Gates of Eden.
How is it, doctor, that the most intense experiences we have ever had turn into suffocating memories, similar to certain August skies white with mugginess? 
I have a very hard time remembering those moments. Recounting degrading situations is not that difficult, if one gets the right linguistic register: average descriptive skills are sufficient. Expressing the sublime, on the other hand, is almost impossible: if you're not a genius, you slip into the pathetic. You have to overheat the thought to white heat, fuse it with the image in a visionary tilt, more than words diamond splinters whose meaning is grasped by analogy, as in Aeschylus. I would never be able to do that, not only because of my expressive limitations, but also because of that damned self-mockery that desecrates everything I say and write; not to mention that such a style would be on a collision course with my whole way of being: I would feel as if I were walking around in a green silk dress full of sequins and ostrich feathers, a whorehouse whoremonger. So basically, I don't know how to describe the most sublime experiences I've lived.
You keep it simple, saying I have to write as it comes to me. You obviously don't understand. I cannot describe certain situations in my everyday style: the result would be awful; worse, it would be false, because it would not reflect what I was feeling. 
They were dizzying heights, those in which I wandered then: I feel I have to climb higher to describe them. I feel as if I have to clamber the vertical walls of a mountain with my bare hands, and the pain of my flayed fingers is so great that at times I am forced to let go. 
I take this opportunity to point out that in this case it would be unnatural to use the present tense to which you force me, because it is all strictly past. It seemed beautiful to me to live in, but I don't think I would want to go back: no, I don't think so. At the very thought of it I feel the same thrill of terror as someone who comes running to the edge of a precipice and faces into the void.
So I will use the tense that suits it: the past. 
...
After that time Antonia and I started seeing each other every day again. We could not do it at my house, because in the long run, even under the guise of private lessons, we would arouse suspicion. One Saturday we were reckless enough to go away for a whole day to the cabin my parents had rented in lower San Sicario, a charming and fortunately still intact hamlet. It was the perfect place to make love in peace. Around one o'clock, as the sun shone in the clear indigo-blue sky, we went for a walk along the snowy shortcut that passes through the forest and then suddenly comes out on a snow-white plateau, with a breathtaking glimpse of the little village of Champlas Seguin; we walked for an hour in silence on that pristine expanse holding hands, without thinking about the effects of the glare of the sun's rays on our fair skin. It was a folly that we risked paying dearly: it was very difficult to find an explanation for our typical high mountain tan. Antonia did not show up at my house for at least three days, citing a terrible headache as her excuse, until she was able to hide her sunburn under a thick layer of foundation. My brother seemed a little astonished to see me so flushed in the face. I had to call on all my skills of simulation and dissimulation: I said that I had gone with Gerti to a friend of hers who had a villa in Camogli and complained that the sun burned more than normal even out of season, which I attributed to climate change, showing concern about it; I managed to lie with the naturalness of a consummate actor and, I don't know how, the thing went smoothly: my parents, indeed, praised me for this initiative, which they judged a symptom of successful recovery.
Antonia and I, were forced to fall back on a closer and almost unsuspected destination: so we arranged to meet in the afternoon at the barn by the river, not far from where I had buried Saucepan. It was also a way to feel him close to me again: "It's a bit like having him back here with us," Antonia told me one day, and I remembered once more why she, and only she, was my woman. 
We had done a bit of cleaning to avoid finding ourselves in the company of rats, which, moreover, was inevitable: in the country barns there still survive the native rats, the black ones with their eyes circled in white, which, as I read somewhere, have escaped the deadly surmulotti by taking refuge up high; after all, they are shy and discreet animals: I suspect they even appreciate music. The rough wooden plank floor was good enough, with no dangerous cracks, and the tile-covered truss roof still held. We had brought with us, taking advantage of the large trunk of Antonia's Uno, blankets, pillows, a stereo, spare batteries, CDs, my guitar, comic books, glasses, soft drinks, a few packages of methadone, jars of chocolate, and of course school books, to occupy in the most constructive way our breaks between erotic interludes. I had my high school graduation exam that year and it was now the beginning of April: she did not want to waste my precious time and as usual helped me with Greek and Latin, which I studied again willingly, and not just to please her. Within a few days my school situation improved markedly: I knew that it was just a matter of will and commitment, fortunately my gray cells were still almost intact. I certainly wasn't going to rock the exam, but I was going to pass.
