by Aitana Moore
They ended up in Syracuse, crossing a bridge to Ortigia, the island that contained the historic center of the city. There they strolled past squares, Baroque palaces and white churches. At the Palazzo Impellizzeri they stopped to look at the stone heads lined up on the façade and Bryce bought arancini, fried rice balls with mozzarella, from a cart. They stood at the wooden counter of a bar to share a glass of cold prosecco.
“I don’t like places that are all tidy and perfect,” Lee said. “Here they don’t hide that time has been through. They know how to live alongside it.”
“A woman after my own heart,” Bryce repeated, caressing the side of her breast until she shivered.
They had dinner, each making a glass of wine last. Later, as they drove by a small town, they heard music and laughter coming from a place with Chinese lanterns hanging outside. A sign said “Il Ballo.”
“Let’s try this out,” he proposed. “The music isn’t rubbish. That's what I like about these out-of-the-way places, no hip-hop."
Inside they were greeted by cries of “Hello!” from customers who were in an advanced good mood. Lee smiled at the men looking her up and down, and when they gestured, asking her to dance, she shook her head and pointed at Bryce.
“Husband?” one of the men asked in English, showing the ring finger of his left hand.
Bryce materialized next to her with a bottle of water and told the men, “È accompagnata, ragazzi.”
Lee didn't know if that meant "She is with me" or "She is taken,” but she thought either would do the trick. The men booed him in fun, and Bryce took her into the next room.
A slow song started. She allowed herself to be lost in the pleasure of moving to music in his arms. Two faster songs succeeded, and he swiveled her around until they got tired. When he went to get them another drink, the Sicilians who had talked to her at the entrance still stared at her. They were in a group with two girls and another man. Standing alone under their scrutiny, Lee began to feel self-conscious.
The taller of the men moved toward her with a big smile on his face. Oh, no…
“You dance with me?” he asked her.
Lee shook her head. “I’m with my husband.”
The man was a bit drunk and losing his sense of what was wise. “It’s not problem. It’s just dance. Here we dance with married woman. We come special for dancing."
When Bryce returned, he handed her a prosecco and held a glass of something like whiskey. The man nodded at Bryce and said something in Italian, gesturing toward Lee.
She laughed. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Don’t you?” Bryce looked at her for a moment. “Then dance with him.”
“You think?”
He shrugged, and by then the man was pulling her to the floor with a hand around her waist. Lee kept a safe distance from him and told herself the place must be like some old ball or country festivity, where a woman might be invited to dance by anybody.
Her partner tried to say a few things, but she couldn’t hear him over the music. Lee searched the room, but Bryce was gone. Upon a few more turns she found him leaning against the door frame. He didn’t seem happy.
What did he mean by encouraging her to dance with a stranger and then looking like he disapproved? Almost without realizing it, Lee began to dance with more feeling, her feet picking up the rhythm of the salsa. A cry of approval came from her partner’s friends.
At first, she thought it was just harmless fun. It was the way young people got when they drank and wanted to let off steam. But another dance began, and the man greeted it by holding on to her waist, although she wanted to return to Bryce. Her partner pulled her closer as he rolled with her in sensual turns.
“My friend is waiting,” Lee said, trying to break free.
“Friend?” her partner asked. “I thought he was husband.”
He moved closer to her as she looked around. She would have to push the man in a second, but Bryce beat her to it.
“Basta, no?” Bryce told the man with apparent calm, although he had pulled him away from Lee by the shoulder and stepped between them.
“Ma comme, basta?” the man said, looking offended. He went on to say that he was only dancing and made a brusque gesture to mimic Bryce pulling him. “Ma chi sei tù?...” Who are you to ...?
“Who am I?” Bryce asked in Italian. “I’ll show you who I am in a second.”
The argument, which might have been avoided, escalated easily between the two males. The smaller man seemed unwilling to be scared off, perhaps because he was on his own turf. His friends had noticed the encounter and moved toward them. Encouraged by the reinforcement, the Sicilian made the mistake of poking Bryce’s arm to make a point.
After spending time with Bryce, Lee had started to think of his temper as a myth — but when she put a hand on his chest to guide him away from the group, she was unceremoniously swept aside. By the time she regained her footing, he had headbutted her dance partner with a loud crack.
The Sicilian fell on the ground with a bleeding head. One of the women in his group scratched Bryce as another man was felled by a blow of the Englishman’s fist.
No, Lee hadn’t seen him in full beast mode — but there he was. From the side he looked just like the statue of Hades, his muscles bulging as he leaned forward to meet the fray without any apparent fear of getting hurt. His forehead and the corner of his mouth were bleeding and his fists were like hammers as he punched his way into the group.
The people in the room became a wave going back and forth. There was screaming from the women and loud shouting from the men, as well as glass and furniture breaking. The barmen came in from next door and announced that they had called the police. Bryce took Lee’s hand and entered the women’s bathroom. She stumbled, her heels clattering on the tiles.
“What are you doing?”
“Let’s go,” he said, pulling her by the upper arm.
His face was a mask of fury and blood. He opened the window, and as she climbed out, he followed.
