Page 9 of The Deadly Candies

And then they were married.

“Carmelo! Don’t drop me!” Kathy squealed as he carried her across the threshold, her laughter mingled with the distant cry of gulls.

“Stop wiggling,” he teased, setting her down gently. She spun away, the dress flaring around her like a white rose turned upside down and blooming. For a moment, he forgot to breathe. The dress slipped off one shoulder, revealing a scar—a pale crescent near her clavicle, a relic of a childhood fall she’d once confessed to him in the attic of the bakery. He ached to trace it with his lips, to map every flaw and secret she carried.

“This place is perfect, Melo,” she said, her voice softer now. The cottage was spare—a wrought-iron bed, a washbasin cracked with age, a wooden table scarred by generations of knives. But Kathy’s presence transformed it. She drifted to the window, the sea wind tousling her thick hair, and Carmelo’s chest tightened.How could something so fragile like their love hold so much light?

“It’s not much,” he said, stepping closer. “I’ll build you a villa in Spain. Then Africa—a castle in the trees, like you read about in those Tarzan books.”

She turned, her smile bittersweet. “I don’t want castles. You kept the promise that matters.” Her fingers grazed his cheek. “We’re here. You saved us.”

He felt supercharged as she leaned in, her lips brushing his—a feather’s touch, yet it seared him. Her scent enveloped him: roses from the chapel bouquet, sugar from the cannoli they’d shared after the vows, and beneath it, something uniquelyher—warm, earthy, alive.

“The buttons, Melo,” she whispered against his mouth. “They’re at the back.”

His hands shook as he fumbled with the lace. Each button undone felt like a sacrament. The dress sighed open, pooling at her feet like a fallen cloud. Beneath it, she wore a slip of ivory silk, thin as a secret. Carmelo’s throat closed. He had seen women’s bodies before—glimpses in Brooklyn brothels, his father’s cruel conquests—but Kathy was different. Her beauty was not for consumption; it was a language, a psalm.

“Sei così bella,”he choked out.You are so beautiful.

Her fingers found his suspenders, sliding them down with a practicality that belied her nervousness. “Your turn,” she said, unbuttoning his shirt. Her palms skated over his chest, tracing the scar along his ribs—a gift from his father’s belt. He closed. his eyes.

Memory lashed him:

The office door ajar. His father’s grunts, the woman’s sobs muffled against the mahogany desk. Her fingers clawing at nothing. Carmelo, frozen in the hallway, the taste of bile on his tongue. In this memory as opposed to the reality his father saw him peeking.

“Look away, boy,” his father had snarled afterward. “This is what power tastes like when you deal with women.”

“I can’t—” Carmelo turned his face, shame scalding him. “I don’t… I don’t want to hurt you.”

Kathy cupped his jaw, her touch anchoring him. “Open your eyes.”

He obeyed. Her gaze held his, unflinching. “We’re not them,” she said, her voice steady as tide. “What we have—it’sours. They can’t touch it. Not here. This place is safe for us.”

Her lips found his again, slow and sure. This time, he let himself fall into the darkness that he believed sex was.

The bed was narrow, the sheets rough against his back. Kathy straddled him, her slip riding up to reveal the curve of her thighs. Her hands, gentle but insistent, guided his. “Like this,” she murmured, showing him how to touch her—not as a conqueror, but a pilgrim. Her breath exhaled when his fingers found the dip of her waist, the swell of her hip.

He was clumsy, his movements halting. But Kathy met each fumble with patience, her whispers a balm:“Sì, amore… così…” Her skin tasted of salt and sunlight. When she sank onto him, her eyes never left his. There was pain—a sharp gasp, a tear she blinked back—but also joy, a defiance that mirrored his own.

This was not his father’s violence.

This was surrender.

This was sanctuary.

Afterward, they lay tangled in the sheets, the sea murmuring its approval. Kathy traced the crucifix around his neck—the one she’d given him the night they fled New York. “Tell me about Africa again,” she said, her head on his chest.

He painted a vision for her with his words: baobab trees towering like cathedrals, sunsets over the Serengeti, a house on stilts where they’d sleep to the rhythm of lions. “No one will find us there,” he promised.

But even in the dream, the truth gnawed at the edges. Somewhere, in the void between sleep and death, was a bitter truth he refused to accept. Yet here, now, in this stolen moment, Kathy’s heartbeat thrummed against his. Her body stuck to his damp skin. The world was reduced to her breath, her warmth, the way she said“ti amo”like it was the first and last truth.

He clung to it.

He clung toher.

* * *

“Svegliati, dormiglione!(Wake up, sleepy head)”Carmelo’s mother called, her voice warm but firm. “Wake up, sleepy head.”

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