Milady Filacia

5: Melograno

Filacia fell ill when the weather made an abrupt switch from windy cool to throbbing heat. She ate and slept in quarantine, in her little room on the ground floor, while the nurse took on the kitchen. Mum had the heart to joke about Filacia dying, which would give her an excuse to literally hire anybody else. I found the joke horrible and went to my room to play computer games, trying to catch the white fluffs of growing flowers drifting through the stagnant air of the upper floor while I walked.

Mum and dad would never ask me to look after the kitchen maid. It was up to the nurse to bring Filacia her meals, which more than often went untouched. The village had shipments of pomegranates in from the southern hemisphere, but I never cared for them much. Filacia had never had a pomegranate in her life, so I made the nurse give her one before catching my ride with Dolorio.

"Don't you think Dolorio is having an influence on you?" my dad asked after I'd come back. I was flushed, and wearing what Dolorio thought looked best on me: a bright red polo shirt and white shorts that didn't reach halfway down my thighs.

"So I can't have friends, now?" I asked him.

"Don't speak to me like that," he said. "Get changed and go down to Father Jacopo. He's been waiting for you for ten minutes."

"I saw him this morning, and on Thursday," I argued. I could still feel the jittery shocks throughout my body, though Dolorio had managed to make me forget about them while I'd been with him. "I thought I was only supposed to see him two times a week."

"We've made it three times now." dad turned down his spectacles and flipped open an old book as he lounged in a chaise. "Vendolius, you don't read my books, you run off with an adult man and you sit in your room playing your video games and ignoring my orders. Father Jacopo has been waiting for you for fifteen minutes."

"Eleven," I muttered, trudging down the hallway with my arms limp at my sides.

That spring, I spent too many days in Father Jacopo's cellars. The afternoon dad sent me down to the cellars for the third time that week was the day I had my first encounter with a woman. She was sat on a dark wooden chair in the middle of the room, the medical bed pushed to the side, and a sweet red shawl draped itself across her bosom. Her hair was made of brown and yellow curls that were thrown hastily together in a presentable ensemble, her feet bare and the soles covered in the dust from ancient stone. The woman spread her legs as I'd entered. "Come closer, Vendi," she purred.

Father Jacopo had materialized behind me, blocking my exit. Thus I pushed myself forward, into the band of light that shone a silvery waver over the prostitute's dirty beauty. She began to touch herself with one hand in slow, tender movements. I looked back and the door was closed; locked, probably.

"What's your name?" I asked her.

"You can call me whatever you'd like. You can call me Rose... or Mrs Esposito... or Nurse... or Mamma. Come sit on my lap, Vendi."

"I'm sorry," I apologized. "I'm fourteen. There must be a mistake. Where are your clothes?"

Mrs Esposito smiled, revealing crooked, but very white teeth. "I don't have any clothes, my boy. I'm very poor - I've lost them all. It makes me cold. Why don't you come warm me up?"

"I can ask my mum to lend you some," I offered. "Or the kitchen maid, Filacia."

Mrs Esposito pouted, then shook her head. "No. I want yours. Why don't you take them off for me?"

I took my clothes off and threw them to the woman, but she took them in turn and threw them aside. I was pulled hastily onto her lap as she begun to kiss me, and undress me further. This happened a few times, before I chose to shelter myself.