by Anna Chillon
“It's just an attempt to bribe your little pest to let me have a peaceful weekend. You give sugar to horses to train them, but I think your daughter eats too much already.”
He leant against the fridge, had a sip of beer, his Adam's apple moved up and down and I wanted to kiss him there so much. If only I could close my eyes against his neck, smelling his skin and his aftershave. I had to lower my eyes not to betray myself again.
“If you had children of your own you’d know what it means to make yourself heard,” Dad said, turning to retrieve his Budweiser from the fridge.
“I think I've already got a vague idea. God save me from having a family.”
Aron patted his shoulders paternally. “There is no danger of that, where would you find a woman who puts up with you like I do?”
“How much we do, Dad.” I put the last profiterole on the pyramid. “Even Mum and I are doing our part, don’t forget.”
“I couldn’t forget your anti-Vincent protests, even if I wanted to, darling.” He picked up the profiteroles and brownies from the kitchen island inviting my secret lover to follow him. “Help me with these, Vince.”
“It's really nice to feel appreciated by the whole family,” he chuckled, picking up the plates, giving me a sly glance.
Their voices were lost when they closed themselves into the studio. Off-limits zone.
Biting the nail on my index finger, I sat on a stool at the island.
“What is it, Lalla?” My mother always had a sixth sense. Perhaps she didn’t see what was in front of her face, like my father, but she understood my changing moods.
“There's nothing on TV. I prefer to watch you.”
“Don’t you have to study?”
“No.”
She knew it was a lie, but preferred that I stay with her too. How many things I told her without opening my mouth, fantasizing that she would understand...
Only later did I go to the bathroom upstairs, but trying the handle I found it occupied. I heard the sound of the key turning in the lock and the door opened.
Vincent was surprised to find me there, transfixed in front of him. He looked at me for a moment and then acted, all instinct and no head: he grabbed me by one arm and made me fly into the bathroom at the speed of light.
“You're crazy!” I whispered in a low voice, my heart beating like mad.
He raised his index to his lips. “Shhh.”
He stepped forward pressing me to the wall. He held my pony tail folding my neck back while his mouth came down onto mine and his body pushed me against the wall.
It was a hungry kiss, rubbing and invasive that didn’t suffice to quench either of us. And even if it was only a kiss, an orgy wouldn’t have seemed more outrageous than that fleeting and clandestine contact, under the same roof as my parents. It was crazy, sick, absurd... and it was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to me.
Vincent held my shoulders, dragging himself off. “Now I’ve got to go.”
“What?” I groaned.
“It's a fucking shitty situation.”
He put his shirt in front of his jeans to cover his erection and opened the door, going out quickly.
“Hey, I was in there first, you nuisance!” He grumbled abruptly to the benefit of any audience.
I laughed with a slight delay and said “Well, lock the door next time!”
I slammed the door and leaned over to the tub, hugging the edge as my knees touched sank to the floor. Adrenaline and libido had blissfully defeated me leaving an idiotic smile on my face.
I typed a message on my mobile. “You're out of your head.”
The answer came straight away. “It’s your fault. Don’t pant. Don’t message me. Don’t call me. Don’t think about me. Fuck.”
“What should I do then?” I tapped furiously.
“Just live.”
Yes, but how?
In apnea five days out of seven.
***
I was invited to go to Qube on Saturday evening with Tim, his brother Medo, Zoe, Simon and other friends of theirs. I turned them down before I could think of a good excuse.
In the afternoon, Zoe called me and asked me to meet her at the sports pitch saying she needed to talk to me, but when I got to our meeting place she wasn’t there. Simon was in her place, just where I was blushing on the day of my eighteenth birthday, when he first looked up at me. It couldn’t be chance, it had all the makings of one of Zoe’s set ups.
Wonderful: my best friend had helped Simon to ambush me.
He was already following me with his eyes, waiting for me to reach him, which was obviously too late to get out of.
