“Adrian, is there um, any possibility that, maybe,” I begin, hesitating at the absurdity of what I’m about to say.
“Any possibility of what?” he asks, a note of tension and impatience in his voice.
“Is it possible that someone could have, like, placed a tracker on your car? Or something like that? Like a bomb?” I ask, my words shaken.
“Ugh, Gabbi, that kind of thing doesn’t actually happen, not usually. You’re being dramatic,” he mutters.
As we pass a Turkish corner store, I see a group of men glance at us in the car, carefully examining each detail of the vehicle.
“I’m gonna be sick again, pull over,” I beg.
“Babe, please just take a few deep breaths. You’re forgetting that my family is as powerful as yours, maybe more. They’ll do their best to keep us safe. Do you need some water?” Adrian says, pleading a bit as I lay my head back.
Before I can answer, a swell of saliva at the back of my mouth warns of an imminent projectile of stomach acid and bile. I throw my head forward and retch onto the floor in vain, drooling.
“Shit, Gabbi, I think you need to see a doctor about your anxiety.” Adrian chides.
I retch a time or two and sit up, glaring at him as I wipe spit from my face. “You think this is anxiety? You think I should see a shrink and go on medication because I can’t order my own food at McDonald’s?! This is a survival response, Adrian. My body is trying to prepare for the fact that I could be facing certain death very, very soon. My reaction is totally appropriate!” I shout, a tremble in my voice as my stomach lurches once more.
Adrian turns his head and rolls his eyes, sighing heavily. “Well, fortunately for you, I’m not reacting appropriately, according to you. If I were, we’d both be incapacitated on the floor of our apartment, where your dad’s men would have likely found us by now. So, maybe you should just let me handle it while my head is clear.”
As the nausea ebbs and flows, a headache begins to pulse in my temples. “Are you fucking kidding me?!” I shout. “This is not the time for you to try and undermine me for being a woman!” I continue, my face burning hot with anger and flop sweat.
Adrian angrily takes a sharp turn into a Bodega parking lot and brakes hard. He turns to me, and I can see the heat rising in him as well. “Gabriella, I am not scolding you for having feelings or for being a woman, I’m trying to get you to ground yourself so that you don’t act out and get us killed! If you have this little control over yourself already, what are you going to do when we’re actively faced with a life-or-death situation? You can’t be a pile convulsing on the ground at the slightest provocation,” he barks.
Before I can retaliate, I hear a knock on the passenger window, and I nearly blackout. I look to my right, and instead of a well-muscled henchman, I see a scrawny, blonde man, no older than 20. He’s wearing a black beanie over his shaggy golden ringlets, and he has a lip ring.
Even if he were hired by my family, I could probably blow him over with one breath. A baggy Pink Floyd sweatshirt hangs off his tiny body, and for a moment, I feel warm inside, like I’m holding a kitten.
“Before you freak out, that’s Jonesey. He’s one of my friend’s from Camden. We’re gonna dump the car here and go with him. Once we’re out of the city, I’m going to call my dad to get a read on what the hell he did to piss your family off so much.” Adrian shuts the car off and hops out, gesturing to Jonesey.
I see him embrace Jonesey, almost afraid that he’ll snap him in half. Adrian paces over to my side of the car and opens my door for me.
A true gentleman, I sarcastically think to myself as my wounded ego throbs from our earlier conversation.
I climb out of the car, my nausea abating as I assess the situation. Adrian has already gathered our things and thrown them into Jonesey’s car, a 2001 Pontiac Grand Am. The back of the car is plastered with stickers, featuring sayings like “I Brake For Yuppies” and “Punk’s Not Dead” scattered amongst logos for local food co-ops. The side skirt of the car is rusted nearly completely, and my stomach drops at the thought of speeding through town inside of such a poorly-maintained vehicle.
“Hey, uh, I’m gonna run in and get some snacks. You guys need anything?” Jonesey asks, burying his hands in his giant sweatshirt, letting the empty arms hang listlessly.
“Could you grab me a raspberry Perrier?” I ask sweetly.
