I’m just finishing the piece when I’m met with a slow clap. I glance up from my music to see a man who looks vaguely familiar, though perhaps older than when I last saw him. I don’t like to think too hard on how I might know him, as I tend to disassociate altogether when confronted with artifacts from my past.
“Bravo,” he says with a sort of slimy grin that reminds me of my mother’s boyfriend who then became my unwanted pimp. This man is not part of our family. Somehow, I know this without knowing. Aponte made men are subdued, nearly silent individuals who watch and wait and when the opportunity presents itself, they strike like vipers. Their suits are expensive, their appearance impeccable, and when they do speak, others listen. This man looks half-tanked already, his suit is cheap, and his demeanor is sleazy.
“A hooker who plays the classics,” the man says, though I doubt he could even identify the composer. “Tell me, gorgeous, where in the hell did Valentin find you?”
My expression is mild, and I incline my head slightly, knowing my Master is already nearby. His hand comes to rest on my bare shoulder, and the touch is followed by the soothing rumble of his voice.
“He’s not an escort,” Master says. “Giovanni is mine. He was a gift from my brother Silvio.”
This is the story Master tells people, that I was plucked from the old country by Master’s younger half-brother and presented to him as a gift. My Italian, when I speak it, is good enough to sell it, and as for my English, I hardly ever converse with anyone outside of my therapist, Master, and Rico. I’ve never met Silvio, though Master speaks well of him and frequently. For any who suspect it’s not true, they keep it to themselves. The Aponte family doesn’t deal in human trafficking but it’s ancillary to the life. Being in the import/export business, there are always stray goods in need of fencing.
“A green-eyed Italian,” the man muses. “Where’s your family from, kid?”
“Milano,” Master answers smoothly. “Please address me if you have questions, Salvatore. Myschiavodoesn’t speak to company. It’s one of his rules.”
The man’s beady eyes narrow on me and then Master. Some men feel threatened by Master’s dominion over me. I find it amusing that it stokes their own insecurities. Perhaps they think they are above such servitude. Which is the greater submission, I wonder, letting a man fuck you or killing in his name? For Master, I’d do both.
“Where’d he learn the piano?” Salvatore asks while Master’s grip on my shoulder tightens. He doesn’t like these questions either.
“His mother was a dancer. He learned to play in the studio.”
It’s true that my mother studied ballet in Russia, but nothing ever came of it. She was a mail-order bride to my father. Apparently, that was something wiseguys did at the time, selected their blond, blue-eyed wives from a catalog and had them shipped here to America. I’m not judging my father’s method of finding a wife, necessarily, but I can see why there were problems in their marriage from the beginning.
“Why don’t we let the boy continue playing and have another drink?” Master says. He motions with one hand for Salvatore to join him, but Salvatore stares at me a moment longer with bad intentions simmering behind his eyes. A dark premonition passes over me, but it is not this slave’s job to contemplate the motives of such men.
Instead, I focus on the movement of my fingers traveling with elegance and poise across the ivory keys.
Hourslater I’m out on the terrace gazing at the bright lights of Manhattan. The party has wound down and most of the guests, if not all, have departed. I do not greet or send off Master’s associates, and the escorts have either paired off or left. The interaction with Salvatore was unsettling. I don’t like to be reminded of my past.
I hear the opening of the sliding glass doors and sense his presence before he even says a word. My Master has come to claim me.
“Are you cold?” Master asks as his lips drift across my bare shoulder.
“No, Master.” It’s chilly outside but I’m comfortable.
“You did very well tonight,” he compliments.
“Thank you.”
He senses my melancholy, which hovers like a mist around me. I can’t help my moods.
“What are you thinking about,tesoro?”
Master only asks if he truly wants to know. Sometimes I think it’d be easier for me if he only concerned himself with my body, but most of his discipline has more to do with the delicate ecosystem of my mind, and the trust we have in each other demands complete transparency, at least on my part.
I tell him, “I’m thinking about that time a few years ago when I came to the Red Room and you were there.” Red Room is a nightclub in Chelsea owned by the Aponte family. Master has an office there and sometimes uses the VIP Lounge to conduct business. I’ve visited with him a few times since becoming hisschiavo, though it always makes me a little uncomfortable as it brings back a lot of memories of my reckless past.
“And?” Master prompts. He probably knows which time already.
“You were watching me on the dance floor,” I say. “From above.” There’s a glass booth elevated from the floor where Master can look out on the club’s operations. He’s fucked me against that wall too.
“I was,” Master says mildly. “I often did.”
I’d been on the dance floor for a while, and when my high started to fade, I went to the bathrooms, not the public ones, but the one in the VIP lounge with leather sofas and good lighting. I went in there to do a couple of lines of cocaine, and as soon as I’d finished, I turned and found Master standing right there behind me. He’d locked the door, and I had the sense he’d been watching me cut the lines and snort them, letting me dig my own grave.
“When you shoved me back against the mirror and gripped my jaw in your hand…” I shudder at the memory of it, the eroticism of his touch. “At first I thought you’d meant to slap me, but now I think it was something else.”
“What do you think it was?” he asks, never one to give anything away.
