Somehow, miraculously, they survived. When Dario was old enough he left home to study to become a priest. It was their mother's fondest dream that he do so, and she refused to even consider that he work to support them instead. At least it was easier with him gone, as there was one less mouth to feed. But Adriana's health was fast eroding, and she found it more and more difficult to do laundry. Anna's job at the Roma Hale literally saved them. It paid far from a splendid wage, but finally set things on an even keel. She continued to live at home in order to help stretch the income: every week, she handed her paychecks over to her mother. She knew it was up to her to give her mother the financial support which had been lacking in the household for so long.
And so it was that her ambition was fueled. Not by greed, but by the lack of basic necessities which they had suffered for so long.
If I'm the one who is chosen to go to New York to take the Management Training Course, and if I become assistant manager at a princely salary, then we can finally get out from under Cousin Fabio's thumb once and for all. Then I can finally chase away the bleak ghosts of hunger and wretched despair.
Oh, but everything depended upon so many ifs. And there was still never enough money to go around, she thought despairingly.
Sometimes, she was under the impression that no matter how hard she worked, it was still futile, as if there were a bottomless drain in the house down which every last, precious lire swirled. Not that her mother wasn't careful. Far from it. Adriana Vigano scrimped and saved every last lire till it bled. She mended old clothes and, when they started to fall apart, mended them all over again. She haggled for groceries and bought days-old loaves of bread. But the years of poverty had taken their toll, and now Adriana had fallen ill. Doctors were expensive; specialists even more so. And then, a year ago, just before Anna had started work at the Roma Hale, she herself had had to be hospitalized. All because of Amedeo Battistello.
And the way she had fallen for him.
2
Amedeo.
It had been a year and a half since she had met him. God, how she had come to hate him! But she hadn't hated him in the beginning. He had dazzled her, and she had fallen head over heels in love with him.
She had been sixteen years old at the time and just finishing her last year of school. It was one of those chance meetings which could never have been arranged. Every afternoon, when school was over, she would take the bus to the Parioli District and pick up a bag of the Pegrones' laundry. Every morning, on her way to school, she would drop off the finished laundry which had been washed, dried, and carefully pressed, then packaged in brown wrapping paper and tied with twine. 'As professional looking as any expensive laundry's,' Adriana would say proudly.
Anna had to get up very early to get the deliveries done on time, because the tenement was located far from the exclusive district which was a favorite with industrialists, film stars, diplomats, and the likes of Cousin Fabio. One morning, after she had dropped off the laundry, she rushed out of Cousin Fabio's building, afraid she was running late, and collided with a tall, handsome stranger.
'You're in a terrible hurry,' he said, grabbing her by the arms to keep her from falling.
'I-I'm sorry, Signor,' she said hastily, lowering her eyes.
'It is I who should be sorry.' He smiled then. 'Or perhaps not. It isn't every day that a man encounters such a beautiful young lady.'
She stared at him for a second or two, caught off guard by his flashing eyes and the touch of his hands. He was young, tall and broad, and his dark, well-cut suit and white silk shirt were custom tailored. The striped, black and tawny-yellow tie matched his dark hair and predatory cat's eyes. His nose was prominent, and his lips were soft and sensuous. His gaze and touch set off warning bells in her head, and she quickly pulled away from him and began hurrying down the sidewalk. She heard quick footsteps behind her, and then he was at her side again, easily falling in step with her long-legged stride. He smiled at her. 'I have a car. Can I give you a lift?'
She shook her head and kept her eyes riveted on the sidewalk in front of her.
'We should be friends,' he said equably. 'I mean, we are, after all, practically acquainted, aren't we? Bumping into each other like that?'
She stopped walking and turned to face him. He was grinning, his teeth perfect and white against his swarthy tan. Off to one side of his upper lip he had a tiny, freckle like mole, odd and dashing. His skin was stretched tautly across his high, almost Slavic cheekbones, and his eyes seemed to reach out into hers, and she felt her mind go blank, then spin with wild thoughts.
