by Tara Brown
“Pull it out, stroke it,” he murmured into the bedding.
I gulped and used my mom voice, “I’m in charge. I'll pull it out when I'm ready. You've been a bad boy.” I ripped his pants down and spanked his flabby, hairy ass cheeks. He moaned into the bed. I spanked again, harder. He moaned into the bed and then began to twitch. He jerked as though he was having a heart attack. I stepped back and put my hands to my mouth. I cried out for help. “Help me.”
I darted my head about, pretending to see if anyone was there to help me, hoping it was playing out on the camera as well. I turned and ran for the door, screaming, “HELP ME!”
A man was walking down the hallway. He peered up at me.
“Help, please!” I shouted and turned, running back into the room. The man followed. When we were inside, the fat man was dead on the floor, his pants down and his hands bound behind his back.
The man untied the fat man’s wrists and pushed him onto his back.
“Call 911,” he said frantically.
I was having a proper panic attack. I grabbed the phone next to the bed and pressed 911. The phone made a noise and a person answered. “Front desk?”
“I need 911. My—uhm—boyfriend. He's had an attack. We were playing around and he got sick. Hurry. Please hurry.” I covered my eyes and hung up the phone.
I grabbed the fat man's hand and sobbed fake cries. I didn’t have any tears. I should’ve had some, but apparently, I couldn’t cry while being the person they needed me to be.
My panic attack was authentic by the time the ambulance arrived. I was hugging myself and pacing.
The man from the hallway, who had come to help, wrapped an arm around me as they attached the fat man to the stretcher.
“Had you been dating long?” he asked.
“We just started.”
“You wanna come back to my room and I'll get you a drink?”
I smiled up at him, not that it mattered. His eyes were focused on my chest. “No, thanks. I just want to go home.”
The man in a dress shirt and slacks eyed me up. “It's a heart attack they figure so you're free to go.”
“Okay.” Releasing my arms from around myself, I slowly picked up my purse and the glass I’d drunk from and poured one more shot of scotch and swallowed it back. Acting nonchalant, I carried it from the room.
The dark-red “Wanda” with a heart on the mirror sickened me as I made my way to the elevator.
I didn’t know Servario’s room number, but I sort of assumed it would be the Presidential Suite. I also sort of assumed he’d expect me to find him.
I stepped in past the bellhop. I hadn’t recalled there being one before.
“Presidential Suite, please,” I muttered, sounding trauma-stricken.
He tapped the cell phone on his belt like it was to the beat of a cheesy Celine Dion song. I smiled over at him and saw it was Luce. She honestly looked like a guy in a bellhop's uniform.
I read the sideways message across the screen of the phone, a smirk crossing my lips. I hugged myself tighter as her head bobbed to the music. She dropped her hat on the floor. I bent to pick it up, palming the tiny packet of powder she had dropped. She smiled when I passed the hat to her.
When it dinged, I stepped off the elevator, ignoring her completely, and went straight to the door. I knocked, holding my wristlet and the packet in the same hand.
Servario answered and smiled bitterly, “That was a show and a half.” He stepped back to let me in. “I should’ve guessed you’d find a way to ensure it was a legit kill.”
“I don’t know what you mean. It was horrible, watching him have a massive heart attack like that.” I entered the room, opening my small purse and giving the lipstick back to him while slipping the packet in.
“This is yours,” I said softly.
His eyes were burning. “You disappointed me in so many ways.”
“What?” Fear crept up inside me as I noticed his twitching hands. I had learned to take a hit in training, but I really didn’t want to.
He grabbed me and ran his hand up into my hair. He pulled back slightly, tilting my head and exposing my throat. “You let him touch you,” he mouthed into my cheek and tugged hard on my hair. I sucked a breath in, trying not to wince.
He smiled pleasantly. “I told you, this is mine.” He reached down and brushed his fingers along the center of my underwear.
I shook my head slightly. “He didn’t touch that.”
