Leashed by Luxury

III. Purge & Prejudice

Always causing a stir. That's what Daddy & I do. It's never as pretty a mix as grenadine and cherries in my ginger ale. Though Shirley Temple did grow up to fall down into addiction, petticoat twirling, hypnotizing all the wrong watchers, a bunch of wretches and leches, so maybe sorta like that. Not that I feel too showtuney with sweat slipping down my forehead, mingling with a white bar rag's tears that Daddy hats my head with.

"Better be clean," I grumble, still feeling a chunk of sick indent my windpipe. Euughh.

"Perks of being a partner," Daddy mumbles under a sigh like he didn't hear me, hand fanning to the cool-tiled dish pit. We're allowed access by the threshold, where a nice breeze works from the A/C and ice machine. After I rinsed my face in the bathroom, still gaping like a fish, some of the smartly dressed black-clad staff ushered me in like Secret Service. Huddled and niggling about my comfort. Customer service that I surmise has to do more with Daddy's sway than their job description. Now that they're dispersed, it's quiet like a cinema lobby during showings.

Daddy and I sure haven't been texting buddies these last few months, so this is the first time I'm at the Italian lounge he's invested my body bounty in. Besides small, sporadic coke dealing, it's about the only thing he's done for himself. If you count it as independent of me. Angel's been living like a devil off me half my life. 95% directly (direct deposit) to this day.

We haven't lived together for like two years. Not since my sugar daddy Giovani leveled me up to better than allowance: from Daddy's nice but Nowhere PA prairie house to a Philly penthouse by my lonesome. But today it seems more apparent than ever that Angel and I live in two different worlds. I don't know his circle; he doesn't know mine, even though my skin trade cash keeps him floating in those upper echelon spheres to begin with.

Crouched and pouting, I try to put my head on straight. I had my suspicions about Daddy's big "I'm dying" admission, then his sketchy shrug off, but he is acting differently. Even though he still looks pretty good and tan. Yeah, maybe hair a touch unkempt underneath its pomade sheen, but the long layers aren't that thinned, his goatee any more salty amid the rich brunet. His frame seems a little shaved down, but that would happen to anyone not keeping up with arm day at the gym. Then again, I can't look at my own body and pinpoint which side the liver is even on, let alone if maybe it has pockmarks or potholes inside from my typical college partying.

If I dust aside our tumultuous love/hate past, the Sicilian beach dates and thrown spaghetti plates, today's Daddy is...subdued? Relatively understanding? Dare I say, sweet in spots, like the soft rot on a baby tooth? If I disconnect from what death means, it still stupefies. Signals a change, a reckoning with the reality that he's dealt me a long time. Is he...sorry? Even about just the scraps of our discontent? The disagreements over date lengths and travel and where one leaves towels, and who's texting who off the clock in our game of weird rules we make up on the fly because there was no premeditation?

I look up to him: his gaze on the double-swing doors, face passive, palms dangling by his dark designer jeans, palms open, unguarded. Fingers always garnished in gold rings. Smooth bands with sanded-down jewels like a prince-bishop. Trinkets from the Old Country that were meant to ward off the evil eye and everything he incarnates anyway. Or that he has in the past... Maybe I need to stop rehashing old haunts if I don't want the end, our entire journey, to feel like hopping on hot coals. Pointless and something that leaves me reeling, peeling dead skin from my soles and soul, for a long time.

Before I can clear my throat to utter something, wedge our distance, one of his cronies comes in. A tall man in a double-breasted suit. Curling brows match the streaks of silver in his vampiric sweep-back. Eyes jade, deep-set, watchful as a wraith. His voice startles me: low and resonating off the confined corridor. "La ragazza sta bene?" (The girl is good?)

I raise a brow, falling into old tricks (literally), thinking, I can show you what a good girl would be. But it's all head talk, the sauce. Because my breath was just bile, wrists as jangly as my nerves or bead bracelets. So I just answer, "Sì, signore. Grazie," on pink knees nonetheless.

"Too many negronis before nightfall?" he asks with a wry smile. Timbre so tranquil, concerned, that it comes across sardonic.

"Naria has a weak constitution," Angel answers for me—sounding way less sexy than any image of me the man might have conjured as a young lush knocking back orange peels and paper umbrellas. "Medicine on an empty stomach always does this to her."

If he means the birth control pill I've been popping since puberty, I suppose, but we got that sorted out right quick. Cobra quick. Hopefully, Mr. Tall, Dark, and Fearsome doesn't assume I'm on loony moody medications. If I'm not having a party, why would I want a pill? Wonder what Daddy has told him about me. Has he bragged with pictures or disparaged my partying, projected his faults onto me or protected what I do for a living? Of course, it doesn't have to be one or the other, but more like a Bloody Mary blend.

"Mmm." The man with a stooped brow ridge nods solemnly. "Medicine does no good melting into my carpet."

I smile awkwardly, apologizing for the stains. The surely exasperated staff. Offer the penance I know best: tips and bowed heads.

"No need, signorina," he assures, the sig sounding extra sin-ful. "I know you are most sorry. As are we for seeing you in such distress. Hopefully, we will be meeting again soon under much more pleasing circumstances." He offers a paper towel, then steps toward Angel to deliver a few hush-hush words that receive a stiff nod.

Once he drifts away, tendrils of liquid Armani trailing more languidly, I ask, "Owner?"

"Sì," Daddy says.

"Raffaello?" I pull from nebulous cell phone conversations made months ago. A recurrent name in passing. Drinking buddy. Backgammon champion played for blue chip stakes. Local magnet who could retire but rather restore order to small establishments, like dotting a signature across the tri-county area. Other men are so concerned with their legacy, no matter how meager. Can't say so of Daddy, but maybe I'm wrong.

"Sì. Raffaello. Ra for short. Like the sun god."

"More like the Prince of Darkness. Less breezy than Ozzy Osbourne though... He should wear a cape."

"Maybe he'll provide one to bib you next time you visit. Keep the varnish on the floor that way."

I ditch the cooling rags and make mocking kissy lips like he's being too cute with the sarcasm.

He squeezes my lips like a duck, tells me to empty the mint dish on the way out. "We're going home now. I think you have no liquids left." He points out my dried eyes, stomach, lips, then steals my car keys.

Pitching my weight to one leg, I stand with hands on my hips, pretending not to be relieved to have a nearby bed to sink into after a mad dash of an hours-long drive. To have his scornful nagging inside my phone transformed into soft admonishments in person that sometimes come at the end of a head-pet. To have someone call a place with me home at all. To have someone I can call Daddy without playing pretend to pay a few bills.