The bell clanged again when the door swung back shut. “We’re about to close,” she said.

“I’m here about the job? The one…”

She smiled briefly as she looked me up and down, then stared into my eyes. “And how much experience do you have with herbalism?”

“I worked in an herbal shop for a year in high school.” She nodded slightly and waited for a moment, her unblinking brown eyes watching me. “And some botany classes.”

She nodded more appreciatively. “Good.” She then asked me a couple of questions and seemed satisfied that I could answer basic stuff. “I need an assistant with the basics and no cotton stuffing between the ears. You’ll probably find the work boring as hell. If I hire you.”

She went and locked the door and turned the sign around. “Come back with me.” We went into a small office and she looked over my small resume, far too small I feared, asked me about my work history, and asked, “Who pointed the job your way?”

“Mrs. Cacciato.”

She nodded, “One of my best suppliers. How do you know her?”

“Did some work for her last summer, before going to college. She has a handyman now but urged me to apply to you.”

She nodded and smiled slightly. “I need to make a call.” She dialed and said, “Chiara, buona sera.” I goggled as the only Chiara I knew was surnamed Cacciato. After a second she laughed, “Yes, he’s right here.” She listened for three minutes with only an occasional word in Italian as she watched me with a curious and then quickened expression, then said, “Well, I’d say you’re my new employee…assuming, of course, you don’t mind working for a nosy Italian woman.”

“Is there any other kind?”

She smiled, “As many as Anglos without a smart mouth. In other words, no.” We laughed and she showed me around the shop, telling me my job would be to unpack, sort, pack, mail, clean up, manage the maintenance, and in every other way make her life sweet and unhectic. “Do you agree?”

I stuck out my hand and said “Sì” as we shook.

“Chiara ha detto che parli.”

“Un poco.”

She smiled, “Sì.”

“So, what should I call you? ‘Mrs. Strega’?”

She laughed. “It’s Ms, and that’s just the store name. ‘Giulia’ is fine.”

“So you’re not strega? I’m almost disappointed.”

She laughed, “As well you should be. That would be too precious. No, it’s Borroni.”

“So, when should I be in?”

“Nine.”

The next day I learned the ropes, trying not to stare too openly at Giulia, who was in that stage of perfection among Mediterranean women of indeterminate age roughly between thirty and sixty, though her silver hairs suggested she was toward the upper end. Even before that job I had a thing for Italian women, any women of that complexion really, and working in close proximity to her set my throat dry and my loins ablaze. My third day she caught me staring down her blouse as we opened a small box; I blushed and she smiled. After that, I blushed less when caught peeking and she smiled more widely.

The Monday after I started, she closed shop for lunch and we chatted as we ate. Soon the phone rang, a short personal call; she answered in Italian that seemed odd.

“That was…I guess I don’t know Italian at all.”

“That was my sister. Your Italian’s fine for a foreigner…who can’t speak.”

“Damn.”

She smiled, “We’re Calabrian. Hardly northerners.”

“That’s…let’s see…the boot heel.”

She nodded. “So no, you probably had a lot of trouble catching most of that.”

“Yes, it scarcely sounded Italian, some of it.”

“That’s because some of it was Greek, you know.”

“Greek…I heard of that. They…you still speak it?”

“Some do. We speak only a little. Mother made sure we learned some so we could talk to her side of the family. The grecanici. Father gave us our Italian names, mother our middle names.”

“And your Greek name?”

“You’ll laugh.”

“I won’t.”

“Pisti.”

I managed not to laugh and asked, “Which means?”

“Fede.”

“Which means?”

She smiled, “Pisti.”

We laughed and we chatted about Calabria until reopening. “You take the counter. I have to go into the Sanctum Sanctorum.”

“That room down the hall? What’s in there?”

“Secrets.”

“What secrets?”

“My mint.” She smiled to herself. “Oh, I make the occasional love philter when someone from the old country pays the right price.”

I smiled, “So this is Casa Strega.”

She smiled in return, “It’s Casa Mia. La Cosa Mia.”

I hesitated for a second and finally said, “No, I am not going there. I am not touching that one.”

She grinned, “A smart brain to go with your smart mouth.”

After that I caught her watching me appraisingly, and then with approval. It didn’t matter who caught the other; I always blushed while she only smiled. After three weeks we had monthly inventory and closed early. For four days Giulia had worn a dazzling ruby nestled at the top of her cleavage, and no matter how I tried to avert my eyes it caught them and drew me in as if sinking into a red-tinted dream. As always, she simply smiled.

At eight I coughed, then coughed again; I took a cough drop and continued working.

After inventory, she said, “You’re officially part of the Casa now.”

“Part of Casa Strega.”

“Part of Casa Mia. Which means we have to celebrate. But first, I’m worried about your cough. Wait a minute, I have a home remedy.”

“From which home?”

She laughed, “Casa Mia, of course.” She indicated the storeroom and joined me there with a small vial. “Drink it quickly. Hold your nose. It’s pretty nasty, actually.”

It burned going down and the aftertaste was redolent of skunks and swamps, but it settled warmly in my chest and belly and seemed to radiate to other places, especially my loins. She watched my eyes as I stared at the ruby on her chest and said, “There, that will keep you until you go to bed.”

After another minute of watching my face closely, she said, “Good, now the celebratory wine.” She opened the bottle and poured each of us a large glass, and she raised her glass and said something intriguing in what I took to be Greek. I raised my glass in return and said, “To the most beautiful boss in the world.”

“To my devoted employee and new friend,” she replied as she took a sip, watching me as I sipped mine.

I replied, “To an intoxicating woman.”

She said nothing and simply watched. I suddenly felt a little faint and she said, “Here, let me help you to the couch.” She lifted me by the arm with one hand and grabbed the bottle of wine and her glass with the other, and I sat down and leaned back.

