He led me out to a café on the square. I started to order a cappuccino but Dino held up a hand in horror. “You must never drink a cappuccino after eleven in the morning.” He told me off as if I was a small child. “It’s wrong, milk after food, no no…” He practically wagged a finger. He ordered me a caffè macchiato caldo—a short espresso topped with a little hot milk. “Is like a mini-cappuccino but not so evil for your belly,” he said, rubbing my tummy as I tried not to wobble on buckling knees. “I cannot tolerate even a macchiato after eating. Milk after food is just not done.”
I realized now that the look on Kicca’s face when I’d ordered cappuccinos after lunch on our trips to Italy had been barely contained horror and that her not stopping me had been a great act of love.
He threw back his espresso in one gulp. I sipped at my macchiato, watching him in the middle of the square, smoking a cigarette and talking on the phone. His eyes never left mine. I went out to join him.
“We are so near Siena that it would be a tragedy not to go,” he said. Then he frowned. “The problem is I have a meeting in Florence in one hour, and we don’t have time to do both.”
“Oh, don’t worry, another time,” I said, trying to hide my disappointment. “Let’s go back!”
“Maybe I can rearrange the meeting…”
“Really, it’s up to you!”
“Well, it depends…” And he gave me a long look that hit me in the pit of my stomach.
“On what?” I asked, suddenly shy.
He looked at me, his head cocked to one side, a half smile playing around his lips as he took a step deliberately toward me.
“On this…Baciami, amore!”
There, in a pool of sunshine in the middle of the square, he wrapped me in his arms and, finally, he kissed me. Birds sang and a breeze fluttered through the trees. I clung to him, melting into this most delicious kiss. It felt like it went on forever.
When we eventually came up for air, he licked his lips with relish and gazed at me. Then he kissed me again, lightly, as I struggled to catch my breath. “Now I cancel…”
Once he had made his phone call, we were elated, like children given the day off school. We ran back to the car. He reached an arm toward me and I shifted myself to land in the crook of his shoulder as he drove, kissing his cheeks, his neck, his lips as he steered. At each red light we kissed for so long the cars behind us hooted to break us apart. The road climbed up approaching Siena’s city walls, the glowing countryside falling away behind us in sun-filled valleys, sparkling in the light. His hand rested on my knee and I sighed audibly. He waved his other hand out the window. “My country, amore.” He presented it to me with pride, a Tuscan man in his landscape.
I am in love, I thought.
Siena seemed made for Dino and me that glowing afternoon. Now that we had finally kissed, we couldn’t stop. His lips seemed made for me, his body the perfect fit for mine, and his warmth and affection were so familiar and yet so thrilling that I couldn’t believe we were not lovers yet. Perched in that delicious place between burning desire and its fulfilment, we had eyes only for each other. Siena’s steep medieval streets may have been thronging with admirers, but we hardly noticed them. He held me close, dropping kisses on me like butterflies as we walked. I was not prepared for the beauty of Siena’s campo, the vast round center, a space flanked on all sides by tall medieval palaces, pierced in the middle by a tall, skinny tower rising out of the monumental edifice of the Palazzo Pubblico. It was gorgeous and dramatically different from Florence’s beauty, and I stood and admired as Dino indicated the various buildings, explaining that this large round space was used as the racecourse for the Palio once a year—Siena’s famous horse race.
“I will bring you, amore!” he promised. “In the summer…”
We settled at a table in the square, both putting on sunglasses against the glare. I hung on his every word and he held my hands and kissed each finger in turn. I was dazzled: by him, by the day, by the campo, and I couldn’t keep the smile off my face. An elderly American couple at the next table leaned over and asked us to take their picture. Oozing Italian charm, Dino took the camera and snapped them while making them laugh, giving them—as he told me later—at least one story of an encounter with a real Italian—“not a waiter singing ‘O Sole Mio’ ”—that they could return home with. Taking back his camera, the American man suggested taking a picture of us with my phone. “You should have a picture, you guys look like movie stars!” he said.
