by Diana Cachey
“My name is Antonin. Your friend, Marco, sent me,” he whispered. He made no attempt to cover up for which Louisa gave another silent nod of gratitude.
She stepped closer then remembered she was supposed to seek guidance before acting. She started to speak but he gestured for her to be quiet and pulled her to the window. He pointed to the canal.
Not exactly the answer to my prayers, but go with it, she reckoned.
She leaned squarely up against him then wrapped an arm around his waist, that tempting, tapered one.
He felt her desire rising so he moved them both away from the window where he pulled his pants a little further down to reveal those, those whatever those lines are, those muscle things that go diagonally from the hips to the important region.
“Spetta mattimo,” he whispered, “wait a minute,” or something like that, and he pressed his hips against hers.
“Prima, guarda la,” (First, look at this) he said and nodded towards the window.
At the same time he glided her hand to the place where those diagonal lines from the hips seem to direct anyone willing. Her spot touch proved he was willing too. He pulled her back to the window with her arm still clamped around his waist. Really, how much could they do in this attic before the elf-man came checking?
In the priceless words of Erica Jong, she’d already had her zipless fuck with this man anyway, the minute her hand brushed his groin. And now she wanted a cigarette.
He glanced sideways, saw the spell he’d cast, the pleasure he’d given her.
“My dear, we’re not finished yet,” said his eyes.
She looked out the window, not because she was interested in anything inside or outside the room other than the parcel he’d delivered into her hand. She looked out the window because whatever instruction he gave to her, she intended to follow.
Below in the canal, she observed a typical small fishing boat painted bright red, yellow and blue. Also typical, the boat was outfitted with large cooler in the back, panting dog in the front, two fishermen and stacked crates inside. Something else was in there too. Louisa moved forward to get a better look but the bare chested Antonin pulled her pack.
“Attenzione,” he murmured.
He maneuvered her strategically. Louisa could spy on the boat but not be seen and have his eager parcel pushed up against her from behind. She could hardly take it and didn’t much care what else, uh, what else was in the boat. Antonin began to kiss her on the back then down both sides of her neck while explaining what was in the boat.
“Molto male, questo raggasso.”
Louisa thought he’d said, “The boy is very sick.”
“Guarda,” he said in be between kisses and licks that migrated down her back, as if by his telling her to look out the window, she’d forget that a complete stranger was seducing her.
He stroked her outside her clothing, made his way in soft swirling motions around her nipples that moved to her belly button. He eased his hand inside her pants, hitting the spot with bulls-eyes precision. He fluttered his fingers and lapped at her neck in alternating motions, first her neck then her lower back, then neck, then lower still. All while he explained an apparent ghost message and gave her the next clue.
“The answers, mmm, the answers you seek, are in the boat and with that boy, that boy and his sickness,” he whispered through ragged breath.
It amazed her how he managed it, but if interrupted, they couldn’t really be seen from either behind them in the store or from outside the window. He moaned in her ear while she moved her hips forward and back to assist him in his work. He didn’t stop too soon and it didn’t matter that he was forced to stop momentarily to pull her further into the attic. She felt terrible doing this with a stranger but she wasn’t doing anything. He was doing everything.
“Mi amore, mi amore,” he said.
Did they always say, I love you, like this, every time? With complete strangers?
It reminded her of Matteo and his conning her into believing their gondola episode in the canal was making love when it was gondola porn, which had also been staged there by other lovers. Recalling this about Matteo turned her switch off, right in the middle of an astounding episode of attic porn.
Her thrift shop porn, her second hand porn. Her second hand porn? Yes, that was it, second hand porn. Probably not his first hand job of the day.
She wiggled her way out of his grasp. When she faced him, his beauty struck her so hard in the belly that she almost forgave herself for the indiscretion.
He didn’t seem upset by this turn of events. He didn’t use that puppy dog face, the poor me look that young Venetian men were so good at, that all men were good at when a woman stopped the action.
He did cast the spell-binding words one more time, those words overused by Italian males but rarely invoked by American men.
“I love you,” he said with thick accent.
She wanted to scream. She felt hot then awful. How had she let this happen?
He embraced her, tried to comfort her, while managing to pull his arms into the Armani sweater that apparently belonged to him, not the thrift shop. He buttoned any buttons his skilled hands had unfastened on her clothes. He kissed her in a loving and innocent way, as if he to say he was sorry he’d gotten carry away.
How is that even possible? For him to be sorry he seduced her? He is Venetian.
Some Venetians hold private competitions for this sort of thing and they share stories of daily conquests, rate the women starved for romance. Many females don’t care at all that they were part of a buffet line. Why should they? These men aim to please, flatter, feed egos and fantasies. As one member of the police department dressed in Valentino uniform had once said to her: “We provide many services.”
The man standing before Louisa had provided his service and replaced his tight cashmere sweater. He tucked a piece of paper with his phone number and address into her hand, curled her fingers over it then kissed them.
She looked at the number. Sure enough, he was from Burano. And he looks like Richard Gere, she thought.
