Melina Breaking Free E-Book

Dimitra Mantheakis

• Herausgeber: neobooks
• Kategorie: Erotik
• Sprache: Deutsch

Seitenzahl: 624

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

1950's. In a small isolated Greek provincial town in post-Civil War Greece a closely-knit group of young friends - Melina, Sarantos, Iakovos, Sofia, Mary, Urania and Paulina - will discover that behind the curtain of strict morality and social righteousness their fellow villagers' passions are boiling over and there are hidden secrets. As they grow older the young protagonists will pass from innocence to an awakening of the flesh with these sexual experiences indelibly marking their lives. They come to realise that sex is not only pleasure but hides numerous disappointments and pitfalls when games of sensuality also involve the heart. Shattered dreams, abandonment, exploitation and callousness lie ahead for the newly-initiated youths and girls as they are called on to handle each new situation according to their character and beliefs. Will they be able to overcome unforeseen obstacles in their struggle or will they be swept away by what appears to be written for each of them by Fate?

Leseprobe

Dimitra Mantheakis

Melina Breaking Free

A true story

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Inhaltsverzeichnis

Titel

Melina Breaking Free

Preface

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9 - SARANTOS

CHAPTER 10 - DINA AND PAULINA

CHAPTER 11 - MARY

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13 - SOFIA

CHAPTER 14 - IAKOVOS

CHAPTER 15 - URANIA

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17 - PAULINA

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19 - MELINA

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

EPILOGUE

Impressum neobooks

Melina Breaking Free

Melina Breaking Free

based on a true story

by

Dimitra Mantheakis

Dimitra Mantheakis is one of the most prominent and gifted writers in Greece today. She grew up in Sparta and attended Athens University where she studied literature and archaeology. Her international best-seller I, the Taliban’s Wife has been translated into three languages and was on the best seller lists in Germany for many months.

Melina Breaking Free is her seventh book, an acclaimed example of modern Greek literature, and the first to be translated into English. Dimitra Mantheakis lives in Athens with her husband, Alexis Mantheakis, an author and political analyst. They have a daughter who is a journalist.

Preface

1950’s. In a small isolated Greek provincial town in post-Civil War Greece a closely-knit group of young friends - Melina, Sarantos, Iakovos, Sofia, Mary, Urania and Paulina - will discover that behind the curtain of strict morality and social righteousness their fellow villagers’ passions are boiling over and there are hidden secrets. As they grow older the young protagonists will pass from innocence to an awakening of the flesh with these sexual experiences indelibly marking their lives. They come to realise that sex is not only pleasure but hides numerous disappointments and pitfalls when games of sensuality also involve the heart. Shattered dreams, abandonment, exploitation and callousness lie ahead for the newly-initiated youths and girls as they are called on to handle each new situation according to their character and beliefs. Will they be able to overcome unforeseen obstacles in their struggle or will they be swept away by what appears to be written for each of them by Fate?

Loves that last for a lifetime, hatreds, passions, sex steeped in infinite sensuality, deep disappointments and a search for redemption are interwoven in the telling of this tale of awakening desire. Reading Dimitra Mantheakis’ latest book will perhaps make the reader recall their own first stirrings of the flesh and have them identify with the sentiments and experiences of the young protagonists.

CHAPTER 1

1950’s. The pale light of the winter morning illuminated the small provincial town wedged in the embrace of the valley whose dark green foliage and dense humble bushes still held onto the previous night’s rain. The two mountains, one to the left and the other to the right, appeared to be hugging the houses, roads and orchards below them in an embrace of stone. One mountain, almost vertical, rose up darkly, menacingly, totally stripped of vegetation with its back bent as if hunched over, kneeling in prayer. Depending on the play of the sun’s rays the strange colour of its rocks and its crevasses made up of precipitous gorges one moment were blue and the next grey, and black in their depths. The other mountain, lying sensuously on the horizon and covered with dense vegetation sucked life from the red earth that covered it like a mother who would never deprive her suckling children of her breast, reminding everyone that it would not stop nourishing its children, the trees and plants,.

And in the distance, the sea. Restless, a traveler, greedily licking the white pebbles on the shoreline, covering them with seaweed juices and the taste of salt, and then withdrawing, sated, in a light swell that crashed noisily on the weathered rocks of the two headlands.

A frosty breeze slid over the red tiled roofs, rhythmically slamming the half-open window shutters and quietly whispering secrets hidden behind the frozen window panes to the wide open ears of fireplaces, and they, in turn replied with a puff of smoke and a promise not to cave into to temptation and disclose any of these revelations.

The small town was almost totally cut off from the rest of the world. A solid mass of age-old rock exactly at the point where the two mountains met each other, blocking the entrance to the interior. The narrow snakelike road that climbed up over this hard physical barrier didn’t offer an easy way of escape. Cars struggled up the steep inclines, gasping round dangerous curves, disappearing in dry stifling clouds of dust in the summer, while in winter they crept at a tortoise-like pace so as not to slip off the road surface and tumble into the gaping chasms, and this of course when the road was not completely blocked by snow which often turned into ice, a cunning deathtrap for those not properly taking the hazard into account.

To the south where the valley reached out towards the sea, the exit to the outer world was limited to short trips in small fishing boats. The diminutive cove did not have a respectable harbor to receive larger vessels and give the town a chance to develop.

The townspeople had become used to their isolation. Many of them had never gone beyond the rock border while the older ones among them had no desire to do so. Most learned what was going on from those who bought two-day-old newspapers or from the radio at the café, or at the house of some citizen fortunate enough to be able to afford a wireless set. Their favourite pastime was learning about the lives of others. They wanted to know every detail about what was happening in their neighbours’ houses; their curiosity focused primarily on gossip and only rarely was there a real interest in the troubles of their fellow villagers.

