Under the Tuscan Sun Ch. 04

OMG, what just happened? Anne and I were both really tired, drained by the 35º C heat in Siena, and pretty nasty with sweat, when she pulled me into a kiss and told me that she loved me.

"Oh, my God, Anne, I love you so much," was all I could stammer out, but she ended the scene right there.

"Now that that's out of the way, turn on the AC in this car and take me home!" I had rented this little diesel-powered BMW – it was supposed to be a Fiat, but somehow things got changed – from Europcar, and it was pretty good, even though it was kind of strange. To save on fuel, the engine completely shut off when you came to a stop with your foot on the brake, and then started automatically as soon as you took your foot off the brake pedal. I could see where that would save fuel, but I wondered just how often these things left people stranded, in the middle of the road, because the starter failed. But it did have a very good air conditioner, and boy, did we need that! I was drenched in sweat, and probably stank, while Anne's white sundress, while not soaked through, was clinging to her.

Siena isn't that far from where we were staying at Castel Bigozzi in Strove, but the shortest road is kind of winding, back past Monteriggioni, and the S2 highway is a pain, so it took us a good half-hour to get back.

Once we got into the room, Anne, who had first insisted on separate bedrooms, peeled off that sundress in one motion, threw her white thong panties on the floor, and jumped directly into the shower. Naturally, I stripped down and got in with her. After all, she'd need me to wash her back!

We shampooed and soaped and rinsed, and then she got out, grabbed the plush white terrycloth robe that the hotel provided, and said, without any ceremony, "Pool." Naturally, I followed those orders as well, grabbed my robe, and we headed over.

We had used the pool nude yesterday, so we figured that it was OK again, and there were no other guests at the pool when we got there. It's too shallow for diving – only about five feet, whatever that works out to in meters – so we just dropped our towels on the chaises (some of which are in the shade) and jumped in. The pool was just so refreshing, and a perfect place to just laze around and talk. And I really wanted to talk, seriously, with Anne, about my marriage proposal, but I'm never sure when she wants to discuss important things. She can be refreshingly direct, and, quite frankly, brutally honest, but there are times when she's just in no mood to get that serious.

Still, I got lucky on this: while there was some small talk and banter, Anne raised the subject herself. "OK, Richard, if I do say yes on Thursday, just how do you plan on us doing this? We live what, ninety miles apart, and while it seems obvious that you make good money, I'm not ready to quit my teaching job right now. I've got my masters, I'm making pretty good money, and I've got tenure; that's a lot of security for me to just give up for a fiancé I've known for three days."

"Fiancé, huh? Does that mean you've already taken your decision?" I was smiling at that one.

"No, it does not mean that," she said, but I thought, deep down, it really did. "But you get an extra point for knowing that you don't make a decision, you take a decision."

She smiled at me when she said that. "Well, sweetheart, my business is internet based, and I can run my business from anywhere." She already knew that, but I wanted to make sure. "I could move right down to Doylestown to be with you, next week if that's what you'd want. Heck, we can go house-hunting the day after we get back, if you'd like. But being able to live together is not going to be a problem for us."

"OK, then," she asked, "how would you like to get married? I mean, by a priest or just a quick wedding with a judge?"

"Since neither of us has been married before, we'd have no problems getting married in the Church, but I don't know what you'd like; you'll have to tell me." She hadn't said that she was Catholic, but from her small crucifix necklace and use of the work 'priest,' I guessed that she was.

Then I noticed that she was looking at me more intensely. She had been smiling before, but now she wasn't. There was a big question boiling up inside of her, and it was obvious that she was having trouble saying it. "Anne," I said to her, "whatever it is, just ask me. Whatever you have to say, I can handle it."

I'm not certain if it was just water dripping down her forehead from her wet hair, or tears, but I was guessing tears, as she said just one word: "Children."

Everything rushed through my head in a second. The way she said the word, I didn't know if she was telling me she wanted children, or didn't ever want children, or maybe even couldn't have children. But I had already figured out that someone, almost certainly a former boyfriend, had hurt her, hurt her badly, in the past, and the trepidation in her voice and on her face told me: whatever she had been hurt about in the past involved children.

