Distract my hunger (3 page)

CHAPTER 2

The Awakening

I
was raised by a couple in southern Spain since my third year of age when my parents died in a car accident. I never knew the rest of my family (if any existed by the time I set my thoughts on it) and I never tried to find them either. When both my parents died I was entrusted by a judge to a couple of my father’s friends who were specified in his Will, they were diplomats such as my dad was and that is why we lived in Spain for some time. I was born somewhere in Asia (maybe in Japan, maybe in Hong Kong . . . I’m not really sure where) even though I know my parents were German; and that is almost all the knowledge I have of them. I took a glimpse of my birth certificate once, but I never really cared much about it. I do not even recall my birthmother’s name.

My foster parents were not the protective kind; they were actually the complete opposite. I could even say they were quite absent throughout most of my childhood and teens.

They had no other children, and I honestly believe that they never actually intended to have any: I guess I was a quite unexpected “gift” they had no real option but to accept.

My step mother, Greta, was a real futilitarian. She was always ready to go to any party she happened to be invited, and she was simply invited to tons of them. Her frivolous interests never went deep enough to actually care about my whereabouts: that is of course if I wasn’t doing something that could attract on her the wrong kind of attention. So as long as I had that in mind, my freedom was absolute.

She made sure I always looked pretty and polished. I was a cute kid I guess, and that is the only thing that took hold of her erratic interest in me. She loved receiving compliments about how “pretty” and “sweet” her daughter was.

Greta was a beautiful woman, and that helped her maintain the constant spotlight wherever she went. People roamed about her in parties like moths round a light bulb; and just like moths, many tended to get their wings burnt. She was never the charitable kind.

She was very attractive for her age, and made sure that all her attributes were accentuated with her outfits. Her looks could be described as ravishing, especially her lustrous dark auburn hair and huge honey-coloured eyes that sparkled gaily. Beautiful she was, as well as very hyper. She had a tense sort of beauty that seemed to be quite common in certain social circles. A simple reflection of this is how her perfectly contoured mouth was generally accompanied by her constant companion: a cigarette. I believe she was just too anxious to not smoke so she just flirted and carried her cigs around her all day. It was a not so strange spectacle for most of her friends behaved in the exact same way.

Thomas, my stepfather, was a very grave man who relentlessly tried to go even higher in the social ladder. Please don’t take me wrong here, but he was trying to climb already starting from the very top. Still, he had a very strong obsession for being more and more popular. He was well known, well bred and full of contacts but he wanted to be constantly looked up to and almost worshiped.

I was of no further interest to him than the appearances my mere presence gave him. Everybody praised him for taking care of me, for fulfilling his dead friend’s wishes and treating me as his own daughter. They said he was “so charitable” and “such a kind-hearted man”, I even think he heard it so much that ended up believing it himself. So apparently I made him look like a great man, and he only loved me for it.

He was quite nice when he was not on trip actually, he did not speak much to me but didn’t shoo me like Greta sometimes did. His diplomatic attributes extended to his household manners luckily.

He was very bald since very young and to be brutally honest, he was not good-looking at all. His minuscule grey eyes hid behind thick glasses, and his skin was frequently a bit too oily. He was sort of heavy in the middle and was about two inches shorter than Greta. His clothes on the contrary to his looks were perfect. He was always dressed in trendy Armani suits and looked impeccable. He was a very well groomed beast.

Though he was not a handsome man, I must admit that his eyes were very kind, and
that
made him my favourite of the two. It wasn’t that he was a better person than Greta, but that hidden kindness made me think he must have some extra goodness underneath it all.

Our very dysfunctional family had always one unsaid rule: “as long as you don’t get into each other’s way, you’ll get along just fine.” As soon as I learnt it being still a preschooler I discovered it worked wonders.

By the time I got to my teens we moved to South America, most specifically to Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina. I must admit that in the beginning I was not very fond of the idea, but as we settled there and I started growing up I discovered something: the amazing advantages of being a teenager of a certain social position in this part of the Latin-American culture.

If my parental boundaries were lax, the social boundaries imposed on teens in this part of the world were just as slack.

Parties extended themselves up until 8 in the morning, curfews were nearly non-existent and an inherent sensuality was present in every aspect of the Buenos Aires’ culture. Let me tell you a secret: women dress up for almost everything! And believe me when I tell you they know how to do it! Fashion statements are expressed on a daily basis in B.A. Make-up and fab-hair was a complete must.

Another interesting thing was how people interacted with each other; they tended to do so in a very visceral manner, everything spices emotions from everyone. Everyday life with Argentineans was totally hot! Just imagine, something I had no interest in being a part of became any teenager’s dream: “party all night, meet interesting people, and do as you will, all with very few boundaries”. Of course we had limits, but, just as I learnt . . . rules were only made to be bent.

By the time my foster parents’ time in South America was finished I was so in love with this country and its surroundings that I decided to stay and finish school here, but here I’m getting ahead of my story.

*     *     *

My first year in this new country was quite difficult for me; it was a different country, continent and climate and I’m not even talking about the adjustments I had to do in order to fit into my new high school! Still, I managed and by the end of the year I was a completely normal student of “Los Plátanos” one of the most exclusive and posh schools in B.A.

My new school was just in the outskirts of the city but still in the district called “Gran Buenos Aires”. It was an impressive building, four stories high with dark brick walls. The builders probably copied a very English style of construction with pointy tower-like constructions at the top. It looked very sophisticated at plain sight, it was completely gorgeous.

