“O dolci baci, o languide carezze,” he whispered, holding her so tightly that she thought she might break in half.
“Luca,” she said gently. “Nobody is going to kill you. I am here.”
The spell broken, he loosened his hold on her, questioning her with his eyes.
“Gianfranco…he threatened me. He will give me up to the police.”
“What did you do, Luca? Were you involved with the murder?”
“No, no, I never did any murder! I never did that. Please believe me, Julia.”
“Tell me. I will believe you.”
He sat down on the floor, holding her against his chest while she perched between his knees, head resting on his shoulder.
“Gianfranco says you were in a gang in Naples.”
“I was stupid. Young and stupid. My family were poor. I had a cousin, Luigi. This cousin, he was like the father I didn’t have. He was five years older than me and he looked out for me, at school, on the street. I would have given him anything, I would have died for him. You understand?”
“Sure. You felt loyal to him. A bond of loyalty.”
“Yes, a bond. That is what it was.”
“So when he offer me to join his gang…”
“You couldn’t refuse?”
“How can I refuse, Julia? This boy has provided for me, protected me, all my life. Of course I join his gang.”
“Did you know what it would involve?”
Luca took a deep breath, twisting a lock of Julia’s hair with compulsive fingers.
“I won’t lie. Yes, I knew. I was fourteen, Julia.”
“Okay. You were young and you couldn’t see a way out.”
“It took two years. I didn’t join in with the big robberies. Luigi wouldn’t let me. I was a runner mainly. I took things here and there. Drugs, money. Guns.”
“The gun that shot the policeman?”
“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “I wanted to get out, straight away. But it wasn’t until my voice began to grow…the choirmaster at the cathedral recommended me for a singing scholarship at a music school in Florence. I moved there and escaped that life for good. My cousin, he didn’t do so well. He’s dead now.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“He chose that way. He knew the risk.”
“Do you feel…anger at him? For leading you into that life?”
“No, I will never feel anger towards Luigi. I feel anger towards myself. I was weak.”
“You were a child.”
“It’s no excuse. And now, my past comes back to, how you say, bite me in the ass.”
He stroked Julia’s hair and they held the embrace, down on the flagstones, beneath the summer night stars.
“Will it make such a difference?” Julia asked. “It was over a decade ago.”
“The police never questioned me. They never knew about me. If Gianfranco tells them, they will certainly come for me.”
“Tell them what you told me, then,” said Julia passionately. “You were a child who made a mistake. And there is no evidence against you, is there?”
“Maybe my prints, on a gun or two.”
“Oh.” Julia buried her despondent face in his neck. “Gianfranco might not tell them. He just wants to use the information to…” She trailed off.
“Get you into bed,” Luca finished for her.
“Yes.” She paused. “Luca—”
“No,” he said, emphatic in his refusal. “No, you will not sell your body to him for me. Never, ever, never.”
“If it keeps you out of prison, though—”
“Julia, no.” Luca pushed her away an inch or so and frowned into her eyes. “I could not live with knowing I had…pimped you. Don’t ever ask me to do that.”
“He will try to blackmail me.”
“Then I will go to the police before he can.”
Julia twisted her neck round to check that Luca was serious in his intention. His jaw was set, his mouth a line of determination.
“You are brave,” she said to him. “You are doing the right thing.”
“I don’t know what will happen,” he told her. “But I need to know if you will wait for me.”
“Yes. Always.”
Beneath the shadow of the battlements, in the obscurity of gathering night, Luca's lips met Julia's, and she accepted his need to seal their promise to one another, kissing him back hard. Ignoring the hard stones, Julia fell with him until they were together full-length on the ground, faces in hands, legs between legs, hearts bumping up against each other.
The Castell was deserted now, the tourist crowds having drifted off for pasta and nightlife. Julia, forgetting the guards, and forgotten by them in turn, took the chance of that last crumb of comfort before her world had to change.
Just for tonight, thought Julia, let us be together.
The passion of their kisses intensified until Julia and her lover were like one conjoined being, twisting and panting in coils, pressing and kneading its four hands wherever it found free flesh.
Luca pulled Julia up from their position on the bruising stone and flattened her against the battlement once more, standing between her and the open terrace, covering her from sight of any onlookers.
“We are alone here,” he whispered, his hand finding the torn shred of her dress. He frowned at her and she shrugged, too keen for him to reach inside and stroke along the line of her bra cup to explain.
"I will kill him," he muttered. "But first—"
“Luca!” Julia was appalled and exhilarated at his implication, heat and wetness flooding her knickers at the thought. “Not here!”
“Why not here?” he asked, his other hand finding its way beneath her skirt, drawn upwards towards that burgeoning heat source. “Don’t you want to?”
“I…oh God, Luca…” His hand was patting the damp spot between her legs, rubbing the soft cotton until it clung to every crease of her lips and clit. Her capacity for word formation fled, leaving her a sighing, melting mess in his hands.
“I think you do want to.” He laughed gently. His fingers slid inside the material, dipping into the honeyed floods they found there. “Come on…Tosca and Cavaradossi would have done it. We have their passion, don’t we?”
