We’re quiet for another minute.
“Okay,” he says at last. “But I’m not going to fuck anyone else. I promised to be faithful, and I told you I take my word seriously.”
I can see the man has his pride, and his word is part of that. Still, it seems a waste. He’s so fucking beautiful. It could be years before I want intimacy—if I ever do. He’s in his prime, and I’m holding him back, smothering him with my demons.
Shit. I’mhishuman chastity belt.
“You also said you can’t love me,” I remind him. “If you’re with someone else and never with me, it’ll ensure that we never become close. Isn’t that what we both want?”
“Yes,” he concedes at last. “I want us both to stay alive.”
Something in my chest dies a little at his words. Is he agreeing to find acumarebecause he can’t have me, and he feels bad about pushing me past my limits?
I tell myself it’s a good thing. Even though it makes me feel weird to think about him with someone else, I’d rather he find a mistress than come at me, making me feel the terrifying things he did last night, things I had no control over, just like when I was a kid. Taking my body over as if it really does belong to him, even more than it belongs to me.
If he finds acumare,maybe he’ll be too caught up in the honeymoon phase with her to want one with me. I couldn’t stop the wedding, but maybe I can stop the worst part. It’s all arranged, a contract signed by two families, a marriage in name only. If he gets his needs met elsewhere, it can stay that way.
The families want us together, but they don’t require love. I’m doing my duty to them, just like Dad wanted. One day, my biological clock will start ticking and I’ll want a baby. We can try then. If I still don’t want to touch him, don’t trust myself with him, they have doctors for that now.
I know it’s not ideal, and maybe it’s even selfish. I know what people would say. It was a long time ago, I should just get over it. I should go to a shrink. I’m being selfish.
But it’s more than a memory, more than something that fucked with my head. I don’t even think about it that much, but it’s always there, as if it sank into my being, became part of me. It lurks inside me even when I don’t feed it with attention or conscious thought. It feeds off me like a parasite, like a cancer, living in every cell that makes up my body. I can’t just forget about it, can’t get over it and move on, any more than someone with a disease can get over it by willing it away. All I can do is ignore it, not let it control my life, and live hard and outrageously, prove to myself that it doesn’t define me.
It only defines one part of me, and that part is hidden and private, tucked away safely, never to be touched or awakened. That part made me a victim. If I don’t have those feelings, don’t acknowledge that part of me, it can’t hurt me, can’t make me a victim again. And I won’t be a victim. I’m strong now, coated in armor, dipped in the river Styx like Achilles. I have a chink in my armor, but luckily, it’s a lot harder to access than my heel. I’m stronger than Achilles, stronger than anyone knows. Strong enough that I don’t need sex, even if it is biology. I control my body, not the other way around. And no one will ever control me again.
nine
King
“You’re going back to work today, right?” Eliza asks, sitting at the vanity, her hair tumbling to one side as she tilts her head to watch herself put in a big, gold hoop earring.
“Yes,” I say, standing behind her and adjusting my tie in the mirror above her head.
We don’t meet each other’s eyes. Things have been different since returning from the honeymoon a few days ago. I can’t tell if they’re better or worse. There’s a wariness in both of us, as if we’re both watching the other from the corner of our eyes, waiting to see our partner’s next move. We tiptoe around each other, overly respectful of the others’ physical space.
“Does that bother you?” I ask Eliza.
“Of course not,” she says. “I know how much you men love your work.”
I don’t know what she means by that. Hurting people is not exactly a job I’d say I loved, but I am dedicated to my work, it’s true. I have to be.
“What about you?” I ask, lingering to watch her even after I’ve checked my reflection. Looking the part is important. Appearances reflect on a person’s character, family, and everything else. Eliza is beautiful with or without makeup, but I like that she puts herself together to go out in public, that I’m the only one who sees her bare face.
“I’m not sure,” she says, lightly.
“No plans?”
“Look, I’ve always done whatever I wanted,” she says flatly. “My mom followed her dream, and I’m following mine.”
“I’m sorry,” I say.
She stares at me, her lips pursing as she swallows. “For what?”
“That your mom’s not around,” I say. “That she didn’t come to the wedding.”
Eliza drops her gaze and messes with the makeup on her vanity for a few seconds before lifting her face and shaking her hair back, leaning in to powder her skin with a brush. “My mom’s my hero,” she says. “She risked her life to be free and follow her heart. Not many women have the balls to stand up to a mob boss.”
I want to say I’m sorry again, to insist it still sucks, but I hold it back. I’m no stranger to complicated feelings about shitty mothers. Ma laughed at me when I voiced my fears about joining the Valenti mafia family, laughed at the thought of me killing a man. But she’s still my mother.