In silence, amid sporadic chitchat, we headed for the place that had been arranged for the gathering. It was a villa outside the city, on a part of the coast where the rocks break up and turn into sand. The place was deserted, the house set back from the road. We entered through a tall iron gate. I counted the parked cars: there were six of them.
“We’ve arrived, sweatheart.” Flavio really rubs me the wrong way with these terms of endearment. Who the hell does he think he is? How can he allow himself to call me sweatheart, darling, little one? I’ll strangle him!
The door was opened by a forty-something woman, attractive and perfumed. She looked me up and down and gave an approving glance to Flavio, who smiled faintly. We walked down a long hallway whose walls were hung with large abstract paintings. When we reached the living room, I felt deeply embarrassed: ten pairs of eyes suddenly fastened on me. Most of them belonged to distinguished-looking men who sported ties. Someone was wearing a mask that covered his face, but the others were barefaced. A few women drew near and asked me questions to which I responded with a series of lies rehearsed beforehand with Valerio. The Prof came to my side and whispered, “I can’t wait to begin. I want to lick you, stay inside you all night, and then watch while you do it with the others.”
I immediately thought of Claudio’s smile: he would never desire to see me in bed with someone else.
Flavio brought me a glass of cream liqueur. It brought to mind that night last December. I went to the piano to think about how I’d got rid of Roberto a few days ago. I threatened to tell his girlfriend everything if he didn’t stop calling me and didn’t tell his friends to keep their mouths shut about me. It worked: I haven’t heard a peep out of him!
At a certain point, a man of about thirty came toward me, walking with such a light step he seemed to be flying. He wore a pair of round glasses. His huge eyes were blue-green, his face pockmarked but handsome.
He scrutinized me carefully, then said, “Ciao. You’re the one I’ve heard so much about?”
I gave him a questioning look and replied, “It depends on whom you have in mind. What exactly have you heard?”
“Well, we know you’re very young, even if I personally don’t believe you’re eighteen yet. And not because you don’t look it, but because I feel it. Anyhow, they told me you’ve participated in soirées like this on many occasions, although only with men.”
I blushed and wanted to sink. “Who told you this?”
“Bah, what does it matter? People talk … You’re a pretty little slut, aren’t you?” He smiled.
I tried to stay calm and play the game without ruining everything.
“I’ve never been into planned encounters. I agreed to do it because I wanted to.”
He stared at me, knowing full well that I was lying. Still, he went along with it. “There are always plans of one sort or another. Some people have plans that are linear and orderly, while others prefer a more rococo caprice.”
“And then there’s mine: a bit of both,” I said, fascinated by his response.
Valerio approached and told me to join him on the sofa.
I nodded to the man, although I didn’t say goodbye since I was almost certain that during the soirée we would wind up penetrating each other.
Sitting on the sofa was a muscular young man and two vulgar women wearing heavy makeup, garish and provocative. One had platinum blond hair.
The Prof and I sat in the centre of this huge sofa. With one hand he began to caress my breast beneath my pullover, immediately dragging me through shame and embarrassment.
“Come on, Valerio, do we really have to be the ones to start?”
“Why not? Don’t you like it?” he asked, biting my earlobe.
“I was thinking just the opposite,” The muscular one brashly remarked. “She has desire written all over her face.”
“Desire for what?” I said defiantly.
He didn’t respond. Instead he shot a hand beneath my skirt and worked it between my thighs, kissing me furiously. I was beginning to let myself go, but his silly violence was dragging me away again. I lifted my buttocks a bit to kiss him, and the Prof took advantage of this move. He caressed my ass with slow, gentle gestures that gradually turned hot and determined. The people around me no longer existed, even if they were there, watching me, waiting for one of the two men to penetrate me. While Muscles was kissing me, one of the women snaked her arms around his chest and kissed his neck. Then Valerio lifted my skirt: everyone was admiring my ass and my sex, flaunted on a strange sofa amongst strangers. My back was arched, and I was offering myself completely to him while Muscles was grabbing my tits and squeezing them hard.
“Mmmm, you’re as fragrant as a young peach,” said a man who had come up to nuzzle me, “soft and smooth, just washed, fresh.”
The young peach will ripen, whereupon it will lose first its colour, then its taste, and then its skin will soften and sag. Finally, it will rot, and worms will suck out the pulp.
I opened my eyes wide; my face reddened. Suddenly I turned toward the Professor and said, “Let’s go. I don’t want this.”
It happened just at the moment when my body was yielding completely… Poor Flavio, poor Muscles, poor everybody, poor me. I abandoned them all, including my hard-as-nails self. I got it together fast and, with tears in my eyes, ran down the long hallway. I opened the door and made for the car sitting in the road. Its windows were fogged with the thick humidity that wrapped the house and me.
Not a word on the way back. Only when I reached the gate of my house did I tell him. “You still haven’t said anything about the letter.”
A long silence, then simply, “Adieu, Lolita.”