Episode 40 | Connoisseur of her curves

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nudity

"Carlo, please continue..." I requested, taking the chance to evade my father's touch, removing my hand to wipe the tears away. Catherine had never mentioned that episode, nor any other story about the Île du Blanchomme. Would it have been to protect me, or actually to protect themselves... that they had lied to me?

"I remember that I began to pray for Catherine..." Carlo recalled, "for all beings, and for myself, to get rid of my own fear, my lust, the confusion in my heart, mind and groin..."

May all sentient beings have happiness and its causes, 

May all sentient beings be free of suffering and its causes, 

May all sentient beings never be separated from bliss without suffering, 

May all sentient beings be in equanimity, free of bias, attachment and anger.

And my desire, so inconvenient and imperious, that dominated me even in such a delicate situation... You know Laurent, we cannot judge and classify things as plainly good or bad, and always in the same category in all situations. Because in my prudity I could not bear looking at Catherine's naked body, for it seemed I disrespected her with my eager eyes, I decided to cover her whole body with a wet sheet... It was what seemed to finally relieve her, promoting her evaporative cooling, as I had read in the manual, and she fell asleep.

That evening, a fierce storm fell on the Île du Blanchomme, opening a new season. I had watched many threatening thunder storms sweep the Apennines, but I had never had that feeling of insecurity before. Herr Weissmann's house did not offer much protection, and even closing the curtains of all rooms, they were a feeble wall against the thick rain, blowing open like sails in the wind. I guess I had felt more protected being enclosed by the high mountains, while the tiny island seemed on the verge of disappearing bellow the ocean -- and for a while it did, indeed. The soil vanished before my eyes, as waves washed across the island and crashed against the poles that sustained the house -- and I could just hope they were strong enough. For the first time, I lifted the stairs, as Armand had instructed me. There was a moment when I was helplessly wondering what do in case the house would collapse, and how to save the sick girl -- but the fury of the tempest did not last more than two hours, and again the skies cleared. Next, stars were deviously twinkling like fake testimonies -- the garden had been destroyed, rocks tumbled in the pool where the water had turned murky, and the wind had broken two tall palms and uplifted another younger one.   

All through the storm -- and for many hours more --, Catherine slept, while I ran around trying to safeguard the house against the gushes of wind and rain, but always returning to her bed to diligently reapply the wet sheet over her body -- though, in fact almost everything around her was soaking wet. The rain, that had invaded her and all rooms in the house, and the winds, had cooled the night, and I was glad that the temperature was much more agreeable for the girl on heat.

Having hanged carpets and curtains along the rail of the veranda to dry, I then washed her beautiful dress that was stained and smelling to vomit. 'Yves Saint-Laurent, have you heard of him?' she had once asked me. But even if in my Parisian years I had never learned about that couturier, nor anything else concerning fashion -- that seemed otherworldly to me --, I could notice the outstanding quality of the piece, and I washed the fine cloth very carefully, as if washing the adored young woman herself.

I cleaned the remains of her vomit that the rain had not washed away from the veranda, and in the bathroom. But it was washing her lavish dress that I saw myself finally somewhat turning into a guesthouse employee -- happily serving and taking care of the young woman, like she had wanted from the start.

I had to be room service for Catherine as well, as I'd spend many days and nights caring for her. I lived long days of tension and uncertainty, since I was not sure about providing her the proper treatment. But her condition seemed to gradually improve.

When she finally overcame the heatstroke, her skin was still in a horrible condition, and I started to care for it, never forgetting to keep her from dehydrating. 

I still remember when Catherine finally came out of unconsciousness. She suddenly opened her eyes, and when she saw me and realized the whole situation, she wept silently. Then she tried to rise from bed, and howled in pain, nearly losing consciousness again. The look of anguish in her eyes was that from a person who, being independent and self-assured, suddenly saw herself fragile, helpless and submissive, and whom, usually superior and arrogant, felt humiliated to have urinated in the sheets.

"Don't you worry..." I murmured, sweetly. "I'll take good care of you."

It was embarrassing to touch Catherine... even if, wrapped in a cloth, my fingers were not directly in contact with her... so intimately between her thighs... skimming against her moist opening... for the first time... not as a man, but as a nurse. She cried when she forced herself to get up to go to the bathroom, and again when we decided together that she could not do it, even with my aid. And she cried when she had to ask me to put a glass between her legs so she could pee without getting off bed, and cried again as I cleansed her after that.

