Footsteps

by Susan Fanetti

  “She’s not his mother.”

  She nodded. “Jenny. She said something to worry you. Yes?”

  With his cheek resting in her soft palm, he nodded. “Yes.”

  “She wants to be his mother again.”

  “It doesn’t matter. She’s not, and she won’t be.”

  “But still you’re worried.”

  “I’m…guarded. Paying attention. Bina, you understand? She’s a problem to deal with, but she’s not a threat.”

  “You will go to Uncle Ben.”

  “If I have to, yes.”

  She was quiet, and he could sense her thinking about that—what he meant. “Our lives are very complex.”

  “Yes. And complicated. Will you come to bed? I want to be simple with you. Just you and me, and all the rest of it just gone for a while.”

  “Simple—it means also ‘stupid,’ yes?” She was smiling, though, and he knew she wasn’t leaving him. Not tonight, and not later.

  “Yep. Let’s just be stupid. I want to be simple and stupid.” He lifted her onto his lap, and she settled in, draping her arms around his neck and resting her head on his shoulder.

  “I would like to be stupid tonight.”

  ~oOo~

  The house was quiet when they went in, so Bina went up ahead of him while he stayed down to turn out the lights and lock up. They’d had a quick strategic meeting about which bedroom to take—his or the guestroom—because all the other bedrooms were on the second floor, and Bina got a little loud. Which he loved wholeheartedly. But he wasn’t sure his father would.

  Not that he hadn’t had sex in his bedroom before. There were ways to keep the sound down.

  The bigger concern was Trey. In the end, Carlo decided he’d rather risk Trey coming in in the morning and seeing them in bed together than risk him coming in and finding his room empty. One would provoke curiosity, the other panic. Not really a hard choice.

  When he got up to his room, she was already in his bed, naked and sitting with the covers pooled around her waist, her beautiful, full, dark-tipped breasts bare and waiting. As he watched, with her eyes steady on him, she curled her hands around those perfect mounds and grazed her thumbs over her nipples. Her eyelids fluttered and closed.

  “Jesus God, baby.” His voice cracked roughly and he stripped to his skin as quickly as he could. The sheets were cool, but her body was hot, and he wrapped her up and moved to roll her under him. He wanted to taste her.

  But she locked her arms and pushed him back. “No. I think tonight you lie back.” He let the pressure of her hands on his shoulders push him until he was on his back. Then she straddled him, and he lifted his hands to take her breasts. She let him, arching back as he fondled and teased, and then she took his hands in hers and laced their fingers together. She leaned forward until his hands, still caught with hers, were on the bed at his shoulders, and she was hovering over him, her breasts grazing his chest.

  In the week of their intimacy, he had taken almost all the lead, though she was a responsive and energetic participant. She was learning new things about her body and the ways it could experience pleasure, and being with her for those discoveries was hotter than any fantasy he might have conjured. She had ridden him, but he had led then, too, bringing her over him and leading her with his hands on her hips. This marked the first time that she was taking real charge.

  She dropped her head to his and kissed him, her tongue searching his mouth, her teeth nipping at his lips. Still frothing a little from the emotional tilt-a-whirl he’d been on since the afternoon, he began to feel frantic with need. When he tried to draw his arms up so he could hold her, she fought him, holding his hands down. When he began to overpower her, she released his hands and sat up. He groaned; he needed her close.

  But she only smiled down at him.

  Then she moved, lifting up from his hips and resettling herself on her knees, between his thighs. He knew what she was up to, then. Something she had not yet done. Not for him. He knew why, too; they’d talked about it. How Auberon had trained her for this. That asshole had been one seriously sick fuck.

  “Bina, no—you don’t have to.”

  “We’re simple tonight, yes? We left everything outside the door?”

  He smiled. “Yes.”

  “Then this is something that is just you and me. How I know it—that’s out there.” With that, she put her hands on his belly—which he had not been expecting, and it made him jump a little—and rubbed heavy circles from his hips to his ribs, pressing in, but not too hard. It felt wonderful, intensely relaxing, and he moaned a little as his legs relaxed outward. Her position between his legs, leaning forward to rub his belly, made her breasts brush his cock again and again—just light swipes of skin that drove him quietly mad.

  By the time she stopped and moved her hands over his hips, the pressure she’d exerted on his belly had somehow itself become sexual, and he’d taken to making strained grunts with every exhale.

  Then she circled his cock with one hand and bent down to suck on just the tip. Sensation shot through his body, and he went tense. “Ah! Jesus, Bina!”

  She backed off until he could relax again. Next time, though, she took him deeply into her mouth and bobbed on him, sucking heavily. When he reached down and tangled his fist in her hair to hold her as he came to the edge of orgasm, she stopped and backed off until he released her and relaxed.

