Damage

by Natasha Knight

  He releases my wrists and I look between us, at it, at him and I try to push up, push away, but he’s too big and too strong and he cups the back of my head and brings my face to his and kisses me, our eyes open, his hand fisting my hair.

  “Stefan,” I say it. I say his name as he pushes into me, stretching me.

  It hurts. And it’s going to get worse. I know it is. He’s too big and he’s not being gentle.

  “Stefan,” my voice sounds panicked.

  He leans closer to me and my hand curls around the back of his head, fingers weaving into hair, pulling it hard.

  “I want this. Wanted it for a long time,” he says, lips on my lips, kissing. Biting. “I’ve wanted you for a long time.”

  He lets go of my hair and I grit my teeth as he closes his hands around mine. I curl my fingers around his, and my nails are digging into his skin, breaking it, drawing blood like he’ll draw blood from me.

  “It hurts,” I manage.

  “Look at me. Keep looking at me. Hurt me back,” he says, forcing me to look at him, at his dark eyes, black ringed in gold and green. “Hurt me back.”

  I can’t. I’m trying. But he’s too big and I squeeze my eyes shut. “Stefan!”

  “Look at me.” He holds tight to me so I can’t move. “Open your eyes and look at me, Gabi.”

  Gabi.

  That name.

  I open my eyes and lock them on his. I brace myself and when he thrusts, I cry out and my cry is simultaneous to a tearing of skin, to that pouring of blood, that bleeding, more than I thought. A warm gush of it.

  “Fuck.” He draws back, does it again.

  “Stefan!”

  He’s fucking me. He’s fucking me hard and it hurts, and I don’t want him to stop. I don’t want him to let me go.

  He kisses me again, sets his hands on either side of my head and lifts himself up a little to loom over me.

  I grip his shoulders and he’s so deep inside that I swear I feel him in my belly.

  I can’t drag my gaze from his and I don’t think he can drag his from mine.

  “Come for me,” he says, sliding one hand down. When his fingers brush against my clit, I arch my back, wanting him, wanting his touch. Wanting to come.

  Pain morphs and merges with pleasure and one intensifies the other, making it more. And when he moves inside me again and all I feel is him and the warmth of blood and his eyes on me, I come. I come again and I let out a long moan and it’s his name on my tongue, my breath is his name.

  He fucks me hard then, thrusting deep, taking and claiming in a way he hasn’t yet. And when he stills, I feel his cock thickening, body tensing. He throbs inside me and I watch him come and I hear the sound he makes, and I feel him inside me. Feel him empty as he fills me up.

  It’s a few minutes later that he moves, blinks. His eyes aren’t black anymore and the way he looks at me, it’s the other Stefan. The one who carried me out of that well and what has he done to me? What’s happened to me? What he said the other night, is he right? Am I falling in love with him? Have I already?

  He watches me and I want to know what he sees because I don’t know who I am anymore.

  “Gabriela.”

  He slowly pulls out of me, and I feel every inch. I’m raw inside.

  I follow his gaze down, feel semen slide out of me, see smeared blood on him. See it on my thighs, on the sheets.

  He looks down too, shifts his weight to his knees. I pull back, can’t seem to drag my eyes from all the blood, much more than I realized. The sheets are stained a deep red.

  Stefan meets my gaze.

  “Are you okay?” he asks, his voice hoarse.

  I move to sit up, bite through the pain.

  “Gabriela?”

  I look at his shoulders, at the blood there. Small crescent shapes. My fingernails. I meet his eyes again. “I’m cold.”

  He gathers the blanket and puts it around my shoulders, then gets up, walks into the bathroom. A few minutes later, he’s back and he sits down beside me. The blood is gone from him and in his hand is a damp towel.

  I go to take it from him, but he shakes his head and he’s cleaning me and he’s gentle and tender and I just watch his dark head as he softly wipes the blood and cum from between my legs.