“The remedy can make you a little woozy at first.” The wooziness in my belly was the least of my problems; I had trouble sitting so as to hide my reaction six inches lower, until I stopped thinking about it as I stared at the ruby and her cleavage.

She smiled, “Much more comfortable now, I see.”

“No wooziness.”

“That too.”

I took another sip of wine as she refilled her glass, and as she leaned around to set the bottle back on the floor I saw her blouse was halfway unbuttoned. She turned back around and sat there staring at me with her arms wrapped under her bust, pushing her breasts up so that the necklace rested on them.

I finally tore away from the ruby and stared into her eyes, and her eyebrow lifted slightly as she said, “You seem fascinated by my necklace.”

“It’s…beguiling.”

“Yes, my husband loved it. He found it bewitching. He said it was at the perfect height. The perfect setting for such a jewel. Don’t you agree?”

I nodded and stared back down and she said, “Here, look closely. It’s quite a work of art.” She leaned toward me and took my hand in hers, lifting it to a mere inch from her breasts, and put the ruby in my hand. I leaned in closer to only a few inches from her and stared at the ruby and the light olive of the skin beyond it, the top of her brassiere in view. She smiled slightly and said, “I rarely wear it. It draws too much attention.” She pulled my hand down to rest within her cleavage and added, “From the wrong men.”

The back of my hand rested against her chest, the palm enveloped by the softness of her breasts, and I felt her heart beating strongly and slowly against my hand. She pulled my other hand to her right breast and leaned in to kiss me. Her mouth devoured mine as I eagerly explored her breasts, her soft body resting against me, her heart beating faster. She pulled away to look into my eyes and asked, “Have you ever been drained? Fully and completely drained in four hours of pure bliss? Every last drop and every last desire emptied out of you into a woman’s body so ravenous for you that you pass out at the end from your very soul entering her?”

“No.”

“You will.”

“Have you?”

She smiled, “Not recently.”

We soon had her topless and she held my head to her as I suckled at one erect nipple, then the other. Her skin was flawless and taut apart from the sag of her breasts, which filled my hands and mouth. She whispered, “We’ve both wanted this for so long. Don’t stop.”

Soon I felt her hips circling and her breath trembling as she sat hard and happy on my erection, her thighs on each side of my waist as she held my mouth in place. I felt her reach down to caress my waist, then she stood up long enough to slide her jeans and panties off. Her thighs were thick and taut, the thick triangle at the top as jet black as much of the hair on her head, and when she rose above me to pull my pants down, her scent seemed to fill the room, a sweet odor superimposed on the aroma I knew of a woman’s sex.

She settled herself easily onto me, taking me fully into her in one slow downbeat. She knew exactly which rhythm she wanted and settled into it, the squishing of her fluids deafening in my ears, and she said, “The best thing about my love philter is that it helps you last so long and recover immediately. Besides being very very good for coughs.”

I laughed in surprise as she smiled down at me, and she said, “I so rarely choose a man. Don’t worry, it’s not really a love philter. I left out those ingredients. Your heart is your own, but our bodies are each other’s now.”

We moved quickly as she watched me happily, owning my body and knowing how flawlessly beautiful I found her. She rode me with her hands on my shoulders, my hands roaming and exploring her body. Her hips were wide and soft, her waist thick and muscular, and her belly, the hottest, wettest, and tightest I had ever experienced, received me with each thrust she made on me. Finally, after fifteen minutes she flushed and sped up to almost superhuman intensity. She stared into my eyes as she clamped down on me painfully, allowing me to watch her passion in her eyes for the first ten seconds until my own climax swept over me and into her. Even though it was the most intense orgasm I had yet had, hers continued for another minute after my last spasm made me slam hard into her as if burying myself.

“It’s been a few years,” she whispered as we lay in each other’s arms. “I’m glad you’re here for me. Come, let me show you my bedroom.” We picked up our clothes and she got the wine, and as she walked up the stairs in the back to her apartment over the shop, her wide ass aroused me to new passion. At the top, she looked down at my crotch, slick with our juices and throbbing for more, and said, “Yes, that’s half my income, that.” She opened the door and once I was inside I immediately pushed her against the wall, lifted her so her left leg circled my waist, and heard her squeal as I thrust resurgently into her. She climaxed twice in ten minutes as I took her vigorously and remorselessly, the lust I had built up for her over the past month finally finding an outlet into something more inviting than a handkerchief. I soon bellowed as I launched my seed into her again, her squat little body matching every lust-drenched thrust of my own, her scream more deafening than my own.

I pulled out long enough for her to lead me to her bedroom, and in the dark, she received me again as I plunged into her. “See, I do masterful work,” she moaned as I plowed her deeply, knowing nothing but the softness of her body and the tightness of her cunt as I lost myself inside her, my body on fire with finally knowing her fully. She sang in another climax that pushed me over the edge, and finally I rolled off her and softened slightly.

“I promised I’d drain you,” she said proudly. “You’re not even halfway there. You will never forget this night. You will never forget me. Nor will I.”

She turned on her bedside lamp and said, “I know what a man like you wants. I want it too.” She pulled a tube from under the mattress and lubed my newly hard cock, then her breasts, then her fingers, and as she worked two fingers inside me she said, “Use them like I use you.” As I thrust up between her breasts, her fingers rammed hard inside me, driving me to greater efforts into her all-enveloping breasts. The ruby twinkled in the light as it jumped with each thrust on its silver chain, the head of my cock just visible at the end of the stroke deep in her cleavage, her fingertips caressing my prostate as I stared at my dream coming true. Her other hand caressed my face as I sweated with my efforts, and when I started to thrust blindly, she said, “Give your strega your tribute. Show me how bewitching I am. Coat them with your lust.”

