milan

The hallway is endless. I can barely move my legs in this thin, knee-length pencil skirt, limiting my hurried steps. When he opens the door he is already wearing a bathrobe. It is the first thing I touch, the feathery towel, bleached cleaner than anything I’ve ever worn. I don’t yet have the courage to reach my hand towards his skin, so as we say hello I grip the folded collar, run my fingers up and down its elegant softness. Look at his lips.

Veronica, his voice a low whisper, and I fold into his arms, the door is open, my bag at my feet - 

The rattle of metal makes me jump.

Good timing, he says to somebody behind me, smiling wide, opening his arm in a gesture of welcome. A bellboy pushes a trolley, on it a gleaming silver bucket, filled with ice, the gold foil of a bottle of Louis Bouillot poking from its brim. Silver and gold. 

I pick up my bag and enter so the bellboy can follow us. This room is enormous - the bathroom gleaming, bigger than my bedroom. A giant television, a long dining table, opulent aquamarine chairs in striped, lordly upholstery. And in the next room, the bed - king size - looks out across the city as if watching a kingdom. The bellboy sets up besides the grand chairs and the window, through which I can see swallows dip and fall. I am embarrassed by him - he is young, his red lips wet as he unpeels the wrapper with unpractised flair, and he grimaces as he struggles with the cork. 

Salvatore and I wait beside each other, watching, mute - the tension of the unsaid vibrates between us. Pop! The cork shoots across the room, and a purple vase by the door, lit carefully by discreet down light, seems to fall apart. 

Oh! the boy says, his lips open, there are freckles across his nose. I bend to clean up but he protests, his open hand shaking at me, nonono, places the champagne on the trolley with a loud clatter, and exits the room. Salvatore and I laugh, and I turn, press my hips against his, trail a hand from his ear along his jawline. A silver hair or two in the goatee. Those were not there last time. There are likely a few more lines beside my eyes, too. I keep one arm on his shoulder, twist my torso to grab the champagne bottle. Grip its neck with my fist and pour it clumsily into glasses, bubbles spill up and over and it is okay because his lips are on my neck, slow, chaste kisses, restrained. I can hear the whistle of his nose. I can smell beer on his breath. 

We pull apart as the kid returns with a dustpan and broom. A woman in black pants and pink shirt follows him, tutting, directing his brushstrokes. Salvatore releases me to pull a note from his wallet somewhere in the bedroom. When the boy has cleaned up, resentful that we witnessed his humiliation, he sets the bottle and glasses on our table and takes the trolley. Before he exits Salvatore tips him, looks him in the eye, pats him on the shoulder. 

The door shuts. We fall onto the chairs, and look out to the daylight city. 

Salut - to waiting so long. We have waited, so long. His eyes are wet, glimmer in the sunlight. I feel a triumph. Perhaps I was not the only one who wept. 

Salvatore, this place even has a chandelier. A chandelier! 

I know, mia amata. This is incredible.

Beneath the new cologne, he smells different. 

Come here. He beckons. I stand, shrug off my jacket, and cross the distance between us to sit side-saddle on his lap. The dark flutter of his eyelashes. I thought, maybe we could go out for dinner tonight, they say the osso bucco is good down the street…

We speak soft and low, whispering memories. He traces the line of my collarbone beneath my thin t-shirt, savours the slope of my shoulder, my arm. A light touch, trailing the rise and fall of each finger with tender attention. The shades of us, cream and caramel, contrasting yet complementary, the silver and gold of the champagne bottle. My face is hot, and I take a swig of cool liquid, bubbles sharp on the roof of my palate, and lean to kiss him. His mouth opens, he tastes delicious, I am greedy. 

