Short story: The Palazzo
It's story time again! This time it's just a silly erotic story, but one that I had a lot of fun writing. And as I always say, I hope you enjoy the read as much as I enjoyed the writing.
Before we begin, this story takes place in Italy, so here's a short glossary of Italian words, just in case:
Signore: Mr/Sir Signora: Mrs/Madam Signorina: Miss palazzo: a palace or mansion Ticino: a region of Switzerland where Italian is spoken Lugano: main city in Ticino grotto: a traditional pub in Ticino, usually in quiet rural locations pietra dura: a decorative technique where hard stones like marble are carved and the carvings are fitted with coloured stones or gems. Famously found in India's Taj Mahal, but actually invented in Italy. lido: a public outdoor swimming pool or a lakeside beach with swimming-pool-like facilities
Edoardo Porcaroli was a wealthy industrialist well known in all of Italy. He lived on a small private island located at the centre of one of the big lakes in northern Italy. The whole island was occupied by a magnificent 17th-Century palazzo and by luscious gardens famous for their exotic flowers, and for an army of giant blue peacocks that roamed around freely.
He was a regular customer of the small Milano-based travel agency where I used to work when I was twenty-five years old. In a time in which most people could plan and book their holidays themselves over the internet, our agency’s unique selling point was that we only served wealthy customers who wanted to get access to exclusive offers that were not available anywhere else.
Edoardo was very good-looking and I didn’t regard him as old despite him being forty. He dressed with impeccable Mediterranean elegance and had a dazzling smile that made heads turn everywhere he went.
Another reason why he drew so much attention when he entered a room was Benedetta Ciampi, his personal assistant. This thirty-year-old woman was the epitome of Italian female beauty and sophistication. She was always dressed in business-formal attire and leather opera gloves that hugged her hands like a second skin. She usually wore her hair in a tight bun, which she probably did to appear professional, but which I also think gave her a certain air of sexy librarian.
Benedetta followed Edoardo like a ghost. In fact, there was not a single photo of Edoardo (who was often in newspapers and tabloids) where Benedetta wasn’t close by. She usually stood to his right, exactly half a step behind him, which made it clear that he was the boss. However, her demeanour was in no way demure or timid. To me she looked like a dominant woman who held a lot of power in her gloved hands.
One day, Edoardo came to the agency without his assistant, and that day he specifically asked to be seen by me. My boss happily led him to my desk and offered him a cup of coffee, and I asked him what kind of destination he had in mind. He smiled brightly and said:
“Where do YOU want to go?”
I was not at all prepared to get that answer. It was no secret that Edoardo liked to surround himself with beautiful and famous women, and that the frequent travels he booked with us had the purpose of offering his dates unique experiences. With those words he was asking me on a date.
“I don’t quite understand, Signore,” I replied cautiously at first. But then, the words just burst out of my mouth: “Why me? I’m not rich or famous. And I am totally uninteresting!”
“True, you’re not famous. But you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, and that makes you interesting to me,” he said. “Besides, what better way to learn what makes you interesting, Signorina Ferrari, than taking you out? May I call you Giulia?”
I went on a date with him that very evening, and I even agreed to change into a red gown that was waiting for me in his helicopter.
After a half-hour helicopter tour above Milano, he took me to one of those clubs with tuxedoed bouncers that normal people only can walk by without ever knowing what goes on inside. It was a bit like having a date with James Bond. We entered the club and they greeted him like he owned the place; then they led us to a private room with exquisite furniture and artwork, soft lighting and a subtle perfume that lingered in the air.
To top the unexpected, we were served by two topless waitresses with white cotton gloves and Venetian masks. I asked him why he thought that that was an appropriate place to have a first date with a respectable woman, to which he replied with a smug smile on his lips:
“Do female breasts offend you? Why on Earth? You have a magnificent pair yourself!”
The sheer shamelessness with which he said that made me laugh, and I realised that the presence of those sculptural women was no reason for me to be uncomfortable. After that I fully enjoyed my evening with Edoardo.
I probably never got to love Edoardo the way he wanted me to, but the truth is that it was very hard to resist his charm, and thus I accepted every date he proposed, and before long we took a trip organised by my own travel agency.
