An exciting holiday, two beautiful women and......a doubly adulterous man.
The train left for Genoa, from track 1. The morning was clear, and rather cool. I managed tofind a seat in a not-too-crowded compartment. I set my bag on the rack and sat down. I lit a cigarette. I had only drunk a cup of coffee and had a bitter taste in my mouth. So I put the cigarette out in an ash-tray and I tried to go back to the sleep I had interrupted an hour earlier.
The clanking of the train lulled me into a heavy, dull slumber. I lit another cigarette, hoping to wake up fully. I managed to do it after a while. I cast an absent-minded glance on my fellow travelers, then my thoughts, automatically, started lingering on Gabrielle. Her agile and elegant figure began quickly to take shape in my imagination. She smiled at me, with that defiant smile of hers, among the jarred rocks of the gulf.
I was headed towards S. Margherita Ligure hoping to meet her. We had met a few years earlier in our home town. She was a friend f my wife’s. Not a very close friend, really. The few times we had met, we had used to stop at a bar for Martinis. I liked her, and I had tried almost desperately to get to know her better. But she had resisted. She tempted me, she spoke softly about her life, smiled, then escaped me. But now I had decided to break through that strange resistance, taking advantage of a holiday of a few days. My family was up in the mountains and I was free to move. With a trick I had been able to find out about her address at S. Margherita, where she had gone to spend her holidays, all by herself. I had no definite plan. I trusted in fate. I hoped luck would assist me in that occasion. I was not truly in love with Gabrielle. Mine was rather a manly whim. She had challenged me, I had picked up the challenge and now I hoped to win that strange game. But the girl was a sharp one, and my task was not easy.
That peculiar chase excited me, that quick hare seduced me, the prospect of a final victory exalted me.
When the train got to Parma, I was suddenly brought back to reality. A crowd of people started filling the corridors, and also my compartment was invaded. Since I can’t stand being in a small overcrowded smoke-filled place, I got up and moved to the corridor, where I smoked and looked absent-mindedly at the fields of Emilia. Gabrielle was no longer in the forefront, at least for the time being. Then even the landescape disappeared when the train was swallowed by a series of tunnels between Parma and La Spezia. More tunnels, flashes of sea coming at simmetrical intervals: Monterosso, Sestri, Chiavari, Rapallo. At last we got to S. Margherita, a few minutes later then scheduled.
I came out of the little station and started looking for a hotel. It was difficult to find anything since it was mid-august. After some looking around I found a room in an oldish hotel with some pretentions of elegance. I left my luggage there and left after casting a disgusted look on the huge and creaking bed where I was going to have to sleep for a few nights.
Soon I was on the promenade crowded by vacationers. The sky was covered and large clouds were coming in from the sea. The outlines of the gulf were blurred by a distant dark mist. Intermittent rain drops forced pedestrians to look for shelter. I went into a bar, ordered a cup of coffee. There was a telephone. I had Gabrielle’s number, and I dialled it without hesitation. A woman’s voice answered. I asked to speak to madame. The woman said to please wait a second. Then Gabrielle picked up the phone.I told her who I was.
- Oh, it’s you !! – she said with that peculiarly pitched voice of hers. She did not seem to be too much surprised by my call.
I told her, a little awkwardly, that I was at S. Margherita in order to spend a few days of vacation there, and that I had come to know her address by a strange coincidence.
- Which coincidence ? – she asked me turning curious.
I explained that I had gone to the office where she worked and that my eyes had casually slipped on an address-book where her address had been written.
- It is not possible ! – she replied, amused – I’m not used to scattering my address everywhere. I bet you put the screws on poor Walter.
It was almost true . Walter was a colleague of the girl’s, a meek, respectful fellow. In his way he was in love with Gabrielle, and he was accustomed to sending her postcards from the places he visited during vacations. It had not been difficult to get from him the address Gabrielle had left him.
- Can we meet ? – I asked her finally, after a few banalities.
I was anxiously waiting for an affermative answer. It was the only way for me to see her. From the sound of my voice she understood that I was slightly excited.
- Are you so keen on seeing me ? – she asked, serious.
- Very much so ! – was my sudden spontaneous answer.