He seemed cultured and cultivated but exuded an air of peril and adventure. Although he looked to be in his early thirties, he had an irresistible, easy, boyish charm about him.
'I have to go,' she said with sudden vehemence, jerking herself back from that mesmeric countenance. 'I'm late.'
'Wait.' He caught her arm. 'I don't even know your name.'
She took a deep breath. She could feel the pulse in her temples, the slight clamminess of her hands. He was so close that his face was mere inches from her own. She could smell the sweet perfume of expensive soap, and the even more expensive, crisply masculine fragrance of eau de cologne, but she never felt his fingers on the thin, tan sweater she wore draped over her shoulders as he tugged loose one of the brass buttons. While he held her gaze he slipped it into his pocket.
'Really, I must go,' she said finally, almost sadly. As she walked away, her low heels clacked an ever-quickening beat until she was half running. When she rounded the corner she stole a glance over her shoulder. He wasn't trying to follow. She slowed down and let out a breath of relief.
And felt curiously disappointed.
That afternoon, when school let out, she returned to Cousin Fabio's building to pick up the day's bag of dirty laundry. She kept her eyes peeled for the stranger, but he was nowhere to be seen. Again, she felt let down somehow.
That night, lying in the narrow bed in her tiny, humid room, she stared up at the ceiling for what seemed like an eternity. She had trouble going to sleep, but she had no trouble imagining those hypnotic eyes burning into hers, the tiny mole near the corner of his mouth, and those white-white teeth gleaming in the dark. She found herself fantasizing about him until she finally fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.
By morning, she had all but forgotten him. But after she dropped off the Pegrones' laundry and left Cousin Fabio's building to head to school, there he was, leaning nonchalantly against the downstairs door, a crooked grin on his face. He held up a hand, and a brass button caught the sunlight and glinted brightly.
'Oh, you found it!' she cried with delight. 'I was wondering where I'd lost it.' As she reached out for it, he playfully held it beyond her reach.
'You can have it on one condition.'
She looked at him wordlessly.
'You'll come and have an espresso with me.'
And so it began.
Amedeo Battistello. How easy it had been to fall for him! He was so unlike any of the young men in her mean, tenement-strewn neighborhood. He was sophisticated, wore well-tailored clothes, and always seemed to have a crocodile wallet full of money. He drove an expensive little Alfa Romeo convertible while the boys in her neighborhood just dreamed of owning cars. They struggled to hold on to low paying menial jobs while he worked for his uncle, a producer at Cine Citta, Italy's answer to Hollywood. The boys in her neighborhood had their fun, but were expected to find a nice girl, get married and have children. Building a family was one of the few things Amedeo never seemed keen to discuss. The one thing he did have in common with the young men around whom she had grown up was that peculiar, hungry look in his eyes.
She found herself rearranging her schedule in order to meet him. She started leaving her books at home, and hiding the Pegrones' laundry in her school satchel. She never told Amedeo who she was and he took it for granted that she lived in Cousin Fabio's building. She lied about her age and claimed to have a job. She liked the fanta
sy of being someone other than poor Anna Vigano, the daughter of a widowed laundress. It was, after all, a harmless deception. Nobody could get hurt by it. Could they?
At first Amedeo took her to sidewalk cafes for espresso and cake, or a cool glass of wine, usually on the Via Sistina, which passed by the top of the Spanish Steps. They sat in the piazzas, walked along the Tiber, or tore recklessly around Rome with the convertible top down. He took her far from the cloying smells of greasy cooking and the infestations of rats. He was glamour and wealth personified, and seemed part of another, more beguiling world. She believed implicitly that he was the most exciting man alive.
Then he told her that he wanted to take her home. But because he lived in the building next to hers, he instead took her to the Hotel Hassler, atop the Spanish Steps. It was there that she lost her virginity.
