Red: A Love Story Read online

  And then these hands, this mouth abandoned her. The sound of his clothes, T-shirt, belt, zipper, condom wrap torn with teeth. The blindfold removed. The craving.

  His eyes in hers.

  His body in hers…

  The afternoon oozed away with the rain while they remained in the bedroom—captive and captor, inside the cabin in the forest. Then it was two silhouettes under the circle of light from the nightstand lamp, lying together, contently spent—so close to each other it was hard to tell where one ended and the other began.

  “Did you like it?” asked Marco as he stroked Marisa’s hair.

  “I loved it. I enjoy experiencing different things.” She half-closed her eyelids, nuzzling his neck.

  “Then you found your match. We got along well, didn’t we? It’s as if we already know each other. And it’ll get even better as we have more intimacy.”

  “The funny thing is, I didn’t feel nervous with you the way I felt the first time with my ex Sérgio. It took me a while to be at ease with him, even though he was more traditional… You always do that?”

  Marisa contemplated him with renewed curiosity when he said: “To me, sex is a channel of expression. And I like to explore fantasies.” His hand now traced the line of her hip. “Desire is mystery, a constant discovery. You never know what’s gonna happen and may discover things about yourself that you weren’t even aware of. Between four walls anything goes. The bedroom is not politically correct.”

  “Hmm… politically correct… That would be a hell of a kinky fetish.”

  “Yeah. With an ISO 9000 guide for best practices and ecological solutions.”

  “Mr. Fares,” Marisa cleared her throat and pitched her voice, “I have already disinfected my hand with alcohol. Allow me to shove it inside your pants.”

  “It would be a pleasure, Miss Constant. If you don’t mind, I want to reciprocate your kindness. Pass me the alcohol, if you may…”

  Marco pinched her bottom and suppressed a laugh when she wriggled, protesting, Mr. Fares, please!

  Then he changed his tone.

  “But we shouldn’t have done it, Mari. For one thing, we shouldn’t even be seeing each other.”

  “Why not?” Marisa tipped her head back to stare at him. “In a few weeks’ time I will no longer be your student. What are a few weeks compared to a lifetime? To eternity? This is just a matter of form. Oh, we shouldn’t be together because it’s morally wrong. Yeah, right. Do I look like Lolita? Nabokov must be laughing in his grave.” She gesticulated impatiently. “It’s easy to judge someone when you’re not in their shoes. But you can only understand something once you have lived it. Until then, it’s just an abstraction based on stereotype. Each case is different. Besides, we’re not hurting anyone. Let’s not forget hell is other people.”

  Marco’s clouded expression cleared with a smile. Lolita. No, she was his Marisa. And yet… Light of my life, fire of my loins, my soul… Marco recited Nabokov silently as he placed a kiss on her forehead. I love you. Without warning, those three words budded in his thought. They almost budded on his lips. Their sudden intensity stunned him. He hadn’t felt that way in such a long time he almost forgot what it was like. It was wonderful. It was terrifying. He swallowed up the words and joked instead: “Now you got into quoting Sartre. I’ve created a monster.”

  “Seriously, Marco. The future hasn’t arrived yet and the past is gone. Happiness is in the here and now. The present is what threads the past and the future. Let’s make the most of what we have now to create our memories and our tomorrow. We’re feeling a strong bond, and it happened. And I’m very happy with you.”

  “I know what you mean. I just think that when in Rome… but I’m happy too, Mari, more than you can imagine. It’s the first time I’ve felt like this since my divorce… no, actually way before that, because things between me and her had not been working for a while. Then, when I was on my own, I had a number of one-night stands that meant nothing. I just felt numb. Heavy. Like a hundred years old.”

  “Your separation was that bad?”

  The marriage had lasted seven years. It started off happily in spite of difficulties, and little by little dimmed out almost without them realizing. In the last year the relationship became unsustainable. Constant fights, often for no reason. The problem was not what they manifested but what they hid. He still hoped to salvage the relationship. When it ended, it was like a hurricane sweeping his life away and turning everything upside down.

