Page 16 of Casanova LLC

I couldn’t help imagining running my fingers down the flesh along her spine. Their path. The goose bumps they would leave in their wake.

An impulse that had been trained into me.

One I didn’t indulge here. Even if I wanted to.

And then she was gone.

Episode 2

“In my long and profligate career in which I have turned the heads of some hundreds of ladies, I have become familiar with all the methods of seduction.”

? Giacomo Casanova

Alessandro

The classic old Riva was waiting at the dock when I arrived, and so was the classic old man. He was standing on the pier talking shit with Leonardo, a water taxi driver who let us use his allotted slip when we needed it. They noticed me, and my uncle tossed his roll-your-own cigarette. I shook my head as I approached. “I saw that,” I said, in Italian.

He gave me his trademark charming shrug, mumbled something about me being a pain in his ass, then pulled me in for a hug.

He was as tall as me. And his strong arms and chest gave me the instant comfort they always had. He hadn’t changed in two short months, but whenever I saw him for the first time after any time away, I had to remember that my mental image of him, locked in from my childhood, did not reflect the man as he was now. His hair, while still full, was mostly gray; his shoulders, while still dense from work, slightly stooped; and there was a small paunch where there hadn’t been one before. It was as if, upon the moment he retired seven years ago, his brain had told his body that it could let go.

He pulled back from our embrace, clutched my arms, and looked down his Casanova nose at me. “You said you were going to stay in touch while you were home.”

“You said you were going to stop smoking.”

He chuckled and cupped my face, then used the cup to shove me away. Turned for the boat.

“Video chatting once a week with Livia and the kids wasn’t enough? How much more do you want?”

“But you see,” he deadpanned, “I am a sad, lonely relic.” He belied this statement by hopping nimbly down into the Riva. “I did nothing but wander aimlessly around the house for two months, sighing.”

“Think fast!” I threw my bag down to him.

He spun just in time to grab it. He didn’t lose a fraction of his balance. “You little shit! Untie the lines and get in.”

I did. When I jumped aboard, he gassed the engine once and we jolted forward. It took everything I had to not topple over. “You big shit!”

He enjoyed a smug laugh, and snapped my luggage under the tarp. Then we took the positions we had been taking for as many years as I could remember: Jacopo behind the wheel, me next to him. He puttered us slowly out of the marina. “Gotta say, bit disappointed you’re not picking me up in the sailboat.”

He waved a hand and cursed. “Cazzo, e cazzo. She’s not ready.”

“Well, she’s probably pissed you’re still smoking.” I said it in English, just so I could hear him reply, in English:

“Shut up your face.” Then, in Italian: “It’s the engine.”

“Jacopo Casanova. Bested by a little engine trouble.”

“It’s no trouble!” We passed the buoys and picked up speed. “She is just being coy. I will take my time and make her purr.”

I reached over, clapped him on the shoulder. “That’s my job now. You’re too old.”

“Don’t be so sure.”

“You ever heard the one about the old bull and the?—”

“No! You take my house, my career, my sanity…You cannot have the joke.”

Our banter was soon swallowed by the wind as he opened the throttle and sped across the lagoon.

---