Chapter Nine
She’s a Lady
She’d been in there for two hours surely she was about done?
I’d dropped her off earlier at the dress shop before checking in at the Grand Imperial. I’d even picked up my tux for the evening and I’d done all of that within an hour. Now I’d been sitting here for over an hour. What was taking her so long?
The possibilities of what could have gone wrong were starting to plague me, when she abruptly appeared coming from the dress shop. She still wore a smile so everything must be all right, at least I hoped so.
I got out and opened her door for her, “Everything okay?”
“Perfectly fine honey.” She said before leaning up on her toes to kiss me on the cheek.
I blinked a couple times to clear my thoughts or better put regain order to them.
“Don’t we need to take your dress with us?” I asked thickly, but she shook her head no.
“They’re delivering it to the hotel. Can we go to dinner now? I’m starving!” She was smiling, but her smile had a predatory cast to it and her eyes were sparkling like a tigress on the hunt in search of prey. I’d had woman look at me in a predatory light before, but this was the first time that I’d ever wanted to be caught.
I parked the car along the rundown looking street in an even more rundown looking part of the ancient Italian city. Disappointment was written all over Zora’s face and I had to bite back a smile. Appearances could be so deceiving.
“Well this is it.” I said exuberantly and she gave me a dumbfounded look of puzzlement. I had to get out of the car before I burst out laughing.
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Zora couldn’t believe it. His idea of a romantic dinner was a rundown looking bar, whose patrons were likely rats from the looks of the place!
Why would he bring her to such a place?
This couldn’t be happening! He was ruining the evening!
Her door opened and Elon said, “Mon cherie if you would please?”
The happy tone of his voice alerted her to something going on behind the scenes. She glanced at his eyes and saw that they were full of mirth directed at her. He was up to something!
Well she could play along at that game too. She got out and he took her hand and led her into the rundown bar.
The place did not disappoint her low expectations of it. Upon entering she saw not one, not two, but three rats scurry for cover. Elon called out hearty hellos in Italian to the extremely disreputable denizens of the place, who heartily responded in kind.
Zora couldn’t help but think this was all a big mistake somehow. Elon kept leading her through the bar to the far end and opened an old door that creaked hard with protest. He gestured down the dark corridor that was dimly revealed before her by old incandescent light bulbs.
The lights gave off more darkness than usable light and the ceiling was strewn with cobwebs. She gave Elon a look that told him to go fly a kite.
He laughed and grabbed a hold of her hand and tugged her into the dim corridor after him. The corridor ended at another door, which Elon kicked open and then they stepped out onto a deserted alleyway.
The odor of backed up sewage wafted up to permeate the air. This night was going from bad to worse in a hurry.
They came to a sturdy looking wooden door and Elon rang an old bell that was there. An old woman stuck her head out of a window up above in the building next to the door. She called out a greeting upon apparently recognizing Elon and he responded in kind. The old woman pulled on a cable and the door unlocked and swung wide.
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I stood for a moment enjoying Zora’s shocked face before I gently pushed her on through the open doorway.
“What is this place?” She exclaimed.
“No one quite knows why, but this street was blocked off from the city grid many years ago. Few know of it other than the local residents and they keep it a secret for fear of the place being mobbed by tourists. It truly is an excellent example of late Roman architecture at its finest.”
The street was like a time capsule of the past and its residents helped to keep it that way. It was a cultural treasure to them and I could tell as we walked by massive stone pillars with artfully crafted stone chapters and bases that I’d surprised Zora all over again.
She was looking all around in amazement. I pulled her around a corner of an old marketplace and gestured to something ahead of us, “Now this is perhaps one of the worlds hardest to find hole in the wall restaurants.” I said smugly reveling in my second success of the day of completely overwhelming my woman with surprise and delight. This dating thing really was fun.
I watched as her eyes took in what I had gestured to. Before us lay a pillared grape arbor from which lanterns hung down casting their warm light into the richly entrenched mood of antiquity all around us. Little wooden tables dotted the veranda beneath the arbor, each table bearing its own candle and checkered tablecloth.
“It’s perfect! You’re perfect!” She said on a breathless exclamation of emotion.
I chuckled in good pleasure. I was far from perfect, but if she wanted to think so of me well, I was fine with that.
I led her towards the idealic setting loving the way that she sort of melted against my side as we walked. I pulled out a chair at one of the tables near a large pillar and she sat down smiling.
“Well aren’t you the gentlemen.” She said coyly in as playful a mood as I had ever seen her.
