by Anna Chillon
“I don’t doubt it. It doesn’t change the facts though.” Two dark calculating eyes were on me. We could say that he wasn’t the presumptuous one, but that I was deluded if I thought I could ever deny him anything.
The steaming dishes were served by our waiter. Without daring to give us more attention than necessary, he left us immediately to our intimacy and succulent meals.
The tuna was nothing like the tins from the supermarket: it melted in the mouth, delicate, exquisite. I showed my appreciation, Vincent barely paid attention to me, just nodding his head.
“Maybe you didn’t hear me?” He said after a couple of mouthfuls.
“What?” I tugged at the tip of the hair that was keeping my fingers busy every now and then. Fork in the right, hair in the left.
“I told you a while ago to open your legs, sugar,” he repeated reluctantly.
“Shhh! Be quiet.” I laughed nervously. Our table was central, most of the other customers were around us, so It felt a bit like being in a shop window. “Do you really want me to? Why? You can’t see under the table.”
He cleaned the corners of his mouth with the napkin before putting it on his knees. “I can’t see, but I’d know you were doing it.”
“Please...” he tilted his head with a soft smile.
“Please.” He echoed at me with arching an eyebrow.
I looked around and met the eyes of a fifty-year-old man sitting at a little table close by; he was wearing a tie and sat in the company of a briefcase. I’d already surprised him facing me and now he seemed have assumed that position permanently. I bit my lower lip and shrugged. “I can’t.”
“What’s stopping you?”
“There's a man looking at me.”
“Yes, I know, he’s been looking at us since we came in. He's trying to figure it out.”
Vincent hadn’t once faced his direction, I don’t know how to he’d seen him. “Does it bother you?” He asked.
I turned my head a tiny bit and peeked out of the corner of the one eye. “A bit.”
“He’s simply wondering what you’re doing on Saturday night in a place like this with me instead of being out with your friends meeting boys”
I was restless in the chair, not knowing how to answer, looking down.
Vincent put a piece of tuna in his mouth and chewed it slowly, tensing his jaw. “Now he’s wondering if you’re my daughter.”
I swallowed a bite without chewing. As good as it was, it was hard going down. “You reckon?”
“Many people in here are starting to wonder. Because you're a young girl you could be my daughter, it would be the most logical conclusion. At the same time you blush at my words, you touch your hair and smile mischievously which a daughter wouldn’t do with her father.”
I immediately let go of my hair.
“If they realized that I wasn’t your daughter, they might think you were a pervert.”
“But I am. I'm a pervert.”
“Come on, Vince...”
“That man is travelling away from his family, if he has one. Don’t you think he has perverse thoughts? That he wouldn’t like to take my place with you at this dinner?”
“Why don’t you look at him too, baby? Take a peek if you want to see if I’m right.”
I shook my head and put a piece of artichoke in my mouth. “Do you want to dare me? Do you think I haven’t got the balls?”
I’ll show him.
I dragged the fork across the plate and turned with red cheeks, looking for the man. He first looked at me in a brazen way, then moved his gaze to under the table just as two glossy shoes pushed between my feet, separating them. Vincent forced me to open my legs slowly until the miniskirt stretched between my thighs.
“Now he knows what I’m going to do to you,” he said, keeping his feet firm to block mine where they were.
The man fiddled with his trousers at groin height deliberately. He leaned against the back of the sofa, seemingly amused.
Yes, he now knew and he knew better than me.
The excitement overpowered my shamelessness. I flicked my head round, dropping a curtain of hair in between him and me.
“Shit...” I crumpled the napkin in my hand with broken breath, legs locked in position.
Vincent stretched out a hand, wiping a crumb from the corner of my mouth and slowly slid his thumb into my mouth till it opened.
“And what do you think he thinks I'm going to do?” He continued undaunted.
I had to stop giving him a rope. I crumpled the napkin more.
“What do you think he thinks?” I asked anxiously.
He perched his elbow on the table, stroking his goatee with two fingers, master of the situation. He seemed to be thinking about several hypotheses, then he decided.
“That I'll send you to the bathroom and then I'll catch you up. I'll lift up your little skirt and bend you forwards with your hands to the wall, so I can put my cock into your little pussy and give you a good fucking. And I think that because that's what he’d do,” in a nutshell.
I gulped down all the wine I had in my glass as if it was a dose of liquid courage. “And do you think I would do it?”
“So far, have I given you a way to refuse? Truly, I think I could fuck you on this table if I wanted to.” He tested its strength as though he really was thinking about it. “I wouldn’t do it because I'm not that kind of exhibitionist, and I don’t fancy a big fine, but you... oh, after a few complaints you’d do it. And that's what I like about you. I can take you wherever I want, and you can’t imagine how much I want to.”
I made an attempt to close my legs, but he didn’t let me, my calves were blocked in position by his. I put my cool knuckles against my cheeks. “Why do you tell me these things?”
“Because that's what I'll do. You live everything intensively and it makes me feel so alive.”
Too hot, I pulled the scarf off my neck. Although conscious of my nipples that were poking the fabric of my top, I couldn’t do anything about it, except accept that he would notice. And not just him.