We spent a week at the private palace of a former Maharajah family in Rajasthan — a jewel of Mughal architecture with pietra dura ornaments and marble lattices that rivalled the Taj Mahal. Our room was at the top of a tower, and it had its own lotus-shaped pool with musk-infused water. From up there we had a magnificent view of the jungle and the intensely red sky at sunset. It was during one of those magical sunsets that we made love for the first time and I felt that I would say yes if he asked me to marry him.
Long story short, I did marry Edoardo, but not quite the conventional way, with months-long planning and invitations and a hen party with my friends. Edoardo and I were on one of our “regular” dates in Ticino. We had had lunch in a lovely little grotto and were strolling along Lugano’s lake promenade when he suddenly grabbed my hand and dragged me across the street and into a small church. He hugged the priest, who turned out to be a friend of his, and whispered something in his ear. The priest then left and Edoardo knelt down and asked me to marry him there and then. However, instead of a giving me a ring, he slid his hand into the right pocket of his jacket and took out a pair of white leather opera gloves similar to the ones that his assistant Benedetta used to wear, and who, by the way, I hadn’t seen again since I had started dating Edoardo.
The priest returned wearing his ceremonial clothes, and while he prepared the chalice and other ceremonial paraphernalia, Edoardo helped me put the gloves on, and just a few minutes later I became his wife.
Perhaps it’s symbolic of the kind of relationship I had with Edoardo, but I didn’t even question why he had those gloves in his pocket in the first place. I simply put them on and married him without a second thought, and when we left the church and returned to the lake promenade like nothing had happened, I felt like I had to ask him for permission to take my gloves off.
“Those gloves are yours now, Giulia, and you can do with them whatever you want. You don’t have to wear them if you don’t want to, but I will cherish every occasion you do wear them, for they are a symbol of our union.”
I couldn’t take my gloves off after hearing those words, so I kept them on for the rest of the day. In fact, I still had them on when we had sex as a married couple that night. His penis was harder than it had ever been before and his lust was insatiable, and that’s how I understood that he had a glove fetish. And although him having a fetish didn’t bother me, it bothered me that Benedetta was always gloved because I took that as a sign that she wanted my husband to like her.
Once married to Edoardo, I gave up my job at the agency and became the lady of the island palazzo. He had a dozen house servants, all female, all young and beautiful, and all dressed in pastel-coloured Roman-style togas and satin opera gloves.
The most beautiful of them was a twenty-year-old redhead with the body of a classical marble statue and velvety white skin. Her name was Sofia Bianchi. While other servants were assigned specific fixed duties like working in the kitchen or the laundry room, Sofia’s assignment was to follow Edo everywhere and to make him happy. She served us dinner and stood by while we ate, ready to help whenever needed. For dessert, she fed him grapes by hand, and after that she sat on the floor and massaged Edo’s feet while he was reading the newspaper. Later she tended to his bed and even helped him wash himself. And she did all of that with her opera gloves on, and if it was an activity that could soil her gloves, she pulled a pair of disposable latex gloves over her regular ones.
I would have resented Sofia for all the things she did for Edo if it wasn’t because I often saw her snog one of the gardeners, and because Edo didn’t pay any real attention to her. She seemed to be just a service provider to him.
The person I resented was Benedetta, the leather-gloved “librarian” who had not actually left Edo’s life. In fact, she lived with us in the palazzo. She went with him wherever he went, in particular when he left home for work-related activities. And when they returned home, they spent hours working together in the palazzo’s library. The only one of Edo’s activities which wasn’t part of Benedetta’s job description were his romantic dates, which is the only reason why I hadn’t seen Benedetta in the months in which Edo and I were dating.
Although I was not unhappy, I often felt lonely. I had a boat at my disposal so I could leave the island if Edo was gone, but the boat could take me only to the lake shore, and from there it still was an awfully long way to Milano, where all my friends worked and lived. And thus, I spent many hours every day with nobody but Sofia, while Edo and Benedetta were gone working. Sofia kept me company. We used to talk or to watch the telly together, and sometimes we played chess or card games. Once, I observed with surprise how expertly Sofia handled the playing cards with her eternally gloved hands, and I pitied her for being a slave of Edo’s fetish. I told her that she was allowed to take her gloves off, given that Edo was not at home.
