Chapter 21 #4
Unable to stand on my feet after hitting a bump, I was leaning on the counter while Shannon washed dishes.
While she was doing house chores, she was perfectly made-up in an olive green dress that flared at the calves and stiletto pumps.
The wives always had to look put together, but heels weren’t required.
Shannon loved her pumps; that was the first thing I noticed about her.
Watching the way her hair bounced against her neck as she scrubbed the dishes, my cock grew stiff in my slacks.
I needed my wife now, and I didn’t care if it was in the middle of the day.
She set the clean dish on the drying rack with too much force, causing it to clank against the other wet dishes. Foamy suds covered the latex gloves she was wearing, which were also ironically green.
“I’m telling you hell no. You better not fucking touch me, Sandro!”
This was where I should have stopped. I should have stopped and gone into my office, but I was high. High out of my mind, and my wife’s rejection stung.
“I cannot touch you, but you fuck Niccoli. You fuck Benito. You fuck—”
“I don’t fuck any of them. I am raped! I am raped by them! I am raped by them because my husband tricked me into a life that I never wanted! So, no, I have enough white men jumping in and out of my pussy. I’m not in the mood for another.”
“Why?”
Tossing the dish back into the sink, I watched as the water dripped down the cabinet.
Shannon gripped the ledge of the sink and dropped her head.
Her sharp and bare shoulders looked good enough to suck on.
It had been a minute since I tasted my wife, and despite the sinful things her body had gone through, she always tasted so heavenly.
“Why, Sandro?” She lifted her head and looked at me.
There weren’t tears in her eyes, no, Shannon was too strong of a woman, so she barely cried.
But there was defeat in them. Still, the drugs had me seeing what I wanted, and that was a wife who was not willing to please her husband when she’d done the very thing for my family.
“Because with you, I at least have a choice in that manner. I don’t have to worry about being beaten or raped against my will.
I have a choice with you, Sandro, because somewhere deep down, you have some good in you.
So, please, let me get back to my dishes.
I would hate for your cousin or brothers to come over and see the house isn’t tidy and make me suck dick before blacking my eye and forcing me to clean after.
All the while you sit in the office and pretend you don’t hear.
” She rolled her eyes and went back to washing dishes.
Standing from the counter, I placed myself behind her, moved her hair over, and licked the back of her neck. She stiffened underneath me, but I didn’t care. She tasted so good. Smelled even better. Running my hand up the back of her thigh, I lifted her dress.
“Sandro, no.”
“Fuuck, I love—”
My body jerked and flew into the opposite counter before I could finish my sentence.
Shio stood above me, but his facial expression was neutral. He didn’t look mad or angry. He just looked like… Shio. That was him as of late. No emotion. The only time he showed emotion was with his mother and his cousins. With me, I got nothing. He barely looked my way.
“Son. It’s okay. When two people are in love, things happen. How do you think you got here?”
“Don’t touch my mother.”
He took a step in my direction, and Shannon pulled her gloves off. “Shio, iska daa. Mar dambe ima taaban doono. (Leave it. He won’t touch me again.)”
He turned his head but kept his gaze locked on me.
That was another thing I was starting to despise.
Shannon often spoke to Shio in her native tongue, but I never saw him speak it back.
He always understood her, though, and I didn’t like that.
I, too, spoke in my native language, but we vowed to never teach the wives and children because it gave us an advantage—at least that is what Benito felt.
“Yes, son. Go play. I know I am.” I struggled getting up as Shio walked around me. “That’s right, son. Listen to your father.”
Standing fully, I looked in the direction of Shio as he walked toward my office. When I started to follow after him, Shannon tried to grab me, but I shook her off.
“Shio!”
I was struggling to keep up, but when I saw him come from the office with my black box and enter the bathroom across from it, all of the high went away.
With the strength of a superhuman, I made it to the bathroom in one second flat. “What the fuck are you doing, boy?”
Shio held the box over the toilet and began emptying its contents.
I launched forward and grabbed him, but it was too late.
He had tossed the entire box inside the toilet.
I snatched him, but he snatched back, slipping, and once he hit the ground, my feet were against his chest before I knew what I was doing.
I was still high, even though I could focus more now, so I knew I was using all of my strength.
Even with him struggling to breathe, he didn’t squirm against me.
