CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Layla
I walk longer than my leather boots can really take in the newly fallen snow, and eventually I end up on the subway, heading uptown. But that feeling in my stomach, that knot of tension that always seems to be there these days, has just doubled, and I don’t seem to want to go anywhere.
Quinn and Shama will both be at the apartment, avoiding the hordes on Valentine’s Day, and I’m tired of fighting with Quinn about my bad decisions. She’ll take one look at my face and know immediately I’ve been doing something I shouldn’t. And then she’ll open her mouth, and Shama will crowd in, and just the thought of it makes me feel claustrophobic.
He kissed me. After he said he wouldn’t. He said he loved me, and then he kissed me, and what’s worse, I kissed him back.
And it felt. So. Good. I hadn’t kissed him since Thanksgiving, since he broke my heart for the third time. I had imagined it plenty in moments of weakness, but oh, God, my imagination really can’t do justice to his mouth, the exact right pressure of it, the way he commands my body with every flick of his tongue. Even through his parka, I could feel his rigid stacks of muscle. It was everything I could do to keep from grabbing his bicep right there in the bar. It strained against the cotton sleeve, the black, tattooed lines just visible under the thin white fabric.
Right there on the train, I gasp at the memory, causing the man reading the New York Post across the aisle to look up, alarmed. Quickly, I switch my gaze to an ad for HPV testing. It features a couple smiling and embracing each other––a black man and a white woman. They look happy, his arms wrapped around her waist. My heart twists. I miss him still. I miss him, and I don’t want to anymore.
The train pulls to a stop at 137th and Broadway, and I get off without thinking, purely on autopilot. I’m staring at the mosaic sign, built into the tiled walls, and it occurs to me that I’m at City College. Well, of course I am. Giancarlo lives here. Still, I find myself walking up the west side of the street instead of the east, and I realize it wasn’t to Giancarlo’s apartment that my body intended to go.
I pause at the corner of 139th. I come up here all the time now, day or night. Giancarlo lives only a few blocks north, where the shops turn from selling quinceañera cakes and Dominican food to stereos and discounted ENYCE threads. Quinn still makes a face whenever I say I’m heading uptown––she still thinks of Harlem as untouchable and dangerous, something out of a Spike Lee movie (so what if he mostly films in Brooklyn). She, like so many people I know at my school––like me only a year ago––didn’t really understand that wealth in New York exists on a spectrum, just like anywhere else. And that just because you don’t have it doesn’t mean you don’t have worth.
I look down the street where I used to spend so much time. Like most of the streets up here that jut off Broadway, 139th is poorly lit, with streamers of drying clothes flapping across the fire escapes like bats, even in the snow. I can just make out the familiar concrete blocks that arch over the entrance, welcoming me there. In my mind, I see the tiny elevator, the black and white tiled floors, the tagged walls of the lobby. I see the narrow gray apartment and the small white room where I spent some of the most contented hours of my life.
He might be there now. He might be sleeping on the couch or something, or in his old room if his sister or brother isn’t staying there right now. He might be there if I rang the buzzer, might forgive me for running away from him, might take me in his arms and continue what we started in the snow...and the hell if my entire body isn’t aching to do just that.
“Hey, ma! What you doin’ tonight, baby?”
A car blasting merengue drives by, and I cower toward a bodega entrance as a couple of guys hanging out the windows whistle. It’s certainly not the first time that’s happened, but there’s something alarming about the catcalls tonight. I feel like prey more than I ever have in this city.
“Move,” I tell myself. “You have to move.” I’m a sitting duck, just standing on the street like this, whether it’s in the middle of the West Village or up here. That’s the number one rule of New York City: movement.
“NYU?”
I turn around, and there’s Gabe, exiting the bodega, a six-pack of Coke under one arm.
I smile and give a weak wave. “Gabe, hi.”
“Hey,” he says, all friendly as he gives me a quick kiss on the cheek. “You okay? You look lost.”
I shake my head. “No, not lost, just...anyway. I know my way around up here.”
Gabe nods knowingly. “Yeah, I’ve seen you around. Plus, Nico...”
I blush, even though I know I have no reason not to. It’s not just because I was making out with his brother maybe an hour ago, right?
“My, um, boyfriend lives a few blocks from here,” I say, shoving my hands into my pockets and nodding up Broadway. “I was just on my way there to wait for him until he gets off. He works at a club in midtown, I think.”
“Oh, I’ll walk you.”
