Red: A Love Story

by Nicole Collet

  He pondered for a moment before continuing: “People have lost touch with their instinctive side and, therefore, have lost an important part of themselves. What they call intuition is nothing more than the primitive brain in action, one step ahead of the conscious mind. And what about pleasure? Do you think it’s your rational side that makes you want to lie with me? How many pleasures do people deny themselves in the name of a supposed rationality?”

  “I won’t lie. I enjoy what we do. But this is wrong,” she replied feebly.

  Marco shrugged. Wrong? To whom? To social conventions? Yesterday yellow ruled, today blue. Did it mean blue should be better than yellow? Maybe, or maybe not. There was puritanism and the porn industry, there was right and wrong and debatable, and there was hypocrisy. The establishment needed a mass of maneuver and for that purpose created conventions—today blue, tomorrow green, the day after tomorrow yellow again. In a world where power had become a compulsion, money was the motherland, and life didn’t take priority, the famous Marquis’ words rang truer than ever: there was no horror that hadn’t been divinized or virtue that hadn’t been execrated.

  “Everything changes according to context. Moral, religion, behavior codes, all is relative. Forget the conventions. The important thing is to be free and respect your own boundaries. I know you better than you think. You have a natural curiosity; why don’t you give it a try? If you don’t like it, we’ll stop. But I have a feeling you won’t stop.”

  “Well…” she hummed with an ambiguous air.

  “If you’re not sure, we better forget about it,” Marco said in a firm tone, which then mellowed. “Let’s not spoil our evening. Come here, give me a kiss.”

  He held the nape of her neck with one hand, brushing his thumb on her face. His other hand ran across her thigh, very close to the shadowy triangle hinted underneath her skirt. The gestures were confident. Smooth as a lacey cuff skimming on the flesh to duplicate with a whisper the caress of the hand. Now Marco’s mouth turned into velvet on hers and disarmed her. He was like that: capable of the most extreme sternness and the most gentle touch of all. In any instance, he always triggered sensations that carried her far away in their current.

  Gliding, gliding far away in the current. Swept by the waters’ sheer force. She lost herself in Marco.

  His words swirled inside her head, and the hunger she feared unleashed. In her innermost, she could foresee the black vortex sucking her into its epicenter. An explosion of a thousand stars as she plunged into the abyss of no return. Emitting a low moan, she arched her back slightly. She flattened her hand against his chest, at first intending to repel him, and then in a circular motion that was the beginning of a caress. She saw the gap of her own abyss.

  “Enough.” She pushed him with sudden energy and composed herself. “I’m leaving.”

  Marco kept silent. In his dark eyes darted a sparkle, one moment there and the next gone.

  She studied him, wondering if she had dreamt that gaze. At times she had the feeling she didn’t know him at all. She took a few steps toward the door and came to a halt. Turning back almost reluctantly, she stared at him with her face red hot.

  Without a word she slowly began to undress. Then, bare naked, she picked up the white shopping bag.

  2. The Chase

  She walked along the deserted street under an impending rain, the trees hissing in the wind with the chorus of a thousand voices. On a curve, Marisa saw a silhouette against a wall. A big man dressed in black with a hat pulled over his face. She traversed the street and, sensing his invisible gaze after her, broke into a run. She then heard footsteps.

  The man was much taller and quicker than she. Just keep going… just a little longer, Marisa frantically repeated to herself. Soon she would reach Marco’s building and be safe… Her legs hurt, heavier and heavier, now almost dragging. The man lunged at her, and Marisa fell down on her knees. She didn’t feel pain, only fear while the iron hands immobilized her and the pavement scraped her back.

  They were under a tree that blocked the street light and cracked whips of shadow across the concrete. The stranger’s face was a black screen where sparkles flared as the leaves flailed. Marisa saw the metallic glint of the pistol. The barrel found her throat. Then the trigger lock clicked.

  “Now you’re going to die.”

