Unmasked (13 page)

After catching her breath, she whispered, ‘Look at the man getting married.’

Marco had to wait for a group of elderly tourists to pass.

‘
Stronzo
!’ he said quite loudly and began to laugh. It was the American with the huge cock.

‘He did say he was here for a wedding,’ laughed Emma.

‘
Stronzo
! You think he share his wife with me?’

‘Shall we ask him?’ said Emma, adjusting her clothes and walking towards the wedding group. She squeezed through the curious crowds and stood beside the photographer so that the American could see her. His face changed colour as the photographer clicked away.

Emma kept her promise to Marco. They did not have sex that night, nor early the next morning, late morning, midday, early afternoon, late afternoon, evening, night or the following dawn. Emma held off Marco’s advances for two whole days before she succumbed. And when she did it wasn’t all the way.

They were in the bar and the night was coming to an end. The owner had gone home leaving Emma and Marco to close up. She’d been on the lookout for David all night. She kept expecting to turn and for him to be there. But now it was an hour before closing and there were only a few patrons left. Twenty or so. Emma had cleaned the bar area and Marco had just returned from wiping down the empty tables. Stools and chairs were upended. Marco poured himself a beer and asked Emma if she wanted anything. She shook her head. She was tired and, bending at the hips, rested her head on her arms on the bar. Marco placed his hand on Emma’s behind. He often did, but this time Emma felt it. Really felt it. It had been hard fending off all of Marco’s advances over the last few days. They had wrestled on the bed. He had pinned her down. He had torn a perfectly good pair of underpants from her. He had kissed
her – how he had kissed her! – all over. And she had had to be the strong one. She had had to say no when all she wanted was to say yes. And yes. And yes.

Now they were in the bar, at work, and she was tired and she wanted to be fucked. Nice and slow. Right here and right now. The patrons be damned. Her promise be damned. Marco’s art be damned.

She could see most of the patrons. They were busy with their own lives. One couple were clearly touching each other under the table. It was a common sight late at night in a bar like this. Staying fairly still Emma moved her left hand from under her head. Marco wandered off to refill his beer and when he turned back to Emma she had undone her jeans and pulled them down below her butt.

She glanced across at him. He stood with a grin and took a sip of his beer.

‘You want?’

‘I want,’ she replied.

‘
You
want? How much you want?’

Marco took one step closer. Emma felt exposed now. She hadn’t counted on resistance.

‘How much
you
want, eh?’ he repeated. He moved closer still.

‘Very much.’ She started to touch herself.

He slapped her behind. ‘No, you promise. No fuck.
Si ricorda
?’

‘Yes!’

He moved behind her and she rested her chin on the bar and watched the patrons. She expected to feel his cock entering her. Nothing happened. He did not touch her.

She turned her head, looking at him over her shoulder. He was taking a sip of his beer. At that moment she felt his fingers against her. They slid up and down her – then into her.

‘You want very much but I no break promise.’

‘Break promise.’

‘I no break promise. Tomorrow I paint. I no fuck tonight. Tomorrow I paint.’

‘I don’t care. Fuck me.’

She reached around and felt the huge bulge in his jeans. She rubbed it. He did not resist. She undid his jeans.

‘I no fuck you.’

She released his cock. It felt hot. It felt hard. She directed it towards her and pushed back.

‘We no fuck.’

She could feel the head of his cock against her lips. He ran it up and down her slowly. Then he
slid the whole shaft up and down along her wet lips. His cock was drenched in her. It would slip in easily. She was watching the patrons. It was dark in the bar. No one had looked their way. She was jittery now. Expectant.

She reached under her and rubbed the wetness of her pussy into his balls. She squeezed them and he groaned. He was going to fuck her. He put the head of his cock against her then slid it up higher. He pushed her butt down and she gave way, bending at the knees. Was he going to fuck her in the arse? He’d never done that to her. The American had. Marco pressed it against her arsehole and held it there. His cock head felt huge. He moved forward. She would take him in. Then he slid away from her. When she turned he was hastily packing away his cock. He walked off to the far end of the bar. She then saw why. A patron was coming to the counter. It was only then that she realised when he was pressed against her arsehole she’d stopped watching the bar and had waited for him with eyes closed. She pulled up her jeans, just enough, and stayed where she was. She was shaking. Lust ridden. She touched herself. Anyone might have had her then.

Marco stayed a long time with the patron; she could see that they knew each other. The patron kept stealing glimpses of her. She couldn’t tell if he knew what she was doing or just found her pose provocative enough. If he’d known what she was feeling and what she was thinking about he would have leapt the bar. She’d have fucked him, too. He was cute. She was so turned on. But while he was watching her and trying to keep up with the flow of the conversation Marco called for last drinks and the moment was gone. For ten minutes or so Emma and Marco had to work. When everything settled down, Marco said, ‘We keep promise.’

FOURTEEN

Emma woke late the next morning. She was alone in Marco’s bed. She hadn’t slept well, her dreams had been too lively. At one time the patron from the bar was fucking her. The next moment he was David. Then she was getting married. Then she was shouting at Sally. Then being caught with her face between Sally’s legs on the balcony at the beach house. Then Marco was there and he was unhappy. The night was long and she awoke frustrated and thinking of David.

Thoughts of her husband were unavoidable. Since discovering he was in Otranto, or at least
discovering he had been in Otranto, he lingered on the edge of her thoughts. Each of Marco’s touches was intensified by his presence. But when she tried to picture him in Otranto, she couldn’t do it. He didn’t fit this new life of hers. He wasn’t casual. He wasn’t carefree. He couldn’t live on the smell of an oily rag. He couldn’t work shit jobs and he didn’t like not knowing what tomorrow would bring.

