Chapter 15: The Best Day


We spent the rest of that afternoon and night and the next morning for that matter, tangled up between the sheets of the bed in the blue room of the villa. We drank wine and shared an entire dish of tiramisu and made love until we'd completely forgotten the outside world, like usual. I guess we were subconsciously setting out to prove that no one, neither of us, were anywhere near to being dead. The absurdity of it had brought us all the more closer together though, like most everything in our tragically unexpected lives.

Our soundtrack was whatever decided to spill out of Roxanne's iPod and through the speakers in the room. We must have sung along to three hundred or more songs by the time the sun came up, everything from Eric Clapton to Prince, James Taylor and even a couple of Stix songs.

And I don't think either of us had laughed so much in the last five years. It was like meeting at the starting point again, where we first came together and blended in that fun loving sort of way. It was odd, but exciting, and I'd made her forget all the bad stuff, finally. That was all that mattered to me.

But somewhere between the lyrics to Cheeseburger in Paradise and the last spoonful of lady fingers and chocolate, she crawled up my body under the sheets and rested on my chest, eyeing me seriously.

"Uh oh, am I in trouble now?"

It was the same stern look I'd seen her give to Max when he breaks something.

"No. There's just something that's been bothering me."

"What's that?" I asked, rubbing her crossed arms on my chest.

"The other day, when we were in Naples…"

"Yeah…?"

"I came to meet you at the restaurant and," she paused and shifted her eyes, like she was nervous to talk about the subject in question, too nervous, "there was a girl."

Her eyes were searching mine intently for something in the early light of day.

"She was pretty."

I thought about it, a girl, the restaurant, and then suddenly it hit me, Catalina.

"She was just a fan."

"A pretty fan."

"So what's your point?"

"Nothing," she turned over and rested on the mattress next to me, staring at the ceiling the same. "She seemed to be drawn to you. That's all, just my usual curiosity."

"Oh boy…"

I sighed and flipped onto my stomach, hovering over her as she looked up at me.

"What?"

"I am in trouble."

"Why? You didn't do anything. Right…"

"No. I didn't do anything."

"Okay then," She smiled and stroked my cheeks, "That's all I need to know."

I shook my head and kissed her bared stomach and hipbone.

"Did I ever tell you, you're rather sexy when you get jealous?"

Roxanne rolled her eyes and leaned on her elbows.

"I'm not jealous. I'm used to you getting hit on."

"Well likewise."

"Oh please…"

She tried to sneak away from under me and get out of the bed, but I caught her in the sheets and pulled her right back down to the mattress, straddling and pinning her as she laughed.

"Don't think for a second that I didn't see right through Mr. Leprechaun's honorable exterior."

"What are you talking about?"

"What's his name, Roux? He's plenty let down to know you're married. Trust me."

"I seriously doubt that."

I held her hands over her head on the pillows and leaned down to plant wild kisses all along her neck and jaw and chin, making her giggle to believe me.

"Don't doubt his smiles for a second, baby. He would have just loved to keep you all bandaged and bruised in his bed, I'm sure."

With a tiny nibble on her right breast, she shrieked with a laugh and pushed me down to the bed beside her, still arguing the truth.

"You're insane, and drunk. And jealous for that matter."

"Okay, so you caught me. I'm jealous that he got to hold your attention and save your life for an entire afternoon, while I was stuck alone thinking about you. Yeah, I am."

I watched Roxanne struggling to inch her way over my body again with her bad knee, to hold me down under her skin to skin weight. When she was comfortable and leaning up on my chest, narrowing her gaze down at me with a tight grin, she whispered to me.

"Alright, I'll admit I'm jealous too then. I hated seeing you with that girl. The way she touched your arm and laughed with you and the way she kissed you."

I remembered the way Catalina's lips had burned my skin, leaving the imprint of a foul and unfair memory behind. A memory that I shouldn't still have. I ignored the tingling on my cheeks and focused on Roxanne's moving lips and eyes.

"She looked like tough competition."

"Tough comp--" I nearly choked and twisted my brow at her, "…you're crazy."

"No I'm not. She had you hooked for a second, I saw it."

"No she didn't."

"Yes. She did, Mort."

God it's a bitch knowing she's actually right. I hate that. It's not fair to her.

"What's her name anyway?"