She shook her head and said:
“Don’t worry about that, Signora Giulia. I’ve been wearing gloves for so many years that I feel incomplete without them. I even sleep in gloves.”
Some months later, Benedetta started staying at home while Edo went out to work, first just sporadically for a day or two every week, but eventually Edo started going on “work-related trips” that lasted several days. One day he said he was going away for two weeks, but he didn’t tell me any details about where he was going, nor did he explain to me why Benedetta was not going with him.
On the first three of those fourteen days, dinner was the only time of the day at which I saw Benedetta. Edo always used to sit at the top of the long dinner table, Benedetta to Edo’s right, and I to Edo’s left, directly facing Benedetta, and yet separated from her by an invisible wall. When Edo was gone, Benedetta and I still sat at our usual spots, facing each other but not really sharing the meal with each other. She was distanced and cold, and she continued to wear her business suits and leather opera gloves.
“Why are you like that, Benedetta?” I asked with anger.
She laid down her fork and looked me in the eyes.
“Like what, Giulia?”
I didn’t expect Benedetta to call me “Signora”, like Sofia and the other servants did, but the way she said my name felt like an insult.
“Why do you have to be such a bitch?”
“I am not,” she said, and she went on eating, apparently untouched by my words.
“Have you had sex with Edoardo?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“More than once?”
“Yes.”
“Do you love him?”
“No.”
She answered clearly and without a flinch. That made me rabid.
“Have you slept with each other after I married him?” I asked with my voice close to breaking.
And then something unexpected happened: Benedetta lowered her gaze and fidgeted nervously with her fork.
“It didn’t mean anything,” she said. “I was bored in that hotel room, and... It was just for fun.”
Tears of rage washed down my face. I stood up and tried to slap her, but she caught my hand and held it firmly.
“Don’t do that, Giulia. I’m not your enemy. Don’t you see that it’s not me who is hurting you?”
“Who then?” I sobbed.
Benedetta grabbed a serviette and cleaned the tears off my cheeks. “You know the answer yourself, Giulia. You know I always accompany Edoardo anywhere he goes. Except when he has romantic meetings.”
The next morning, I called the travel agency and asked whether Edoardo had recently booked any trips.
“Yes, he wanted to do that Rajasthan trip again. He said it had been so romantic!” replied one of my former co-workers enthusiastically. And then she stopped and her voice changed instantly. “Wait! You’re not with him in Rajasthan right now? Why?”
Because he was on a date with someone else.
I fetched the white leather gloves Edoardo had given me for our wedding, cut them in pieces with a pair of gardening scissors, and told one of the gardeners to bury the pieces.
“What are you doing?”
I turned around and saw Benedetta in the eyes. The way she asked that question didn’t sound judgemental, so I answered.
“Those are the gloves I wore on our wedding night. And every time we had sex since then. I don’t want to see them ever again.”
Benedetta hugged me strongly and I cried in her gloved arms, and I’m not sure she did, but I think she kissed the top of my head while she was hugging me.
“Giulia, cry if you think that helps, but in the end, the only thing that will really help you is discovering that you can be happy without him. If you want, I can help you with that. This evening, at dinner.”
I nodded in agreement and she tightened her hug, which lasted perhaps one more minute, but which to me felt like an eternity. And much too short at the same time.
I didn’t know what Benedetta had in mind, but that evening I put on my best gown and went to the dining room, mostly feeling curious about the emotions I had felt when Benedetta hugged me.
I had no love or respect for Edoardo any more, and so I symbolically took a seat on his chair at the top of the table. Sofia, who was looking beautiful in a peach-coloured toga and white opera gloves, smiled and diligently moved the cutlery she had laid out for me to the spot I chose.
A minute later, Benedetta entered the dining room. For the first time ever, she was wearing her sumptuous wavy hair down. It framed her gorgeous face beautifully. And she had exchanged her business suit for a long-sleeved silk robe. However, she was still wearing her black gloves, though they were looking a lot shinier than usual.
