[English] Spin

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But I was going to come again, and I couldn’t come with anything inside me. I knew that. It was an indelible fact.

“I’m coming inside you,” he gasped. “I’m going to come so f**king hard in you.”

“Me too.” I didn’t even believe it. “You’re making me come.”

The swirl of feeling dropped away then coalesced, increasing until my limbs stiffened and I put my face in his neck to stifle my cries. The impossible happened. I came just from a man inside me. I pulsed around him, drowning in the power of it.

He thrust hard with a grunt then a moan. I felt the pulse at the base of his dick on my stretched pu**y. He was coming. Making that beautiful man lose himself in me felt like a gift. I pushed into him until he slowed, stopped, and kissed my neck.

“Grazie,” he said.

“You’re welcome.”

Slowly, he slipped his dick out of me. It was still rigid, and I felt every inch of it against my raw skin. He tied off the condom and wrapped it in toilet paper as I sat up.

“Stay there,” he said, pressing my legs open.

Was he going to have me again? I didn’t think I could take it. Though I was already feeling twinges of shame and guilt, I wouldn’t have turned him down. He balled up a wad of tissue and pressed it between my legs, cleaning me. The gesture was so much more intimate than the actual *** that I blushed.

“I can’t send you back outside with *** dripping down your leg, now can I?”

Despite the sounds from the party, I’d forgotten that there would be a “back outside.” I’d forgotten about Daniel, his meek request that I come back to him, and the air of forgiveness my attendance was supposed to provide. I closed my legs and sat up.

“I have to get back out there.” I put my left shoe on all the way and popped off the vanity. “Thank you.”

“My pleasure.”

The shreds of my underwear tickled my inner thighs, bunching as only ripped lace could. I straightened my skirt and smoothed my stockings, knowing he was watching me. I didn’t look at him as I went for the door.

He slipped between me and the knob. “Contessa.”

“Yes?”

“Don’t leave like this.”

“How should I leave?”

He kissed my forehead, and I let myself enjoy the tenderness. I didn’t want to rush out, but I couldn’t delude myself into thinking I was fully present, either.

“It doesn’t have to be meaningless,” he said.

“You won’t answer questions about your life, and I’m still in love with my ex. I don’t know how it can be meaningful.”

“I’ll answer one question right now if you kiss me back like you mean it.”

“Why are you doing this? You’re the one who wanted two bodies meeting and no more.”

“Because I can’t walk out of this room like this. You’re like a stranger all of a sudden. One question.”

“The girl. Who was she? To you, I mean? Why did you come here for her?”

“That’s three questions.”

“Pick one.”

“My sister. She’s my sister. Her name is Nella.”

“And?”

He bit his lip and looked down at my face. After a second, I realized he wasn’t going to answer me.

“Excuse me.” I pushed him away, but he shoved me against the door.

“I want my kiss,” he said.

“That was no kind of answer.”

“I answered two of the three. If you only cared about the last one, you should have said so.”

“Lawyer.” I said it like an indictment, and he smirked. I elbowed him, but he caught my forearms and pinned me to the door.

“Your underwear’s already ripped, and if I checked, I bet you’re wet again.”

“Get off me,” I said.

“I should f**k you right now.”

“Go to hell.”

I twisted, but his hands were bruising, and the growing hardness of his dick was enough to weaken my knees and my resolve. “Take your kiss then.”

He did, without hesitation or gentleness, prying my mouth open with his tongue, thick with the taste of my pu**y. He pulled away when we had to breathe, and we stared at each other, panting.

“I hope you enjoyed that,” I said. “Now excuse me.”

He backed away from the door, and I went through it before he and his beautiful dick could stop me. The air outside the bathroom felt fresher and thinner. I smoothed my dress again and pulled the pins out of my hair, letting it fall down in a red cascade. It was easier to keep that way.

I felt a weight between my legs. I could easily get my appearance together for the rest of the party. But I couldn’t hide the fact that my cheeks were pink with arousal and my ni**les stood on end. My arms still had goose bumps, and I was so wet I felt the moisture inside my thighs. But I walked outside as if it were my house, my party, my world, because that’s what I did. It was easier than math.

Dinner had started. Daniel was at his table with an empty seat next to him. He hadn’t mentioned the seating arrangements, but they shouldn’t have surprised me. Forgiveness didn’t sit across the room. He stood as I took my seat.

“Thank you,” I said. When our eyes met, I was sure he knew what I’d just done.

twelve.

he next morning, two things happened simultaneously. One. A dozen red roses on Pam’s desk.

“Wow, these from Bobby?” I asked.

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“They’re for you.” She tapped a pen to the desk blotter, as if writing a song in her head.

Before I could open the paper flap of the card, the second thing happened. I caught the image on my assistant’s screen of Antonio and me in the hallway. It had been shot through the window the moment before we kissed. Next to that image was one of Daniel and me sitting together at dinner.

I’d feared looking weak. I’d feared the op ed pieces about my neediness and desperation, about Daniel’s ambition and mindless drive for power. The inevitable comparisons to greater women’s choices about cheating political mates. Maybe I should have worried about looking like a whore.

“Who’s that?” Pam asked.

Who was he? I ran the question over and over in my mind, and I didn’t have an acceptable answer. He was a man I’d met the other day. He was a magnet for my ***ual hunger.

“He’s being investigated for fraud,” Pam said, as if he was just a guy on the screen and not someone I had been standing so close to I could feel his heat. “Is he the same guy with the cars?”

“Same,” I choked. “What’s the article say?” I opened the envelope so I wouldn’t have to look at the screen. I figured the flowers were from Daniel, asking for another reprieve.

“Says you and Antonio Spinelli are friends through WDE. And you’re reconciling with Daniel Brower.”

“They used that word? Reconciling?” I looked at the card.