He didn’t fight against my foot either. He just lay there with the weight of a grown man, robbing him of his breath.
Looking into the toilet, my heart dropped seeing my drugs floating.
“Ti voglio bene figlio mio, ma ti ucciderò se osi toccare di nuovo le mie cose. (I love you, son, but I will kill you if you ever touch my things again.)”
I smiled while not letting my foot up, the weight still making it hard for him to breathe. His mom had her language, and I had mine. He didn’t know what I was saying, and that gave me a sense of pride that I shouldn’t be feeling when it came to my son. He should’ve been my pride and joy.
Shio blinked, grabbed my foot, and twisted it in an unnatural position.
“Arrrrghhhh!” Hot pain shot up my leg instantly.
“Se osi toccare di nuovo mia madre, non dovrai preoccuparti di uccidermi. Perché prima ti ammazzo io, spacciandoti per qualcun altro. (If you put your hands on my mother again, you won’t have to worry about killing me. Because I’ll kill your high ass first.)
He let my foot go with a shrug and then lifted himself up from the bathroom floor. My ankle was hurting, but I knew once the drugs wore off, it would be a lot worse.
“The next time one of your nasty-ass family members touch my mama, you gone be the one to pay for it. On foe ’nem.”
He left me in the bathroom, high, confused, and now afraid.
The boy was becoming a man. And I was his public enemy number one.
But above all, I realized that my son, a child that had come from me, was too fucking smart and calculated for his own good, because when and how did he learn to speak Italian?
The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps. – Proverbs 16:9
The Lord was establishing my boy’s steps. I just didn’t want him stepping all over mine.
Closing the book, I did what I normally did when I read an excerpt written by Shio’s father: picked up the phone.
Shio. I… I don’t know how to do this. But I’m trying. I will get better. You will see. I hope you are staying safe, and remember, today is meal prep day.
I then remembered a scripture from the Bible that I read yesterday and sent that.
The Lord’s curse is on the house of the wicked, but he blesses the dwelling of the righteous. Toward the scorners he is scornful, but to the humble he gives favor. The wise will inherit honor, but fools get disgrace.
I couldn’t remember the chapter and verse, so I left that off. Knowing he wouldn’t reply, I locked the screen as a tear slid down my face. I didn’t know if I was crying because I felt weightless or because I was beginning to hate Shio’s father with everything in me.
Lighthearted
“P issss cute, Pearla!”
I was lying on my side at the door so that I had a clear view of Pearla through the slot, who was also on her side with her eyes locked on mine. She pulled her phone back after showing me a picture of P. He appeared to be in a tuxedo at some sort of formal event, but he was handsome either way.
“Yeah… I couldn’t find any pictures of him online. This came from Jisei’s photo album from the wedding last year. He’s worse than Grind with this no digital footprint mess,” she mumbled the last sentence, and as soon as it escaped her lips, the amusement left.
“You still care deeply for Grind.”
Pearla rolled her eyes and looked off past me. It wasn’t much she could see from our position, just as it wasn’t much I could see outside of her face, but she kept her eyes away from mine for a beat.
“I don’t want to.”
“But you do.”
“He doesn’t deserve it.”
Pulling my knees to my chest, I pressed my face into them. “A lot of people don’t deserve things, Pearla. That doesn’t stop them from getting them. You can’t just turn your feelings off.”
“I wish I could.”
So do I.
“So what now?” I asked.
Pearla had been excited about P. He’d been upstairs, apparently, along with another friend of Italian’s for the many days I’d been here.
I’d even heard them a time or two somewhere down here playing dice, but the slot was never opened when they were down here.
He looked like a nice boy, which would pair perfectly with Pearla because she was a nice girl.
“I don’t know… I don’t want to move fast. Both of us are healing. He had a girlfriend. I had a… uh… Grind. But he’s cool. And he got money.” She giggled.
“You and Mahzeyah with the ‘he got money’ about these boys. Like you all don’t come from money.” I giggled.
“I don’t come from money. You wouldn’t believe it by looking at me, but this time last year, my sister was struggling to make my payments for my braces.
Struggling to keep me at my school. Nel, Rio, my dad, my brother…
They were all heaven-sent. They say a lot can happen in a year, and while the saying is one we sometimes brush over, I know for a fact it is true. ”