I would have liked to cancel that stressing which laid my game bare and made me as ridiculous as a boy risking his first adventures. But evidently she was satisfied. Perhaps she had long been waiting for such an answer.
- This afternoon I’m free. Completely free. You may thank the rain. If it had been a sunny day, I would have gone to the beach with my friends.
I gave my mental thanks to those heaven-sent clouds and those few drops of rain. I told her we could meet on the “Piazza del Sole” and that later we would decide where to go and what to do. Sh agreed. We hung up. I was satisfied. I had been lucky since I had been able to find her and she had accepted my invitation. I looked at my watch. I had a few hours before meeting her.
/////
I walked for a while along the promenade. The gardens were full of children playing. Almost all the umbrellas on the beach were open and swimmers were diving into the turbid water which lapped the polished stones on the edge of the sea. Fishing boats pulled ashore, yachts, motor-boats, sail-boats of all sizes, anchored everywhere, were softly bobbing on the calm grey sea.
I walked up to the “Yacht Club Tigullio”, then walked back and stopped on the pier where the large boats of the “Compagnia Marittima del Tigullio” were hopelessly waiting for tourists. A sailor with a deep tan, a small megaphone n his hand, was trying to convince the passers-by to sail to Portofino and San Fruttuoso on the Company’s boats.
I took a cigarette, struck a match on the big culverin which points threateningly towards the sea, then I went to sit down on a bench under a large oleander.
In front of me a young woman was reading a newpaper while her child, with cowboy hat and pistol, ran around shooting at imaginary enemies.
I looked at her attentively. She was tall, elegant, with long blond hair and a nicely suntanned skin. She wore white sandals, red slacks, a white nude-look blouse under which a white bra was showing. We casually looked at each other for an istant. I smiled. She looked at me with curiosity, then went back to reading her newspaper with false nonchalance. Then she took a cigarette out of her white purse and for a while looked for her lighter. Perhaps she had forgotten it at home. She looked around for a moment, almost as if she was asking for help.
Quickly I was next to her with a lighted match. She smiled.
- You are very quick – she said with a slight german accent – At times I’m so absent-minded that I forget everything. Do you know that yesterday I lost a gold watch ? Maybe I forgot it in my cabin.
I introduced myself. Her name was Fiona P. and she was the wife of a big businessman from Milan.
- My husband must be in our hotel now. We are staying at the “Palace Hotel”. – she went on, talkative – I come here almost every afternoon with my son. He plays and I read. My husband, as far as he is concerned, loves to go back and forth through the gulf on his boat. He is crazy about the sea......
I was looking at her, and her beauty was striking me more and more. I had almost forgotten Gabrielle. I looked at my watch. It was late. In a few minutes I was supposed to meet her.
- I’m sorry. I must leave you. – I apologized – I have an important engagement in a few minutes.......
- A woman ? – she interrupted me, smiling.
I remained slightly perplexed for a while, then answered:
- I wish that were the case ! Unfortunately it’s a business.
I took her hand, queezed it with a certain strength, then asked her:
- Will I be so lucky as to meet you again and to be helpfull as I was today ?
- Maybe – she answered, bidding me goodbye by a light wave of her hand.
Before leaving her, I bought the child an ice-cream and the boy thanked me with a “Come back soon, uncle.”.
I headed towards the “Piazza del Sole”. I realized I had arrived a few minutes late.
She was there, sitting on a bench looking at the sea. She was wearing a short dress with a flowered design and she had a beautiful tan.
As soon as she saw me, she got up and walked slowly in my direction.
She smiled. That face with those freckles, those large thick lips, the long eyelashes, that body rich with a peculiar unusual charm ! I recognized it at once.
- Why did you come ? – I asked her abruptly.
That phrase had suddenly come to my lips and istinctively I had uttered it.
- Maybe I wanted to see you – she answered, surprised – What’s the matter with you, Frank ? I see you a little upset.....
That well-known defiant smile appeared on her lips. I was truly playing the part of the sucker with those sentimental qualms.
- Nothing. Nothing at all. – I answered, trying to be cool – I had not seen you in a long time and some encounters are always disturbing.
- And your wife ? – she asked me, ironically.
I was really convinced that she had accepted to meet me so she would be able to make fun of me.
- And your husband ? – I replied.
She laughed heartly. I laughed also as if by contagion.
