Feral Hearts

by Edward P. Cardillo

  That had been a lucky escape. Not that there had been any truth to her claim, but the law had been on her side and it had all gotten a little bit hairy for a while. Thankfully, the old saying was true—everyone did have a price. It was amazing just how quickly a cheque with a few extra noughts on it could help make little things like that go away!

  Paul’s luck with the girls was pretty much just like his luck with friends. Every girl he ever got with usually turned out to be just as shallow, and just like his friends, only ever stuck around when he was flush with money.

  Life was much easier when Paul went about just having anonymous sex with random strangers all the time. However, there was a small part of him that actually desired being in a relationship, and with the increased possibility of sexually transmitted diseases and all, one night stands had become much more risky and dangerous than they used to be. So instead, Paul found himself constantly drifting from one bad relationship to another.

  All anyone ever seemed to be interested in was his money. His last therapist had tried to tell him that was why he partied so hard; it was the way Paul attempted to escape all the unpleasant, harsh realities of his life. At the time, Paul had dismissed all that as bullshit. Lately, he had started to rethink things a little bit.

  Maybe he was just running away from his problems by indulging in such a hedonistic and unforgiving lifestyle. Maybe Paul just needed someone he could get close to; a soul-mate whom he could confide in, tell his secrets to, without feeling as though he were being judged all the time. As much as he enjoyed having fun, it was true sometimes that it just wasn’t enough.

  Taking copious amounts of drugs and drinking constantly helped him block out the fact that really, at twenty-seven, he still hadn’t much achieved anything in his life. Maybe, just maybe, he did need to change.

  When he had seen the advertisement for this holiday, it had sounded like just what he was looking for. A chance to get away from everything—all his vices, all his problems, his father—and be someone else for a short while. Someone normal.

  As much as Paul enjoyed his rich, exuberant lifestyle, a normal life was one of the few things he had never experienced. Yes, he knew that went against everything he believed in, everything he stood for, but what could he say? He was a psychological mess, fucked in the brain. A psychiatrist’s wet dream, walking in the flesh. Maybe all those therapists he had seen over the years had been right all along. Maybe a normal life was what he had been yearning for all this time.

  The holiday was some kind of singles thing being hosted in a small provincial town in the Tuscany region of Italy. The idea, he gathered, was to bring together several young, single and like-minded people to enjoy each other’s company for a few days, maybe find some romance and have a bit of fun.

  Paul wouldn’t ordinarily have been interested, but his father’s ultimatum forced him into taking a good, long, hard look at himself. What was more, Paul knew that if he didn’t come up with some way of proving he could change, he might never see a penny of his father’s wealth ever again!

  I might even actually meet someone genuine and honest on this holiday, Paul thought. Stranger things have happened. Maybe if he could just show his father he could keep a stable relationship together, it might be enough to persuade him to give him back his trust fund.

  This was the most important thing Paul was worried about, but he figured if he did end up meeting someone he actually wanted to be with, someone he could actually see himself caring about, then that would just make this whole trip even sweeter.

  Nothing ventured, nothing gained, Paul had thought as he booked the holiday there and then.

  The truth was whether he changed or not, just being away from his current lifestyle for a while and on his own would probably do him a lot of good. If he really was going to try and go straight, stay off the drink and drugs for a while, then he needed to be away from all the old familiar faces. Besides, he had always liked Italy. He had some good times there in the past, even when he was sober!

  The only thing Paul really hoped was that the pussy on this holiday turned out to be tasty. Yeah, he wanted to meet someone warm, genuine, and honest, but whoever he met still had to be good looking and fine as well. He wasn’t going to lower his standards for anyone, not even his father.

  Still, if this singles holiday did all end up being a bust and the people on this trip turned out to be a bunch of losers and squares, Paul already had a back-up plan. He had heard tale there was a pretty good local brothel in town.