One more question.

No name. An arrogant avoidance of redundancy. I folded it back into the envelope.

“Yeppers,” Pam said. “Right next to that picture with the hot Italian guy. Sneaky.”

“Journalist. In Latin it means ‘to say everything while saying nothing.’”

“Really?”

“No. But if the ancients had known anything at all, it would.”

***

I’d gotten up and dressed like any other morning, expecting nothing more than the usual inconveniences. Traffic. Runny stockings. Coffee too hot/cold. Daniel and I had parted amicably the previous night, with him whispering “think about it,” in my ear. I promised to, and I would, but it was hard to think of Daniel when I woke up with a soaked, sore pu**y courtesy of Antonio.

I relieved myself, fingers stroking the soreness. I loved the pain of remembrance. He’d been so good, so hard, and talking during *** was something new. I whispered to myself f**k me f**k me f**k me hard until I came, ass tightening, hips twisting, balancing my whole body on the top of my head and the balls of my feet.

Only when I took my first panting breaths, cupping myself in my palm, did I consider how poorly we’d parted. I couldn’t be with someone so closed off. Later at work, when Pam told me he was under investigation, I knew why he didn’t like being interrogated. I had her hold my calls for an hour.

One more question.

What would it be? More about Nella? Another reason to land in Los Angeles besides easy Bar exams? No. All that was too facile and obviously loaded for him.

I locked my office door. I had a million things to do, but none would happen while those pictures sat in my mind. I needed to solve all of it immediately with an internet search.

If I could have bottled the next hour in a fragrance, it would have been called frustration. If the size of the bottle contained the amount of information I found on Antonio Spinelli, it would be one ounce, not a drop more, and the contents would be worth less than the vessel.

In other words, one sidebar article in Fortune had not one undigested word. I found one professional photograph in which he looked gorgeous, an unsubstantiated complaint in the comment section of a real estate blog bitching about how many cars he had and how much property he owned, a short fluff piece about Zia Giovana in the San Pedro Sun, and an investigative piece in the same paper from two years later.

The investigative piece was recent enough to matter. Antonio Spinelli, owner and proprietor of Zia’s restaurant, was under investigation for laundering millions through the establishment. The claim was absolutely impossible to prove, and apparently the money trail died before the reporter’s deadline.

Pam texted me.

—Mister Brower is on the line—

—I have another twenty minutes—

—He’s pretty insistent—

Pam knew me, and she knew my ex-fiancé. She wouldn’t interrupt for nonsense. I picked up the phone.

“Hi,” I said.

He started before I had the chance to take another breath. “What are you doing?”

“What?”

“With a known criminal. What are you doing with him?”

I was shocked into speechlessness.

“Tink? Answer me. It was in the LA Times.”

“I’m not with anyone. Not that it’s your business.”

“Your safety is my business. I’m sorry. That’s not negotiable now or ever.”

His voice seemed physically present, coming through not just the phone but the walls, and I realized he was right outside my locked door.

“Let me in,” he said.

I hung up and opened the door. “You have to relax.” It was barely out of my mouth before he slammed the door and shut out his bodyguards, who seemed to be holding back Pam.

“Daniel, really—”

“Really? Really, Theresa? Where did you pick him up?”

I put my hands on my hips. I had to bite my lips to keep in all the pointless recrimination. We didn’t need more of it. Daniel knew things.

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“Do you want to take it easy and talk to me?” I said.

“No,” he said, taking my shoulders. “I don’t.” He kissed me, pushing me back against my desk.

I kept my mouth closed not out of anger, but confusion. By the time he pulled back, we’d both calmed down.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“Sit down.” I indicated the chair across from my desk, and I sat next to it.

He pulled his chair close to mine as if he was still entitled to breathe my air, as if I’d agreed to the newspaper’s reconciliation in real life. “I need you to tell me everything,” he said, gathering my hands.

“There’s nothing to tell.”

“How did he approach you?”

I pulled my hands away. “This is not fair. You’re not exactly entitled to any information about me or my love life anymore. If I tell you it’s nothing, you’re going to think I’m lying. If I tell you it’s something, it’s like I’m trying to hurt you. I’m just trying to live my life, okay? I’m just trying to get through my days and nights.”

“You’re stumbling into a place where you can get hurt.”

“All roads lead to hurt, trust me.”

“I deserved that.”

“It wasn’t directed at you.” I threw his hands off me. “Can I just talk to you without all the baggage?”

“No, because you’ve forgotten who you are.”

“I’m not yours anymore.”

“You’re an heiress. A socialite. You run one of the biggest accounting departments in Hollywood. You funnel millions of dollars a day. You have access to the district attorney.”

“This is about you?”

“No! ****!” The curse was pure exclamation. Not a lead in or a modifier.

He paused for half of a microsecond, but I caught it. When he and I were together, I hadn’t liked cursing. I thought he didn’t do it until I found his texts to Clarice, and I found out just how well he used the word f**k.

He put his elbows on his knees and put his face in his hands. “He’s the capo of the Giraldi crime family, Tinkerbell.”

If I’d had a muscle in my body that wasn’t tensed to pain, they caught up. Even my toes curled. “You’re making that up.”

His face was red and sweaty. He looked more like a man and less like a mayor than he had since the morning I discovered his infidelity. “I wish I was. I wish I was only jealous.”

My ex-fiancé didn’t get jealous often, but when he did, he burned white hot. I’d never betrayed him or any of my boyfriends. My relationships had ended because of educational choices (Randolph went to Berkeley, and I went to MIT) or because the other party strayed or because there was nothing worth bothering with, as was the case with Sam Traulich. He was a nice guy, just completely incompatible with me.

