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The aroma of Italian food hits my empty belly like a well-navigated missile, and my stomach growls. Since I’m late, covered bowls and dishes sit on the bar waiting for me. I lift one cover.
It’s a fresh mixed salad. I pick up a spinach leaf and taste a homemade dressing of olive oil and red wine vinegar with a tang of garlic. I lick my thumb and open the large dish.
Chicken marsala.
Still steaming. Excellent. I drop the cover on it and look around.
The apartment appears empty, but Michela’s shoes by the fridge tells me she’s around. I pick up her shoes and carry them over to her door. Using the heel of the shoe, I knock before entering.
A little black dress rides up her legs and barely covers her generous ass while Michela sleeps on her left side, a pillow tucked under her cheek and another between her legs. I put the shoes by the door and then walk to the bed.
One knee on the mattress, I lean in, peeling up the hem of the dress so I can peek under it. The little bare pussy between her legs greets me. It’s quite perfect. No surprise there. My wife’s beauty stuns me in more ways than I care to admit.
I release the dress and trace a finger over the curve of her ass.
She made dinner, got all dressed up, and opted not to wear panties, probably hoping for some attention from me, but sometime after eight, she figured she’d rest her eyes. Then she fell asleep.
I sit beside her for a moment and think back at my childhood. My father went to work before the sun rose on the horizon and stayed at work late into the night. During the days when he arrived home before eight, he’d hold meetings in the study, which took up one entire wing of our home.
His wing of the house hosted the Order’s Formals or rooms where our family formally initiated families into the Order. One would never know that’s what the rooms are for, though. The staff had no idea that kings sat on the chairs they dusted or that three presidents of some of the wealthiest nations of the world were a few hours away from sitting down for a meeting with my brother. They will negotiate trade deals, which is how money is made.
At seven, right after my meeting ended, Severio called, wanting to talk about his upcoming meeting.
Because the Order is like a giant serpent with one family of three people making up the Head, the three of us must always know what each other is up to so that the Head of the Order remains orderly. This is particularly important during times of change, and cutting off parasitic families while initiating new ones we think will make us wealthier counts as change.
Chaos breeds opportunity.
It also brings out the worst in many people. It brought out the worst in Franko Monelli, whose funeral I attended during my lunch hour. Not counting a bite of the mini éclair Tanaka made me throw into my mouth and chew early this morning, I haven’t eaten all day.
I recall one of my father’s wives not letting us eat and making us wait for our father to show up for dinnertime, which he’d set at eight. Dinner was always at eight, but we never ate at eight, because Father always had more work to do.
I spent the better part of my life thinking he drove my mother out of the house.
From my pocket, I take out a pen and write on my wife’s ass cheek.
31
SHE CRAWLS
MICHELA
Last night, Corrado must’ve made it home sometime after nine, because right around eight, when he texted me saying he was in a late meeting, I ate my chicken marsala alone. It was as good, if not better than I remember from the last time I made it, so he missed out.
Unless he ate when he came home. Hmm.
In the bathroom, the sound of water hitting the shower’s tiles tells me Corrado is in there. Still drowsy from sleep and not quite awake but dying to find out if he ate my food, I swing my legs over the bed. A dark charcoal blanket from the chair in the living room pools at my feet. I frown, not remembering taking it with me into the bedroom last night.
I didn’t intend to sleep all night, but once I rested my head on the pillow, I was out like a light, still dressed in the little black dress that I’ve worn for every emergency-dress-up night. Quietly, I open the door and dash across the apartment straight to the fridge.
Once there, I swing open the fridge door and search the shelves for the dish. Or even a leftover container. When I don’t find it, I close the door and open the dishwasher. And there it is, the marsala dish and the salad bowl next to our two plates and forks. He ate dinner here, after all. Not only that, he finished off the generous portion, which means he liked it. Damn straight.
Corrado opens his bedroom door.
I duck under the counter, then wonder why the heck I’m doing it, but now that I have done it, I’ll see it through. While I listen to his steadily approaching footsteps, I sneak out of the kitchen and go around to the other side of the bar at the same time that Corrado comes in.
He’s on the phone with someone already and sounds irritated, but most foreign languages sound like people are arguing all the time, so what do I know if he’s irritated or not.
He's doing something at the kitchen counter. When curiosity gets the better of me, I peek around it just in time to see he’s fixing a coffee. Which is great because I need a manual to brew coffee with this coffee machine. It’s one of the ones they use in restaurants, and I don’t know how to work it.
