A Room in Perugia

Catherine Macleod arrives in Perugia without a hotel reservation. She's been driving from Venice to Rome along the Apennine Road, and finding herself fatigued in the afternoon, she decides to stop in Perugia for the night. This is the height of the travelling season, and the man at the tourist office shakes his head doubtfully when Catherine tells him she needs a room for the night. But he does find her a room in a small hotel near the cathedral, explaining to her how pleased he is the Italian she speaks is almost perfect. "Remarkable," he says. "Quite remarkable, signorina. Americans who speak Italian are usually burdened with a horrible accent. Enjoy your stay in Perugia." Of course he's exaggerating. Her Italian is good, but not quite good enough to be outstanding. She lived and went to school in Rome for several years as a young girl, and reviving her knowledge of the language hasn't been difficult.

Before long, exhausted, Catherine is finally alone in a small room whose only charm is that its single window provides a pleasant view of some nearby rooftops. Catherine throws the shutters wide open and strips off her clothes. It's mid-afternoon and the heat is oppressive. There is no bath, only a shower stall, and she makes immediate use of this to refresh herself after the long drive from Venice. When she comes out of the shower, she dries her body with a towel, and then she stands naked before the mirror to blow dry her short blonde hair. She's pleased with herself. She has a good tan produced by hours of hard tennis in Venice with some of her colleagues at the U.S. Consulate. Catherine loves Italy, loves being back as a grown woman, but after four months she's had only a single romantic adventure, and that one an affair of only one evening with a British stewardess who seemed embarrassed the next morning. One evening in four months, Catherine thinks. Surely, there's more in Italy for her than that!

She finally switches off the hair dryer and replaces it in its case. After that she stands before the mirror again, and she dabs a bit of mentholated lotion on each of her breasts. A trick taught to her by an old lover. She slowly rubs the lotion into the skin of her breasts, especially around the nipples, and soon the pleasant warmth causes her nipples to erect like firm pink turrets. She thinks her breasts are too small, but her nipples have an aggressive attitude that more than one woman has found exciting. A compensation. Each breast is hardly a handful, but the nipples are a compensation. Catherine imagines a woman nibbling at them. She envies women who can lift their breasts high enough suck them.

Catherine is aroused now, and she thinks about masturbating. But she decides to put it off until later. She is still standing in front of the mirror with her fingertips gently twisting her elongated nipples, when a key turns in the door lock and a chambermaid walks in with a pile of towels in her arms. When she sees Catherine, the girl stumbles and drops the towels.

"Oh! I'm so sorry, signorina! I thought the room was empty!" The girl scrambles on the floor after the fallen towels. Unwilling to further embarrass the poor girl, Catherine hides her amusement and instead hurries to close the door to prevent anyone passing in the hall from seeing her own nakedness. She then crouches beside the chambermaid to help her retrieve her towels.

When all the towels are gathered, they both rise, and the girl blushes as she seems to realize for the first time that Catherine is totally naked. She glances at Catherine's breasts, and then at her neatly trimmed blonde bush, and then she quickly looks away.

"I was very clumsy," the girl says. "It doesn't matter, really. I do need the towels." "Shall I come back later?" "No, of course not. Just do what you came to do." "I should change the sheets on the bed." "Then do that also. Please." Catherine wonders if she ought to cover herself with a robe. But the sun is still high and it's much too warm in the room. They are both sweating from the heat, the chambermaid with a visible film of moisture on her upper lip.

She's quite pretty, maybe twenty, with a stocky body and bright dark eyes. Since nakedness in Europe is not what it is at home, at least not between people of the same sex, Catherine compromises: she finds a clean pair of white jockeys and she slips them on. Meanwhile, the chambermaid is in the bathroom arranging the towels. Catherine stands at the dresser mirror brushing her hair, and when the girl comes out of the bathroom and begins changing the sheets on the bed, Catherine says: "Are you from Perugia?" The girl glances at her. "No, I'm from Assisi." "And I'm from New York." "I have an uncle in Brooklyn." "Everyone in Italy has an uncle in Brooklyn." The girl laughs. "How amusing."

