Lucia walked out to the deck chairs and looked at the young
man.
" Quel povero raggaza." she murmured. The boy was
handsome, she thought, but terribly ill. Something of the poet or warrior in
the face. Dark hair, an expressive mouth. Young, but lean and shapely, unlike
Rudolph in each and every one of those. There was a beautiful confluence of line where his neck met his open
collar and the swoop of the collar-bone. She wished she had her sketch pad with
her to draw it. Her eye traced his shoulders. Wide, proportionate to his frame,
probably very good definition to the muscle there. He would make an excellent
study for a portrait. Perhaps she could draw him sometime. The line of the
eyebrows and the lips… She pulled her eyes away. No better. Now they caught a young
man's flat stomach and slender waist. No, she did not wish to compare with
Rudolph. Two months gone and every second of his absence a blessing – she hadn't
felt his hands on her for that long. This
boy's hands… the fingers of a pianist, long, sensitive. She imagined them
stroking the keys, she imagined them stroking…
Why? Why did this happen with every man who wasn't her fat
pig of a husband? This boy, this sick, sick boy… She reached out a hand towards
his face, but stopped herself before she touched him. No. No, not a good
idea. She took a step back, her foot inadvertently
scraping the gravel. She flinched, waited to see if he would wake, wanting and
not wanting him to. The head moved, but
the eyes didn't open. The lips parted and formed, perhaps, a name. They marked
a line across her vision those lips, like charcoal marking paper, the shape of
them captivating her. Imagining the pressure of charcoal stalk on paper, the pressure
of finger onto skin… A single bead of sweat stood at his temple and
Lucia's hand moved to wipe it, stopped, started, stopped again. Her hand wanted
to touch… she caught herself, turned quickly and walked back to the house.
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