1
Anna opened her eyes slowly, disturbed on feeling him leave the cloying warmth of her bed, not by the early morning sounds of traffic. She had become used to the rumble of car tyres on the canal side's cobbled carriageway that was just outside her bedroom window. The pale early morning light could be seen through the thin curtains and to her wondering eyes it seemed to make her young lover's tanned skin gleam as he walked softly, in his bare feet, to the chair where his clothes had been casually cast the night before.
Every move that she saw Vito make stirred renewed longings for him, the sight of his naked body a reminder of how his loving overwhelmed her in drugging waves. She held her breath. Nothing like this had been felt before, not even the first time, when he had turned up at her basement apartment's front door, late in the evening, and she had heard his knock, rhythmic and slow.
'Yes? Who is it?' she had called out, cursing for not having had a spyhole fitted into the heavy timber planks, of a deep green painted front door, its bulk giving her an added sense of security. Dealers and pimps roamed this part of Amsterdam, and she took no chances. She was grateful that migrants had yet to set up camp under the trees that lined the waterway. The cops moved them all on, but it remained a risk and worry to her. A fragile hold on what passed for gentility, these days, still remained in her favourite part of the city.
'Who is it?' she had called out again and waited for an answer.
'It's Vito,' she just heard him tell her, his voice muffled.
She was a math's tutor at a local college and a term, or so, ago she had agreed to offer Vito extra tuition. The offer of help had begun at the college, in one of the small, glass-fronted, meeting rooms and saved them having to explain anything to anyone with prying eyes and a gossiping tongue. For him to show up at her home was something new and disconcerting, even if she had begun to feel drawn to the young man who now loitered outside her door. She had refrained from giving any sign of how far that interest, infatuation some would say, had gone in her, she a forty-year-old woman and single; he a sleek sandy-blonde haired youth of twenty, from a Groningen family, an undoubtedly handsome young man with brooding eyes and lacking confidence. Vito Delissen was unsure of what the future held if he persisted in his business degree. He was a young man who kept to himself, so she had learned, but his presence outside her home really was unexpected.
'Vito? But why now and how do you know where I live?' He must have followed her home, when she would not have known or been aware of it. 'It's late, Vito...and I'm about to go to bed.'
Dismayed to have said that, Anna tugged tight the belt of her dressing gown and lingered by the door. She had been sitting in her small kitchen reading through some course notes for the week ahead and drinking on a glass of juice. She received no quick answer to her question and stood in the small hallway wondering just what to do.
She caught sight of her reflection in the mirror. Her ash-blonde hair was cut fashionable short, in a spiky style that leant her face, bereft of all makeup, a more youthful appearance.
'I'm sorry to bother you...but I wanted to explain why I was so late in submitting some work to you after all that you've done to help me...but I'll go...will see you tomorrow.'
'Wait! Tomorrow's Saturday!'
'So it is!' She heard him call out on a disbelieving laugh. 'I've just checked my iPhone...I'll be going...leave you in peace. How could I have missed that? I'll leave you in peace...'
If only, she thought on hearing him repeat those few words, her mind filled with images of him and how broodingly serious Vito could so often be, his attention wandering from his work to her, then back once more. At such times, she felt that he only wanted to be with her and his studies an excuse for that.
'Wait!' she yelled again, her doubts about what she now intended to do pushed to one side. 'You've interrupted my evening and I can't just send you away. There's some coffee left from earlier, so...so you...so you may as well come in, Vito...just for a moment.'
'Are you sure?' he asked her after Anna had been heard to unlock the door, pull back a bolt, and slowly open it to him.
'Yes, I'm sure,' she said somewhat curtly, soon closing out the night's chill air, and in denial of what others would think. She'd be for it if those in authority at the college ever learned of her actions. 'Come in...come in,' she urged. 'Wait here a moment...I'll clear some things away. We'll sit in the kitchen...we should fit in, just about.'
He soon saw the soft glow of what he took to be a lamp, the shadows of items close-by cast onto the walls. Anna came to him. Vito noted that she still wore her large trademark watch on her strong wrist; saw the glint of her stud earrings as she brushed back at her hair. Now, in the cosy, but dim, light of the kitchen he thought her to be even more engaging than ever.
'You needn't apologise for being late with an assignment...I've been in this work long enough to know the distractions you have...social life and so on.' She said it as two small glass coffee mugs were set out and she put a pan with the remains of coffee, from a cafetiere, on a ring of the stove. It was soon ready, each of them waiting in what felt to her like a brooding, heavy silence. 'So, what distracts you?'
He was startled by her question. 'Oh, I just have my sport...'
Anna looked at him. 'Is that all? Sit down...please? There's nothing formal about this, you know...Vito?'
He smiled wonderfully, to her ways of seeing it. Anna saw him glance over her shoulder at the softly ticking wall clock, a family heirloom. She chose to turn and look at it, her dressing gown stretching open and revealing what she wore underneath, the frilly neckline of her nightdress that shaped her full freckled breasts. As she turned to him she saw Vito quickly avert his gaze from her.
He sipped on his coffee nervily. 'I didn't realise how late it is. I'd better go...'
'You've only just got here so it's rude to go so soon,' she reprimanded him on a soft smile, reaching across the space between them to pour out what remained of the coffee. She had yet to drink at her own cup. 'There's more to this...your reason for being here, isn't there, Vito?'
Anna saw his eyes dart over her once more and she saw him blush. Instinctively, she glanced down at her body, the thin cotton nightdress that she wore, like a second skin; it was all but transparent. She sought to cover herself once more, but the sudden rush of heat on meeting that look upon her, as if Vito was cataloguing every curve, had taken a hold in her. She pressed her thighs together to quell the ache of longing that look of his had aroused in her. It seemed to now be a matter of who was pursuing whom.
'I...I followed you home...a few days ago...managed to keep an eye on you when you cycled here. I just wanted to know something more about you...'
She saw the slump in his shoulders as Vito confessed to it.
How could she have been so foolish as to open the door to him, dressed in the way that she was and now hearing what he had confessed to? Sharing in intimate talks in public places was one thing, but here in her small basement apartment, and alone with a young man late in the evening?
Anna felt weak as she put her hands on the table for an instant. She chose not to see if her dressing gown covered her adequately. His eyes were still averted from her when she spoke.
'Vito?'
