Swan Song

by Tracey Ward

  I don’t answer him. I stare at him blankly, silently.

  He grins darkly. “Why don’t you just ask me what you’re dying to know and I’ll tell you. Then you can stop thinking.”

  My blood begins to boil. He is such a condescending son of a bitch. I wonder how I ever let him touch me. How I ever overlooked the selfishness that is him, how I was ever so high that I thought letting him inside me was worth anything. I don’t care how good it felt, I feel sick from it now and I always will. I’ll always hate myself for it, far more than I hate him.

  “I don’t even want to know, Tommy. I have nothing to say,” I tell him, looking away.

  “You got nothin’ to say? You?” he asks, sounding astounded. I ignore him. “Alright, if you’re clammed up for once, then maybe you’ll listen. You’re not leaving this club.”

  “You mean I’m not leaving you.”

  He snorts, crossing his arms over his chest. “Don’t be so full of yourself, sweetheart. I like you, but I like money more and you’re good for business. Stop being good for business and you can go anywhere you want. Get fat, get pregnant, become a drunk or a doper. I don’t care.”

  “Because no other club will want me then.”

  He grins. “Nailed it.”

  “That’s very pragmatic of you.”

  I do it on purpose. I use a word I’m sure he doesn’t know. One that will stump him and leave him feeling off-balance. Stupid.

  If there’s one thing Tommy can’t stand, it’s feeling foolish.

  “I don’t like your attitude. You’re giving me grief and I ain’t got time for it, not tonight,” he tells me coolly. “Pack up your shit and go home.”

  I don’t move. I watch him patiently and his cheek twitches with annoyance. I’m in a dangerous place right now. The kind of place where a girl could get slapped around for the trouble I’m causing him, but still I stay steady. I stay silent and I don’t retreat.

  “Go on, get the hell outta here,” he growls, getting in my face. “And when you come back tomorrow, you wear your hair the way I say with the dress I tell you to, and you don’t sing a single note that I don’t put in front of you. And wipe that fuckin’ frown off your mug, you got it?”

  I’m surprised to hear his speech go full gangster. He doesn’t do that with me. He’s off kilter and angry and this, this is the man on the inside. Not the mask, but the man. The devil.

  It’s good to know what I’m dealing with.

  “Whatever you say, boss,” I tell him softly.

  He continues to glower at me as I pause for one last moment, meeting his eyes and smiling ever so faintly. Then I turn and walk away, and I’m so damn scared that I’ll be grabbed or tripped or beaten silly for what I’ve just done, but he lets me go and my heart slows down the farther away I get.

  I don’t bother changing my clothes. I grab my coat off the back of the door, snatch my purse off the table, and run out the exit over the loading docks.

  It’s cold outside when I burst through the door into the night. I feel the wind cut through the open folds, nipping at my skin through my thin black dress like a thousand tiny little devils devouring me whole, and I let them. I let them have at me as my body heats up with the anger and frustration building inside of me.

  You’re not leaving this club.

  “Son of a bitch,” mutter loudly to myself, ranting as I walk away from the club. I break into a low, angry tirade where I say all the things I wanted to say to his face, all the things I would love to say with my fists but can’t. I feel like a muzzled, angry, junkyard dog moments away from eating through its restraints. Once I’m free, I won’t just bite the hand that feeds me. I’ll gnaw the damn thing off and have it for dinner.

  A hand shoots out of a dark ally, wrapping firmly around my arm and yanking me inside. Before I can scream I’m pressed hard against the wall by the body of my attacker, and the second I feel it, the moment he presses against me and his scent fills my nose, the scream turns to a relieved sob.

  Headlights from a passing car cut between the buildings and skitter into the alley, sweeping over his features.

  It’s Drew.

  He’s a wall of tensile steel, a mass of muscle, and I’m pinned between him and the rough surface behind me. I sigh heavily with relief at the sensation. It’s the feeling. The same weight, the pain, the pressure, the smell, the feel of him. It’s what I remember, what I’ve been aching for, and when his eyes draw in close to mine, shuttered and heady, I know he remembers it too.

