Free Eating With the Angels by Sarah-Kate Lynch Page B

the Grand Canal into a smaller one and after half a dozen twists and turns, each canal darker and narrower than the one before, we came to a wooden grate on the side of a building. Steadying himself against the crumbling concrete, Marco pulled the grate up, sliding the gondola into the darkness inside, his hands shimmying along the stone wall to steer it, his body stretched above me, his T-shirt rising to reveal a line of hair peeking out from his pants leading to — yes, well, never mind.
    We were in some sort of Venetian garage, I supposed, the murky basement of someone’s palazzo where they parked their boat but to be honest I wasn’t really thinking about it too much. I wasn’t thinking about anything too much. Apart from Marco. That line ofhair. That taut brown skin. Look, I could string this out forever and try to make myself look like something other than an adulterously wanton slut but I think we all know where this is going so let’s skip straight to it.
    Marco tied the gondola to a post and came to kneel beside me, placing his cool hand on my hot head. I didn’t know whether to feel like a five-year-old kid or the happy hooker. I wanted him to look after me, be gentle with me, but I wanted more as well. I wanted him to take me in his arms and make love to me. The word ravish even sprang to mind. I am such a cliché. Who gets ravished these days anyway? By a handsome gondolier? In Venice?
    Well, in this instance, me. Yessiree. I have to say. I was ravished. He ravished me. Completely and utterly. Twice.
    One moment his hand was on my forehead, my eyes slipping and sliding off his, and the next his lips were on my skin, my back arching to bring my body up to meet his. There was no way we weren’t going to have sex and I knew it. I think I knew it when I first saw him, from the back of my water taxi, when he smiled and raised his eyebrow at me. And if I didn’t know it then I sure as hell knew it when he cleaned my disgusting shoe. Marco was what every recently separated woman (and a few still married ones as well) dreams of and deserves.
    He slid me down onto the floor of the gondola and I lifted my arms so he could slip off my tank top. I wasn’t even embarrassed about the doughy squidge of my middle, or the way a soft roll poked out from underneath my too-tight bra. He kissed his way down to my breasts, nibbling at them through my lingerie. It drove me wild. I couldn’t get my jeans off quickly enough, kicking them and my g-string (second honeymoon wear; I usually chose underwear with far better restraining properties) down the gondola and pulling him on top of me, then pushing him off again so I could help wrench off his T-shirt, claw at his pants.
    Then we were both lying there, naked, staring at each other with such intensity it almost scared me. And without a word, I slitheredout from underneath him and moved astride him, so I was on top — which is most unlike me I can tell you, for reasons of having a pot belly that looks a heck of a lot flatter when I’m lying down. But there I was, sitting up straight in that dark watery garage, the gondola rocking gently in the wake of our movement, our separate parts sliding into place as though we were made for each other, a fat, heavy drop of water falling from somewhere into the darkness beyond us every few seconds in an almost stupefying rhythm.
    I’m not going to bore you with details of the sex because, let’s face it, it’s nowhere near as interesting reading about sex as it is having it, especially if it is with Marco. You can trust me on that one. Just the touch of his skin was electric. Where it merged with mine — on my thighs, my belly, my breasts — it made me fearful I would ignite, burn up and disintegrate. Words just cannot do it justice. It was explosive, completely and utterly intensely explosive. I had never had sex like that before in my life and I doubted that I ever would again. It was out of this world.
    Afterwards, we lay in the