Eleven Minutes (2 page)

However, her fifteenth year brought with it not only the discovery that you were supposed to kiss with your mouth
open, and that love is, above all, a cause of suffering. She discovered a third thing: masturbation. It happened almost by chance, as she was touching her genitals while waiting for
her mother to come home. She used to do this when she was a child and she liked the feeling, until, one day, her father saw her and slapped her hard, without explaining why. She never forgot being hit like that, and she learned that she shouldn't touch herself in front of other people;

since she couldn't do it in the middle of the street and she didn't have a room of her own at home, she forgot all about the pleasurable sensation.

Until that afternoon, almost six months after the kis Her mother was late coming home, and she had nothing to do; her father had just gone out with a friend, and since there was nothing interesting on the TV, she began examining her own
body, in the hope that she might find some unwanted hair which could immediately be tweezered out. To her surprise, she noticed a small gland above her vagina. she began touching it and found that she couldn't stop; the feelings
provoked were so strong and so pleasurable, an her whole body
- particularly the part she was touching became tense. After
a while, she began to enter a kind of paradise, the feelings grew in intensity, until she notice that she could no longer see or hear clearly, everythin appeared to be tinged with yellow, and then she moane with pleasure and had her first orgasm.

Orgasm!

It was like floating up to heaven and then parachuting
slowly down to earth again. Her body was drenched in sweat, but she felt complete, fulfilled and full of energy. If that was what sex was! How wonderful! Not like in erotic
magazines in which everyone talked about pleasure, but seemed to be grimacing in pain. And no need for a man who liked a woman's body, but had no time for her feelings She
could do it on her own! She did it again, this time imagining that a famous movie star was touching her, and once more she floated up to paradise and parachuted down
again, feeling even more energised. Just as she was about to do it for a third time, her mother came home.

Maria talked to her girlfriends about her new discovery, but saying that she had only discovered it a few hours before. All of them - apart from two - knew what she was
talking about, but none of them had ever dared to raise the subject. It was Maria's turn to feel like a revolutionary, to
be the leader of the group, inventing an absurd 'secret confidential game, which involved asking everyone their favourite method of masturbation. She learned various
different techniques, like lying under the covers in the heat
of summer (because, one of her friends assured her, sweating helped), using a goose feather to touch yourself there (she didn't yet know what the place was called), letting a boy do
it to you (Maria thought this unnecessary), using the spray n the bidet (she didn't have one at home, but she would try to
as soon as she visited one of her richer friends).

Anyway, once she had discovered masturbation and learned a
few of the techniques suggested by her friends, she abandoned forever the idea of a religious life. Masturbation have her enormous pleasure, and yet the Church seemed to imply that
sex was the greatest of sins. She heard various tales from those same girlfriends: masturbation gave you spots, could
lead to madness or even pregnancy. Nevertheless, despite all these risks, she continued to pleasure herself at least once
a week, usually on Wednesdays, when her father went out to play cards with his friends.

At the same time, she grew more and more insecure in her relationships with boys, and more and more determined
to leave the place where she lived. She fell in love a
third time and a fourth, she knew how to kiss now, and when she was alone with her boyfriends, she touched them an allowed herself to be touched, but something always wer
wrong, and the relationship would end precisely at the moment when she was sure that this was the person with whom she
wanted to spend the rest of her life. After a long time, she came to the conclusion that men brought on pain, frustration, suffering and a sense of time draggin One afternoon, watching a mother playing with her two year-old son, she decided that she could still think about husband, children and a house with a sea-view, but that she would never fall in love again, because love spoiled everything.

And so Maria's adolescent years passed. She grew prettier and prettier, and her sad, mysterious air brought her many suitors. She went out with one boy and with another, and
dreamed and suffered - despite her promise to herself ever to fall in love again. On one such date, she lost her virginity
on the back seat of a car; she and her boyfriend were
touching each other with more than usual ardour, the boy got very worked up, and she, weary of being the only virgin amongst her group of friends, allowed him to penetrate her. Unlike masturbation, which took her up to eaven, this hurt
her and caused a trickle of blood which left a stain on her skirt that took ages to wash out. There wasn't the magical sensation of her first kiss - the heronsying, the sunset, the music ... but she would rather not think about that.

She made love with the same boy a few more times, although
she had to threaten him first, saying that if he didn't, she would tell her father he had raped her. She used im as a way
of learning, trying in every way she could to understand what pleasure there was in having sex with a partner.

She couldn't understand it; masturbation was much less rouble and far more rewarding. But all the magazines, the
TV programmes, books, girlfriends, everything, ABSOLUTE EVERYTHING, said that a man was essential. Maria beg; to
think that she must have some unspeakable sexual problem, so she concentrated still more on her studies an for a while, forgot about that marvellous, murderous thing called Love. From Maria's diary, when she was seventeen:

My aim is to understand love. I know how alive I felt when
I was in love, and I know that everything I have now, however interesting it might seem, doesn't really excite me.

But love is a terrible thing: I've seen my girlfriends
suffer and I don't want the same thing to happen to me. They used to laugh at me and my innocence, but now they ask me how
it is I manage men so well. I smile and say nothing, because
I know that the remedy is worse than the pain: I simply don't fall in love. With each day that passes, I see more clearly
how fragile men are, how inconstant, insecure and surprising they are ...a few of my girlfriends' fathers have propositioned me, but I've always refused. At first, I was shocked, but now I think it's just the way men are.

Although my aim is to understand love, and although I
suffer to think of the people to whom I gave my heart, I see that those who touched my heart failed to arouse my body, and that those who aroused my body failed to touch my heart.

She turned nineteen, having finished secondary school, and earnd a job in a draper's shop, where her boss promptly fell
in love with her. By then, however, Maria knew how to use
a man, without being used by him. She never let him touch her, although she was always very coquettish, conscious of the power of her beauty.

