Текст книги "Spin"

Автор книги: C. D. Reiss

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Текущая страница: 4 (всего у книги 13 страниц)

ten.

"You want to fuck her.”

Michael nodded. He and Katrina sat on stools at the counter of a tiny coffee shop she’d rented for the scene with staff all around. I held my clipboard and waited, having been told to stay within Michael’s eyesight.

“Right,” he said.

“You know if you fuck her once, she’s yours.”

This conversation happened as if no one was around. As if there weren’t three gaffers playing with the lights and keys with clothes hangers clipping wires and aligning scrims. As if the assistant camera person wasn’t holding up his little light meter to every color of everything and calling out numbers.

“You have to fuck her,” Katrina said with real urgency. “You’re not getting it.”

“I’m getting it.”

Katrina hauled off and slapped Michael in the face. The sound echoed in the halls and rooms of my brain. I flinched and looked at them. I wasn’t supposed to. That was very personal actor/director business, and everyone else had the good sense to ignore it.

Michael made eye contact with me as it happened.

“That,” she said. “That feeling. Right now.”

“I have it,” he said, putting his hand to his lips as if he wanted to hide his face.

“Good. Get to makeup.” She winked at me as Michael strode off, then she called to the cameraman, “We’re shooting him from the right. Have the stand in mark it.” She walked off, barking more orders, and I marked the change in angle on my clipboard.

We would be filming late, and I girded myself with coffee and the knowledge that helping Katrina, even in the tiny role as part-time script supervisor, would right a great wrong that had been done her.

Michael played the scene, which did not include the woman in question, but her best friend. His character was about to bed her out of spite, like a man on a mission to save his testicles. He was riveting. He seized the scene, the set, the crew, and the mousy character who had no idea what she was getting embroiled in. He put his hands up her skirt as if he owned what was under it, but his character didn’t take an ounce of responsibility for what he was doing.

“Cut!” shouted Katrina.

I noted the shot and take, but only after the scene was fully broken. “There’s your Oscar,” I mumbled to Katrina.

“I just want someone to touch this thing with a ten-footer.” She took my clipboard and flipped through the pages on it. “We never got that last line on page thirty. I think we can ADR it.”

“I think WDE will get behind you. Honestly. As long as you promise not to sue anyone again.”

She made a pfft sound that promised nothing. “Dinner break, everyone!”

A production assistant ran up to me as I tucked my papers away. “There’s a man here asking for you.”

It took me about half a second to figure out who he was. “Dark hair and brown eyes?”

“Yeah. He brought dinner.”

“Of course he brought me dinner.” I had to process that while fixing my hair and straightening my sleeves.

“No,” he said. “He brought everyone dinner. He brought you wine.”

* * *

Movie sets that weren’t dependent on sunlight stayed up all day. So though I’d shown up at six p.m. to relieve the other script supervisor, the set had already been up for twelve hours. Because no one left when there was work to be done, meals and snacks were provided to the entire crew. Bigger productions got more services, with above the line crew (actors, director, producers) getting gourmet catering, and below the line crew (camera, grips, gaffe, PA, AD, on and on and on) getting something good but less noteworthy. On Katrina’s set, everyone got the same mediocre food from a truck wedged into the corner of the parking lot. A few long tables with folding chairs took up parking spaces. The day Antonio showed up for dinner, our French fry and burger habit was broken.

He had a bottle of red wine tucked under his arm and wore a grey sports coat with blood red polo. A woman in her sixties stood under his arm as he talked to Katrina. In front of them were four chafing dishes, plates, utensils, and a line of people.

“You do not get to invade my set,” Katrina said, but I saw her eye the food ravenously. It was peasant food—meaty, saucy deliciousness that would satiate everyone for another four or five hours.

“Mea culpa,” he said. “Your script supervisor accepted a dinner invitation, and Zia Giovanna thought it would be rude to bring only for us.”

“It’s my fault,” I said. “I forgot to tell you.”

She spun and gave a smirk just for me. “You lie.”

“If it means you can just eat, I’m guilty as charged.” I pointed at Antonio. “You, sir, are pushy.”

“As charged,” he said. “Let me make it up to you.”

“I think you just did.” A plate of lasagna was pushed into my hands, but Antonio took it from me and passed it to the person behind me.

“Come on. I’m not feeding you outside a trailer.”

He pulled me, but I yanked back. “I have to work.”

