Unmasked (5 page)

Emma’s was imagining him on her. She had jumped ahead and was opening her legs wider as he fucked her. She could even feel his weight and his heated kisses.

But Paul was still on his knees. His tongue was flicking her clit. And his fingers were in her. He was seeking a spot he knew Emma liked. She moaned generously when he found it. His tongue flicked her, his fingers massaged her and she lifted her hips rhythmically. She was fucking him in
her imaginings now – sitting on the cock she had known all her adult life. Grinding.

Paul felt her hand in his hair. She pushed him down. He started to fuck her with his fingers. His tongue flicked more quickly. Her body was trembling. She started to suck in air, she was writhing, her thighs crushed him, her hand took a clump of his hair in a fist and then she bucked.

‘Oh, fuck! Oh, fuck! Oh, fuck!’

She held him to her roughly. Her thighs held him captive. She rammed her pussy against his face and came. It was huge. It lingered. It was intense. And then her body could handle no more and she pushed him away and lay shivering and shaking in the long reprise.

Paul undressed and climbed quietly onto the bed. He lay beside her. He knew what he done, he could see the ripples running across her skin. He pressed his body to her side. He was hard. Emma made no sign that she recognised what he was doing. He lifted her right leg and draped it over his hip.

Emma eyes were closed, she hadn’t moved. Then she felt his cock enter her and there escaped a long low moan from her lips. His cock was thick, not
long. It filled her. She knew it and loved it. She knew what he could do with it. And after her orgasm she wanted him to use it. She wanted to be fucked, properly fucked, again and again. She’d stay in that room forever if he promised never to stop.

But Paul was her lover. He was not her man. He could never be her man.

For two weeks Emma luxuriated in the lie they had created. With the help of her parents back in Sydney she sorted the money issue. She was now able to access her account. She bought more clothes but spent much of the time naked in the room with Paul. They were tender, they indulged each other, they were rough and then gentle, they took their time, and they were intimate. It was a sensual interlude that never sought the deeper regions of their hearts. A holiday from themselves.

Paul woke first. He said they should move on, and when he said it he believed he was suggesting they both move on together. Another town, another country.

But a day later he realised he didn’t want her to join him. He had not stopped loving her – he
loved her more than ever. He was very happy that he had been there for her, that he had been able to rescue her and that their time together had been so like his dreams. This all made him happy. What wasn’t so great was that it was obvious she didn’t love him. Not in the way he had hoped.

They were sitting in a café when he decided he had to put an end to it. But there was no way he was going to reveal how hurt he was. He played it cool. He set her free with no strings attached.

‘There is something about us, Emma. We work best together in stolen moments.’ He took a sip of his coffee. She was watching him. He hoped she wouldn’t notice his hand shaking. ‘This is no longer a stolen moment.’

And that was that. Emma knew exactly what he meant. It was just like Paul, she thought. As soon as he said it she knew it was over and that he would be gone in a day or two. She went back to the hotel by herself, threw the clothes she had bought into a bag and left.

Paul stayed another week in the room he had shared with Emma, lingering against all of his better instincts, before hopping on a flight out of Italy.

Emma headed north to Florence and for the next few months – December, January and February – toured the north of Italy like a backpacker – San Gimignano, Pisa, Lucca, Cinque Terra, Genova, Turin, Milan, Padova, Verona, Venice … Then turned south again to Bologna, Ravenna, Urbino, back to Rome, Naples …

Italiy was empty in winter, so she was able to do everything on the cheap. She took her time. She stayed in hostels. She linked up with other lone women travellers, accepting lifts from those with rental cars, travelling on trains with others for safety and sharing beds on occasion to save money. They were short-lived, mutually beneficial friendships. She saw all the sights. She lingered. She ate the food and tried her hardest to avoid the men. She had had enough of men. She had had enough of desire. She had had enough.

EIGHT

Otranto was the end of her Italian road. She was exhausted. She had taken in as much as she could. It was now April. Every day, every hour, had been spent studying Italy’s past in an attempt to avoid her own. In the freezing winter winds she had toured ancient ruins, cathedrals, churches, palaces, town halls, hill towns and fortresses. In over-heated galleries she had examined thousands of paintings, sculptures, objects. In her bed at night, footsore and tired, she had read guidebooks and histories.

But when she arrived in Otranto she knew her travels were over. She walked from the train
station towards the old town with her bag on her back. The way was longer than it looked on her map. The streets were ugly and decaying: headless palm trees, faded pastel colours, twenty-year-old unkempt holiday villas and grasses growing in the cracks on the road, the pavement and walls. Otranto had the appearance of an abandoned resort town. Her bag was heavy, she was tired and she lost her way.

