stockings held up by suspenders, I spring out of the Jeep and make my way through the tall grass and the scrub and the prickly pears and the low dry stone walls. His grandmother left him an olive grove with a dilapidated villa in the middle.
He’s promised to kill me one day or another with an overdose of torture, but for the moment I have to live. Inside the house he’s set up the torture room, all for me. I have to go in there as soon as I arrive. He closes the funereal velvet curtains and turns on a lamp and I have to lift up my skirt and bend over holding my ankles to show him my bottom. He caresses it and compliments me on how nice it is, he pulls my knickers between my buttocks and starts hitting me with the riding crop his grandfather used to use to whip the horses when they didn’t want to gallop. Until I fall to the ground.
‘Do I deserve it because I can’t get anyone to fall in love with me?’ I ask him.
‘For whatever you like. Get up off the floor and back into position.’
He takes off my knickers and goes to get the tub of water. He wets my bottom to make it hurt more. He’ll lash me until I bleed and when I beg him to stop he’ll just move on to another torture. He’ll make me take off my suit jacket and he’ll want me to stick my chest out to show off my big tits and all the rest of my meat. He’ll tie my wrists to the rope that hangs from a hook in the ceiling and he’ll start squeezing my breasts and biting them like he’s going to devour them and this will be unbearably painful.
‘You know what you have to do to make me stop.’ So I go and lie down on the tall, rickety iron bed and open my legs to show myself to him completely and I prepare myself for the torture of the strap between the thighs.
In this dark room you can have no privacy. We do everything in a bucket and then, holding me by the hair, he makes me look inside and eat. But I’ve understood one thing: that this doesn’t hurt more than my vet and the ballerina reflected in the stream, more than Mamma lying in the rubbish down below, more than the postcards from Mauro De Cortes. More than my brother who won’t say a word to anyone. Or more than my father who’s not around.
25
Nonna really does have a soft spot for Mauro De Cortes
Yesterday at lunchtime there was a ring at the door and when Zia goes to open it she cries, ‘My God! It’s impossible! We’d given up on you!’
‘Have I ruined the party?’ I hear Mauro De Cortes reply, laughing.
I rush to hug him too. Big slaps on the back with my brother. We throw ourselves on him and we don’t care that he went away without saying goodbye and that he didn’t go out with Zia, it’s just lovely that he’s here.
‘When did you guys reach land?’
‘We didn’t. I came back by plane just now. I haven’t even told my children yet.’
‘What happened to the boat?’
‘Nothing. It’s in excellent shape. It’s sailing around the Mediterranean with my ex.’
‘You left her the boat?’
‘You know I don’t like to make an issue of things like that.’
‘So now no boat and no girlfriend?’
‘And no house. That is, I’ll have to find a smaller one, because I spent too much over the last few months.’
When he left Zia said, ‘This is another Valmy miracle, kids! A small ragtag army beating an enemy alliance!’
And she started singing the Marseillaise.
After the strain of his long journey, Mauro lies down on Zia’s large soft bosom, on her Mediterranean hips, on her long and perfect legs, on her eternally unkempt hair. He destroys whole drawerfuls of her lingerie as he tears it off her and when Zia has to come home to help me with my final-year History essay, he says to her, ‘Stop there!’
Zia tells us about Mauro’s new house, about how it’s much smaller, but so much lovelier than the other one. She says that there’s indirect light, that the bathroom is the epitome of organisation in a small space, that book and CD shelves are built into
He’s promised to kill me one day or another with an overdose of torture, but for the moment I have to live. Inside the house he’s set up the torture room, all for me. I have to go in there as soon as I arrive. He closes the funereal velvet curtains and turns on a lamp and I have to lift up my skirt and bend over holding my ankles to show him my bottom. He caresses it and compliments me on how nice it is, he pulls my knickers between my buttocks and starts hitting me with the riding crop his grandfather used to use to whip the horses when they didn’t want to gallop. Until I fall to the ground.
‘Do I deserve it because I can’t get anyone to fall in love with me?’ I ask him.
‘For whatever you like. Get up off the floor and back into position.’
He takes off my knickers and goes to get the tub of water. He wets my bottom to make it hurt more. He’ll lash me until I bleed and when I beg him to stop he’ll just move on to another torture. He’ll make me take off my suit jacket and he’ll want me to stick my chest out to show off my big tits and all the rest of my meat. He’ll tie my wrists to the rope that hangs from a hook in the ceiling and he’ll start squeezing my breasts and biting them like he’s going to devour them and this will be unbearably painful.
‘You know what you have to do to make me stop.’ So I go and lie down on the tall, rickety iron bed and open my legs to show myself to him completely and I prepare myself for the torture of the strap between the thighs.
In this dark room you can have no privacy. We do everything in a bucket and then, holding me by the hair, he makes me look inside and eat. But I’ve understood one thing: that this doesn’t hurt more than my vet and the ballerina reflected in the stream, more than Mamma lying in the rubbish down below, more than the postcards from Mauro De Cortes. More than my brother who won’t say a word to anyone. Or more than my father who’s not around.
25
Nonna really does have a soft spot for Mauro De Cortes
Yesterday at lunchtime there was a ring at the door and when Zia goes to open it she cries, ‘My God! It’s impossible! We’d given up on you!’
‘Have I ruined the party?’ I hear Mauro De Cortes reply, laughing.
I rush to hug him too. Big slaps on the back with my brother. We throw ourselves on him and we don’t care that he went away without saying goodbye and that he didn’t go out with Zia, it’s just lovely that he’s here.
‘When did you guys reach land?’
‘We didn’t. I came back by plane just now. I haven’t even told my children yet.’
‘What happened to the boat?’
‘Nothing. It’s in excellent shape. It’s sailing around the Mediterranean with my ex.’
‘You left her the boat?’
‘You know I don’t like to make an issue of things like that.’
‘So now no boat and no girlfriend?’
‘And no house. That is, I’ll have to find a smaller one, because I spent too much over the last few months.’
When he left Zia said, ‘This is another Valmy miracle, kids! A small ragtag army beating an enemy alliance!’
And she started singing the Marseillaise.
After the strain of his long journey, Mauro lies down on Zia’s large soft bosom, on her Mediterranean hips, on her long and perfect legs, on her eternally unkempt hair. He destroys whole drawerfuls of her lingerie as he tears it off her and when Zia has to come home to help me with my final-year History essay, he says to her, ‘Stop there!’
Zia tells us about Mauro’s new house, about how it’s much smaller, but so much lovelier than the other one. She says that there’s indirect light, that the bathroom is the epitome of organisation in a small space, that book and CD shelves are built into
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