“I will help protect you,” he said, this time in almost perfect English. “They sent for you, I know. We have a future together, not only with finding the answers you seek regarding this new sickness and death here in Venice, but beyond solving the mystery.”
She closed her eyes to envision the warning letter sent from what claimed to be “The Venetian Ghosts.” She wasn’t supposed to fall in a canal, in love or into Venice itself. As usual with Louisa, she hadn’t heeded the advice. She’d done all three. As if she had a choice. When she opened her eyes, Antonin was gone.
Next to her in his place sat a fur hat, similar to the one with which the Oriental woman had done her grab and go before Louisa could get to it. Similar but different. A different color? Fur-type? She wasn’t sure but it was perfect for her and cost the perfect amount, which it displayed on its tag, the first time she’d ever seen a price tag in that shop. One euro.
Like the enchanting Burano man had accomplished with her body upstairs, Louisa did another fast grab and go. She took her new fur hat downstairs, paid the one euro and left.
The smoking nuns in furs had puffed right through both grabs.
It is time to make my mark. I may have to intervene. Shakes things up. Stoke the fires. Although certain fires, like the flames of passion between my female American friends and these Venetian men, don’t seem to need any more kindling.
What do I do? Do I appear to the King, rob his sleep, steal his serenity? That’s so middle ages. But isn’t it a bit like medieval times here where we float in the stunted, lagoon, lunar vortex? A tilted city practically built on stilts.
I sound bitter. I suppose I am. I am faceless, pink dust to which few of them pay any heed.
I chose my own path. Ashes to ashes, dust to pink dust. Killed the past, killed the messenger. I did it all. To myself.
I floated lazily down the Grand Canal in a box, not a coffin, oh bloody no, not a cof
fin, no I made that quite clear. That kind of box would’ve been more secure that the one I ended up in. I thought it would be more peaceful -- finished, final.
Little did I know. The box that held me on that boat ride to the palace was a music box. Why did she do that to me? Didn’t matter. I went from music box to a silver platter quite quickly, too quick really, a pile of dust. Then finally into the lagoon waters. Canals I now cannot escape!
Floating ashes. Floating is overrated.
Well, maybe not. Maybe I can go to a Carnival ball in a gondola. Many of us do, although I usually don’t like to think of myself as one of them, the Venetian Ghosts. I suppose I am one. A new one.
A new Venetian Ghost.
That would make a great title. No. No, it wouldn’t. The new Venetian Ghost would just be a silly character who appears to the King, the King of her heart. The ghost himself shall never rule the land or her heart.
I could become famous that way. I could become one of the world’s most famous ghosts, this new Venetian Ghost.
I could be. But how?
Under the care and precision of the gondolier, Massimo’s boat glided through the first canal in dark silence. With nothing around them but crisp air and old buildings, whose foundation dove down into gray-green waters, Barbara sensed the faint wakes that slapped at the canal walls lining their route.
But she didn’t hear a thing. She couldn’t see the sky above her with its black ceiling of cloudless vapor. Massimo’s chest heated her body. Her cold hands rubbed him under a blanket of velvet. His lips wetted her dry mouth. His tongue tingled her lips and swept across them. Back and forth.
His fingers wiped off her wet lips then opened her mouth. His lips met hers. He glided his tongue into her mouth in the same gentle way his gondola moved through the narrow channel.
Massimo retrieved his tongue, and as he did, he touched her lips again with his, sucked on her lower lip then nibbled the top one. He looked at her, shifted his hips and pulled her onto him. Her form conformed to his form. She leaned back, pushed her pelvis further onto him, wrapped her legs around his sides. She didn’t move. His neck cradled into her neck. The gondolier disappeared in their minds. There were only two souls in a misty moment.
The gondolier turned his paddle, kicked off the side of a building and forced their boat to emerge from a peaceful spot in the secluded passageway. Bright lights from passing boats shone upon them as the blanket had fallen to the side from their lust.
For a moment the spotlight embarrassed her but he pulled her further down into the gondola. On the floor, they were again invisible. She wasn’t sure how long they were down inside the sleek, shiny, black row boat but soon larger wakes bumped below them and assisted their lovemaking.
“We must be out in the lagoon now,” she said.
“Would you like to ride around more like this,” Massimo whispered, “or would you like to go to bed?”
As if one choice was better than the other.
“What would you like to do?”
“To do this,” he said and pushed harder, “all night.”
“That is my choice.”
“Where?”
“Here. Now,” she moaned for he had succeeded in pleasing her.
She watched as he groaned too. Perhaps they were both finished?
She underestimated him. He had more in him than she ever expected or could hope for. She started to feel as if she floated into the misty vapor itself and hung there. Soon the boat slowed and it hit something, a dock, with a thud. So did she. Again.
The gondolier strapped the boat to Massimo’s blue and white striped private gondola pole and moored the boat outside his palazzo. A lush blanket of burgundy colored Venetian fabric hid them. She huddled under it. Its velvet brocade tingled her bare legs and arms, then Massimo tingled her bare legs and arms.
“You decided to take me to your house?” whispered Barbara.