“OK.” He poured some more wine for himself, a little less for me. “Now the lady with her husband on the other side of the room knows, and I'd say that she doesn’t like it.” He reached one hand out, lifting my chin. “You look slightly upset, sugar. Did I say something wrong?”
Quite the opposite.
I blinked, looking for the lady. I found her: she reminded me of My aunt Frida in a few years, all elegant with a bun tied at the nape of the neck, her mouth tightly pinched.
“Perhaps you remind her of her daughter,” he continued. “From the expression on your face she may have the idea that I’m pestering you and it’s bothering her. She thinks that you’re in a sticky situation.”
The whole time Vincent was keeping an eye on the whole room, watching the reflections in the mirrors and glasses, glancing only briefly at me. He was making me blush and shiver with what he was saying on purpose, looking for my reaction.
I looked into his dirty, provocative eyes, almost until I disappeared, before finding the way to fight back.
“No.” I lifted my glass and held it in two hands. “She doesn’t like it, but it hurts her because it’s not her that’s getting fucked. Because at my age, she only dreamt about being fucked big time like I’m going to be. And she still dreams of it.”
Surprised and amused, Vincent tapped his fingers against his lips, lifted the glass with a brilliant smile. “Yes, that's my little girl.”
Finally satisfied, he withdrew his legs letting me put mine together.
“Did you like this game, baby?”
I like everything you say and do. Even when it terrorizes me or makes me cry. When you laugh, looking at me like that, I could’ve died and gone to heaven.
A game: that's what it was.
With the excuse of hanging my bag on the back of the chair, I turned and looked back at the lady. “I don’t think she knew it was a game” I observed as I recomposed myself.
> “Fortunately you’re eighteen. Without an accusation from you, no one can say anything.”
I could’ve said that night, that he’d raped me and he couldn’t deny it because although I didn’t say “no,” I’d fought with all my strength.
“And If there was an accusation from me?”
“An ugly exploiter like me against an angel face like yours? With those marks on your wrists? I’d be fed to the lions.”
I moved the bracelets to make sure that they covered the marks. “Even with your father defending you?”
“If that was that case, maybe I would get off.”
“Was he really that good?”
“Lawyer De Luca?” He called him by his surname, which was also of course his own. “He was the best son of a bitch in circulation. And it's not a compliment.”
“But he was just doing his job: even those guilty have the right to be defended. He was right about that.”
“Don’t talk about stuff you don’t know anything about, Giada.” He pointed to my plate with the fork. “Finish your dinner.”
The dessert was great, even though it was seasoned with the dark shadows of Vincent's personality. I hadn’t eaten too much, but I felt full. After the meal we ordered a coffee for me and a liqueur for him.
The waiter bought both things over, but Vincent kept hold of the sugar sachet and pushed the cup towards me.
“Try it,” he said.
I managed to drink it without too much difficulty, in small sips: maybe it was true that I could get used to it. I didn’t want to admit it though. “It’s strong and bitter to swallow, as is he who insists on me drinking it.”
“Unpleasant?” He asked.
“Not as bad as I expected,” I confessed.
The liquor seemed to have warmed his brown eyes. “Now go to the bathroom. Leave your handbag on the table, enter the ladies' toilet, face the wall, and do not turn around.”
“Is this still a game?”
“Not anymore.”
I rubbed my eyes. “You said it was a game.”
“That yes. This no. I want you and I want you now, so go.”
“But...”
“Go.”
I did it, not because he’d ordered me to - maybe a bit for that - but because I wanted to know how it would feel. As if in a trance, I went into that bloody marble tiled ladies' toilet. The sink area was free, and one of the two cubicles was occupied.
Before deciding to do as I was told, I looked at myself in the mirror. My clothes were tighter than I was used to wearing, I’d worn them to seduce him. The flared skirt and off the shoulder top showed off my slim figure making it, thanks to the high heels, extremely feminine. They’d had the desired effect. Too much.
I hated dirt, but the bathroom looked clean, reflecting the high standard of the restaurant. While I was washing my hands, the toilet was flushed and out came the lady who’d been giving Vincent disapproving looks.
I recognized her reflection in the mirror.
She smiled and came over to me. The expression of outrage had vanished, she seemed rather friendly, and a bit emotional.
I no longer had a reason to wait. I dampened my hand and put it to my forehead, taking a breath of encouragement.
“Are you all right, dear?” She asked, worried. I wrung my hands under the water to seem more casual. “I must have eaten too much.”
In fact I hadn’t eaten much and she knew it. I hadn’t eaten much because Vincent had anticipated all this and purposefully hadn’t ordered food that would fill us up too much.
“Do you want me to tell your Dad?”
My Dad, eh? What a joke.
“No, thank you, I'm fine.”
I don’t think I'm ready to fuck here and now, honestly I still need to recuperate from this afternoon, for apart from that I'm fine.
We exchanged smiles of circumstance, she washed her hands and I entered the toilet, imagining that she would soon go. I put my arms tight in my stomach and, with a shoulder to the wall, my face turned to the flush, I waited with my heart in my mouth.