The windows were all white rimmed and looked constantly newly painted. Every classroom had high ceilings with carefully sculpted decorations adding a very posh feeling to the place. Vast corridors with impeccably polished floors run through the building like veins, they were lined with deep blue-coloured lockers and coat closets everywhere. I must admit that even though I was not fond of the idea of coming to B.A at the beginning my first impression of the school building was quite positive.

Since I was used to move around quite a bit, I was not as scared of my new classmates as another kid would be. Thank God on my decent social skills! This is one of the few things I attribute Greta and Thomas for, and I’m really glad I could learn these from them. They made the very difficult process of adapting something slightly less painful.

The pathway that went from the front iron gates towards the main building was lined with different kinds of very tall, old trees. Cypresses and planes grew at each side of the main pathway making it one of the prettiest entrances I’ve ever seen. During springtime, a quite windy season in this part of the world, their branches rocked back and forth as in a constant lullaby. While in autumn the planes leaves changed in colour and repainted the whole scenery. They added a very dream like quality to the place.

Deep green sports fields extended themselves behind and around the building. The vast green grass was always perfect looking and impeccably kept. Even after a hockey or rugby match! Student life was quite sports inclined being those two I just mentioned the schools favourites.

Just as you might imagine, most students there looked just as if they had escaped from “Vogue” magazine; they were fashionable, sleek, slender and extremely sexy. Everyone dressed completely
à
la
mode
, making sure that their school uniform looked completely tailor-made. Either the school-shop made blazers as good as Armani’s or I believe they got them from an impeccable designer elsewhere.

Sculpted bodies and perfect hair were almost mandatory. Can you just imagine the amount of free time everyone spent at the gym, spa and hairdresser?! When I just got there I felt completely underdressed and dishevelled. We all wore the same uniform but I was not even halfway polished. Thank God I made new friends very quick despite that. I might have started off with a somewhat unkempt aura but in matter of a few weeks I was already trained to fix my make-up and polish my nails during break-time. My almost barbaric sense of fashion became much more refined day after day.

I learnt the tricks of how to keep my skin perfect and make my hair look glossier amongst tons of other beauty secrets for my daily regime. Olive oil became something I used not only for my salad, and sugar became used for other things than desserts. Cardio became as important as brushing my teeth and a good manicure was as mandatory as combing my hair. Those habits once acquired tend to stick; I must admit that all this personal care was sometimes exhausting but my looks improved 100% and this fashion mania somewhat managed to continue in my routine for the following years.

Perhaps the first two years there, I was just a regular student, with nothing different from the rest (if you are wondering: no, I was not exactly like I’m now, I was not an adult vampire—and had no idea I was someday to become one). But sometime maybe while I was there or maybe later things started to change ever so slightly, building up slowly like a boiling cauldron. Then finally the unstoppable chain of events that continued until I became what I am now where triggered sometime during the summer of my 17
^th
birthday.

My foster-parents were going to leave for Austria after that summer, so they were travelling constantly with their preparations for their move. As I mentioned before, I had convinced them to let me stay my senior year so I could finish high school with my friends. They didn’t care much about what I did, so besides the mandatory complaints they were supposed to have, they didn’t make much of a fuss. I believe they were even glad that I wanted to stay, deep down, they wanted to be alone again.

Thomas decided to spend the last summer “as a family”, I’m sure he believed that it would make us
look
like a family, just like his social environment expected it to be. Of course neither he nor Greta planned on staying much with me. My freedom was in absolutely no peril.

That summer as well as the previous ones we went on vacation to “Punta del Este” in Uruguay, a neighbouring country, just like most of my classmates. My foster family rented a fabulous house just in front of the beach. It had beautiful reddish-brown brick walls and high red-tiled ceilings. The windows were enormous, it seamed the sun filtered every ray of summer through those glass-panes and warmed every corner of the place.

The garden was an extensive masterpiece with its golf-court like lawns and man-made perfect smooth hills extended all around the astonishing estate. At the back more artificial hills surrounded a beauty of a pool. Blue lilies edged the kidney shaped pool and seemed to mimic the movement of the water produced by the artificial waterfall that crowned it.

The house itself had five big bedrooms disposed within the two floor estate, a little bit too much for our small three member family and our maid.

The dance clubs where fantastic, dancing echoed to the intense techno waves imposed by the appointed DJ until morning was set and summer heat exploded with its gold shimmer within the dance floor. My friends and I were admitted to any place we wanted, teens have no problem getting into dance clubs in some countries; it was just plain wild heaven.

By mid January when my creamy complexion acquired a subtle tan, the “changes” began.

I started to experience awful headaches, well, perhaps something more like migraines that would cripple me at the single sight of light to be more precise. Not just plain daylight, but any type of light. Light bulbs became the enemy; surfing the net became unthinkable and even grabbing a midnight snack from the fridge became an ordeal.

I then started to become more irritable, perhaps even a little violent, which I obviously attributed to my headaches, I just figured that feeling crippled by something as stupid as a headache could make anyone go berserk. My solution to this was to wear my sunglasses 24/7, this helped but it also cost me my “parents” believing I was into drugs. Add to these new everyday accessories my new violent behaviour and voila! Let’s say they got convinced.

Any parent figure tends to associate the continuous use of sunglasses with drug abuse; and believe me, once that THAT gets into their heads it is IMPOSSIBLE to convince them otherwise. I blame it on the media. Every messed-up celebrity that decides to fall into chemical claws appears constantly with . . . guess what? Sunglasses! Just my freaking luck . . . Anyway, that’s just a side story from the important one, so let me get back on track.