Looking at the books was a way to relieve the tension which now relentlessly overrides everything.
“Relax…” He whispers, beginning to kiss my neck, as though he had read my mind. I take a deep breath and try.
It doesn’t seem possible that I’m here. It doesn’t seem possible that he’s touching and kissing me. And when he does it again, on the mouth, all the shivers that had temporarily drifted away return.
“You’re trembling…” He murmurs in my ear.
“Not with cold.”
He laughs, “I know, it must be ninety degrees!”
I give him a light shove on the shoulder. “And don’t tease me… I won’t put up with being teased by someone who has no sense of humor!”
He pulls back, stopping all his maneuvers and looks me in the face, serious. “I have a great sense of humor!”
I laugh. “I wouldn’t say so! Maybe a little, you aren’t exactly without one, but almost…”
He opens his mouth in astonishment. “Ah, so it’s like that?”
I nod, laughing. “Yes, it’s just like that!”
“Alright, now look what a sense of humor I have…” He says pulling off my T-shirt rapidly and throwing it on the floor, taking me and throwing me in a less than elegant way on the bed and making me bounce on the mattress.
I laugh some more. “What’s that got to do with it?”
He takes off the T-shirt and I immediately no longer feel like laughing. Then he lies on top of me and murmurs, “See how I made you laugh?”
I’m no longer able to answer and, for a little, the only sound interrupting the absolute silence is that of our bodies brushing together and our deep breathing.
When he takes off my pants and shoes, he stops for a moment, kneeling on the bed, and looks down at me. “You’re beautiful,” he whispers softly, and my heart is bursting. I stretch out my arms in a mute request for him to return to me, because I already miss his contact with me. Already I’m cold without his heat.
“Andrea…” I sigh after a while. He doesn’t answer, lost in the kisses and caresses we continue to give each other for I don’t know how long. I’ve lost track of time. It could be two minutes or two hours. I don’t know. Where I am now, time doesn’t exist.
When he removes my bra and brushes my nude skin, I see his hand tremble and I almost can’t believe my eyes…
He kisses my breast. I feel his warm tongue and his lips which close and open on my nipple. All I see is the golden color of his hair and when I close my eyes, the luminosity of him and this room, of this moment remains impressed on my retinas.
I caress him, finally. Finally I can touch him as long as I want, wherever I want. I fulfill all my desires, repressed for months, burying my hands in his hair, caressing with all my love his shoulders, his face, his arms. My hands run over his wide back, and savor the sensation that his skin gives me.
He kisses me everywhere, slowly, without hurrying. He touches me everywhere, going up and down like a hot wave on my body. I find myself completely naked and I wouldn’t even be able to say exactly when he took off my panties.
It has no importance. I’m not ashamed in front of him, not any more, not in this moment. I feel good, as though it were my house, as if it weren’t the first time that we did it, but the hundredth. And this is an absurd feeling, because I’m feeling all the excitement of the first time too. I was right. What I’m feeling, I’ll remember forever.
When his face comes back into my field of vision it’s all red and his eyes are almost shining. “Olly,” he says in a whisper, “I can’t wait anymore.”
Even if I’ve never done it before, I understand immediately what he’s saying and I nod, swallowing. It’s about to happen, and even if I know very well what’s about to happen, the theory is always an ocean away from the practice, as they say.
“Don’t worry, I’ll go slow.”
I nod again, while a shiver of excitement runs through me.
When Andrea takes off everything (because he’s kept his pants on until now) I think, instead, that unfortunately we won’t be able to do it. It’s impossible.
“Don’t worry,” he repeats, as if he were reading my mind for the hundredth time. Maybe it’s not he who is good at it, it’s me who doesn’t hide my emotions and my thoughts well at all.
I nod, unable to let out the smallest sound from my throat.
