‘‘I’m not about to give you my sob story Carrero, it isn’t some hidden scar needing to be talked about. I am great at moving on in life and forgetting shit that happens to me and you are not much of a shoulder to cry on. Not that I need you to be.’’ I move away to get space from him, unnerved by the way his presence is making me feel claustrophobic suddenly. My body still tingling when he gets too near and having a hard time keeping the flutters at bay, even if I do think he is Satan. I swear it has to be his aftershave or something that makes me react this way without effort on his part, sometimes it happens without him even touching me and I hate that cannot get a handle on it. The devil's allure or something.
‘’Your history beyond appearing in New York a few years back is sketchy at best. My man couldn’t even find anything at all about you before that. How come you haven’t been deported back for lack of a visa? Do we have a secret husband somewhere enabling your stay?’’ He looks blank and it’s hard to tell if this questioning is intrigue or something more and I just shrug.
‘’I’m American. I was born here and taken to England by my mother when I was two. I don’t need a visa because I’m a US citizen with dual nationality. My father lives in Texas. Dead for all I care.’’ I walk to the couch and sit down, carefully pulling my legs out of sight under me and pull a cushion on my lap to cover some of what’s on show. I’m more than aware he doesn’t go for my full-on seduction act and after tonight I’m not in the mood to play it anyway. I feel like I just need a break from the outward persona and just time to sit and let my pain relief work. Time off from being a toy for men to push around.
I just want to feel secure for a little while and not meet any demands or pushy questions while I get some respite. It’s rare in my life to ever just get a moment to feel still.
‘‘You don’t have a relationship with him then? Is he why you came back here?’’ Alexi is probing still, eyes doing a great job of not perving on the parts of me he can see, and I shrug again. Knowing when I avoid answering he turns into a controlling prick, but I don’t really want to have this heart-to-heart with him. If I get it out quickly, without emotion he might just drop it altogether, feed his curiosity enough to never have him pry again. He wants information and that’s all.
‘‘Yes and no. I showed up thinking I might have someone to call family, and he threatened to shoot me if I didn’t get off his property. He called me a harlot and the devil incarnate; fucking alcoholic bible basher. He inspired the red hair though with his sweet words of Jezebel and Lucifer’s bride. Have to thank him for that and setting me on my new path in life.’’ I say it without feeling but deep down it stirs an ember of spite and pain that I try to ignore. When it came to the lottery of parents I bypassed luck with both and ended up with the barrel scrapes of the gene pool.
I’m glad I grew up looking like my grandmother, from what I saw of her pictures anyway. She was long gone before I appeared so didn’t give me any reason to despise her the way I do my biological parents.
Alexi comes back and sits opposite me on the L shaped couch, giving me plenty of space, hunched forward as he holds his glass in his two hands and swirls it slowly. His eyes downcast on his liquid refreshment as though he is deep in thought.
‘‘Nice guy. And your mother?’’
Really? Alexi is a nosey bastard.
He likes to know everything about everyone and anything. It’s tiring, and I am not naïve. I know he collects information to store in that fast brain of his that he can use at another time. Usually to get in your head or under your skin; I have seen him do it with ease.
‘’Dead. She was a heroin addict, and she died at my feet when I was fifteen.’’ Actually, on the floor a few feet away, but who’s picking apart the details. Stupid bitch did it to herself and I watched her die with no sense of remorse at all.
Another little tingle of bitterness about a past I have no space for hits me low in the gut and I swallow it away with the memory. People just use you and discard you anyway, it’s easier to cut off all emotional ties and go it alone. Her death gave me some sort of freedom in a way. One less controlling bastard to use me as a punching bag.
‘’Jesus!’’ Alexi, for the first time ever, has an actual facial expression that I recognise. He looks momentarily sympathetic, a little surprised and I try to ignore it. Same as the moment of gentle, it throws me and I look anywhere but at him. His mask is slipping and I wonder if it’s because he has been around me for weeks now and is starting to relax, or if it is because he is tired and home and lets it slide occasionally.
‘‘I don’t care. She wasn’t worth much as family. I’m better off without those sorts of ties to people, they just hinder you and drag you down.’’
Story of my life!
‘‘Not all families do that … Mine are close. All of us, even the ones who stay out of this side of the business. My twin and my cousins are my closest friends and I trust no one outside of my bloodline, I care about them and I work very hard to protect all of them, so I can’t imagine what being alone must have been like and losing your mother so young.’’ Alexi sits back propping his feet on the table and I notice he has no shoes on, only black socks and it’s weirdly informal somehow. As is the frank and open way he’s telling me things I never expected him to share with me. I wonder if he’s softening towards me a little after all and it’s prompted this couch sharing thing he has going on. It's surreal and a little disarming.
‘’Believe me, losing her was the best thing that could have happened to me and leaving that wretched country was the second.