Present Day Venice Tom and Tina take dinner at the kind of restaurant only locals know about – the kind that even travel writers keep secret from their readers. Tina pauses until the waiter is out of earshot. 'So' – she fights back a cat-got-the-cream-smile – 'I hope you don't mind me talking about this, but was I really your first?'
He looks up from his spaghetti vongole and pretends not to understand, 'My first what?'
'You know…' She slices steak piazzella, and whispers, a little louder than intended, 'Your first full sexual communion? '
Tom slugs a jolt of chilled white wine and shoots her a disapproving look. 'Sex and communion are words that don't really go together.'
She arches an eyebrow, 'Oh, I don't know, I could see you in those long purple robes, nothing on beneath, me kneeling at your feet and-'
'Don't go there!' He puts up a hand. 'Don't even think it. You're a very sick girl.'
'Mister, you can't begin to imagine! I'm a journalist, I was born sick,' she apologises with a soft smile. 'And hey, you've still not answered my question.'
Tom fiddles with his wine glass. 'Yes.' He looks up at her. 'Yes, you were.'
'Phew.' She rewards him with an approving tilt of the head.
'Is that a good phew, or a bad phew?'
'It's like a wow, phew.'
'A "wow, phew"?' He laughs. 'I've never had a "wow, phew" before.'
'I guess that's because you've never had sex before.'
'Point taken.'
'So, describe it, then. What's it like, first time?'
Tom drops his cutlery in mock exasperation. 'Oh, come on! Give the boy a break. You've had your own first time, you know what it's like.'
'A long time ago.' She half laughs, picks up her wine glass, stem between middle fingers, a glisten of condensation outside a bowl of golden fluid. 'Actually, now I remember, it was horrible. Hurt like fuck and I thought I'd never want to do it again.'
Tom looks shocked.
She pins her smile back on. 'Not that bad for you, I hope.'
'No. Not bad at all.'
She feigns offence. 'Charming. I've never had a "not bad" before.'
He finally twigs. This is about emotion. Feelings. Communicating. Building a relationship. The spiritual side. The very thing he should be good at and is now blundering around at. 'I'm sorry. I guess I'm spectacularly poor at this.' He pauses and makes sure she's looking at him, staring straight into his eyes, the proverbial windows of the soul. 'Sleeping with you-' he corrects himself: 'Having sex with you – is something I'll never, ever forget.'
'Of course you won't. No one does.'
'No. Not because it was my first time, that wasn't what I meant. I didn't rush out of the church and think, whoopee, now I can have sex. It wasn't like that.'
She's taken aback, reaches for a glass of water rather than her wine.
'I'll never forget it because I felt closer to you at that moment than I've ever felt to any human being. Never mind the rush, the adrenalin, the desire. There was all that. And more. And thank you, God, for the intensity of it all. But there was more.'
Tina feels embarrassed. She'd raised the topic to be playful, to tease him, to spice up the dinner. Now she's somewhere she hadn't expected to be. 'I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be crass, earlier.'
Tom smiles; the inquisition is over. He picks up his glass again. 'You weren't.' He takes a calmer sip this time. 'Talking about it was good. The right thing to have done. So what now? What happens next?'
Next? Tina had never thought about next. She disguises her shock by looking away. Now she reaches for the wine and she hopes there's no panic on her face when she turns back to him. 'Don't expect too much, Tom. Please don't. I have an awful habit of letting people down.'