Leashed by Luxury

IV. Halfway Home

I remember when I first heard the phrase "cathouse," how cute I thought it sounded. Playful, snug, cuddly, maybe a l'il fur-lined under pink neon lights. Too young, I thought maybe brothel work could be a fun sisterhood. But I worked solo most of my life, hardly made a friend in or out of "the scene," and I only have one "sister." Joles, a sallow stray Daddy picked up in New York on a playcation a few years ago. Bony "bonne" blonde, pasty as a puff pastry, French bloodline and bush. All blush, so innocent.

Maybe it sounds stupid to say that's when things between Daddy and me got real bad. Because, to an outsider, it all sounds worse than being cursed to a hearse. But it's true. Back when we started "the business," I didn't know the extent of what we were doing. I didn't think of it as him selling me. I just knew I could put up with it like a bad stupid game, because he started treating me better.

I wasn't a ghost roaming the house as he grieved in his room and Mama's med (then funeral) bills piled by the mail slot. Before and after a "session," he'd talk to me, hold me, praise me, bribe me with so many little presents. My childhood bed is still stacked with so many plush cats and charm bracelets. The wood surfaces pool with happy photos and designer prints and collector dolls, ultra-pigmented makeup and game pieces.

It wasn't long at all until I sought out my own clients. Learned I like s*x with the right chemistry or blackout fantasizing. Leaned into Daddy too much when he checked in on me after a job, tucked me in emotionally or otherwise. I tugged at his collar, asked him to stay in more ways than one.

But when I did that, I didn't think I'd have to specify that I'd like to be his one and only forever.

It broke my heart when he brought the girl, my practical opposite, home. Bought her from another pimp with money I made on my back!

It didn't feel like a business deal; it felt like an invasion, a trounced contract on even my sanity...

But, like everything else... I forgave him over time. Or at least learned to live with it, numb it like a whipped waist with arnica gel. It also helped that that's when I met my still sugar daddy, Giovani. The perfect sordid distraction.

But this house of Daddy's is full of distressing distractions. Every room remembers a different flavor of fear. Mostly small ones, but the body flinches fast from a spider or a spear. It's the silence that puts me most on edge. The slight humming of appliances makes for a heady harbinger. Like listening to a bow pull an arrow taut from somewhere within an island of greenery.

Or like when he first brought Joles home, and I'd stay up all night, red and warm, waiting for and dreading the sound of them having s*x. Sick. I'd feel sick, but sometimes in the eerie, off-kilter yet sensual way you may feel when you stick a Q-tip far down your eardrum, or floss too deep between your teeth, or wait too long to pee in the morning. Maybe it's natural, pressure building on pressure, but it's always felt like bodily betrayal. Sprinkling sugar over a severe burn.

"Where's the blonde?" I ask with only a little impishness as he moves to sit by me on the antique teal sofa.

"Out."

"...Working?"

"Whatever you wanna call it."

"So does that count as...bringing you a Father's Day cake?" I test to see how far the joke extends. I'm not even sure if Father's Day cakes are a thing in this country. From grocery stores, it seems more about greeting cards and somehow American football. In Italia, it comes earlier in the year and usually means a better Sunday sauce plus Zeppola di San Giuseppe. But I bet I spoiled many fathers' appetites for orange iced pastries today after vomiting at Il Vespro. The black cherry-eyed cakes must've hated to see me coming across their bleachered case.

"The calm is my gift, Naria." And he's not lying. That's usually the extent of his celebration: read a war book by the creek, clink overpriced drinks over sorrel oysters, get me to turn the volume down a few notches on the TV at night.

"Joles isn't very loud. Is she?" It's hard to imagine them screaming. The whole reason he strung her into La Cosa Nostra was her deerish docility. That girl could lose a limb in a storm and sigh relief that it wasn't her stuffed lamb that got ripped. At least that's how my mind freeze-frames her. She grew up softer and more sheltered. We don't see a lot of each other since I moved out. And, okay, I probably wouldn't have moved out if she never moved in, but we get along better this way. I can't pick fights if my target isn't in range. Seperation has waned my rage.

He sighs and drapes an arm over the couch ledge. "The important thing is you're here now."

If this is the thing I've always wanted to hear, why does it feel like a Trojan horse rolling my way?

His warm fingers worm down, from my bare shoulder to the bend of my hip.

I swallow, still tasting alcohol-free Listerine (ironic concessions, considering Daddy's still got a half-stacked wine cabinet). I'm probably over-reading the thumb-brush on my thigh crease, but I recall two summers ago. Maybe the last time we were intimate. Flashes infiltrate my head. Heat flashes my cheeks and beneath. In heat, that's how I felt in my slender bed, arched like a panther ready to play or pounce with Daddy pulling aside my cuffed li'l orange shorts. Hitting it from behind, perhaps he could pretend I was just a Hooters waitress. Strange from a stranger. That's a need I cater to almost every day. In person or online but seldom the man who "made" me (in fame or force) anymore.

It wasn't bad, just grunts and bracing, no affection or words exchanged. All I remember is staring out my high rectangular window, into the early morning woods. Not dew-dappled, but sun-bleached, trees. Squeaking sparrows. Dragonflies entangled on the screen, tails united in a heart formation that I didn't know they could flex. Reveling in more romance than us.

Now, warmth snakes between my pressed thighs nonetheless. The slight sear of a phantom spearing. The further we grow apart, the more my body feeds on the adrenaline, the borderline violation that makes everything inside compress, everything external stress sweat sensually. When something is wrong, I want it more than my weight in white gold, more than my fate in nightwalking my life away reworked.

I hate to say this shame craving, this guilt transfigured tawdry, bawdy and of the body, is a family thing. At least when it includes the jolie blonde Joles. But at any rate (literal, cash or card), I inherited it from Daddy.

Loneliness must reign as everlasting in him, right?

...Late wife. Lost waif. Just me left.

Facing him, my lids slit. Do I look lusty or sympathetic, chin tilted to steady his snake-still expression? "I still mean a lot to you? Even when I've been mean as a junkyard dog?" A dominatrix? You? "Even when I ruin your workplace, mute your messages?" Make you want to drink yourself dead? Body for money. Money for wine. Wine (out) for blood.

"Thicker than water, me and you," he says, squeezing my hip, mob manicure teasing the elasticity of my minidress. The tan fingers curl centimeter by centimeter to creep over my bottom, claim its pound of flesh. It's not entirely lost on me how he puts himself before that mentioned "me." It's just a bit hotter in context now.

"We're not blood," I remind in a whisper that mingles with the dark hairs dusting his lip.

"Didn't say we are. Wouldn't want it that way." He leans in for the kill, to steal a kiss. Like petty theft after a life sentence for larceny, for lechery. Daddy, my favorite criminal, whether I crave it or curse the curse he has over me. Now this is spending time together, doing quality time together. An eternity in Hell. I guess he'll get a head start over me.