  A shadow crossed Marco’s face—the expression settling in belonged to another man. Marisa was alarmed: she didn’t recognize him. More than that: she lost him. The traits were the same, albeit somehow different in the imperceptible contraction of the muscles and in the shield covering his gaze. Then the shadow dissipated, and the Marco she knew reappeared, but still on time’s high wire, with one foot behind and the other in midair, slowly returning.

  “That was what it felt like. A hurricane. I lost weight, couldn’t sleep, drowned myself in work. I tried picturing life without Lorena and couldn’t. It took me quite a while to pick up the pieces. I got divorced two years ago and, in a sense, I still have some bits scattered around… But let’s not talk about that. It’s in the past, and what matters is the present, right?” His mouth curved in a smile as he stared at her. “Now it’s like I’m twenty again. I must look plain silly.”

  Marisa smiled too, caressing his hair with tenderness for everything he was and had been. Like rock sediments telling a history, she read his existence in various layers: the teacher who she knew in class and the man with whom she now shared her intimacy; the doctorate student with a stubble beard composing his thesis behind a barricade of books; the man married to a college mate (and here, dark spots on the stone prevented a clear picture); the University of São Paulo freshman plotting great plans with his mates at the King of Mixed Drinks… and finally, on the last layer—behind the shield of adulthood and the idiosyncrasies she could sense—Marisa caught a glimpse of a boy in shorts, with a bandage on his knee and hands covered in dirt, running carelessly to the river and the barn with his brothers, far from imagining what the future had in store. Childhood was an eternal now: it captured yesterday with the lasso of a very short rope and tomorrow with a stone thrown too far to be seen. In the enchantment of childhood, everything shone brand-new, and Marisa saw through Marco’s eyes silvery fish in the silver of the river, unicorns with hazel manes and the sky where fat herds of clouds grazed.

  And Marco, as he looked at her, saw the summary of childhood and adolescence with all colors in mutation, increasingly hybrid and complex. In the beginning it was pink for strawberry candy and plush teddy bears, then the deeper pink of the first kiss, the dusky pink of the first great question without an answer, and finally the deep blue of disquiet. Marco contemplated the blooming face and, in the eyes, behind the amber glow, something opaque like oxidized copper. Marisa had learned what existed beyond dolls, family vacations and the latest cell phone model: pain. She had lost her maternal grandfather to a heart attack when she was little, but that didn’t compare to the loss of her father. Would it be easier if he had been obliterated by disease, giving her time to get used to the idea of his absence? Marisa said she still saw him everywhere. At home, she startled when a cloud concealed the sun or a curtain undulated in the wind—in those moments, light shifted and she would turn to find, instead of her father, only a shadow slipping away through a slit in the air. Marco knew in that farewell her life too had been turned upside down. He kissed Marisa’s left eyelid and then the right one, and held her close.

  There, in the bedroom, their lives were intervolving along with their bodies—like two tired travelers who saw a window shining in the middle of the night and, as they drew nearer, realized they had at last reached home. In a way, it was a return to the colors of childhood, for everything became a new discovery. Dinner time had arrived when, wrapped in twin gray
robes, they proceeded barefoot to the kitchen to enjoy dessert. Amid giggles and icy kisses, they spoon-fed each other fruit salad with a mountain of ice cream.

  While they were at it, Marisa saw the die on the counter behind a jar. Curious, she stood to pick it up and brought it to the table. It was an ivory piece with hand-carved dots, each exhibiting one circle that spiraled within another. Like eyes. Marco explained it was a replica of a die used in the time of the Roman Empire.

  “It’s very beautiful. It should be in your living room. Why do you leave it here?” asked Marisa, rolling it between her fingers.

  “I keep it in the bedroom, but when I’m on my own I like to throw it on the kitchen table. I totally forgot about it. It’s been here since the last time.”

