Mistress - The Italian way E-Book

Delilah Jay

• Herausgeber: epubli
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 311

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

A dangerous affair: Revenge for justice. Power and control. Set among the power games of the Mafia and the rich and beautiful of Italy, on the island of Ponza, in Ferrara and in London. Corruption involving Italy's high and mighty: the Clan, multinational corporations. Fashion, car manufacturing, Formula One, the alcohol industry. Those who control vast global assets. Everywhere. The love between Aelita and Amos, a love that had no proper beginning and no proper end. He is murdered in Naples harbour. On his way to the ferry that was supposed to take him to Procida. She tells his story, her story, the story of their love. Fights him for their son, in England and in Italy. A modern-day fairytale that takes place in Berlin, London, Naples, Rome, Emilia Romagna, Monte Carlo. Emotional. Erotic. Love and revenge. Intelligent. Written in short, sharp prose. Creative, racy, witty. Starting with a murder that is solved and avenged at the end. A new definition of Italy: Delilah J paints a fascinating and colourful picture of corruption amongst the select ultra-powerful oligarchs of Italy that would make even Silvio Berlusconi look charming. An ending that holds a vague hope for a new Italy. Maybe.

Leseprobe

Delilah J www.delilah-jay.com Chaussee 17 14621 Schoenwalde

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

© 2013 Delilah J, www.delilah-jay.com Translated from the German by Gitta Wolf

Cover design: Julia Kuhnert, Berlin, www.juliakuhnert.de Cover idea: Massi J © Images: private

Interior Typography: Siegfried Pompe, Köln

IN THE END ...

They could not put him on display. Could not lay him out. Too many gunshots. The head destroyed, the chest area too. There was a brief forensic examination. Nothing major. One might be better off not knowing - here in Naples. Could be dangerous. For the medics, the experts, the Carabinieri, the family, the judges, the witnesses. Yes, witnesses. Were there witnesses? Five shots in total. They made sure that death was certain. Aimed for head, chest, heart, and again. Certain. Shots fired from a Kalashnikov. The weapon of choice, here in this region. Yes, it happened in Naples. One beautiful, sunny lunchtime. He got out of the back of the black limousine. By the harbour. On his way to an appointment and on to the island of Ponza. Usually he goes by helicopter. Not today. No looking back. The driver opens the door. He gets out. Two young guys - not even masked - skilfully let their motorbikes drop to the ground, pull their weapons and shoot - first him, then the driver. The driver survives, after a seven-hour operation in the Ospedale Cardarelli in Naples. He will be unfit for questioning for a long time. According to the doctors. And anyway, what could he say - or, more to the point, what would he say? Should his condition allow. Physically, at least. Mentally, he would not want to, would not allow himself to. Mission accomplished. Fast and efficient. Two young guys, almost still boys. Slight, slender. Sixteen, maybe seventeen years old.

Move like professionals. He was not their first victim.

No one can restore him: not his body, and certainly not his soul. And now, no one can look at him anymore either. No undertaker or medic ever could do or had to do that much artful reconstruction work on the body of a respected deceased person.

He fell to the ground. Fell onto the filth of Naples harbour. Around him a sea of blood. The burning sun quickly turns it into a sticky, smelly mass. He meets his end here, where fish, cigarettes, smugglers, alcohol, cocaine, diamonds and other contraband arrive, intermingled with the blood of asylum seekers dead or alive, the human merchandise that touches down and is bought and sold, here, on this, the world’s main trafficking spot for all merchandise of illegal and murky origin - this is where he meets his end. The end of a wealthy life. A life of profiteering. Did his wealth increase with other people’s deaths? With drugs, with human trafficking? Did he stay clean because he was never caught? Protected by his friends: Bellarosa, his special kind of companion? Or the “Gransignore in Carozza”? No conviction without an accusation - here in Naples, nobody dares to accuse the guilty. He succeeded: he managed to dedicate an entire life to dark machinations and he got away with it. Or did he? Then what is this?

What would he have imagined? A different kind of death? One where his son would hold his hand for hours while he talked in monologues about his life with an undertone of: look at me and be grateful? Forgive me? That I was never there for those who loved me? Needed me? Saw myself as some kind of God? Oh yes, he loved his monologues! They started with “let’s talk about this” and they always ended with the way he believed things were.

