Catherinelle by Diane Portman-Ray

 

17

 

The first morning we woke up together started with me riding Hugo’s face, and I knew there wasn’t any other acceptable way to wake up from then on. After that, we spent every night in my bed, and every morning became more and more exciting. Hugo still had moments when he was hesitant or tried to push me away, but we were too deep into the abyss to go back.

Wednesday morning rolled around, and I walked out of a very nice dream where I was tucked in Hugo’s arms, only to wake up and see that my dream had turned into reality. I had my back turned to him, and I was curled up like a kitten who looked for cuddles. He had one leg between my thighs, and those arms were holding me like a metal cage. At first, I didn’t want to move, so I just lay there in silence, listening the rhythmic cadence of his breath. Every morning, Hugo was the one to wake up first so I never got to enjoy him like this: vulnerable, calm, all walls down. Curiosity won me over, and I turned to look at him, but of course he felt it and opened his eyes.

“What time is it?” His sleepy voice was sexy as fuck.

“Good morning to you too, monster. A little past seven.”

“You should get ready for school. It’s late.”

“Or I should do something way better.” I leaned in and started kissing his chest and tracing the lines of his muscles with my tongue.

“Catherinelle, stop. We need to leave soon.”

“Relax, will ya? My first period got cancelled. I don’t have to be there ‘till nine today.” I bit into his pectoral, making him hiss. “Now make love to me.”

In a fraction of a second, I was trapped under Hugo’s body, and my wrists were pinned above my head.

“I don’t know how to make love, baby girl. All I can do is fuck you until your eyes roll so hard, you can see the back of your head.” He let his head down and sucked on my nipple through the satin of my nightgown. “I can make you cum on my fingers on command. I can make your legs shake and pussy throb, but don’t ask me for love, princess. I have none to give.”

I was living a fucking dichotomy. While my heart was breaking clean in half listening to his words, longing for him to dig deeper and find something – love, affection, friendship, anything – to give me and stay with me forever, my body was begging for whatever he wanted to offer. While I wanted to say that a fling was not enough, not for me, Catherinelle Nucci, my hips were arched, grinding on his dick, saying that I would take anything, no matter how little.

When his hand traveled south and cupped my vulva under my nighty, the body won. I hugged his waist with my legs and pushed into his hand.

“Hugo, please.”

“Don’t beg, princess. It’s beneath you.”

Always looking out for the Nucci name.

“I’ll order you then. Fuck me, Hugo. Now!” I screamed to the ceiling, and he did as he was told. He also kept well on his promise; I rolled my eyes so hard, my head started to hurt.

An hour later, I was in the foyer waiting for Hugo to find the keys to the Range Rover and checking myself in one of the tall mirrors. No one could have guessed that such a monster of a man just pounded the hell out of me only half an hour ago. I had styled my hair and straightened it now that it was getting longer. I had to talk to Lola and make an appointment at her beauty salon before Christmas. I had to compromise with Hugo for my outfit because he was hell bent on not letting me walk out of the house today with a low-cut top. I had a conservative white shirt buttoned up to the bejeweled collar and a short black tartan skirt. I put on a garter belt with black stockings. Even if no one could tell, Hugo saw me putting them on, and it drove him crazy to know what I had on under my clothes.

He appeared out of thin air behind me while I was still checking out my reflection and slapped my ass.

“Ouch! Jackass,” I said with a frown.

“You’re hot. Let’s go, princess.”

“We have to stop and pick up Bianca. The twins went to the country with Frank Sr. and Uncle Pepe, and I promised we’d give her a ride.”

“You could have told me earlier.” His voice was thick with annoyance. “I have to meet Roman at the jazz bar in Harlem. Let’s move.”

We picked up B, and Hugo completely ignored us while we talked about a fashion show she got tickets to. He didn’t even look at me until he pulled up in front of my high school.

“We’re here,” he finally spit out after he killed the engine.

