I content myself with looking out the window, my chin in my palm, my eyes fixed on the white-capped waves breaking mid-ocean. There must be quite a wind down there. We skate by above it all, occasionally rattling with turbulence. I have visions of the plane slipping out of the sky and disappearing into the wash below. It might have frightened me once. It doesn’t now.
We land and travel by car to a place somewhere in the countryside. I don’t know where. It could be any state, any place, anywhere.
His home is remote and impressive. Much like he is.
I’m used to fortifications. I think it would be strange if I were taken somewhere wide open, or one of those homes that are right next to other homes, the ones where the inhabitants are free to come and go. I wouldn’t know what to do with myself. I’ve never done anything to look after myself. I’ve never even cooked a meal, though I think I have some notion of how a toaster might work. I was born and bred for captivity, and I think Angelo knows that.
I’ve never had the kind of freedom others take for granted. If I am to be honest with myself, which I rarely am, that kind of freedom would scare me. It is safer to be contained.
Whatever Angelo might do to me, it cannot be worse than what has already happened over the years. I am not afraid, not because I am brave, but because I have learned that fear changes nothing and is therefore a waste of energy.
The car pulls up outside a house which I suppose is fairly grand for an American, though it barely counts as a shooting house on most aristocratic estates in England.
Through great bay windows, I can see a pair of figures watching us as Angelo helps me out of the car.
“Ah, the boys are waiting for us.”
“You have children?”
I forgot I asked that question already, but I remember just as it falls from my lips. I can’t remember his answer. I suppose I wasn’t listening to it. I still feel rather numb against the events of the day. At some point, they might feel real. I hope not.
He glances at me, and a smirk rises to his lips. “No,” he says.
“Dogs?”
I have heard some men refer to their pets with the same affection Vitali just had in his tone.
“That’s closer,” he says, nearly breaking into what might be called a smile. Apparently, I amuse him, though I do not mean to.
We enter his home. There is a marble foyer with a gaudy gold chandelier. It looks halfway between an Italian church and, well, a different Italian church.
“Bobby, Mark, this is Tilly,” he introduces me to the two men standing inside. “My wife.”
I am looking at a dark eyed younger man, slightly older than I am, and a blond man in his late thirties, maybe? None of these three go together in a sensible way.
Angelo walks over to the pair, drops a kiss on the lips of the blond man, and attempts to do the same to the shorter man. But the dark haired young man isn’t having it. He turns his head and makes a snarling sound not unlike an animal.
I watch, transfixed as Angelo grasps a handful of hair and forces the younger man to kiss him, one hand splayed across his cheek, the other controlling his head. I expect to see disgust on Bobby’s face, but instead he leans into the kiss, his body pressing along Angelo’s athletic form.
These are obviously not his sons, though the younger one could perhaps be. The kiss makes it unlikely. I have seen many depraved things in my time, but I have never seen anything like this.
Angelo breaks the kiss, and Bobby looks at me from behind his shoulder with a glare of pure hostility. I can feel the hatred rolling off him, though I do not understand it.
The older, blond man seems more indifferent. Perhaps even pitying. His blue gaze runs over me then lifts to the heavens with a slight shake of his head.
“Come, Matilda. I will show you to our bedroom.” Angelo returns to playing the role of host.
“You mean our collective bedroom,” Bobby says. “The bed I slept in last night.”
“You can sleep in your own bed,” Angelo says. “The lady will share mine.”
I did not expect to be surprised, but I am beyond surprised. I am shocked. I just saw my father killed in front of me hours ago, which should have been the strangest thing I saw all day, but it is clear that these three men are lovers.
I have lived a sheltered life, though not so sheltered I haven’t heard of gay men before. What confuses me to the extent that my head begins to spin very unpleasantly, is that Angelo has married me in spite of having two very attractive men at home. The room swirls, questions and confusion melding together in a gathering darkness…