  “I should have been more careful with you. Your first time…” he trails off, setting the towel aside.

  I study him, see the weighted look in his eyes. And what I say, I don’t say it to make him feel better. I say it because it’s true.

  “I don’t know that it could have gone any other way. This is us, Stefan. This is you and this is me. It’s always going to be this way with us.”

  19

  Stefan

  I can’t stop thinking about last night. About what she said. She’s right. This is us. I will always take. And she will always be made to give.

  “Exit’s coming up,” Rafa says beside me.

  I nod, slowing the Bugatti down as I exit the highway and turn onto the smaller streets into Syracuse. I used to come here a lot growing up and know the streets pretty well. Avoiding the busiest part of the city, I make my way to the Greco house. It’s in one of the poorer neighborhoods, which doesn’t surprise me.

  “Remind me again why do you want to do this?” Rafa asks me casually as we park outside the small, shabby house.

  “Just want to hear for myself,” I answer.

  I found the man Gabriela recognized. I found his family. I expected them to be from Taormina, but it bodes well for my uncle that they’re not.

  “I already talked to them. There’s nothing to hear, Stefan. His grandmother’s an old woman who’s now stuck raising two kids both under six. They don’t know anything about Danny Greco. All they know is he’s been gone for a while, which apparently isn’t unusual for him.”

  Danny Greco is the name of the man who sideswiped Rafa’s car. Who was one of the men at the house in Pentedattilo.

  “Sounds like a class act.” I get out of the car and look at the house. The plot is mostly sand, no grass, and the two trees are half-dead with thirst. Laundry blows in the hot wind on a line in the backyard which butts up to a crumbling concrete wall that divides it from the train running behind it.

  All of the windows are open—I would be surprised if they had air-conditioning—and patterned curtains keep the sun and insects out.

  This is poor Sicily. Where I live, how I grew up, I’m in the minority.

  “Stef come on. We don’t even have soldiers.”

  I look back at him. “Are you afraid of an old woman and two kids under six?”

  He purses his lips and I get the feeling he wants to say something but decides to keep his mouth shut, which is a good thing.

  I make my way up the street to the front door of the house and ring the doorbell. Here, too, a worn curtain with the same floral pattern billows. It’s tucked into the locked metal gate that serves as a door.

  It’s two more rings before I hear little feet running toward us, kids speaking in rapid Italian, the one telling the other they’re not supposed to open the door.

  A moment later, two heads peer out from around the curtain. A boy and a girl.

  “Is that your car?” the little boy asks. He appears to be the younger of the two.

  Rafa chuckles.

  I crouch down. “Yes, that’s my car,” I answer.

  The boy whistles appreciatively. “A Bugatti. I prefer red. A real sports car.”

  “Do you?” Mine’s black. I smile, straighten. “Is your grandmother home?”

  The girl looks to her brother, then at me. She tries to shove him behind her and shakes her head in response to my question.

  “She’s at the market,” the boy says, peering around her.

  “Maybe we can wait for her out back.”

  “One minute,” the girl says, then drops the curtain.

  I stifle a laugh as they argue behind the curtain if it’s wise or not to let us in. A few minutes later, the boy’s head pops out
from behind the curtain. “I’ll open the garden gate.”

  “Good idea,” I tell him, nodding.

  “I think it was the Bugatti that got you points,” Rafa says as he lights up a cigarette.

  “When did you start smoking again?” I ask. He’s quit several times, but the habit always manages to creep back up. I hate it, hate the smell of it.

  He shakes his head like it’s nothing and we walk around to where the boy opens the rickety fence and invites us into the backyard.

  Two trains pass loudly by as we wait for the grandmother to return and the boy peppers me with questions about the car while the girl watches us with suspicion. Smart kid. It’s when the third train is roaring past that the old woman returns pulling a trolley of food behind her. The moment she sees us, she stops dead, her face losing what little color it had.

  I notice her glance settling a moment longer on Rafa than me and I step backward so I can see my cousin.