I'd never really considered having children before, but, then again, I'd never considered marriage before, and never really known a woman with whom I'd consider either marriage or children previously. And now my whole future depended on the right answer to a question I'd never considered, and a question the meaning of which I was uncertain. My answer had to come, right now. "Anne, I'd love it if we had kids."

Well, that sure was the right answer! Anne just threw herself at me, her arms around my neck, kissing me and kissing me and kissing me, saying my name over and over and over again. She reached down and grabbed my cock, and tried to put it inside of her, to make love to me right then, right in the pool. I hardened up quickly, but, despite all of my fantasies, the reality is that chlorinated pool water is not conducive to sex: a woman's natural lubrication just gets washed away. I mean, we got it in, but it isn't the best sex by any means.

"Back in the suite?" I suggested.

"Oh, my God, yes!" Anne practically jumped out of the pool, grabbed her robe without even drying off, and we scurried back up to our room. The door hadn't even closed behind us when Anne dropped her robe, grabbed me, and just plain threw me on the bed. I'm taller than she is, and probably 20 kilos more massive, but it didn't matter: she threw me like I was a rag doll, and jumped on top of me.

There's a difference between making love and just plain fucking, but in her desperation, Anne was blurring those lines. She kept covering my face with kisses, kept telling me that she loved me, but she had gotten on top, grabbed my cock and just stuck it inside her, and was slamming up-and-down on me. Her climax was building quickly, and so was mine. Despite having cum less than twenty-four hours ago, Anne was so loving and so needy and so strong that I knew, from the start, that I'd have to work to hold off. Sex with Anne this afternoon was totally different from how it had been last night, hot, frantic, desperate and almost primal, and once Anne started coming, I couldn't hold back any longer, and I emptied my balls deep inside of her. Anne practically collapsed on me, and if I hadn't already been laying on my back, I'd have collapsed, too. We just laid there, looking into each other's eyes, hardly even saying anything, but really, nothing needed to be said.

 

Finally, Anne said to me, "Richard, can we go back to Monteriggioni for dinner? There's a stop there I need to make."

"Sure, not a problem, but I guess that I need yet another shower!" We both laughed at that, and hit the shower together for the third time today.

It was getting close to 7:00 when we got back into the fortress town. Much of the tourist crowd had already left, so there'd be no wait getting a table. The heat of the day was passing, and it was down to 28º C, still plenty warm, but a lot better than the 35º it was in Siena. Anne hadn't told me what it was that she needed to do, but once we got into the town and walked up the hill to the central Piazza Roma, she turned into the Chiesa di Santa Maria Assunta, a small, Romanesque church on the right hand side of the piazza.

Fortunately, the doors were still open. The church is a very small one, with wooden pews hundreds of years old. It was cool in the church, the old stone walls having kept it cooler than the day outside had been. Seeing a lit candle by the tabernacle, she made the signum crucis, and knelt down to pray. I did the same, but kept my distance from Anne; this was obviously something very personal to her. I guess that Anne spent twenty minutes in prayer, before arising and lighting a prayer candle.

She was smiling, though only slightly, as we then made our way to the Ristorante il Pozzo, on the other side of the piazza. Dinner was pretty good, and we had an excellent white wine – though I kept my intake down, since I had to drive – and after dinner we cruised the tourist shops that were still open.

Monteriggioni was the setting for one of the Assassin's Creed video games, Assassin's Creed II, and even though the real Monteriggioni is too small for what is depicted in the game, a couple of the tourist trap shops have plenty of Assassin's Creed stuff. Neither one of us played that game, but Anne taught seventh-and-eighth graders back in Doylestown, and they not only played it, they talked about it a lot. She picked up a couple of display-piece souvenirs, to let her students know just how cool she was to have actually gone there.

"What, a 32-year-old woman, cool to eighth grade boys?" I teased her.

"If it makes them pay more attention in class, and a tiny bit less to eighth grade girls, it will be worth it."

"Yeah, that'll work!"

