The Church of Lost Souls 18

As we got up I noticed how forlorn Jesus looked. With the fizz and the heat of the oven several chunks of curled up paint had fallen from his face, the flesh tint hardened down into a dirty biscuit colour, the chef sweeping the debris from the surface at the mouth of the oven.

Maria was tugging at my hand so I only said a quick goodbye to the gang. It occurred to me there and then that I´d probably never see Paolo again and I think he had the same impression as we shoulder hugged.

Sofia took hold of my hand, gave me a kiss goodbye on the cheek and then we were off.

As we walked through the crowd, people stopped and stared at us like we were some kind of apparition. Wolf whistles rang out for Maria as we stole a passionate kiss outside and then Arturo reappeared with the car.

We got in and Maria and I sat in the back, stealing more breathless kisses together as we raced down into Rome.

´Where do you want to go?´ Maria asked.

I told them about the Killing Joke concert at the Roxy and Arturo consulted Maria.

´We go to the Roxy,´ she said, leaning back into me for more kissing and groping.

When we arrived at the Roxy it was evident that the concert was over. We went inside but there was no one. The band´s kit was still on the stage and I could see banners promoting the new album around the place. It didn´t matter, I´d seen them before and I´d see them again.

´Oh well,´ said Maria. ´Where now?´

´You choose,´ I said.

´OK,´ she said, ´we go to a place I know.´

Arturo got us there in no time and then said goodnight.

´The flat´s around the corner,´ said Maria, winking at me as I opened the door to the bar.

Inside we heard the most amazing music in a setting until then unknown to me. I´d seen it in old films, imagined it in my head, but this was it.

Set at the corner of a street the curtains of the vast windowed walls had been drawn. It must have been a restaurant because there were tables everywhere, with a full house in attendance. When the manager saw Maria at the door he sidled over and they greeted each other, then he took us to a small table towards the back of the room.

A double bass was played by an agile young man who moved around like the cat in The Aristocats. The piano was played energetically by an older woman. The obligatory cigarette smouldered in an ashtray on its hood. Once in a while a singer would take to the step-up stage.

We drank two glasses of champagne at the little table and then Maria asked if I´d like to see my new flat. We hadn´t talked much, the music expressed everything I could wish to say. Words would have been an intrusion.

While I craved her sex so badly the maturity of the music had had a quietening, reassuring effect.

As we weaved our way through the streets we kissed and held hands. For one whole street Maria held onto my erect penis as if it were my hand the entire way.

Passing by The Spanish Steps for the first time at this hour and from a different route to the one I´d always taken was quite disorientating. I´d always known it as a hive full of tourists, all vying for a good spot on the steps or milling around like pigeons in the square below, and now here I was, gliding along with a very naughty angel on my arm.

´The flat´s just here,´ she said, pulling me into a canter towards a door at the corner of a street just off the main drag. Pulling some keys from her bag she let us in and we made our way up the stairs.

At the third floor she stopped and gave me the keys. ´You open it,´ she said, presenting a particular key for me to take from her.

Pressing the key into the lock and turning I opened the door and found a light switch to the left.

´Go on then, enter,´ she said, patting my bum and kissing my neck from behind.

´This place is amazing,´ I said, standing in the hallway. Maria leant into me with one hand feeling for a shirt button to undo and the other at my thigh.

Too good to be true came to mind but there could be little resistance on my part.  We undressed each other in the middle of the living room, kissing intermittently. When she went to the loo she told me to go to the bedroom and wait for her there.

After a few minutes she came and gave me a kiss.

´Do you want to clean your teeth? There´s a brush for you in the bathroom,´ she said.

I went to brush my teeth and gave my face a quick wash too. Looking into the mirror, I was ready for sex in a way I´d never felt before. I wanted her unreservedly and without restraint. Every single muscle in my body was fearless and ready for her embrace, to gorge upon her.

Maria had turned the lights off and was in bed when I got back so I quietly crawled in alongside her and reached out to take her in my arms. As she turned around, still lying down, I raised myself above her and we kissed, our hands feeling at each other´s sex and body. Her mouth began to make its way down my neck, her tongue flickering against my taut skin, then licking as it made its way further down. At my chest I took her head in my hands and welcomed her down to my penis. Her resistance was slight and playful, licking carefully on her way down.

