Chapter 9
The way she moves
Sebastian
Joe called me later that evening and sounded devastated that I was gone. I had been away only twenty-four hours.
“Everyone is asking ‘where is the Killer?’ I have been taking crap from everyone. We lost so much money,” he grunted, but I was hardly paying any attention.
I paced the corridor then looked outside the windows and signalled one of the guards to take a walk around the house again. Just to be safe.
I was a little nervous after Alejandro’s phone call. After almost kissing Andrea.
My guard, I had let my guard down for a moment. I needed to keep it together, for now at least until the situation was under control.
“Deal with it, it’s just a few days,” I kept telling him, not the least bit concerned.
The club where I usually had my fights scheduled, had become popular thanks to me. I was the showman, they knew they needed me. They could wait.
It was when I heard Eddy’s door open that Joe lost me completely.
The little boy clung at his mother’s neck, kissing her hair. I watched Andrea kiss his forehead and felt my chest tighten. No sign of the iron shield Andrea usually put up against the world, she was so sweet with him.
And I could tell it was easy with Eddy- he adored his mother.
I had never looked at my mother like that and she had never held me against her chest, not that I remember.
“Do you have to go?” I heard Eddy complain, hiding in her hair.
“You know mommy has to,” she said softly and kissed his neck.
The room filled with Eddy’s giggling.
“Where are you going?” I asked, locking eyes with Andrea as she walked down the stairs holding Eddy in her arms, followed by the nanny.
“I am going to work” she said, her scratchy voice flat.
Lap dancing, I thought and took in Andrea’s sweet scent.
She looked so different that evening. Her blue eyes had smoky black eyeshadow all around them and her thin lips were scarlet red.
I eyed her, as she crossed the room avoiding my stare, in black tight leggings and white shirt. She turned her back at me while slipping on her coat and spoke again.
“Be a good boy with nanny Rose, okay? And go to bed,” Andrea bent down to kiss Eddy once again and patted his hair.
It was only when Eddy had gone back to his room, that she addressed me.
“I’ll take two guards with me and the car. I’ll be back in five hours,” Andrea said after glancing at her watch.
“I am coming with you,” I said, walking towards her but Andrea held a hand in front of her.
“No. You stay here with Eddy. Look out for him.”
“Nothing is going to happen here. We have enough soldiers outside and the house is under constant surveillance…”
“I’ll be fine,” she insisted. “I’ll have the guards walk me to the club and wait for me at the door. Nothing will happen to me inside. I have security there.”
The two soldiers walked in then and I watched her swallow hard, feeling the pressure of my dark eyes on her.
I wanted to go with her, I wanted to walk her in, make sure nobody touched her, make sure nobody tried to hurt her but Andrea wasn’t going to let me leave Eddy.
“Make sure he stays safe,” she whispered and I couldn’t do anything else but nod.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Andrea.
I couldn’t sleep. I had tried for an hour already, nothing.
I got up and went to check on Eddy.
He was fast asleep, curled up beside his nanny who had dozed off too- her glasses hanging from the tip of her nose.
Midnight, I checked the clock and noticed Andrea had been gone almost three hours.
Two more hours to go. I couldn’t sit still, my legs wouldn’t listen, my head was screaming at me. I had to go out.
Looking outside the front window, I noticed it was pouring with rain. The guards were sitting outside in the car but I signalled them to walk in.
“Stay here,” I pointed to the living room. “While I check around the house,” and I ventured out with my hood on, making sure it was safe.
Everything looked normal.
“I am going out for a few hours. You stay here. Keep an eye on the kid and the nanny. Keep your guns at hand and call me even if you hear a little mouse squeak. Immediately,” my deep voice sounded in the room.
“Yes, sir,” the two men nodded, their faces serious and hard.
Good.
Without saying another word, I took my black jacket and headed to the car.
It was so strange to drive through the streets of Rome and not see a single prostitute or transvestite, showing their ‘goods’ at cars that went by.
The Hillside was quiet, no traffic, just a few people out walking their dogs in the rain.
The strip club where Andrea worked was only a few minutes from her house and, strangely enough, it was still in the neighbourhood, just at the far end where another area of the city began.
It was at the opposite side of daycares and schools, but it was still in the Hillside.
And it was nothing like the ones I had seen before. Nothing like the strip clubs I was used to.
It was classy, clean, very modern and the people there were all in suits, their pockets loaded with money.
I saw Andrea’s guards at the entrance and told them to head back home, to stay outside the house until I got back. They didn’t question my decision, Alejandro had told them well, told them to follow my orders.
As I walked through the door, I took in the smell of vanilla and the sight of the women dancing on stage. They were perfect, their bodies the finest meat you could find in town. Nothing like the women in the Market. They too were very fit, but they had ‘skank’ written all over their faces.