The power of beauty: what must the world be like for ugly women? She had some girlfriends who no one ever invited at parties or who men were never interested in. Incredible
though it might seem, these girls placed far greater value on the little love they received, suffered in immencely when
they were rejected and tried to face the future looking for other things beyond getting all dressed up for someone else. They were more independent, took more interest in themselves, although, in Maria's imagination, the world for them must
seem unbearable.

She knew how attractive she was, and although she rarely listened to her mother, there was one thing her mother said
that she never forgot: 'Beauty, my dear, doesn't last.' With this in mind, she continued to keep her boss at arm's length, though without putting him off completely, this brought her a considerable increase in salary (she didn't know how long she would be able to string him
along with the mere hope of one day getting her into bed, but at least she was earning good money meanwhile), also paid her overtime for working late (her boss liked having her
around, perhaps worried that if she went out night, she might find the great love of her life). She worked for two years solidly, paid money each month to parents for her keep, and, at last, she did it! She saved enough money to go and spend a week's holiday in the place of her dreams, the place where
film and TV stars live, picture postcard image of her
country: Rio de Janeiro! Her boss offered to go with her and to pay all
going to one of the most dangerous places in the world, one condition her mother had laid down was that she had to stay at the house of a cousin trained in judo. "

The truth was quite different: she didn't want anyone, anyone at all, to spoil what would be her first week of total freedom. She wanted to do everything - swim in the sea, speak
to complete strangers, look in shop windows, and be prepared for a Prince Charming to appear and carry her off for good.

'What's a week after all?' she said with a seductive
smile, hoping that she was wrong. 'It will pass in a flash, and I'll can be back at work.'

Saddened, her boss resisted at first, but finally accepted her decision, for at the time he was making secret plans to expenses, but Maria lied to him, saying that, since she >

ask her to marry him as soon as she got back, and he didn't ant to spoil everything by appearing too pushy.

aria travelled for forty-eight hours by bus, checked into
a
'Besides, sir,' she said, 'you can't just leave the sAeap hotel in Copacabana (Copacabana! That beach, that
without some reliable person to look after it.'

'Don't call me “sir”,' he said, and Maria saw in his face something she recognised: the flame of love. And
ty ...) and even before she had unpacked her bags, she
Cabbed the bikini she had bought, put it on, and despite the cloudy weather, made straight for the beach. She looked
surprised her, because she had always thought he was of
the sea fearfully, but ended up wading awkwardly into its interested in sex; and yet, his eyes were saying the exact opposite: 'I can give you a house, a family, some money No one on the beach noticed that this was her first your parents.' Thinking of the future, she decided to stc >ntact with the ocean, with the goddess Iemanja, the the fire. aritime currents, the foamine waves and, on the other
hand, She said that she would really miss the job, as well as colleagues she just adored working with (she was careful not
to mention anyone in particular, leaving the myst hanging in the air: did 'colleague' mean him?) and r
aters.

No one on the beach noticed that this was her first >ntact with the ocean, with the goddess Iemanja, the aritime currents, the foaming waves and, on the other de of the Atlantic, with the coast of Africa and its lions, When she
came out of the water, she was approached by a oman trying to selling wholefood sandwiches, by a ^ndsome black man who
asked if she wanted to go out
promised to take great care of her purse and her hondfith him that night, and by another man who didn't speak
a word of Portuguese but who asked, using gestures, if she would like to have a drink of coconut water.

Maria bought a sandwich because she was too embarrassed to say 'no', but she avoided speaking to the two
strangers. She felt suddenly disappointed with herself; Now
that she had the chance to do anything she wanted, why is she behaving in this ridiculous manner? Finding no go explanation, she sat down to wait for the sun to come out from behind the clouds, still surprised at her own courg and at how cold the water was, even in the height of summer.

However, the man who couldn't speak Portuguj
reappeared at her side bearing a drink, which he offered her. Relieved not to have to talk to him, she drank the coconut water and smiled at him, and he smiled back. After some time, they kept up this comfortable, meaningless conversation - a smile here, a smile there - until the man took a small red dictionary out of his pocket and said, ia
strange accent: 'bonita' - 'pretty'. She smiled agal
however much she wanted to meet her Prince Charming, 1 should at least speak her language and be slightly younger.

The man went on leafing through the little book:

'Supper ... tonight?' Then he said: 1
'Switzerland!' I
And he completed this with words that sound like the bells of paradise in whatever language they are spoken:

'Work! Dollars!'

Maria did not know any restaurant called Switzerland
and could things really be that easy and dreams so quick!

I filled? She erred on the side of caution: 'Thank you
very much for the invitation, but I already have a job and
I'm not interested in buying any dollars.'

The man, who understood not a word she said, was growing desperate; after many more smiles back and forth, he left her for a few minutes and returned with an interpreter. Through
him, he explained that he was from Switzerland (the country, not a restaurant) and that he would like to have supper with her, in order to talk to her about a possible job offer. The
interpreter, who introduced imself as the person in charge of foreign tourists and security in the hotel where the man was staying, added on is own account:

'I'd accept if I were you. He's an important impresario
looking for new talent to work in Europe. If you like, I can put you in touch with some other people who accepted his invitation, got rich and are now married with children who don't have to worry about being mugged or unemployed.'

Then, trying to impress her with his grasp of international culture, he said:

'Besides, Switzerland makes excellent chocolates and cheeses.'

Maria's only stage experience had been in the Passion lay
that the local council always put on during Holy week, and in which she had had a walk-on part as a 'aterseller. She had barely slept on the bus, but she was excited by the sea, tired of eating sandwiches, wholefood or therwise, and
confused because she didn't know anyone and needed to find a friend. She had been in similar situa-