“Mmm,” moaned Julia, swivelling her hips to push herself further on to his touch. His mouth and nose fitted snugly in the hollow between shoulder and neck, and he devoured the tender skin he found there, nipping and sucking. He continued to work his fingers between her pussy lips until she was helpless, unable to resist his delicious onslaught.
“Stand on the step.” Luca helped her up onto a raised flagstone so that her height roughly equalled his. He hoisted up one of her legs, positioning it so that it wrapped around the hollow of his back. Now, when he pulled the panties aside, Julia’s pussy rubbed against his swollen crotch while her mouth was the perfect height for grabbing kisses at will.
Julia circled the hard protrusion slowly, while Luca worked swiftly to unbelt and unbutton himself. Before his trousers fell to his knees, he grabbed a condom from his pocket and tore the wrapper open with eager white teeth, sheathing himself with urgent skill.
“Open up for me, Julia,” he hissed, and she hooked her leg tighter around him, bringing him home to the safe harbour of her widespread lower lips and the narrow channel beyond. He edged inside, careful not to slam her back into the Roman stone. Then he took hold of her hips and guided himself deep inside, groaning ecstatically once he was fully enclosed. Julia looked past his dark head to the stars above, tightened her arms about his neck and contracted her muscles around him, holding him there, wanting to keep him there, safe and hers, for as long as was possible.
But Luca was not going to stay still for long. His upper body was trembling already and his forehead glistened. He pulled back and then surged forward with a gasp of pleasure which Julia echoed. The pace was slow and careful, as it had to be with such a strong possibility of injury or discovery, but she found that the twin stimuli of the open ai
r and their sweeping need for one another compensated for fast and furious speed.
He took her patiently and considerately, making sure that he stroked all the right spots, letting her sensation build without hurry. She nestled into him, absorbing the love and the tenderness, wanting to remember how they felt forever.
She came strongly and sweetly, clutching and unclutching his hair. When Luca came inside her, he tensed for a moment, then let out a long gasp of air, kissing her face and neck. They remained locked together, swaying in each other’s arms, letting the distant traffic noises envelop them, feeling small in the enormity of the Roman night, but knowing that they had the most important thing in the world just there.
“Is this a private fuck or can anyone join in?”
Julia screamed into Luca’s neck, hiding her face in his shirt collar, feeling his neck twist around to pinpoint the interloper.
“Gianfranco,” she heard him say. “Why aren’t I surprised?”
“You expected me? I waited for Julia to leave her apartment and followed her. I would have spoken up earlier, but I was enjoying the show.”
“Well, you had your chance to look, but you will never be able to touch her.”
“Are you sure about that?”
Luca finally pulled out of Julia, discarding the condom and re-fastening his trousers. He stood in front of her, blocking Gianfranco’s view while she re-arranged her dress to a standard of decency.
“Oh yes, Gianfranco,” said Luca. “I am sure that you will never get your hands on her.”
“Well, that’s a pity,” said Gianfranco with a mocking pretence of a sigh. “I have been looking forward so much to getting between those lovely legs. And I have a feeling Signorina Julia might have liked it. Judging by the way she likes my kisses.”
Luca clenched his fists. “You won’t get me that way, Gianfranco.”
“I don’t want to get you. I want to get her.”
“I’ve made it clear I’m not interested,” said Julia.
“Oh, but you haven’t, carissima. You have mixed the messages. Touch me, don’t touch me, I want you, I don’t want you. And besides, where is the fun without the challenge?”
Gianfranco, closing the gap between himself and the lovers, put out a hand, reaching for Julia, who ducked away, gasping with anger.
“There is no challenge,” she snapped.
Luca stepped in front of Gianfranco, shoulders back, fists raised. “You touch her and I will—”
“Too late, Luca. I have touched her. I have kissed those lips, sweet as wine. And the price I am asking for your silence is her surrender. How much is your freedom worth, eh, Luca? Your reputation? Your career? Surely you can spare a little bit of your lover for me?”
Luca lunged forward, and Julia was only able to hold him back by leaping on to his back, her arm around his neck, yanking him away from the baritone, who simply stood his ground, blinking and laughing.
“Don’t do this, Luca. Don’t play into his hands,” she cried. She turned to Gianfranco. “It’s no use trying to blackmail us. Because we are going to the police station. Right now. If that’s what it takes to get you away from us, that’s what we’ll do.”
“Julia,” said Luca, his eyes black with worry.
“It’ll be okay, darling. I promise you. I’ve told you I’ll wait if I have to. And you have your voice, your talent. You won’t lose that, whatever happens.”
“Whatever happens,” Luca echoed, the fight ebbing out of him as Julia’s calm and loving words sunk in.
Gianfranco frowned, pulling his jacket closer around his statuesque frame to keep out the darkening chill. “At least you will be sacked from the production.” He sniffed, apparently looking for silver linings to the cloud Luca’s integrity had brought down on him.
“If it comes to that,” said Julia clearly, “there will be no production. You will have to look elsewhere to play Scarpia, because it won’t be happening here.”
“Don’t be a fool, Julia, tenors are everywhere.”
“But I won’t sing with you. And I will make sure Carlo knows why.”
