One Hundred Strokes of the Brush Before Bed

by Melissa P.

  I got down from the bed, and my feet touched the smooth, incredibly cold floor. I waited for him to take me and do what he wanted.

  “Suck my dick, slut,” he whispered.

  I ignored my shame, immediately banished it, and did what he asked me to do. I felt his member turn hard and swollen. He grabbed me by the armpits and lifted me to the bed.

  He positioned me on top of him like a defenceless doll and aimed his long lance toward my sex, still so little opened, so little wet.

  “I want to make you feel pain. Come on, scream, let me hear how I’m hurting you.”

  There was in fact pain, I felt the walls burning, and the dilation occurred against my will.

  I screamed as the dark room spun around me. My embarrassment had vanished and in its place was only the desire to make him mine.

  “If I scream,” I thought, “he’ll be happy, he asked me to do it. I’ll do anything he tells me.”

  I screamed and felt pain, no trace of pleasure passed through me. He, however, exploded, his voice was transformed, and his words turned obscene and vulgar.

  He hurled them at me, and they pierced me with a violence that exceeded even his penetration.

  Then everything returned to the way it was before. He picked up his glasses from the bedside table, took off the condom with a tissue and threw it away, calmly dressed, caressed my head, and when we got into the car, we talked about bin Laden and Bush as if nothing had happened.

  25 October 2001

  Roberto calls me often. He says hearing me fills him with joy and the desire to make love. He says the latter in a low voice, partly because he doesn’t want to be heard, partly because he’s embarrassed to admit it. I tell him that I feel the same way, that I often think about him when I touch myself. It isn’t true, Diary. I say it only to stroke his ego; he’s full of himself. He’s forever saying, “I know I’m a good lover. Women really like me.”

  He’s an arrogant angel, he’s irresistible. His image hounds me during the day, but I think of him more as the polite young man than as the passionate lover. And when he is transformed, he makes me smile: I think he knows quite well how to maintain his equilibrium, how to be different people at different times. Unlike me, always the same, always identical. My passion is everywhere, so is my cunning.

  1 December 2001

  I told him my birthday is the day after tomorrow, and he exclaimed, “Great. Then we’ll have to celebrate in an appropriate fashion.”

  I smiled and said, “Robi, we just celebrated yesterday. Aren’t you satisfied?”

  “Uh, no. I meant your birthday should be special. You know Pino, don’t you?”

  “Yes, of course,” I replied.

  “Do you like him?”

  Worried about saying something that would distance him from me, I hesitated a little, then decided to tell the truth: “Yes, quite a lot.”

  “Perfect. I’ll come to pick you up the day after tomorrow.”

  “OK.” I shut my phone, curious about this strange excitement of his. I trust him.

  3 December 2001

  4:30 am

  My sixteenth birthday. I want to stop right here and not go any further. At sixteen I’m mistress of my actions, but also the victim of chance and unpredictability.

  When I left the house, I noticed Roberto wasn’t alone in his yellow car. I saw the black cigar, indistinct in the darkness, and understood everything.

  “You could at least stay home on your birthday,” my mother said before I went out, but I didn’t listen to her. I softly closed the door and left without answering.

  The arrogant angel looked at me with a smile, and I climbed into the car, pretending I hadn’t noticed Pino in the back seat.

  “Well?” Roberto asked. “Don’t you have anything to say?” He nodded toward the back.

  I turned and saw Pino, wasted, his eyes red, his pupils dilated. I smiled at him and asked, “Did you smoke?”

  He nodded yes, and Roberto added, “He also drank an entire bottle of grappa.”

  “Splendid,” I said. “He’s in great shape.”

  The lights of the city were reflected on the car windows. The shops were still open; the owners eagerly awaited Christmas. Couples and families strolled on the pavements, unaware that I was riding in the car with two men who were taking me to some strange place.

  We crossed Via Etnea, and I saw the Duomo, the cathedral illuminated by white lights and surrounded by impressive palm trees. The river flows beneath this street, hidden by volcanic rock. It is silent, imperceptible. Just like my silent, docile thoughts, skilfully concealed behind my armour. They flow, eating away at me.