His son - thank God his son had not been with him today. His son, his true loss. A never-ending sorrow. Irreparable for him. The one that pulls his strings. Like a puppet. The only thing in his life. MIND GAMES. Over and over. Manipulation. Always and everyone.

How well did he know his murderers? Could he have manipulated them? Would his monologues have touched them? Begging for his life? Was he one of those people referred to as “signore”? There is a saying in Naples: “Signori non crescono - signori nascono”, which means, “you can’t become a Lord and Master, you are born a Lord and Master”. That’s how it was for him. Right from the start. No other choice, where he was born - and how he grew up. A saying of the poor, who are forever excluded from the world of the “signori”. Those who spend their lives looking up to those who are what they would like to be. In Italy, the gap between rich and poor is greater than anywhere else - there is respect for what one does not have. What one is not. What is out of reach

- except for very few, and very rarely.

What exactly was his business, out there on the island? Ponza: the island of the “nouveau riche”. Didn’t he receive building permission for swimming pools? And wasn’t the one who had granted them arrested? Arrested! And was that by order of the most powerful man in Italy, second only to the president, or was that his routine day-to-day business? A director and board member of some fifty successful companies trading in anything from alcohol, fashion, media, foods, hedge funds, insurance and executive jet charter to real estate, he certainly lived dangerously. Power and control are defended by a scheming game of corruption, manipulation and lies. Danger lies in waiting everywhere. Even for you! And now it got you. You buy, pay, and receive that which you paid for. That which you gave yourself to. You were practically on your own, thank God! Don’t let me speculate: what if you hadn’t been alone... There was just your driver, and he survived. How come? Doubtlessly it was planned that way.

A professional execution like this one doesn’t normally leave any witnesses. Maybe they will come back and kill him later, when they read in the papers that he survived. Would you have been safe if you had taken the helicopter instead of the ferry from Procida to Naples?

The body was taken to Ferrara on the day of the murder. A long procession of mourners stood waiting as they arrived. Organized in just a few hours. They take him through the entire city.

Everybody was there: his family, his friends, his enemies. Also his family’s enemies. And us: Feliciano and I. Many wore black, but certainly not all of them. I did, but only because I am German. My mind would have chosen a bright red dress and a huge hat with a feather on it. Plunging neckline. I can still carry it off, or rather, again. My breasts are just the right shape and size, swelling as prescribed by the demands of lust. My hat like one of those worn at Ascot, the difference being that this occasion is unique and never to be repeated, whereas the Ascot races take place every year. You can hear loud moaning, crying, wailing. As befits Southern Italy. Especially in Campagna, but pretty much everywhere else, too. Everyone is here: businessmen from all over Italy. Corruption has no name. It simply exists. Still does. Here and now. In a small, intimate circle. Practically all brands and exports united around one coffin. How many dead bodies are they responsible for, jointly and severally? Those shot to death, driven to suicide, those maybe killed in a car crash, killed by drugs, the dead of the garbage and real estate mafia? How many? Did he die for “revenge”?

Was he getting too inconvenient for Bellarosa and her business interests? Or maybe he knew too much and, just this once, overplayed his hand? Or maybe it was a combination of all kinds of small things that she could not forgive? I am one of those things. As is Feliciano. We are the greatest agony anyone ever bestowed on Bellarosa.

It almost looks like the entire city is in mourning. Surely he would not have wanted that. The way he lived, introverted, almost shy. He, the Philosopher of High Finance! He wanted to show the rich how to use their wealth responsibly. He explained to those who asked him for money because they were in dire need, that money does not make you happy. Copied the Gransignore in Carozza with his longing for “serenita”. The Philosopher of High Finance - that’s what the media called him - is dead.

