Rule by CD Reiss

Author:CD Reiss [Reiss, CD]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2015-08-23T16:00:00+00:00

twenty-four.

antonio

he back of her neck, bare except for the stray hair that got out of the rubber band, was warm under my fingers. When I touched her there, getting my finger under the gold chain that held the St. Christopher medal, she stopped, like an animal with an instinctive reaction not to obey but to listen.

“I want you,” I whispered in her ear. “Only you.”

“I know,” she said. “But am I what you need?”

The scent of the food in the restaurant and the idea that any man knows what he needs triggered the memory that had haunted me for years.

My mother never made risotto, but Valentina had been raised in the north, so she’d brought the dish with her. It had to be stirred constantly. If the spatula stopped moving, the grains could get hard in places. For a consistent texture, not one grain could be still for one second. Nor could the temperature fluctuate. Hot broth went in to increase the moisture without cooling the pan. If she put in cold broth, the rice grains would crack into mush. It was a balancing act she did without even thinking.

She had no family to speak of, so she made mine into hers. My mother and aunt loved her, and she loved them. We’d lived in a small house in the outskirts of Napoli. Two bedrooms, a barely finished kitchen, and a backyard big enough to farm in. The winters were mild, and in summer, we buried our trash twice a day in a hole by the back fence because of the humidity. An apple tree took root where we put the garbage, so we moved our digging spot.

She had been making dinner when I saw her last. I was leaving for the night in an hour, and I hoped for a fuck before I went. But she was making risotto for dinner, and I couldn’t stop the process, nor could I skip eating entirely for the sake of the pressure on my dick. She was cooking, and that was all there was to it.

I couldn’t tell her where I was going. That was a given. When I was a mechanic, then a law student, then a lawyer, she didn’t have to ask where I was going, because I wasn’t going anywhere. Work-school-work-study-work.

I’d told her I would take care of the men who had hurt my sister, then I was done. Stupidi. She and I both. I hadn’t cleared my desk of all of them while she lived, and there was no “done.” Ever.

“I have to go,” I said. “I’m sorry. I have to miss supper.”

“Antonio!” She indicated the risotto as if it were its own reason. And it was. It couldn’t be stored or refrigerated.

“I’m sorry, it’s business.”

She slapped the spoon on the edge of the pot and put it down. Watched it bubble for a second before starting to stir again. She’d never ruin a risotto just because she was angry at me.

“Business. You do mental Olympics to make excuses for yourself,” she said, twirling the arm that wasn’t stirring the rice.

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