18. MINE ONLY
SILVINA
Gioele. I can’t even think his name without getting dizzy. Is he okay? Wounded? Those are the alternatives I can let myself consider. If he knows I’m gone, he’s making everyone’s life miserable, because one thing I know for a fact: Gioele doesn’t believe in an existence without me.
The next time John Ulrich Himmel enters the room, it’s with two men. It’s dark outside. I’m hungry, thirsty, and my head still hammers. I’m starting to feel queasy.
“Hey, pretty Silvina. You don’t look so good. Did you know that?” He tilts his head playfully, blue eyes glittering with humor. “You’re not your regular put-together self. Not exactly the girl who’s thrown me bones in Biology for three semesters straight. Did you never wonder when it’d come back and bite you in the behind?”
Why does he look so different? He always had an easy laugh. It used to give his eyes a mischievous glint, but they’re lacking something now, and I’m trying to determine what that is.
John makes himself comfortable, seated too far in on the bed. I scoot away from him and find the missing trait as he grabs my tied hands and drags me closer. Respect.
I stifle my hiccough at the realization. If a man has no respect for a woman, what’s left? Wordless, I glare.
“You’re feisty, but I’ll break you in good, pretty Silvina. You’ll sob. You’ll cry for your mama. You’ll scream for Gioele di Nascimbeni. But don’t you worry. I have experience with women like you. They all come with their head held high and rebellion in their eyes. My family ran the biggest ring of human trafficking in California for a decade, and I’ve broken in quite a few slaves myself.” He shrugs, lifting his stare to me again.
“Your family doesn’t run slaves anymore,” I mutter.
The strike across my cheek comes fast as a whip. It leaves shock and a numbing burn behind. “Have I told you to talk?”
My eyes fill with tears of anger, but I don’t answer. Through the blur, I see him shake his head.
“That’s right. I didn’t. My family doesn’t run flesh anymore because your family is a fucking bunch of snitches. If it weren’t for their intervention, we’d still be the kings of modern slavery in America.”
He hovers over me. Grabs me by the throat and pushes the back of my head slowly into the pillow. His eyes trail over my face, studying my reaction as he presses against my windpipe until I can’t breathe. My hands go up on their own and tighten around his grip. It causes a gleeful little laugh to trickle out of him. It’s bone-chilling and grossly feminine for such a cruel figure. God, I wish I had my gun.
“But see, once you’ve had a taste of the good life—of owning a beautiful woman who’s there for you only, eating, living, breathing in your bedroom until you’re sick of her and trade her for something new—you can’t go back.”
He drags his thumb over my lip. My heart sets off, urging me to run away as fast as I can. How much damage can John Ulrich Himmel do to me before I get out of here?
I jolt when John’s index finger becomes more insistent, pushing my lower lip downward until cold air hits my gums. He’s mesmerized by my mouth. I stare, denying him the pleasure of my fear.
He smiles. Presses his fingertip against my teeth. I clench my jaw shut, not allowing him access. His eyes darken. Then, he grabs my cheeks with one merciless hand and squeezes where my teeth meet, causing a searing pain that results in my mouth opening against my will.
“You have to obey your master, pretty Silvina. If you don’t, you’ll just end up with unbecoming bruises. Swellings. Maybe the occasional cut. I prefer you smooth and tanned. I enjoy you this way. Although there’s something to be said for artfully modified flesh too.”
My jaw suddenly feels weak. I blink, trying to keep my fear from oozing out through my eyes. I avert them while his finger penetrates my mouth.
“Suck.” His demand is a low, pleased hum.
I do it. I’m saving my energy. It’s a small thing, nothing like the horrors he promises. My stare travels to the two men by the door. I don’t recognize them. Shorter than John, they’re southern-Italian dark and in their early thirties. Guns drawn in strong hands, they stare unabashedly at my lips, primitive lust radiating from them.
“That’s right. Roll your tongue around my finger. Show what goodies I’ve got coming when I’m ready.”