“Ew, fuck no,” Jonesey retorts, and he disappears into the store without another word.
Confused and intrigued, I turn to Adrian. “You went to boarding school with that kid? He’s like, six years younger than you,” I say as I settle into the back seat of the car amidst a nest of music festival flyers.
Adrian laughs. “Yeah, he’s like, a fucking super-genius. 160 IQ or something insane like that. He got into my school on a full scholarship when he was really young, and he focused a lot on computers and other nerd shit like that. He was a small kid though, and a lot of the guys in my grade thought he was weird. So, we made a pact: he would help me with my homework, and I would keep him safe. That’s how he knows about all the mafia shit. I had people posted around school to make sure he was okay when I wasn’t around. We’ve been best friends ever since.”
I glance around the car at the debris, messy but not unclean. I think about how lonely Jonesey must have felt in that school, how abnormal his life has been even though his family isn’t in the mob.
Jonesey returns to the car, throwing himself in the driver’s seat with an armful of snacks, a bag of Takis already opened and explored. He throws the car into drive, and a hideous grinding noise breaks through my meditative thoughts.
“That’ll only be like, a few seconds, sorry,” Jonesey says, mouth full of snack food. After the grinding noise stops, a cacophony of jazz instrumentals erupts from the ancient CD player.
“Oh, god, what is this?” I shriek against my better judgment.
“This is the magnum opus of one of the greatest bands on earth, Chichi Balosteros and the Ruined Orgasms,” Jonesey chimes confidently, turning the music up louder.
Chapter 7
We drive for what feels like an eternity, though the further we get from the city, the more at ease I feel. The derelict car starts to feel like the first-ever shroud of normalcy I’ve experienced, cocooning me in anonymity and low expectations like I’ve never known before.
All my life, I’ve only traveled in luxury, the authority of my father emanating from my family. I’ve never appeared so disheveled in public, my hair a matted pile of a bun on top of my head, my makeup two days old, flaking like the face of a haunted porcelain doll.
Since I was a girl, my mother harped on appearances. I’ve been having my hair professionally blown out bi-weekly since I was thirteen. Now, sitting unwashed and messy in a stranger’s car, I revel in the imperfection.
I fall in and out of sleep for a while, periodically jolted awake by the start of a new mixtape or car horn.
“This one is called Birds, Vol. II, I wrote it myself when I was high on mushrooms a few months ago,” Jonesey gushes as a strange, almost celestial melody plays from the stereo.
The car rattles here and there with the ever-changing topography, lulling me into a trancelike state the way it would have when I was a child on my way home from a day at the beach.
Nestling myself into my sweatshirt, I feel a tiny light of gratitude in my chest, spreading throughout my body, down to my fingertips, into my hair. Jonesey sings quietly to himself under his breath, his voice sweet and clear like fresh mountain water. Adrian stares thoughtfully out the window, occasionally taking a moment to let the sun graze his face, to close his eyes and feel the warmth through his eyelids. Though this day could easily have been my last, I choose to revel in it.
When we begin to arrive in Camden, I feel tension growing among the three of us as the scenery changes from highway plains to the squalor that sprawls along the streets of the inner city.
I’ve only heard stories of Camden, and I know it�
�s considered the most dangerous city in America. Maybe that’s why Adrian wanted us to come here, because he knows that it’d be just as dangerous for the ones chasing us as it is for us.
Broken, barred windows line the neighborhoods, and shoddy, hand-painted shop signs dangle from chains above destitute, empty buildings. Particleboard covers caved-in walls of homes not fit for human survival.
We don’t drive for long, and after a handful of left turns, we park in front of yet another run-down house, the last on a dead-end road. A field of dead grass stretches a half-mile out, and an abandoned power plant lines the horizon as the sun shines weakly through its windows. Down the street, I can hear what sounds like a domestic dispute taking place, with a man and woman screaming obscenities at one another as a child shrieks in the background.
“Let’s just get inside,” warns Jonesey.
We agree and gather our things as quickly as possible.