Sam and I stayed friends, and when he’d called to ask if I had any contacts at Northwestern Films, I agreed to a lunch. It had gone long. At three thirty p.m., Sam and I were laughing over some crumb of nostalgia when Daniel stormed into the little diner. At first, he was thrilled to see me alive. He’d apparently been calling the office for hours about our dinner plans, and no one knew where I was. My cell battery had died, so he tracked me down by having his friends on First Street look into my cre*** card transactions for the previous two hours.

For some reason, that didn’t bother me.

Once he’d gotten over his initial delight, he got a good look at Sam, who was burnished brown from the sun, joyful as always, laid-back, and in good humor. Daniel put on his politician game, apologized, and appeared to forget about it. We made it to dinner on time. Life moved on.

But not for Daniel. I was shocked to find out years later, through a mutual friend, what had followed. As an extraordinarily popular young prosecutor, Daniel had arranged for Sam to be picked up by the police, brought in, roughed up, and detained. Daniel visited the detainee and mentioned that if he ever kept his girlfriend too long again, Sam would be joined in his cell by at least three gang members who owed him favors.

I had been livid. I slept on the couch for three weeks and barely spoke to him. That was the last intolerably stupid thing Daniel ever did on my behalf.

“Okay,” I said. “I’m listening. Antonio is what... in the mafia?”

“Yes.”

“You mean there’s still a mafia?”

“Yes, Virginia, there is a mafia.”

I paused for a long time. On the one hand, he might as well have told me Antonio was a leprechaun. On the other, I couldn’t say I was surprised.

thirteen.

texted Antonio.

—I have my one question—

—I want you to ask it in person—

—Agreed—

The address was in Hollywood Heights, overlooking the Bowl, on a hairpin turn that looked like a sheer drop on the right and a fortress wall on the left. A thirty-foot long, fifteen-foot high dumpster was visible over the hedge, and crashing and banging drowned out the scrape of cricket wings. I edged past a pickup truck that looked as though it had survived a demolition derby and parked next to a low sports car covered by a grey tarp.

The house was Spanish with a red tile roof, leaded stained glass accents, and thick adobe walls. Tarps swung from rafters, and every wall’s plaster had been cracked down to the lathe. I followed the banging and crashing, nodding at the rough men pushing a wheelbarrow of broken house detritus.

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“Is Antonio here?” I asked.

I couldn’t imagine him hanging around a scraped-to-the-beams structure, but one of the guys thumbed toward the back of the house. I thanked him and headed in that direction. The pounding, thumping sounds were followed by the tickle of pebbles hitting the floor. The air got dusty, and the smell of pine hit me as I saw him.

I’d always been attracted to clean cut, educated men, men who had people to change their flat tires, drive them around, break down their walls. They exerted themselves mightily in gyms and squash courts. But none of them had ever looked like Antonio. He hoisted a sledgehammer and brought it down. The wall crumbled under the weight, and he wedged the head behind the wall and yanked it out, sending a shot of plaster and shredded lathe toward him. He didn’t stop, though. Didn’t even pause. His wiry muscles shifted and pulsed. The satin sheen of sweat on his olive skin brought out every muscle and tendon.

I knew women who liked that sort of thing: a sweaty man doing physical labor. I had never understood the appeal until that moment. He brought the sledgehammer down with a coil of force, like a righteous god smiting an errant creation off the face of his earth. The movement was so dramatic the gold pendant around his neck swung around to his shoulder.

“I know you’re there, Contessa.” He brought the hammer down again.

“Don’t you have people to do this for you?”

He tossed the hammer down as if he was done with the day’s violence. “It’s my house, and demo’s too much fun to delegate.” His face was covered in dust, sweat, and a smile.

“You should hire yourself,” I said.

“Like it?”

“It’ll be nice once you mop. Dust. You know, maybe a few pictures on the wall.” I swept my hand to the view of the city, the busted everything, the sheer potential.

“Let me show you.” He headed out an archway, indicating I should follow.

He led me onto a balcony on the west side of the house. The terra-cotta floor looked to be in good shape, and the cast-iron railing curled in on itself, making a floral design I’d never seen.

“I love this view,” I said, understating the grandeur of the ocean of lights. “I could look out on this all night.”

He pulled a pack of cigarettes from his back pocket and poked one out. I refused his offer, and he took out a big metal lighter.

“Sit here at night, have a glass of wine. Or in the morning, a cup of coffee, just look over the city.” He lit his cigarette with a click clack, his profile something out of an art history class. He put his fingertips to the back of my neck, his stroke so delicate I didn’t lean into it, just stayed as still as I could.

“You had a question?” he asked, tracing the line where my shirt met my skin.

“Are you a leprechaun?” I asked.

“Only when St. Patrick’s Day lands on a full moon.” He was smiling, but I could see the question had confused him.

“I’m sorry. I had a real question, but I forgot which one I picked.”

Because they were all ridiculous, of course. If he was some cartoon capo, he’d have a dozen guys around him all the time. He’d wear pinstripes and a fedora. He’d carry a gun. He’d say capisce a lot.

“Do I get any questions?” he asked, interrupting my thoughts.

“I’m an open book.”

He laughed softly, smoke trailing behind him. “Right. Open, but in a different language.”

He gave me an idea.

“I’m not going to ask you a question,” I said. “I’m going to tell you what happened to me today.”

“Let me make you coffee.”

***

The kitchen was in bad but useable shape. The beige marbled tiles with little mirrored squares every few feet, dark wood cabinets, and avocado appliances told me the place hadn’t been redone since the seventies.

Antonio sat me in a folding chair at a beat up pine table. “Best I have for now.”

“You living here during all this mess?”

“No. I have another place.” He gave no more information. “Do you like espresso? I have some hot still.”

“Sure.”

He poured from a chrome double brewer into two small blue cups. “Does it keep you up?”

“Nope.”

