5. Nico
5
NICO
OBSESSION HAS A NAME
I spend the whole jet ride in the little room at the back of the plane, because there’s a ninety percent chance my brother is going to fuck his wife on the couch at the front and I don’t need to be witnessing that.
I’m happy for him. And for Giulia. She truly found her place within our family unit and completes my brother. They’re a force to be reckoned with, unstoppable when they don’t bicker, though I’ve come to understand it’s their own form of foreplay.
We land on Kalliste on December 26th, Lana Moretti and Lisandru Pierce Bartoli welcoming us on their territory. My cousin Pierce and Andrea have been working on repairing their broken relationship in the past few months.
I never had a relationship with him to begin with. I understand he’s family but to me, he’s as much a stranger as the rest of the Moretti family is. And I don’t trust strangers.
When Lana and her fiancé reach their hands for me to shake, I just give them a curt nod.
The ride to the Moretti mansion is beautiful. More than I expected.
Travelling is always a source of anxiety. Not knowing my surroundings, who to trust and how to speak the local language are barriers to experience the world fully but within the confines of the town car, I watch as we pass lush hills patched with snow on my right and the azure sea on my left.
The contrast of the landscape is breathtaking and even with the upcoming storm turning the sky an opaque anthracite colour, I can’t help but admire the scenery. It’s very different from my house in West Hill. I don’t know how I feel about that.
Located behind a high ornate metal door and overlooking the Mediterranean Sea with a garden of olive and fig trees that must cover the place with cooling shade in the summer, the mansion is as sumptuous as the panorama outside.
As we step inside, the silence of winter is replaced with loud chatter and I almost flinch. Years of hiding my emotions help me remain still.
Giulia takes my hand and gives it a quick squeeze. “I’m sorry. I should have told you that we Morettis are a very loud bunch.”
“I should have known just by knowing you,” I answer with a smirk. She’s the loudest person I know. I didn’t like it at first, but now that I know who she is at her core, a passionate defender of her family who loves hard, it makes my insides feel warm to know she’s here with us.
Before we make it more than a few steps into the living room, a storm of taffetas collide with Giulia and I tense. The pink-cheeked black-haired girl with a nose piercing squeezes my sister-in-law, but I don’t even see her anymore.
Because I see double, except her twin doesn’t have a piercing and looks like the prettiest fairy. Her night-blue dress embroidered with silver thread embraces her lush body perfectly, giving away all the secrets of her curvy form. The light reflects on her long dark hair, loose on her shoulders and I cant my head to the side, overcome with the need to glide my fingers through them. I fit both hands into the pockets of my oversized jeans to fend off the curious compulsion, then run my tongue over my lip piercing three times back and forth.
Even I know it’s not customary or welcomed for strangers to touch other strangers’ hair. It looks so soft and silky, though.
“This is my cousin Marie and that, talking Andrea’s ear off, is Lisa,” Giulia chuckles, introducing the two people who sandwiched her in a hug that would make any normal person uncomfortable.
Marie.
I repeat her name in my head, rolling the sound on my tongue. I like that it’s pronounced “ma-ree” and not “mae-ree”. It makes her less common. Just like her face. Even if the carbon copy exists next to her, I see all the differences.
The birthmark at the bottom right corner of her mouth, a micro scar right above the left eyebrow, the way her lids are slightly hooded over her eyes and how her bottom lip is plumper than on her sister’s face. The green in her eyes has a deeper shade toward the irises, particularly on the right eye, like her genetics couldn’t decide which Pantone to choose from.
I wonder if she knows.
Before I can observe and take more notes of what makes her unique, she speaks a shy “Nice to meet you,” then she scurries away into the busy living-room.
That night, the Christmas dinner is a feast of delicious homemade foods, prepared by the Moretti matriarch and her crew, red wine from the Bartoli vineyards flowing freely in each glass.
I enjoy it more than I thought I would.
Yes, they’re loud and the inebriation doesn’t help them control their volume. But they’re happy to be with each other and the joy and love is infectious. My muscles relax as the wine flows in my bloodstream and food fills my stomach.
Yet, I never let Marie leave my sight.
For every glass of wine I drink, she downs three. She’s on her seventh and I don’t touch my third. By all counts, she had two whole bottles by herself, but she doesn’t sway and her eyes still seem clear, her attention drifting from family member to family member, a slight frown on her face whenever she looks at her sister Lisa. Who I noticed did not drink at all, though she did pretend to put her lips in her glass.
She also didn’t touch any cold cuts or raw fish and seashells.
Must be pregnant and not wanting the attention. No one seems to notice, too absorbed on other topics.
When Marie finally turns her eyes to me, our gazes collide and I feel warm all over for an entirely different reason than alcohol. Her cheeks take on a peachy hue. It’s lovely.
