Let the Games Begin (10 page)

On the opposite side of the road a long snake of queued traffic stood unmoving and restless, honking horns and flashing headlights. Storm drains vomited grey torrents that ran impetuously along the pavements. All the roads, lanes and shortcuts that led to the historical centre were manned by groups of traffic police with hi-viz raincoats and traffic paddles, trying to stem the flow of cars. It looked like an exodus from a city under a bomb threat.

Fabrizio made his way between the cars and slipped into the first lane that appeared before him. He popped out in a little square where two guys had gotten out of their cars and were shoving each other over a free parking space. The two girlfriends, both blondes, both dressed like Versace models, were screaming from the car windows.

‘Enrico! Can't you see he's a dickhead? It's useless.'

‘Franco! It's not worth it, he's a piece of shit.'

Fabrizio walked by without even deigning to glance at them. He came at last to Via Coronari.

What a nightmare
.

But it was over, he had made it.

 

17

‘And so you don't want to make love to me?'

Serena opened one eye. To be able to fall asleep, she had taken twenty-five drops of sleeping medication. She raised her head slightly and saw the dark shadow of her husband at the bedroom door.

‘What do you want?' she mumbled, feeling the bittersweet
taste of benzodiazepine on her numb tongue. ‘Can't you see I'm sleeping? Are you looking for an argument?'

‘You said that you don't want to make love to me.'

‘Give it up. Leave me alone. I'm telling you . . .' she brushed him off, sinking her head back on the pillow. Despite her sleepiness, one part of Serena's brain noticed that Saverio's voice sounded different, very confident. And it wasn't like him to face her in such a direct way.
That idiot must be drunk
. She began scratching around in the drawer in the bedside table for her eye mask and ear plugs. She had spent the whole day in Rome looking for a potter's wheel and she was whacked. She did not feel like getting into an argument.

‘Go on, say it again. Go on, if you've got the guts, say you don't want to make love to me.'

‘I don't want to make love to you. Are you happy now?'

She found the eye mask.

‘You prefer to be fucked by the guys from the dispatch office, don't you?'

Now he was overdoing it. He needed to be put in his place. She pulled herself up and growled: ‘Have you gone crazy? How dare you? I'm gonna . . .' But she couldn't say any more because, despite having the light from the corridor in her eyes, it looked to her like Saverio was naked and . . .
No, I don't believe it . . . He's shaved his hair off
. A shiver ran up her spinal cord.

‘Do you know what they say to me each time I go down into the warehouse? That you could be a porn star. And they're not that far off, after all, considering how you dress. You are such a slut! You are so slutty that you say that fucking is vulgar, but then you get a boob job.' And then he burst into howling laughter.

Serena was frozen stiff. She wasn't even breathing. Her heart was beating like crazy and the blood was humming in her veins. There was something not quite right with her husband.
And it wasn't because he'd suddenly become jealous or because he'd cut his hair. Yes, these were worrying symptoms. But the thing that terrorised her was his voice. It had changed. It didn't sound like him. It was deep and mean. And that mean laugh, like a psychopath's, like a man possessed.

Serena Mastrodomenico had always been aware that sooner or later her husband was going to snap. He was frustrated. Too downtrodden, too remissive, too nice with everyone. She liked him that way. He reminded her of those dray horses that pull the carriage and take beatings for their whole lives and then die, cut-down with fatigue. Deep inside, though, she knew that Saverio carried in him a hell that burned day and night. And she loved teasing him, to see how much he could stand, and whether every now and then he would let off a blast of anger. In ten years of marriage, it had never happened.

But it's happening now, for fuck's sake
.

She remembered that film. It was the story of a model employee, with a perfect family, who gets stuck in traffic, lets go of the brakes and starts massacring people with a pump-action shotgun. Her husband was exactly the same as that guy.

Saverio moved slowly towards the bed.

‘You don't know me, Serena. You have no idea what I am capable of. You believe you know everything, but you know nothing.'

Serena saw that her husband was holding the sword. She let out a little scream and pushed herself against the wall.