  He busies himself with lighting another cigarette and the little girl yells at him to pick up his matches and the cigarette butt he already discarded.

  I go to the woman, smile, introduce myself. She doesn’t do me the same honor, but I let it go.

  I take the trolley from her and drag it toward the house, noticing the broken wheel.

  She takes it from me when we get inside.

  I look around the small room. It never fails to shock me how poor poor can be. But then I see a photograph on the wall. I turn to her.

  She shifts her gaze to Rafa who’s hulking in the door.

  “He’s not here,” she says before I even ask the question. She knows exactly why we’re here.

  “Who’s not here?” I ask.

  “Danny.”

  “This is Danny?” I ask, pointing to the photo.

  She nods, looks me over in my suit. I know she wants to tell me to get the hell out, but she’s smarter than that.

  “Where is he?”

  “Work.” She puts a hand to her forehead and I see the worry in her eyes. “He didn’t come back this time.”

  The kids come rushing in screaming about an ice-cream truck coming down the street and can they have a few dollars to buy one.

  The grandmother starts to rush them back outside, away from us.

  “Rafa, go buy the kids an ice cream.”

  “Are you fucking serious?”

  “Watch your mouth.” I gesture to the kids.

  “No,” the old woman says. “They don’t go anywhere with either of you.”

  I stop her when she tries to grab the kids.

  “They’ll get ice cream. That’s all.”

  She just glares at me and I gesture to Rafa to go ahead. He shakes his head but goes. The kids follow him, all smiles and excitement as they discuss which they’ll choose.

  I watch the old woman’s eyes follow them.

  “Do you know him?” I ask, gesturing to where Rafa just stood. I release her only when I’m sure she’s not going to run after them.

  She turns to me. Doesn’t answer.

  “Did Danny know him?” Better question, maybe.

  “He dropped Danny off here a few times. I saw him in the car.”

  “When?”

  “I don’t remember. The children—”

  “They’re safe. You have my word.”

  She sighs, nods.

  “Who was Danny working for?”

  “I don’t know. But that man,” she shakes her head, makes the sign of the cross, then looks at me, makes it again. “Go. Please. We don’t know anything. I haven’t said anything. No police. The children, they’re just children.”

  “I’m not here to hurt you or them,” I say, processing what I’ve just learned.

  “My son,” she starts, shaking her head and pulling a chair out from the table. She sits down and I think about the amount of pressure she must be under. “I told him it was no good. Told him to get a decent job.”

  I don’t care about her son. He hurt Gabriela. Put her in that well. But the children.

  “How do you feed them?” I ask, looking around the kitchen.

  She gives me a weary glance. “We manage.”

  I take out my wallet, pull out some bills and set them on the table.

  She looks at the stack, then up at me and shakes her head. “Mafioso. I don’t want your money.”

  “But you need it, so you’ll take it.”

  We both hear the kids and I see the effort it takes her to school her features, to take the money and tuck it into the pocket of her dress and stand as the kids run in with their giant popsicles and huge smiles and hand her an unopened one.

  “It’s your favorite,” the boy tells the old woman.

  “Let’s go,” I tell Rafa, not missing how the woman looks at him. “You were right. Waste of time. She doesn’t know a damn thing.”

  I don’t even look back as I say it.

  “Those kids need a fucking bath,” Rafa says.

  I get into the Bugatti and look over at my cousin.

  He turns to me. “Let’s get a drink. I’ll call Clara.”

  “Don’t call. We’ll surprise her,” I say, glancing in the rear-view mirror at the woman’s face in the window as I pull away.

  20

  Gabriela

  How can two people living in the same house manage to avoid each other for days?

  I should be grateful. Stefan hasn’t been to see me since that night. Afterwards, after we lay in silence for an eternity, he got up and walked out of the room. His room. I slept alone and I don’t know where he went but I haven’t seen him since.