She sat down at the other end of the long dining table. Strangely though, albeit the physical distance between us being much larger than usual, I felt closer to her. The wall that used to divide us was gone.
Sofia served us dinner and stood close by while Benedetta and I ate and talked with each other. As usual, Benedetta’s answers were short and assertive, but that evening her eyes sparkled.
“Is it true?” I asked. “What you said earlier?”
“What exactly?”
“Will you show me how to be happy without him?”
“I want to.”
“I want to hurt him,” I said.
“Understandable.”
“But if you help me do that, you would be betraying him.”
“Edoardo doesn’t deserve my loyalty. He’s betrayed me many times.”
“You said you didn’t love him,” I argued. “How can he have betrayed you?”
Benedetta sighed. For the first time ever, she was out of words.
“Let’s just say...” she said, “He likes to think that some of my best ideas are actually his ideas. But let’s quit the idle talk, shall we?”
And with that, Benedetta gave Sofia a sign, upon which Sofia helped Benedetta out of her robe. And then Benedetta climbed onto the dining table.
She walked down the length of the dining table, like a fashion model on a catwalk, while Sofia barely had time to push the empty dishes out of Benedetta’s way. Benedetta did it deliberately to exhibit her power, and I think she intentionally scratched the expensive rosewood table with her high heels.
And, of course, she also did it to exhibit the exaggerated beauty of her naked body. She was wearing nothing except for her gloves, and when the robe came off, it turned out that those were not her usual leather gloves. The gloves she was wearing that evening went all the way up to Benedetta’s shoulders, and they were made of an insanely shiny material that seemed like glued to her skin. Those gloves were made of latex, but they looked like a high-fashion product!
Benedetta stopped when she arrived at my spot, and I stood up and directly faced her marvel of a bush. I had never had anything with a woman before, but all of a sudden I wanted to bury my face between her legs.
“You want to seduce me?” I asked.
“If you want to.”
“Do you love me?”
“No. But I have desired you since the first time I saw you.”
She knelt down and gifted me her brightest smile. I smiled back and she held my face in her gloved hands and gave me a long and tender kiss. It was the most wonderful mix of sensations — the sweet taste of the fruit she had just eaten, combined with the intoxicating rubber aroma that her gloves emanated.
“Would you wear gloves for me, please, Giulia?”
“No,” I said. “This night is about us. Why should we do something that Edoardo imposes on us?”
“Don’t be silly!” said Benedetta with a giggle. “I’ve had a glove fetish since the day I was born. And all the women in this house wear gloves because I want them to. Ask Sofia if you want.”
I looked at Sofia, who was standing just a foot away, staring at us with wide eyes and a lustful smile, and she simply nodded her head.
“But Edoardo?”
“Edoardo thinks he likes gloves because I do. That’s what I told you. He likes to steal my ideas.”
“Well, then,” I said. “I’ll wear gloves for you tonight, but I want to wear your gloves, the ones you’re wearing now.”
“Absolutely not!” She laughed out loud and kissed the tip of my nose. “But you can have a pair exactly like this.”
And then she looked at Sofia and pointed at the door with a slight head movement. Sofia nodded and immediately ran off to fetch me a pair of latex gloves.
While Sofia was away, Benedetta undressed me and made me lie on the dining table.
“I knew that you liked gloves,” she said. “You may think I haven’t noticed, but you always stare at my gloved hands.”
And then she delicately traced the curvature of my breasts with her latex-covered finger. She barely touched my skin, but my brain was flooded with overwhelming input nonetheless. The result: goosebumps on my back, the heat of sexual desire inside my body, the need to kiss Benedetta’s fleshy lips!
When Sofia returned, she was wearing a pair of shoulder-length latex gloves herself. They were the perfect shade of pink to match her toga, while the gloves that she had chosen for me were red. However, I was disappointed that they were not shiny at all. But after she had helped me put them on, she poured a viscous liquid into Benedetta’s gloved hands, who then rubbed my hands and arms with that liquid and made my red gloves shine like the sun. It was like she was photoshopping reality for my enjoyment.