  “And was the last time good?” she asked with a twinge of jealousy.

  “It doesn’t matter. That was before you.”

  Marisa felt reassured by his gaze. Then her curiosity returned.

  “But why the kitchen?”

  “It’s a neutral space. It helps me think.”

  “About what?”

  A glint of mischievousness colored his eyes, and he avoided the subject with a kiss—ice, warmth, a taste of apple. Marisa insisted, sat on his lap and threatened to tickle him.

  Marco laughed.

  “You know. The die is for bedroom games,” he said.

  “Let’s play, then.”

  “Maybe some other time.”

  “Oh, Marco.” She puckered her lips. “Let’s play…”

  So they did. Marco opted for the most basic method and set the parameters. Then Marisa had to guess which number would turn up. She thought for a second. Five. The die was thrown. Two.

  Marco’s caressing gaze found Marisa.

  “It looks like I’m the winner, Mari.”

  He gave her instructions she was supposed to follow to a T for their next tryst.

  9. Dream a Little Dream of Me

  Early evening. Marisa arrived at the apartment and, as expected, found the door unlocked. When she entered, she heard the duet by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong in Dream a Little Dream of Me. Birds of starry plumage blowing love promises in the breeze. The diffused light from the table and floor lamps accentuated the song’s nostalgic feel, spreading out in soft circles like a thin, golden veil that could fray at the slightest neglect.

  The ample window framed the forest of buildings and the sky blurred by city lights. Marisa glanced at the scenery, and her attention was soon drawn to the coffee table, where a white shopping bag jutted out among the bronze sculpture, a computer magazine and a pile of books. The paper bag carried the familiar logo of a red apple with one bite mark and two words: Lost Paradise.

  With burning curiosity, Marisa sat down on the edge of the sofa and picked up the bag. She took out from it a pair of black high-heeled sandals and a wide belt weaved with metal plates, round and shiny like brand-new coins. The last item retrieved was a package wrapped in pink paper and tied with a red ribbon. Marisa undid the wrap with impatient hands to find a square box holding a bed of tiger-pattern silk paper. In it lay a black strip ornate with strass, linked to a chain that featured a leather loop end. A collar on a leash for her to wear tonight.

  Marisa studied it for a long moment without touching it. She undressed, put the sandals on and fit the belt around her hips. Only then she removed the collar from the box, feeling the softness of the leather and the hard sparkle of the strass. It smelled of something new. Marisa admired it with her eyes and fingertips, thought about its meaning and what Marco was going to do to her. She blushed, and the flushing descended from her face to her chest to her thighs. She fastened the collar around her neck in a gesture that betrayed fatality. Holding the leash with reverence, Marisa headed for the bedroom.

  She found it illuminated by the faltering flames of a dozen candles, which multiplied in the mirror next to the bed, saturating the air with a fragrance of sandalwood. Above the mahogany headboard floated an abstract painting in fiery hues. On the nightstand, an almost empty glass of port. On the chair beside it, Marco—dressed in black, legs crossed and a delicate flogger resting on his knees.

  His relaxed posture dominated the room. He contemplated her in silence, mouth touched by an almost imperceptible smile. His gaze caressed her nudity with satisfaction. It concentrated on the collar, then on the snowy breasts and the glimmering chain. It searched her face. Inflexible eyes, as smooth and voracious as time.

  Marisa approached him slowly. As she advanced she became more pliant. Ready to surrender herself completely. That night. The high heels click-clacked on the floor, the chain links whispered faintly at each step, the belt tinkled to the soft swing of hips. Her body created music as it moved toward him.

  The unspoken words, his and hers, cut through the air.

  Come with me to this dreamscape…

  I want to know by heart the rhythm of your heartbeat. I want to drink of you until I quench this thirst that won’t leave me in peace, devour your body with my hunger, turn it inside out and outside in, let your blood and your soul invade me, make up for the lost time of all days and hours and seconds I’ve lived without you, rip all the armors sheltering your treasures, penetrate in light and darkness, up to the last recess… I want to know by heart the rhythm of your heartbeat.

