C Reiss - Spin

“You don’t have to give it back,” I said.

“The wronged party keeps the ring.”

“No, the one who initiates the break up surrenders it. You would have stayed if I’d let you.”

“Just take it.” He opened the door. “One day, maybe you’ll put it on again.”

I got into the car, holding the ring. There were indeed four men in the back, and they did indeed talk strategy the whole way to the theater. Though I understood what they were talking about and I would have had plenty to contribute before the break up, I felt disconnected. It just wasn’t fun anymore. I was watching animals in the zoo discuss their escape, but I was already outside. I’d moved on.

Cameras flashed, and Daniel answered questions as we entered. I smiled. I’d done it a hundred times, yet I couldn’t believe I’d almost agreed to a life of it.

Right around the middle of the movie, the heroine and her husband had brutal, bruising sex, and I thought of Antonio. I wanted it again. Hard and fast with a side of hair pulling intensity, him grabbing me from behind as if he would tear me apart. When the movie ended and I stood, a drop of warm fluid escaped my underwear and ran down my thigh. I pressed my legs together to stop it.

“Are you okay?” Daniel asked as we got into the limo alone. The others seemed to have been dispensed with. “You seem flushed.”

“I’m okay.”

“I meant what I said.” He touched my jaw by my ear, a move that had always made me shudder. “You are beautiful.”

“What are you doing?”

“I’m seeing if I lost you,” he whispered, coming close to me.

I pushed him away. “No, Daniel. Just, no.”

“I still love you. You know that.”

I took a deep breath, and said something I never thought would be true. “I’m sorry Daniel. I don’t love you anymore.”

The mood in the back of the limo changed with an almost audible snap.

“It’s him—”

“It’s not.”

“I can bring him up on murder charges tomorrow.”

“I don’t care.”

“Fuck someone else,” he pleaded. “Fall in love with anyone. Not him. All right? Just not him.”

“It’s over, I told you.”

“He’s a murderer.” He looked as though he immediately regretted saying that. “I have no control around you. You leave, and I fall back into the guy I was because I can’t be that guy around you. God, Tink, you were my valve.”

“Daniel, I—”

“No, stop. Let me explain. I’m going to stick to the issue. This guy, I can’t even say his name right now. That nice peacetime we’ve been enjoying? It’s over as of last week. It started with a fistfight with one of his soldiers, and snowballed into what you’ve been seeing on the news.”

Impassive. I couldn’t let on, not even a little. What we intended to keep a secret in Antonio’s world had to remain a secret in mine as well. Daniel wasn’t above using his position to administrate his personal grudges.

“Daniel,” I said firmly, “do not get distracted. You’re trying to win an office in the second biggest city in the country.”

“Not without you!” His voice got tight and sharp, his litigation voice. The voice of a man with a list of righteous grievances. “He killed Frankie Giraldi and Domenico Uvoli.”

Uvoli. Bells rung, but I kept my face impassive.

“He came here for the men who raped his sister. Two, he tracked down and killed. The third, he’s still looking for.”

Nella. The sister he’d left behind.

“Do you want to know what he did to them?” Daniel asked.

“No.” It felt ugly to be told like this. “Stop it.”

“He castrated them, then he choked them with their own genitalia. In front of the men he needed to take over their businesses. What he did to find them, I can lay it out for you. You’ll never say his name again.”

“Stop it.” I felt filthy hearing things I shouldn’t from a man whose hurt was so apparent. “If you have proof, you need to prosecute. If you don’t, you shouldn’t gossip.”

“It’s not gossip when I’m talking to you—that’s what I’m trying to say.”

The car stopped at the building where Daniel and I used to live together. He looked at the front door, leaning over so he could see up to the eighth floor. Was he homesick? I didn’t have the courage to ask.

He sat back. “When I failed you, you threw me out. I never blamed you, but I’m fighting for you. I’m going to win you back. Hell or high water, Tinkerbell. You’ll be mine again.”

Daniel opened the car for me and led me to the door, his door, without another word. I wondered if he could smell the Turkish cigarettes as he walked back to the limo looking more determined than ever.

The text came when I was almost asleep, from a number I didn’t recognize.

