If just one month ago somebody had told me that I would be going inside a university of my own free will, I would have told him he had a screw loose. Having my balls crushed in a vice would have sounded like more fun. Anything would have been better than sitting through a boring lesson with a load of boring students.
And yet here I am, at eight o’clock on a Friday morning, patiently waiting for my semiotics lecture to begin.
Last night I was like a caged tiger. Yesterday was the evening Sara had a date and my blood boiled at the thought of it. More than once, I was tempted to scour the streets of Naples, but it would have been useless: I had no idea who she was with, or where she was going, so I resigned myself to pacing my bedroom floor. Not because I care about her, I should stress. My problem is, that I can’t tolerate the fact that that woman has probably had sex while I went without. It is not socially acceptable. I’m the one who never has an empty bed. Not her. Definitely not her.
I have to know. I took a front row seat because I want to take a good look at her: if she comes in with a goofy smile on that stupid face, then I’ll know that someone, yesterday, has given her something to smile about. And I’ll smash his teeth in!
The thought springs from my treacherous brain before I can stop it. Why do I care who she goes to bed with? She can work her way through the whole faculty, as far as I’m concerned, I still wouldn’t touch her with a bargepole. But the thought of it ruined my night.
‘What did she do? You’re the one who shouted out her name while you were with someone else.’ The angel on my right shoulder tries reason with me.
‘That woman is responsible for all your troubles! You have to find a way to get back at her!’ The little devil on the left shoulder encourages my anger. Not that I need any encouragement. The lack of sex, frustration and the feeling of not being in control of my own life are creating a explosive mix that I can feel is going to make me do something stupid.
Fifteen minutes go by and still no sign of her. I shift in my chair, imagining her recovering from last night’s performance and hating her from the depths of my being.
‘I think the lecture is cancelled,’ says the brunette next to me. She takes the opportunity to look at me with some interest, but she’s a bit too young for me.
I pretend not to understand. What happened to the old Teo? He has been banished somewhere far away and out of reach.
The door opens wide and the students’ hopes fade: but the figure that emerges is Eleonora, Sara’s colleague, the one who tried to seduce her. Now why is it her? I would like to ask her, but she immediately begins to project the slides on the screen, and all that remains for me is to wait, patiently, for the end of the lecture that seems take place in slow motion.
When it finally drags to a close, I wait for the other students to leave before approaching Eleonora.
‘Um, hi,’ I greet her. What is the correct way to greet a rival? Hang on, rival for what? Why does my brain keep coming out with this nonsense?
The woman glares and doesn’t answer me.
‘My intentions are good,’ I insist.
‘Sorry, I don’t believe you.’
‘Come on, it isn’t my fault she gave you the elbow. Evidently you misinterpreted the signals.’
Her briefcase snaps shut a little too vigorously
‘I knew perfectly well that she wasn’t attracted to me, but I had to try something to stop her from making the biggest mistake of her life.’
I am instantly alert. ‘What mistake? The date? Do you know who she was with?’
My vehemence makes her suspicious, and she narrows her eyes into slits and scans me like a metal detector. ‘What does it matter to you?’
‘What makes you think it does matter to me?’ I reply defensively.
‘You don’t fool me. You’re jealous as hell.’
‘Don’t talk bollocks!’
‘Hmm… is it bollocks? I can’t blame you, I’m jealous too. But I suppose you have a better chance than me. Although, if she spent last night having hot, steamy sex with him, like I think she did…’
‘With who?’ I ask, leaning over the desk, my voice coming out rather louder than I had intended. Eleonora gives a sly grin.
‘I thought so. In this love square, there is me, you, Sara and… Professor Costa.’
Now, I know I ought to have suspected, but I never seriously considered the possibility that it was him. My subconscious had ruled him out, unable even to imagine it, because… well…
‘He’s an old fogey!’ I exclaim.
‘Don’t exaggerate. He’s not that old,’ she points out, as a raging fire consumes my brain.
‘She can’t like him! He’s exploiting her!’
It is true that Sara told me she was interested in that dusty old coffin dodger and I even gave her some advice, but I never thought it would come to anything.
‘I couldn’t agree more, but the fact is that yesterday they went on a date and today neither is in the faculty. And since two and two adds up to four …’
I can’t hang around here talking. I set off furiously for the door, my mind made up.