  The light fades until we’re both hidden, blanketed in the shadows that envelope us like the warmest, softest cloth imaginable. It swaddles us until we’re comfortable as babes, honest as innocents, and fully transparent where no one can see us.

  His lips descend on mine, and it’s breathtaking. I freeze, going still and stunned for only a beat before bursting with life and lust and music I can’t keep up with but I’ll gladly die trying. I immediately push aside the mask of Adrian Marcone to get closer to him. I feel stripped and bare in the scariest, most exciting way. I feel alive and new, and I know that this – that we are something. Be it dangerous or precious, sanctified or unadulterated evil, it is something and I value it more than all of the senseless nothing that I’ve been swimming in for the past few years.

  Drew yanks on the front of my coat, deftly pulling the big buttons apart, then he has my hands in his, lifting them up and pinning them against the wall over my head.

  He pauses, pulling away and breathing heavily against my face. His eyes latch onto mine, serious and intense. “Can I touch you?” he whispers.

  I blink, not sure I heard him right. “Are you asking permission?”

  He doesn’t answer. Instead he stares at me, into me, and he waits for my answer. For my acquiescence.

  The unfamiliar sting of tears strikes the back of my eyes and I can’t even say why. Probably for a lot of reasons, but in that moment I’m taken away from the world and myself as I stare at this man – this thug, this gangster, this killer with the scars and the deadly eyes, asking permission to put his hands on my body. I’ve seen a hint of his sour and it took my breath away, it sent my heart into overdrive, but this – his sweet – is what will break me.

  I nod my head, closing my eyes and brushing my lips gently against his. “Yes.”

  He holds my hands in place with his left hand while the right delves inside my coat, running slowly over the wispy black fabric of my dress and caressing my warm skin underneath. It shivers and quakes at his touch and when his tongue delves into my mouth, I greet it with a low moan.

  He kisses coarsely. It’s rough and raw and real, and his stubble chafes against the tender skin of my chin, the sting letting me know my face will be rubbed red before he’s done with me and I can’t even begin to care.

  He releases my hands and lets me bring them down on either side of his face, cupping the scarred skin and pulling him to me. He takes hold of my hips, pushing harder against me until I release a choked whimper from the back of my throat. I feel him smile against my lips and I bite it on instinct, wanting to taste his sweetness on my tongue.

  He pulls back slightly, grinning with his eyes. “Easy, Addy.”

  “No,” I growl, pulling on him.

  He holds back and I notice his hands have gone still on my sides, his thumbs the only movement. Up and down, slow and soft. Unhurried. Unworried. His control is infuriating. “Yes,” he insists firmly.

  “Why?”

  “I have to go soon.”

  “You only just got here.”

  “And I’ll be leaving just as quickly.”

  “Will you say goodbye before you leave town?”

  “I already am.”

  I drop my forehead against his, closing my eyes against the pressure building in my chest. He’ll be gone again, for who knows how long. Maybe forever. “Why?” I whisper angrily against his lips. “Why bother finding me like this then?”

  “Do you want the sweet” he asks, his voice husky, “o
r the sour?”

  “I want the truth.”

  “I had to know what you tasted like.”

  I chuckle, leaning my head back against the wall. “You want to hear something crazy? I think that’s your sweet.”

  “It is. I warned you.”

  “I remember,” I reply tersely. I sigh, finding his eyes in the dark. “Well? How was I? What’d I taste like to you?”

  He watches me from the shadows for a long moment, but I don’t squirm. I wait and when he blinks long and hard – the sheen of his eyes disappearing briefly – I jump. “You taste like trouble.”

  “I was thinking the same thing about you.”

  “Do you know what Tommy talked about the entire train ride here from New York?” he asks suddenly.

  I push him back gently, my grin fading to a frown. “I don’t want to talk about Tommy.”

  “You,” Drew says plainly, ignoring my protest. His hands fall from my body and I feel my stomach bottom out. His voice drops down, deep and intimate. “You and all the many ways he’s had you. How he owns you.”

