Free Ardor by Lily Prior Page B

my mistress from responding with more feeling to the baker’s suit.
    And so lonely Luigi soon began to feel himself outnumbered in his own shop and was fearful of what the future would bring. As a result or perhaps because of his loneliness and fear, he worked harder than ever and made more and even better bread.

CHAPTER FIVE
    N ext to the Bordino Bakery stood the Happy Pig, the shop that had been in the Castorini family for generations. Above the frontage, suspended on wires, hung an enormous golden pig that had been smiling broadly for longer than anybody could remember.
    Beneath the pig, the window displayed all the fleshy goods to be found inside: ropes of pink sausages hung in swags, ranging from tiny ones the size of olives to whoppers a foot long. There were ciaccatore, cacciatorini, cotechini, luganige, musetti, and mortadelle . Haunches of cured hams were displayed along with molded cooked hams, sparkling silver trays of sliced meats, sweetbreads, cutlets, tripe, brains, bacon, hearts, livers, and tongue and also whole pigs’ heads with apples in their mouths. Squeezed in between the pork products there were jars of lard, mustard, pickled vegetables, and bottles of oils and vinegars.
    Fernanda Ponderosa went through the door of the butcher’s shop leaving the carnival behind. Inside it was cool and quiet.The white marble surfaces gleamed, and the air was infused with the pale pink perfume of pork.
    In the rear a door led to an inner room. This was the cold room where Primo Castorini worked, preparing the enormous range of fresh and cured meats to feed the region. Everything was made according to the age-old traditions, the recipes for which Primo Castorini held only in his head, and about which he was fiercely secretive. When he saw Fernanda Ponderosa, he felt something inside him being unzipped. In the confined space, his seductive aroma overwhelmed her, and his eyes fixed on hers.
    She wrestled her eyes away from his, leaving his hungry, and her glance fell to the counter where she saw his hands among the snakes of sausage. His hands were not what she expected. They were smooth and pink, with fairly long fingers. She felt Primo Castorini had the wrong hands. These weren’t a butcher’s hands at all. They were the hands of an orchestra conductor or a magician or a priest. The hands were making cotechini: stuffing the guts of a pig with a mixture of pork rind, lean pork meat, fat, spices, and boiled pigs’ ears. Did she imagine it or did they tremble under her scrutiny?
    Primo Castorini felt his usually arid palms breaking into a sweat. Excess moisture would make the meat unmanageable and ruin the sausages. He had to subdue himself, regain control. Already he could feel a straining distorting the line of his apron. He must concentrate on his work. Later he could think about her. Later, when he was away from her, and the fever hadcooled, and he could allow himself to luxuriate in every detail of her over and over again. But it wasn’t easy. Since that morning, he hadn’t been able to get her out of his head. Was it really only that morning, only a couple of hours ago? It couldn’t be. In that time she had become his life. His obsession. She was haunting him. She had taken him over. Now she was taking over his business, too. Why hadn’t he given her a bigger overall? She was straining out of that one Silvana always wore. He couldn’t concentrate with those bosoms peeping in his face. Those dangerous eyes flashing. If he didn’t put his heart into the sausages, they would come out bad, and the business, already in jeopardy, would suffer more. There was a chance he could keep it going, but only if he gave it everything. Holy Mother, the smell of her was enough to drive a man out of his wits. With every breath it dealt him a blow to the stomach. He made himself imagine being frozen inside a block of ice. He gritted his teeth. He offered up silent prayers for the stillness of