I generally can't stand disco music, but today that's fine: its tribal rhythm accompanies the heavy beating of my heart and is in tune with the smell of wet wood that filters through the half-open shutters amidst the showers of winter rain, while I effort not to think about anything.
Today I turn eighteen.
Lying on the sofa, I let two dark girls have fun braiding my hair. I like the sensation of their seemingly innocent caresses on the nape and neck; I notice that they are secretly observing the veins of my arms, and not because of their vampire look: the fact is that at school there is a rumor that I'm taking drugs, but, as expected by the director, there are no holes to be seen. The teachers and my classmates deduce it from my confused state, but in the absence of proof they are forced to remain silent. As for my relatives, it would seem that only my brother has suspicions: in fact I avoid him as much as possible. And then there is Teresa who in my opinion has understood everything, but Teresa has no authority over me and I can put my hand on her loyalty towards me: she would never betray the younger señor, whom she saw growing up in the house and whom she loves viscerally.
At the beginning of the party my mother approached me, very elegant in a powder blue Armani suit, and asked me where Michelle was. Mom is usually jealous of my girls, but she makes an exception for her: she's a little older than me, but she looks great next to me, she's classy and knows good manners, not to mention that she's rich and half-noble. To invite Michelle I don't need excuses: the door is always open for her. I sighed in resignation: my mother has no sense of reality and proportion and I would hurt her to death if I told her how things are: Gherti would never stoop to taking part in a lower-middle-class birthday party; we don't belong to the elite of Turin families, in her eyes we are just mediocre rich people. I replied in an evasive tone, I didn't invite her Mom, it's not like we're really together. I didn't add what is evidently not obvious to her, namely that to go to bed with a girl you don't need to be engaged. She couldn't hide her disappointment: too bad Emmanuel, she said. That's the right girl for you.
It's Teresa's night off and Antonia has offered to help my mother with the preparations. Not that there was much to prepare: Teresa left everything ready in the kitchen, it's just a matter of bringing the food into the dining room; like a waitress, in short. Just before the start of the party I met Teresa in the hall, all made up and perfumed: for some time she has had a mysterious Chilean suitor; with high heels she barely reached my shoulders. I told her she was very elegant; she blushed and told me I should cut my hair and eat some beaten eggs. She hesitated on the threshold, she didn't know whether to go out or stay; I smiled and opened the door for her, telling her to have fun for me too.
I didn't want to celebrate such a banal event, but my parents cared about it and I have to somehow make up for my decline in school, which I can no longer hide. I risk losing the year if I continue like this: I wish I at least cared about it, but the prospect leaves me indifferent. I'm just sorry for my parents. So, to make them happy, I agreed to invite my classmates and some friends, as long as no one gives me gifts: it's idiotic to give gifts to a rich guy.


My father prohibited the presence of alcohol, perhaps misunderstanding the reasons for my state of perpetual disorientation. Antonia moves from the living room to the kitchen carrying fruit juices, sandwiches and pastries; she looks great in her short black dress, but doesn't hold a candle to Gherti in any way. However, I must admit that her presence is not indifferent to me: it gives me a strange pleasure to be seen by her while I am with other girls. Sometimes I wish she would watch me fuck Michelle: this would double my pleasure, I wouldn't need chemical stimulation. When she moves away from me it's as if the stage lights go out: I no longer want to act, I'm bored to death.
Simon, one of my less banal classmates, a dyslexic with remarkable intuitive intelligence, proposes himself as a DJ hoping to impress Irene, the prettiest in the class, a brunette full of interesting curves. I must admit that he knows how to choose the pieces well, he takes them mostly from the repertoire of the 1980s, avoiding songs that are too predictable. He goes back a few years to revive Psycho Killer, a classic of its genre; he ventures The Modern Dance by Pere Ubu, with which he earns at least a thousand points in my eyes; then he puts on Rock the Casbah, a low blow in my conditions. I never dance in the presence of strangers; but today it's different, I need it: dancing increases my state of dizziness and makes me feel good. Suddenly I meet Antonia's eyes and I know exactly what she feels.
Now Simon falls on an obvious choice: I go back to sit on the sofa, giving him a look of mild reproach; he shrugs his shoulders as if saying "what can I do? It's not up to me". He put on Stairway to heaven, a beautiful piece in itself, but a banality in context: the outcome is obvious, everyone clings to someone. Out of discretion, Antonia and my mother go into the kitchen: I once again feel the bewilderment of an actor performing for an empty room. In the dim light, before I even realize it, I feel myself being pulled by the arm and I find myself clinging to a soft and sinuous vine: Irene. Simon glares at me: I shrug my shoulders as if to say "what can I do? It's not up to me". I'm swimming in circles in the treacle pit with Alice's dormouse, someone get me out please.