‘I hope you have more luck than me,’ I hear behind my back, but I don’t think too much about it. My car is waiting for me. I have to go to Sara’s house. How could she just hop straight it to bed with him, after spending her own idea of a perfect evening with me?
‘Let’s not get carried away,’ warns the voice of reason, somewhere in a distant part of my brain. But when did I ever listen to the voice of reason?
‘Shut up and let me destroy the old bastard!’ I shout at myself, my voice echoing inside the car. I think I must have racked up about thirty speeding fines in the twenty minutes it takes me to reach her apartment building. I find the door left conveniently open, and head for the stairs. Because obviously I don’t know which apartment is hers. And, equally obviously, it turns out that she lives on the top floor. I scale six flights of stairs, before finally, breathless and more than a little sweaty, I see her name on the door. I jab furiously at the doorbell, and don’t stop until I hear the sound of the lock.
The door swings open and a dishevelled Sara wearing a ridiculously oversized sweatshirt that reaches to her knees stands in the doorway. Her hair is like a bird’s nest, and her face looks like she hasn’t slept a wink. It takes her a couple of seconds to focus, but when she does, she seems to wake up completely.
‘What are you doing here?’ she mumbles, bewildered.
‘Where is he?’ I burst out, pushing my way through the door without permission. I throw my jacket on the first chair I see. The house looks like a bomb site. They must have been busy tonight! Rationality has now abandoned me, because I begin to open doors, looking for the bedroom.
‘What’s wrong with you?’ I didn’t say you could come in!’ she reproaches me, in her usual sour tone.
I open the last door and find the bedroom, turned upside down. No trace of him. He must have already left. Just like I do with the women I spend the night with, in short. The idea makes my blood run cold.
‘Did you have fun yesterday?’ I ask, clenching my fists.
‘None of your business,’ she says icily, turning her back on me.
I grab her by the wrists, and we tumble against a wall. She’s so small and soft, and I can feel myself losing control.
‘Answer me,’ I whisper hoarsely. Her fierce gaze, however, does not waver.
‘A very pleasant evening.’
Is she provoking me?
‘How pleasant? ‘
The reaction comes, as expected. Her tiny hands free themselves from my grip and push hard on my chest, repelling me.
‘I repeat. None of your business. What right do you have to burst into my house and make demands like a jealous boyfriend?’
The word has the power to make me recoil spontaneously. ‘I am not a jealous boyfriend.’
‘Damn right. I wouldn’t want a boyfriend like you.’
‘Why not?’
‘What do you mean why not? Do you want to be my boyfriend?’
What the… ‘Of course not! Where did you get a ridiculous idea like that?’
‘Then why the hell are we standing in the middle of my bedroom, shouting at one another?’
The sudden awareness of being with her, here, now, so close, maddens me. The scent of her, that permeates everything, her ridiculous and disheveled appearance, my anger and wounded pride. I lose all contact with reality
‘Is he so much better than me?’ I ask quietly, and as I ask the question I feel an unmistakable pang of jealousy, which I try to fool myself is just wounded pride. Stupidly, because it is not wounded pride. It’s just jealousy. Appalling, ridiculous, overbearing jealousy. I’m totally fucked now.
‘Oh, so that’s what this is all about! A pissing contest.’
I stand dumbfounded for a few moments. ‘How so?’
‘You don’t give a damn about me. You don’t give a damn about, you just can’t stand being rejected. This undermines your belief that you are the best. Here is a man who is objectively better than you are, and you’ll do anything you can to try and best him. I don’t even come into it. It’s all you, you, you. An entirely autoerotic relationship.’
I point a finger at her. ‘I’m not sure I know what ‘autoerotic’ means, but I don’t think I like it.’
Sara shrugs her shoulders, disinterested. ‘Well, that just shows how far apart we are. So there’s no need at all for these bizarre scenes. I really don’t like you. And you don’t like me.’
This is too much! No one has ever challenged me like this before.
‘You’re just a sour harpy! Apparently by some divine miracle you had sex tonight, but the bitterness is so rooted in you that even a night of passion hasn’t sweetened you up.’
‘Have you ever thought that my bitterness is just caused by your company?’
‘Have you ever thought that it’s just because you’re a bitch?’
‘You can’t come into my house and insult me like that. Get out!’
‘No,’ I challenge.
‘Get out, I said!’
‘Make me.’