Ah, the million dollar question. What's the other woman's name? Shit, is she even the other woman though?

I held her face in my hands softly and examined her eyes for a hidden motive. None.

"Catalina."

She nodded with a smile, "That's a pretty name."

"I guess."

"Why don't you just admit it's a pretty name? Come on."

I growled at her and shut my eyes to try and drown out the pointless conversation. Roxanne was going to push the information about Catalina, what little I had at that, until she was completely paranoid for the rest of the trip. It wasn't healthy, or worthwhile for that matter. I was hers alone.

"Let it go. I'm never going to see her again. She's a fan, she likes the books. That's it, honey."

She kept her gaze pinned until I opened my eyes again and she was only smiling.

"Okay."

"Okay," I agreed as the subject was dropped entirely. "Now come here, I want to do something."

I held her carefully and turned her over one last time on the mattress, reaching across to the bedside table at the same time for a sharpie marker I had left there the day before. I pulled it open and got comfortable with my arms wrapped around her waist and pulling away the sheet to reveal her bare top half to me in the sunrise light of the room.

"What are you doing with that?"

"Just lay still."

Doing as she was told, she began to giggle when the felt tip of the marker hit the skin beneath her breasts.

"Mort…"

"Relax. There's a point coming."

"When?"

I laughed and finished with the two clearly printed words, BOYand GIRL, under each breast on her stomach. She tried to lean to see what was written and I explained.

"We need to name this poor, endangered kid before it gives up all hope in the world."

"It's barely a kid yet. More like a tadpole, you know."

I smiled at her teasing and kissed her navel gently.

"Whatever, I just want the tadpole I created to have a name before something else goes wrong."

"Do you think it's a boy or girl?"

"Don't know. But that's why we have two lists."

She raised her brow at me and settled back down on the bed, her mind seeming to wander away quickly into a mental shuffle of names, same as mine was. We were in silence for a long time, and while I attempted to inspire my mind with tiny black hearts drawn all along her inner thigh, she was the first one to break the quiet with a suggestion.

"How about, Emma if it's a girl. And Evan, if it's a boy?"

"Those are good. And if we end up with twins again, we'll be all set."

She laughed and went back to thinking hard while I began the list, tickling her.

Finally I came up with one, "What about Dylan for a boy?"

"Dylan, as in Bob or Thomas?"

"Either. Dylan is Dylan right?"

She nodded with a smile and I added Dylan to the list.

This continued for an hour or more, until the sun was high in the sky, the bed sheets entirely warm, and Roxanne's stomach was covered in black ink from the valley of her breasts to the inner curve of her hips. The list wasn't half bad either, and she actually refused to wash it off when we finally started to move out of bed in the middle of the afternoon, some 25 hours later.

She threw on my white button up dress shirt and left a few of the lower ones undone to admire the black ink artwork and never-ending possibilities for our child's name.

"It's your best sharpie note yet," and then she glanced up at me, almost pouty and said, "But I didn't get to draw on you."

I held out the dried up marker with a smirk, "Have a go if you must."

"No," her eyes lit brightly and she pulled fast at my arm, before I could even get dressed. "I have a better idea."

She hurried me through the villa, wrapped in nothing but a sheet and her in nothing but my long shirt. We made it downstairs, with her hobbling and me struggling not to trip on the linens and soon enough made it out to the vine hidden, sun kissed veranda.

"Stay here. Don't move."

By the time I could even work up the breath to ask where she was going, she was gone back inside. I stood there, tying a knot in the sheet at my lower waist and looking out over the view of the Mediterranean like it was a postcard and little more. I was running on nothing but Merlot and Italian dessert, and somehow, it seemed to be the only energizing that was required for a day like this. The best day ever, I thought, leaning over the rail of the veranda just as my view was blocked out by something being tugged over my eyes.

"What are you--?"

"This is to keep you from peeking at my masterpiece."

"You're masterpiece…"

"Yeah, now come here."

Roxanne pulled me blindly back across the veranda floor until I felt her helping me down to the ground, where she had ripped the sheet off of my body and laid it down. I shook my head, relaxed back where she told me to, and tried to imagine what it would look like if someone could actually see into the villa deck just then. A naked man, blindfolded with a half naked woman ordering him around. Probably a common thing around here, I laughed to myself.

