Page 50 of Shame

“I know I won’t have to. I know you won’t talk. Am I right?”

“But would you? If you were unsure?”

“I would. Until I grew tired.”

“Then what?”

“What do you think?”

“You’d kill me?”

“I’d let my men have their way with you at every single party I ever throw until you’re ugly and useless, until not even the most desperate will touch you. Then I’d kill you, yeah.”

“You’d do that?”

“Without a second thought.”

“You’re even more of a monster than I thought. Didn’t your mom teach you any manners at all? Not even a slice of compassion?”

“Young Carmen, I don’t know where you come from or what made you end up in this life. Maybe you were bored and wanted to see the world and got in with the wrong crowd. Maybe your parents threw you out. Maybe you were an orphan, raped by strangers your whole childhood. I don’t know, and I don’t care. My upbringing, however, was forged by myself. I barely remember my parents. My sister raised me, and she’s almost worse than I am.”

“She also beats and rapes prostitutes?”

“You think all is about you?”

“To me quite a lot is about me. I know you don’t see me as a person whatsoever. You’ve made that very clear—”

“Good.”

“—but I am. I hurt. I bleed. I dream. Just like you.”

“A philosopher whore.”

“I know, I take the prize, don’t I?”

He lets out a short laugh. “Why have I not crushed you? I’ve put you through more than anyone should be able to handle. I thought you’d be a blabbering zombie by now, that I’d have Ivan scrape you up off the floor and dump you on Elena to try to put back together. I’ve brought you to the brink of death and back.”

“Did you intend to kill me?”

“Nah. I’m not into snuff. I like it when they feel the pain. When you die, it’s over. Where’s the fun in that?”

“You’re sick.”

“Oh, I know.”

“Are you going to keep calling for me until you really do break me?”

“You’re different. You have brains. I like that. I’ll take you again. But no, I don’t want to break you. I’ll keep you balancing right on the edge of that abyss, though, with pain, restraint, humiliation, asphyxiation. Even though you might know I don’t want you dead, your body won’t know the difference.”

“Please… don’t. I’ll come here as much as you like. Hurt me. Choke me. I know what you like. Just… please don’t… not all those men, Luciano.”

He studies me for a long time. His eyes as black as his soul. “So that’s how I break you?”

I recoil, my stomach clenching. Did I just give him the key to how he can disintegrate my mind? How he can make me die on the inside and still seem alive?

Meeting his gaze, I don’t answer.

A smirk spreads on his lips, and what goes on in that wicked mind of his, I don’t want to know.

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