His eyes flashed. “You let him have an experience with you that I have not.”
"Well if it makes you feel better, no one has." I tried to sound indifferent but my ass started to hurt, just imagining the things he was about to do to it. I needed the powdered belladonna packet in my purse. I needed him to pass out. He towered over me, almost putting me on my tiptoes in the six-inch heels. My fingers dug into his thick chest.
“I really want a shower,” I said softly. It was true. I did.
He gave me a once-over. “You have another job to do in a couple of days.” Relief crept through me, but I stayed perfectly still so as not to be obvious. He released me and scowled. “Go wash his hands off you.” He turned away.
“Okay.” I staggered, sensing the breakdown coming on as I walked into the bathroom, slipping the belladonna from my purse. When I got into the massive bathroom, I leaned against the counter, slipping the teensy packet under the tissue box. I took one of the tissues and pretended to blow my nose as I pulled off my heels. I flung my purse in the opposite direction of the belladonna and set to hauling off my clothes. My back and feet weren’t killing me as I assumed they would be.
When I stepped down, my feet spread back out. They hadn’t hurt when I wore the heels, but being barefoot was nice.
I struggled with the zipper on the halter and the clasps of the bra. My fingers were weak.
I had killed a man.
My first kill. He was dead and I was alive. I had killed him to survive. I was no better than Servario, or Coop, or even my father.
Devastated, I dropped my clothes to the floor and stepped into the ridiculous shower. The whole room was ostentatious but the shower was akin to something from Extreme Home Makeover.
Six showerheads lined the wall with double-rain showerheads above and steam jets. I turned it all on, as hot as I could take, so it might wash off some of the bad things I let them put on, and in me. I squeezed disturbing amounts of body wash into my hand and began to scrub. I used my nails, raking them over every inch of my skin. I washed a second time before starting on my hair. I scrubbed until there was nothing left but false lashes floating on the bottom toward the drains.
Under the hot water and hiding in the steam, I let it out. The tears mixed with the rain from above and my back slid down the tiled wall.
I slumped and rocked and let it hurt for the minute I could give.
The problem with only having a minute to succumb to the greatest pain you've ever been in, is it hits like a truck.
I was curled into a ball and rocking back and forth when he stepped in with me. He lifted me into the air and cradled me against him.
“Not so tough now, are you?” he asked.
“I never said I was tough”—I sniffed and sobbed and let him hold me—“and I've never killed anyone before.”
He kissed the top of my head. “If I wasn’t so angry with you for the way you played me, I’d say it was the best hit I’ve ever seen.”
I didn’t take the pride he was trying to pass me. I ignored it all and finished crying.
He placed me down. “You okay?”
“Do you care if I'm not?”
His eyes were greenish under the light, set off by his tanned face. “I don’t want to.”
“Yeah.” I swallowed my hate. “I sort of assumed that.”
His eyes narrowed. “You are the most dangerous kind of woman in the world.”
“Right.” I snorted. I stepped under the water again, covering my breasts.
His words turned to
a whisper, “You make me want to be worthy of you. That’s a dangerous effect to have on a man like me.”
I kept my eyes closed to block out the fact that again he’d said the nicest thing ever spoken to me.
“I don’t want you to be anything but mine.” He stepped closer, taking the water from me.
No longer scared, I stared up into his eyes. They had darkened like a storm had rolled in, and he could clearly be the most dangerous man in the whole world. The difference between us being that he was one of the most dangerous people in the world and I was a soft mom and widow.
His arms wrapped around me, pulling me in. He bent and kissed the top of my head. “I don’t want to have to kill you to make this feeling go away, Evie.”
His words instantly made me sick. I was at my threshold for disturbing shit.
“Don’t make me love you,” he murmured, “because it will end badly for us both.” He finished washing and left the shower.
Immediately, the trembling housewife was back. I held myself and tried to come up with a plan.