Paradoxically, having those gloves on didn’t affect my tactile sense. In fact, I became more aware of the texture of all the things I was touching, and just the act of exploring Benedetta’s body was enough to bring me to the brink of orgasm. Feeling her skin through the latex that coated my fingers sent bolts of immense pleasure through my whole nervous system. Besides, our shiny latex gloves were infinitely more beautiful to look at than our bare hands. I’m not saying that I have a glove fetish. Benedetta’s sculptural naked body would have turned me on without gloves as well, but I can’t deny that long latex gloves make sex better.
After a while of exploration we ended up sixty-nining on the dining table. It was my first time eating pussy, and I loved it! Her delicate, pink labia were a work of art, beautiful to look at, and why not, even delicious to taste and smell!
It may be due to the newness of it all, but I was the first one to orgasm, and that orgasm was the most intense of my life up to that day. I remember being happy that I had short nails because otherwise, the intensity with which my body’s core was contracting would have made me puncture my gloves as I sunk my fingers into Benedetta’s flesh. I grabbed her buttocks with my hands, and buried my nose between her legs and screamed into her vulva. And then, all of my muscles suddenly relaxed and caused an explosive release of sexual tension that I will never forget.
After that I was drained, but I kept licking Benedetta’s clit and fucking her vagina with my latex fingers as well as I could. Soon after, she came, too, and then we made out passionately and licked our vaginas’ juices off each other’s gloves.
We stopped after a while because we heard a faint moaning close by.
It was Sofia. She had not left the room while Benedetta and I were satisfying each other. On the contrary, she had been watching us all the time, and at some point she had taken off her toga and had started to rub her clit and her breasts with her latex-gloved hands.
She immediately hid her hands behind her back when she realised that we were watching her, and her freckled cheeks turned nearly as red as her hair.
Benedetta laughed out loud and jumped off the table.
“What are you hiding, Sofia? You think we are dumb?” she asked, taking Sofia’s hand. And then she looked at me and asked: “Do you mind, Giulia?”
“Not at all!”
So Benedetta took my hand as well and lead Sofia and me to the swimming pool in the basement. On our way there we walked past some of the house servants, who averted their gaze politely, and I briefly wondered what they thought at the sight of three naked women with shoulder-length latex gloves. However, neither Benedetta nor Sofia seemed to care, so why was I supposed to care! It was my house, after all.
We stepped into the Jacuzzi and the pool boy turned on the bubbles and left hastily. Benedetta and I made Sofia sit in the middle, and we started off fondling her breasts with our latex-covered hands, and kissing her neck and her earlobes, and Sofia giggled like a teenager. I also fellated Sofia’s latex-covered fingers, which initially felt like a silly idea out of a cheap porn film, but which turned out to be highly enjoyable. I simply loved to feel the smooth latex in my mouth, and the intimacy of the act turned me on like crazy.
Then Benedetta and I took turns going underwater and licking Sofia’s vulva while the other one of us remained above water and kissed Sofia’s sweet young mouth, and we didn’t need much effort to make Sofia reach a cosmic orgasm that made the otherwise gentle girl scream like she was giving birth.
When Sofia’s spasms ebbed, she smiled and cried at the same time.
“Thank you, Signora Giulia, thank you, Beni!”
“No need to thank us,” said Benedetta.
“It was our pleasure,” I said.
Sofia gave each one of us a final kiss and stepped out of the water.
“Can I do anything for you?”
“Yes, bring us champagne,” said Benedetta.
“And have a glass yourself,” I said.
While Sofia was gone, Benedetta and I played in the water. Being in a pool wearing gloves was a new experience to me, one that I thoroughly relished. When you’re underwater, you are usually not aware of the increased pressure that the water exercises. But when you’re wearing tight latex gloves that cover your whole arm, you can feel how strongly the water encloses you. As I said before, being gloved increased my tactile sensitivity instead of reducing it, and being aware of that paradox alone was enough to turn me on.
After drinking the champagne that Sofia brought us, Benedetta and I had a shower together, with our gloves still on, obviously.
But Benedetta went away soon because she wanted to change into fresh gloves and she insisted that I do not see her bare hands. Sofia stayed with me and helped me out of my gloves, and I massaged my arms under the warm rain of the shower.
