I’m leaning against the wall, looking at Tiago in his jeans and no shirt, the tattoo of flames running across his waist. “One-woman guy, huh?”
Tiago makes no attempt to defend himself. “When I’m with one woman, I’m with her.”
“But you’re the same old Tiago otherwise.”
“That’s for you to decide. I’m hiding nothing from you, Cat. That’s why I called you here. I’m being honest when I say I want you to capture me as I am. No lies. I want the world to know the truth, the absolute truth.”
“Then bring the girls back in here,” I say. “I’ll take a shot of the three of you getting busy and we’ll put that on the front cover.”
Tiago doesn’t smile, doesn’t flinch. He sits on the one-seater.
“Cat,” he says. “I can’t change who I am.”
He gets up, slowly, moves the drapes open. Gray light diffuses into the elegant room.
“Please, come, sit.” He motions to the bed. There’s a deflated aura to him suddenly.
“Please,” he says.
I move toward the bed, grab the lanyard holding the camera to try and lift it off...
...when I feel the hand—slow, sensual —against my butt cheek.
And then lower.
You have got to be kidding me...
Tiago is the kind of guy who doesn’t listen to words. Only one method of communication can reach him.
I swirl to face him.
The last time I saw this bastard he was lying in a hospital bed and a loud machine was beeping and there were tubes in his mouth...and I wept for him, and held his hand, and wiped his freakin forehead. And just before that, I’d seen him being pulverized on the ground by Thunder.
And before that, Simone.
And he didn’t even bother to apologize to me. Not a call. Not a text. Not an email. Not a freaking Faceboook message. Not a simple thank you for sitting by his side for days.
He’s looking at me with hopeful eyes, as if this is normal to him, as if he expects me to fuck him now. I step closer. His eyes brighten. For a moment, I even think he thinks I’m gonna get on my knees for him and suck his cock right here.
Idiot.
I bring my arm back...and I fucking slap him.
-44-
“You goddamn bastard!” I slap him again. And again. And again.
“Credo, filha da puta!” On the final slap he finally grabs my wrist and then turns it so skillfully that I fall to the ground on my knees and I’m aching with pain. I know he could break my wrist right now. Know it. “Jesus!” he says. And he lets me go. But he shouldn’t have. The rage is in me and it’s been building up since the first moment I saw this DIRECTOR in the lobby with all those whores around him.
All of it was a plan, a plan to get under my skin. Tiago never planned on going after Johnny or Thunder. He’s too sly for that. He wanted to rub it in, to rub the pain in deeper.
I slam into him! I push him backwards and then there’s fire in his eyes. Fire and hot hate as he clutches both my wrists and flings me to the bed. I try to get up—
But then he’s on top of me. He’s on top of me and his hands have my wrists and he’s freaking grinning. I fight and scream and howl, “I fucking hate you. Hate you! I hate you, you bastard! You could have apologized. You could have—”
I struggle against his wrists but he’s too strong, muscles hard and sinewy.
“I fucking hate you!”
His grin gets wider. He licks his lips.
I glare into his black eyes. “Fuck—y—”
But I can’t finish.
What happens next is so surreal, so unexpected, so goddamn insane, that, for a moment, I’m too stunned to respond, too lost in the utter absurdity and madness of it.
Tiago dropped his head.
And he stuck his tongue inside my mouth...passionately.
I was so confused, so utterly delirious by it...that I couldn’t even react.
But the delirium disappears fast, so fast.
So I do the only thing I can do: I bite him.
“Ai credo! Sua puta!”
Blood pours from his lip and he rolls off of me. My shirt is messed up and my hair is ruffled and, damnit, I’m hot and bothered and I know it’s just my body reacting, not my mind—Christ—but still, it sickens me. Part of me wants to cry, part of me wants to throw the camera at his head.
“I quit, Tiago.”
I grab my camera—
“Wait. Please, wait!”
I keep walking. “Christ, I’m sorry, Cat. I’m fucking sorry!”
I keep walking. At the door. Hand on the door handle.
I don’t know how he moved so fast, but now his body is behind mine, his breath against my ear. “I fucked up,” he whispers. “I fucked up, OK? Please. Please. Please don’t go.”
“Get off me, Tiago.”
His lips slide to my neck...and the action repulses me. “Let me explain, just let me explain. Please.”
Whereas my body got confused a second ago, its reactions are all correct now. Every part of me is repulsed by this snake. “You had your chance to explain—”
“I didn’t, OK? Not at the hospital, not for Simone. That’s what I want to apologize for. That.”
Oh, man. My shoulders sag, my hand loosens on the handle, but doesn’t let it go. “Please,” he begs. “Please. Give me...five minutes, and then you can go. You can walk out of my life and never see me again.”
“I walked out of your life last year, Tiago.”
“Please.”
Damn it. “Get off me,” I whisper.
He doesn’t.
“Get off me and maybe you’ll get five minutes. But if you don’t, I’ll scream.”
He hesitates for a second, then stands back. I turn.
“Move back,” I say. My body’s starting to shake now. “Move—back.”
Tiago takes two steps back.
“You have one minute,” I say.
