by Fabio Volo
I remained still on the table with my eyes closed, chasing the pleasure as long as I could. I felt him untying me. I remained in the same position, I couldn’t move. He picked me up and took me to bed. We stayed under the blankets, hugging. He kept kissing me lightly on the forehead, the eyes—he kept caressing me. I was exhausted, overcome by a sense of liberation.
Even now, as I’m writing this, I can feel the echo of the shivers and the electricity I experienced that day.
My life was making room for the unforeseen. I was no longer obsessing over the need to keep everything under control. In the beginning it led to a few accidents: I forgot to put water in my coffee maker and it exploded, I lost my work cell phone twice in one month, and if it hadn’t been for Paolo, I would have been locked out of the apartment, because my keys had fallen in a storm drain. Now I can smile looking back at those changes I was experiencing.
One afternoon, as I was going to pick up some groceries, I heard someone calling my name. I turned around and, sitting on a bench, there was Paolo’s brother. I walked toward him.
“Where are you going in such a hurry?” he asked me.
“I’m going to the store, but I’m not in a hurry.”
“Then why don’t you take a seat and keep me company a minute.”
I sat down. “And what about you, what are you doing sitting on a bench all by yourself on a Saturday afternoon?”
“Nothing. I’m looking around and thinking.”
He took a long drag, and I realized it wasn’t a cigarette he was smoking.
“Would you like some?” he asked, passing it my way.
“No, thanks.”
“Come on, take a drag.”
“It would kill me.”
“This is light stuff …”
I grabbed it and took a little drag.
“Take another one; it’s not going to kill you. It looks like you could use a couple of drags.”
I took another one.
“Did you change something? You look more beautiful.”
“Thanks, but I think I’m the same.”
He smiled. “Don’t worry, I won’t ask you why.”
I could feel my face growing hot, but I changed the subject immediately. “How’s your mother?”
“As usual … Focused on the past. And my riot of a brother? What’s he complaining about nowadays?”
“He’s doing well …”
“Sometimes I regret having told him not to let you get away. I shouldn’t have hated you that much.”
“This is news to me.”
“Unfortunately it’s true. Every time I see you I feel guilty.”
“But I’m happy with your brother.”
“Yeah, right …”
“You don’t believe me?”
“I’ve always wondered why someone like you would want to be with someone like my brother.”
“What do you mean by ‘someone like me’? Why not? What am I like?”
He looked at me in such a way that if he hadn’t been my husband’s brother I would have thought he was flirting with me. I don’t know if it was because of the two drags I took off the joint, or that I just realized for the time that Simone was a charming man.
“You can’t really believe that someone can be happy with another person, right?” He made a strange face, which I couldn’t really figure out.
“Don’t you ever think about finding a woman and settling down?” I asked him, to change the subject.
“Not for now.”
“But after a while don’t you get sick of having sex without having a relationship?”
“Well, it beats having a relationship without sex.” He smiled at his own joke and took another drag. Then he added: “The truth is that I’m fed up with women who try to change me because they want me to resemble the idea of men they have in their heads.”
“To change doesn’t necessarily mean to make worse.”
“But I don’t go around trying to change them. I like people the way they are.”
“Sure, the way you live your relationships …”
“What do you mean?”
“You don’t feel the need to change the other person, not because you respect her, but for the same reason that no one would repaint or refurnish a hotel room. It’s not like you’re going to live there—after a few days you go back to your own place.”
He looked straight into my eyes, with a defeated expression. “Checkmate. You see that smoking does you good? You’ve never been this shrewd before.”
We started laughing. My head was spinning a bit. Before getting up to leave I looked at him for a second without saying anything.
“Don’t worry. I won’t tell my brother you smoked.”
April 7th
Last night, after writing in my journal, I went to bed and just before falling asleep, I cried. I don’t really know why. Lately, I cry a lot and try to make some sense of it. Paolo hasn’t noticed anything. If there’s one thing I’ve learned as a married woman it’s to cry without making a sound, turning my back to him, keeping still in the dark, on one side, trying to find a name for that ailment, for those tears I can’t stop.
When I woke up this morning I was happy. Maybe because I was supposed to meet him right away. He was waiting for me at his apartment before work. At around noon he had to be at the airport—he was going to be out of town for a few days. I called the office and told them I was going to be a little late.
The door to his apartment was open and from the hallway, I could see the dim light coming from the bedroom. I’d learned not to speak, not to call out his name. He was in bed sleeping, or pretending to sleep. Without saying a word I took my clothes off and got under the sheets from the foot of the bed. It was warm. I didn’t want to touch him right away because my hands were cold. When I enter this house, I feel a warmth that pervades my whole body, but my hands are always freezing. And often he doesn’t even give me time to warm them up. I started to kiss his feet, then went up his legs, his knees, his thighs. He was naked. I love his skin. I like it when I kiss his body in certain spots and I can feel the sudden twitches, his muscles that contract under my touch. His reaction makes me feel powerful. The farther up I go, the more his smell inebriates me. I stick my nose in the folds of his body. I fill my nostrils and lungs with him. I always feel a bit of vertigo when I breathe him in.