The hearse - guarded by local police and the Carabinieri - creeps along the streets of Ferrara towards the cemetery. Followed by countless black limousines filled with mourners, bodyguards, Carabinieri and police, he finally reaches his ultimate resting place. Why the bodyguards? Now? He is already dead! Everyone feels unsafe surrounded by all this power, all this loss of control. One can feel the fear. I can smell it. They take him to the mausoleum - the future burial vault for his family. An entire building for him and his family. His final piece of real estate. No sea views, this time? That’s what he felt he was worth. Money does not make you happy! Serenita! Rest in peace! This is my first Italian funeral. Later, they will push the coffin into a drawer, they told me. Italians are terrified of being devoured by maggots beneath the soil. However, he will be well set up here - an exciting monument will be added later - an original sculpture by Alberto Giacometti, the world-famous Swiss sculptor, yes, that’s what will adorn his grave. It’s meant to depict you. Giacometti died in 1966. Someone bought it for you at auction. Just like the other Giacomettis that changed ownership within minutes of going under the hammer at Sotheby’s in London, for sixty-two million pounds. Rest in peace - whatever is left of you. And your soul, which has so much still to deal with that surely you will be reborn soon. Serenita!

In the background, I can hear “Knockin’ on heaven’s door”. I am getting carried away. My imagination gets the better of me.

“Mama put my guns in the ground - I can’t shoot them anymore.

Knock knock knockin‘ on heaven’s door...”

Guns N’ Roses singing tenderly inside my head. No orchestra in the world can drown this out now. “Knockin’ on heaven’s door” is knocking through my entire body.

WE: FELICIANO & I

We’ve long banned a number of Italian products from our lives and our shopping lists: the multitude of Bright Colours of Veneto - nothing can deter me, not even the fact that my lovely former colleague was the one that maintained those private jets. Formula 1, the factory of creativity in Piedmont with its stream of new ideas for the world of driving and flying, the scent of Emilia Romagna captured in candles, creams and perfumes; comfy shoes with gummi bears stuck to the heels, prestigiously worn by corporate wives - totally banned, and soon my son will exchange his love of the red racing car as well as the world-famous chocolate factory that’s been so successful with all its brand names: crumbs of nuts in little balls of chocolate, a cherry in alcohol, sponsorship on MTV and VH1 from my own times past. It would be so hard to deprive kids of that yummy nut-nougat spread!

And we must not forget Adonis the beautiful! What yacht shall we use today? Not a problem for the president of the “Nouveau Riche Yacht Club” on Ponza. Cigarettes? Alcohol? No question! TobacPac and any box full of weed spewing out of packaging manufactured by your machinery? Unconditionally banned from Ferrara, Italy, after allegations of socialist tendencies for the purpose of subtly simulated possible intellectualism? And here he is, “Lello”, with the little cap, warbling on about Emilia Romagna communism in the house of the “Church Tower”

- still invited to glittering places by the Gransignore in Carozza high up in the hills above the sea on the island of Ponza! Drives well, doesn’t it? Called by the conceited

Gransignore, Germany’s most famous racing driver of all time drove that red car unerringly. Sadly, he wasn’t always on target, and certainly not always first. Wasn’t his fault that the marketing was more brilliant than the engineering! What power he wields, the Gransignore in Carozza... Is it really true that he is the most powerful man in Italy, after Silvio Berlusconi?

I wish I could have placed bets on Silvio Berlusconi’s choice of divorce lawyer. Way off the mark! I’d have lost that bet. That’s no surprise, because my choice of Barbara della Guerra’s stardom and fame gathered bitter-dark clouds above her head. Not that she lost a lot of cash from her bank account when she represented her client’s case against me - no, certainly not that. As Italy’s top divorce lawyer, she was no longer allowed to practise at court... all that’s left now is silly television shows! A circus full of passive clowns. They hide behind those who take the fall for them - in jail, or in death. The second option being much more likely. Safer.

PRIVATE JETS AND OTHER FLIGHTS OF FANCY

Phone call from my Swiss NetJets office. Get in touch with Dr Amos in Ferrara, he may be interested in purchasing a share in a private jet. Fine. I arrange an appointment, confirm it with the secretary and ask, naively:

“What line of business... what industry - is Dottore in?”

“You’ll have to ask him. I’m not authorized to give out any information,” she replies, almost embarrassed for me.

My visit to Ferrara: I remember that I was tired. Dr Amos, boring, early forties, sits opposite me. Thick black hair, dark blue made-to-measure suit, handmade English shoes. A soft smile that emphasizes his personal power as much as that of his office. Located in the most beautiful part of town - across from the cathedral -chrome, glass and marble, a perfect combination of old and new. Just like his white collar to go with the dark blue made-to-measure suit. Fashionable, conservative, simple, elegant.