Katrina didn’t even look up from her food. “We have to set up the next shot. I’ll text you when I need you. Get out of here.”

I let Antonio put his arm around me and lead me onto the sidewalk. He held the wine bottle by the neck with his free hand. The neighborhood was light-industrial hip, with factories being converted into lofts and warehouses housing upscale restaurants.

“There’s a place around the corner,” he said. “No liquor license yet, so you bring your own.”

“Let me see.” I held my hand out for the bottle and inspected the label. “Napa? You brought a California wine?”

“It’s not good?”

“It’s a great wine, but I figured, you know, Italian?”

He laughed. “I was trying to not be pushy. Meet you halfway.”

“This is how you say ‘not pushy’?”

“You can run. I won’t chase you.”

“You won’t?” I handed him the bottle.

He smiled. “Yeah. I will.”

“Has it occurred to you that the chasing might be what you like about me, and that if I stop running, you might get bored?”

“I don’t get bored. There’s too much to do.”

“It’s funny,” I said. “That’s kind of what I find most boring. Everything to do.”

“You’re doing the wrong things, no? What do you love?”

We crossed onto a block of restaurants. The cobblestone streets were crowded. Tables were set on the sidewalks. Heat lamps kept the chill at bay.

“I don’t love anything, really.”

“Come on. The last thing you enjoyed, that made you feel alive.”

I stopped walking, feeling disproportional frustration with his questions.

He turned to face me and walk backward. “Kissing me doesn’t count.”

“Funny guy.”

A parking valet in a white shirt and black bowtie nearly ran into me, dodged, and opened a car door.

“Think hard,” Antonio said. “The last thing that made you love life.”

“Saying it would be inappropriate.”

He raised an eyebrow. “I could learn to love this thing too, I think.”

My annoyance turned into cruelty. “The last thing I loved doing? Working with Daniel on his campaign. I miss it.”

Still walking backward, arms out to express complete surrender, he said, “Then, to make you happy, I announce that I will run for mayor.”

I laughed. I couldn’t help it. He laughed with me, and I noticed how reserved it was for a man who claimed to enjoy life.

He was on me before I could take in another second of his smile. He pushed his mouth on mine, his arms enveloping me, his hands in my hair. My world revolved around the sensations of him, his powerful body and sweet tongue, his crisp smell, the scratch of the scruff on his chin, and the way he paid attention to his kiss.

I matched his attention so carefully that when we got knocked into by a valet, I gasped. Antonio pulled me close, holding me up and protecting me at the same time.

The valet held up his hands. “I’m so sorry.” He backed away toward a waiting car, reaching for the handle.

“You’re sorry?” Antonio asked. “You don’t look sorry.”

I’d be the first to admit he didn’t look sorry. He looked interested in opening the car door.

“It’s okay, Antonio. He didn’t do it on purpose.”

He looked down at me for a second before looking back at the valet. “He could have knocked you over.”

“But he didn’t.”

The valet opened the door with one hand and with the other, in a slight movement that could be denied later, flicked his hand, as if dismissing Antonio. Quick as a predator, Antonio took two steps toward the valet and pushed him against the car. I stepped into the street, heel bending on the cobblestone, and got between them. The valet’s face was awash in fear, and Antonio’s had an intensity that scared me.

“Antonio. Let’s go, before I have to go back to work,” I said.

He held his finger up to the valet’s face. “You’re going to be careful. Right?”

“Yeah, yeah.” The man looked as though he wanted to be anywhere else.

He stepped back, and I put my hand on his arm. He looked at me with an unexpected tenderness, as if grateful I’d pulled him from oncoming traffic.

“Is there a problem here?”

The authoritative voice cut our moment short. Antonio and I looked to its source.

A short man in a zip-up black jacket and black tie, with a moustache and comb-over, appeared to recognize Antonio when we turned toward him. “Spin.”

“Vito.” Antonio looked the man up and down, pausing on his tag for Veetah Valet Service – Proprietor. He touched it. “Really?”

“I can explain.”

“Yes, you can. After I bring the lady to our table. You’ll be here.”

“Yes, boss.”

Antonio put his arm around me and walked toward an Italian restaurant with tables outside.

“What was that about?” I asked.

“He works for me. I’m going to have to talk to him for a minute.”

“It wasn’t a big deal about the valet.”

“It’s not about the valet.”

