Marc woke with the
distinct high-pitched siren of an Italian police or ambulance, the see saw of
two notes back and forth that told him he wasn’t in the States. For a brief
moment, he thought perhaps he could be back in Afghanistan.
She
was draped warmly across his chest. He opened his eyes to see if she still was
as beautiful as he’d remembered her earlier in the day, and found she was
watching him already.
“Wish
we could talk, honey. I’d tell you how beautiful you are. I’d tell you that you
make me hot all over again just looking at you, and because you don’t
understand, I’d tell you that the way you make me feel, well, I’d be
embarrassed to tell you this, but I—I haven’t felt this good in weeks.”
She
smiled and touched his lips with her palm, softly silencing him. He ached to be
able to talk to her, and knew, from the position of her head and her eyes that
demurely looked down to his chest that she did too. He saw more than a little
sadness there when she fixated on him again and he found her eyes had watered.
It was reflex, he knew, but his did too.
He
glanced away quickly and covered his face with the back of his forearm. She
began to trace the frog prints, then the scar on his left side where he’d taken
a glancing round. Her small fingers found the line under his left chin where
the Afghani soldier had tried to garrote him and had paid for it with his life.
She
kissed all those places, bringing his arm off his face to kiss every frog print
one by one as well. When she was finished, neither of them had tears in their
eyes. Her strong face in the afternoon sunlight splashing on the stucco walls
of her little place would be something he’d remember forever. The mystery woman
who turned his life around and who didn’t even know what gift she’d bestowed.
He
watched her well-toned and tanned body cross the room, stopping to open the
refrigerator. She pulled out a large bottle of water, put it to her lips and
threw her head back taking a long sip. Her profile with her pert nipples on
ample breasts rising above her flat tummy, contrasted to her powerful thighs
that had hugged him just as surely as her arms had when he made love to her—it
was such a perfect picture he nearly gasped.
She
held the bottle up, and yes, he nodded. He wanted some. He didn’t care if she
poured the ice water all over his body, he’d stay the course if it meant she’d
love him again. She motioned to his mouth and tilted her head back to tell him
she wanted to pour the water there. God, yes, he would. He opened his lips and
she straddled him, pouring the liquid carefully on his tongue, diverting some
of it to her mouth as well. Tiny trickles of water fell down his neck and cheek
onto her pillow. The dampness accentuated the perfume that arose from her
bedding.
Her
mouth was chilled but still sent a hot shudder through him as she tongued her
way inside him. Sharing a water bottle had never been sexier. She drank some
and then poured it inside from her mouth to his.
He
sat up and forced the water bottle from her hand, setting it firmly on the
floor. He threw her on the bed and pinned her beneath him.
“Namo?”
he demanded.
She
giggled and shook her head.
“Namo,”
he insisted.
She
pointed to her temple as if she’d forgotten.
“Nah,
nah you’re not going to play that game with me. You have a name and I want to
know who it is before I fuck you again.”
“Fuck?”
she said with her Italian eyes widening. “Ah, Englise.” She pointed to her
temple again.
“Yea,
you understand the word fuck, but not name? Namo, dammit.”
She
laughed, arching those impossibly beautiful breasts into him, her fingers
playing with the long strands of her hair. He was getting annoyed she wouldn’t
tell him what he obviously wanted. Her eyes flashed as she danced with his
heart. As she wrapped his waist with her legs, daring him.
He
knew it was best to keep the woman happy. But it irritated him she was playing
with him so obviously. As he plunged in, perhaps too needily he rocked her bed
loudly with his thrusts. The windows shook and something fell to the floor,
like a picture, and broke. She laughed and he kept pumping her to oblivion.
Until she stopped laughing and then ran her palms over his shoulders and upper
arms, back up to his face, tracing his lips, as he drew her fingers into his
mouth and sucked them.
He
kept up the desperate action of his hips as if he could make them both fly away
somewhere, somewhere they could speak together. Somewhere he could tell her
what she was making him feel, so he could hear it from her mouth what she felt.
It became important, urgent.
He
could already tell when she was going to orgasm. She sucked in air and that
long wonderful rolling cry, riddled with the sounds of their flesh slapping
against each other filled his heart with music.
I can take you places, baby. Places you’ve
never seen. Give me half a chance and I will worship the ground you walk on,
even if it’s only for this glorious afternoon. I want you to smell me in your
sheets and call to me and I’ll come to you. Again and again. I’m coming to you,
baby.
They’d
dressed after a long shower and more play. He knew it was a tiny bit of grief
creeping back in. Separation was a problem for him. The cappuccino helped.
Their affair ended the same way it began, on the Piazza overlooking the boats
with sirens still dotting the early evening air. He smelled like her lemon
shower gel, but his insides wore her aura like a warm blanket he would never be
rid of.
As
he watched her walk away down the streets, noticing she didn’t turn around to
say goodbye, he thought perhaps he saw her hand up to her face, but wasn’t
sure. He knew, with the cruise leaving in the morning, and her refusal to give
him her name, there was no future there for them. He did have her address. He’d
written it in his little notebook. He’d try a bouquet of flowers, maybe a
letter. Perhaps they could write, have someone translate. Perhaps the long
distance would help them become friends first, though god knew they were well
suited for each other in bed. He’d never felt so complete with her.
He
got the book out to find the page, just as she turned the corner and was gone
from sight. Opening it to the place where he’d written her address was
something she’d written in Italian.
And
underneath her words, she’d written her name,
Sophia.