  My chest heaves with angry, hot breaths that do nothing to sustain me. Instead they burn me inside, singe me to ash until I’m aching from head to toe, inside and out.

  “He wasn’t lying,” I grind out roughly, my voice quavering with rage and embarrassment. “Tommy is a lot of rotten things, but he’s not a liar.”

  Drew casually steps back before furrowing his brow and shaking his head up at the sky. “Nah, he’s a dog marking his territory, is what he is. He’s pissing all over everything trying to keep anyone from sniffing around what he wants. You know what that tells me?”

  “That he’s disgusting?”

  “That what he wants, doesn’t want him.”

  A small flare of relief lights up in my chest before dying immediately in a dreadful feeling in my stomach. “Is that why you kissed me tonight? Are you pissing too, Drew?”

  He takes his time returning his eyes from the sky down to me. He’s stalling. “I don’t know what I’m doing where you’re concerned. That’s a pretty ugly feeling for me. One I don’t particularly enjoy. And, yeah, maybe I’m pissing. Maybe I’m circling around you and marking you as mine because I don’t want you anywhere near Two Thumbs or any other guy inside that club.”

  “You told me to sing my song to them because you didn’t want to hear it!” I protest, getting angry.

  “I don’t want to hear it,” he replies scathingly. “I don’t want anything to do with Adrian Marcone. I don’t want the girl on stage or the name in the lights, and I definitely want nothing to do with the girl Tommy is so proud of fucking. I want you,” he pointed at my face. At my minimal makeup, my hair long and down, my dress simple and soft. His voice drops, calming and going dangerously still. “I want Addy.”

  “You don’t know her,” I whisper shakily. “No one does.”

  “No, I don’t, but I want to.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I feel so damn good when I’m with her. I know her when I see her and I miss her when she’s gone.” He runs his hand over his hair, freeing it from the confines of the pomade and giving the wind purchase to rustle through it, dark and restless. “I’ve thought about you every day since I met you. Every. Single. Day. A song on the radio, the color of a woman’s hair on the street – they remind me of you. I saw a Christmas display for sweet and sour Naughty or Nice candy and immediately thought of you. I stood in line in a candy store to buy them. Picture that if you can. Me in a candy store surrounded by kids. You did that to me.”

  I shake my head faintly in protest and the movement turns into a convulsion. Suddenly I’m shivering violently, either from his words or from the cold. Regardless of the cause, Drew reaches for me. Slowly his hands tug at the front of my coat until it’s closed, then he starts working the buttons one by one, his rough hands brushing against my body as he moves. He’s looking down, watching his work intently, and the power of his attention makes me shudder. It’s a strange thing feeling so breathlessly intimate while a man dresses me. He’s hiding my body, but the act of it, the intent of keeping me warm and safe behind it, is what melts me down to a puddle on the glistening ground under my feet.

  “There’s a girl in New York,” he says quietly. Unapologetically. “I visit her once a week. I have for years.”

  “You have sex with her once a week,” I correct, fighting the flinch that twitches like live electricity in my body.

  He finishes with my coat, his eyes meeting mine. “That bother you?”

  I watch him, considering. “A little. Does Tommy bother you?”

  “Yeah,” he says deeply. “A little.”

  “Why did you tell me about her?”

  “Because I want to be honest with you.”

  “Neither of us can afford honesty.”

  “No, we can’t. But if we give it to each other equally, maybe it won’t cost us anything.”

  I take a shuddering breath, watching the cloud of smoke that leaves my mouth on the cold air hover in front of his face for a moment, obscuring him and distorting him until I can’t even be sure it’s his face anymore. Maybe it’s not. Maybe it’s Birdy, the other half of him that I have no idea about. Can I handle that? Can I stand Birdy being in New York with the girl he visits every week while he’s doing the job he does? Can I stomach only stolen moments with Drew, the man who makes me sing inside and makes me wish so hard that it hurts?

