One Hundred Strokes of the Brush Before Bed

by Melissa P.

  My eyes were closed, but still I sensed him staring at me. It didn’t feel right for him to lay his eyes upon me all that time. Men are never satisfied with your body; beyond caressing it, kissing it, they want it to be imprinted in their heads, never to be erased. I asked myself what he might be experiencing by looking at my body, asleep and motionless. For me, looking isn’t necessary, perceiving is more important, and tonight I perceived him. I tried to repress a laugh when I heard him grumble about being unable to find his lighter. With my eyes still closed and my voice hoarse, I told him I’d seen it fly out of his pocket when he threw his shirt on the front seat. He gave me a sad glance and opened the window, letting in the cold that I had not felt before.

  After a long silence, he exhaled some smoke and said, “I’ve never done anything like that.”

  I knew what was on his mind. I felt this was the moment for a serious conversation that might either jeopardize or strengthen our dangerous, precarious, and exciting relationship.

  I slowly approached him from behind, placing my hand on his back and then my lips on my hand. I waited a bit before speaking, but from the start I knew what I had to say.

  “The fact that you’ve never done it doesn’t mean it was wrong.”

  “Nor right,” he said, exhaling more smoke.

  “Who cares if it was right or wrong? The important thing is that we felt good, we lived deeply.” I bit my lip, aware that a grown man wouldn’t listen to such a presumptuous young girl.

  Yet he turned around, flicked away his cigarette, and said, “This is why you make me lose my head: you’re mature, intelligent, and you have this passion inside you that’s utterly boundless.”

  He’s the one, Diary. He recognized it. I mean my passion. On the way back home, he told me we’d better stop seeing each other as teacher and student, he couldn’t think of me in that role any longer, and besides he never mixes work with pleasure. I replied that it was fine with me. I kissed him on the cheek and opened the gate, while he waited for me to enter the house.

  24 February

  This morning I didn’t go to school; I was too tired. Anyway the play opens tonight, so I have a good excuse.

  Around lunchtime I received a message from Letizia, who said she would come at 9 pm on the dot to watch me. Yes, Letizia … yesterday I forgot about her. But how does one conjure up perfection in the midst of perfection? Yesterday I had Valerio, and that was enough for me; today I’m alone, and I’m not enough for myself (why am I not anymore?). I want Letizia.

  P.S. That cretin Fabrizio! He’d got it into his head to come see me with his wife! It’s a good thing he isn’t too cocky. In the end, I convinced him to stay home.

  1:50 am

  I wasn’t especially nervous tonight; in fact, I felt somewhat apathetic, and I couldn’t wait for the end. All the other actors were cavorting, out of either fear or excitement. I stood behind the curtain to observe the people arriving, on the lookout for Letizia. I didn’t see her, and Aldo, the set designer, called to me, saying we had to start. The house lights went down, and the stage lights went up. I darted from the wings like an arrow shot from a bow, arriving on stage just as the director had always instructed me to do during rehearsals (when I never managed to do it). Eliza Doolittle amazed everyone, even me: my speech and gestures were so natural, absolutely fresh. I was thrilled. From the stage I tried to spot Letizia, but no luck. So I waited for the performance to end, along with the cheers and applause, and from behind the now closed curtain I continued to scrutinize the audience in an effort to pick out her face. My parents were there, starry-eyed, clapping loudly; so was Alessandra, whom I hadn’t seen for months. Fortunately, there was no sign of Fabrizio.

  Then I saw her. Her face was bright and cheerful, and she was clapping like mad. I also like her for her spontaneity, her intense joie de vivre; it’s exhilarating just to look in her face.

  Aldo pulled me by my arm and shouted, “Brava, brava, darling! Come on, hurry up, get changed. We’re going to celebrate with the others.” He had an odd, crazy sort of look; I burst into noisy laughter.

  I told him I couldn’t, I had to see someone. At that very moment Letizia arrived with her smile. When she noticed Aldo, her expression changed, her smile vanished, and her eyes darkened. I looked at Aldo and observed the same serious expression descend over his blanched face. I turned around two or three times like an idiot, glancing first at him, then at her, after which I asked: “What is it? What happened?”

