The Dawn of Sin

by Grassetti, Valentino

  "Mom, where's the white shirt?" Guido became alarmed to see an empty crutch hanging in the closet.

  "It is on the bed, ironed and perfumed."

  "And the blue sweatshirt?"

  "The jacket, son. Put on the black jacket. The sweatshirt falls on your shoulders. It’s not good for a date."

  Guido didn't even think of dressing like a grown man. He wore cut jeans, blue sweatshirt and left the house with his mother's disapproval.

  Caterina lived three minutes away by car, which could be considered a respectable distance in Castelmuso.

  He found her waiting for him in front of the driveway, while a parent's indiscreet shadows checked behind the blinds.

  When he saw her, Guido was breathless. The girl wore a nonchalant black coat that slimmed down her slender body,

  full of an enchantment to which nature could add nothing more: Caterina was simply perfect.

  Guido was happy not to accept Daisy's invitation. It was useless to chase the past under the lying lights of a disco.

  He and Caterina had only spoken for three minutes.

  By a stroke of lightning, they could have been an eternity.

  Adriano Magnoli also showed up at the entrance to Dancing Sport.

  Dr Salieri's treatment was paying off, proving particularly effective.

  The new drug was free of agranulocytosis, a dangerous white blood cell deficiency. This could have raised the risk of infection exponentially.

  Adriano no longer showed that he had obvious muscle spasms, no tremors, no restlessness. Just an insignificant twitch on his right eyelid.

  The psychiatrist had advised him to support the treatment with psychosocial treatment. The boy was supposed to go out, hang out with people, make friends. And a night out at the club would be welcome to test his social skills.

  Adriano watched from his mother's car to make sure he entered the club. Sandra greeted him and said, "Daisy will be arriving shortly with Rinaldo. Go in and enjoy yourself. And don't be late!"

  Sandra left with a kiss. She smiled, but in reality she was worried even though there was no reason to be. She knew her son would be in good hands that night.

  "Adriano Magnoli. It's a pleasure to have you here” the pierre said when she recognized his name on the list.

  Adriano knew he'd become quite famous, since he was the one who wrote Daisy's songs. He regularly received letters from many of his admirers, had three fake Facebook profiles opened by strangers he never bothered to have deleted, and

  someone sent him stuffed animals to his home address from time to time.

  Inside the club, the dance floor was full of guys dancing to music shot by a DJ with a nose piercing and some tribal tattoos taking up all the space in his arms.

  A girl with raven-haired hair, the eyeliner stretching her eyes, recognised Adriano and asked him for an autograph, disappointing her jealous boyfriend.

  A bouncer, probably instructed by his mother, staked him out as if he were an endangered animal. Adriano was clearly embarrassed, but less bewildered and confused than he had feared. He stopped at the bar and ordered a non-alcoholic drink, while the Navy Seals attacked one of their own pieces on stage: Crazy Desert, a fancy-free rap that received the interest it deserved: lots of curiosity at the beginning, not much applause at the end, and the track that claimed I’m Rose, Daisy's first record hit.

  As he waited to be served, he noticed a certain movement, all concentrated in one place in the club. A sign that Daisy had arrived.

  Her sister entered escorted by two solid bouncers. In tow, a queue of guests invited by Rinaldo Duranti.

  Daisy was wearing a dark dress all flounces, elegantly pleated, with a spectacular slit on her thigh.

  A couple of young people leaning against the counter turned to admire her. "I mean, look at that huge piece of pussy!" commented a tall blonde, the tone full of admiration, aware that such a girl would never be within her reach.

  The vulgar praise continued, and yet another piece of pussy, his friend planted an elbow on his ribs and said, "Stop it. It's his brother, God”.

  Adriano smiled with eyes that, for a moment, lit a sinister fire.

  The blond man watched Adriano drink by his side. He scratched his temple confused. "Is that Daisy? And you're Aadriano?"

  Adriano nodded, and blondie got all excited: "Damn, man, you're a legend! Let's get a selfie, come on!"

