Chapter 14: Season 3 - Italy

Like Hannibal before me I was on my way to Italy. He had been heading for Rome on an elephant, and I was heading for Naples on an Airbus A320. Both of us received surprises before our arrival. As we flew across the Mediterranean Sea the Chevalier informed me Grafin von Eylau had initiated a new system concerning the meeting and entertaining of mature females, due in part to a shortage of young girls available to accompany mature females seeking young men. I was now to be an escort for single mature females -- known as Cougars -- more often than escorting the mature ‘mother’ of the Chevalier’s young ‘date’.

“The Grafin has found it more profitable that her young girls be hired on a longer term than two or three weeks.” The Chevalier said. “She has a contract with a Saudi businessman who hires the girls -- the majority of them in the fourteen to seventeen age range -- to be ‘companions’ to rich Asian and Middle Eastern men when they visit the USA. In effect they are renting a sex slave – most of the girls being blonde haired, blue eyed, and under age -- catnip for Asians and Middle Eastern men, and for many other sorts of man, of course.”

I told the Chevalier about Maris being rented out to an oil rich sheik visiting the USA. He frowned. “I hope her companion treated her with kindness and respect, although part of the reason blonde, blue eyed, under age European girls are so relished by Middle Eastern men is that they can vent their hatred of ‘Crusaders’ on them.”

“Maris is only fifteen; I thought the age of consent in the USA was sixteen?” This had concerned me when I learned of Maris being taken to the USA.

“In the USA the age of consent varies from state to state, but none has one set as low as fourteen and several are set at eighteen.”

“Doesn’t that led to trouble for the men, and the Grafin?”

The Chevalier gave a snort of contempt. “It would seem not. Most, if not all, of the men the Grafin supplies with sex companions have diplomatic immunity. The police can’t touch them, and knowing how these men behave I expect they flaunt the young age, and what sex acts the girls are subjected to, in the face of authority.”

“Like selfies on Facebook?” I suggested.

The Chevalier looked at me gone out, as Stephen Hardcastle would describe the expression on the Chevalier’s face. “I expect that means something to you and your age group, Rafael, but as far as I’m concerned you are talking in tongues! But to get back to the subject. Fewer young girls mean fewer April–December pairs and more single mature women looking for a partner; for three weeks or three hours, and any time interval between you care to mention.”

“That means one night stands and dirty weekends for me, and makes me a real gigolo,” I grumbled.

The Chevalier had a sorrowful, tinged with guilt, look on his face. “I’m sorry things have turned out this way, Rafael, but I am assured by the Grafin any mature female accompanied by a young girl will be steered our way.”

“Is this what you and she were discussing in Hamburg last season, Chevalier?”

For the first time since meeting him the Chevalier failed to look me in my eye when replying. “Err, yes, among other things.” He quickly changed the subject. “New horizons beckon, Rafael, with many different types, and ages, of females for you to discover.”

That was one way of looking at my new status, that of hired stud. “What about you, Chevalier. What will you do for female companionship with no Aprils to -err --accompany?”

“There are specialised houses in Italy that cater for men with a taste for young females, and although I will be spending time at card tables I assure you I will not be without female companionship when required.”

“So who is my ‘date’ in Naples?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “I have no idea. The Grafin informs me your date has the required health documentation, and that you have to be at a particular hotel room at a particular time. I will receive the details soon after we land at Capodichino.”

As he was speaking the ‘fasten seat belt’ light came on, and within fifteen minutes we had landed at Naples International airport. After passing through customs the Chevalier’s portable phone beeped. He took the phone from his pocket and peered at the screen.

“Room thirty seven, Hotel Joachim Murat, Calata St Francesco. At five thirty pm.” He glanced at his watch. “We are booked in at the airport hotel. You have time for a shower and a meal before getting a taxi to your date.”

The taxi was booked for five pm and just before I left the Chevalier handed me a small box. “Inside this box is a tracking device that you are to fit to the female you are meeting.”

I looked at him in amazement. “What do you mean a tracking device? Why do I have to...?”

“Orders, Rafael.”

“Orders from whom?” The penny dropped. “General Beauregard! He can’t give me orders, I’m a civilian.”

The Chevalier sighed. “I have the greatest respect and affection for you, Rafael, and I am disgusted with myself for getting you into this. The general can’t give you orders but he can give me orders that he expects me have you carry out. In fact if you do not he can, and will, make my life uncomfortable.”

