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She nodded gratefully, relieved that I let it go. “You, too,” she finally said.
Something was definitely wrong with me. I felt like a young stud again, awkward and strange. I hurried into the bedroom and shut the door behind me. Then I lay down on the bed and crossed my left arm over my head, shielding my eyes. There was just something about Elise that I had never encountered in any other woman before. She saw me kill a man, yet she placed her trust in me and never looked at me the way most others did: like I was a monster.
It took a long time, and many, many dirty thoughts, but eventually I fell asleep.
Elise
I was dreaming.
I was standing before a Victorian sculpture of a woman dressed in rags. She was handing a piece of bread to a girl without shoes. Something about this white marble sculpture captivated me as much as it saddened me. Sometimes I came to theMuseum of Fine Artsjust to see this very sculpture.
"The artist called this workEndless Love," a man's voice startled me. My hand moved to my neck in surprise as I turned to find a good-looking man in an immaculate suit standing right behind me. He must have been in his thirties—Italian or Spanish.
"I apologize. I didn't mean to startle you," he smiled.
I smiled back at him. "I'm sorry. I must have been in deep thought."
He nodded at the sculpture. "Beautiful, isn't it? Most people can't get past the fact that she is starving, but if you look closely, you can see the love of a mother in her eyes. And that is beautiful. Is it not? The artist was a woman who died shortly after completing this sculpture."
I narrowed my eyes at the sculpture's face. I could see the love of a mother in her eyes now that he mentioned it.
"Amazing… you are right," I mumbled.
His smile widened. I couldn't help but blush. This man was one of the prettiest creatures I had ever seen.
"I've seen you here before," he said. "It's rare to see young women at museums these days. Especially such pretty ones like you."
I laughed. "I was raised in a small town by very strict parents. Museums are full of the world's wonders to me."
"Are you a student?"
I nodded. "Fresh off the boat. First semester. Nursing at NYU."
The pride was evident in my voice. To me, it was as if I had defeated Goliath to come to New York and attend college. When my parent's objected to such "nonsense," I literally fled my parent's home in the middle of the night to do it anyways. It was a dream come true.
The man's smile faded as he stared at me in deep thought, then he stepped right behind me and grabbed my hand. I froze in shock as an inferno of heat and adrenaline rushed through my entire body. No man had ever been this close to me before. If my ultra-religious parents could see me now, they would get the belt and punish me for this sin.
"Shhh," he whispered into my ear from behind. "I won't hurt you. I want to show you something."
My heart raced when he gently placed my hand on the sculpture's chest. Its stone felt cool under my touch.
"Some people say that when you try really hard, you can feel the artist's heartbeat inside the sculpture's chest. Can you feel it?"
Suddenly the museum's background was gone, and I was at the luxurious mansion Marcello and I shared. One of the maids had broken a family heirloom—a Sicilian vase over 300 hundred years old. I feared for the girl who did it, so I told Marcello I accidentally elbowed it.
His hand thundered across my face, and I propelled onto the carpet and watched in horror as he lit himself a cigarette. He took a puff and held it right in front of his face, staring at it as if it was a mystical object.
"See what you make me do again," he said in an angry tone.
“No… please…” I begged, covering my belly with my hands right where he had left burn marks already.
"Then next time be better…" were his last word before he strode toward me.
"No!" I begged once more, frantically shooting up into a sitting position. Sweat dripped from my forehead as I looked around. For a moment, I was lost. This couch. This cabin.
Then the memory of last night flooded me. And of course, the memory of the tattooed wall of muscles who had saved me.
I sighed in relief. I was safe. But what would happen now? Would Andrei kick me out?
