The Mammoth Book of International Erotica

“And this one does?” Trevor teased her.

Kate blushed imperceptibly.

“I just love this,” she explained. And there was a smoothness in her voice, enough to have Trevor fantasising about the two of them in a bed, naked and clutching each other, like the lovers in the painting.

Trevor craved to hear those words of hers again, but in private, whispered to him as he caressed her breasts and stomach.

Kate had somehow recognised his lust.

She accepted Trevor’s invitation and followed him to his flat.

She slowly took her clothes off and went to lie on the bed. He watched her. He touched her with his fingers, finding exquisite pleasure in this initial contact. He delicately slid his hand between her thighs. She was wet, but it was a few more minutes before Trevor was free to slip his fingers inside her, extracting a soft moan out of her.

“I love it. I love it. Do it. Do it.”

Trevor moved on top of her. He pulled her up by the waist and entered her, taking no precautions. This was no longer the 80s, when nights had been wild and daring, but Trevor was still usually careful. With Kate he had no compunction mounting her raw.

He wanted to feel her. He wanted to fill her to the brim, and own her body and soul.

Kate was never more beautiful, so much his, than in that moment. She had now forsaken her pride and had given herself to him fully.

Trevor knew he now owned Kate and he finally complied with her wish. “Faster and harder,” she begged him.

Trevor fulfilled her request with animal rage. He took her face between his hands and kissed her. Swallowing her cries, as if he were afraid to let them escape through the apartment’s windows.

“I did not want it to happen… Not this way,” Kate said, rising from the bed. But Trevor thought differently. This was surely the way it should happen, both matter of fact and lustfully.

“Don’t go. Stay.”

Trevor’s request surprised Kate.

But that’s how love ambushes you. It creeps up to your shoulders, and stabs you in the back, leaving you wounded and bleeding on the ground.

To have punched that bastard Mauro in the face wasn’t enough to heal the wound. It was no more than the foolish reaction of a child who’s had his toy stolen by another. But that toy had been his and Trevor could not accept having lost it. Even though he had been the one to push Kate into the arms of his friend, he was now the one seeking a divorce.

What did he expect? That he should always be ready to forgive her fragility, her angers and her silences without reacting? Without a word of protest?

Trevor had just signed the documents, and he was convinced he was doing the right thing.

He wanted to bid goodbye to this spiritless life, and its troubles that sapped his strength over and over. He wanted to break up this failing marriage into a thousand pieces. But the thought right now of that small white band on Kate’s finger where the wedding band had been had a strange effect on him. No way did it provide him with that sense of power or freedom it should have done.

All Trevor now felt was so much more empty than before and the knowledge of this scared him to death.

I’m walking down Charing Cross Road. It’s already getting dark when a drunkard stops me. He takes hold of my arm and asks me for small change. His nails are filthy and there is alcohol on his breath. I pull away from him and mutter a few words in Italian, pretending not to understand his language. As I walk away, the drunkard shouts after me. Something about my being a “stuck up Italian cunt who should go back to her own country”. I’m not sure whether this is a threat or just a suggestion.

7

Ever since I was small, I have believed my father was a hero. Like in a Marvel comic. For me he was the brave protagonist of a thousand adventures. He was my father, the invulnerable.

I admired him for his strength of will, for his habit of undervaluing danger which I thought was an extraordinary gift, almost as good as walking on water. My father was never scared, even when we experienced an earthquake. It was the earthquake we went through in the 1980s which shook all Italy and when whole buildings collapsed. I remember that day well and am unlikely to ever forget it. I was just a small girl, staying in her little room. when the first major tremor happened. The light went out and the glass in the windows shattered as if hit by a missile. I slumped to the ground, closed my eyes and began to pray.

That was the moment my father walked in. He took me in his arms, and carried me down five flights of stairs, dodging the fallen masonry and broken glass.

I still had my eyes closed. I only opened them again once we were all gathered together in the street outside. With eyes now open wide and full of tears we saw how badly the whole area had been struck. Whole families just standing there and discovering the rubble of a palazzo which had just lost its whole front.

The walls of my house had cracked open like chalk and we all shed tears. All of us with the exception of my father who was attempting to maintain the morale of the people by saying, “Nothing to worry about, a bit of plaster and it’ll look even better than before.”

It feels incredible, but he was right, as we found out in time.

My father was a courageous man. He did not tolerate obstacles or limits to one’s achievements, particularly so when it came to his own family.

He’d already suffered one heart attack, but still, every morning, I’d see him sitting at the table having his coffee, with a lit cigarette hanging from his lips, even though the doctors had expressly forbidden him to smoke. At first, I’d pretended to ignore him, but one day I’d finally lost my patience and asked him why he was being so obstinate. He replied that it was all because of the heart attack.

So he then explained to me why it was the heart attack’s fault. It had taken him to the very gates of death, but not far enough to reach his destination. That knowledge that he had escaped death’s clutches had made him stronger, and now he believed he was immortal, like God.

I’m sure that if God’s heart had been as damaged as my father’s he would have resisted the temptation to smoke a cigarette every ten minutes or so. But Dad was too enamoured with his dreams of power to think of that, and the second heart attack took him by surprise. One sad December day, his heart stopped and he died. Just like that. He died and was buried like any old wretch.

I inherited very little from my father, heredity wise. Just moral standards I could pass on to posterity.

All I borrowed from him was a taste for smoking. I light a cigarette and I feel invincible, as if I were smoking a piece of God himself, having compressed and rolled the tobacco inside the thin paper, and indulging without a filter. It’s a feeling of omnipotence which gets even stronger, depending on the circumstances; for example, every time I find myself at Marconi airport, returning from a long trip.

I set my feet down on the ground and I feel like a goddess. Strong and powerful. Full of courage and good sentiments, because yet again the plane hasn’t crashed and I am still alive. So I light myself a cigarette and it’s the best one of the day.

“You’re not allowed to smoke here,” a hostess shouts at me. She gestures at me with her arm. “You must go over to the bar.”

“Thanks a lot,” I respond. And turn back towards Mauro who’s come to pick me up from the airport. “What a cow…”

Mauro half smiles as we make our way to the bar. He’d likely smile more but his face is still bruised and painful.

“So, are you going to tell me what happened? Who did this to you?” I ask him.

“Trevor…” he whispers.

“Trevor?”

“Yes, him.” Mauro shrugs his shoulders and looks sad. “I was sure he hadn’t found out.”