by Gabi Moore
For the time being, though, things were holding up. Barely. I think. Leo seemed a little distant, a little preoccupied, but I chalked it up to all the new developments at work.
He held my hand tightly as we strolled through the market, bonding a little over the fact that this week’s Great Standoff had been successfully avoided and now we could just buy some zucchinis for dinner in peace.
“Hey, these are cool,” he said and drifted over to a tent. I followed to see him holding up a giant string of dried red chilies, arranged in a tight whorl so that they made a cute-looking garland.
“But baby, what would we do with so many chilies?”
He put it back down again.
“I was just saying. I didn’t want to get it or anything,” he said, and we kept walking.
I’m sure all the women that walked past us wondered how such an amazing guy had ended up with a tramp like me. I’m being serious – Leo was distractingly good looking. His two-tone eyes weren’t even the most noticeable thing about him. He was built so solidly. Even when he wasn’t weight-training, he had a natural heaviness to his frame, and at nearly six and a half feet, that solidness gave him a sort of gravitational pull that seemed to catch the eye of every passing girl in a three-yard radius.
He had chestnut brown hair, tanned, freckled cheeks and lips that I had only ever seen once elsewhere: on a marble bust of the Roman Emperor Augustus we saw together in a museum the year before. They were the most insanely sexy lips. Shapely, curved on the top and bottom, suggesting some kind of perpetual kiss. He was completely unaware of how hot they made him look, though, and was always absentmindedly chewing or sucking on them.
Even though we were in a pretty serious sexual lull, it didn’t mean I couldn’t see how gorgeous he still was. Or, for that matter, how gorgeous strangers in the street thought he was, too.
It didn’t matter though.
He had proposed.
For the time being, I had ‘banked’ him, and as long as I kept my slate clean and quit my stupid obsession with my Wednesday night ‘salsa classes’, I’d be fine. The sex would pick up again, I was sure of it.
“Oh my god, look at this!” he said and guided my arm away again. I was steered towards a community notice board that Leo was excitedly pointing at. He read it out loud.
“Everyday Tantra – Workshop for Couples. Intimacy, Balance, Connection. It’s a weekend retreat …” he said and scanned the details of the poster.
“This is your kind of thing, isn’t it baby? Hippie sex stuff. I’m down it with. We should totally go,” he said and flashed me a goofy grin.
I laughed.
“Baby, do you even know what tantric sex is?”
“Uh …sure I do. It’s like meditation, only sexier,” he said, and shrugged. I raised a teasing eyebrow at him. He continued. “Yeah, I’m keen. It’s been a while since my third eye’s been, you know, opened.” He held his hands in a silly prayer posture as he eagerly read the fine print. I couldn’t help but laugh.
“Oh, my god, you’re actually serious.”
“Of course I am.” He had taken his phone out and was snapping a picture of the poster.
“But baby, you don’t’ even know what it is, though…”
“Isn’t that all part of the fun?” he said and took my hand again. “Fine, bossy boots, tell me what it’s all about then. Unweave the rainbow for me, go on I’m listening.”
“It’s actually a very serious spiritual practice, it’s a very ancient set of techniques and rituals that…” He had on his goofy face again, pretending to listen to me intently. I laughed and slapped his arm. “Stop it!”
“Stop what? I hear you. Very serious. Very spiritual, got it. I have just one question, though.”
“Yes…?”
“How much actual boning do you think there’ll be?” he said, hands in Namaste and eyes twinkling. I couldn’t help laugh again. I loved when he got into this playful mood of his, even though the topic was a little too close to home this time.
“How much? Oh, it’s loads. I mean, see all these people drinking their matcha smoothies? It’s not for their health. Oh no. It’s so they can keep up their stamina for what goes on in those classes, believe me. That’s how baby hippies are made, didn’t you know?”
“Let’s do it!
“You wouldn’t last two minutes,” I scoffed.
He gave me a hurt look. “What? That’s not true. I’d win so hard, those sex hippies wouldn’t know what hit them.”
I chuckled. “I don’t think it’s a competition baby…”
“Sure it is. I’ll win first place for hottest girlfriend and then I’ll win again when they see my mighty throbbing kundalini,” he said, nuzzling in for a kiss.
“Kundalini? Ooh, nice use of the lingo, I’m impressed.”
“Eh, I just saw it on the poster,” he grinned.
“So help us all, once your mighty throbbing kundalini’s out, I don’t know what we’ll do,” I giggled.
He smiled wide at me and we walked off. Our conversation fizzled as we walked on and he looked at this and that. It was all just a light-hearted joke. Just something cute and silly. But at the same time, something about it all aggravated me. I pushed everything out of my mind.
We picked up some veggies, chatted about this and that and soon found we had seen everything we wanted to get. It was time to go home. Time to face The Great Standoff, Part Two – which was easier to manage since I could always claim I was too tired.
When did my life get like this? Did I really go through years of therapy, a million stints in rehab and a mountain of self-help literature only to create a life so full of obligation I felt the only thing to save me from it was to dawdle a little longer at the honey stall on the way out?
