Chapter 5 – POSY
POSY
I rue the day I ever met Dario Volpe, but not nearly as much as the day I decided to come to Stonecut County. I lay on the lumpy mattress of the foldout sofa in my pay-by-the-week efficiency, breathing through my mouth so I don’t inhale the room’s mystery scent of stale piss and black mold.
On the bright side, my plan was sound. No one is going to come looking for me here.
No one who has a choice is coming here ever .
Stonecut’s county seat is cute enough. It’s a sleepy bed and breakfast kind of a town with a picturesque river and a fancy restaurant in an old mill. The bus dropped me off in the town square next to a white wooden bandstand with stars-and-stripes bunting.
It would’ve been stupid to stay at the end of the line, so I hitched a ride in the back of a redneck’s truck. He said he was going “up the mountain.” That’s where I ended up—in a one-stoplight town called Anvil at the base of Stonecut Mountain.
Apparently, there’s a big deal motorcycle rally here each fall, so it’s like a beach town, half-abandoned in the off season. Most of the storefronts on Main Street are shuttered. My boss, Randy, at the gas station says they open as bars and souvenir shops during the weeks bookending the rally.
As far as I can tell, moonshine is the other major industry in town. There’s a flea market in an abandoned discount store parking lot on Saturdays, and every vendor has a crate of mason jars underneath their folding table.
I’ve gone to the flea market every weekend since I arrived six long weeks ago. The lady in the big straw hat has the best hooch. It’s caramel apple flavor. She sells it for a reasonable price, but she gouges you on the Mary Kay. Makes you pay for samples.
I feel like I know everyone, not by name, but by sight.
I’m scared enough of Renelli to keep my head down, but in a town this small, there’s no real anonymity.
I’m sure I’m the new chick at the gas station, just like my neighbor is the drunk Libertarian and the clerk at the grocery store is the woman with the Playboy bunny tattoo.
I really am doing okay, considering. I’m renting this efficiency on top of the one of the vacant stores, and I’m averaging thirty hours a week at the Gas-and-Go. My basic needs are met. And I don’t have a choice.
I don’t want to die, and life in Anvil has really proven how much. I end every day doing what I’m doing right now—staring at the bulging ceiling tiles, tossing and turning, unable to pass the time even by falling asleep.
I miss my life.
I miss seeing people and going places and doing things.
I miss having stuff . I had the idea that I’d hunker down for a bit, save my money, let the Renelli business die down, and then head for Vegas or Cali.
I didn’t realize I’d be living hand to mouth.
I’m going to have to become a cam girl or something, or I’m never leaving Anvil alive, so to speak.
The absolute worst is that I miss Dario.
Not the flowers and gestures that all turned out to be bull crap.
Or the sex or the awkward silences whenever we were alone with nothing to do—like at dinner or during long car rides.
But I do miss the games, the hours of just the two of us, his brown eyes glinting, dark eyebrow quirked, lips turned up, almost smiling.
He loved winning. He loved it even more when I beat him.
No one ever paid more attention to me than Dario Volpe when we were in the middle of a game. I was the center of the universe, and this exquisitely beautiful, powerful man was desperate to know what I was thinking.
I hate him.
I hate him more than all my exes combined.
I was his toy.
He didn’t love me. He doesn’t even know me. How could he? We never talked about anything that mattered.
He sure figured I was bought and paid for, though. When he thought someone had touched his plaything, he didn’t want it anymore. I was the new sneakers that never came out of the closet again after another kid at school showed up in them.
It’s so messed up that a man can be so interested in what’s going on in your head but he doesn’t give two shits about how you feel.
After a hard-fought game, he’d spend a full thirty minutes grilling me about my strategy, but he didn’t have even thirty seconds to listen about that video.
He just banged the gavel and threw me away.
And he gets away with it.
My life is over, and he gets to continue on, king of all he surveys, everyone pussyfooting around him because he’s the moneymaker.
I should have screamed at him.
I should have taken his precious laptop and thrown it against the wall. No, at his head. At his cold, unfeeling face.
I was so accommodating, so quick to hand over my watch, my earrings. I was scared. And that was definitely the right reaction.
Still. I wish I could go back. But with a gun. I’d tell Dario Volpe exactly what I think of him, and I’d take his watch and his damn phone. He was on it all the time, too busy to bother with his toy if we weren’t playing a game.
