by Brook Wilder
Vittorio drifted off to sleep with the gentle rocking of the boat on the water. Sharon lay awake, thinking. She thought of the vulnerability he had shared with her in telling her about Lara, the pain in his face when he’d told her that his former lover had died. Would he really never even consider marriage again? Sharon wondered. It was such a sad thought. Whether it was her or not, Vittorio deserved to have someone caring for him throughout his life.
She thought about how hard it must be, to have to carry that sort of pain behind the tough exterior Vittorio constantly had to project. How alone he must feel much of the time. She snuggled closer to him as he slept, smiling when his arm unconsciously tightened around her.
Maybe, just maybe…, she thought. Maybe she could keep working on him. Maybe, if she continued to give him what he wanted in the bedroom, plus the rest of the affection she longed to shower him with, she could bring him around. She wondered if she could soften his edges a little, bring him back to life with her. Dare she say, love?
Worth a try, Sharon grinned at the thought as she slipped into blissful slumber.
Chapter 8
Sharon
After the trip on the boat, Sharon was trying to be on her best behavior. She was starting to wonder if she really had started to fall for Vittorio or if she was just starting to fully submit to him. Either way, she knew she just wanted to please him.
However, once she was back in the penthouse, she couldn’t stop her head from spinning. She was so bored. She longed for something to do, somewhere to go. There wasn’t enough electronic stimulation to keep her busy during the long days while she waited for Vittorio to return. Her food was starting to run low because she’d been experimenting with new recipes to keep her taste buds from getting as bored as the rest of her. She’d texted Marcello that she may need groceries soon, as Vittorio had instructed her to, but she hadn’t gotten a reply yet.
Being in the city was getting harder too. She was surrounded on so many sides by windows. At first it had felt open and liberating, but now they just mocked her. She felt trapped and increasingly claustrophobic, with the added anguish of watching others’ lives unfold around her. All she had to do was look down and she could see people and cars bustling about, dozens of stories below.
It was also a stark reminder that her life was moving on without her. Sharon had been missing from her real life for almost two weeks now. Did her roommates miss her? Had her teachers written her off as just another dropout? Doubt and anguish stirred within her.
Her pacing habits were wearing predictable little trails in the carpet. She twirled and fussed with little strand of her hair, muttering to herself as she wandered around.
Suddenly, her phone pinged. Sharon hurried over to where it rested on the couch in the main TV room. It was a text, from Vittorio.
“How’s your day?” he’d typed.
Huh? Sharon thought, surprised. This was the first time Vittorio had reached out just to check on her during the day. The raging cyclone of emotion within her calmed significantly and she smiled. It was such a sweet gesture. She wondered if maybe he was starting to feel more towards her as well.
“Good!” she lied. “How’s yours?”
There was a little whoosh as her message zipped off into cyberspace.
She stared obsessively at the screen for about five minutes before she gave a defeated little sigh. “Oh well,” she said aloud. “He’s probably busy.”
Sharon paced through the kitchen but decided she wasn’t really hungry. She also didn’t know how much longer it was going to be before she got more food, so she decided that she probably shouldn’t be wasting it out of boredom.
She began pulling open drawers and cupboards in the kitchen. She wasn’t expecting to find anything special; she was just desperate for something to do. One of the topmost drawers reminded her of her parents’ junk drawer at home. Sharon dug through various pens, paper clips, a ball of rubber bands and a few keys to unknown locks. Bored, she sighed. She pulled out a block of post it notes and a pencil and sat at the counter to doodle.
What started as a row of teeny swirls became hearts. Before she knew it, she’d covered an entire little yellow paper square in hearts, x’s and o’s and Vittorio’s name. Sharon giggled, feeling almost like she was back in high school again.
He’ll probably never love you. The unwelcome thought popped into her mind without warning. If she didn’t stay diligent in reminding herself, though, Sharon worried she’d end up falling for a man who’d told her right to her face just two days before that he only wanted her for sex.
She thought about the boat again, specifically Lara’s frame. Sharon wondered if it had been a gift, possibly a handmade creation for the bubbly, excited spouses-to-be. She tried to picture Vittorio as a love-besotted fiancé, but she couldn’t really. How had he proposed? she wondered. The brief flash she had seen of his broken heart had really endeared Vittorio to Sharon. He wasn’t just his tough exterior. She’d always thought there was more to him and now she had the proof.
Before she knew it, Sharon was onto a new sticky note. She wrote Lara’s name in an elaborate cursive script, tracing over the exaggerated loopy ‘L’.
I wonder what she looked like, Sharon pondered. Was she more of a sweet or sultry beauty? Blonde? Brunette? She was dying to know but knew she could never ask Vittorio. Her keen curiosity about Lara swept her off so deep in thought that she had subconsciously scribbled “6-21-2015” under her name.
