Delilah's Diary #2: La Vita Sexy (8 page)

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Authors: Jasinda Wilder

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Thank you. I'm sorry.

Delilah

Before I left, I snooped in Luca's cell phone and found his number, copied it down so I could call him…someday.

The morning was cold and dim as I dragged my suitcase through the empty streets of Firenze...Florence. Firenze. Saying it in Italian was too hard. Florence. I heard Luca's voice, laughing and correcting my pronunciation.

I found the train station and got a ticket for Geneva, Switzerland. The train ride was long, slow, and beautiful. I missed Luca more with every mile that passed. Or, since I'm in Europe, every kilometer. I felt a part of my heart ripping out more and more as the train left Italy and moved north. I imagined Luca waking up, arm patting the empty bed beside him, thinking maybe I was just in the bathroom, or getting coffee, then finding the note. I imagined him crumpling the note, eyes glittering.

Would he come after me? Would he ask the train station attendant if he'd seen an American girl with red hair.

Did I want him to come after me?

Yes.

Could I turn around and go back? No. It would mean facing him, explaining even more. It was easier to make the break now. Break it off before I got hurt.

Well, shit. There's the truth. I'm afraid. I'm still hurting from Harry's betrayal, and I don't believe Luca won't hurt me, too.

June 18

Switzerland was incredible. Too perfect. Like Luca.

I left Switzerland behind today. I'm on another train, this one taking me to Belgium. Saw some Belgian sights, drank some Belgian beer. Took a bus to Prague. Lovely, ancient, incredible. In other circumstances I think I would have loved Prague.

Not like this.

What have I done?

June 20

Yesterday was the second worst day of my life. The worst one is pretty obvious, at this point. It's past noon, and I just woke up. I'm hung over. My head aches. My soul aches. My heart aches. I nearly made the worst mistake of my life.

Well, no. The worst mistake was leaving Luca, and that's one I can't undo, and I'm too much of a coward to go back and fix it. I can't face the heartbreak and anger in his eyes a second time.

Cowardly me.

Yesterday I went to a club in Paris. I got sexy, put on too much makeup, wore too little clothing. Got drunk. Really, really drunk.

Met a guy named François. Lovely man. Shoulder-length blond hair, thin and wiry and not quite effeminate. An artist. Pale blue eyes, narrow shoulders, and manicured hands. Sharp features, a quick smile that didn't quite meet his eyes.

He plied me with white wine, sweet-talked me out of the club, into a cab, and back to his cramped, expensive loft apartment on Champs-Élysées. I know enough to know the little loft, which would have fit into my closet back in Illinois, was worth six of that house. I hated his loft. It was clean, neat, organized, expensive sound equipment and an enormous flat-screen TV and a deep leather couch taking up the entire loft. I wasn't sure where he slept. He sat me on the couch, handed me glass of something green and potent.

Absinthe, he called it. I went from drunk to something else. The world spun and flickered and wavered and flashed in strange washes of color. I felt François's hands on me, stripping my shirt off. I didn't like it. I couldn't get words out to tell him to stop, and I did kind of like it. I'd gone several days without sex, when I'd been making love to Luca several times a day for several days. I was hungry, ready. But it wasn't right. François was rough, clumsy. His nails scraped my sides as he ripped my shirt off. His fingers pinched my nipples through my bra, too hard.

No. The word wouldn't come out, and I couldn't figure out why.

The universe was shrinking down around me, narrowed to François and his pale, weak blue eyes, his strangely cruel fingers and his thin, piano-wire body pressed against mine. The walls should have been white, but they seemed at once blue and green and yellow, wavering in kaleidoscopic swirls.

Was there a drug in the strange green liquor he'd given me? I think there was. I thought it then, and even now, writing this in bed, waiting for room service to bring me coffee, I shiver and feel disgust writhing in my belly at the memory.

The thing that drove me into action was François digging between my clamped-closed thighs, manicured nails cutting the soft flesh as he sought my dry sex. He found it, pushed aside the negligible fabric of my panties, thrust a single finger into my vagina and tried to move it. I moaned in protest. He mistook it for pleasure, moved his finger harder, hurting me.

"NO!" The word burst from me, ripped free by the pain and the sense of violation.

I pushed him away, scrambled off the couch.

"Please, Delilah, wait. You are so beautiful. I want you, don't go,
mademoiselle
," Francois begged.

I slapped him, hard enough to spin him around and knock him to the ground. I found my shirt on the floor, hooked the straps of my high-heeled sandals in one finger and wove unsteadily out of his loft. I missed a step, fell down three stairs to the landing, hurting my backside and my tailbone. I refused to cry. The world spun, shook, distorted in awful crazed crayon-colors.

Nauseous. Disgusted. Afraid. Angry.

I found the street, hailed a cab. The driver was old, silver-haired and wrinkled and kindly-looking. He turned his face to the side, not quite looking at me, not asking where I wanted to go. I fumbled the card of my hotel from my purse, showed it to him.

He nodded. "
Oui. Immédiatement
." His voice was gravelly, smoky.

I stumbled into my room, collapsed on the bed after latching the bar-lock on the door. I took a dozen deep breaths, shuddered, and then shattered into sobs. I fell asleep, the world still wobbling on its axis, colors wrong. Shame burned in my throat with the bile.

When I woke up, I knew I couldn't go on like this.

I've made a mistake, and I have to face it, fix it somehow. No more cowardly running across Europe.

The food is here. The young man pushing the cart reminds me of Luca in a way. Younger, but longish dark across his brow, thick shoulders, strong hands. I'm not wearing much, I'm suddenly realizing. I stripped off my clothes before passing out, and now all that covers me is the bed sheet. The young man is struggling gamely to not stare at me. I smile at him over the screen of my netbook.

He's not Luca. I break the eye contact and stare at my screen so he knows I'm not interested in anything else but the food. He thanks me in French, his dark gaze flickering to my breasts again and then away.

Finally he's gone.

The coffee and food smell great, but all I can think of is François and his hard fingers inside me.

I want Luca here.

* * *

I called Luca. He answered on the second ring, relief in his voice.

"Luca?" My voice was quiet, hesitant. "I...I'm sorry."

"No, Delilah. It is okay. I understand. Where are you?"

"Paris." I wanted to tell him what happened, but I can't. "I...can you come?"

"Stay where you are. I will be there as soon as I can. What is the name of your hotel?"

I told him. He didn't say anything else, just told me to stay in my room and wait.

Hours passed. I watched French TV, not understanding a word. I had a
New York Times
sent up and try to read it, but I found myself reading the same paragraph a dozen times without comprehending anything. Finally, I pulled out my netbook again and wrote, reread what I've written, going back the first page, composed in a cafe in Rome. Roma.

* * *

I can't believe the craziness that has become my life.

I miss George and José.

Luca is here. My heart is pounding like tympani in my chest.

The End of Part 2

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