Whenever a scandal, according to their concept of one, became known, and before news of it had travelled as far as the café, it had already become a monstrous issue. Tongues wagged, analyzing the incident at length, dissecting with their criticism the person who was unfortunate enough not to have effectively protected their personal affairs. But how could anyone do this when everyone’s eyes and ears were focused on everyone else, and no voice, no whisper, no movement was able to escape the attention of someone, anyone, who, with newly acquired information in hand immediately rushed to broadcast the news to an audience voraciously standing by to receive and spread the word? Thus every situation was common knowledge even though some people had the illusion that the armour they wore over their personal life was without chinks and leaks.

The bell sounded at the old primary school, breaking the total silence that reigned in its classrooms. The pupils jumped up, as if on springs, and poured noisily out into the schoolyard. The pupils in Grade Six who had just finished the February written exam did the same. Several of them went out with an expression of intense dissatisfaction, two or three were crying because they had been unable to respond to the demands of the exam and were shivering in fear at the prospect of their parents’ reaction, but for some others, their small faces glowed happily. They had managed to once again do well in the difficult last term exam.

A group of children broke away from the crowd and sat on a stone ledge. They were children who had been friends from their first year at primary school and who were always together at every juncture of their lives, good or bad. Urania, Mary, Sofia, Paulina, Dina, Iakovos, Melina and Sarantos.

Urania, the headmaster’s daughter, was a dark, precociously developed girl whose interests were school, church and Sunday school. She never left her home alone and her friends had to visit her when her strict father allowed it only at her house. Paulina, the daughter of a nurse, had lost her father when she was five, and her mother struggled to support her and her two younger sisters. Melina, with chestnut hair and huge marsh-green eyes, skinny as a rake from privations caused by her cart-driver father being unable to earn a daily living wage, now shivered as usual because of the cold; her hand-knit woolen pullover unable to warm her. Her family did not have enough money at home to buy overcoats or even a long warm cardigan.

The young girl tried to warm herself by rubbing her hands together, but this was not sufficient to stop icy tremors from running up her spine or to stop her teeth chattering. She looked with a measure of envy at Urania’s snug coat and the other girls’ long thick jackets and wished that she too could have had something similar to wear. The boy sitting next to her, Sarantos, took off his old windcheater and tried to put it over her shoulders, but Melina, reacting with pride, gave it back saying she did not want it because she was not cold, an excuse that was patently false and foolish. Everyone could see that she was frozen to the bone.

Sarantos was a tall, thin lad, with thick dark blond hair and large melancholic eyes. His father too had difficulty feeding his family with the produce from his field. His meager peasant farm income was eroded first by floods, then by frost, and finally by drought. If it hadn’t been for the olive trees that took care of their annual requirement for oil and olives, taking care of a small part of their living expenses, the family would surely have died of starvation.

Sarantos’ friend, Iakovos, short and bow-legged, chestnut haired, with a wild unruly mop that reminded one of a bush, twittered, as always, with a permanent smile on his lips, as if life had given him all the bounty in the world. Cunning and mentally agile, in spite of his young age, he would always find a way round any obstacle. His father’s humble hole-in-the-wall shop and its penurious income were never enough to suppress his optimism. Only from time to time would one discern an occasional shadow passing over his eyes to reflect some new worry gnawing at his entrails. He usually drove these thoughts away quickly by uttering some nonsensical comment or by teasing the girls present so that the others would not notice his inner pain.

Dina, dark-complexioned as a gypsy, was an exotic beauty with her almond-shaped eyes and raven black hair; she was taciturn, only taking part in the children’s conversation when it was absolutely necessary. Her father’s taxi managed, to date, to support the family by being on hire even during winter’s cutbacks when customers became few and far between owing to the bitter cold.

Mary, red-haired, with pretty features, already had the makings of a future beauty. Sweet-mannered and retiring, but only superficially so, was well-dressed because her aunt who had emigrated to America sent clothes for her sister’s children. Her elegant and confident bearing made her stand out from the other primary school children. Her father who was the owner of the provincial town’s only pharmacy managed better than his fellow citizens because of the dollars sent every month without fail by his sweet-natured and generous sister-in-law.

The members of the young group were the elite of their school’s class since all of them were top students. The rest of the class had nicknamed them ‘the Gang’ because whatever they did they always did it together, whether this was to achieve distinction in their exams, winning at sports or even when indulging in just some minor mischief as if there was a contract that bound them to act as one.

Today, in a difficult math’s exam, they had perfect scores as they discovered when cross-referencing their answers after leaving their classroom.

“What a pity that these weren’t June’s exams!” said Iakovos. “We would be done, and in four months we would be in high school!”

“Mind you, the four months remaining until the school year is over will be gone before you know it!” said Melina, and the others agreed.

“Let’s go home and have a bite to eat!” suggested Urania whose appetite was legendary. “I’m starving!”

They started off home, dropping off their fellow schoolmates at their houses, one by one. Sarantos was last since his house was on the edge of town in an isolated spot. When the children referred to high school he felt his stomach tighten. He didn’t know how his father would take it if he mentioned that he too wanted to attend since his father kept telling Sarantos he needed hands to help in the fields and that education, for them, was a superfluous luxury because they could not afford to pay labourers to help them in the field. He would have to talk to his father, to prepare him from now and tell him he wanted to go to high school and later to university. He trembled at the thought of his father’s reaction, knowing his views on the subject, but Sarantos was determined to face up to him, come Hell or High Water. He opened the outer gate whose rusted hinges screeched like the angry cry of a cat and he went in.