I dropped my arm from his waist. He’d closed himself off so suddenly that touching him seemed out of place.

A young man with menus approached. “Outside or inside?”

“In,” Antonio answered, giving the waiter his bottle.

He brought us to a table inside. Antonio held my chair for me and sat across the table, looking a million miles away.

“What happened?” I asked. “You look really annoyed.”

He took my hand. “Trust me, it’s not you.”

“I know it’s not me. What did that guy do?”

“He’s not supposed to run other businesses while he works for me. That’s the rule.”

“That’s a weird rule.”

He smiled but looked distracted. “Let me go talk to him. Then you’ll have my full attention.”

I tapped my watch. “Quickly. I could turn into a pumpkin at any moment.”

After Antonio walked away, the waiter returned with two glasses and our bottle of Napa wine. He poured a touch in my glass, made small talk, filled both glasses, and left.

I waited dutifully, tapping on my phone and watching people. I was walking distance from home and a few blocks from the set, but I wanted to be at that table. I was hungry, and I liked the Antonio I’d walked there with.

The wall facing the street was all windows. Past the rows of outdoor tables, I saw the lights change and cars roll by. Valets ran back and forth with keys and tickets. Antonio came into view, pinching a cigarette to his mouth and letting the smoke drift from out casually. What a stunning man he was. Maybe not in the same affable mood as he had been on the walk to the restaurant, but the intensity that condensed around him made me unable to look away.

He took a last drag and flicked his cigarette into the street. Then he walked in, smoke still drifting from his mouth. “Sorry about that,” he said when he sat.

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah. Just a little talk.”

The waiter came, we heard the specials, and ordered.

Antonio picked up his wine. “Salute.”

I held up my glass and looked at his when they clinked. His hand was firm and powerful, all muscle and vein, and his knuckles were scraped raw. I brushed the backs of my fingers against them.

“Antonio? Were you just talking? Or do they drag when you walk?”

He smiled. He’d gone out tense and returned relaxed. “One of the valets pushed me into a wall. I tried to break my fall, and this is what happened. These guys, they’re paid per car, so they all jump to open doors a little too quick. How is the wine?” His smile was deadly.

“Good. What part of Italy are you from?”

“Napoli. The armpit of Italy, my mother used to say.”

“And you came here for the weather and the easy access to litigator privileges?”

He smirked. “Do I have to answer everything right away?”

“Chasing me around won’t go well if you don’t.”

He leaned over and touched my upper lip. Having him that close, I wanted to let those fingers explore my body. “You tell me where you got this scar. Then I’ll tell you why I came here.”

“I got the scar from a boy.”

“Ah. And I came here because of a girl.”

Appetizers came, filling little dumplings drenched in red sauce. He slipped a couple on my plate then a couple on his.

“You followed a woman here?” I watched him eat with clean efficiency.

“I followed men.” He moved on to the next subject as if his life wasn’t worth lingering on, brushing it off with a practiced, charming facility. “And this boy? His cutting wit, perhaps?”

“His high school ring. This girl. Was she chasing you?” I looked at him over my wine glass.

“No. She’s back home.”

“The girl is home, and you chased a man here because of her?”

“Close enough. What happened to the boy?” he asked.

“He’s dead.”

“Note to self. Don’t scar Theresa Drazen.”

I raised my wine glass to my lips to hide my expression. He’d gotten closer to a truth than he realized.

“So you own a hell of a lot of cars, a restaurant, and you’re a lawyer,” I said. “You contribute enough to the charity of your choice to get invited to the fundraisers. Oh, and you don’t like Porsches. You can beat a guy nearly unconscious with your bare hands. You’re a very interesting guy, Mister Spinelli.”

He touched my hand with the tips of his fingers, finding a curve and tracing it. “Running an accounting department for the biggest agency in Hollywood. Working on the mayoral candidate’s campaign. Helping your friend with her movie in your spare time. And the most poised, graceful woman I ever met. I’m not half as interesting as you.”

I formulated an answer, maybe something clever or maybe I’d continue to ask uncomfortable questions, but my phone dinged. It was Katrina’s new AD.

—We’re starting in ten—

“This has been fun,” I said. “I have to go.”

He stood, reaching into his pocket. “I’ll walk you.”

He tossed a few twenties down and went to the door with me, putting his hand on my back as we exited. I pressed my lips together, avoiding a silly smile. I liked his hand there.