When he'd signed them in at the reception desk of the Hassler for the first time, the desk clerk had looked at the scrawled registry, smiled politely, and called her 'Signora Battistello.' She'd blushed proudly, pleased as a genuine newlywed that someone would even consider that she, Anna Vigano, could belong to someone as extraordinarily handsome and rich as Amedeo Battistello. How many times during the past few weeks had she tested the name Battistello silently on her tongue, savoring the mere sound of it?
But then, everything about Amedeo was wonderful. He brought out a radiant glow in her which seemed to change her entirely. She had always looked mature for her age, but now she seemed positively sophisticated. At first, she had been afraid to make love, but with Amedeo it was anything but the lascivious, purposeful copulation about which coarse jokes were constantly bandied about in the tenements. How often, on hot, humid summer nights, with her window open, had she unavoidably heard the grunts and groans coming from the other windows facing the courtyard? But it was never like that with Amedeo. His love making was a graceful, tender ballet full of passion and promises.
That first time, he had led her upstairs slowly, then whispered her name and taken her in his arms. The door was locked and the shutters closed, so that the late afternoon sunlight streamed through the slats into the semi- darkness. She had watched his every move, her heart hammering with excitement while a terrible fear gnawed into the flesh inside her belly. This was her first time, and she knew it was wrong to be with a man like this before she was married.
But the man was Amedeo. How could it be wrong? Theirs was a love so powerful that nothing else mattered.
As his strong arms held her, any hesitation she had left evaporated, seemed to drain visibly out of her. Her lips trembled, dry with a mixture of anticipation and dread. She'd heard the stories of how much it hurt the first time, but Amedeo was so kind and gentle and loving, she couldn't believe the stories were true.
He bowed his head to the side of her neck, his lips forming a gentle little kiss, a whisper of desire. His hands caressed her arms and breasts, then coursed down her sides to her thighs. Through her thin cotton dress she could feel his touch tingling across her flesh. She swallowed, shut her eyes, her lips parting. She was unable to resist the surge of passion she felt when she savored the fact that he, Amedeo Battistello, was doing these things to her, bringing such a prickling, intense heat to her body and an ache to her soul.
Slowly, almost reverentially, he unfastened the buttons at the back of her dress, and then he parted the fabric and pushed it down off her shoulders. It glided, whispering softly, down to her ankles. She stood in silence, her cheap, coarse slip out of place in the soft luxury of the room.
'Anna. Anna.' His lips were at her neck again, his tongue flicking moist, warm little circles against her skin. She felt his fingers stroking her shoulders, brushing at the nape of her neck, coiling her long blonde hair around them.
'Anna.' His voice was a bare ghost of breath as he pressed himself, still fully clothed, against her half-clothed body. She could feel the quickening of his heartbeats merging with her own. She inhaled the intoxicating aroma of his eau de cologne mingling with the even stronger, more tangible masculine smell of him.
'Anna.'
She trembled as he held her face in his hands, kissed her deeply, then paused, to slip out of an item of clothing before kissing her again and helping her shed another piece of her clothing. Finally they stood facing each other naked.
She averted her gaze in embarrassment, but he took her face back in both hands and whispered, 'It is beautiful. Don't be ashamed.'
She still could not face him.
'Look at me,' he commanded sharply.
She forced herself to do so, tears sparkling in her eyes.
'Look,' he whispered more gently as he took two steps backwards, as straight-backed and proud as a dancer.
As though hypnotized, her eyes swept from his face downward. He was well-muscled, but thin and wiry, and it surprised her. When he was clothed, he seemed broad because of his wide shoulders. He was tanned all over, except for a thin, white bathing suit line; by contrast, her own body was sadly pale. His chest was curly with wiry coils of black hair, making it seem even darker, and the pelt reached down his belly and gathered force at the thicket in his groin. His penis was large and superb, hard and dark red.
