In the back of the closet, I find one of my mother’s old nightgowns. It flows over my points and curves with the deep pink of life, as if the soft, willing parts of me are made accessible to his eyes.
I put a coat over the nightgown, turn out the light, and lie in the bed.
When I am with him, I am not to speak, but I can tell him everything with our code.
I knew from the moment I made this trade that I would honor it.
If I make the shape of a warning, or hope, or a single piece of information about what’s about to take place, he’ll lose his mind. Massimo will know, and even if he trusts that I didn’t somehow tell my husband everything, Dario will do something drastic.
All bets will be off.
I can’t risk it.
While I’m being defiled by a man I despise, I’ll need the comfort of the knowledge that the man I love isn’t in a cage.
I will set him free, and I’ll be happy with that.
Massimo hasn’t said a word the whole drive down to Precious Blood. It’s three in the morning, but unlike my last late-night drive here with Dr. Palmeri, it’s not garbage night. There are no bags on the curb and no metal monsters roaring and clanking. My brother seems tired and distracted. Maybe the business on the dock is wearing him out. Good. I don’t want to talk. My voice is rolled up, tied down, and locked away behind the walls of my heart.
I will not say a single thing to Dario about what’s about to happen.
I muffle the words in my brain, seeing colors without naming them. Matching the emptiness of the streets with emptiness in my mind. Rain drops run down the windshield along bowed roads that go in a single direction.
Massimo parks in front of the church. Like well-prepared thieves, we don’t need to speak. We leave the car together and enter using the thumb pad in the front. The guard isn’t Sam this late. He jumps up, and my brother calms him with a wave, explaining nothing. I follow Massimo, but I know the way now.
When we get to the little room with the TVs, it’s already empty. I assume that’s courtesy of the current head of the table, but I don’t ask. That would require speaking.
On the screen, Dario sleeps on his cot with one arm bent over his eyes and the other draped over his bare chest. His waistband is pulled below his navel, revealing the arrow of hair leading to the first sliver of dark curls.
I will kiss that arrow of hair with the reverence of a true believer. I will worship it in silence no matter how loudly my heart screams.
“Cameras off.” Massimo flicks a few switches, and one by one, the monitors go black, leaving the image of Dario’s beauty in the wires and walls. “But these…” He slides up a knob, and I can hear Dario breathe, then he turns it back down. “I mean it, Goody. Don’t make any plans. Don’t tell him shit. Don’t fuck with me. I shouldn’t be doing this at all.”
He waits for me to thank him, but I just nod. My gratitude isn’t big enough to break through the wall of silence.
He takes me around the same corners Dr. Palmeri took me down to get to inside the cell. He opens the first door and leads me down the hall, holding me back while he looks through the little window.
“I’m going to leave you here and open it from the other side.”
I nod.
“You okay?”
I nod.
“You sure?”
I nod again, but sharply because he needs to go away.
“Fine.”
Massimo leaves me in the middle of the hall. I don’t know if I’m close enough to be seen through the window, but when the lock cracks open, he’s on his feet.
I go through and the door hisses behind me before snapping closed.
“Prima.” He’s wary. I don’t blame him.
I’m going to tell him everything. I’m going to blurt out as much as I can before Massimo comes in.
Our marriage is annulled, and Massimo’s making me marry Sergio, and I have to make him happy, but it’s okay because you’re going to be free, and I’m really proud that I could negotiate that, and I could because you made me feel like I can do anything, and I just wanted one more time with you so please please please just keep calm and let it be a good thing.
No.
No!
Nothing.
I say nothing.
“What’s going on?” He steps toward me.
I open the coat to reveal the way the pink nightgown drapes over cold-hardened nipples and let the coat drop to the floor. He consumes me with his eyes before looking up at the camera. The red light’s out.
Another step in my direction. I pinch my lips together and run my fingers across my mouth.
“Zip it?”
I point at myself, cross my heart, then my throat. Nothing. I will not say a word.
“Why?”
That’s the one question I’m most committed to not answering.
Stepping forward, I place my palm on his chest, then make a rectangle boundary with my fingertip before tapping out a message.
SAFE.
While I lay my palm flat on his chest, he takes a moment to visualize the keyboard and make the words, then nods.
“All right, prima.” He takes my hand and tenderly kisses the center of my sweaty palm. “I trust you.”
His words squeeze my heart, pushing a sob through my lungs and upward.
That will not do.
My throat catches it before it escapes.
Relief. I can do this.
Running my fingertips over his collarbones, I take in his warmth and beauty. The hardness under the skin, the warmth under the chill, the bumps of his cold nipples. He mirrors my every move, sliding his touch over the silken fabric, giving me control I’ve never had with him before.
I take it and hold his face, leaning my face to his, taking in the warm breath of a caged man who doesn’t know he’s about to be freed. Without making a sound, I run my lips over his, part them, circle to taste every bit of them, savoring this last kiss.
Our tongues lose patience, reaching for a taste with a flick, then a twist and twine around each other. Our arms find their way to an embrace, chest to chest. I feel his heart beating against me and the fierce demand of his erection.
Bending, I do what I promised myself I would, kissing his chest and below, cherishing the arrow of darkness and where it leads, feeling its heat through the fabric. On my knees before him, I pull down the waistband, release it, and look up at him as he threads his fingers in my hair.
His cock tastes of sweat and something sharp that’s him. Every inch of it gets the loving attention of my tongue. The world may be big and confusing, but here and now, there’s nothing else. Just me and this man. I’ve never tasted anything as sweet as the drop of salt I suck off his tip. When I take him in my mouth, his groan is music. This is all the beauty and pleasure I need. It will fortify me against the agony of the coming weeks. I will have experienced something both grounded in reality and transcendent in love.
You will be free.
The words meet his cock at the back of my throat and stay there.
My love. You will be free.
The thought makes me so happy I lose myself. The buzz of pleasure filling my core spreads to a tingle in my arms and legs.
“Oh, God.” His prayer is no more than a breath before he pushes me away, gasping.
He pulls me up gently, then gathers two fistfuls of pink fabric, lifting the nightgown over my head. He steps back, gaze consuming me—without my cotton underwear—for a moment before lifting me and sitting on the cot with me in his lap, facing him. He leans back and pulls me forward, maneuvering his face between my legs.