Venice in August

The two little girls showed some reluctance to leave me and go with their father, which I found quite flattering. Both decided they were not going to leave, until they'd kissed me on the cheek; then they trailed off behind their father waving as they went. Talia lingered for a few seconds and then kissed me on both cheeks before she followed them.

-----

"And just who the hell was that? Christ dad, we can't leave you for two minutes and you're chatting up all the local talent." Kathy my youngest daughter said a couple of minutes later as she approached my table.

"Sorry?" I replied feigning ignorance of what Kath was talking about.

"Dad, you were canoodling with a very attractive young woman as we came out of the cathedral."

"I wasn't canoodling Kath. That is the way Italians say hello and good-bye. She's the daughter of a very old friend of mine. She had her family with her and we've just had a cup of tea together."

By this time I could see that Kathy was mentally counting the used teacups on the table and she gave me a disbelieving glance.

"Okay, Talia and I had tea together, then her husband and children joined us a little while ago. They must have left before you came out of the cathedral."

At this point in our conversation, a very confused looking waiter reappeared, I held up five fingers towards him, and asked my daughters and their husbands if they like any toast at the same time.

"I thought we'd be looking for somewhere to have lunch before long." Kathy said.

"You might angel, but I have a lunch date at one o'clock. That it would be better if I kept alone."

"With that Talia..." Kathy blustered. "She can't be half your age dad!"

"No don't be silly Kath, with her mother. She's a very old friend of mine and we haven't met since we were both teenagers."

Kathy's eyes instantly performed the same trick Talia and her daughters' had performed earlier. Actually I thought for one horrible moment that Kathy's eyes were going to pop right out of her head.

"Dad," Kathy's husband ventured. "You are going to have lunch with a woman you haven't seen in forty years?"

"About thirty years Ken, I ain't that old. Besides Lia and I almost grew up together..."

My mention of the name Lia brought a sudden reaction from my eldest -- and quietest -- daughter. She usually let her younger sibling do most of the talking. Mind you, Katherine had always been a chatterbox, so Lia had kind-a got used to letting her get on with it, from a very young age.

"Did you say her name is Lia?" My eldest asked.

"Sure is my sweet, and you were named after her."

"Did mummy know?"

"Of course she did! I suggested Lia as your middle name originally, but your mother made the switch on the hospital records. Your mother and I had no secrets from each other, she knew all about Lia and me. If you remember, there're some pictures of Lia and me together in my mother's old family albums. Christ, you thumbed through them often enough, when you were little."

Then I went on to explain to them -- actually for their spouses information as I'm sure my girls had roughly heard the story before and must have instantly put two and two together -- how Lia and I had almost, but not quiet, grown up together. I didn't infer any romantic involvement between us, but I believe that they all assumed that there had to have been one of some sort, if only a tenuous one. After we'd drunk our tea we left the pavement café -- its very confused waiter and even more confusing bill -- and went for a stroll through Venice's back streets. All the time we were slowly moving in the direction of Lauro's cousin's restaurant.

"Dad, are you sure you've thought this out." Ken (Kathy's husband) asked me, while the other three were taking photographs or looking in some shop window.

"Thought what out, Ken?"

"Well these Italian women dad. You know they appear to fall into two basic groups, don't you?"

"Ken, I know exactly what you're getting at. And believe me, it was even more prominent when I was a lad. Anyway, I can assure you that Lia and I are just very old friends meeting for a quiet lunch, to talk about old times."

"All right then, I just wasn't too sure that you'd thought it all through, that's all."

"I'm a big boy Ken, and I can assure you that I'm very used to disappointment in my life. Christ, look at the two numpties my daughters chose to marry."

"Oh cheers dad, thanks for the vote of confidence!" Ken grinned back at me.

"Well, let's have some bloody grandchildren on the way before I'm too old to enjoy them. I had a great time with Talia's little girls while you were in the cathedral."

"You better tell your daughters about that, Matt. They are both under the misapprehension that one of them needs to visit you every evening to fuss over you. They claim that they haven't got time for children, just yet."

-----

It was clear that my arrival at the restaurant was expected. As I made my way between the outside café tables, Lauro's cousin rushed out to meet me. With a long speech in Italian that I didn't understand a word of, he ushered into the large, dimly lit, empty and air-conditioned restaurant, at the rear of the building.

Gesturing to me to take a seat at the only table that the candles were lit on, he produced a bottle of what I assume was the best wine he had in the place. This is an assumption because he didn't ask me if I wanted a glass and gazed at me expectantly once he'd poured it for me.

I took a sip and swirled it around my mouth as I'd seen the wine wallies do on the telly, and then I smiled and nodded at him. This brought a big grin to his face, as he topped the glass up and then left.

Jesus, I wouldn't know a good wine from a bottle of cats pee, but I think I pulled the deception off okay.

