Compulsive liar.
Never underestimate the power of denial.
Compulsive liar. How simple you psychologists make it.
I know the truth, I recognize it, I remember it, okay? I remember everything perfectly down to the smallest detail without needing to put this bullshit down in black and white. It's no use, I won't heal. Heal from what, then?
Do you know what it is, doctor? That if someone lies, generally, it's because the truth destroys him. Call it the need for self-defense, call it the survival instinct. Have you never thought about it, you mechanics of the psyche. We are not like cars, if you take us apart and reassemble us, we don't work any better. And this paranoia of forcing myself to use the present to describe the past: it's getting heavy, you know? "It's not a nineteenth-century novel, my dear boy, you can't afford to use the past simple and interpose an omniscient narrator who acts as a filter:" "the story must be strictly homodiegetic, or rather autodiegetic, because the protagonist of the story is you." "And you must tell it as if to a friend, using the informal address". I can't stand it, it's not therapeutic at all, it makes me feel like I've never gotten over it, is it possible that you don't understand that?
No, you don't understand, it's obvious. One time or another you will also have to explain to me why you insist on addressing me as a stranger, since you force me to address you as a friend. Is this also part of the therapy? It's profoundly dishonest, Doctor. Inhuman.
Okay, let's try this one more time.
My relationship with Gherti is over and I've stopped getting high.
Oh well, I haven't stopped. Almost. In any case it is no longer the same as before. And my story with Gherti is over even if it still goes on.
I know, said like this it may seem a bit contradictory. No worries about my mental state, doctor, I can still grasp the principle of non-contradiction, and although Aristotle is not my favorite thinker I remember that it is one of the two principles that underlie classical logic and that the other is the principle of the excluded middle. I could object that there are other logics in which intermediate truth values are also considered, the so-called polyvalent logics, but I don't want to flaunt a theoretical knowledge that to be honest I don't give a shit about. If there's one thing that life has taught me, it's that the solid common sense of a crate unloader matters more than the entire culture of an intellectual. To paraphrase Alexander, if I weren't Emmanuel I would like to be Mayra; instead here I am: a good-looking young drug addict who writes bullshit to deny that he is a junkie.
Who is Mayra, doctor? You'll find out soon.
To make you understand how things are between me and Michelle, I will explain myself with an example.
Yesterday I went to her house and we got high without even fucking, just to remember the old days: a couple of hours of nirvana and relaxation looking at the ceiling. I still like her, I don't deny it, but I can't stand her vulgarity and coldness anymore.
I'm lying again. The truth is that I can't take it anymore: I'm in too much pain, she's tearing me apart.
 
One afternoon we went to a friend of hers' house and she wanted me to watch her have sex with her. Learn, she told me, there is no such thing as a woman to make a woman enjoy. I remember everything about that day and even now thinking about it makes me feel bad, but I want to make you happy, doctor. Who knows if it's cathartic.
Soundtrack: Swans, In My Garden.
Scene: four in the afternoon in Eremo Street, the most exclusive foothills of Turin, one hundred and fifty square meters of attic with Burmese teak parquet, authentic Persian carpets, essential furniture, partly antique and partly modern, strictly designer, author's paintings on the walls, large bed with black silk sheets, sand-colored curtains on the windows to shield the sunlight. Important detail: smell of wax and incense everywhere.
The friend enters in silence barefoot with an indolent and majestic gait: she is tall, slender, with long light brown hair, she wears a transparent white peplum that leaves her small and beautiful breasts completely exposed; she has the upper part of her face hidden by a half mask similar to those of the Venice carnival, she holds strange instruments in her hand that may appear to be torture. She lights two incense candles, dims the lights, puts on a sitar-like dirge, closes Gherti's wrists in elegant handcuffs that look like they are made of gold, fixes them to the headboard of the bed and the ritual begins.
The entire time she doesn't say a single word. Gherti, on the other hand, explains to me live several things that I would prefer to overlook; I'll mention a few just for clarity. She tells me, for example, that any vulgarity is banned from games with her friends, the use of modern instruments is not allowed, electric vibrators are terribly kitsch, only traditional solutions, so to speak. She tells me that, if I wish, I can make myself useful and collaborate with her friend. I kindly decline the offer. She tells me that orgasm is the best beauty cure for a woman, and at least in her case it's true: she becomes even more beautiful afterwards. She explains to me that the male is generally too crude to understand that there are different types of female orgasm, also because he only has one type which isn't even that great, and she tells me that now I will be able to see the difference for myself.
I ask permission to omit the rest of the explanation.
She manages to stay clear even at certain moments, it's incredible to listen to her describe her sensations at the very moment she feels them. I'm in a scary state of mind.