Jonesey shows us inside his home, which is surprisingly well-maintained, given the outside appearance. While the building itself reflects its checkered past, a rug and coffee table draw my attention when we first enter the house. For a barely twenty-something male, Jonesey has somehow been able to make a home out of this place. I see a modest collection of house plants in the corner near a window, and the couch appears almost new. He’s even hung artwork along the walls in a careful and thoughtful manner, maintaining the visual balance of the room. I’m impressed.
“Dude, why the fuck do you live here?” Adrian blurts out, as if he’s been dying to ask since before we got here.
Jonesey shrugs. “After I graduated from the academy, I took a job as a software engineer and made a bunch of money. I bought the house for basically nothing since it was a foreclosure in the worst city in the country. After a while, I started a side project that picked up, and now I do my own thing. Nobody bothers me, my living expenses are basically nonexistent, and I can always pick up and leave if I absolutely have to,” Jonesey says.
“Yeah, let me ask again: why the fuck do you live here, dude? It sounds like you’ve got a kickass job, like you could live basically anywhere. I know some people back in the city that are looking for roommates,” Adrian continues, gesturing out the window at the pile of tires in the neighbor’s front yard.
“I’m here because my parents will find me in the city. I don’t want to get into it. They won’t come looking for me here,” replies Jonesey, tension in his voice.
“Oh, well, whatever happened, dude, try to make things right, so you don’t have to live here. It’s fucking dangerous,” Adrian pries.
Jonesey slams down a pile of books he was arranging, clenching his jaw. “Dude, fucking let it go. It’s none of your business,” he barks through his teeth, glaring at Adrian with his wild hazel eyes. His puppy-dog persona has slipped for a moment, and his guarded, shadowy side has emerged.
Adrian throws his hands up, forfeiting the argument.
I begin to explore the downstairs of the house, more and more amazed at how impeccably clean and organized Jonesey’s items are. I think back to the bedrooms of past boyfriends whose homes were like palaces compared to this, who disrespected their space with dirty clothes and moldy dishes.
My gaze falls on a poster that hangs framed in the hallway leading to the kitchen. It portrays a bizarre-looking cartoon alien with blue skin and exposed breasts, holding what appears to be a human in her hand. At the bottom of the poster reads La Planete Sauvage.
Jonesey peels himself from his task of obsessive book organizing to view the poster with me, noticing my intrigue. “It’s a movie from 1973 about humans being kept as pets on an alien planet,” he says, smiling slightly.
I wrinkle my nose at the idea. “That’s pretty weird. Who would have written a movie about that?” I ask in a partially rhetorical fashion.
Jonesey rolls his eyes and sighs heavily. “Yeah, I guess social commentary by prolific French screenwriters is below you,” he mutters.
I recoil a bit at his comment, becoming more and more uncertain of how I should be behaving around him.
“Guys, it’s getting pretty late. We should get some sleep so that we’re better at making a real plan tomorrow,” Adrian shouts from the living room, rolling out a makeshift bed out of blankets that we had taken from our apartment.
Jonesey snaps back into his baseline carefree demeanor. “Okay, if you guys get hungry, there’s some cold pizza and spaghetti in the fridge. Sorry it’s not more,” he says as he begins his ascent upstairs. “Also,” he continues, “don’t bother calling the cops if you hear any gunshots. They won’t come.”
Adrian and I settle into our blanket nest, slipping out of our pants as we do. As I crawl under the blankets, I can smell our apartment in the fibers. It smells a bit like my favorite peppermint candle with hints of fresh coffee and citrus. I inhale deeply, imagining the view of downtown from our lofted bed.
I gaze up at the fan surrounded by a hideous popcorn ceiling, streetlights casting tiny shadows across the bumpy surface like the landscape of a barren, airless planet. I can hear an aggressive male voice shouting, and for a moment, I fear that my father’s men have found me. My eyes shoot open, and I stifle my breath to listen.
The man outside sounds as if he’s alone, as if he’s screaming at somebody on the phone. After I listen closely for thirty seconds, I realize that he is shouting about a drug deal gone bad, which surely isn’t involved with my current situation. Despite this, I curl up under the blankets, hiding like a child.
