Chapter 7
Chapter Seven - Giulietta
The morning was the kind that arrived quietly—no sun, no clarity, just a flat gray wash across the city that made everything feel a little muted, as though the world itself was holding its breath.
Giulietta sat at the edge of her bed, elbows resting heavily on her knees, hair loose for once, tumbling down her back in uneven waves still carrying faint traces of smoke and sweat and Ivy’s intoxicating scent.
Sleep hadn’t come at all. Her body had surrendered somewhere between four and five, heavy and compliant, but her mind kept pacing tight circles, replaying the night in looping fragments: Ivy’s voice, low and certain, the possessive heat of Ivy’s hands, the relentless rhythm inside the bathroom stall, the club’s bassline drilling through tile and bone long after she’d come harder and more completely than she had in months.
She looked down and caught the gap in her blouse where a button should’ve been, gone, sacrificed to urgency.
Her coat lay draped over the foot of the bed, a discarded shield, abandoned with every careful pretense of control.
The apartment was deceptively quiet: the mechanical hum of the fridge, a distant clink of traffic, the soft tick of the radiator.
Inside her, everything buzzed—nerves, thoughts, breath—an aftershock that refused to ebb.
The memory kept returning: the sharp click of the stall lock; cold tile against her back; Ivy’s palm flat at her sternum, pinning her exactly where she wanted her.
The press of her fingers, deep and sure, followed by the ruthless steadiness of a thumb, small, even circles that never chased, only built.
Ivy’s mouth at her throat, teeth ghosting a threat she was dying to earn; the order in her ear to not make a sound; and Giulietta’s open mouth shaping a noise she swallowed against her own wrist. The mirror had caught a sliver of them: her own wrecked eyes; the line of Ivy’s strong forearm; the tiny, wicked smile when Giulietta did as she was told.
The break, clean and brutal, rolling through her hips in pulses that left her trembling, quiet and split wide, while the bass thundered on as if the room hadn’t tilted.
After, Ivy’s fingers easing out with care; the soft, efficient ritual of being put back together—bra righted, skirt smoothed, blouse tugged closed (minus one button)—Ivy’s thumb wiping the smear from Giulietta’s lip; the unhurried, sealing kiss that said not finished without needing the words.
She breathed in now and caught the trace of Ivy’s perfume on her skin, the faint sting where fabric had chafed at the edge of her ribs, a low ache between her thighs that felt less like soreness and more like possession.
She slid a fingertip over the open placket and found a half-moon tenderness at her hip where Ivy’s grip had held her steady.
The room remained still. Inside her, the night kept moving.
With a weary sigh, Giulietta reached for her coffee mug, cold now, forgotten and untouched on the windowsill.
She pressed the bitter liquid to her lips as though it might offer some kind of absolution, but it was just a gesture, empty and futile.
Her body vividly remembered Ivy: the way she'd been pinned to the wall, Ivy's voice firm, commanding her to "Keep your eyes open," a tone that brooked no argument, that demanded obedience.
But her restless, traitorous mind refused to quiet.
The silence after the storm. The question that Ivy had breathed into her ear: “What are you running from?”
Giulietta hadn’t answered, not because she didn’t have the words, but perhaps because she lacked the courage.
To answer Ivy's question would mean confronting truths she'd spent a lifetime burying beneath meticulously maintained facades and carefully controlled emotions.
Truths that Ivy seemed determined to unearth with every touch, every look.
She glanced toward her phone, the screen stubbornly blank, devoid of messages that might provide distraction or comfort.
She hadn't expected Ivy to reach out, yet irrational disappointment twisted in her chest, sharp and unfamiliar.
Giulietta forced her gaze away, unwilling to dwell on the absence of words that might ease her uncertainty.
Outside, the gray sky showed no signs of lifting, mirroring her own mood—clouded, ambiguous, suspended in unresolved tension.
Giulietta's reflection stared back at her from the darkened window: eyes shadowed, lips parted, caught between yearning and resistance.
The image felt too raw, too honest, and she averted her eyes, unwilling to see more clearly.
What had Ivy done to her?
She stood, suddenly restless, pacing to the kitchen without purpose, feeling every step like a fresh disturbance to her fragile equilibrium.