That’s exactly how I felt sitting next to my handsome Italian man in our dark glasses, his arm slung easily around me, our smiles luminous—I felt as glamorously Italian as he looked. And I felt like a star, like I radiated allure.
The rest of the afternoon was a massive flirtation through Siena’s narrow streets overhung by tall palazzos. We necked in every alleyway like teenagers, browsing the shops, taking in the cathedral with its flouncy decorative façade, Dino regularly breaking away to talk on the phone before coming back to me to kiss the inside of my wrist, stroke my hair. By the time we left, the sun was setting and the day was turning cold. I gave an involuntary shiver. Driving out of the city gates, circling our way down the hill, the sun was sinking slowly in the valleys below us, the light gilding the landscape, a perfect reproduction of the scenery in every Renaissance painting I had seen in the Uffizi. Dino stretched his arm out and I moved in close, drinking in the scent of him.
“Amore, you are cold!” he declared dramatically.
Amore, I thought, blissfully. I am his amore! He had called me amore before, but now it felt real. Was there a nicer word in the Italian language? I wondered. I assured him that I was okay, but now he had taken it into his head that I would catch a chill if he didn’t immediately rectify the situation. The Italians, I had noticed, were not only not stoical about the rain, they had a mortal fear of catching chills. I had lost count of the number of times Cristy had pulled my scarf tighter around my neck, that Antonio in the market had pulled the collar up on my coat. Dino was no different.
He swiftly came off the motorway and went down a small road, pulling over to park on the verge of a narrow country road. “Eccolo!” he said, helping me out of the car. I had no idea where we were.
Below us a series of small waterfalls fell into a natural pool, steam rising from the white bubbling water into the darkening sky. The rotten-egg smell of sulfuric water engulfed us. A few people were arranged in the rocks over which the water tumbled. “Come, amore, we take a bath. This will cure you of the cold, they are hot mineral waters, they make sure you don’t get sick.”
“Dino, but what do we wear?” I cried; we had nothing with us.
“Boh!” He threw up his hands. “Underwear?”
For a moment I paused. “Perhaps we should come back another time. I mean…” What did I mean? I was not yet ready to take off my clothes in front of him. I felt really shy.
He stopped my words with a kiss. “Shhh, amore, don’t stress…we have fun, okay?” He started shedding his clothes and I followed suit, peeling off the layers quickly and following him as he ran through the chilly air and into the warm stinking waters. The water was blissful, cloudy, and quite hot, the smell at first almost overwhelming but the feel of it soft against my skin. We paddled around the various pools, finding small waterfalls to lie under, letting the water cascade over our shoulders. He swam around me, coming to lie between my legs where the pool was deep enough for the water to cover us, touching and stroking me all over under the opaque white steaming water, pushing his body against mine, kissing me until I was panting. Meanwhile, night fell and the moon rose bright, the steam rising like mist. Soft warm water lapped at our necks, the sounds of the night chirped around us. He was still caressing me under the water, whispering into my ear, “Amore, bella…” while I gasped.
Eventually, he pried his body away from mine. We were quite alone. With a thick voice, Dino suggested we leave—“If not is too much. Ma amore, quanto sei bella…” We ran out in
to the cold air, our bodies actually steaming with the heat of the mineral water, so warmed from the waters and our passion that we did not feel the cold, and he handed me a couple of cashmere sweaters he had found in the back of the car, saying: “We have no towel, use these, they are old samples…”
I actually pinched myself. Here I was with an Italian playboy in the velvety Tuscan night, being kissed out of my mind and drying myself on cashmere. Drunk with desire, we stumbled back to the car, where he wrapped my wet head in his orange hunting shawl, pulling it tight around my shoulders: “You must not catch cold,” he said, kissing me all the while. Lying back in my seat, I watched the lights of Siena pass on the hill, the country around us dark and alive, my brain a mush of contentment.