These women were something else, they were elegant, delicate, refined.
Three stages, three emergency exits, approximately fifty tables, my eyes scanned the place quickly.
“May I take your jacket, sir?” a brunette in black shorts and lace bra smiled at me and gently touched my shoulders.
“Okay,” I nodded and she slid it off slowly, brushing her fingers on my neck. She walked away from me with the slightest of smiles on her lips.
They had been taught well. I suppose many rich, lonely men would have fallen for it immediately.
But I was there to see one woman and one woman only.
The music wasn’t too loud, I saw men talking amongst themselves, their backs casually leaning on the couches around the stages, sipping drinks and laughing, relaxing and enjoying the women bending forward, half naked, showing their bodies.
The men were all distinguished and horny, like any other poor fucker in other places. It was the sort of club where well off, educated and morally correct men hung out- their hiding place for the night, where they could cut the bullshit and be what they really were. Sinners, men with fantasies and flaws. Just like any other sleaze bag on the street.
As I took a seat at an empty table booth, I stared at the men in suits, how their cheeks were flushed from all the drinking and excitement, how they waved their money at the waitresses and how the ladies took turns in sitting on their laps, shaking their asses on their crotches.
Here they are- I thought- Husband's, family men, managers and business men. Perfect, successful men during the day. Not so perfect men at night.
I tried to scan the room, even if it was a little dark, hoping to see Andrea. Maybe she wasn’t on stage in that moment, I couldn’t see any blonde women up.
There were a couple of brunettes, a couple of women with pink and blue hair. No sign of Andrea anywhere.
It was only when one of them twirled around a pole that I caught sight of a tattoo, a rose on her back.
Andrea, my eyes stayed on the woman, following her every move, as her legs delicately wrapped around the pole. She let go with one hand and flipped back, almost touching the ground, her body hanging from the pole.
In the dark, I watched her dance a few minutes without doing a thing, without trying to attract her attention, almost forgetting how to breathe.
Her body was so thin and sinuous, so delicate I wondered how she could be so tough and strong, so determined and tenacious. She wasn’t fragile, she always gave the impression of being tough. Or maybe she was just wearing a mask, like me, like anyone walking on this bloody battlefield we call life.
I am prisoner – that was what she had told me earlier, talking about her family and what Alejandro had threatened to do, if she tried to escape from her prison.
But when I looked at her, she seemed so in control of herself, of her emotions Andrea never gave me the impression she was falling apart.
How thick is that layer, Andrea? How much resistance, until I find you? The real you? I thought.
It was as though Andrea’s skin had hardened with time, with suffering, but when she danced all I could see was what was left of her candour and innocence.
She was a vision.
I can see you. You are there, you are still there Andrea. Nothing is lost.
When the music started to fade, she bent backwards, resting her back on the stage, her arms on the floor, her breast in full sight. She had lost the top in the end.
“What would you like to drink, sir?” a waitress approached me.
“Rum,” I was quick to answer. I wanted her to leave, to leave me alone as I felt anger burn my guts.
I hated to see Andrea so exposed.
The men clapped, as the music faded away and it was then that I saw Andrea sit up, her eyes digging into mine.
She had seen me. Now that the lights were a little brighter, she had spotted me- her eyes wide.
I shook my head, making sure she understood that nothing was wrong with Eddy, nothing had happened and that wasn’t the reason why I was there.
I was there for her. Because I couldn’t let her walk around on her own, not until the situation had been sorted.
I knew exactly how the story went.
What happened in these situations.
I had witnessed it so many times before. I knew what happened to women involved with gangsters, when they are threatened by other criminals.
Torture, rape, humiliation. They are used to force a reaction from the gangster they are looking for. Not killed. Andrea had been right about that, death wasn’t the worst thing that could have happened to her.
Taking lives was the ultimate resource. Nobody liked the police on their backs. First physical torture. Physical torture of the woman behind the man.
Maybe I was imagining it, but I thought I saw her cover her breast with one hand then – or maybe she always did that at the end of every show. I wasn’t sure.
On her black, stiletto heels, she busied herself around the stage to collect the money- some men asked to slip them in her panties, their big sweaty fingers lingering around the elastic string.
My hands curled into fists. I had to fight the urge to slam their heads on the table.
Andrea was very quick to walk off the stage and after a good half an hour, she reappeared.
She was herself again- no heavy makeup, no wig, her clothes back on- when she took a seat across from me at the table booth.
“What are you doing here? Why did you leave Eddy?” she asked a little flushed.
“Eddy is fine. He has four guards with him and the nanny. The house is safe. I wanted to make sure you were, too,” I told her never breaking eye contact.
For a moment, I saw her eyes lingering at my untouched glass of rum.