  I’m watching the lovebirds from my place on the bed when there’s a knock on the door early in the evening of the sixth night. I barely have a chance to sit up before Stefan opens the door. He stands there and looks at me, and I wonder if the crease between his eyebrows has become permanent.

  I wonder if this is what he wanted out of this whole insane arrangement. Wonder if it’s what he expected.

  He may not hate me, but I wonder if he hates himself because the other night, he did what I predicted he would. He took.

  But is what I did fighting?

  Growing up in my father’s world, you learn. Slowly or quickly, you learn. You learn to take your lot and you plot your escape.

  I think what’s hardest is that I’ve stopped plotting. I’m not the fighter I was or thought I was.

  In my father’s house, I was alone.

  In Stefan’s house, I am alone.

  I will always be alone. I think this is what hurts the most with him, because as much as I hate to admit it, it does hurt. I thought—I stupidly thought—he was different. I thought maybe together we wouldn’t be alone.

  Fuck. If I cry one more tear, I’m going to rip out my own tear ducts.

  “What do you want?” I ask, getting off the bed to stand, using that moment to force those tears back.

  He looks me over as he walks inside. I’m wearing a pair of white linen pants and a white sleeveless blouse. I’m barefoot.

  I fold my arms across my chest as I wait for his reply.

  “They’re noisy,” he says, walking to the bird cage.

  “Let me take them away from here, then.”

  Three things surprise me then. The first is that he puts a finger inside the cage. The second is that the female bird goes to him. The third, and most strange, is that when she does, he gently caresses her.

  “Did you name them?”

  “She’s Marguerite,” I say, walking toward the table. “He’s Mephistopheles.”

  Stefan pulls his hand out and looks at me with surprise. “Not Faust?”

  “No. Faust loved Marguerite, even if that love was misguided. Mephistopheles represents the devil.” He’s clever enough to get my point. I walk away, out onto the balcony. “And the birds are not in love. She hates him.”

  “Dramatic,” he says, joining me outside.

  “I have time on my hands to think up the drama. What do you want?”

&nb
sp; “The petition was granted. I’m your brother’s legal guardian.”

  “Already?”

  He nods.

  I wonder how much money exchanged hands for that to happen.

  “Congratulations,” I say. “One more notch on your side of the who-can-be-a-bigger-asshole column. Does this mean you’re in the lead?”

  I see him bite back what he wants to say. His expression doesn’t change, and I get the feeling he may be counting to ten. “Get packed, Gabriela. We’re leaving for New York in a few hours.”

  “New York?” I say stupidly. I’m so surprised that it takes me a moment to process it. After that moment, though, surprise morphs into suspicion. “Why?”

  “Don’t you want to see Gabe? Celebrate his half-birthday?”

  “How do you know about that?”

  “Millie overheard you. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Why didn’t I tell you about his half-birthday? Why would I? Why would I tell you anything that matters?”

  “Gabriela,” he starts. He reaches out to me but I draw back. He drops his arm and walks to the railing.

  I watch him stand there, looking out over the sea, and I think how different this could have been. How different I wish it were.

  When he turns to me, his features are schooled. “I thought you might want to bring him here. Would you like that?”

  What? He’s asking if I want to bring my brother here?

  “Gabe? Bring him here as in Sicily? To live with us?”

  He nods.

  I’m shocked.

  “Why? What game are you playing?”

  “I’m not playing any game.”

  “How does it benefit you?”

  “It doesn’t.”

  “Then why? Why would you do that?”

  “Because you’re sad and your brother makes you happy.”

  Fuck.

  Tears burn my eyes and I turn my face away. “Why do you do this?” I ask, unable to keep the quaver from my voice.

  He comes to me, stands behind me and puts his hands on the railing on either side of me. He’s so close, I can smell his cologne, the same one he always wears. I can feel the heat of his body. And some part of me, some stupid, masochistic part of me, it wants to lean into him. Wants to lay my head on his shoulder and let him hold me.