Page 14 of Taunt Me (Dark Odyssey 2)

Breathe the wrong way and someone will die.

I always fear that will be my parents or, God, even Cordelia. Ten years have passed and I’m thinking of a stupid feud over a man I had with my sister. It stopped mattering a long time ago.

What matters is the now. It matters now that I do what I’m doing. This is my forever. The last time I made the mistake of crossing Antonio he killed Benita, the only friend I managed to make here.

I didn’t smile when Father Rossario came to be with me. He complained to Antonio and he threw her into the crocodile pit he keeps out back. He did that and made me watch. That was a year ago. Benita was the person who took care of me when I got here. That was what Antonio did to her and cast his threats on me.

Benita has a son and daughter who work here too, here in the castle-like structure I live in.

I smile when Father Antonio pulls the straps down on my negligee and pushes it down so my breasts pop out.

“Yes, so pretty. Your pretty titties are always so perfect,” he says filling his palms with them.

Ten years ago when he first did that it shocked me to shit. He was forty five at the time. Now he’s fifty five and just as vile.

I shuffle on the bed so he doesn’t have to kneel. He sits next to me with his cock completely erect and covers my left nipple with his mouth.

I sit and smile while he sucks. I’m not supposed to do anything else until he tells me to.

He alternates from one breast to the other in his usual way and I smile down at him every time he looks up at me. I’m required to act like I like it. I’m required to look like I’m enjoying it like the good little pet I am,sex slaveor whatever the fuck it is they want to call me.

Pet is a more fitting word I think. But pets tend to get better treatment than I get here. People love their pets. They adore them sometimes and what I am is more of an attraction.

Bile rises in my stomach as I continue to smile down at this fiend.

Bile is rising and I actually feel it burning. I don’t know how I don’t vomit in his face when his disgusting tongue flicks out and starts licking over my nipple. It’s not the first time this man has done this to me and it won’t be the last. I just feel sick every time it happens.

“Spread your legs wide for me beautiful,” he coos.

I lie back on the bed and do as he says. His cold fingers run over my thighs and he gets on the bed, lowering to start placing kisses all over my legs. He likes to take his time. He’s normally here for a little over an hour. Sometimes longer if he wants to fuck me again.

This is the part where I think of my favorite things to block out what is happening to me. It’s the best I can do. It’s all I can do.

And while I think of those things I dare not think of Gabe.

He’s still in my heart but I can’t go down that path. I can’t contemplate what could have been ten years ago.

I can’t cast blame on anybody because I know what kind of man Antonio is. Feared by everyone not just in Italy but the States too, that’s how big he is. The De Luccas are an assassin family and nobody messes with them. Antonio was hot shit ten years ago, but my wonderful husband got upgraded to boss a few years back and became king.

I knew nobody would come for me and I don’t expect anyone to try, let alone Gabe.

I have a place in my heart that will always belong to him but my heart withered away long ago along with any hope I had left of leaving here. ‘Til death do us part.

So every night I’m forced to endure this torture and curse of beauty while I think of what gives me my escape.

I love poetry.

Anything by Browning or Tennyson. The Romantics fantasized about the time they lived and the Post Romantics tried to hold on to the past. They escaped in their writing by highlighting the beauty of the past, the medieval and Arthurian times. Poems about knights and damsels, fair ladies and their gentlemen-in-waiting.

It was all the beauty I wanted to share with my students.

At least Antonio gave me that but it wasn’t because he wanted to give me anything. The women in his family are required to study and look intelligent, especially the younger wives who don’t have children. My days at the start were filled with studying at the University of Catania, then I moved on to teach at the local secondary school. I did that for seven years, studies included. Then it ended when I accidentally broke a tea cup.

It was a tea cup that belonged to Antonio’s brother, Francisco. The one that killed himself because of Pa’s mistakes. I haven’t taught since.

I’m not even allowed to read. I’m not allowed to do anything besides eat and exist. Oh… and go to the doctors for my weekly check to make sure I’m clean so his special clients can fuck me without a condom. Like Father Rossario here.

The stories… the poems are all in my head. All the stories are in my head, sealed in my mind for comfort.

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