Daybreak

by Fabio Volo

  These thoughts belong to the woman he has taught me to be. I wonder how he managed to see her in me. Maybe that woman revealed herself through a small detail, a gesture, an expression. Once, I asked him how he knew I was that person. He answered: “What makes you think I knew? Maybe you are surprising me as well.”

  Those thoughts didn’t dampen my curiosity about him, about his life outside our encounters. For the person I was at that time, it wasn’t normal to leave his house and behave as if he didn’t exist. Sometimes I would fantasize about us outside that apartment. I imagined sharing the day-to-day with him, like a walk, a dinner, a movie. I think it was natural for me to try and make such a crazy relationship seem more normal. I would try to give it a shape I could recognize. That’s why, one day, in bed, all of a sudden, without thinking about it, I asked him: “How long has it been since your last story?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Like a girlfriend …”

  “Official or unofficial?”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “The official one, you introduce to your friends, the unofficial one, you don’t introduce to anyone, and if you happen to run into someone you say: ‘This is a friend of mine.’ Anyway, fewer official ones than unofficial ones.”

  “How come?”

  “I’m not good at relationships between two people.”

  “Why not? It seems like you understand women pretty well. You know how to treat them. You know how to treat me, at least. I wonder if you’re like this with the others, too …”

  When I finished the sentence I hoped he would say: “No, it’s different with you, I’ve never felt like this about any other woman.”

  Instead, he said: “I don’t remember anymore how I am with other women. I haven’t had a girlfriend in a while, neither official nor unofficial …”

  “Have you been hurt?”

  “Just the right amount—nothing too serious. Although I think pain has something to do with it.”

  “Afraid of pain?”

  “Yes, but not the pain I might suffer. I’m frightened by the quantity of pain you can inflict on those who are tied to you. The power you feel when you realize you can destroy the person that loves you. That’s a responsibility that I haven’t been able to accept yet.”

  “It’s a risk you take, but if you don’t, you can’t experience the beauty that risk brings.”

  He sat up in bed, with his back against the headboard and said: “I know.”

  When he spoke about his feelings he had a shy expression on his face. Although he was self assured and confident in other situations, when talking about those things he showed an unexpected fragility.

  “If I weren’t married, would I be official or unofficial?”

  After a few seconds of silence he said: “I wouldn’t know where to place you. I’m very happy with you, every time you leave I can’t wait for you to come back, but I wouldn’t know how to define our relationship. What we’re sharing seems perfect as it is. I wouldn’t change anything.”

  This last sentence hurt me unexpectedly.

  “Aren’t you curious about me? About my life? I can’t tell whether you’re being discreet or whether you just don’t care.”

  “I’m not one to be nosy.”

  “Don’t be silly, it’s just curiosity. I, for one, am curious about you.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “When you put it like that, it sounds like an interrogation …”

  “Ask me some questions and I’ll answer them.”

  “Maybe it’s best we just drop it.”

  Without me realizing it, the tone of my voice had become harsh.

  A long silence followed. I could sense he was resisting, closing up. I was disappointed and he must have picked up on it, since he slid down next to me, caressed my face, and started to speak.

  “You already know what kind of job I do. I’ve never been married and I don’t have children … not that I know of. If you’re dying to buy me a pair of shoes, I wear a size eleven …”

  I started to laugh, all the tension was gone, and he kept telling me about himself. He said he went to Tuscany a lot, to his brother’s, because they’re working on renovating an old farmhouse that belonged to their parents.

  “My brother and I wanted to sell everything after our parents died. Then he wasn’t well for a while and changed his mind.”

  “What was wrong with him?”

  “He and his wife got divorced and it took a toll on him. He became a different person and decided he wanted to live there and turn the farmhouse into an agriturismo. We’ve been working on it for three years now and we’re almost done. Maybe one of these days I’ll drop everything and move in with him.”

  “Does your brother have any children?”

  “Two, Matteo and Marta.”

  “Do they like you?”

  “Well, I’m their uncle—it’s easy to get them to love me. Last week the girl told my brother she loves me and she wants to marry me when she grows up.”

  “Did that make you happy?”

  “I’m happy she loves me, but I explained to her that you can’t marry your own uncle.”

  “And do you want children of your own?”

  “I’m happy with being an uncle for now. I don’t know about in the future. And you?”

  That was the first time he had asked me something personal.

  “We tried, but they wouldn’t come.”

  “I’m sorry, I hope it’s not a sore subject.”

  “No, don’t worry: In the end it was better that way, but I don’t feel like talking about it here in bed with you.”

  There was a time when Paolo and I were trying to have a baby and I thought it would bring us closer together. But it didn’t work out. We did all the necessary tests: Everything came back negative. There was no physiological impediment. We couldn’t figure out what was wrong. Only later I realized that maybe my body didn’t want to. Even when I wasn’t listening to it, even when I was ignoring it, it never betrayed me, it never lied to me. It was probably more important for me to become a happy woman before I became a mother.

