Words of Lust by Lise Horton Page A

and sofas, all focused intently on her. Feeling rather like an exhibit at the zoo, she looked around and smiled.
    “Please, I hope everyone will call me Serafina. No professor necessary.”
    Then everyone started talking at once.
    “Gia, come help me in the kitchen.”
    “Ma!”
    “Well, Cara can’t. She needs to stay off her feet. I don’t feed lazy children, so make up your mind.”
    Gia sighed melodramatically, as she often did during classroom debates, and followed her mother into the kitchen, leaving Nick’s the only friendly face in the room full of eager strangers.
    “So, Gia says you teach a class about dirty books?”
    “Berto!” He threw a glare at his brother. She gave Nick one of her own but refused to back down.
    “That’s something that’s been debated as long as there have been books. What is obscene to one mind is merely intriguing to another. There’s a story about a famous judge who once said, when asked to define obscenity, ‘I’ll know it when I see it.’ Often a book that’s been labeled obscene in the past would seem pretty tame to us now.”
    “It’s just porn, though, right?”
    “Absolutely not. It is literature whose subject is human sexuality. How it’s expressed depends on the author. How it’s interpreted depends on the reader. Nick’s reading Henry Miller and he’s quite graphic. But even the Bible has erotic passages, like the ‘Song of Solomon,’ which I dare anyone to claim is porn.”
    “Right.” Vincenzo guffawed.
    She could not resist defending her canon. “Now, see, that sort of thinking leads to censorship and book banning. In fact, if you read some of the books, I bet you’ll wonder where the dirty parts are. What’s capable of inspiring lust in one individual might be seen as peculiar or bizarre or downright boring by another. I think something is erotic when it possesses what de Mandiargues described in his preface to Story of O —voluptuousness.”
    Berto rolled his eyes and snickered, but just then his father weighed in.
    “Alberto, cut it out. You don’t embarrass company. Besides, the lady’s read all those books and knows what she’s talking about. The last thing you read only had pictures in it and they were pretty dirty themselves.”
    Everyone except Alberto howled with laughter at Mr. Stellato’s put-down. She had to say she enjoyed the moment.
    “So, tell us. How’s our Gia doing?” Her father’s booming voice carried into the kitchen, where his daughter let out a howl.
    “She’s brilliant. I have to say she’s my best student.” She smiled at the various Stellato men, noting the brothers’ grumpy expressions and their father’s proud smile.
    “Serafina’s working on her doctorate. And she’ll be taking over another professor’s classes too. The dean asked her to.” Nick trailed a hand across her arm, and the sensation, coupled with his proud tone, felt good. He pulled her a bit closer to him on the sofa, which felt even better, though she noticed everyone else noticed.
    “It happens. It’s a small college and the departments are small so there isn’t much in the way of backup. It will be a fun change and I’ll meet some new students.”
    A raucous Lady Gaga ringtone cut through the conversation and everyone’s eyes turned to the massive sack she identified as Gia’s purse.
    She came tearing out of the kitchen, rummaged through the bag and grabbed the phone. With a look of annoyance at everyone, she hurried out of the house and stood talking in the front yard, pointedly letting them know it was a private call. Serafina could guess who it was and adopted a noncommittal expression in case Nick was watching her.
    “Gia! Get back here!” The bellow of Mrs. Stellato’s voice gave her the definitive clue as to where her daughter had inherited her own vocal projection skills.
    “Excuse me.” She stood and smiled at Cara and the men and then went into the kitchen. “Mrs. Stellato, Gia’s on the phone. May I help with