- You look ssso nice, ssso beautiful thisss evening - she whispers in my ear, allitering with too many s.
- Thanks - I reply.
- Do you know who you remind me of?
- No, who?
- That amazing hottie from Sanremo, you know, the one who sang Destinazione Paradiso.
I smile: a naive compliment, but a compliment nonetheless.
- He has dark hair - I comment.
- It doesn't matter, you are him in the blonde version.
I remain entwined with her in that interminable slow motion. She tastes like jasmine and sandalwood, if I close my eyes I visualize a deserted beach in the moonlight in the middle of August, what the fuck am I writing.
- It's hot in here - she suddenly says - Shall we go out into the garden?
- It's starting to rain again - I object weakly.
- Let's go to the veranda, shall we?
I follow her to the veranda, regardless of Simon's alarmed look, and lean against the damp wall. She wraps her arms around my neck and, predictably, kisses me.
- You kiss well - she tells me.
- Really?
She would find any of my actions well done, given that I resemble Grignani: women are like that. She takes my hands and puts them under her bra. The sensation is soft and warm, pleasant in that rainy atmosphere; I indulge it for a while. Her request is predictable when we are both excited and the place does not allow us to conclude:
- Shall we go to your room?
My answer is less predictable:
- No.
I remain leaning against the wall while she, without speaking, puts her sweater back into place. Then I add:
- Excuse me.
- Doesn't matter - she replies dryly.
I go back to the room without waiting for her. I give Simon a knowing look as I sit back on the couch and see him breathe a sigh of relief.
The party went well, everyone leaves satisfied. My mother says goodnight and goes to her room. I help Antonia tidy up the living room: neither of us says a word. Then she sits on the sofa waiting for my brother to return; I put my hair in a ponytail, knowing full well that it upsets her, and I sit on the velvet armchair in front of her; she positioned herself with one leg bent under her, a free-thinking position that she allows herself with me due to our past. It's a way of telling me that I can think what I want about her, she doesn't care about my opinion, but I know that it's not true and it appears to me for what it is: a naive provocation. He opens a magazine and lights a cigarette. There is a very tense atmosphere between us.
- Did you come by car? - I ask her.
- No.
- Who takes you home? Michele?
- Yes.
- What time will you be back?
- As soon as the Rotary conference ends.
-Aren't you worried about marrying a Freemason?
- For nothing.
- You shouldn't smoke: it ages your skin.
- There are many things you shouldn't do, kid.
- I turned eighteen, technically I'm no longer a kid.
- Age is not a demographic fact.
- What shouldn't I do, for example?
- Dress up as a perverse schoolgirl, for example.
- Don't you like me, sister-in-law?
- Emmanuel, please: I hate rhetorical questions. We both know that you are beautiful, but your beauty is now too strange for someone like me: it goes beyond my limits.
- Someone like you in what sense? Heterosexual?
- Terribly mediocre.
- If you put it in this tone, let's end it here: it's not worth having a conversation with someone who pretends to be an idiot and spouts bullshit just to give air to her tongue. Good night, professor.
I get up to go to my room: obviously it's a bluff. Equally obviously she blocks me:
- I'm not pretending.
I turn in the doorway:
- In the sense that you're seriously stupid?
- Come on, stop it and sit down.
I sit back in my seat with the air of someone who is making her a magnanimous concession.
- Then explain yourself. - I tell her - In what sense is it too strange?
- In the sense that you have become some kind of mythological creature. Do you know the ones you read in my Greek books? You know, the deadly boring ones.
- Never said they were deadly boring. On average boring.
- Out of my league anyway, if you get the idea. It's like looking at a statue of Apollo or Dionysus, a portrait of Antinous, an archangel by Botticelli, Cabanel's Lucifer: you just admire them, you don't think you can have anything to do with them.
I can't help but grin: he just admires me. I refuse to comment.
- By the way, - he continues - how is school going?
- Normal. A couple of fives and fours.
- What? Normal with two fives, two fours and graduation in a few months? But four of what, then?
- Nothing irremediable: mate and Greek.
- Greek again? But how is this possible?
- I don't know, it got out of hand.
- Good heavens... Do you want me to help you?