We would each arrive at the barn by different routes and at different times, lest some busybody see us together and go report it to my parents. I used my moped, as in the old days, and on my way to the barn I always passed by to say hello to Saucepan. His grave, miraculously preserved from the flood of '94, was still there, where I had dug it myself; grass was now growing on it, and even a few flowers.
I was almost always the first to arrive. Waiting for her arrival was a magical and beautiful moment: I would lie in the hay and watch the clouds unravel in the sky, breathing in the smell of the grass, listening to the rustle of a few mice behind me. I was navigating without a compass, deciphering symbols, grasping analogies, everything was absolutely clear. The meaning was summed up in a bare thought, she will come. And she would indeed come. The most beautiful moment was when I heard her footsteps on the step ladder. My heart would suddenly quicken its beats, I would feel myself invaded by a wave of joy.
I would immediately kiss her and we would make love in that casual raffish way that comes from simple mutual appetite, without even undressing and without saying a word. An equally intense phase of silent chastity followed. Silence was our new means of communication: we did not need words to understand each other, a glance was enough, sometimes not even that.
I had stopped being jealous. I didn't care about the loose change that fell out of my pockets: I let others pick it up. I felt a sense of absolute belonging: perhaps that was not the answer, but I no longer felt the need to search. Everything was perfect now, chastity had a profound meaning, sex had a sublime meaning, pleasure carried with it no trace of remorse.
I had distanced myself completely from Gherti. Sometimes I dreamed of her, but the dream was always the same. I try to describe it.
We are in bed, the stereo is playing Perfect Day, she has collapsed, I am awake and almost lucid; instead of the ceiling there is a low, leaden sky, the same color as the sheets; I feel the irresistible urge to go to the bathroom: around the bed the tide is rising, the water is murky, strange objects are floating on the surface; it makes me sick to put my legs in that muddy swamp, but I have to if I want to get off. I walk through the mud, it is dark and the shore is barely visible. Suddenly something cold brushes against my legs. I notice that the bank in front of me is vibrating, moving, shimmering under the dim moonlight. I look closer: it is teeming with snakes. I wake up screaming, my heart in my throat.
I finally realized the danger I had been in and was determined to get out once and for all from that tangle of snakes who with demonic obstinacy kept me clinging to immolate myself to their idol. Fortunately, the period I had spent with Gherti, although it had seemed interminable, had not been long enough to cause in me a serious drug addiction, the kind that deprives you of intelligence and spirituality altogether: already Carlos had given me a hand in doing without that chemical crap, even if he had made me almost alcoholic by dint of special beers. Poor Carlos, he is one of the very few people I regret.
I recovered my normal physical reactions day by day: the desire with which she looked at me was the most powerful aphrodisiac for me. I felt good again; in fact, I probably was, judging by Antonia's reactions. She derived immense joy from my progress and indulged it with all the love of which she was capable. At first, when she saw signs of an impending crisis on my face, she would make me swallow methadone while stroking my hair. Soon, however, the need for that chemical support faded until it disappeared. Antonia's strategy was simple and elementary: replace one addiction with another. Hers was a different and more natural drug, that fulfilled me completely. 
Reducing our relationship to an addiction, however, was the least of my desires: as I think I have already said, doctor, I am not particularly given to materiality. My attraction to sex is, or rather was (because it is no longer), due to the attempt to establish a direct communication with someone, an intimate and deep dialogue, but before I experienced it I could not know that this kind of communication is impossible with most people, and perhaps illusory with anyone. Let us say that the illusion, the very rare times when it is given to experience it, works: it leaves one fully fulfilled, at least until one is forced to realize that, in fact, he has been dialoguing with himself all along.
Be that as it may, with Antonia I by no means meant to communicate only in that way. I was often content to spend long hours studying with her, or, when I didn't have much to do, I would read her my favorite comic books and play all the characters. She said I would have a future as a cartoon voice actor. She would laugh like a little girl. Or I would play the guitar and sing to her: she would listen with her eyes shining, saying I was great. I actually knew I was very mediocre, but Antonia didn't understand anything about music: she was almost illiterate in that field; she liked everything I liked because I subliminally conveyed it to her and I wanted her to like it. And I was perfectly fine with that illiteracy of hers because it relieved me of the need to talk about music to explain what in reality is not to be explained, but to be felt. So we often just stood there doing nothing and listened to music while holding hands.
