope? Tell me!” I didn’t give them time to explain, nor do I think they could. I just screamed! “Why is she not tied up?”

  Since the first night I had found the picturesque back porch, that is where you could always find me after I became upset. That’s why I ran to the sanctuary of the cold night air, hoping it could cleanse lungs that felt as if they were exploding.

  After all I had been through, affection was not an obstacle for the two men when it came to me. My mother had instilled that in me at such a young age. Therefore, I happily accepted it back into my life. That’s why, as soon as I felt his heat approach from behind
, I turned and melted into Angel’s chest, crying. “He was so gentle with her. Why, Angel. Why?”

  It took a moment for his arms to wrap around me, but Angel finally held me close to him. His embrace tightened as I cried, begging for answers that were cruel and inhumane. Angel even started swaying his body, soothing mine.

  Starting to calm, yet quietly crying, I asked, “Is that how it’s supposed to be?”

  His answer was so full of regret, I actually felt sorry for him. “Yes.” He was the one that had to be brave while confirming my whole life had been one tragic event after another.

  Peering up at him, I admitted, “I have never seen or felt that. I want to know what it is like.”

  After an excuse I could barely hear due to my feelings being in such shambles, Angel left me standing on the beautiful back porch, alone.

  When I woke the next day, he was gone.

  Sal promised, over and over, that everything was okay—that Angel had errands to run, but loneliness took root. It was the first day since my rescue that I had been without him. Or at least without him in yelling or crying distance.

  That evening, Sal was desperate to distract my constant worry, so he asked, “Want to help me cook?” I eyed the hot stove that had recently become an enemy of mine. Probably remembering the incident, Sal laughed. “How about with the salad?”

  My stomach grumbling was my answer, but I asked, “Will you teach me how to make that dressing with olives?”

  Pleased he successfully had me thinking of something other than Angel, he beamed. “You will make a fine Italian wife someday with the way you love food.” He mumbled, “And your tirades.”

  “Tirades?”

  He winked. “You have a true Italian woman’s temper.”

  “Is that bad?”

  He huffed. “Hell, no. It is tradition!”

  My eyes popped wide. “That sounds wonderful!”

  His dress shoes clicked on the sparkly floor as he went to grab a bottle of wine from a cupboard. “It is! The Italian women who raised me demanded they be heard.” Walking back to the counter, his dark grey slacks moved around what looked to be strong thighs. He grabbed the wine opener while proudly stating, “Your heritage is deep within you, Scar. Someday you will set her free.”

  Watching him open the bottle of wine, I asked, “Why do you drink that?”

  His eyes practically rolled to the back of his head. “You think food tastes good now? Wash it down with a good red and experience your first tastebud orgasm.”

  “Orgasm?”

  “Yeah. When a part of you explodes from something that feels or tastes so good.”

  Fascinated, my mouth fell open. “More. Tell me more, Sal.”

  He gestured to the TV in the open living room part of the kitchen. “Last night. What you saw? That was an orgasm of the heart.”

  “W-What?” I was starved for such knowledge, dying to experience things that sounded magical to me. “Explain!”

  He laughed, but it soon faded... “What your,” he did something with his fingers in the air when he said, “fathers—” so I interrupted him.

  Mimicking his fingers, I asked, “What does this mean?”

  “Uh. Quote. Unquote. It’s a way of me showing that I do not agree with what you call those men.”

  “What should I call them?”

  “Pieces of shit?”

  I thought of the toilet, completely missing his meaning.

  Sal must have read my mind because he shook his head. “Not literally. What I mean is… Fathers are supposed to nurture daughters. Take care of them. Not hurt them and make them suffer. And fathers should never have sex with their children. Never.”

  Experiencing slight embarrassment due to what Sal had just taught me, I ran my finger along the kitchen counter while head-gesturing to the TV. “That wasn’t her father?”

  He held his chest then sighed. “No, baby. That was a lover.”

  It was hard to look Sal in the eye because shame was starting to fill my conscience. “A lover?”

  “That’s right. Someone you make love to. He’s not a blood relation. No family. You can create a family, have children together, —”

  Seth…

  “—but… Scar, your ‘father’ mistreated you. He… Well, he had violent sex with you. What he did with, or to, you wasn’t love-making. Your body is actually meant to enjoy sex.”

  My head jerked back. “Enjoy it? But it is awful!”

  “And there lies the problem. It’s not supposed to be awful.” A sly smirk crossed his handsome mouth. “Far from it. It can make you feel like, like…” he pondered for an explanation I would comprehend. Then his eyes lit up. “Like you are flying without a plane.”

  I grabbed my chest. “No.”

  “Ooh, yes.”

  “Like a bird?”

  “Well,” his head wobbled, “figuratively speaking.” He started sipping his wine again.

