The Body #1: Santo and Fiorella

Chapter 12 (Santo): Congratulations

Magnificent!

My wife was fucking magnificent. I was seeing something I suspected no man in the Body had ever seen before: his bride losing her shit and throwing heavy objects at him. Even as I ducked her ever-improving aim, I couldn't help smiling at Fiorella screaming at me and throwing whatever shit was around at my head.

This simply didn't happen in the Body. This show of temper, this fury of feelings was trained out of Body girls from a young age. Fiorella was just the first of many, I hoped, who would begin to express themselves loudly and proudly, without fear of repercussion. Lucio and I hadn't risked everything to keep things the same. Our revolution would be happening, no doubt in my mind now. The minute Dario stepped into that house with my wife, the change had already begun.

 As I stepped to the side to avoid a heavy candlestick, I wondered if Fiorella would mind if I started videotaping her storm. It was the most refreshing thing I'd ever seen in my life: a beautiful woman letting her husband know she was not happy with him in a way he couldn't possibly misunderstand.

 No Body wife did that. They wouldn't dare, living in fear that their husbands would give them an official warning or that they would dishonor their families.

No more fear. One of the first moves we'd be making was abolishing the arranged marriages. No more sixteen-year-old-girls getting betrothed to strangers who were five years older. No more Body girls getting married when they turned eighteen.

A stone gargoyle statue clipped my shoulder. 

I needed to pay attention, but I couldn't because Fiorella was utter perfection.

Shit! The other stone gargoyle hit me directly on the shoulder. Brava, Fiorella! Brava!

But then her next words suddenly registered with me.

"And I'm glad I flushed your watch down the toilet! You didn't deserve it!"

I wasn't happy about that and let her know. "That was mine, Fiorella. I treasured that gift."  

My wife snapped at me, and I walked across the floor to let her know why that watch had meant so much to me. As she continued flinging accusations at me, I realized I needed to address her misconceptions, so I finally got Fiorella to sit on the couch and told her I was going to explain a few things to her.

How do you make a woman understand why you acted the way you did? Knowing all the explanations in the world weren't going to erase the hurt and betrayal she'd felt for so many months. Months that she'd felt abandoned by me, certain I was telling her to behave simply because I wanted her to be a good little wife.

But although her life had depended on it, that knowledge still wouldn't magically make her forget the pain she'd suffered.

I launched into my explanation of everything, from the time Lucio and I were young and started looking at everything that was wrong with the Body, to our covert plan to overthrow Dario and change things within the Body. I told her how we had stealthily been planning and plotting, slowly bringing other like-minded people on board. 

"And then Dario threatened you, Fiorella, if I didn't bring Tanya into our home and make you believe that she was my mistress and that the child she was carrying was mine. He told me if he even suspected that you had found out, he would take you and...brutalize you and then kill you. I couldn't let that happen."

"You should have found a way --"

"Fiorella, nothing in this world scares me except the thought of something happening to you. I couldn't risk it because Dario told me he had listening devices and cameras everywhere in our house. Everywhere. And I couldn't risk you accidentally giving it away. So I made a choice, Fiorella, to keep you in the dark. I'd make the same choice again."

She didn't absolve me, but neither did she condemn me, so I took it as a win at that moment. That explained the past, so I needed to sketch out the future next.

"Fiorella, it's all going to be different now under Lucio, with me as his second-in command. You were sixteen years old when your future was set for you. You had no choices, nothing to look forward to other than marrying a virtual stranger and having his babies."

"You never got upset about me not getting pregnant," her voice was low and she was looking away from me.

"Because I didn't care. It's true," I said when I saw her skeptical look. "Every month I told you not to worry about it was because I didn't give a damn, Fiorella. Every month you weren't pregnant was another month I had you to myself. Another month we could get to know each other, another month I could try to coax you out of your training."

I got on my knees in front of her, trying to get her to look at me. "Sweetheart, I have a lot to unlearn, too. We're both products of our shitty upbringing. I realize you had fewer options and much less freedom than I did, but we won't be raising the next generation like that. Lucio and I want to give our children choices."

"Choices," she said faintly.

"I fell in love with you, Fiorella, not because you're the perfect Body wife, not because our household runs smoothly, not because you never talk back. I fell in love with you during our nights on the couch when you'd let me hold you and we'd talk and I'd get tiny glimpses of your soul. I fell in love with you when we watched movies together and I learned what made you laugh. I fell in love with you when you made sure to put a nervous waitress at ease when she spilled a drink on your dress. I fell in love with you when you trusted me to keep you safe at night and you fell asleep in my arms."

Halfway through my admissions to Fiorella, she turned her face to me, not saying anything. Just listening, so I continued.

"I know I don't know everything there is to know about you yet, Fiorella, but I think that you probably don't know everything about yourself  because you've never really been allowed to be yourself. But no matter your training, Fiorella, you can't hide the basic goodness and kindness inside you. That has nothing to do with being raised in the Body. I've seen wives speak unkindly to a waitress for spilling a drink, but never have I seen someone handle another person so sensitively and with such grace. It speaks well of your character."

She blushed at the praise but said nothing. 

Before I could say anything else, my phone chimed with a text from one of the guards stationed outside my house to let me know the plastic surgeon had arrived. His timing couldn't be worse, but I wanted her face seen to.

"Just a minute, sweetheart," I said to her. Walking to the door, I opened it and let the doctor in. He greeted me respectfully and I wondered if he'd heard about the coup.

Leading him over to my wife, I watched as he examined her face and then cleaned the wound left by Dario's fist.

"I think about eight stitches should take care of it, sir," he said. Oh, yeah, he'd heard about the change in leadership.

"Do it," I said fixing my gaze on him, "But don't hurt her. At all."

The doctor looked at me nervously. "The...the shot will sting her, sir --"

"I need to talk to the doctor," Fiorella blurted out. She'd been silent since the doctor arrived. She shot me a look. "Alone."

I didn't like leaving my wife alone with another man. But I wanted to show her that she had a say. "Will a minute be enough?" 

That was as far as I was willing to bend, especially since I couldn't imagine why she would need to speak to him alone.

She nodded, and I stepped into the kitchen where I couldn't see them, couldn't hear them, and I got her a glass of water.

Forty-five seconds later -- sue me for the fifteen seconds -- I walked into the living room and offered her the water, which she accepted.

"Everything good?" I asked. Demanded.

"Yes, sir," the doctor said. "And let me be the first to offer my congratulations."