  Whilst he had promised not to indulge in drink or drugs, he couldn’t be expected to give up all of his vices. Anyway, it wasn’t like he was going to Derosso with the intention of visiting the brothel; it was just nice to have it there as an option.

  Paul pulled out his smartphone. Satisfied that he still had a signal this far out in whatever part of France or Italy they were travelling through now, he looked up the information he had stored about the town where he would be staying the next few days.

  He’d first heard about the brothel at a bar he frequented, when he’d told the barman he was going on holiday and had mentioned where he was going. The barman had told him he’d been there a few years back, and the town was a popular tourist attraction for those who wanted to visit the real Italy.

  He had recommended Paul look up one of the girls who worked there, an Eastern European girl named Viktoriya. Apparently, she was something of a favourite amongst clients, highly sought after and into all kinds of kinky shit. If everything else on this holiday went pear-shaped, she sounded like she might just be exactly what the doctor ordered.

  Not that there was any guarantee she would still be there, but Paul had his hopes up. She might’ve moved on. Those kinds of places often had a very high turnover. Still, Paul’s plan B remained to do his very best to track down this Viktoriya.

  Paul put his phone away and had just started to doze off when the coach pulled to a stop. The bus had stopped so all the smokers onboard could get off and spark up and all the feeble, incontinent old dears could get off and spend a penny before they pissed themselves and made the coach smell even worse. As it was, it already smelled like an old folk’s home in here!

  Paul decided to climb off the coach, stretch his legs, and get a breather as well. With no drugs in his system and with none being likely for at least the next few days, Paul badly needed a nicotine fix.

  The coach had pulled up at some kind of small roadside service area that combined a filling station with a small, family run convenience store and delicatessen. A fine array of smoked Italian meats hung from a hook by the entrance to the store.

  Patting his pocket, Paul realised he left his smokes back on the bus, tucked in the pocket of a jacket he had brought but obviously wouldn’t need in this heat. Spying what must have been the only other young person on the coach—some kind of metal-head, Paul presumed, judging from the faded Slipknot t-shirt he wore and all his various piercings—Paul approached, hoping the other guy was a smoker.

  “Bum a cigarette?” Paul asked.

  The teen shrugged his shoulders then shook out a menthol cigarette from a battered packet, which he then offered to Paul. Though menthols weren’t really to his taste, right about now Paul figured a smoke was a smoke.

  As he sparked up, Paul noticed a slight tremor in his hands. Shit, he thought; don’t let me start getting the D.T.’s, not now with still so far to go. It was the first time this trip Paul had realized just how badly he was missing the drink. He hoped he wasn’t about to start hallucinating...he had done that once when he was in rehab. There were still a couple of hours to go on the coach!

  “Where you headed?” Paul asked, trying to distract himself with inane conversation. The young punk just shrugged.

  “I’m headed out to Derosso. You know it?” Paul continued. It really was like trying to get blood out of a stone, Paul thought.

  Once again, the punk just shrugged and otherwise ignored him. Finishing his smoke, he stubbed it out on the g
round and headed off towards the nearby toilets.

  “Nice talking to you,” Paul said sarcastically and stubbed his own fag out. The menthol had left an unpleasant taste in his mouth, a little bit like that nicotine gum you could buy to help you try and quit. Still, beggars couldn’t be choosers, he supposed, and at least the cigarette had kind of helped his fraying nerves.

  “Whatever, man....” The youth muttered and flipped Paul the bird as he walked off towards the restrooms. He paused for a single second just before he reached them. “Hey, don’t I know you?”

  Paul’s mind quickly flew back to a recent tabloid news story featuring him in several of the gossip magazines not long ago. Some foxy brunette stripper named Candi had done a sell/ tell number on him and sold the gutter press a story about Paul involving a hotel room, a Jacuzzi, and a bottle of champagne that had been inserted somewhere champagne should never be drank from.

  Paul hated that story. Only a couple of things about it were true. For one, there hadn’t been a Jacuzzi!