  When the photo was taken, Adriano greeted them with a photocopied smile, the same smile he was giving everyone.

  As he left, he looked at the blond's friend, who only caught his attention at that moment. He was a young man in his twenties, with deep, discreet eyes, long, black eyelashes, wide cheekbones, fleshy, almost feminine lips. Aadriano found him unusually handsome.

  ‘His name is Luca...’

  Adriano stopped. He closed his eyes and sighed for a long time, trying to hold his anxiety. The parasite was showing up again. He was talking, and Adriano tried to ignore him.

  He smiled at an admirer, who forced him to pose for the umpteenoth selfie.

  ‘Luca is very handsome. His life smells of pink. His gaze is a breath of petals. Do you know what that means?’

  Adriano ignored him. The psychiatrist had made it clear that the best therapy was to convince himself there was no monster inside him.

  ‘Luca. But not only him... all these kids are a good choice, Adriano...’

  Adriano was annoyed by his own voice, which came out deep and dark from his throat, but he tried not to reply.

  ‘Don't do that. I am your friend, Adriano.’

  He began to sweat. He looked around restlessly, hoping that no one would see him talking to himself.

  ‘I know... I know. We're different. But your friend doesn't have to look like you in everyday life. You recognize a friend when he puts his sins on his shoulders and wants to make them yours. And these boys could be our greatest sin. You know what I mean, don't you?‘

  Adriano bit his lips not to respond.

  ‘It will be a good harvest, don't you agree?’

  He felt a stinging cold penetrate his bones.

  He closed his eyes. He didn't want to be influenced. Everything he said wasn't real. But he still felt the tears invade his eyes.

  The monster, real or not, was passing a death sentence.

  On the other side of the rink, Filippa pulled a bottle of Cristal out of a bucket of ice.

  He poured two fingers into three glasses with a long crystal stem. A jingle of flapping goblets, and he drank the champagne all in one breath.

  Manuel sent him down in small sips, saying something about the bubbles that made his nose pinch, while Leo didn't drink at all. He looked at his cell phone with a worried look, as if he was reading some bad news. "Three point five. Two point four. Two point eight” he exclaimed, commenting on the app that detected seismic movements, almost having to scream to make his friends hear him.

  The music fired at a volume unacceptable to his ears was why he hated clubs.

  "Three point five is what I heard in the newsroom. I told you. I can hear all the magnitudes around three."

  Filippa nodded to please Leo, but it was obvious she wasn't that interested.

  A stocky, bald bouncer arrived in the VIP area, breathless. He showed some of the guests where to sit. They looked important. They sat on a couch in the distance, completely ignoring the kids. Daisy arrived soon after, greeted by a flash storm.

  She approached the table almost suspiciously. She looked at her old classmates. She didn't recognize them right away because they were out of the context she used to see them in years before. And her high school days were long over.

  When she realized who they were, she was overcome with emotion.

  "Holy shit! It's fucking you!" Daisy shouted.

  "Fuck you, bitch. Come here. Let me give you a hug” laughed Filippa as he got off the couch.

  "Filippa! Oh, my God. Oh, my God! It's really you" exclaimed Daisy, full of joy.

  "You're
beautiful, Daisy. You're fucking gorgeous" moved her friend.

  "Manuel Pianesi and Leonardo Fratesi! Come on, come here, damn you!"

  Daisy hugged her old schoolmates. She held them tight, discovering a forgotten warmth.

  "You're making me cry, damn it” Daisy said, wiping away a tear.

  Happy and excited, the newfound friends began to talk non-stop, as they hadn't done in years.

  A few miles away, Guido rolled down the car window. "You look beautiful. I know I'm corny. But I am."

  "Hello to you too!" replied Caterina, amused.

  Guido felt an irresistible and inexplicable transport. He would have wanted to fill her with kisses right away. But he had to contain himself, because the shadow of a parent filtered threateningly through the shutters.

  And yet, he had never believed in love at first sight. She looked at him as if she were thinking the same thing. She was smiling, well-disposed, her cheeks red, an inviting fruit lit with desire.

