La Cucina

by Lily Prior

  He seized me again, but I was too nervous, and too embarrassed at my ineptitude and lack of experience. Accidentally I bit him, causing him to yowl.

  “Signorina, signorina, kiss with the lips, with the tongue, not with the teeth.”

  “Let us make a salad, signor, I think the timballo is almost ready.”

  “Signorina, don’t be frightened. Let yourself go. I know you want to.”

  And so I kissed him. Tentatively at first, but as my confidence grew I softened my lips and gently proffered my tongue, which he received in his mouth, licking it with his own. It was a beautiful moment.

  The smell of smoke interrupted the kiss. The timballo was burning. I snatched it from the oven. Fortunately only the crust was blackened.

  “Signor, this won’t do,” I said crossly. “La cucina is a serious business, we must give it all our attention, for if we don’t you see what happens. The dish knows she is being ignored, and she punishes us.”

  “Signorina, soon you will see that the arts of amore e cucina compliment one another perfectly. Indeed they are part of the same thing: the celebration of life. We should not sacrifice one to the other.”

  I released the angry timballo from its mold, and we waited impatiently for it to cool a little. Finally we sat down to lunch at the kitchen table. We also had green salad, some Regaliali wine, and some fine bread, which I had to admit I didn’t make, but bought from the Crosta Brothers Panetteria in the Via Volturno, near the Teatro Massimo. It was almost as good as my own bread, but not quite.

  L’Inglese lifted a forkful of the timballo to his lips. He tasted and then closed his eyes.

  “What is the matter, signor,” I asked anxiously, “is it not good?”

  “Signorina,” he said, licking his lips luxuriantly, “it is sublime.”

  L’Inglese then abandoned his fork and began to eat with his fingers.

  “To eat like this, signorina, gives me so much more pleasure,” he said, licking some crumbs of pastry from his fingers.

  “Like this,” he continued, “I can feel the texture of the food with my fingertips. I become much more intimately involved with the dish. The hard metal fork is not for me. No. I like to touch the food, to smell it” —here he inhaled deeply— “I like to feel it against my skin, not just in my mouth. Food is such a sensuous thing, eating is such a sensuous pleasure. Eating good food, signorina, is akin to lovemaking. It should be enjoyed, not rushed. We should abandon ourselves to its sensuality, signorina. Now I take again a piece of the wonderful timballo. I feel its warmth between my fingers; I feel the soft succulence of the filling, the glorious crust of the pastry. I place it on my tongue slowly, lovingly. I draw it inside my mouth and experience the frisson as my taste buds go to work. I lick my fingers to enjoy every last little bit of it. My fingers brush against my tongue, my lips, flesh against flesh. Now, signorina, I want you to try it.”

  I put down my fork and pulled a piece from the timballo with my fingers. I raised it to my lips.

  “Slowly, slowly, don’t rush it.”

  I opened my mouth.

  “Yes, yes.”

  And placed it inside.

  “Now, signorina, let your mouth close over it slowly, that’s right. Feel it with the soft part of your mouth, with your tongue. Slowly, slowly begin to chew. Feel the texture of the food inside your mouth. Don’t rush it, enjoy it. When you are ready, swallow. Lick your lips, that’s right, now your fingers. Let your fingers linger on your lips for a moment. Slowly draw your forefinger across the inside of your lower lip. Doesn’t that feel nice? Now, signorina, I want you to feed me.”

  “Oh no, signor, I couldn’t.”

  “Why ever not?”

  “It wouldn’t be proper.”

  “Nonsense, signorina. Now do it.”

  And so I did it. I broke off a piece of the pastry crust with my fingers and with it scooped a tasty morsel of filling. It felt warm and moist and silky. With a slightly trembling hand I reached across the little table to where l’Inglese was waiting. He parted his lips. They were red and wet. He opened his mouth wider. I saw his bad teeth and his pink tongue. I reached further toward him. He reached toward me with his mouth open. I proffered the morsel of timballo. I put it on his tongue and he drew it inside his mouth. As I withdrew my hand he caught it roughly at the wrist. He began to chew slowly, luxuriantly, with his eyes closed, still holding my wrist firmly. After swallowing, he drew my hand toward him and sucked at my fingers, licking along their entire length before drawing the tips into his mouth. It was just as in my dream.

