“I can feel the trip mechanism moving now,” Vito said.
“Oh, so can I! Yes! Mother! Mother! Mother!”
“Did you call me, Marie?”
“No-no-no! Yes-yes-yes !”
“Make up your mind, Marie! Do you want me, or not?”
“I think it’s coming now,” Vito grunted.
“No, Mama! I don’t want you! Yes, it’s coming! It’s coming! Ah-ah-ah-ah!”
“Damn! That’s as far as I can move it with my finger!”
“Oh! Don’t stop! Please don’t stop now!”
“I can’t just about see the head of the dowel-pin. But I can’t get a grip on it with only one finger. And I don’t have a tool the right shape to make contact and grasp it.”
“Are you sure?” Marie panted. “Think! Maybe there’s a tool you’ve overlooked.”
“Marie! Is it coming?” the mother called.
“Not any more, Mama,” Marie sighed.
“We’ve hit a snag, Signora,” Vito added. “But please be patient. This is a very delicate operation. And all this yelling back and forth is very distracting. Please be quiet!”
He considered the problem for a moment, staring at the stubborn lock of the chastity belt. “There is only one way,” he decided. “Please to arch your thighs as widely as possible, Signorina.”
“What are you going to do?”
“The only thing possible,” Vito told her in a soft voice. “I am going to try to get a grip on the head of that pin with my teeth. It is the only way.”
“Well, it’s one way. . . . But I’m not objecting.” Marie did as he asked.
Vito buried his face, rotating his jaws slowly in an effort to reach the head of the dowel-pin. As if trying to help him, Marie also writhed in a circular motion, her eyes half-closed, her breath coming very fast again. It was in this position that Marie’s mother found them when, unable to stand the silence and suspense any longer, she flung open the door and re-entered the room.
“Marie! This is disgusting!” she shrieked.
“Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it!” Marie advised, continuing the rhythmic movements of her hips.
“Signor! What are you doing to my daughter?”
“I’bjutrygtogedthisgodabbedpidoud!” Vito replied.
“Do not talk with your mouth full, Signor! You will do me this courtesy, at least!”
“Got it!” Vito raised his head and removed the dowel-pin from between his teeth.
“Then I presume you will no longer find it necessary to stick your nose where it does not belong!”
“Spoilsport!” Marie muttered.
Vito ignored them both. Taking a long, narrow pair of calipers, he inserted the instrument into the keyhole, adjusted it, re-adjusted it, and finally, with a twist of his wrist, sprung the lock. “That’s it!” he exulted.
“At last,” Marie’s mother breathed a sigh of relief.
“Get outa my way!” Marie flung off the chastity belt and leaped for the door. A blur of motion, she sped down the hall to the bathroom. An instant later the bathroom door was slammed and locked behind her.
“She sure is in a hurry,” Vito remarked, gathering up his tools.
“Naturally, Signor. Now, you will be so good as to take this girdle of chastity with you and make a new key for it, si?”
“You mean you’re going to make her put it back on again?”
“Si, Signor. Out of deference to the memory of her father. He would have wanted it that way.”
“But it’s medieval!”
“Perhaps. And perhaps virtue is also medieval. But my daughter is a virgin, and it is my duty to see that she remains one.”
“All right. If that’s what you want. I’ll make a key for you.”
“Grazie. And—oh!--Signor. . . .”
“Si?”
“Be sure that you make only one key. Do you understand? Just one key, and break the mold.”
“It was not necessary to say that, Signora. I am well aware of the ethics of my profession.” Vito drew himself up haughtily. “I will contact you when it is ready and present my bill at the same time. Until then, arrivederci.”
“Arrivederci.”
Vito left then, and went back to his shop. But when he entered, he was greeted with a message that Signora Frustrato wished him to return immediately. It seemed that another emergency had arisen.
“It’s Marie,” the mother told him when he arrived. “She is trapped in the bathroom. The door lock must have jammed.”
“Are you sure? Perhaps it is simply that she isn’t ready to come out yet. After all, three days without—”
“No. She is finished. But you must rescue her.”
“My pleasure.”
“No, Signor,” the mother corrected him. “This is strictly business. And on second thought, perhaps she is better off where she is for the time being. Si, now that I think on it, it is better that you do not rescue her right now. First you go and make a key for the chastity belt. Then you can return and let her out of the bathroom.”
“I wish you’d make up your mind,” Vito grumbled. “If you’d decided this before, it would have saved me the trip.”
“My apologies, Signor. But my mind is now made up. First the key for the belt, then the bathroom door lock.”
“Well, all right. But I’ll have to charge you for this service call anyway.”
“Just as bad as a TV repairman,” Mama Frustrato complained. “The public is at your mercy!”
“And the pubic is at yours,” Vito punned as he departed once again.
He didn’t return until much later that evening. He brought the key to the chastity belt with him. It took but a moment to release Marie from her bathroom prison, and then, with the mother trailing along, they went into the bedroom so that Vito might latch the chastity belt in place.
Marie sat with her eyes lowered demurely as Vito’s hand slipped with subconscious deliberation. She bit her lip at the contact and contracted her thigh muscles so that the hand was forced to remain there for an instant. Turning red, Vito managed to extract it and finally secured the lock.
“The key, please, Signor?” The mother held her hand out imperiously.
“The key.” Vito handed it to her. “My bill.” He passed her a slip of paper. “My condolences.” He bowed to Marie. “Arrivederci.” He departed for what he thought was the last time.
But it wasn’t. There was a lapse of some six months, and then Vito was once again summoned back to the Frustrato house. Mama Frustrato was dying, and with her last gasps she was demanding to see the young locksmith.
“The key,” she moaned as he knelt beside her bed. “You must take the key!”
“But what will I do with it?”
“Open the lock at eight, twelve, and six. It is necessary.”
“I don’t think my schedule will allow-—”
“Your schedule! How can you think of your schedule at a time like this? Think of poor Marie’s schedule!”
“But —“
“I am dying. This is my last wish. Can you deny it?”
“No. Still —”
“Then you will take custody of the key?”
“Since you put it that way, yes.”
“Do you swear it?” She rose up in her bed, her eyes straining in the sockets as she stared at Vito. It was as if they were already staring from the other side of the grave. “Do you swear it?” she repeated.
“Si. I swear it.”
“And do you swear that you will never take ad—” Suddenly she seemed to choke on the words. The breath rattled in her throat. Her eyes rolled up in their sockets. Her head fell back to the pillow. She was still now, the jaw sagging open, the eyes staring lifelessly. Mama Frustrato was dead.