  The future came to a halt. Marisa’s eyes welled up, the tears holographic images of pain. Up above, indifferent, they swung. They had gathered in the trees and on lampposts to weave a gigantic web over the street. A furious gust shook them, casting them into the air. They floated and plummeted like rotten fruit. Black tears before the rain: hundreds and hundreds of spiders forming a dark stain that simmered with a multitude of eyes and legs.

  The man jumped to his feet and left Marisa exposed. The hairy paws immediately scaled her body and expanded across her face, filling the night with further darkness. She tried to scream and the spiders plunged into her mouth, their sticky paws with a smell of dirt in her throat, nose, eyes…

  The shots blasted in her ears. The man was discharging his pistol at point-blank to chase the spiders away. Marisa felt a sting in her arm, another on her shoulder, another on her chest. She was wrapped in the shroud of her own blood, with no voice and no air. She thought of everything she would never see again: Marco, her loved ones, the sun, the sea… Suddenly light blinded her.

  Marisa struggled with a scream stifled in her throat. Gradually she recognized the familiar surroundings. Her bedroom. When she realized it had all been a nightmare, instead of relief, an ominous feeling ensued. The clock on the nightstand registered ten past six. Jumping out of bed, Marisa rushed to get ready. She was running quite late for her college presentation.

  Still dazed, Marisa left home and hesitated by the elevator before pressing the call button. Upon touching it, a diffuse coldness tingled in her fingertips, spreading icy tentacles throughout her body. Clanc, clanc, clanc… clanc. The old service elevator stopped on her floor. The door opened to reveal steel walls and cold light. A morgue refrigerator. She entered it reluctantly, holding her handbag tightly to her chest.

  As the elevator went down, she recalled the physics teacher and his lessons about free-falling bodies. Marisa closed her eyes with a shiver. She was plummeting toward her grave. She could feel the lift running loose from the cables, sinking into the guts of the earth, fast, fast… faster, faster… Crash!

  Marisa opened her eyes abruptly as the door slid to the side with a moan. Ground floor. She got off with her heart racing and, once on the street, tried to focus on her presentation for the coming class. A few blocks ahead, she arrived at the bus stop. Soon a man in a black jacket materialized by her side. When he asked her the time, it was as if the wings of a monster had eclipsed the sun. The day turned instantly dark, and the stranger’s eyes lit up with a flash. She took a step back, gripping her cell phone.

  “Eleven past eleven,” Marisa replied without thinking, and then became confused with the numbers on the screen. What had happened to the past hours? She couldn’t be that late. She glanced at the man and noticed a scar above his eyebrow, which looked like a centipede cut in the middle by a razorblade. When she turned back to the cell phone, the numbers had changed. Marisa tried to suppress the tremor in her voice: “Sorry, I made a mistake. It’s six-thirty.”

  Her bus arrived and, shaky, Marisa hopped onboard. She found a corner to lean on, producing a notepad from her handbag to review her presentation. At one point, the driver hit the brakes hard and the notepad fell onto the floor. As she bent to collect it, someone was already handing it back to her.

  Marisa raised her eyes and had a startle when she faced the man from the bus stop. He returned her notepad in silence and Marisa nodded a thank you. The proximity of the stranger, however, caused her disquiet. She eyed him discreetly, watching his every move. On a curve, his jacket half-opened to reveal the grip frame of a gun in the inner p
ocket. Marisa’s hands tingled with needles of ice while her heart melted inside her chest.

  It was him. The man in her dream.

  Marisa looked around, assessing how many people she would need to dribble in order to reach the back door. Then the bus stopped and boarded even more passengers without giving her a chance to disembark. In despair, she pushed forward across the tight mass, pressed the stop button and exited the vehicle before her final destination. As the bus proceeded down the street, Marisa leaned against a wall. Her legs faltered.

  The campus of the University of São Paulo was crossed by wide avenues lined with trees and lawns. Fair-faced concrete buildings with glassy façades reflected the blue sky. Marisa took a secondary street, deserted at that hour, and went around the clock tower. Then time stopped when she found herself face to face with the stranger from the bus.