I didn’t see Vito around. The valets were still working the block quickly, if less exuberantly.

“Tell me something,” I said. “Why weren’t you afraid that someone would call the cops that night with the Porsche? I mean, if you didn’t break that guy’s nose, I’ll eat my shoe.”

“Tell me what you think. Why would that be the case?” He put his hands in his pockets as he walked.

“That’s a common debate team switch. Putting the speculation on me.”

“Speculate.” He smiled like a movie star, and I couldn’t help but smile back.

“I’d rather you told me.”

“Maybe I’ve met enough cops in my profession to know how to talk to them, should it come to that.”

“Which profession is that?”

“I’m a lawyer.”

I hadn’t thought much of our harmless back and forth, but when he reminded me he was a lawyer, I caught a tightness in his voice. He glanced away. Most people were puzzles one had to simply collect enough pieces to figure out. My questioning had merely been fact-harvesting until he subtly evaded something so simple.

“If I look up criminal cases you’ve filed, what would I find? I mean, cases where you’ve dealt with the LAPD.”

He looked down at the curb as we crossed the street, holding me back when a car came even though I’d stopped.

“I’m a lawyer for my business. I’ve only had a couple of clients, and mostly they need my help talking to the police. Anything else you feel like you need to know?” He said it with good humor, but there was a wariness to his tone.

“Yes.” We got to the outer edge of the set, where the street was closed off to keep it silent.

“What?”

I knew I shouldn’t ask, but I was tired and still hungry, and the wine had sanded away my barriers. “Is Vito still outside the restaurant running his business?”

The look on his face melted me, as if a fissure had opened and he was trying desperately to keep the lava from pouring out. Then he smiled as if just having decided to let it all go. “Contessa, you are trouble.”

“Is that good or bad?”

“Both.”

My phone dinged again. I didn’t look at it. I knew what it was about. “I have to go.”

“Come vuoi tu.” He cupped my cheek in his hand and kissed me quickly before walking away, the picture of masculine grace. He didn’t look back.

eleven.

 I strapped up my stockings with the TV on. I saw it behind me in the mirror. Daniel wore his pale grey suit and tie, ice in the sun. He’d done well at the debate that afternoon, keeping himself poised, still, and focused. He was the perfect Future Mister Mayor.

BRUCE DRUMMOND: My opponent hasn’t opened a serious case against any crime organization in over a year. Just because it’s peacetime, do we sit on our laurels?

I hadn’t heard from Antonio since he’d left me at the set. I’d been tempted to reach out to him, but to what end? As I watched Daniel, I knew I still had feelings for him. How could I get involved with someone else? How could I take Daniel back? How could I use another man to break my holding pattern?

DANIEL BROWER: Believe me, my office has been gathering information and evidence against a number of organizations. We won’t open a case unless we’re sure we have the evidence we need. Please, let the people know if your administration will recklessly accuse citizens, so they can start looking for an independent prosecutor.

Antonio would be at the fundraiser. Though I was excited to see him, despite the fact that I had to avoid him, he’d become tight and unreadable. He’d avoided telling me about his business, and his story about being pushed by a valet was absurd. Vito hadn’t gone home whistling Dixie. Antonio was Italian. From Naples. Was he a lawyer or criminal? Or both?

BRUCE DRUMMOND: In closing, I love my wife. She’s the only woman for me, and that’s why I married her. As your mayor, I’d never distract—

I liked nice men. Lawful men. Men with a future, a career, who could safely support children. I wasn’t the type to look for the dangerous, exciting guys.

The dress went over my head in one movement. I twisted, struggled, and got the zipper up by myself.

* * *

It was eighty degrees and humid as hell, the wettest, nastiest, buggiest fall in L.A. history. Totally unexpected. Nothing anyone from the Catholic Charitable Trust could have foreseen when they’d planned an outdoor event ten months before. A string quartet played in the background, and wait staff carried silver trays of endive crab and champagne flutes. I made my way through the crowd alone, smiling and sharing air kisses. The house was a Hancock Park Tudor, kept and restored to the standards of a hotel as if the taste had been wrapped, boxed, and shipped in from a decorator’s mind.

I was standing by the pool with Ute Yanix, talking about Species—the only raw foods place in L.A. that served meat—when Daniel crept up behind me. Ute’s eyes lit up like a Christmas tree, and she brushed back her long straight hair like a silk curtain. Daniel did have a certain something. That thing had made him a frontrunner before the race even started.