We picked up another bottle of vino bianco, and some fruit and bread, and headed back to Castel Bigozzi. The console between us in the car kept us separated, but Anne had her arm across it, and was resting her hand on my thigh.

I wondered: was this what marriage was like? Sometimes everything was so intense between us, and at others, it was simple and casual and just plain natural. I'd had girlfriends before, including a couple I had dated for a while, but it was never like this. Somehow, it just seemed normal to have this woman I had known for three whole days around, as though she had always been there.

And always would be there? Anne promised me an answer to my proposal this coming Thursday evening. If I were going to guess – and, truth is, I was doing a lot of guessing! – I'd say that the answer will be 'yes,' but I never know when the stone-cold serious Anne will crop up. She is so wonderful and so loving, but, I've got to face it, she can be coldly calculating as well, and she has some pretty stout defensive walls set up around her life. She had worked hard to earn her Master's, and now had a tenured teaching position with the Central Bucks School District; that's a pretty stable and reasonably well-paying life she has organized for herself. The vacation in Italy was certainly a splurge for her, but I could tell from her clothes that she didn't waste money. Whatever had happened to her in the past, she had put together a stable, secure and responsible life for herself, and I was the unstable, insecure and irresponsible wild card that had just jumped in with both feet.

Well, I had been being slightly cautious, too. I've told her a lot about myself, but one thing I haven't told her is just how much money I have. Right now, I'm flush, but I've been flush and I've been busted, and while my business is doing very well right now, thanks to the upsurge in people remodeling their homes and just the general focus on quality pieces thanks to shows like This Old House and the DIY and HGTV cable networks, that can change quickly; I nearly went broke when the recession hit in 2008, just two years after I started the business, and it took me five years to climb out of that hole. I lost one girlfriend when I nearly went broke, which taught me a lot about letting women know how much money I had, and a couple of the girls I played with recently seemed awfully interested in my money.

And I have been cautious with my money, too. Another recession is coming, even though no one knows when, and I've been trying to put a lot of my profits into diversified investments, so that if my business goes south again, I won't be quite so broke.

I'm guessing that Anne really won't care how much I have anyway, as long as we can still be comfortable, but I can also tell that the last thing that would impress her is me trying to get her to say yes by telling her about my money. I mean, she must know that I'm doing well, in that I was able to simply cancel my return flight and extend for another week, as well as paying for the car and hotel like this. But telling her just how well I've been doing, at least over the last three years, might seem like an attempt to buy her, and that would surely run her off. She has insisted on paying for all of our meals, since I paid for the car and train tickets and accommodations, and that shows me that she is very concerned about being her own, independent woman. That has impressed me, impressed me a lot.

The sun was setting just as we were getting back to Castel Bigozzi. We took the wine and a couple of glasses out to the edge of the olive grove, to watch the last of the sunset. Sitting in the grass, seeing the last sliver of the sun dipping below the Tuscan hills, really not talking about anything important, I knew in my heart that Anne was going to say 'yes.' She was sitting beside me, with her head leaning against my shoulder and her hand on mine, we were relaxed and comfortably romantic, and I wasn't sure whether we'd make love tonight or not. It really didn't even matter: just sitting quietly like this was being in love.

That was the important thing: we could make love any time, but what was needed now was for the love Anne had proclaimed for me to be set in so securely that she's have to say 'yes,' that we'd have to get married. After we're married, and together forever, we'll make love another 5,000 times, but we have to be together once we get back home for any of that to happen.

It was deep dusk when we got up to head back for our suite. The crickets were singing their evening song as we wandered back into the Castel. We hadn't finished the wine yet, and were in no rush to do so.

Most of the suites at Castel Bigozzi have living rooms, but because Anne had specified separate bedrooms when I booked the place, all that we had was a small sitting area in each bedroom. "It looks like we'll be using the other bed tonight," I said, "'cause we sure made a mess of this one this afternoon."

Anne laughed at that. "Hey, you're paying for a maid to clean both bedrooms, right? Might as well get your money's worth!"

"So, do you like this place, or should I have gotten a hotel suite in Florence?"