When I left the shower, I saw that my small purse had been emptied onto the counter. I had assumed he’d go through it but expected him to put it back like he hadn't. My clothes were gone, and in their stead was a sexy silk nightgown. I sighed and stepped into the body dryer on the wall. I lifted my arms and pressed the “On” button.
Trying to stall and come up with a plan, I ran my hands through my hair, maximizing the hot air's effects. It only took moments to realize I needed to be a bitch. All I had to do was nag him and whine and make him see the real me. Clearly, I had the ability to drive my husband into the arms of every woman we knew. I was badass at not being loved.
The hot air spurred on something inside me. Something that made me want to finish it. The death of the fat man was a disturbing guilt that ate at my insides, but the survivalist in me was ready to let that one death slide. She was ready to finish this and get her family back. I liked my survival instincts.
I slipped into the fuzzy robe that hung on the back of the door and tossed the silk on the wet floor. I dragged it in the water with my foot and left it there. If I’d learned anything in a decade, it was that men hated women's wet clothing on the floor of the bathroom. Which was odd, since they seemed to leave everything of theirs on the floor. Either way, it was always women who picked it all up.
I left the bathroom and the belladonna. I didn’t need it. I had a decade of experience I hadn’t even harnessed yet.
“Is there anything to eat?” I asked, almost rudely, when I left the bathroom.
He was on the phone and clearly unimpressed with my fuzzy white robe and huge blown-out hair.
“Hello”—I clapped my hands at him—“food?” I repeated and mimed eating.
His expression grew horrified as he shook his head.
“Great. You pay how much for a room and you have nothing to eat?” I rolled my eyes and strolled to the minibar that wasn’t so mini. There were stacks of chocolate bars and different types of packaged foods. All the expensive stuff, no Hostess or Nestle. I grabbed a jar of caviar, some crackers, a chocolate bar, and a soda. I purposely left the really good toasts that the caviar was no doubt for. The cheaper crackers would taste better. They always did. “You have tons of food here.”
Deciding to eat at least a few of my raging emotions on the way to annoying him, I devoured the chocolate first in huge bites as I was starving. If European men hated anything, it was the way Americans ate. Stuffing my face like I was at Bob's Big Bar, I opened the can of soda. In the middle of drinking it back, I pulled away and burped loudly. Soda always made me gassy. Still trying to maintain some sort of class, I covered my mouth and wiped with a napkin. Then I left the unfinished chocolate and dirty napkin on the small table, carried the soda and remainder of my meal to the huge couch to sit cross-legged on it, and turned on the TV. Designing Women was on. I smiled and sat back.
Crunching loudly and leaving crumbs everywhere, I got too comfy. Or rather, I pretended to get there until the caviar and soda became an interesting combination in my stomach.
He frowned so I returned the look. If he didn’t want to love me, I’d just treat him the way I treated my husband.
A major flaw in the plan of course was that Servario was ridiculously scary, and considerably hotter than my husband.
Burping again, I turned back to the show and forced the crackers down. Too much liquor and not enough food had caught up with me. I put the food on the coffee table and finished my soda. He was about to see something that would turn him off forever.
I had been bulimic for years as a dancer when I was a young girl. Our dance teacher taught us we could be hungry or just throw our food up, but we were forbidden to gain weight. I loved food so I had chosen to throw up, rather than starve.
I quit when I was eighteen. My dentist told me he knew what I was doing and it was affecting my enamel. He threatened to tell the commander (aka my father) if I didn’t quit. I quit doing it, enlisted, and was scarfing back enough carbs to kill someone when I went through basic. I couldn't keep weight on. I stopped being bulimic then and never looked back. Well, I tried not to. But sometimes when I sensed a loss of control in my life, I would succumb to a binge and purge. James had thought I was lactose intolerant. It was a sad secret no one ever knew about, except my dentist, Dr. Miglio, and the other dancers.
The painful memories brought back flashes of running into the other dancers years later. We were mid-twenties and all clearly damaged from the effects of Mrs. Smithers, the effects of constantly seeking approval and hurting our bodies to be what she wanted.
