Page 70 of Secrets of the Brother
I would play nice with my parents and save up what money I could until I had enough to return to New York. It was a crap plan but for now it was all I had.
I stared down at the charcoal sketch I had been making. It was a heart wrapped in chains with a dagger pierced through it. A little sentimentally macabre but apt for how I was feeling right now. I wonder how big a fit my mother would have if I got this as a tattoo on my arm?
A loudbangstartled me out of my thoughts when the door to the library swung open and hit the wall so violently, the landscape painting in the heavy gilt frame to the right of it lurched sideways on its hook.
“You deceitful, wretched, spoiled brat!”
I closed the flap cover on my sketch pad and set it aside. “Hello Claudia, what can I do for you?”
“You were seen in the church.”
The room tilted. My cheeks burned with embarrassment at being caught. “I can explain.”
No, I couldn’t. How could I possibly explain?
You see, Mother, Enzo appeared like a handsome devil and seduced me.
Even though I could claim I was an unwilling participant… that would be a lie.
True, he bullied me into that confessional and threatened me, but I didn’t really believe he would have followed through. If I hadtrulytried to escape or cry out or object, he would have stopped. I knew that deep down. He would have stopped. He didn’t because I didn’t want him to stop… and he knew it.
He saw straight into my deepest, darkest fantasy.
One I didn’t even acknowledge I had.
To be overpowered and dominated by him.
It was terrifying and exhilarating. Just like when he took my virginity.
There was something electrifying about a strong man gripping your wrists, holding you down and having his way with you. No, that was too prosaic of a phrase.
Fucking you senseless was more like it.
The way he stared intently into my eyes as he pushed his cock deeper and deeper into my throat, inch by inch, stealing my breath, practically holding my life in his hands.
It was an out-of-body experience.
I felt nothing like myself.
To be on my knees, sucking his cock like a wanton whore, in church?
And yet, I'd never felt so connected to my body as I did in that moment.
Every nerve, every inch of skin, every sense had been on fire.
It was odd to be completely and utterly humiliated and regret something while at the same time knowing that the moment would be relived over and over in your dreams for years to come.
My mother lit a cigarette, deliberately blowing the smoke in my face. “Really? You can explain why you were seen walking into the church moments before Enzo Cavalieri? Did you arrange to meet him there? What did you say to him?”
Was this a trap?
I stood and faced her, feeling more well-matched meeting her at eye-level. “Why? What have you heard?”
She gestured with her cigarette hand, her bracelets rattling. “Ah ha! So you don’t deny it!”
I placed my hands on my hips. “Are you forgetting you asked me to drop off thecaggionettifor the churchTutti i Santicelebration tomorrow?”
One of her false eyelashes had come partially unglued at the corner, making her eye twitch in an unsettling manner. “You probably used that as a cover. Pretending to play the dutiful daughter. I should have known.” She grabbed my upper arm, her nails digging into my skin. “What did you say to him?”