“Each time he says he will fix the hinges but he does nothing!” the young boy thought, angry at his father for his negligence. The smell of oregano, mint and lavender that his mother had planted in the pots placed in the protected lee of the whitewashed garden wall filled his nostrils. He enjoyed being welcomed by the mixed herb scents because they gave him a sense of belonging, as if they were greeting him in their own way because they recognised him. He walked towards the front door and put the heavy iron key that he removed from the large stone on the right of the entrance into the keyhole. He opened the door, but suddenly stopped. He heard a noise above, as if something was breaking. Then he heard voices, interspersed with the sound of someone quietly crying. The sounds were coming from his parents’ bedroom. The loud, angry voice was his father’s, and the sobbing sounds were from his mother.

“He’s drunk again!” the boy thought bitterly as he stood motionless next to the ancient staircase. The interspersed voices continued for a while. Then silence. A door was slammed shut and his father, pulling up his trousers, appeared at the top of the stairs. He stood there for while, lit a cigarette, and slowly, deliberately, started descending the steps like a man with cramp in his legs. A strong smell of wine permeated the air as if someone had opened a barrel of spirit.

With an expression of disgust Sarantos retired to a dark niche in order not to be seen and fixed his eyes on his father’s outline. Mitsos, tall, light-complexioned, heavily built, somewhat unwieldy at forty three, mercurial and changeable, had deep wrinkles furrowing his brow with prominent veins standing out on his temples and a hooked nose. The scattered red blemishes around his eyes, a result of his alcohol consumption, crooked and tobacco-stained teeth set in a wide sensual mouth that was fleshy, like that of a woman, were witness to the kind of life he led. But his portrait, without a description of his eyes, would be incomplete. Mitsos had the heartless eyes of a man indifferent to those who loved him; they were light blue with a penetrating chill that reflected his inner coldness. His cold gaze betrayed an intense flow of energy that made known his desires and commands. He was a person who was difficult to stand up to and it was easier said than done to refuse to carry out his orders. Was it fear, was it respect or the timidity of the weaker in the presence of a stronger party, or all together, Sarantos did not know. What he did know was that he feared his father and was unable to confront him without aggravating the situation, whether he approached him gently or by raising his small stature in defiance to demand the obvious.

When Sarantos heard the iron garden door closing he ran up the steps and stood under the eve of the open bedroom door with the broken lock that however much his father took to slamming it shut the wooden door would always open again, exposing the interior of the room. His mother was standing next to the edge of the bed fixing her petticoat trying at the same time to tie the belt cord of her dressing gown with which she had tried to cover herself, without success. She turned round and looked at her first-born son. Her expression was one of weariness and despondence; her face was drawn, pale, her full lips trembling, something she tried to hide by biting them when she saw the young boy. Her eyes were wide open and there was a tear on the edge of her long lashes that she clumsily tried to wipe away. The gentle expression of her brown eyes fixed itself on Sarantos’ figure. Her look had the inner light that in some people is bestowed as a gift; a light that despite all the conflicts, disappointments and travails, there are those who in a strange manner manage to keep it going as if this inner flame was kept permanently alight by their soul.

The woman’s look validated the common expression that the eye is the window of the soul and Eleni’s soul was her children, a great source of motivating power that gave her the strength to be patient and to endure; to put up with her drunken husband whose unbridled sexuality tortured her and had become an unbearable yoke. She was unable to struggle against him to resist his constant sexual attacks. His mind, made irrational by wine, didn’t respond to her pleading. “Please, no, the children…!” Nor was he put off by her weak hands’ efforts to restrain him. In his condition her efforts to bring him to his senses, to shame him, were in vain. And yet she had married this man because she had fallen madly in love with him causing a huge rift with her teacher-father and her relatives who couldn’t fathom how the educated only-daughter could find common ground with the rough farmer, even with his, then, masculine good looks. Eleni had carefully hidden her worries from everyone so that she would not hear them say “We told you so, but you knew better”. Her pride had forced her to justify her choice and not to give the others the right to pressure her to take a decision that was, for her, not an option. She didn’t want to be the “town divorcee with three children”, an easy and permanent target for the gossips frequenting the cafés and other gathering places.

From the moment she failed to exercise iron discipline to prevent her companion from taking a second drink after the first one, and after the second, a third, a fourth, and so on, she had to pay for her inability to make a stand against him. Things did not change for her as the years went by. The situation remained the same, with the additional element of an explosion of extreme aggressiveness by her husband whenever she had even the slightest objection to his pressing sexual passion. Thus she swallowed her humiliation, again and again as she was turned into a sexual object, without her consent, without her willing involvement, wounded, feeling cheap and humiliated that the father of her children chose to completely ignore her own desires, her own beliefs, in order to satisfy his insatiable physical appetite. In order to overcome her embarrassment now Eleni started to compulsively clean non-existent dust from the icon of the Virgin Mary in the wall niche. Sarantos felt swamped by a wave of pity. He felt tenderness, a sensation of warmth for his mother Eleni interwoven with love and affection, raising the temperature of every molecule in his body, just as it did when he burned with frustration and anger whenever he overheard the conflicts taking place behind the closed bedroom door. Mother and son looked at one another without saying a word to break the silence in the room, and Sarantos was so wound up by the tension of the anger that fed his desire to do something, anything, to drive out the sadness from his mother’s eyes that his nails, clenched tight in his fists, bloodied his palms without his feeling anything as if this same silence with its pervading presence had contained the rhythm of his outburst. As his mother stood motionless the slanted rays of light that came in from the window made her face appear radiant, and she was so beautiful, despite her sadness and the shame in her eyes, that Sarantos froze in admiration and also in empathy. How could this woman with the angelic profile endure from the time that the boy could remember himself, this unpleasant situation, not reacting, not leaving his father, to find peace and tranquility? These unanswered questions constantly tormented his thoughts and only resulted in causing him permanent agony and stress.