'Anna.' His voice was a whisper that roared in her ears. She lifted her gaze and stared straight into his eyes. He stepped forward and pulled her into his arms, pressing her fully against his nakedness. His body felt so warm and hard, so unyielding and different from her own. And oh, how the touch of his flesh seemed to sear into hers.
She felt his hot tongue exploring her mouth, filling her with warmth and wild abandon as his penis pressed hotly against her belly. Her nipples grew erect, aching for his hands and his lips, longing for him to take her.
He placed one hand under each of her buttocks, lifted her and carried her effortlessly over to the bed. He laid her down gently, as though afraid she might break, and crawled atop her. His thumbs and forefingers kneaded her nipples while his lips and tongue caressed every inch of her body, bringing the surface of her skin to tingling, vibrating life.
She arched her body and sighed a breathy kind of moan as he began to enter her. Instinctively, she clamped her muscles together against the unfamiliar intrusion, but then she began to experiment, to open herself up for him, to welcome him into her most private and precious place. Her eyes stared up at him, wide and luminous.
He pressed his erection more deeply against her, sending little shock waves down her spine, until he met the obstruction of her hymen. He stopped and looked at her in surprise. 'You're . . . a virgin?' he asked.
'Go ahead,' she whispered, smiling faintly. 'I want it. I want you.' She reached up with her fingers to stroke his cheek.
He prodded at her twice, but her hymen was unyielding. She tensed in anticipation and with a hard, brutal thrust, he tore into her. Pain exploded in front of her eyes, a searing fireball red in the center and flaring outward into yellow ragged circles. But the starburst gradually faded, and Amedeo transformed it to white hot desire.
She found herself instinctively raising her hips and working her torso in a purposeful rhythm to meet his own. Her pelvis rose and swayed against him, bringing delicious waves of burning pleasure. She drew her legs up, bending her knees and opening herself wide.
He thrust deeply into her then, drawing out each stroke at an ever quickening pace so that she sucked in her breath, swallowing the exclamations of surprise as wave after heated wave engulfed her. This was an explosion, a coming alive she had never even dreamed of before. She was enveloped in wanting and lust, in hotness and pulsing. For this, she knew, she had been born, just as in every massive thrust there was a little death.
Suddenly, he gave a sharp cry. His body arched, and she felt him lunging yet deeper into her as he clutched her and filled her with a throbbing explosion. His head swooped back, his eyes pressed shut, and he jerked uncontrollably.
Both their bodies were coated with a veneer of sweat. He sprawled panting atop her, his breath labored and his penis small
. She felt as though her mysterious insides had survived a most delicious assault. The room was dimmer. The glowing horizontal zebra stripes cast by the shutters had disappeared as outside a cloud scudded in front of the setting sun. Even now that it was over, their thumping heartbeats seemed synchronized.
From somewhere below on the Spanish Steps drifted the faint, muted sound of lovers laughing.
That first time was like no other. It was a time when the joy of discovery and exploration was as intense as the burning of their passions and desires. It was the moment she had stepped over the threshold into womanhood.
Everything had been so beautiful, so filled with pleasure, so softly clean as they lay on the freshly laundered sheets in the late afternoon sun. She had never even given a thought to pregnancy, then or in the months that followed. She didn't want to spoil what they shared by even thinking about it. Naturally, she had heard whispers about prophylactics. Even if the Church forbade their use, they were available. She had never seen one and the only time she had mentioned it, Amedeo had scowled and said he didn't like using them. And besides, who could give a thought to consequences in the midst of such delicious, overwhelming ecstasy?
After that first time, they had met regularly twice a week, always at the Hassler Hotel, and it was on one of those eight heady occasions that their baby was conceived.
She told him about it on a bleak day of thin light and steady rainfall. She had battled with her emotions for weeks, unable to come to terms with her pregnancy or even to tell him about it. Every time she had tried, she had lost her courage and instead tried to forget in yet another afternoon of passion.
LoveMakers Page 38