  “Wow.” This was beyond amazing, and I wanted to know it first-hand! “Sal! You must have sex with me!”

  Wine sprayed from his mouth. “Oh.” He wiped his chin. “Uh… No.”

  “What?” My shoulders caved. “You don’t want to fly with me?”

  He mumbled some Italian, while his finger did a dance at four different points on his chest, then explained, “Your wings have, uh, been claimed.”

  “What does this mean?”

  “As gorgeous as you are—” He moaned the next part, “And I have been months without some er, ‘airtime’, but you will have to fly with another.”

  I rushed to him, placing my palms on his super soft button-down shirt. “Please. I want those happy tears.”

  “Scar, it just can’t be. Not even a taste.”

  “Please? One little taste?”

  Sal sucked in his breath as he stared down at me and winced. “But he is deadly.”

  “Who?”

  He exhaled heavily, then frustratingly mumbled, “Impossible situations. Why won’t he just tell you?”

  “Who? Angel?”

  “Yes.”

  “What should he tell me?”

  “It is not my place to say.”

  “Fine. Back to the taste.” I gripped his shirt and yanked. “Give me one.”

  He swatted at my hands. “Easy on the silk!”

  “Taste!”

  “No.”

  “Please?”

  He stared at me.

  I asked, “Do other girls like to fly with you?”

  “Pfft! Of course. I am Sal Rossi.” He said his name as if singing a song that he highly admired.

  I wanted to admire, too. “Then, you must give me a taste.”

  He stared at me.

  “Sal! You are not my father!”

  “No. That I am not.”

  “Then one little taste. No more. Promise.”

  Still up against his stomach and chest, I watched as Sal nervously picked up his wine glass, finishing it all in a few big gulps. “For the record, this is a very bad idea.”

  Not sure what he meant, I refused to care. My bare feet ran in place on the cool floor. “Thank you! Thank you! What do I need to do?”

  He mumbled something that sounded like, “Not-get-me-killed?”

  “What?”

  “Nothing.” He tilted my chin up. “Hold still, okay?”

  I would have never moved again if it would help convince Sal to offer me a piece of magic I had never known.

  Golden brown eyes stared at my mouth as Sal slowly lowered his head to reach me. I didn’t move an inch. Not even when soft lips pressed to mine.

  The sensation was like nothing I had ever felt. It was so… personal. So intimate.

  My first taste!

  As he pulled his head back, I smiled and said, “Wine. Is that what it tastes like?”

  “Wait… Huh?”

  I licked my lips. “It is bitter yet… sweet.”

  “Uh. I just kissed you, and you are now curious about wine?”

  “Yes.” I shru
gged. “Is that wrong?”

  His brows pinched. “No, I suppose not, but unlike any response I’ve ever had before.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Well… I’m Sal.” He said his name as if that should explain everything I needed to know, but I was still confused. When I only stared at him, he shook his head. “Let me try again.” This time, he held the sides of my face, like Angel would, and pressed his lips to mine, even harder.

  After a lingering moment, he leaned back with a proud smile. “Now tell me all you want is wine.”

  “All I want is wine.”

  Sal gasped, stumbling back as if I had shoved him, then almost cried as he asked himself, “Has Sal lost his golden touch?”

  Baffled by his comical alarm, I responded, “Gold is very pretty,” and poured wine into his glass. “Sal’s necklace is beautiful.”

  I lifted the glass to my lips, but stopped when Sal laid his palm on my forehead. “Maybe you have a fever.”

  Ignoring him, and ready for my next lesson, I tilted the glass… My mouth exploded with taste. “Oh…” I licked my lips. “Wow.” I took another sip. “Sal, now this is amazing!”

  Appalled, he shrieked, “Not my kiss?”

  “Can you teach me how to make the dressing now?”

  He snatched the glass from me and filled it to the rim. “After I’m done crying away my shame.”

  By the time Angel finally returned, I was—according to Sal—lounging on the kitchen counter. Sitting on top of a tablecloth, Sal had set me up with my very own glass of wine because he was tired of ‘sharing,’ slices of cheese, grapes, fresh bread, and olive dressing to dip my bread in. “Angel!” I celebrated. “Would you like to join my pic-i-nic?”

  Even though I could tell he was fighting it, Angel smiled. “Pic-i-nic?”

  Pulling lasagna from the oven, Sal chuckled. “I told her about all the picnics she will love back home, and how we spend much time next to the orchards with Ma-Ma’s cooking. Scarlett wanted an example.” He wafted the smell of his lasagna to his nose, using his large hand. Then he moaned in pleasure. Facing Angel again, he explained, “Seeing how we are hanging on the side of the mountain, with no backyard, I improvised.” He winked at me. “Who am I to tell her bare feet on the kitchen counter is frowned upon?”