His mother approached him, took his hand, lifting it to her face and pressing it gently against her still wet cheeks to wipe away her tears. Then she embraced him and stroked his unruly hair. They both sat down without speaking on the disordered bed, holding each other’s hand, looking at the objects around them, the mirror, the side table, the table under the window and the glass of water; objects to which the midday light’s play gave a magic dimension as its rays gently touched them. The smooth passing of day’s bright light into the evening’s shadows imbued them with a sensation of an illusion that the gloom of night would hide their secrets, thrusting them into obscure corners, invisible to everyone, corners that nobody would see or discover. They both daydreamed that they were gradually leaving themselves behind to go to another place where something else was waiting for them. The place to which they went was empty and bare, but it was their place of truth, it was their reality - a field of silence, uncultivated, profound, deeper still than their dream of escape which in the end didn’t offer them a way out but acted to strengthen their fortitude and bond.

The companionship of mother and son was able to lift them clear of the impasse, albeit temporarily, and to mitigate the harsh impressions on the person experiencing them and the person who was often the witness. They stood up, still clasping each others’ hand, perfectly synchronized, and squeezed together they descended the staircase to go into the kitchen. Huddled next to the lit fireplace Sarantos two young sisters looked at them with the wisdom of the whole world in their childish eyes. Their mother placed a kiss on each of their foreheads and, late now, started to lay the table. In order to change the mood Sarantos asked his mother “What happened with the school matter, Mother? I want to go to high school. Will you tell him to let me attend? I don’t want to spend my whole life working in the fields!”

His mother looked at him and said “You know your father and how stubborn he is. I promise you though that I’ll do what I can to change his mind. Decisions in this house, Sarantos, are not up to me, but I will try.”

Eleni then filled bowls with steaming hot lentil soup, took some olives out of an earthenware jar, cut several strips of salted tunny fish in oil, and, putting a small wicker basket with freshly baked bread on the table she sat to eat with her children, despite having no desire to consume anything.

CHAPTER 2

Dina and Paulina had agreed that as soon as they ate lunch and finished their homework they would meet in the square. They had heard that Syngelides, the merchant, had acquired a new stock of attractive dresses with elasticized puffed sleeves and thick wasp-nest patterned busts in white, pink and pistachio. The two girls would not, of course, buy one; they only wanted to see and admire them. Looking at the dresses they would lose themselves in the fantasy that they owned them, that the dresses were tight against their skin and were lifted outwards from their legs by stiff petticoats. Since they could not satisfy their desire to own them, at least their eyes would feast on the wonderful colours and the sophistication of the metropolis displayed in their modern design.

At five o’clock in the afternoon they met and, hand in hand, started out for the square. Sofia’s parents hadn’t woken yet from their afternoon siesta and Paulina's mother, the nurse, after a quick midday meal left in a hurry because she had to administer an injection to a patient outside town. When the girls stopped at the emporium they fixed their eyes on the shop window. The three mannequins wearing the dresses were stunningly beautiful and looked so alive that one almost expected them, from moment to moment, to walk through the glass and cross the street. Exclamations of admiration came from the girls' lips; they could not stop looking, and looking again, to choose the colour that suited each one of them.

They stood transfixed for a long time, noting every detail of the dresses, from the hem to the necklines with the elaborate ruffles. Then, silent, and deeply disappointed by the reality that the dresses would never be theirs, they started on their way back home. The cafes were full of men drinking their afternoon coffee, playing gin-rummy and poker. Many of them were sitting outside, despite the bitter cold while the noise of bone dice on backgammon boards inside echoed off the vaulted café roofs. At the other end of the square Paulina saw her mother, Vaggelio, passing by. “My mother, my mother!” she said to Dina, pulling her along in order to catch up. The two girls had gone just a few steps further as Vaggelio was passing in front of the establishment called HOPE, the café that had the most customers at that hour, when a gaggle of men sprang up from their chairs and lined themselves outside the door.

“What happened, Vaggelio? Was it sweet, was it sweet?!” shouted a taxi driver. “Screwing in the middle of the day! You certainly go for it, don’t you!” said the kiosk owner, and one after another the men followed suit with similar comments directed at the nurse. There was a frisson of banter; in seconds even those who were not in on the secret had been made aware of her achievements on previous afternoons. Vaggelio did not have a patient who needed an injection. She had a rendezvous at the grove below the chapel of St Fanourios for a tryst with Stelios, the boatman, a strong two meter-tall youth. Vaggelio was on fire, rushing to be held in Stelios’ embrace, to draw life from the vitality of his youth, to become one with his male presence. A widow from the age of twenty three, she had never managed for even a moment to harness the flame in her body whose insistence to couple with a male hadn’t given her a moment’s rest. Whenever she found a partner to quench her insatiable ardor nothing could stop her, she could hardly see in front of her, blinded as she was by desire. How many times had she switched partners, unconcerned with whether her lover-stud climaxed once, or a dozen times! Men interested her only from their waist down and by how much stamina they exhibited during their coupling. She didn’t want a steady companion because she was quickly bored and demanded new material to enter her voracious, insatiable vagina. Additionally, a permanent liaison, with its restrictions, would cause complications.

