Chapter 9 – POSY
POSY
W hen I wake up, Dario’s sitting at the table by the window, playing on his phone. He’s set up the chess board. My mouth is so dry my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth.
I can’t think about earlier. I can’t. I was raised around dangerous men, but they never brought it home. Never made me watch. My stomach lurches, and I swallow it down.
Dario rolls a bishop in his fingers. Rays of late afternoon sun warms his tan skin, and his hair’s damp. A stray black lock falls onto his forehead. He’s wearing a gray zippered hoodie and black track pants. His feet are bare. He rarely dresses so casually.
He lounges in the leather wing-backed chair, an ankle propped on his knee. He looks so normal. So classically handsome.
There’s no trace of the blood that covered him earlier.
I struggle to sit, the sheet falling to my waist. At some point while I slept, I’d stripped down to my white ribbed tank top and panties.
The doctor had come. He’d checked my head and treated and wrapped my wrists. Then he gave me a pill. That’s why I’m so groggy.
I rub my eyes as I piece time back together. Is this the same day? Is Ivano dead?
“Good. You’re awake. I’m tired of waiting.” Dario pushes back the chair across from him with his foot and gestures to the empty seat.
“Come on then,” he says.
“You want to play chess?” My voice is a croak.
“We can play Go if you want.”
I swing my legs over the side of the bed. My head swims, but it doesn’t throb anymore. My bumps and bruises ache, but nothing hurts too bad.
My lips are chapped. There’s a carafe of water on the table beside a vase of posies. Nice touch. Carolyn’s been busy.
Where are my clothes? I search the floor, but they’re gone. Dario probably put them in the hamper. Everything in its place.
I don’t have the energy to make it to the closet, so I pad to the table and sink gingerly into a chair. The leather is a shock of cold on the backs of my bare thighs. I fumble with a glass. Dario swats my hand away and pours me some water.
“You go first,” he says, nodding toward the board. I guess I’m white.
I move 1 to f3.
He raises an eyebrow. “The Barnes opening?”
I shrug. He counters with d5.
I move my knight to h3.
“Knock it off,” he growls. He plucks up my pawn and knight and thumps them back in their original positions.
I move 1 to a4.
He grinds his teeth and leans back, glaring at me. “If you don’t want to play, say so.”
“I don’t want to play.” I want another one of those pills. I want to pass out and wake up somewhere else. Anywhere else.
“Well, I do.”
“Then play.” I can lose in two moves. It’ll be a quick round.
He huffs, irritated. “You like to play.”
I let my eyelids drift shut. “Not now I don’t.”
“Why not?”
Does he really not get it? Or is he toying with me? I’m exhausted, and I can’t sort it out. He doesn’t act at all like the Dario from before. He was cold and self-contained, and I knew he was capable of horrible things, but he pretended, and so did I. Like my mom and my Nonna.
“You made me watch you beat a man to death.”
“Ivano’s not dead.”
I blink. There was so much blood. My brain slides over the memory. I can’t think about it and sit here, having a calm conversation with the man who pummeled another person beyond all recognition.
“Aren’t you happy?” Dario asks.
“No.”
The pulse point in his temple throbs. He’s getting angry. My breath quickens. I should watch my mouth. Give him what he wants. What’s wrong with me?
He drums his fingers on the table. “What would make you happy, Posy?”
“Let me go.” I say it quietly. I don’t anticipate an explosion. I should have.
Dario’s chair skids back, and I jump, scrambling on the soft leather. I get nowhere before he reaches over the table, seizing the front of my tank top and hauling me to my feet.
My hands fly up to protect my face. He spins me, bending me over the table until my abraded cheek hits the cold wood. The board slides. Pieces fall and roll onto the floor.
He shoves my panties down. I don’t have a chance to escape. He’s between my legs, his chest like a slab of steel against my back, his breath jagged in my ear.
“Knee up on the table,” he orders, fumbling with his pants.
I’m frozen. I should struggle, but I can’t. I’m too scared. What will he do if I fight him?
I’ve done it plenty of times when I wasn’t in the mood. With him. With other men. It won’t last forever. I can think about something else.
I force myself to stop moving. I’m facing the window. The sky’s a perfect, cloudless blue. I can look at that, and it’ll be over soon.
Dario’s hot cock pokes between my legs. I try to relax. It’ll hurt more if I tense.
He draws back, and then his cock is replaced by rough fingers.
“Why aren’t you wet?” he demands.
A hysterical laugh bubbles from my lips.
“You’re usually wet.” It’s an accusation.
He spits on his hand, rubs himself, and tries again. He forces the tip in, and I bite my cheek, focusing on the pain. I can do this. I don’t have a choice. I’ll live through the next few minutes, and then it’ll be over.
