Later on I stood up and went into the garden, which was neat but not well tended. They had planted tall date palms and strange trees with prickly trunks and huge pink flowers in their foliage. Letizia walked up and hugged me from behind, grazing my neck with a kiss.
I turned around instinctively and met her mouth: hot, soft, extremely yielding. Now I understood why men love to kiss women so much: a woman's mouth is so innocent, pure, whereas the men I've met always leave me with a slimy trail of saliva, coarsely thrusting their tongues into my mouth. Letizia's kiss was different: it was velvety, fresh yet intense at the same time.
"You're the most beautiful woman I've ever had," she told me as she held my face.
"You too," I responded, although I didn't know why. There was no need to say it since she was my only woman!
Letizia changed roles with me, and this time I took the lead, rubbing my body against hers. I hugged her tightly, breathing her perfume; then she led me to the next room, lowered my pants, and ended the sweet torture that had begun a few weeks ago. Her tongue was melting me, but the thought of achieving an orgasm in a woman's mouth made me shudder. While her tongue was licking me, while she was on her knees before me, straining for my pleasure, I closed my eyes, and with my hands folded like the paws of a frightened rabbit, I recalled the invisible little man who used to make love to me in my childhood fantasies. The invisible man is faceless, colorless; he is only a sex and a tongue which I use for my enjoyment. It was then that my orgasm arrived, so powerful it had me panting. Her mouth was full of my sap, and when I opened my eyes, I saw her-what a marvelous surprise-with a hand inside her panties, writhing with the pleasure that was arriving for her too, perhaps more keen and genuine than mine had been.
Later we lay down on the sofa, and I believe I slept for a short while. When the sun set and the sky darkened, she accompanied me to the door, and I told her, "Leti, it would be better if we didn't see each other again."
She nodded, smiled gently, and said, "I agree." We exchanged a last kiss. When I was heading home on my motorino, I felt used yet again, used by someone and by my own wicked impulses.
18 May 2002
I'm recalling the sound of my mother's warm, reassuring voice. Yesterday, while I was in bed with the flu, she told me this story:
"Something you find difficult, something you don't want, can prove to be a wonderful gift. You know, Melissa, we often receive gifts without our knowledge. This is the story of a young sovereign who assumes the rule of a kingdom. He was beloved before he became king, and his subjects, delighted with his coronation, brought him ever so many gifts. After the ceremony, whilst the new king was dining in his palace, he suddenly heard a knock on the door. The servants found a shabbily dressed old man, to all appearances a beggar, who wished to see the sovereign. They did their utmost to dissuade him, but to no avail. Then the king went to meet him. The old man showered him with praise, telling him that he was very handsome, and that everyone in the kingdom was pleased to have him as sovereign. He had brought the king a gift: a melon. The king detested melons, but to be polite to the old man, he accepted it, thanked him, and the old man departed happily. The king went back inside the palace and handed the fruit to the servants, so that they might toss it into the garden.
"The next week, at the same hour, there was another knock on the door. The king was summoned once again, and the beggar lauded him, offering him another melon. The king accepted it, saluted the old man, and, once again, tossed the melon into the garden. The scene was repeated for sundry weeks: the king was too polite to affront the old man or to scorn the generosity of his gift.
"Then, one evening, just when the old man was about to deliver the melon to the king, an ape leapt down from a portico and caused the fruit to fall from his hands. The melon broke into a thousand pieces against the facade of the palace. When the king looked, he saw a shower of diamonds fall from the heart of the melon. Anxiously, he ran to the garden behind the palace: all the melons had turned into mounds of jewels."
I stopped her, excited by the beautiful story, and said, "Can I infer the moral?"
She smiled and said, "Of course."
I took a deep breath, just as I do whenever I get ready to repeat a lesson at school. "Sometimes inconvenient situations, problems, or difficulties conceal opportunities for growth; very often in the heart of difficulties shines the light of a precious jewel. It is therefore wise to welcome what is inconvenient and difficult."
She smiled again, stroked my hair, and said, "You've grown, little one. You're a princess."
I wanted to weep, but I restrained myself. My mother didn't know that, for me, the king's diamonds had been the crude bestiality of boorish men incapable of love.
20 May
Today the Prof came to meet me again outside school. I was waiting for him: I gave him a letter in which I enclosed a particular pair of panties.
I am these panties. They describe me best, curiously designed with a dangling ribbon on each side. To whom could they belong, if not some Lolita?
Yet they don't simply belong to me; they are me and my body.
I happen to have worn them often when I made love, perhaps never with you, but that doesn't matter. The ribbons hold back my impulses and my senses; they are the ties that, apart from leaving a mark on my skin, restrain my feelings. Imagine my body wearing nothing but these panties. If one knot is untied, only one of my spirits is released: Sensuality. The spirit of Love is still impeded by the other knot. Thus, whoever has untied my Sensuality will see only the woman, the girl, or generically the female, capable of receiving sex, nothing more. He possesses only half of me, and it is probably what I want on most occasions. When someone unties only the knot of Love, I shall give another part of me, a part that is small but deep. Then the day may come when my jailer arrives, offering me the keys to release both of my spirits: Sensuality and Love are set free and take wing. You feel good, free and satisfied, and your mind and body no longer ask for anything, no longer torment you with their requests. Like a tender secret, they are freed by a hand that knows how to caress you, that knows how to make you throb, and they glow at the mere thought of that hand.
Now smell that part of me which lies exactly in the center between Love and Sensuality: it is my Soul, which seeps through my fluids.
You were right when you told me I was born to screw. As you see, my Soul too wishes to be desired and gives off its smell, the female smell. Perhaps the hand that freed my spirits is yours, Prof.
I daresay only your sense of smell could fathom my fluids, my Soul. Don't scold me for saying this, Prof, if I go too far. I feel I must do it because at least in the future I won't regret losing an opportunity before grasping it. This thing creaks inside me like a door that needs to be oiled; its noise is deafening. When we are with you, in your arms, my panties and I are free of any impediment, any chains. Yet the spirits have met a wall in their flight, the horrendous and unjust wall of time, which passes slowly for one, fast for the other, a series of figures that keeps us at arm's length. I hope your mathematical intelligence might offer you some hints on how to solve this terrible equation. But not only this: you recognize only one part of me, even though you have liberated two. And that isn't the part I would like to let live on its own. It's up to you to decide whether to bring about a change in our relationship, whether to make it become more… "spiritual," a tad more profound. I put my trust in you.