Chapter 8
The following morning, a little after ten, I was at the sidewalk cafe again, having orange juice, a couple of rolls, butter and jam, and coffee. It was a beautiful day. The sea was as blue and as clear as the sky, and the sun had gilded the mountainside with its golden warmth.
I'd almost forgotten my date with Angelina, and when I'd awakened it was already late, but I scrambled into my clothes after I'd shaved. I hoped now I hadn't missed her. While I ate, I sat there as I had the day before, and watched all the stuff going by.
Then in the distance I caught sight of Angelina, coming toward me, lovely and dark-skinned, carrying a small straw purse. Today she was wearing sandals, tan short-shorts, and a bright yellow sweater. No bracelets. No rings. And still no brassiere.
"Ciao, Cristoforo," she said, dropping her purse into a vacant chair and then sitting down at my table.
"You look absolutely lovely this morning, Angelina."
"Not sexy?"
"That too. Very sexy."
"Good." She looked up at the waiter who was looking down the front of her sweater. "Espresso."
After he'd reluctantly turned away, she said, "What a glorious morning."
"How about some breakfast, Angelina?"
She shook her head, making the long dark hair swirl around her shoulders. "I never eat breakfast. You go ahead and finish yours. You'll need your strength with me."
"What's the schedule?"
A vertical frown line appeared briefly between her eyebrows. "Don't you remember?"
The waiter had brought her espresso, and now he was standing beside her, still enjoying the front view of Angelina. She leaned against me and the next moment she was whispering in my ear.
"I want you to make love to me until I tell you to stop." Her breath and lips tickled. Straightening up again she said, "And don't be a sticky wicket about it. I'm counting on you to drive a-way all my frustrations."
"Well, you can count on me," I said.
Her long slim fingers were ripping open the tittle envelope of sugar. Now the waiter walked away.
She asked, "Then you meant what you said yesterday? And your promise a moment ago?"
"Every word of it."
"How utterly exciting."
"How was the party last night?"
"Stimulating. We talked about man and his disadvantage when coping with the moral code."
"That's all?"
Her glance was sympathetic. "My dear, we didn't even finish. The discussion will resume again tonight."
"I see." I'd finished eating, and now I concentrated on my coffee. "That gives us all day together."
I saw the wonderful wanting creep into her lovely eyes as she looked at me, and then she clenched her teeth as the agony overwhelmed her. "Mama Mia," she finally said.
I was beginning to feel some pain myself. I shoved aside my coffee cup. "Come on, Angelina."
"Where are we going?"
"We'll find a spot. My hotel room."
"Oh, not now."
"When?"
"Later."
"What do you want to do until then?"
"We'll think of something," she said.
She began by taking a stroll to Paraggi. We followed the narrow road out of Santa Margherita, walking along the left edge of it to face the oncoming traffic, and alertly jumping off the hardtop every time a vehicle came towards us. The outer edge of the road was the steep and jagged coastline of the Mediterranean itself.
All the cars and scooters moving along the road honked every time they came around a curve, and because the road was nothing but curves, they were honking all the time.
After we'd walked about a quarter of a mile we suddenly came around a sharp curve, and a big sign fifty yards ahead announced that we'd arrived at Paraggi.
It was a magnificent sight.
The village consisted of fewer than a dozen buildings huddled at the end of a small narrow cove, with a small parking lot on one side of the road and a tiny strip of sandy beach on the other side.
At that point there was an open-air restaurant and, extending from it along the northern edge of the cove, was a row of beach cabins. The colors were fantastic. Bright reds, light blue, bright greens, and vivid yellows were the cabins and the umbrellas and the chairs and the tables and the awnings. The sea was a hushed bluish-green hue because of the reflection in the water of the steep and lush green hills that cupped it.
"You like my Italy?" Angelina asked.
"I pity the people who are color blind."
"Come on," she said, taking my hand, "let's go for a swim."
Some of the people were sprawled out in beach chairs under their umbrellas, and a dozen or so were swimming around in the cove. There were a few small rowboats tied up and available for rent, as well as the double pontoon affairs made of light wood, with a wooden seat on them, and equipped with a pair of oars.