“Pah. He will say goodbye without a backward look. Good sopranos are even more common than tenors.”
“I will make sure he knows why by replaying him the footage I caught on my webcam earlier on tonight. Of you, trying to force me into bed. Oh yes, Gianfranco. It was all recorded.”
“You’re bluffing,” bellowed Gianfranco.
“Try me.”
He looked around the battlements, as if expecting an invisible army to come and back him up, but it failed to materialise.
“I don’t want to lose this part,” he muttered.
“Then leave us alone. Go and concentrate on your own career. Let us worry about ours.”
Julia’s words were unfaltering, and Gianfranco seemed to weigh them seriously.
“Good luck with the police,” he said at last. “I will make sure you have been to see them. I will go and see them myself if you don’t.”
“Do your worst,” said Julia. “Luca, let’s go.”
Together they descended from the towering terrace of the Castell, leaving Gianfranco to bemoan his failure to the stars. Julia counted her blessings. Unlike Tosca, Cavaradossi and Scarpia, the three of them had managed to live through their torrid encounter. What happened next, though, was uncharted territory.
Chapter Four
To Luca and Julia’s considerable surprise, the police had little interest in his teenage mistakes. As Luca had not been, nor could be proven to be, involved in any serious crime, and as the gang was now disbanded, its principal figures behind bars for extended sentences, there seemed little to charge Luca with other than being an associate of the gang. And this was not in itself a crime.
No loose ends existed that needed tying up and, as the officer Luca spoke to explained, it would cost more in money and effort to bring vague, minimal charges against him than it was worth.
“I see you have changed your life,” he said paternally, shaking Luca by the hand before leaving the interview room. “You are one of the lucky ones. You escaped before you were killed or killed somebody. Besides, I have tickets for the opening night of Tosca. My wife would be disappointed if you weren’t playing Cavaradossi.”
He laughed and held the door open, sending Luca on his way to the reception area, where Julia waited anxiously.
She leapt to her feet, heartened by the lack of handcuffs or police escorts.
“Luca?” Her heart raced.
“Don’t worry,” he said, taking her in his arms. “It’s fine. They understand. As long as I don’t go back to that life, I am free.”
She looked up into his face, her cheeks wet with tears.
“Oh, Luca, I’m so relieved. You didn’t deserve to go to prison.”
“Well, perhaps I did. But all the same, is a relief, yes.”
“And a weight off your mind. You will feel so much better now you don’t have this secret hanging over you.”
“Yes. I feel…light. My head is a bubble. It is strange.”
They embraced once more, long and passionately, ignoring the tuts and indulgent sighs of the waiting room personnel.
“We’d better get home and get some sleep,” whispered Julia. “Dress rehearsals tomorrow.”
* * * *
“You look…amazing. So much make-up though!”
On the first night of the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma’s production of Tosca, various cast members buzzed nervously around in the wings, waiting for the first dramatic chords of Act One to signal the rush into action.
Luca put a finger up to the thick brown greasepaint on his face, grimacing. “I know! I feel like a clown.”
“Well, you don’t look like one.”
Julia gave his body a look of lascivious appraisal. Luca’s tall, manly form suited the tight-fitting moleskin trousers, the high leather boots and the loose half-laced shirt that his artistic alter ego wore as costume. His hair was cunningly disarranged to give
him a devilishly bohemian air that fitted him like a glove.
“Never mind playing the part of a painter. Somebody should paint you.” She licked her lips, fighting the urge to salivate.
“Well, I think you must be the sexiest Tosca since Callas.”
Julia hugged her ribcage, lifting her bosom, its snowy expanse enhanced by the low décolletage of her gown. “I thought I was playing a singer, not a prostitute.” But the gown’s sumptuous decadence inspired her and put her into the right state of mind on stage, sensual, fiery and proud. If possible, her scenes with Luca on stage had been even more incendiary since they had worn the costumes. Carlo certainly seemed to think so, even going so far as to approve their offstage liaison, since it led to such deliciously convincing passion onstage.
The menacing brass and clashing percussion silenced the singers, who waited now for their cues, peering out to ensure that the auditorium was indeed full, though everyone knew the performance was a sell-out.
Luca had the first scene, with the fugitive Angelotti, then he and Julia sang their first and most beautiful love scene. Their voices soared out to the heights and depths of the theatres, filling the space with divine melody, their chemistry setting light to the velvet tip-seating so that all the talk at the first interval was of whether the pair were a couple in real life.
Gianfranco, heavily clad in black robes and black-painted brows to play the evil Baron Scarpia, stood deliberately apart from the lovers as Act Two approached. Little communication had passed between them since that fateful night at the Castell Sant’Angelo, and that seemed to work well for all concerned.
All the same, the scenes in which he coerced Tosca into submission had lost none of their power, and Julia trembled during each performance when Gianfranco’s powerful hands closed about her wrists and he pulled her against his low-vibrating chest with possessive force.
Her terror and desperation held a genuine note, and the audience leant forwards, teetering on the edge of their seats, willing her to get away, to save Cavaradossi, to plunge the dagger into Scarpia’s breast and sing her hopeless guttural line – Muori, muori, muori.
Sempre Page 4