I don’t know what compels me to follow her when she excuses herself and walks to the library at the back of the house. She doesn't hear me. I watch as she pours herself a glass of what must be whiskey from the crystal decanter resting on a vintage cart.
The place is tastefully decorated with a thick dark green rug and a modern beige sofa in the middle of the room, surrounded by shelves of books and priceless art hanging from the walls. A bit pompous but it works with the rest of the house. She looks out of place, though. Almost too raw.
She turns and startles when she sees me, a hand going to her chest, the other clutching the glass.
“Gosh, you scared me. What are you doing here?”
I shrug.
Truthfully, I don’t know.
Marie shuffles from one foot to the other, biting her plush bottom lip. Her eyes are everywhere but on me. I want them on me.
“Care to share?” I signal to her glass with my chin.
She turns her back to me and takes another crystal glass, pouring a generous amount of Scotch before she hands it over to me.
Her lips wrap around her glass and she swallows the amber liquid, drinking half the glass in one gulp. Her deep green eyes remind me of the forest behind my house.
I’ve had enough alcohol for the night but I want to prolong this peaceful moment with her. Away from the loud crowd that is her family, she led me to a place of respite and quiet, even without knowing it, and I appreciate the silence between us.
I allow my eyes to drop down her body leisurely. We’re so close I can see the goosebumps rising on her flawless olive skin. It’s all mesmerising. Her heart beats a wild rhythm at her neck. “Why are you nervous?” I ask, genuinely curious.
She swallows thickly and I can almost hear the sound of her throat working over her dry mouth.
“I don’t know you. I'm not in the habit of being alone with strangers,” she offers.
Her honesty satisfies me. It’s hard to find real answers in people. Most want to portray themselves the best way to get you to give them what they want. She just answered truthfully because I asked. That’s precious.
I take a step back to let her breathe, then sit on the sofa, watching her intently as she towers over me from my new position. She’s even more perfect from this new vantage point.
Her shoulders immediately drop and her eyes darken. Since social cues can be hard for me, I’ve made it my mission to study body language and become a master at it. Marie likes this new situation where she’s the one on top.
For someone who’s had a whole bottle of wine and is drinking whiskey right after, she seems in full possession of her mind. She approaches me slowly, as though I’m the wild creature and she the one who’s trying to domesticate it. Maybe that’s true enough.
Her head tilts to the side and she regards me behind lowered thick lashes. Her tongue picks through her lips to wet them. All I can do is follow the sight.
She lifts a hand, tentatively bringing it to my face and I tense, but she doesn’t touch me. At least not at first.
Like controlled by a puppeteer, she slowly traces the contours of my face, a breath away from my skin. It sets me alight, but contrary to all the times before, it’s a warm fire, a good fire that smells like whiskey and something deeply feminine, like peaches. It makes me want to inhale deeply but I hold my breath, waiting for Marie to decide what she’ll do next.
I have enough time to back out, yet I don’t. Her thumb lightly presses on the ring on the middle of my lower lip, flipping it gently side to side. A shiver rakes down my spine. She’s still towering over me, standing in between my spread thighs, ready to take away her warmth when she decides, leaving me to patiently await a sign or a command. It’s exhilarating and she has no idea. Her eyes shine under the low light of the room, her skin flushed with the alcohol.
She swallows thickly but doesn’t remove her hand.
I do something I’ve never dreamt of doing before. I press my tongue piercing against her thumb and guide it inside my mouth.
Her sharp intake of breath makes me want to groan but I hold it in, eyes riveted to where hers devour the sight of my mouth parting open for her.
With a tremble, she glides her thumb deeper into my mouth, feeling the metal under the digit.
I close my lips around her finger and suck. Marie’s lips part on a gasp but she doesn’t move. I don’t want her too. Her eyes finally meet mine, confusion reflected at me in the dark green depths.
I grip my own thighs tightly with one hand and the whiskey glass with the other. I can’t touch her. But how I wish I could. I’d lazily discover if her skin is as soft as it looks, if a particular spot makes her heart thump harder at her pulse point. I’d be bold and use my mouth, my tongue. I’d spend days mapping out all the ridges and hills of her luscious curves. I’d?—
A glass shatters in the background, followed by both applause and reprimands from the matriarch to whoever was clumsy enough to break the crystal and Marie jumps back.
“I’m… I’m sorry.” She stumbles over her words before she turns on her heels and disappears into the corridors without another word, abandoning her glass on the coffee table.
My fingers flex against my glass, the tattooed letters forming the word ‘death’ on each of them shifting, knuckles white with the exertion and control not to break it. I shake my head to dispel the strange event and discard the whiskey, abandoning it next to hers.
Before I can walk and make it over the threshold of the library, I turn around and pick up her half-drunk glass, downing the liquid, my lips lining over the stain of her maroon lipstick.