“Sins of Sicily” by P.M. Merlot

His embrace loosened. I stepped toward the door. He was gracious, most gracious. When I neared the threshold, his hand raised to his lips gesturing a kiss. “Goodnight.” Sending one in exchange, I crossed the threshold to the hallway and the door closed. The stairwell and steps were as black as night and I needed a bat’s perception to descend the steps. There wasn’t a sound to be heard and not wanting to rouse any other guests I padded down like a cat on carpet.

I reached the elevator after the first two flights. All week there was an array of steps. Crumbling ancient steps crafted by the sweat of slaves for their conquerors: Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Byzantine, Hohenstaufen, Catalan, Spaniards, and Normans. There were modern, expansive hotel steps of sparkling marble carved by Sicilian masons for those without the patience to wait for the undersized elevator to carry its guests. I paused in front.  By this time I lost count of how many steps were navigated in a week that left calf muscles barely able to move. But, they recovered, now easily able to physically conquer four flights in a hotel.

I was alone and visions of encountering another intoxicated guest on it persuaded me to continue my descent. Yet, alone in a stairwell after midnight was equally disquieting. I considered asking him for an escort to my room, but I knew I would invite him in. A phone call to my room, to verify my safe arrival, would tempt me as well. Hearing his accented English, words that flowed like poetry, melodic like the songs of the Sirens, I could no longer resist.

I unlocked my door as if being chased by the demons of my past.  Palpitations felt like the rumbling of an earthquake.  I shoved the electric card into the slot. Lights on. Safe. There was immediacy in wanting to feel safe. Safe from something. At least, safe from the danger of a solo transport from the Silver Room to mine. My extraction from him and the Silver Room was far from graceful. Stepping backwards from him, aiming for the door, tripping on his opened suitcase, I plopped right in. Butt down, legs spread, unable to raise myself, and needing him to rescue me from his light green suitcase ready to swallow me up like prey in a Venus Fly trap.

He would have to release me one more time.  He lifted me, while his foot glided across the floor with the poise of a ballerina, clearing his suitcase from my path, aiding my efforts for a speedy escape. He no longer tried to persuade me, his last words, “Sometimes we regret what we do not do.” Regrets. Between the two of us, we had a hundred years of regrets. My life had too many regrets for what I did do. Maybe he had too many for what he didn’t do. Maybe that’s what drove us to those moments in the Silver Room. Left alone with my thoughts, I wasn’t safe with myself anymore. I missed him already. I wanted to go back.

My Sicilian black dress, irresistible to him at the Farewell Dinner, still lay neatly across my bed, now joined by my pajamas heaped next to it hastily removed after his call. I felt so alone, emptied by my extraction. Before he phoned, I started my daily email to my family that was still unsent. I sent one everyday and if I did not send one on this last day, they just might call the hotel. I envisioned my room phone ringing endlessly, unanswered, and me trying to explain my location after midnight. They would call the polizia, a search would ensue, and I would be missing. No one would suspect I was in the Silver Room. Safe in a way. Finishing my email, tapping Send on my iPad, I contemplated another ascent to the Silver Room and finishing what we started.

In two days, I would be standing on the altar of my Catholic church, as an epitome of the faithful, readying for reading the Bible at Mass. I must remain Holy. I slipped into sin, but not the mortal kind. Probably confessable, but I would pass on that. If my plane crashed I wouldn’t be immediately sent to Hell. There would still be a chance for redemption. I didn’t want to remember Sicily as Sicily in Sin. Beating down thoughts of another ascent, with resistance I slipped into my pajamas; packed the black dress, and paused with the clothes I wore to the Silver Room.  The only semi-permanent remembrance I might retain was his scent. Nose to clothes, it went undetected. We weren’t close enough, long enough, for his scent to permeate them.  I would have to settle for any traces left on my face.

Thirty minutes passed since I returned to my room. Most likely he was asleep, and I was now wide-awake. Would he hear me knock at his door? More thoughts leapt like the sheep I should have been counting in my head to sleep. Did he always do this? Was I simply another American woman targeted for seduction by a tour director who spent too many nights alone?  Or maybe he was the pragmatist. There was no future possible and he knew it. Continents would divide us. Countries divided us. Lives set in motion, unchangeable, divided us. Maybe he didn’t have a habit of luring his tour patrons to his room. Maybe I was an exception to his code of conduct. I could only speculate. Lights out. I attempted to find peaceful slumber. Thoughts of returning to the Silver Room were momentarily dismissed. In the dark I could hear our intriguing conversations, which titillated my mind, still feel his roving hands, the pleasure in his kisses, and see the hallway darken as the door to the Silver Room closed.

Five AM came too quickly with a wake up call right on. For once, the Sicilians were on time. Expecting him to knock on my door for one last kiss, I arose as if I slept well, and waited until 5:45 AM. When I reached the hotel lobby, he appeared distracted, eyes scanning the faces before him waiting for one in particular to appear. Our eyes met sweeping one another for an answer. All the others busied themselves with moving luggage, seating on the bus, as he tended to his guests for the last time. All were unaware of the night before in the Silver Room. He hid it well. I tried too.

When we arrived at the airport, faceless travelers spiraled encircling the check in counter like a tightly wound watch spring. A unified gasp of “Oh no!” inflated the air like a balloon about to burst on the bus. There was barely an hour to make my flight. His tour would take him to another island moments after the drop off at the airport. I would be stranded alone without him near. He exited the bus with all of us. When I turned around for one last glance his eyes were on me. I saw his eyes light up for what I believed would be the last time, and nodded goodbye. I don’t know if he watched me disappear into the crowd. I didn’t glance back. I didn’t want him to see the emotion displayed on my face.

Jumping ahead in the check in line at Air Italia was a fruitless act. I was detained. On their computers, I did not exist. No record of me flying from Rome to Sicily. I was about to become marooned in Sicily. Me, nonexistent at the airport. My coping reserves were drained like a car battery left with the lights on. Sicily seduced me with her three seas, Valley of the Temples, and the Silver Room. She wasn’t about to let me go easily.

Formulating a plan at the ticket counter, I return to my hotel, book the Silver Room, and wait out three days for his return to Sicily. I call him on his cell; tell him of my delay, and a meet up would be agreeable. We’d spend his four days between his next tours together in the Silver Room. By day we would wander the streets as two photographers, two spirits freed for four days, and by night we would fulfill what Sicily intended. Three calls, and fifteen minutes later, Sicily let me go. Sins of Sicily diminished in the sky behind me.

Transatlantic flights are a long, introspective time where home does not exist, where the place we left behind no longer exists.  Clouds are so pure in their own divinity; nature provides baby blue skies as therapy for its wounded, with golden rays that stand like pillars of the soul in the home of the sky. One floats in this seamless juxtaposition. In the home of the sky, she offers her guests respite. I am not much company for the seventy-eight year old man seated next to me.  Lost in my own thoughts, mind as clouded as those we pass through, I seek to understand this personal attraction that has taken hold of me. Beyond the physical, desire is the consequence of an allurement of another sort. I do not want to let go of it, although I know it is the only choice.

P. M. Merlot writes from a small town in New Jersey. She writes only creative nonfiction about her travels and those around her. An Adjunct Professor for Arcadia University, she has an MS in Computer Science.  Publications include Red Fez, Philadelphia Inquirer, Clever Magazine, and Black Mirror (forthcoming in December).