Gossip about her was rife in the provincial town but she had sealed her ears. She did not care that she had become the area’s laughing stock. Snide remarks and derision in the cafes were minor annoyances to her. She didn’t even think about the effect of her behaviour on her children, who, at least in the case of her eldest daughter Paulina, who was old enough to hear and to understand the insinuations or the direct comments of their fellow townsfolk such as “Your mother certainly knows how to fuck, doesn’t she?” or “Ask her, when will it be our turn?!” made the girl bow her head, blushing with shame and anger at the crudeness of the comments. The unconscionable speakers made statements that from time to time were excessively rude, never taking into account that Paulina was not even twelve years old yet. Today Vaggelio had gone beyond her usual bounds and met Stelios at the isolated grove, assuming that no one would be around as it was the heart of winter. It was enough for her to wait for nightfall to have the dark as her ally and shield, but her need for sex today was so great that she felt her thighs scorching her. She thought she would die if a man didn’t enter her as soon as possible. When she met Stelios it was with difficulty that she gave him even a kiss. Her hands immediately seized his private parts and violently unbuttoned his trousers. Stelios grabbed her by her hair and threw her down onto the wet ground. He lifted up her blouse to let her full breasts spill out. He pushed his head between them, sucking on her nipples and cupping their roundness. Then, impatiently, he freed the gate to his erotic paradise from her panties and with his penis fully erect, he pushed it into her. A loud cry broke out of Vaggelio’s lips and her body stuck to him like a limpet, fervently following the rhythm of his movements. In spite of the biting cold her forehead was dripping with sweat, brought on by her sexual excitement. Each deep thrust made her cries even louder, bringing her ever closer to a climax. And when her orgasm convulsed her she felt as if a bolt of lightning had been released inside her, and instead of ashes, it left, as it ebbed, a slaking of her desire, a soothing retreating sensation of sweetness. Stelios climaxed with a groan and whispered “You are mine, you are my woman!” But Vaggelio didn’t even hear him. Then he lay down resting on his elbow next to her with his hands fondling her breasts which had tipped sideways. Absorbed by the whirlwind of their passion they had not noticed two intruders in the nearby thick bushes who were watching the heaven-sent spectacle, a sight that was so exciting for them that their hands tried to give themselves relief, initially by stroking their fully erect members, and then by movements that were in rhythm with those of the two stuck-together lovers’ bodies. When self-gratification had brought release from their fired-up state they pulled up their trousers and impertinently appeared next to the couple lying on the ground, saying “To your health!” and hurried away before Stelios had a chance to stand up and give them a good hiding.

“Oh, My God!” Vaggelio said as soon as she saw the village witnesses, clumsily trying to cover her nakedness. “They’ll make a laughing stock of us in the village.”

Stelios replied “It’s a pity I didn’t manage to catch those two bastards. I would have fixed them in no time! But what is done is done.”

Vaggelio thought for a few moments about what would follow and then stoically accepted the situation. It wasn’t as if this would be the first time that everyone would have been gossiping about her and that her amorous activities would be the talking point in all of the town cafes. Coming to terms with the state of affairs she turned and started to stroke Stelios’ crotch to excite him so he could take her on another journey to a sensual place that had become the very reason for her existence.

When Vaggelio was done with her sexual activities with Stelios, sated, she started homeward. The only thing that bothered her was that to go home she would have to cross the square. She knew that at this moment the cafes were all full and that the voyeurs would already have broadcast the news to the others, leaving out of course, their own reaction to the spectacle they had witnessed.

“We caught Stelios on top of Vaggelio in the Ayios Fanouris’ wood!” They said, hurrying to let everyone present in on the stirring details.

The news travelled like fire in a tinder dry forest. And just wait until the evening when all of those present would be back home for dinner and would let their wives know about the incident! It would be then that the whole village would be abuzz. The women would stigmatize, for the umpteenth time, the immoral behavior of Vaggelio, saying “the woman has no shame and makes her children objects of ridicule! Let the Lord protect us from females like that!”

The truth is that if the village had other equally skilful nurses like Vaggelio the housewives wouldn’t have let her past their front doors. But she had such a light hand coupled with the depth of her nursing experience and knowledge, that the old, the children and the sick all needed her skills! Two or three housewives who tried to replace her with other nurses deeply regretted it when they saw the replacements’ lack of expertise and rough bedside manners when dealing with the family member who was ill. Her eagerness, her infinite patience with bad-tempered patients and her gentle manner towards all those who were ill, as well as her immediate response to any call for help, whether by day or night, made her irreplaceable. They may have scorned her and been “ashamed on her behalf” as they liked to say in their conversations, but in their hour of need they always called for Vaggelio, diluting, of necessity, their scorn and contempt for her.

Paulina and Dina had arrived at the front of the cafes and didn’t miss a word of the mockery and vulgar remarks coming from the café clientele directed at Vaggelio. Paulina was so agitated that her heart almost stopped. Her cheeks, from shame, became awash in a deep crimson colour and tears brimmed in her eyes. She wanted the pavement to split open up and swallow her up to save her from the public humiliation; she craved to be the victim of a sudden heart attack and drop down dead to stop the filth that she was hearing, dirt that her own mother had put in the tormentors’ mouths with her unbridled behaviour. Her wishes weren’t realised. Her mother was now in front of her with the men cat-calling and mocking her and Paulina felt herself overflowing with hate. Hate for her mother and hate for her unrelenting village compatriots. Vaggelio, beaming, as if she had not heard a word of what her fellow villagers were saying, said to the young girls. “Where to my girls? Out for a walk?”

Dina replied, “Yes!” Paulina, with her eyes overflowing, cast a bitter look at her mother, a look containing a world of accusation, and, skirting her, she ran off to hide at home, leaving the two others to stare after her. With an embarrassed “Goodbye” Dina walked away and Vaggelio started on her way home. When she arrived she saw Paulina sobbing loudly on the settee. She put her hand on her daughter’s shoulder. Paulina turned from her and pushed it away in disgust.

“Don’t you dare touch me! Don’t you touch me!” shrieked the young girl. “You made a fool of me with your filthy actions! I don’t want to know you! I’m ashamed to have you for a mother!”

