Leashed by Luxury

VII. Sleepy Time Tea

Now, Joles is playing hide and seek with all car keys. Says I'm too drunk to drive. That it's imprudent to take a cab or Uber so many hours away. "The skeezy driver, they could take advantage in vour state," she warns.

And I laugh and laugh, curled up on my old little bed, hands curled between my titties like a kitty. Protecting my heart as the ever afterthought. "You mean 'skeevy,'" I correct when I've busted a gut enough for moisture to dot my eyes.

"Whatever," she sighs like she learned from me all those years ago. She thumbs my half happy tears away. Her other hand lies curled like a mouse on my back: white, tiny, warm. Something innocent but makes me scream at its arrival half the time. "Vou don't really want to be alone, I know," she assures like it's our secret, our s*x's hex for eating apples that cursed us out of Heaven.

"What's he want from me, Joles?"

"He wants..."

We glance at the slightly afar door but can hear Angel's shower running.

"He wants to be difficile."

I almost crack a smile. Trauma bonding is about the only way I can relate to anyone anymore. "Did you know...he says he's dying?" My tongue clicks as it retracts in my mouth, tasting extra fermented. Like it's a pale snake curled, withering in its own enzymes.

"He always says that."

"Yeah, but he looks slimmer except for the middle and says the guy from Sinai--"

"Is that really worth selling skin for?"

"Is WHAT for? And I've already got skin in the game. I'm on like fifteen different sites now. Pay some Indian dweeb to sext my responses when I'm out with Giovanni."

"Giovanni." Her thin blonde brows knit. "Why aren't vou with him right now instead of brawling with--"

"I'm surprised at vou," I tease her accent, not wanting to get into specifics about how he's at his in-laws'. "Thought you were Angel's golden child. His ride or die chick, the li'l tick on his back. 'Ma petite puce,'" I quote.

"That was you," she reframes, taking the half-empty bottle from my peachy blanket. "Papa's lush. Do non become him, Naria... Don't know why you ever come back."

"...Don't know why you do."

"Like you said. Non for much longer."

My face scrunches up again. A prickle flaring up my sinuses.

"Aw, c'mon. Didn't mean to make cry." She lays her head over mine, silk extensions tickling her stick-thin arms and my tan, toned ones. "I know it's different for vou. Just always expect..."

"Worse," I finish, sniffling. "Everybody does." Presumes that him raising me would make the betrayal wound deeper, but it just made me scab faster. Want to lose him less, not start from scratch in every facet of life: father, family, friend, lover, employer.

She fluffs my hair back, clutches my Pusheen plush, dances it around to rouse a grin out of me.

No dice.

"Do non worry. We will know for sure when Papa is trully in trouble. And the work thing, I bet at first it's just pole dancing and 'dinner dates' with fat old guys. Same old, same old. Maybe vou drink then."

That I actually giggle softly at, hugging my pillow. I rub my head, try to crack my neck. So stiff, dehydrated, but too lazy to move. After she leaves her Vitamin Water on my nightstand and turns down the lights, I yawn, "Grazie." Think about how Daddy may not deserve me, but definitely not a soul like Joles. Neither do I, but I was pretty "bonne" with her today, as Daddy used to say. On that ironic note, I drift away into dreams of night beaches, an angel who never knew another girl, walking Sicilian streets with stray gray cat noses sniffing my shins. Pets and praise for all of us.

# # #

I think I'm still dreaming when the bed depresses around me, when my lashes flicker open, reading the digital clock at 3:01. Start of the witching hour. I'm no spirit seeker, a believer in much, but have no immediate explanation for the pressure atop me. It doesn't click that of course he has a key to every room.

But what's more confounding, surely Wonderland-woven, is feeling his arms circle my pillowing elbows, as he whispers, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, bambolina," into the hair behind my ear. "I should've told you, but I'm not used to us talking as of late."

Maybe an unslumbering mind would question his sobriety, but I'd sooner chalk it up to aliens. To sleep potions. Wanting an understanding so badly that it seems to manifest in poltergeist sweetness.

I'm not sure if it's him or me who says, "I'm going to miss you so much, it's already starting." Already smarting.

But just a snuggle alleviates so much, enough to slip back into a drowse. Flashbacks of him adding nautical trinkets to my charm bracelet, tracing its contours, then mine. Pulling me from a riptide in Sicily, my back shreaded by seashells, of which I still keep one fleshy pink conch in a ring box beneath my bed. When he'd take me to the same penguin exhibit twenty times at the Philadelphia Zoo. Let me sit atop his shoulders at pop concerts he didn't wanna attend. How we used to plant tulips and tomatoes together to keep up Mama's tradition. The time he choked a John blue just for saying I looked better in the Eros pictures...or at least to keep his deposit, run his pockets. All the macabre things I find mildly amusing or sentimental. All the hard feelings I prod with a baton.

"Buona note, Naria. Don't let the bugs bite, and if they do...squeeze them tight." His smirk spreads my hair part, unlocking memories of bedtime rhymes recited instead of prayers, K-12, his embrace squishing me snugger. "Good night."

# # #

I wake closer to seven, closer to Heaven, in his side hug, so I know it wasn't all flights of fancy.

I turn toward him, creasing the Calvin Klein undershirt. So white, so workless. "Mmmm," I hum, equal parts envious and endeared. Cotton soft, that's what I want to be—until he ruins it again. But in the meantime, I rub his chest. It doesn't feel much thinner than I remember. Heartbeat the same, hair as thick. Before I can move down to test his belly, his hand seizes mine. Rattler reflexes.

"Have to buy me breakfast first," he kids, voice still heavy with sleep. Lids still as ice lakes.

"Didn't you get pity p***y yesterday?" I yawn.

He rolls over. Groans about the dozen stuffies unbalancing his back. "I really don't mind what emotion the p***y is going through," he admits. "Happy just to be there."

"You're going through a dry spell, is that why you been buttering me up?"

He shakes his head. Both our bodies, brains, and tones are loungey right now. Lazing in the foyer forte of our bickering, bullying, whatever is the antithesis of love bombing but has the same effect. "I don't love her like I do you. Never have."

"Oh, yeah? Then what's with years' worth of room and board?"

He's told me once, he's told me one million: He loves both of us, but far differently. I'm his pet, she's his project. I'm his spicy staple, she's his sweet side. Family versus friend, beloved versus f**k buddy.

"I just won't ever see why you get to have both."

"Trust me, Naria. I've come to see two girls is too much for four walls. But it's too late...and what about your Giovanni, hmm?"

When I say nothing, he pokes my side. Then my knee, my hip. "You're not sleeping if you're not snoring or drooling, bambina." My ear, my temple. "Silly girl. You said I play dead better... We'll see." He jabs right between my legs.

"Hey!"

"She lives." He pokes again.

"Basta. Enough!" I cup my kitty.

"What happened to 'Let me, Daddy'?"

"Well, you're not being a 'brava raggaza,' now are you?"

He tosses a scoop of my stuffed animals in the air, letting them rain down on us. He says, "It may look like you're a good girl to win all these prizes, but really the crane machine resets at the end of each play. Today marks a new clock timer."

"So what do we get if we're both good?"

"All we ever dreamed of and more," he sarcases with a genie's elongation and finger flourish.

"...I think I'd settle for gelato, less jokes...and more love-making," I admit, shyly tug-petting the toy cat's ear.

"That's entirely dependent on you." He ruffles my already messy bangs. "Good luck."