The queasiness in my stomach threatens to shift upward, but I do it. I roll my tongue around his index finger while I suck. I think of lazy summer days in Lake Como. Of Gioele’s smile from the hayloft ladder when we’d just found it. I think of Oscar, sweet Oscar. Of swimming in the lake, of staying under long enough to lose my breath and scare my cousin. I close my eyes, seeing Gioele’s terrified silver-streaked stare as he pulls me above the surface, his anger when he realizes I was just teasing him.
I want to do what Zia Carola said. I want to return to Summer Italy with Gioele and sleep in his lap on the plane there. I want his devotion, unlimited, thick with awe, replete with a love so selfless and so uniquely my bane.
John pulls out his finger and leans over me, so close he almost brushes my mouth with his. “You’re good at it, you slut. Who do I have to thank for this—your cousin? What else has he taught you to do? I’m going to get him. You know that, right? You’ll be mine.”
He draws away from me, his imagination strumming evil chords at the back of his brain. “Oh, yes. I know just how to break the pretty Silvina. Step one. Step two. Step three. Oh, so many steps to enjoy for you to beg to be only mine.”
Only mine. His implications are not sweet. With my new knowledge of this man, they can only mean one thing, and it’s making me hyperventilate. His toxic stare moves down my throat to my chest and fixes on my boobs.
“Step one.” His smile as he says it would have been beautiful if it weren’t for the cruelty in his eyes.
John is fast. He rips out the buttons of my shirt with one quick pull. Is it his experience with slaves, readying them for sale on the American market?
I heave in air, lifting my legs to kick him. The bands slip on my wrists, and twisting to the side, I wrench out of them.
“Guys! Get me real rope.”
“No!” I breathe so fast my exhales sound like whimpers.
“Oh, yes,” he growls. “Ha. Look at you. Who knew Nascimbeni royalty were whiny little cowards?”
Two pairs of rough hands help him tie my hands behind my back. One of my ankles get strapped to the bedpost. He can do whatever he wants to me!
I try to steady my mind.
I have no way to escape!
Stop thinking.
John pulls out a knife and points at his helpers. “Step back. Stand by the door.”
Slowly, they do as he commands while my lungs inflate and deflate in quick succession. When he’s happy with their position on his stage, he inserts the knife beneath the center of my bra. For an instant, intent eyes float up to me, holding still and enjoying the moment.
“Are you excited about step one? Mr. Zetticci, over there, to your left, and Mr. Mazzi haven’t been blessed with the company of a real-life woman in a while. Surely, you’re happy to give them a peek of your titties?” He says the last word with a simper, forming his mouth in a grimace that divulges complete lack of compassion.
“No.” I puff the word out against my better judgment.
“No?” For one baffling beat, tenderness hits his irises. It makes them brighter. “Isn’t that adorable, guys?”
One of them looks worried, like he’s about to lose something essential. I don’t know what’s most disturbing, that he’s so unpredictable his men believe he can change his mind at any moment—or that I know he won’t heed me.
“Anyways.” He saws the knife against the dip between my breasts. It’s so light it doesn’t hurt, but the act shoots adrenaline through my veins and makes me shiver. A droplet of blood sieves out from underneath the blade, and thankfully, he stops.
Enthralled, he studies it. “What a red, red color you have. Not everyone has that, you know. Some have more of a rusty color, and others have—I don’t know—orange?” He lets out a snicker of the kind friends emit together. It’s so wrong it’s dissonant to my ears.
He bends toward me until his lips touch the skin between my breasts. He slurps the blood into his mouth and hums out, “We got some music? Find ‘Broken’ by DNMO on my iPhone, Mazzi.”
The music is jarring when it starts on the first sluggish notes. I love this song. It’s sensual and haunting. If I survive John Ulrich Himmel’s captivity, I’ll erase it from every playlist, and I’ll never listen to it with Gioele again.