Vaggelio did not react to Paulina’s violent outburst. “Let her talk! She’s still young!” she said to herself. “When she grows up, she will understand what nature is!” Vaggelio identified her own insatiable passion with the desires of other people, considering that everyone felt the same pressing demands of the flesh that she did but that the others were hypocritical, concealing their true nature from others with a mask of righteousness and abundant insincerity. The use of their own body was their God-given right Vaggelio felt regarding her own expressions of passion. To have sex was for her a completely natural function since she was in the prime of her life and was deaf to criticism, to mockery, to contempt and the unending gossip around her. She knew that she could not tame her body that regularly rebelled, demanding to instantly couple with a male, no matter what difficulty lay before her to achieve this.

“Let them look at their own mess!” she muttered whenever a new piece of gossip was making the rounds and the village was buzzing about her. “If I opened my mouth, many of these “respectable” homes would be wrecked” she said to herself. The only thing that bothered her was that her children were growing up and were reacting intensely to the bitter gossip, but she had no way to calm them and to make them accept her way of life. On the other hand she had no intention of curbing her sexual activities because they were far beyond her control. Men were the beginning and end of everything in her life, a panacea for the uncontrollable desires that, when they took over, made her sick with longing.

Dina, Paulina’s friend, returned home, her melancholy mood reflected in her eyes. She felt infinite pity after observing her friend’s bitterness during the episode in the square despite not having quite understood what all the fuss was about and why the men were saying rude words to Paulina’s mother, Vaggelio. “What did she do to them to make them so nasty to her?” the girl wondered. “Did she kill their fathers or mothers?”

Much as she searched in her mind she couldn’t find an answer that justified the virulence of the public attack against Vaggelio. Her mother, seeing Dina’s dark mood, asked her, “What happened Dina to upset you? Didn’t you like the dresses in the shops, or was it that we can’t afford to buy one. You know we don’t have money for extras, my child.”

“No, no!” the young girl replied. “There’s nothing wrong. I didn’t even think of buying the dress. It’s just that I am tired and I realised just now that I haven’t drawn the map of Magnesia Province for class, and I am too tired to do it!”

Under no circumstances would Dina embarrass her friend by describing to her mother the unfortunate incident in the square. There was also the risk that her mother would get angry and not allow Dina to go out in public with her fellow student. She, however, was very attached to Paulina and did not want to be deprived of her companionship. Dina rushed to her desk and sat down to draw, trying to put out of her mind the events that had shaken her up that afternoon.

Mary, the chemist’s daughter, went by her father’s pharmacy to meet him and accompany him home. She always enjoyed this mid-day walk in his company because they had the opportunity to talk, despite his telling her off often for things that she got up to because of her restless nature which was diametrically opposed to the impression given by her innocent and reserved facial expression. In spite of the fact that she had been smacked often whenever she had gone beyond the limits of “proper behavior” she bore him no malice. She knew that it was her fault and that her parents had to discipline her. When she became stubborn and words had no effect her tongue became as sharp as a razor, as her mother would observe, since the young girl would frequently talk back, and then a slap or two would be enough to bring her to order, until the next time, and the next.

The chemist’s household was a happy one. Penelope, the mother, was an able housewife and a good wife and parent. Additionally she was very presentable, a brunette with a gentle and sweet beauty. The lives of the family ticked by like the workings of a well wound-up clock. If Mary, her eldest daughter, were less unruly and did not upset her so often with a rebellious nature which refused to willingly succumb to her parents’, or others’, every orders, things would have been quieter at home because there wouldn’t be any conflicts. But, you see, neither advice nor physical punishment seemed enough to restrain Mary, who, whenever she set her mind on something, would turn the world upside down to do it - like the other day when she had slipped out of the house and went alone to a fair at a neighbouring village, 5 kilometers from their own town. The family had spent hours looking for her. Everyone was out in search of her. It was well after dark when someone who knew Mary saw her wandering about, admiring the goods on sale at the stalls, and hurried to inform her father. She got the beating of her life, but never once said the word “Sorry”. She had done what she wanted and the consequences had been expected, but were of no importance to her.

Urania, entering the hall of the old two-storey house where she lived, flared her nostrils inquisitively two or three times as she always did when she returned from school to identify from its smell the food her mother had cooked. Today her nose picked up the aroma of freshly-fried fish. She smacked her lips in pleasure and ran up the stairs, two steps at a time. She rushed into the kitchen. The large table had already been laid and her three siblings were in their chairs, snatching at fried potatoes piled on a dish in front of them. The sight of a mound of tantalizing freshly-cooked red mullet with their crisply fried crust tickled her appetite, and, of course, the presence of the essential wild greens and freshly home baked bread supplemented and completed the fare on the family table.

Maria, Urania’s mother, with her talent for organization and budget management skills succeeded in feeding her family and paying domestic bills, in spite of her high school headmaster-husband, Yannis Ioannides’ small salary. This was no mean achievement, taking into consideration that there were six mouths to be fed, beyond other needs for food, school supplies, essential house cleaning goods and whatever else a family needed in order to merely manage. The only help the small family budget had was from the family olive grove and vegetable garden which Maria, with her talented hands, planted and tended herself. No money to hire a field hand! She spent an hour or two every day working in the cultivated field securing the family’s annual olive oil supply and abundant provisions of fresh fruit and vegetables.

Maria’s appearance was usually reserved and strict. Her smile rarely reached her eyes and there was always a shadow deep inside them. It was the result of a dark secret that for years she had concealed far inside herself and was not about to confide to anyone, ever. She remembered, as if it were just yesterday, that night on the island of Aegina. She was engaged to marry Yannis in two months time. In August she had gone with her parents to Aegina to see her bedridden grandmother, Maria, before marrying Yannis and moving with him to the provincial town where her fiancé had beenassigned to a post, and she wanted to stay for a short while with the old woman. She didn’t know whether she would be able to visit her later because of how difficult it was to travel in those days, as well as not knowing what the conditions would be for her as a married woman. Three days later her parents left but she stayed on until the end of the week to look after her grandmother until the woman who took care of the old lady came back from an unscheduled trip to the town of Lamia where her eldest daughter had just given premature birth to her first child.