With a sudden pressure, she rubbed my prostate, and with a scream I shot hot and thick onto her neck and chin and up to her hair. Her eyes opened wide and she grinned as stream after stream landed on her chin, then her neck, then simply launched all over her breasts. Afterwards, my cream dribbled slowly down her cleavage onto her belly as we both stared at my explosion. She finally let my cock spring free from her breasts and winked. “Still hard?!?”

I pushed her onto her back and crouched above her mouth. I spread her thighs and dove deep into the thickly forested grotto I had explored with my cock as she opened her mouth wide and took me inside. I sucked greedily as I breathed in her odd mixture of ocean and floral scents and felt her swallow my seed twice as she climaxed three times against my face.

Winded, she pushed me off and said, “You’re probably nearly drained now. I know what will turn that trick.” She handed me the tube and said, “Turnabout is only fair. I like it rough at the very end, but slow till then.” With those words I came erect one last time and smiled as she rolled over, my dried cum still coating her. I lifted her hips and in a sense of unreality prepared her for my entry. As I entered her the unreality was replaced by a feeling of pure existence in the moment, the last part of her body opened fully to me and fully welcoming me inside. I was soon inside her to the full and she bucked up against me as I pulled out and thrust home again, and again, and again.

I lasted ten minutes and might have lasted longer but for the intensity of her third climax. My last secret fantasy finally coming true, my lover screaming in evident pleasure to keep taking her up the ass, her dirty language stoking my fire to the utmost, I felt her tighten around me as she screamed at the top of her lungs, and it seemed that my soul entered her body and hers entered mine as I drained the last drops of my seed inside her and passed out just as she herself collapsed in unconsciousness.

I came to an hour later and shook her; she looked at me groggily and smiled, “I’m glad you’re here.”

“I’ll stay as long as you want.”

“Let’s wash up and sleep.” When we returned to bed she lay happily spooned in my arms. I held a breast for a while before reaching down to cup her crotch and she chuckled, “Don’t worry, it’s not going anywhere.” A few hours later I woke briefly in the pre-dawn, lying happily in her arms as she spooned me, and fell asleep again in complete satisfaction.

I awoke alone at eight. I smelled coffee and heard puttering with pots and pans and smiled. I sat up and looked around. I walked to her mirror and looked at myself. I wasn’t emaciated, no matter how much I felt like it. I saw her driver’s license in the center of her make-up area. For a second I hesitated, then I looked closely. Height, 5′2″…yes, that felt right; I remembered with complete satisfaction how thoroughly I had covered her as her body had received me so many ways and so many times. Weight…130 pounds. A perfect weight it seemed. Date of birth…I stared. I heard a noise and saw her smiling at me in a beautiful blue silk robe.

“I knew you’d want to know. It saves me feeling old by telling you.”

I smiled back. “It doesn’t bother me.”

“I’m younger than your grandmother, I hope.”

“Which one?”

She laughed a little abashedly and I smiled. “My mother’s side of the family has them young. My father’s side has them old.”

She laughed, “Well, I don’t have to worry about you marrying me for my social security money for another three years at least.” We laughed and she added, “Oddly enough, the women in my family always have children when they’re twenty-one…”

I handed her the license and said, “But this doesn’t have the most important information.”

“Oh?” She saw me glance curiously down her silk-clad body and she smiled. “Young men and their conquests. 38, 34, 42. Sometimes 40.”

“And…”

She smiled again, “C-cup.”

“Perfect.”

“Are you still drained?”

“Yes.”

“So am I. It’s always like that the next day.”

“You’re still the most beautiful woman in the world.”

“My charms still captivate you! Our libidos will recover after a day or so. So now we get to talk. Thank God we open at noon today.”

“And we’re closed tomorrow.”

She grinned and nodded happily. “Oh, I’ll probably be open all day and all night. Taking massive deliveries, you know. In and out, in and out. I’m glad I have my new assistant to do all that work for me.”

She came up to me and settled in my arms. “I’ll set you free when you go back to school, but until then you’re all mine. I have a very dirty mind, and I haven’t used it for far too long.”

After a long kiss, we went to the table for breakfast. “So tell me,” she asked, “Why were you so taken with me from the instant you saw me?”

I grinned, “Mi piacciono italiane.”

“Perchè?”

“My first was Italian…Italian-American. And after that, so was the second…and the fourth…and the fifth.”

“And the sixth?”

“Oh, she was half-Greek, doncha know. Older woman, utterly bewitching.”

“She sounds dangerous.”

“I’m sure she could be.”

She smiled happily and poured us more coffee. After a pause, she asked cavalierly, “So which was Giuseppina Cacciato?”

I marveled and finally said, “Number four.” After another pause, “That must have been an information-packed telephone call.”

She shrugged, “Chiara felt guilty for firing you after finding you fucking her daughter. Begged me to hire you. Mostly, I think, after seeing the guys she took up with after you said ciao. She, of course, will never let you see Giuseppina again until she’s been married off, but she still felt guilty.”

“That makes absolutely no damn sense.”

She shrugged, “Darling, I gave up trying to understand what goes on in that woman’s head years ago. She worships virginity, but then once a woman’s married, it seems anything goes. She buys a potion like I used on you the day after Tony goes out of town and comes in two days later walking funny, telling me all the details as if she was the first woman to do them, thanks me for the perfect weekend, and buys another one for when Tony gets back. But until a woman’s husband extracts the cork of her virginity on their wedding night, that vintage stays bottled. She’s still pissed about Giuseppina being…uncorked. Chiara’s Italian—she should know wine needs to breathe before you drink it.”

We laughed and she continued, “And the men she goes for! Darling, it’s no surprise she never noticed your charms until Giuseppina brought them to her attention. That woman only has taste in her mouth. I hope you got to sample Giuseppina fully before being banned from the vineyard.”

