JOYCE

I couldn’t get enough of him. I was tired and sore but I didn’t care. I didn’t want to sleep. I wanted the ache. I wanted him in me, all the time. His weight on top of me. I wanted to squeeze him in further and further. I wanted to watch his face. I wanted his sweat to drop onto me. I wanted to drop mine on him. I got on top of him. I’d never done it before. I couldn’t really believe it; I was doing this. I was inventing something. I held him and put him in. He felt deeper in me. I’ll never forget it. I was in charge and he liked it. I held his hands down. He pretended he was trying to break free. I let my tits touch his face. He went mad; he bucked. He split me in two. I pushed down. I couldn’t believe it. One of his fingers flicked over my bum. I did it to him. He lifted and heaved. I couldn’t believe it. There was no end to it, no end to the new things. He did something. I copied him. I did something. He did it back. He took me from behind. I pushed back, forced more of him into me. I sucked him. He licked me. I made him come on my stomach. He sucked my toes.

The morning greets me .....

Fuck

I woke up horrified cause I was having sex with my bodyguard...I woke him up and told him that no was to hear about what happened.

I always hated the way I had to live,leaving a life of being a mafia child it’s really it’s not something I would wish for any one ,you would think being around guns all angles of the house,but it isn’t.

At some point I felt like running away from home ,but I just couldn’t .my equally rich friends,but unequally famous compare to the shadow-life I have to live ,just so that I can uphold the family legacy.

I was to go to a date with one of the powerful gangs family, but I canceled the date which it made my mom quit furious.

Am setting up another date with the gang family son so don’t you dare miss this one mom said to me with a angry tone.

“Yes, ma’am “I ended the call went straight to bed.Opens my eyes the bright morning light greets me ,I check my phone it’s 10:12amGot up really fast cause I had lectures by 10:00am,which it means am already late for class.

Got up went straight into the Shower ,got dressed and went to School with out even applying any makeup on my face .

Ran as fast as I could to the Uber driver waiting for me ,“Drive ““Drive “By the time we got to the school no lectures was holding ,one of the students had said the lecturer didn’t come .

which it made me relieved.Spock to some of my school friends .I used to be envious of the brighter sheen of glamour in my friends worlds,known for their careers in entertainment industry-models ,actors,musicians.

I could never have that life , even if I aspired to it.Got home getting ready for my date ,Get dressed and left the house .

Here am I seating at a fine dining restaurant on the bar near Harvard university waiting for the son of the most predominant gang family in the world gives me tingles of excitement what so ever.

I know why am here . To form alliance with the Alessandro San Giovanni.it’s a business deal .one that ensures we can take back New Yorth the Luciano clan.

“The power his family possesses is truly unmatched, so to be in their good graces is an honor,” my mother had said, smiling at me before I left Malibu for Massachusetts.

Even saying that sounds horribly underwhelming.

“Your father would have been so proud,” she’d added for good measure, as if it would really sell this whole marriage idea to me.

It’s so archaic and manipulative of her to use my deceased father as a selling point for the entire jig. It’s not like they actually think I’m going to fall in love with him anyway.

My heart’s already sold to Gucci and Chanel, not men and mafia drama.

I check the time and watch a waiter pass me by, after taking a side-eye at my two-person table only occupied by one.

Should I have expected him to be on time? I would have left after fifteen minutes of this from anyone else.

I have standards. But this is different, so maybe that’s why I’m still here, taking the brunt of embarrassment that’s mostly self-invoked because a woman can eat alone if she so pleases.

He probably wouldn’t even recognize me, but I remember him from my childhood quite well. He ran on his own time-clock then, too.

Our parents were sort of business friends who brought us along to the occasional vacation or dinner parties.

Usually, the getaways were because we needed to go into hiding for a time, let things settle at our home bases.

I didn’t realize it until I was much older, but what kid should have to think like that?

He’s grown since then, apparently into even more of an ass than I remember him.

Knowing this, knowing who he is, his reputation as a party-boy, serial romantic, with a need to always be the center of attention— makes me hope he remembers me too.

If he does, perhaps he’ll actually show. Though my mother and grandmother have tried their very best to keep me out of the public eye, I’m plastered on magazines and Daily Mail articles because,guilty by association.

Famous friends plus mysterious, rich, suspected mafia daughter— you do the math. I can’t help that the cameras follow.

It’s recent, my rise to “fame,” but moving to Malibu didn’t help in their attempts to hide me. I go out just like anyone else now, and that’s the way I’ve always wanted it. I like my freedom and independence— revel in it.

It’s probably because what control I do have is very little,with security around every corner surrounding me like I’m the fucking president or something.

Though Gran was initially upset about my being photographed, the family as a whole now feels it could actually help send a message if I fraternize with a San Giovanni.

That brings me to the next reason I’m currently sitting here forty-five minutes later, fighting with my spoon until it’s perfectly aligned to my knife and ignoring the self-respecting screaming in my head to get up and leave already.

As a deal that began with shouting and ended in tears, I won’t be allowed to leave our mansion ever again if I don’t start to at least date Alessandro.

Not seeing my friends or attending social events, not even stopping by the Promenade to shop at Gucci with Iris Woods

stunning model and bestie-since-kindergarten

. But I know they want to see our unity end up and begin with marriage.

It’s probably best I leave all of this information out when he comes— if he comes. The less desperate he thinks I am, the better. I know how to flirt, so this should be a piece of cake

not sure why I used cake as my metaphor. I’m strictly sugar-free

. At least, until he gets bored with me.

The next fifteen minutes go by, and the waitress is asking me for my order like I haven’t been waiting this whole fucking time for the second person on the reservation.

She’s smiling at me, sadness in her eyes that infuriates me to the point of aggression because I don’t need anybody feeling sad for me. I grit my teeth and grab my crushed pearl Chanel clutch, standing in my custom Miu Miu heels that cost more than this woman’s life and walk out the door without a single word.

Shit. What have I done?

As I cross to the car, security jogging after me, I feel my life slipping through my fingers. The last bit of control I have that I worked so hard to gain, waving goodbye to me with little resistance. I can’t hold on to it any more than I can regain it.

I wonder what the papers will say. “Joyce Lombardi, Missing In Action,” “Gone Girl?” or, “Sources say she’s no longer on speaking terms with the infamous group that set her name in lights in the first place.”

So, I’m dramatic. I’ve accepted it. I guess I have to accept all of this, so as not to crumple into a ball on the floor of the car. My seatbelt would ding the moment I unhook it anyway. I’d have several sinewy men with quads for fingers reaching to buckle me back in like I’m a child. There’s no winning, only losing.

I can see the disappointment in Madame Lombardi’s— my grandmother’s— gracefully aged face. Grandpa and father died so that we would one day be on top again, and here I am, crying in the back of this stupid Rolls-Royce, on the way to my private plane with nothing to show for it.