“I’m not interested in a share of whatever kind of jet, Signorina,” he says, charming and distant. “May I call you Signorina?” A soft smile plays around the corners of his mouth.

“Prego Dottore.” He may.

“I’m a pilot myself and I intend to acquire my own aircraft. What are your conditions of work at NetJets? Can you come and work for me? I am preparing to set up a company to run a jet charter business in Italy. Interested? May I invite you to dinner?”

His smugness knows no bounds within this unending monologue he’s starting to get into. I decline, need to get back.

“How long have you lived in Italy? I’ve always had a thing for German women...”

Unbelievable, I think.

“How can I get in touch with you? When may I see you again?”

He describes his dealings and those of his company -he calls it a “holding company” - as “Mergers & Acquisitions”.

“I’m not interested in “merging” with you right now, and I’m not available for acquisition either,” I turn him down.

“No, ... thank you, ... my train to Milano leaves in forty minutes. But thank you again. Of course we can stay in touch. Arrivederci Dottore!”

The way he looks at me and holds my hand tells me that that’s exactly what will happen.

David would have asked me how it went anyway. NetJets was still in its infancy in Europe, run by David in Zug - for tax reasons. Legally represented by Ernesto Sprungler and backed by his MaxiJetCompany. Ernesto and his sensational know-how of dealing in jets. He was not even remotely like Saint-Exupery’s Little Prince. One plane in - one plane out, preferably in African countries. A huge list of contacts and appointments. Flying Gulfstreams to sales events and Citation 10s to Geneva, London or wherever the client wanted him. Transatlantic ultra-long range jets. Groundings of luxury class new planes - some on their maiden flight -navigated by our pilots out of Lisbon. Clients whose names were never made public, Tiger Woods being the only exception. The year is 1996. And I am drinking a quick, strong espresso at Ferrara station, waiting for my train back to Milano, with not the faintest inkling of what fate has in store for me...

I’m living at Franco Bossi’s stables between Como and Milano. Franco, former international show jumping champion, and Devina and Don Juan - my two darlings. I can cope with appointments like the one in Ferrara only because I come home to animals and nature. My consumption of some thirty cigarettes a day doesn’t quite fit that image - a small vice that I have since given up. David at NetJets is getting more demanding by the day and the winter months are so sad in damp, drizzly Northern Italy near Lake Como. To this day I fail to understand what the Germans and the English like so much about the Northern Italian lakes. For a start, Italians don’t even regard this area as Italy proper, it’s only Italy to northern folk. And once you’ve crossed the border into Switzerland, even the pasta doesn’t taste right anymore! There’s no sea, but there’s loads of fog and humidity. From November to February, you should never take the motorway to Turin before 11 a.m. - you won’t be able to see your hand in front of your face. The same goes for driving from Milano to Ferrara.

“You’ll be based in the Swiss office here in Zug as from now, and not at home in your cosy stables near Como,” David informs me during my next visit at the Zug office.

The daily trip to the office is something I’ve not had for many a year; it’s not something I’m fond of. This caused me to make a fast but well-considered decision: I took a sheet of A4 paper and wrote a quick handwritten resignation.

“You can’t mean that!” David’s face crumbles.

Me, I’m impulsive, in a planned sort of a way - he hadn’t expected that. In retrospect I enjoy thinking about the power I had then and think I should have made more of it at the time. What went with me were the contact details of clients and potential clients. After all, I had been selected as their first Managing Director for Europe. And not just because I was fluent in three languages, knew the music scene inside-out thanks to my previous work at MTV, was great at establishing contact with people and always took “no” to mean “not just yet”. Of all my jobs to date, the most interesting by far has been this: being part of the birth of a new TV station. I was actively involved in the launch of VH1 in Germany, a subsidiary of Viacom and sister-company of MTV Europe. Took clients to rock concerts. Was Marketing Manager for Fortune 500 at mega events. Clients and potential clients of NetJets quite enjoyed meeting up with me, too: that was my advantage as a beautiful woman, daintily longlegged in stiletto heels, trying to find takers for those expensive private airplane shares. Swiss publishers, musicians of all nationalities, Russian oligarchs, directors of giant multi-nationals, owners of mid-size family businesses; tall, short, fat, thin, friendly, hostile, young but more often old, impotent, grey-haired, bald-headed, voracious, greedy-for-success, power-driven, controlling MEN.

