It's a glorious day at the end of July. The sun is already high in the sky but the air is still fresh, just a little while longer. Cristina looks out the window with a veil of worry, next to her Fernando sleeps a deep and carefree sleep as only men can do, he thinks with a slight intolerance. The terracotta tiles are pleasantly cool under her bare feet as she descends the steep staircase to the kitchen.
Cristina is no longer sexting but has lost none of her beauty, only the contours of her features have become less sharp. And her brown hair is filled with silver threads that shine in the sun. She wears an impalpable cotton nightgown that lets you glimpse her nudity fading further. Her breasts fall soft, just a little more than necessary, her hips open wide, but her movements are nervous and snappy. Fernando is 7 years younger than her, while holding the hot cup in his hands he thinks that at first no one would have guessed. But now, now every year that passes he seems to draw a clearer and clearer line between them and Cristina, who has never been afraid of anything, feels the worm of insecurity roaring for the first time. She, who has always been beautiful among the beautiful, begins to look anxiously in the mirror, to confront herself with younger women.
She doesn't envy them beauty, she envies their unconsciousness. That unconsciousness that has been hers for so many years, that never seemed to end.
She passes her hand through her long, soft hair and for a moment looks at the day that awaits her with a twinge of anxiety. In a few hours the lawn in front of the cottage will be full of friends. And she will be there too, Lucia, called Lulu, Giorgio's new girlfriend. Giorgio's new twenty-year-old girlfriend: wheat hair, sea eyes, strawberry mouth. Who is beautiful not only because she's beautiful, but because she's twenty. After meeting her, Cristina felt the need to go and see her photos, of when she was twenty years old, but how badly we dressed twenty years ago. And what absurd hairstyles. Cristina doubts that, in the future, Lulu will ever feel so ridiculous looking back.
Lulu's arrival shocked the circle of middle-aged men of their friends like a hormonal storm. Elevating Giorgio to superhero status, while she became the centre of all desire. Which must be his place always, thinks Cristina with a hint of bitterness.
She finishes the contents of her cup and makes to get up. She didn't hear Fernando coming and his embrace surprises her from behind. He plunges his face into her hair and kisses her on the neck while his hands squeeze on her belly, large and dark against the light cotton of her dress.
A couple of hours later the first guests start arriving. The friends of all time. They have light clothes, warm smiles and hands full of gifts and Cristina abandons her fears: she is still the queen of the castle. And she and Fernando are still the most beautiful couple, she thinks, as she looks at him among the others, with his cascade of brown hedgehogs and laughing eyes, and that Latin womanizer look so far from his true essence, from his being deeply slippery and lazy, even in his feelings.
Cristina chose him like that because it's not that she didn't know, ten years ago, when she met him, that things would change. She chose him faithfully. And in love. And too lazy to go hunting.
What Cristina didn't count is how much ten years would have added to Fernando's charm. Like those two gray threads in his beard and those two little wrinkles at the laughing corners of his mouth would have given interest to his face almost too banally regular. Now she often observes the eager glances of younger women, they slip over him, sometimes she doesn't even notice them, but she doesn't miss one, on the contrary, she probably even invents some.
A sudden increase in the volume of the voices of those present distracts Cristina from her reflections, and it is the arrival of Lulu obviously the origin of all that enthusiasm.
Cristina has often reflected on beauty: what is special about it and why are men and women so attracted to it? Basically there are many other more important qualities, being beautiful doesn't mean anything. Yet, she knows from experience, being beautiful automatically makes you the centre of others' desires and attention. Everyone's.
Even those who declare or pretend to be insensitive to its charm, they too are actually seduced by it.
And what is beauty, after all? Cristina asks herself as she watches Lulu move with ice eyes to the centre of the group that has immediately created itself around her. It's certainly not the perfection of form, a beautiful discovery, she thinks, while observing the nose less than regular than her, the sulky mouth and that sort of knot that wrinkles her gaze. It's perhaps the quality of her honey skin, the way her shirt falls on her shoulders, she lies on her full breast. Maybe it's the slim shape of her ankle sticking out of her jeans. Perhaps it's the delicate angle of her jaw, the way her hair caresses her neck. Or maybe just that desire to look at her and keep looking at her, hoping that she smiles to see her eyes light up and her lips open on her big teeth. Push the look inside her neckline, slip it into the small space that is created between the stretchy elastic of the bra and the skin and feel the desire to stretch a hand to caress her. Look at her again. And feel a feeling of fullness and peace every time your eyes come back to rest on her.