“You don’t have to touch me,” she cried when he started dragging her toward the car.
“Shut up.”
Lee struggled, because she didn’t like to be gripped, and she didn’t like to be told to shut up. She thought that digging her heel into his shoe might wrench him from whatever trance he had entered. The mad look on Bryce’s face made her flatten her back against the building.
“Get in the car!” he said again, clearly holding on to his temper.
She flounced by him, her arms crossed. He opened the door for her. It was hard to tell if he did so because his manners wouldn’t abandon him, not even then, or whether he was making sure she wouldn’t get away.
“Get in,” he repeated when she hesitated.
“No, I—"
He moved, and she got in, angry at herself for letting him frighten her. He got behind the wheel and within seconds they left with a screech of wheels.
“There’s blood on your face, you can’t drive like that,” she said.
The car came to an abrupt halt on the edge of the road and he punched the steering wheel three times, roaring, “Be quiet!”
Lee opened her door and ran out. Bryce threw his door open and overtook her with a few strides. He held her by the arm again, and she tried to strike him.
“Are you crazy?” he asked, taking hold of her hands. “Get the fuck inside that car!”
“I’m not getting into an accident because you’re an asshole,” she screamed in his face.
Bryce turned cool, like hell freezing over. “Get in the car, Vivien.”
“Let me drive, then.”
“The hell.”
“I won’t go if you—”
He spoke slowly near her face. “I can’t leave you here, so get in the car now, and everything will be all right.”
Lee pulled away from him in a futile show of rebellion. She walked unevenly over the gravel and got into her seat. He followed her, pulled the rearview mirror toward him and
tore a piece off his shirt to wipe the blood from his forehead and eyes.
“Put on the belt,” he commanded curtly.
"You're acting like a fucking asshole.”
"That's what I am."
At the villa, she ran through the halls into the bedroom, glad that no one was around to see the state of him. His steps, behind her, made her hasten her own; it was as if he were a predator about to overtake her. She tried to lock herself in, breathing fast. He pushed the door and stood in the threshold against the light.
“Don’t you come near me,” she said, ready to throw anything at him. There was only her bag on the armchair, and beyond it a lamp.
Ignoring her, he moved to the bathroom. A sharp triangle of light invaded the room. He studied his forehead and jaw in the mirror.
You shouldn’t go in there.
But he was hurt. She went into the bathroom, putting her hand on his shoulder so that he would sit on the edge of the bathtub, and pressed a towel to the wound.
A moment passed without him looking at her or saying a word, then his fingers sank into the back of her thighs, below her buttocks.
Bryce stood, lifting her and opening her legs as he placed her on the wide marble sink. His lips found hers as he pulled her panties aside. With his left hand he freed himself and entered her easily, because the shock of his kiss had made her ready for him.
There wasn’t a word or look from him, just his hardness and his strength.
And this time there was no appeal. As Bryce moved, something started to grow in Lee — the kind of ache he had made her feel before, but which now became unbearable. There was nowhere for that ache to go, and Lee thought she might burst into pieces as she pulled her to him and heard a long cry. It wasn’t until it ended that she realized it had come from her.
FOURTEEN
Exhausted, they slept in his semen and his blood. The morning found them almost exactly in the same position. Lee opened her eyes only after remembering where she was and what had happened.
Bryce had thrown a leg over her in his sleep, and it looked like they had been in a fight. Her arms were bruised, his knuckles raw from hitting the steering wheel, his forehead bloody. The room, too, was in disarray. When Lee managed to move, she discovered that she was still wearing sandals.
Pleasure had felt violent, as if she were being turned inside out. This is what makes women weak. She hadn’t understood before, although she had been told often enough.
She tried to get up, but he wasn’t asleep and held on to her.
“I have to go to the bathroom,” she said.
Instead of letting her go, he turned her around. Her back was to him now, and her mouth folded in a determined line, but for once he wasn’t paying attention. He touched her without haste or urgency, as if the werewolf had become man again. The double sensation of his lips against her neck and his hand on her breast had quickened her pulse, and she wanted to get up and away from him, but she couldn’t.
There was the ache, deep in her for him, and the more she wanted to get away, the stronger it was. She hissed when he entered her, it felt right, it felt right, and the sinuous dance of their bodies became more focused as he knelt on the bed, pulling her hips to his, until the ache burst into a bright surge that made her cry out and left her blind inside for a long moment. Bryce’s hand clutched the headboard as he threw back his head, and she felt him throbbing as he let out a moan.
“You can pee,” he said after a moment, in a voice deeper than usual.
Her legs trembled as she stood. She could hardly bend to remove the silly sandals, but she finally managed and walked to the bathroom in bare feet.
A minute later Bryce came to the door, hair disheveled, eyes half shut with sleep and pleasure. Lee got up without speaking, and he raised the seat. Closing one eye in pain, he waited. He was also battered, but he didn’t seem to mind.
He turned on the shower and entered it, pulling her inside. Lee felt the weight of the water on her neck, but it lifted as he moved under it. He let the stream soak him, moving his head slowly to one side and the other, stepped back and shook his hair. The soap he grabbed smelled woody, and although it stung them, it made it easy for him to enter her again as he held her against the marble wall.
