The Godfather

 “The Godfather” By Mario Puzo
 
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Her flesh and hair taut silk, now she was all eagerness, surging against him wildly in a 
virginal erotic frenzy. When he entered her she gave a little gasp and was still for just a 
second and then in a powerful forward thrust of her pelvis she locked her satiny legs 
around his hips. When they came to the end they were locked together so fiercely, 
straining against each other so violently, that falling away from each other was like the 
tremble before death. 
That night and the weeks that followed, Michael Corleone came to understand the 
premium put on virginity by socially primitive people. It was a period of sensuality that he 
had never before experienced, a sensuality mixed with a feeling of masculine power. 
Apollonia in those first days became almost his slave. Given trust, given affection, a 
young full-blooded girl aroused from virginity to erotic awareness was as delicious as an 
exactly ripe fruit. 
She on her part brightened up the rather gloomy masculine atmosphere of the villa. She 
had packed her mother off the very next day after her bridal night and presided at the 
communal table with bright girlish charm. Don Tommasino dined with them every night 
and Dr. Taza told all his old stories as they drank wine in the garden full of statues 
garlanded with blood-red flowers, and so the evenings passed pleasantly enough. At 
night in their bedroom the newly married couple spent hours of feverish lovemaking. 
Michael could not get enough of Apollonia’s beautifully sculpted body, her 
honey-colored skin, her huge brown eyes glowing with passion. She had a wonderfully 
fresh smell, a fleshly smell perfumed by her sex yet almost sweet and unbearably 
aphrodisiacal. Her virginal passion matched his nuptial lust and often it was dawn when 
they fell into an exhausted slumber. Sometimes, spent but not yet ready for sleep, 
Michael sat on the window ledge and stared at Apollonia’s naked body while she slept. 
Her face too was lovely in repose, a perfect face he had seen before only in art books of 
painted Italian Madonnas who by no stretch of the artist’s skill could be thought virginal. 
In the first week of their marriage they went on picnics and small trips in the Alfa Romeo. 
But then Don Tommasino took Michael aside and explained that the marriage had made 
his presence and identity common knowledge in that part of Sicily and precautions had 
to be taken against the enemies of the Corleone Family, whose long arms also 
stretched to this island refuge. Don Tommasino put armed guards around his villa and 
the two shepherds, Calo and Fabrizzio, were fixtures inside the walls. So Michael and 
his wife had to remain on the villa grounds. Michael passed the time by teaching 
Apollonia to read and write English and to drive the car along the inner walls of the villa. 

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