  “What are you doing to me?” he gasped. And she only smiled.

  Over and over she brought him to the brink and backed him off, all the while smiling that tiny, smug smile every time their eyes met. Finally, when he had the headboard in both fists and his head bent so far back he was cutting off blood to his brain, she went at him with vigor and focus, and he knew she was going to let him off this fucking carousel of delayed ecstasy. He got to the point where she had denied him again and again and he felt a clench of fear as he waited for her to back off again. But she didn’t. Instead, her other hand, which had been heretofore propped on his thigh, moved to cup his balls. She was going to let him come—the simple thrill of knowing almost took him over.

  And then her hand moved from his balls to the skin below it, one finger moving backward, and his body stepped back from the cliff. He sat up partway. “What are you doing? No, Bina.”

  She slid her mouth up and away from his cock, but she didn’t move her hand. “Trust me. I’m not going to do what you think. Trust me.” As she spoke, the finger in question made a circle on the skin behind his balls—and fuck, oh fuck. What was that?

  “What are you—what?”

  “Is it good?” The finger circled and circled, pressing on his skin, a little harder with every circle.

  He had to force his head to make words. “Its…it’s…yeah.”

  “Lie back. It will be even better.”

  He did as she said. She took him in her mouth again, sucking firmly, bringing him back to the edge, and her finger massaged that one deep spot, and when he came he had to clench his teeth together to hold back the need to shout to the heavens. He could feel every muscle straining with the stress of his release. She stayed on him, swallowing, until he became one giant, exposed nerve, and he reached down and pulled her off his spasming body.

  She wiped her mouth with two dainty fingers and then came up to lie alongside him. “That was good?”

  It took him a few seconds to reclaim his breath enough to answer. “I don’t know if I’ll ever want the story of how you learned that, but sweet holy Jesus, baby. I’ve never felt anything like it.”

  He felt spent and exhausted, and he didn’t think he had more to give her tonight. She had taken everything. She seemed to know it, and she lifted his limp arm and tucked herself in, her head on his chest.

  Lying there, sated to an extreme, his beautiful woman in his arms, his happy child sleeping down the hall, in this house that had always been his home, Carlo felt well and happy again. They had indeed left it all outside the door. There was a lot to be said for simple. Or s
tupid, even.

  Bina’s fingers traced light, lazy circles through the hair on his pecs. The circles slowed, and he thought she might be falling asleep even before he did. But then her circles grew, and she grazed his ribs and his belly, and his cock began to stir and stretch. Could he go again, even after all that?

  Another pass of her hands on his body, and the answer was yes. “You sleepy, Bina?”

  “Not so much that I don’t want that.” She gave his hard cock a rub. She was growing more and more confident. Playful and saucy. Every day she was more perfect.

  He rolled over and settled between her legs, hooking her knees over his arms. “Let me give it to you, then.”

  ~ 20 ~

  Sabina spent Sunday night at the house, too. She had not intended to. She’d gone to Mass with the family, and then come back to the house with them for brunch for Rosa, who was on her way back to the dorm at Brown—not too far, not much farther than Carlo now planned to commute, but apparently she did not come home often during the semester, so they sent her off with a farewell.

  When Carlo Sr. and Rosa packed up and left, Sabina had left, too; she’d gone back to her apartment to change for work.

  She’d had every intention of closing up Sea Weaver on Sunday evening and going back to her apartment with some take-out, to have a normal, quiet evening alone and take some time to think things through—Trey’s birthday had been full of things that needed thinking through.

  Everything had gone according to her plan all afternoon. She closed alone, because Andi had a date, and she was content and busy, thinking about stopping at the little trattoria on the corner, which had a nice to-go menu, and then reading more of Sylvia Plath’s poetry. She’d gotten as far as the door of the restaurant, and the thought of eating a calzone on her own in her apartment while Carlo and Trey, and Carlo Sr., and maybe some of the siblings, were sitting around that big table in the dining room made her feel bleak and lonely.

  She’d called Carlo, and he’d met her at her apartment, where she’d gone to pack a bag. She hadn’t even driven her car over—it was as though she were trying to make it as hard on herself as possible to exert any willpower at all.

  Stupid seemed to be the path she was choosing.

  But on Monday morning, when Carlo Sr. had gone to work and only Carlo, Trey, and she were left, it didn’t feel stupid at all. The shop was closed on Mondays, so Sabina planned to spend the day with Trey while Carlo had meetings in Providence.