  They remained silent, gazing at each other with hard, almost threatening eyes.

  Aldo spoke first: “It’s nothing, nothing, go on. I’ll tell the others you can’t come. Ciao, bella.” He kissed my forehead.

  Confused, I watched him as he dashed off. I turned towards Letizia and asked her, “Can I please know what’s going on? Do you two know each other?”

  She was now more cheerful, but a bit hesitant. She tried to avoid eye contact and lowered her face, covering it with her long, tapering fingers.

  Then she looked me straight in the eye and said, “I guess you know Aldo is gay.”

  We all know it at school; he talks about it openly. I answered yes.

  “And?” I tried to get her to continue.

  “And, some time ago he was with a guy, and, well, then we met, me and the guy, I mean … Right away Aldo suspected something.” Her words were slow and fragmented.

  “Suspected what?” I asked, simultaneously curious and on edge.

  She looked at me with her huge, shining eyes. “No, I can’t tell you, I’m sorry… I can’t.”

  She averted her gaze and said, “I’m not only a lesbian.”

  And what am I? A woman, or not quite, since my birth certificate says I’m still too young. A girl, then, who seeks refuge and love in the arms of a woman. But I’m lying, Diary: I’d never allow my better half to resemble me so much; I must be the only female member of the team. What I see in Letizia, what makes me desire her so boldly, is mainly her body, her carnal essence, but also, I must say, her spirit too. I like all of her, she intrigues me, enchants me; for some time now she has become the protagonist of my many fantasies. Love, what I am forever seeking, seems so far away at times, so different from me.

  1 March 2002

  11:20 pm

  When I left the house today, my father was sitting on the sofa watching TV with a vacant look. He asked me where I was going without any real concern, and I felt a response would be superfluous, since nothing I said to him would have changed the expression on his face. He would have remained supine.

  If I had told him “I’m going to the apartment a married man just bought for the express purpose of fucking me,” it would have provoked the same effect as “To study at Alessandra’s house.”

  I shut the door softly. I didn’t want to disturb his abstract thoughts, so distant from me.

  Fabrizio has already provided me with keys to the apartment. He told me to wait for him there, he would arrive after work.

  I still hadn’t seen it; you can just imagine how much it mattered to me. I parked my scooter in front of the building and entered the dim, deserted lobby.

  The voice of the concierge made me jump, and a sudden warmth surprised me. She asked me what I wanted.

  “I’m the new tenant,” I said loudly, emphasizing each word because I foolishly thought she might be deaf. In fact, she immediately explained, “I’m not deaf. Which floor are you on?”

  I gave it a moment’s thought and said, “The second, the apartment that Signor Laudiani just bought.”

  She smiled and said, “Ah, yes! Your father told me you should lock the door once you’re inside.”

  My father? I let it slide. It was pointless to explain that he wasn’t my father, apart from the obvious embarrassment it would entail.

  I opened the door, and as soon as the key clicked, the stupidity and senselessness of what I was about to do really hit me. It was stupid to start something I absolutely did not want. With his dim-witted voice full of e
nthusiasm, Fabrizio had told me this afternoon would be special, we would inaugurate “our love nest” with something memorable. The last time I did something that somebody had called memorable I sucked five cocks in a dark room reeking of grass. I hoped that today at least the theme would be different. The entrance was small and quite dull: a red carpet gave it a bit of colour. From there I could see all the other rooms, but only in snatches: the bedroom, a tiny living room, a kitchenette, and a utility closet. I avoided going into the bedroom so I wouldn’t see what that simpleton had hung on the wall. Instead I headed for the living room. Passing the closet, I couldn’t help but notice three coloured boxes stacked on the floor, so I switched on the light and went in. On top of the boxes was a note written in big letters: open the boxes and wear one of the things inside. I was definitely snared; my curiosity was piqued.