Lulu approaches her, her ways are simple, almost shy, as if that being always at the center of attention somehow weighs on her and she wants to put herself in the shade, sometimes, without succeeding. Cristina finds herself wondering how her beauty is diminished by that comparison. And she decides she wants to find out. She asks Lulu to follow her into the kitchen... She follows her docile.
When they enter the house, the sudden darkness after the blinding sun leaves them dazed for a moment and Lulu stumbles over a low table. She stretches out her hand to grasp Cristina so as not to fall and Cristina feels a shudder from where her hand is holding her. She seems to have felt it too because she seems upset.
"Come", Cristina says to her and takes her hand. He guides her in front of the long mirror hanging on the wall.
The two women look at each other, they are not similar or different.
Cristina raises her hand to caress Lulu's cheek. Light, almost imperceptible, she slides it several times over her hot skin, hesitates for a moment and places a finger on her lips, stares at the mirror to scrutinize Lulu's reaction, which encircles her waist with one arm and draws her overwhelmingly to herself. Cristina finds herself without even realizing it, her lips nailed to her own while Lulu's tongue makes its way overwhelmingly into her mouth, her hands are all over her body, squeezing her, groping her, slipping under her shirt. Cristina moves her almost violently. The two women are facing each other, panting, only now Lulu no longer has that angelic and a bit naive air. He stretches out his hand to grab Cristina by the lapel of her shirt and draws her back to him. Cristina hears her rubbing her sex against her own, while with the other hand she palpates her ass.
"Tina!? Cristina hears Fernando's voice die in his throat. She would like to turn towards him, but Lulu ensnares her with his kiss, inflames her with his body, tightens her even more as if to reassure her, as if to ask her not to leave. An interminable moment passes, then Cristina feels Fernando's warm and close breath, his heavy breath. His hand between her legs, on her breasts.
She opens her eyes: Fernando hugs her from behind, puts his hand in her pants while Lulu starts to unbutton her shirt. Cristina feels faint with pleasure.
"Not... not here. He can sigh.
"That way. Fernando's tone is hasty, while he indicates to Lulu the small studio where nobody will disturb them. Lulu takes her by the hand, Fernando by the other and as soon as they enter he hears the door lock behind them. Fernando stays behind her and starts unbuttoning her shirt while Lulu unzips her trousers. Cristina is lost in her pleasure, she doesn't realize she is almost naked while they are still dressed. Fernando squeezes her breasts while he bites her neck, Lulu has knelt down in front of her and is taking off her panties. Fernando then in one fluid movement sits down on the sofa, dragging her along. Cristina finds herself in Fernando's arms, spreading her legs, offering her sex to Lulu's mouth, squeezing and forcing her while the spasms of pleasure make her squirm.
The orgasm that overwhelms her is so powerful that Cristina almost doesn't realize that Fernando has carefully laid her on the couch and now she is greedy kissing Lulu's mouth, as if she wanted to suck his pleasure while Lulu sinks her hands into the brown curls she loves so much. Cristina stretches out one hand towards her underwear, automatically putting on her pants. Lulu pushes Fernando away with an abrupt gesture, as she had done at the beginning.
Go find Giorgio. You'll see, he'll be happy. He tells her before Fernando starts kissing her again.
Cristina turns the key in the keyhole, leaves the room and looks at herself in the long mirror: her hair is decomposed, her eyes are shiny and her face is hot. She is beautiful, so beautiful maybe she has never seen herself.
She goes out into the sun and moves like in a dream.
"What is beauty in the end? He thinks as he approaches Giorgio's ear and hears himself shivering at the contact with his hair. As she places a languid hand on his shoulder, as she touches his chest.
As she shakes his hand and guides him towards the house, towards the small room where his man and woman are loving each other.
"What is beauty to you, Giorgio?
Question, while wondering if he understood, if this is a game that he and Lulu often play. If that's their little secret.
"Beauty is love. He'll answer for sure.
