The Lion’s Mail Order Menage

Especially if it meant being allowed to spend more time with Caleb.  She didn’t need to belong to only him.  She just liked being around him.  He made her feel calm, there was that, but there was also a certain amount of intrigue, because there was something more to him.  There was a reason for the soft way he walked and the sad look in his eyes.  There was something to him that she hadn’t yet touched on and she felt this nagging need to figure out what it was.  If being with both men allowed her that opportunity, she was in.  That was all there was to it.

“I’m sorry.  I’m so sorry, Meena.  I shouldn’t have said anything.  I feel like a jackass.  Tyler, he thought it was better this way.  I shouldn’t have let him talk me into it.”

“Caleb, it’s OK.  Really, I’m not upset.  I understand it.  It makes sense and I’m OK with it.”

“You’re OK with it?”

“Yes,” she said quietly, feeling suddenly very insecure. “Does that make you think less of me?”

“No!  God, no, I’m sorry.  I’m glad.  I don’t want you to go.  I just don’t know how to do this.  I’ve never done anything close to this.  I just feel like a piece of sh*t.”

“Well, don’t.  That’s the last thing I want you to feel.  I like you, OK?  It’s that simple.  I like you and I want to stay here in New York City.  I want to stay here and I’m OK with this situation.”

“Sh*t, I’m glad to hear that and I’m glad that I got through that without puking on you.”

“Lord, so am I.”

“Can I ask a favor of you?  I know that might seem like kind of a lot, after what I just said.”

“Of course you can, if I can ask a favor of you as well.”

“Anything.  You can ask me for anything.”

“Even with things being between the three of us now, would it be alright if I kept staying here with you?  I mean, if it’s not too much trouble.  I’ve just moved so much and I like it here.  Noise and everything.”

“Yes.  No questions asked, yes.”

“Excellent.  Now what’s your favor?”

“I need to take you to meet some people, if this is going to work. Before I do, I need to explain some things.”

“Alright.”

“It’s just that the things I need to explain, well, I don’t think you’re going to like them.”

* * *

Meena felt like there was a good chance that she was still in shock.  She’d made it through the entire evening with what she hoped was grace, and yet she would not have been at all surprised if she woke up remembering none of it.

It had all started with Caleb’s revelation of what exactly he and Tyler did for a living.  It was something she had wondered about but if she had learned anything living under Victor’s tyrannical eye, it was that asking questions was likely to get a girl in trouble.  So when Caleb told her that he needed to tell her something she might not like but then followed it up by telling her that it was time to tell her the kind of business he and Tyler were caught up in, she was actually ecstatic.

She was finally going to learn something more about him than that he was gentle — finally going to learn something real. She hadn’t expected what he had to tell her.  Never in her wildest dreams would she have guessed it.

“So the man who put you and your friend up on that site where Tyler found you, what would you have classified his job as?”

“I don’t know,” she said with an uncomfortable edge creeping into her voice, “thug?  Bully?  Why do you ask?”

“Have you ever heard of a man named Geno?  Geno of New York City.”

Meena still wasn’t completely sure what they were talking about, but a cold feeling was starting to creep across her skin, leaving goosebumps in its wake.  She didn’t like the sound of this.  And although she couldn’t say why, couldn’t even say for sure that she wasn’t making it up, she was fairly sure that she had heard of Geno of New York. 

But why would she have heard of one specific New York man all the way from Moscow?  None of the reasons she could come up with seemed like good ones.

“I don’t know.  Maybe.  You’re confusing me, Caleb.  I can’t think straight.”

“No, please, I don’t want to do that.  That’s the last thing I want to do.  But I do have to tell you.  Geno, he’s been really good to me and Tyler.  He took us in when we were sixteen, showed us the ropes of his business.  Tyler went and found him, actually, when he realized that neither of our parents was ever going to get their heads out of their asses and take care of us.  He took us in, showed us how to take care of things.  We started working for him right there and we’ve done it ever since.”

“OK.”

“You just need to know that it isn’t a normal kind of job.”

“Of course it isn’t.  What kind of normal job goes to sixteen year old boys?”

“And do you know what he is?  Geno, I mean?”

“He’s a gangster.  He’s a New York mafia man, just like in the Godfather.”

“He is.  That just about sums things up.  Do you still want to stay, knowing you’re just trading in one gangster for another?”

“Of course I do.  This one is your gangster, not mine.  Just promise me something, OK?”

“If I can.”

“Don’t ever ask me to do any work for him.  I want to be done with the gangster life.  I don’t want to be bound to one anymore.”

“But that’s what I’m trying to tell you.  If you want to get technical, Tyler and I are gangsters.  I thought you deserved to know that before you really got involved.”

Meena looked deeply into Caleb’s earnest, kind face.  It was difficult to believe that he could be associated with mobsters in any way whatsoever.  Tyler she could see.  He reminded her of some of the men she had seen around Victor’s place, some of the young guys he had around to act as the muscle and do his dirty work.