  I’m wishing for so many things in that moment. I wish I had never set foot in Cicero. I wish I were free of the Cotton Club, of Tommy, of Ralph and Al and the drugs and the cops and the war. I wish I was where I wanted to be because, dammit, it feels like I’ve been struggling to get there for far too long. Ever since I was a kid in a corn field, I’ve been wishing and reaching and dreaming, and where has it gotten me? How close am I to everything I wanted?

  Am I even sure what I want anymore?

  “Addy—“ he begins.

  “When will I see you again?” I interrupt, blinking away the blur and focusing on his face. On the scars and fine lines. On the glow of his eyes and the cut of his jaw that I’m seeing so differently now. It’s more square than I first thought. Everything about him is so much more cut and clear and precise than I first imagined. He’s more handsome than I originally gave him credit for, or it could be I’m seeing something else that just makes it seem that way. Some deeper part of him is endearing itself to me and changing my perception. It doesn’t matter to me. I see what I see, and what I see is a beautiful man. Cracked and fragmented, but so strong and solid. Tested and true.

  “When do you want to see me?” he asks.

  I lean forward and kiss him softly once. “Tonight.”

  I feel him smile against my mouth. “You have too many roommates.”

  “I’ll come to you,” I whisper, kissing him again, my eyes falling closed. “Tell me where to be and I’ll wait for you.”

  “No one can know where I’m staying, and if anyone ever found out, you’re the last thing I want them to find there.” He threads his calloused fingers into the tresses of my hair falling around my neck, rubbing the pad of his thumb over my pulse. “You’re contraband.” He kisses me slowly, deeply. “Addictive and illegal.” One more kiss before he presses his thumb against my chin to tilt my head back so he can examine my face. His expression is dark, almost sad. “You’re going to be a problem.”

  “You could walk away again,” I suggest, hoping to God he doesn’t take my advice.

  He chuckles silently, a grin creeping crooked over his lips. “Don’t you think if I could, I would? Do you think I want to fuck with Tommy Giordano when he’s this wound up over you?”

  I take hold of his hand against my throat, squeezing it warmly in mine. “It’s not me he’s pent up about. It’s Adrian. It’s the act.”

  “He doesn’t know the difference.”

  “He might have a better idea after tonight.”

  “I think you definitely do.”

&nb
sp; I nod, lowering my eyes. I examine the rough fibers of his wool coat hanging dark and long down his solid frame. He’s strong under there, I know it. Powerful. He’s killed with that power, and that should terrify me but I don’t run. Instead I step closer until our bodies are pressed together again. Until his hands come up to my arms and run slowly up and down them, warming me. Enveloping me. Protecting me. “I’m caged,” I whisper to his shoulder.

  He hums in agreement and the deep tone reverberates through his chest into mine. I feel it in the skin of my face where it’s resting against his, his rough stubble scratching and tickling with every movement. We stay that way for too long. So long that I know he’ll be late for the meeting he needs to get back to. So long that I start to feel safe and comfortable, nearly content. So long that he breathes in my scent at my neck and my blood flies through my veins in a wild rush as his lips brush across my skin.

  I sigh, tilting my head back and releasing the full white puff of my warm breath into the air above my head. I watch it disappear, rising like a cloud in the sky peeking out between the buildings, and I wish I could see more of it. I remember a bigger sky. Full and blue and bright. I remember lying on my back in the tall grass that tickled against my skin, poked through my thin dress as the wind ruffled my hair, and I sang to the sun. To the clouds and the stars and the moon, unbalanced and befuddled by the constraints of infinite possibility. I thought I was trapped. Sequestered in a tiny town with no shine, no prospects, and no chance of being anything but a pretty girl in an ugly prison.

  I hadn’t known what ugly was yet.

  I hadn’t known what a cage could truly be.

  I lean back and run my hand over the rough brick of the building towering above me blotting out the sky and the West and the world, and I wonder at how cold it is. How very much like steel.

  “I have to go,” he says, suddenly putting distance between us. “Do you want me to walk you home?”

  Yes.

  “No. I’ll be alright.”

  He nods thoughtfully, watching me. “Lock your door when you get there. Every lock you have. In fact, make sure your windows are locked too.”