She washed and got into her bikini and Elena’s dress and ate what she could find in Marco’s kitchen. The kitchen was a piece of history. Without changing a thing a film crew could come in and film a scene set in 1960s Italy. The building Marco lived in had been his mother’s home. She had kept everything in perfect order and now Elena did the same. She told Emma that Marco had wanted to clear out all of his mother’s things but she had forbidden him. When she saw how Marco lived she had taken it upon herself to keep house. Not for him, she said, but for her mother.

Emma left the building and crossed to the barn. The door was locked and there was a little sign – ‘I Paint’. Emma smiled. She had won. But had lost in winning. She wasn’t his muse, as he had said, she was an anti-muse.

She left him to paint and took herself down to the sea. The sun shone brilliantly above and the sea was postcard blue. From the cliff top she counted twenty-four boats and yachts, all a dazzling white, anchored or slowly cruising by. Brown bodies lounged about, stood on or dived from the decks. She climbed down the rocky path. The scent of wild herbs mixed with the smells of the sea filled her nostrils. It was the scent of a home she had never known. It was in moments like these when she could walk away from herself entirely. She could hand herself over to the world. She was still young, she was still beautiful, she was rich in the eyes of the world. She stopped on the pebbled shore, lifted the dress over her head and dropped it to the ground.

When Emma returned to the barn a few hours later the door was still locked. She could hear jazz playing. She resisted the urge to knock and moved on to see what Elena was doing. As she entered the kitchen, Elena’s dog Pluto came up to her, wagging his tail. Emma reached down and picked him up. Plates were unwashed in the sink. She passed through to the living room. Little Marco sat in a playpen holding a small red fire truck. He stared at her in his way – no expression – but then quickly
lost interest and turned his gaze back to the truck. Emma was about to call out when she heard a particular sound. She stepped to the bottom of the staircase and listened again. Unmistakable. Emma tiptoed back the way she came, leaving Pluto in the kitchen. When she was outside she looked around for Giovanni’s van. It wasn’t there.

So Emma sat at Marco’s bedroom window. She could see the courtyard and, over the rooftops, the sea. She knew she shouldn’t have let curiosity get the better of her but there was no fighting it. She had to know who Elena was fucking. It was too juicy a discovery. Elena had always seemed to be the model Italian wife: dinner on the table for her husband every night, always ready and willing to make food for her brother, both buildings kept sparkling, the beach rented and cared for, good mother to her son, no personal ambitions. Emma felt like cheering this indiscretion. But before she could she had to know who it was. She had to know Elena was doing this for herself and for no other reason. She hoped for Elena’s sake it was one of the hot young bods renting a spot on the rocks from her and not Giovanni’s obese boss threatening to fire her husband if she didn’t let him into her bed every Tuesday morning.

When Elena emerged from her house she sat little Marco on a rug outside and herself on a chair and began shelling peas. Emma felt cheated. She knew what she’d heard, there was no mistaking it. It was Elena and a man. Her voice, his grunts. But no man had left the building, at least not by the door. Had Elena been watching porn and masturbating?

Emma ran down the stairs and, smiling, entered the courtyard.

‘Morning, Elena,’ she said, striding up to her.

‘
Ciao
,’ replied Elena.

‘You look very well this morning. Very beautiful. You seem to be glowing. Did you sleep well?’

Elena began to glow now, bright red. She nodded.

‘May I join you? Marco’s painting and I have nothing to do until we go into town.’

Emma didn’t wait for an answer but went into Elena’s house, dashed upstairs and took a look around. She’d never been upstairs before. The bed in the main bedroom was made. There was no TV, no laptop. She checked the other rooms. All was as it should be. She hurried back downstairs and carried a chair out and placed it beside Elena.

‘I know it’s early but do you have any wine?’ And Emma was back in the house. She made her way to the living room windows. One was unlocked. She opened it wide and looked down at the ground below. It would be easy to get in and out of but there was nothing to see. No footprints or marks on the window sill. She felt thwarted. But she loved the idea of a man sneaking in too much to let the facts ruin her fun.

Back outside with a bottle and two glasses, and after a few meaningless minutes of chatter, Emma couldn’t resist any longer. ‘I came by earlier looking for you but you were busy upstairs.’

Elena was silent, she looked away.

‘I think it’s great you have a lover,’ she added, taking a gamble.

Again her words were met with silence, but the silence was all the evidence she needed.

‘You
should
have a lover. You’re a beautiful woman. You work so hard. You deserve a bit of fun.’

Elena kept her head turned but said, ‘I meet him on the beach. I never do anything before. I am ashamed.’

‘Did you have fun?’

Elena was silent again and Emma wondered if she had gone too far. She didn’t know Elena very well.

A moment later, though, Elena answered, ‘This is the last time. I tell him he can come no more.’

‘Last time? How many times has he been?’

‘I meet him one week ago.’ There was a slight pause while she calculated. ‘So, twelve times.’

‘Twelve times!’

Elena laughed and for the first time turned her face and looked at Emma.

‘We meet on the beach. But cannot do nothing there. Not much. He is very
grezzo
. He come morning and then afternoon, too. You think me a whore?’

‘No. I think you a woman,’ she said, and poured a drop more wine into Elena’s untouched glass. ‘All women deserve more sex. All women need more than one man. What is
grezzo
?’

‘He make sex always. Talk sex. Touch me. Make me touch him. People watching. He will make trouble for me.’ Elena made a face and fanned herself.

Emma laughed.

‘I cannot stop with him. I think only of what he do to me. Nothing else. Only what he do. When
he leave I will go crazy. Giovanni is not a good lover.’

‘When does he leave?’

‘
Non lo so
. Tourists never long here. I tell him no more but already I am thinking of later, of tomorrow.’