  I remember that that day, after talking to him, as I was driving back home, I was thinking about what he had said regarding the amount of pain we can cause the people who love us. I thought about Paolo and how he would suffer if he found out what I was doing. And yet I couldn’t give up our encounters. The beauty of what I was experiencing was so surprising and powerful it would sweep away all the fear and guilt. I was amazed at how the things I was capable of doing didn’t match the image I had of myself.

  April 18th

  When I was twelve, on a Sunday morning, I woke up and I went to the kitchen, where I found my father without a moustache. He had always had one, for as long as I could remember. I was shocked, scared. He wasn’t my father anymore—without a moustache he was another man. I couldn’t talk to him for a few days. I didn’t trust that new person, who had too much space between his nose and his upper lip. I asked him to grow it back, but he said he wouldn’t.

  This morning I asked myself what had prompted my dad to make that change, to make that decision. Why that day? Did he want to be a different man, lead a different life? For the first time I wondered if my mother was also responsible my father’s infidelities.

  I got married so I could have a family different from my own, that’s why I’ve always wanted a faithful husband. I resented my dad for cheating and I got married in order to show him I was better than he was. Instead, here I am, his spitting image, without even a daughter to judge me.

  April 22nd

  Last night I dreamt about him. By now he enters my life through every little opening. I even find him in my sleep. We were at his place and we were making love—there was nothing unrealistic about it. His reality is as good as my dreams.

  This morning I woke up feeling his lips on me. As we were kissing, my eyes opened: I was closing them here and opening them there. Paolo was still asleep.
There are times when I’m afraid of being caught, of exposing myself with a word, of calling his name out in my sleep. The other day I left my journal out in the open, running the risk that Paolo might browse through it, and the same goes for the texts on my phone, which I keep rereading and can’t bring myself to erase. I asked myself if I’m taking these risks hoping to be caught. In reality, I know he wouldn’t notice anything: You can’t see what you can’t even imagine. The woman I have become is very different from the one my husband knows.

  This morning, while I was in the bathroom, I found two bruises on my thigh. He did it the other day. Sometimes when he takes me I can feel his fingers piercing my flesh, and I like it. Even though I know I should be careful, when I make love with him I don’t think about it. I would let him scratch me, taking my skin off, ripping my flesh a bite at a time. These bruises are the marks of our secret. I placed my fingers over those marks and pressed them, recreating the feeling of pleasure-pain I experienced in bed with him.

  I rushed to the office and as I was driving, I could feel my desire growing. I was turned on the entire day, thinking about my dream. During an endless meeting I could only think about him on top of me; it turned me on imagining his eyes fixed on mine. That look that is so strong, yet so melancholic. I couldn’t get certain images of us out of my head: me kneeling in front of him, him behind me reflected in the mirror, the two of us in the shower. Or the tender moments when he caresses me, talks to me softly, and covers me in kisses.

  At the meeting I kept shifting around in my seat, not noticing that I had started rocking back and forth. It gave me pleasure. After a few seconds I caught myself and I stopped. I was afraid someone had noticed those little movements.

  I couldn’t take it anymore. I got up and went to the bathroom. I locked the stall, took my panties off, and reached down to feel how turned on I was. Then I tasted my fingers. I thought about his lips when they have my taste on them. Then I leaned against the wall and started to touch myself. With the other hand I pressed the bruises on my thigh, as I had done that morning. Then I moved my hand from my thigh, put it in my mouth, and started to bite it, so as not to make any noise. He would often put his hand in my mouth, asking me to bite. At first I was afraid I might hurt him. In that bathroom, as I was biting my hand, I came in a few seconds. It was a quick, intense orgasm, different from the ones I have with him. With him, they’re softer, rounder, fuller.

  In there, all alone, with just myself and the things I’d learned to do, I had to sit down because my legs were shaking and my knees were weak. I lifted my head and started to think about how much I had changed.

  My whole life felt as if it had been amplified. Emotions ran through me. I was looking at the ceiling and without knowing why, I started to cry. I left the stall, locked the bathroom door, quickly washed my panties, and dried them using the hand dryer. I looked at myself in the mirror; my eyes were sparkling. I smiled at myself. I went back to the meeting. I could feel that my panties were still warm and a bit wet. I was afraid that someone could read it on my face.

  I spent the rest of the meeting running a finger over the bite mark I had left on my hand. It’s time for bed now. I still feel like making love.

  I’ll see him tomorrow.

  One day, after we made love, as we were waiting for our bodies to go back to two separate beings, he told me: “I would like to spend a whole day together. I want to eat with you, watch a movie, sleep in each other’s arms, see you walk around the house as if you lived here. Do you think that can be arranged at least once? Maybe next Sunday …”

  Hearing those words made my heart pound. I really hated having to tell him: “I really can’t this week, I’m going up to the mountains. But if you don’t change your mind I can make up an excuse for the following week.”

  “I don’t think I’ll change my mind.”

  I hadn’t gone away for a weekend in centuries, but it was Laura’s birthday and I couldn’t miss it. I already didn’t really want to go, but now that he had asked me that, I would have much preferred to be flogged than go.