"Yeah", thinks Cristina as they cross the room with the big mirror, as she lowers the door handle.
"And what is love, Giorgio? Question as he opens the door wide.
Cristina is no longer sexting but has lost none of her beauty, only the contours of her features have become less sharp. And her brown hair is filled with silver threads that shine in the sun. She wears an impalpable cotton nightgown that lets you glimpse her nudity fading further. Her breasts fall soft, just a little more than necessary, her hips open wide, but her movements are nervous and snappy. Fernando is 7 years younger than her, while holding the hot cup in his hands he thinks that at first no one would have guessed. But now, now every year that passes he seems to draw a clearer and clearer line between them and Cristina, who has never been afraid of anything, feels the worm of insecurity roaring for the first time. She, who has always been beautiful among the beautiful, begins to look anxiously in the mirror, to confront herself with younger women.
She doesn't envy them beauty, she envies their unconsciousness. That unconsciousness that has been hers for so many years, that never seemed to end.
She passes her hand through her long, soft hair and for a moment looks at the day that awaits her with a twinge of anxiety. In a few hours the lawn in front of the cottage will be full of friends. And she will be there too, Lucia, called Lulu, Giorgio's new girlfriend. Giorgio's new twenty-year-old girlfriend: wheat hair, sea eyes, strawberry mouth. Who is beautiful not only because she's beautiful, but because she's twenty. After meeting her, Cristina felt the need to go and see her photos, of when she was twenty years old, but how badly we dressed twenty years ago. And what absurd hairstyles. Cristina doubts that, in the future, Lulu will ever feel so ridiculous looking back.
Lulu's arrival shocked the circle of middle-aged men of their friends like a hormonal storm. Elevating Giorgio to superhero status, while she became the centre of all desire. Which must be his place always, thinks Cristina with a hint of bitterness.
She finishes the contents of her cup and makes to get up. She didn't hear Fernando coming and his embrace surprises her from behind. He plunges his face into her hair and kisses her on the neck while his hands squeeze on her belly, large and dark against the light cotton of her dress.
A couple of hours later the first guests start arriving. The friends of all time. They have light clothes, warm smiles and hands full of gifts and Cristina abandons her fears: she is still the queen of the castle. And she and Fernando are still the most beautiful couple, she thinks, as she looks at him among the others, with his cascade of brown hedgehogs and laughing eyes, and that Latin womanizer look so far from his true essence, from his being deeply slippery and lazy, even in his feelings.
Cristina chose him like that because it's not that she didn't know, ten years ago, when she met him, that things would change. She chose him faithfully. And in love. And too lazy to go hunting.
What Cristina didn't count is how much ten years would have added to Fernando's charm. Like those two gray threads in his beard and those two little wrinkles at the laughing corners of his mouth would have given interest to his face almost too banally regular. Now she often observes the eager glances of younger women, they slip over him, sometimes she doesn't even notice them, but she doesn't miss one, on the contrary, she probably even invents some.
A sudden increase in the volume of the voices of those present distracts Cristina from her reflections, and it is the arrival of Lulu obviously the origin of all that enthusiasm.
Cristina has often reflected on beauty: what is special about it and why are men and women so attracted to it? Basically there are many other more important qualities, being beautiful doesn't mean anything. Yet, she knows from experience, being beautiful automatically makes you the centre of others' desires and attention. Everyone's.
Even those who declare or pretend to be insensitive to its charm, they too are actually seduced by it.
And what is beauty, after all? Cristina asks herself as she watches Lulu move with ice eyes to the centre of the group that has immediately created itself around her. It's certainly not the perfection of form, a beautiful discovery, she thinks, while observing the nose less than regular than her, the sulky mouth and that sort of knot that wrinkles her gaze. It's perhaps the quality of her honey skin, the way her shirt falls on her shoulders, she lies on her full breast. Maybe it's the slim shape of her ankle sticking out of her jeans. Perhaps it's the delicate angle of her jaw, the way her hair caresses her neck. Or maybe just that desire to look at her and keep looking at her, hoping that she smiles to see her eyes light up and her lips open on her big teeth. Push the look inside her neckline, slip it into the small space that is created between the stretchy elastic of the bra and the skin and feel the desire to stretch a hand to caress her. Look at her again. And feel a feeling of fullness and peace every time your eyes come back to rest on her.