I leaned down to her ear and said, “On the contrar mon cherie. In this setting I am but the tramp in the presence of a lady.”
The smell of her skin was just too much and my lips pressed deeply against the side of her neck in a kiss for a long moment. I felt a quiver course through her whole body and I drew back from the kiss. I hadn’t left a mark, but I had left an impression.
I walked around the table and her eyes followed me. Her eyes seemed to be on fire and I relished their heated intensity that I had helped spark to an open blaze.
As I sat down a rotund shaped maître d’ appeared, “Ahh senor Elon what a pleasure it is to serve you once more and what is this? You have brought a gem of the finest quality to grace our humble abode.” The man said, as he melodramatically bowed toward Zora.
“You do our humble establishment too great an honor to grace it with your unsurpassed beauty!” The maître d’ infused out further in what appeared to be genuine sentiment.
Zora blushed with pleasure at the man’s platitudes to her beauty as her dark eyes sparkled like chocolate diamonds surrounded by veins of smoky quartz.
The maître d’ straightened and turned to me, “Perhaps being familiar with what we have to offer you would perhaps know best what’s your lady would desire, yes?”
Before I could speak Zora said, “I know what I want. Do you have spaghetti?”
“We do! It is one of our finest entrées! And for you Sir?”
Again before I could speak Zora cut in, “We’ll share. You don’t mind sharing with me Elon do you?” She asked provocatively and I hesitated from saying anything completely overwhelmed by the sheer weight of her erotic appeal.
Spaghetti wasn’t my thing, but there was something else going on here. “Spaghetti it is Marco.” I said never taking my eyes off of Zora.
Marco backed away from the table his eyes sparkling as they flipped back and forth between us.
I had thought to carry on a pleasant dinner conversation, but words didn’t come. We just stared at each other.
The predatory light was back in her eyes and I felt deliciously out of any element that I had ever been comfortable in before. She was seducing me and I was enjoying every moment of it.
The spaghetti came with a flourish, along with wine. The spaghetti was all on one plate and Marco left too quickly for me to ask for another.
I glanced up from the spaghetti at Zora, “I guess we’ll have to scooch a little closer to each other.”
My eyebrows rose, as instead of answering she got to her feet. Her face was temptation itself.
She walked around the table toward me dragging a finger on the checkered tablecloth as she came. Reaching me she turned and sat sideways across my lap.
Her left arm drifted along the top of my shoulder as her fingers speared into the hair at the back of my head in a caressing fashion.
She turned her head to the side and picked up the fork on the plate and began to twirl the spaghetti around it slowly. Lifting the fork she brought it to my mouth and pressed it against my lips. Eating was the last thing on my mind, but dutifully I opened up and chewed what I had been given.
She watched my lips for a long moment and then her eyes rose to mine as she held the fork up, “I’m hungry Elon. Would you?” Her lips fell open and my heart started beating a double rhythm.
I took the fork and twirled it in the spaghetti as she had done and then I watched her pull the bite off the fork. I watched her mouth move, to paralyzed to do anything else, but enjoy the movement of her beautiful face in motion.
She recaptured the fork from my loose grasp and soon had another bite before my mouth. I accepted it, but it was a messy bite.
She set the fork down and wiped the sauce off my cheek with one finger. I swallowed my food too spellbound to chew it any longer. She brought her finger to her mouth and slowly sucked it clean.
This woman had driven me up the wall and down the other side and I just couldn’t take it any longer. My fingers speared into her hair and I held her head for my kiss, even as her hands held my head to hers with equal passion.
This had not been how I had imagined our first kiss going. It was far hotter, because she had made the effort to make it so and I loved her for it!
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The old cook came trundling out from the kitchen her bulk matching that of her husband the maître d’. Her tired eyes found her husband leaning on the counter his double chin propped up by both of his folded hands, as his face bore a sappy grin as he stared outward at the tables in the arbor.
Her gaze followed his and her eyes lit up in shock at the sight of the couple seated together who were busy kissing each other’s faces off. She turned in continued shock to her husband, “Marco! What did you put in my sauce?”
Marco came unglued from the counter and wiggled his bushy eyebrows at her before pulling her close, “Only the magic of love my pet. It goes something like this!” He finished as his lips smacked onto hers.
She giggled and pushed away smacking him on the butt and he responded in kind with a grin. Both of them then turned and leaned on the counter in companionship, as they watched the young couple lost to the world in each other arms continue to kiss.
The sight reminded the old couple of when they had been young and first in love with each other. Those had been good days and they enjoyed seeing someone else enjoy what they had and still did.