She was sore and it hurt to go on, but it felt better than anything ever had.
Afterwards they fell in bed, soaking wet, and slept for about an hour. It was nine o’clock when they woke up.
Still without a word, Bryce found his pajama trousers, donned a robe and left the room. Lee didn’t move while he was gone. As she lay on her stomach, unable to move, it was as if she had been trapped in the lair of a satyr, feeling what she had never once managed to feel until then.
There would have been cold anxiety to accompany that thought, if she hadn't heard a rapping of knuckles on the French window. She jumped into a kneeling position, fast as a cat. It was Bryce, motioning for her to come out. As she opened the door, he removed his robe and held it out for her, tying it around her waist.
Breakfast had been set in a little corner behind shrubberies, where they could look at Mount Etna without being seen. He pulled out her chair and took his place, turning his face to the sun.
Lee sat, dazed by pleasure and fear, and bruised by lovemaking. A few moments later, he served her coffee and put toast on her dish. But he said nothing, and anger began to rise in her. She stroked her upper arm, which had purple finger marks. He saw the gesture, and yet offered no excuse.
“Aren’t you going to apologize?” she asked.
“What for?”
“For this!”
She showed him the bruises; he pushed back his hair to display the cut on his forehead.
“You did that to yourself, and you did this to me," Lee said.
He took a sip of his coffee. “That’s not exactly how it went.”
“Care to elaborate?”
“Not really, it would be a very obvious conversation.”
Anger was turning to fury in Lee. “Is that right? You won’t even talk about what you did?”
“Then talk about what you did, so this goes in the right order.”
“Are you seriously telling me that my dancing with a guy could provoke that huge fight?”
He looked savage once more, and disdainful. “Why don’t you tell me what game you’re playing at, so I can play it with you?”
“Game?”
“A beautiful woman traveling the world alone, and you don’t recognize a pest who’s about to get handsy? I think you do. I think you’d know how to put him in his place as well.”
“I was about to—"
“A little too late, don’t you think?” he asked. “How would you have liked it if I danced with my leg between a girl’s, stroking her back, with you standing right there? Wouldn’t that have made me a creep? A dickhead? So what does it make you?”
Lee stood. “You said you’d never make me do anything!”
Bryce threw the cup in the saucer, where it spilled coffee as it landed, and stood as well. “Are you accusing me of forcing you? You were pulling my hair toward you, not away.”
“You’re a liar!”
“You’re the bloody liar!”
His eyes were full of triumph because he had made her want him. Before she knew what she was going to do, Lee slapped him hard across the face. The look on his face, a look of madness, made her back away, turn and run into the room.
She managed to get hold of the door and swing it closed with all her strength. The glass shattered just as he arrived, and he raised his arms to protect himself from the flying shards. Lee didn’t even stop to watch him leap past the destruction and into the room. She had rolled over the bed and grabbed a jug of water on the side table, which she also threw at him.
But Bryce had good reflexes. He ducked, and the jug shattered against the wall. It would take a second for him to reach her, long enough for Lee’s hand to close around the short handle of her bag. As he approached, she swung it forward,
adding another hand to the effort. The rectangular bottom of the bag hit Bryce on the jaw as the metal in the corner opened a thin gash on his cheek.
He hadn’t expected that, and the force of the blow stunned him for a moment. Lee stepped out of reach of the arm making for her and found her keys in their big metal ring. She ran the jagged part against his arm, causing another gash.
“That’s enough!” Bryce bellowed.
As she ran toward the door, he grabbed her around the waist, knocking the wind out of her, and took her wrist, making her drop her keys by twisting it slightly. Lee struck his shin with her naked heel and all her might, but it looked like the man could bear pain. He didn’t even grunt as he twirled her in the air like a ragdoll. She landed on the bed on her back and bounced up, her nails ready to claw out his eyes.
But Bryce only swatted her hands away and straddled her as she twisted under him, shrieking.
“It’s not fair, it’s not fair!”
It wasn’t fair that he was so much stronger than she. But all he did was place her arms under his knees as he put a hand on the thighs flailing behind him.
“Stop,” he said.
She wriggled. “Don’t you tell me to stop.”
“Will you please stop?”
Lee blew the hair away from her face so she could see him staring down at her.
“You’ll play the calm card now, will you?” she asked, out of breath.
He looked around the room. “Looks like we’ve destroyed everything. Can we have a truce?”
It took her a moment to nod. He got off her, cautiously, and backed toward the headboard, leaning against it. She sat up and rubbed her wrists as he touched the gash on his cheek and looked at the blood.
“Nice,” he murmured. “Might have blinded me. That would have given you an advantage, maybe.”
“So would have breaking my arms.” She looked toward the door. “Your staff doesn’t seem to mind.”
He shrugged with one shoulder. “They’re Sicilian. This just sounds like a mild disagreement to them.”
Lee looked away again, because she wanted to laugh. It was the dry way he said things in his accent.