  Marisa paused before Marco and looked deeply into his eyes. She quivered at her own reflection in his irises, quivered as she crossed the border to the unknown, quivered for what she was about to say.

  Her legs faltered, the belt a whisper.

  She handed him the chain.

  “I am all yours.”

  And dropped her gaze.

  And the game encircled them with its whims, an invisible whirl carrying the perfume of the candles, shadows on snippets of skin, murmur and melody, the flog strips, soft hands, a drop of port slithering down to the navel. The hours twirled and twirled. Later everything dispersed like fog in the wind, the candle put out released a black thread of smoke, the music died and the voices quieted. Shhh…

  Marisa lifted her gaze.

  In the following date silence reigned, and a secret smile on her lips. She tossed her coat on the couch and, sitting on the armrest of a chair, began her preparations. Unbraiding her hair, she fixed it with her fingers and picked up a makeup kit from the purse. Marisa applied heavy colors on her eyes and red lipstick on her lips (Fantasy #5, waterproof). Lastly, she put on high-heeled sandals in a gracious motion, straightened up and smoothed her scarlet dress—it barely covered her legs, a generous neckline in the front and the back.

  This time, when entering the bedroom, she found Marco stretched on the bed. With his back against the pillow, he was wetting his lips in a glass of port and lighting up a cigarette. Barefoot, in jeans and a white T-shirt, his face was shadowed by the dim bedside lamp. His dark eyes gleamed as they took in her body.

  The open window beckoned the breeze and the echoes of the night. Cars, voices, distant laughter—for a moment it was all that could be heard in the bedroom. Marco put out the cigarette, and the last streak of smoke spiraled until dissolving in the curtain diaphanous white. Marisa sat on the edge of the bed, provocatively crossing her legs. Then she tapped on the mattress.

  “C’mon here,” she said in a flutelike voice.

  And when Marco did it, Marisa stroked his hair and ran her fingers across the narrow sideburns. She flexed one hand on his chest, scratched the T-shirt cotton with her red nails and went sliding down to rest her hand on his thigh. But not for too long. With her index and middle fingers, she walked to his belt, trailing the jeans waistband.

  He raised one eyebrow and smiled.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Shhh…” She pressed her index finger to his lips.

  Marisa kindled him with half-caresses all over his body. She moved around his hips to concentrate on the
inner thighs, her fingers skimming ever so lightly there. Without touching him where he wanted the most, she changed course and proceeded to explore what lay underneath the T-shirt.

  Marco pulled Marisa closer and tugged her onto his lap, nestling her against his chest. His strong hands enveloped her waist. One remained in place while the other glided possessively across her bare thigh.

  “That’s better.”

  Marisa detained his hand.

  “If you want some more, you’ll have to pay.”

  Marco stilled for an instant. Another wicked smile.

  “I need to know beforehand if the service is good.”

  “I guarantee it’s first rate…”

  She gave him a sample. He gave her a bunch of bills. They played all night long.

  10. A Prank

  Valentina was the only one who knew. Marisa had told her everything on the day following her involvement with Marco, when the two of them were walking home after classes. Valentina almost tripped upon hearing the story. Then she poured a bucket of questions, advised caution and, eventually, reacted to the news with enthusiasm: she even suggested that Marisa use the paraphilia encyclopedia in future erotic games.

  On weekends, Marisa would make arrangements with Valentina and tell her mother she was sleeping over at her friend’s to study. Then she spent time with Marco. It had become increasingly difficult to dribble her mother though, and the arguments multiplied. One Sunday morning, Marisa woke up late and returned home apprehensive. She decided to use the kitchen entrance for precaution; if she was lucky enough, that would give her a chance to reach her bedroom without being seen. And if she was really lucky, her mother would be in the bathroom getting ready for church.