“Good. A real woman.” He brought the cups and a lemon to the table and set a cup before me. I reached for the handle, but he made a little tch tch noise. “Not yet.” He cradled the lemon in one palm and a little knife in the other. “What happened to you today?”

“Today, my assistant found a picture of us in the paper.”

“Saw that,” he said, cutting a strip of lemon peel. “You looked ***y as hell. I wanted to f**k you all over again.”

If he was trying to get my body to turn into a puddle of desire, it was working. “Everyone saw it.”

“Everyone want to f**k you as bad as I did?”

“My ex-fiancé showed up.”

“The Candidate…” He dropped a yellow curlicue into my saucer. “Bet he regrets what he did, no?”

“You’ll have to ask him.”

I reached for the espresso, but he stopped me again, plucking the rind from my saucer and rubbing it on the edge of my cup.

“Do you want Sambuca?” he asked.

“Sure.”

He reached back, plucked a bottle from a line of them, and unscrewed the top. “In Napoli, the men point their pinkies up when they drink espresso to show their refinement. Once they’ve been here long enough, they drink like Americans.” He poured a little Sambuca into our cups.

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“How do the women drink?”

“Quickly, before the children pull on their skirts.”

I sipped the drink. It was good, thick, rich. I took a bigger mouthful but didn’t gulp.

“So there’s a picture in the paper of us, and let’s not play tricks with each other,” he said. “It looked like we’re intimate.”

“It did.”

“Next to a picture of you and him.” He picked up his cup.

I followed suit. “Yes.”

“And he runs to your office, how many hours later? One? A half? Or are we measuring in minutes?”

We looked at each other over our cups.

“I don’t see that it matters.” I blew on the black liquid, the ripples releasing the licorice scent of the Sambuca.

He smirked. “Maybe it doesn’t. What did it take him one to sixty minutes to tell you?”

“That you run an organized crime empire.”

He said nothing at first, just put his espresso to his lips and drank. He kept his pinky down, holding the demitasse with his curled fist. “I’m very impressed with me.” He clicked the cup to saucer. “Less so with him. I might have to vote Drummond.”

“I looked into it after he left, once I knew what I was looking for. You’re being investigated for all kinds of fraud. Insurance. Real estate. And you don’t want me to ask questions, so what am I supposed to think?”

“Is that your question?” he asked. “What are you supposed to think? I have an answer for that one.”

“I don’t have an actual question. I know you haven’t been convicted of anything, and I know what we had was just a casual screw.”

“It wasn’t casual.”

“We can’t make any commitments to each other. And that’s fine. But I don’t sleep with strangers. If you’re going to continue to be a stranger, then I can’t do this.”

He closed his eyes and ****ed his head left, then right, as if stretching before a boxing match. “I have a history, and it followed me here.”

I sat back. “Go on.”

“My father didn’t exist to me. My mother shooed off the idea of him. Like she made me herself, out of nothing. I didn’t know who my father was until I was eleven. I had some business, and he was the man one went to with business.”

“At eleven? What business did you have at that age?”

“It’s a different world over there. Things need to be taken care of. If the trash wasn’t getting picked up, you went to Benito Racossi. If the delivery boy was stealing from your mother, you went to Racossi. My mother rarely left the apartment, and my sister… Well, I’d never send her to a man like that. But once I met him, I saw it.” He made a quick oval around his face. “Like looking in a mirror, but older.”

“He was your father?”

“He didn’t deny it. Took me under his wing. Gave me work. Legal work. Anything he had to keep me out of trouble. My mother? It nearly killed her. She didn’t want me in the life. She never believed I didn’t do anything illegal. Neither did the polizia. Neither did Interpol. Neither does Daniel Brower, who’s going to make my life hell if he’s mayor. But as God is my witness, every business I have runs because I watched how my father did it, but I’ve never imitated what he did. So I’ll tell you this once and swear to it, I’ve beaten every charge against me and I’ll beat everything they put on my back because I’m clean.”

“I believe you.”

“Don’t put me in a position where I have to defend myself against this again.”

He was so definite, so stern, so parental that I didn’t think I could spend another second in his presence. I stood. “If asking you questions turns you into an ass, I’ll be sure to only make declarative statements on the infinitely small chance I ever see you again. Thanks for the coffee.”

I spun on my heel and walked out of the kitchen, winding up in a room I hadn’t come through. Then I found another with a broken stone staircase. I didn’t feel him following me until a second before he grabbed me and pushed me toward a leaded glass window.

“Let go of me.”

“No.”

I clawed at his hands as they fondled me, going under my shirt and bra without prelude or hesitation. The flood of arousal was painful.

“Stop,” I said, trying to get his arms off me.

“Next time you say stop will be the last.” He placed my hands on either side of the window. The stone was cold, and the pressure of him on my back was harder than the wall. “What do you want to say?” He shifted behind me, unmistakably getting his dick out. I heard the tick of a condom wrapper hitting the tiles. Was he wrapping it up again? God, I hoped so.

I wanted to say stop. No. Don’t. But I needed him to relieve my ache, and I knew he meant that my next objection would send him away. “Do it.”

He yanked down my pants. I saw his reflection in the window, broken by curved strips of lead, looking at my ass. He put one hand on my throat, his thumb resting behind my ear, while his other hand yanked down my underwear and drove into where I was wettest.

“I’m going to f**k you so f**king hard.” He tightened the grip of both hands.

I’d made him angry. That was clear in every vowel. I shouldn’t like that. It shouldn’t turn me on. But as I stood with my ass jutting out, my bra and shirt pulled up until my br**sts swung, and a man’s dick at my opening, I could only wonder how to make him angrier.

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“You’d better make it worthwhile,” I said. “I have no time for sweet talk.”

“You’re such a rich little princess.” He pressed my neck down and pulled my hips toward him with the fingers he had inserted in me.