“No, that’s ok––”
“Yeah, no,” Gabe interrupts as he hooks his free arm through mine and starts walking, fairly dragging me along with him. “My brother would kill me if I let you walk around by yourself at night.”
We walk in silence, letting the noises of the neighborhood replace conversation. West Harlem doesn’t get quiet until really late. It’s only about eleven now. Some of the curio shops are still open, with cheap suitcases piled on the sidewalk, although the owners are starting to bring them in. The big Dominican restaurant on 141st is still mostly full, and music echoes every so often from an opening door.
“So you know Nico’s in town, right?”
“I––” I open my mouth to say that I saw him, but then realize that Gabe would want to know where he ended up. “Yes, I know. He’s here to visit family, right? You guys must be happy to have him back for a little bit.”
“Here to visit...is that what he told you?” Gabe gives me a funny look.
I blink. “Yes, why? Is that not right?”
Gabe frowns, and it’s the first time he’s ever really looked much like his brother. Their eyes are the same––sooty and black with a twinkle––but the guileless expression on Gabe’s face most of the time is a lot different than the mischief and passion I know on Nico’s.
“No, that’s right,” he says, in the end, and lapses back into silence. “Just visiting family,” he murmurs, like he’s telling himself the fact.
“Is everything all right?” I ask. “Like...with your mom?”
It’s not until I say it that I realize I’m probably overstepping. Gabe gives me a sharp look, pauses for a second, then relaxes.
“He told you about her, huh?”
“I didn’t mean to impose. Sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything.”
Gabe wrinkles his long nose. “Nah, it’s okay. She’s still in her apartment. For now. The whole thing is really stressing us out, and it’s worse for Nico since he’s so far away right now.”
I stay quiet, since Gabe is apparently feeling chatty. Nico never liked to talk that much about his mother’s residency issues. He always treated them like a lost cause.
“We’re probably going to move her up here,” Gabe’s saying, “since her new landlord’s got eyes for developing.”
“What do you mean?”
Gabe shrugs. “Little things. A bunch of other places in the neighborhood have been bought over the last few years. Some of the other tenants have been pushed out. A couple even by having Immigration mysteriously knock on their doors. The landlord refuses to do repairs, cuts off the heat. We’re all kind of spooked. It’s their M.O. when they want to vacate rent-controlled apartments.”
“That’s awful!” I reply, totally aghast. “How can they do that?”
Gabe sighs, causing his lips to flare. “They can do a lot of things. Housing in New York is pretty fucked up if you don’t have a lot of money.” His fingers twitch at my elbow, like he’s itching to rub them together. “That’s why I want to be a doctor one day. Nico shouldn’t be the only one to take care of this kind of thing.”
I nod, considering yet again how little I understand about Nico’s responsibilities to his family and the burdens that made him leave. My anger thaws. He left because he needed to find out who he was without all of this. How could he make promises without that knowledge?
I get it. I really do. But it doesn’t make missing him any better.
We cross Broadway at 144th Street, and Gabe looks on curiously as I stop in front of Giancarlo’s building. I doubt he’s actually there, since he had to work tonight, but since I’m here, I might as well try.
I press the apartment buzzer.
“Hello?”
“Hey,” I say in surprise when I hear the familiarly accented voice. “You’re here.”
There’s a few beats, and I wonder if Giancarlo heard me. Then the same voice answers from above.
“I am here.”
I look up. There’s Giancarlo, looking down at us from two stories above with a face like thunder.
“Hey, man,” Gabe calls warily, waving a big hand.
Giancarlo glares at him, then at me. “I will let you in.”
He disappears, and Gabe looks at me. “He seems...nice.”
I sigh. “He can be intense, but he means well.”
“Yeah...” Gabe looks back at the window, but it’s clear he doesn’t believe me. “You sure you don’t want to come home with me? I bet Nico would love to see you.”
I shiver, more at the thought of telling Giancarlo I’m leaving than at the idea of going with Gabe. “No, that’s okay. I’ll be fine.”
Again, Gabe looks skeptical. But when the buzzer to the door sounds, and I pull it open, his lanky shoulders fall.
“Okay. But, um, hey.”
I turn back, waiting, still holding the door open.
Gabe glances up toward the window once again, then back at me. “I, uh...listen, you’re welcome at my place anytime. If you need somewhere to crash or whatever. Just...come ring the bell. Okay?”