  I hugged him and, lulled by the idea of spending a Sunday together, I feel asleep. Whenever I was with him, I would completely lose track of time. Sometimes I would look at the clock suddenly, scared because I couldn’t tell whether I had been there for twenty minutes, two hours, or forever.

  That evening, as I was on my way home, I sent Carla a text: “Are you awake?”

  “Yes.”

  I called her. I wanted to chat a bit, and I told her about him and me. Without disclosing too many details, because I didn’t like doing that, not even with her, I wanted to tell her how I was feeling. That evening I had a lot of questions on my mind.

  “I wonder if he’s like this with all the others, too.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’d like to know if he’s like this with all the others or only with me.”

  “It doesn’t matter. Enjoy this time as much as you can. Don’t start thinking about things like that.”

  “I know. It’s just that sometimes I get curious. I wonder if what he feels for me is unique, if the things he says are new, if they are thought for me alone, or if they are part of a script he quotes by heart.”

  “The important thing is that you feel these things for him.”

  “Right.”

  I immediately stopped thinking about those things. Even though much was still unclear, I knew I couldn’t allow myself to go any further; the risk would have been too high.

  April 25th

  We came up to the mountains for the weekend. Paolo and I, along with two other couples, among them Laura, the birthday girl. Everyone’s at the hotel bar, but after dinner I said I had a headache and came up to my room. In reality, I was tired of smiling at the end of conversations I wasn’t even following. I felt like being alone a bit. When I got into the room I opened the windows because it was hot as hell. My nose dried up so much that whenever I inhaled my nostrils whistled. I’ve always wondered who decides the temperatures in hotels, planes, trains. After I tried to lower it by myself, using the thermostat hanging on the wall, I called the front desk. A young man came up, pressed a button on the wall, and fixed everything.

  I hardly ever take my journal with me—I usually leave it at home and I write when I get back—but lately I’ve felt the need to do it almost every day.

  When we got to the hotel something strange happened. Paolo was talking to the manager and he introduced me as his wife. For the first time since we got married that bothered me. What’s happening to me? I’ve been thinking about this all night. Right after we got married I would get excited whenever I heard him say: “This is my wife.” I was proud of that word. Why did it bother me today? Maybe it’s simply a role I don’t want to play anymore.

  When forced out of the roles they play, many people feel free, others feel lost, still others feel like they’re drowning. I have the impression that I’ve been living my life unbeknownst to me, as if I don’t really know anything about myself. First daughter, then girlfriend, then wife, then the next step: mother.

  I’ve never had any real intimacy, neither with myself nor with Paolo, because I never asked myself what my real desires were. Maybe now I want to exit this role and see what’s underneath it. Maybe I’ve finally found the strength and the courage to risk being myself. And maybe I’ll find out, without ever having known it, that I’m simply more.

  At the table I kept thinking that I could have been with him, instead of being stuck at this stupid dinner. I barely listened and spoke even less, because I had the feeling that, after all, they weren’t really talking about anything. There was little life in their words, little authenticity, little sentiment. Everything seemed so superficial; it seemed as if life and courage were somewhere else. I had already heard those conversations a thousand times before. The usual funny anecdotes that happened in the past and are retold every time we meet.

  Beyond that table was a world of opportunities I was missing out on
. At dinner I desperately tried to see myself in the familiar faces of those people. The temptation to remove my mask and shout what I have become kept growing stronger and stronger. To tell them how I make love, how I run toward him turned on, how I quietly wait on my knees for his pleasure. I would like to tell them how I feel when I’m with him and when I leave him. I wonder if it’s worse to follow my feelings or to live the hypocrisy of what I’m not.

  I didn’t say anything. Life had long taught me how to be quiet. How many nights I kept walking quietly back and forth inside my house because I felt like I was drowning. I couldn’t find a way out. Now I’ve found it: the door to his apartment. Through it, I go where life throbs, where we can love freely without asking anything in return.

  A pure act of love and pleasure that asks only to be lived to its fullest. No other action, no other feeling, meant for any purpose but pleasure.

  This dinner was perfect for the woman I used to be. What I used to want is no longer enough. Not even the house I live in is furnished the way I would want it to be now. If I had a new one, it would be completely different.

  Paolo and I drowned each other in promises because it was a kind way of postponing our inabilities. We were partners in creating our realities and we helped each other project them, sustain them, and, finally, suffer them. Our relationship is not based on a need to love and be loved, but rather on a need to reinforce each other’s delusions. Maybe a slight sense of uncertainty, a possible break, could have brought us back to life, but we’ve never let life touch us with all its unpredictability. However, at a certain point, I stopped pretending I was untouchable, and opened the door to life: This was how I really betrayed Paolo. In the end it wouldn’t have taken too much not to grow apart. The reality is that he couldn’t live up to my expectations. I never wanted to express them, because I wanted him to see and fulfill them without me asking him explicitly. I was wrong: He didn’t change all of a sudden—he’s always been that way.