One Hundred Strokes of the Brush Before Bed

by Melissa P.

  1 August 2000

  He told me I’m not capable of doing it, I’m not passionate enough. He said it with his usual mocking smile, and I left in tears, humiliated by his response. We were lying on the hammock in the garden, his head resting on my legs as I gently caressed his hair and gazed at his eyelashes, quite thick for an eighteen-year-old’s. I ran a finger across his lips, wetting the tip a little. He awoke and shot me an inquiring look.

  “I want to make love, Daniele,” I blurted out. My cheeks were flaming.

  He laughed so loudly he lost his breath.

  “Give me a break, babe – what is it you want to do? You’re not even capable of sucking me off!”

  I looked at him, perplexed, humiliated, I wanted to sink into his well-manicured garden and rot beneath it while his feet trod on me for eternity. I fled, screaming “Asshole” and violently slamming the gate. I started the scooter and took off, my soul in ruins, my pride crushed.

  Is it so hard, Diary, to let yourself be loved? I didn’t think it was necessary to drink his potion in order to secure his affection; I thought I had to yield myself completely to him, but now that I’m about to do it, now that I desire it, he mocks me and drives me away. What can I do? Might as well forget about revealing my love to him. I can still prove I’m capable of doing what he doesn’t expect. I’m very stubborn; I’ll get my way.

  3 December 2000

  10:50 pm

  Today’s my birthday, my fifteenth. Outside it’s cold, and this morning it rained hard. Some relatives came over, but I wasn’t very hospitable, and my embarrassed parents told me off when the others left.

  The problem is that my parents see only what they like to see. When I’m bubbly, they share my delight and seem amiable and understanding. When I’m sad, they stay at arm’s length and avoid me like the plague. My mother says I’m a zombie, I listen to funeral music, and the only thing that amuses me is to shut myself up in my room and read books (she doesn’t actually say this, but I can read it in her look). My father knows zilch about how my days unfold, and I haven’t the slightest desire to tell him anything about them.

  Love is what I’m missing, an affectionate caress is what I want, a sincere look is what I desire.

  School was also hellish today: twice I was caught unprepared (I’ve lost the desire to study) and I had to put up with the Latin lesson. Daniele torments my brain day and night and even inhabits my dreams. I can’t reveal to anyone what I feel for him, they wouldn’t understand, I’m certain.

  During the lesson the classroom was silent and dark because a lightbulb burned out. I left Hannibal crossing the Alps and the well-trained geese in the Campidoglio waiting for him. I turned my gaze toward the steamed-up windows and saw my opaque, hazy image: without love a man is nothing, Diary, nothing at all (nor am I a woman).

  25 January 2001

  Today he turns nineteen. As soon as I awoke, I grabbed my mobile, and the beep-beep of the buttons resounded in my room. I sent him a happy birthday message. I know he won’t respond with thanks; maybe it’ll give him a chuckle. He won’t be able to restrain himself when he reads the last sentence I wrote: “I love you, and that’s the only thing that matters.”

  4 March 2001

  7:30 am

  So much time has passed since I last wrote, but nearly nothing has changed. During these months I dragged my feet, burdened by my sense of the world’s inadequacy. Around me I see only mediocrity, and the mere idea of going out makes me feel ill. Where would I go? With whom?

  Meanwhile my feelings for Daniele have intensified, and now I feel like I’m bursting with the desire to make him mine.

  We haven’t seen each other since the morning I left his house in tears. Only last night did his phone call break the monotony that has dogged me ever since. I’m hoping with all my might that he hasn’t changed, that he’s stayed exactly the same as that morning when I made my acquaintance with the Unknown.

  Hearing his voice awakened me from a long, sound sleep. He asked me how I was getting along, what I’d done during these months; then with a laugh he asked if my tits had grown, and I answered yes, even though it isn’t really true. After running out of words to fit the occasion, I had told him the same thing I told him that morning – I wanted to do it. Over the past few months the lust has been agonizing. I’ve touched myself till I thought I’d go out of my mind, experiencing thousands of orgasms. Desire took possession of me even during school hours when, certain that no one was watching, I straddled the iron support of the desk and leaned my Secret against it with a gentle pressure.