I take a deep breath and try to give him the friendliest smile I can. “Thanks, Gabe. I will.”
The response seems to appease him, and he relaxes. “Okay. See you, NYU.”
I watch him leave, then enter the building and start up the big stairs, only to be shocked when I find Giancarlo waiting for me on the second landing.
“Jesus!” I cry out, holding a hand to my heart. “You scared me! What are you doing lurking on the stairwell?”
“Who the fuck was that?”
I freeze in front of him. Giancarlo looks me over, his eyes grazing over my body slowly, taking in the tight black pants, the jewelry, the makeup––all the little signs that I wasn’t just sitting at home for the evening, pining away for him.
“Come upstairs,” he says, and starts toward his place without waiting.
The door slams heavily beside us, and he whirls around like a cyclone.
“Where the fuck were you? Out with him, this little boy?”
I swallow guiltily. “No, I wasn’t. Gabe saw me get off the subway and offered to walk me home. You met him once before, remember?” A thought occurs to me. “Why aren’t you at work? It’s only eleven o’clock.”
“I finished early.” He takes a step closer so that we’re nose to nose. I can see myself in his smudged glasses. “I went to your apartment to surprise you. You were not there.”
I gulp. “Um, no. I wasn’t.”
Giancarlo’s dark eyes narrow. He worries his jaw back and forth for a minute, and a muscle on one side starts to tick. “Who is he?”
I frown. “Who?”
“The man you are fucking behind my back. Making me a fool? Being a fucking whore?”
“Hey, I wasn’t doing anything! I just met a friend for a drink because you had to work on Valentine’s Day. I wouldn’t have been out at all if you had just told me you got the night off.”
Giancarlo takes a step toward me, and I step backward.
“I knew it,” he gritted out. “I knew you were always going to cheat on me like this. I knew better than to trust someone like you.”
I suddenly feel like I’m drowning. Where is this coming from? Sure, Nico kissed me, but I put a stop to it and left. I did the right thing, whether Giancarlo knows it or not. He has no reason to say any of this.
Or does he? Does the fact that I’m still in love with someone else show all over my face?
“You never loved me from the beginning,” Giancarlo continues, spitting the words out like poison. “Admit it. Admit that you were only using me. Using me like the puta you are.”
“Using you for what?” I pipe up, finally finding my voice. “This shitty apartment? The crappy takeout food we eat?” I can practically feel my roommates sitting on my shoulders, cheering me on. That’s it, Lay. Don’t let Snape get away with that shit. “What exactly am I using you for?”
Giancarlo’s face darkens further. “I suppose that’s better than the two rooms you share with four girls? You always want me to fuck you in the middle of the room, like we’re animals. You’re a spoiled brat who doesn’t appreciate the privacy here, no? The privacy I pay for!”
“I think you mean the privacy your daddy pays for, don’t you?” I cut back. “And it’s not like this is a palace or anything. You live in a shitty one-bedroom in the worst building in the neighborhood.”
A hand, fast as lightning, snakes out immediately and grabs my wrist. Giancarlo jerks me close, but even when I stumble next to him, my wrist stays steady, held fast near his chest while my body weight tugs on it. His hand is immovable––I’m caught.
“Did you sleep with him?”
“Who?”
“Whoever the fuck you were with?” Giancarlo looks closer. “I’m not stupid. I know you were with someone.”
“No,” I say as evenly as I can, even though my heart is thumping wildly. “I didn’t sleep with anyone.”
“Did you kiss him?”
Giancarlo’s eyes drop to my lips, like he’s studying them for imprints of Nico’s mouth. As searing as the kiss was, I half wonder if he can see remnants. And it’s then I know that my guilt is surely written through my thoughts and on my face. It spreads, just like the realization spreads over Giancarlo.
“H-he kissed me,” I whisper. “I stopped him. And ran off. Straight here. I––I didn’t want to. He just did it, and I left. I’m so––”
“Ahhh!”
Giancarlo shoves me away from him, finally releasing the iron grip on my wrist and causing me to fall back several steps from the force while he paces the living room like a caged animal. I rub my wrist––it’s red from his grip––and cower slightly into the corner. I’ve never seen him like this, not even when I angered him in the kitchen. Not even the other week when he couldn’t keep an erection and blamed me for it. My heart falls. Nothing I say here will make it better; nothing is going to alleviate my guilt. Because I did kiss another man, and in doing that, I hurt this one badly.