Her eyes flashing, she launches herself at me, ready to pummel me with her fists, but I hold her arms back, and she falls heavily against my chest. The pressure of her breasts against me makes me lose all sense of reason.
‘You’re just a bastard!’
‘Insult me again,’ I reply, wrapping my arms around her.
‘Arsehole!’
‘Spinster!’
‘Good for nothing!’
‘Nerd,’ I whisper, lifting her and bringing her level with my lips. Her arms grab my shoulders.
‘I hate you!’
‘I hate you too,’ I reply, closing her mouth with mine. The pent-up anger of us both explodes in a frenetic intertwining of tongues and limbs. Her legs twist around me and, supporting her by her full buttocks, back up to launch myself onto the unmade bed.
Her hair caresses my chin as my hands creep under her sweatshirt, uncovering the bare skin of her back. Moving downwards, I fill my hands again with the curves of her body. I never imagined that they could excite me to such a point. The fabric of her knickers is almost too much. Sliding my thumbs under the waistband, I begin to lower them. I feel her hesitate. She pulls back from my lips to look at me. Have I said before what wonderful eyes she has? And looking at her now, I can’t imagine anything more beautiful. Her neck, her tousled hair, her mouth, her tender body like butter.
‘What are you going to do?’ she asks, biting her lip and igniting an irresistible fire throughout my whole body.
‘Nothing you don’t want,’ I reassure her, turning her over on the bed and completing the work. She lies there, naked from the
waist down, and above bundled up in a garment bigger than she is. It thrills me to see the flashes of excitement in her eyes.
She tries to cover herself, but I don’t allow it.
Blocking her hands, I kneel at the foot of the bed and begin to trace a lazy trail with my tongue that descends from her navel downwards, further and further. She tries to close her legs, but I nibble her belly, making her shiver.
‘Trust me,’ I whisper against her skin, and I feel her tremble. The torture is almost unbearable.
I graze her inner thigh with small, delicate kisses and release her hands, which sink into my hair. I reach the centre of her pleasure. The delicate bud that quivers, as though it were waiting just for this. The best gift I have to give. After all, I can only do one thing, but I do it well.
My tongue knows how to tease, stimulate, make her tremble. Her moans ring in my ears and push me to continue. I want to make her come so hard she cries. We’re almost there, I know it well. I feel how she contracts, how she shakes under me. I’m intoxicated by the taste of her.
The apex arrives, as violent as the words we said. I feel her contracting and then expanding, arching, convulsing, crying out.
When the tremors of her body stop, I raise myself to the height of her face, with my usual arrogant smile.
‘I’d say you liked it. In fact, I’d say you’ve never had better.’
She catches her breath and gives me a wicked grin. ‘So far you’ve only showed me what you can do with your mouth.’
‘Don’t challenge me,’ I say, pulling the sweatshirt over her head and stripping her completely.
‘Hey, this isn’t fair. One of us is still too dressed,’ she says, and she has a point. I don’t waste time. While she unbuttons my shirt, I hurry to undo my trousers.
‘Were you always convinced that you were going seduce me?’
I shake my head. ‘I hadn’t counted on it. But I am always ready.’
‘You are very efficient, Mr. Pagani.’
‘Thank you, Dr. Doria.’
‘I think I like this game.’
‘Shut up and kiss me.’
She doesn’t even wait for me to finish talking. I feel her lips on mine, but only briefly. Her mouth moves down to my throat, and then up again to my ear lobe. I shed the last of my clothes, too impatient now to prolong the preliminaries. Holding on to her arms to avoid crushing her, I grab her leg and caress her hip. Then I enter her. I enter her and lose myself. I lose myself in her fire, her softness. I feel her surround me, wherever my skin extends. My heart bursts, my mind no longer connects.
What is this spell? With every thrust I feel like I leave a part of me inside her, without hope of return. Our flushed and sweaty skin stimulates and is stimulated, our sighs are lost in one another’s hair, in the folds of the pillows. I can no longer understand my body, am I unaware of time or space.
I only know that when I reach the peak of pleasure, I seem to have become a single body with her. Mind and heart, skin and breath, bones and blood. With one last push I shatter like a wave
that breaks on a rock. She is the rock on which I am has destroyed. And now what are we?
As our breathing becomes regular, I continue to caress her, slowly.
‘Damn!’ she finds the strength to comment.
‘Damn is right,’ I echo her, taking possession of her lips again. I can never have enough.
Oh god, I’m really fucked.