He shakes his head. “I’m...sorry, OK? All this, all this fucking bullshit I did—it wasn’t to get back at you, OK? It...wasn’t. I just wanted to say...I’m sorry, about Simone, about... Cat...” He sighs. “Cat, I only realized after you left me how much I truly...loved you.”
I fight the urge to puke.
“I love you, Cat. I always have. And I was a fucking idiot to do what I did to you.”
“This is how you show me you love me? By having two naked women in your bed?”
He runs a hand over his wiry hair. “I’m...I’m not good at this. In Brazil, well, we make ourselves look...wanted.”
“So that’s what this was—you were making yourself look wanted so you could...make me fall for you?”
“I know, it’s ridiculous.”
I sort of laugh, sort of. It’s more of a choked, shocked grunt. “You’re unbelievable, Tiago.”
“No,” he says. “No. I’m sincere. I don’t tell you that I know how things work in your culture, Cat. There was no way for me to see you, no way for me to talk to you. You wouldn’t take my calls—”
“You never did call.”
He bows his head. “I was afraid.”
Fucking damn it, I actually think he’s being sincere. Psychotic, yes. But also sincere.
I shake my head. “Tiago, look...” I take a step closer. “Look, I...”
And that’s when I see his eyes water up, not a lot, but there for sure.
I pull him into my arms, and it’s not long before I’m weeping myself. I’m weeping for how much I loved him, how much he loved me (once upon a time, maybe), how he cheated on me, how he hurt me. I’m weeping for how messed up he is, how he can’t keep his cock in his pants.
And then he’s holding me in return, holding me tight and burying his head into my neck, squeezing, digging his nails into my back. Like he used to when we used to make love.
“I can’t, Tiago,” I whisper. “I can’t.”
He nods his head against my neck. “I know,” he mumbles. “I know. And...I’m...sorry, Cat. I�
��m sorry.”
I rub my hand against his head. “OK. OK. Fine.”
“Do you forgive me, at least?”
I don’t. But what good would it do to let him think that? He needs closure, probably more than I do. “I forgive you,” I say.
“OK.”
He lets me go, holds me at arm’s length.
His eyes are a little red. “Do you still quit?”
“I think it’s best.”
I put my hand on his cheek, bring him closer to me, press my lips against his for a long moment.
Tiago will never know how much he hurt me, will never know how much I truly loved him.
It’s just not in his nature.
But that’s OK. It’s not whether someone loves us back, it’s whether we are capable of feeling love ourselves.
I’m happy to have loved him.
Tiago, on the other hand, will never feel that for anyone.
And that is the worst kind of pain someone can feel.
I step out the door, take a few steps and then turn to face Tiago, just to say something nice, to say goodbye one final time.
But when I turn to face him, he’s smiling. No, grinning.
The grin fades quickly, and something jumps in my heart. “Tiago?” I tilt my head to the side. “What’s so funny?”
He clears his throat. “I, uhm, no—nothing. Nothing. I...was remembering...how...uhm...sexy I always thought your ass was. And how, uhm, I’ll miss it.”
Hmmmm, why do I feel like he’s lying? “Promise?” I ask.
He crosses his heart, and then he disappears into the room.
Still smiling.
~Johnny~
-45-
I open my front door to get ready for a day at the beach...
...when I walk into The Incredible Hulk.
I don’t need to ask him what he’s doing here, because his opening line is: “Stay the fuck away from my girl.” He actually pokes my chest as he says it.
I have to hand it to the guy, he’s big, and tall. He’s standing two steps down, and his eyes are level with mine. Not to mention his width.
But he, as with every other bodybuilder in the world, has made the fatal mistake (spread about by Protein Powder Manufacturers) that size has jack-all to do with strength.
“Your...girl?”
“Vanessa. Stay the fuck away from her.”
I do my best not to smile, I really do. But I fail. “You not doing it for her?”
His jaw tenses.
“Haven’t you heard that steroids make your cock small? Maybe she’s unsatisfied.”
He pushes me, and I stumble back.
I straighten myself, take a step forward again. “Listen, Hulk. Touch me again, and they’ll be searching for that hand somewhere in your colon for the next three months.”
“Stay away from her.”
“You said that already.”
“I mean it.”
“Anything else?”
“Yes, stay away from her, or I’ll fuck you up.”
What a bright-spark. “I heard you, now get the fuck off my stairs before I get upset. It’s a sun-shiny day, haven’t you heard?”
Hulk doesn’t move. He says, “Listen, punk, I said—”
I put my hand up. “Buddy, whatever the fuck it is you came to do here, either do it, or get off the pot. Because you’re starting to piss me off.”
Hulk doesn’t move. Does the famous Glare-Down.
“I know she’s holding back because of you, punk. Vanessa is a nice cunt to fuck, and she opens that cunt anytime I want her too.”
I say nothing.
“She’ll fuck anything with legs, which is why she’s fucking you. But she’s nobody’s property. Stick your cock inside her as much as you want, but if she keeps her legs closed the next time I wanna take her, I’m coming for you.”
Er, yeah, this dude is starting to piss—me—off.