  In the morning the fish market is held nearby. You can smell the scent of the sea on the fishermen’s hands, their nails blackened by entrails. They fill a bucket with water and splash it on the cold, gleaming bodies of animals that are still living, still quivering. We were heading precisely in that direction, even though at night the atmosphere changes. When I climbed out of the car, I realized the scent of the sea metamorphoses into the scent of hashish, kids pierced with studs and rings replace the old, tanned fishermen, and life continues to be life, always, no matter what.

  An ancient woman with a horrible odour passed by me, dressed in red and holding a cat that was red too, bony and blind in one eye. She was chanting a singsong verse in Sicilian, which went something like this:

  Via Etnea is the place to stroll:

  A wealth of light, if truth be told.

  Hordes of people milling about;

  Those guys in jeans just hanging out.

  They strut their stuff as on display

  In front of each and every café.

  At night Catania so lovely seems,

  Shining beneath the bright moonbeams.

  The mountain top is red with fire;

  Its heat to lovers proves most dire.

  She walked like a ghost, at a snail’s pace, her eyes staring wildly, and I stood watching her, my curiosity piqued, as I waited for them to get out of the car. The woman brushed against the sleeve of my overcoat, and I felt a weird shudder. Our eyes met for the briefest instant, but it was so intense and so eloquent that I was afraid, really afraid, crazed. Her lively, sidelong glance wasn’t in the least obtuse. It spoke: “Inside you shall discover death. You shall never recover your heart, girl, you shall die, and some man will toss earth on your grave. Not even a flower, not a single one.”

  I had gooseflesh; that witch had cast a spell on me. But I didn’t heed her. I smiled at the two guys who came toward me, handsome and dangerous.

  Pino could barely stand up. He remained silent the entire time. Nor did Roberto and I speak as much as we usually did.

  Roberto pulled a huge ring of keys from his trouser pocket and slipped one into the lock. The portal creaked; he had to apply some force to open it, and finally it closed noisily behind us.

  I didn’t say a word; I didn’t have any questions. I knew quite well what we were about to do. We climbed a timeworn staircase. The walls of the palazzo seemed so fragile I was afraid they might suddenly give way and kill us; the countless cracks let in a white light, making the blue walls appear diaphanous. We stopped at a door through which I could hear music.

  “Is someone here?” I asked.

  “No,” Roberto replied, “we forgot to switch off the radio before we left.”

  Pino immediately went to the bathroom, leaving the door open. I watched him piss, holding his limp, wrinkled member. Roberto went into the other room to lower the volume, and I stayed in the corridor, curiously examining all the rooms I could spy from there.

  The arrogant angel returned, smiling. He kissed me on the mouth, and pointing toward a room, he said, “Await us in the cell of desires. We shall arrive soon.”

  “The cell of desires,” I giggled. “What a strange name to call a room where you screw!”

  I entered the narrow room. Tacked to the walls were hundreds of photos of nude models, pages from porno magazines, x-rated Ja
panese cartoons, and positions from the Kama Sutra. Predictably, a red flag with Che’s face was unfurled on the ceiling.

  “Where have I ended up?” I thought. “Some sort of sex museum. Who in the world owns this house?”

  Roberto arrived with some black cloth in his hand. He turned me around and blindfolded me with the cloth. As he turned me back to face him, he exclaimed with a laugh, “You look like the goddess Fortune.”

  I heard the click of the light switch and could no longer see anything.

  I discerned steps and whispers. Then two hands pulled down my jeans and removed my turtleneck sweater and my bra. I remained in a G-string, thigh-highs, and stiletto-heeled boots. I saw myself blindfolded and naked, saw on my face only my red lips, which would soon get a taste of them.

  Suddenly the hands multiplied, becoming four. It was easy to distinguish them, since two were above, fondling my breasts, and two were below, rubbing my sex through the string and caressing my bottom. I couldn’t get a whiff of Pino’s alcohol; perhaps he had brushed his teeth in the bathroom. While I imagined myself at the mercy of their hands and began to get excited, I felt the touch of an ice-cold object from behind, a glass. The hands continued to feel me up, but the glass pressed harder against my skin. Frightened, I asked, “Who the hell is that?”