Bianca gathered her things and was ready to get out of the car, but I didn’t move which made her give both of us a long look.

“Are you gonna kiss?” she said, and my jaw dropped. “You want me to leave and let you go to third base?”

I turned to look at her in the back seat and cut her off.

“Bianca, get out. I’ll be right there.”

“Ok, ok, I’m leaving.”

When the door slammed behind her, I looked at Hugo, and he looked like he was about to have a stroke.

“What the fuck did you tell her, Catherinelle?” he barked at me, and I felt the need to back away from him.

“Don’t get mad. I just…I can’t keep things away from her.” I could have kept Bianca in the dark, but I needed to vent. It wasn’t my fault he drove me crazy.

“Have you lost your fucking mind?”

“B is not going to tell anybody. Why are you so mad?”

He turned from me with a move so sudden, he made the whole fucking car shake and punched the steering wheel.

“I’m mad because you think this is a fucking game, and it might be for you, princess, but I don’t think you understand what would happen if a whisper got out about this shit.”

I sat there, stunned by his reaction.

“Hugo…”

“Just go to school.”

“Do you think I want to piss Gino off like this? No one will find out, not from Bianca.”

“Piss him off? You think I don’t wanna hurt his feelings? Let me put it plain and simple for you, Catherinelle, if your brother ever finds out that I took you to bed, he’ll fucking kill me.” He stopped to take a deep breath. “And I would deserve it.”

“You’re overreacting.”

From his seat, Hugo looked at me with his eyes so empty, it gave me chills.

“Then you are more naïve than I thought. Go.”

“Damn it, Hugo, listen…”

“Listen? I can’t even look at you right now.”

He stretched in my direction, and for a second, I thought he wanted to pull me into a kiss, but he only opened my door and virtually pushed me out of the car. All the bridges that solidified in the past couple of days when I fell asleep with my cheek on his chest, listening to his heart beat, I could see them crash and burn under my eyes. The ogre was back.

Before I stepped too far away from the car, the window went down, and Hugo called my name.

“Yes!” There was a ray of hope in my voice.

“I’ll be here to pick you up at two.”

“We have a charity thing today; I won’t be off before three thirty.”

His face turned to a blank page.

“Then I’ll send Vito pick you up and drive you home.” And with that, he was gone.

He couldn’t be here at three thirty because today was Wednesday, and he always disappeared for a few hours in the middle of the week.

While I was watching him drive away, Bianca popped up from wherever she was hiding.

“Oh, my God, did I make him mad? I shouldn’t have said anything, Cat. I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, you should have kept it shut, but it’s over with.”

She came to my side and hugged me.

“I really am sorry.”

“I know, forget about it. B, you can’t tell anyone about us.”

“Don’t you think I know that? I don’t want my beloved cousin, Gino, to go to jail for killing Hugo.”

“Why does everyone say that?” I threw my hands up in frustration. “Gino is not going to kill him.”

“Umm, yes he will. Let’s go inside.” She pulled at her winter coat, trying to keep the cold out. “It’s the North Pole out here.”

“Oh, I’m not going inside.”

“You aren’t?”

“Nope. I’m skipping. I need to see where the hell he’s going every fucking Wednesday.” He was hiding something. A woman, a habit, I didn’t know what it was, but it was something.

He was set in stone to keep everything locked up inside him, but I wasn’t ready to live on crumbs. The orgasms were great; he kept me satisfied, but the son of a bitch starved my heart. He forgot just one thing…

My name was Catherinelle Nucci. A Nucci always gets what they want.

“B, go inside and call me a cab, please.”

“Wait, I don’t get to come?”

“No, he’ll be like a dog with rabies if he sees me. I don’t need a witness.”

Five minutes later, I was picked up in a yellow New York City cab driven by a nice old man to whom I gave the address of my brother’s jazz club. I knew Hugo was meeting Roman there, so that was where I would start.