This time I don't feel like refusing: the situation is serious.
- You should remember that your help has always been welcome, sister-in-law, in many ways.
- Let's start again from Monday.

With real pleasure. However, don't change the subject and finish the conversation: so, since I'm too weird, you don't like me.
Let's put it this way, I'm not equipped for androgynous sexuality.
Yes, I forgot that you need real men.
She closes the magazine.
Emmanuel, I'm tired: it's been a hard day. If you're going to continue in this vein, I'm leaving.
You can't, you don't have a car: you have to wait for my brother.
I can wait for him outside, under the porch.
It is cold.
Doesn’t matter. she replies with a bit of indignation. Better than staying here and being insulted by you, after I've been a waitress at your party all evening.
She's right. For a moment I feel like a worm, but I'll get over it straight away: I'll find a way to make it up to her, I swear to myself. Maybe I'll go back and get some good Greek grade, if I can manage it. And then I don't want her to get cold on this rainy evening at the end of February. I lean towards her with the expression of a puppy asking for food:
Come on, stay here in the warmth and try to put up with me for a little while longer.
I add in a mock-pleading tone:
Please.
She doesn't let herself be moved. She runs a hand through her hair and raises her head with a stern expression.
Emmanuel, we need to talk seriously.
I listen to you.
Please, don't be so argumentative with me. We have a long coexistence ahead of us, you know.
I don't answer her. She puts out her cigarette and tries to smile, but she doesn't succeed.
You should face life with greater serenity. The past is the past, there is no point in thinking about it: you should take things as they come, let them slide over you.
I still don't say anything.
I don't understand why you provoke me. At first it might have made sense, but now it doesn't make any sense anymore. Haven't you gotten enough revenge?
It's just a game, sister-in-law.
No, I don't think so at all. My diagnosis is different.
Let’s hear.
You're in a phase where you have to prove to yourself that your charm is irresistible and what happened between us disturbs your calculations a bit, doesn't it?
I do not answer. She goes on:
If that's all the problem, here's the solution: I like you very much, Emmanuel. I wouldn't ask for anything better than to be with you, if only I were fifteen years younger and not engaged to your brother. Happy? Now your pride can come out with its head held high.
In her presumption she gives herself more importance than she has: she no longer takes up all that space in my life. I'm about to reply something offensive, but she lowers her head and prevents me:
I can't stand being at war with you anymore.
She raises her head and looks at me intently. I notice that some wrinkles are already forming around her eyes: Antonia will age quickly and badly. She continues with momentum:
What do you want? Take revenge? Do it, if it makes you feel better: you know I wouldn't say no to you, I wouldn't be able to. I don't care who you're with, whether with a woman or with a man or with many, I don't care about anything anymore, I've overcome jealousy. Do it, as long as you stop this constant tension.
I listen to her in amazement. She herself realizes that she has said something excessive: she puts her head in her hands and moans:
Sorry Emmanuel, I'm very confused. I don't know what I'm saying, I no longer know who I am and what I want.
She must actually be very confused to talk to me like that. I am silent, waiting for the rest.
Please, don't be angry. Do what you want, but please stop hating me. I can't wait until we can be friends, the two of us.
I remain with my eyes lowered, speechless, trying to decipher the meaning of her ranting and above all of that "do it". What should I do?
However I spin it, I'm forced to conclude that she's looking for an excuse to get me into bed again and would like to pass it off as a favor done to me. Ah Antonia Antonia, what a fall in style: you would like it, huh? But no, now you can't anymore. Some trains only pass once in a lifetime.
But then, thinking about it better, in what sense going back to bed together should make us become friends? As I mull over this, I feel a dull and growing irritation for which I don't understand the reason. I finally manage to translate it to myself in these terms: first, I don't want to be her friend at all; second, why the hell am I so annoyed, if I don't care about her anymore?
I am silent for a long time, troubled by this thought. Something offends me deeply and I can't understand what. Ultimately, her proposal to return to her bed and occasionally share it with others shouldn't offend me, given that I share Gerti with half of Turin. Who knows, maybe I'd still like it, and in any case it would be an interesting experiment: I don't know what effect fucking her without any involvement would have on me. But I can't, with her it's different. Exactly: why is it different?