“Ute, I’m glad you could make it,” he said.

“You know I support you. All Hollywood does, whether we say it in public or not.”

“I appreciate you being here publicly then.” His hand found mine. “It’s even more important than the donation.”

She laughed a few decibels louder than necessary. “Now more than ever, huh?”

And with a look at me, the heiress in the candidate’s corner, she implied the ugliest things. The first and most dangerous was that Daniel had been running the campaign on my money and now couldn’t.

“I assure you, donations have always been appreciated.” My smile could have lit the Hollywood sign.

The sexting incident was never mentioned on the fundraising floor, but in the bathroom, whispered voices, offered words of support, empathy, understanding, and others were clearly derisive. I had stopped fielding both sentiments.

I didn’t hear the rest of the conversation. Over Ute’s shoulder, I saw a man in a dark suit. Lots of men in dark suits milled around, but they had jeans, open collars, ties optional. He wore a suit like a woman wore lingerie, to accentuate the sexual. To highlight the slopes and lines. To give masculinity a definition. He held his wine glass to me, tearing my clothes off and running his hands over my skin from across the room.

“...but what you’re going to do about the traffic—”

“I’ll be Mayor, not God.” They both laughed.

I’d lost most of the conversation during my locked gaze with Antonio Spinelli. “Excuse me,” I said to my ex and the actress. “Duty calls.”

I walked into the house. The unwritten rule was if the party was in the backyard, guests stayed in the backyard. Wandering off into the personal spaces was bad manners, but I couldn’t help it. I went to the back of the kitchen, to a back hall with a wool Persian carpet and mahogany doors.

“Contessa.”

I didn’t have a second to answer before he put his hands on my cheeks and his mouth on mine. I didn’t move. I didn’t kiss him back. I just took in his scent of dew-soaked pine, wet earth, and smoldering fires. He pulled back, unkissed but not unwanted, his hands still cupping my face.

He brushed his thumb over my lower lip, just grazing the moist part inside. “I want you. I haven’t stopped thinking about you.”

“What happened then?” All my resolve to not use him as a rebound went out the window. “You froze me out yesterday.”

“I don’t like answering questions about myself.”

“I can’t be with you if I don’t know you.”

“Do you want me?”

His breath made patterns on my face. I could have pushed him away, but his attention was an angle, a point of reference, and I was but a line defined by it.

“Yes,” I whispered, putting my head against the wall.

“Let’s have each other then. My body and your body. No expectations. No questions.”

Before I could get offended, he kissed me hard, hurting me. His tongue probed my lips, my teeth, pushing my head against the wall. I was aware of every inch of his body, its warmth, its supple curves, the hair on his face, and I yielded. My insides melted, pooling between my legs. I moved with him like a wave, tongues dancing, jaws aligning. I fell into that kiss, its taste of wine and sweet water, the hum vibrating from the back of his throat. I thought I would burst from my hips outward.

He pulled away with a gasp, still close to me, his eyes darting across my features. “You’re blushing. And you’re panting, just a little.”

I couldn’t speak. I wanted him to kiss me again. My body wanted it. The hairs on my arms stood up when I thought about it.

He put his hand to my chest, between my breasts, and pressed a little. “Your heart is beating hard. This is what it takes.”

He moved his hand slightly, brushing my hard nipple through my dress. I wanted him to stop, but I didn’t want it to end. If I spoke, the spell would be broken. I’d have to go back to the other me, that spurned, unwanted woman. I opened my mouth but just shook my head. What had I become? What was wrong with me?

“Since the minute I saw you,” he said into my neck, “I’ve wanted to open your legs and take you.”

His words had fingers, and as he spoke, they drifted down my body, fondling me and arousing me. No one had ever spoken like that to me, because I would have laughed with discomfort. But when Antonio said it, I forgot everything but his voice and the image of him moving over me.

“I’m not good at casual sex,” I said in a breath.

“I never said it would be casual.”

I didn’t know what he meant. I didn’t know how sex could be just two bodies meeting without being classified as meaningless. I couldn’t wrap my head around it because he was near me, his hands on my hips, the scruff of his face brushing my neck.

“Take me,” I said before I thought about it.