He stretches out over me, his face exactly over mine, so close… I caress him, stretching my neck to kiss him softly, just once. He gazes at me while holding himself with his elbows on the bed. He strokes one cheek with his thumb. “Olly…” Then he doesn’t speak any more, too concentrated on slowly entering me, physically entering me, because the rest of him has already been inside for some time.
He’s watching me so closely the entire time. He’s observing my every expression, every sigh, and he gives me a kiss every time a sound of pain escapes me involuntarily.
When he’s all inside, we are both breathing with an effort. He is visibly trembling. “It’s only like this… the first time…” He tries to reassure me. “Only the first… My God…”
I stay still for a little and wait for him, breathing slowly, trying to relax my muscles and get used to the size of him. Suddenly he kisses me with a surge of passion, still trembling and still breathing hard. “I have to… Can I move now?” He asks me speaking in a low voice, as though we shouldn’t let anyone hear us.
I just nod, because I’ve lost the use of words.
At first he moves gently, then slowly, in a gradual way he increases the rhythm until he lets himself go completely without looking at me again, with his head bent and breathless – concentrating on the movement and the pleasure, his arms extended to hold himself… And then, with a last, forceful push and a noisy sigh he collapses over me. He falls on me as dead weight, completely. He’s so still that if I didn’t hear his rapid breathing, and see his back rise and fall, I would start doubting that he was still alive.
Maybe this is my favorite part – to feel his weight, his letting go, his closeness, his head abandoned on my chest at the level of my heart. To be attached, in silence, after the most intimate act of love between two people. Of all these, really, I don’t know how to choose my favorite part. In every moment I thought, “It’s this, this is my favorite moment.”
I sigh, happy.
“Olly,” I hear his voice, slightly drowsy with sleep, while his breathing swiftly becomes normal. “I’m sorry.”
I laugh softly. “About what? Having made me happy?”
I hear him sigh. “To have hurt you, when for me it’s been one of the most beautiful moments of my life.”
I remain breathless for a moment. “It’s wasn’t that tragic,” I make light when I think I can manage to speak normally again.
I hear him sigh again as he stretches out an arm without looking and slowly moves his fingers to play with my hair. “The next time it will go better, and then even more, more all the time, until you feel the same immense pleasure too.”
I don’t say anything because, as far as I’m concerned, as much as it hurt, I’ve already felt immense pleasure.
We stay like that, in silence, until I hear his breathing become deep and slow. Then I embrace him as tightly as I can in this position, I hold him close to me and close my eyes too, with a smile on my lips.
***
We wake up after a little while. I don’t know what time it is. The sun is still high and shining, and personally I am still in the dimension without time. It’s a fantastic dimension.
Andrea gets up from me and moves beside me with a sound, stretching himself. The bed must be a full, because it’s big enough to be comfortable in two. I don’t have time to feel remotely awkward before he pulls me towards him with his arm, switching our positions and laying my head on his heart and lazily caressing my hair.
For a while no one speaks, until he breaks the silence. “I can’t believe that you’re here…”
This statement makes
me laugh.
“Why are you laughing?”
“Because I was thinking the same thing. It’s just that I didn’t think you were thinking the same thing…”
He doesn’t answer immediately. He lazily strokes my arm resting on his chest. “Didn’t you see that I liked you?”
“What? When?” I answer, laughing. “When you showed up with a different girl every time I saw you anywhere?”
“Going out with girls doesn’t mean anything.”
I don’t feel the same, and I’d like to ask more. I’d like to ask for all the details, but I don’t know if I have the courage to hear the answers.
“And then, I thought you hated me.”
“Who? Me?” I ask, lifting myself up on my elbow to look him in the face, truly surprised.
He laughs, putting a lock of my hair behind my ear. “Yes, you.”
“But I told you I don’t know how many times that you’re beautiful… Well, maybe not in those terms, but I made remarks that alluded to that… No, I even said just that on one or two occasions.”
