As we exited the castle in Milton Keynes and walked towards our red car, he looked at me with godamn so much affection in his eyes:
“So?” he enquired.
“Yes,” I confirmed. “Even with the pain, I did enjoy it.”
He smiled.
“What about you?” I asked my lover.
He said nothing and kept on smiling.
As we passed the Watford motorway services half an hour later, he said to me:
“This is only the beginning, my love. I know this dungeon in Epsom.”
I looked ahead at the road. Night was beginning to fall. Soon, we would be back in London. My hand was shaking a bit. Fear? Expectation? And inside my body the tides of lust were already rising.
THE SEX LIVES OF CHAMELEONS by Cristiana Formetta
translated by Maxim Jakubowski
for Danila who has never seen the snow
Force of will is just a question of practice.
You need a bit of training, but you learn to struggle, and you can become whatever you want to be.
When I look at myself in the mirror, my image does not correspond with the image I have of myself. So, I change it. I adopt multiple personalities. They merge and alternate.
It’s a dance with the cosmos which can last whole days and nights. Night is my baptism. I close my eyes and when I wake up I have a brand new skin.
1
“What’s happening to you?”
Mauro’s voice made me jump; it’s so typical of him to always arrive on the scene silently. “Hurry up. We’ve lost too much time already,” he continues. And throws a stack of photographs onto the table. I pick them up, look at one, then another, and then all of them.
“They look fine,” I say. But the truth is I know all too well how bad they happen to be.
“Of course. To anyone who’s not an expert, the photos will look good,” Mauro continued. “But both you and I know this is not your real face,” he concluded, pointing a finger towards one of the photographs as the light of the sun shining violently through the curtains obliged me to look away.
“At any rate, you’re done with your anger for now, I trust? Where is all the wickedness? Not in this photograph, my dear. Nor here…”
“I have several other projects to finish before I can focus on the book…” That was how Maxim advised me that the publication of the book had slipped to November.
He reiterated that I had to be patient and enjoy the wait.
For him, it’s easy. He talks about writing, he thinks like a writer. In his books, Maxim tells stories of things that appear to belong to a whole different world, a world so different from mine, a bigger and more dangerous world. Maybe that’s what brings us together, so intimately.
Maxim says I have talent, as if talent was just the act of writing a simple story in a minor mode. My stories pleased him and now his American publisher will be publishing one of them.
My stories in America, it’s hard to believe.
I just can’t believe that Mauro has refused to give me the photos.
At home, I look at myself yet again in the mirror and concur that Mauro is right. This is not my true face, just a passable imitation. If my friend Danila was here, she would realise it too. Danila isn’t easily fooled, she would soon notice that I have lost my metallic eyes.
Danila says I have metallic eyes, grey eyes that sometimes turn green, and sometimes dark blue. It’s fairly uncommon, not that many others had noticed. He, however, quickly acknowledged the fact and transformed my eyes into heavy metal. He said I had the eyes of an owl, because I am always checking who is around me, memorizing their gestures, their voice, their expression, until I think I know them intimately, even to the extent of unveiling their weak spots.
A particularity common to all predators, I think.
Photographs. I have a house full of them, pinned to the wall, stuck with adhesive tape to the mirrors. Everywhere it’s my face, on my own or with friends. Here we are, Danila and me, at the Carnival a few years back. She is dressed as a witch, and I am wearing a clown’s three-pointed hat. It must be quite late in the day, because in the photo Danila’s eyes are red. Whereas my eyes seem fixed on a distant point, my lips frozen by what looks more like a grimace than a smile.
Who knows if owls, of all feathered creatures, conceal their wrinkles beneath their deep stare?
I can’t stand in the same place for more than half an hour. It’s always been this way, ever since I was a small child I’ve had this urge to burn off energy any way I could.
Is that what consumes me inside?
Year after year, my waist narrows, my cheekbones get sharper, the dark zones beneath my eyes go hyperactive, pale brown shade changing to pale violet. The brains sucks energy from the body, and slowly it will begin to disappear.
I’m becoming transparent, Maxim. Now you can look inside of me and use all the small details I have provided you with to bring your imagination to life. Even when I ask you for a way out, because I can’t join you in London, or in New Orleans, this city you like so much. I keep on asking you because we are wasting so much time, and I don’t know what to answer, I don’t know what to say. This is also the truth, even if I talk to you of Toronto, although it is a lie, another dead end.
You dislike Canada, Maxim. It’s too cold there.
I walk alone through the city for almost an hour. It’s raining and my boots trace deep patterns in the mud. I quicken my pace, flinging my legs ahead as if I were participating in a military parade, if only to warm myself. It’s strange, I’ve never felt cold before at this time of year. To tell the truth, I’m seldom cold and am always wearing the same sweatshirt under my leather jacket, even in the midst of winter. Yet, today I can’t help shivering, and it’s already March.
I reach the area of older buildings in the historic part of town and ring the bell several times. The door finally opens. Trevor looks at me without saying a word. I am soaked to the bone and just can’t stop myself from trembling. Trevor does not invite me in, and neither does he order me to stay put. He just keeps on looking at me with a self-satisfied smirk on his face, his upper lip frozen in a sneer. I know that expression, that face well. It’s my face superimposed over Trevor’s features. The face of someone with definitive goals in life, and the sheer ambition to reach them.
“Come inside,” he says. Trevor speaks good Italian, although he has a distinct foreign accent.
Trevor’s apartment is always untidy. His television sets are stacked up in all four corners of the room like sacred stones in an Indian ritual. Rising above it all is a smell of paint and solvents, tobacco and perspiration, which doesn’t seem to bother him. His attention is fully focused on my hands now beginning to unbutton my faded shirt. A piece of clothing that has seen better days, as has Trevor. He has talent, he could be a great painter, but he just isn’t. The pictures he paints have no inner strength, no meaning. Trevor is no longer able to make art talk, ever since the day he recycled himself as an illustrator of children’s books. This compromise has greatly helped his finances, but it destroyed him as an artist. He could have been a wonderful painter, and now he will never be one. Yet, Trevor keeps on dreaming, believing that a trip to Italy, an exhibition and a hovel rented out on the cheap will help revive his spirit. Trevor thinks I can be his muse, and this dream sustains him. Basically if you are thirty-eight years old in 2003 and the critics haven’t had a kind word for you since 1996, you have a desperate need to dream. Trevor is finished, and he is not aware of it. Trevor is a dead man walking.
His shoulders surprise me. I would never have thought Trevor had such large shoulders. Now I understand why his jackets fit him so badly, either too large or sleeves too short. I haven’t yet seen him naked, or tasted his mouth for the first time. He probably tastes of whisky which he drinks regularly, too often and too strong. Trevor takes me into his arms and pulls me towards him, allowing his hand to caress my breast, my hip, and he does all this so silently, not even allowing himself a sigh. He is cold, detached. He knows me well and and doesn’t trust me. He is aware of the fact that I seldom do anything without a reason and is probably wondering why I am here ever since I arrived.