In my attempts to prove myself, I also started smoking in secret in the school toilets. I was a real sheep. I hung out with the tough kids. Many of them, at twelve and thirteen, already smoked dope. I didn't want to be labelled a square, but I was happy with my clove cigarettes for the time being. What was so great about taking a few tokes on a bit of weed rolled in fine paper while hiding in the alleys of Paraiso, near the school, while we skived off? Just to laugh at nothing and talk shit, say things that made no sense? I burnt my tongue when I lit up my first joint, when I was just fourteen.
At that age, no matter how grown-up we think we are, deep down we're not really all that sure about things. When I started smoking, for example, I didn't like the taste and the dizziness I felt. I didn't even know how to inhale properly - and that was hell for me. 'Look at Raquel - she doesn't know how to inhale . . .' Act like an idiot in front of the gang? I practised a lot until I was able to forget the bad taste and the cough. All to fit in, to be the same as my friends. Same? Friends? These 'friends' aren't around any more. But the bad habits are. And not just these ones.
With alcohol it was more or less the same. I didn't like the taste and didn't see what was so great aboutit. One day, to show that I was cool, I asked an older guy from school to buy me a can of beer, which I drank really quickly so I wouldn't have to taste it. I asked for another and another, also duly downed in a single gulp. After the third, everything was spinning. Although caught up in the euphoria and heat of the binge, I worried about getting caught by a plain-clothes school guard roaming the neighbourhood looking for students up to mischief.
All this effort to be cool, smoke, drink and party started to show in my school reports, which - when I didn't manage to intercept them from the mail with the help of the building janitor - mysteriously appeared in my mother's hands. There were the missed classes (which I always tried to justify by saying that the teacher hadn't heard my 'here' in roll call) and the marks that were getting worse by the day, which were more difficult to explain. None of this, however, stopped me from lying and getting up to no good.
Because of my bad behaviour, I couldn't afford to let my school marks drop. Since I skipped classes every day and couldn't understand a thing in my textbooks, I started cheating. Tests at Bandeirantes were printed on different-coloured paper for the different years. It was easy. I bought the same coloured paper as that used in the test, then copied everything I thought would be in the test on to it athome. It wasn't my idea; lots of Bandeirantes students did this. As usual, I followed the crowd. When the teacher wasn't looking, I'd shove the page into the test papers. It was perfect!
This tactic worked for me until the last test of the year - history. I only needed one point to get through, but I fell to temptation. And the teacher's wrath. Kicked out of class, on my way home, I was a bit stunned, scared about what Dad would say or do, and I almost got run over. I wish I had. When I got to my building I stalled before heading upstairs. I rang the doorbell. Dad opened the door. 'Hi there. How'd your test go?' I burst into tears. To my surprise, he hugged me. I cried even harder, ashamed. 'If I tell you, you're going to kill me.' I told him the truth, expecting to feel his hand come down on me. I don't know why; he'd never laid a finger on me. He just wanted to know why I'd done it and made me promise never to cheat again. That was not my only surprise, nor the only lesson I learnt from the episode.
When Mum was called into the school, my teacher told her it was normal for students to cheat. And that my cheat sheet was too big. Laughing, she held up the enormous sheet of paper. 'You'll have to learn to make smaller ones.' I couldn't believe it. I'd got a DIY lesson in cheating. She also praised me, saying she'd give me the point I needed to pass as Iwas a student who never stirred up trouble. Me? The things I got up to in her class - when I actually attended! Human generosity really walks strange paths.
We'd already been in the room for almost half an hour. Though fast, both first and second rounds had been good. We had another half-hour, but the guy wasn't showing any signs of wanting to go for it again. Lying next to me, both of us naked, he asked if he could snuggle up to me. He got comfortable in my arms and there he stayed, playing with my breasts with his fingers, running them up and down my tummy. He was the one who broke the silence.
'I'm attracted to my mother.'
I like to talk to my clients. I talk a lot and they end up opening up to me. The things I've heard . . . It's my psychologist side. I'd like to be a psychiatrist, but I know I'll never get into medical school. But there's always psychology, closely related. And that's what I'm going to do, when I go back to my studies. I'll never be at a lack for material. But that's not what I was talking about . . . I'd read Oedipus, that book about the guy who's attracted to his mother, Jocasta. But I'd considered it nothing more than a Greek tragedy until that point-blank confession. The guy and his frankness awoke my curiosity. We talked a lot and he told me his motherhad fallen pregnant with him when she was very young, only sixteen. He must have been about forty-four, because, according to him, his mother was sixty.
His attraction stemmed from his childhood (how Freudian can you get?). When he was still very young, his mother used to go round the house in a bra and knickers, and was very relaxed about it. They bathed together and everything. This desire and fantasy had stayed with him all his life. Even today, at his age, the guy is obsessed with the idea of having sex with her. When we'd finished, he told me he'd give me whatever I wanted if I could get her to go to bed with him. I led him on and asked for 10,000 reals. I admit the money was tempting, but I hadn't the slightest idea how to convince her to sleep with her son. He told me how he imagined the sex would be, how he'd take off her clothes, smell her knickers, lick her all over, the positions. A thousand fantasies. Which remain in his head.