Another recommendation in the manual was to apply moisturizer, and despite having remembered that coconut lotion given by the natives to Armand, who actually had wanted to apply it on me, I delayed taking that other step. Simply for not wanting to touch Catherine without her consent... but since she could not bend over nor stretch her body without feeling too much pain, she agreed that I apply the lotion on her body.

She noticed my embarrassment before her nakedness -- and so much greater than her own discomfort it was, that it actually reassured her, and she started feeling safe under my hands. According to Catherine's own words a few years later, she was able to see in my eyes and gestures how 'very pure' I was -- and a virgin, too, she had identified.

"You're doing well, merci." She encouraged me, as I ineptly but gently moved my hands on her body. My peasant hands, recently roughened by the work in the garden, were like sandpaper in contrast to her delicate skin. They must have felt awful, and that was one reason to avoid the most intimate, sensitive areas like her breasts, between her thighs, the buttocks -- the other reason being my shyness.

As I ran my fingers over her body with great care, I secretly delighted in not only being able to finally touch her, but also in how my touch, astonishingly enough, seemed to please the girl.

"Oui, c'est bon..." Her voice trembled as she tried to encourage me. I had already noticed her smooth skin aroused by goose bumps, the fine golden hair on her thighs and forearms all erect, after my fingers had rubbed them. But I did not know whether she was reacting to my touch or to the temperature of the cool lotion, in contrast to her warm skin.

I tried to control myself when I was with her, but sometimes, when I went to the kitchen, I gave in to my desire. As I would leave our massage sessions, my shorts dripping pre-cum, I masturbated wildly on the farthest corner of the veranda, closing my eyes to be filled with all the lovely details from her body, visual and now tactile as well. I kept telling myself that this relief would help me avoid embarrassing erections in her presence, when my main concern should be to help relieve her pain -- with those same hands I used to satisfy myself.

I had become a connoisseur of her curves, and when I was away from the bedroom, my hands could perfectly recreate her body in the air, to the slightest details, like her eleven moles. I sensed that, when I took hold of a brush to paint again, my strokes would forever have changed after having caressed Catherine -- I just couldn't have guessed that it would take so long to go back to my easel.

When she slept, basically I took care of the garden, which depended on me as much as the young woman did -- and there was so much to be redone after the storm. But for many days I did not work. Not because I could not -- I did not want to. I dedicated myself to Catherine, only. I slept on the floor of Armand's bedroom, on the carpet at the foot of the bed where she rested, or sometimes when it was too hot, in the veranda.

It was also on the veranda in front of her room that I took my meals, and I resumed my meditation sessions right there on the carpet next to her bed. For many days I didn't paint because the easel on the beach was too far away from the room, and I didn't want to risk not listening when she called me -- and I just thought it not worthwhile bringing my easel upstairs. And I didn't paint the walls because the smell of the paint made her sick, even more than the coconut smell of the moisturizing lotion -- and of course, I did not want to have that stink of paint on my hands, risking she would ask me to stop rubbing her just because of their strong smell.

I felt that between Catherine and me there was an increase in that same tension that I could recognize from the first few days spent with Armand on the island -- and that had diminished only with his coming out, when the sincerity of our friendship had been reestablished, to a greater level, even.

But with Catherine my tension was higher, because I feared that, at her condition having ​​improved, she might decide to leave the island. The boat would be arriving any day now, and my tension grew at each new dawn. That boat seemed to come to end cycles, and none of them lasted more than a week -- Armand's permanence on the island, and Catherine's too. I felt gloomy -- no longer did I want to be left alone, not again. And I thought that maybe my distress now was equivalent only to Armand's anguish, who had had hopes and expectations until the very morning he left. 

But now it was me in his role, desiring Catherine and watching the days go by without any realization; emptiness and despair growing in me.

A new season, that I could not name, had arrived, and cooled the weather. Though it rained lightly every afternoon, storms rode by only in the distance. Armand had already informed me that the Île du Blanchomme had been chosen for a Portal Island also because it was safer than others, being located on a 'dry corridor', along which storms swept by -- but hardly ever hit the island, that was usually blessed only with the outskirts of the rain. 

Days went by and I watched Catherine's health clearly improving. But I did not feel proud of myself. Though she still complained from pain and her skin was far from their normal, delicate appearance and texture, I felt guilt when I did not celebrate the fact that she was again able to stand up, and once a day walk to the bathroom. I no longer had to put the bowl between her thighs, and though we did not have to go through that embarrassing moment any more, I have to confess I felt disheartened at her progresses.

One afternoon, we heard an engine's noise approaching the island.