I sat there alone for some considerable time, taking polite sips from the wine at regular intervals. All the time I was sitting there though, disembodied heads would appear around the doorframe, look at me, smile, and then disappear again.

It was ten past one, before I heard a slight commotion going on in the vestibule that led into the restaurant. One voice I recognised as being Talia's even though she was speaking Italian, the other another female voice that I could not recognise.

I could not understand what they were saying, but I kind-a assumed that Lia was having difficulty in understanding why Talia was insisting that she went in the normally closed -- at that time of day -- restaurant.

So I stood up, went over to the door and looked upon the scene in the vestibule. O-boy did I get a shock!

Look, in case anyone isn't familiar with Italy and Italian women in general, especially older ones, I'd better explain. They fall into two basic groups. Unfortunately -- and probably the minority -- some of them tend to let themselves go a bit after they've had children. There's a kind-of mental picture many men have of a dumpy woman, dressed in black and sporting a severe hairstyle. Usually they have a grey or dark coloured scarf wrapped around their head as well. Actually I suspect that they are in a minority, but let's say that once you've seen a few, they kind-a stick in your mind and appear to be everywhere.

Then there is the other kind of older Italian woman. You don't notice them, because they never look their age. I suppose they are best described as the Sofia Loren or Gina Lollobrigida type, beautiful, and never ageing in your mind.

Well I wasn't looking at Sofia or Gina's back. But it was pretty obvious which category Lia fitted into. And it kind-of explained Lauro's comment as he left me in the piazza earlier, if you understand me.

Lia was talking two to the dozen at Talia, when I must have appeared in the doorway behind her. Talia moved her eyes from her mother to smile at me and her doing so made Lia fall silent. Then she turned to look at what had taken Talia's attention.

"Matt!"

"Lia!"

"It was you?"

"It was I, yes!"

This was some interesting conversation we were having.

"What are you doing here?"

"Having lunch with a very beautiful and dear friend; if she ever comes in to join me."

Lia looked from me to Talia and then back at me again.

"How?"

"A little tyke called Ambra... well she decided to tell the world that I was her grandmother's lover in the middle of St Marks Square this morning. And things kind of snowballed from there."

Lia's eyes did the popping out of her head trick that every female I'd met that day appeared to be perfecting.

"Oh my lord!"

"It would appear Lia, that you talk too much in front to the children. Now are we having lunch, or is that queue of waiters behind Talia going to stretch all the way to the canal first?"

Lia stepped into the restaurant and we did the kissing each other on the cheek bit. Yes, I really did fancy kissing Lia on the lips, but I feared that I might be getting ahead of myself. Then I showed Lia to our table and helped her seat herself in the most gentlemanly manner I knew how, and then I retook my own seat.

I assume that Talia weaved her way out between the patiently waiting line of waiters.

"You're very beautiful Lia, just like I remember you." I said as I poured her a glass of wine.

"You're as handsome as you ever were Matt."

"So, long time no see, aye; how are you keeping." I asked.

Scintillating stuff what? Well, I'd run out of compliments, and having lunch with beautiful women wasn't really my forte. Christ, what do would you say under the circumstances. But Lia had a surprise up her sleeve for me.

"Oh, I'm keeping fine Matt, lonely of course since I lost my husband. How are Mary and your girls?"

Now that was definitely one bellow the belt. Of course I immediately came back with. "I lost Mary five years ago Lia!"

But I was wondering, how the hell Lia knew I had been married to Mary. She'd probably guessed that the girls were my daughters, when she saw us the previous day on the waterbus. There is a marked family resemblance, I'm told.

But how the hell had Lia known that my wife's name had been Mary? I was sure I hadn't told Talia, and besides Talia hadn't told Lia about meeting me that morning. Well, from the surprised expression on Lia's face, I didn't think she had.

"I'm sorry to hear that Matt. And your girls', Katherine and Lia isn't it? I was very flattered."

"How do you know their names Lia? Come to that, how come you know that my wife's name was Mary?"

Lia smiled.

"Matt, when my husband died thirteen years ago, I was lonely. I had two choices, stay in the UK and carry on running our ice-cream company, or sell the business and come back here to be near the rest of my family. I couldn't face running the business on my own and there was only one man in the UK that I could see myself running it with; so I hired a detective.

"You weren't very hard to find. Well, how many Mathew Algernon Earnest Moncrieff's can there be in the world, let alone the UK."

"Oh I see!"

"Yes, but you were happily marred with two beautiful daughters. So I sold the business and moved back here."

"You honestly thought that we... I would come and run your ice-cream company with you. We hadn't seen each other since we were... well, children."

"Not exactly children Matt. Children don't do the sort of things we did together. Well, I hope they don't! No, I think I was thinking more along the lines of becoming your wife. We did have some really good times together didn't we?"

