Chapter 3
The lover
"Edward." Bella was breathless, unable to proceed.
Oh, I'm drowning, she thought, I can't breathe. She grasped again at her question. "Edward. How did you know my name?" Edward smiled, looked away from her for the first time, glancing down the street to their left.
Bella followed his gaze, and felt again that surge of adrenaline, this time from excitement, and pleasure.
Not twenty yards away was a piece of art in chrome and fiberglass, black like his clothes, black like hers.
Bella's father was an auto mechanic, and she knew her cars, but this was not a vehicle with which she was familiar. The lines of the car seemed Italian.
Without meaning to, without even thinking about it, she moved forward, looking over the car. Classic styling wrapped around a modern dash with air conditioning, an eight-speaker stereo, and scooped bucket seats. The prancing horse gave it away: Ferrari. It was immaculate. The convertible top was open, and she could smell the leather from six feet away.
"What kind is it?" Her voice was a whisper, and she realized that he couldn't possibly hear her. She had moved away from him, and had not heard him follow. Yet when she turned, he was behind her, and he smiled again, a predator's smile, beautiful and dangerous like his car.
"It's a Ferrari Five-Fifty Barchetta or it was when I purchased it. I've made some upgrades." Edward said.
Bella was again taken aback by the quality of his voice. She did not know the words tone or inflection, and might not have used them if she did.
There was something inexplicably aged about the way he spoke, yet the man who stood before her could be no more than five or six years her senior.
"Barchetta," she echoed, peering at the tires, the lights, the smooth curves of the wheel wells and powerful side scoops of the doors, the reflection of the city lights in its flawless shine.
She wanted to ride in it. Oh, yes. She thought at that moment she wanted this more than anything before in her life.
Edward took her hand now, and again that flash of fear and desire. He led her around to the passenger side, opened the door, and gestured for her to sit down.
Bella let out some sound of disbelief. Surely this was not right. She was a whore. A junkie. A thing to be used and discarded.
This car was beyond her, above her, in some other world. Edward only pressed gently on her shoulder, still smiling his dark grin. Bella sat down. The leather enveloped her like a second skin.
Edward shut her door, and Bella took the seat belt in a daze, buckled herself in. Edward sat down next to her, turned the key, and glanced over at her as the engine roared to life.
"Are you ready to leave?" He asked. The finality in his voice caught Bella's attention, the stress on this final word unmistakable. The words she had been about to say caught in her throat.
She swallowed hard, unable to speak, an indescribable emotion welling up inside of her.
Looking up at him, grinning, laughing though tears had sprung to her eyes. She nodded her head, emphatic. Yes, she was ready to leave. Yes, she wanted to leave. Yes.
Edward's smile became a wide-toothed grin for one brief moment, and there was something strange about it, but it flashed and was gone too quickly for inspection.
He put the car in gear and gently reversed, pulling out of his parking space and aligning the car. He revved the engine once.
Bella glanced down the street and to the left, and saw that Jessica had come outside to sit on the stoop and smoke a cigarette.
The younger girl was watching Bella and her client with interest. Look at me, Jessica, Bella thought, I'm ready to leave. Jessica seemed to sense this. She grinned and waved.
Edward stomped on the gas pedal. Bella was thrown back in her seat, unable to contain a laughing cry of fear and pleasure and joy, joy like she hadn't felt in years.
Edward took her through Brooklyn. He drove as if anticipating not only every traffic light, but every possible interaction with anything at all.
Never braking, never needing to swerve, he cut through traffic, making every green light, changing lanes before it even became apparent that he needed to.
He guided the car with preternatural ability, at speeds well above what should have been safe. Bella enjoyed every moment of it.
"Where are we going?" she asked at last, unable to sit quietly. She was too excited, nervous, and full of something approaching manic glee.
"Food." Edward glanced at her. "Nice place. You'll like it."
"Food?" Bella asked, bemused.
At its core, she knew well that evening represented a business arrangement. Never before had a client taken her out for food first.
Never before had a client done much of anything other than what was expected.
"Food." Edward nodded, and smiled his strange smile. Pulling away from East New York now, moving west.
Four miles, maybe five, the neighbourhood began to change. Brownstones replaced chop shops; the streets grew tree-lined.
High-end restaurants, Italian and Japanese and Turkish, packed with young men and women, sprung up.
Bella watched them, jealous of these people out eating and drinking, going on dates, living their normal lives. Edward made a left turn and continued down the street, the car drawing stares from everyone they passed.
They don't know who I am! Bella thought. They don't know who I am! They just know I'm in this car. Not herself, not the whore, not the slave. Not the girl who fucked for money and to earn the drug she could no longer live without.
Just an anonymous girl in an amazing car with a handsome young man. Was this who she was supposed to be? Was this what life was supposed to be like?
