The Soul Room Read Online Free PDF Page B

poured us both a glass of wine and he sat beside me at
the big oak kitchen table, his face in his hands. I expected him to stay for a
while then make his excuses and leave. ‘So that’s it then.’ I found
myself thinking. ‘Despite all our good intentions this is how it ends, with
embarrassment and shame.’ But instead, Sergio did an extraordinary thing.
He knelt down and started to kiss me very gently on my bare feet. He carried
on, minutely, up my calf – opening my legs – lips rubbing gently round my knee
onto the inside of my thigh. As soon as he approached the top he started on the
other thigh – then again, before he reached the top he started on my arm – then
the other arm, then down my chest and between my breasts until I was writhing
and got up begging him to be inside me. He sat down and I straddled him and we
made love; but with such an exquisite, deep, gentle sweetness that by the time
I came I was trembling and cried, hugging his face hard against my chest.
Afterwards we climbed the stairs to my bedroom woozily, clinging on to each
other like shipwrecked sailors who have finally made it to land.
     
    I think I
must be dreaming as I have the sensation of falling in the dark. Not quite
falling, actually, more like being squeezed through a substance I can’t
identify. The darkness presses against me, warm, thick, gently manipulating me
downwards. I’m not scared exactly, despite the feeling of being surrounded I
can breathe easily, but I am apprehensive. I can sense that I am being
transported somewhere and I am struggling with the anticipation. There is an
almost imperceptible change in the light; I look down and can now see a small
circle of floor approaching. It’s covered in a mosaic of glossy tiles in
maroons, deep blues and olive greens. As I sink nearer I start to see the
shapes of large exotic leaves and flowers emerging, like a William Morris
pattern…
     
    I woke up to
find Sergio staring at me, his head resting in the crook of his arm, the muscle
of it taut against his cheek. I shook the remnants of the dream from my mind, I
still felt a little disquieted by it.
    ‘I tried to keep away Maddie, but it didn’t work. It drove me crazy to
think I wouldn’t see you.’ I propped my head up on my arm and smiled at him.
‘Why wouldn’t you see me?’
    He sighed and lay back on the bed.
    ‘Because I thought it would be less painful to just stop than let it go
on and on and feel my heart break a little bit each day.’
    ‘Is that what your father thinks? That I’m breaking your heart?’
    ‘He told me he came to see you.’
    ‘He wants me to leave you alone.’
    ‘He had no right to say these things to you. He has never been able to
let me live my own life.’
    ‘If there is an end to come Sergio we should let it come when it is meant
to. If we force it we could both make wounds that never heal. Lets take it day
by day.’ He seemed cheered by that, though I wonder if it was my use of ‘if’
that was the culprit, rather than my unconvincing sentiment.
    ‘Sergio.’
    ‘Yes?’ He looked up at me, his eyes so wide and questioning that I
suddenly had a strong memory of him as a little boy.
    ‘Your father told me something…about your health.’
    ‘You know? I thought you might do.’
    ‘I heard my parents say something in an argument about it, not long after
you were born, and Rosa, talking, when I visited that time.’
    ‘I don’t need to talk about it, death could come to any of us at any time
in a million different ways. I am not really that different.’
    There was more I wanted to say but he leapt out of bed, suddenly full of
energy. ‘There is someone very special that I would like you to meet, someone
you haven’t seen for over twenty years!’ His compact wiry body was taut and
expressive.
    ‘Who? A friend?’ I didn’t feel up to meeting anyone, and I didn’t want
him to build up his expectations either.
    ‘Oh no, more than just a friend. Nonna Edera Lazatti ;