“What happened?”
“Nothing. Follow me.”
Apprehensively, Babi let herself be led. She took great care where she put her feet, fearful she might trip and fall. Now that noise could no longer be heard. Her leg hit something. “Ouch.”
“It’s nothing.”
“What do you mean, it’s nothing? It’s my leg!”
Step started laughing. “And you never stop complaining, do you? Stay right here.”
Step abandoned her for a minute. Babi’s hand hung, all alone, dangling in the void. “Don’t leave me…”
“I’m right here, close to you.”
Then there was a loud, continuous, mechanical, wooden noise. Blinds were being cranked open. Then Step gently took off the bandanna blindfold. Babi opened her eyes, and suddenly she saw it all.
The sunset over the sea was glowing before her. A warm, red sun seemed to be grinning at her. She was in a house.
She walked out onto the terrace, passing under a wooden roller shutter pulled all the way up. Down to the right lay the beach where they’d first kissed. Far off, her favorite hills, her sea, the familiar rocky shore, and Porto Ercole. A seagull soared past, calling out a greeting.
Babi looked around, deeply moved. That silvery sea, the yellow sprays of broom plants, the dark green bushes, that house standing solitary on the rocks. Her house—her dream house. And she was there, with him, and she wasn’t dreaming.
Step hugged her. “Are you happy?”
She nodded her head. Her eyes were wet with tiny transparent tears, glistening with love, beautiful.
He looked at her. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m afraid.”
“Of what?” he asked.
“That I’ll never again be as happy as I am right now…”
Then, crazed with love, Babi kissed him again, luxuriating in the warmth of that sunset.
“Come on, let’s go inside.”
They started wandering through that unfamiliar house, opening unknown rooms, inventing histories for each bedroom, imagining the owners, blithely unaware of their presence.
They pulled up all the shutters, found a big stereo, and turned it on. “You can get Tele Radio Stereo here too.” They laughed.
They wandered through that house, opening its drawers, uncovering its secrets, enjoying themselves enormously. When separated, they’d call out to each other now and again to show off even stupid little discoveries, and everything seemed magical, important, unbelievable.
Step went outside, took off the motorcycle’s storage box, and brought it inside. A little while later, he called to her. Babi entered the bedroom. The big picture window overlooked the sea. Now the sun seemed to be winking at them. It was vanishing in silence behind the distant horizon. That last polite sliver of sunlight was tingeing the soft clouds with pink high in the sky. Its sleepy reflection was running along a golden wake in the sea. It crossed the salt water to fade and die on the walls of that bedroom, in her hair, on the new sheets, across the freshly made bed.
“I bought them myself. Do you like them?”
Babi said nothing as she looked around. A small bouquet of red roses stood in a vase next to the bed.
Step tried to make light of it now. “I swear I didn’t buy them at a traffic light…”
He opened the motorcycle’s storage box. “Et voilà!”
Inside the box was a slush of melted ice cubes, with a few cubes still bobbing in the cold water. Step pulled out a bottle of champagne and retrieved two glasses wrapped in newspaper. “To make sure they don’t break,” he explained.
Then he pulled a small radio out of his jacket pocket. “I didn’t know if there would be one here.” He turned it on, tuned it to the same frequency as the stereo in the house, and set it down on the nightstand. A faint echo of “Stay” reverberated in the room.
“It almost seems as if it was chosen on purpose.”
Step stepped closer, took her in his arms, and kissed her. That instant seemed so wonderful that Babi forgot everything, her resolutions, her fears, her scruples. She even forgot that she’d entered a house that didn’t belong to her, where she had no right to be, that they’d smashed open a door, that she was lying there on a bed that also wasn’t hers, drinking champagne.
Slowly, she allowed him to take her clothes off, and in turn took off his. She found herself in his arms completely naked for the very first time while a magical light, shimmering over the sea, faintly illuminated their bodies. A curious young star glittered high above in the sky. Then—amid a sea of caresses, the sound of distant waves, the cry of a cheerful seagull, and the perfume of the flowers—it happened.
Babi opened her eyes. Step looked down at her. He gave her a small smile and ran his fingers through her hair, reassuring her. At that moment, from the little radio nearby and throughout the house, Spandau Ballet struck up, innocently enough, “Through the Barricades,” but neither of them even noticed. They didn’t know that it was going to become “their song.”
Babi shut her eyes and held her breath, suddenly swept away by that incredible excitement, that magical feeling of becoming her own person for the first time in her life. She turned her face to the sky, sighing, clutching Step’s shoulders, embracing him with all her might.
Then she let go, relaxing. She was his. She opened her eyes, and there he was, on top of her. That soft smile swam lovingly over her face, kissing her from time to time. But she wasn’t there anymore. That young woman with scared blue eyes, filled with doubts and fears, had vanished.
She thought back to when she was little and how stories about butterflies had fascinated her. That cocoon, that tiny caterpillar that suddenly becomes tinged with a thousand splendid colors and then learns to fly. Again, she saw herself, a fresh, delicate butterfly, newly born in Step’s arms.
She smiled at him and hugged him as she gazed into his eyes. Then she gave him a kiss, a soft, new, impassioned kiss. Her first kiss as a woman.
Later, stretched out under the covers, he was stroking her hair while she held him tight, her head resting on his chest. Then Babi lifted her head and gazed at him, with a smile. “I’m not very good, am I?”
“You’re very, very good.”
“No, I feel kind of klutzy. I need you to teach me how.”
“You’re perfect. Come on.”
They got out of bed, Step took her by the hand, and they went into the other room. Between the flowered sheets, a little red rose, newly bloomed, stood out from the others, the purest and most innocent of them all.
Soon Babi and Step were once again intertwined in the bathtub. They were drinking champagne, chatting cheerfully, slightly tipsy and in love. Soon, drunk with passion, they were again in the throes of lovemaking. This time, without fear, with more impetus and greater desire.
Now it seemed even nicer to her, easier to move her wings, now that she was no longer afraid to fly. Suddenly she understood the beauty of being a young butterfly.
Then they took the bathrobes hanging on the door and went down to their private inlet. They amused themselves by dreaming up names that could go with the two unknown sets of initials stitched on their chests. After competing to come up with the strangest ones, they abandoned the bathrobes on the rocks.
Babi dove in second. They swam like that, in the cool, salty water, in the wake of the moon, pushed along by small gentle waves, embracing from time to time, splashing each other, swimming away only to turn around and catch each other for another taste of those lips that smacked of maritime champagne.