“Don’t you ever come to Monte Carlo?”

“When can I see you in St. Moritz? I have a chalet in Suvretta. But not over Christmas, that’s when I’ll be there with my family.”

“Nice try!”

I’m paid well by NetJets, thank you. And I don’t do double-work: it’s either for money or...

But, instead of really savouring this feeling of power after tendering my resignation, I sat in my office, drank too much coffee, smoked one cigarette after the other and called Dottore in Ferrara. He would have to know, just like all the other clients and contacts, that in future he could no longer get in touch with me at NetJets. Arrogantly, he said:

“You rang to ask me for a job, didn’t you?”

How smug... A NetJets colleague warns me. He’s Italian, an engineer who maintains our planes and used to maintain those of the “multitude of bright colours” in the Veneto.

“Dottore’s family is in Sicily,” I learn. “There’s this lady billionaire he is, or maybe was, supposedly associated with, whose ex-husband is apparently in jail, put there by her because of corruption. A straw man fronting their illegal dealings,” my colleague Federico explains to me.

I think he’s mistaking him for someone else... Lots of people live in Ferrara after all. Wipe that thought away; don’t even allow it.

“Voglio la mia independenza!”

I want my independence! ... That’s what Dr Amos writes in his book. Independenza. A term, name, word with the simple meaning “independent” - he likes that very much.

“A good friend of mine named his yacht “Independence”,” Amos explains to me like a little kid talking about his toys.

He wouldn’t let it go, regarded my phone call as an invitation to tango.

“When can I see you?” he asks me. “Are you coming to Ferrara? Or Monte Carlo? To Milan?”

“No, I can’t. And I’m not calling to ask for a job. Have made plans, know what I’ll be doing,” I say confidently.

“So when can I see you?” He won’t leave it alone...

“May I call you?” Yes, of course, he may...

BERLIN

I left the office and drove myself and my midnight-blue Porsche Carrera 4 back to Como, to Don Juan and Devina and to my removal boxes because I had made my decision: back to Berlin. My friend Aurelia was living in my flat now. I didn’t want to give up completely on my love for Italy, but the infatuation had weakened in the grey, damp chilliness of the Northern Italian February. Tomorrow, Evita and Alexander will arrive from the stables near Berlin, to collect me, my horses, my Hutschenreuther dinnerware, the crystal glasses and silver spoons, and my designer clothes by Versace, Chanel, Cavalli and Valentino. Three suitcases full of shoes: stilettos in every shade of colour, courts of all types, Sergio Rossi vying for space with Prada. Handbags for every outfit. Louis Vuitton next to Hermes. Chanel dresses, riding boots, spurs and saddles cuddled up to each other in Alexander’s Dodge, pulling the horse trailer with my Westphalian Don Juan and my Hanoverian Devina. Travel in style! We spent a lovely evening in the little pizzeria in Como and I floated in-between feeling bad for not having managed to survive in macho country as a straniera - a foreign woman - and congratulating myself for having had the guts to at least try. Probably it had to do with the mist over Lake Como, a place I have not missed to this day.

In the February cold, accompanied by fog, ice and snowstorms we drove in convoy across Austria to Berlin - Devina, Don Juan, Evita, Alexander and I.

How beautiful is the rain in Berlin during the winter months! Aurelia was waiting for me and a wonderful time began. She had problems: job, money, family, men... We went back and forth between Berlin and Verona, where she had a flat right next to the Arena. We enjoy our life, currently so easy, in-between cappuccino, prosecco, pasta, sex, the sea and the future.

IN LOVE WITH YOU

Dottore got in touch with me almost daily, rang me and allowed himself to be carried away enough to tell me: “Talking on the phone with you makes me feel as though I’m standing in a flower meadow.”

Who on earth is taken in by that? ME!