He smiles without saying anything for a bit, then he laughs softly, shaking his head. “The evening of Hermetic poetry I really thought that you hated me…”
At the memory I swiftly lower my head on his chest, hiding behind my hair which slides forward like a curtain. “It was just a joke…”
“And then,” he continues with the same tone, “no girl who likes a guy organizes a thing making him kiss a crowd of people, male and female, because I’d like to remind you that that day I was also kissed by two guys.”
“On the contrary, a very stupid and very masochistic girl can do that…”
We are quiet, then I stretch out, putting my face on his neck, breathing his scent of mint and caressing his chest with my left hand. “Andrea,” I whisper, “The evening of the twins’ birthday… weren’t you… it wasn’t true that you didn’t want me to waste my first kiss, you were just… jealous?”
“Yes, I was jealous.”
“Why…” I continue without looking at him, because I’ve discovered that if I don’t look at him I have more courage. “Why didn’t you stay with me, why didn’t you come back?”
He sighs. “Because it seemed wrong. I came to the party with her and… she found me almost kissing someone else. I felt guilty and I wanted to fix things before coming back to you.”
“But when I went back upstairs you weren’t there anymore.”
He sighs again. “Yes. She wanted me to take her home immediately and it took me a lot more time to set things right than I thought it would. I had to leave early that morning.”
I don’t speak immediately. I have to gather the courage inside to ask what I’m about to ask. “And did you… did you…” I stop, sighing with frustration over my inability to go through with it.
“No, Olly, I didn’t do anything, if that’s what you want to know.”
Yes, that’s exactly what I want to know…
“Differently from you, who got right down to work.” I detect a touch of acidity.
“Andrea,” I continue, ignoring him, “Before that evening… with Tiziana… did you ever…”
“No, never. Not before that evening or afterwards,” he answers immediately.
I sigh, this time with relief, before asking, “But why did she make that face when you introduced her as your friend? It seemed like you were together and that you were treating her badly by not acknowledging her status as your girlfriend.”
“Because… I don’t know. She had asked me lots of times to go out before that evening. Maybe when I finally gave her what she wanted she thought that it was automatically a sign of me being open to having more of a relationship than just as friends.”
I don’t say anymore, even if I’d like to ask, “Why did you have to bring her? Why did you have to go out? Aren’t you capable of going to a party alone?”
After a little he breaks the silence. “Ask me Olly. Ask me what you want to know.”
“Why did you come with her in the first place?”
He doesn’t answer right away. I feel his hand in my hair - a light and sweet massage. “Maybe… Maybe I wanted her as a sort of shield… even if it doesn’t speak well about me.”
“Shield?”
“Yes. Against what I might have found at the party if… you had found someone else… to… not let on…” He leaves the sentence hanging, ending with an “on” which means nothing.
Since he’s answering all my questions so diligently, I’d like to ask him about all the girls I’ve seen: the model-pharmacist, the girl who he was laughing with when I was sick and also about the ones that I didn’t see. But I don’t know if it’s wise to let me be seen obsessing about his women… And besides, as I ponder on “to ask or not to ask” he suddenly breaks the silence. “When I arrived, that evening, and I saw you…” He moves slowly, pulling himself up, pushing me with my back on the bed. “With that dress…” He moves slowly, cautiously, until he’s on me again, until my face is between his hands. “That dress…” He murmurs, kissing my lips lightly, caressing them with his thumb, pushing his hardest part towards my softest part. “You have to wear it again,” he passes his tongue over my lips. “Just for me.” And then he is quiet and for an indefinite time the room is filled only with the sound of our cries.
***
After having done it the second time, we ate naked on the bed because we were hungry. Andrea went down to the kitchen to get something, saying that he absolutely didn’t want me to leave the room or get dressed until he said so.
I nosed around in his cube shelves. We took a shower together in the upstairs bathroom and we talked about a lot of things, pausing often to kiss and touch each other. We joked and laughed and played and then we did it once again. If Paradise exists, I believe it’s like this, just like this. I have never been so happy. I’ve never had my heart so full and light at the same time.
