Page 14 of Casanova LLC

“So I’ve heard. When did that change for you?”

I was silent.

“Was it when other people started getting involved?”

I was gathering my thoughts when I heard myself say, “Not just Richard.” Some knee-jerk impulse to unfailingly defend my late husband against things that might, even tangentially, have something to do with him.

Alessandro raised a hand. “It’s rarely one man. It’s men. Those men that are still thirteen-year-old boys, believing that the fantasy of porn is the reality of a relationship. They’re more than happy to watch a woman get off so long as they don’t have to be responsible for it.” He stared at me.

I could only stare back.

“Can you still come when you’re alone?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“I haven’t tried.”

“In how long?”

I couldn’t answer him. I couldn’t answer because I didn’t know.

Graciously, he did not pursue the question. “Do you want to explore this when we’re together?”

“Do you want to?”

“This is about you. What I want doesn’t matter.”

I lifted the glass even though there was nothing in it but a huge ball of ice. Would it be weird if I rubbed it on my neck? I put the glass back down. “I find that hard to believe.”

“I’m sure you do, but that’s the service I provide. I want nothing from you. I don’t want your subservience. Your obedience. Your capitulation. I don’t want to borrow your beauty for my own credibility with other men. I don’t want your deference, or your fidelity, or your love. That is my job: I love you.”

I was so taken aback by those words coming out of his mouth that for a moment I forgot the context in which they had been said.

Alessandro

She appeared overwhelmed, so I turned down the heat. “Would you like to sightsee?”

“Sightsee?”

“Sightsee.”

She had the face of someone tasting a suspicious herb on the tip of her tongue. “What is that? Some voyeur thing?”

A laugh rocketed out of me, surprising us both. “Sightseeing. As in, seeing the sights.”

“Just plain old sightseeing?”

“Yes, Venetian sights.”

“You’re a tour guide, too?”

It was as if every word I said was not food for thought so much as bait. “If you want. Have you ever been?”

“No.”

“Have you wanted to?”

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