My desire to find out everything about life seemed boundless when I was fourteen. There were still things I wasn't clear about, of course. One of them was my own sexuality. I'd already given a lot of pleasure to the boys I'd masturbated at clubs, I'd held a lot of stiff dicks, but I didn't know if that was as far as pleasure went. I was curious to know what it was like to come into contact with another woman's body. And I was also afraid. What if I was a lesbian? At that stage in life, things are either black or white. If something's not black, it must be white. But I tried not to give it too much thought.
One day, at school, the boy who sat in front of me had a copy of Playboy. He started flicking through the magazine in the middle of the lesson, and I peered over his shoulder like a pirate's parrot, fascinated by what I saw. I'd never seen magazines of naked women. These things never came into my house. Imagine the embarrassment of buying one at a newsstand. I asked to see it. He lent it to me and I loved it. During the break, I didn't think twice. I stole the boy's Playboy, stuffed it in my bag and took it home. I'd already masturbated looking at G Magazine - which I'd bought often. But I'd never come looking at those guys with their hard-ons. Perhaps I'd finally come if I looked at women. Bingo! After this feat my fantasy had to leave the page and become reality.
I went to a party with a friend - a really good friend - and arranged to sleep at her house afterwards. We drank champagne until we couldn't drink any more, and got really smashed. Back at her place, she decided to take a shower.
'Come on, you're taking ages in there.'
'I can't hear you.'
I went into the bathroom to harass her.
'I want to have a shower too.'
'So come in then,' she answered innocently, with no ulterior motives. So I did . . .
I remember the sensation of torpor and pleasure at being there, face to face with another girl, naked, showering in front of me.
'What's wrong?'
'Nothing.'
My excitement was mounting, but I didn't make the first move. In spite of my confusion, my lust, desire, availability, fear, I found it all odd. I just stared. It all passed, however, when she took the initiative. Under the hot shower, the bathroom filled with steam, the two o
f us silent, wet, she delicately ran her hands over my body. I let myself go with each touch. I touched her too and got another touch in return. A body just like mine. Her sex just like mine. Feminine, curvaceous, soft. We slept together that night and it was really good.
It never happened again with her. We both felt embarrassed. Neither of us said a word about that night either. And our friendship cooled off. How could I share things with a friend I'd been to bed with? We met up some time later and became friends again, but it was never the same. I regret what we did that night. No matter howgood the experience was, I'd rather have my friend back.
One day, two clients turned up together.
'Do you want to go one at a time?'
'We want to go at the same time.'
Wow! Was I up to it? I'd never done a double penetration before (the so-called DP). They say curiosity killed the cat. In my case, the cat has seven lives and is still going strong.
'Let's do it!'
In the beginning, I didn't know who to pay attention to. I started by sucking one off, but the other came and knelt next to his friend, so I gave them a double blow job. I kissed one, then the other. I wondered if something might happen between them, as it often does with women in a menage a trois. But I realised nothing was going to happen between these two. Only the heads of their dicks touched, and even then only when I held them together and tried to suck them both at the same time. A difficult mission . . . although not impossible.
Having two men at my beck and call gave me an incredible feeling of power. One of them lay down and I got on all fours and started blowing him. The other one got behind me and rammed his dick into my cunt. After ages in this position, he decided touse the back door. The one I was blowing slid under me and slipped his dick in the front door . . . I could feel the two of them battling it out inside me. And they weren't exactly small.
'Can you feel the sword-fight inside you?'
'What a fight . . .'
It didn't matter that my movement was more restricted. Even better - everything can be done to a different rhythm. I discovered that I loved DP. The one behind me came first and left the room. I kept going with the other one for ages with me riding him, until he came. It was only after it was over that I saw that the first one's load had dripped on to the sheet. What a pain . . .
The day-to-day life of a working girl has a very unglamorous side. I shared my tidy but simple room - beds, large wardrobe, mirrors, impersonal pictures on the wall, like the ones you see in hotels-with four other girls. Nothing like what you see in the cinema, for example, with those dressing tables dripping with costume jewellery. Since we also worked there, we had to keep it clean. We took turns sweeping and dusting. Not all of them liked the housework, but letting the place get dirty wasn't an option . . . Washing the linen and clients' towels was the launderette's job. But the girls had to change them, otherwise they got revolting. Exceptthat (don't tell) it wasn't one sheet per client. Sometimes it was the same one all day long, where several men had been. Smooth out the creases and volla. I was always asking if I could change the sheets. Since there weren't that many, and she didn't want spend much at the launderette, the manager used to get angry and say no. Sometimes I'd spread gel on the sheet on purpose so she'd have no choice. She used to tell me off, of course. But I didn't care.