  Where did he come from? Marisa could swear she had been the only passenger to get off the bus back there. The man’s eyes stole the light of day, and in the bottomless well of his pupils pried a vulture blacker than the night, ready to open its wings and charge. Marisa quickly dodged the attack, fleeing through a shortcut to the back entrance of the Communications and Arts School. On her trail she sensed the man’s footprints. And the fluttering of wings.

  The complex occupied an entire block and consisted of a dozen units. Marisa dashed along the paved way, past a row of low buildings, and only slowed down at the next-to-last unit. She entered it and rushed to an ample classroom with one of the walls taken by large windows. Her study group waited for her next to one of them: two boys and three girls in jeans and T-shirts, ready to change the world. Panting, Marisa approached her pals and made a helpless gesture.

  “Sorry for my being late. You have no idea what just happened—”

  She couldn’t finish the sentence, for right then the teacher entered the classroom. With khaki clothes and gray hair and beard, he resembled a Doctor Livingstone. Only the hat was missing.

  “Good morning, everyone.” The teacher leaned against the desk in front of the whiteboard. He had an open countenance and calm manners. “Today we’re gonna talk about the state ideological apparatuses that perpetuate the dominant ideologies…”

  Marisa hardly listened. She kept peering at the window and clutching the edge of the board attached to her chair. Her eyes darted back and forth, from the window to her notes; the words on the notepad, however, now scrambled before her like a clump of barbed wire.

  The clock on the wall stared at her with a malign eye. The minutes dragged painfully in the stuffy room.

  Tic, tac… tic, tac… tic, tac…

  It was already the end of March and officially autumn, but the city had plunged into a hellish heat wave and the thermometer rose to ninety degrees. Nonetheless, Marisa felt herself freezing and, with a shiver, hugged her body. She dreaded the moment when the class would be over and she’d have to leave the room. Who was that man? Why did he chase her?

  “Now I’m gonna give the floor to your classmates,” the teacher said before taking a seat in the front row.

  There were murmurs, coughs, expectation. Marisa’s study group directed inquisitive looks at her. She stood up and sought shelter behind the solid desk. From there, she spanned the whole room, dozens of curious faces, the master’s affable expression—all those eyes on her, waiting. Her hands began to sweat.

  Tic, tac… tic, tac… tic, tac…

  Silence lingered.

  “Marisa, you can start now,” the teacher urged, his foot tapping.

  She opened her mouth but was incapable of uttering a sound. Her lips dried out, her tongue seemed glued to the roof of the mouth. A cold sweat beaded her forehead, and her heart began pounding. She was still in the middle of a nightmare, that must be it. I’m not feeling too well, Marisa thought. She wanted to ask for help; her throat was closing. She averted her attention to the nearest window, where the view was obstructed by a large bush almost flat with the pane. Horrified, she discerned the man’s form behind the plant. The next moment, he had disappeared.

  Marisa fixed her eyes on the window for a long minute, oblivious to her presentation and the astonished stares from her classmates. The stalker must be hiding nearby. But where?

  Outside, students strolled between the cafeteria and the main building. She searched for her own reflection on the glass and then, with insurmountable perplexity, saw her body dissolving. Next, her face disintegrated too. Poof.

  And then everything sank into darkness.

  3. The Taming

  She had liked it and wanted to do it again tonight. In the shadows of the living room, her pale nudity became ribbed with reflections of the city lights sneaking through the window. She looked like a tigress. Removing the accessories from the shopping bag, she adjusted them with care. Gradually she metamorphosed into a long-legged filly in platform boots with toe boxes split as hooves. The harness on her naked chest framed her compact breasts and, on the left nipple, a minute silver ring flickered. The hips and the firm buttocks were emphasized by a black thong, from which hung a dark tail of satiny threads.

  She fixed a red feather on top of her head. Then she started to roll her braid into a bun, but Marco immobilized her wrists with an abrupt gesture.

  “Leave your hair like that.”

  “Careful, you’re hurting me,” she complained, lowering her arms and massaging her wrists. The long braid fell down like a hazel mane.