Lulu approaches her, her ways are simple, almost shy, as if that being always at the center of attention somehow weighs on her and she wants to put herself in the shade, sometimes, without succeeding. Cristina finds herself wondering how her beauty is diminished by that comparison. And she decides she wants to find out. She asks Lulu to follow her into the kitchen... She follows her docile.
When they enter the house, the sudden darkness after the blinding sun leaves them dazed for a moment and Lulu stumbles over a low table. She stretches out her hand to grasp Cristina so as not to fall and Cristina feels a shudder from where her hand is holding her. She seems to have felt it too because she seems upset.
"Come", Cristina says to her and takes her hand. He guides her in front of the long mirror hanging on the wall.
The two women look at each other, they are not similar or different.
Cristina raises her hand to caress Lulu's cheek. Light, almost imperceptible, she slides it several times over her hot skin, hesitates for a moment and places a finger on her lips, stares at the mirror to scrutinize Lulu's reaction, which encircles her waist with one arm and draws her overwhelmingly to herself. Cristina finds herself without even realizing it, her lips nailed to her own while Lulu's tongue makes its way overwhelmingly into her mouth, her hands are all over her body, squeezing her, groping her, slipping under her shirt. Cristina moves her almost violently. The two women are facing each other, panting, only now Lulu no longer has that angelic and a bit naive air. He stretches out his hand to grab Cristina by the lapel of her shirt and draws her back to him. Cristina hears her rubbing her sex against her own, while with the other hand she palpates her ass.
"Tina!? Cristina hears Fernando's voice die in his throat. She would like to turn towards him, but Lulu ensnares her with his kiss, inflames her with his body, tightens her even more as if to reassure her, as if to ask her not to leave. An interminable moment passes, then Cristina feels Fernando's warm and close breath, his heavy breath. His hand between her legs, on her breasts.
She opens her eyes: Fernando hugs her from behind, puts his hand in her pants while Lulu starts to unbutton her shirt. Cristina feels faint with pleasure.
"Not... not here. He can sigh.
"That way. Fernando's tone is hasty, while he indicates to Lulu the small studio where nobody will disturb them. Lulu takes her by the hand, Fernando by the other and as soon as they enter he hears the door lock behind them. Fernando stays behind her and starts unbuttoning her shirt while Lulu unzips her trousers. Cristina is lost in her pleasure, she doesn't realize she is almost naked while they are still dressed. Fernando squeezes her breasts while he bites her neck, Lulu has knelt down in front of her and is taking off her panties. Fernando then in one fluid movement sits down on the sofa, dragging her along. Cristina finds herself in Fernando's arms, spreading her legs, offering her sex to Lulu's mouth, squeezing and forcing her while the spasms of pleasure make her squirm.
The orgasm that overwhelms her is so powerful that Cristina almost doesn't realize that Fernando has carefully laid her on the couch and now she is greedy kissing Lulu's mouth, as if she wanted to suck his pleasure while Lulu sinks her hands into the brown curls she loves so much. Cristina stretches out one hand towards her underwear, automatically putting on her pants. Lulu pushes Fernando away with an abrupt gesture, as she had done at the beginning.
Go find Giorgio. You'll see, he'll be happy. He tells her before Fernando starts kissing her again.
Cristina turns the key in the keyhole, leaves the room and looks at herself in the long mirror: her hair is decomposed, her eyes are shiny and her face is hot. She is beautiful, so beautiful maybe she has never seen herself.
She goes out into the sun and moves like in a dream.
"What is beauty in the end? He thinks as he approaches Giorgio's ear and hears himself shivering at the contact with his hair. As she places a languid hand on his shoulder, as she touches his chest.
As she shakes his hand and guides him towards the house, towards the small room where his man and woman are loving each other.
"What is beauty to you, Giorgio?
Question, while wondering if he understood, if this is a game that he and Lulu often play. If that's their little secret.
"Beauty is love. He'll answer for sure.
"Yeah", thinks Cristina as they cross the room with the big mirror, as she lowers the door handle.
"And what is love, Giorgio? Question as he opens the door wide.