Plural Possessive
by Riccardo Berra
"Riding up in the Stanhope's elevator with Riccardo, I am a bright doomed fish trapped in a gilded aquarium. When the door opens on the 15th floor, a sharp hook will snag my mouth and pull me gasping and flopping to my death. In mere seconds I'll be in a plush uptown apartment overlooking Central Park, staring down my rival, my man's older lover, the lover he wasted no time taking up with while I traveled Europe with my father. Ricc practically pushed me out the door. Said it was "my duty to my father." Said it would be "my adventure." Said when I returned "everything would be the same."
Yes, I am still the mistress of a married man twice my age. He is still my boss and mentor.
No, I was not a nun while I was away. I had my adventure. A couple of them actually.
I'm not even over the jet lag, but I'm certain that he lied once, probably twice last night. That alone means nothing is the same. He keeps rubbing a bruise over his right eye that wasn't there last night.
The car lurches to a stop. We walk past one entrance and Riccardo touches the second door. It opens on a view of her, a small, impossibly elegant olive-skinned woman swooping down the hall, descending on us. She's wearing something small and tight that was probably on a Paris runway last fall. Glossy raven hair, smooth unlined skin, high cheekbones, sensual, pouting lips—all the double-barrel allure of Italian women, and how I suddenly hate them, zipped into a 4 foot 9 package. And her perfume? Oh … my … God! I will smell it in my head for days.
Wouldn't you know it? The confrontation I'd dreaded is postponed. Instead, we're bustled back down the elevator and Contessa Violetta Maria Este de Calinni is off to some last minute meeting. So she says. She invites me tomorrow to Le Cafe Japonais. He's pointedly not invited. Just us girls, sipping sake, eating sushi. A quiet tête-à-tête. So she says. She's off in a black limo before I can raise a protest.
My lover and her doorman say goodbye. They're on a first name basis.
I start saying there's no way I'll do this, but he insists, as much as a man with two mistresses can insist on anything. I try to put my jumbled emotions into words, but passion and eloquence collide at the station. I push too far. I threaten to call everything off. And when he retaliates with the same threat I lose it.
As if love like ours can be undone with a flash of his assassin's eyes or the cruel snap of his voice. I hate him pushing me to that edge, time and time again. Forcing me to look over. I won't push back; I will bend like the willow. I will squeeze his hand and find better words for what's in my heart.
"You don't love me as much as I love you."
"Not true!" He denies it so vehemently, his face stung, a rattle catch in his voice that I am happy to hear. However temporary, his pain means something.
"But" I say.
"But" he interrupts, "I'm not keeping score. Who loves who more—you already know how I feel." Already he's recomposed himself so I do too. I take a step back and tell him what he wants to hear. "I know you love me. I've not come halfway around the world to lose you. I'll see your Contessa. She scares me. But ... she'll never get the better of me."
"I expect not."
The sun's warmth lays up against my head. A handful of wispy golden hairs fall across my forehead. I flip them back. It's his cue. Our latest in a long line of parting kisses is soft, sad and guarded; his usual gratitude, with added tenderness I expect comes from guilt. We're always saying goodbye. The express train from my heart arrives at my lips so I kiss his earlobe and deliver my parting thought.
"I can't help but feel you're feeding me to the lions."
Showdown@Le Café Japonais
Of course she's there first, Countess Killer Fish, floating, serene in her element, awaiting the arrival of her prey, me. Like flicking a switch, her smile lights up several kilowatts when she sees me. On the table a tokkuri of sake waits unpoured beside a small silver mirror. She makes an almost invisible gesture to the waiter who turns on his heel and darts into the kitchen. This is how generations of aristocrats summoned the world's bounty to their tables. Later she'll dismiss me too, with just such a wave.
With that kind of setup at Midtown's newest and hardest to book Asian fusion spot, I suppose you expect a blow by blow of our lunch. What lovely things we ate and drank. Who struck first, who cut deepest, who won, who lost. I don't mind sharing, but it may not be what you expect. It wasn't what I'd expected. She still terrifies me. Yet by the time lunch was over and we strolled arm in arm, European style, through Greenacre Park, I'm pretty sure I'd made a new, though unexpected friend.
It's good to be friends with any woman you agree to share a man with.
Flowering trees were just beginning to strut their stuff on this East Side afternoon. I'd drunk too much at lunch, but the walk cleared my head. For a moment, I felt what it's like to be her, unapologetically indulging my choices, senses and pleasures, oblivious to that larger part of the city that grinds away at things that have nothing to do with love, sex and the laws of attraction.
Strangely enough, this is how it worked out. Say I'd gone to Riccardo and demanded he leave her. He might have or might have just as easily turned around and left me. Had she tried that already? All I can say is he had that unexplained bruise over his eye. And what did he expect? That we'd go to war over him? Women of the world don't do that. At least these two don't. We'd both end up losers. So here it is, new world, old world, détente, perestroika, this giddy jump down the rabbit hole I'm about to make with no assurance that I'll ever land. I take her hands, my boldness all show. I pull her close as if I am about to kiss her, which I am not. Like a lover, I whisper seductively in her ear,
"I'm not afraid of you. I've decided I like you."
