Melissa P.: 100 Strokes of the Brush Before Bed

Just after I pressed the buzzer, I glimpsed his naked back in the window. He raised the blind, scowled, and said with a hard, ironic tone, "You've still got five minutes. Wait there; I'll call you at nine on the dot." At that moment I laughed stupidly, but in thinking it over now, I realize he wanted to send a very clear message about who was setting the rules and who had to follow them.

At exactly nine he came out on the balcony and said, "You can enter."

On the stairs I smelled the odor of cat piss and flowers left to wither. I heard a door open and dashed up the steps two at a time because I didn't want to be late. He'd left the door open, and I entered, softly calling his name. I heard noises in the kitchen and headed there, but he came to meet me and stopped me with a kiss on the lips, quick but pleasurable. It brought back his strawberry taste.

"Go in there," he said, pointing to the first room on the right. "I'll come in a minute."

I went into his room, which was an utter mess. He had obviously just rolled out of bed. The walls were covered with license plates from American cars, posters of manga cartoons, and random photos from his trips. On the bedside table stood a photo of him as a child. I touched it gently, but he put it facedown, telling me I shouldn't look at it.

He grabbed me by the shoulders and spun me around, giving me the once-over. Then he complained, "What the hell are you wearing?"

"Fuck off, Daniele," I replied, wounded once again.

The phone rang, and he left the room to answer it. I didn't quite hear what he was saying, just muffled words and repressed laughter. "She's waiting for me. I'll take a peek and tell you."

At this point he put his head around the door and looked at me before he went back to the phone and said, "She's standing next to the bed with her handsin her pockets. I'm going to screw her now, and I'll tell you about it later. Ciao."

He returned with a smiling face, and I responded with a nervous smile.

Without saying a word he lowered the shutter and locked the door to his room. He looked at me for a moment and dropped his trousers, remaining in his underwear.

"Well?" he said with a scowl. "What are you doing still dressed? Are you going to take off your clothes or not?"

He laughed as I got undressed, and once I was naked, he nodded and said, "Not bad, after all. I've made a deal with a good-looking cunt." I didn't smile this time, I was nervous, I looked at my pure white arms shining in the faint sunlight that came through the window. He started kissing me on the neck and gradually moved lower, over my breasts and then the Secret, where already the River Lethe had begun to flow.

"Why don't you shave it?" he murmured.

"No," I said just as softly, "I like it better like this."

Lowering my head I noticed he was aroused, and so I asked him if he wanted to begin.

"How would you like to do it?" he asked without hesitation.

"I don't know," I answered with a twinge of shame, "you tell me… I've never done it."

I lay down on the cold sheets of his unmade bed. Daniele flopped on top of me, looked me straight in the eyes, and said, "Get on top."

"Will it hurt me to be on top?" I asked in a tone that was almost reproachful.

"Who cares?" he exclaimed without looking at me.

I clambered on top of him and guided his lance to the center of my body. I felt a slight pain, but nothing terrible. Feeling him inside me didn't provoke the frenzy I had expected. On the contrary, his sex just gave me an annoying, burning sensation, but I felt obliged to stay glued to him like that.

No groan issued from my lips, which were clenched in a smile. Letting him see my pain would have meant expressing those feelings he didn't want to acknowledge. He wanted to make use of my body, not penetrate my light.

"Come on, little one, I won't hurt you," he said.

"Don't worry, I'm not afraid. But shouldn't you be on top?" I asked with a faint smile. He sighed and agreed, throwing himself on top of me.

"Do you feel anything?" he asked as he started to move slowly.

"No," I answered, thinking he meant pain.

"How can you say no? Is it the condom?"

"I don't know," I continued, "I don't feel anything bad."

He looked at me with disgust and said, "You're no fucking virgin!"

I didn't respond immediately. I looked at him, shocked. "Sorry, but what exactly do you mean?"

"Who did you do it with?" he asked as he leaped from the bed and picked up the clothes that were scattered across the floor.

"No one, I swear!" I raised my voice.

"We're finished for today."

There's no point telling the rest, Diary. I left without even the energy to cry or scream, with only an infinite sadness that wrenches my heart and little by little devours it.

6 March 2001

Today at lunch my mother gave me one of her inquiring looks and demanded to know why I so was preoccupied.

"It's school," I sighed. "They're loading me down with assignments."

My father kept shoveling in the spaghetti, lifting his eyes only to catch the latest drama in Italian politics on the news. I wiped my lips on the napkin, spotting it with sauce. Then I dashed out of the kitchen as my mother railed that I never showed any respect for anything or anyone, at my age she was responsible and cleaned napkins instead of dirtying them.

"Yeah, right!" I shouted from the next room. I turned down the bed and curled up beneath the covers, soaking the sheets with my tears.

The smell of softener mixed with the gross smell of the mucus that was filling my nose. I wiped it with the palm of my hand and dried my tears. My eyes lit on the portrait of me hanging on the wall: it was done not too long ago by a Brazilian painter in Taormina. As I was walking past him, he stopped me and said, "You have such a beautiful face, let me draw you. I'll do it for free."

And while his pencil sketched lines on the sheet of paper, his eyes sparkled and smiled in place of his lips, which remained closed.

"Why do you think I have a beautiful face?" I asked him as I kept the pose.

"Because it expresses beauty, candor, innocence, spirituality," he replied, tracing broad gestures with his hands.

Beneath the covers I recalled the painter's words, as well as that morning when I lost what the old Brazilian had found so special in me. I lost it between sheets that were too cold and beneath the hands of someone who devours my very heart, which has now stopped beating. Dead. I do have a heart, Diary, even if he doesn't notice it, even if perhaps no one ever will. And before I open it, I shall give my body to any man who comes along, for two reasons: because in savoring me he might taste my rage and bitterness and therefore experience a modicum of tenderness; and because he might fall so deeply in love with my passion that he won't be able to do without it. Only then shall I give myself utterly, without hesitation, without restraint, so as not to lose the tiniest scrap of what I have always desired. I shall hold him tight within my arms and tend him like a rare and delicate flower, careful lest a gust of wind suddenly wilt him. I swear it.

9 April 2001

The days are improving. This year spring has exploded beyond measure. One day I awake and find the flowers blooming, the air warmer, as the sea gathers the sky's reflection and transforms it into an intense blue. As on every morning I take my scooter to school. The cold is still biting, but the sun holds out the promise that later the temperature will rise. Rising up from the sea are the Faraglioni, the rocks that the cyclops Polyphemus hurled at Odysseus (masquerading as "Nobody") after the Greek had blinded him. Nailed to the sea floor, they have stood there from time immemorial, and neither wars nor earthquakes nor even Etna's violent eruptions have ever caused them to sink. They rise impressively, erect over the water, and bring to mind how much mediocrity, how much sheer pettiness exists in the world. We talk, walk, eat, complete every action that human beings must complete, but, unlike the Faraglioni, we don't remain in the same place, unchanged. We degenerate, Diary, wars kill us, earthquakes debilitate us, lava engulfs us, and love betrays us. And we aren't even immortal. But is this not, perhaps, a good thing?