It was a warm and pleasant August evening. Her grandmother had dropped off to sleep and Maria went out for a walk to get some fresh air and relax from the fatigue of the day. It was a pity to go to bed and not to take in the magic of the full moon, the cool breeze coming in from the sea, and the sensation of her bare feet sinking into the sand as she walked along the beach. The scent of jasmine and the night flower bush coming from her grandmother’s garden just twenty meters from the shore filled her nostrils. She walked slowly along the beach and sat on a tall rock absorbing the incomparable beauty of the landscape around her; a setting gilded by the rays of the full moon that ploughed a shiny path across the dark water, as far into the distance as she could see.

She was enjoying the sensation of having the whole bay to herself and of being mistress of this corner of paradise. But she was wrong. She was not alone. There was another claimant to the dark kingdom with its silver highlights. A few meters away the glow of a cigarette intermittently lit up and went out. When Maria noticed the presence of the unwelcome intruder into her world she jumped up in fright. The man realized that his presence had startled the woman and shouted out to her, “Don’t be afraid. I came here, like you, to take in the magic of the evening!”

He approached her and introduced himself.

“Demosthenes Andreopoulos, civil engineer. I am from Salonika and I am in charge of supervising public works on the island.” He stretched out his hand and Maria felt herself obliged to give him hers, more from embarrassment than from any desire to do so.

“Maria Iakovou. I’m staying with my grandmother at that small house you can see there.”

They shook hands firmly, examining one another with curiosity. He was tall, athletic in build, with strong masculine features, thick brown hair, with a piercing look that seemed to look onto her soul. She, slim and dark-complexioned, with almond eyes like those of a gypsy, almost as tall as he, had a full mouth and an upturned nose that gave her face a mischievous look.

“A good-looking girl,” thought Demosthenes to himself.

“Manly and good looking!” Maria noted silently.

They sat down a little further along on a flat outcropping of rocks by the beach and started talking as if they had known each other for years. Was it the magic of the night, was it that they were all alone in the isolated dream-like cove, was it the concurrence of a fateful encounter that opened their hearts and loosened their tongues making them confide their deepest personal secrets without any inhibitions? Neither of them could say. Maria told him that she was about to enter into an arranged marriage with Yannis, who was a very nice man, and Demosthenes told her that he was married and had two children. He had married Martha when they were fellow students at university and he got her pregnant. His conscience had not allowed him to abandon her or to demand she have an abortion. Neither option was acceptable at the time owing to the then prevailing social attitudes. He did his duty, without having those feelings that, according to him, were necessary, and on which a proper marriage should be built - physical attraction and a deep love that would last for a lifetime. He respected Martha, adored his children, but he totally lacked the excitement of feeling that his wife was a part of his body and soul.

Demosthenes felt the physical presence of Maria invading every cell of his body. He felt a flush that made him dizzy and, needing to explain its disturbing effects on him, he justified his reaction, attributing it to the temptation of the night, to the salt scent of the sea, to relief at being finally able to confess the truth regarding his marriage about which he had spoken now for the first time in ten years, and moreover, to a woman who was a total stranger to him. A stranger? Why then did he feel her so close to him, so warm, so attractive to the very depths of his being? And Maria in her turn could not understand why she kept snatching glances of admiration at his profile, why could she herself feel the swelling of his well-exercised chest each time he drew on his cigarette without her facing him? She was too innocent and inexperienced to understand the age-old primordial workings of nature that now made her body and heart begin to respond to secret commands.

At some moment Demosthenes’ hand accidentally touched hers in the dark. An electric-like impulse passed through his body into Maria, in a split second, like lightning. Neither of them pulled away. They turned towards one another, looked into each others’ eyes, and their lips met in a kiss. Their breathing became deeper and after the first kiss there was another and another. Without saying a word Demosthenes picked her up from the rock and put her down on the sand. His hand slid onto her breast, to her stomach, and then he lifted her dress over her head. Impatiently he pulled at her underwear and started to stroke her naked body. She shuddered with each caress. It was the first time that she had not wanted to resist a man’s advances. She begged him not to stop exploring her body with his hard mouth. In a little while his hands pushed her legs apart and his strong member entered her. Maria let out a cry that for a moment restrained Demosthenes, but she immediately pulled him forcefully on top of her, urging him to continue. Their bodies, united, moved in a wild wavelike rhythm while their groans could be heard above the splashing of the waves. Demosthenes, lost in ecstasy, tried to hold back his climax which was about to erupt, waiting until Maria had reached her peak. He felt her vagina squeezing him, squeezing him, followed by a loud moan signaling satisfaction at her release. Demosthenes let loose his desire inside her with such force that it almost made him faint. Then he lay down next to her, clasping her tightly to his chest.

When he got his breath back he lit a cigarette and stroking her hair he whispered, “Did I hurt you Maria? It was your first time, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, Demosthenes, it was my first time and it was wonderful!” she replied, kissing him on his neck. A little later Maria, without any reserve, stroked his penis until it became as hard as steel. He re-entered her, triumphantly, and their bodies were soon flooded by supreme satisfaction.

Dawn was breaking when exhausted from their all-night embraces and with their bodies soaked in sweat, despite the morning chill, they pulled themselves apart. Naked as they were, they went into the water to wash off the damp residue of their night of love. Wet and trembling from the cold of the dawn air they put on their clothes, hugged, and kissed each other goodbye. There was no need for any elucidation at that moment. The adventure was about to end with the coming appearance of the first rays of the sun that in a little while would dissolve the magic of the evening. For the passion that had given them such satisfaction there was no tomorrow. They would each follow a private path back to their responsibilities and obligations.