I visualize a strange proportion on the blackboard of my mind: Emmanuel is to Antonia what Tegame was to his treasure of pine cones. Suddenly I get the point: I'm like my dog, I look after those bottle bottoms as if they were diamonds and I'm indignant that she reveals them for what they are, waste glass without the slightest value. I can't stand that she relegates me to the marginal experiences of her life, that she uses words like serenity and friendship to define our relationship: there must be tension between the two of us, because we shared something unique. Even if I belong to her past, I should be something sacred to her, or, if not sacred, at least unrepeatable.




After a long silence, which I need to track down my thoughts, fleeing in all the corners of my brain, and realign them into war gear, I speak to her slowly, pronouncing the words:
Going from one bed to another is confusing your ideas, sister-in-law. I'm not the one you play violent games with every now and then. I am Emmanuel. That Emmanuel, remember?
She looks at me with steady eyes:
No, you are no longer Emmanuel.
Really? And who would I be?
I do not know. A hologram, perhaps.
It's a little early for Alzheimer, sister-in-law.
I see your body, but where has your soul gone?
What do you know about my soul?
It was a beautiful soul.
I cultivate it as best I can, and in any case I don't have to be accountable to you. 
And where do you find the time to cultivate it, busy as you are with everyone putting their hands on you?
What are you doing, watching over me?
I saw you by chance on the porch with that girl.
This confirms what I suspected: she is pathetically jealous, and she was talking about friendship! 

This is how it must be: she must be consumed by jealousy, she must desire what she has lost without being able to get it back.

That girl is called Irene, I point out with a bit of sadism, she is seventeen years old and has magnificent breasts.
I relax and lean against the back of the sofa with my arms crossed behind my head. I think I had a sly expression on my face as I tell her:
They like me, sister-in-law, what can I do? I'm sorry to point this out, but there are a lot of people who want to get their hands on me. After all, you predicted it yourself a couple of years ago, remember?
And you never say no, do you?
Why should I?
She looks at me with deep pain in her eyes:
I wish I hadn't met you before, Emmanuel.
False step, very false! It was right there that I was waiting for her.
Before when? Before you?
She takes the blow with a certain elegance.
When I met you you were a wonderful creature, full of dignity and pride. What happened to my little Parsifal?
I struggle to mask my resentment. My voice trembles with repressed indignation as I reply:
If it was Parsifal you wanted, teacher, maybe you shouldn't have fucked him standing in the closet, don't you think?
Emmanuel, please, stop.
Her voice expresses an angry desperation which I translate like this: she wishes she hadn't done what she did, but she did it, and what's more, she would like to do it again, something she can't understand.
However, you women are strange: you want angels, medieval knights, asexual beings, just for the sake of being able to pervert them.
You women who?
Nothing, I was just saying.
Suddenly she changes tone and register.
Listen, I ask you with all my heart: try to love me a little. Can you try, please? Otherwise our life will be hell: I will be forced to give up on marriage or move to another city.
A little, yeah.
Is that what you want? You want me to go away?
I am silent for a few seconds.
No, I answer sincerely.
Then try, please. And try to love yourself too: I can't stand you throwing yourself away like this.
I grin. I'm throwing myself away.
At this point it would be appropriate to point out that the concept of throwing oneself away applies more to the relationship with a woman who could almost be my mother, than to that with a splendid twenty-two year old upper class girl; it would be appropriate to throw the unthinkable comparison between her and Gherti in her face. But that's cowardly, I'd feel like someone stealing candy from a child. I prefer to resort to irony.
You're right. When you fucked me, my brother and Frédéric at the same time, the situation was far more dignified for me. How did I not think about it?
She bows her head and puts her face in her hands.
I have made many mistakes, Emmanuel. Excuse me.
I appreciate the fact that she admits, albeit too late, her egregious mistakes, but this is not enough for me to forgive her, also because I don't understand what she counts among the mistakes: perhaps even our old relationship, perhaps even our days at the river? I also suspect that one of those errors still frequents her bed. In any case, I'm sorry to see her so heartbroken.
Let's not make it so dramatic, I tell her in a conciliatory tone. I'm doing very well on my own.
She lifts her eyes to look at me with sincere distress.
I have always cared for you, Emmanuel, even when I showed it so badly. I don't want to get on your neck, I know well that you have the right to have your own experiences: the fact is that...
That?
It seems to me that you have taken a dangerous path.
My priorities have changed. I fly higher now.
This flight is not doing you any good, my love.
Stop. Rewind. I listen again.
No, I didn't hear it wrong, she actually said it.
I open my mouth twenty seconds uselessly early: the question doesn't want to come out. I spit it out like a bug:
My love?
Yes.