  Sabina made eggs—sunny side up—and toast while Carlo got Trey up and ready. Eggs was something she had made often for her aunt, and the skill had come back to her quickly. Standing at the big gas range, frying eggs in a cast iron skillet, listening to Carlo and Trey talking about what Trey wanted to do for the day—he wanted to take his flying shark to the park, and he wanted ice cream, and he wanted to watch How to Train Your Dragon—Sabina felt like she was part of a family. It was not a feeling she wanted to give up. She was beginning to wonder whether her little attic apartment was the smart decision, after all.

  Just as she was plating the eggs and toast and setting them at the breakfast table in the kitchen, Carlo and Trey came in hand in hand. Trey’s soft, light-gold hair was sticking up in all directions, but he was dressed for the day and smiling brightly.

  “Ms. Bina, Uncle Joey is gonna take us to the park!” He gave her a hug and climbed up onto his chair, where she’d just set a glass of apple juice.

  She turned to Carlo, surprised. “He is?”

  “Yeah. I’d feel better if you had company for a while. Just…until I know more what Saturday meant. Okay?” He kissed her cheek, and Sabina was distracted from the question on her tongue. He looked spectacularly handsome dressed up for meetings. She adored the way he dressed normally, so casual and free, in faded jeans and chambray or Oxford-cloth shirts, almost never tucked in, and in the scuffed, light brown boots he usually wore. Rough and sexy.

  But now…now he was wearing black pants and black lace-up shoes; a black shirt without a tie, open at his throat; and a charcoal grey tweed jacket. And best of all—tortoiseshell framed glasses. He wore those only when he read or when he worked, so she did not see them often. But they were very nice. And seeing them as part of his whole professional ensemble, Sabina expected to spend a lot of the day thinking about the way he looked right now.

  “Bina—okay?” He was grinning at her; she must have been ogling obviously.

  “Oh, yes. I’m just surprised it’s Joey.” Carlo had barely spoken to Joey in weeks. She thought it had to do with Joey being beaten up, but neither of them had offered any details.

  “Luca and John are both busy. Carmen, too. I don’t want you to do anything different from what you were planning for the day. Just have some company and keep an eye out for anything weird. If you think something’s off, assume it is. Okay?”

  She felt a heavy weight of responsibility for Trey. “You’re sure we shouldn’t stay here?”

  “I’m sure. I don’t want to overreact, and I don’t want his day getting screwed with over it. I have a meeting this morning, and then lunch with Pete and two meetings in the afternoon. I should be back around six or so, unless traffic sucks.”

  She nodded, feeling worried and happy both.

  “Ms. Bina, what’s on my plate?”

  Sabina turned to see Trey poking with suspicion at his breakfast. “That’s an egg, Mr. Trey.”

  He turned a look on her that said she was clearly pulling his leg, but he was no fool. “Daddy, is this an egg?”

  “Yup. Just a different kind than you usually have. Try it.” Carlo sat down and used his fork to lift one of his eggs onto a piece of toast.

  Worried that she had, again, failed at the task of feeding Trey, Sabina sat at her own place and asked Carlo, “Should I have…”

  “It’s fine. He’ll eat anything.”

  Trey poked again and broke the yolk. Yellow oozed over his plate, and Trey looked up at them with a grin. “My egg is peeing!” And then he laughed so hard his face turned red. Carlo and Sabina both followed suit.

  Carlo tousled his son’s hair. “You’re a funny guy, pal. Eat your peeing egg.”

  Sabina watched her boys eat and thought of past mornings, those of her life before. She thought of the last morning she’d spent in the house in Providence, when Gloria had made Eggs Benedict, and when James had stabbed her breast with a knife covered in egg and hollandaise.

  He’d stabbed her until she’d bled, and then he’d sucked the blood from her breast. Then he’d pushed her head into his discarded breakfast and fucked her.

  That was the life she’d had before.

  What she had now could not possibly be wrong.

  ~oOo~

  Joey’s jaw had been wired for weeks and weeks. He was due to get released from his torment in a few days, but his mood had only seemed to get surlier as the end of his sentence of near-silence approached.

  However, he was always cordial with Sabina, and he doted on Trey, so she expected to have a nice day together. He arrived at the house around ten, after Sabina and Trey had cleaned up breakfast—Trey had cleared the table, bringing each dish to her individually, including each piece of flatware—and they had spent some time coloring together.

  Joey came in the front door, and Elsa got up and greeted him. Trey looked up from the starfish he was coloring green, but he didn’t get overly excited until Joey came into the kitchen.

  “Hey, Three-peat,” Joey gritted through his clamped teeth. He’d gotten more adept at making himself clear.

  “Look, Uncle Joey! It’s a starfish that’s growing a new leg!”