What exactly do you have on beneath this robe? I push an exploratory hand through the fold, and gasp at the heat of his smooth skin. Beneath my fingers, I know there is a phoenix on his left pectoral, and a spiral on the round of his right shoulder. I cannot see them but I memorised the landscape of his body long ago. My hands spread over his body with the rhythm of my tongue in his mouth. Adjusting myself to face him, my ass resting on his legs, my knees on either side of him, I reach to the towel belt, unlace it, and grasp the gift within. He moans into my mouth as I trace the shape of his cock, his balls, lightly beneath soft hands, resisting gripping the shaft. Again memory guides my movement. He lifts my t-shirt, and my nipples contract in the cool air. He reverently caresses them with hands moving in circular parallel. The noise he makes, the delight in my body, I could almost - I lean back. Take a breath. 

He smiles, You know I want to take this slow, but… and slides his hands beneath my skirt. As he rises, his eyebrows lift in surprise. You didn’t -

I purse my lips. You know I don’t like to mess around, Sal.

Even - on the plane? What happens if you - he starts to laugh, and the sound, I had forgotten, fireworks are in my chest. Well then, baby, he says, his smile turning devilish. 

He turns me around, pushes the skirt up above my waist. I am wet, I’ve been wet since practically last week, thinking about what would happen today. I was wet as I took the taxi to the airport early this morning, wet through security; by the time I finally buckled myself in I could feel a generous ooze between my thighs and smiled at my secret anticipation. Now, beyond our ghostly reflection, I look over thin streets snaking across colonial buildings, scooters zipping around, the observatory across the garden. His hands rest on my thighs, thumbs circling with increasing pressure. A hand slides to my breast, and he is more urgent now, kneading, pushing and pulling at the same time, his mouth is open against my shoulderblade, opening and closing wetly as he tastes my skin. I lift my hips up and his right hand leaves my thigh to position himself, as I knew he would, and I lower myself onto him as I watch the city from above, I return to him, he returns to me, and I groan through tight lips as I rise and fall, rise and fall, as he holds my hips, guides my hips, as swallows swing through the air. 

***

Did you know my mother was born on the same street as my grandfather? He does not answer, continues stroking my hair, he knows when I am telling a story. And on that street was a pub, a school, a factory, and a place where people took trash. And they burned it. My mother was born in her parents’ bedroom, in a terrace house with no hot water, born to two young people full of hope and fear, and when they opened the window in the summer, she breathed the fumes. 

He breathes out, and I lift my head, see his body on its side, his head resting on his palm, his eyes fixed in the distance. He has gone somewhere, perhaps to the place his mother was born. We are nestled on the sheets of the enormous bed, resting in the lull, in the soft air. There will be no dinner date. I want to stay here with him, in the togetherness of our nakedness, all through the night. 

The father of my grandfather had a beak nose. When my grandfather and grandmother were courting - only teenagers - my great-grandfather pinched my grandmother on the bottom. Think of that! She was only sixteen! 

This is a common thing, he says, running his palm over the arc of my waist. I look for my thin, tall glass on the bedside table, want the coolness on my lips, but we have drained the bottle. If only he knew. If only he knew how common, and how much it hurts. To know that with pleasure comes danger, a woman can never be at rest. I go on. 

From all reports, he was a bad guy - my great-grandfather. He had a wife, my grandfather’s mother, who cleaned the local factory - they made wrenches and metal tools - all her life. Now I am on my back beside him, tracing circles on the faded tattoo of his shoulder. 

He never took his wife on a holiday. But oh, he had mistresses. And they escaped together, they escaped the crying babies, the dishes in the sink, the grey cold, and they went to the seaside on the train. They went to the countryside. He took his mistresses on holiday. 

His eyebrows gather, dark and thick. What are you saying? That we shouldn’t be here? He is looking at me now, intensity burning in brown eyes. 

I roll onto my stomach, and push back my hair to look at him from the side. No. It’s just - I just thought of my great-grandmother. And how she must have waited for her holiday. 

He pushes up from the bed. Walks across the room, his rounded ass lilting with each step. Electricity runs through me, my hands tingle. He pulls open the fridge, I hear the clink of glass. Since the last time I saw him, he has gained weight. I want to touch him again. Memorise his body anew.

***

xx

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