Leo was awesome. He had a rough past, but he had overcome it. I clearly didn’t deserve him.
We climbed into the car and set off. The day was light, clean and easy, but my head was a mess. As he started the engine and began to drive us home, it occurred to me plain as day: I had a Madonna/whore complex. And now that I had so thoroughly stomped out the whore part of the equation, all I could do was be a better and better Madonna. And being a Madonna was boring as hell.
“Sorry for being a bit grumpy back there,” I said, and leaned over to squeeze his strong thigh. He turned to give me a warm, easy smile.
“Grumpy? You? On a Sunday morning? That’s almost unheard of!” he laughed, but he squeezed my knee back in silent acknowledgment.
“Yeah, well, I’ve just been kind of busy at work and stuff… lost a few clients lately and you know how it is, I’m always worried I’ll never find new ones…”
“Completely understood, baby,” he said, smiling and keeping his eyes on the road. “We’re building our lives together, we’re making a future, these things do take time.”
I looked down at the glittering rock on my finger, pretty but so alien. How could I have sex with a guy who was so sweet, gentle and considerate? I was like a baby duckling who had imprinted on all the bad boys in her formative years, and now she couldn’t even recognize a regular, normal guy as a potential mate. The more patient and understanding he was, the more turned off I felt.
It was tragic, when you thought about it.
So I didn’t think about it.
Lizzy at the group always said “don’t get rid of old behavior patterns, replace them”. So, for the time being, sexual frustration and a dead bedroom were the replacement on what honestly used to be a lot worse. I could just chalk it up to progress and hope like hell that I’d come around again.
‘Speaking of buildings,” I said, and changed the topic.
“Well, the inspectors came over the other day. I swear to god the red tape makes me want to scream. But, they line up the rings and I gotta jump through ‘em, right?”
I smiled and started to stroke his inner thigh a little, since my hand was already there.
In the early days of our relationship, he turned me on so much I had
once made him pull over so I could suck him right there and then, because I couldn’t wait till we got home. I remembered days when just sliding a single finger up and down the inside of his leg would have him hard and speeding to get home as fast as possible. Today, though, it was more like a consolatory gesture – a friendly caress to apologize for the fact that we didn’t do that kind of thing anymore.
“I guess so. Busy week ahead?” I asked, pulling my hand away and staring out the window.
“Always. You?”
“Same. In fact, I might need to sort out some invoices and things this evening, my paperwork is looking like a hurricane went through it.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. I think I’ll have an early night, too.”
And then I saw it. His broad jaw clenched a little, something moved over those perfect, arched lips of his and his hands tightened on the steering wheel.
“You OK?” I said.
He flashed me a tight smile.
“Sure, of course. Maybe I’ll squeeze some work in this evening too.”
And so it was. We drove on in silence, The Great Standoff descended on us like an invisible blanket. I loved Leo. More than anything in the world. And that was why the stakes felt so high. I didn’t know what was wrong with me, why I couldn’t just clean up my act and let go of my stupid past already.
But I would be the perfect girlfriend for him.
I had to.
Chapter 9 - Leo
I was in the same diner again. Two girls were in the same corner again, and they were a different pair from before, sure, but they were still the same, after everything’s said and done. They looked me over out the corner of their eyes and I looked them over, and we all looked and tried to pretend that nobody was looking.
And that’s when I saw Vito on the news.
The same grainy driver’s license pic they had been using for him for years now flashed across the screen. It was new laundering allegations, sure, new investigations into trafficking from Eastern Europe, but it was still all the same, after everything’s said and done. People like Vito are the whack-a-moles of the world – you beat them down in one place and they just pop up again some other place.
The TV volume was low so I couldn’t hear much, but a few images of pretty young women flashed across the TV screen. Prom-style shots, candid club photos. One was smiling broadly, glitter on her cheeks, a black choker on her neck. She looked so young. The words “Human trafficking on the rise?” rolled slowly across the screen beneath her.
As far as I can tell, the game has always been about masks. The first mask is the front business –a laundromat, a café or, in Roselli’s case, a sleazy strip club with a corner devoted to rigged slot machines. What lies underneath that is the real business. The illegal electronic imports, stolen cars, drugs, prostitutes.
But there are masks below that, too.
Vito and his cronies are family men. And in a family like theirs, there are always hierarchies. Keep peeling away the masks, keep looking past the goons and the runners and the bullshit bureaucrats and eventually you get to the inner circle, the people who are so loyal to one another it almost goes deeper than blood.
I looked at my watch. My jaw clamped involuntarily as I realized the fat fucker was late, again.
Lately, by some strange laws of relationship alchemy, Sophia had seemingly transferred all her sexual energy into browsing online for wedding crap instead. We hadn’t fucked in weeks, and yet she had decided and re-decided on a reception color scheme four thousand times over and written a million updated lists of guests and dress vendors and potential wedding favors (what the fuck is a wedding favor anyway?)