Then someone else’s face flashes through my mind, someone I haven’t thought about or spoken to more than a few times in the last several months. Someone too busy wallowing in her own misery to care about her daughter’s life.
My mother. I remember her all those years, dealing with my father’s late nights at the office. Realizing that in Brazil, where more than one of my uncles have not-so-secret extra-marital affairs, her husband is probably already involved with another woman if he wasn’t before. I wonder if he was unfaithful all those years where they clearly didn’t love each other. I wonder if she knew I was going to be like him.
The realization guts me, and I start to cry.
“Giancarlo,” I creak, unable to wait for him to speak. I’m full of remorse and self-hatred, and it pours from me like a river. “Giancarlo, please. It was an accident. I didn’t think anything would happen, but I should never have gone. I should have just stayed at home and waited for you, I know that now. Please, please forgive me. He’s no––”
I’m about to saying “nothing,” but that’s not true either. My heart squeezes as I admit to myself that Nico will always be someone to me. And that all I can do is try my best to be present with the person I’m with instead of the person who never wanted me like I wanted him anyway.
Giancarlo has stopped pacing, and is now standing in the doorway of the kitchen, arms folded across his chest. He’s breathing normally now, like somehow my outpouring of emotion tempers his. Maybe, I think, he just needed to see I cared.
Slowly, he approaches me and raises his hand. I flinch, and he arches a thick eyebrow in response.
“You are afraid of me?” he asks in a low purr.
My jaw trembles, and I swipe at the tears falling down my cheeks. “N-no.”
Again, the eyebrow rises. “Maybe you should be.” He glances at my reddened wrist. “Now you’ll learn.”
The words land between us, and I’m not sure if they are a threat or a warning. I freeze, feeling again like prey, except this time the predator is someone I know intimately, not strangers in a car. Giancarlo maintains his penetrating stare, and it feels like some sort of test. But in the end, his shoulders relax.
“You are sorry?” he asks.
Miserably, I nod.
“You want to...how do you say...make it up for me?”
A bit less certain, I nod again.
His gaze flickers over me, like he’s measuring me up. He huffs. “Okay. Tomorrow.”
I blink. “What?”
“Tomorrow,” he repeats more firmly. “I have some money that needs to be taken to a store in the Bronx, but I can’t go because of work. It’s a payment for something my boss bought for the club.”
I frown. “What did your boss buy––”
“What does it matter?” he spits out curtly. “Televisions. For the walls. It’s none of your business, only a way for you to show me I can trust you. Can I trust you, amor?”
I look up. There’s that word. Love. For all his anger, Giancarlo uses it so freely. From the beginning, he’s been dedicated to whatever we are, jumping ahead and waiting patiently for me to join him. Maybe his anger is related to the fact that I’ve been holding back. That in my heart, maybe I’ve been waiting for someone else.
“Okay,” I relent. “Sure. I can take it.”
He relaxes visibly, then takes my hand and pulls me into him, turns me around so my back is to his front and he can press his face into my neck.
“Oh, my love,” he whispers, before he launches into Spanish colloquialisms I can’t quite understand. “You make me crazy, do you know that?”
I soften into him, desperate for the touch. My eyes close, and I sink into the feel of a body sheltering mine.
His hand slides up my back and into the hair at the base of my neck. But just as I relax a little more, he grabs my hair and winds it around his wrist, pulling it taut so my neck is cranked back, exposed to him.
“Go,” he says before he draws his teeth across my bared skin. He yanks at my hair, jerking my neck up, and points me down the hall. “Into the bedroom. Take off your clothes. We will finish this in there.”
In the end, I follow his orders. I walk into the bedroom, remove my clothes, and curl up on his faded, peach-colored sheets, feeling as naked inside as I am out. My skin pebbles in a room that’s never quite warm enough, and I wait for what seems like forever until Giancarlo finally follows me in. Outside the windows, a siren sounds.
Giancarlo looks me over and nods with approval, then strips off his own clothes. I can’t help it––I compare him to Nico. His body isn’t as cut; Giancarlo is long and lean, but he’s no athlete. His pale torso is softer, lacking the definition and raw strength of Nico’s even though he’s several inches taller. He removes his glasses and sets them next to the bed, then kneels in front of me on the mattress and takes a handful of my hair, pulling my head back. Pain prickles through my scalp.
“You want me to kiss you?” he asks in a voice that’s low, still laced with threat.