The confusion was giving way to a new awareness of myself, which sex itself allowed me to discover: it was a very different experience from the one I remembered and had already had with her. This at first did not fail to amaze me. I mastered the situation perfectly, I was leading the game now; I was becoming an adult, I had made my choice, little did it matter if it was incomprehensible to most. Antonia, on the other hand, felt a kind of primitive panic every time I approached her to make love. Two years had passed since our previous relationship, but I kept very vivid memories of the total lack of inhibitions with which she took the initiative, of the unreserved abandon she felt with me; in that unforgettable period everything in our relationship was spontaneous and intuitive. This is precisely why her betrayal had shocked me: I did not understand, and still do not understand, what else a woman could want in sex. I looked forward to that spectacle again, but soon I had to realize that in those two years things had changed more for her than for me.
She was awed by the man she was discovering in me. I was a young man who had had several experiences and quite a lot of heavy ones. I realized that she feared me: when I approached her she closed her eyes instinctively, as if I were dazzling her. In the midst of my eighteen years I was really handsome, but this with Antonia was a serious handicap, because mine was now an adult beauty, which she could not so to speak metabolize: her little boy was gone, she desperately regretted him and harbored some resentment toward me, as if I had replaced him, as if I were an impostor. And then she feared confrontation, feared that some unexpected reaction might be triggered in me, feared that I might end our relationship once and for all by judging it too trivial in comparison with what I had experienced with Gherti. In short, I don't know exactly what she feared: I only knew that I had to help her. Letting go for her was no longer going to be easy. I thought about dusting off the techniques I had developed with Michelle, properly purged of all their perverse content. They worked, and I thought that at least all that effort had not been for nothing. She did not resist, she let me do it with a surrendering gentleness that I have never found in any other woman, probably because she knew that for me all this was therapeutic. Every now and then I realized I was wearing her out, so I would feed her chocolate and pastries.
I usually keep a part of myself inaccessible, an off limits zone where no one is allowed to enter, especially during sex; but with her it was different: I had no secrets for her, she was my woman, I belonged to her body and soul. I used to describe to her live everything I was feeling: I never managed to do that with anyone else, either before or after, and I don't think I ever will again. In fact, I'll be honest: I don't wish for it to happen at all. That experience must remain unrepeatable.
I was of an absolute recklessness: even though that of having a child was the least of my desires, I found it offensive that she would take precautions with me. I knew it was inevitable under the circumstances, but I did not accept it willingly: nothing that came from me could be bad for her.
I don't know why, doctor, but the instinct to procreate always seemed guilty to me. Don't rush to attribute this belief of mine to a pathological state: sooner or later circumstances will prove me right. Unfortunately, I knew I loved a trivial woman, otherwise she would not have persisted in remaining engaged to my brother; I might as well have offered her a parachute: having a child with me would have been less squalid. Sometimes I found myself imagining the scene: I would not have allowed her to give birth to our child in the aseptic environment of a hospital; he would have been born in the midst of nature, I would have helped her, I would have suggested everything she needed to do. Her body had no secrets for me.
I could have done it: by now I was used to my miracles.
And so a few days passed that I do not hesitate to call fantastic.
One afternoon, while I was lying in the hay studying Kierkegaard and listening to the unreleased acoustic version of a Kurt song, she, timidly fiddling with a lock of my hair, found the courage to ask me:
How are you doing with other women?
There are no other women, I answered, turning the page.
I paused.
Nor others at all, I added after a few seconds.
There will have to be, you know.
Listen to this: In sensual genius music has its absolute object. By this, now, of course, I do not mean that music cannot express anything else, but that this is nevertheless its own object. That is exactly what I have always thought.
What are you doing, changing the subject?
I harshly rejected her attempt to engage in that discourse.
Antonia, I told her, you are free to do what you want with yourself, but I forbid you to choose for me as well. Don't ever try to mother me again, okay?
Don't get me wrong: it will be so difficult for me. The fact is that we have to think about the future, both of us.