“Mmm, now we’re talking. See, it’ll be sort of a striptease, only you don’t perform it. I do it for you.” He smiles at me again, flawless white teeth gleaming between red lips.
Almost reverently, he cuts the band between the cups of my bra. The sound is loud in the room, or maybe it’s just what it means to my ears. A dry hiccough escapes me. I wish it didn’t; he enjoys it as much as I feared he would.
“Are we ready, boys, for some titties?” Again, he turns to our audience. They nod like schoolboys, rumbling out, “Yes, please,” and “Si, signore.”
“Stay put, okay? Don’t get too eager. We don’t want to scare Lady di Nascimbeni, here now, do we?” He winks at me.
Slowly, he pulls the cups outward with both hands at once. Eyes fixed on me, he watches as cold air hits my skin and my nipples react. It’s the hostile climate, my innate rejection of him that make them pucker. In seconds, they turn small, hard, unyielding… becoming a delicacy to him.
I can’t hold back anymore. I squirm in my bonds, whimpering with the discomfort of my involuntary exhibitionism. He can’t look at me like that, with eyes that want to swallow me whole. His men can’t rove their dirty glares over me when I’m still clean, still with the finger prints of my love and my soul on me.
It’s done.
He groans, touching the front of his pants while he watches me. My whole torso is bare to the room. Anyone can look at me: he, these two guys I’ve never even spoken with, anyone it damn well pleases him to let in.
It’s the worst moment of my life when he squeezes one of my boobs, forming them with his fingers, letting the nipple peak out between them. He pulls at it, tightening just enough for my body to misunderstand. The fear, the adrenaline coursing through me. Maybe it’s survival of the species that makes me warm down low as he enjoys the feel of my breast.
“Please, let me go,” I whisper, my pride trickling off like water. Beseeching it of him, my vulnerability steers each word, leaving my mind as bare as my torso.
“Oh, pretty Silvina. You know I can’t do that,” he whispers back. The tone he carries holds misunderstood reverence, the reverence of someone omnipotent, and just like that, I’ve made this minute more precious to him than the last.
The realization floods my vision with tears. I blink them away, stare into his eyes, hoping to find some trace of compassion, a shard of empathy hidden under his evil. But what I find makes me squeeze my eyes shut; there is no mercy, no kindness, or compassion.
The connection John forces is that of victim and conqueror. He forces intimacy in the form of submission. Palming my breasts, he lets his gaze flow between my bare skin and my eyes.
“Boys, we’re ready for you. Take a look,” he says so sweetly, like he’s doing it all to make me happy.
The two men stride up to us. One of them looks at him, asking, “May I?” It’s asked of his boss, not of me, the owner of the breasts puckering with hostility in front of him.
“Stop it! Get the fuck away from me!”
A searing blow to the side of my face. Black dots flow through my vision while I blink away his threats. Someone chuckles. A hand over my nose, my mouth. It cuts off my airway—I can’t breathe!
“It’s not good to hyperventilate. If you don’t stop, pretty Silvina, I’ll have to control your breathing too. It’s gonna get tedious.”
I will myself into control. Calm down.
Calm. Down.
“You good?” John asks.
I open my eyes, trying to see him through the fog. He’s grey, fading in and out for a second, but then I see it, that oddly tender expression.
“Yes,” I whisper. “Don’t let them touch me.”
He lets out a snort. “Don’t push your luck, darling. I decide what comes next for you. Okay?” He turns his head away from me, and my heart picks up speed again. “Zettici? She’s ready for you now. Her tits are fucking soft, and those nipples are like miniature hard-ons. Have fun, man.”
I blink, watching John step back a little. He inserts a hand behind his zipper, rubbing himself calmly. Eyes steady, he watches my expression while his men narrow in on me. First, a calloused hand closes around me. Then, man number two grips my other breast. I let out an involuntary gasp.
Lake Como. Swimming with Gioele.