“It was probably our tenth time, so yes, we were very good friends by then…Darling.” She smiled and I added, “I like being your darling.”

She shrugged, “You’re my darling, my dear, my joy, my bedmate, everything but my dearest. He’s gone.” She got up and served us our plates. “Now eat up. You need to restore your strength for tonight.” She smiled, “I’m glad you have such a weakness for us. For me.”

“Yes, it’s like a hook set in the deep reaches of my mind. I saw you that first day and nearly bent you over the counter for an hour.”

“You’ll get to.”

The rest of the summer passed in a feverish blur of coupling and work. Every night she welcomed me repeatedly inside her, and twice a week she put the lube out on the bedside table. After we had used each other to repletion one night, I asked her, “Were you always like this?”

She thought. “Having a man inside me? Yes, after I learned about it. I started late, seventeen, almost eighteen. The other ways of pleasure with a man I learned with my husband. It was my gift to him that soon became my gift to both of us. He’d never had a woman…well, in the other two ways, so it was a series of blessed discoveries for both of us. We had a good twelve years together. I can never replace him, but at least I can satisfy my body.”

“And help others…”

“True.”

“Are you really a strega?”

“Oh, who knows? I don’t even know if the philters do anything but bring to the surface what people want anyway. They let women let themselves go completely, give themselves fully to their men, act out what they always wanted without feeling guilt for deciding it consciously. I don’t need them once I choose. I take what I want.”

“But you…”

“Had a pessary in me? Yes, it was part of the ceremony. I love the way men react when they smell it.”

“Like nutmeg, in a way.”

“And other scents, floral and musky.” She laughed, “Yes, my own special potpourri just for that special man.”

“But it doesn’t do anything?”

“I doubt it. Apart from the promise I make by applying it. Like we’re both being entranced.”

“Well, they both worked wonders on me.”

“You’d have done me anyway.”

“But not like that.”

She smiled obscurely. “Perhaps not. Men are so suggestible.”

We laughed and soon fell asleep.

I looked at the clock above the door. We had ten more minutes before I had to leave, so I sped up. My hips slammed hard against Giulia’s ass as my quickened rhythm pushed her over the edge. She squeezed down on me and with a rush, my final orgasm flooded out of me and into her. I held her as I softened in her, cupping her breasts overflowing my hands, and she panted as we caught our breath.

After a minute she pulled away and said, “One moment.” She returned with a glass of water and watched as I drank it. “There, now you’re free.”

“Until next summer?”

She shrugged. “Time marches on. Find yourself a good woman your own age. She doesn’t even have to be Italian.”

“After you, she probably will be.”

“You could do worse.”

She hugged and kissed me and whispered, “Take care of yourself. If you need it, you’ll have a job here next summer, even if nothing else can happen.”

We kissed a last time and she unlocked the door and turned the sign. I stood outside as she raised the blinds, and we waved good-bye as friends, nothing more. I turned to walk away and saw a middle-aged woman of solidly Italianate appearance watching me curiously with one raised eyebrow as she stood waiting for someplace to open; she looked away after a second and I rushed off to the bus station.

Life restarted at school and the semester passed quickly. I returned home for a short end-of-autumn break, five days that I would spend quietly in my mother’s house, as she was headed out of town for what she called a meeting that I suspected from the lilt in her voice was strictly with the body of some new man. The first day I rested, and the second day I got up early to spend all around town. After an early breakfast, I passed time in a renovated zone, enjoying the ambiance of hypermodern construction with, no doubt, property values to give one a nosebleed, and wandered off to the larger museum of our fine burg. I preferred the smaller one with the model dinosaurs and the planets and the bugs in jars, but I’d seen them all a hundred times.

I was closely examining a painting of what seemed to be an alien invader passing poorly as human when a door opened from the offices and a familiar face appeared. At sea, I tried to place her; jet black hair in braids wrapped around the ears in what I thought of as a vaguely Roman do, shining brown eyes, full red lips, thick neck, round face, and solid figure inside a red sweater, plaid skirt, and black hose, but there was no need to puzzle my brain. She stopped when she saw me, smiled in astonishment, and turned to face me, staring into my eyes the whole time. I focused all my attention on her and faced her squarely. After a few seconds she smiled as I walked up to her, and when I came close she said, “Hi.”

“Hello.”

“The Casa Strega boy.”

A-ha! “No longer. As of the moment you saw me, in fact.”

Her lips pursed and her head tilted as she looked up at me. She seemed at a loss for words for a moment, then said, “I am in dire need of good coffee.”

“A crucial part of a day.”

“Come with?”

“Gladly.” I had never been so glad to ditch a $10 ticket, and as I took a quick glance around the gallery I knew I was missing nothing. We strolled out the door as I asked, “Do you work here?”

She laughed, “Thank God, no. I had to check the library for some information about a show I’m thinking of organizing.”

“Quite the mover and shaker!”

“So many men say,” she smiled with a twinkle in her eye, and I thought of nothing to say. She said with a grin, “They love my dancing.” After a second she went for the kill, “Both vertical and horizontal.”

Somehow surviving the fatal blow, I choked out, “So, you limbo really well then.”

She laughed happily and said, “Coffee’s my treat, kind sir.” She stopped and held out her hand. “I’m Elpida.” After I introduced myself, she smiled as she held my hand several seconds longer than need be and then repeated my name as she stared into my eyes.

We both seemed at a loss for words—certainly I was—and we walked in silence for a moment before she grilled me quickly on my studies and career and said, “Now that that is over, tell me…what…is your favorite color?”

“Teal.”

She laughed. “I don’t think that’s even in the 128-crayon set. One guy said ‘Flesh.’ I said, ‘Not my flesh.’ He then kept trying to match crayon colors to my skin like a color-blind fool. I finally told him, ‘Seven different painters have identified the color of each part of my body, and even my lips aren’t burnt sienna.’ He said that depended on the shade of my lipstick and I said, ‘Not those lips, dumbass.’”