"Is it the boat?" she asked, rising slightly from the bed, where she had been resting.

"I think so..." I had also heard it, and the flock of seagulls preceding the boat, but hadn't mentioned in case it went unnoticed for her. "But I think you are not in conditions to leave..." I murmured. I know, what an irony, thinking that previously I had wanted to throw her out of the island, and I smiled internally. "Unless you think you should go to a hospital..." I had to suggest it, against my will, but knowing it was my duty. 

"I don't think I could get on that boat..." She smiled, with a grimace. She still felt very sick and was often nauseated without having nearly eaten. "Can you host me for another week here?" Suddenly, she seemed worried. "Do you think the natives will come for us? Why are they making so much noise?"

"No, they won't." I calmed her, feeling calmer myself with her response. "They usually are noisy. And nosy..." I laughed. "But not so much as to come upstairs, I think. They must be delivering more provisions, or whatever Armand has ordered."

"Won't you go down to the beach to check?" She delivered an ironic smile. "Will you be hiding here, like on the afternoon of my arrival?" she asked, humorously blinking at me. "And what if new guests have arrived?" she laughed.

"One more reason to stay hidden..." I was delighted with her ​​laughter, the first I heard since her arrival. "...here with you."

And that's how Catherine's stay on the Île du Blanchomme started prolonging for more than a week.

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Author's note: having been imported from a former version of the story, some of the comments below are dated previous to this post. Once the plot has not been altered, just the pagination, I am keeping them since they are very dear and precious to me.

Episode 37 | Chained to a madman

previous episode

nudity and sex

In the afternoon -- lazily sunny and breezy as they often were --, after having eaten a sandwich, from which I prepared an enhanced version for Catherine Mortinné, I resumed painting the walls. When I got tired of it, I worked a little more in the garden, since the plants needed care and attention daily. Keeping myself occupied seemed the only possibility to avert the troubling emotions the girl evoked -- and I oscillated between anger, resentment and the strongest of them all, a consuming lust . Avoiding her presence did not suffice, for I saw myself constantly thinking of her, even if dreading our encounters.

The girl did not came down to the beach the rest of that day, and I feared she would still be messing with Armand's bookshelf. I also noticed my radar was no longer searching for Armand, like it had constantly done in the previous weeks. To my dismay, Mademoiselle Mortinné seemed to be the new target.

After having painted the walls for many hours, I felt like working on the canvas I had started a few days ago. Like an antidote -- since Paris, I had feared losing my art if I occupied myself too long with painting walls. Like it did happen, in Punaouilo. Anyways... I did not feel particularly inspired, but somehow compelled to paint. Standing by my easel and simply brushing away blandly, hadn't I intended to show off to her?

However, I felt disturbed by the girl's presence on the island, and could not concentrate -- I repeatedly turned my head towards the house because of some noise that had intrigued me... wondering if it would come from the kitchen where she might be trying to cook... or whether she had returned to my room and the bookcase, or would be snooping around Armand's office, where I myself had rarely entered, or... I was used to the immense silence of the Île du Blanchomme, and the noises she kept making were getting to my nerves.

One time I caught sight of her on the veranda, looking in my direction. Ridiculous as it might sound, I broadened my chest and straightened my back, but I don't think she saw me -- she must have been glancing towards the horizon, where the sun was making its way down. 

A few minutes later, she came down to the beach. Although she remained at a distance, my discomfort increased. Should I try to approach her and start a new conversation, since we had reached what seemed a level of polite cordiality -- not so much because I wanted to talk to her, but because it would be my obligation as a gracious host to make her feel at ease, to continuously check if there was anything she needed, and perhaps gently draw her attention to the gorgeous full moon that would be rising on the horizon opposite to the setting sun... Take her to the movies, like Armand had done with me.

   Even though no more than ten meters far from me, she seemed infinitely distant. The more because her natural, elegant figure was enhanced by the fancy designer dress she kept on wearing. The French Riviera of the roaring twenties would have suited her better for a scenery. 

She made me think of Scott Fitzgerald's romantic heroines -- one of Armand's favourite authors during his teenagers, he had confided, but to me so foreign. Likewise, I regarded Catherine as the sort of girl who would never have approached me in Paris. Nor would I go to her -- not on that beach, not in life.

There was also sadness enveloping her like an aura -- and not a romantic aura, rather emanating inaccessibility and loneliness.