Sudden emotion, so strong it was nearly pain: here only a few miles from where she lived was a world just beyond her grasp, a world that she would never have.
This night would end. This pleasure would not last.
Bella took a shuddery breath, fighting back the onslaught of depression, the coming of tears. Edward slowed the car, looked over at her.
"Don't." Not a request, not a command. Almost a piece of advice. Bella looked up at him.
"I can't help it," she said. "I'm not used to this."
"Then you should focus on enjoying it." There was no sense of emotion behind Edward's words. He continued to look at her with his casual, nearly disinterested smile.
"I can't think like that."
"No?"
"I'm just a–"
"Stop." He cut her off, suddenly intense, the first time she'd seen his face animate, his expression change. He pulled the car over the side of the road and turned again to her.
When she met his eyes, they seemed to pull at her, draw her in, command her entire attention. She felt her heart speed, her breathing deepen. Fear? Lust? She couldn't be sure; she knew only that she could not look away.
"Who you were yesterday, this morning, two hours ago is immaterial. Understand that. Believe it. I do not choose to measure your worth by past actions. Of all of the women in this city that I could be with tonight, I am with you." Bella considered this.
"Why am I here, Edward? You don't need me. There's no way you need to pay for what I'm selling."
"Does it matter? Is it worth worrying about? Will it change what is?"
"No." Bella said, and was somewhat surprised to find she meant it. She felt the grip of despair loosen.
"Good. We're here." Edward gestured to the right of the car. Bella saw that they had stopped in front of a small Italian restaurant.
There was a raised terrace in front, where people were dining under heaters, their tables covered with long white cloths, silverware resting beside china plates. Most of them had turned to stare in amazement at the Ferrari.
"Does it bother you that everyone is constantly staring at your car?" Bella asked, stepping out onto the curb. Edward grinned.
"No," he said. "It keeps them from looking at me."
The restaurant was dim, lit by small sconces on the wall and by candles flickering on each table. It was warm, and smelled like herbs, garlic, and oil.
The woman at the door raised an eyebrow at Bella's appearance, but another woman behind her recognized Edward and quickly ushered them to a table near the back.
Edward requested a bottle of wine with an Italian name and watched Bella as she studied her menu, seemingly uninterested in his own.
The waiter returned with their wine, and Bella regarded it for a moment with a small amount of trepidation. Beer she knew, and hard liquor, but wine was a new experience, and she wasn't sure what to expect.
The drink, a Chianti, bit gently at her tongue and spread warmly over it. Bella smiled, relaxed. Edward nodded slightly at this, as if to himself.
"Good?" he questioned. Bella nodded.
He smiled, sipped at his own glass, and watched her with his preternatural calm.
"You look lovely," he said at last. Bella felt herself blushing, a reaction she would not normally have expected from herself.
Compliments from clients were common, nothing to be surprised at. This, though, felt heartfelt. More to the point, it seemed as if Edward was truly enjoying her as a person rather than an object.
She smiled, lowered her eyes, and took another sip of wine, unsure how to respond.
A waiter arrived, asking if they were ready to order. Edward waved him away, saying he didn't want anything, directing the attention toward Bella.
"Whatever you want," he replied to her questioning look. "Don't concern yourself with me, I'm not hungry."
Normally, Bella would have demurred, insisted that she couldn't eat if he wasn't going to, that she would feel odd. Normally, that would be the truth.
Tonight she was hungry, and felt at ease, as if she could do or say anything with Edward. Around him, she felt both as odd and as completely natural as possible.
She ordered chicken with angel-hair pasta in a red-wine sauce. The waiter took their menus and left them alone.
Edward sipped again at his wine, his eyes glinting above the glass, never leaving Bella. They were quiet for nearly fifteen minutes. Looking, drinking, and enjoying the air, the wine, each other's presence.
Edward did not prompt her for conversation, and Bella did not volunteer. The silence was oddly comfortable, nearly intimate. She seemed to fall into Edward's eyes, as if they need not talk, as if he knew what she would have said. Finally, Edward broke the silence.
"Where are your parents?" The question should have upset her, sudden and personal as it was, but Edward had delivered it in a tone which belied any judgment. It was nothing but a simple question, and Bella answered it as such.
"One's dead. The other might as well be."
"And this man who … employs you? What of him?" a slight sneer, not directed at her.
Bella laughed slightly, turned her eyes down momentarily, not from embarrassment so much as because it seemed she should.
"I hate him."
"Have you any friends?" At this, Bella looked momentarily pained.
"A few. They're … We're …"
"Estranged?"
"Something like that." Edward nodded, regarded her again with inscrutable calm. "Why do you ask?" Bella couldn't help it. She wanted to hear it out loud, wanted to know if the intentions he seemed to be so clearly communicating were true. Edward shook his head slightly, looked away for a moment, smiled his maddening smile.