Catherine has avoided looking at the girl directly, glancing at her only in the mirror. She can see the girl's eyes on her, on her naked back, on her buttocks in the white jockeys. She watches the girl as she bends over the bed. She mentally undresses the girl, and the images excite her. You're nasty, she thinks. She can feel the wetness in her pussy, and she imagines she can smell her own arousal. Maybe the girl can smell it also. "You're pretty," Catherine says. "What's your name?" The girl blushes. "Elena." Catherine turns, facing the girl, their eyes meeting directly. "Do you mind that I'm naked?" The chambermaid gives her a sidelong glance. "No, you're nice to look at." "I'm too thin. Too small in the bosom." "No, signorina. Not at all." The girl looks openly at Catherine now, a bold look, her dark eyes taking in the naked breasts, the erected nipples, the white cotton jockeys that are thoroughly soaked with Catherine's excitement.

A look of interest. Catherine can read it. The girl's eyes reveal everything. As if without thinking, Catherine casually rubs her fingertips across one of her elongated nipples. "It's very warm in here." "Yes, signorina." The girl's eyes are fixed on the nipple, on Catherine's fingertips. Then her eyes move upward, and when they meet Catherine's, her gaze does not waver. Catherine says: "Oh, how pretty you are. Come here." And when the girl comes forward, Catherine kisses her, a warm kiss on Elena's lips. Elena's mouth immediately opens, and for an instant the kiss blazes between them as Catherine gently passes her hand over one of Elena's full breasts. No bra. Nothing but a firm globe under the cloth. Then Catherine pulls away. "Stay with me," Catherine says. "In an hour." "Do you promise?" "Yes, I'll come back in an hour."

The girl hurries out, her arms filled with the old sheets. After the girl leaves, Catherine trembles at her own audacity. She has never in her life attempted anything like this. Italy has made her daring. And the girl. That film of sweat on her upper lip. Those heavy breasts shaking as she bent over the bed. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, Catherine thinks. She hasn't taken the post in Italy to be celibate. She hates celibacy. She thinks celibacy was invented by the devil. Catherine passes an hour in sexual heat. The lips of her cunt are swollen, the dew dripping so much she finally removes her pants and remains naked rather than put on another pair. She perfumes herself, prepares herself for a lover, trembling with desire as she waits in the small hot room. Elena finally slips into the room with a bottle of chilled wine.

"I had to bribe the porter." "I'll return the money to you." "I paid him with a kiss." "Then kiss me too. Quickly." The kiss is as hot as the first time, Catherine's eager hands fondling Elena's breasts through her cotton dress. "Let me see them." Coyness in Elena's eyes as she turns her back to have Catherine unzip her dress. Then she faces Catherine again, the dress and white chemise she wears under it slipping off her shoulders to reveal her glorious breasts to Catherine's eyes. With a soft smile, Elena lifts her breasts in her hands and comes forward to rub her nipples against Catherine's. "You're so beautiful," Elena says. Catherine gazes down to watch their nipples rubbing against each other. "I want to make love to you." "I can only stay a short while." "Then hurry and get undressed. I'll put the wine in the bathroom to keep it cool."

In the bathroom, Catherine plugs the basin and then fills it with cold water. She puts the wine bottle in the water and she returns to Elena and starts trembling when she sees her. Elena is on the bed, kneeling on all fours, wearing nothing but her black stockings that are held in place by pink garters above her knees. She kneels with her shoulders down and her rump in the air, the sunlight gleaming on her white hips, the furrow between her buttocks and the sex below it covered with a wild growth of dark hair.

The word luxuriant comes to Catherine's mind. The girl's cunt is luxuriant, tropical, the fat labia almost completely hidden by the dark jungle. Elena looks at Catherine over her right shoulder, a coy look, a look that says she knows what she has back there, she knows the power of it. Catherine is vanquished. She climbs onto the bed behind Elena and she buries her face in the tropical forest. A rain forest now. Damp. Fecund. So much hair everywhere. She manages to get her tongue inside to taste the girl's juices. She sucks at the opening, drinks the foaming essence. Her nose is against the girl's anus. Catherine adores it. She rubs her face into the crack as she works her tongue. Then she pulls away and she urges Elena on her back. "Please."

Elena turns over and lifts her knees. Legs in black stockings in the air. Pink garters. Full thighs with that marvelous forest between them. As Catherine bends to the wetness, she smiles and reminds herself how pleased she is to be back in Italy again.