I didn’t drink it, I would have normally but I wasn’t there to drink or to watch a show. I was there for her and the last thing I needed was alcohol. I wanted my mind straight, awake and aware in case something happened.
“I have two guards here. I am safe. Why are you here?” she went on, shaking her head a little, her blue eyes staring at me like it killed her to be in front of me, like it was pure torture to be in my presence, to be seen like that, naked and hopeless.
It is pure torture, I thought.
“I wanted to see what you were like,” I mumbled under my breath.
“What do you mean?”
“On stage. The way you moved, so elegant, so sinuous. I have never forgotten how beautiful you looked,” I said to her.
“Don’t do this,” Andrea looked down at my hands on the table. “Stop looking at me, stop telling me I am beautiful. Stop it now.”
“Why? Why do you want me to stop, Andrea?”
“What good could it do?” she shook her head, giving me a worried glance, like she was mourning what had been and what never would be again. “You are here to protect me, us. You work for Alejandro…”
“You never smile,” I spoke my mind and Andrea looked up to me again.
“Look around you, Sebastian. What is there to smile about?” she asked and when she said my name, I felt my stomach twist in a knot.
Her eastern European accent, her scratchy sexy voice murmuring my name, made me restless. I wanted her so badly.
“I never smile because there is nothing to smile about,” Andrea went on and I shook my head.
“Doesn’t this make you happy, Andrea? This here? Don’t you like the eyes of all these men looking at you, getting hard for you? Don’t you like to go in the private room with them?” I said the words slowly, no anger, no resentment.
I just wanted to push all her buttons, all at once and see her react, see her emotions once and for all. If it was anger or sadness she had in her, I wanted it all out.
What was this life, she was living? How long could she go on like this? How long before she would break?
Open her eyes, I wanted to open her eyes.
“Fuck you. I want to go home,” she glared at me, her eyes watery, and she moved as if to stand but I took her hand and she stayed on the couch.
“You don’t need this. Here, take it,” I took out a rolled-up bunch of cash from my pocket and put it in her hand.
Andrea blinked at me for a few instants, then she shook her head.
“And who will take care of me? Who is going to save me? Who, Sebastian? You?” she shook her head again, never smiling. “I don’t want a man taking care of me. I let that happen once, look where it got me. I need no man, this is what I do. I do it for me and for Eddy. I take care of Eddy. I want no money from you or Alejandro. I am on my own. Do your job, take me home and keep Eddy safe. That’s all I need from you.”
“You don’t need to do this,” I went on but Andrea was standing up now, her face hard.
“Yes, I do Killer. Now take me home to my son,” and she started for the door.
We grabbed our coats in silence and got to the car, without saying another word.
After checking it was safe, I let her in and we drove home never looking at each other.
I knew she was thinking about my words. I knew I had dug a hole straight into her chest, but I wanted her to see, see she was going nowhere.
This life was taking her nowhere.
If I was merely surviving in the gutter, fighting in the Market, Andrea was living in a dream world that was fake and temporary.
What was she going to do, when Eddy was going to be old enough to understand what she was doing out at night? What if the word got out at school? What was the point of escaping a life of lies with Alejandro and jump straight into another one? The life she had chosen was not a way out, it was just another trap.
“I am sorry if my words offended you,” I said, following her into the kitchen, once I had spoken to the guards and they had gone back to their patrolling, outside.
We were alone in the house again, the nanny was going home and Eddy was fast asleep.
Andrea stopped putting the dishes in the sink and closed the water. She turned, arms crossed over her chest, holding her small shoulders tight.
“You didn’t,” she lied through her teeth and walked over to the cupboard, taking Eddy’s cereal mug and a few other things to set on the table for breakfast.
“You just needed to hear it,” I added and Andrea squinted.
“Unbelievable. I don’t need to hear anything, Sebastian. I don’t need anything. I am not a child. I am a woman and I know what’s right and what’s wrong. You are not in the position to lecture anyone on what it’s right or wrong, Killer. You are doing this to get paid. Don’t forget that,” she pointed a finger at me and was about to storm out of the room but I took her arm and stopped her against the wall.
Standing there in front of each other, our bodies so close, I could see her breathing had changed. Her lips were half parted and trembling, her blue eyes tired and broken.
Who was the last man that had touched her the way I was touching her now? My hand travelled up her arm, behind her neck and then down her shoulder again.
Knowing Alejandro, he hadn’t let anyone near her. If anyone had even dared to look at her for a little longer than intended, he would have ordered the man to be taken care of.
“You shouldn’t have to live like this. A woman like you shouldn’t have to do that for a living,” my jaw tensed, as I rubbed my finger against her collarbone.
“A woman like me? Nothing special about me. I was told I was special and look where that led me,” Andrea pursed her lips and closed her eyes for a moment, swallowing down the lump in her throat. “I have to do this, to survive. Just like you have to fight to survive, remember what you told me in the club many years ago?”
