Chapter 9
Beautifully desirable with the sun kissing her lithe, supple body, she stood waiting while I finished getting undressed, watching every movement I made, her glance caressing every part of me as it came into view, and the moment I was completely undressed she grabbed my hand and sank down on the soft sand pulling me down on top of her.
I wanted to kiss her stomach and her lovely breasts, but her bands grabbed my ears and pulled my head up, towards her face, making the rest of me move in and up against her, finding her and quickly joining.
"Come along. Hurry!"
She spoke the words hoarsely and a bit harshly, and then her lips tightened and all I could hear were the low rumblings in her chest. I tried to catch her mouth with mine, but her head was rocking violently back and forth and I could not nail her lips with mine.
As I found her and moved into her, she became a fierce, strong, hurting, wild and undulating fury, and the strange animal sounds were coming faster and louder, and I could smell the scent of her and it enveloped me and quickened me, and I wanted to hurt her and tear her and torture her he way some savage animal might torture its mate.
That's the way we did it.
Fast and furious and volcanic. Like a couple of wild animals. Then just as quickly it was finished and we lay spent and tired and worn out and using all the energy we had left to catch our breath.
Finally I moved away from her and stretched out on the warm sand beside her, feeling the soft, smooth and hot glow of her skin against my shoulder, hip and thigh. I kept my eyes closed against the glare of the sun while the drumming of my heart and the throbbing of my blood returned to normal again.
Before long I felt her moving beside me, discovered that I was no longer touching her, and the next moment a shadow had fallen across my closed eyelids.
"Mama Mia, Mama Mia," She kept saying, forcing the words out through clenched teeth.
Her face was registering pleasure, then contorted with pain, while the mass of long hair shifted and surged and swirled around her shoulders, around her neck and face, the shoulders twisting and turning and dipping while the muscles in her waist and thighs rippled and tremored under skin, while her hands stroked and touched and ripped my skin and I wanted to feel more of the pain and more of the pleasure, felt like dying, suffering a sweet memorable death, painful and excruciatingly pleasant, but every moment, every thrust, every bounce, every movement, I was willing and ready to die, if she wanted to kill me.
She came close.
And it was wonderful.
The volcano erupted and she tried to smother its fire, and its devastating violence, and with every scrambling effort her movements became useless and less vigorous and before long she crumpled, defeated, and yet extremely happy, and glowing, and very complimentary, and the frustrations were gone and there was relaxation and peace and serenity, and we slept after that, nude and happy in the sun.
When the sun finally slipped behind the mountain and shadowed us, we got dressed and made the long climb back up again and walked back to Santa Margherita.
Passing the sidewalk cafe I asked her, "Would you like a spot of tea?"
"No thank you," she said. Her hand found mine and squeezed it; and there was moist tenderness in her glance. "But I do want to thank you for everything." She frowned briefly. "I'll be thinking of you often, back at the University."
"You're going back to Milan already?"
"Tomorrow, I suppose. I'm very eager now to get back to my studies." Her smile was dazzling. "Cheerio, Christoforo."
She pulled her hand out of mine and hurried away.
"Angelina-"
She didn't falter in her stride and she didn't look back. I watched her lose herself in the crowd, and then I walked back to the hotel.
The way she'd walked away from me, I couldn't help but recall the way Trixie had walked out of my life. Twice.
Angelina was eighteen, and Trixie was twenty-one. They were basically the same. Attractive. Well-educated. Intelligent.
And they were uncomplicated. The basic instincts were there and they were recognized as part of life. When you were hungry you ate, and when you were thirsty you drank, and when men and women needed each other, that need was taken care of, too. No tears, no regrets, no shame, no excuses, and no recriminations. Partings were quick and clean, without tears, and without remorse or sticky consequences.
Honestly. That was the best policy.
As I unlocked the door of my hotel room I came to the conclusion that maybe European women had found the answer to all life's complications and frustrations. Then I thought about Zora, and my theory went out the window. Who in the hell could figure her out?"
Tonight I'd get at the moment of truth. To get ready for that I stretched out on the bed and took a nap.
All the fresh air, walking, and miscellaneous activity with Angelina had tired me out more than I'd realized. If the maid hadn't awakened me by coming into the room to turn down the bed, I'd probably have slept right through the night. As it was, I'd slept an hour longer than I'd planned.