The sea appeared at the end of a congested laneway and she found herself on a windswept esplanade. The old town was before her, raised on a low hill surrounded by fortress walls. Keeping to the edge of the harbour she walked slowly onwards, crossing a tree-lined park and reaching a large open piazza which jutted out into the harbour. She walked to the low wall and placed her hands on the cold white stone. She had no desire to visit the cathedral, even though the guidebook said the mosaic floor was a ‘must see’. She had no desire to visit the castle made famous by Walpole, either. She glanced north to the over-developed and cluttered promontory, glanced south towards the marina and then stared out across the pier to the east where she had read that on clear days you could see the mountains of Albania. But there were
no mountains visible that day. Just clouds, a grey sea and a strong cold wind blowing into her face.

Her travels were over. There was nothing more she could do. Her bank account contained enough money to buy a bus ticket to Rome and a flight back to Sydney and not much more. She left the piazza and while walking empty streets of the old town looking for a
pensione
she spotted a large green bin. She dropped her bag to the ground and opened it. Squatting, she took out her guidebooks, pamphlets and timetables and tossed them into the bin. After walking up and down the medieval streets blindly, she found herself a cheap room, washed, ate a few biscuits and went to bed.

Not long after this she started to write. The words came and they were a relief. She wrote about David. She wrote about him and he entered her heart again. Those first nights were the hardest. She let him back in. She stared into his eyes for hours at a time and cried and cried. But the writing changed things. The more she wrote the more she was able to see.

Two months later Emma was still in Otranto. Her days were uniform. She was living frugally.
The money she made from her conversations with Sylvia did not cover her costs but it had meant she was able to postpone her departure. One of Sylvia’s friends had rented Emma a room in her apartment. The woman was old, in her late seventies. Her children were living in the north, her grandchildren were scattered around the world.

Emma spent hours alone in her room. She had re-read the three novels in her bag.
The Portrait of a Lady
a few times. She couldn’t move on. Whenever she asked herself what she wanted she found only one answer, but that was something she couldn’t have.

So she stayed, and each afternoon she went to work. The room was cheap but out of town in a grim housing development. The walk into town was not long but still depressing. Modern Italian architects seemed determined to build with no reference to the outstanding examples of architecture left them by their ancestors. Emma would make a beeline for the coast and then walk along the waterfront. Every step she took towards the old town, the more pleasing was the environment. The local government’s duty of care only seemed to extend as far as the day-tripping tourist dollar wandered. And few wandered out of the old city.

Otranto woke as winter retreated. The waterfront cafes reopened, people were taking to the water, the evening promenades began. Young people started to appear. Where they had been these last months, Emma could not say, but she welcomed their return. They stood on the esplanade by the beach in groups, chatting, flirting, smoking and laughing. They were loud and fierce, sweet and affectionate, rude and uninhibited. The girls stared at her as she passed them. Bold, threatening, inquisitive stares. And Emma felt instinctively that she had to hold her nerve in presenting an unruffled and cool front. She stood straighter and found herself exaggerating the natural rhythm of her stride. It was all very primeval, but the attention invited blood back into her veins. She had allowed herself to become sexless since leaving Rome.

One evening, having stayed out longer than usual, Emma was walking back along the waterfront to her room. The night air was warm and the entire town had come out to enjoy the change. They had converged upon The Promenade of the Heroes, which was the name of the large piazza Emma had found when she first arrived, mingling and strolling with no greater purpose
than to mingle and stroll. Emma had found it hard to tear herself away. She hadn’t even minded the unsolicited attention of the men.

By the time she left, the street lights were on and the lingering dusk had become night. The further from the old town she went the fewer people on the street. The esplanade took on a lonely appearance. Up ahead of her Emma could see a group standing under a street light. She would have to pass them. She saw one of the group lift his head and stare at her. He motioned for the others to look. They all turned. Emma saw that there were about eight men, no women. She had been hoping for at least one woman. They started talking to her before she had reached them. She couldn’t understand what they were saying – her alarm bells were ringing and all she could focus on was finding another way home. She started to move off to the left. This was not clever. One of the men jogged across into her path.

‘Where you go?’ he asked in English.

Emma turned away again, heading back from where she’d come. Another man was standing in her way.

‘
Bella
, talk with us,’ said the first man, taking hold of her arm.

Emma wrenched herself from his grip. ‘Fuck off!’

‘Oooh. Fuck off? Not so nice.’

By now she was surrounded by the men, who ranged in age between late teens to mid-twenties. None of them was smiling. If anything, she thought they looked bored.

‘We walk you home,
si
? Not safe,’ said the youngest of the group. He was smoking. One of the men took a photo of her with his phone. The flash surprised her and the others. There was some quick chatter and then a burst of ugly laughter that made Emma’s blood run cold.