Three numbers, she thought. That could be the combination to a safe.
The muscles between her shoulder blades tensed. She knew Vittorio would be furious if he found out that she’d been poking around his safe again. Sharon dropped her pencil and walked away from the stickies. She tried to pace off her growing urge to check the safe, but to no avail.
I’m going to be here alone every day, Sharon realized. She had no idea how long Vittorio planned to keep her at the penthouse. They had never talked about it again. How long was she going to have to spend cooped up with this tempting secret? I’m probably going to end up checking it anyway. I may as well do it now, she justified to herself.
Sharon retrieved the sticky with the date and took it to the white bedroom. Her pulse quickened as she stared at the wall panel that hid the safe. Her curiosity won out over her guilt and she found and pressed the button under the bed. The little door clicked and Sharon opened it gently. She came face to face with the safe.
She touched the dial, then drew her hand back. She wasn’t sure if she was ready to betray Vittorio’s trust again. After a deep breath, she decided that she was. It didn’t matter how bad she felt, she needed to know more about this man. Maybe, if he didn’t want her snooping, he should give her more to do.
I could still be going to school during the day, at least, Sharon resolved. She was happiest when she was around Vittorio. Didn’t he know that she would come home willingly if he would just let her?
Equal parts spite and curiosity had her spinning the dial to the number six. Then the number twenty-one. Sharon figured that, if it was a three digit combination, Vittorio would have used the shorthand of the year to set the combination. She spun it back to fifteen and tried the latch.
It was still firmly locked in place.
Disappointed, Sharon reconsidered. Had she been wrong when she assumed the date would the code? Was it maybe twenty instead of fifteen? She spun the lock again; right to six, left to twenty-one, then right again to twenty.
Still locked.
Dammit, Sharon swore to herself. She wondered if maybe she was spinning the dial the wrong way, but nothing she tried with either combination worked. She grew more and more frustrated with each attempt.
She realized maybe the safe code could be four digits instead of three. Worth a shot, she figured. It wasn’t like she had any other ideas.
She spun the lock from six, to twenty-one, back to twenty, then fifteen.
The latch finally opened.
Chapter 9
Sharon
Sharon’s jaw dropped. So many of the guesses had failed that she hadn’t really expected her last attempt to work. The safe door hung open, practically beckoning Sharon to open it. She did, slowly.
The safe was smaller inside than she had expected it to be. The inside was clean, white and broken into two shelves. On the top shelf, Sharon saw two impressively thick, tightly banded stacks of money. She thought she recognized the black butt of a handgun, which she had no interest in touching. On the bottom shelf, there was a worn-looking cardboard box. “Old Shit” was written sloppily on the side in black permanent marker.
Is that what Vittorio’s handwriting looks like? Sharon wondered, feeling closer to him and like she was invading his privacy all at once.
She took careful hold of the box and pulled it out of the narrow shelf. The old cardboard was soft and pliable in her hands. The contents of the box forced the breath out of her lungs.
It was mostly photographs. Pictures of a beautiful girl with long strawberry-blonde hair and sparkling hazel eyes. She was lithe and lean, often dressed in flirty dresses and always smiling bright white into the camera. This has to be Lara, Sharon thought as she flipped through the stiff sheets of photo paper.
She was beautiful.
Further into the stack, Sharon started finding pictures of Vittorio and Lara together. In one, a younger bald-faced Vittorio with almost no tattoos draped his arms lovingly around a beaming Lara’s waist. Sharon had never seen two people look so in love on film. They were gorgeous together. Sharon could imagine them, how they would be if Lara had survived. A family unit with beautiful children, being photographed for the style section because they were just so stunning.
Sharon had never felt so self-conscious. It was no wonder Vittorio preferred the rough, emotionless sex style that he did. He had lost the happy ever after he had wanted with this lovely young woman. How could Sharon ever hope to live up to this literal angel?
The next picture was Vittorio on one knee in front of Lara. He smiled as he held up a little velvet box. Sharon couldn’t tell where the pair were, but darkness extended behind them. A lovely little garden arch lined in fairy lights lit Lara from behind as a single tear crested her high cheekbone. It was the type of photo Sharon would balk at if she saw it on social media, but she knew Vittorio. At least, she felt like she did. She had never seen anything vaguely resembling the true joy on his face in the picture. Her heart broke for him all over again.
Her heart broke for herself too, though. Sharon would never be Lara, she knew that. Not only was she not as pretty, but she couldn’t bring out that level of adoration in the man she was falling for more and more every day. Hopelessness overwhelmed her, with just a dash of self-loathing. Any hope she had that Vittorio might fall in love with her withered like a dying rose. Sharon finished flipping through the pictures and looked under them, where her fractured heart finally shattered.
It was Lara’s ring.