"The food is here," he said, glancing over her shoulder. So it was, and it was very good. Edward watched her eat, sipping at his wine.
Bella had subsisted for years on instant noodles, microwave burritos, and fast-food value meals. She relished the pasta, with its dark wine sauce, full of tomato and garlic, herbs and oil, tiny bites of chicken.
This was the best meal she had ever eaten, but she didn't eat a lot, ever mindful of the fact that this evening had a predetermined end. Sex on a full stomach had never been something she enjoyed, and for once Bella wanted to enjoy the act.
She felt a connection with Edward, too strong to ignore, and found herself looking forward to the rest of the night, whatever it might bring.
Dessert, a light pastry with exquisite dark chocolate hidden away inside, came all too quickly and with few words spoken, dinner was over.
Bella noticed that Edward paid for his dinner in cash, and that the tip he left appeared extraordinarily large.
Ferraris, fancy restaurants, gigantic tips. A life unlike anything she had ever experienced. It was fascinating.
"What do you do for a living?" she asked as they left. Edward smiled, said nothing, and held the door open for her. Bella sat down. "Come on. I'm curious. Are you mafia or something? I won't mind." Edward laughed.
"No, not that."
"Then what?"
"Let's just say that I've had a lot of good training on how to invest, from someone who's done it for an awfully long time." Edward backed the car out. Bella mused for a moment, and then laughed.
"Will I get any straight answers from you tonight?" Edward's eyes gleamed.
"Anything's possible." Whatever response Bella might have had was swallowed by the rush of wind as the car roared into motion.
The road, again, and that same feeling of complete control emanating from Edward.
They moved west on Flatbush Avenue, crossing over the Manhattan bridge and into Chinatown.
Edward cut a haphazard course across the island, avoiding heavy traffic and eventually joining with the fast-moving, late-evening traffic on the island's western side.
They passed Trinity Cemetery, and Bella thought again about sitting at her window and looking out over the rows of gravestones, waiting for death.
Right now those moments seemed far away. They left the city and began the drive north through Westchester County along Route 87.
This was further out of New York than Bella had ever been before, and she supposed she should worry about how she would get back to Brooklyn, but found it difficult to care.
She was racing along the highway in a Ferrari, the distance between her and her unsavoury past widening at nearly a hundred miles per hour and, for the moment, everything felt right.
Edward neither spoke, nor turned on the radio, but simply drove in silence.
It seemed to Bella that he was giving her this opportunity to enjoy the car, the ride, the night.
A small idea, not unwelcome, began to grow within her mind: Bella thought that he was also allowing her the time to say goodbye.
They were cutting over west, again, now on Route 17, following it along the lower border of New York State.
Edward left the highway sometime before Binghamton and raced off on a back road, through the woods, in the dark.
The Ferrari was now the only car around, traveling fearlessly, speedometer hovering at more than double the posted fifty-five speed limit.
Bella filled with fear, energy, and a strange excitement that had something to do with the car and even more to do with its driver, lay back, eyes closed, feeling the wind rush through her hair, dragging it out behind the seat.
"Faster?" Edward questioned, and his voice was a whisper cutting through the noise of the wind, the sound of the engine.
"Yes!" Bella cried, knuckles white against the hand-hold moulded into the door.
Edward stepped on the clutch, shifted rapidly, and stomped again on the gas pedal. The Ferrari's engine roared to life, throwing Bella back in her seat.
Terrified, unable to stop laughing, she tried to watch ahead for curves, deer, other obstacles, but couldn't help peering at the speedometer, watching it rise. And rise. And rise.
The needle moved past 150 miles per hour, and Bella, still laughing, still terrified, shut her eyes.
We're going to die, she thought. We're going to die and I don't care, because I'll be in a beautiful Ferrari with good food and wine inside of me, and I'll be with Edward. I'll die with him, and then it won't matter. No one will know. I'll just be the girl who died in the Ferrari.
But they didn't die, and finally Bella felt the car losing speed. Edward was easing off the gas, bringing the car down to a normal level.
No more danger, but the joy remained. Bella wanted to kiss him. She felt warm in her belly, between her thighs, places she'd sometimes thought dead since starting to work for Mike.
Edward looked over at her, as if hearing these thoughts, and Bella gave him a radiant grin. Was he ready?
She asked him with her eyes. Told him with her eyes: It didn't matter that he had paid for her. She wanted it, badly.
Her clothes seemed hot and scratchy, cumbersome. Edward stopped the car at the side of the road, nothing visible for miles but trees and sky, and Bella's first, confused thought was: But … there's no back seat?
Then she laughed at herself. Edward was already getting out of the car. Whatever this was, the Ferrari was not a part of it.
So guys what do you think?
This is my chapter… what do you think Justin will do with the next?
The more reviews the faster the chapters come!