“**** you,” I whispered. “You’re a worthless street punk.”

I thought he would put his dick back in his pants and walk away. Instead, he jammed it in me with animal brutality. I cried out not because it hurt, but because the way he did it, plus the raw physical pleasure it created, pushed the wind out of me.

“You like this?” he said, thrusting with every word. “You like this. Worthless. Street. Punk. ****ing. You?”

His arms constricted around me. His right squeezed a breast, his left had four fingers on my clit, shifting like tectonic plates with every thrust. I grunted. I didn’t think I’d ever grunted during ***, but that wasn’t ***. That was two animals mating under a bush.

He pulled out and yanked me up. I saw us in the reflection in the window.

“Look at you. That face. I want to see you when you come.” He growled it. “Since the minute I saw you, I’ve wanted you. I’ve wanted to open your legs and take you.” As if his words were fingers, they drifted down my body, fondling me, arousing me. “I’ve seen women come. They forget to look beautiful. They forget who they are. I want to see you when you lose yourself and all you know is my name.”

He sat on the windowsill, holding his hand out for me. I straddled him, lowering myself onto him. He guided me by the hips.

“This is good?” he asked as if he already knew the answer.

“So good. ****ing you is so good.”

“Look at me.”

He pressed me down, pressing my clit against his root. I gasped, trying to keep my eyes on him.

“Let me see,” he whispered over and over. “Let me see you come.”

He f**ked harder and faster, and I lost myself.

“Oh God,” I gasped. “Coming. Coming.”

“Give it to me, Contessa. Show me.”

He put his hand under my chin, pushing it up until my vision was filled with him. I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. My lungs constricted around my heart, and my joints stiffened. I felt held up by his dick, but his arms and hands bound me to him as I came, watching him.

I pressed my forehead to his shoulder and put my hands on his biceps, and without an ounce of tenderness, he pulled my hair back and down until I was on my knees with the slick head of his c**k against my cheek, and he stood over me.

“Take it. Now.”

He pulled the condom off. I opened my mouth, and he guided himself in. I choked, and he pulled out. I prepared myself, holding down my reflex and pressing the back of my tongue down. I put my hands at the base of his shaft and put his c**k in my mouth, sliding the bottom of it against my flattened tongue. As he slid it out, I sucked, tasting my fluids on him.

“Yes, Contessa, that’s it. Suck my ****. All the way.”

I took him into my throat as far as I could, making up the rest with my hands, and sucked as he pulled out.

“Look at me,” he said.

We made eye contact, and he pushed forward. I opened my throat, but he was a lot of man for one mouth. I paused and, again, took him far down. His lips parted, and I knew I’d done it right. He thrust into me. He felt good, tasted good. I wanted him to come hard, and my desire to please him rattled the back of my throat.

“I’m coming in your mouth.” He grunted. “Take it. Take it all in your throat.”

His eyes closed tight, and I watched him as he thrust and came, flooding my tongue and throat with bitter, sticky lava. He muttered something in Italian, spitting curses through his teeth. I’d never seen anything so hot, and I swallowed every drop of him.

When he opened his eyes and saw me beneath him, he took a sharp breath. “So sweet.” He brushed my hair away from my face then pulled my head to him.

I didn’t even understand my reactions. “Not casual. I know what you mean.”

“But no questions. It means I have to defend myself. I don’t like it.”

“Okay. No more questions.” I didn’t know if I could keep that promise, but I could definitely put it on hold to have *** like that again.

I turned, wrapping my arms around his legs, and I turned to watch the image of us, me on my knees before him, with his hands at my back, in the window.

I screamed. Like a glowing mask floating in the night, a woman’s face sat framed in the window.

fourteen.

ntonio had me behind him so quickly and smoothly I didn’t even realize he was protecting me until I tried to stand. My pants restricted my thighs, and I nearly fell.

He held me up. “Marina!” he shouted.

I straightened my shirt and pants. Antonio zipped himself up and ran for the door.

He turned and held up a finger to me. “Don’t go anywhere.”

And he was gone. I still had the sting of his spunk in the back of my throat.

I straightened, breathed, and went outside. His admonition to stay put had fallen on Teflon ears. I didn’t know who Marina was or what she was doing outside his window. She could be a sister or cousin or the local convent rep, but she was young and attractive, and my blood went a familiar shade of green. I didn’t like feeling that way, especially about a man I had no claim to.

I intended to get in my car and drive away. Around the bend, I found the balcony. I knew how to get back to my car from there, but I heard voices. A Mercedes was parked in the rear drive, lights on and engine running. The woman stood by the open driver’s door. She was upset, hands flailing, voice squeaking. Antonio shouted recriminations in the spaces between hers.

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That wasn’t a fight between cousins. I stepped back, and my foot shifted a loose tile. The scrape was louder than I would have imagined. They looked up at me. I backed away then turned and ran to my car. I managed to get in my car and get it started before he got to the window. He knocked on the glass. I waved good-bye.

He got in front of the car. “Open up.”

I cranked down the window. “That only works during, not after.”

“It’s not what you think.”

“Is she a blood relation?”

He came around to my side of the car.

“Yes? No? What is it, Antonio? Oh, I’m sorry. Did I phrase that as a question?”

I put the car in gear, and he threw himself through my open window. I screamed from the shock of having him between me and the windshield. He yanked the emergency brake.

“Don’t make me drag you out of this car,” he said.

“If you have something to tell me, just tell me. I’m not asking anything.”

“Come inside.”

“No.”

Still leaning through the door, he held the bottom of my face. “I want you. First, I want you.”

“Thanks. I’m glad I’m not a second. You know what? I’m tired of playing in an orchestra. I want to go solo. Now.” I pulled the brake down. “Get out of my car, or half of you is getting torn off when I drive away.”

“It’s not what you think.”