I am lying across him, with my head resting on his belly while I leaf aimlessly through a copy of Pride and Prejudice. I am re-reading here and there, just the parts I prefer, when I realize that the light in the room is noticeably dimmer. I jump up, leaving the book on the bed. I go to the window, drawing back the curtain a little. The sky has darkened and maybe now it’s time I looked at the clock…
When I turn, I find Andrea’s eyes open and looking at me when I thought he was sleeping. “You’re awake!”
“And you are beautiful,” he says, all seriousness.
I smile for the millionth time today. And, as though it were the most natural thing in the world, I go back to him and kiss him tenderly for the millionth time today. “So are you.”
Then I get up and start to get dressed hurriedly. He straightens up immediately and sits on the bed. “What are you doing?”
“Getting dressed.”
“I can see that, but why?” He has a confused and worried countenance – too adorable.
“Because it’s late and I have to go.”
“No.” He gets up and tries to take off my T-shirt again.
Laughing I bat his hands away. “Quit it!”
“Why? You don’t need to… I told you that my parents are on vacation until next week. Sleep here!”
I instinctively hug him, then I look in his eyes and tell him, reasoning, “You know, I can’t do that… I live with another person – unfortunately – but I live with another person and I can’t disappear without letting her know… Besides, my telephone is in my car, near the lake.” I look around the room, to see if there’s a clock somewhere. “I need to know what time it is. I need my phone and I need to go home.”
Huffing, he moves towards a black bag sitting beside the wardrobe and moves around something inside it and then says, getting up, “It’s nine-thirty.”
“See, it’s late. My mother will be back from work and asking herself where I am. Also because when I leave before she gets back I usually leave a note in the kitchen.”
He puts his hands on his hips, lo
oking at me frowning and completely unaware of his nakedness. “Let’s do this: I’ll take you to get the car. You go home and tell your mother that you’re coming back here. Immediately.”
I smile with my heart bursting with happiness. “Of course. If that’s what you want.”
“That’s what I want,” he says, beginning to soften and getting dressed at light speed. “You be quick.”
23.
When I get home I find my mother sitting on the couch. The back of it is to the door, so she doesn’t see me, thank heavens, because she doesn’t turn to look at me when she asks, “How come you’re so late? Where have you been?”
“Around,” I answer vaguely. Then I run up the stairs before she thinks of giving me a closer look. Upstairs, in my room, I decide to improvise, taking another shower and washing my hair and rubbing fruit scented cream over my whole body. With the towel on my head and another around my body, I stand for some time in front of the wardrobe, undecided what to put on. I thought for a minute to choose the black dress. In the end I decide to leave it for another surprise occasion and I choose a pair of black leggings and a tank top. Something easy to take off.
I rub my hair, humming to myself in a low voice while I reflect intensely on an existential dilemma – to wear makeup or not to wear makeup?
Finally, I decide not to. After all, it’s almost nighttime. We’ll be closed up in the splendid white room for hours and I’m afraid I’d seem overly anxious to please him if I make myself up to stay the night in a bedroom…
I leave my hair wet, get my purse and slip a tooth-brush in it. When I run down the stairs again - I don’t know how much time has passed - my mother is still on the couch.
“Olivia?” She turns and sees me with my purse on my arm. She raises her eyebrows. “Are you going out again?”
“Yes.”
She instinctively looks at her wrist-watch. “It’s eleven-thirty…”
I believe that despite all my efforts, a veil of pink is coloring my cheeks. “Mom…” She makes no sign of speaking, so I’m forced to finish the sentence, “I’m sleeping out tonight.”
She stands up, surprised. “At Linda’s?” She asks already knowing the answer, knowing that it’s not the thought of spending the night at Linda’s that is making me blush.
Training in Love Page 26