“You mean he is blackmailing you?”

“I wouldn’t put it as blunt that but yes. He has something on me. The man I killed in Paris.”

“You killed two men in Paris.”

“Yes, but one death was in self-defence, the other death wasn’t.”

“And the general would use that against you? What happened to the code of a Legionnaire, ‘All for one and one for all’?”

The Chevalier snorted in amusement. “That’s Musketeers not Legionnaires, Rafael. The general served in the Legion but was not a Legionnaire. There is a huge difference.”

I sighed. “OK, so what do I have to do?”

The Chevalier opened the box and took out what append to be a hatpin. When I examined it more carefully I saw there was some sort of device on the end of the pin, no bigger than the battery used in a hearing aid. My father has a hearing aid that clips to his ear and the sensor, or whatever its name, plugs into his ear and is powered by a battery as minute as the pin head.

“All you need to do is secrete this device on the clothing of the female and when she has left the room ring this number.” He handed me a piece of paper with an eight digit telephone number written on it. “They will then activate the device and will be able to track the woman for at least forty eight hours.”

“And who is this woman; a spy or an assassin?”

“I have no idea. We are doing this as a favour to the Carabinieri, the national gendarmerie of Italy. Oh, and by the way you are known as Carlos to the woman.” He saw I was going to ask why and forestalled me. “It was Irma’s idea to give you a different name, and keep your two personas separate. ‘Carlos’ for short assignations and ‘Rafael’ for long term assignments with April- Decembers.”

I shrugged. “A rose by any other name, etc.”

The Chevalier laughed. “I will see you later, Carlos the Catalan!”

Judging by the clientele I saw when I booked in the Hotel Joachim Murat was the type of hostelry that rented rooms by the hour. Corpulent men in crumpled suits hurrying micro skirted slutty females up the steep stairway, if not to Heaven then to a carnal flavoured cut-price paradise. The receptionist handed over the key to my room without a smirk or a hand held out for payment. “All taken care of, signor.”

My room was on the third floor and there was no elevator, the place was probably built before Joachim Murat was King of Naples, possibly even before Alfonso the Magnanimous was King of Naples. Three floors later I stood, breathing deeply, in front of the shabby door of my room. I fitted the key in the lock and entered a room designed for one thing. A double bed dominated the room and the ceiling was mirrored. There was a window with an outlook onto the back gardens of a row of two storied houses. I noted the window sill was wide and an obvious location for copulation.

I had ten minutes to wait and I spent the time looking about the room and the en suite toilet/shower room. There was an English language Gideon Bible in the drawer of the bedside locker along with an empty packet of condoms, or at least that is what I took the packet to be as I don’t read Italian (or write or speak the language but it is sufficiently close to Spanish that I think I was right.) The wardrobe was empty but for three wooden hangers. The bed sheets looked fresh and clean and the waste bin was empty.The en-suite’s small shower room was clean, as was the bidet, toilet, and the small wash basin. In the mirrored cabinet above the wash basin there was a small bar of soap and a miniature tube of toothpaste. Much to my surprise a luxuriously large white bath towel was folded on the toilet seat.

I sat in the one easy chair it in the bedroom and took out the tracking device, wondering where I could stick it when I heard footsteps in the uncarpeted corridor, a tapping of high heels that stopped outside my door. I quickly pocketed the device and as I did there came a double knock on the door.

‘Avanti,’ I said, utilising one of the few words of Italian I knew. The door opened and a middle aged woman dressed entirely in black entered the room. She stared at me. “Carlos?”

“Si, signora,” I replied, using more of my Italian vocabulary.

She began unbuttoning her thigh length jacket. “I understand you are Spanish?” She said in that language. “Your Italian is crap so I will speak to you in your language.” She handed me her jacket. I looked at it and then at her. “Hang it in the wardrobe.” Her voice had the exasperated tone females use when dealing with dull males. I did her bidding, and when I turned about from hanging the coat she had slipped out of her skirt and was unbuttoning her blouse. She kicked the skirt across the carpet towards me. “And this.” Next was the blouse that needed hanging. Talking of hangers, she was extremely well endowed in that department. Her brassiere strained to keep her breasts from spilling over the cups as she reached behind her back and unfastened what must have been very stout clips, and I gazed in wonder and anticipation at her full, well rounded, breasts. She then stepped out of her panties and handed the slinky silk garments to me. “Put my panties and bra in the drawer of the bedside locker and remind me to take them before I leave,” she ordered, which gave me a clue as to what to expect. She retained her garter belt and stockings, which like her coat, skirt, knickers, and brassiere were black, and stood before me still wearing her Jimmy Choos high heels.

