'Acting like a sixteen-year-old, Meli. Boy meets girl, they fall in love and have sex, everything balances out, and they live happily ever after.'
'Please, in my view, that's the height of perversion!' I shouted hysterically. 'Utterly dull: Saturday night in Piazza Teatro Massimo, Sunday morning breakfast at the seashore, sex strictly reserved for weekends, confiding secrets to your parents, and so on. It'd be better to stay single.'
Another silence.
'I'm just not like that; I don't want to change for anybody. And you-you're one to talk!' In jest, I screamed this last bit in his face.
He laughed and caressed my head.
'Little one, I love you. I wouldn't ever want something unpleasant to happen to you.'
'It'll happen to me if I don't do what I want. And I love you too.'
He told me about two guys, law students in their final year. I'll meet them tomorrow: after school, they'll come to pick me up at Villa Bellini, in front of the fountain where the swans swim. I'll call my mother and tell her I'll be out all afternoon, attending a drama class.
10 January 2002
3:45 P.M.
'You women are idiots! Watch two men screw… mah!' said Germano. He was driving. His eyes were huge and black; his massive, finely sculpted face was crowned by the most beautiful black ringlets, which, if not for his fair complexion, would have made him a young African, potent and proud. He was ensconced in the driver's seat like the King of the Forest, tall and majestic, his long, tapering fingers on the steering wheel.
A steel ring with tribal markings stood out against the whiteness of his skin and its extraordinary softness.
His partner, a thin-lipped guy who sat behind me, responded in a faint, polite voice: 'Leave her alone. Can't you see she's young? And she's so tiny… Look at her lovely little face, so sweet. Are you sure you want to do this, little one?'
I nodded.
From what I gathered, these two had agreed to the encounter because they owed Ernesto a favor, though I didn't have the faintest idea what exactly they were paying back. The fact is that Germano was put out by the situation, and if he had his way, he'd have left me by the side of the deserted road. And yet an obscure enthusiasm shone in his eyes; it was a subtle feeling that I sensed come and go at intervals. During the journey, silence kept us company. We were driving down a country road, heading for Gianmaria's villa, the only place where no one would disturb us. It was an old farmhouse, built of stone and surrounded by olive and fir trees; in the distance you could see rows of vines, dead in this season. The wind gusted, and when Gianmaria got out to open the enormous iron gate, a mass of leaves dropped into the car, falling on my hair. The cold was piercing, the smell that of wet soil and leaves long left to rot in water. I clutched my handbag and stood up straight in my high-heeled boots, hugging myself against the icy chill. The tip of my nose felt frozen; my cheeks were tight, anesthetized. We arrived at the main door, wherein the names of various children had been carved during their summer games, a sign of one's passage through time. Germano's and Gianmaria's had also been etched in the wood… I've got to run, Diary, my mother has just thrown open my door and told me I have to accompany her to visit my aunt (she broke a hip and is in the hospital).
11 January 2002
A dream I had tonight:
I'm getting off an airplane. The sky over Milano shows me a sullen, hostile face. The clinging, icy wind musses and flattens my hair, just done at the salon. In the grayish light, my face looks washed out, and my eyes seem empty, ringed by narrow phosphorescent circles that make me even weirder.
My hands are cold and white, corpselike. I arrive inside the airport and spot my reflection in a window: I take note of my face, thin and colorless, my long hair, disheveled and at this point horrendous, my lips, clenched, hermetically sealed. I am aware of a strange, unmotivated excitement.
Then I flash on myself again, just as the reflection shows me, but somewhere else. Instead of being in an airport, dressed in my usual designer clothes, I am suddenly in a dark, putrid cell touched by so little light I can't see what clothes I'm wearing or what kind of condition I'm in. I weep; I am alone. Outside it must be night. At the end of the corridor I glimpse a flickering light, which is nonetheless intense. No noise. The light approaches. It grows closer and closer, frightening me, since I hear no step at all. The man who arrives moves with great caution. He is tall, potent.
He rests both of his hands on the bars; I stand, drying my eyes, and go to meet him. The light of the torch illumines his face, suffusing it with a diabolical air, while his body remains in shadow. I see his enormous, ravenous eyes, of some indefinable color, and his broad lips, which are parted, permitting a glimpse of a row of pearly teeth. He lifts a finger to his mouth, signaling me not to speak. I observe his face up close and notice that he is fascinating, mysterious, and extremely handsome. I am jolted when he places his perfect fingers on my lips and traces a circle. He does it gently, my lips are moist, and almost spontaneously I draw closer to the bars, pressing my face against them. His eyes brighten, but he is absolutely, eternally calm. His fingers enter deeply into my mouth, lubricated by my saliva.
Then he withdraws them, and with the aid of his other hand, he rips open the upper part of my threadbare clothes, leaving my full breasts exposed. The nipples are rigid from the cold entering the narrow embrasure, and at the touch of his soaked fingers, they become even harder. He places his lips on my breasts, nuzzling them at first, then kissing them. I hang back my head in pleasure, but my chest remains still, yielding only to his demands. He stops, gazes at me, smiles. One of his hands searches through his clothes, which, from up close, I realize are those of a clergyman.
A jingling of keys, followed by the sound of an ironclad door softly closing. He is inside. With me. He again tears at my clothes, ripping them from my body, exposing my belly and then, farther below, my warmest point. He slowly lays me down on the pavement. His head descends, and his tongue thrusts between my legs. While I am no longer cold, I desire to feel myself, to perceive myself through him. I pull him toward me, smelling my humors on his face. Groping beneath his tunic, I feel his member in my hand, lovely and hard, and I rub it more and more frenetically… His penis wants to escape from the tunic, and I help it by lifting the black garment.
He penetrates me, our fluids run together, and he slides wonderfully, like a knife in warm butter, but he does not stir me. He slips his member out and sits in a corner. I let him wait; only later do I approach him. Again he immerses it in my foaming waves. A few strokes, hard, sharp, sudden, are enough to bring me to infinite pleasure. We are in unison. He regains his composure and abandons me, weeping even more than I was before.
Then I open my eyes, and I am back at the airport, observing my face.
A dream within a dream. A dream that echoes what happened yesterday. His eyes were the same as Germano's. The fire illuminated them, made them shine. Gianmaria had entered with two huge logs and some branches. He arranged them in the fireplace, which began to brighten the setting, making it more hospitable. A strange, comforting warmth was invading me. What I observed did not provoke any feeling of disgust or embarrassment. On the contrary, it was as if my eyes were accustomed to certain scenes, and the passion that had beaten against my skin all this time flew out and struck the faces of the two young men who unwittingly were in my hands. I watched each of them plunge into the other: I in an armchair beside the fire, they on a couch in front of it, lovingly eyeing and touching each other. Their every moan was an 'I love you'; and while in my viscera I experienced every thrust as devastating and painful, for them it was a pure caress. I too wanted to take part in an intimacy I did not understand, in their loving and tender refuge, but I had not proposed it and just watched according to our agreement. I was naked, pure in body and mind. Then Germano shot a blissful glance at me. He detached himself from the cleft and, much to my amazement, knelt before me, slowly prying open my thighs. He awaited a sign from me before he dove into that world. He kept at it for a little while, then went back to being himself, the hard and implacable African King. We exchanged places: he pulled me by the hair and bent me toward his scepter. That was the moment when I noticed his eyes, when I understood that his passion wasn't any different from mine: they took each other by the hand, grappled, then fused. The lovers fell asleep on the couch in an embrace while I, my skin incandescent from the flames, continued to watch them, alone.