  “Uh, I don’t think so...” Paul countered and quickly turned back towards the coach. That was all he needed. Reminders of the life he was trying to leave behind.

  He didn’t want anyone else recognising him. As he glanced back, he saw the youth exchanging tongues with a woman from the coach who must’ve been in her fifties.

  Ewwww, Paul shuddered. He wasn’t sure what made him feel sicker; the sight of the young punk playing kissy-kissy with a granny or the flies still buzzing around the meat hanging outside the store.

  As he climbed on the coach, an elderly woman was struggling to get on before him. Paul reached out and gave her a hand back onboard. The passenger was an elderly woman with her hair curled in a tight perm and coloured in what had been called once in his own youth a ‘blue rinse’.

  Paul tried to brush straight past, but as he did, the woman turned and started talking to him.

  “You go to Derosso, Giovane...erm, young man?” she asked, rather invasively Paul thought.

  The woman had obviously been eavesdropping on his conversation outside. Nosy old cow, Paul thought but reluctantly nodded his assent.

  “How nice,” she continued. “My son is Capo della Polizia...Chief of Police, yes? Derosso is small town, little trouble, yes? But still, my son...he not visit his poor Mama. Mama go visit him. Mama have sick heart and…high blood pressure...you, you look like a nice boy...you look after your Mama, yes?”

  Paul thought his own mother could probably look after herself better than he ever could, but he didn’t say anything because he had no intention of continuing this or any conversation. All he wanted was to get back in his seat and try and close his eyes for the rest of the journey.

  “Move down the bus please,” said the driver as they were blocking the entranceway to the coach. Paul moved back to his seat and was disconcerted when the old lady followed him and took her own seat only one row ahead of him.

  Reaching into her bag, she pulled out her purse and began showing him photos of her grandchildren as the last passengers came back onboard and the coach began to move off once more. Paul did his best to ignore her, but the old lady continued to prattle on.

  “Lady,” Paul found himself saying before he could attempt to stop himself, even had he wanted to, “I don’t mean to be rude, but I really couldn’t give a shit about your grandchildren.”

  Immediately as he said it, Paul felt a little guilty. Fuck it, he thought, dumb bitch should’ve taken the fucking hint.

  Obviously offended and muttering something that Paul thought most probably translated into ‘ignorant English pig,’ the old lady harrumphed and turned back in her seat away from him.

  Finally, Paul thought, peace...and felt his eyes begin to drift. Before he knew it, he was asleep...

  * * *

  When he awoke an hour later, the coach was pulling into Derosso. Gathering the few bags he’d packed, Paul made his way off the bus along with the few passengers also disembarking here. The elderly Italian lady who had spoken to him earlier, he noticed, was one of the first to get off and held the queue up for several minutes while she climbed slowly off the bus. As Paul got off, he noted that she point blank refused to even acknowledge him this around. Fine by me you old Bitch, Paul thought and gazed up at his hotel.

  Nice, Paul commented to himself, very nice....and stepped into the lobby. As the coach pulled away, Paul glanced back. The youth in the Slipknot t-shirt from earlier, who had slipped him a smoke shortly before he started snogging Grandma, was looking out the window and made a point of flipping him the bird and giving him the universal sign for Wanker.

  Fucking little Prick, Paul thought and hoped again the youth would be the last one who recognized him was whilst he was here. The last thing that he wanted was for everyone to know he was Edward Clarkson’s son.

  His dad had made his money in the media and though not really a celebrity, he was known for the power and the status he exuded. Part of why his dad wanted him to clean up his act so much was more the damage it might cause him than out of any concern for Paul’s wellbeing.

  As Paul checked out the decor in the hotel lobby, he spied the buxom girl behind the check-in desk of the hotel and a couple of the guests whom he hoped were on the same trip as him. Instantly, his eyes lit up. Well, Paul thought, things are starting to look up already.

  Suddenly this holiday vacation of his looked like it might be interesting...

