Naked Came the Stranger - By Penelope Ashe Page 0,31
slated to be honored as Man of the Year by the Society for the Prevention of Rickets in Children. And in January he would assume office as president of the League to Preserve Italian-American Dignity (LPIAD). He had helped to found that one, and the Organization credited him with a master stroke. Two city newspapers had attempted to build circulation with investigations of the Organization, but a few LPIAD picket lines had discouraged the publishers. Television, always gutless, canceled a scheduled documentary. And now politicians came to Vella seeking advice.
Mario Vella jabbed at the button with his manicured finger and opened the driver's window. It was a warm day for November and his eyes had been smarting from the cigarette smoke in the sealed car. He pushed the buttons on the car radio, pushed them until the car was filled with the syrupy sounds of Johnny Alonga singing "A Dying Love." He listened for a few seconds, then changed stations again. The song still made him want to puke. It reminded him of Donna Marie. They had been married for ten years. Ten years of rotting waste, studding Man O' War to a milk cow.
He'd had that same thought earlier in the day. He had awakened at six thinking about Gilly. He reached over to the night table, lit the cigarette, lay on his back, motionless, staring up at the absurd sky-blue canopy that Donna Marie had insisted on having custom made. He tried to keep his thoughts on Gilly, but Donna Marie was stirring at his side. He imagined Gilly kneeling in front of him, her honey blonde hair bobbing at her shoulders. He could visualize the severely tailored white blouse unbuttoned to the bottom button and half-draped over her firm upper arms. He could see her cupping her erect, compact breasts in her hands, gently massaging the pink nipples with her index fingers. Her breasts seemed a creamy contrast to the fading tan. Her brief pale green skirt was pulled upward against the strain of her body, exposing an eyeful of nylon-sheathed thigh.
He saw himself standing, his clothes thrown to the side. He saw her wriggling closer and playfully massaging the inner part of his legs with her breasts, up and down and up then down again. Gently. She never came all the way up, always stopping just a little short. The suspense surging within him always turned to agonized impatience. She would look up at him with that smile. "Are you still afraid of me, Mario? Do you still want me to go away?" He leaned over and pinched her ear lobes, delicately, lovingly, and then carefully guided her unresisting head up, up — "Mario!"
Donna Marie's voice had slashed through his dream. He jackknifed into a sitting position and turned to face his wife.
"Your cigarette," she said. "You dropped your cigarette on the bed. Do you want us to burn to death in our own house? Look, you've burned a hole in the comforter. My father gave that to us. A hundred and fifty dollars it cost, all the way from Italy. It's ruined. What will we tell him?"
He shrugged his shoulders, a half-hearted gesture of apology. He poured a glass of water from the night table onto the smoldering satin comforter. Secretly he was pleased. He had always hated the comforter, an unreasonably faithful embroidery reproduction of sunset over the Bay of Naples. It was just like his father-in-law Septimo. Vintage wop.
He reached over and pulled Donna Marie to him, the hunger for Gilly still racing in his blood, hoping that this time it might be different. As always, Donna Marie was submissive. She had been raised to submit to her husband, whoever he might be, unquestioningly, sick or well, night or day. Men are that way, her mother had explained. It was a wife's duty to give, not to expect, at least in the bedroom. Her long black hair, lustrous from a lifetime routine of one hundred brush strokes a night, streamed across the pillow behind her head. Mario snaked his hand under the hem of her short flannel nightie and flattened it palm down on the broad expanse of her belly. There was not the slightest quiver of movement in return. He moved his hand upward, over a soft bulge of fat, to her great flaccid breasts. God, he wondered, do all Italian girls get this swollen after three children? He pulled his hand away and Donna Marie automatically rolled over on her back,