“I didn’t like those men looking at you that way, like you were a toy to satisfy their needs. The idea,” I breathed out frustrated “that you have to step into a private room with one of those men to make a living, drives me crazy,” my hand reached for her cheek and just touching her soft, smooth skin again, made my chest heavy.
Andrea shook her head a little, our faces so close now our noses brushed against one another.
“I don’t go into the private room,” she murmured and her warm, honey sweet breath lured me closer.
“You are out of place there.”
“I am out of place everywhere. This is not my place, not my life. Not the life I wanted to live. But I am here. I am stuck,” Andrea almost whispered the words, her voice broke in the end “I can’t leave, I can’t go home. I can’t change. I made some bad decisions in my life and this is the result. I’d rather strip, every fucking day, than go back to Alejandro. Why, why do you even care?”
“How could I not, Andrea?” I said, searching her face, like the answer was there, right there in front of me. Her.
When you see someone so beautiful and so broken, as if the life had been ripped out of her, how could you not care?
Years, I hadn’t seen her in years and yet Andrea was exactly where she’d been the last time I had seen her. Under my skin.
Looking at her, so close to me, pinned to that wall, all I could think of was I had to have her, I had to have her back.
“When you kneeled and that man slid money in your panties,” I began to say and noticed Andrea suck in a breath “all I could think of was ‘if someone grabs her, I’ll kill that motherfucker’ and not because I thought you were mine. No, Andrea. Because the idea of seeing you violated and hurt, turns me into the Killer. I would kill for you.”
Andrea went quiet as my words settled in.
With her eyes closed, she stood on her toes and her mouth came searching for mine, with a certain hunger, with the need to hold on to those words, to hold on to me a moment longer. My hands were in her hair in a second, as I pulled her closer, my body clashing into hers.
Those lips, that mouth, how many times had I dreamed of her?
Three years had gone by but I remembered what it felt like to kiss her.
Hot, mindblowing, intense. No woman had tasted like Andrea. I had craved her body, cursed her name for disappearing into the night.
“Why did you disappear, why did you walk away from me like that?” I groaned against her lips, while I felt her grip behind my back.
“I couldn’t risk coming back to look for you. I had no choice,” she moaned and I kissed her again, my tongue snaking into her mouth.
I leaned forward, one hand against the wall, inches away from her silky blonde hair. My dark brown eyes lost in the thousand, blue shades of her eyes.
“I was already married to Alejandro when I met you. I had just found out what he had gotten himself into, how deep his hands were in the business,” Andrea’s hands moved up my torso and lingered on my hard chest.
I kept my eyes on her as she went on “If he’d found out about us, he would have killed you. He would have killed us both. And I couldn’t risk that,” Andrea shook her head and held back from saying more.
“I would have never allowed him to touch you again,” my fingers ran down her neck, lingering between her breasts and I enjoyed seeing her suck in a breath.
Andrea closed her eyes, biting her lower lip, stifling a moan as my hand travelled down to her thighs. She arched her back and I bent down to bite her lip.
It tasted like fruit- juicy, mouth-watering richness. My insides clenched, my entire body throbbed.
We took off our shirts in a haste, the floor pathed with things we didn’t need. Clothes, things that kept our skins apart.
Her warmth, her scent- I felt lightheaded, her body pulsed with life, her hands were down to my pants.
“Yes,” she moaned.
My hand slid between her legs and Andrea shuddered, as I explored her, every little inch of her.
“Look at me,” I whispered and she opened her eyes, a soft smile on her lips.
I could tell, the way her face changed expression, she was going to say something, but Eddy’s voice made us both jump.
“Mommy?” he called from up the stairs.
“I am here, baby,” Andrea said, covering her lips with one hand.
Gently, she pushed past me, bending down to collect her shirt and brushed her hair back, eyeing me for a moment, as she made her way up the stairs.
“I am right here,” I heard her say. “Why aren’t you sleeping?”
“I want you next to me, mommy,” Eddy’s sweet voice echoed in the stairwell.
I straightened my shirt, my erection slowly fading, but my hunger for her hammered in my chest.
I peeked into the corridor and caught sight of the bedroom door closing, just as Andrea took one last look at me.
Her eyes seemed sad again, like breaking away from me, walking away from my warm body, had brought her back to the cold reality of things.
Reality was cruel, it was harsh and you needed to be of the same material to survive. But I had seen Andrea’s true nature, I had seen it in her stare a moment before, when my hands had touched her, when our bodies had been so close.
I willed her to walk inside my room that night, to put me out of my misery, my desire for her so strong, I tossed and turned restlessly. But she never came. She was back in her shell, back where nothing could hurt her, at a safe distance from me.