"Stay still."

"Yes ma'am."

I gave a salute and scratched my stomach before I felt a trickle of something cold and slimy run down my chest, navel and legs, and heard her laughing quietly overhead.

"I swear; you and syrup woman."

"It's not syrup. Don't move."

"Yeah, yeah."

Another moment passed by before I felt something smooth but rough, like bristles, moving across my skin and mixing with the path of goo. And then it hit me and I smiled under the bandana.

"Ah, of course. She's painting me."

Roxanne sighed with a giggle and straddled me, despite the fact that she was immediately covered in what I was. She stroked the paintbrush over both of my shoulders, leaning down and whispering in my ear, "You're my Sistine Chapel."

And then I noticed the bandana being lifted slightly from the bottom, just enough for me to catch a peek of her green eyes in the daylight with her smile.

"Do your worst, Picasso."

She rolled her eyes, replaced the blindfold, and kissed my lips softly before replying, "Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel. Not Picasso."

I shrugged under her paint strokes, "So I officially know nothing about art."

"And I love you for it."

She went on, mixing what certainly felt like different colors, twirling the brushes into random shapes and sensations and pressures on my skin. I knew she was focused on the details just by the way she remained absolutely silent for minutes at a time, breathing softly over my body and touching as lightly as possible. It was probably the most amazing thing, the most romantic, I'd ever experienced with her or anyone else. Maybe it was the wine and tiramisu mattress fest, or the sound of the Italian atmosphere blindly surrounding me, or the way she was proving herself to be the most fun woman in the world, ever, over and over again, without my help in any of it.

I didn't need to be reminded, but if she really did, then I was here to play the part of her canvas.

It felt like hours. Peaceful, relaxing hours of course, getting a suntan and being painted and touched and kissed under a complete trance of darkness and naivety. It was brilliant, and when it was over and I was being helped to my feet, still blindfolded and confused, I sort of pitied my startled mind. I missed the uninterrupted peace of it all.

"Ready to see?"

"Should I be scared?"

"It's just me we're talking about, sweetie."

"Precisely my point," I chided and let her lead me inside to the bathroom, where there was a full length mirror wall awaiting my eyes. We stumbled together, injured and blind in front of it, and she slowly untied the bandana from my face.

"Ready?"

"Ready, Dali."

I imagined her rolling her eyes at that one, but before I could imagine much else, I was seeing a whole lot more in the reflection provided for me. Dear God, I thought humorously, eyeing my nude, rainbow form up in the mirror, the woman's made chaos out of a previous mess. There were ocean waves on my stomach, stars lining my arms, hearts dabbled across my thighs and of course, she had left no stone unturned in making sure than my firm and pleading manhood was painted like a Popsicle.

"So…?"

I saw her tiptoe around me, wearing my shirt like a cocktail dress, splattered and smeared with the same colors as me, red and blue paint drizzled along her hands and green and orange blotted all over her knees and bare feet in the mirror. I smiled and then tilted my head back toward her.

"One question."

"Yeah?"

A wicked smirk formed on my lips and then one did on hers the same as she looked up at me.

"If I screw you right now, is it all going to smear?"

She laughed and pulled back on my shoulders, inching in a limp toward the glass shower doors.

"Why don't we test it out and see."

"I like where your heads at…"

With a tumble into the sunny, tiled corner of the shower, she shut the door, turned on the faucet, pushed me against the wall and grabbed hold of my cock, squeezing tight and whispering on my lips, "I like where yours is at too."

I ground my teeth together joyously and managed to turn the control over, pinning her to the opposite wall and letting her continue stroking the heated flesh as I groaned out, "I bet I can think of somewhere better to put it."

"Oh yeah, where's that?"

"Well," I joked, reaching down to move her hand away and locked it onto the wall above her head, "Since you decided to paint my unsuspecting dick like a summer time treat…"

She bit her lip carefully, eyeing me suspiciously as I moved hard between her wet thighs and lifted her up around my waist.

"…I guess I get to return the favor."

"And how are you going to--"

No time to answer or finish speaking. I gave her little opportunity before thrusting as richly as I could within her, to the place that was sweet, and wet, and welcoming at all corners of my life. What the hell did I need a girl like Catalina for? I had this, and I didn't have to work for it as much as I had to work to keep it safe and sound and with me at all times. And that was well worth the fight.