  It was strange he hadn’t mocked me yesterday; in fact, he remained silent while I confided my longing to him. He said there wasn’t anything weird about it, it was normal for me to have such desires.

  “As a matter of fact,” he said, “since I’ve known you for a while, I can help you realize them.”

  I sighed and shook my head. “In eight months a girl can change; she can come to understand certain things she didn’t before. Daniele, why don’t you tell me the truth, that you don’t have any cunts available, so all of a sudden (and finally, I thought!) you remembered me?” I was letting everything out.

  “You disappeared! Do you want me to hang up? There’s no use talking to a girl like you.”

  Afraid he would once again slam the door in my face, I yielded, uttered an imploring “No,” and then said, “OK, OK. Forgive me.”

  “Now that you’re using your head,” he responded. “I’ve got a proposal to make to you.”

  Curious about what he was going to tell me, I egged him on childishly. He said he would do it with me only if nothing came of it, if there’d be nothing between us but sex, which we’d seek out only when we had the desire for it. I believed that in the long run even a porno novel might metamorphose into a tale of love and affection, which, absent at the start, could develop with practice. And so I prostrated myself before his will insofar as it complied with my whims: I shall be his little sex toy with an expiry date; when he gets fed up, he’ll just get rid of me. Seeing that my first time would involve a true and proper agreement (though without a document that confirms and bears witness to it) between one party who is much too cunning and another who is much too curious and eager, I accepted the terms with a bowed head and a heart on the verge of exploding.

  I’m hoping, however, for a positive outcome because I want to preserve the memory of it forever. I want it to be lovely, brilliant, poetic.

  3:18 p.m.

  My body feels destroyed and heavy, incredibly heavy. It’s as though something very huge has fallen on top of me and squashed me. I’m not referring to physical pain, but to a different kind, inside. I didn’t feel any physical pain even when I was on top.

  This morning I took my scooter out of the garage and went to his house in the centre of town. It was early, half the town was still asleep, and the roads were nearly empty. Every so often some truck driver would blast his horn and toss me a compliment. I’d smile a little because I thought other people could perceive my happiness, which always makes me more lovely and radiant.

  When I arrived at his house, I looked at my watch and realized I was tremendously early, as usual. So I sat on the scooter, opened my book bag, and took out my Greek text to go over the lesson I should’ve reviewed in class this very morning (if only my teacher knew I skipped school to go to bed with a boy!). I was anxious, all the same, and leafed back and forth through the book without being able to read a word. I felt my heart pounding and the blood flowing through my veins, racing beneath my skin. I laid down the book and looked at myself in the rearview mirror. I thought my pink teardrop glasses would charm him and my black poncho would knock him dead. I smiled, biting my lip, and felt proud of myself. It was just five minutes to nine; it wouldn’t be a big deal if I buzzed early.

  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 odour 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 licence 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 face down, 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 hands in 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 centre 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 was so preoccupied.

  “It’s school,” I sighed. “They’re loading me down with assignments.”

  My father kept shovelling 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 gravy. 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, candour, 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 savouring 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. Almost 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?

  Yesterday the rocks of Polyphemus stood watching us as he moved convulsively on my body, ignoring my shivers from the cold and my averted eyes, which were pointed toward the moon’s reflection in the water. We did everything in silence, as always, in the same way, every time. His face was thrust over my shoulder, and I felt his breath on my neck, no longer warm but cold. His saliva bathed every inch of my skin as if a slow, lazy snail had left his slimy track. His skin no longer recalled the golden, dewy skin I had kissed one summer morning. His lips no longer tasted of strawberry; they lacked any taste at all. At the moment when he offered me his secret potion, he voiced his usual croak of pleasure, increasingly a grunt. He detached himself from my body and stretched out on the towel beside mine, sighing as if he had freed himself from some cumbersome weight. Lying on my side, I studied the curves of his back and marvelled at them; I noted the slow approach of my hand, but immediately withdrew the gesture, fearful of his reaction. I gazed long at him and the Faraglioni, one eye on him, the other on the rocks; then shifting my gaze, I noticed the moon in the middle and stared at it, lost in wonder, squinting to bring its roundness and indescribable colour into sharper focus.