I put the car in drive. “You have no idea what I think.”

I let go of the brake, and even though I couldn’t see through Antonio’s gorgeous body, I drove. He cursed and pulled out of the window. I turned onto the street and left him behind.

fifteen.

hat’s your problem?” Katrina asked three days later.

We were on set in Elysian Park from seven a.m. to three p.m. on a weekend, and the light had been consistently softened by clouds. I shrugged. I had no idea what she was talking about. I still had to go through the other script supervisor’s notes.

She put her knee on the park bench where I had set up my files. “You got a frown.” She formed her hand into a claw and pivoted her wrist as if turning a knob on my face. “It needs an inversion.”

Pam had called it a sourpuss, and I’d given her the same answer. “I’m fine. Just a cold.”

“Bull****.” She was fatigued. The days were very long, and she had confided that she was losing faith that it would ever be a movie. It was a common malady at the seventy-five percent mark. “I don’t have time to needle it out of you because in two minutes, someone is going to come here asking me which shirt Michael should wear, and I’ll have to convince them I care. So tell me.”

I slapped the clipboard on the table. “The Italian guy. He gave every indication he didn’t want me close. I slept with him twice, neither time in an actual bed, and I’m an idiot for being shocked that I wasn’t the only one he was with. So no, I expected nothing from him. But maybe once, for kicks, I’d like someone to be exclusive for fifteen minutes.”

“Ah.”

“**** it. I don’t care.”

She stood still for a second then said, “Did you just say what I think you said?”

I flipped through my pages without looking at her. “Go direct a movie. You make me crazy.”

She stepped away from the table, walking backward to the camera. When she was far enough away, I checked my phone. That text was the first I’d heard from Antonio since I almost tore him in half with my car.

—I’d like to speak with you—

—I’m all out of questions—

—I’ll do the talking—

What was he promising? More non-answers? That game was old. Either he would be forthcoming or he wouldn’t, and the more he promised to reveal who he really was, the less appealing he became. I needed overall sincerity. I needed intimacy. I didn’t need a *** doll, no matter how good the *** was.

—No. I’m sorry. I’m done with this—

—But I’m not—

I shuddered and pocketed the phone. I wasn’t going to encourage him.

Michael threw himself into the chair next to me, his lithe, tight body encased in a henley and grey jeans. “Heard that conversation back there.”

“And you have the answer?”

“I have an answer. Wanna hear it?” He raised his eyebrows as if he was offering candy. He was a handsome guy, and twice as fine on camera.

“Sure.”

“It’s not you, it’s him.”

I laughed.

Michael leaned forward. “I mean it. Look, I’m… let’s say active. It’s not the girls. Some are real nice. Good people. Make someone a great wife. But I’m on set until the wee hours. I can’t do the maintenance a guy’s gotta do. So we’re clear on that in the beginning.”

“You’re a charmer, you know that?”

“Any time. And if you want to be clear about something, some time, we can be maintenance-free. You and I.”

“I’m this close to taking my pants off and jumping on you. I mean, you can really sell a girl.”

He laughed, shaking his head. “All right. But friend to friend, it’s not you. You’re very cool, very beautiful, very smart. Just unlucky so far.” He bounced up and gave me a salute. “Remember all that. And if you’re ever looking, let me know.”

“Thanks. I mean it.”

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He strode off to makeup. I checked my phone. Antonio didn’t send a follow-up, and I didn’t answer. Michael had cheered me up somewhat. He was all right, and maybe if I wanted something forgettable sometime, I’d call him.

The park shoot bled in*****nday, and I collapsed on my couch with a duffel bag full of binders and notebooks at my feet. Katrina dropped her head on the kitchen table with the TV on.

sixteen.

ur Monday meeting had been a drone of problems and the same processes to manage them. Then we talked about implementing new processes to manage the same issues. Then we had new discussion points that were just shades of the old ones. The agency collected money on behalf of clients, deducted ten percent, and sent the rest. Anytime money moved, there were the twin matters of how much and how fast it moved. Nothing else really counted.

When I came back, Pam tapped her fingers like a drum machine, hitting the stapler on fourths. “Danny Dickinsonian.”

“Is he here?” I asked.

“Nope. Wanted you to meet him at his office downtown. Said it was important and apologies for the imposition et cetera. New polls show he’s getting beaten on the east side. Badly. Might be about that.” Tap tap tappa.

Running for mayor was an eighty-hour-a-week job. I’d known that from the beginning. “What do I have this afternoon?”

“Staff meeting at one. Procedure and protocols touchbase with Wanda’s team at two.”

Taking an afternoon jaunt downtown was undoubtedly ten times more appealing than either of those events. “Tell him I’ll be there.”

***

The DA’s office was in a 1920s stone-carved edifice a few blocks from my loft, so I parked at home and walked. The heat weighed on me. The streets, though not crowded, were populated.

The DA’s building was set back from the street with an expanse of lawn utilized by birds, squirrels, and urban picnickers. The tweedy grey brickwork matched the flat city sky, and as I got closer, I saw the stonework from a lost era. Like Roman reliefs, granite men carried logs, fished in a pebble sea, built houses from petrified wood, all immortalized with the toil of a sculptor’s sweat.

The lady at the front desk knew me, but I still needed to sign in and get a sticker. I was spared the thumbprint. I saw Gerry, Daniel’s top strategist, in the hall.

He stopped short and put out his hand. “Theresa, thank you for going to Catholic Charities.” When he shook my hand, he also kissed my cheek and patted my back.

“I was afraid I did more harm than good,” I said.

“No. Even a failed tactic can serve an overall strategy. Don’t forget that.”

“So I’m a failed tactic now?” I said with a smile and a lilt. “I thought I meant more to you than that.”