  “Now, signorina, I will feed you.”

  And he did.

  I blushed as he lifted the food to my mouth and touched my lips with his fingers; once I had chewed slowly and swallowed, he inserted his fingers into my mouth.

  “Suck them, signorina,” he ordered.

  I had to obey. He closed his eyes with the pleasure of a stroked cat.

  I had grease and a little trickle of saliva on my chin. He reached across the table and licked me clean.

  We continued with our meal, feeding one another slowly across the little table. The room seemed to grow warmer. When the food was finished and the bottle of wine was empty, I tried rousing myself to reality. I cleared the table and began to wash the dishes. As I stood at the little sink, l’Inglese came up behind me and pressed himself against me. I could feel something hard through his pants. It almost hurt as he pressed it against me.

  “Signorina, I must have you,” he whispered in my hair just above my ear. “We must make love now, this instant. I must have you. I cannot take another refusal.”

  “Signor, really, I cannot,” I stammered, breathing heavily.

  “What do you mean you cannot?” he erupted, finally losing his temper and speaking with a genuine anger. “You get me so excited, so aroused that I feel as though I will explode, and then you deny me the natural release for my feelings. You reject me. What do you think you are doing? Don’t pretend you don’t know. You are fully aware of what you are doing to me. You tease me, tease me beyond the point of no return. What am I to be played with? We are not adolescents. If you deny me now I will go straight out of here and find a whore on whom to vent my frustrations, and you, signorina, will never see me again.”

  “Please, not so loud, signor, I implore you. They are listening…”

  “I don’t give a fuck who is listening.”

  “Signor, signor, please. Not here. I cannot do it here. We are surrounded, we are watched. Look…”

  I pointed from the window. Sure enough Signor Rivoli the bank manager was glued to his window on the opposite side of the street, his pants were around his ankles, and he was masturbating with a stupid grin on his face.

  “What, a Peeping Tom?” cried l’Inglese; he seemed about to break the window with his fist. Signor Rivoli scuttled away from the window, showing his bare bottom as he tried not to trip over his pants before he disappeared from view.

  “What kind of a place is this? It is full of mad people. How can you live in such a place? So, you will not do it here, you say. Very well, signorina, where will you do it?”

  “I don’t know, signor. I just cannot do it here. I feel so hampered here.”

  “Very well, signorina, we will go to my villa; but if we get there and you again refuse me I will go quite mad.”

  He seized me by the arm and pulled me out of my apartment. I did not even have time to pick up my bag or a sweater. As he ripped open the door he almost demolished the tiny form of Nonna Frolla, who crouched there, and who had obviously been peering through the keyhole.

  “Seen anything interesting, signora?” he asked as we rushed past.

  “Well, really, the rudeness of it…” she said to the pug in the now empty hallway.

  CHAPTER THREE

  L’Inglese was taking me to a villa in the Via Belmonte, in the district of Acquasanta, far out to the north of the city, on a cliff overlooking the harbor.

  After we left my apartment w
e jumped into a chaise waiting outside the duomo. I knew that I had gone beyond the point of return. I knew that now I had to give myself to him. And the curious thing is that I realized for the first time that I wanted to.

  As we drove away from the city I allowed myself to feel the excitement of that definitive moment without guilt. I was now throwing off the shackles I had borne for so long, which had only started loosening since my first encounter with l’Inglese. Was that really only last week? Was it not time to discard the straitjacket of conventional morality? What had I done with my life for the last twenty-five years? Why should I not live a little, and if not now, then when? What did I have to lose?

  Here was a man who wanted me, and in the course of my entire life there had only been one other: Bartolomeo. But I was little more than a child then, that summer a lifetime ago.

  When the time comes, I decided, not only would I give myself to him without reservation, but I would reach out and take him for myself too. What a change had come over the librarian!