"We sure did Lia, but if your old man had ever caught you sneaking up to my bedroom during the night, I really doubt I'd have seen the next dawn."

"Worth the risk though, wasn't it?" she giggled.

"Sure was Lia."

"And it kept you coming back to Rimini every year."

"I'd have gone to the moon to be with you Lia. But then one year you weren't there anymore. Damn that was one downer of a year for me. I'd looked forward since the previous summer to seeing you, and you weren't there."

"I'm sorry. My dad was very ill and the whole family moved to Milan where his specialist was. One of my uncles and his family took over running the hotel.

"But you came early that year. Your family always holidayed with us the middle two weeks of August. That year you came the last week in July and the first week of August."

"How do you know?"

"My sister and I arrived on the Saturday afternoon; you'd left that same morning. I think I cried for the whole two weeks we were there."

"Oh Christ, you went there to be with me?"

"Of course, I wanted to spend my whole life with you Matt. Once I'd realised that I'd been studying English as hard as I knew how. I was hoping to surprise you that year by telling you how I felt about you."

Lia's revelation left me sitting there speechless, and remembering my own pain when I discovered she wasn't at the pension when we arrived. I could see that same pain reflected in the candlelight in Lia's eyes.

"I'm sorry Lia."

"Why are you sorry? It wasn't ordained at that time that we should be together. Maybe that has changed now."

"Maybe Lia. Maybe it has!"

While we ate, we went on to talk about both of our marriages, and the pleasure we'd got from our children and our spouses. It seemed odd telling Lia how happy Mary and I had been together. Even odder that I bore no animosity against the man she'd married. Although Talia had said something that made me wonder if Lia had been as happy she claimed she'd been in her marriage. I just couldn't bring it to mind.

Quite late in our meal, Lia had suddenly excused herself, and left me for a few minutes. I assumed that she'd gone off to the ladies and made no comment.

It was only when the meal was over and the efficient waiters had cleared the table that I saw that Lia was fiddling with something in her hand.

"So what are we going to do now Lia? Go and find our children and introduce them to each other." "Oh, I was thinking that you've put on a little weight Matt. Maybe a little strenuous exercise wouldn't do you any harm."

I was taken aback by Lia's statement for a moment or two, but then I noticed that she was dangling whatever she'd been fiddling with from her hand.

"What's that?" I innocently asked.

"This restaurant, Matt, is a part of a small very private hotel. And this is a room key; shall we go and discover which bedroom door it fits?"

"Lia, you're a very naughty girl!"

"I always was Matt, but I usually had the duplicate key to your bedroom."

"But this is Lauro's cousin's place, won't Talia find out?"

"Knowing my Talia, she arranged that we meet here for the sole reason that there are some vacant rooms upstairs."

-----

"Oh Matt aren't your daughters pretty? Looks like they have a couple of handsome husbands as well."

Lia having woken me from my nap, I turned over in bed to see her peeking out through the bars of the window's shutters.

"Sorry?"

"Your daughters and their husbands, they're down there at a table talking with Talia, Lauro and the children."

"Jesus Christ, they aren't!" I said, almost leaping off the bed. "They must have waited somewhere for me. Bugger, they'll know what we've been doing all afternoon. We'd better get down there!"

"Not much point now is there, Matt." Lia replied as she covered her nakedness with her blouse and opened the shutter.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"Silly boy, we're old enough to do what we wish now. I'm going to tell then that we'll see them tomorrow."

Which she did, loud and bloody clear, so that everyone sitting at the pavement café bellow heard her! Then I heard my daughters calling up "Hello Lia!" and her calling back down to them. But I couldn't really follow what anyone was saying.

Eventually I -- kind-of -- sheepishly poked my head out of the window to see both our families grinning back up at us.

"Er, hi kids!" Was as much as I ventured.

The only reply I got, was Kathy telling me to have fun and that they'd see us in the morning, before Lia hauled me back into the room and closed the shutter again.

"You've rested enough Matt, we've got a lot of years to catch up on."

Jesus, the woman's insatiable.

-----

Yes we got married, eventually, and we now live in small kinda hamlet, just to the west of Ravenna. Close enough to the coast for us to take the grandchildren to the beach, but not swamped with tourists all the time in the summer.

I still hardly speak a word of Italian though, but I don't really need to. Just about everyone, including Talia's children speak excellent English when I'm around. They -- and that includes Katharine and my Lia -- just babble away in Italian to each other when they "think" they are keeping secrets from me!

I've lost a lot of excess weight as well. But that's really not surprising; Lia gives me a bloody good workout, most nights. And -- if no one else is around -- very often during the day as well! Lia's also found a very efficient way of waking me every morning; it kind makes sure she's got my full attention, in every sense of the word; if you know what I mean?

Life goes on

This story is posted on Literotica with the authors consent.