- Poor thing ! – she pitied him – At this time he’s in his bank, working.
- In his bank , working – I mocked her voice and we laughed again.
The ice had been broken. We had needed a while to get rid of the layers of indifference accumulated in the past and to lubricate our mechanisms.
I took her hand. She did not pull it back. She squeezed mine, instead, with strenght, with warmth.
- He will arrive tomorrow...
- Who will arrive tomorrow ? – I interrupted her, curious.
- My husband, of course ! Good Lord, do you want him to die at the bank ? And then his dear little wife needs his.....manly warmth.
For a moment I thought about that man leaving such a good-looking wife all by herself. I hated him. He was not a man as I see a man. He was a dummy wearing pants. Maybe he was a masochist. And Gabrielle was really a first-rate sadist.
- Then we have to hurry up and live ! – I told her to conceal the irritation that news had caused me.
- Of course. That’s the way, Frank ? Let us live. Let us live intensely. Adulterously. As a true conscientious adulterous couple.
She pronounced those words with emphasis and laughed .
- Call me, Gabry. Come on, be a good boy.
I called her Gabry and I let her euphory catch me. I held her tight, my arm around her waist. I got up and with a melodramatic posture I recited, smiling:
- And then, Gabry, let us live our day of folly on the gulf of Tigullio.
“ Let us live, my Gabry, and love. The day can die and rise anew, but
when our short day is done, forever we shall sleep.”
Catullo will point to us the steps of this short day of ours : sightseeing tour on a boat of the “Compagnia Marittima del Tigullio”, Martini “on the rocks” at Portofino, night at the “Barracuda” and down on the cliffs......
- I didn’t get the last thing about the cliffs.......- Gabrielle interrupted me, laughing – Aren’t rocks a little too hard also for you ?
- It’s going to be a crazy night and the cliffs have their role to play.
But why were we so euphoric ? Or rather: why was Gabrielle so euphoric ? During our few previous meetings she had acted in such a boringly composed manner that she had often stirred in me an uncomfortable feeling. Now I was really unable to understand her and for the time being I gave that up.
We went to the pier where the same sailor was trying to convince vacationers to make the tour of the gulf at low price, children free.
- It’s an inexpensive tour. – Gabrielle remarked.
- And short, too. – I added.
The sailor, who had heard my comment, hastened to say:
- Not true at all, sir. It lasts about 45 minutes.
/////
We got on the boat. On board there were seven people yearning to discover the beauties of the gulf of Tigullio in 45 minutes. A short time later, a big barefooted sailor started the motor and the boat, rocking slowly, moved away from the pier. Then it increased its speed. The noise of the motor was intolerable. The sailor, holding the helm with his callous hands, steered the boat in the direction of the open sea, then, when Rapallo was in sight and the boat was turning back, coasted the gulf from a cloaser distance. The landscape was inspiring. Steep cliffs overhanging the sea, covered by short shrubs, with a few mediterranean pines that had escaped the hecatomb. The cliffs seemed gnawed by a giant and bore the marks of enormous teeth. Here and there 19° century buildings, ruins of ancient castles, grotesque modern homes and luxury apartment-buildings which were in shocking contrast with the landscape. A deep blue sea, almost black. The usual crowded beaches, scores of motor-boats, a few isolated fishing-boats.
Gabrielle was looking absent-mindedly at that landscape that she knew so well and from time to time she gathered some water in her cupped hand and wet my arms.
We got off the boat in order to take another one headed for Portofino. The usual tourists, the usual desire of seeing for a few hours that famous summer den for millionaires. The coast, wilder and less populated, looked very inspiring.
- Do you know Portofino ? – asked Gabrielle, pointing out a spot on the coast.
- I have been there a couple of times, a few years ago. It’s really a nice place.
- I will take you to a typical bar where you can drink very good Martini “on the rocks”.
- As long as it isn’t too expensive. You know very well that I’m not a millionaire.
- Oh ! How stingy you are ! I’ll make you spend quite a bit of money, instead......
She smiled and squeezed my hand as if she had been afraid of losing me.
We got off the boat and walked around the tiny harbour. Three huge yachts were towering on our left. Gabrielle led me the opposite side where I caught a glimpse of a few typical joints. They were small bars with very low tables and stools.