Angelina was positive that the latter was exactly what we needed, and I rented a white one. The man told me he'd put it into the water while we changed into our bathing suits. I ducked into a cabin and pulled on a pair of trunks I'd brought along while Angelina disappeared into another cabin.
When I came out Angelina had already changed, and she was waiting for me.
Sylph-slender and as brown as a pecan, she stood at the water's edge, looking out at the sea. To describe her as wearing a snow-white bikini would have been an exaggeration, for she was wearing two tiny scraps of white cloth. The one around her chest completely failed to cover her goodies. The scrap of cloth below fared slightly better, but not much.
I stood in front of her and took a good look. "Mama Mia," I said.
She laughed, showing fine white teeth. "You are going to turn out all right." Then she bent down and shoved the pontoon boat into deeper water. "Let's get aboard our yacht, Christoforo."
I sat on the wooden seat while I rowed out of the cove. The entire thing was a bit lop-sided because Angelina had stretched out on her back on one of the pontoons. The weight of her pushed the pontoon down so that she was submerged in a couple of inches of water, with her long hair floating darkly alongside the pontoon as we moved away from the shore.
A motor boat skittered by about a hundred yards distant, and when the ripples kicked up by it finally reached us the little waves jumped over her ankles and legs and got in between her thighs and caressed them gently. Angelina stretched her arms out alongside her head, letting her fingers trail in the water while her beautifully slender, lithe body twisted and squirmed as though I were scratching her back.
Unfortunately, I wasn't.
I was busy rowing and feeling the sweat running down my sides, burning from the shear sight of her, and maybe from the sun, too.
By that time we were completely out of the cove and almost a mile from shore. Angelina suddenly got to her feet and balanced herself briefly on the pontoon. The next moment she dived off, piercing the water as cleanly as an arrow, and disappeared.
I dropped my oars, stood up on the seat, and then dove in after her. I felt the wonderful first quick-chill shock of the water, then the next layer of warmer water, and finally the cool depth of it. I opened my eyes, not really expecting to see Angelina because I'd gone much deeper than she had.
I Shot up to the surface and when my head came out of the water I looked around for her.
I didn't see her. Then I understood.
While I'd been submerged she'd evidently came up and dived in again. On the seat she'd tossed the two pieces of her bikini.
A second later she surfaced beside me, one hand holding onto the pontoon while the other one swept the mass of hair away from her face. Her happy face was wet, and the silvery droplets of water were clinging to her shoulders and the mounds of her lovely breasts.
They were just below the surface of the clear water, and I could see that they were keen, sharply-pointed, standing out straight from the front of her, wonderfully firm and chocolate brown in color and looking like two sculptured cones.
"I say," she said, "it's like heaven down below."
I went out for her, hoping to get the feel of heaven, but she slipped away from me and disappeared in the water. I tried to find her, all of her, in that wonderful world of blue, but she was a fast and elusive swimmer. I spent some time trying to catch up with her, but I gave up when I ran out of breath. I swam back to the yacht, sat on a pontoon and let my legs dangle in the water. The two scraps of white were still on the seat. Sooner or later she'd have to come out of the water. I wanted to see how she managed that.
She managed it very easily.
She crawled onto the front part of the opposite pontoon, and then she stood up, balancing herself with her feet.
She was a goddess.
The tanned, lusty body glistened in the sunlight and the drops of water clinging to her sparkled as brightly as diamonds. The muscles in her thighs and abdomen rippled under the velvety skin as she knotted the end of the cloth at her hips.
Italian women usually have tufts of hair in their armpits and a mat of it on their legs. Angelina was an exception. She'd shaved all over.
The next moment she'd slipped the other piece of white around her chest and knotted the ends in back. She glanced over at me. "Good show, what?"
All I needed now was the changing of the guard. I said, "May there always be an Italy!"
She settled down on the seat and picked up the oar. "I'll row back to shore."
