The Nanny Was Waiting Up for Me Her Last Night
I heard her moving around the house all afternoon. The hair dryer buzzing in the bathroom, the rustle of clothes being folded, the zip-zip of the suitcase zippers she would never open here again. Then the tap again, the toothbrush, and finally the creak of the wood under her feet on her way to her room.
I heard, or maybe imagined—I couldn’t say—the click of the light switch and the groan of the springs in her bed as they took her weight.
She had been looking after my children for a year. The next morning, before dawn, a taxi would take her to the airport and back to Italy. And I, lying in my room with my eyes open in the dark, knew I would not be able to bear letting her go without more.
So then, like a junkie with no willpower begging for her dose, I got up and walked to her door.
I opened it slowly, and a triangle of hallway light drew a yellow path from the threshold to the feet of her bed. Nadia didn’t move. She had probably heard me coming and wasn’t surprised.
Until she propped herself up slightly on one elbow.
—Come —she said, pulling back the blanket and moving over to make room for me.
Her parted lips revealed the gleam of her smile, and her eyes caught the reflection of the dim light filtering in from the streetlamps outside. I slipped under the sheet without saying a word, because any word would have given me away.
Her amused eyes weighed different ways of proceeding. In the end she rested my head on the pillow, placed two fingers on my lips, demanding silence, and kissed me with a sweetness I hadn’t expected. Holding my chin, she tilted my face a little to force me to meet her gaze.
And, caught in that almost hypnotic spell, I stayed motionless while her hand slid down my face to stroke my cheek. It traced the curve of my ear, went down my neck, and lingered at the nape of my neck, teasing the fingers at my hairline and lifting my head slightly.
I stayed still when she stroked again the strip of skin showing above the collar of the pajama shirt, and even when her hand slipped inside to circle my shoulder and travel up the upper part of my arm.
I managed to contain the trembling that seized me when I felt her begin to unbutton the buttons, one by one. I didn’t move while she undid them, until the hairs on my skin stood on end between the two halves of fabric that no longer warmed my chest. Then I couldn’t prevent a faint shiver, and I prayed she hadn’t noticed it.
Where I could no longer remain impassive was when her hand crossed the band of bare skin and ran all the way across it, from my neck to my navel, passing over the valley between my breasts and my belly.
And where I could no longer hold her gaze was on the way back, when she slipped beneath the open shirt, which fell limply to one side, and with the palm of her hand traced the outline of my flank, rib by rib, until she defined the curve of my breast from its base.
From then on I closed my eyes and never opened them again.
Her hand uncovered the other half of my torso, still half hidden by the fabric, and both breasts were left bare. She explored them slowly, as always, without haste, savoring every instant, as if each centimeter of my skin demanded a reverent attention that left no room for the urgencies I surrendered to when I was alone.
And that almost devout slowness was torture for my body, so inexperienced in this kind of thing.
It became obvious to me that her instinct had long since understood how easy it was to set me on fire. One well-measured caress was enough to make me burn all over, and she knew exactly where and how to light the fuse.
My body trembled under her touch, and my broken breathing gave away what I could no longer hide.
Her hand kept traveling over all of my naked torso without stopping at any one point. It began at my neck, sometimes strayed over my arms, other times brushed the upper part of my breast as if by accident. At times it moved down my side, giving me the back of her fingers, then opened her palm and drew circles over my belly, from the rise of my ribs to the edge marked by the waistband of my pants.
Sometimes a couple of fingers slipped under that waistband, playful, before climbing back up. And she always ended at my breasts. First one, then the other, tracing their shape, testing their firmness, molding them with a capricious hand and, at last, tending to my hardened nipples. She brushed them with her ring finger and then tapped them with the lightest touch while the rest of her hand held the breast firmly.
And the nipple responded by swelling, hardening, harder the more insistent those taps became. Until the hand returned to my neck and the torture started all over again.
I shuddered and my broken breathing wavered between long sighs and ragged gasps. Tears began to flow again, copiously, and this time I didn’t stop them. They were no longer sorrow, but the only way my body could find to spill an pleasure that could not fit inside it.
Until, during one of her journeys, she pulled down the waistband of my pants and there was no turning back. Instead of continuing along my side, her hand sank lower, and I felt the whole palm pass beyond my pubis, her fingers resting on the start of my sex, barely grazing my already throbbing clit.
I felt a slight pressure when she sat up, and then immediately how that pressure eased as her body reclined over mine. I felt the heat of her naked torso against my flank: she had taken off her T-shirt. I felt her face resting on the upper part of my chest, her lips kissing the soft skin, her tongue stroking my nipples, her lips closing over one of them to lick it and toy with it mercilessly.