  They didn't know each other, but the affinities needed no introduction.

  Caterina climbed into the low, uncomfortable car, but it looked like the carriage of a princess. Guido set the car in motion and got the first one in gear. Caterina grabbed Guido's hand firmly against the gear knob.

  "Turn the corner" she pleaded with him.

  Guido came out of the driveway. He turned into a clearing on a construction site, stopping at a covered spot sheltered by reeds.

  There was a long moment of silence, where she slept the whole time. In the end Caterina took courage and confessed: "Since our first meeting I have done nothing but think about you. Day and night. Night and day. I also took a bad grade because you are always in my head".

  Guido squeezed his fists hard on the steering wheel, feeling an almost physical pain.

  "You won't believe this. It's all the same to me."

  "I don't know what's happening to me” she exclaimed, adding: "This doesn't make sense. I don't know anything about you. I don't even know anything about myself anymore."

  "Come here” he said. She hugged him. They kissed.

  Both were excited and panting. She pulled off his belt, pressed her thumb and index finger against the button on his pants to unbutton them, lowered the zipper, and put her hand under his pants. She grabbed his hot penis almost insolently. Guido made a prolonged groan of pleasure. She took off her overcoat, pulled off her panties from under her skirt, unbuttoned her shirt, showing two small, soft breasts. Guido reclined the seat. Caterina mounted it over him panting with desire, the irrepressible desire to be penetrated. He, his senses clouded with excitement, pushed it into her with impetus. She cried out with pleasure and pain. They made love moaning and sweating. At the height of pleasure, she grabbed hold of Guido, until he came inside her. It was an intense, sharp and pungent pleasure, which they both wanted with fierce determination. Then they crashed into each other, exhausted, knowing they had done something crazy. Perhaps the most beautiful of their young lives.

  "It's not possible, Guido” Caterina said with tears in her eyes. "I love you."

  15

  At Dancing Sport, the old Leopardi high school classmates were remembering their school days. Filippa told of the time he pestered Daisy in the shower. She cashed in with some embarrassment. "Your court was a nightmare."

  "I know. But we were all looking for ourselves. In fact, I think the time has come to apologize."

  "No problem. No apology. You weren't that bad a kisser after all."

  "Wait a minute. Maybe I missed something. Did you two kiss?" Leo interrupted her, clearly surprised.

  "Okay, okay. Cut! Let's change the subject” Daisy laughed, raising her hands.

  Filippa stuck a black olive with a stick, put it in his mouth and appreciated the acrid taste. "The only one who really made you fall in love was our missing guest." Filippa finished the sentence by spitting out the core on the floor in front of an empty chair. It was the seat reserved for Guido.

  The big girl had put her finger on the wound. A wound that had closed, but occasionally opened up to bleed. And it was a slimy blood, a black lump in her heart.

  "Yeah. Guido..." she sighed. "It's hard to explain. And, most of all, it's hard to understand." Daisy confessed that she thought it was a story that never happened. A dead wailing in the cradle, but it never stopped hurting her.

  "I never understood if you and Guido had sex” said Filippa with the usual honesty. That of the friend, was one of those questions Daisy hadn't yet learned to avoid. A providential touch from Rinaldo drew her from the embarrassment of answering it.

  The record company who, meanwhile, was entertaining business people at the next table, reminded her that she was ignoring fans outside the VIP area.

  "Wait here” Daisy told her friends as she got off the couch.

  "I'll make an appearance and come back."

  Daisy approached the banister, beyond which was a large group of boys begging for an autograph.

  Filippa pulled out a cigar to smell the tobacco on his lips.

  Se watched Daisy feed Daisy to her admirers, smiling and scribbling dedications.

  "Once she would have prepared an elaborate response to avoid the topic. Today she has taken advantage of her reputation not to address the problem."

  "Do you think a girl like that still has a problem to deal with?" Leo asked without understanding what Filippa was referring to.

  "Read at ʺGuido Gobbi" she enlightened him. "These are things that men cannot understand” she added, "unless they are half men, or half women, like Lord Byron here in the feminine."

