Alex’s cell phone started ringing just as she started the car.
It was Rosaria, who started talking without even bothering to say hello.
“How about you come to my place, instead of us going to some useless restaurant? I can make an excellent penne al pomodoro.”
There was a smile quivering in Alex’s reply: “My favorite dish, penne al pomodoro. It’s what I would have ordered at the restaurant.”
“Fine. Via Atri, number 8. You know the surname. You’ll have to use the parking structure, because you can’t find street parking to save your life.”
When she got there, and after galloping up a narrow, twisting staircase, out of breath, Alex found the door open. She was greeted by her friend’s voice coming from the kitchen.
“Come on in. I’ll be there in a minute.”
In the living room, the lights were low, the walls were lined with books and DVDs, a television set, a comfortable-looking sofa, a table set for two, lit by tall candles. The care for the details, comfort favored over elegance, and a heartwarming attention to knickknacks and curios, carpets, doilies, and tablecloths betrayed a feminine dedication that Alex would never have suspected. Rosaria’s home seemed like that of a completely different person. She had expected a modern atmosphere, a setting of steel and glass, functional and cold. She was delighted to have been mistaken.
She took off her overcoat, breathing in a faint aroma of incense from a burner that sat on one of the bookshelves. She ran her eyes over the titles, discovering a tireless reader who roamed freely through all genres. Albert Camus, Bertolt Brecht, and Jorge Amado alternating with Rex Stout, Massimo Carlotto, Donato Carrisi, and Gianrico Carofiglio; the collected works of Gabriel García Márquez, Jorge Luis Borges, and Eduardo Galeano, along with Andrea De Carlo and Alessandro Baricco.
“When do you find the time to read all this stuff?” she murmured, as if talking to herself.
“I find it, I find it,” a subdued voice replied from behind her.
She looked around and saw Rosaria’s eyes over a pair of wineglasses full of red. Rosaria was wearing a cheerful-hued dressing gown, protected by an apron lightly spattered with sauce. Her smile was enchanting, veiled by a thin layer of makeup.
“God, you’re so beautiful,” she said.
Alex blushed slightly, picked up a wineglass, and clinked it against Rosaria’s.
They drank in brief sips, all the while staring at each other. Only then did Alex notice that the speakers, hidden away amongst the books, were emitting the warm notes of a blues number being sung by a woman.
“Oh my God, the sauce!” Rosaria exclaimed.
She set her glass down on the table and hurried into the kitchen. When she came back, she was heaving a sigh of relief.
“Mamma mia, another second and—”
She never finished her sentence, but stopped, jaw hanging open. Alex had stripped off her dress and was curled up on the sofa.
“I’m not hungry. Not hungry for food, anyway,” Alex said, looking at her.
Her voice, low-timbred, seemed like the voice of a cat purring with satisfaction.
Rosaria thought that she was going to have to guide her friend toward the world of the senses, unfolding her little by little like the petals of a flower, accustoming her to think of herself outside of social conventions and inhibitions. She didn’t know that Alex had crossed those barriers years ago; there were radically different limitations that her complex psychology imposed upon her. Rosaria didn’t know about the miles and miles driven, the mask she wore to induce a fleeting sense of bodily peace in dark private clubs. She didn’t know about the frustration, the sacrifice, the fantasies that she cultivated in silence in her own bedroom while her jailer slept.
And most of all, she didn’t know how hard she’d had to work to force herself to be there, that night, and how once she had achieved that determination, she had immediately passed on to imagine what was going to happen there.
For her part, Rosaria was willing and ready. She wanted to be involved and was fully intrigued, she was no longer satisfied by passing relationships sparked by chance meetings in bars with people seeking that and nothing else. She wanted someone to share tears and laughter with, someone with whom to share the emotional journey of enjoying a good film, someone to have a healthy argument with. She wanted someone she liked from top to bottom.
They made love for hours, in every way imaginable. They experimented with each other’s bodies, rising to summits they’d never before attained. They understood why love between women is finer, deeper, and richer than anything men can imagine, because there is no end to it, it’s never satiated, and once the anger and fury have passed, it offers gentleness, without ever establishing a difference between taking and giving.
Each read in the eyes of the other the fullness of pleasure and the incipience of renewed desire. They discovered how to play and how to find each other, how to lead the other by hand to a vantage point from which to observe the world from a happy distance.
Now, in the rich scent of the many orgasms they’d freely exchanged, Rosaria’s hand was tracing the outlines of Alex’s face, as if trying to impress into body memory something never to be forgotten.
“I want you,” she told her. “I want you now, and I want you tomorrow and the next day. I can’t stand to think of you far from me.”
Alex listened to Rosaria’s raucous voice the way she might have listened to a new and familiar piece of music. She couldn’t think of anything quite so wonderful either.
“Yes, it’s been beautiful for me, too.”
Rosaria gently shook her head, continuing to caress her face.
“It’s not just a matter of flesh, of chemistry. I want your life. And I want to give you mine.”
Alex said nothing. She listened to her heart racing in her chest.
Rosaria went on.
“I know, this must seem absurd to you. You must be thinking: who is this woman, coming to talk about certain things with me, after we make love just once? But I recognized you. The minute I saw you, I recognized you. I knew who you were and I glimpsed the road we can travel together. I don’t know if it’s a phase of my life, if I’ve lost my mind or I’m just tired of battling against my own indifference. I only know that I love you, and that I want to share my time and my desires with you.”
Alex listened, her eyes half closed, her blood pumping confusedly through her veins. I recognized you too, she wanted to tell her. I too believe that happiness lies here, in this bed, in your hands and in your mouth. I too am tired of keeping my skin and my soul rigorously separate . . .
“I’m certain you’d never disappoint me. Isn’t that right?”
“Yes, Papà.”
What can I say to make sure I don’t lose her? To keep her from understanding that I’m not as brave as she is, that the chains holding me back are a thousand times more unbreakable?
“I’m not trying to scare you,” Rosaria went on. “You’re young, and your life is organized differently from mine. But if you don’t feel the same way that I do, if you don’t think the way that I do, please, tell me now. I need to know if there might be room for me in your heart.”
Alex narrowed her eyes. In her mind, a terrible tempest was raging. She’d never thought, every time she’d made off with a moment of stolen pleasure in some furtive encounter, that she was doing anything wrong, anything in violation of her principles, even though the places those encounters took place were shady and meretricious.
But now, instead, she felt like a traitor, guilty and faithless. And happier than she’d ever been before.
She opened her mouth to reply, and her cell phone rang.