As we drove, the moon illuminated a hilltop settlement that rose up like a mirage. “Monteriggioni!” Dino pointed—a medieval fortified village, circled by perfectly preserved walls punctuated by watchtowers, lit up like a theater set. I expected Rapunzel to appear at the small window in one of the towers. “Amore, you must be hungry. Florence is far, let’s stop here for dinner.”
I acquiesced. This date, this day, seemed to be going on forever and I was happy for it to. I wanted to stay in this dream for as long as possible. We entered through the city gates into a medieval piazza edged by splendid stone buildings with terra-cotta roofs, lit up and deserted. At one end of the square there was a restaurant and at the other a hotel. We looked at each other and the question hung unspoken between us. He tucked my hand in his arm and led me to the restaurant. As we ate a typical Tuscan dinner of wild boar pasta and bistecca, he consumed me with his eyes, his look reminding me of our passion in the pools of Petriolo, the feel of his skin, silky and stretched over hard muscle, and I longed to touch him again.
Reading my thoughts, he said, “You know it’s getting late…there is a hotel there…Maybe we should stay.” He was forcing a casual tone into his voice. “I am tired and is a long drive,” he said, watching me carefully.
I busied myself with my food, suddenly self-conscious. In the moment he had said what I too had been thinking, I suddenly craved the comfort of my apartment, sitting warm in the corner of the sofa with Giuseppe’s shadow on the wall opposite. I looked around the trattoria with its boars’ heads and hanging legs of ham and, desire turning to inexplicable panic, I wondered if I was safe in his hands.
He frowned at my silence, his face clouding over. “Vabbé,” he said and shrugged. “Let’s finish our dinner and then you can decide.”
I smiled at him shyly.
“Anyway, you have already decided,” he growled, an edge to his voice. I shifted uncomfortably. “Women always do. But is okay, you can pretend for now…”
It was the first bum note and anxiety gnawed at me. Surely I should be allowed to apply the brakes if that’s what I wanted? Or had I already gone too far? I picked at my food, confused, and he excused himself and went to the bathroom. Quickly I pulled out my phone and texted Giacomo the Pizza Boy, telling him that I would love to have lunch the next day—he had been asking me out ever since our pizza date. I added casually that I was being a tourist in Monteriggioni and to send a search party if I didn’t reappear, adding LOL. I stuffed the phone back into my bag. This way, should Dino turn out to be a crazed killer, someone would at least notice my absence the next day and know where to look for me. It was a sensible thing to do. Especially when Dino suddenly felt so dangerous.
When he came back he had regained all his charm and we savored dinner, washed down with superlative red wine. The wine relaxed me and when we fell back out, giggling, into the piazza, he led me to the hotel. “Let’s see the price, amore, if it’s reasonable we can stay.” He had made the decision.
The receptionist looked at me narrowly over his glasses—no suitcases, no passports. I wanted the ground to swallow me up. When Dino came and took my hand, I noticed he had also managed to procure two toothbrushes, packaged with tiny tubes of toothpaste. Without a word, he took me up to our room, waiting for the receptionist to leave before pushing me forcefully onto the bed. Any protest stayed in my throat as he maneuvered his body onto mine, kissing me all over, his fingers mapping my body as somehow my clothes came off. He stood over me then, naked, his torso smooth and muscled, his arms beautiful and strong. “Bellissima sei,” he murmured, his elegant tapered fingers cupping my breasts, circling my waist, dipping between my thighs, his body engulfing me. The conflagration was intense—no Sex du Soleil, this was deep and serious, all playfulness gone, his eyes never leaving mine as he moved above me, pinned me down, and held my wrists.
I swooned under his kisses all the while struggling against the force he was using, instinctively fighting him back, not sure if we were playing or battling each other, but this made him more insistent, more rough, and he pushed himself into me as I gasped, clawing at him, biting his lips, digging my nails into his back, drawing blood. “Give in,” he whispered, his eyes boring into mine, “amore, give in, you are mine. You cannot win!” and as I lost myself to his rhythm, I gave in. It was only in the early hours, as we lay exhausted, his back raw from my scratches, his lips bruised, that he grew gentle again, holding me to him tenderly, muttering “amore mio” into my neck as we lost consciousness, entwined.