The first time I moved houses was about seven months after I started working. Actually, the madam of the house on Alameda Franca kicked me out, together with two other girls, because someone had told her we were smoking dope in secret. Although I'd met some really nice girls, with stories very similar to mine, there was a lot of jealousy. After all, the girls are competition for one another. That was why I'd never wanted to work in places like Cafe Photo or Bahamas. Just think! If it was like that with just ten girls at the brothel, imagine a hundred! I also don't like the idea of having to solicit clients. Either they want me and come to have sex, or I'm not interested. Since the most important thing in this profession is your body, there's a lot of bitching between the girls. It's not easy to make real friends in this business. I've never worked in a company, but I imagine it must be thesame . . . So when you're chosen by the client, you'd better beware, because this is when the lid comes off. On one such occasion, a backstabber decided to let the cat out of the bag about the dope to make life hard for me. It worked.
I ended up going to a yellow house on Alameda Jurupis, close to Ibirapuera Shopping Centre. I had to keep working. It only lasted a few months because of a twist of fate. Mari called me one day saying that lots of clients were walking out of the Franca house because I wasn't there any more. As a result, the madam, Larissa, had to swallow a bit of pride and ask me back. I liked the house and went back, but only to work, since I'd rented a flat for myself on Avenida Miruna, in Moema. Although I'd blown a lot of money on alcohol, dope and coke, I already had some savings from the house on Alameda Franca, before they kicked me out. Since no bank would let me open an account (try doing this when you're an eighteen-year-old prostitute, with no recognised profession or fixed address, except the brothel), I went around with my money in a little bag, always worrying about it. I rented the flat more to have a place to hide my savings - and slept there because I'd already paid for it.
My return to the Franca house wasn't what I'd expected. The girls I knew were no longer there andit was all very strange. I needed action, something new, a horizon. I was also depressed, a bit lost and really wanted to give up coke. I knew that, if I didn't get my act together, I'd completely lose myself, with no objectives, just fucking all day long so I could snort and smoke after work. In other words - the image of a sorry, worn-out pro who ends up alone on a street corner or hanging out the window of an old house. I was determined to save enough money to be independent, without having to support some pimp. So I'd have to work more. A girl who lived in my building told me about the 'Big Twenty'. A pat on the back for whoever figures out the name. I was really curious to know how a girl could sell herself for 20 reals. If it was about quantity and high turnover, I was all for it.
She took me to a place in Campo Belo. It had a high client turnaround, lots of tiny individual rooms, zero luxury - and hygiene. A squalid, filthy fleapit. Imagine a room so small that the only things that fit in it are a rickety chair and a single mattress on the floor with a disgusting sheet on it (that's only changed once a day). It's a quick fuck, ten or fifteen minutes. Express sessions, 10 reals to the pimp, 10 to the girl.
I really wanted to see what the clients were like. There was every walk of life there - street sweepers, cleaners, guys that earned the minimum wage. Guys looking for a quick fuck, nothing else. But to my surprise, there were rich kids and executive sorts, too. One of my clients was an engineer in his forties who liked to fuck hard and really gave it to me. I was curious and couldn't contain myself.
'Why do you come here if you could go somewhere better?'
'I prefer it like this, rather than a long session once a week. That's why I come here every day.'
I developed more admiration for practicality after I heard this answer. I only spent two days at the 'Big Twenty.' But they were two highly educational days, I have to admit.
I really screwed things up at Bandeirantes in October 1999. I was fifteen. This time there was no turning back. There was nothing I could do. I had the hots for a guy in my class. Good-looking, blond, white skin, he looked like an angel, with really blue eyes. But he was so sleazy and full of himself that it spoilt everything. Until the day he came on to me.
During a class in the physics lab, the teacher turned out the light. We were all standing around the experiment. He stood really close to me. Suddenly, very gently, he took my hand. With my heart beating wildly, I let him. He guided my hand to his penis. I held him through his trousers. He was hard. I imagined everyone could hear my wildly beating heart. But fear spoke louder and I took my hand away. He didn't give up. He stood behind me and started rubbing up against me right there, in the middle of the lesson. I couldn't re
sist: he was coming on to me! Raquel, the chubby one! I was completely wet, excited and scared. I don't know how long we stayed there like that, with him rubbing his hard-on against me from behind, provoking me, turning me on.
Since it was the last class of the day, and it was already getting dark, he offered to walk me home. Actually, he wanted to convince me to go somewhere to do what we hadn't managed to finish in the class.
'It's late and Mum's going to tell me off.'
Tell her you went to study anatomy with a friend from school.'
'Let's leave it for another day.' I played a little hard to get. Until he finally managed to twist my arm.
'C'mon, you're not leaving me like this, are you? I know you want it too.'
We stopped next to the wall of a school one street away from my place. I didn't let him kiss me, but I ended up wanking him off there in the middle of the deserted street, even though I wasn't really in the mood.
The next day during the class he kept on insisting and sending notes and I gave in. The time had comefor me. After the class, a new adventure. Along the way, he stopped to buy condoms. I started to panic, as I had all the other times I'd almost had sex. I didn't want my first time to be like that. Nor did I want him to know I was a virgin. We stopped in a dead-end road.
'It's not going to happen.'
'What?'
'I told Mum I'd go out with her.'
'No way. We're here now and we're not going to just forget about it.'
The Scorpion's Sweet Venom Page 3