  I rummaged through them, and, all in all, I must admit that he showed some imagination. In the first box was lingerie, pure white and lacy: a sheer slip, panties that were at once sensual and chaste, a push-up bra. Another note placed inside said, for a baby who needs to be cuddled. First box rejected.

  The second box contained a pink G-string with some feathers attached behind it, quite like a rabbit’s tail, a pair of fishnet stockings, pink shoes with vertiginous high heels, and another note: for a bunny who wants to be captured by the hunter. Before rejecting it, I wanted to see what the third box would yield.

  I liked this game, this unveiling of his desires.

  The third box is what I chose: a shiny black body suit in latex, accompanied by long high-heeled leather boots, a whip, a black dildo, and a tube of Vaseline. Apart from some cosmetics, the box also contained a note that read, for a mistress who wants to punish her slave. There could be no punishment better than this; he himself had proposed the means. Below the note was the postscript: if you decide to wear this, you should call me only after you put it on. I didn’t understand why he made this request, but it was fine with me, the game was becoming more interesting. I’d make him come and go as I pleased – perfect!

  I could tell him to shove it up his asshole without any remorse or guilt. But I was annoyed that I had to play this intriguing game with him. He didn’t rank high in my estimation; it would have been fantastic to have all these opportunities with the Professor. But I had to play: he’d done too much to ensure a few fucks with me, first the apartment, now these gifts. I saw my phone flashing; he was calling me. I didn’t answer; instead, I texted him that I had chosen the third box and would call him later.

  I went into the living room, opened the window that gave onto the balcony, and let in a little fresh air to get rid of the musty smell. Then I lay down on the carpet with the warm, enveloping colours. The fresh air, the silence, the diffuse light coming from the setting sun was lulling me to sleep. I closed my eyes and breathed deeply till I perceived my breathing as a wave ebbing and flowing, breaking on the reef, and then withdrawing again into the vastness of the sea. A dream was rocking me, and passion held me in its arms. I didn’t manage to make out the man, although I knew very well who he might be. His identity escaped me; his features were indistinct. We were fitted together like a key in a lock, like a farmer’s spade thrust into the rich, luxuriant soil. His erect member, after nodding off a little while, again began to thrill me with the same shudders as before, and my broken voice showed him how much I was enjoying the game. My desire was making him sluggish, as if I were a cool, fizzy spumante that packed the necessary punch to exalt his senses and send him high as a kite.

  He felt increasingly exhausted by my body and my movements, which were rapid and yet slow enough to make him lose any sense of time. I slowly detached my buttocks from his sex so that the arrow did not abruptly leave the open, vermilion wound. Then I observed him with my Lolita smile. I seized the silk garters that had just bound my wrists, this time to tie his. His closed eyes signalled a desire to possess me hard and violent, but I felt I wanted to wait … and wait …

  I then took my black stockings, the thigh-highs with the lace band, and tied his ankles to two chairs I had moved to the edge of the bed. Now he was open to pleasure, his and mine. In the midst of that naked body rose the staff of love, so erect, confident, and inflexible that it did not take long to master my pink secret once again. I climbed up on top of him, rubbed my skin against his, sensing our mutual shudders, driven by gentle waves of pleasure. My rigid nipples lightly caressed his torso, its hair pricking my smooth skin, and his hot breath met mine.

  I passed the tips of my fingers over his lips, slowly massaging them; then my fingers entered his mouth, gently, smoothly… His moaning made me realize how exciting fingers might be in their journey of discovery. I placed a finger on my dripping rose, moistening it with dew, and then placed it on the coral tip of his stiff penis, which at the touch vibrated slightly in the air like the flag of a commander victorious in battle. Astride him, my buttocks turned toward the mirror and thus reflected in his eyes, I lowered my bosom and whispered “I want you” in his ear.

  It was divine to see him at the mercy of my desires, stretched out naked on white sheets that received the outline of his tense, excited body. I took the scented scarf I was wearing when I entered the house, and I blindfolded him so that he could not glimpse the body I permitted him to serve.