- Do you like this palce ? – Gabrielle asked me, greeting a few people.
We had entered one of those bars and had ordered two Martini “on the rocks”.
- Everything is so low ! – I remarked, pointing at the table and stools on which we were sitting – Let’s hope that prices are not too.....
Fiona was there staring at us. I had not noticed her right away since she was half-hidden by a pillar. It was she who called me and invited us to her table.She was not alone. A tall, long-hired boy, with corduroy pants and black embroidered shirt, was escorting her.
- He is not my husband. – she hurried to clarify, pointing at the boy – Let’s say he’s my boyfriend.
The boy gave me a dirty look. Maybe he did not like me, or maybe he was jealous. Gabrielle looked at Fiona attentively, then stopped being in a good mood. Pehaps Gabrielle was jealous of Fiona. The conversation continued to be uneasy, falling into the usual banalities. They boy and Gabrielle were obviously in a bad mood. Only Fiona seemed satisfied.
- Happy to see you. – she explaned a little later – I couldn’t wait to meet you again, believe me. You know why ? I always see the same faces around. Sorry, Igor, I didn’t mean you, you know.
She caressed the boy who, pouting, just grunted back.
- Even today my husband has left me in order to go out to the open sea, on his boat. And I feel a little lonely. It would be very sad if I didn’t have this wonderful boy to keep me company. Wouldn’t it, Igor honey ?
The boy nodded as if to agree with what the woman had said. He still looked at me hostility and Fiona, fondling and caressing the boy, seemed to be intent in exciting me at all costs. Gabrielle did not wait long before she made me understand she wanted to get out of there and to back to S. Margherita.
- Igor will take you there on his boat. Won’t you do it, Igor ?
The boy obeyed her. He got up and let us understand we should follow him. I said goodbye to Fiona promising her that we would meet again somewhere. Gabrielle said an icy goodbye.
We would have liked to go back on the some boat we had taken before, but I thought it wouldn’t be very polite to refuse Fiona’s proposal, even though Igor did not seem very enthusiastic about leaving the lady and taking us to S. Margherita.
His boat was a large and very fast motor-boat. It took us few minutes to reach the “Yacht Club Tigullio”. He parted from us gruffly and took off for Portofino right away.
We looked for a restaurant where we could have dinner. Gabrielle was still in a bad mood.
- Who is that woman ? – she asked abruptly in a hard, metallic tone.
- I met her today, at the gardens. Why do you ask me that ?
I was being banal, I knew it. But I wanted her to get over that damn pride of hers, I wanted her to admit that she felt something for me. As far as I was concerned, I was sure of one thing: Gabrielle was beginning to love me, almost unwillingly perhaps, but inevitably.
- I don’t care about that woman. Believe me.
Gabrielle seemed harder than I had expected . She did not yield easily.
We found a typical restaurant, a rather expensive seafood reastaurant. We had an almost silent dinner. The high spirits of the first hours seemed dissolved, vanished. I was afraid that she would decide not to go with me to the “Barracuda”, I was afraid that everything would once more go wrong , as it happened in the past. And all because of another woman. Against my bleakest previsions, at the end of the dinner cheerfulness was back on the Gabrielle’s face. Maybe it was thanks to the “Cinque Terre” wine. Again she became vivacious, sparkling and slightly crazy as a few hours earlier. When we left the restaurant, we were pleasantly high. We felt ligh and life seemed so beautiful to live, moment by moment, all by ourselves. Gabrielle wanted to change dress, since she wanted to be the prettiest girl of the “Barracuda”. So she told me, laughing, showily swaying her hips as she walked along. When she reappeared, she was a true apparition. She was wearing black embroidered pyjamas, which allowed a glimpse of her beautiful tanned body. Her hair, of a warm platinum shade, fell free and wild on her shoulders. A touch of maquillage on her nicely freckled face.
- You are so beautiful ! – I said excited.
/////
The night club, a typical resort club, greeted us with its customary summer confusion.
We drank a lot and danced little. One of our dances was obviously admired by all. We are happy.
But Fiona was there, not far from us, in the company of a stout and rather bald-headed man, her husband perhaps. She resembled a marvellous panther eying in wait for her prey. She was more than splendid, too.