  Muffled laughter in the background, then an unfamiliar voice: “Your barman, precious. Don’t worry: I’ve only brought you a drink.”

  He drew the glass to my mouth, and I slowly sipped some cream liqueur. I licked my lips, and another mouth kissed me passionately while the hands continued to caress me, and the barman gave me another sip. A fourth man was kissing me.

  “What a beautiful ass you have,” said an unfamiliar voice, “soft, spotless, firm. May I give you a bite?”

  I smiled at the comical request and replied, “Just do it, don’t ask. But there’s one thing I want to know: how many are you?”

  “Relax, amore,” said another voice at my shoulder. And I felt a tongue lick the vertebrae in my back. The image I now had of myself was more seductive: blindfolded, half naked, five men licking me, caressing me, lusting brazenly for my body. I was the centre of attention, and they did with me what one is permitted to do in the cell of desires. I didn’t hear a word, only sighs and caresses.

  When a finger slowly slipped inside my Secret, I felt a sudden warmth and realized that reason was abandoning me. I surrendered to the touch of their hands, yet I was keen to know who and what they were. What if the pleasure I experienced were the work of a slobbering, hideously ugly man? At that moment it meant nothing to me. Now I feel ashamed, Diary, but I know regretting things after you’ve done them is pointless.

  “Perfect,” Roberto said finally. “Only the last component is missing.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “Don’t worry. You can remove the blindfold. We’ll play another game now.”

  I hesitated a moment to remove the blindfold, but then I slowly slipped it off my head and saw that Roberto and I were alone in the room.

  “Where have they gone?” I asked, surprised.

  “They’re waiting for us in the other room.”

  “What is that one called?” I asked, amused.

  “Mmmm … the smoking room. We’ll roll a joint.”

  I desperately wanted with all my might to take off and leave them there. The pause in the action had dampened my excitement, and reality appeared in all its crudeness. But I couldn’t leave: I had already started and had to finish at any cost. I had to do it for them.

  I glimpsed the silhouettes etched in the darkness, illuminated only by three candles placed on the floor. From what little I could make out, the guys present in the room didn’t appear ugly, and this consoled me.

  There was a round table surrounded by chairs. The arrogant angel was seated.

  “Do you smoke?” Pino asked me.

  “No, thanks, I never smoke.”

  “But tonight you will,” said the barman. I could perceive that he was well-built, slender and shapely. His skin was dark, and his curly hair shoulder-length.

  “No, I’m sorry to disappoint you. When I say no, it’s no. I’ve never smoked, I won’t smoke now, and I don’t know if I’ll smoke in future. I find it unnecessary, so I’ll leave it to you.”

  “But at least you won’t deprive us of a beautiful sight,” said Roberto, clapping his hand on the wooden table. “Sit here.”

  I sat at the table with my legs spread, the heels of my boots nailed to the floor and my sex visible to all. Roberto approached the chair and pointed the lit candle toward my pubic area to illuminate it.

  As he rolled the joint, he glanced back and forth from the fragrant grass to my Secret. His eyes were glistening.

  “Touch yourself,” he commanded me. I slowly slipped a finger in my wound, and he stopped working on the joint, yielding to the sight of my sex.

  Someone approached from behind. He kissed my shoulders, took me in his arms, and jammed me against his body, trying to enter me with his lance. I was disarmed. My eyes downcast and lifeless. I didn’t want to look.

  “Hey hey, no,” said Pino. “We talked about this before. Nobody penetrates her tonight.”

  The barman went into the next room to find the black cloth that had covered my eyes. They blindfolded me again, and a hand forced me to kneel down.

  “Now, Melissa, we shall pass the joint.” I heard Roberto’s voice. “Whoever is holding it will snap his fingers and touch your head, so you will know that it has arrived. You must draw near, when we tell you, and take it in your mouth until it comes. Five times, Melissa, five. Henceforth we shall no longer speak. Perform your task well.”