‘Shut up! Shut up! You'll wake the babies! Ahhh . . . Exactly! Let's talk about babies. You think I don't know why you insisted we go in vitro? It's not because of our age. You thought I ate all that bollocks about our age. No! It's because I disgust you so much.' Saverio raised his arms, and the sword, showing off his nudity. ‘Go on, tell me. Am I that disgusting?'

Serena Mastrodomenico was no expert on psychotic syndromes, despite having attended the two-year university course in Psychology. But popular wisdom suggested that you should always agree with a psycho. And in that moment it seemed to be the most appropriate behaviour.

‘No . . . No . . . Of course you aren't disgusting,' she stuttered, surprised that she still had breath to speak with. ‘Listen to me, Saverio. Lay down the sword. I'm sorry for what I said to you.' She swallowed. ‘You know that I love you . . .'

He began to shake, overwhelmed by laughter. ‘No . . . You're too much, please . . . Now you've gone too far. You love me! You love me? That's the first time I've heard you say it since I met you. Not even when I gave you the engagement ring, did you say it. You asked me if you could exchange it.' He turned his heard towards the window, as if someone was there. ‘Do you get it? Do you get what it takes to be loved by your own wife? And they say that marriage is a tradition in crisis.'

She had to run for it. The window that opened onto the balcony was closed and the venetian blinds were down. And even if she managed to open it, they were on the third floor, and below was the tarmac of the car park. If she screamed for help, he would hit her with the sword. The only thing left to do was to beg for mercy and call on the good old Saverio, who had to be hidden somewhere inside the sick mind of this schizophrenic.

But that was unthinkable. In forty-three years, Serena had never asked anyone for mercy. Not even the Orsoline nuns who hit her on the knuckles with a ruler. Serena Mastrodomenico's personality had been forged according to the strict Lutheran ethics of the Thyrolean Masters of the Axe. Papa, who had spent his youth as an apprentice in a carpentry factory in Brunico, had told her that the most precious woods snapped but never bent.

And you, my darling star, are as hard and precious as ebony.
And you will never let anyone walk all over you. Not even your husband. Promise me. Yes, Daddy, I promise
.

And so there was no way she would beg mercy of that useless bloodsucking piece of shit Saverio Moneta, son of a modest Osram factory worker and an uneducated housewife. She had cleaned him up, she had let him into her bed, she had got her saintly father to accept him, she had welcomed his worm-eaten sperm to make children with, and now that very man was threatening her with a sword.

Serena grabbed the alarm clock from the bedside table and threw it at him, grinding her teeth: ‘Fuck you! Kill me! Come on, if you've got the guts. I'm not scared of you, you cockroach without balls!' And she gestured with her hands for him to come towards her.

 

18

The building where Margherita Levin Gritti lived was old and elegant, with a large entryway that hid a small door.

Fabrizio Ciba pushed the gold-coloured intercom button. A spotlight placed on top of a video camera shot a ray of light straight into his eyes. His teeth chattered as he waited half a minute before buzzing again. He looked at his watch. Ten past midnight.

From a stochastic point of view, it was highly improbable that she wasn't in. It just wasn't possible to line up this much bad luck in one thing after another. It would have been like throwing dice and getting seven ten times in a row.

He held down the button. ‘Answer! Answer! Wake up!'

And, thank God, a voice answered: ‘Who is it? Fabrizio, is that you?'

‘Yes, it's me. Let me in,' he said towards the eye of the video camera.

‘What are you doing here, at this time of night?' She sounded incredulous.

‘Let me up. I'm soaked.'

The woman didn't speak, then: ‘I can't . . . Not tonight. I'm sorry.'

‘What do you mean?' Fabrizio couldn't believe his ears.

‘I'm sorry . . .'

‘Listen, something seriously terrible has happened. Martinelli want to give me the flick. Let me in,' he ordered. ‘I'm not here to have sex.'

‘I
am
having sex.'

‘What, you're having sex? I don't believe it!'

‘Why can't you believe it? What do you mean?' His agent's voice tensed.

‘Nothing, nothing. Right, don't worry, let me in anyway. I'll fill you in quickly, dry off and call a taxi.'

‘Use your mobile to call.'

‘You know I don't use a mobile. Listen, you stop fucking for a moment and then you pick up again after. It's no big deal.'

