Selena
We both lie in my bed, spent from what was, by all accounts, the most brutal and most satisfying sexual encounter I’ve ever had.
Why did I like it? What about being bent over and fucked without warning would ever, in a thousand years, be satisfying to me? I think I’m losing it.
But it was satisfying. I liked it; just like I liked the way he spanked me and ate me out the night before. What the hell is wrong with me that I want this man like I do? He’s a brute. He’s probably a criminal—maybe not Sergei-level, but he’s certainly got some shady shit going on. He’s practically holding me hostage over debt that’s not even mine.
But here we are, naked on my bed, and I feel like I could fuck him seven more times and not be totally satisfied. I would want more. Of him. Of his body. Of his fingers and his cock and his lips.
I want him to kiss me. How messed up is that?
He’s calm now. Calmer than when I came home. I dare a look at him and find him staring at me. He doesn’t look happy, but he also doesn’t look upset. He’s really hard to read.
“What are you thinking?” I ask.
“I’m thinking that I need you to understand that we’re in this together. That I trust you with this. That you should trust me. I’ll get you out of this mess. You and your baby can start over somewhere. I’ll make sure of it. You’ll be free when this is all over.”
“Those are big words, big promises,” I say. “Pardon me if I don’t take much stock in the promises of men. My husband made promises when he gave me his wedding vows and we know how that worked out.”
“Well, your husband was a piece of shit, and I’ve never lied to you,” he says.
My doorbell rings. I ordered pizza to be delivered, thinking if someone was watching the house, they would have to report back that I hung out in my pajamas and ate pizza alone all night.
I throw on my pajamas quickly and shuffle out to the door, accepting the pizza and taking it back into the bedroom. I make another trip, grabbing myself some water and a beer for Finn. We eat on my bed, not talking. I end up turning on the television just to fill the space between us.
After a while, I gather the courage to ask, “Do you … have someone? Like a girlfriend?”
He chuckles at this. “No,” he says. “I don’t make those kinds of investments in people. They always fuck you over.”
“That’s true,” I say, “But you never wanted to have, like, a person? Your person?”
“Sure, when I was younger,” he says. “Learned the hard way.”
“Got your heart broken?” I ask.
He grunts and turns the volume up on the television.
“Message received,” I say, rolling my eyes. “Conversation over.”
“Look,” he says, “I said we’re in this together, not that we’re friends.”
“Yeah, okay,” I say, shaking my head. “Got it.”
He dozes off a little while later but I can’t sleep. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to sleep again.
***
Finn
I wake up and it’s the middle of the night. I’m naked on top of Selena’s bed and she’s nowhere to be found. Fuck. My first thought is that she’s run off, disappeared. I throw on my pants and a shirt and wander her apartment, looking out the front window and finding the guy who’s supposed to be watching her for Kovolov totally asleep in his car. Great job, buddy.
I see the back door is slightly open, so I peek out, expecting her to be long gone, but there she sits, shivering in her flimsy pajamas, on the back stoop.
As I take a seat next to her, I take off my shirt and put it around her shoulders. “Couldn’t sleep?”
“No,” she says softly.
“Wanna talk about it?” I ask.
“I’m not sure where I’d even start,” she says.
“At the beginning, I suppose. We got all night.”
She nods and makes a sound that’s kind of like a frustrated laugh. “Well, I married Matt because I loved the idea of being married to a big Wall Street trader. I thought it would be so glamorous. And for a while, it was. For a few years it was really fun. We’d just get on a plane and fly to Mexico for a party. We’d fuck and fight and make up and drink ourselves into a stupor. Then we’d fly home. I’d go out with other Wall Street wives, we’d go to the spa, get our hair done, shop. It felt like, you know, the best life. For a while.”
“And then he started staying out later, not coming home at all,” I guess.
“Yeah. He’d call and obviously be out somewhere, drunk. Too drunk to drive home. Refused to use the subway or a fucking taxicab. That fucking car. I hate it,” she says.
“It’s not the car’s fault,” I say.
“No,” she says, resigned. “It’s not. But he’d just get in it and go. He’d just be gone. Wouldn’t answer my texts. One time he was gone for three fucking days. Three days. He showed back up and said something about he went out to Jersey for a party and his car broke down. I hit him. I punched him, and we ended up trashing half the house. Then we fucked and he said he knew he needed to get his act together. He promised he loved me, told me I could get a job if I wanted. Told me he wanted me to be happy. The next day he brought me this fucking bracelet from Tiffany’s. Fucking asshole.”