I gulp. Then I nod, although I’m not so sure. But I need something to replace the imprint of lips still throbbing on mine.
Giancarlo inspects me, his dark gaze traveling over my body. “Maybe later,” he says. “If you’re good.” He continues his examination. It strikes me how little we’ve really been like this together. Most of the times we’ve had sex have been in the dark, shrouded by alcohol and other ways of blurring the moment.
“You’re beautiful,” he says, like he’s surprised.
I look down my body. I haven’t been exercising as much as I usually do, since the time away usually earns Giancarlo’s ire, but I think I look okay. “Thanks.”
He reaches between my legs, slipping his fingers inside suddenly. I arch against the intrusion, ignoring the way I want them to feel like someone else’s. I ignore how clinical it feels, how his fingers actually pinch a little inside me, having not taken any time at all to ready me. My body squeezes in response, and not in a good way. It curls inward, trying to protect itself.
“Does that feel good?” Giancarlo asks as he presses a thumb on my clit. He watches the movement distantly, like he’s observing a lab rat or something, though his cock stands upright, pointing directly at me. “Do you like that?”
I nod, closing my eyes against the feeling. I frown, ignoring the way the tip of his cock brushes against my leg. His fingers are pressing too hard, pushing too far.
“Hold on,” I say, reaching down to take his hand.
I pull it back a little bit, urging a lighter touch, and Giancarlo stops completely.
I open my eyes and look down. “What?”
“Nothing.” He looks away. His erection softens, and I already see the anger building on his face.
“I need to go,” he says suddenly, standing up. “You are not in the right mind for this tonight. Maybe I need to give you time to get your head right.”
For some reason, the words stir something deep inside me. A jab to my heart. I couldn’t tell you why. I couldn’t have even explained it to myself. But the only thing going through my head was not again. I spring forward and grab his hand before he’s off the bed completely.
Giancarlo turns around. “What?”
“Don’t go,” I say. “I’m sorry. It was my fault. Sometimes I act before I think. I didn’t mean to make you feel bad.”
His eyebrow quirks. “I don’t like that.”
Don’t like what? Being challenged? Being corrected? But I don’t say any of it––just swallow my words and nod. “I understand. Please. Let’s start over. Let’s make up.”
He sits back on the bed and beckons for me to sit on top of him. When I pause, he frowns. Immediately, I scurry forward and obey when he moves my legs so that I straddle him. But when I lean forward to kiss him, a hand closes around my neck.
“I didn’t say you could do that,” he says. “Not yet. You don’t deserve it yet.”
I wilt, and the guilt still lodged in my stomach blooms.
“Are you going to listen to me?” he says as his hand slides up my throat and takes hold of my chin so I can’t look away.
I blink slowly. Then I nod. “Oh-okay.”
His eyes are actually brown, but right now they look black. They always look black, deep and foreboding.
“Good,” he says. “Now, take me in your hand. Get me hard.”
When I don’t move, his eyes flash dangerously. The hand at my chin slides down my neck, and his long finger wrap around it and squeeze slightly.
“Giancarlo,” I say, my voice cut off a little from the pressure. “I can’t––I can’t breathe.”
“Do what I say,” he prods.
My heart pounding in my chest, I reach between us. Giancarlo intercepts my hand and squeezes some lubricant on it, then nods for me to continue. I rub my fingers together, then take his soft penis in my hand. It’s squishy, like holding an overripe banana. Giancarlo’s hand around my neck loosens its grasp, and I can breathe normally again. His fingers drift over my skin. In the mirror over the bed, I can see the slight red marks left there, quickly fading away.
In my hand, he turns harder.
“This is what a woman does for her man.” He looks down, entranced by the movement of my fingers. “I want you to come,” he orders as he places his thumb on my clit and starts to rub it meditatively while keeping his other hand around my neck. It’s an odd position, sort of being held like a puppet in reverse.
We continue touching each other, his eyes boring into me, expectant and fierce. I already know there’s no way I’m going to orgasm like this.
Giancarlo swears in Spanish, a phrase I don’t recognize. He’s fully hard now, watching. His thumb on me presses harder, just a little too hard to feel good as his finger slides inside me again.
“Are you close?” he asks as the fingers around my throat tighten just a little, though not enough to cut off my breathing. I shake my head, but the hand remains.
“Are you close?” he asks again, this time with more of an edge.
