Roberta Mezzabarba – The Confessions Of A Concubine (страница 6)
program worked, I kept my gaze fixed on the screen trying not to notice the scent coming from his skin, and his warm breath on my cheeks flushed with embarrassment.
"Please God save me," whispered my mind, to try to distract me from the man who was a few inches from my skin.
"Please God save me."
But it was not God who had to save me from that web which awaited me, I could have done it very well myself, and instead I did not.
His hand slipped naturally onto my knee, squeezing it a little, and I slowly turned to him.
It was if my face had turned frame by frame, it seemed so long before I met his gaze.
His eyes searched the space around the desk we occupied, then with a small smile, he made me understand that there was no one there.
And then it happened.
It happened, and I don’t know exactly how it
happened that I found myself with his lips resting on mine, in a light kiss.
It happened, and I thought the sky would collapse on me if I did something like this, but instead nothing happened.
Embarrassed I quickly turned my gaze to the video on which a small dash was flashing waiting for someone to decide to tell it what to do.
How could this have happened?
How could I have allowed something like this to happen?
How would I be able go home to my husband that evening?
As soon the "lesson" finished, I went to the bathroom, and stayed there for a good quarter of an hour: I spent it almost entirely in front of the mirror, looking at myself, to see if something had changed in me, if you could see that I had kissed another man, who was not my husband.
I washed my lips with soap, rubbing hard as if
they were really dirty, and then I rushed to take the bus home.
As I ran my thoughts were galloping too.
I was a married woman, and Pietro also had a wife, even though he never talked about her.
What had I been thinking?
***
Filippo had not arrived yet.
Good.
I would prepare the hunter's chicken that he likes so much to be forgiven for what he will never know, and to seal my mute promise that I would never do it again.
How would I be able to kiss him?
Would it still be the same or had something changed, that afternoon?
He arrived when it was already dark and giving me an apathetic kiss on the forehead got me out of
the bind of finding out if he would feel the taste of Pietro on my lips.
***
A confession.
The first.
The words come out in drops, digging into recent events, too recent for them not to still hurt.
I have to shape my will.
"Forgive me father for I have sinned."
"I desire another woman's man."
The confessional is dark and through the grate I glimpse a figure intent on listening to me, his head bowed.
"My girl, the flesh is weak."
"My flesh is not weak, I want his soul, I want his words, I just want a little sweetness, a little affection, a little love."
"My child, I know, it's hard."
"Forgive me, O father."
My knees begin to ache, as if the wood on which they are resting had suddenly become very rough.
I had never understood what I was reciting from memory, until now.
A saddlebag that was too heavy.