Page 17 of Alessia
Alessia looks amazing in a black low cut satin jumpsuit and the new collection of satin Kate Louboutin’s. This outfit doesn’t allow a bra, but her boobs look amazing without support. The roses on her shoes give just a hint of color. Her hair hangs in loose chestnut curls around her face and her lips are a dark shade of red. She looks like nothing happened, while I look like an absolute mess.
“Harper.”
She walks over to me, and I stand frozen to the ground. My throat is dry, and my hands are shaking.
“Stop using Elio as a punching bag. He’s my punching bag so I call dibs. If there’s something you want to get off your chest you have my number so use it.”
I open my mouth, but no sounds come out.
“We can talk about yesterday if you’d like but I have business to attend to first. And if you don’t mind, I’m already late.”
I step to the side so she can pass. When she’s almost out of sight I yell. “What business? You’re a damn nurse!”
She turns around and strides towards me in those eight hundred dollars shoes. How can she afford those on a nursing salary?
She comes closer and I feel the wall against my back. She puts one hand just below my breast and the other on the wall. I’m completely boxed in. Her mouth is next to my ear.
“Business which can get you in a lot of trouble, so if you want to stay alive you listen tome.”
My heart races.
“Like I said, we can talk about this later but not here and not right now. If you feel like obeying me and being a good girl, instead of acting like the brat you are now, Elio will pick you up at your place at seven and then we can talk.”
My knees tremble. She walks away and leaves me standing here in the dim lit hallway. What the fuck was that? No way I’m going into work after this little… Whatever this is that just happened. I make my way back to the main lobby, once I’m outside I grab a cab to get home.
My room is exactly how I left it this morning, messy but familiar. The sheets are tangled at the foot of my bed, a reminder that I tossed and turned all night. I should fix them, but I won’t. Not tonight.
I drop my bag onto the chair in the corner, right on top of the clean laundry I swore I’d fold days ago. At this point, I should just accept that my system is digging through the pile until I find what I need.
By the window, my little bookshelf leans slightly to one side, filled with a mix of medical textbooks, half-read novels, and a few notebooks I scribble in when my brain won’t shut off. On top sits the succulent my mom sent me when I moved in.
“It barely needs water,” she’d said. “Even you can keep this one alive.”
She wasn’t wrong, it’s still here, green, and as stubborn as she is.
My desk is mostly useless, except for the stack of unopened mail, my stethoscope, and my laptop, which I only ever open to check in on my sister Riley. She just started college, living in a dorm with a roommate she barely tolerates. I tell her it’ll get better, but I don’t actually know if that’s true.
Above my bed, there’s a picture of the two of us at the beach when we were kids, our faces sunburnt and happy. Next to it, one of my parents in front of the Golden Gate Bridge, smiling like they do every time they ask when I’m coming home. I tell them “soon,” even though I don’t know what that means anymore.
I sit on the edge of my bed, staring at my still-packed duffel bag half-tucked underneath. It’s been there for months, waiting for me to use it to go somewhere exotic.
Maybe soon. Maybe not.
I sigh, lean back against the pillows, and let the city hum outside my window. I close my eyes, listening to the muffled sounds of the city outside. A car horn. The distant hum of conversation.
I shouldeat something. I should at least change out of these clothes I’ve been wearing all day. But I don’t move. The weight of my own thoughts is enough to keep me pressed against the mattress.
I still can’t get those damn shoes out of my head. Eight-hundred dollars. How the hell does she afford those on a nurse’s salary? I can’t wrap my mind around it, but there’s something else that keeps gnawing at me. Something about the way she walked toward me, like she knew exactly what she was doing, knew exactly how to make me feel small without even trying.
And then… that moment. When she closed the space between us, my back pressed up against the wall, her body practically trapping me. I felt her hand just below my breast. Warm, firm, like she owned me. Her other hand splayed on the wall, just enough to keep me from escaping. Not that I wanted to escape. I couldn’t move. I didn’t want to move. I could barely breathe, and her mouth, her voice, so close to my ear, sending shivers down my spine.Business that could get you in trouble. What the hell does that even mean?
My heart hammered in my chest. I wanted to pull away, but I couldn’t. It was like I was frozen in place. She spoke with such… authority, like she knew exactly what I needed to hear, what would make my knees shake.Obey me, she’d said. I hated how easy it was to picture myself doing just that. Obeying her, being a good girl. The words echoed in my mind, and I hated how they made my pulse race faster. Hated how they made my body react before I could even think about it.
I should’ve been mad. I should’ve been pissed that she had me cornered like that.
Then, the doorbell rings.
I blink and sit up. My heart jumps in that half-second of confusion before my brain catches up. No one ever rings my doorbell. No one just shows up at my place.