A short time later, Dottore came to Berlin. I picked him up in my Porsche Carrera 4, a car that had cost me a fortune in money and nerves: a lemon. In Italy they would say, “fatto un giorno di sciopero” - they would know! - built during a strike. And so it came to pass that Porschina, my nickame for HER, went on strike on the way from the airport to the Four Seasons Hotel at the Gendarmenmarkt - back then, the hotel was still there. Maybe I should have listened to the Technology Angel who kept taking my Porsche out of action. I didn’t, though. Porsches were invented for beautiful women -for women who want to slowly meander around town on four wheels. Who want to cruise. To be seen. Women who don’t respond to all those admiring glances. These cars are driven with pride by women. And not just from their fiftieth birthday onwards - no: they’re in their early thirties. Arrogant and of childbearing age. Beautiful, the right side of forty. Curious, seductive, prepared. Provocative - ahead of their time. In knowledge, looks, intellect, internationality - a dazzle of emotions, sensitivity, vanity. Aware of their power. Searching for danger.

During the drive, Dottore talks about Carolina, his exgirlfriend. “In the end I had to persuade her to have an abortion, I didn’t even know whether the child was mine or not. I was there - during the abortion. What a horrible experience she put me through!” A pause. He forces back tears. I keep quiet. Concentrate on the traffic. Feeling sorry for himself, again? Yes, apparently so. Carolina started an affair with some other guy whom she married in the end. They had three children together, Dottore presumes.

After dinner he took my hand - looked deep into my eyes and uttered the craziest sentence I’ve ever heard in connection with a seduction:

“I have just made love to you with my eyes!”

We still addressed each other formally... in Italian... and we did it six times that night... hallelujah! He felt like a seventeen-year-old and when he talked with me on the phone, he saw himself in a “prato fiorito”, a flower meadow. I felt so powerful! Was practically addicted to his charm. Within the shortest time. Addicted to him.

HE & I

He would not let me out of his arms - by phone, of course. I was the angel, the diva and his geisha, the one who made all his undreamt-of fantasies come true. Maybe I should mention at this point that Dottore wasn’t quite living on his own. By his - Italian - side there still was Bellarosa. She who, as he says, was never beautiful.

“Non era mai una bella donna”, he says.

No, she really wasn’t. I think that ugly women should absolutely have this BELLA in their name, for reasons of justice. She did however have something that fascinated him: money and power. And, in the manner of persons who have very much of those, she controlled him: constant phone calls and her comment about his visit to Berlin:

“What are you up to with Lili Marlene?”

Her imagination can stretch to ordinary affairs, but no further.

“Believe me, I am alone. Alone with you on the telephone, Bella. Yes, I love you! Only you!”

I hear him whispering, through the almost closed door of the suite. See myself as the “Blue Angel”. His sensitivity decreases in proportion with the increase of power and control. Erasing fantasies, provided they were there in the first place.

“No - I haven’t had sex with Bellarosa in six years,” he declares.

“Other women?” I ask with a chuckle, eyebrows raised, already not believing what he is about to say.

“She must not know - she would be so hurt. That’s

why she asked me to never tell her about it, if it should ever happen.”

“So why does she ask after me, then - Lili Marlene?” I want to know, provocatively.

“Is that her personal fantasy, stuck in the German war years?” I smirk.

“Cynic!” I think. Yes, I’d have made a damn good Lili Marlene! You need talent for that. Which I have. I HAVE SKILLS! That’s how my English lawyer assesses me, ironically, many years later. Later - much, much later.

Between now and later, there will be a number of exciting and stressful years. And I know how to utilize them, my skills!

“How come you don’t have children? Together or separately?” I am interested.

“Well, we tried once. It didn’t work. Bellarosa is ten years older than me,” Amos replies. He was in his early forties at the time.

“Even the best IVF specialist could not help us. I’ve been with Bellarosa for ten years now,” he says resentfully, with melancholy.

“She in the east wing - you in the west wing of the fully-staffed mansion house? Or the other way around?” I ask cheekily, chewing my drinking straw. Provocatively, sexy. Now I could understand all the better.

He contemplates my full lips, which I purse, slightly opened. Always aware of my full lips, of their impact.

“You are the woman, the lover, the girl, the whore, the angel, the Madonna, the mother in every conceivable variation for me, Aelita! My Aelitina, Aelitissima,” he vowed softly.

And I understood that Bellarosa represented an extension of the umbilical chord, without which he cannot survive. A mother-son relationship, business relationship, power relationship. The greatest form of dependence known in this galaxy. I had yet to find out where that got me, walking into the lioness’s den in the control room of Starship Enterprise, just like that!

“I’m a bitch, I’m a lover,

I’m a child, I’m a mother,

I’m a sinner, I’m a saint,

I do not feel ashamed.”