He pressed his lips together. “You’re perfect. You have politics in your blood. If I could, in good conscience, ask you to take that stupid bastard back, I would. He can’t lose with you by him.”

I had a few answers, none of them politic or kind. I chose the most bland. “He can win just fine without me.”

“Maybe, but it’ll be close.”

“Any idea why I’m here?”

“Come,” he said.

I let him lead me down the hall to Daniel’s office. A married couple he used for promotion was just leaving. They greeted me, then suddenly I was alone with my ex-fiancé.

He had a biggish office by 1920s standards. The windows slid up and down with rackety tickticks, and the walls were molded in every place molding could be placed. Over the last ninety years, it had been painted bi-annually, rounding out the edges until the room looked like the inside of a wedding cake.

“Found her wandering the halls,” Gerry said before ducking out.

Daniel had on a thin blue tie and white shirt with the cuffs rolled to the elbows. His wooden chair was dressed in his jacket, and he was every bit the good-looking, hardworking crusader for justice. “Theresa, thank you for coming.”

“After the election, this beck-and-all thing is over,” I said.

He approached a chestnut table that must have come with the building and pulled out a chair for me. I sat. He leaned on his desk and crossed his arms instead of sitting with me. I crossed my legs and faced him.

“It’s been a tough few days here,” he said.

“I have a protocol review I can still make if you don’t have something to say to me.”

“I know how much you love those.” He smiled his big, natural white smile.

“There were threats something would actually get done at this one.”

“Then it’s not really a protocol review.”

I sighed. “This is about Antonio again? Just say it.”

“I need to know what he is to you.”

“Oh, God. Really?” I stood. “Dan, honey, you’re so far out of line.”

“It matters. It matters to my campaign, and it matters to me. I need your help, and in order for me to even ask, I need to know the nature of your relationship with him.”

“It’s nothing.”

“Have you had *** with him?”

“Daniel!”

“I need to know.”

“Is this a deposition? Are you taking notes? Where’s the court reporter?”

He sighed and dropped his arms. “We’ve reached a wonderful pause in a war that’s been going on for a few decades. We have the Carlonis for all manner of ****, and I’ll file charges when everything’s in order. But the other side? The Giraldi family? I have nothing. I have accounting files we got from the NSA, but everything looks clean. I need them looked at by someone with your eye.”

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“And you don’t have a team of people?”

“They have skill. You have talent.”

“I think this is about more than my talent.” I couldn’t hold to that line for long because he’d asked me to look at the Carloni files months ago. He’d switched to their rivals, but his ideals about my talents were well known.

“We got Donna Maria Carloni on embezzlement thanks to a mole. Good mole. I got nothing with Spinelli,” he said.

“Who you can’t even prove is the head of any kind of crime organization, much less the Giraldis.”

“He’s committed a few murders to get to where he is, Tink. Just because I can’t prove it doesn’t make it any less true. And yes, I’m terrified of you being anywhere near him, and yes, this is two birds with one stone. I get your eyes on his books, and I get you to tell me where his malfeasance is. But if you’re sleeping with him, I can’t use you. I’ll have to fly a guy in from Quantico, and that’ll alert everyone that I have the NSA docs. They’ll be questioned and possibly yanked.”

“This is a hot mess.”

“I know.”

“The only way for me to avoid drama is to walk out right now,” I said. “But you have me curious. And you know I think you’re the best man for the mayor’s mansion.”

“So will you?”

“I had *** with him twice. But it’s over.”

He looked down to hide his expression, but I saw his fingers tighten. My first reaction was to tell him tough crap. He threw me away. It was my right to sleep with anyone I wanted. My second reaction was subtler.

“Do you have time for a personal question?” I asked.

He looked at me. I’d hurt him. I loved him, and I’d hurt him. I knew how he felt when he did it to me.

“I need it answered completely and honestly,” I said. “I have no energy for beating around the bush or confidence boosts right now.”

“Okay.”

“Is something about me just not enough? I mean, is there something inherently unsatisfying?”

He took a long time answering. “I always wondered if you really enjoyed it.”

I picked up my bag and slung it over my shoulder. “I did. A lot.”

He rushed to open the door for me. “I’m avoiding asking for another chance.”

“Well done, Mister Mayor.”

***

I got back to WDE in time for the protocol review, which was marginally productive. When I got back to my office, another vase of red roses stood on Pam’s desk.

I don’t give up so easy

Yeah. He’d chase me, catch me, and continue with Marina or whoever else made him feel good. An inaccessible little heiress would quickly become boring.

After seven years, Daniel didn’t know if I’d enjoyed ***. What was wrong with me? Was I empty inside? I’d thought I’d imagined every horrifying answer he could have given me, but I hadn’t even scratched the surface.

At least I knew what the problem was. Maybe if I went back to Daniel with the assurance that I did like ***, he wouldn’t look elsewhere. Maybe. But the thought of going back to him just depressed me.

seventeen.

woke to the smell of bacon. I’d somehow crawled into bed during the middle of the night. Katrina had been known to put breakfast together when she felt chipper, and I was very grateful for her mood and her hospitality, especially on a work day. I showered and put up my hair, masking the circles under my eyes with some very expensive stage makeup. I was mid-stairwell when I heard a man’s voice coming from the open kitchen. Katrina said something I couldn’t hear above the crackle of pork belly. Then the man laughed.

“Antonio?” I bent around the iron bannister.

“He said I have to call him Spin,” Katrina called.

“Buongiorno! I brought you breakfast.”

I stepped into the kitchen. “I smelled the bacon.”

“It’s pancetta,” Katrina said, picking a few squares out of the pan and putting them on toast. “He’s corrected me, like, seven times already. He’s cute but annoying.”

“Mostly annoying,” he said, shifting scrambled eggs across the pan.

“Annoy me any time.” She folded up her sandwich and slipped it into a bag.