She laughed happily as I blushed furiously and laughed. She pointed, “Here we are.” We talked for an hour and a half about art and other things, none having anything to do with our daily lives; Elpida led much of the conversation and then let me buy her lunch. After another hour of funny and suggestive remarks on her part and my largely successful efforts to keep up my side of the conversation, she handed me a card and said, “Come by at four for a tour.” She hugged me and too quickly left, and I wondered what I could possibly do until four.

After kicking around a used bookstore, I went on a stroll. In a few minutes, I found myself outside a small gallery whose sign matched the logo on the card, with “Elpida Rossi, Proprietor and Agent” under the name of the gallery. I opened the door and peeked in. Elipda came out of the back room and smiled when she saw me. “Welcome, sir. May I be of assistance?”

“I thought I’d look around.”

“I was just about to close, so let me give you a personalized tour.”

We were staring into each other’s eyes and I smiled, “I’d like that very much.”

She held out her hand, “Always a pleasure to have an herbalist visit us.”

Her smile shone out and she turned the sign and locked the door. She took me around slowly, telling me all about each work on the wall, and after fifteen minutes she put her arm through mine to lead me around, my elbow sinking happily into her soft breast as she flirted shamelessly with me. Several times she looked down to my elbow and a little past, and then smiled up at me. When we came to several abstract paintings, she asked, “What do you think?”

“I’ve never seen anything so obscene!”

She flushed. “Obscene?!?”

“Naked women everywhere.”

“Nudes?!?”

“I’ve been told that the great thing about abstract art is that you can see in it exactly what you want to see, so I choose to see nudes.”

“Perhaps this will be more to your tastes.” She laughed and led me into an exhibition of portraits of women, some clothed, all beautiful. At the end, she smiled widely and seductively. “There is another room…for our serious collectors.”

“Oh?”

“Those who are…discreet.”

“Oh?”

She stared into my eyes and said, “Shall I show you?”

“Can you trust me?”

“I wonder.”

“Can I trust you though?”

“You never know.”

She looked into my eyes a few more seconds and smiled. “Right this way, sir.” She unlocked a door into a small room in the far corner and led me in. I looked around at black and white photos of a woman in full nudity posed beautifully. I looked at the picture by the door and appreciatively studied the full breast casting a shadow on an arm, and soon was led to a picture of the other breast in silhouette, the pores on the skin above the only part lit. With each step more of her came into view, and near the end, I stared at flushed labia larger than life-size, glistening and open to the viewer, and next to it a profile. I looked at it and at Elpida. She looked back proudly, “Yes, these are me.”

“And do you ever sell any of them?”

“Of course not! These are the permanent collection, to show my special friends.”

I leaned in and kissed her and she melted into my arms. I slowly undressed her, watching as all the images on the wall appeared in technicolor. Her breasts were full and firm, and she responded avidly as I suckled at each nipple, then both together. Soon she was thrusting up underneath me and reached down to unzip me. In three seconds she had spread her thighs for me and pulled me inside her. She lay spread out underneath me, her clothes beneath her on the cold tiles, slathering in lust as I stared at her breasts and face and neck. She cooed and moaned as I rode her mercilessly, all my lust of the day focused on the beautiful woman underneath me. I managed to last ten minutes inside her body, and as I built to a massive climax she shuddered in repeated climaxes underneath me. As I spewed inside her, she squealed loudly and her body squirmed vigorously underneath me.

Soon she pushed me off her. “We’ll go upstairs soon, but I need to shut off the lights.” We climbed stairs to a small apartment above the gallery, where we washed quickly and settled into her bed head to foot. She said, “I have a small house, but I stay here some nights.” I explored her at my leisure with fingers and tongue as she did the same, and after half an hour her thighs squeezed tightly around my head as my seed squirted into her gluttonous throat.

We lay there as she caressed my cock, clearly ready for more passion, and soon her breasts had their intended effect. She pushed me back and mounted me for a long ride that left us exhausted and drenched in sweat and other fluids. We curled up and fell asleep.

I awoke with a solid erection, and she looked over from her mirror and said, “Well, there might be enough time for one more spot of exercise.” She crouched above me and kissed me, and soon she had slid me inside her again. Although I was fully hard, I was nowhere near coming, and so she rode me face to face and reverse for half an hour. She was shuddering back and forth as she approached climax when I heard a familiar voice ask coldly, “What the hell are you doing, Elpida?”

I looked up to see Giulia watching us as Elpida said, “Not now, Mother, I’m busy.”

Giulia looked at me with a slight smile at the corners of her lips and shook her head. “Then why the hell did you tell me to see you before work?”

Elpida paused a second and said, “Oh shit, I forgot.”

“You forgot?!?”

“God, just let me finish,” she said without losing a thrust, and as her belly began spasming around me and I lost control and thrust up hard into her, Giulia turned and left. We both screamed in pleasure and embarrassment, and once my cum had drained into her I softened immediately and, it felt, irrevocably. Elpida smiled and said, “Come on, say hi to your old boss.”

I washed quickly and put on my boxers and undershirt and joined Elpida and Giulia in the kitchen. Elpida said, “Meet my new lover, Mother. Oh, wait, you two already know each other, don’t you?”

I blushed as Giulia said quietly, “Of course.” She smiled at me and said, “It’s a good thing I never introduced you to Mamma. I don’t think I could stand you fucking three generations of us.”

Elpida’s smile vanished as she stared at me and then Giulia. I gathered my wits and said, “I’m sorry, Giulia, I had no idea Elpida’s your daughter.”

Giulia smiled and said, “I’m not Chiara. No offense was meant, none is taken.”