I wondered if she might be a widow to be so blackly attired, then recalled Black Widow spiders kill the male while mating and had second thoughts about what I was about to do. Then again she might be a funeral director between gigs, so to speak. Her voice intruded on my macabre thoughts.

“Move your arse, Carlos, I haven’t got all night. I have to be somewhere in four hours.” Her words were not exactly the language of love but nevertheless I was quick to shuck off my clothing under her searching gaze. She reminded me in some way of the Grafin Irma von Eylau but I had dealt with her successfully and was sure I would be able to supply Madam X, or Signora Nera as I shall remember her, with what she wanted. I then hesitated. Did she expect me to wear protection? I knew she had a valid health certificate but did she know that I too was ‘clean’?

She must have sensed my unease. “Relax, Carlos. The Grafin knows I have an up to date certificate and has informed me of your sexual health status. We can follando without the need of a condom, although if you fear making me pregnant I do have some in my handbag.” She spoke in such a dead pan manner and without any hint of a smile at first I took her at her word and was about to deny worrying about becoming a father when it struck me La Signora Nera must have some English DNA in her makeup to be so sarcastic.

It was time for action, and I was proved correct as to her dominating character. “Sit on the window sill,” she ordered. I sat, and she mounted me. There was a moment spent getting our two organs in the correctly alignment then off she went, riding me like a winning jockey at Longchamps. After about ten minutes of strenuous work on both our parts she grunted, groaned and then climaxed. “Not bad, Carlos. Now get on the bed.” She said after getting back her breath. I was entranced as the action moved her breasts in a most arousing way.

When in bed she took the dominant position, but at the second time of asking I took that role. Both times she climaxed, but neither time did she kiss, suck, or bite me, and fortunately neither was my back raked by her nails that I saw were blood red and long. Several more positions; several more climaxes – hers and mine. None simultaneously but close enough to be pleasurable for both parties, until a final flurry of heaving bodies and entwined glands, arms and legs in the arm chair brought proceedings to a sticky end.

“I shall have you again when I am next in Naples, Carlos,” she said before disappearing into the shower room. I heard the bidet and then the shower switch on. Now was my chance to attach the tracking device to her clothing, and hurried to the wardrobe. Should I place the pin on her coat, her skirt, in her bra? What about the Jimmy Choos shoes she had worn until the third, or maybe it was the fourth, time we made the beast with two backs? Then I thought what if she goes home and changes her clothes? I had noticed her handbag was an expensive Louis Vuitton creation. Several of the mature females I had previously escorted had handbags from this designer and always carried them with whichever outfit they wore. Their outfits might change but not the handbag. I opened the handbag. Inside was a kid leather wallet that contained a large wad of euro notes and several credit cards in the appropriate holder. Lipstick and a purse, some small vials of perfume and a packet of condoms were the other contents of the handbag. I stuck the pin into the slit side pocket built into the bag that could have held a diary or small notebook but was empty. I heard the shower stop and I was sitting in the armchair when Signora Nera re-entered the bedroom.

She dressed with no sign of haste but didn’t put on her bra or her panties. She picked up her handbag, ready to leave the room. I indicated the bedside locker. “Don’t forget your panties and bra, Signora,” I said.

She smiled. The first time that afternoon/evening. “Thank you for reminding me, Carlos. You wouldn’t believe the number of times I forget to take my underwear home.”

My heart missed several beats when she opened her handbag to stuff in her bra and panties. She pulled out a 200 euro note from her wallet. “You certainly live up to your reputation, Carlos. I will specify you when next I’m in need of a good follando.” She placed the note on the bedside locker and then kissed me on the cheek, the first time her lips had touched any part of my body, other than my zob during a soixent neuf on the carpet. She left the room and as soon as I heard her heels tapping down the corridor I brought out my portable phone and rang the number supplied.

“Pronto?”

“This is Carlos. I have planted the device.” I spoke in Spanish to keep in character and besides my Italian was crap according to Signora Nera.