“This is a little presumptuous considering the way we left it last time,” I said.

“Gotta go!” Katrina gave Antonio the one-kiss-per-cheek exit and bounced out with a wink to me.

I crossed my arms, but I was hungry. The pancetta smelled delicious.

Antonio pointed the fork at me. “This suit? It’s nice for a funeral.”

I sucked in my cheeks. I’d chosen a black below-the-knee wool skirt and matching jacket, and he was trying to throw me off in my own house. He looked perfect in a light blue sweater and collar shirt.

“Insulting me?” I stood next to him and bumped him with my hip. “This is how you seduce me?” I snapped a wooden spoon from the canister and poked at the eggs.

“If I wanted to seduce you, the suit would be on the floor already.”

“You don’t want to seduce me?”

He took a piece of egg on a fork and blew on it. “I do, but as you know, we left on poor terms last time.” He held the fork to my lips, holding his palm under it to catch if it dripped.

“And tell me, Mister Spinelli, how do you intend to improve the terms?” I let him feed me.

“By explaining.” He divided the eggs onto two plates.

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“What? I can’t hear you over this explosion of delicious.”

He looked genuinely pleased that I liked his cooking, and he counted the ingredients on his fingers. “Salt, milk, parmesano, rosemary, and pancetta, of course. You have all my secrets now.” He put the plates on the center island and pulled a stool out for me. He’d already set out coffee, juice, and toast.

“You’ve buttered me up quite thoroughly.”

He sat and poured me coffee. “A compliment for a job well done?”

“Yes.”

“I appreciate that. But I want to give you the explanation part now, if the taste of the eggs won’t interfere with your hearing?”

“Okay, go ahead.”

He cleared his throat and sipped his juice. “Marina and I were a regular thing until a few weeks ago. She claimed I was distracted, and she was right. So we ended it. Or I thought we did. The other night, I found out that I’d ended it and she’d paused it.” He took a couple of bites of his breakfast then continued. “She comes from the same place I do. A little town outside Napoli. This was a connection between us. She’s a nice girl. I won’t speak evil of her. She took our thing more seriously than I did, and it didn’t break as easily as I’d expected. I’ve spent the past few days making sure she understands. I don’t want any crossover, or however you call it.”

I sighed and put down my fork. “I’m going to be honest. I like you. And I love this breakfast. But if I end up believing you’re telling me the whole truth, it’ll be a conscious decision I’m making. And with my history, that decision takes some effort. I don’t expect or want a commitment, but I don’t like crossover, as you say.”

“I don’t either.”

“And the questions thing? It bothers me.”

“I can’t negotiate that.”

“Then what are we doing?”

“We are enjoying ourselves. Do you object to that?”

“I guess I can live with it for now. It’ll come to bite us, though.”

“Maybe.” He leaned in to kiss me, much of his hardness and ****y arrogance gone. His lips looked soft and sweet as opposed to inaccessibly beautiful. His tongue was warm, slick, moving in harmony with his tender mouth. The smell of a pine forest in the morning, all dew and smoldering campfires, swelling my senses.

I wanted him. His neck, his jaw, his legs between mine. I wanted *****ck on his fingers and thumbs. I reached between his legs, and he stopped me.

“This was only breakfast.”

I groaned. “Please?”

“Tempting, Contessa. But it’s been twice, and too hurried both times. The next time we f**k, it’s going to be for a few hours, and you’re going to need to be wheeled out. I’m not cheating you again.” He reached for the dishes. “I’ll clean up. Go get ready for work.”

By the time I’d brushed my teeth and put my hair and makeup in order, he’d finished clearing the island. We walked out the door kissing. I didn’t think I’d ever been so happy. Then I remembered what I’d promised Daniel, and by the time Antonio closed my car door and stepped away, my happiness had been worn away by the friction of reality.

I’d told Daniel it was over, and that had just changed, and I didn’t even know how. I was curious about Antonio’s alleged corruption. I couldn’t be with a criminal, much less a murderer. Not since my first experience at thirteen, which left me scarred and the boy dead, had I encountered a dangerous man. I’d kept clear of all manner of worthless street punk—until Antonio, who could still back off any question he didn’t feel like answering.

We were together. We weren’t. It didn’t matter. I was looking at those books.

eighteen.

y expertise was in accounting, but really, it was in the movement and flow of money. I looked at ledgers with a broad eye, finding patterns and flow. Like rivers on a map that fell into lakes, disappeared into mountains, and got spit into the ocean, the shifts of money were seen best from far away, with the finer details removed.

Bill and Phyllis, the core of the DA’s financial analysts, were a married couple who had met in the Los Angeles district attorney’s office forty-three years previous. They were detail people, in all their Midwestern glory—she was from Cadillac, Michigan and he was from Collett, Indiana. They reveled in getting it right, in not one shred of a detail falling through their fingers.

Thus, they missed everything.

If they’d understood the first law of fiscal dynamics—that money cannot be gained or lost, only moved—they’d understand that it all went somewhere. It was most important to follow a flow of cash downriver, and let the creeks taper into mysterious blue points. The answer was in the streams’ and the rivers’ undercurrents.

“Hi,” I said.

“Hello, dear,” Phyllis said, gracing me with a brilliant smile. “How are you?”

“Fine.” I put my bag on the table.

Bill sat at the old banker’s desk, tapping on a loud keyboard, his face a few inches too close to the screen. “Got mail from the boss.” His chin pointed at his screen, eyes squinted. “Miss Drazen’s looking at the Giraldi files. That right, Miss Drazen?”

“Theresa. Yes. If you don’t mind?”

“We looked at them already. There’s nothing there. We had the guys from downstairs working with us.”

“Probably,” I said. I didn’t want to step on his toes, or the toes of the hundreds who had pored over the documents. “Just a new set of eyes.”