—Sweet dreams, Contessa. I will see you soon—

I jumped at the phone.

—Come now—

My message bounced. The screen announced that number had been disconnected or was unavailable. I was relieved he’d sent me a text but disconcerted that the number was unavailable. What if I needed him?

I couldn’t sleep. I put my hand under the sheets and slipped it beneath my underwear. I was soaked by just the thought of Antonio. My clit felt as sensitive as an open wound. I felt powerful, furious with desire, and I was going to come. My fingers wanted it as much as my engorged pussy. I counted to twenty, then I came forever, crying out for no one. When I was done, I cupped my pussy and looked at the ceiling, thanking God for the release.

My phone rang. Again, I didn’t recognize the number. “Hello?”

Just breathing. A swallow.

“Antonio?”

No. It was a woman. On the off chance she was on a borrowed phone, I hedged my bets.

“Deirdre? Katrina?”

A sniff.

“Marina.”

Still no answer. Just a weeping woman. What if she was me? What if Antonio was cheating on her? What if I was the mistress this time?

“Are you okay?” I asked. “There’s no point calling if you’re not going to tell me off or something.”

“He’s one of us,” she croaked. “Not you. He’s not one of you.”

“I understand,” I said, even though I didn’t really.

“He thinks...” She choked a little before continuing. “I know him. He thinks you can make him something he’s not.”

“I don’t know what he thinks, Marina. You should ask him.”

She shot out a little laugh that must have soaked her phone in snot. “Maybe you should ask him.”

I was about to answer, but she hung up.

Imagine being cooped up in small spaces with a hundred people in your age group, eight to eighteen hours a day, strictly focused on a project’s completion. Imagine long waiting periods where you talk at length about the project and the most important thing in the world—the state of cinema. Imagine you connect intellectually and spiritually with those people. Imagine you can’t connect physically because you’re so busy.

Now imagine the party at the end of it.

“Honestly, I want to wait to hear from the Germans,” Katrina yelled over the music.

It was the first time she’d been willing to entertain a serious discussion of my offer, and only then because she had a few drinks in her.

Katrina and I had gotten a downtown loft that was between owners for the party. The rental and cleanup were paid for by the last pennies in the budget, and some sneaky dealing on my part paid for a DJ and open bar. People had melded into a simmering mass of hot, wet flesh pulsing with the music. The loft, someone’s future overpriced home, had turned into a nightclub without the safety permits.

“If they fall though, I want a piece,” I said. Meaning, a piece of the pie. I tried to couch it not as a charitable offering but an investment in something I believed in.

“You heard from crying lady again?” Katrina asked to change the subject.

“Nope.” I hadn’t heard from Antonio after his good night text, either. I didn’t know what that meant. Did he plan to just come and go as he pleased? Were sweet little texts I couldn’t respond to some kind of leash?

“Well, epic party ahead,” Katrina said. “Maintain speed through intersections.”

She grabbed my hand and dragged me into the middle of the loft where the thump of the music was the loudest and the press of bodies hottest. With the floor shaking, the kisses from the camera man, the bumping and grinding, and the gleeful exclamations over the music, I got diverted. Michael came up behind me, put his arm around my waist, and moved his hips with mine.

I let go. No Katrina and her money woes. No Antonio or his secrecy and lies. No Daniel, period. Just a fine-looking, nice man dancing behind me, a few more in front of me, smiles all around, and a feeling that I’d been part of something bigger than myself.

When Michael moved his arm, I kept dancing for a second. Then I felt a whoosh as an area behind me opened up. I turned with the music just in time to see Antonio throw Michael against a table. Michael bounced off the top and fell cleanly, like any actor worth his salt had been trained to do.

“Antonio!”

If he heard me over the music, he made no indication. He stepped forward, stiff and enraged. Michael, being the class clown, spread his legs, waggled his brows, and dodged. Antonio caught his wrist, the motion so fast and effortless that Michael was slammed against the wall with his arm twisted behind his back before I took three steps. A circle of stunned people surrounded the two men. Antonio was such a ball of power and rage that no one dared come near him.

“Maybe you shouldn’t let her out by herself then,” Michael grumbled when I got close enough to hear.