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I shake my head. All that sweet talk. All that lovemaking. More Scafoni bullshit. But he made a mistake, leaving me here.
He unpacked the overnight bag before he left. I go to the closet and open the door. Like the obsessive neat freak he is, I see he’s hung up our things. A suit for him, a pair of jeans, a dress for me. Our shoes are neatly lined up on the floor, mine next to his like we’re just a normal couple. Like we’re here on some lovers’ getaway.
Is that what he thinks this is? Is he pretending that’s what we are?
I reach into the pockets of his suit jacket as well as the dress slacks but come up empty. His jeans, though, turn up a wad of bills. Not a huge amount, about €90. Not enough to do anything significant, but something.
It’s not like him to stuff bills into his pocket. Maybe he did it when we stopped for gas and he bought himself a cup of coffee and me a bottle of water. I take the money, put on the raincoat Sebastian had the presence of mind to bring for me because I hadn’t packed one, and head downstairs.
In the lobby, I see a telephone. I start for it but then stop, remembering it’s the middle of the night at home. I can’t call yet, but I will. I have no idea what I’ll say, but I will call.
I bypass the restaurant and the gift shop and step outside, hesitating on the stairs of the beautiful hotel, knowing I’m breaking his rule.
What am I even doing? Running away?
I shake my head and turn back, even take a step back inside the hotel entrance, but I can’t. I can’t just give in. Give up.
And so, without thinking about where I’m going or what I’m doing, if I’m coming back before he gets back or if I’m disappearing, I walk out of the hotel and into the beautiful city not seeing a thing, too deep in thought.
One thing I can’t stop thinking about is how I know that no matter what happens to me, my sisters will continue this tradition when it comes their turn. They will dress their daughters, my nieces, in those rotting, yellowing sheaths and put them on those horrible blocks to be looked over, judged, touched by the next Scafoni bastard. Put there for him to take his pick. Like we’re not human. Like we’re animals.
I guess we are to them.
My thoughts jump back to what just happened between us. To him talking to me like he did, holding me like he did. Making love to me. It’s the only time I’ve been made love to.
The first time I had sex, the only time before Sebastian, the boy and I were both sixteen. Kids. Neither of us knew what we were doing, and the only reason I did it at all was because I needed him to rip through that thin sliver of flesh that marked me a virgin.
It didn’t feel good. In fact, I remember it hurt, but I gritted my teeth and tried to block out his wet, panting breath at my ear. He’d used a condom, and he’d come quickly with a little grunt. I remember I wanted him off me as soon as it was over.
It’s very different with Sebastian. I want sex with Sebastian. And it’s not just my body betraying me. It’s me wanting to be close to him.
And this is what scares me the most.
I give a violent shake of my head. It’s so out of place that the people passing me stop and stare. I only half meet their eyes but hug the coat to myself and walk on.
I can’t think about that. I can’t think about him making love to me. Touching me gently or roughly. I can’t think about what he said, that he watches me sleep. that I curl into him, that he cocoons me. Shelters me. I know that already, and I can’t go there.
But then again, maybe it’s my dependence on him that makes this so strange. That confuses my feelings so completely.
I think about my Aunt Libby and wonder, for the first time, if she wasn’t heartbroken when she came home. If she didn’t kill herself because of missing her Scafoni master. Because maybe this is what they do. Maybe we become so helplessly dependent on them that we think we love them.
I wander around for a while, not sure where I’m going, and only notice I’m out of the center when I realize the streets aren’t as busy here and the shops are local shops, markets and a dentist, a beauty salon. A run-down antique shop stuffed so full that the faces of the dolls smashed against the window watch me creepily as I walk by.