One girl was on mass doses of laxatives and ephedrine. Another was anorexic. My favorite, Becca, was three hundred pounds. If you traced each of our timelines back, you’d see the corresponding moment we ended being the person we were supposed to be and became who she’d wanted us to be. When the pressure was too much, we snapped and quit, but our bad habits stayed with us.
I had quit dancing before the rest of them, yet I ended up with an ulcer and a lot of cavities. Certain foods continued to be triggers that made me sick: fast food, milkshakes, cheesy pasta, and chocolate eaten while drinking soda.
I burped again and placed the soda on the table. Taking deep breaths, I closed my eyes and started my visualizations to stop the vomiting.
I was swimming in a cool lake, the water lapping against me, rocking me. The chilly breeze swept across my face. I could see the rocky shore and hear the laughter of the other kids swimming.
It was the only memory that made the nausea go away. But it didn't work this time.
I burped again and shot up from the chair. I leapt over the coffee table and skidded across the silk nightgown on the wet tiles. My face landed in the toilet, thank God. Everything departed in a series of heaves. My body was still the professional purger it was all those years before.
The sickness left as quickly as it had come. I flushed and waited for the feeling to completely pass.
“You are disgusting. That was a horrif—are you all right?”
I cursed silently when he started out annoyed and turned to sympathetic upon seeing me kneeling over the toilet.
After I flushed again I waved him away, but he didn’t leave like James would have. He crawled up behind me, kneeling in the water and silk. He held my hair and rubbed my back, speaking in a low tone, “When I was seventeen, my father took me for a ride in the car. He told me he was going to make me a man.”
I imagined where the story could go, aware a lot of bad things about his father.
He continued softly, “I assumed he was taking me to one of the premier brothels in the area. Of course, I was already a man, but I was willing to humor him. Instead, he drove us to his factory. He owned a company that packaged goods. He parked and we walked into the factory. I was disappointed. I could have gone for a whore. I'd only been with teenage girls at that point.”
I started to become afraid, but his voice was rhythmic and soft
, flowing with the motion of his massaging. His accent seemed thicker.
“Once inside, I saw all his workers were lined up. There were other men there. I rarely went to the factory, but I recognized them. Father clapped his hands and shouted for a man named Roberto to come forward. The poor man shook when he walked but tried to act proud. I was so naïve. I had no idea what my father wanted.”
I knew exactly what he wanted. I bit my lip and waited for it.
“He handed me a gun and told me I was to shoot Roberto. I asked him why. He backhanded me in front of the men. His ring cut my cheek slightly. I was scared and confused, I guess. I stood up and took the gun from my father and pulled the trigger. The gun never fired. It was empty. My father laughed and took the gun from me. He backhanded me again and told me that a real man chose for himself what he did and didn’t do. He told me to take what I wanted in the world and let no man rule me; even if I got slapped around, I must make my own choices.”
The story was sad but I was grateful that what I’d assumed would happen, never did.
“Then he raised the gun and shot Roberto. He knew the chamber I would fire was empty and the next was not. Roberto died in front of me, bleeding to death and gasping for air. My face stung and I hated my father. He laughed and patted me on the back, then took me to see the real family packaging business—smuggling. He told me that business would make me a man, it was never firing a gun. He knew I had that in me, all along.”
I was lost. His story contradicted the back massage, and the fact he was sharing it with me made me want to run away. I didn’t want to get close to him, not emotionally.
He sighed. “It was the first time I saw someone die. Very sad day indeed.”
I closed the lid and grabbed some toilet paper to wipe my face. I focused on the silver handle of the toilet and the sensation of the paper wiping my face. I didn’t want to see inside his world. I didn’t want to know what he’d been through. It was easier hating him and not knowing.
He pressed his face against the back of the robe and kissed me once before standing. “So you see, I understand the emotions you have over killing him. It gets easier, I'm afraid.” He left the bathroom.
