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“Really, I’m just going to be here as long as it takes to write the article. Unless there’s a leaky roof or I find roaches, I’m pretty sure I can make this work,” I reply, glancing around the room again in total amazement.
To be honest, the guest bedroom in this man’s house is larger than my whole apartment and of much higher quality. I could put this room downtown above a gentrified coffee shop and charge three thousand dollars a month for it. And the guest room is practically an afterthought! How do some people get to live like this? I’m dying to know what the master bedroom looks like, though I’m lying to myself about the reason why. I don’t need the mental visual of Matteo fucking me in his own bed.
“Alright, whatever you say, love,” he replies, putting his hands up in false surrender. “I guess I’ll leave you in the inferior room to get yourself acquainted with it.”
He closes the door behind him without another word, almost like he knows that I’m yearning for more contact, more answers. If he’s playing mind games with me, he’s winning.
I’m blushing from the inside out, tempted to jump into the bed and explore the slick, warm folds between my legs as my clit pulses steadily in my underwear.
Now that I think about it, I haven’t seen the guest bathroom yet – if there’s a detachable shower head, I have a perfect excuse to use it. I’ve spent the night in a dirty warehouse. Whywouldn’tI want to be clean?
A satisfied warmth spreads through me as I explore the bathroom, noticing the showerhead hanging from the wall opposite the main water source. There are at least four different streams in here, from the standard shower to a waterfall to the jets that shoot straight at you like a firing squad. It’s a bit gratuitous, sure, but I’m going to enjoy every last bit of it.
6
Iris
I’ve been settling into my room rather easily, and it’s almost sinful just how much I’m enjoying the luxurious fabrics and furnishings that surround me at every turn. I never knew that sheets could feel so soft, or that shampoo could restore my hair back to the silky-smooth waves of my youth. Is this how rich people get to live every day? With every atom of their being looked after and cared for? I can’t imagine how much better I would feel every day if I had access to all of this, and I’ve hardly stepped out of my room.
At around three PM, I received an invitation to accompany Matteo for dinner in his own private dining area. His assistant, Leonardo, has brought me a dress to wear for the occasion. I was hesitant to take the dress from him, knowing that men tend to underestimate a woman’s size when trying to pick out clothes for her, but I was pleasantly surprised at how well this dress fit me the first time I put it on.
When I read that the label saidLouis Vuitton,I gasped so loud that I startled myself. How much fucking money did this dress cost? Just for one dinner? Has someone else worn this?
Before I allow myself to spiral into a concentric hellscape ofwhat-ifs,I pull myself back from the entire narrative. No, there is nothing to read between the lines. Matteo has provided me with something formal and elegant to wear to dinner, which he is also giving to me with no ulterior motives. I need to be grateful, calm myself down, and proceed to dinner.
Matteo has intrigued me since the day I heard his story from Joe Filizetti. I did a small amount of research, but I figured that the information I was receiving would color my perception of Joe and ruin my otherwise unbiased article. I remember distinctly thinking that Matteo seemed impossibly attractive for someone living under fire, as if attractive people are never subjected to difficulty or personal ruin. It was a stupid thing to believe, and now I’m beginning to unravel the story from Matteo’s perspective.
I’m nervous to ask too many questions. I have no idea what I could say that would set him off. He’s an unusually collected man, especially for someone in his position. In my experience, any man who doesn’t show any external anger towards anything, even as a joke, is harboring it somewhere inside himself. That anger begins to rot and affect his outlook on life, leading to violent outbursts.
At least that’s how I’ve experienced these types of men.
Not only that, but he’s so confident that his bravado arrests me when I’m speaking directly to him. He gazes down at me as if I’m some impressionable, wide-eyed schoolgirl who is explaining the plot of my favorite book to him. I usually hate to be talked down to by men, and lord knows I experience enough of that on a daily basis at my job. But when Matteo does it, I almost feel... safer with him? Is that possible?
I can’t imagine under what other circumstances I would feelmorecomfortable with a man who talked to me like I was a child. Maybe he raised his siblings, and it comes innately to him. Maybe he’s just a paternal person in general.
You know why you like it.
I shake the voice out of my head. I can’t allow any doubts or deviations to encroach on my ability to see him as a story rather than a potential lover. It’s been eons since I had sex, and I’ve grown into a terribly embarrassing, immature pattern where I approach every male interaction as if it holds the weight of sexual tension. It’s started to affect my social life, and I can’t imagine that such a strange arrangement between Matteo and me wouldn’t reignite it.
At around six-thirty, I steel myself as I slip the dress back on over my bare breasts, checking self-consciously to see if my nipples are showing through. Would I get more out of him if I appealed to his sexual attraction to me? That’s one thing the guys at the office are always bitching about – “women shouldn’t even be allowed to be journalists. The men they interview will tell them whatever they want to know if they think it’ll get them laid.”
Fucking idiots.
Though this time, I’m hoping that they’re correct.
It’s a strange little walk down to the dining area. I was given vague instructions to follow, using any of the gigantic, brooding paintings as landmarks as I wander the vaulted hallways. This place feels like a palace, all white with dark wood and the occasional unsettling work of art. Matteo is drawn to blood-reds, and his choice in artwork gives the whole house a rather uninviting, threatening aura.
The dining area is just around a corner where I’m lucky to find the two-way fireplace that marks my destination. I’ve only ever seen these in hotel lobbies where rich people stay for the winter, and being invited to share the same space as one has a certain wrongness to it. Me? Really? In a place like this?
Matteo is sitting tall at the far end of a black oak table, a behemoth of a relic as far as home furnishings go. I wouldn’t be surprised if they built the damn house around it. I notice the beautiful, ornate carvings along the sides and legs of the table, not a scratch despite the many years of use it’s gone through in its long life.
“Sit. Please,” Matteo commands, standing up to gesture toward the chair opposite to him. It’s somewhat far away, but perhaps he’s trying to create the illusion of smallness. I’m already so much smaller than him, so the implication is somewhat insulting and unnecessary to me.
I sit down, feeling smaller than ever as the table dwarfs me. I try to sit up straight the way he is, but I feel like I’m projecting too much of my insecurity as I broaden my shoulders and stare at him straight-on. If he can’t sense my anxiety yet, he’ll be able to as soon as I open my mouth.
“So, what’s for dinner?” I ask, my voice catching in my throat. I cough a little to clear my vocal cords, to no avail. My water glass taunts me from a foot away, and I grasp it desperately as I fail to compose myself as I choke. Why is this happening to me right now? Has this ever happened to me once in my life before?
“Are you alright?” Matteo asks, completely divorced from my plight, asking only as a courtesy.
