RED: A Love Story [Featured List]

Part 1: White 17 - Behind the peephole

Marco threaded his way from the hotel to Downtown, dropped the car in a parking garage and, taking Marisa by the hand, dashed along the sidewalks still damp with rain. The two followed an avenue converging to an overpass above the valley. At the end of it, they reached the illuminated frontispiece of the Municipal Theater. Renaissance statues perched like angels on the façade that stood out against the backdrop of skyscrapers and a starless sky. The lobby made itself pretty with art nouveau jewelry and baroque minutia, in a profusion of marble, bronze, mirrors and stained glass.

"Here we are, right on time" a much satisfied Marco announced. "I thought the opera would be something different for celebrating your graduation." And since Marisa was getting all excited: "But hold on, you may not even like it that much-"

She silenced him with a kiss.

They took a box seat near the stage. Marisa admired the Murano glass flower on the balcony parapet and looked up. The ornate dome above supported a chandelier that floated like a sun above the red velvet seats, offering to the eye the radiance of thousands of crystal pendants.

The presentation soon began, and the stage came to life with a red background and a Japanese residence in the shade of a cherry tree. Madame Butterfly's tragedy began, centered in Cio-Cio-San, a fifteen-year old geisha living in Japan during the nineteenth century. She fell in love with Benjamin Pinkerton, a U.S. Naval officer who was visiting the country and wed her in a marriage of convenience.

The official later departed to the United States with false promises that he would be back soon. In the meantime, Pinkerton married an American woman, not knowing Cio-Cio was pregnant. She waited for him to come back for three long years. Pinkerton eventually returned, but with his new wife, to get his son. Desperate, Cio-Cio bid her farewell to the child and committed hara-kiri.

At the theater exit, as they walked to the parking garage, Marisa remained quiet. She was moved by the presentation. At the time of the story's setting, it wasn't uncommon for American naval officers to visit Japan and marry Japanese women, abandoning them upon their return to the United States-according to records, Madame Butterfly was real.

The sidewalks had dried up, streets filled with people and laughter punctuated conversations in bars. With the thermometer registering eighty-eight degrees, the air was like a viscous mantle. Marisa contemplated the half moon with a halo of frayed clouds-it looked like a ghost wrapped in tatters. With sudden uneasiness, she squeezed Marco's hand.

As usual, he stopped the car on the corner of her street. Marisa crammed the wig into her purse and picked up a bunch of text books on the back seat. In the morning she had a practice exam and, as always, still needed to finish her notes before going to bed. With her hand on the door, she paused and stared at Marco. In an impulse, she dropped the books, kissing him on a spot between his jaw and mouth. Then she held him tight. 

"Hey... what's up?" he asked in flattered surprise.

"Thank you, Marco. For everything."

The two did not want to part. Their hands said it when they entwined. Marco touched Marisa's face next. She brushed her cheek against his. They gazed at each other while their hands met once more, fingers mingling, imprinting caresses on the palm and back, mingling again-waking up the body. Heat, shiver, hot, cold. All the things imagined. Their bodies couldn't be united that very moment. Their hands could, and that's what they were saying.

See how I caress your flesh on the mount of Venus, here below the thumb? It's just that I'd like to do the same to all of you. See how the tip of my index trails the contours of your fingers one by one, going up and down like this? That reminds me of the curves of your body, which I would so much like to kiss now, like dew on the petal of your skin... picking with my mouth the bud on your breast and the blossomed flower on the plane down below, until you quiver inside your dress...