"Buona. I liked you the moment I saw you."
"I want you for a friend."
"As I do!"
"And if that means sharing …"
"Si. This is no competition."
"Sharing him equally, then …"
"Then it's … how you Americans say, ‘a shrewd bargain,' between two women of the world?"
"Then we have a deal?"
"Si. L'accordo più fortunato possibile."
Then we do kiss, hug and shake hands like a couple big-ass Wall Street tycoons who'd just bought the moon and Manhattan for beads and trinkets. We walked quietly a few blocks, each in momentary accord with our own warring souls, each grateful for the other's company and the early signs of spring busting out all around. Out of the blue, she broke the silence:
"I pray there's enough of him to go around." She gave my waist a lusty squeeze, just to make sure I got it.
"Oh Hell! Don't even think I'm gonna go easy on him," I replied.
Our witchy cackles cut through the bright square as pigeons scattered before us in pigeon terror. We made quick plans for the evening. She blew me another kiss when we parted. I texted Ricc and told him to show up at Vi's at 9:00. Then I turned my phone off, went home and packed an overnight. I worked out at the gym until my muscles throbbed and the growl in my stomach meant hunger not nerves. Then I hopped the A and for the second time in two days, rode up that bright elevator to the fifteenth floor where Vi's ancient aunt fed me pasta with salmon while Vi showered.
It is near 10 and finally, he's here! Vi's apartment door is already open to him.
Everything is dark. At the end of the hallway, all doors are closed save one. The glow from the bedroom will draw him. She's in bed reading. On the bedside table are baguettes, a chèvre, three lit candles, a bottle of killer Barolo, two glasses and three tiny roses. He'll greet her with a kiss, which she'll return affectionately. She'll pat the bed, so he hurries to undress, here, her, with her open book, the image of forgiveness on a quiet Friday night, this set scene, this new beginning, promising wonders beyond anything we can imagine.
She'll narrate the details of lunch to him. He'll listen with casual attention as he picks at the bread and sips wine.
"She said you both should leave me? I don't believe it."
"Call her then." She'll push a button on her little phone and thrust it at him. " Prendalo. Talk to her. Go on."
He'll stare at the phone like an insect is crawling on it, then use it.
Just like we planned.
"Hello Darling," my voice pours out, all warm honey oozing from the receiver. "It's true. We almost decided you didn't deserve either of us.
"I heard. Where are you?"
I don't answer. I won't. Not until I hear what I want. He's smart and it doesn't take long. "Lying was wrong. To both of you. I understand if you …"
"But sweetheart, we're not mad anymore. Be happy."
"I am Sofia. Where are you?"
"Right here."
Phone at my ear like a seashell, I slip from Vi's daughter's empty bedroom, from shadows into light, my skin Raphael's amber by parchment shaded lamps. My own wineglass dangerously atilt, I am as naked as I was born, but I am no baby anymore. Violetta in her strappy black camisole, reading glasses on her nose, stares so intensely that I blush, drain my glass and set in on her dresser. I notice an antique perfume. I raise it to my nose. Sure, it's her scent, but it's no more her than an empty dress is a fully-clothed woman. I wobble toward the bed with a tentative smile for him. I need not speak; his look says he knows my thoughts, though I can't imagine how he can.
Three roses, three candles, three glasses, three bodies, one bed, so edgy, so theoretical as lunch conversation, but now it's night and I'm naked. Three days ago and half a world away, I was sure I had but one true love, yet here he is with his new lover or am I the new love? Their eyes are unearthly. Why does she stare so? Can I really do this?
Look at the both of them. There they lay, the very picture of middle-aged, middle-American domesticity, up to the very point when I join them in bed. Then everything changes. Everything.
I should run.
Violetta marks her page and closes her novel. Her long nails scratch Riccardo's back, making him purr like the big tomcat he is. But what really draws my attention is her other hand sliding over the bedsheets to trap his cock beneath the fine fabric. She sends a puff of hot moist breath through the sheet, then inch by inch, teases it down for my benefit. Oh my God.
I bite my lip. One more step as her mouth bobs greedily in his lap.
Another step. He can reach me. He traces the arc of my butt, gently probing toward the ‘special hole' I know he wants. Despite Violetta's endorsements over lunch, I'm not ready to surrender that to him. He doesn't get everything. Not tonight.