Elpida finally asked, “And how long did you share Mother’s bed?”

We spoke at the same time, “Two months, more or less.”

“So all that time you were lovers, you never once talked about me?”

I blushed as Giulia said, “We had more important matters to discuss. Like the latest shipment of herbs and the maintenance in the back bathroom and where to fuck next.”

I added, “Think about it. I really didn’t care to discuss any children who would be older than me.”

Giulia laughed, “You and me both. It’s not as if we were going to marry or anything. It was a way to get away from that. I felt young again. Why spoil it?”

Elpida sat there quietly, then smiled sheepishly at me, and smiled more broadly when I smiled back. “But you are with me now, right?”

Giulia laughed, “Until he goes back to school.”

Elpida looked at her and back to me and then started laughing. I laughed too and Giulia said, “So what did you need to see me about…besides what certainly looked like hyper-competitive psycho bullshit?”

“I was going to buy a philter from you, but I don’t think we need it.”

Giulia stood and nodded, “At least with me he doesn’t,” and moved out of swatting range.

Elpida laughed quietly, “Seriously, some financial stuff. It’ll keep.”

“He’s a good man, Elpida. Treat him well. Enjoy him while you can.”

“Yes, Mother.”

Giulia kissed each of us on the cheek and strolled out. Elpida sat there quietly, not looking at me, until I reached over and caressed her cheek.

“God, I am so embarrassed.”

I kissed her. “It’s nothing.”

“So will you spend your nights with me?”

She smiled so sweetly that my heart clenched, and I said, “Assuredly.”

“Have you ever worked as a gallery guard?”

“Not yet.”

“It’s a singularly boring job, but you can always sneak into the back with the boss lady. She likes it in every position, you know, so long as it’s artistically posed.” We laughed and dressed, and that evening after I checked in at home and saw nothing was out of place, Elpida smiled wickedly and led me upstairs. We had undressed quickly and caressed each other to a high fever when she said, “Mother is wild, isn’t she?” Warily I nodded. “You took her every which way, didn’t you?” I nodded again, very slightly, as she stared into my eyes. “Every which way?”

I nodded once, almost imperceptibly, and she nodded grimly and said, “We can’t have her one up on me, you know.”

“Yes, we can.”

“No. We can’t.” I blinked and she smiled, “Please be gentle.”

“We don’t need to if you don’t want to.”

“I do.”

“Why?”

“Because I want you inside me fully, in every way we can think of.”

“Is that all?”

“I’m telling you to fuck my ass. Will you go down in history as the only man ever to refuse that order?”

I laughed and said, “How shall we do this?”

“You mean you don’t know?” We laughed and she handed me a tube. “I’ll go get some towels, then you explore me until I’m ready.” Over the next half-hour, she grew used to me and eventually groaned in pleasure, “Slowly now.”

We went very slowly indeed, and at the end, she climaxed around me as her fingers slammed hard inside her; when her contractions started I lost control slightly and worked fast inside her, though not very far fore and aft, and spewed almost immediately.

I collapsed beside her and she lay on her belly next to me. “Now we’re even.”

“Christ, is that the only reason you did it?”

She smiled, “At first, but you were so sweet and smooth, I liked it at the end. Only time I ever liked it.”

She looked at me curiously and I kissed her and said, “I loved it. Thank you.”

“Was it as…” She left the question hanging.

Christ, I thought. After a pause, I smiled, “Yes. It was different from…With her.”

“Good. Now let’s wash up. I need to sixty-nine with you like I haven’t eaten for days.”

We spent the rest of our days separately and our nights together. The morning I returned to school, Giulia took us to breakfast and we talked of civilized matters. When it was time to leave, they walked with me to the bus station. When I hugged Giulia, she whispered, “There’s no chance of anything again between us now, you know.”

“Yes.”

She smiled and kissed my cheek. “But you still have a job waiting for you. Now find yourself a nice Italian girl. Not too nice, though; you like sex too much.”

We said and kissed our farewells and I returned to school, taking a placement test that allowed me to add Italian to my classes in the spring. Life passed as it always does when you’re not watching it: I seduced, nailed repeatedly, and was dumped by two blondes one after the other in two months; at Christmas Elpida introduced me to her new beau, a man about halfway between our ages, and said farewell after coffee; and a professor tapped me to be the lowest man on her totem pole the next summer on a research trip to a place in the country boring as hell but for the plants.

In early October I went to my first Italian tutoring session for a little help with my tenses and stopped breathing as her eyes rose to mine. Jet black hair in braids around her head, dark brown eyes piercing into mine through round gold glasses, a fairly thin body promising to fill out as she aged, breasts already full, and a firm set to her lips, she looked back at me and raised her eyebrows. Like a fool, I sat down and held out my hand. She looked at me closely, decided the scenery wasn’t too drab, and took my hand. “Carrie Moretti,” she said. After that, she only allowed me to speak in Italian and drilled me closely on my verbs.

After tutoring, she said, “Unfortunately, I won’t be able to tutor you again.”

“But why not?”

She smiled, “Because you’re taking me to lunch, remember? It would break all kinds of rules.”

Not as stupid as I once was, I swallowed my “What the hell do you mean?” and then my “Oh, right, I forgot,” and just smiled back, “That’s right, I was too flustered with the anticipation to even think about more mundane matters.”

Her eyebrows raised in appreciation and we chatted all that day as if on fire. For the next month, I pursued the prettiest Italian marine biologist in training in the world as she slowly seduced me. After two weeks of lunches, coffees, and a chaste couple of trips to the weekly Italian film club showings, she agreed to studying together every night that week. As we separated that Thursday, she finally hugged me. She kissed my cheek and asked, “So where will you take me for Halloween?”

“The heavens.”

“Hell no, they have no oceans there.”

“The lake.”