I walked un-hurriedly. Instinctively I pulled the sleeves of my top down to my fingers and folded my hands under my armpits, approaching his beautiful body slowly. “You could’ve told me that you wanted to see me,” I reproached him at once. “Did you have to trick me into it?”
Leaning up against the fence, he held his arms across his chest. A sign of self-defense not so much physical in this case as moral.
“If I’d have asked you to meet me, you would’ve come up with an excuse,” he said wisely.
“What are you talking about?” I sat down on the rickety bench facing the work in progress to build the new changing rooms. A good view because Simon was in between, with tight jeans and a fitted Vans top with a skeleton printed with a raised middle finger and the words “It's never too late to send you there” in the centre.
What an appropriate choice.
“Are you saying that it’s not true that you're avoiding me?”
It was difficult to let Simon go and with him everything that could be simple and beautiful. That’s why I’d preferred to avoid it rather than face reality.
“I'm sorry.” And he couldn’t know how true it was.
“If you’re seeing someone tell me, Giada. Don’t mess me around.”
“I’m not messing you around.” I put my hands on my knees trying to hold my short skirt down that tended to get blown up by the wind
We had to stop talking as a guy went jogging past. I wanted to get up and follow him, run across the sports fields until all my muscles were tired and I was full of endorphins. I really hated running, but I would have even done that to escape the situation.
Simon started again as soon as the jogger was gone. “First you were really keen, you told me you wanted to fuck me and then all of a sudden you don’t want to see me again.” His nostrils were dilated with anger, he was annoyed and I couldn’t blame him.
I couldn’t even think of any sensible excuse for not telling the truth. A nice mess. “It's not what you think.”
He dropped his arms exasperated. “So tell me what it is, why you don’t like me anymore?”
“Of course I like you! Only an idiot wouldn’t like you. But what am I saying? Even an idiot would like you: you're incredible and that's a fact, and you know it, I don’t have to tell you.” I looked into his blue eyes twisted by doubt. “I was honest with you, in everything I said and did.”
As well as being incredible he was also vain, in fact those compliments softened him up a bit. He sat on the bench beside me, breathtakingly handsome.
“I'm amazing, but you don’t want to see me anymore. You talked about parties, to have fun, to be free, and now you're locked in the house, barely answering my messages. Giada, please, tell me what’s up.” He laid his hand on my leg.
I was fighting the instinct to take it away by concentrating on the area that was warming up. He noticed. “Did I scare you off being too insistent?”
“Insistent, you?” I laughed so as not to cry. “What are you talking about? Girls like it, you know... a little bit of determination. It makes them feel desirable.” I was honest, but not at all lucid.
“Ah yeah?” He registered, stroking my skirt with his index.
He and his hand came closer, slipping slightly under the cloth.
I’m going to take you now, said his eyes. Hypnotizing me that way, he
got more intimate, getting closer to his chest, feeling it ripped and tight under his shirt. I couldn’t think. For a moment it was nice to be in his arms, part of me wanted to let go, but at the same time I felt violated.
All because of a presumptuous man, who I couldn’t even send a message to, who gave me orders like I was his chihuahua.
Double fuck, Vincent.
I turned my head to the side. Obviously, with what had been said about male insistence, Simon didn’t let himself be discouraged. He slid his hand up my leg to the panties and, and as he didn’t have my mouth, was content to move my hair so he could kiss my neck. Before you could say It he was on top of me.
“I can’t. Simon, please...” Like a dog on heat he tried to squeeze his fingers between my tight thighs. “Simon, no...” Oh, wow, then I did know how to say that word! No, no and no! “OK, no... Simon... well, there is someone else!” I shouted before I became overwhelmed.
He jumped up frustrated. “What the fuck, Giada!” He hissed, tightening his fists, containing the pressure that was that was going to his head and somewhere else. “You’ve got another guy?”
I curled my shoulders, beaten.
I’ve got a man. In fact no, he has me.