He wasn’t ready to make love yet. I was moving slowly and kissed him tenderly until I felt his hands on my head. I wanted him like crazy. For the first time I let him enter me without a condom. Today I felt like doing like that.
We made love. I hadn’t done it in the morning for years. We stayed under the blankets hugging for a few minutes. I was happy. Then we had coffee together, I said good-bye, and I went to work.
I already miss him. Sometimes I feel like I miss him even when I’m with him. I know, it’s strange, but even when we’re hugging I feel a slight nostalgia for us. I’ll have to do without him for a few days, and without the woman I am when I’m with him.
That was the first time we were apart. The following afternoon, around five, as I was going over some papers in my office, I received a text from him: “What are you doing?”
“Boring stuff. Going over some papers. You?”
“Thinking about you.”
“Aren’t you working?”
“I work and think about you. I keep seeing images of us in my head. You’re distracting me. I’d like to be at home with you.”
“Me too.”
“Do you want to mess around a bit?”
“Yes.”
“Go to the ladies room and take a picture of yourself and send it to me.”
“What kind of picture?”
He didn’t answer the question. Our exchange had turned me on. I went to the bathroom, I undid my shirt, and I took a picture of my breast. I didn’t like it and took another. I was finally satisfied on the fourth attempt and sent it to him. I waited for his reply, which came right away.
“Beauti
ful … More.”
I smiled. I was having fun. I didn’t know how to take them. I dropped my skirt, slid a hand into my panties, and took a picture in the mirror.
“You’re driving me crazy … Don’t stop!”
I turned around with my back to the mirror, dropped my panties down to my knees, and took a picture of my butt. He asked me for more pictures. He was playing with me and making me do things I enjoyed. I was surprised to catch myself doing things I normally wouldn’t do, while at my desk important papers and decisions awaited me. I let my imagination run wild. In the office bathroom, as the others were working in the next room, I was taking erotic pictures of myself.
He wrote me: “That wasn’t such a good idea. Now I want you more than before. You’re beautiful. I wish you could see the effects of your photos.”
“Now it’s your turn,” I answered.
He sent me a picture of his hand: no other image could have turned me on more. Then another text: “I’m completely out of it. I can’t wait all this time. I’m flying back tomorrow. Come to my place, please.”
He had changed his flight for me, and I was ready to make up any excuse to Paolo. The next evening, as he got out of the cab, I was already parked under his apartment.
April 10th
Paolo never went under the sheets to pleasure me with his mouth. Maybe a couple of times since we got married, but never in the last few years. I still remember that my second boyfriend loved to do it and I liked it like crazy. Paolo doesn’t even want me to do it to him. When I try, after a few minutes, he pushes me away. I always thought it was my fault, that I wasn’t particularly good at it.
With him, on the other hand, I learned a lot, because I felt I could let myself go. With Paolo I was never able to let myself go, in spite of the fact that he’s my husband. Maybe it’s because when you make love to someone who isn’t free, you don’t feel free either. And we are not free.
With him, everything’s different, everything’s new, even funny. In bed, when we make love, we often laugh. Plus he lets me take the lead. At the beginning of our marriage, when I would try to do that, Paolo would shy away—he didn’t like me being aggressive. Once he even told me that I was making it difficult for him, that certain things I said embarrassed him, and that you don’t do certain things with your wife. That really surprised me, so much so that I asked whom you’re supposed to do these things with if not with your wife, and he confidently said: “With other women before getting married.” At that point I reminded him I wasn’t his mother or the Holy Virgin.
He, by contrast, knows how to love a woman. I found out that my pleasure gives him satisfaction. That’s why I don’t hold back anymore, because now I know that I’m enjoying it for myself and for him as well. My pleasure is the most precious currency, the currency that has value only if it is spent. He seems to always know the things I like. He’s never complacent, and I find that charming. I can feel that his interest is sincere. He looks inside me, he sees me, and he gives me complete assurance that he’s chosen me. I think my pleasure with him is so deep and intense because for the first time, in his hands, my body is being listened to. That’s why I feel as strong as him. As we make love, we are one, and I never have the feeling I’m being passive, although I realize I’m succumbing to something strong. I learned that it’s part of the game I’m participating in. My submission is a gift, an offering, not a defeat. Making love with him is like going on a mysterious voyage. He leads me, he drags me, he shows me places I never knew existed and have never visited before.
Sometimes, after being with him, I can still hear his breathing and his words in my ears, and I feel his hands between my legs. I have the sensation that he’s still inside me. I can physically sense him everywhere; sometimes in the car, as I’m driving home, I feel the incontrollable need to touch myself, and I do it as soon as I get home.
I went back to taking baths instead of showers. At night, when I get home, I draw the water, close the door, light a few candles, and there, all alone, I start pleasuring myself. This is another one of his gifts. I have discovered that my clitoris can give me continuous, intense pleasure. I used to feel ridiculous and sad whenever I did it; I’ve always felt embarrassed, even when I was alone. I wouldn’t even touch myself as I was making love with Paolo. It only happened once at the beginning of our story. I felt a strong desire to touch myself and went for it, letting myself go. That was a mistake! Paolo was very offended by it; he interpreted it as a sign that he needed my help to pleasure me. I’ve never tried it again.
