Dimitra Mantheakis - Melina Breaking Free

At some moment Demosthenes’ hand accidentally touched hers in the dark. An electric-like impulse passed through his body into Maria, in a split second, like lightning. Neither of them pulled away. They turned towards one another, looked into each others’ eyes, and their lips met in a kiss. Their breathing became deeper and after the first kiss there was another and another. Without saying a word Demosthenes picked her up from the rock and put her down on the sand. His hand slid onto her breast, to her stomach, and then he lifted her dress over her head. Impatiently he pulled at her underwear and started to stroke her naked body. She shuddered with each caress. It was the first time that she had not wanted to resist a man’s advances. She begged him not to stop exploring her body with his hard mouth. In a little while his hands pushed her legs apart and his strong member entered her. Maria let out a cry that for a moment restrained Demosthenes, but she immediately pulled him forcefully on top of her, urging him to continue. Their bodies, united, moved in a wild wavelike rhythm while their groans could be heard above the splashing of the waves. Demosthenes, lost in ecstasy, tried to hold back his climax which was about to erupt, waiting until Maria had reached her peak. He felt her vagina squeezing him, squeezing him, followed by a loud moan signaling satisfaction at her release. Demosthenes let loose his desire inside her with such force that it almost made him faint. Then he lay down next to her, clasping her tightly to his chest.

When he got his breath back he lit a cigarette and stroking her hair he whispered, “Did I hurt you Maria? It was your first time, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, Demosthenes, it was my first time and it was wonderful!” she replied, kissing him on his neck. A little later Maria, without any reserve, stroked his penis until it became as hard as steel. He re-entered her, triumphantly, and their bodies were soon flooded by supreme satisfaction.

Dawn was breaking when exhausted from their all-night embraces and with their bodies soaked in sweat, despite the morning chill, they pulled themselves apart. Naked as they were, they went into the water to wash off the damp residue of their night of love. Wet and trembling from the cold of the dawn air they put on their clothes, hugged, and kissed each other goodbye. There was no need for any elucidation at that moment. The adventure was about to end with the coming appearance of the first rays of the sun that in a little while would dissolve the magic of the evening. For the passion that had given them such satisfaction there was no tomorrow. They would each follow a private path back to their responsibilities and obligations.

Demosthenes watched Maria walking away until she disappeared behind the wooden garden gate of her house. He felt a tightening in his heart and a bitter taste in his mouth. He had unexpectedly stumbled on the Ultimate, and he had lost it, without having the right to pursue his claim. With a deep sigh he started on his way back with his mind and soul stamped with the image of Maria who had become his wife, his ideal and inestimable companion, for just one night.

Back at her grandmother’s house, Maria, lying fully clothed on her bed, brought back to mind, again and again, every moment, every word, and every movement of the dreamlike night. She pinched herself to make sure she was awake, that it wasn’t an illusion, that everything that had happened was real. It didn’t bother her that she had given herself so easily to a stranger, offering him her virginity. If she had a hundred virginities she would have sacrificed them for the indescribable fulfillment she had experienced. Neither did she think about her fiancé, Yannis, nor about his reaction when in two months time he would probably discover that someone else had reaped the fruit of her harvest. Respecting her innocence and her virginal shyness, all Yannis had enjoyed until then were some kisses and a few embraces. At this very moment, no external circumstance, no social restraint could spoil the pleasure springing from the echo of her happiness and the relaxation she felt in her body, sated as it was with love.

A shadow would be cast over the memory of that strange evening the next month when Maria returned to Athens and vainly waited for her period. The strong and uncontrollable passion in Aegina had borne fruit. The odd thing was that the thought of an abortion never entered her mind, even for a moment. Her bizarre stubbornness carried the risk of exposing her. She started desperately looking for solutions beyond the only logical one, an abortion. She decided to confide in her cousin, Myrto, the “fast” one of the family who kept others’ secrets safer than if they were in a bank vault. Myrto, so full of charm and coquetterie and the joy of life, didn’t give a hoot about the constant criticism from her family circle that often stigmatized her “unbridled”, as they called it, behaviour, and her frequent switches of sexual partners that made her relatives bow their heads in shame for the lost lamb of their clan. Good-natured Myrto had solutions for all of their amorous entanglements. When she found out about Maria’s doings she advised her cousin to keep the baby, and since she was about to get married, to present the child as Yanni’s. Maria was horrified when she first heard the proposal. She did not want to deceive her fiancé, but, word after word, Myrto convinced her that there was no other way. “Nobody,” she said, again and again, “can be hurt by things they do not know.”

She repeated it so many times that Maria succumbed to her advice.

Maria married Yannis and seven months later she gave birth to her “premature” daughter, Urania. Myrto had fixed the problem with the obstetrician convincing him that with his collusion he was saving a potential victim from the wrath of her relatives who would severely punish Maria who had strayed from the narrow path. Yannis did not for a moment have any doubts about his premature daughter, on the contrary, he concentrated all his love and devotion on the two women in his life. The arrival of a second daughter, and later the birth of twin sons completed his circle of happiness. Maria was an exemplary mother and wife and ran her household with perfect order and discipline. No one ever learned her secret and no one would learn it in the future. Only at night when she felt the lukewarm embraces of Yannis did her mind travel to that enchanted August evening brimming over with sexual passion and her body sought that urge, that intoxicating sense of excitement that was now only a distant and priceless memory. She knew she would never again experience such sexual tension, never would her body seek with an almost obsessive desire to have a male enter and pull her apart as Demosthenes had done then. On the one hand she was lucky because Yannis did not notice, or pretend he did not notice, that someone else had beaten him to the looting of her vaginal passage, and Maria was grateful for his discretion.

When her schoolmates left Melina at her doorstep she entered the dilapidated two room house where the six members of her family lived. Her mother, on her knees, was brushing the wooden floorboards with ochre. Despite the freezing February cold, beads of sweat stood out on her forehead. Each time she stretched her hands forward to spread the mixture on the planks “ Ohhh…Ohhh ” sounds came from her lips, but that which made the girl’s heart tighten was the expression of sorrow in her mother’s eyes. The endurance of a lifetime of tribulation was focused in that look, or was it despair? How many times had Melina not seen that same expression when watching her mother examine the three kitchen cupboards, looking for something to cook for her family on those days when her father’s wage had not entered the family purse because no one had hired his cart? The pitiable woman tried to dilute the trachana or the rice soup to make it suffice for all the mouths she had to feed. Melina observed her mother time and time again when with her back bent she washed the family’s clothes on the washboard out in the yard in the severe cold in the middle of winter or in the scorching heat of summer, rubbing, rubbing, rubbing, with caustic ash powder until her hands were on the verge of bleeding.