‘Fabrizio, you don't realise what you're saying.'

Ciba felt the anger expand inside his guts. ‘You are the one who doesn't realise! Look at me, for fuck's sake!' He opened his arms wide. ‘I'm soaked! I could get pneumonia. I feel sick! Open this bloody door, for fuck's sake!'

His agent's voice was firm. ‘Call me tomorrow morning.'

‘So you're not going to let me in?'

‘No! I mean it, I'm not letting you in.'

Fabrizio Ciba exploded. ‘Right, you know what that means? Fuck you! Fuck you and your pathetic woman-friend. I know it's the poetess, who else would it be? Whatever the fuck her
name is . . . Whatever, the two of you can both fuck right off, you big fat lesbians. You're fired.'

He walked off, kicking parked cars.

 

19

What a woman! What a lioness!

Saverio Moneta had always known that his wife had balls, but he didn't think she'd go so far. She was willing to risk her life to put up a fight. That's exactly why he'd decided to marry her. His father and his mother, and all of his relatives (even the ones from Benevento, who had only seen her once), had warned him that she wasn't right for him. She was spoiled, she would henpeck him, squash him, cut him down to the level of a Filipino servant. But he hadn't paid attention to anyone and married her.

He stretched out the sword and pointed it at her throat. ‘And so you're not afraid?'

‘No! You make me sick!' Serena spat at him.

Saverio smiled as he wiped his cheek. ‘Huh, so I make you sick.' He slipped the tip of the Durendal in the buttonhole of the night dress, and with a flick of his wrist he clipped off the top button.

Serena was tense, her painted red claws ready to scratch him.

‘Now I'm going to kill you.' Saverio clipped off the second button on her night dress. Her boobs, as big as two cantaloupes, with their small dark nipples scared into pointyness, appeared in all their synthetic splendour.

‘What are you doing? You sicko! Don't you dare . . .' hissed Serena, her eyes two dark slits.

Saverio placed the blade beneath her throat and pushed her
up against the headboard. ‘Quiet! Be quiet! I don't want to hear your voice.'

‘You're worthless.'

He grabbed her by the hair and held her head down on the pillow. Then he flung the sword away and with his right hand squeezed her neck like one would a poisonous serpent, before throwing himself full force on top of her.

‘So, now what are you going to do? What you gonna do? You can't move. You can't scream. You're scared, aren't you? Admit it, you're scared.'

Serena didn't give in. ‘I'm not scared of anyone.'

Saverio realised he had a roaring erection and he wanted her like crazy. ‘I'm going to show you . . .' He ripped her pants off and bit her on the buttock. ‘I'm going to show you who's boss here.'

A suffocated scream came out of the pillow. ‘If you try it, I swear on our children I'll kill you.'

‘Kill me! Kill me, go on. I don't give a shit about my life anyway.'

He pushed her legs open and slid a hand between her thighs. He made room and penetrated her sharply. His dick sunk inside her right up to her boiling guts.

Like a cat gone crazy, she pulled her arm free and with a flash of her claws scratched four bloody stripes across his chest.

‘You're raping me, you pig. I hate you . . . You don't know how much I hate you . . .'

Saverio, high on pain, was pumping away desperately. His head spun as the blood swirled in his ear drums.

Serena had managed to lift her face from the pillow and mumble, ‘Stop it! You make me sick . . . You make me . . .' She was unable to go on because she began to arch her back, offering herself to Saverio.

Saverio realised that he had done it. The slut was enjoying it. Today was his day!

But now there was a problem. At that crazy speed, he wouldn't be able to hold out long. He could feel the orgasm climbing the tendons of his legs. It bit into his thigh muscles and, unperturbed by his own will, it was aiming straight for his arsehole and his balls. He thought of Sting. That son of a whore, Sting, who could apparently fuck for four hours straight without coming. How did he do it? He remembered that in an interview the English rock star explained that he learned the technique from a group of Tibetan monks . . . Something like that. Anyway, it was all a question of breathing.

Saverio, holding himself up with one hand on his wife's scapula and the other against the wall, began breathing in and out like a dodgy outboard motor, trying to slow the rhythm.