  We arrived at the villa. L’Inglese’s hand holding mine was hot and sweaty. Could it be that he was nervous too?

  As the drive swept around from the road, the house emerged in the distance, set against the sparkling sea. It was beautiful: very white in the sun, surrounded by a magical garden of palms and lemons and lilies.

  “It’s beautiful. Is it yours?”

  “No, it belongs to a friend of mine. He lets me stay here. He never uses it himself.”

  The chaise left us at the steps and drove away. As it receded into the distance I felt suddenly vulnerable, realizing that no one knew my whereabouts. But of course the cabdriver knew. He was one of Nonna Frolla’s customers and would make his report in the morning when he bought his prosciutto.

  Together we mounted the steps, and suddenly became quite shy. Inside, the entrance hall, cavernous and sparkling with white marble, looked like a cassata.

  Not even taking time to look around, I fell on l’Inglese, taking him by surprise. Scared that my courage would fail me, I kissed him hard on the lips. Miraculously, the frightened mouse disappeared.

  He had not expected this, and he thought he knew women. He kissed me back and we sucked and sucked at one another, paddling with our hungry tongues. Madly, deeply, desperately we kissed in the hall of the marble palace, and the pent-up force of the twelve days of longing overcame us.

  As we kissed, our hands roved over the expanse of our bodies, now our world. We pulled wildly but ineffectually at clothes, belts, buckles, buttons, and fastenings. Frustrated, I ripped l’Inglese’s shirt from his waistband.

  Not to be outdone, he ripped my dress, leaving the sleeves in place, but the central panel came away in his hands.

  Struggling not to lose the fusion of the kiss amid this activity, we tore at what remained of each other’s clothing. We hurried to remove it, as a lifesaver would before diving into the river to rescue a drowning child.

  With one final heave, which left me weakened, I managed to release l’Inglese’s belt buckle, which was clamped under his balcony stomach. His blue jeans were stiff and the metal buttons so difficult to undo. My deft fingers that made pasta shapes were strong and supple, they wheedled and wrenched until the buttons released and the fly succumbed to expose a throbbing bulge clad in black silk undershorts.

  Still we maintained the vacuum between our two mouths. Indeed, as the intensity grew, our urgency was increased.

  I tore at the blue jeans, peeling them away from his bottom, and using one of my feet I pushed them down l’Inglese’s legs. They remained trapped around his ankles. He was still wearing his shoes. At my next lunge he toppled over and together we crashed onto the marble floor, hurting but laughing. It was the first time we had laughed together, and this broke the tension of what could otherwise have been a ridiculous moment.

  Then we again fell to tearing and plucking. We were desperate to get out of the clothes that were enveloping us, sticking to us so persistently like used chewing gum discarded on the sidewalk.

  L’Inglese tore off my shoes and tossed them aside. They slid over the smooth marble tiles with a skidding sound before finally coming to rest. His were more tricky; they had laces and the laces were tied in double bows. Those were the shoes that first seduced me: I had always been attracted to brogues.

  Finally I managed to wrench them off; in doing so I broke a nail; it ricocheted across the room. He flailed his legs madly to remove the blue jeans, which had become his bitter enemy. Get off, get off.

  Then l’Inglese disposed of the tattered remains of my dress; the orphaned sleeves were torn from my arms, and the rags tossed away; they lassoed the form of a marble Venus who was watching, shocked, from a niche in the wall.

  Silk slip, ripped.

  Stockings followed.

  Then he discovered that I was vacuum-packed in a corset of such resilience that it twanged like a trampoline and repelled any advance. Its material was so durable that it couldn’t be ripped, and its force of suction was so great that it couldn’t be removed. It was the color of salmon paste and he thought it was the most revolting thing he had ever seen.

  “Christ, what is this thing? Did your landlady make you wear it? Wait here, I know how to get it off.”

  L’Inglese got up from the floor and rushed off, sliding like an ice-skater on the marble in his socks. Socks always spoil a love scene. There never is a right time to take them off.