Sharon carefully examined the ring, in awe of the perfectly cut, gigantic diamond wrapped in strands of tinier ones. It was a glorious ring, Sharon had only seen rings this nice on the snootiest of the snooty women she’d seen around New York. It had to be worth… Sharon shuddered at the thought. She didn’t want to know.
She put the ring and the pictures back where she found them, suddenly wiped out. Guess curiosity really did kill the cat, she thought morosely. She’d gotten what she wanted. She knew what was in the safe and now she wished she didn’t. She put the box back on the shelf where it belonged, just how she’d found it, then closed the safe. She closed the latch and spun the dial so that it landed on a random number. The secret wasn’t going to be easy to keep, but Vittorio couldn’t know that she’d essentially broken into his safe.
Sharon flopped backwards down onto the white bed and blew out a heavy sigh. The whirlwind of self-doubt and pessimism about her future, not only with Vittorio but just her future in general, overwhelmed her. Her eyelids felt heavy.
Suddenly, there was a sound outside the bedroom. The front door open and shut and Vittorio called out, “Hello?”
Shit, Sharon thought, panicking. She brushed her stickies onto the floor and hurried to the door. Just as she came out of the white bedroom, Vittorio came down the hallway.
Chapter 10
Sharon
His face fell from happy to confused and suspicious when he saw her.
“Hey,” he said, narrowing his eyes.
“Hi!” Sharon said happily, a fake smile plastered on her nervous face.
“What were you doing in there?” Vittorio asked dubiously. He clearly wasn’t happy.
“Um, nothing,” Sharon lied. She had never been a good liar and she was sure he could see right through her. She winced when he made a move to walk into the bedroom.
He pushed past Sharon and muttered, “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”
Sharon cringed. When she turned around, her stomach dropped. She’d left the panel open, just a crack. It was completely obvious what she had been doing before he got home.
“You’re, uh, home early,” Sharon said meekly. He really was home early. The sun hadn’t even set yet. She hadn’t expected him to be home before she’d get a chance to hide her little secret. I’m so screwed, she thought.
“No kidding,” Vittorio replied, a dark creeping anger in his voice.
Sharon watched as he stalked around the bed and snatched her little yellow notes off the floor.
“Real cute,” he snapped, holding up the note covered in hearty doodles and his name. The bite in his tone struck Sharon like a slap. She felt her face grow hot with shame. He squinted at the second note, the one with the date on it.
“Fuckin’ figured it out, didn’t you?” Vittorio spat. His shoulders were tense; rage emanated from his very being.
Sharon was actually afraid of Vittorio. The malice in his eyes and the tight set of his jaw reeked of menace. She wasn’t sure what he was going to do to her.
“Get over here,” he commanded, pointing at the bed in front of him.
Sharon timidly crept towards him, her entire body braced for his chastening.
Vittorio put a hand on her back and shoved her down roughly; her knees on the floor, body on the bed. He yanked down her soft cotton shorts and slapped her hard across the ass. Sharon smarted from the burning sting of his strike.
“I thought I told you to remember your place,” he growled. He slapped her again, even harder this time. His spanks were no longer playful but punishing. “Did you not learn your lesson the first time?”
“N-No, I guess I didn’t,” Sharon stammered meekly.
At her admission, he struck her again. His powerful slaps were really starting to hurt.
“Well, I’m gonna teach you today,” he ensured her.
Another slap. Sharon squirmed under the pain. The sound of flesh smacking flesh echoed in the plain bedroom.
She yelped as he continued to work at her behind like he was reprimanding a naughty child. “I-I’m sorry!” she cried.
“You have no idea how sorry you are,” Vittorio grumbled.
He wrapped his hands around her soft hips and lifted her so that her knees were on the soft duvet. Sharon’s body was practically folded in half, her ass was raised so high.
“Stay just like that,” he instructed. “If you move, I’ll punish you harder.”
Sharon nodded and pressed her face against the duvet. Her womanhood was already sore from the daily sex he’d subjected her to over the last two weeks, but she wasn’t about to challenge an angry Vittorio.
Vittorio smacked her ass hard again. Sharon shook and cried out in pain. “Ow!”
“Oh honey, you don’t know ‘ow’,” Vittorio snarled. He slapped her sensitive cunt again. “I’m gonna fuck you like you’ve never had. This isn’t for you, this is just for me. You’re my toy, do you understand?”
Sharon shuddered. “Y-Yes I… I understand.”
Vittorio slapped each of her reddened
, raw cheeks. Behind her, Sharon heard him undo his belt and chuckle to himself. He muttered, “Perfect.”
Before Sharon could wonder what he meant, she felt the sharp bite of leather across her fleshy haunches. She winced but did her best to stay in place like Vittorio had commanded. Vittorio whipped her with the belt again and she couldn’t help an agonized little moan.
“You going to start behaving?” Vittorio asked her as he brutalized her a third time.