I broke several records getting showered and dressed, and I still had time for a good dinner in the hotel dining room.
I scared hell out of three scooters on my way to Genoa, and when I parked the car I glanced at my watch. It was nine minutes before eleven.
The downstairs doors of Zora's apartment building were still open. I made the slow climb up the stairs, and then I waited several minutes to catch my breath before I rang the doorbell.
As on the night before she didn't answer my first ring, and so I leaned on the button a second time. I waited, and then I rang the third time. Zora didn't answer, and then it was obvious to me what had happened.
Chris Cody had been stood up.
I went down the stairs, getting more disgusted with myself with each step. Last night she'd probably already known how it was going to turn out tonight. She'd planned the entire thing, and at this moment she was probably finding me very amusing again.
By that time I was downstairs again, and I saw a short, middle-aged man, locking the front doors. When he saw me he studied me carefully for a moment and then he asked me something in Italian.
Or it could have been Greek. It was the same to me. I shrugged and tried to indicate I didn't understand.
Punching a finger at his chest, he said, "Portiere."
"I'd guessed that much. Maybe he knew the whereabouts of Zora. With a puzzled frown I asked, "Signorina Zora?"
He came over to the stairs, shoved his head back, and pointed straight up.
"No," I said.
"No?" he asked, peering at me.
"No." I repeated.
"Si, si," he said, jabbing the air with his finger. He muttered something in Italian about Signorina Zora; but I couldn't even guess what he was talking about.
He glanced at me, shrugged at me, and stared at me.
I stared right back at him and then I shrugged. After that I went outside and walked back to the car. The portiere either knew she was in the apartment, or felt she must be there, because he hadn't seen, her going out that evening. She'd known it had been me ringing the doorbell, and she hadn't answered.
I drove over to the Savoia and ordered a double Scotch and soda at the bar. Before I'd had my first sip I'd cooled off enough to write off the entire experience. I'd never find out what Zora was really like.
I took my time driving back to Santa Margherita, with the window rolled down to let in the cool, salt smell of the sea. On the other side of Nervi I came upon an accident and I waited more than an hour before the highway was open and the traffic began moving again.
Reluctantly I went up to my room; but when I turned on the light I realized that history does repeat itself.
There was another woman in my room.
Zora.
She'd been standing near the window that overlooked the sea. "Cherie," she said softly, coming towards me. Her arms came up wanting to embrace me, but I grabbed her shoulders and held her away.
"What are you doing here?"
"I've been waiting for you to come home."
Big deal. I stepped around her, walked over to the chair and shoved it aside. "That wasn't the way we'd planned it last night, Zora."
"I know." Her face was very sad and troubled as she went over to the foot of the bed. "But you understand my situation, don't you?"
Now that the shock and surprise of finding her there had worn off, I had an opportunity to take a good look at her. She was wearing a dark brown dress made of some soft and expensive material. It was cut simply, with her arms bare and the collar cut low and square in the front, and it fit her superbly. But on second thought, it might have been she who fit the dress superbly.
I couldn't pull my glance away from her, and she knew it.
Kick her ass out the door a little voice chirped in my ear, but it was drowned out by recollections of last night. Make her explain, I told myself, maybe she does have a good and honest reason for not being home tonight.
So I asked, "What happened tonight?"
"Certain things," she said quietly, "came up today. I had the feeling he might be getting suspicious about you and me."
"Who is he?"
"Does it really matter?" she asked. "Does it make that much difference to you-now that I'm here?"
"No." I hadn't really wanted to find out who he was.
"To prevent him from finding us together in the apartment, I thought it best that I come to you, my dear. You understand, don't you, what would happen to me if he found out that I was with you tonight-especially in his apartment?"
"I can guess," I told her.
"It would be the same as before. He would put me out and I would be like I was before, without papers and without an opportunity to live a happy life because I am a foreigner, not Italian." She shuddered abruptly. "I couldn't go through that torture-not again."
Now the anxiety in her eyes gave way to tenderness. "I'm sorry if I disappointed you earlier tonight. But there was nothing else I could do. There was no way to get to you any sooner.
At that moment my mind began coming to life, remembering what had gone on before, and what she'd said. Now I asked, "How did you know I was staying here?"
