Ilja Pfeijffer - La Superba

I felt like fucking a whore. It was the perfect night for it. But the whores weren’t around. They’re for lunch, when the Genoese magistrates nervously grip their calf-leather briefcases under their sweaty armpits. But I was determined to find someone. I went on my way, hard, intent and stoical. After Via della Maddalena there was still Via del Campo. Via del Campo is a whore. If you want to possess her, all you have to do is take her by the hand. She sells the same rose to everyone. And after Via del Campo there’s Via delle Croce Bianca and the Ghetto if necessary.

But even the Ghetto was deserted at this hour. I wandered aimlessly through lifeless alleyways. When there aren’t any fat, hairy transvestites to look at, it becomes noticeable how truly dilapidated the alleys are. Entire sections aren’t even paved. Plasterwork crumbles under your gaze. You only have to lean against a wall for a little rest to find yourself involuntarily creating a new passageway, a random alley you might name after yourself for a night before it all begins to shift once more.

Sighing, I sat down on some steps up to a door. “And this then?” I asked myself. “Is this just fantasy, too?” The door opened from the inside. I turned around.

“Your fantasy is my profession.”

I couldn’t see him very well in the darkness but he was certainly well built. He was wearing a wig and a short, tight miniskirt. He was missing a leg. “Come,” he said.

“What’s your name?” A stupid question, I know, but in my fright I couldn’t think of anything else to say. I heard the griffins screech.

“Ornella,” he said.

16.

He hopped on his crutches ahead of me into the sex cubicle. It was a seedy cubbyhole, not much more than a small garage with a bed in it, but there was more light there than in the alleyway. Although outside, with a bit of goodwill, sufficient horniness, and perseverance, he had something womanly about him, little of the illusion remained in this electric light. He had shaved his face and leg, put on a wig, a single sexy stocking, and a leopard-print skirt that was quite tight around his belly, and stuffed his bra. But that was the full extent of it. I noticed I couldn’t bring myself to use feminine pronouns for him, not even to keep the illusion intact. He looked like a parody of his own fantasies. He wanted it too much. In theory this can be quite a turn on — a person who, despite an evident lack of the necessary talents and physical attributes, is hungry to play the game and knows himself desired — indeed, that’s generally a lot more exciting than a sketched body that only has to be touched to arch back, wispily sighing in the knowledge it can induce ecstasy without even having to lift a finger — but you can also overdo an evident lack of the necessary physical attributes.

He leaned his crutches in the corner and sat down on the bed. “Come,” he said. He gestured for me to sit down next to him. I stayed standing.

“What’s wrong?”

And then there was the matter of that one leg. It wasn’t really the problem. It was more the missing leg that was unsettling. Legs usually get in the way, alright, that’s one way of looking at it, I got that. But all in all, it was quite a specialist fetish. Something for the rare connoisseur.

“Why do you do this?” I asked.

“And you?”

It was a fair question in return, I had to admit. It was exactly what I was starting to wonder myself. “How long have you had it?”

“What do you mean?”

“Your leg.”

“I think the question is more how long I haven’t had it.”

He was clever, too. But that was something I really didn’t need. It was the last thing I’d left my house for in the middle of the night. This was slowly turning into an even bigger nightmare than the nightmares I’d been running away from. Maybe it was best to leave.

“What I’ve got between my, albeit, no longer existent legs still functions perfectly well, by the way. What’s your name? You can invent a name if you like, I don’t care.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Then I’ll call you Giulia. What’s your greatest desire?”

“I no longer have any desires right this instant.”

“Oh yes you do, dear Giulia, you’re overflowing with passionate desires, even though I might not be the one who can fulfill them. But your desires are flickering in your eyes. I see that kind of thing.”

“Once again, I’m sorry. I sincerely apologize. I made a mistake. But I’ll pay you. How much is it?”

“It’s nighttime. It’s the hour of the wolf. Only you and I are awake in this cursed labyrinth. I’ll tell you a story. Take a seat. You don’t have to pay anything. All I want is for you to listen.”

17.

“You might not think so at first sight, but I used to be a man. Or maybe you would think that at first sight, but I’m perfectly capable of making you forget that at second sight. Love is all about illusions. As a man, I learned that in a painful way, and as a woman I’m applying that lesson now. If you want to be desired, you have to satisfy the image the other has of you. Being yourself and others respecting you for who you are and things like that are just foolish talk by people in relationships and happy about it, without knowing true love: she is a cruel goddess who requires sacrifices. She rends the earth with her eyelashes. She can break strong men with a glance, the way she broke me. She crushes, or worse still, ignores, anyone who thinks they can stay themselves — that they’ll even be respected for it.

“As though there is such a thing as being yourself. That’s another problem. As though there’s even such a thing as yourself. Identity is always a concoction, a construction based on the image that a person has of what others think of them. And that’s not a constant. It’s as changeable as the shape of a cloud in the wind — now it looks like Scandinavia, and the next moment some ducks, a lady, or sheep and a shepherd.

“What you have to learn, Giulia, is that the highest achievement is to coincide fully with the fantasies of your lover. And you don’t have to worry about him doing the same. Or her. Sorry. I know you’re not far enough to consider that distinction irrelevant. But the time will come. You have the potential to become a sensible girl. You have to become her. Or him. But I won’t make it too difficult for you. You have to become her. You won’t begin to love her until you see her face in the mirror. But your real job is to ensure that she sees your face in the mirror. Which is to say that she sees her own face, because that face has become your mirror image. Do you understand that, dear Giulia? It’s a dangerous game, you’re right about that. You find yourself in a labyrinth of mirrors in which it’s easy to lose your way. But that has to be your desire — to lose your way.

“I can see you don’t understand. Poor girl. Come and sit down. I’ll explain it in a better way.”

“I’m not a girl.”

“Of course not. Sorry. I’ve never been one, either. I was a man with both legs firmly planted on the ground. I could plaster walls and chop logs. I’ve never been afraid of insects, no matter their size. I was big, black, and forbidding. I laughed at rats. If I’d been born in a different century, I’ve have had a sword on my hip.”

“And then what happened?”

“Her name was Moana. That isn’t her real name, but it doesn’t matter. To me she was the most beautiful girl in Genoa. She was the love of my life. I loved her so much that adoring her like any other would was no longer enough. My greatest desire was to be one with her. I didn’t want to possess her, that’s banal, that’s for normal people who have relationships. I wanted to become her.”

“And did you manage?”