The tight latex had left red marks all over my skin, especially on the inner side of my elbows, but I felt that those were marks of love. The sweet pain of being gloved!
Sofia, who was still naked except for her gloves, dried me with a fluffy towel and accompanied me to my bedroom, where she had already prepared something for me. A rainbow of shoulder-length latex gloves was displayed on my bed.
“Which colour do you want to wear, Signora?”
“You want me to sleep in latex gloves?” I asked, massaging the achy spots on my arms.
“Don’t do it for me, Signora Giulia! But Beni is waiting for you in her bedroom. I don’t think she’s done with you yet.”
I donned a pair of electric blue gloves and went to Benedetta’s room. She welcomed me with a long and passionate kiss and then led me to her bed where we made out while we caressed each other with our latex-gloved hands. It was a wild night. I had at least six more orgasms, drank a full bottle of champagne and ended up wearing those blue latex gloves for fourteen hours straight.
After that night, Benedetta and I had sex every day until Edoardo’s return ten days later. We did it in every room of the palazzo, and even outside in the gardens, with total disregard for who was watching. And every single time we had shoulder-length latex gloves on. In fact, the last five days I donned my sex gloves early in the morning and didn’t remove them for the rest of the day because it was easier that way.
We also talked a lot and got to know each other. I didn’t fall in love with her right away, but I soon learnt that Benedetta was a highly intelligent and interesting woman with whom the long hours of the day became short and enjoyable.
During those days also my relationship with Sofia changed. Sometimes I caught her giving me longing looks while she wetted her lips with the tip of her tongue. And rather than finding it inappropriate, I was flattered that the gorgeous redhead was turned on by my mere presence. So I would kiss her briefly like when you casually pet a child or a pet when you walk past them. Sometimes I stopped and inserted my gloved hand under her toga and fondled her breasts or her pubic area for a moment, and that made her purr like a kitten.
However, all this overly sexual behaviour ended when Edoardo returned home from his long trip. Benedetta and I went back to treating each other with the cold distance we used to cultivate before Edoardo’s betrayal. And Sofia lent all her attention to Edoardo, giving Benedetta and me not even a side glance.
Hence, Edoardo didn’t suspect that something had changed while he was gone, except for the obvious fact that now I wore opera gloves at all times — the finest unlined leather gloves during the day, and comfortable satin gloves for sleeping. Which made my conceited husband very happy because he undeniably thought that I did it for him.
As for my relationship with Edoardo, he definitely was betraying me, but I didn’t care. In fact, I didn’t even feel any jealousy or anger any more. But I soon started to find my life awfully boring, and I increasingly regarded Edoardo as an obstacle to my happiness.
I was starting to fall in love with Benedetta, and the occasional dates we had when Edoardo went out were not enough to satisfy my appetite for Benedetta. I longed to be with her all the time, and I wanted to sleep in her bed every night, and I wanted to feed her fruit with my gloved hands, and I wanted to make love to her in the open, and I wanted to go on trips with her and to introduce her to my friends.
And thus, one night, when Edoardo returned home from one of his dates, I made a huge fuss about nothing and even mentioned the possibility of a divorce.
“And then what?” he challenged me. “Will you go back to the travel agency and be the nobody you used to be before you married me?”
He slammed the door when he left the room, and a few minutes later I heard the engine of his boat fade away in the distance.
He didn’t come back that night. Nor the next day, nor the day after.
On the third day I called the police, and they found Edoardo’s boat stranded on a small island on the Swiss side of the lake, but there was no trace of Edoardo. They looked for him all over the shore of the lake and even had their elite divers look for him underwater, but they didn’t find him.
They were about to give up the search when a body washed up on the lido of one of the lake villages. It was blue and bloated with water, and since it was summer, it was decomposing rapidly. But the forensic specialists determined with certainty that it was Edoardo. Since they also determined that drowning had been the sole cause of dead, and since they had found open bottles of wine and vodka in the boat’s cabin, they concluded that he must have been drunk and fallen overboard. Thus his death was deemed a self-inflicted accident, and Edoardo Porcaroli became nothing more than the victim’s name in a closed case.