"I called the Savoia. They told me you'd moved out to this hotel?"
I'd tried to trip her up, but she'd had the right answer. I nodded, but there were a few other things still bothering me.
"Do you forgive me now, Chris?" She came towards me to stop a few feet in front of me.
The nearness of her and that stirring musky scent of hers in the perfume reached out and touched me and enveloped me again, and I began to feel the blood warming my body, numbing my limbs and brain.
I felt myself moving forward, vaguely wondering how the Greeks described the moment of truth.
She slid very slowly and pleasantly into my arms, swiveling all of her urgently as she dug in and willowed tight against me. Her eyes were closed and her lips parted slightly as I brought my mouth down onto hers.
That kiss lasted a lifetime, and with her snugged up against me, with her tongue busy and her hands working around my shoulders, down my back, up my sides, around my ears, and through my hair, and with my chest getting so clogged with wanting that I couldn't breathe, the back of my head feeling like it was going to explode, and I thought my pants would break open any moment. I began to work my mouth away from hers, and the next second she'd slipped away from me again and turned out the light.
Then she came back to me, moving silently and swiftly through the dimness, put her hands on the front of my chest and walked me backwards until I felt the edge of the bed against the calves of my legs. She shoved me gently downward until I was lying flat on my back on the bed. I sent out my hands, searching for her, wanting to feel her, all of her, her bareness, but she pushed my hands firmly aside.
"I will undress you, my dear."
I helped by kicking off my shoes while her hands unfastened the top button of my sport shirt. Her fingers pulled aside my collar, and then she lowered her head and her soft warm moist lips were caressing and nibbling at the V-part of my chest she'd just exposed by undoing another button. Then she finally went on to the next button and there was a newly-exposed area of my chest which her mouth began to explore, caress and kiss, working her way slowly and steadily right down the front of me.
I was going out of my mind because it felt as though I were lying in a bed of tacks and needles, all heated, hot and flaming and burning points, and she was now out of my reach and I couldn't touch her anymore, couldn't grab anything, couldn't hold onto anything, and the room began to twist and reel and tilt, then fogged up pink, then dark, then light (and finally a brilliant red that became uncontrollable.)
I came off the bed like a rocket, kicking a-side my trousers and shorts and ripping the shirt off my back, and then I saw her in the dim comer, the dress just coming off over her head. I got to her a split second later, vaguely noticing that her lovely mass of silken blonde hair was mussed up when she'd pulled off the dress, making her look wonderfully wild and wanton, and evil and exciting.
I went to her, finding her, and driving her against the wall, pressing myself tightly against her and she was smashing herself viciously against me in return. I could feel her churning and twisting and grinding below and there wasn't any cloth between us now, no shorts, no panties. Except that her breasts were still covered.
I got her out of that brassiere quickly, and then she drilled me in the chest with those two beautiful, hot, hard burning points. Then holding onto each other tightly and savagely, with lips burning and aching and smashing and mauling each other, we began spinning, reeling, staggering, as we made our way over to the bed, found it by feeling it against our legs, flopped onto it, rolled and tossed and shifted, until I was finally the commander.
In the darkness I found her, then found the deeper seething darkness and moved into it, feeling the heat becoming more intense as I ventured forward, the scent of her smothering me and making me dig deeper into that darkness, searching, trying, groping, accomplishing, no more trying, her back arching and straining and helping, helping, and I heard the crash, and the damned bed must have broken beneath us, both of us moving in unison in the darkness, together, together, groping, fighting, ignoring the bed that had broken.
It must have broken badly because we were now on a slant with our heads lowest, and then we drove towards the end of the darkness, the wonderful, breath-stopping, exciting darkness that wasn't darkness at all now but bright reeling daylight and cartwheels and somewhere in the distance I heard screams and shouts and wild muffled sounds that resembled the wail of a tortured cat on a misty night and I plunged forward to stop it.
I hung on the edge of a black void for several delicious moments, and then hurtled forward, and I got lost down in the bottom of a soft, seething, all-enveloping beautiful something that sheltered and engulfed me and comforted me because I was spent, and tired, and weary, and wonderfully relaxed, only a shell now because everything had gone out of me and found the sublime.