  Part II

  Wild At Heart

  Chapter 7

  Jenna

  catt dahman

  Three.

  Three people sat in her row, and that was good number because it was an odd number; four people in a row would be a catastrophe because that was an even number and divisible by two which was also a bad number. Her seat was 25-c which was excellent for being an odd number, and it was also an aisle seat as she demanded. The aisle meant only one stranger was beside her.

  Strangers had strange scents and germs. They infringed on personal space which was the worst of all. A world without rules of personal space was pure chaos.

  Jenna checked her ticket again. She knew she was on the correct flight and the plane was well into the air, but she worried that she was on the wrong flight and was going to land in the wrong country. She checked the ticket again, carefully and matched the times, checking against her watch that she had reset to Derosso’s time. It was the right flight.

  Over nine hours she would sit, next to a stranger who spoke another language and who hogged the armrest and threw his seat back comfortably, uncaring that he was infringing on personal space. He spoke loudly to the man on his other side, and Jenna understood none of the conversation. His voice was trespassing as well.

  “Can I get you a drink?” the attendant asked.

  While the Italian men got some type of wine, Jenna asked for something else. “A Bloody Mary. Can I have the can of mix? And three limes. Please.”

  Jenna opened the bag of pretzels after mixing her drink. The three small wedges of limes stared at her, waiting to be squeezed. She carefully lined nine pretzels up on her napkin in three rows. Perfect drink. She settled in to allow the vodka take effect and calm her nerves. She ate the pretzels. Three of them. That left six pretzels and that was a bad number so she ate another, leaving five.

  Eating pretzels reminded her of cat food, which reminded her of her cat. She wondered if Cattabulous was okay, if the pet sitter would make sure no doors were left open, and if the cat was fed correctly.

  Breakfast, lunch, dinner. Cattabulous ate three times a day.

  What if Cattabulous accidently gets locked in the bathroom? She often batted the door closed if Jenna was in the room. If she did that, she wouldn’t be able to get to the food and water, but she would have the litter box. How much time could Cattabulous be without water if she locked herself inside the bathroom?

  Jenna looked at her watch. Maybe five hours. Five was okay. Six wasn’t. Seven was long but okay. Maybe the sitter would check earlier.
Jenna knew the water was off, so Cattabulous couldn’t get any water from the sink or bathtub. Maybe Jenna hadn’t turned the tap hard enough. What if the sink leaked?

  The possibilities almost drove her mad.

  She tried to relax. The man next to her and the man further to her left were speaking in Italian, which Jenna didn’t understand. She didn’t know anything of the language and didn’t think it important to learn since she would only be in Italy a few days. That was the least of her worries, since there would be an interpreter for her tour anyway.

  At least the men behaved as they had drinks. Not every person knew how to act properly on a flight.

  The trip began smoothly enough. Jenna found an excellent extended parking place and found her gate several hours ahead of time, cleared security easily (which was good since she would have just died if anyone had needed to search her physically), and enjoyed a mystery book by Christopher D Abbott. In time, she boarded her plane, this plane, to fly halfway across the United States.

  On the way from Dallas to Atlanta, Jenna sat further back on the airplane and a couple sat next to her. They chatted a few minutes before beginning to kiss. They cuddled and giggled under a blanket, although the plane was rather stuffy and no covers were needed. Jenna gave them dirty looks but didn’t think they noticed as they were far too focused on one another.

  When the stewardess gave instructions about what to do if the oxygen masks dropped, Jenna listened, but the young man and woman chattered and played with buttons and moved their legs around and gasped as they kissed more.

  Jenna took mental notes of where the exits were and how to use her blue seat cushion as a flotation device. Blue was a calming color and made passengers feel more relaxed. In surveys participants rated other people who were dressed in blue as being more dependable, secure, and safe. That’s why police and other human resource personnel wore blue. More people were hired when they wore blue suits than when they wore black.