“Of course, miss.” At the first stop light, he turned to look at me. “I know that place. Me and my dear Bess used to go there back in the day. It used to be a dance room there. Ah, but then it got sold and turned into a bar.”

After saying that, he turned around, and the car started to move again, but the hint of pain in his voice just wouldn’t let me drop it.

“You don’t like it now, sir?”

“Well, I only went back once a few years ago; ’90-’91, I can’t remember. The music is nice, but it’s for the young blooded like you. No place for me and my Bess.”

“Sir, you don’t look all that old.”

“I’m sixty-seven, young lady. Bess, God bless her, she would love to dance to jazz in those new clubs; she’s ten years younger than I, but I work too much to take her out anymore.”

I just hoped Bess knew how lucky she was to have had this man by her side. He was looking straight ahead, but I could see him in the rearview mirror. Melancholy, sadness, a faded smile for the good old days, all were floating in his blue eyes.

From my seat, I grabbed the black and gold Versace bag that my nonno brought for me when he was here for his birthday and fished out all the cash I had on me.

“Sir, how would you like to make…two hundred and seventy-three dollars?”

“For what, young miss?”

“I need someone to drive me around for a few hours; you’ll be free at four o’clock tops.”

He threw me another look over his shoulder, this time a bit suspicious.

“You have errands to run, miss?”

“Umm…” kinda, “Actually, I have to…you see…follow someone around.”

“Miss…”

“It’s harmless, I swear. He’s…he’s my boyfriend.”

“It would be easier to give him a call.” The taxi driver told me, obviously disapproving of my actions, but he leaned in and grabbed the cash from my hand.

We spent hours on Hugo’s tail, keeping enough distance to seem like the taxi was just another random car in the city of New York. Bianca should be thankful I didn’t let her come along because this might have been the most boring sting operation ever. For the second in command to my brother, Hugo didn’t do much except go from one bar to another.

At three twenty-six, something finally happened. Hugo left the restaurant where he and Roman had been cooped up for the past hour, and from where we were parked down the street, I couldn’t see his face, but he left in a hurry. Fucking finally. After about twenty minutes of driving around, we made it to the Bronx, and I saw him parking the car and slamming his door furiously before bolting into a building that looked like it had seen better days.

I thanked the taxi driver for putting up with me the entire day, gathered my things and got out, but the entire time, my eyes were fixed on the building Hugo had disappeared in. This was it? This was where he came every week?

We were somewhere on White Plains Road, close to Gun Hill Station. The apartment building was typical for the Bronx, with scraped plaster and a cracked window at the bottom floor. This was not a nice place so what was he doing here? Meeting someone? A woman? Two women? Was he here to meet sisters ready to entertain him?

Curious and enraged, I pushed the entry door open and walked inside. The musty smell was the first thing that got to me before I felt the cold humidity. The entire place felt like a gigantic basement. I went to the stairs, and the second I touched the rail, I felt something sticky on my hand. I immediately second guessed my decision of coming here. I clutched my bag to my chest and started going up, careful not to touch the wall that was covered in mold, not knowing exactly what I was looking for. Hugo could have been in any of the apartments.

When I got to the third floor, I heard a loud thumping sound and stopped in my tracks. It came from behind a wooden door at my left. I listened closely, only to hear more bumping around and moans…and Hugo’s unmistakable low growl, a sound I had woken up to every morning for the past week. He was there. He was there enjoying himself with someone else.

Blinded by a fury that was melting my veins and clutching my gut, I threw away all my rationality and pushed open the door. I was ready to fight him and whatever whore he kept in this slump of a place, but my march came to a brisk stop when I stepped inside the cramped apartment and felt something wet at my feet. A man was trying to crawl to the door, desperate to escape, while Hugo was shadowing him with a dangerous looking crowbar in his hand.

When I looked down to see what I had stepped in, I was standing in the middle of a puddle of blood.