“My friend,” I say, pretending to pick something off his shirt. “If you call Vanessa a Cunt to Fuck again, you’re gonna be missing something to fuck with.”
The Hulk smiles, not a good look for him, all that ruggedness and manliness. He looks best when he’s being serious.
“She is a C—”
“Watch it.”
“—unt to—”
“I’m warning you.”
“—fuck.”
Well, I did warn him.
-46-
I love bodybuilders, brainwashed as they are into thinking their big muscles give them strength and power when, in fact, the strongest men in the world all existed before the twentieth century invention of barbells and exercise machines.
And then there’s the skill of fighting itself, which is, if I may be poetic, an art.
Add to that, the inflexibility which overgrown brawn gives you.
I won’t bore you with the details.
And in his inexperience in the art of fighting, Mr. Hulk here has placed himself in the perfect position to getting his nose broken by the hardest part of the human body, and the most difficult to defend against, a part that can take a tremendous beating, and do tremendous damage.
The forehead.
It’s over quick.
I jerk forward.
Crack.
He doesn’t even know what hits him. He’s on the ground, crumpled, gasping, wailing, screaming. Bleeding.
Shocked.
Hell, it would be so easy to kick him on the ground now, kick him hard for every time he used the word cunt and fuck in reference to a girl who, messed up as she is, is actually quite a good person. A good person looking for love, and looking to be loved, like we all are.
But I hold back. I have no idea if she loves this prick.
Besides, I’m on vacation.
And I’ve planned a day on the beach.
I turn, start taking the long, relaxing walk toward the causeway and then over to the beach.
Behind me: “I’ll kill you, I’ll fucking kill you!”
Pfft.
I wasn’t planning on it, but it’s on my way anyway, and she’ll be in there, reading her gossip magazines.
Hulk there said some things that put me on edge. They put me on edge for her.
I step into the refrigerator of the air-conditioned library. Walk up to the third floor, pull out another Sports Illustrated.
Vanessa’s here, on a one-seater, face buried in a People magazine.
She sees me, and her face lights up like the moon. “Hey,” she says.
“Hey.” I sit down next to her, my own magazine in front of me, facing the bay. “I’ll be staying a little longer,” I say. Just to make sure The Hulk doesn’t get out of control.
I don’t look at her directly, but her ear-to-ear smile is hard not to notice.
-47-
“Why do you read that shit?” I say to Vanessa next to me.
“Oh, and Sports Illustrated isn’t shit?”
“Sports Illustrated isn’t yellow journalism.”
She flips a page, bites her lip. “It’s interesting.”
“You know it’s all lies.”
“Not all of it.”
I roll my eyes. Then I stretch my neck over and see what she’s reading. SECRET LOVE AFFAIR OF BARACK OBAMA—AND HOW HE USED IT TO GET INTO THE WHITE HOUSE.
I start laughing.
“It’s true,” she says. “They have inside sources that have confirmed the story.”
“Uh-huh.”
“C’mon, magazines can’t lie, it’s all part of their Code of Ethics or some shit.”
“Journalistic ethics died a long time ago.”
“Well, I still believe in it.”
“Because they have ‘sources.’”
“Yeah.”
“Unnamed sources.”
“People are afraid to speak out, so they choose to remain unnamed. Besides, the justice system sucks. If you want justice, you go to the press.”
“As an unnamed source.”
“Yeah.”
“And where you’ll get paid for your story.”
Vanessa shifts in her seat. Then, after a long while: “They get paid?”
I flip to the football section.
-48-
We hang out near the beach.
I tell her that The Hulk came over to see me.
She looks distressed.
I tell her I broke his nose.
She looks even more distressed.
“What?” I say.
She tells me he’s got...a temper.
“He’s hit you before?”
She doesn’t answer.
“Why do you take it?”
She doesn’t answer.
“That’s why I’m staying for a bit,” I say. “I wanna make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid.”
She bows her head. “I brought this on myself,” she tells me. “Didn’t I?”
“He’s an asshole.”
“An asshole I spread my legs for because...I was desperate.”
“Doesn’t change the fact.”
She looks out at the traffic circle. A big white car with rims the size of flying saucers drives by, pumping rap music for the entire city to hear. “I’m gonna change,” she says.
“Huh?”
“I’m gonna change. I’m gonna...have some more...self respect or some shit like that.”
“He’s an asshole, Vanessa. Don’t beat yourself up about it.”
We stare out at the street for a while, saying nothing. “And what about when you’re gone?” she says. “What then?”
I think of Thunder. “I can put eyes on you. I have...friends.”
The side of her lip twitches up. “Friends?”
“Yeah, friends.”
“What kind of friends—Mafia?”
“Worse. A biker Club.”
She starts to chuckle. “Are they like you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Y’know, kind, decent, fucking hot.”
I don’t answer.
“Could I, uhm, meet one of them?”
I look over at her.
“Hey,” she says, “I get it that you and I are moving into that Big Brother Little Sister comfort zone. It doesn’t mean I don’t want to rip your clothes off. You have a duty to replace yourself.”
Claiming Johnny: A New-Adult Novel Page 11