  Marco did not acknowledge the protest. His big hands, however, moved with unsuspected gentleness when he fitted the mouthpiece and reins on her. Lastly, he covered her face with a mask that exposed only the eyes and the crimson lips girded with a bit.

  He could now do several things. Skim over her body with his own. Caress her chest. Lash her flanks to kindle the flesh and stir the mind. Until she begged for more…

  Previously it had been almost a playful session. To ease her into it.

  This time Marco chose discipline.

  He stood beside her and held the reins, leading her around the room. She took a step forward and he slid the whip behind her knees so she would lift her legs higher. They went on like that for a few feet. She maintained a rigid posture while trying to balance on the boots. Little by little, she relaxed and eventually resumed her natural walk. She startled and straightened up when the whip touched the back of her knees. One more lap, followed by another. He instructed her to concentrate on the rhythm of the gait. It needed to be elegant and fluid. The angle of the legs absolutely precise.

  When she got it right, the pace became hypnotic and she lost herself in it, accepting the guidance of those hands that held the reins with total control. She no longer had free will and gratefully transferred the weight of such responsibility to him. She was nothing more than an animal. A beautiful animal with a majestic poise at the Master’s mercy. The whip now and again rewarded her with a pat or corrected her with a fiery kiss. She learned how to kneel to perfection and then rise even more gracefully.

  The furniture in the room retracted to the corners, vanishing into the shadows. The half-darkness gave place to the warm radiance of the sun. She found herself in the open air, the dirt under her hooves, the breeze against her body and the whisper of the trees pricking up her ears. With a keen sense of smell, she captured the scent of the man guiding her in the paddock. It was distinct from hers, a citric aroma mixed with that of wood and trampled grass. She inhaled it deeply to introject a part of the man into her body, creating a stronger bond between the two of them. She was now an extension of him, and both moved in sync. From time to time his firm hand would reach her body—slapping her flanks or buttocks, squeezing her nipple in the precise cusp of pleasure.

  She couldn’t tell for how long that went on, until the moment the reins tightened in a smooth motion. She stood obediently still and directed an inquisitive stare at Marco. He cocked an eyebrow, his face stern, and that was enoug
h to make her shiver in anticipation. A surge of heat irradiated between her thighs. Her core pulsated, slowly getting moist. What’s next?

  As if he guessed the question, Marco outlined the shape of her lips with his fingertip and loosened the bit. He brought his tongue into her mouth in a soft and brief kiss. Next, she felt the coarse texture of a sugar cube where his tongue had been. She hardly noticed the white mass melting in her mouth, as now Marco started caressing her thighs with the handle of the whip. With a quiver, she clenched her hands.

  The cylindrical handle sank into the valley between her thighs, which forced her to part her legs just a bit. The handle was then replaced with the supple whip’s end—that end used to inflict pain. The leather strips glided across her skin in unpredictable routes, encircling her stomach and buttocks, insisting on the curve of the breasts, gently pulling the silver ring. She panted, closed her eyes and, without realizing it, crushed the sugar cube between her teeth. A perspiration line budded on her forehead. Her whole body, her whole being, throbbed for the promise of the next caress.

  For a never-ending moment, nothing happened. She opened her eyes to find Marco’s fixed gaze upon her. He had stepped back and toyed with the whip ends, twisting them between his fingers. His face did not reveal any emotion, but she could sense in his dark irises the vestige of a smile.

  Marco moved forward and repositioned the mouthpiece against her lips. Then whispered in her ear: “We shall continue now.”

  That evening, her taming was concluded.

  4. Doctor Spitzer

  Marisa got lost on the tenth floor of a building on Paulista Avenue, which concentrated medical offices devoted to all kinds of maladies. Consumed with anxiety, she walked through a maze of hallways until finally reaching the door with a metal plate on it: Dr. Rebeca C. Spitzer, Psychoanalyst – Alternative Methods. Marisa pressed the intercom, identified herself, and the door opened with a buzz. A camera above it monitored her as she entered the deserted waiting room.