Oh god, how am I going to stay here until I get enough money to leave? I’m going to go crazy, staring at the ceiling, railing at Dario Volpe in my head, getting myself all worked up, and there’s nowhere to go and no way to get even—not even a little bit.
I need money. There are no second jobs in Anvil though. There are only side hustles. I’ve got nothing to sell at the flea market. I can’t even sink to stripping; there’s no place to do it in this town.
Maybe the cam girl idea isn’t the worst I’ve ever had.
Hold up.
I click on the lamp on the floor next to my makeshift bed, reaching for my cell. It is an idea. I’m hot enough. It’s not bragging. I check the boxes—blonde, big tits, tight waist.
It’s something my girlfriends and I have always joked about when money’s tight at the end of the month. Well, that’s it. I’m gonna have go put an application in at La Dolce Vita. I need to get a TopFollower.
The waitresses at L’Alba were always talking about starting a TopFollower. I think Teresa went ahead and did it. It must’ve been a bust since we never heard much about it. She wasn’t desperate, though. She wasn’t cleaning the hotdog grill at the Anvil Gas-and-Go for minimum wage.
I’m motivated. And seeing that video broke the last part of something inside me that’s been holding on by a thread for a while. What does it matter what anyone sees anymore? It’s just flesh. Meat and bones. My body’s not me .
My fingers fly on the keyboard. I set up a throwaway email account and then get started.
Username?
PosyVolpe .
I grin and sit cross-legged in my shadowy apartment, blocking out the scuttling in the walls. For the first time in weeks, I’m fully awake, and it’s past midnight.
Bio? Hmm. Twenty-something trophy girlfriend/slut interested in anal and revenge .
I take a selfie flashing my middle finger, and I upload it as the profile pic.
Then I have to set a subscription rate. One thousand dollars a month. Nope. There I go undervaluing myself again. Five thousand dollars a month.
It’s so easy. I have the link in no time. I send it to Dario’s work address. On paper, he’s employed by a company called Ridgemont Limited. Ridgemont is the name of his neighborhood.
I settle in and create content. Who knows? Maybe there’s a bored billionaire somewhere who’d really like to see my cute, pink painted toes. Why didn’t I think of this before?
The clock on the microwave above the stove blinks, and the drunk Libertarian stumbles down the hall, bellowing about those cocksuckers in Washington, D.C. He might be wasted, but he’s not wrong.
I peel off my T-shirt and try to get a good shot of my cleavage. The lighting in here sucks.
I’m aware that I’m punch drunk, bordering on manic, but I can’t seem to calm myself down.
These past few weeks, I feel more and more like an astronaut and the cord connecting me to the spaceship has been cut.
I’m drifting, and there’s nothing stopping me from floating on forever.
No one will miss me. No one will even wonder where I went.
I’m a loose end.
And then my phone pings. I have a new follower. Holy crap.
Another ping. He wants a face-to-face. You can set a different rate for live video. Whoa. This is really happening. I smooth my hair and tuck it behind my ear. I’m still topless. I grab for my shirt, but then I stop.
What do I charge for live video?
Whoever it is just paid five thousand bucks to see my coral toenails and a practice shot of my kitchenette. I’ll flash them a little black lace bra. It has a lining. They won’t see much.
Is it Dario?
It has to be, right? But there’s no way he’d just click a link.
For one, he hates me. For another, he’d think it was a scam.
He always suspects a trap. That’s why I can beat him sometimes even though he’s so much smarter than me.
He can’t stop himself from defending against sneak attacks, wasting his time while I go straight for the kill.
Ping. Okay, okay. I type in five thousand bucks again.
Instantly, his face appears on screen. Black eyes. Perfectly trimmed beard. Not a hair on his head out of place. I gasp and drop the phone.
“Posy.” It’s an order. His voice drips with menace.
I didn’t really think he would—I press my hand to my chest, try to contain my galloping heart.
What have I done?
No, no. I’m okay. He can’t trace me. I bought this phone at the flea market, and I’m paying for minutes. I can hang up anytime and never speak to him again.
“Posy,” he repeats, insistent. Louder. I toss a pillow to the foot of the bed and prop the phone on it. Then I prop my back against the couch part, drawing my knees to my chest. I’m not so brave now, and there’s an ache in my chest, a stupid wave of hurt feelings.