An Italian Fable takes place before, during and after World War II, when fictional hero Mark O'Brien, an OSS spy, meets with real-life figures Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Benito Mussolini, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, and Pope Pius XII before switching places with his look-alike cousin, Irish Monsignor Tom Shaw during the war. After the war, FDR makes him Commander-in-Chief, Allied Forces, Italy, where he begins a 5-year partnership with post-war Italian President Alcide DeGasperi that dramatically changed Italy.
An Italian Fable
By Charles Fairfax SpeerAuthorHouse
Copyright © 2009 Charles Fairfax Speer
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4389-8617-3Chapter One
Grand Hotel Duomo, Milan, April 1923
Whenever Mark thought of Elena, it always began the same way, with his private elevator ride down to the hotel ballroom. Mark's Harvard Business School buddy Andrea D'Este, was throwing a 19th birthday party for his younger sister Elena, who had just returned from finishing school in Geneva.
Her birthday bash was already in full swing, with an army of vociferous young people, great snacks, and free flowing booze. A 20 piece orchestra and several vocalists were going all out to compete with famous American recording artists such as Duke Ellington, Bing Crosby, Louis Armstrong, and Billie Holliday, while showing a dancing preference for George Gershwin and Cole Porter numbers from their current Broadway musicals.
Mark O'Brien, a somewhat taller version of Gatsby's Robert Redford, surveyed the scene and it wasn't hard to spot Elena, all six foot plus of her in low heels, dancing a sensuous, fanny-revealing rumba to Begin the Beguine with her elder brother, a Ben Affleck look alike. Mark snaked his way through the mob to their side and shouted above the din.
"Andy! This must be your baby sister!"
"Marco! Glad you could join us! Elena, I'd like you to meet my Harvard B-school buddy, Mark O'Brien. He owns this hotel."
Mark stood transfixed before this dream of young womanhood, her eyes locked upon his, while her smile spread as butterfly wings in the aurora of a spring dawn. Her golden hair was trimmed short, flapper-style, close to the back of her lovely swanlike neck. Her huge sea-blue eyes were an ocean a man could drown in, framed by ample light brown eyebrows, an aristocratic straight nose, and prominent cheekbones, all enhancing a somewhat roundish face supported by a firm chin. - the image of a teenage Charlize Theron.
Her tall slender body was caressed by a dazzling white tasseled short shimmy dress, with well-rounded breasts held high like two perfect hand-sized grapefruits, kissingly close together. Her ample hips and perfect derriere supported long chorus girl legs that seem to extend forever.
For the first time in his life, Mark was speechless. He had just been hit by an avalanche. But he recouped long enough to take her hand, and begin dancing to a slow romantic Cole Porter number.
"Why did you call my brother Andy?" Elena asked, gazing deeply into his blue eyes.
"Well, you have to understand Elena that in America, Andrea is a girl's name. So, before the other guys could begin teasing him unmercifully I started calling him 'Andy Desty', a typical wild west name that would keep him out of trouble. Of course, it didn't take Andrea very long to pick up on our American nicknames, so pretty soon he began calling me 'Marco', for Mark O'Brien. We played soccer together on a Harvard club team, partied together, and have gotten along famously ever since; Got the picture?" Elena gave him a quizzical look.
"Mark, my Swiss school unfortunately did not teach American jargon, but I'm a quick learner, and dying to know all about your wild west. There is still a wild west, is there not? I should otherwise be so disappointed."
Mark glided Elena into their sixth straight dance and gave her the news.
"The wild west disappeared 30 years ago, Elena, when Wyatt Earp retired" he said regretfully. But we can watch Tom Mix movies together and you'll get a general idea of what the old west was like-good guys in white Stetsons and bad guys in black.
"Elena, this is the first time I've danced eye to eye and cheek to cheek with a partner. I like it a lot."
"So do I, Mark." Elena said wistfully, seeming to defy gravity as she floated like a weightless ballerina in his arms. "All of my dancing partners 'til now have been somewhat shorter than I, which tends to leave me with back pains at the end of the evening. We've been dancing for more than an hour; I have no back pains, but I do believe that people may be staring at us."
"Why would anyone notice the only 6 foot plus, blond haired, blue eyed young couple in Italy?" Mark jested.
Elena proffered another of her extraordinarily beautiful smiles.
"I'm so pleased to see that you have a sense of humor, Mark O'Brien. I like that in a man.
Mark was quick on the uptake.
"Why don't we get a breath of fresh air on the terrace?" he suggested. Without waiting for a response, he grasped her arm and guided her to his penthouse elevator.
"Buona sera, Luigi. La terazza, per favore."
"Subito, Dottore."
They exited upon the most marvelous panorama Milan has to offer. Piazza Duomo lay brightly lit beneath them, with the Duomo Cathedral's star-haloed Madonnina, poised gloriously atop, directly across from Mark's 10th floor terrace.
"Oh Mark, this is spectacular!" Elena exclaimed excitedly. "How did you ever? ..." Her voice trailed off while she took in a vista unique in this medieval city.