-----------------------------------------------
It’s been nearly two years since Edoardo died.
Upon his death, I became the sole owner of his estate and fortune, as well as the administrator of all his businesses. It was not easy at the beginning because I didn’t have an identity of my own. I was just “Porcaroli’s girl”, a young woman from a common family with no history or achievements of her own. More than one of Edoardo’s former business associates tried to trick me into signing up for disadvantageous deals, and even into selling them some of Edoardo’s enterprises under value.
But I had Benedetta. It turns out that she had been the big brain behind Edoardo’s business success all along, and she was by my side. She taught me all there is to know about business and about the art of negotiation. At the beginning, they derisively referred to us as us Porcaroli’s Widows. Later, when they realised that they couldn’t trick us so easily, they started calling us the Gloved Bitches. And now that the Porcaroli business empire is eating them all up, Benedetta and I are on the covers of business magazines.
Funnily though, in those magazines, every single interview starts either pointing out that we are “not just smart, but also beautiful”, or asking why it is that we both wear opera gloves 24/7. There is not a single photo of us without our opera gloves, neither interview photos, nor “private” photos in our Instagram accounts, nor paparazzi pics.
Unlike Edoardo, who didn’t recognise Benedetta’s worth, I value her, and I love her. She’s not my personal assistant, but my business partner, and she owns half of everything I own. By the way, we renamed the Porcaroli empire Corporazione Ferrari-Ciampi.
Benedetta is also my wife now.
We married last year, on the first anniversary of Edoardo’s demise. It was a beautiful ceremony in the gardens of our island palazzo, and we both wore quite plain white gowns, but combined with the most magnificent shoulder-length leather gloves. I went with white, which I think is the obvious choice for a bride, but Benedetta only ever wears black gloves. The media discussed for weeks which one of us had looked more striking: me in my white gloves, or Benedetta in her black gloves. I say she did, she says I did, and Sofia refuses to break the tie.
After we married, we bought a large flat in a beautiful historic house in Milano’s centre and established it as our permanent residence. We will always keep the island palazzo, but we both love city life and are much happier living in Milano.
Sofia lives with us, too, but she’s not our servant any more. We have a cleaning maid and a cook (who are allowed to dress however they want), and Sofia is... I don’t know what word to use so this doesn’t sound controversial. She’s not our slave — she’s free to leave us and live her own life if she wants to.
But as long as she’s with us, we own her. Her main purpose in life is to make Benedetta and me happy — to comfort us when we’re sad, to keep us company when we’re lonely, to satisfy us when we desire her.
But as I said before, Sofia is not our slave. In fact, she’s a student at Milano University, she has many friends of her own, and she can go anywhere she wants without our permission. Still, Sofia belongs to us, so there is one rule that she must absolutely abide by: she must come home and sleep under our roof every day.
There is a second condition, though it is not much of an imposition because she loves it: Sofia must wear shoulder-length gloves at all times. If we ever catch her or get wind that she has been seen anywhere in the city without her gloves, we will ban her from our lives for ever, and that includes the island. (Which would break her heart because she was born on the island and her grandmother still lives there.) But I’m sure that that will never happen because Sofia loves us, and we love her. We three are very happy, and I hope that this happiness will last for ever.
Though sometimes I still wake up in the middle of the night, sweating and shivering. Like right now. I feel my heart thumping loudly in my chest, and I cry thinking that we could lose it all.
Benedetta wakes up and turns on the light on her bedside table. “What’s wrong, Baby?” she asks. “The same nightmare again?”
“Yes,” I sob. “It is —”
“You don’t need to worry, my love. Because all the people in the world who know the truth about Edoardo’s death are in this room. And neither of us is ever going to tell anyone —”
“Because we’re all happier without him,” asserts Sofia, who, by the way, sleeps in our bed every night. She caresses my head with her gloved hands and kisses me all over.
I kiss my two women, their sweet lips and their gloved hands, and I thank them for being mine. And we all go back to sleep, knowing that our wonderful life can only get better every day.
Thank you, Edoardo! Rot in Hell!
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This is a fictional story written by Janey Egerton. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