That’s exactly how I feel now.

“I’m your hell, I’m your dream,

I’m nothing in between,

I know you wouldn’t want it any other way!” sings Meredith Brooks straight from the choreography of my soul.

“... but you look at me like maybe I’m an angel underneath,

innocent and sweet ...,” she continues. 2)

Hey Amos - that’s Dottore’s real name - you Greek God of Love, have you forgotten that song already or did you never understand it? Maybe you didn’t realize what you were doing when you dedicated it to us, in our situation.

Bellarosa was old, unattractive, coarse, sarcastic, dominant, powerful in money and body - she didn’t understand him. Her laughter too loud. Men don’t like loud women. Too dominant. They don’t like dominant women either. If they did like them, it would be in a brothel, as Domina, but not in real life, by their side. The far side of

2) “The Bitch”, by Meredith Brooks

fifty is Bellarosa. A fading rose. An age where it no longer matters whether it’s “early” or “late” fifties. Whatever it is, it’s too late. I was the exact opposite: young, beautiful, slender, long-legged, elegant, blonde... and I understood his cock! With my spirit, my soul, my breasts, my experience, my longing, my lust. But most of all he adored my intelligence - wow!!! That’s what I needed more than anything, for screwing!

Two weeks later he came to Berlin again, during the ILA, the Internationale Luftfahrt Ausstellung. He tells me he wants to purchase a Hawker 1000 and is looking for the best the market has to offer. Purchase price: around eleven million US dollars. He gives me a list of names: current owners of this type of plane.

“Please would you ring them up for me?” he asks. “Of course I’ll pay the phone charges.”

How cheap is that, Dottore? I think. I too am at the ILA this time, I’m meeting with NetJets and handing back my laptop. At the fair, I run into a representative from Raytheon, manufacturers of the Hawker plane. We get talking and I ask about used Hawker 1000s.

“This isn’t by any chance to do with an Italian client, whose name starts with A and who comes from Ferrara?” the representative wants to know.

Small world! I’ll stay in contact with him. We can always share the commission, if I help him to stay in touch with Amos.

“He was at the fair with his pilot friend Antonio. He let him do all the talking. His eyes controlled the atmosphere.”

I think Amos was gauging the profits.

A short time later, the Raytheon representative warns me about Amos:

“I’ve spoken with a business partner in Monaco, he’s responsible for Southern Europe. Broker for private jets - you understand.”

Chris, the rep, shares his secrets with me.

“They all know him there - and of course his life partner, Bellarosa. Careful!” Chris hisses in my ear.

“Monte Carlo isn’t all that far from Beaulieu sur Mer. That’s where she has her villa by the sea. Everyone knows that this is Mafia! Do you understand?”

No. I don’t understand. Can’t, don’t want to. That was the second warning, both entirely unconnected. I call Federico again, the engineer at NetJets.

“Girl,” he says, “you are moving in very dangerous circles...!”

“I can’t back out anymore,” I think.

And if it is as dangerous as they say, then it doesn’t matter whether I continue or stop now... This is my best argument for not giving up Amos. My love, his love, the excellent sex. The game he plays with me - a game I enjoy very much. I don’t want to stop, can’t stop! Am carried away, entirely enmeshed by the force of his attraction. His love, his control, his power...

Aurelia witnessed those endless phone calls between Amos and me, the preparations for our meetings, trying to choose the right lingerie, shoes, dresses, the right nail varnish.

“Are you sure you want to wear this dress?” I hear her ask. “What lingerie are you taking? Let me see. Oh yes, that’s sexy enough.”

This time, she’s happy with my arrangements. She used to read the Tarot for me every morning, accompanied by cappuccino and many cigarettes. On the way to the stables. Going riding at nine in the morning. Aurelia was a witch - you could tell by the red hair! She used to be beautiful - very beautiful, she had many men. She slept with Robert de Niro while she was pregnant. That’s why her daughter Cornelia is the prettiest of all her children. Maybe all pregnant women should have lovers. Provided they are as exciting as Robert de Niro! Three cheers for trophy men! No - I’m not doing a review of all my affairs with important men... Not now. Later.

Aurelia thought that no better man ever loved me more than he did, and I think that too.

“Non hai conosciuto mai uno meglio di lui!” she kept saying. A superlative!