Mark's quartet began playing a repertoire of romantic Italian melodies, while his butler brought out very old Dom, Beluga caviar, fresh Belon oysters, and truffled pate 'de foie gras.
The scene was set, and Mark wasted no time in continuing their intimate dancing, which quickly became much more than cheek to cheek. His first move was to take Elena into his arms and kiss her tenderly on her full lips. He marveled at the depth, warmth, and tenderness of her response.
It was as if he had just dived into a bottomless pool, where there was no escape, only complete surrender. They danced, kissed, petted, and occasionally sipped and snacked for the next couple of hours. The chimes of the Duomo cathedral signaled midnight, and Mark whispered into Elena's lovely ear what he had been dreaming of since their first eye contact.
"I'm going to marry you, Helen of Este, so we might as well get used to the idea. I've loved you from the first instant I laid eyes on you," He announced decisively. With that simple statement he lifted her effortlessly into his arms, and carried her inside to his bedroom suite.
"Mark caro, I love you madly as well." Elena declared dreamily, "You swept me off my feet during our very first dance. But be gentle, caro, I've never ..." and her voice trailed off again. Mark sensed what to say.
"I'll be gentle, tesoro, so gentle you'll hardly feel a thing," he murmured soothingly.
"Not that gentle, Mark!" she responded quickly, pulling away abruptly to face him. "I want to feel everything!"
A few minutes later, as they began to explore each other's naked bodies, Elena had second thoughts.
"Mark! You're so heavy!"
With a seemingly effortless flick of his strong arms, Mark lifted Elena into his lap.
"Is this better, tesoro?"
"Oh, this is just lovely, caro," Elena purred, as she tried to figure out what to do next.
Mark then pulled her onto him. Her breasts now hung directly over his lips as he cupped them in his hands, and alternated between nipples while he kissed and circled each with his tongue, until they were fully erect. Then he playfully nibbled away with his lips, pulling them out and then suddenly popping them back, to the sound of Elena's squeals and moans of pleasure.
When she could take his nibbling no longer, Elena instinctively pulled away, sat upright on his manhood and quickly guided him with her hands, first up and down, and then in slow circles around the lips of her now warm, very moist vulva, amidst continual cries of sexual delight.
As she approached her climax, Elena made a final downward thrust of her hips and relinquished her virginity completely, with a sharp, loud cry of joy and pain.
They proceeded to rock in unison as Elena gradually transformed herself from an eager, inexperienced girl into a highly sensual woman, with a seemingly inexhaustible appetite for her new role, as she set the pace with her hips towards a frantic orgasm, crying s! s! s! then oh! oh! oh! and finally, with the loud shriek of her final climax, "Mio Dio!", and fell forward upon Mark's broad chest the instant that he erupted deep inside her, with the loud deep throated aaaah! of his seminal discharge.
The two lovers lay exhausted for several minutes. After the pause of post-orgasmic pleasure, Elena dismounted and collapsed onto her back at Mark's side.
"Oh Mark caro, that was indescribably beautiful," Elena whispered breathlessly. "Simply glorious. It's going to be so much fun making babies with you. Can we do that again?" she begged. Mark thought for a moment. "Well, tesoro, we can't do exactly that," he explained tenderly, but if you give me time to recover, we can surely do something similar." After their third round of lovemaking in every position he could think of, Mark was completely spent, while Elena seemed anxious to continue her sexual explorations. Mark felt obliged to explain.
"Elena tesoro, men are built differently than women. We have our limitations. But you were absolutely marvelous, and we have our whole lives ahead to pick up where we leave off tonight.
Elena then murmured knowingly into Mark's ear.
"I think we made a baby tonight, caro. It's my fertile time of the month, and surely we did not hold back anything, did we?"
With that, they both slept soundly and peacefully in each other's arms until early dawn.
Elena was the first to stir. She slipped out of bed, suddenly remembered she had no night clothes, and waltzed nonchalantly nude into the bedroom salon.
Mark opened an eye, didn't see Elena, and wondered if it all had been a fantastic dream. He peeked under the covers, saw the sheet stained marks of last night's virginal love making, rose and called out for Elena.
"I'm in here, caro, she announced from the adjoining room." "I'm having some cappuccino and croissants. Come to me, amore."
They didn't speak a word. As it would turn out, neither was a talkative morning person. Mark sat across the table from her, and they just gazed at each other's nude body while they sipped their coffee and munched on pastries.
It didn't take Mark long to become aroused. When he stood, Elena saw that he was ready, and instinctively flopped over on her elbows and knees, with her fanny raised upwards in silent invitation.
Mark took two strides forward and melded behind her. He leaned down, grabbed her hips, spread her cheeks, and entered her vagina. She gasped with a delighted squeal, leaned on her left arm, reached down and held him tightly with her right hand against her clitoris. She bucked while he thrust, and they came quickly to a satisfying orgasm.
He dismounted and strolled to the shower as if nothing had happened. The rules of their impromptu love game were being set. It was only a question of who would take the initiative.