Giulietta reached the sink, turning on the water with trembling fingers, splashing her face in a futile attempt to wash away the lingering echoes of Ivy's touch.
But it was useless; Ivy was embedded beneath her skin, a tattoo of sensation and memory that refused to fade.
Giulietta braced herself against the counter, head bowed, breathing deliberately, as though she could force calm through sheer willpower.
She’d always prided herself on her self-control, her ability to compartmentalize, but Ivy was an uncontained force, pulling her apart piece by meticulous piece, exposing vulnerabilities Giulietta had worked tirelessly to conceal.
She lifted her gaze to the small mirror above the sink, confronting eyes haunted by questions she couldn’t yet answer.
Her reflection seemed almost accusatory, demanding honesty she wasn’t prepared to give, not even to herself.
Giulietta touched her fingertips lightly to her own lips, remembering Ivy's mouth, the urgency and heat, the startling intimacy of her kiss that felt like a revelation rather than a conquest.
A part of her wanted to run, to flee back into the comforting familiarity of solitude and anonymity, to distance herself from the intoxicating threat Ivy represented.
But a stronger, more reckless part craved more, more of Ivy’s challenging gaze, more of her uncompromising demands, more of the turbulent passion that disrupted the careful order of Giulietta's carefully constructed life.
She turned away from her reflection, pressing a palm flat against her racing heart, trying and failing to steady its erratic rhythm.
The battle inside her was relentless, the irresistible pull of Ivy’s intensity against her deeply ingrained instinct for self-preservation.
But Giulietta knew instinctively, in the quiet desperation of that gray morning, that her heart had already chosen a side.
She just didn’t know if she was brave enough to follow.
They sat side by side on Ivy’s fire escape two nights later. It was cool enough that Giulietta wore one of Ivy’s old sweatshirts—black, too long in the sleeves, the cuffs stretched. She didn’t say anything about it. Ivy hadn’t either. But she’d watched her put it on like it meant something.
They didn’t talk about what had happened at the club.
Instead, Giulietta talked about her father, about Rome.
Not all of it. Just fragments. The good pieces.
“Papà made risotto like it was a sacred ritual,” she said, lips curled around a half-smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “He said the secret was patience. He never let me rush the broth.”
Ivy lit a cigarette and didn’t interrupt.
“He used to say I had fire in me. That I was always running toward something, even if I didn’t know what it was.”
Ivy exhaled smoke toward the stars. “He sounds like he saw you.”
Giulietta didn’t reply, but something in her throat went tight.
Silence stretched, filled with the distant murmur of traffic and the low hum of the city settling into night.
Giulietta tugged absentmindedly at the frayed edges of the sweatshirt sleeves, comforted by their roughness against her fingertips.
She hadn’t intended to say so much. Not tonight.
Not ever, perhaps. Yet Ivy’s quiet presence had a way of drawing words from her she hadn’t realized she’d kept hidden, tucked away in the corners of herself she rarely explored.
She exhaled softly, watching her breath dissipate into the cool air.
“Rome has this way of getting under your skin,” she murmured, her voice low, almost as though confessing to the night itself.
“It’s chaotic and loud, full of contradictions.
Elegant and rough, yet ancient and youthful all at once. ”
Giulietta’s gaze softened, focusing on something distant and unseen.
“My father was like Rome in that way. Layered, complicated. Impossible to fully understand. Yet, even his contradictions felt deliberate. Intentional.” Her voice dropped to a whisper, filled with a quiet reverence.
“Like he was always exactly who he was meant to be.”
Ivy shifted slightly, leaning back against the iron railing, her cigarette glowing like a tiny ember in the dark. “And your mother?” she asked carefully, as if sensing the fragility beneath Giulietta’s words.
Giulietta’s jaw tightened, the momentary softness replaced by something harder, colder. “My mother was the silence in between,” she finally replied, a note of finality closing around her words. “She was never there, always just out of reach.”
Ivy didn’t press further, allowing the quiet to envelop them again, heavy and comforting, giving Giulietta the space she needed to regain her composure.
The city lights flickered below, casting muted reflections against the old brick of the buildings around them.
Giulietta drew her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around them, pulling the sweatshirt tighter around her body.
It smelled faintly of Ivy—clean soap, smoke, and something more elusive, more intimate.