There is no future: there is only the present, and this is it.
What will you do when I am married to your brother?
You are not going to marry my brother.
Listen to me Emmanuel: we have to talk seriously. Please.
I huffed impatiently to let her know I had no intention of talking, but she continued undaunted:
What do you plan to do with me? Are you going to keep me as your lover until you get tired of it? And at that point what are you going to say to me: sorry mom, it was good while it lasted? And how do you think I will feel then? We are not in a fairy tale, we have to face reality: I know I will have to lose you soon, and you know you have to find a girl your age. We will still love each other, a lot, because you know I love you a lot, but in another way.
"What fucking other way?"
My tone of voice expressed a deaf irritation that in itself would have been enough to cut that talk off cleanly, if she had any sense: but Antonia knew how to be completely obtuse, and so she kept talking, determined to hurt herself.
No matter what, the way will be found.
I did not answer her. I tried to change the subject:
Doesn't he seem at times to say don't rape me instead of do-re-me?
She dropped my question, even though she knew that this bumped me deeply, and resumed the conversation where she had left off.
Besides, you have to get used to this idea: Michael and I are going to get married soon, I'm almost thirty-three.
I laid the open book on the floor and lay supine in the hay with one arm folded behind the nape of my neck, staring at the cobwebs on the ceiling, trying to master my anger.
Let's make a bet, shall we? In a year you'll already be engaged to someone else.
Fucking bet.
Shall we bet?
What should we bet.
Whatever you want.
I gave her the answer she deserved:
Okay. If you win, you fuck me. If I win, I fuck you.
She smiled and lay down beside me, but by now the enchantment was broken and I felt a pressing need for revenge. It was time to let her know who had the upper hand.
I spoke to her in a rude tone:
Pass me a blanket, please. I got cold. "And stop interrupting me!": I'm studying the chapter on Don Juan and I want to understand it well.
Of course, sorry: I know you're being questioned in philosophy tomorrow, and then you've got the exam coming up.
Not for the prof, I don't give a shit about her judgment: it's a subject I'm interested in.
She raised no objections. I started studying again and she snuggled up to me under the blanket, passing an arm around my waist.
I huffed, pushing her arm away.
Do you have to be so clinging to me? You take the air out of me.
She shifted away from me.
You know, I resumed absent-mindedly, underlining with a pencil a passage in the book, I was thinking that maybe we shouldn't see each other so often.
Excuse me.
Seriously, Antonia, I'm beginning to feel like an idiot sitting here in the hay with you every single afternoon. I have to hang out with my peers once in a while. Not dangerous people, don't worry: simply my peers. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's not that I don't enjoy seeing you, it's just that....
I let ten seconds pass before I uttered the fateful sentence:
I need a pause for reflection.
I said excuse me.
I noted with satisfaction that her voice was cracked with terror.
She tried to kiss my shoulder, but I pushed her away with annoyance.
Excuse me please, she repeated.
I closed the book, stood up, examined a couple of CDs and put on Moist Vagina, the most toxic track I know; then I stood in front of her, unbuttoned my jeans, raked up her hair, wrapped it around my left wrist and pulled hard down. I had set the song to loop because it lasts only three minutes and thirty-four seconds and it was implied that a longer time would be needed: she understood perfectly and adjusted to the situation.
Opposite personalities coexist in me: there is the female, who can be submissive and very sweet, but there is also the male, and he is an overbearing bastard male. It is a fact that when I am offended, atavistic macho tendencies awaken in me. I let her do, looking at the ceiling in silence and stroking her hair with the absent-minded benevolence with which one strokes a dog. There was nothing for her, I excluded her from everything, I drowned my feelings in myself without letting a single sigh escape, ending in perfect synchrony with the interminable final gasp of the song.
It was my way of telling her that she had been a bad child. But it was also a conscious strategy: I think she really liked this, at least as much as my sweetness. That's the way Antonia was: having me all to herself gave her a feeling of dread, she was always on the alert as if at any moment a catastrophe would befall her; being treated like a whore, on the other hand, reassured her. Perhaps if I had succeeded in making her my steady mistress, alternating her with one or more wives, things between us would not have gone the way they did. But this does not seem to be in the chords of my zodiac sign. Maybe if I had been a Gemini, who knows.