  I left him there quite a while. Too long. I was crazed with lust, I wanted to straddle that perennially erect shaft, and yet I also wanted to make him wait longer, to wait forever. Finally I rose from the kitchen chair to return to the bedroom where, bound, he was expecting me. He could hear my steps, deliberately quiet and stealthy, and he emitted a sigh of gratitude. He jerked before my body slowly swallowed him up inside it …

  I awoke. The sky was an intense blue, and the moon was already visible, attached like a thin hook to the roof of the world. I was still excited by the dream. I picked up my phone and called him.

  “I was beginning to think you weren’t going to call,” he said, worried.

  “I did what I felt like,” was my nasty reply.

  He told me he would arrive in fifteen minutes, and I should wait for him in bed.

  I stripped and left my clothes on the floor of the closet. I took the contents of the box and put on the tight body suit, which clung to my back and pulled my skin, pinching it. The boots reached exactly to the middle of my thigh. I didn’t really understand why he had also included flaming red lipstick, false eyelashes, and very bright rouge. I went into the bedroom to look at myself in the mirror, and when I saw my image, I had a start: here was my nth transformation, my nth prostration to the hidden, prohibited desires of someone who isn’t me and doesn’t love me. But this time would be different; I would exact a fitting recompense: his humiliation. Even if, in reality, we were both humiliated. He arrived slightly later than he told me he would. His excuse was that he had to invent some cock-and-bull story for his wife. His poor wife, I thought, but tonight he will be punished for his sins against her as well.

  He found me on the bed, intently watching a bluebottle that was bashing against the light on the ceiling, producing an irritating noise. I was thinking that people bash convulsively against the world just like that stupid insect: they create noise and confusion, they buzz around things without ever managing to seize them completely; sometimes they mistake a trap for the object of their desire and get killed, rotting beneath the blue reflector inside the cage.

  Fabrizio placed his overnight bag on the floor and remained motionless, observing me in silence. His eyes spoke eloquently, and the excitement beneath his trousers confirmed everything: I would have to torture him slowly, maliciously.

  Then he said, “You’ve already raped my head; you’ve penetrated me. Now you must rape my body; you must penetrate my flesh with some part of you.”

  “Don’t you feel that at this point master and slave can no longer be distinguished? I decide what I must do; you must only suffer. Come!” I shouted like a most capable dominatrix.

  He headed toward t
he bed with long, hurried strides. Eyeing the whip and the dildo on the bedside table, I felt my blood boil and a frenzied excitement building within me. I wanted to know what kind of orgasm he would experience, and above all I wanted to see his blood.

  Naked, he looked like a worm, virtually hairless, his skin bright and soft, his belly flabby and swollen, his sex unexpectedly stiff. I think that to inflict on him the same sweet violence as in the dream would have been too much; he merited a punishment that was harsh, stern, wicked. I made him stretch out on the floor, on his stomach. The expression on my face was cold and disdainful, aloof; had he seen it, his blood would have frozen in his veins. He turned around his pale, sweaty face, and I ground the heel of my boot into his back. His flesh was scourged to fulfil my vendetta. He screamed, but screamed softly; perhaps he wept. My mind was in such a confused state that it was impossible for me to distinguish the sounds and colours around me.

  “Who are you?” I asked him with an icy tone.

  A prolonged wheeze, then a broken voice: “Yours. I am your slave.”

  As he spoke, my heel descended along his spine and rested between his buttocks, pressing.

  “No, Melissa … No,” he said, panting loudly.

  I wasn’t capable of continuing, so I reached a hand toward the table, gathered the accessories, and placed them on the bed. I turned him over with a kick, forcing him to assume a supine position, and gave his chest the same treatment I had given his back.

  “Turn over!” I ordered him again. He turned. I straddled one of his thighs and, without realizing, started gently rubbing my sex, restrained by the clinging bodysuit.

  “Your cunt is sopping,” he said with a sigh. “Let me lick it.”

  “No!” I shouted.

  His voice snapped, but I managed to hear him as he told me to continue, to hurt him.