Little Satin Dress | outlines
He says I am beautiful. So shall we find a room?
Now it is midnight, but I take my time. The haze and the summer air enwraps me — light satin clinging to sweaty skin. I wonder if it made me more appealing. If these shadows could sneak within my body and make up for all that I lacked. Had I bit my lips to make them look redder. Had I appeared less fragile. Had I eaten something.
I lean against the street-post, under the shadow of the basilica. I wonder if the iodine flush of the vapour lamps made my skin look darker. More exotic — like one of those Maltese girls in the magazines. Maria tells me, when she takes me on her walks, that my eyes are too sharp, my face too rigid. So then — let the shadows play their tricks — and conceal all of these blemishes— melt them all away for the men who might want me.
I am late, and I wonder if Valentino is home already. His dusty coat draped across the armchair outside. His hand bringing a razor to that haggard face. His arguments with old lady Fatíma from across the window. Turn off the damn radio now, will you? The bedroom lights that wouldn’t stop humming and flickering. The bottle of daffodils on my bedside. And I feel a small kernel of warmth smouldering in my chest.
It is not easy; he says to me in the dark, our breaths all mingled. His hands are soft, and he whispers sweet things to me. Not like the morose gentlemen from the street, whose eyes flash and lips curl with horrible silence as we lie labouring in the sheets. No — Valentino says he loves me. He promises, that this will soon pass over. All will soon pass over.
Oh, and the stories he tells me: beyond these flaking plaster walls, of miles and miles of railroad that cut through rocky crags and careen along the jagged sapphire coast, of Venetian gondolas, of Paris lights. Not tinged with horrible orange like these lamps, but green and purple and blue and white. But lately he has been late. From work, he says. From errands that take him deep into the night. And sometimes he sits at the window and gazes outside — like one of the gargoyles Nana pointed out to me when she took me to St. Peters. Eyes all glassy and distant — dead men’s eyes, as she used to call it.
The light dissipates and a shadow darkens across my eyelids. I start awake. I find the eyes of a stranger — for how long he stood here I do not know. I am sorry to keep him waiting. He contemplates me. He slips a cigarette from his pocket, and I catch a flash of his eyes in the lighter. He says I am beautiful. I smile the best I could. Shall we find a room?
Valentino, the gondolas and the lights — they drift away like a thin line of smoke, up, up and into the summer night. His promises, like cigarette ashes, burn bright and fall faintly onto my cheek. This man’s breath smells of grappa and tobacco. I guide his hands. Taci — Sir, be gentle. So I invite him into the shadow.