With him, it’s different. He’s the one who often asks me to touch myself. When I do it alone, there are a few images of us I think about. I close my eyes and everything’s there in front of me. There’s something sensual and erotic in everything he does. When he drinks his wine, when he eats, when he speaks, when he looks at me. It’s as if we were constantly making love. There’s something spiritual about making love with him. This man leads me where I want to go. For the first time I’m exactly where I want to be—all of me.
I think I’ve made a decision that has brought me closer to a deep and true part of myself.
I’ve always thought that these kinds of emotions were only for stronger, more courageous, more daring women. Now, I am all of these women.
I only wonder why desire has come so late in my life.
The situation almost frightened me. I had never been so happy in my life. I felt alive. I had gone down a path from which it was hard to turn back.
The fact that I wasn’t feeling guilty about Paolo really surprised me. The few times it actually happened wasn’t when I would come back after making love, but rather when Paolo was kind to me, or when I would see him relaxing in front of the TV and I would think that I was wronging him and perhaps he didn’t deserve it.
I think I didn’t feel guilty because when I would enter his apartment I would close the door and the whole world was left outside. The only part of me allowed in there was the one that didn’t have any ties or relationships. I was another person, another woman. I would enter that apartment and I would exit my life. Sometimes I liked to stay out of sight, hiding from him, too, to keep to a corner that was mine alone. He wasn’t my lover, he wasn’t my friend, not even my confidant. He was my accomplice, my partner in a secret game.
I wondered how long that game was going to last and where it was going to take me.
Every woman should meet a man that takes her by the hand and leads her toward her own intimacy, a man capable of restoring her whole life with one single embrace.
April 13th
Sometimes I feel clumsy around him. I would like to be more confident, but instead I’m afraid I won’t be able to meet his needs, like in the beginning when I wasn’t able to meet his eyes. Sexually speaking, I’ve never felt up to the task, but he’s guiding me toward a new awareness. Every time I leave his house, I spend the following days waiting to return as soon as I can.
Today I discovered another side of myself I didn’t know before. Usually, Paolo and I speak very little when we make love. Actually, we hardly ever speak, as if we were ashamed. I’m quiet with him, too; sometimes he asks me questions, but I don’t answer—I’m somewhere else. I’m screaming and laughing with pleasure in another dimension. That’s why my yes’s are made of actions and abandonment.
Today, as we were making love, he started talking dirty. He used words I don’t think I’ve ever uttered in my entire life. As he said them, I would look at his lips and they would turn me on. They seemed beautifully alive. They gave me the shivers. His lips and mouth can make me accept everything. He asked me to repeat them. I couldn’t at first; I thought they were going to make me uncomfortable. Then I followed that stream of warm words and set myself adrift in their current.
As I pronounced the first one I felt a shiver. I can’t even write it down here, but at that moment I managed to say it, to shout it. And I found out that I wasn’t turned on only by listening to them. Shouting them gave me a feeling of tran
sgression: something inside was being freed. For the first time in my life I shouted what I wanted to do, how I wanted to be taken, what I wanted to be. I shouted out my secrets, my fantasies, and I confessed my desires.
All of this is irrational; there is something powerful seducing me, turning me on, freeing me.
April 14th
I love his confidence and his grace. Confidence can come from experience, but grace cannot be acquired. It’s a gift. A person can learn to be kind, polite, attentive, even delicate, but grace cannot be learned. All his passion, all his confidence, all his beauty, wouldn’t have been enough without his grace.
With him, I’m not a woman in love, but rather a happy woman. I belong to him and I have no choice. I’ve never felt this way with anyone else. No man has ever touched me so deeply, no man has ever made me feel like all of me is being seen all at once. I emptied myself of me and refilled myself with us, and in that us lies the part of me that is most true.
The more I make love, the more I want to do it. He always pushes me to my outermost limits, beyond what I thought I could endure. He never goes too far, he holds back just enough, treading the line between the highest peak of pleasure and the beginning of pain, in that area where pleasure is so intense it contains a shadow of suffering. The orgasm I reach with him is deep, different from the ones I was used to and from those I could reach on my own. Every time I experience it, it becomes more intense, as if he’s increased my ability to enjoy it. Maybe this is because our relationship is vague and indefinite. I only feel like he’s mine when we make love.
We’ve been seeing each other for almost a month and we know practically nothing about each other. He doesn’t ask me about my marriage, about my life outside of his apartment. Consequently, I do the same. When we say good-bye, I don’t even know if we’re going to see each other again. Actually, I realized that this instability puts me in a state that leads to an explosion of the senses. Outside of his arms, there are no certainties. Maybe this is what fuels the passion and makes you want to be with someone. Also, the fact that I have to sneak into his house, with the fear of being caught, breaking all the rules, and all this danger, all these transgressions feed my desire.