“Booooring. I’ve been over every square inch of the bottom and there’s nothing there.”

“A party.”

“I knew you’d come through!”

When I leaned in to kiss her, she met my lips for a minute and then pulled away with a smile and said, “Trick tonight. Treat tomorrow.”

When we met the next evening, she was wearing a jet-black sleeveless dress and black hose, with a witch’s hat on her head and a Roomba box in her hand, her lips and glasses frame black. I looked at the box and she said, “Broom’s in the shop. This is the loaner.”

“I expected something more…marine-themed.”

“Like what?”

“A mermaid?”

She glowered and waved a finger at me angrily, “If that’s some kind of trash talk about my feminine hygiene, I shall gut your sorry belly.”

Taken aback, I said, “I wouldn’t know.”

She grinned, “Fuckin’ A.”

“Aren’t witches passé?”

She shrugged, “Tutte le italiane sono streghe, è solo che alcune lo nascondiamo meglio.”

“E che fanno le streghe per…um…”

“Vigilio d’Ognissanti?” She smiled, “Aspetta e vedrai.”

We went to a couple of parties, one with my crowd and one with hers, then walked back to her apartment about 11:15. She led me into the living room and poured us some wine, an unusual vintage that I didn’t know but found oddly familiar. As I watched her watching me, I felt as if I were on fire, and the hotter I felt the more closely she watched me. After our second glass, she leaned in and kissed me. She pulled away and whispered, “Questo vigilio d’Ognissanti, faccio te.”

She unzipped her dress and let it fall to her waist, her breasts firm and perfect, with nipples erect and pointing at me. I saw her glance at the clock and then she pulled my head to her breasts to suckle. After a minute or two she squealed in a sudden orgasm and pulled away. “Che faccio per te? Ah, io so.” She undid me and cradled my cock between her breasts as she pulled a tube from her purse and lubed us up; after another glance at the clock, she stared into my eyes as I held her breasts tight around me and moved slowly, then quickly. As I sprayed my first shot up onto her chin and neck and ear, I heard the clock strike midnight, and she smiled and whispered, “Perfect timing,” as she drained me.

We sat there happily and kissed, and she asked, “Would you like some more wine?”

I nodded and she poured us some at a small table under a mirror on the wall, the top of her dress still bunched up at her waist and my pearly streaks dribbling down between her breasts, and she watched herself in the mirror as I came up behind her and stared over her shoulder at the traces of my passion. She sipped and stared into my eyes in the mirror and said, “You did that very well.” She watched me with caution as she added, “It was a perfect shot up the middle, and the largest load I’ve ever been gifted there. Usually they dribble a little and maybe spatter the tops of my breasts with two or three puny little drops. It hardly seems worth the work—more an insult than a tribute.”

“And they were the most perfect breasts I’ve ever gifted with my passion.”

We kissed after she reluctantly wiped up my sperm, and she said, “Mirror mirror on the wall, can he hold off till cock’s first call?” She smiled back at me, “I’ve accepted you. You can only take full possession at daybreak though.”

“What shall we do until then?”

“Oh, ever so many things. Vocabulary review, for one thing.”

“Such as?”

She looked up at the ceiling with a pensive look. Oh, let’s see, first. Slinguata…No? Here.” She pulled my head to hers and slipped her tongue deep into my mouth, and after many minutes she pulled away coyly. “Very good. You passed your first vocabulary quiz with flying colors.”

Two hours later she swallowed, raised her head as she licked the corner of her mouth, and said, “Naturally, there are many more phrases for that than your next one, because men are greedy, stupid, and callous and fucking squeamish babies. Present company perhaps excepted.” She stood, slipped off her dress and panties, and sat on the edge of the couch with her thighs spread. “E ora questo. Leccata di figa.”

I knelt readily before her. Her flower was perfect, thick hairs around responsive lips and clitoris; I looked up to see her smiling down at me and set to with gusto. She held my head and moaned happily and soon enough drenched my face. I asked, “Il prossimo…sessantanove?”

“Ma certo!”

We buried our heads between each other’s thighs and rode out everything we gave each other. I collapsed as she finished devouring me with a loud swallow. She looked at me quietly and said, “That was by far the best I’ve ever tasted.”

“So’s yours.”

She relaxed and led me to her bed, where we curled up in exhaustion. She set the alarm, “We sleep until it’s time.” I happily agreed and woke groggily when the alarm slammed me awake.

She slapped the clock hard and said, “Baciami.” As we kissed she became fully aroused even more quickly than I did, but she held me off as we kissed and caressed each other until a glance at the clock satisfied her; she opened her thighs to me and took me inside and whispered as I entered her fully, “Last five minutes. I’ll tell you when you can come.” My puzzlement soon faded as she responded passionately to my thrusts, almost as if making sure I was man enough to outlast everything she gifted me with, and when she finally said, “Sto per venire! Vienimi dentro,” my first spurt shot into her just as the sun peeked into the window and slammed into my eyes. As she screamed with each of my thrusts, I felt as if the sun were filling my mind as I was filling her body. I fully drained more spurts into her than I thought possible as she passed out underneath me, and I felt a part of her as I passed out with her.

A few minutes later I woke and she cradled me as I lay collapsed onto her, and she whispered, “You have taken full possession of me, and I have full ownership of you,” and to my momentary surprise it seemed the sweetest promise a man could accept.

I opened my eyes a minute later to see her watching me. I smiled and she patted my cheek, “Adesso sai cosa fanno il vigilio di Ognissanti le streghe …innamorate.”

We were then inseparable, and one night in December in our second hour of passion, I looked up at her riding me vigorously and said, “Marry me.”

She looked down at me, “But of course.”

“When?”