* * *
—
“Luigo, it turns out I am easy after all!” I announced as I walked into the bar the next evening.
“I knew there was a reason I loved you so much, bella,” he said without missing a beat.
As I described the twenty-four-hour date with Dino, Luigo whistled. “Well, well,” he marveled. “He really is a hunter!”
“What do you mean?” I demanded. I had not mentioned his forcefulness; in fact, I had skimmed over it in my own mind; he had been so tender the rest of the night that I convinced myself I had just misunderstood the strength of his passion, and how it had brought out my own wildness.
“He brought out the big guns, no?” Luigo waved the ubiquitous tea towel around. “Fashion, Siena, the hot baths, Monteriggioni! No wonder you couldn’t resist!”
“Luigo, I am in love!” I twirled around the empty bar. “I know it’s early days but I really am in love!”
“What you are feeling, bella,” said Luigo sternly, “is not love. Trust me, this is not coming from here.” He put his hand on his heart.
“Oh, shut up!” I put my hands over my ears and shook my head, singing loudly: “lalalalaLA I can’t hear you…”
“Va bene.” He hugged me. “Enjoy, bella. It sounds like a lovely story.”
* * *
—
Dino and I were speeding along the Lungarno to “a little family place you will love.” He had come to the apartment straight from work and we had spent so long making love that he was worried we would be too late for dinner. “Amore, we must eat something light,” he announced as I poured myself into his car. “It is late and our stomachs cannot take pasta at this hour.” He rang ahead to order. “Omelets with fresh carciofi—how you say”—he paused to think of the word. “You know, the vegetable with a heart.”
I laughed—even vegetables had a heart in Italy! “Artichokes?”
“Siiiiii, amore,” he drawled, reaching over to stroke my cheek. “You are clever as well as beautiful.”
The trattoria was in a tiny side street behind the loggia of the Uffizi, right by the river, at the foot of the Ponte Vecchio. It was cavelike, reached by steep stairs that descended into a small cellar crowded with tables, the walls lined with bottles of wine. Dino was greeted warmly by the owner, who showed us to the end of a long table in the corner lined by benches. The omelets arrived immediately, fluffy and creamy, filled with fresh artichokes—they were now in season, I was told, as he poured me a small glass of wine, urging me to try it, dressing a salad of tender raw artichoke with Parmesan, tearing up chunks of bread with which to mop up the egg. He sat close to me on the bench, our shoulders touching as we ate. Only after we had finished did he ask pointedly about my day. I told
him I had seen Old Roberto on the street, and done a little writing, danced with Luigo in the bar.
“And Pizza Boy?” He was watching me. I had confessed to him in the morning that I had a lunch date with the guy who had tried to split the bill, lied that it was long-standing.
“Oh, well, we had lunch and then I went home. That was it,” I said airily.
“Did you kiss him?” His eyes bore into mine.
“Nooooo!” I cried, but my expression flickered and he gasped dramatically.
“Amore, you kissed him! You are a terrible liar!”
“Oh, okay, but really he just kissed me at the door and then I ran away, honestly. That was it.” A flash of something I interpreted as pain shot across his eyes before he adopted an impassive expression. I took his hands. I felt awful.
“Dino, oh dear, no, I am sorry,” I said quietly. “It isn’t like me, I promise. Please forgive me.”
“It’s really not my business, amore, if you want to play it like that…But don’t forget I play the game very well, maybe better than you…”
“Oh, no, I am not playing, it’s not a game. I have hurt you and I hate myself,” and I burst into tears of regret. I was filled with foreboding, a sudden terrible fear of losing him.
He softened, taking me in his arms and wiping away the tears. “Don’t cry, my Kamin. Is nothing. But promise, from now you kiss only me.”
Bella Figura Page 10