I wanted her to be my wife. More than anything. I would have cut off my right arm if it meant making her happy. But lately, I’d been feeling a little grated that the things that made her happy these days never seemed to have anything to do with my dick. I couldn’t tell if I was angry that this idiot was wasting my time again, or if I was just horny. Or both.
The bell on the door tinkled and I turned to see the fat, heaving figure I recognized as Joe Smith. The meeting before, he had told me his name and I had laughed that it sounded so fake, but he had shrugged and said that it just meant never having to lie to hotel staff whenever he was cheating on his wife.
He sat beside me, waved for an espresso and knotted his fingers in front of him on the counter, like some kind of budget funeral director about to talk business. I couldn’t believe that he was Vito’s right hand man.
“The shipment has been collected,” he said. He took his espresso from the waitress and folded his thick lips round the rim for a sip.
“Good,” I said. “I’ve gotta wonder why Vito himself can’t come down here and tell me that.”
He nodded slowly.
“None of us know where Vito is, buddy,” he said and puckered for another sip. The tiny cup looked comical curled in his big, hairy hands.
“What?”
“What you mean what? You don’t watch the news? Vito’s gone. The feds have been on us for months now.”
I suddenly became aware of the hair on the back of my neck. Gone?
“We need you to hold another shipment for us,” he said, and drained the cup.
“No way. I told you I would help you out once. I did it. That’s it.”
He gave me a long, exhausted look.
“You don’t gotta do anything. You have the space already. You say nothing, we come, we go, it’s over. What’s your problem?”
“I don’t have a problem, this is your problem. This is Vito’s problem. I can’t help you, sorry.”
He frowned, pulling his bushy eyebrows into a clump in the middle of his forehead.
“Ok, I think I’m not explaining this properly or something. This is in your best interests,” he said, slowly, as though speaking to a child. “Believe me, you want to do this for Vito.”
I burst out laughing.
“It’s always like this with you guys, isn’t it? Are you all in some kind of budget gangster movie? I mean, fuck, it’s like you’re not even trying to be original.”
His expression remained stony.
“We’re in trouble, Leo.”
“So?”
“There’s this new guy, a real dangerous guy coming up. He’s trying to squeeze us out, Leo, he plays dirty, he’s got no loyalty, no nothing.”
I shook my head in disbelief. I felt like I was in a dream.
“You front us for a little while,” he said, “not forever, just till the heat blows over and we can take care of this punk once and for all. And Leo, we don’t expect you do it for nothing, you know that right?” He flicked his bleary eyes to me and for the first time made eye contact. They were the eyes of something cold-blooded, something not quite alive, but I thought I detected the faintest hint of desperation all the same.
“What’s in the containers?” I asked and stared hard back at him. He snapped his gaze away and to the empty coffee cup.
“I can’t tell you that.”
“Is it drugs? Girls?”
“I said I can’t tell you.”
I leaned back, exhaled loudly and crossed my hands.
“Yeah, no. Not touching it with a ten-foot pole. I’m not part of this mess, I’m not a character in this cheesy mobster movie you all are starring in.”
“It’s no movie, Leo,” he said and shot me a pleading look again. “You think there’s girls in the containers? I’m not saying there are. But so what if there are? You think there won’t be more girls after that? You think you can change any of this? The girls are coming in, one way or another.”
“But I won’t be a part of it,” I said simply.
He pushed his coffee cup away and laced his fingers again, then shook his head.
“What does he see in you anyway?”
“Who?”
“Fucking Vito. I don’t see it. All I see is some spoilt kid. What’s so special about you, huh?”
I said nothing.
“Nice try, but that’s not going to work on me.”
“Yeah, yeah, how could I forget? You’re too good to be a ‘gangster’ huh? You take when it suits you, and disappear when it’s your turn to pay back.”
“The answer is no.”
“Fine. You’re going to regret that.”
There was no threat in his voice. It wasn’t a warning. It was said simply, more like an observation. Like the way you’d notice that rain was forecast for the day or that gas had gone up in price. I couldn’t show him that he had shaken me, but something about how calmly he said these words brought the hairs prickling to the back of my neck again.
Chapter 10 - Sophia
“Ouch.”
I flinched and pulled back my hands.
“I’m sorry, too much pressure?”
The guy on the massage table twisted around to give me an awkward smile.
“Yeah, it feels like you’re trying to rip my flesh off my bones,” he laughed.
This was bad. Very bad. It had been happening more and more frequently. I didn’t understand it. I had spent extra time meditating and trying to calm and clear my mind. I had spoken to my mentors and tried to understand where all the tension was coming from. I had written it all out in my journal, I had lightened my workload and I had spent more time on my breathing ritual every morning before sessions.
Then why the fuck was I still hurting people?
“I’m sorry, is this any better?” I said and leaned in again more gently this time, rolling the heels of my hand over the intercostals and trying to make amends on his poor body. He winced and pulled back a little.
“Uh, yeah, no,” he said and all at once he was sitting up on the table. “I think I’m good. Maybe we can call it a day.”
