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Lips that kissed me gently and spoke sweetly just a few hours ago.
Gentleness and sweetness that I rejected.
“You prefer me to be rough with you? Is that it?” His fingers dig into my skin. “You choose to draw a line between us?”
“It’s not a choice. None of this has ever been a choice for me.”
His eyes scan my face, narrow a little.
“I can be rough with you, if that’s what you want,” he says quietly. Calmly. “What you need.”
I swallow. I know he means it.
Without another word, he shifts his grip to my hand, fist on fist, squeezing so hard my fingernails cut into my skin. He picks up my umbrella—I’d forgotten it—and like this, not quite hand in hand, we walk out of the station and into the rain, to the line of waiting taxis. He opens the back door of the first one and gestures for me to get in. I do. He follows and gives the driver an address in Italian.
About ten minutes later, ten minutes where he doesn’t speak a single word, ten minutes where I feel his anger throbbing like a separate entity in the car, we pull up to a shop. It looks like men’s shoes.
He gives the driver some instruction before opening the door of the taxi, not bothering with the umbrella as he drags me out with him. In the distance, I can see blue skies, but here, rain is pouring down.
A bell rings over the door as we enter, opera music playing softly, the faint scent of a cigar having been smoked recently filtered by that of leather and expensive cologne. The older man who is reading the paper behind his desk looks up at Sebastian, smiles in recognition, stands.
Sebastian speaks a few words to him. His tone is clipped.
The man’s smile turns into a nod and a quick glance at me. He disappears behind a curtain.
Sebastian is still squeezing my fist, and his hand feels hot.
A few minutes later, the man reappears with a thin cord of leather about three feet long. Sebastian releases my hand, takes it, wraps it around his fist and tests its strength.
When I look up at the old man, he quickly looks away. Sebastian says something to him, tucks the cord into his pocket, hands him some bills, and, a few minutes later, we’re in the taxi again and heading back into the center of Verona and to our hotel. By the time we arrive the rain has turned into a drizzle, but the city is drenched, even the sunlight is a dampened yellow.
Sebastian pays the driver. We leave the umbrella when we walk back into the hotel and at the front desk, he asks for the key. They still use the old-fashioned ones you turn in when you leave. We head up to our suite and, once inside, he finally releases me.
I step away, look at the crescent indents my fingernails carved into my palm, look back at him. “Are you going to talk to me?”
He takes off his jacket, hangs it up, takes that corded-up leather out of the pocket and sets it on the table beside the door along with the room key with its red tassel hanging from it.
“Take off your jacket and hang it up.”
I do as he says and hang it beside his. He looks me over.
“Your shoes too.”
I look down, slide off the shoes which have tracked dirt into the room, and instantly lose two inches.
“Let’s go into the bedroom.”
“Why?” I’m cautious. He’s not going to just let this go.
“Because I said so.”
When I don’t move, he comes to me. I expect him to grip my arm and make me go. But instead his fingertips are gentle at my low back. I walk into the bedroom with him.
He goes to the full-length mirror against the far wall, moves a chair to clear a large space, then turns to me.
“Come here.”
I do. I stand with my back to the mirror facing him. He looks at me again, at the buttons of my dress. I’m still when he begins to undo them, one by one, taking care not to touch my skin when he does.
“What are you going to do?” I ask quietly because he will punish me. I know it.
He meets my eyes, then shifts his gaze back to the buttons, unbuttoning each one carefully, taking his time until the dress is undone to just below my waist. He pushes it open a little, just enough to glimpse the swell of my breasts in my lace bra. Leaving me there, he walks into the living room and returns with the leather cord.
“Do I need to tie you?”
I look at it, unsure what he’s planning. Is he going to tie me up with it?
“What are you going to do?” I ask again.