She giggled, “God, let me come first! I can’t think about that with your cock inside me.” She smiled down at me and slowed her ride to a trot, and then a crawl, and after another hour finally breathed out as her last climax washed over her and my last ejaculation of the night sprayed deep inside her.

She lay down next to me and said, “With the new year.”

“That soon?”

“Why? Scared of me?”

“But…planning?”

“You’re not wedding me in St. Peter’s Basilica, love.”

After a while, she sighed, “I’m glad you never asked me about my other men. They always did, and it seemed to bother most of them that I wasn’t a virgin in any way. Anywhere. There have been seven others. Some my age, some rather older.”

I nodded. “I’ve had nine. Some my age, some rather older.”

“So, you do want children?”

“Of course.”

“So do I. Seven or eight to start. Then we can adopt.” I coughed and she laughed happily. “No, I just want two daughters.”

“Sounds good.”

I gave her an engagement ring four days later, when winter break started, a present to surprise her before we took a bus to our city. After introducing her to my mother, who shook her head sadly and then happily, Carrie called her family and said only she had a surprise for them, so she would meet them at the usual restaurant.

She pulled me along happily and ushered me into a small room with six people. I stood stock-still as Giulia and Elpida stared at me; Elpida seemed to mouth “Cazzo” and Giulia the Greek equivalent as I thought much the same thing. Carrie raised her hand to show her ring and announced, “Permettetemi di presentarvi, il mio fidanzato,” and after much blinking in surprise, Giulia and Elpida smiled and welcomed me with more grace than I felt I could muster in my shock. When they first embraced me after the toasts, Giulia said quietly, “I said to find a nice Italian girl. You always did go above and beyond,” and Elpida only said, “I think I know just how Mother felt now.”

After all my introductions, they talked quickly in a corner glancing at Carrie and me. After a few minutes, they came over with smiles and Giulia said, “I must apologize for my surprise. You see, I used to be his boss. Best herbalist I ever had working for me.” Everyone smiled and slapped me on the back as Carrie looked at me curiously.

“Really.” I nodded. “When?”

“Couple of summers ago.”

As I met the other family members and was plied with wine by Elpida’s brother and uncle, I heard Giulia say, “Carità-Agapi, con noi, subito.”

To my puzzled look, my future uncle said, “Surely you know your future wife’s name?”

“Not her middle name.”

He shrugged, “We all have a Greek name somewhere in our certificates, but Elpida’s the only one who uses hers much.”

“Elpida…”

“Yes, ‘hope.’ She always preferred it to Emilia.”

I smiled, “Hope…and then Agape.”

He smiled back. “You can probably guess what Mamma’s Greek name means.”

I looked over and saw the three deep in a whispered discussion, and the family resemblance I should have noticed before stood out clearly. They excused themselves, Giulia saying, “We have a few family traditions to hand down. Girls’ stuff,” Elpida and Carrie returning a few minutes later, Giulia after half an hour. Seeing Carrie’s set expression I asked, “A problem?”

“No, just making sure I have some instructions down right. Noce moscata…”

Eventually, the party broke up and Elpida escorted us to her house, saying she would sleep at the gallery. She showed me around the house I had never visited in our short time together, most likely because she felt too strongly the difference in years between us, and told me all the people in the family pictures, most interestingly her first husband, who gave Carrie her last name, and her second husband, whose name she kept after his death.

After she left, Carrie led me into the master bedroom and handed me a small vial and said, “A present from Nonna. She said this was the special one for the wedding night, but perhaps it would be better tonight. She said it’s even more effective than my recipe our first night.” To my look, she said, “I pored over her old books. That one seemed especially useful for a strega.” I smiled and drank it in one gulp, the warmth soon filling my body. She then said, “And a present from her for me,” and mixed a powder in her wine glass and we toasted each other. We drank slowly, our eyes melting into each other’s, and she stood and stripped slowly for me, the most beautiful woman I had ever seen more beautiful now than I had ever seen her; her body breathed a familiar scent of nutmeg and flowers, and she took me fully inside her in every way. Throughout what she felt I felt and what she saw flitted around the edges of my mind, and as we squealed in climax after climax it seemed as if every sentiment of love we felt echoed in the other’s mind in a perfect mixture of clarity and intoxication.

We woke at eight. She smiled at me, “Nine times. Even you’ve never done that before.” I smiled, and she looked deep into my eyes and asked, “So who’s the best fuck, Nonna, Mamma, or me?” I stared and she said, “They told me. We had a conference. So, who’s the best?”

“You are. Of course.”

“I am. You’re all mine and I’m all yours and they will make sure of that as well as I will.”

“Well. I was afraid this would be a secret all our lives.”

“So were they. Secrets make people stupid. I know your past, so our future is all clear now.” She smiled, “Of course, you’re not allowed near any of the Cacciato women. Giuseppina’s tasted your forbidden fruit and Chiara’s insane, and I don’t trust any of her other daughters around you either.” I guffawed as she smiled.

“I fully agree.” After a happy silence, I said, “If I’d known...”

“Oh?”

“I’d still have done it. All of it.”

“All of us, you mean.”

I blinked and said, “Yes.”

She smiled, “That’s fine. It was before. This is now. I’m your now and forever after.” We kissed and she lay warmly in my arms. “And just think, you won’t have any problems with your mother-in-law, or your new grandmother. They loooove my new husband.”

We laughed and she said, “They’re happy for us now the shock’s worn off. You worked your way to the best of us.”

“I did, yes.”

“And unlike taking out your lust in all those older women, your seed’s been planted in fertile soil.”

Smiling, I said, “Do you think so?”

“Oh, doubtless within a month.”

“Really?”

“I will be twenty-one soon. We don’t have that much time. Family traditions can be a bitch.”

“Doubtless Giulia can give you a powder to make your womb perfectly receptive.”

She smiled bewitchingly, “She did, yes. It goes well with wine.”