Dimitra Mantheakis - Melina Breaking Free

Iakovos didn’t have room for dreams beyond the narrow limits of the small family shop at this given moment. He had an unmarried sister and his mother to look after as he was the only male at home now that his father had become a mere visitor, coming and going to prison and from exile to exile. The only person who had nothing to say was Melina. Looking at the pretty dresses of the other girls her heart tightened. The dress she was wearing had been lent to her by Mary, as had been her shoes, otherwise she wouldn’t have been able to attend the wedding. She forced herself to swallow her pride not to hurt Mary on her wedding day. What plans could she make for tomorrow, to establish herself in a career and have better prospects? Jobs in the provinces were difficult to land and were only available to those with an ‘in’. She had nothing, except for poverty, privation and daily humiliation. Being a top student at school didn’t seem to offer her better prospects. She indeed had a will , but she did not have a way . It looked as if the rest of her life would be like this. She would be lost as a salesgirl in some shop, or as an assistant in a restaurant kitchen somewhere, if indeed she were lucky and managed to get even this, and never able to break free from a life of drudgery and her destiny. Tears welled up in her eyes and she stood up to move away not to be noticed by her school-mates and for them to start asking questions. This was not the time for compassion or for her to spoil her friend’s milestone day with her melancholy. No one noticed her leave the venue where the wedding was being held as she made her way towards the beach. She took off her shoes not to spoil them with the wet sand, borrowed as they were and having to be returned. When Mary said she could keep them and the dress as well, she had refused. She did not want charity. All she had wanted was to be helped out temporarily...

She walked along the beach crying, unaware of the natural beauty of her surroundings. She had been overcome by the ugliness of her own life. At least she could be alone for a little while before going back to her stifling hovel to face the usual questioning by her parents who would bombard her with pressing questions if they saw her clouded mood, something that today fortunately would not happen as her younger siblings were home alone with their sick grandmother. Her eye had caught her mother secretly folding sweets in paper napkins and putting them in her worn handbag to take home to the younger children. Even this act made her feel shame and pain. She felt sorry for her family and self-pity at being an integral part of this humiliating situation; a state of affairs that had not changed in years, no matter what effort or physical exertion she had expended for them at what was a permanent grindstone for her. What was worse was that any hope that a better future would one day dawn, had died in her. And this was killing her; slowly, slowly, but steadily…

She spread out her scarf and sat on a flat section of a rock that had not been wet by the waves. How much she longed to ride a wave that would take her far away to a world that was different from her daily routine, where there would be rays of light for her too; a chance to change the void she almost always felt inside her as a result of the pessimistic thoughts that wandered about inside her head not allowing the birth of even a fleeting smile of optimism to reach her lips! She leaned her head forward inside her folded arms, resting it on her raised knees, and cried, and cried, seeking release through the outburst brought on by the fathomless sorrow in her soul…

She almost didn’t notice Sarantos’ hands as they gently touched her shoulders. The youth had discreetly followed her having noticed from her dulled eyes that his Melina was not well. And when Melina was not well, Sarantos felt even worse. Such was the pain and love he felt for his ever-beloved…

Melina turned and looked at him with eyes that were full of stars from the reflection of light in her tears. Without a word he opened his arms and she huddled into his embrace. Sarantos began drying her wet cheeks with gentle kisses. Then, he started cautiously at first kissing the lips he had dreamed of kissing from the time they were children, and then progressed with passion as years of pent-up desire overtook him. Melina did not react. She clung to him, like a leach, as if to a savior. Tonight she wanted to belong to someone, even temporarily; she wanted to be special to someone outside her family. No one, except Sarantos, had ever been by her side, not a single youth among the many in the village had ever tried to approach her, to flirt with her, or even to look at her with interest and persistence, to show that he had noticed her. Lost in the maze of her complexes Melina had never realized how stunning, and at the same time wild, was her beauty, but at the same time so off-putting with the hardness of her eyes, her mask of indifference and the coldness of her face that made all those who admired her unable to cast a second, more direct glance for fear of provoking her, untamed as she was, to attack them verbally and to make fools out of them…

Without her realizing it the girl had raised, on her own, a barrier between herself and her secret admirers, believing that poor and humble as she was she was unworthy of attention and not worth approaching. What idiot would want to accompany someone who was the very embodiment of wretchedness, to enter her house that was in a state of disrepair and to become witness to her family’s struggle to survive for yet one more day? These were Melina’s thoughts, her self-respect in tatters, having lived through traumatic experiences that had become hurdles to every natural ambition, barriers cutting her off even from those things that anyone else would consider to be normal and expected. She was in a hole, never expecting to ever find her way out into the light of day, never to be able to spew out the bottled-up sentiments that were choking her. At this moment, with its burden of sentiments, Melina, who could feel Sarantos’ hands touching her lightly and gently, as if she were fragile as crystal and experiencing a wave of tenderness emanating from his words and actions, wanted to think of nothing else and nobody else. She was the one taking the decisions that influenced her actions and not the mores of society, she said to herself tossing her full head of hair aside into a crack in the rocks. Sarantos strong hands moved across her back, stroking her from the base of her neck to her buttocks. She let her head fall back, allowing his mouth to explore her lips her neck and the top of her full breasts. Her young flesh woke, putting forth pressing demands which, fired by passionate kisses and sensual caresses, became a need that insisted on immediate satisfaction. Distant and frigid Melina had metamorphosed into a living flame, feeling for the first time in her life that someone else was totally dependant on her wants and on her approval or rejection in order to proceed to the next level. She had been unaware that Sarantos had achieved some expertise in the management of matters of the flesh. Or was it perhaps her own submissiveness that guided her to take the right steps to gain that total knowledge and to excite every cell of her body?

Suddenly she was overcome by a sensation of having total power, even if this complete dominance had only one object, Sarantos. Melina wanted to travel along the entire route without caring if she came up against a dead-end at its end. The future had no connection or dependence on the present and she wanted, with all her will, to remain enmeshed in this warm embrace and to taste the present…

As if she had years of experience she cupped his face with her long slender fingers, tasting his lips with light bites and then pressed her mouth against his, wanting to suck out his very soul with deep and exhilarating kisses. She felt him moan and shake in reaction to her passionate response. At one moment Sarantos getting his breath back murmured, “Stop now, my Melina, I won’t be able to control myself if you stop me later, if you don’t want me to go on…”