And I felt her hand slide along the outside of my thigh, go down almost to my knee and come back up along the inside, until her index finger pressed against the edge of my sex, traced it, already wet, and rose dripping to begin the same journey again on the other thigh.
My hands clutched the sheet. I could feel my knuckles tense and my nails digging into my palms. My back arched, my hips writhed out of control, my legs seized by tremors. The gasps were now continuous and alternated with deep moans coming from very deep inside me.
Nadia’s mouth gave my breasts no respite. My nipples endured an uninterrupted punishment of kisses, licks, and small bites.
My ankles, which she had gathered up to spread my legs and lift my knees, were still trapped in the tangle of my pants. Her hands now moved along the inside of my thighs, and each encounter with my crotch became more intense, longer.
It was no longer a finger, but the whole hand that at each return rubbed itself against me, crushing my lips, soaking itself, slipping between them to seek the exact spot. And there it pressed with a force that threatened to drag me all the way to the headboard.
I withstood her assaults by bracing one hand behind my head, because the other was no longer mine. Thirsty, it searched desperately for whatever of Nadia’s body it could reach. It stroked her back arched over me, her nape covered by the hair cascading over my chest, her drawn-in belly. And, above all, it took revenge on the torment by clutching her breasts, which molded themselves to my hand, barely containing me so I wouldn’t squeeze them and return to her at least a tiny part of the suffering she was inflicting on me.
And in that frenzy, my hand finally sought to profane her intimacy. It left her breast, left her belly behind, and ungoverned fingers slipped a few centimeters under the fabric of her pants.
My hand acted by instinct, without will, while I was subjected to an orgasm that had been going on for what felt like an eternity. It demanded that I twist my body to reach its destination. My knuckles crossed the fabric barrier, and the hand fought furiously against that impediment denying it Nadia’s center, her wetness, her heat…
Two panting lips smothered my cries. And another hand slid alongside mine, undid a tie, and freed her pants, finally giving full access.
My racing heart reached its limit and I turned my face away to let out cries that, finding no escape, threatened to choke me. My hand yanked at the fabric to uncover her hips, and my arm stretched farther than my joints allowed, feeling with irrational frenzy. Between the smooth flesh of her thighs it finally found the wetness of her sex: soaked, warm, burning, throbbing against my fingers.
Nadia’s hand stopped. Her lips went still. Her body tensed, her knees parted, and her pelvis pressed against the hungry animal my hand had become. Three of her fingers sank just inside me and I howled, while my legs threatened to come apart from the effort of keeping them open. My hand answered by pressing with all the force of my orgasm, and I felt her moan and strange words in Italian slide against my chest.
After another irresistible surge I gathered my fingers and drove three of them into her in one stroke, while with the other two I pressed her groin to draw her body against mine.
She cried out in uncontrolled pleasure. Her body tensed again to answer and deepen my penetration, and her head, tilted on my chest, lost all ability to give itself over to what it was receiving. But her hands were still acting on instinct: one settled on my face and her fingers slipped into my half-open mouth; the other began a frenzied rubbing of my clit, alternating with the in-and-out of two, then three fingers, scarcely a couple of phalanges.
My body became something whose movements were as foreign to me as they were inexplicable. My hips rose and fell at a frantic rhythm, chasing her hand as if it might escape me, greedily demanding the friction and the penetration. And my hand squeezed her sex as if it wanted to milk it dry, three fingers inside and the palm pressed against her, rubbing wildly, unknowingly trying to recreate the same torture consuming me.
And in that irrational state, with all awareness lost, it was my body that, obeying the most primal of instincts, convulsed so violently that my knees snapped shut in a spasm. With a rattling gasp I felt whatever energy remained leave my body and collapsed fainting, while my hand stayed clamped to her and Nadia moaned until her cries gradually choked off and she lay spent on top of me.
***
Little by little, as we recovered our strength, our bodies sought each other out and curled together, one against the other. Neither of us said a word. It wasn’t necessary, or perhaps we feared what words might break.
A sensation of peace and absolute fullness took hold of me, and I soon drifted into a peaceful sleep in the warmth of her contact, soaking up her scent, breathing to the rhythm of every breath that escaped her lips.
Before dawn, however, an alarming sense of absence woke me. I opened my eyes and understood that I was waking inside a nightmare.
The sheet on her side was cold. The suitcase was no longer by the wall. Only the trace of her perfume remained in the room’s air, and the echo of a taxi driving away down the street.
Nadia had left.