I let her row for a while and then I took over. She relaxed on the seat beside me, fluffing out her hair occasionally so that the sun would dry it. We decided that when we got back to shore we'd walk to Portofino for lunch.
We had white wine, rice with bits of mussels cooked in it, and fresh shrimp, fried in their shells, their hot aroma making my mouth water.
"Delicious," Angelina said.
"I'm with you."
"All the way?" she asked impishly.
"Don't you forget it."
After we'd eaten we took a walk around the tiny harbor. It was full of fishing boats, sailboats, motor boats, a few cabin cruisers, and there were seven glistening yachts anchored in the bay.
We walked along the shore and saw the white-coated waiters moving about the decks with trays of food and drinks, serving the guests who lolled under the umbrellas in their bathing suits while music played in the background.
"Now, that's living," I told Angelina.
She shook her head. "I venture to say they are all spoiled, pampered, and sexually impotent."
"Really?"
"The last stage of moral decline is owning a yacht."
"What a way to decline."
"Are you really envious of them?" She paused to peer into my face.
"Not really." Now that she'd made me think of it seriously, I felt no envy. I was having a wonderful time. Then I remembered Zora and the night before. That was the only disappointing part of the last few days. But there was always tonight.
Angelina asked, "How about going out for a long walk?"
"We've been doing that all day."
"It'll do you good," she said. Then she smiled. "Strike that. It will do me a lot of good."
"I'm ready. Do we walk on the water or in the hills?"
She'd already started climbing a set of narrow stone steps. "When in doubt, go up," she said.
We climbed the steps slowly, pausing often to get our breath, and to look down the side of the hill onto the harbor. Finally the steps became a faint trail in the woods, and eventually we were on top of the hill.
This time when we rested, all of Portofino was spread out far below us, and the yachts now looked no larger than rowboats and the people walking about resembled insects. The Mediterranean was that clear deep blue, and occasionally a speed boat sliced through the water, cutting a foamy white wake. In the distance we could pick out a few white specks that were sailboats, and very far away there was a black spot that must have been an ocean liner.
The trail we'd been on led up to a lighthouse that was situated on the top of the hill that jutted over the sea. There were a number of sightseers here, just as we'd met and passed many on the steps and the trail leading up here. Now Angelina slipped her hand into mine and we turned to the right, walking slowly westward, and generally following the back of the ridge we'd just climbed.
We were off the beaten path and the number of other sightseers began to diminish, and before long we didn't hear or see anyone else. We wandered aimlessly through the woods, and whenever there was a break or clearing in the trees, we were able to look down the south side of the ridge. It was quite steep, and far below us we could see the water and the huge, jagged rocks of the shoreline.
Angelina's hand squeezed mine. "Do you want to go down there?"
"If we go down we'll have to make the long climb back up."
"I know," she said quietly. "That's why no one ever goes down there. It is peaceful and beautiful, and quite deserted.!'
So we climbed down the steep side of the hill, taking our time and searching out the faint trails that made walking easier. About a half hour later we were at the bottom, at the level of the sea, moving through a mass of huge boulders.
It was wonderfully quiet with no sound at all except the occasional scratch of my shoe soles and her sandals as we moved forward. The awareness of being alone with her made my heart beat faster, and it must have touched her too, because she began to squeeze my hand more tightly until I could feel pain in her grasp. Without saying a word we both began to look for a spot that we needed and wanted and had to find quickly.
We found it a few minutes later. It was a small cove, formed by the big rocks on the seaside and the steep side of the hill. About a hundred feet above us a sharp outcropping edge of rock blocked out any view from above. We moved silently into the sun-warmed oval.
Suddenly Angelina stopped, and her glance swept the area. "Mama Mia."
Her voice was very throaty, about three notches below its normal level. "Beautiful, wonderful world."
Her arms crossed at her waist, the fingers grabbing at the bottom of her blouse. "Get undressed. Hurry."
The blouse came off, over her head, and the shorts, dropped from her waist, and she'd stepped free of her clothing long before I could get my clothes off.