Taking my hand she moved across and rested again, guiding it over her vagina. With her hand over mine we made a circular motion followed by finger insertions and then she took my dick in her mouth, keeping her hand over mine as we played at her sex.

Wanting to be inside her I pulled her up and flipped her over. She lay there, looking down at me as I kissed further down her body with a greedy grin, parting her legs and fingering her slowly.

With my lips over her vagina I licked and sucked at her as she writhed, her hands feeling through my hair with outstretched arms, head forward longingly. Clasping her breasts with both hands, I pushed her back and our eyes met as I fed at her. I felt like a tiger at a tigress.

Rising up to meet her we kissed. I know like never before is a cliché but I had never known a kiss to be like that. As I entered her it was unparalleled. A completely new set of rules applied, all of which I was keen to learn.

Maria´s skin was like silk, every contour of her body a treat for eye and touch. We didn´t stop kissing and quickly found a rhythm, hard and fast, then she got on top of me with her feet at the sides of my chest and began to grind away at me. I´d never known sex like it. It had come perfectly naturally but then suddenly the urge to actually come became too overwhelming to contain so I drove at her in judders as she licked at my neck on top of me.

´Oh come, baby, come, that´s so fuckin´ good,´ she said.

It was.

We spent some time laughing and playing around and then drifted off to sleep.

At six o´clock Maria woke me up and said she had to go. I pulled her towards me and kissed her. We had sex quickly that morning. I went down on her as she held my head in her hands, teaching me where to go at her, then I mounted her and when she told me to come I came with her. She was loud when she came and was partial to calling me Angelo at this time, which meant angel, she reassured me.

´Oh my angelo,´ she said, one hand at my hair and the other at my groin.

Maria was one of those fine few women who understood men´s impulsive nature and was confident enough to temper it. She understood how to master that nature in order that he may enjoy his virility. She understood the act of love as a mutually rewarding exercise essential to a rich life.

Directly after coming Maria got up and dressed into a sweater and some jogging pants that she took from a chest of drawers. She looked about my age as she scooped up some training shoes to put them on at the edge of the bed.

´Can I see you here at four this afternoon?´ she said.

When I said ´yeah sure´ she leant over, kissed me, grabbed her bag and left.

With it being so early I thought I´d have a walk around the place and get a glass of water. Through some double-doors I found a large living room with huge sofas either side of a fireplace and a coffee table. There were a great many paintings on the walls and it looked like it belonged to an artist because there were tubes of paint dotted around in the kitchen through the hallway, where I got a glass and some water. I wondered if Maria was an artist and realised how strange it was that I hadn’t even asked what she did the previous night, other than being Giovanni’s mother, of course. We hadn’t really talked at all, it seemed.

As I was going through the living room back to bed I went to a window and pulled a curtain open to see what the view was like.

Across the main drag with The Spanish Steps to the left, I saw two men talking. One had a large plastic bag full of clothes and cardboard and a rolled sleeping bag over his shoulder. He looked in a bad way, stumbling slightly as he went.

It seemed that the other man lived in the block outside which they were talking. With one clenched fist crashing into his other open fist, he wagged his finger at the stumbling man, gesturing that trouble from locals and the police would be on its way sooner or later.

The stumbling man rebuked him, waving him away playfully as the other man kicked a few bits of debris on the ground away from his block.

It became clear that the stumbling man had slept there at his entrance during the night. As he made his way along the dead esplanade I saw that the stumbling man was probably only about forty years old. He looked like an ordinary sort of chap. Maybe he´d been kicked out of his house by his wife long ago and had never been able to return. Maybe he was a drinker or a gambler. Maybe he´d just lost his job.

The other man hadn´t been unkind to him but I could detect a certain friction between them as he parted.

Back in bed I drifted off to sleep in no time and then woke up at around eleven.

Laying there I thought about Paolo. He´d explained that he wanted to be on the road by nine and I hoped he hadn´t waited around for me. It occurred to me that if things went tits up I could always head up there. He´d shown me where the vineyard was on a map.

For all I knew, he could have hooked up with joke shop Maria and foregone Switzerland altogether. Who knew?

Sprawled in bed like a very spoilt boy the thought of picking grapes was at least a million miles away. I wondered what Sofia might be doing and whether she´d stay on in Rome. It certainly looked like I was staying.