Clouds Of Smoke… The Story. Gianluigi Ciaramellari
feared, not for his bite but for his drool.
Giorgio was a handsome guy. He was rich, (and this made him even more handsome), well-educated, (sometimes unbearably so), gracious, (sometimes...).
But he was empty. Yes, empty like an empty Nutella jar. Or rather, like an already labelled jar, left-over by Nutella’s manufacturer.
Sonia often wondered if she had ever even gotten a whiff of that chocolate hazelnut cream. However, she was content. It was a nice jar after all, she would have filled it with something, and she would find a way to do it.
The jar tumbled into her house, while Sonia was putting her electronic cigarette into her backpack.
“I’m here!...What’s that?” The jar... Giorgio asked Sonia, (without panting).
“My electronic cigarette! I bought it a while ago, from that shop nearby. It works, you know.”
“Does that mean that you've decided to quit smoking?” Giorgio asked, intrigued to the point that he stuck his head into the backpack to see “that thing” better.
“Well, at least I’ll try. Shall we go?” Meanwhile she kissed him on the lips.
“Bring the bike downstairs, then we can talk, I have some things to tell you”.
Actually, Sonia was not so sure she wanted to tell Giorgio of her tests, not today at least, not during a nice bike ride.
But she had to do it anyway. It was her boyfriend’s right to know about it. Giogiò, (as she called him), would have been hurt if she had kept it hidden from him, even just for a few days, or even worse if he had heard it from someone else.
They had been going out for about six months, since they met in his father’s perfume shop, where she shopped every once in a while. He liked her for her kindness and her refined elegance; it was almost as if she belonged to another era. She was testing the new Cavalli line, when he came up to her to suggest a fragrance, (which she ended up buying). So he was a man who knew her tastes. They spoke only two words, maybe three, one by her and two by him. Giorgio was the most loquacious between the two of them. It took only a lunch date at the Sushi bar in the centre, then a dinner date in Greve in Chianti. A candle and a good bottle of Chianti wine was enough to bring them together, eye to eye, hand in hand.
Their first dates were sweet. They often dined together in the evening, at her house, or at his house, sometimes out, in fantastic places: by the sea, on a hill, all paces with breath-taking views.
But not very often at his home, though. Giorgio lived in an annex of his parents’ villa. To enter one had to go through the main gate that opened onto the driveway that ended in front of the entrance to his parents’ home. Every time, coincidentally, they were awake. Either because they were giving a party, or because they were playing Buraco with friends, or a business chat with agents that had come to dinner, well... Sonia was always a little reluctant to participate in those presentations and (formal) cordialities.
When they went to Giorgio’s house, she had to dress in a certain manner and, “oh my God, what a bore!”, that was something she had soon discovered to be a burden with which she had to learn to live with.
When you fall in love as kids, in the other person you see the image of the love you’ve dreamt of, and you love the idea that the feeling perfectly matches your expectations. Often, these love affairs end because you discover that they were simply “teenage crushes,” so, once you get over that sense of disappointment that dissolves in a pint of tears, you jump into another affair.
At twenty years old, things become more serious, but they are just like cartoons that change the theme: first they are frogs and princesses, then they become Minnie and Mickey Mouse and Fiona and Shrek. The love affairs of twenty year old people are heroic because they have to fight against the prejudice and criticism of parents and friends; they are lived as passionate adventures with moments of romance which, I’m sure, will never come back again.
In your thirties, your heart has already built a shield. It’s the time in which your rationality wakes up and, after all the beatings it’s taken, it starts hitting back. So on the one hand there’s your heart that tells you to follow it, because it became so strong that it doesn’t believe it can be wrong, on the other hand there’s your mind that continuously places limitations, painstakingly trying to sabotage you, because it wants to protect itself from deception, and be the only one at the centre of your universe. Our mind is jealous, terribly jealous of our heart.
Four months into their relationship, Sonia realized that the Giorgio’s beauty was nothing more than a golden mask that hid the weakness of his personality. At thirty-six years old, one is a grown man, he can’t depend on his Mom. But he revealed himself to be a boy who never made a decision without his mother’s approval. For him it was unthinkable to manage his life in total independence. Sonia should have realized this, when she saw that he still lived in an annex of his parental home. But we all know that, when we fall in love, we tend to see and enhance just the things we like about the other.
Thus she felt let down one day, when they argued about which dress she should wear for his brother’s wedding.
That quarrel had irritated her very much. Up until then she had appreciated the fact that Giorgio knew her tastes, be it perfume, flowers or jewellery. At first, to calm herself down, she blamed her disappointment on the particular circumstance that this was an occasion concerning “Giorgio’s very respectable family”, so she held her prejudice responsible, since she disliked his mother. Then her anger escalated, when she saw Giorgio calling “his mother”, for advice. In the end Sonia had to surrender and wear a wide mesh net dress, which she never wore again following that ceremony, during which everything bothered her and made her feel uncomfortable; although it was one of her favourite dresses, that day she wanted to wear something different, more in tune with her mood.
She forgave him, though it took a week for her to digest it; a session of wild sex was enough to make her forget about it, one of those moments in which Giorgio brought out the real man, the handsome macho that he was, at least in bed.
However, since that day, Sonia began to see Giorgio under a different light. She removed the glasses of the girl engaged to Prince Charming, the ones with a tortoise butterfly shaped frame and with fuchsia-coloured lenses, and was now able to see her boyfriend through the naked eyes of a mature woman who knows what she wants.She watched him pedalling in front of her, on his Mountain Bike, she nodded to him when from time to time he turned back to make sure she was following him at a safe distance. She studied him. Undoubtedly he had a beautiful body. His nimble legs, with muscular calves, broad shoulders and the sweaty shirt clung to his back highlighting the well-sculpted backbones. When he got up from his seat to push harder, Sonia could see his butt. Small but firm and round. She was proud of having such a handsome boyfriend; she thought that any woman would want him, and some of her girlfriends had also told her so. She could smell his scent, mixed with the acrid smell of sweat and it was a pleasant mix that intoxicated her.
“Slow down, Giogiò!” She called breathlessly, from behind.
“Excuse me darling, come on, let's ride together now!” And he let her catch up with him.
“I have a city bike, I can’t keep up with you if you go so fast!” Sonia pleaded.
“Okay, I’ll slow down. In this stretch of road there are less cars, we can ride close to each other”, he reassured her.
They were going through Via del Barco, towards Cascine Park. Damien’s shop was in that street: “Clouds of smoke steam cigarettes”. Obviously, it was closed on Sunday. Sonia saw it and pointed it out to Giorgio.
“Look, that’s the store in which I bought my electronic cigarette!” She said, pointing to the sign.
“Come on! - He exclaimed, surprised – do you know that there was a small perfume shop here which belonged to customer of my father’s?”
Without getting off their bikes, they both put a foot on the ground to steady themselves and stared at the shutter for a few seconds. He tried to remember how the perfume shop