  "Yes, I've had too much to drink” Leo said ironically, assuming that Filippa was a little tipsy.

  Nearby, Adriano watched his sister sign autographs under the cold flashlights.

  On stage, the Navy Seals played I’m Rose, the song that made his sister famous. Adriano had written it in a dark time

  when the boy had no self-awareness, when his body was armless, his mind and soul were flowers without water or light, buds withered in a cold land where only his imagination could spread its wings.

  Lasers lit the sweaty bodies of the boys dancing on the dance floor with light. Laurel, the handsome, open-faced frontman of the Navy Seals, sang the lyrics written by Adriano with transport.

  Sin crept into the mists of my innocence.

  The dark angel is joy and innocence.

  The dark angel is joy and perversion.

  I am the rose.

  He is damnation...

  Beauty and damnation...

  ‘Beauty and Damnation. Everyone thinks you wrote it, Adriano.’

  Adriano felt nausea crawling from his stomach to his throat.

  "Go away, please. Get out of my head” he whispered with his withered mouth.

  ‘I have dedicated it to remind her that she and I are one. Always.’

  Daisy kept signing autographs. She hugged a couple of boys for the usual selfie. Soon after, she felt her head spin. She thought it was just a few too many drinks.

  She kept writing dedications, but it was hard, very hard, and she thought she'd quit. The hand holding the pen began to shake.

  Now, he wanted to go back to his friends.

  Suddenly she realized he couldn't stop signing autographs. She felt held back, stuck in the repetitiveness of gestures, against her will. She felt panic rising. She wanted to run away, but she couldn't move a muscle. She could only move

  her hand over the papers to sign her signature, writing the names of the fans to whom she wanted to dedicate a thought one by one.

  Adriano tried to reach his sister, the certainty that he wasn't signing autographs, but making sentences.

  Down the village, Guido was embraced by Caterina.

  The reeds were barely rustling, bent by a wind blowing east. Dark-bellied clouds had thickened under the moon's scythe, illuminating the vaporous tops with an empty pink.

  "You noticed, didn't you?" asked Caterina, looking at the blood.

  "No. But
I knew. It is as if I had known all along” Guido said, caressing her soft breasts.

  They looked at each other to catch their features, still so unfamiliar. Guido was certain that Caterina's grace, innocence, and honesty played a role in his life. Now he had to figure out what his was. She crouched down to him, as fragile as a lost sparrow.

  "What do we do now?" she asked as she laid her red cheek on Guido's chest.

  "Let's get to know each other, shall we?"

  Caterina had snuggled up to Guido with the candour of a child, but no longer was. His senses were clouded now. And the smell of her on him made him even less lucid. He didn't notice at first, but when he saw blood on the seat, he knew Catherine was no longer a virgin. They were lying on the seats, hugging each other all the time. Her mouth ajar, her eyes open, her eyes wide, her eyes spellbound, and a little frightened. He tasted the warm breath that caressed his neck. That night they made love several times. Guido discovered a new feeling of having someone's soul, of being able to guide them, and she, with an irresistible desire to indulge him, like a harp that can play perfect music, because his musician is perfect.

  Caterina kissed Guido gently on the neck, and whispered, "Whoever describes exactly what love is, will have painted the face of God. Did you know that?"

  He caressed her hair and did not deny or nod.

  "It is the verse of a poem."

  "Beautiful, but wrong."

  "Do you think so?" she asked, imagining it was not a criticism, but an observation that would precede a kind thought.

  "I would say this: ʺWho will describe exactly what love is, will have painted the face of a girl. Her name is Caterina. Her last name is...ʺ oh, God. I guess I don't know."

  She laughed and laughed. "I'll introduce myself. I'm Caterina Biondi. Nice to meet you, Mr. Gobbi."

  The joke exchange was the first thing that didn't involve the desire to make love. They got dressed and started talking. She knew almost everything about him, of course. She had spent days finding out. She had googled his name, spied on his social profiles, and read countless articles that bore his signature, at least those available online.