Free Rococo by Adriana Trigiani

have to say, the girl can kiss. It’s very sweet, not like getting swabbed by Ondine Doyle.
    “I never showed you the bullion fringe,” she says with a smile.
    “Scali’s is closed.”
    “I have a key.”
    The thought of being alone in Scalamandre’s, just Mary Kate and me and all that fabric, is irresistible. “What are we waiting for?” Mary Kate giggles as we run back to the townhouse. I feel delightfully conspiratorial. As a young man, I never rebelled or did anything to upset my parents, so sneaking into a locked professional building feels downright thrilling. Once we reach the front doors of the townhouse, Mary Kate looks up and down the street. When she sees no one familiar, she opens the front door with her key, lets me in, then locks the door behind us. She flips on the recessed lights over the staircase. I take her hand as we go up the stairs two at a time until we are in her department.
    “Wait till you see it!” She slides a wall festooned with trims to the side, revealing rows of bullion fringe. “They used this at the Met on the fire curtain,” she says proudly. “I helped them choose. Go ahead. Feel.”
    Mary Kate takes my hand and runs it over the long fringe, three feet of twisted silk braids hand-stitched to a matching embroidered gimp. The top knots and twists are as sensual as fingers; they slip through my hands like Christmas tinsel. I am mesmerized by the way the streetlight plays on the pulls of the fringe. Suddenly I’m William Powell, Mary Kate is Myrna Loy, and Manhattan twinkles in the backdrop like candlelight on crystal. Oh, the ambience!
    I am lost in the moment as I caress the soft fringe and imagine it under low lighting, swinging from the draperies of the bay window of the Shumans’ living room in Spring Lake. What a perfect accent to the rococo fantasia I’m creating for them!
    Mary Kate grabs me from behind, running her hands from my waist to my lapels. She pulls off my jacket. “Mary Kate, darling, what are you doing?” I ask.
    “Don’t talk,” she says softly. I hear buttons pop and zippers rip and the low whisk of her breath, rhythmic at first, then turning to a pant as though she is running to catch a train. She rubs furiously against my back and then climbs onto me like I’m Pikes Peak. I grip the fringe like a trapeze artist waiting to swing over the crowd in the circus tent and let Mary Kate take the lead. I feel as though I am waiting my turn, or perhaps awaiting instruction.
    Mary Kate sucks on my neck in the same way she slurped down the Clams Casino appetizer at Le Chantilly. Then she peels off my shirt from behind. “God, your back!” she moans. I am proud of my shoulders and neck, and it has been said, when I was being fitted for custom shirts, that a hostess could serve dinner for eight on my back—it is
that
broad and toned, leading to a tight thirty-inch waist, of which I am equally proud. I seem to have broken the mold of box-shaped di Crespi men. Of course, I work at my musculature with a combination of brisk walks, light weights, and small portions.
    Mary Kate thrusts against me, and I grip the silk-weave gimp for traction, like a lifeline, as she has her way with me. The girl is everywhere! Like a hairy spider in a horror movie, she moves over and under me, around and behind. This little speck of a thing works me over like pie dough, hitting pulse points and tender spots with precision. This is a woman who worships at the altar of the male form! She compliments every muscle and ripple as she goes.
    And yet, for me, with all its hoopla and mystery, the sex act boils down to an exercise in friction. I never feel very much emotionally when in the throes of it, and I often wonder why. I know for most of the world making love really means something, but to me it has never been the ultimate human experience. Yes, it can be relaxing and pleasant, but as the great minds point out, pleasure is simply pleasure, it is in no way joy. Creativity is bliss to