Demosthenes watched Maria walking away until she disappeared behind the wooden garden gate of her house. He felt a tightening in his heart and a bitter taste in his mouth. He had unexpectedly stumbled on the Ultimate, and he had lost it, without having the right to pursue his claim. With a deep sigh he started on his way back with his mind and soul stamped with the image of Maria who had become his wife, his ideal and inestimable companion, for just one night.

Back at her grandmother’s house, Maria, lying fully clothed on her bed, brought back to mind, again and again, every moment, every word, and every movement of the dreamlike night. She pinched herself to make sure she was awake, that it wasn’t an illusion, that everything that had happened was real. It didn’t bother her that she had given herself so easily to a stranger, offering him her virginity. If she had a hundred virginities she would have sacrificed them for the indescribable fulfillment she had experienced. Neither did she think about her fiancé, Yannis, nor about his reaction when in two months time he would probably discover that someone else had reaped the fruit of her harvest. Respecting her innocence and her virginal shyness, all Yannis had enjoyed until then were some kisses and a few embraces. At this very moment, no external circumstance, no social restraint could spoil the pleasure springing from the echo of her happiness and the relaxation she felt in her body, sated as it was with love.

A shadow would be cast over the memory of that strange evening the next month when Maria returned to Athens and vainly waited for her period. The strong and uncontrollable passion in Aegina had borne fruit. The odd thing was that the thought of an abortion never entered her mind, even for a moment. Her bizarre stubbornness carried the risk of exposing her. She started desperately looking for solutions beyond the only logical one, an abortion. She decided to confide in her cousin, Myrto, the “fast” one of the family who kept others’ secrets safer than if they were in a bank vault. Myrto, so full of charm and coquetterie and the joy of life, didn’t give a hoot about the constant criticism from her family circle that often stigmatized her “unbridled”, as they called it, behaviour, and her frequent switches of sexual partners that made her relatives bow their heads in shame for the lost lamb of their clan. Good-natured Myrto had solutions for all of their amorous entanglements. When she found out about Maria’s doings she advised her cousin to keep the baby, and since she was about to get married, to present the child as Yanni’s. Maria was horrified when she first heard the proposal. She did not want to deceive her fiancé, but, word after word, Myrto convinced her that there was no other way. “Nobody,” she said, again and again, “can be hurt by things they do not know.”

She repeated it so many times that Maria succumbed to her advice.

Maria married Yannis and seven months later she gave birth to her “premature” daughter, Urania. Myrto had fixed the problem with the obstetrician convincing him that with his collusion he was saving a potential victim from the wrath of her relatives who would severely punish Maria who had strayed from the narrow path. Yannis did not for a moment have any doubts about his premature daughter, on the contrary, he concentrated all his love and devotion on the two women in his life. The arrival of a second daughter, and later the birth of twin sons completed his circle of happiness. Maria was an exemplary mother and wife and ran her household with perfect order and discipline. No one ever learned her secret and no one would learn it in the future. Only at night when she felt the lukewarm embraces of Yannis did her mind travel to that enchanted August evening brimming over with sexual passion and her body sought that urge, that intoxicating sense of excitement that was now only a distant and priceless memory. She knew she would never again experience such sexual tension, never would her body seek with an almost obsessive desire to have a male enter and pull her apart as Demosthenes had done then. On the one hand she was lucky because Yannis did not notice, or pretend he did not notice, that someone else had beaten him to the looting of her vaginal passage, and Maria was grateful for his discretion.

When her schoolmates left Melina at her doorstep she entered the dilapidated two room house where the six members of her family lived. Her mother, on her knees, was brushing the wooden floorboards with ochre. Despite the freezing February cold, beads of sweat stood out on her forehead. Each time she stretched her hands forward to spread the mixture on the planks “Ohhh…Ohhh” sounds came from her lips, but that which made the girl’s heart tighten was the expression of sorrow in her mother’s eyes. The endurance of a lifetime of tribulation was focused in that look, or was it despair? How many times had Melina not seen that same expression when watching her mother examine the three kitchen cupboards, looking for something to cook for her family on those days when her father’s wage had not entered the family purse because no one had hired his cart? The pitiable woman tried to dilute the trachana or the rice soup to make it suffice for all the mouths she had to feed. Melina observed her mother time and time again when with her back bent she washed the family’s clothes on the washboard out in the yard in the severe cold in the middle of winter or in the scorching heat of summer, rubbing, rubbing, rubbing, with caustic ash powder until her hands were on the verge of bleeding.

They never opened up their house on a feast day nor did a visitor ever cross their threshold. They didn’t have the money to buy the essentials for those occasions. And Melina was envious then, during festive days, to see the illuminated houses of others with people coming and going, music pouring out of open windows, and her smelling the tantalizing aromas of food that made her stomach gurgle in protest at her deprivation. Melina, out of pride, never accepted invitations, knowing that she could not reciprocate. She cried to herself from time to time and on other occasions became furious at her family’s wretchedness, hurling anathema at their poverty and realizing that her grandmother’s constant solace “let us be happy that we have our health!” sounded empty to her ears, and was anything but consoling.

“Is there an illness worse than poverty?” wondered the young girl. “Is there worse torture that an empty stomach, the overcoat you don’t own, frozen hands and feet when the winter brazier dies out because there is no more coal? Money is the cure, the only cure! Without it you are nothing and others see you as nothing!”

Many similar thoughts found a nest in Melina’s mind, as if she was a grown-up woman, and they verged on becoming an obsession. The worry and humiliation with which she watched her family suffering like Christ on the Cross, but without hope for the future, was killing her. She preferred not to have been born because she could not put up with this daily anguish from as far back as she could remember. She couldn’t bear seeing her underweight siblings getting up from meals with their stomachs still half empty, and young Melina pursed her lips, promising herself she would put her life in order one day at any cost.