  Five different tastes clashed on my palate, the five flavours of five men. Every flavour told its story, every potion bespoke my shame. During those moments I had the illusory sensation that pleasure was not only physical, that it might be beauty, joy, freedom. And kneeling naked in their midst I sensed that I belonged to another, unknown world. But then, after I exited that room, my heart was in shreds, and I experienced an unspeakable shame.

  They then abandoned me on the bed, and my body felt numb. On the desk in the narrow room my phone started flashing, and I knew the call was coming from home. It was already two-thirty in the morning. But then someone entered, stretched out on top of me, and screwed me. Another followed him and pointed his penis toward my mouth. As soon as one had finished, another would unload his whitish liquid on me. One after another. Sighs, moans, grunts. And quiet tears.

  I returned home full of sperm, my makeup smeared. My mother was waiting for me, asleep on the couch.

  She was too sleepy to upbraid me about the hour, so she just nodded and headed toward her bedroom.

  I entered the bathroom, looked at myself in the mirror, and no longer saw the image of that girl who took such delight in examining herself a few years ago. I saw sad eyes, rendered even more pitiful by the black liner that streamed down my cheeks. I saw a mouth that had been violated so many times tonight and had lost its freshness. I felt invaded, fouled by foreign bodies.

  Then I brushed my hair a hundred times, as princesses do, my mother always says, with my vagina even now, as I write in the dead of night, still smelling of sex.

  4 December 2001

  12:45 pm

  “Did you have fun last night?” my mother asked me this morning, drowning out the gurgle of the coffee pot with a yawn.

  I shrugged and responded that I’d spent the night just like so many others.

  “Your clothes had a strange smell,” she said with her usual look of wanting to know everything, especially where it concerns me.

  Frightened, I abruptly turned my back on her and bit my lip. I thought she might have picked up the scent of sperm.

  “What kind of smell?” I asked, feigning composure, mindlessly observing the sun through the kitchen window.

  “Smoke. It smelled like marijuana,” she said with an expression of disgust.

  Relieved, I turned
around, smiled slightly, and said, “Well, people were smoking in the club last night. I couldn’t possibly ask them to put it out.”

  She gave me a surly look and said, “If you come home stoned, you won’t even be allowed to go to school.”

  “That’s fine with me,” I joked. “I’ll see if I can find a reliable dealer. Thanks, you’ve given me a great excuse to cut those shitty classes.”

  As if the only thing that might be harmful is hashish. I’d smoke gram after gram if it could help me shake off this strange sensation of emptiness, of nothingness. It’s as if I were suspended in the air, looking down in shock at what I did yesterday. No, that wasn’t me. That was the girl who doesn’t love herself, who allowed herself to be touched by greedy, unfamiliar hands, who became a receptacle for the sperm of five different guys, who so defiled her soul that she can’t feel pain.

  I am the one who does love herself, who last night made her hair shine again with a hundred careful strokes of the brush, who rediscovered the childlike softness of her lips, and who kissed herself, sharing the love that yesterday had been denied her.

  20 December 2001

  A time of gifts and false smiles, of coins tossed – with a fleeting burst of good conscience – into the hands of gypsies holding babies on street corners. I don’t like to buy gifts for other people; I always buy them for myself alone, perhaps because I have nobody to whom to give them. This afternoon I went out with Ernesto, a guy I met in a chat room. He immediately seemed like a kindred spirit. We exchanged phone numbers and began seeing each other like dear friends, even if he is slightly distant, absorbed by the university and his mysterious friendships.

  We often go shopping together, and I’m not embarrassed when I enter a lingerie shop with him. On the contrary, he frequently buys something too.

  “For my new girl,” he always says. But he has never introduced me to any of them.

  He seems to be on very good terms with the salesgirls. Their talk avoids the social niceties and they giggle away. I rummage through the racks, searching for things I might wear for the person who managed to fall in love with me. I keep them carefully folded in the first drawer of the dresser, intact.