She was wearing a very short evening dress with a steeply plunging neckline. One could see her beautiful tanned breasts. Her thick blond hair rested softly on her naked shoulders. Two large diamond earrrings made her stunning.
She saw us, smiled charmingly, but did not invite us to her table. I was glad she had not done it. I was afraid the new encounter with Fiona could definitely spoil that wonderful evening. Gabrielle was honest. She told me that Fiona was a truly beautiful woman, elegant and full of charm, and that any man could lose his head over her.
- Not me, that’s for sure ! – I lied foolishly.
- Oh, come on ! If you had her in your hands, you’d forget you have a family and you’d follow her to hell.
I answered with the usual idiocy:
- I’m a guy who can keep a cool head.
Then I started laughing, since I realized I had really exaggerated. By then Gabrielle knew me quite well. I would have done anything for a beautiful woman. In a single day I had lost my head for two beautiful women. For Gabrielle had lost it completely. As far as Fiona was concerned, I was well on the way to it.
By 2 a.m. we had become acquainted with quite a lot of people. People who are high get along real well. In that condition everybody feels a brother of everybody else. Fiona too came up to us and introduced her husband, Commendatore P.. I started laughing when I heard “Commendatore”, an Italian order of chivalry. It’s a word that makes me laugh. However, since everyone, including the Commendatore, was more or less drunk, he did not notice my laugh. Then Fiona’s husband invited us, as well as some other couples, to end the night in his large villa he had bought a few weeks earlier at Portofino. We got on his huge boat, the crew (three sober sailors) weighed anchor and the monster, roaring, parted the black waters of the gulf. When we landed, the diligent crew, probably instructed for such circumstances, pushed us rather rudely on a minibus and after ten minutes we found ourselves gathered in a large room.
The Commendatore, Fiona, myself, Gabrielle and the other guests looked at each other for a while under the tremendous beam of light coming from a very large chandelier. Then the host, with his powerful basso voice, shouted:
- Go where you want. Make yourself at home.
Thus I found myself with Gabrielle in a red drawing room with a large Persian carpet, a piano and an enormous Etruscan vase. Did I lead Gabrielle or was it she who led me with ease to that place ? I do not remember and maybe I will never know it. The sofa was wide and soft. Light was coming from two crystal wall set.
Gabrielle took off her jacket. Now she was wearing her pants only.
- I am hot, honey. – she explained.
I looked at her golden breasts. I kissed her furiously, biting her fleshy lips. I had been longing for that moment for a long time. She embraced me savagely, and her long fingernails hurt my shoulder. Her perfume inebriated me, heightening the burning pain caused by those painted fingernails.
- I love you. I love you. I will love you forever. You must be mine only. All mine. – she begged me among the sobs that shook her naked breasts.
Then she seemed to calm down.
- I tried not to love you, honey. I struggled, I tried to resist that attraction that was drawing me into your arms. It had been a hard struggle. A true torture. I was trying to save that bit of affection that until yesterday I was able to feel for my husband. Inever felt love for him, just gratitude, understanding, at times also compassion. But now I want the love I have always dreamed. A love made of impulses, of passion, of a life lived together intensely, each single moment of it. You have conquered me. I am all yours. Take me, if you want.
I was so stunned that I said yes with a contented and, at same time, idiotic smile. She took the initiative and to tell the truth I was the one to be conquered by that surprising woman. In any case I surrendered willingly.
The strangeness of that night was not over, though.
The Commendatore’s crew came to knock at the door. Without many niceties they invited us to get dressed. Mybe it was time for a round-up of the drunk, their loading on board and their shipping home.
They made me understand I was supposed to stay, while they invited Gabrielle to follow them. I was astonished and I did not even have the time to say goodbye to Gabrielle.
Beaming, she whispered:- See you tomorrow, dear.”, evidently forgetting that tomorrow had already arrived and that in a few hours her husband would embrace a dear and faithful spouse.
A few minutes later I heard the minibus heading to the pier.
Why had they kept me at the villa ? The answer came a few moments later.
Fiona, all in nude-look garments, appeared at the door.
- Tired ? – she asked me in a half-ironic, half-voluptuous tone.
- I wouldn’t know. – was my brilliant answer.