Like a cat leaping into action, he pulled me through an ajar door, clicking it behind us. We were in a bathroom with marble tiles and double sinks. White curtains. A thousand details I couldn’t absorb because his lips were on mine.

When I heard him lock the door, I surrendered to what was happening. I stopped worrying about where I was or what the future might bring. I tangled my hands in his hair and kissed him for all I was worth. He pulled my knee up over his hip, stroking the back of my thigh. I tried to remember to breathe, but when he leaned into me and I felt the hardness between his legs against the softness between mine, I forgot.

“I’m going to fuck you right here,” he growled. “Are you ready?”

“Yes.” The word came out in a hiss.

“Yes, what?” He pushed against me. “What do you want me to do to you?” He took my hands from his hair and put them above me, pinning me to the wall as he kissed my neck.

“Fuck me.” I said it so softly a butterfly wouldn’t have heard me.

“Say it again. But this time, own it.”

“Fuck me.” A little louder.

He let go of my hands. His fingers brushed past my breasts to my waist, where they pushed me down against his erection.

“You are so sweet,” he whispered, wrapping my other knee around him, pinning me with his hips. “Dolce. The way you don’t like to say the word fuck, and you say it to me anyway. I know how bad you want me to make you come.”

With that, he hitched me up and carried me to the vanity. He balanced me on it as he kissed me, grinding between my legs and driving me crazy. I yanked up my skirt.

“Antonio,” I said, “protection.”

“I have it.”

I spent a little time worrying about having sex with a man who carried condoms around. Just a second. Just a stab of my real self, the one who was going to walk out of that bathroom when we were done. He took half a step back and pulled my knees apart. I leaned back as he slipped his fingers under my garter belt, finding the crotch of my panties.

“I like these,” he said.

“Thank you.”

He poked his finger through the lace and yanked with his other hand. The lace gave way with a bark of a rip, leaving my underwear with a gaping hole. He stroked me. I didn’t know if I’d ever been that wet.

“I can’t help it. I have to taste you.” He put his face at the inside of my thigh and brushed his tongue on the sensitive skin. His hands stroked, tongue flicking, lips a soft center to the roughness of his face. When he made it to my pussy with a soft suck at my clit, I moaned. “Do you like it?” he asked before he circled my opening with his tongue.

“Yes.”

“Yes what?”

“Yes, suck it. Eat me. Take me with your mouth.”

The string quartet purred outside, and the party hummed along while I begged for a man’s tongue on me. His tongue flicked, finding every want, every emptiness, and filling it with sensation. He sucked just a little then ran the flat of his tongue over my clit until my pussy felt like a bursting balloon.

“Antonio.” My voice squeaked. I was on the edge.

“Come,” he said, looking up at me. “I’m still going to fuck you.”

When he put his lips on me again, his eyes watching me over the horizon of my gathered skirt, I let him fill me. I came hard, lifting my hips as he grabbed my thighs to keep me from falling over. I was beyond cries, beyond words. I was just a receptacle for the pleasure of a tiny percentage of my body.

I didn’t have a second to breathe before he positioned himself above me. His pants were open, and his dick lay against my engorged clit. I reached down. He’d gotten it out and wrapped while he was eating me.

“You’re very skilled,” I said. “And you’re huge.”

He put his fingers in me. I was sensitive and swollen, soaked in desire.

“You’re tight. So tight. Fuck.” His eyes went to half-mast, and he sucked in a breath. “Spread your legs all the way.”

I did, and he guided the head of his dick into me. I stretched when he thrust, a little sting of pain drowned by pleasure.

“You okay?” he asked.

I nodded. I felt as if I had a telephone pole in me, but I wouldn’t complain about it. Maybe I should have asked him to go slow, because he shoved himself in until my expression told him he couldn’t go any farther. He shifted my hips then pushed forward. He found space to fill and drove into me up to the base, pushing his body into me. I put my hands on his face, and he leaned down. We were eye to eye, nose to nose, bodies moving together, the swell of tension returning.

“You’re beautiful,” I said, my thumb on his lips.

He kissed my thumb, running his tongue along the length as he fucked me. We were dressed up but joined in our most vulnerable places. My back hurt where it was pushed against the stone vanity, and my shoulder was jammed into a cabinet. I heard the sounds of the party, and one of my shoes was about to fall off. I felt ripped apart by the size of him.

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 fucking 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 pussy. 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 sex that I blushed.