  Seconds later he reappeared brandishing a vegetable knife. It was of the highest quality, fine tempered steel, foreign, of course. I had always coveted such a knife. That was my first thought. My second was what he intended to do with it. My fear must have shown in my face.

  “Be still, signorina, be calm. Lie down, I will not harm you. I must remove this abominable corset, that is all.”

  “But signor…”

  “No buts, signorina, trust me. I am an excellent filleter.”

  He knelt alongside me as I stretched out on the marble floor.

  “Keep very, very still.”

  I closed my eyes.

  Slowly he inserted the blade under the join between the enormous cups at my cleavage.

  I was hardly able to breathe.

  He made the first incision, concentrating like a surgeon. There was a fizzing sound as the pressure was released and the rubberized cloth split open. Following a straight line along the length of my body he slit the garment from my breasts, down to my stomach, and finally to my crotch.

  The corset popped open, delivering my naked form like a monstrous pea from its pod. I looked for blood. There wasn’t any.

  When the tension was over, we could both laugh. Not many people have heard my laugh; it is fruity and deep and bubbles up from somewhere far inside me. L’Inglese’s laugh was like that of a horse; it was so funny it made me laugh even more.

  I realized I was naked as l’Inglese feasted his eyes on my body. I could almost feel my skin scorching under his glance.

  “God, you’re beautiful,” he said.

  And he meant it; and I was; and I felt it, then, for the first time in my life. I basked in it: in his praise and my beauty.

  I lay back, watching him watching me as he removed his socks and his tattered shirt. I already loved the movements of his hands, the way he lit and smoked a cigarette or tied his shoelaces; so elegant, so polished. I was impatient to experience all that those hands would do to me.

  His body, almost bare, was soft and white and warm and furry, a contrast to the cool, smooth silk of his undershorts, which were all that remained in place. Then they came off too. I stared blatantly. I could tell l’Inglese was flattered.

  “Now, signorina, let us go to my room; we will be more comfortable there than on this hard stone floor.”

  L’Inglese took my hand and, naked as the nymphs cavorting on the frieze above our heads, we ran up the sweeping staircase to the primo piano and the bedrooms.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  My clothes had been ripped to shreds the prev
ious evening. I had to borrow a pair of l’Inglese’s linen pants and a shirt in which to return home. My corset had been sliced through with the vegetable knife, so I did not even have any intimo.

  I could barely walk from the vigor of the activities of the night before. I was exhausted and euphoric. As I limped along I smiled broadly, sometimes laughing, sometimes blushing at the recollection of our lovemaking. Sometimes I groaned out loud as I relived each orgasm.

  Yet as I approached my little street my mood began to change. I knew how Nonna Frolla and her neighbors would greet me. By now, they would know everything. I already felt the weight of their condemnation.

  And so I returned, feeling like a slut, to the Via Vicolo Brugno. I could feel pairs of eyes watching me as I turned, limping slightly, into the street. There was no getting away from the gossip, from having your personal life exposed. I thought Palermo would be different from Castiglione in that respect, but I was wrong. Here, people had even more time for gossip, and once again I had made myself its target.

  “Disgraceful behavior,” said Signor Manzini, a retired schoolteacher and the bridge partner of Nonno Frolla for the past seventy-eight years. “I always thought Signorina Fiore was a decent young woman, but like all the rest she turns out to be a whore.”

  “Disgraceful is right,” agreed Signor Rivoli, the bank manager, popping into the store for his caciocavallo cheese and olives. “You should have seen the things they were doing in there. I was shocked, I tell you, totally shocked. She could not control herself; she’s a slut, no doubt about that…”

  “So you were watching, were you?”

  “Well, er…”

  “Peeping Tom.”

  “Pervert.”

  “Disgraceful.”

  “Disgusting.”

  Signor Rivoli was hounded out of the store.

  There was an air of expectation in the street: not only had I behaved like a whore, staying away from home in the company of a stranger and a foreigner, but in addition, during my absence, a letter had arrived, express delivery, addressed to me. The fact that this letter arrived on an extraordinary day was interpreted as a portent of bad news.