The hand dryer was whirring and I heard the woman’s heels clicking on the floor, she was obviously still there.
“Good evening,” she greeted a new arrival.
“Good evening.” I immediately recognized the amused voice that answered her.
Disobeying the orders I’d received, I turned around and opened the door by a centimetre to see what was happening.
The woman was putting eyeliner on in front of the mirror with an exorbitant slowness. A few feet away from her, beyond the threshold of the antique door was Vincent, right next to the ‘Ladies’ sign.
She studied him out of the corner of her eye. “Waiting for someone?”
“I am, yes.”
“Is the sweet creature in the cubicle your daughter?” She asked in a self important tone. “She's a very pretty girl.”
“Yes, she's pretty, but she's not my daughter. She's my friends’ daughter.”
Why pretend when the woman had already worked it out? Now I knew why Vincent had wanted to lie at the carpet shop: it's better to lie than be judged.
She smiled again self importantly, and carried on putting her makeup on while Vincent leaned his shoulders beside the door frame and crossed his arms.
When she’d finished, the lady washed her hands again. Every move was obviously to waste time.
Vincent tapped his foot rhythmically, emphasizing the time passing by.
“She came in after me,” she said. “I'm sure she'll be out soon.”
He leaned his neck on the frame. “I think we're at a stalemate. You know perfectly well that I want to go in, but I won’t while you’re here. On the other hand, you’re not leaving because you think doing the right thing stopping me, so neither of us is going to move.”
The woman's face changed, losing all her fake courtesy.
“I was hoping I was wrong. I was hoping that a distinguished man like yourself would appear to have a bit of sense.” She wiped her hands angrily.
“You think you’ve understood everything?”
“Only what is obvious. You should be ashamed at your age.” Only ‘running after little girls’ was missing.
Even Vincent had lost his cheerful expression. He detached himself from the wall and unraveled his arms as if he had nothing to hide. “Oh, I'm really ashamed, believe me.” He stepped forward, standing on the threshold. His hand gripping the door frame. “I'm just a miserable pathetic man of flesh and blood who has decided to steal a moment of paradise. But don’t think that I really need to get into this bathroom, I'm not out of control. It’s not the circumstances of one moment that make me a monster.”
She took a step back. “So what is it?”
“Accepting that this is who I am. To glimpse a chance and decide to catch it throwing everything else in the nettles: have you ever been in a similar situation? Having to choose between regret and remorse? If you’ve never had to choose consider yourself lucky, it means you’ve never known real torment.”
The woman looked disturbed by his question, her eyes travelled to the right and left along the streets of her memories. Finally she lowered her gaze and threw the paper towel in the trash can. She decided to leave the toilet and answer the question on her own. she knew such a regret that, if she could go back, she would pick the remorse and take that opportunity. She announced defeat.
At that moment I didn’t care about anything, I threw the toilet door open, ran and jumped onto Vincent as if I was giving him a rugby tackle. I squeezed myself against his chest, listening to his heart beating beneath my ear.
The lady turned around, attracted to the scene.
“Thank you,” Vincent said, encircling my shoulders.
She didn’t understand. “What for?”
“For listening to my confession.”
It was a thank you to have listened to what he couldn’t confess, which he kept only for himself as his greatest sin. Not actually the desire for the girl, but
rather the betrayal of a friend. That was the irreparable evil.
The woman left, and Vincent stroked my hair to one side. “I'm afraid this bathroom has lost its attraction, baby. Don’t you think?”
I nodded, reluctant to detach myself from him. “Am I really your paradise?”
“No, you are an infinite series of moments of paradise. And my hell.” He put me down. “Let's get out of here, there's somewhere else I want to take you.”
I jumped about, my enthusiasm returning. “To dance?!”
“Christ, you will make me grow old before time.”
***
We didn’t go dancing. Instead, we went to an exhibition of paintings in a downtown gallery. Actually, the first thing I noticed was the crowded buffet at the entrance, full of tiny pastries so elaborate they looked like little jewels.
The culinary arts attracted me more than the painting, I was my Adele and Aron’s daughter, who spent their lives preparing lunches, receptions and refreshments.
Before I could grab one of those delights, Vincent dragged me to one side, leading me to the heart of the show, pointing to the wall and finally got my attention. Expecting still lifes, mountain landscapes, or alternatively virgin women with huge breasts I was surprised. It was hyperrealism oil on canvas, portraying fantasy.
In that open space with only a few armchairs placed in front of the dove-grey walls, a dozen paintings hung next to each other on every wall, each one more striking than the other.
I left my companion's hand to get close up to a wolf that seemed to leap out of the painting.
“Shit” was my greatest expression of appreciation.
Vincent approached. “I think it deserves better praise.”
I spotted another. “damn.” I shook my hand
excited. “Come and see this! It's more real than a photo! What the hell did he do?”
He put his hands in his pocket, admiring the work, pleased, as if he was proud of the other man's excellence. “Niccolò started drawing comics when he was a teenager, then he discovered that painting was his true vocation.”
“You know the guy that did this stuff?” I was tempted to touch the corner of a canvas where one A and one N were interposed, but hold back.