Roxanne's fingers dug into the melting rainbow swirls on my neck and shoulders as I lifted her higher at the wall, tearing open the forgotten, borrowed shirt she wore and throwing it down in a sopping heap to the bottom of the shower floor at my feet. Between her inked stomach of black names and hearts, and my entirely stucco and artisan mold grinding hard upon hers, we were some kind of crazy match for one another.

She laughed and I knew everything was right with the world. Only Roxanne laughs in the middle of a powerful and passionate session of lovemaking. The water covered us with the steam, and all I could feel in the whole universe was the pressure building against her inner most walls, tightening around my demanding and pumping cock, asking me to go deeper, begging me to trigger her release for the hundredth time since yesterday.

"Mort…" yeah that's my name. A moan. I know what to do with that.

I forced myself as far inside of her as could be managed, and with a handle on the soaked slight of her thighs, her back slid against the tiles and the paint from my body stamped her breasts with every color imaginable, and some that were completely new to me in that moment in time.

My jaw shifted with the strength it took to control the situation, to keep firm footing on the wet shower floor, and to do everything she was asking of me, without every opening of her mouth, save for the screams and whimpers. Her entire body clenched down around mine, locked me in place right where I could feel the pulsating throb of sensational ecstasy within her. She wanted me nowhere but settled right upon that spot. So I stayed awhile and pumped lightly to get as deep and as close as possible, teasing what I couldn't see but could feel the same as paint and water and shaking limbs.

"Roxy," I groaned in her ear, hugging her tight to me, "Let go, honey. Just let it go…"

And like a couple of five year olds I know, she held onto me, shaking her head no. It confused me, her acting like that at the peak of pleasure, and I pulled away just enough to hold her face in my hand and kissed her tenderly on the lips, trying to reassure her of what she was missing out on.

"It's alright," I hummed against her mouth, tasting the sweetened water on her lips, "You don't have to hold on so much, just let it all go, baby."

Her eyes widened at the words and she watched me intently for the remaining thirty seconds of pleading time, before finally relinquishing what she was holding back on, and covering me in the warmest flow of peace I could have imagined for myself. Then, as she relaxed on my shoulder, I released my own delayed, but no less thrilled seed, to her and only her.

The laughing was over, followed strangely enough by tears. She hadn't cried all night or at all that day, but just then, they were rushing clear down her cheeks, mixing with the paint and steamy shower, turning her eyes a pinkish red as she slid down from me to stand weakly on one foot.

I caught my breath and held her softly.

"What's wrong? Talk to me."

She shook her head, again with this.

"Don't lie. Tell me."

"It's nothing," she replied quietly, "A little nausea, that's all."

"Too much wine for the baby," I shut off the faucet and stood dripping wet with her, "I'll get you some medicine and you can lie down for a while."

"I don't have any medicine with me," the sobbing subsided a little more.

"Well, tell me what you need, I'll run and get some."

At this she giggled and looked me up and down. I was still covered in paint, completely.

"You're not going anywhere for awhile. I'll go. You finish your shower."

"You sure? I can clean up quick. I hate to make you drive if you feel--"

She covered my lips with her fingertips and grinned away the last of her tears.

"I will be fine. Promise."

I nodded sadly and she moved her hand away, "I'll start dinner for when you get back."

"That sounds nice," she tiptoed around me, limping to where a towel hung outside the shower door and began to dry off as I watched her. Before she could turn out of the bathroom though, I reached and pulled on her hand, bringing her back to face up at me.

"Guess how much I love you."

Her smile twisted and she pondered it with a tired sigh for a second.

"Too much for your own good?"

"No," I shook my head to stifle a laugh, "More than you'll ever be able to guess. But nice try."

She rose up on her toes to reach my lips, kissed me soundly, perfectly, and then turned away in a flash. I stood there watching after nothing but the ghost of her steam rinsed body for a long time, before finally returning to my shower and cleaning off every last bit of paint I could find.


After I dried my hair and threw on a sundress and my shoes, I took off as fast as I could, hobbling all the way of course, to the car. I drove down into the south end of town where I'd seen a drugstore our very first day here, and I spent a while inside, stocking up on all kinds of pain meds, and vitamins, bandages for my wounds and pregnancy health stuff. Basically anything that Mort's mother had pointed out to me when were back at home.