She wasn't just alone, contemplating the sunset -- she was immersed in solitude, and not a peaceful solitude like mine. I had a shiver at the thought of a predator seeing her, so small and fragile -- her delicate skin, attacked and reddened by the sun, her blonde thin hair blown and sacked by the breeze, her amber eyes where fire seemed to have extinguished -- and how this predator would attack her, certain of the easy, vulnerable prey she was, and rip her with one stroke. 

No wonder she had so many angry outbursts, that made ​​her look threatening and more powerful than she ever were. A bit like the naja snake does, if you pardon my comparing your mother to that animal, Laurent.

She roamed along the water's edge, with her long dress lifted to her knees, occasionally dipping her foot with a slow, melancholic move. And suddenly, I was sure that she was crying -- that shudder on her shoulders was nothing else.

What did I know about that girl? What suffering would she bring inside her? A broken heart? A disrupted family? Unrequited love? A rare disease? A childhood trauma? Was she an orphan like me?

I did not dare to approach her, who had walked in the opposite direction where my easel was placed, indicating her disposition to be on her own.

Realizing her suffering would be my suffering, and that we couldn't live harmoniously on the Île unless we both stayed on the ground of conviviality, I decided I had to prepare a meal worth of that name for us. Saying goodbye to the Sun even before it had disappeared behind the horizon, I went up to the kitchen.

Someone had told me that 'in Art and Cuisine, the measure is everything'. The person had been quoting someone else, but I could not see any relation between the kitchen and the atelier, cooking and painting; none, whatsoever. I felt insecure upon mixing the ingredients, and it felt almost agonizing rather than the pleasure I took in mixing colors. Each vegetable or grain, having traveled so far to be on the Île du Blanchomme, seemed too precious to be wasted in my unskilled hands.

I struggled. But knowing the results would be negligible, and since I did not intend to impress the girl with gifts that I did not have, I tried to stick to a simple meal, with a bit of daring in introducing the oriental spices bought by Armand. I wanted to please her, make her feel welcome and accepted, thus erasing my rudeness at her arrival. I had finally understood her horrible situation in being an unwelcome guest -- and I was the one making her feel bad.

When I finally finished it, night had fallen. I had lost track of time with my difficulties in the kitchen. I thought I ought to call her immediately to have dinner, but I desperately needed a shower, to get the smell of the spices off my hands, and the sweat and paint off my body. My main intention, indeed, was to be with her at the table that evening wearing nicer clothes... Just remembering the way she had looked at the holes in my shirt made me blush.

There were two entrances to the bathroom. One was the passage next to the staircase, which was close to the kitchen, and the other through Armand's room, separated by curtains -- and it was an unfortunate accident that I had entered coming from the kitchen and a few moments later, when I had already undressed, Catherine came in by the other passage. The house had been so quiet that I had imagined she was still at the beach, instead of being in her room, reading. She was wearing just lingerie and cried at seeing me, undressed to my underwear.

"Get out! Now!" She yelled at me, throwing me out with an imperative gesture of someone who was accustomed to have her orders followed. Or did she have a dog? "This is my bathroom!"

"This is the only bathroom in the house, if you haven't noticed it yet..." I spoke louder than her cry, abandoning my resolution to be the kindest host to my involuntary guest. "And I'm going use it now, if you'd allow me." I said, wryly.

"Quel bordel... this hostel is..." She quickly interrupted herself. "I know, this isn't a hostel!" She commented with disdain. "It is the dumbest house I've ever seen! Merde!"

"If you could close the curtains of your room behind you as you leave, please..." I ignored her complaints.

"Oh, and I'll be in my room listening to you bathe?" she sounded indignant.

"Unless you want to find another place to stay. And no, not only the bath... You will also hear me pee, and fart, and when I start..." masturbating and even when I moan and groan and scream as I come, I meant to say, but it would be so immensely rude, and as much as this girl could bring out the worst in me, I did not intend to go as far or as low as that... She was staring at me, horrified already. Or had she noticed my erection? "Can you go, now?" I asked, in the most cordial tone and opposite to the rudeness of her screams. 

Triumphantly, I watched her leave. "The house is all yours, I know..." she said, shrugging her shoulders. And when I thought she was going to go on arguing, she just left the bathroom, closing the curtains angrily behind her.

Who has said that 'having a penis is like being chained to a madman'?

While arguing with Catherine, I would still notice how transparent her lingerie was, allowing me to catch a glimpse of the tips of her pinkish, perfectly rounded nipples. She had sweated, and her blonde pubic hair was pasted to her panties, a small mount that did not quite cover her opening. 