Chapter Two
Villa D'Este, Lake Como, May 1923
Mark and Elena had been carrying on a very obvious and serious love affair for several weeks. They were seen and recognized everywhere - - at plays and Vaudeville reviews; at La Scala, for grand opera performances and symphonies featuring Dvorak's New World, and Ferde Grofe's Grand Canyon Suite, which quickly became Elena's favorite orchestral pieces about America and the Far West.
They frequented Milan's best restaurants, hottest jazz night clubs; and silent movie premiers to see Valentino, Chaplin, Fairbanks, and Tom Mix, who became Elena's new wild west hero, and, for both lovers, Gish's, Bara's, Pickford's and Negri's latest romantic tear-jerkers.
Apparently the only people in Northern Italy who were ignorant of their grand love affair were members of Elena's immediate family. They were convinced that she was simply shopping and enjoying the Milan spring social season while staying at the family's permanent suite in the Grand Hotel Duomo. Her father, Duke Massimo D'Este, a pre-incarnation of Italian actor Vittorio Gassman, was the formidable scion of a clan that had commanded respect for the past 1,000 years. He was also convinced that his daughter was just renewing social acquaintances after 3 years of finishing school in Geneva.
Mark was the first to broach the subject of parental permission. After another night of explosive love making, he turned to Elena.
"Tesoro, I just realized that we need to set an early wedding date. My parents won't be a problem, I'm sure. They had the same whirlwind courtship at the turn of the century. But I need to talk with your father and mother, and let them know that we will be spending the rest of our lives together. What would you think if we went up to the villa this weekend and broke the news?"
"I'm sleepy caro", Elena murmured dreamily. "Can we talk about this in the morning? I went to see Doctor DeFusco today. He says I'm 3 weeks pregnant, so we did indeed make a baby on our very fist night together. Che bello! He also told me that I'm in very good health, so now please let me sleep."
With that, she crawled into Mark's arms, and drifted off peacefully atop his chest, to dream of the beautiful beginning of their new family, and of what she would say to her father the next morning on the telephone.
"Ciao papp, sono Elena. Listen, Mark and I are coming up for the weekend with wonderful news for you and mamma. Yes, I'm fine. Mark wants to speak with both of you privately. But please try to remember papp, that I love this man more than life itself, so hear him out and be fair with him. S, venerd, verso mezzogiorno. Ciao papp," and she clicked off.
Mark's Bugatti convertible got them to the villa early. Because of the rushing wind, the young lovers hadn't spoken much as they tooled along the winding, two-lane provincial road at Mark's usual top speed - he was an accomplished amateur race car driver.
For her part, Elena was oblivious to the speed, as she sat back, lost in her own reverie about the pending encounter between her two beloved Titans.
Massimo, Il Duca D'Este, the current master of a fiefdom dating to Holy Roman Empire times, was known everywhere north of Rome simply as 'Il Duca'. He was a tall, handsome 50-year-old commanding figure, and a loving father to Elena and her 4 siblings, which included her elder brothers, Andrea, now 25, Vittorio, 22, and her younger sisters Christina, 16, and Rebecca, the precocious 14-year-old of the House of Este.
Her mother, La Duchessa Maria Elena, still strikingly beautiful in her late 40s; was the tall fair-haired, former Princess of 5' 2" Italian King, Victor Emmanuel and his noble wife, the towering 6 foot Queen Elena, former eldest Princess of Austrian Emperor Franz Josef. Yes indeed, as Mark would have commented, quite an impressive family heritage.
But in Elena's loving eyes, Mark stood head and shoulders above them all and not just physically, at a lean handsome 6' 3". Her lover could not boast of royal lineage, because there was no royalty in America, thank goodness. In any event, she mused, Mark was not the kind of man who would ever boast of family heritage, impressive as it might be.
His father, 'Big Mike' O'Brien, was an Irish American self-made immigrant from the 'Old Sod', as Mark likes to call Ireland. But he is now at age 52, a very rich and influential political 'king-maker'. Mark's mother, Lisa Roosevelt Vandermeer, whose ancestors landed in Manhattan on Hendrick Hudson's ship in the early 1600's, was the heiress to one of the largest fortunes in America - Manhattan land, Texas oil, California gold, and transcontinental railroads.
As Mark always says, he and his father are just regular Yankee Doodle Dandies, true life nephews of their Uncle Sam, whoever he is, since neither of them has an uncle named Sam, nor was either born on the Fourth of July. It must be a George M. Cohan thing, she reasoned.
Elena was satisfied with her thoughts, as she dozed beside Mark while they completed their journey into the front reception way of the most spectacular villa in all of Italy, a country teeming with spectacular villas, including the O'Brien family estate in Chianti, which the then young American ambassador had purchased from an even younger Florentine heir, Beppe Annichini.
Just seconds after Mark beeped his horn, an army of servants exited the villa and descended upon them, with excited cries of "Signorina Elena!"
The Duke slowly descended the front steps, kissed Elena affectionately, and extended his hand in warm welcome to Mark. The two men had predictably strong grips. The Duke then directed the couple to his private study, taking his daughter under his arm, while he whispered caringly into her ear.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from An Italian Fableby Charles Fairfax Speer Copyright © 2009 by Charles Fairfax Speer. Excerpted by permission.
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