"I imagine roughing you up."
"That's it? Just slap me around?"she asked, rolling her eyes. "Come on."
"Babe, I don't know. I wish I had an answer for you, some reality to prepare you for. I just know that my father is unstable when he feels he is being slighted. And he can be a real dick. I haven't personally seen him order anyone to hurt a woman, but do I think he is capable? Yes. There is very little I don't believe my father is capable of."
"What have you seen him order done to men?" she asked, biting into her lower lip to stop the quivering.
I'd never been a man who comforted people. That was not what I did. But there was an almost overwhelming urge to walk over there, to wrap her up, and assure her that there was no way I would let anything happen to her.
But the reality was, I could no longer make that promise to her. Not if I wanted both of us to make it out of this shit alive.
"Most commonly, the clichés stand. Broken kneecaps. Shattered hands. Severed fingers. Or," I started, swallowing back the bad taste in my mouth at this one, "tooth extractions."
I was capable of a lot of wicked things. I could beat a man near to death without batting an eye. But there was something about pulling teeth that turned my stomach.
"I've had a dentist do an extraction before my Novocaine kicked in," Gigi admitted, cringing a bit at the memory. "I could live through that again. I mean, people used to pull their own teeth out with pliers before dentistry came about. I wouldn't die from it."
"No," I agreed, nodding. "You'd make it."
"They used to saw off the limbs of soldiers in the civil war. That's where the term 'bite the bullet' comes from," she added, as if inserting that fact somehow made the reality easier to swallow.
"I see what you're trying to do here, babe," I said, shaking my head. "But no amount of mental preparation is going to make it any less horrific if any of those things happens."
To that, she nodded, her chin dipping to hide the sudden swimming in her eyes.
"Can I ask something?" she started, taking a shaky breath.
Yeah, babe."
"Can you do it?" she asked, looking up, blinking back the tears.
"What? Why? Why me?"
"Because I know you wouldn't want to. And there is some comfort in that, I think. Kinda like we were both in that shitty position together. I don't think I could handle it if I knew it was some guy who was taking pleasure in my pain."
That was a big ask.
Everything in me said I couldn't do it.
I didn't hurt women, as a rule.
And the thought of hurting this one in particular made it feel like someone was pouring lava into my chest.
"I will do everything I can to be the one to do it," I agreed, though. After all, she was the one calmly accepting her potential torture. Could I really deny her the choice of who would deliver the blows? It was a small favor given the situation. "And I think it would be something that would escalate. So if you can put on a show like I'm really hurting you when I am using half-power, we might be able to avoid something worse. If you think you can fake it well enough," I added, knowing my father wouldn't buy it if she was trying some scream queen audition.
"I'm a woman, Lorenzo," she said, snorting. "I know I can fake it well enough."
With that, she tossed back her whiskey, moving forward to place the empty glass on the counter in front of me.
I knew what she was doing.
Trying to create distance again.
But this time, not from the future torture.
From past pleasure.
And I knew I should have let it go.
Let her have what she needed in the moment. I was a huge part in how fucked up her life was right then. I owed her what little comfort I could give her.
But as she made her way into the opening of the hallway, I found myself calling her name, watching as she turned, brow raised.
"Yeah."
"You didn't fake shit with me," I told her, taking a sip of my drink.
To that, she lifted her chin higher, and turned back away, knowing there was no way to deny it.
I tossed back the rest of my drink, trying to mentally prepare myself for the evening. But there was no use. There was no way to prepare yourself to potentially cut a part off of someone you were beginning to give a shit about.
Give a shit.
That was all it was.
She had been in my space, in my life, for a while now. I gave a shit if she was harmed.
That was all it was.
That was all it could be.