Vi's "oral" skill goes beyond anything I'd ever imagined. I'm fascinated. Her tongue dances, alternating strong sucking movements and deep throat. The thrill of commanding his rising erection and moans of pleasure clearly excite her. Twice she grabs his thrusting hips to force his full cock into her throat. Gurgling sounds and bright streams of saliva trails from her lips. It's so much better than some stupid porn flick. It's terrifying, glorious, obscene and beautiful. I'm frozen, until like a cat over her prey, Violetta surfaces, beckoning:
"Come my love; you are gorgeous. You know Riccardo cannot wait to fuck you."
Violetta, leopard woman, sleek and wiry beneath her sheer cami, throws up her arms like a little girl. While he slips her little garment off, naked me coils at their feet, all lush curves and false modesty, rolling this way and that, one long arm across my tingling nipples the other protecting my dripping, golden bush. Riccardo grabs one arm and Violetta the other and they hoist me, laughing girl, up between them. Violetta toys with my nipple. My eyes flutter. In my head I play Scarlett swooning (Rhett, don't ah shall faint!), in the arms of Rhett, my long overdue ravishment finally at hand. I try to ignore the persistent trickle between my legs by squeezing my eyes shut, but it didn't work for Scarlett and it doesn't work any better for me.
Violetta rolls my nipple between her fingers.
"Touch yourself," she instructs and I comply, both hands finding my soaked crotch. "Are you wet?"
I nod.
"Riccardo, I want to see you make love to her. As if I wasn't here." Violetta's insistent finger traces a wider circle on my breast. Then she stands.
"Where are you going?" I moan.
"Nowhere, carissima."
In the corner of the beautiful bedroom filled with precious objects is a handsome valet mirror I'd not paid much attention to. Vi drags it to the foot of the bed and positions it just so. She pulls my feet to angle me slightly. Checking the mirror, she returns to bed. I can now see Riccardo coming and going as he climbs wordlessly between my legs which I've spread so eagerly for him. Violetta nods her approval. He lifts my left leg over his shoulder; opening me even wider. There isn't a hair's breadth between my pink cunt and his quivery cock which Vi grabs and thrashing against the base of my clit. Each moan, each spasm of pleasure, pumps out new waves of juice. Finally, she presses down and the purple bulb submerges inside my weeping slit. We gasp in unison as he completes the circuit in a grinding, flesh to flesh, bone to bone, kiss.
Riccardo closes his eyes. The dance begins again, a long, steady rock to a juicy rhythm, punctuated with kisses for Vi and kisses for me. She presses his hand to my breast.
"Pinch her nipple."
Riccardo complies. His breath is quickening. I feel him tightening inside me. I'm tightening too.
"Come inside her." Violetta orders.
"Come … inside … me … now," I command with my own frantic thrusts. Violetta mashes his free hand into her cunt and I just lose it, I scream it out, as he grunts and spurts inside me with her thrashing like a banshee against his hand. When it's over we just stare at each other, then collapse giggling in a slippery pile of limbs, hair and sticky body parts, like crazy kids who'd just pulled off the world's greatest schoolyard prank.
"My God," I try sitting, but only manage to sink back into the warm pool of our afterglow. "Oh! My! God!"
Riccardo: "If that's a prayer…" He doesn't finish the thought.
Vi touches my cheek me: "I love a rose glow against pale skin. Tutto il naturale."
I finally rise and kiss her hard on the lips, then a harder, deeper one for my Riccardo. I hope he now knows how I feel. My hand tunnels between his legs. His flaccid cock is soaked with the wetness he pumped from me. His eyes widen.
"What? Again?"
Like little Molly Milkmaid, I nod and squeeze him once, twice.
"Not for me. Accosentita Vi?"
"Si, accosentito Sofia." I don't even let go when she and I do our handshake just like this afternoon. Wouldn't he give anything to have been the fly on our wall today?
I am nothing but a quick study. I tuck my hair behind my ears, all business. I am a flattered and a bit relieved when after only half a handful of minutes, he returns from half mast to full staff in my juicy, eager mouth. I offer my present to Vi, who like a spaghetti western cowgirl wastes no time sinking into the saddle, all sharp gasps and squeals as they ride off to a fast, explosive climax. Spent, sweat soaked, she clings to him, curled, shivering in his arms, while I stroke the delicate curve of her back.
"Dio mio." Violetta.
"Si mi amore." His reply slurred, he sinks into the bed, already adrift, floating off. He's gone even before she turns off the reading lamp.
We gaze out the window, where a handful of the brightest stars compete with the Manhattan skyline for our attention. Between us, our lover's breaths are deep and regular. My hand trails approvingly along his thigh. Her hand mirrors my caress. Supposedly H.G. Wells, a real lady killer, was irresistible to women because of pheromones. He smelled sweet to them, at least according to my freshman English teacher. I was pretty naïve then, but not that naïve. The guy smelled like mushrooms under cheap cologne. My Riccardo's sleep-warmed skin smells like honey, chamomile and salty sex.
There's something to this pheromone business after all.
I am aware of Vi's wakefulness.
She is aware of mine.
Neither of us recalls who went to sleep first.
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