Chapter 136
I PARKED IN THE SHADE of a eucalyptus tree, then ran across the street to the apartment building, where I hit the intercom button labeled S. Manca.
Within a few moments, I heard Teo’s voice in my ear. “Salve?”
“It’s Eileen,” I said softly, hoping against hope that Francesca wouldn’t hear me from her second-floor balcony.
Teo buzzed me up immediately, and we met on the third-floor landing. He was still wearing the linen slacks and button-down shirt he’d worn to the press conference, but the shirt was untucked and the jacket was gone.
I could have said something. Hello or How are you? or I’m sorry my husband’s a shit. But we were past preambles. Instead, I walked straight into his arms and pulled his face toward mine. His lips were warm and tasted like tobacco and salt, and I didn’t know how I was ever going to stop kissing him.
We stumbled up the last flight of stairs and down the hallway, and as soon as we were inside his apartment, I tore at the buttons of his shirt, then got so frustrated that he laughed at me and pulled it over his head.
It was like we were back in that alley in Aggius, except this time there wasn’t a single brain cell in my head telling me to stop.
Teo lifted me into the air, and I wrapped my legs around his waist. “I think I am dreaming right now,” he said into my neck as he carried me to the bedroom and we tumbled onto the mattress.
“You are not dreaming,” I said in the hurried whisper of someone who wants to be undressed immediately.
For a few minutes we were all arms and legs, yanking at our clothes and each other. But when our skin was finally touching in all the most important places, he forced me to slow down. “I’ve wanted to do this for two years,” he said solemnly. “You have to let me take my time.”
“Okay,” I said with a soft exhale.
He kissed the curve of my neck, then traced the edge of my clavicle with his tongue. By the time he had made slow work of my breasts, my skin was covered in goose bumps.
“Please,” I begged, eager for all of him, but Teo moved his head between my legs and took me into his mouth.
I was self-conscious at first, because this particular move was not in Paul’s repertoire, but that went out the window when I realized the slow flick of Teo’s tongue was better than any shower nozzle I’d ever come across.
His touch was soft and steady, and when I was about to come, he placed a finger inside me, and it was like he’d pulled a trigger.
I bucked against his palm, then fell apart completely.
I was still feeling the aftershocks when Teo crawled toward me, kissed me, then asked in Italian if he could enter me. I almost laughed, it sounded so formal.
“Sì,” I said, and arched my hips toward his.
“You’re sure?” he asked, in English this time.
I thought maybe he was worried about not having a condom, so I told him I was on the pill.
“No, I mean, you’re sure you want to do this?”
It dawned on me that he was thinking about Paul and my absolute mess of a marriage, which I reasoned was still going to be a mess at the end of the afternoon.
“I’m very, very sure,” I whispered as I kissed him, and then he was inside me, which somehow managed to feel both totally new and also deeply familiar at the same time.
After a few minutes, Teo nudged my legs closed, a move that seemed counterintuitive until I realized it created a delightful friction that turned me inside out. I came a second time, with no warning, and this time I wept.
“You’re okay?” he asked, still hard inside me.
“Uh-huh,” I whispered. How could I tell him that these were tears of relief? That for a long time, I had thought my body was broken or in some way deficient, but I was learning—he was teaching me—that my body was perfect, and all I had needed, this whole time, was someone to treat it as such.
I rolled on top of him, and he lay very still while I moved against him, our hands clasped.
I had all the control, whereas I was used to having none, and this idea—that I could do whatever I wanted—was so erotic that within a few minutes, another small shudder of pleasure ran through me.
He smiled up at me, then pulled me tight against him, and I felt his release, like a heartbeat, in the center of my body.
When I could make words again, I whispered, “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“I don’t know,” I said, and then I thought about it for a minute. “For wanting this, too, I guess.”
He kissed the top of my head, and we lay there like that for a long time.
Eventually, Teo ran us a bath. Afterward, he wrapped me in a robe and left me curled up on the sofa while he ran downstairs to Francesca’s to borrow four eggs and a block of cheese. “She didn’t suspect you were entertaining someone up here?” I asked upon his return.
“Well,” he said, with a crooked smile, “she did mention that she’d seen your car parked out front.”
I cackled at that. “I guess I’ll have to be smarter next time.”
He raised his eyebrows at the words next time, then made us a frittata, which we ate on the sofa, legs entwined. When we were finished eating, he gathered me onto his lap. I could tell he was getting serious, that he had questions he’d put off asking for as long as possible.
“When do I get to see you again?” he whispered into my hair.
“When do you want to see me again?” I asked, cautiously.
“Tonight, tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, the day after that…”
He’d have kept going, but I kissed him, which shut him up. Then he untied my robe, and we were back where we’d started.
We fell asleep on the sofa, and I dreamed I was in a submarine that had come to rest on the bottom of the ocean floor.
I didn’t know how I’d get out, or if I’d get out, and when I woke with a start, it was a quarter to six.
I hurried to the bedroom to get dressed, then returned to the living room to look for my shoes, which I’d kicked off somewhere between the front door and the bedroom.
Teo stirred. “You’re leaving?”
“I have to,” I said.
He reached for me, and I moved to sit on the edge of the sofa.
“Really, when will I see you again?” he asked.
In his eyes, I could read his fears—that I would regret this afternoon, that what we’d shared in this apartment would become nothing more than a pleasant memory I pulled out and examined from time to time but otherwise kept tucked away.
“Soon,” I promised. “You’ll see me soon.”