There’s a twinge, and I whimper.
“Posy?” It’s a question. I don’t know the answer.
All of a sudden, he stops. He lets his head fall, resting his forehead between my shoulder blades. I can feel his hot breath through my thin tank top. My breasts are squashed against the table.
He stoops and pulls his pants back up. Then he eases my panties up, too.
“Stand up.”
Why? So he can push me over again?
“ Stand up. ”
I don’t want to. I can’t roll with anymore punches. I want to stay here, folded over a table, until it’s over. It has to be over soon, right?
By some miracle, the queen’s still upright. I reach out and flick her over. She didn’t stand a chance.
Dario grabs my elbow and tugs. I have to stand or he’ll yank my arm out of the socket. My legs wobble.
He wraps his arms around me like a lover, hugging me close. We’re both facing the window. I’m trembling, and he’s strong and steady. A stupid, raw part of me that never wised up clings to the suggestion of security.
“What are you looking at out there?” he asks, leveling his cheek with mine, his beard tickling my jaw.
“Nothing. The sky.”
“You’re upset.” He says it as if he’s discovered a secret I’ve hidden from him, and he’s vaguely pleased with himself because of it.
I keep my mouth shut and try to pull myself together. There’s no fast forward. I have to live through this moment and the next. I have to figure out how to survive.
Dario breaks the silence. “Why did you let your ex fuck you in ass when you didn’t want it?”
I suck in a breath. He asks me this now? And his tone is perfectly nonchalant. He’s just making conversation.
“Well?” he prompts.
Jesus. I don’t know. “I thought I did at the time.” It’s the best answer I have.
“Bullshit. I saw your face. You hated it.
Why rehash this now? I test his grip, try to put some space between us, but he tightens his arms.
I huff a sigh. “I don’t know, Dario. You tell me.”
“Because you’re a love-starved people pleaser.”
I almost buckle from the blow. How can anything he says still hurt? I don’t love him anymore. I don’t even know him. And so what if he’s right? There are much worse things to be. Like a psychopath and a murderer.
He sighs and rocks me slightly side to side. “He didn’t deserve you. There is no way a piece of filth like him could have appreciated what he had. Of course he took advantage.”
What?
“But your low self-esteem is a real issue. You get that, don’t you, Posy?” He doesn’t wait for me to respond. He plows ahead. “You’re allowed to say no.”
My blood runs cold. It’s a lecture I’ve given myself a hundred times, and if I’d listened, I wouldn’t be here.
“Why didn’t you tell me no, Posy?”
I did. Didn’t I?
Should I have to? He kidnapped me. Hurt me.
“Read the signs, Dario.”
He sighs, his breath ruffling my hair. “I’m not good at that.”
“Then assume it’s a no.”
“It never has been before.”
Before was different, for fuck’s sake. God, I hate him. My muscles bunch. I’m going to rip myself out of his arms if I have to drag him down with my dead weight.
I lurch, but he’s already letting me go. He awkwardly pats my shoulder. “It’s all right. We’ll figure it out.”
“You hurt me.” I didn’t plan on saying it. It seems ridiculous to complain.
He nods. “I’ll learn how not to.”
I should quit while I’m ahead, but his answer only makes me angrier.
“Why? Because I play games with you? You really couldn’t live without your chess buddy?”
I pace toward the bed, narrowing the distance between me and the door. He tracks me with his cold eyes.
“You won’t play with me now.”
“I’m not in the mood,” I throw over my shoulder. The greater the distance I put between us, the more my fear ebbs.
“Being in the mood doesn’t matter to you.” I know he’s talking about sex.
“Yes, it does.” I’m surprised by the vehemence in my tone. Maybe I’ve acted like it doesn’t matter in the past, but it always did. Just other things mattered more. Keeping Dario happy. Not causing waves. Not giving him any reason for his eye to wander.
Wonder where I learned that?
I remember Mom taking me to Stansbury Park, and how she’d drag me away at exactly four o’clock—no matter if I was in the middle of a game or not—because she had to get home, put her face on, and get dinner started before Dad got home.
She’d tell me on the bus that she was so proud of me but remember to tell Dad we were shopping.
He wouldn’t want us wasting our day playing chess.
Linda Santoro was a walking contradiction. I guess if we live long enough, we all are.
I inch closer to the door. I know if I run, I won’t get far. I feel better by the door, though.
Dario remains by the table. He squats to pick up the chess pieces, his sweats hugging his muscular thighs.
I like him better in a suit. It puts him at a remove. It feels safer.
“You didn’t like it when we had sex?” he asks, his attention focused on re-setting the board.
“Sometimes I did. Sometimes—” I shrug.