I’m scared to say no. I’m scared to tell him the truth, tell him that I’m miles away from where he wants me to be. But I’ve hurt him enough tonight already, and it seems like this means a lot to him, this control. He’s looking for something I can’t produce, and what he’s doing with his hand isn’t going to get me there. I can’t just come on demand.
But I can fake it.
“Yeah,” I whisper, purposefully breathy, sounding almost as though he’s squeezing my windpipe all over again, even though he’s not.
Giancarlo sighs, his chest shuddering as he grows even harder.
“Do it,” he says. “I want you to come. Right now.”
Um, what? What the fuck kind of fool thinks that women can just come on command? I know it happens in shitty romance novels, but this is real life.
I know it’s a bad precedent to set. I know if I do this, he’ll expect that his commands will undo me every time, when just like anyone, I need so much more than that.
But all I want is for him to stop looking at me like I’m a terrible person. Or maybe I just want to stop feeling like a terrible person. I want him to look at me like I’m precious and important. And Giancarlo, despite his flaws, has always needed me. He’s always done that.
“Oh, GOD,” I shout, manufacturing desire with the best imitation I can. It’s hard. When I come, I’m not usually conscious of what I actually sound like. I’m just...in the moment.
But instead, I will my body to shake––not actually that difficult with all the emotions coursing through me. I toss my head back and moan toward the ceiling, ride his hand as if it’s undoing me for real.
“I’m coming!” I shout again and again. “Oh, God! I’m COMING!”
And then, slowly, I let myself come down from the manufactured high and fall forward onto his shoulder. Honestly, forcing myself to mimic the relaxation of post-coital haze is harder than pretending an orgasm. Especially when I’m still so tense. So worried. So needy.
But Giancarlo doesn’t seem to notice. Instead, he pushes me back upright, then fixed his hand back around my throat and urges my hand to keep working his cock.
“Slap me,” he orders.
My hand stills. “What?”
“Hit me. I want you to.” Giancarlo sticks out his chin, like he’s daring me to punch him, then turns his face to the side. “Do it. Now. And don’t stop with your other hand.”
Slowly, I keep rubbing his cock, which is now basically stone. Is he serious? He really wants me to hit him? I can’t imagine doing that to anyone I care about, ever.
“Layla.” Giancarlo growls. His eyes bore into me, two black rubies that glint under the fluorescent lighting “Now. Hard.”
So I do. Slowly, I draw back my free hand, watching as anticipation grows on Giancarlo’s angular features. He nods slightly, and like a spring being let loose, I whip it forward and land it straight across the side of his face.
“Fuck!” he shouts. In my hand, his cock spasms, jetting a sudden, sticky release on his stomach and my thighs. The hand around my neck flops down, then he grabs my hand and continues sliding our fists together up and down his cock until he’s finished completely.
“Fuck,” he murmurs, looking down. “Look at this mess.” His gaze returns to me, dazed, but still hardened. “Clean it up.”
Again, I look up, unsure if he’s serious. Jesus, he’s not asking me to lick it up or anything like that, is he?
“What are you waiting for? Take care of your man. Go to the bathroom and get me a towel.”
Without saying anything, I slide off him, then tiptoe out of the bedroom. When I return, dampened washcloth in hand, Giancarlo has already mopped off the mess with his t-shirt, and is waiting expectantly for me, rubbing himself and already partially hard again.
“What-why did you have me get this?” I ask, holding up the towel.
“For later,” he says. “Put it on the nightstand and come here.”
I follow his orders, and when I reach his side, he puts an arm around my back. He looks at me, up and down, the blackness in his eyes softened slightly from before.
And it’s then, finally, that he kisses me. His lips are soft, though not as soft as the ones that kissed me before. His tongue is firm, though it doesn’t quite move in that way that makes me melt. But his hands stroke up and down my back gently, with a softness I’ve been craving.
My body softens toward him.
“I need you,” he says, over and over again. “Don’t you need me too?”
And in that moment, those three words are the only things I want to hear.
“Good,” he says as he grazes his teeth up my neck. “Now turn over.”
And I do. Feeling like a shadow of myself, I let Giancarlo take out what he needs on my body, alternately soft and harsh as his mood evolves. At one point, he turns me over, claps his hands on top of mine and barely lets me move against his mattress. Shouts his dominance while he takes me from behind, while I bury my silence into the pillow, waiting for it to be over. It isn’t an act of pleasure; it’s an act of penance. Like a priest, Giancarlo has determined my punishment. And now I have to take it.
~