I must have spent a decent thirty minutes inside the store alone before checking out and loading the small trunk of the Ferrari with my bags. I drove back to the villa slowly, trying not to put too much pressure on the gash in my knee that was stinging like mad and probably also because Carly Simon was playing on my iPod through the radio. I'm a sucker, like most hormonal women, for Carly.

By the time I pulled into the driveway a whole hour later, I was shouting out the lyrics to You're So Vain in a completely uncompromising way, as tiny droplets of winter rain fell onto the windshield.

"…you had one eye in the mirror as, you watched yourself gavotte…and all the girls dreamed that they'd be your partner…they'd be your partner and…"

I hit the wheel of the car and swallowed down two of the nausea pills with a bottle of water, not wanting to give up on the song just yet. It was too raw, too humble of a beat, too livening in too many ways for me to quit and go inside.

I laughed and shouted the chorus, "I had some dreams…they were clouds in my coffee…clouds in my coffee and…you're so vain…you probably think--"

Then, I was cut off by my own natural accord when I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. It was a bike, tilted against one of the pillars of the villa's front steps, rusting in the rain without much care. I knew it wasn't there when I left, so I assumed that someone must have come by, someone Mort had met maybe, one of the locals possibly looking for shelter in the beating storm?

Hmm. I eyed it curiously for one more second before turning off the car, grabbing my purse, the pills, and then the bags from the trunk, all the while attempting without success to stay dry. I ran in a stagger to the steps and overhang, forcing my way into the warmth of the house mere seconds later.

I dropped my purse and a few of the bags near the door, kicked off my wet sneakers, lifted the bottle of wine I'd picked up and the car keys alone (for whatever unconscious reason perhaps), and slowly headed in towards the kitchen, where I could hear loud rock music, boiling water, and something else. It was faint, but it sounded like voices.

Wonder what this lost biker looks like…the thought was fair to me, especially since I'd seen the few people who lived around us, the local men and women, and they were all very interesting looking.

I was smiling when I turned the corner toward the archway of the kitchen, I remember this much. I was smiling. The bottle of wine swung at my side, with the keys twirling on my fingers in the other hand, as I gently began to call out before I got to the arch, "Honey, I picked up a bottle of white wine for the sa--"

Sauce. THE SAUCE. That's what I wanted to say, right?

Too bad I didn't get a chance.

I spun around the corner on my good leg, (still smiling mind you), and peered down into the kitchen to find my husband. Ladies and gentleman, I found him alright. And if can just state for the record, that as sick I was to have to ever leave the villa in the first place, to go and buy medication to ease my jolting, turning stomach, nothing will ever compare to the dizziness, the utter confusion and pain and queasiness I felt when I opened my eyes to the scene in that kitchen.

"She was just a fan."

Liar.

"No. I didn't do anything."

Screw you.

"Guess how much I love you."

I dropped the bottle of wine in a distraught crash of glass and liquid when I heard his voice in my head that third time. That too, mixed with the tangled web of half naked forms grinding together against the counter in the middle of the kitchen, all led to the next twenty seconds.

You'd think twenty seconds would go by in a flash. Maybe in a song it does. For example, I can distinctly recall the song that was playing when I saw all of this. The lyrics were halfway through the second chord of Don't Stand So Close to Me by the Police. Go figure.

I don't know when the tears started, probably somewhere between seeing Mort push the dark haired, perfectly formed and curved and endowed Italian girl off of him from the counter, and the moment when he ran toward me, reaching out to take my hand, with the belt of his jeans torn and residing in the hands of his temptation.

"Baby…"

I guess it was at about 15 seconds that I began to step backwards, stumble, trip over glass and spilled wine and my own traitorous feet just to get back to the door I had once come from, so innocently. I wanted to leave and pretend it never happened. I wanted to pretend like I hadn't just spent the best day of my life, making love to my own husband time and time again for the last twenty some odd hours, only to be humiliated in the same house, on the same day, by another woman's ability to please him unfairly.

I don't know when twenty seconds came and went, but it felt like a well deserved lifetime.

Yes, I believe I deserved what I had allowed to eventually happen.

Thankfully, the car keys were still hooked on my right index finger when I got to the door.