“When did he leave?” I ask.
“Maybe six months later?” She scratches her chin. “He got, like, manic. Manic? I don’t know. Kind of hyped up? I thought he might be on drugs and that might still be true, but now I think maybe it was panic. His debts were all closing in; he was getting closer to having to fess up to his addiction, the gambling, the spending. He yelled at me for buying a new purse, as if he’d ever given a shit what I spent money on before. And then he was just gone. Poof. Didn’t take hardly any of his stuff. Didn’t say goodbye. Just gone.”
“Do you have anyone else? Friends?” I ask.
“I mean, yes, no. My friends were mostly the wives of men he worked with. When he just ghosted on his work, they pretty much ghosted me, too. He’s on the blacklist for whatever shit he did at work. Embezzlement for sure, the FBI came looking for him. I passed the polygraph and they pretty much left me alone.”
“How’d you end up with Kovolov?” I ask.
“Well, my credit cards started being declined so I figured I’d better get a job and quick or I’d be moving back in with Mom and Dad. Which would not be awesome, for lots of reasons. I put in applications all over town, got no responses because, duh, I have no work experience. I wandered into his office, not knowing what they did, and he looked me over, made me turn a circle, and said I could start right away. Apparently, his last secretary quit without notice.”
“So you and your parents don’t get along?” I ask.
“No,” she says. “My dad thought Matt was a saint; my mom hated him. Neither of them think much of me. I’m a disappointment.”
“I know how that feels,” I admit. “Never feeling like you live up to your parents’ expectations of you.”
“Your parents still around?” she asks.
“My mom,” I say. “My dad died fifteen years back. I took over his payday loan joint. Grew it into what I do now. My mom thinks it’s an insult to his memory.”
“Was that a bit of personal information you just shared with me, Finn O’Hare?” she asks, nudging me with her shoulder.
“No,” I say, holding back a grin.
“Next you’ll be telling me all about the love you had and lost,” she says.
“Never,” I say.
“You know, you are a human being,” she says. “You’re allowed a human emotion every once in a while.”
“Too messy,” I say. “Especially in my line of work. Can’t get soft or I’d be broke. Everyone’s got a sob story. Everyone needs more time, needs help, needs a break. I’m not in the business of giving breaks. I loan money, I charge interest, I get paid back. If it doesn’t work in that order, someone gets screwed or hurt. No room for emotion to cloud things.”
“Is this money … this three-hundred-thousand that Matt owes you … is it important to you? Like, is it a lot of money to you?”
“It’s a lot,” I say. “I usually don’t loan that high. And that’s without any interest. But he’s gone, and I was just trying to get back the principle. But yeah, it’s a lot.”
“Why did he borrow it?” I ask.
“He had a shit-ton of debt; wanted to go to Atlantic City. He was hoping to buy into a high stakes poker tournament. The buy-in alone for the first game was a hundred-and-fifty-k. He said he’d pay back three times the loan if he won, and he’d bow out before he lost it all.”
“That seems … excessively risky,” she says. “On both your parts.”
I shrug. “Maybe. Definitely on his part, but I’ve had guys go play and come back winners. It was a lot but he said he had some past experience, that he felt confident. I took a risk. It didn’t pay off. I think … I think that three days he was gone …”
“That seems about right,” she says, finishing my thought.
“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry,” I say. “We’ll get through this and you’ll be free of him, and me, and our dumbass choices.”
“My husband and I never talked like this,” she says. “Thank you.”
We sit in silence for a long time after that, just listening to the sounds of a city that never sleeps. She finally nods off with her head on my shoulder and I carry her back inside, tucking her under her covers. I brush her hair away from her face as she sleeps and I want to kiss her very badly.
But kissing is … no. No. Too intimate. I can’t do this with her.
Still, I can’t deny that I like this woman. She’s been through some shit. She’s been controlled by men her whole adult life. She’s been lied to. She’s been hurt. But here she is, asleep, trusting me. Telling me her life story. I’m not worthy of it. Not at all.
I don’t want to do this to her, to put her in this position. It’s dangerous and stupid and probably doomed to failure. We’ll probably both end up dead because I am a stupid, stubborn ass. A dog with a goddamned bone. I should just bury it. Let it go.
I should just let it go.