Under the blankets, my hand brushes against the front of Adrian’s underwear, and I notice that he’s rock hard. At first, I’m startled, but then I remember what had taken place right before we left until we were so rudely interrupted.
I hesitate at first, but when I caress his cock again, I can feel it throb slightly. I stroke him more, and the fabric of his underwear falls away, revealing the smooth skin of his penis as it throbs harder.
I’m overcome by desire as I see him exposed this way, asleep, needing release. A bead of pre-cum spreads over the head when I begin to play with him a bit more, exploring all of his favorite sensations that he showed me during our first week together.
Shimmying down further into the blankets, I brush my lips across the tip lightly, allowing his salty fluid to graze my skin. I slide my tongue along the underside a bit to gauge his reaction, and I hear his breath hitch in his throat as his penis twitches again.
Licking my lips, I slip them over the whole head of his cock, bracing my tongue against the underside once more for leverage. At first, I only lightly suck the tip, moving my lips up and down as more pre-cum slips onto my tongue when I swirl it around.
Slight, sleepy moans escape Adrian, and an intense pang of need takes over. I slide my mouth as far down his long, thick shaft as I can, just over halfway. I curl my tongue up into a point as I slide up, flattening it as I slide down.
Adrian begins to squirm unconsciously, and I stop for a moment, suddenly feeling extremely dirty about what I was doing. Being able to pleasure him like this, making him want me this badly in his sleep, feels incredible.
I close my lips together more, creating more pressure around his cock as I slide up and down. His hips begin to move with me, and I know that he must be close already. Desperate to suspend the moment, I stop, watching his penis pulse red and hot as it begs me for more. I focus on the tip again, in love with how large it feels between my lips as I slide my tongue along his frenulum.
His breath is getting shaky, and a delicious, naughty thought comes to me: how many times can I get him close before he comes?
His reactions become a game to me. I slow down as his breaths become more labored and desperate.
I begin again.
I stop.
I begin again.
I continue like this for ten minutes, teasing and torturing him until he suddenly emerges from sleep.
“Oh, oh god. Gabbi, you’re gonna make me come. Oh, fuck, I’m gonna come on the blankets,” he m
oans quietly.
I continue sucking and swirling my tongue along his dick until he explodes on my face and all over his belly. Ropes of semen shoot across his skin and underwear as he moans helplessly.
I grab my sweatshirt from my pile of dirty clothes and wipe my face, offering it to him as he lies back down in complete bliss.
“Fuck, I really needed that,” he says, his breath becoming more regular as he speaks.
He turns over to look at me, and I realize that I have an obvious wet spot on my panties. I blush and bite my lip as he realizes, and I whimper when I feel his hand graze me. I lift my hips a bit, begging him to touch me more. He pulls my underwear to the side, exposing my slick lips in the light from the streetlamps that spills over us.
He begins to stroke my inner thighs, teasing me and sending bursts of lightning throughout my lower body. I squirm my hips, attempting to feel his hand graze my swollen clit, but he pulls himself away, grinning at me impishly.
I gaze into his eyes like a nervous virgin as he places his hand along my mound, grinding his palm into me. My eyes roll into my head in ecstasy, and I grind back, my body rolling like a turbulent wave.
Adrian slips two of his fingers inside of me, curling them slightly. I yelp out loud and cover my mouth, my heart racing in my ears as I listen for Jonesey to come running down the stairs to see me lying here, in the throes of orgasm, moaning unintelligibly.
Somehow, the thought sends a sickeningly sweet current throughout my body, and my arousal is heightened. The thought of poor, innocent Jonesey stumbling upon me like this sends me reeling in my sin.
What a little whore I am, hoping that an unassuming bystander will see me partially naked and be overtaken by lust.
I imagine Jonesey’s face, his sweet eyes widening as he finds me this way, his cock beginning to throb at the sight of me. What would he do? Would he attempt to hide the growing bulge between his legs? Would he walk away without a word to masturbate in his bed, the thought of me still glowing behind his eyelids?
Broken King: An Arranged Marriage Mafia Romance Page 4