“We need some privacy,” he said.
They laughed, for he had just made love to her, although with hushed sighs, in a gondola with his gondolier less than four feet away. Their passionate abandon was quiet and hidden but smoldering.
“Privacy,” she said.
“We also need food,” he said, “and costumes.”
She shook her head in agreement.
He stood with shirt tale hanging down and with nothing under it. He wrapped the velvet fabric around her and lifted her out of the boat, not bothering to dress her or even retrieve her clothes.
He set her down at the doorstep of his incredible palazzo, which fronted the lagoon waters. As he put a long silver skeleton key into the lock, he turned to her.
“Inside, you will see what I am made of. You will be exposed to the real me.”
She reached out her hand for him to guide her through the doorway. The velvet brocade fabric that had blanketed her dropped to the ground. Standing before him under the soft light, her chilled white-skin shivered, excited. She loved how her breasts became firm from the cold and from his eager stare. She loved the freedom she felt in a naked moment with this man.
He wrapped his body around her in a complete fold, bare as he was too. His furnace lit up all five of her senses.
“Come,” he said, his breath on fire in her ear, “inside.” He lifted her and placed her on him as they stood there, “With me.”
She barely heard those last two words not only because of his low-volume but because she could tell he was ready for another round. He restrained himself from doing it right there, standing up in the doorway. He stopped short and carried her through the doorway then a vast room. In a blur, she saw antiques, statues, thick curtains, wood-beams, lush fabrics and pillows.
He carried her over next to a huge sofa that stood the length of the room. The lush piece of furniture was wide enough for four people. It was tall enough to stand on and still rest your head on its back cushions. That’s exactly what he did.
He did not lay her down on the sofa. He stood on it, holding her against him and with her arms and legs clinging to him. Her entire back rested against the back cushion of this enormous, elegant sofa, or whatever it was.
He bounced slightly on the seat cushion for effect, an outstanding effect.
After they finished, only then did he lay her down. He pulled a silver basin of warm water from under the sofa and a soft cloth.
Had it been there the whole time? How was it that it was still warm? Barbara wondered but didn’t care. It excited her.
He washed her everywhere, stopping only for a kiss of approval on each spot.
“To make sure it’s clean,” he said each time he kissed a spot.
And each time, she nodded approval.
“Dress up now or eat?” he asked.
Again both options were worthy choices. Too excited to eat, she wanted to choose the former but knew he was hungry. For food.
“Let’s eat,” she said.
It proved an excellent choice. He brought out a platter of fruit and cheese and cloth napkins. He poured sparkling water for her and champagne for himself, both in delicately etched-crystal flutes. He fed her some appetizers then dropped strawberries into their glasses.
“I never toast my women,” he said but raised his glass.
His women? Her heart dropped to the floor and so did her chin. He lifted it.
“For I have no one,” he said.
Then he put the glass down, paced the room, sat back down.
“No toast?” she asked. He stayed silent, staring at her.
Speechless doesn’t describe it. Conflicting emotions filled the entire room.
He took off his shirt and sat naked. It was the first time she’d seen him like that in the light, fully naked. Emotions were no longer conflicted.
She attempted to kiss him but this time he stopped her.
“We dress first,” he told her, “I promise you will like it. Okay?”
“Okay.”
Her mind spun. She didn’t know what the hell she was consenting to or
what the hell this woman, this new Barbara, was doing here. Who was this new woman in the gondola and on that sofa? On his lap or standing in front of him now, who was she?
“I promise you will like it. You will. Okay?” He wasn’t begging. He asked with the certainty that one asks when they will soon be getting their way.
She closed her eyes.
“Come,” he grabbed her hand, hard. He yanked her up, didn’t wait for an answer.
“No,” she said, “I’m afraid.”
“Good.”
“No. I am really afraid, Massimo.”
“You should be.”
“What?”
“I said, you should be.”
Was this the same Massimo? Was this the gentle soul who rocked her back and forth in the gondola? Was he playing a role?
“I am not playing a role, Barbara.”
“No? Then what is going to happen now?”
“You should be afraid. But it will not stop me from doing this to you.”
She yanked her arm back, pulled as hard as she could, but her hand didn’t move out of his. She didn’t expect such strength or resistance from him.
“I didn’t expect resistance from you either, Barbara, but it matters not to me. You will not stop me. We will dress now.”
This was not what she wanted, this sudden aggression, all alone with him in the middle of the lagoon, but she didn’t know what to do. Her heart beat rapid and bold, worse than when she exploded with passion in the gondola. How could he be so cold? What was he going to do with her?
“I am going to make more love to you,” he answered her thoughts, the unspoken questions in her mind.
“More love,” she said.
“More love than either you or I have experienced in our lifetime. Because it is not from our lifetime. It is from the glorious past of Venice.”
Had he gone mad?
It occurred to her that the gondolier was the only one who knew she was there and he most likely didn’t care. Massimo paid him well, he was his private chauffeur and that meant keeping secrets for his master. His master, Massimo, could do anything to her, anything, and get away with it. No one would ever see her again.