Sorry, my love in what sense?
Like when mothers call their children love.
Oh. So mother's love?
I could almost be your mother, Emmanuel, you know. I'm so worried about you.
Why are you worried?
You have a gaze that is no longer yours. And you're always too pale. Why don't you go to the mountains to ski? You liked it and it was good for you, you were even enough good at it.
A little more than enough, if you don't mind: I also won a downhill race.
A downhill race? You're crazy? It's very dangerous.
Anyway I have something else to do now.
And those dark circles under your eyes? You've never had them. Don't lie to me, please.
Swallowing that bullet takes me thirty seconds of effort. Then I answer slowly:
It happens, when you have extreme sex every day.
She stops me with a wave of her hand before I can explain:
I don't want to know what you do or even with whom. Whoever she is, she's sucking your blood like a vampire.
I reply with cold sarcasm:
It doesn't concern you who sucks what from me.
She remains dumbfounded for a moment, then lowers her head and says:
You are right.
Her words irritate me deeply.
No, I'm not right, I reply angrily, and it's particularly stupid that you tell me this after a speech like that. But then, you're a mother, right? You said that. And mothers don't understand shit. They don't want to understand.
I take a studied pause.
Yet I know that you know .
I know what?
I look at her with a sigh:
Ah Antonia, Antonia... Let's put it this way: I'm afraid you no longer have a finger on the pulse of the situation.
I was brutal, but I had to get revenge somehow: mother's love cannot be heard.
She suddenly closes like a hedgehog:
Forget it. Life is yours, do with it what you want.


I don't have time to reply because the footsteps of my father and Michele can be heard in the hall. Antonia gets up, runs towards them, childishly throws her arms around my brother's neck. As she stands on tiptoe to give him a kiss, her skirt rises and I see my father's gaze rest on her black lace garter belt. Michele takes her waist in his hands and, smiling, distances her from himself to look at her better:
- Hey, we're so cute tonight.
Then he kisses her tenderly on the forehead. Dormouse, molasses etc., all as above.
My father caresses my hair with a tired look: he doesn't seem happy that the family pet has turned eighteen.
- How did the party go?
- Well thanks.
- Let's go? - my brother asks Antonia.
They leave without even saying goodbye. He's in a hurry, damn Kellermann.
My father bids me good night and goes to sleep. I see him walk away slightly hunched over and for the first time I sense his impending old age, his fatigue, his disappointment: a horrible sensation, the déjà vu of the future. Poor dad.
I remain motionless staring at the door for a quarter of an hour. I visualize on x-ray Michele fucking in the car with Antonia in front of the gate: he didn't even wait to arrive at her house. That damned garter belt: my brother is an elementary male, it doesn't take much for him to lose control. My excitement rises in ascending climax hand in hand with his, I feel as if I were in his place, he reclined the seat but in his haste he forgot to apply the handbrake, hey big brother watch out, we're ending up against the plane tree.
Who knows why, at that thought I burst out laughing hysterically. I laugh until I cry, until my diaphragm hurts, without being able to stop. Suddenly a wave of heat runs through me in reverse, rises, falls, stops in my brain: I can't breathe, I'm shaken by a convulsive tremor, my stomach contracts with violent spasms. I run into the room, I rummage through the drawer looking for something chemical but I can't find anything; on the other hand I find my old diary that no one reads anymore. It opens randomly on a page written many months ago: “I love you, I love you. You're that once in a lifetime love, and I'm not up to the task."
I throw the diary to the floor and kick the wall. Up to what, you damned asshole? You don't give a fuck about her, you don't give a fuck about anything or anyone. I sit on the floor and curl up with my face in my knees. I'm shaking with chills, I can't stop shaking and I understand that I have a terrible need to get high, God I'm in danger, I can't be in danger while you fuck in the car with my brother, come back here, talk to me with anger and desperation, talk to me however you want, send me to hell, tell me I suck, tell me my love, tell me in the sense of mother's love, tell me however the fuck you want Antonia but tell me, how is it possible, you were here with me a few minutes ago and then you are suddenly disappeared, where are you, I'm sick, I'm sick, I'm sick.
I run to the bathroom, stick my head in the toilet and vomit everything I drank. When I get up, the mirror sends me a ghostly, cadaverous image, the dark circles furrowing my cheeks like livid diagonals.
Tomorrow I'm going to see Gerti.
I leave the bathroom, turn off the light and go to bed with a fever.
Happy birthday, Emmanuel.