One of them groans. “She’s delicious, man. You gonna strip her all the way down? I’d love to ram my cock in her.”
My heart skips a beat at his words. Silently, I pray. Please, God. Please, let him have mercy.
John laughs quietly while his inspection runs from my breasts to his men’s expressions. “Nah,” he finally says. “We’ll have one piece of candy at a time. Now, go ahead.” He juts his chin toward me. “Have a taste.”
One of them has a bald spot at the center of his head. Idly, my brain tells me he looks like a monk. Only he’s not monk-like when he dives over me, forming both hands around a breast and starts to suckle on me. There’s a wild sensation of pull from the root of my boob. In the midst of my rage, my grief, my despair, it sends a strike of pleasure to the bottom of my stomach with each pull he’s taking.
I let out a moan, and John laughs. “She likes it.”
“No! I hate you. I wish you all died.” I expect to be punched—in the stomach, in the face—anything would be better than this. They’re so intimate, these caresses that should be kept sacred between my love and me.
John’s eyes only narrow, his dreamy smile tightening for a moment. I know what it means. It’s a silent promise that I’ll pay for my defiance later.
“Go on, Mazzi,” he tells the other man, and he too dives in. Suddenly, I’m some animal being suckled by two grown men. All I am is skin and softness to be enjoyed until they’re done.
I try to fend off my sobs, but they come after all when I realize that I’m not dry. Dear God, please don’t let him touch me there too. Despicable men, despicable me.
“Go for it,” John encourages when the balding man lets go of my breast with one hand to make it disappear inside his pants. His mouth rocks over me, with the effort of his hand. He lets out huffs of desire while he pleasures himself, face growing sweaty with the effort. Unable to look at them, I shut my eyes. I want my mind to flee, but it doesn’t allow me to. I am stuck.
“Can I jack off on her?” he pants, sending a deer-look at his boss.
“No way.” John steps closer, stroking my stomach down the ridge in the middle until he touches the lining of my pants.
Please don’t. Please don’t. Please don’t.
With one finger, he traces the thin cotton band separating bareness from hidden warmth. He doesn’t overstep.
“Come in your pants. That’s fine,” he says.
A choked growl escapes the guy while he bites down around my nipple. “Fuck,” he pants. “I can’t wait for more. Anything I can do, man.” He straightens, staring pleadingly at John, while the other guy starts to huff. Greedily, he reaches for my other breast, rubbing his groin against the bed while he kneads me.
“That’s hot,” John purrs, watching while the man squeezes both of my nipples into thin lines between his fingers. They turn white with the lack of blood. I wish it hurt. At least, that would’ve been something.
“Sorry, sir. I just have to,” he gasps, then he’s on the bed, pressing his dick against my thigh. I gasp. Maybe John will hit his guy the way he hit me?
With quick strokes, the leech pushes against me, up and down, up and down. He’s dry-humping me while my breasts grow pink in his hands.
John has no problem with it. He lets out a content sigh and sits down next to us, watching up close as Mazzi comes in a spastic orgasm against my thigh.
I’m frozen on the bed when the guys are ordered to stop touching me.
“All right. Everyone’s had their fun?” John asks, looking between the three of us as if I were a voluntary partaker.
The men mumble out their agreement.
“Cool, now get me the sleep-aid.” He snaps his fingers to Bald Spot, who strides back to a tray I’d hoped held food. He picks up a small glass of what looks like thin juice, stirs it, and gives it to John.
“Here you go, darling. You’ll be getting a good night of sleep, starting in”—he looks playfully at his watch–“two minutes. This shit works fast. Open up.”
I scream, bucking on the bed. His reaction is instantaneous. With one hard slap to the face and the still half-erect cock of one of his helpers pressed against my stomach as he straddles me, I’m incapacitated.
“Drink voluntarily, or this will be unpleasant.”
“What is it?” I whisper.
“All you need to know is that you’ll be fully awake for a lot more fun in the morning. Nighty-night, pretty Silvina.”