He put his hands on his hips. “Would it have been so hard to tell me before? I also have other people to go out with, who may actually care about me.”
I cared about you too, damn it.
“Sure. I suppose it's a long list that can’t wait,” I replied with a sneer. “One out, one in.”
He put his foot on the bench and leaned against his knees. “And if it was? Is there a reason why I shouldn’t see other girls, tell me straight away since it seems you're fucking someone else. Because that's what we're talking about, right?”
I put my nails in the wood of the bench until they split. I breathed a long sigh and admitted it. “I'm sorry, you're right, but I didn’t plan it. There was no one else when I told you that I wanted to be with you. Then it happened without me wanting it too and now it's all very complicated to explain.”
“It's so complicated that you can’t even tell your best friend? Zoe says you’ve always confided in each other about everything, she doesn’t understand what's happening to you.”
Now it was my turn to jump to my feet. “Wait, tell me, was it you that wanted to meet me or did she send you?”
“She sent me because she's a good friend. She’s worried that you’re going out with some rogue and if you don’t understand how much she cares about you, it means you're a bitch. Who is this person you’re doing it with Giada? Is Zoe right? Maybe you don’t want to tell me because I know him.”
My nerves were on edge. Sarcastic smirk at the ready for provocation. “Oh really, you? Don’t play the little saint. Are we going to play: ‘Zoe told me’? Or, ‘Tim told me,’ or ‘Tim said to Zoe,’ it’s not enough for you anymore dealing to kids as they leave school. You want bigger things now. What is it, you like so much the community service jobs you want a fixed contract?” I took everything out on him to protect myself.
“Bollocks, are you still going on about that?! I just said I'm thinking about it.”
“Think about it. You have a great face, Costa, I don’t think you want to end up in jail. Unless your tastes have changed tastes in the last few weeks.”
I managed to make him smile. “Yes, kiss my ass.”
“See this?” I slowly raised my middle finger in the universal language I’d seen him and Tim using.
Simon laughed it off and was suddenly serious. “We were talking about you and the rogue you’re fucking, I don’t think we can change the subject. Is it another community worker you met at the camp? Look, they're not all like me, there are some wrong’uns amongst those dregs.”
“What makes you think he’s a rogue? You're off the mark.” The atmosphere was getting heated again, Simon walked irritably back and forth in front of me. “Ah, do you think so? Zoe says you're behaving strangely. He says that at gym she saw you in your underwear: you had bruises everywhere, both last week and this, asked you what they were and you were vague. She even suspected me, for fuck’s sake!”
I shook my head. “Oh no! I didn’t know... it’s nothing to do with you.”
“Obviously. It's absurd: the guard dog your parents have put on your heels has kept me away but hasn’t managed to keep a real son of a bitch at bay.”
“It’s not like that.”
“So what are those bruises? Zoe thinks she’s even seen marks under your bracelets.”
I thought I’d hidden them well. “It's that I fe...”
“Fell over?” He raised his eyebrows, waiting only for me to take refuge in that pathetic excuse.
I shrugged, he pointed his finger at me with such force that he make me stagger back. “Don’t take the piss out of me, Giada.”
I pulled my shirt up my arm. Nothing covered it, I’d taken the bracelets off to let my wrists breathe. “See? Nothing there.” I covered it immediately, all mixed up.
Unexpectedly he stopped me and grabbed my hand.
“What are you doing?!”
I pulled back but Simon held me firm enough to get a close look at my wrist. I prayed that all the marks had gone.
“Simon, listen, I'm very flattered by your attentions, but I don’t need this,” I said to distract him, using the most condescending tone possible. “I haven’t been beaten and the person I'm seeing is not a rogue. The fact is I don’t exactly know how I feel and before I talk to Zoe I want to understand. For now she’ll have to be happy to know it’s a trusted friend that I’ve known for a long time.”
“He’s a good guy?”
More or less. “Yup.”
“Are you sure you know him well?”