At that, Anne got up, walked over to me, put her arms around my neck and said, "You did good with this place. This is sure the best vacation I've ever had." And then she sat on my lap and started kissing me again.

Anne was no slightly-built girl; she must weigh at least 130 lb, if not more, and it wasn't necessarily comfortable. Naturally, I thought I'd impress her with my strength, so I stood up while holding her in my arms, but I know that I wasn't able to keep the strain off my face. Anne laughed at me and said, "If you rupture something trying to lift a big old horse like me, I'm not going to get any use out of you tonight, and that won't be good at all!"

With that, I set her down, and she took my hand to lead me into what was supposed to be 'her' bedroom. We got undressed, and threw back the covers – even in July, the hotel had a heavy comforter on the bed, and that needed to hit the floor – all slowly and casually, as though we'd been together forever, when Anne reached up and kissed me again, and said just one word.

"Yes."

Oh, my God, did Anne just say what I thought she said? "Yes?"

"Yes." There it was, once again.

"Yes, as in you'll marry me, yes?" I was actually trembling when I asked her this.

"Yes, you dumbass, as in yes I'll marry you. I don't have to wait until Thursday to give you an answer, not anymore."

With that, we fell together, hugging and kissing and laughing and even crying. I hadn't been sure whether we'd be making love that night, because we'd already been screwing like teenagers – and we're not teenagers anymore! – just six hours ago, but once Anne had gotten past her caution and her fear of the situation, it was like the floodgates of emotion were opened, and everything was just washing over her, washing over us both. I'm not even sure how long it took us to go from just hugging to Anne taking me in hand and guiding me inside her; it was like time was standing still, and we were connected not just by sex, but by our mouths and our eyes and our souls.

Even though we were moving together very slowly, Anne's excitement built up inside her quickly. Even her physical reaction to sex had changed, now that she had given in completely to love, and her climax came, hard but drawn out at the same time.

Me? I had cum six hours earlier, so not only was I good for the long haul, I wasn't sure that I'd be able to get off at all. Eventually Anne could tell that might be the case, and she started pushing against me harder, and then smiled and said, "You know, I'm a big girl and I won't break. You can be rougher with me if you want."

Well, that was all the permission I needed, so I pulled out, turned her onto her hands and knees and entered her from behind. I started out fairly easily, but then began hammering it home in earnest. I always loved this position, but wasn't sure that Anne would, because it breaks eye contact. However, I needn't have worried, because she was slamming back into me every bit as hard as I was pushing into her, and she started crying out in passion. I hadn't seen this side of her yet – pun very much intended – but it turned out that she was just as much into raw fucking as she was into making love. She started climaxing again, and that pushed me over the edge as well, and I had just enough sense left to collapse to the side rather than lose my entire weight on her.

Normally, after something like that, I'd have drifted off to sleep fairly quickly, but there I was, laying on my side, just gazing at my love, at my fiancée, while she was laying on her stomach, with her head turned to look at me. Finally, I just said, "Wow."

"Oh, so you like it that way, huh?" Anne had a big smile on her face.

"Oh, God, yes, but I love every way we've made love. You are just so amazing. But I've got to ask: what made you decide to say 'yes' this early?"

"Well, Richard, everything has seemed so right between us, and I wanted to say 'yes' the moment your proposed, but I was worried that this has been so fast, that I was getting too carried away by emotion and not thinking clearly. I mean, I know that between us we've got enough money that there won't be money problems, and I knew that you could move down to Doylestown without hurting your business, so the practical end wasn't an issue. It was like everything was so perfect, everything was falling into place so easily, that I just couldn't believe that it could all be true. There just had to be some big black hole, something really bad, that I was overlooking, and I needed to figure out what it was."

"And did you?"

"Yup, I sure did: that something really bad was just my own fear. I'm scared, Richard, I'm really scared, and I don't want to be frightened into throwing you away.

"I've known couples who did everything the 'smart' way, living together first, basically trying out marriage before taking that final step, and it still didn't work. There's this one woman, who teaches at the same school I do, who lived with her boyfriend for eight years before they got married, had bought a house together and seemed perfectly happy and suited for one another, and then got divorced less than two years later.