The friend is cold and technically very good, her thin fingers, as skilled as those of a pianist, draw magical chords from her body. She literally drives her crazy. Suddenly the basic male involvement with which I fuck her seems ridiculous to me. I continue to watch and learn, so to speak, while I tremble to the depths of my soul, I am excited to the point of desperation and I feel like a nothing, a useless idiot. Finally, seeing me in that state, Gherti lets her friend satisfy me. She succeeds: one of the most humiliating experiences of my life. My nerves are shot, I run to the bathroom and burst into tears.
I expect Gherti to ignore me, but strangely she reaches out to me, lifts my chin and looks at me: "Come on, what's up." I ask her to never do this in my presence again. I don't know what excuses I make, the truth is that I want to have the illusion that she's only mine at least when we're together. She looks at me shaking her head slightly: "Appearances can be deceiving, boy: I'm starting to think you're not cut out for these things." I blush despite myself, I tell her that she's wrong, that it's only a matter of time, I'm very young after all. She smiles skeptically, gets up and leaves.
There you have it, doctor: and it wasn't cathartic at all.
After that time I began to seriously reflect on my situation: I realized that with Gherti the game was lost from the start and that my minutes were numbered. I decided to withdraw from the game before she threw me out, I couldn't afford to add such humiliation to feeling bad.
So I left her.
She didn't bat an eye when I told her. She stood looking at me with her arms folded. "We weren't engaged at all," she said ironically. "Anyway, it's no problem, if you need me you know where to find me."
She played at home. She knew full well that I couldn't do it.
Accustomed to always having what I needed ready, I had never experienced the effects of withdrawal: they are terrible, doctor.
When I run out of air I leave everything and run to knock on her door; if she's not there, I wait for her sitting on the floor of the landing with chattering teeth. She opens without saying anything. Smiles, come here, relax, now everything will pass, she undresses me gently and after a few seconds I no longer feel anxiety or pain, just great well-being.
The relationships between us have completely changed. A period has begun that I could define as zen sex: an improper definition, because what happens is more the effect of the substances we have in our circulation than of actual sex, but in short it gives you an idea.
It seems that everything that was previously indispensable has become superfluous: erection, ejaculation, the very fact of having to move. It still happens, I don't know how, and it's even more beautiful. Gherti caresses me as she caresses women, my body responds like that of a woman. My sensations are all internal, deep, I enjoy total abandonment. It's no longer a question of makeup and disguise, I have practically become a woman.
I let her do what she wants with me. She dresses me like a doll, braids my hair with colored ribbons, makes me wear guepières and baby-dolls, experiments with new colors for my lipstick. She spreads honey on a nipple and then gives it to me to suck: I'm incapable of doing it in an erotic way, it comes instinctively, I'm a child again. The pleasure she feels is in direct contradiction to her lack of maternal instinct. Meanwhile I caress her like I saw her friend do. I feel inadequate and clumsy, but apparently it works anyway. It was precisely on one of those occasions that she discovered the type of orgasm number three, I think, the one that very few women know and that she herself only knew from hearsay, the one that only ends up starting again, a kind of gliding flight performed of sudden dives and wheelies. And she had discovered it with me.
Gherti loves to ruin the most beautiful moments with terrible vulgarities. Finally she got up and said icily: "Fuck little fagot, the sheet is soaked, I'll have to change it." But now I know her, I know that I earned a billion points in one fell swoop.
It's all fake, it's all acted, but what great actors we are.
Once, after we had sex, she told me "You know, maybe I was wrong, maybe you're cut out for this stuff." I replied. It's quite simple my dear, just understand the trick, just realize that you don't have to feel anything, no involvement, nothing at all. I don't feel anything for you anymore, Gherti: that's why it works so well now.
I was lying, obviously.
She said "Yes, this is how it should be", laid me down on the bed and wanted to start again immediately, but from her total abandonment I understood that things had changed for her too. I think she's falling in love with Michelle. Everything would be perfect if it weren't for one negligible detail: I am Emmanuel.
The male in me is disappearing, or maybe the human being is disappearing, but right now I don't give a shit. I don't give a damn about anything anymore. I have even come to accept the collaboration of Carlos, who joins us in bed when I am no longer able to do anything good. I look at him with a hint of distant admiration and he smiles at me every now and then. He's not unpleasant.
I know full well that I wouldn't be able to fuck a woman in a normal way anymore, but it doesn't matter, I don't need it anymore. The only real worry is money, I don't know what to invent with my mother anymore. At worst I rummage through her purse while she watches TV.
I am well aware that this is not the answer I was looking for; it would be if I had decided to die great, but for now I still want to live. The fact is that I really like what I do with Gherti. She's a flash right into the vein, she drives me crazy every time.
Or maybe I simply can't help it.
Let's put it this way: I have the game in my hand, I don't feel anything anymore, it's just sex, a physical thing with no involvement, she's the weaker one now, so why not continue?
Where is the danger, doctor?