- How about your husband ? – I asked her a little later, trying to figure out what was going on.
Perhaps my question sounded to her more idiotic than expected. She burst out laughing heartely.
- Honey, you are too bound to conventions.....
- Maybe it’s true .
I heard myself answer, while I was going cover my face with my hands in the vain attempt of dissimulating the state of confusion that had taken hold of me.
- Honey, I started having a crush on you from the very first moment my eyes had the fortune of setting upon your wonderful person........
Now Fiona was beginning to speak with poetic tone. That meant her mind was still under the exciting effects of the various drinks she had had in the course of that night. Maybe she was feeling she was.....a Bloody Mary !!
- Do you want to become my lover ? My concubine ? Yes, that’s it. CON – CU – BI – NE.
The last word, elegantly syllabized, made me laugh. Fiona laughed too.
- I really love you, honey. Believe me. I swear it.
She seemed sincere. Maybe she believed in “coup de foudre”. The trouble with her was that she could not be taken seriously by guys like me. Maybe because she was used to spelling out the word like “concubine”......
- So what ? – she was really interested in getting my answer, one could see that.
In order to speed things up, she moved her body close to mine, forcing me to notice the wonders of her body and to revise some of my premature judgements.
- I’ll be your con-cu-bi-ne. If you are interested in it, of course - I whispered in her ear.
She nodded languidly. She was interested.
/////
When the sun began to rise, I found myself sitting on a bench in those gardens where I had met Fiona.
In front of me the culverin was surveying the horizon. I was desperately trying to explain to myself how I had been able to get there, to that place in S. Margherita, since the last thing I remembered was Portofino and the Commendatore’s villa. I was beginning to think about some eerie witchcraft arising from that strange night on the Tigullio. I remained seated there, resting, looking at the few pedestrians who did not even give me a glance and the seagulls who where lowering themselves like gliders on the turbid waters, looking for food.
When I was sure that my legs could still support me, I went back to the hotel. I washed and shaved and then I put on a pair of blue pants with a blazer that made me look some years younger. Then I went back to the promenade, looking for my two women.
The first one I meet was Gabrielle. She had a rather tired look on her face. Her husband was with her: a man of average size, blondish, anonymous.
We acted as if we were meeting again after ages. Her husband was nice.
He insisted on getting me a cup of coffee. When he left a while to pay for it, Gabrielle, smiling ecstatically, slipped a scented note into my pocket.
Then she whispered:
- I love you, honey.
I told her husband the coffee was excellent. I said a very warm goodbye to both of them, holding Gabrielle’s hand for longer than it would have been proper.
When they had left, I took the piece of paper out of my pocket. On it was written: “Honey dear, tomorrow I’m going back to city with my husband. See you at my office day after tomorrow. You must absolutely (she had underlined “absolutely”) come. I love you too much. Gabry.”
Precisely one hour later I met Fiona with her husband. They were smiling. She was tired. One could see from her face she had not slept a wink. But she was happy. The Commendatore wanted to pay for a Martini. By pure chance we went back to the some bar. For another strange chance, also Fiona slipped a scented note into my pocket, taking advantage of a moment’s inattention on the part of her husband. She too whispered, ecstatically:
- I love you, my concubine.
I told her husband the Martini was excellent. We said goodbye as old friends.
I went to sit on the same bench. I took Fiona’s note and read it: “My dear concubine, tomorrow I’m going back to town with my husband. Come and see me.You must come, since you have promised to become my concubine. I’m madly in love with you. Fiona.”
On the back I read the woman’s address.
I took the two notes, I inhaled their smell avidly, then I put them back into my pocket.
Decidedly the gulf of Tigullio had made me the present of two wonderful women to handle with great cure. I was doubly happy. And doubly adulterous.
Only when I got up in order to go back to the hotel, I remembered I had......a wife.
The Matchmaker:
Angela Calminetti, mother of five, New Age practitioner and gifted psychic and telepath, is proud of her family ties and does everything she can to make sure that all of her younger siblings are as happy in love and marriage
Sylvia Masters, a hot fifty-two year old widow and CEO of her husbands company is challenged by her own instincts, family and friends when the Lieutenant investigating the murder of her ex-fiancee ask her to dinner. After a tumultuous beginning, the
