From the Baroness’s Diary III

Chapter 2

Chapter Two

“That’s not s*x, Carla,” I say as she walks to the bathroom to wash up. “That’s masturbation.”

She looks over her shoulder at me and Enzo, my older brother, and shrugs. “It’s often more efficient.”

“But it’s usually more fun with someone else, isn’t it?”

She grins wickedly, slowly trailing her fingers down her body, before she crosses the threshold and closes the bathroom door.

“She’s a master at making herself come,” says Enzo.

Enzo and I are sons of two brothers our mother was married to. And if our suspicions are right, Angelo, our younger brother, might have a different father as well. But that is another story altogether and not mine to tell but my mother’s.

“Sì, she is, but I can get her there quicker and better.” And that brings me great satisfaction to know and, at the same time, leaves a bitter taste in my mouth, which signals to me it’s time to end my relationship with Carla.

Because it’s all good to masturbate—physical and s****l pleasure for yourself then go on with your day or fall asleep for the night.

But when you apply that same self-centered approach to partnered s*x, you lose out and so does your partner. Or partners—me and Enzo.

The mistake so many people make when they have s*x—or shared s*x, in our case—is they get so excited to have s*x, and also so anxious about their s****l performance, getting and staying hard, lasting as long as possible, that they forgot the purpose of what they are there for: to have enjoyable partnered s*x.

With the keyword being partner.

I love this. I love making women come. It’s possibly my favorite pastime.

To make things worse, Carla is never available to stay the night. That’s fine with Enzo, who doesn’t want a steady relationship, but not with me. “She could’ve done the same thing staying home and maybe have us on speakerphone. I’m just saying…if we’re not going to be intimate and pleasure each other…”

Enzo grins at my grimace, chuckling softly. “You’re too soft.”

Fuck, what’s wrong with showing affection or wanting to feel close to someone? If this is something to be embarrassed about or—God forbid!—a sin, I confess I’m a naughty man, condemned to the fires of hell.

I must say that I love—with all the possible capital, shouty letters—feeling a woman melt against me in pleasure, to know that she’s vulnerable and trusting of me as she falls asleep after a good bout of s*x.

It feels incredible to share that with someone but it seems that people are changing and not for better.

And that reminds me of my Chloé.

Although in my rational brain I know she’s not the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, she still strikes me as incomparable. It’s not only her beauty that captivated me five years ago, but mostly her innocence and her enthusiasm.

She enchanted me.

Bewitched me.

Ruined me for all other women.

Even now, even after all the time we have been apart, I am still searching for a woman who is half of what Chloé is.

And there was something in her few people have. A tenacity to wrest pleasure from daily life, a determination to have what she wanted, and a desire to see the best of everything.

Always.

And hidden, deep inside all the s****l energy I liberated, there was a sadness so great it hurt me sometimes.

But it was just a symptom of the rotten root: her husband. Every employee in Beardley Manor knew her husband didn’t like her and had other lovers. Male lovers.

To me, Chloé was like a castaway in need of rescue. Impossible not to help.

We spent delicious months together and I knew that on the day I said goodbye, she was ready for more. Maybe she would have fled with me. But as much as I wanted that, I had nothing to offer.

I am fundamentally changed after her. Not only was s*x with her amazing—although that would have messed me up for good by itself—but the moments we spent together were worth going to hell for.

She stole my heart and I gladly took hers in return.

She had promised to follow when she could. Or call, or write. We would plan and plot and we would succeed in being together.

I hoped for months.

I told myself Joseph, the bastard husband of hers, only had one telephone line in the whole mausoleum she was locked in. I told myself she was being watched by the employees and her mother-in-law and could not walk to the post to send me a letter.

But after a year, my hopes began to shrink and now it is my heart that is atrophying. Without her laugh and her teasing and her innocent stare which could turn into sexy smiles and mischievous winks, one day it will stop beating.

Ah, Chloé, my life is good, but it’s darker without you in it.

“Cazzo,” Enzo mutters, breaking my reverie. “You’re thinking of her again, aren’t you?”

“What?” I pretend I don’t know what he’s talking about because Enzo doesn’t understand my heartache. Or maybe he understands it too well, but as he hasn’t yet dealt with his own, he doesn’t want to be reminded of it.

“Oh, come on, Salvatore.” He lights a cigar and then lounges back on the sofa of the sitting room between our bedrooms. “You have this expression on your face. Like you are in deep pain.”

I scratch my chin, wondering if I should bother to deny, but I can’t. Besides, I don’t have to be ashamed of a broken heart. In fact, much to the contrary, I’m so proud I have loved and been loved by a unique woman. “Sì. My baroness.”

“So go to her.” He takes a deep pull of his cigar and lets the smoke escape his mouth. “When you came back from England, your excuse was that you had nothing to offer her. Now, what is it?”

“She is married.”

Enzo shrugs his big shoulders as if that is not a huge wall between us. And maybe it’s not, in our case. She was never treated like a wife should be. Her husband doesn’t have any consideration for her, not even as a human being.

“According to what you have told me, she doesn’t love him. Nor he, her.” He takes a drag from his cigar and watches for a moment as the smoke which leaves his mouth spirals toward the ceiling. “Doesn’t he leave her alone for long periods? To be with his lover? What kind of marriage is that? What kind of sanctimonious love is that?”

Yeah. But still… “She never wrote, never called. I might arrive at her doorstep and find a different Chloé than the one I knew. She might have taken another lover.”

“Would you begrudge her that? You are the one who left her,” he says with a strange note in his voice, as if he were cross with me for having left her.

Which makes no sense, since he knows I had to take care of my father’s burial and to bring our mother back here. Then I had to take care of so many things: the will, and the wineries, and, Madonna mia, our younger brother Angelo, who at the time was still a teenager and a completely lost and scarred teenager at that.

“No, I wouldn’t have a problem with her taking another lover. It’s not like I have been using a chastity belt.”

“You can go to England in my place,” Enzo suggests. “Besides, you are the talented one for sales.”

Yeah, I could. I can. It’s not like he likes doing the marketing part of selling wines. The tasting and all the blending grapes and decanting and what Angelo calls the alchemy stuff is what Enzo loves to do. And he is right. Now, I do have something to offer her.

“Who’s going to drive me home?” Carla asks, finally emerging from the bathroom.

As I get up to grab my keys, I make a mental note to cancel Enzo’s ticket tomorrow.

And buy one for me.