I thought so! Yes. No one’s hurting me.”
“Really?”
Let’s say not excessively. I nodded.
He blinked, sighed. “OK.” He pulled me into a hug, talking into my hair. “I don’t give a fuck if we're not together. If anybody hurts you, you must come and tell me so I can break his face.”
That spontaneity made me smile: he was ready to take a beating to protect me despite my behaviour.
“The heroes are all young and beautiful” I recited “The Locomotive” by Guccini.
I threw myself against him, finding myself, for once, not embarrassed nor aroused, but just grateful. “Count on me.”
“But you have to make me a promise,” he held me by the shoulders and moved me away from him. “You have to talk to Zoe, she's really worried.”
“I’ll do it as soon as I can, I promise.”
“Good, because I can’t be a social worker, I'm too busy dealing, and with the community service work, and the hardest job of all: destroying all my father's expectations.”
I laughed for the first time in ages.
At that point we should have said our goodbyes, but we found ourselves talking about all sorts of stuff. There was a lightness in our exchange, in the stupid things that made us laugh. No gravity, no drama, just the desire to be carefree.
Time passed and the time came to leave. I reluctantly said goodbye to the boy who would’ve been perfect for me and biting my cheek I watched him walking down the path.
I turned on my way, but then he called me. “Giada!”
“Yes?” I wondered how far away we were.
“You’ve never smoked, have you?”
“Yes.” I waited a second. “I did take a pull once, that time you passed it to me.”
He smiled and I smiled back, I was pleased because it would’ve be too sad to leave with long faces. Instead we parted serenely with lighter hearts.
Chapter 11
On Friday afternoon, coming out of driving school, I put my iPod headphones in my ears. Zoe asked me if I wanted to go with her to the shopping centre before going home. I replied, “No, I have to go!” with a tone too high because Vasco's voice was already filling my eardrums.
‘Quanti anni hai stasera
quan
ti me ne dai... bambina.
Quanti non ne vuoi più dire
forse non li vuoi capire[1]...’
My legs began to walk on their own in a direction they shouldn’t have taken. I got on the bus and went into the city. I wandered from Piazza Santa Maria Maggiore to Vincent's photography studio.
I had only been once, when I was little, but I remembered the area. The building hosted several commercial shops on the lower floors and professional offices on the upper levels. Vincent worked for some companies and for a selected private clientele, but his studio wasn’t open to the public. The development and printing of other peoples shots wasn’t a service he offered, in fact he mostly did photo shoots on commission. And that was all I knew about it.
Locating the building, I made the last steps approaching the front door, with my heart already pounding in my chest. I stood in front of the double row of plates, I looked for his name, seeing another name that I recognized: ‘Niccolò Aragona - 4th floor’.
So that was how they knew each other: they worked in the same building. Little matter, I was hardly there to buy paintings.
I located below ‘Vincenzo De Luca - Photography - 3rd floor’.
I took advantage of the lady coming out to block the door before it closed and sneaked in. I found myself in front of a monumental pink marble stairway, of who knows how many years, if not centuries old. From there, looking upwards, the black wrought iron railing spiraling upwards almost gave me vertigo. If there was a lift, I didn’t notice it. I walked all the way up to the third floor, in front of Vincent's studio door, where I rang the bell.
The automatic lock suddenly opened with a sharp click and a small shudder; taken over with anxiety, I fiddled with my head band, bringing my hair to each side of my face, smoothed it out and I went in.
I had a vague memory of the reception I found myself in. Behind the desk hung three giant black and white photographs; one was a shot of an old man sitting on a tree trunk, with bare feet and a piece of bread in his hands. The second depicted an underwear stall at a cold winter market, the lacy ladies knickers hanging from the canopy were backlit, creating a beautiful image of embroidery and transparency. The third print, on the other hand, showed a stubborn mule that looked straight into my eyes, with a cliff behind him. The contrasts between light and dark were spectacular, they were all Vincent’s work.