Page 13 of Deviant Desires

I dated guys that were looking for forever, just not with me. We matched on dating apps and our conversations over text were great, but somehow that didn’t translate to the real world. We’d wind up at dinner together and not know what to say. In the end, one of us would ghost the other because we knew that though we were searching for a partner, it wasn’t going to be each other.

I dated guys that were just interested in hooking up. The sex was never as good for me as it was for them. A couple of them even said I was too hard to please. Those were the nights I laid in the dark and missed Mateo because he never had a problem getting me off.

I hate that every time I tried to move on, something stood in the way. A lot of the time it was myself, but sometimes it was the ghost of my ex-fiancé.

I’ve gotten off half a dozen times since Mateo was here on Thursday night, but my vibrator doesn’t live up to what I had. If anything, it only frustrates me more. Which in turn makes me angry at Mateo, the stupid engagement ring on my living room table, and everything that’s happened since the night I called the cops on him.

I was so close to my happily ever after and it was ripped out of my grasp. It makes me so mad that I could spit.

Instead, I grab my phone. I tap the screen angrily as I pull up Mateo’s contact. It has our recent call history, which was just me calling him a few days ago to tell him to back off. But I won’t make that same mistake this time.

I dial his number and wait for him to answer. Every passing second makes me madder and madder. By the time he answers on the third ring, I am seething.

“I knew you’d call eventually, gorgeous.” His voice is as smooth as melted chocolate.

“What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?” I get up from the kitchen counter and start pacing through the house. Living room, kitchen, hallway. My feet pad along the carpet making indentations in the fabric.

Mateo stays silent on the other end of the line. I hear the sound of drapes opening but I pay it no mind. “Why?” He finally asks with a critical tone.

I don’t know if I’m being honest. I worked myself up into a frenzy thinking about how he ruined my life. For a second it felt like that was the most dastardly thing he could do, except it probably wasn’t. The dead man that I saw that night five years ago was never found. I bet he’d think being murdered ruined his life. But what if that wasn’t the worst thing Mateo had done? What if there were darker, more depraved things? Things that would scare me to death.

“Every time I look at you, I’m torn between throwing myself in your arms and calling the cops. I loved you, Mat, I loved the hell out of you.” Something inside of me breaks like a dam that can’t hold back the water anymore. “I need to know why you’re like this. I need to know what to expect if-if I take you back.”

As the words come out of my mouth, I realize that I mean them. All the nights I spent drinking wine and making lists were all for nothing. I knew the second he showed up at my office that he would be hard to resist. I knew when I pulled his ring out of my dresser that I was putting myself on a path I couldn’t come back from.

“Okay,” he says quietly on the other end of the line, “I’ll tell you.”

11

MATEO

All of her curtains are open and I can see her walking from room to room. Sometimes she disappears and all I have left to tell me that she’s still there is the sound of her breaths coming in harsh thrusts over the line.

I told Bambi that I’d been to prison before, but I never told her why. I told her that I’d been standing up for my family, but I didn’t explain what that meant. The man that was arrested for felony battery wasn’t the same man that had fallen in love with Bambi Schelling. It’s hard to call myself Jekyll or Hyde when I’m both of those men every day, but the truth hurts.

“Long before I met you, I was a different sort of person. I had a lot of anger management problems and I tried to solve those problems with my fists.” I told myself once, when I first met Bambi, that I would take this secret to the grave. Raniero had the court records sealed and though I spent time in jail, googling my name would turn up different results.

Local Hero Protects Neighborhood

Young Man Heading Up Neighborhood Watch

Hero Of Women Everywhere

Raniero convinced the local newspaper to keep my crimes out of the headlines.

“One day in the middle of a snowstorm, my cousin, Savina, showed up at the door. It wasn’t my house,” I explain to Bambi, “we were all at mom and dad’s. I was the one that answered the door though.”

My cousin’s face haunts my dreams to this day. Her eyes were black and blue and her lip was busted open. She had a sling around her shoulder and her arm was in a cast. Savina didn’t look dressed for the snowstorm. In fact, she had donned a pair of flip-flops and was struggling to keep a cardigan wrapped around her.

“She asked to see my parents alone, but I refused. She was a few years older than me, but she looked so small and fragile. Savina was beautiful, but that beauty had been knocked out of her.” Sitting in front of the fireplace and telling my parents what happened, I grew angry.

Savina’s boyfriend, Carter Larsen, had done this to her. She was trying to break things off with him because she wanted to move to California and start a career in film. She’d just had modeling photos taken that morning. But Carter didn’t take the break up lying down. In fact, the only person lying down was Savina after he knocked her out.

Carter was certain there was another man. “He kept Savina locked up in his house for three days. She told the police that he’d done disgusting, unspeakable things to her. I could only see a few bruises and a broken arm, but the hospital said she had several fractured ribs and a concussion.

“I wanted him to hurt the same way he had hurt Savina. I wanted him to regret what he’d done.” It wasn’t the first time I’d inflicted my own form of punishment on someone, it was just the first time the cops arrived to break up the fight. But if they hadn’t, Carter would have been dead; I’m sure of it.

“I went to his place while Savina was in the hospital. She had frostbite on her toes from escaping his house and walking five miles in a snowstorm, so she was being monitored. I thought that was the best time to get my revenge without anyone interfering.” It would have been, too, if Cesare hadn’t noticed me sneaking out of the hospital.

---