And when she turned around to leave, I noticed her butt was firm and small, and its soft curves strangely reminded me of Armand's, who had the buttocks of a boy... It seemed like my jumping erection stole all the blood from my heart and, pacifying my wrath and softening my emotions, hardened elsewhere and had aroused me to my sensations.

Obligations first, that's what I've learned from my grandfather.

And at that moment, my duty was to relieve my hard-on, so that then I could take a bath. It felt like living my teenage years concentrated in a few days, intensely, hour after hour, the successive erections I had to beat off but that would never be beaten, until, finally, at the end I was to lose my virginity...

"I thought you were a pervert, and I was afraid of you... To think I was alone with you on that tiny island!" Catherine had confessed, many years later, back in France.

"Why were you spying on me?" I had asked.

"I wasn't spying on you... I came back from the kitchen to ask you if I could eat something from those bowls you'd left there... And that weird house with no doors... I caught a glimpse of you in that bathtub, and I just backed..."

"How much did you see, Catherine?" It was so weird to think she had been watching me jerk off when I had been actually fantasizing about her. "How long did you stay there, watching me?"

"Enough."

And once the bathroom was all mine, I decided to take a really long bath and relax in the tepid water. 

I no longer cared that I had prepared dinner, let alone my plans of sitting at the table with that girl... I would still warn her that there was a meal ready in the kitchen, but let her eat whenever and wherever she wanted. Why set the table with Armand's finest china? The chipped bowls at the kitchen would suffice, and I was content as long as she stayed away from me.

At the end of the bath, I shaved. I even trimmed my pubic hair, for it had grown into a wild black bush. With that explosion of sensuality, vanity had come along, something I thought I had never possessed. Suddenly I saw myself trying to judge my own image, trying to remember the features Armand had praised on me, and trying to guess what the girl might like... Guessing I could annoy her with my delay, I was even more careful than necessary with my appearance.

Yet once more, before the mirror, I had to masturbate -- I had submitted my lust for so many years that it had finally rebelled, taking control and hold of me. Sometimes I wondered if it was not some kind of disease...

When I again heard her yell, I was ready, all dressed in clean, yet if worn and torn, clothes.

"Will you take the bathroom forever?" She shouted angrily. And only then, did I open the curtains to her room. "Since we have this single bathroom in the house, I wish you had more consideration for me and would shorten your... bath." Was she being ironic?

"Naturally." I answered, condescendingly. "Today I got carried away with... the water... more than I normally do. Are you hungry?" I asked cheerfully. I was feeling relieved yet full of energy, and in my tranquility I felt I could easily tame her anger.

"No. I have already eaten." she replied sullenly.

"You mean, the afternoon sandwich? That was just a snack..." I smiled, happily anticipating the nice surprise I held for her. "I made dinner. It's in the kitchen when you want to eat it... And if you want to eat it now..." For a moment, I went back to my plan of dining at the table with her. Candlelight, the moon and the stars, the rustling of the breeze on the palm trees, Nature at its loveliest enveloping us, even if my food was not the best. What else could we care for? For a moment, only.

"Yes, I have seen those bowls." The scorn in her voice indicated those were not the appropriate recipients for a proper meal. "I went to the kitchen while waiting... for your bath... to finish... And I have already eaten." Entirely oblivious to my surprise and disappointment, she continued. "May I ask you to pay more attention to the salt, next time? Nevertheless, I'm grateful for that meal. Though less greasy would have been finer, too..." She gave me her condescending smile. "Now... could you please leave?"

 Not only had Catherine not noticed my clothes... they were surely as ragged as the others, but at least they had been clean... She hadn't noticed my attempted kindness in cooking for her, so full of concern and effort, to try to please her, to make her feel welcome. All I did was small and humble, and went unnoticed for her. And it would be exactly like that anyway, for all the years to follow.

I felt I was losing control of my life. Half a minute before I had been excited, full of energy, and before that I had abandoned myself to an insane pleasure -- and now I felt hollow and discouraged.

I was kind of glad that she had taken my hunger away, I thought, when I got to the kitchen.

Catherine must have thought I had already eaten, like in the afternoon when I had left her a sandwich, having taken mine downstairs to the garden. And from dinner for two there were only a few remains left. So little that it wouldn't be enough for the mice, crumbs and bits that I had no desire to eat. Not the least, when I heard she was vomiting again.

Finally, I understood. An insight sprang up in my mind, seeming to come from the empty bowl before me. And it was very clear. If Catherine's image and memory, even her presence, could arouse and excite me so much, talking and interacting with her was the greatest turn off.

She was the sickness and the remedy, the enslaver and the liberator, all at once. 

And I, what was I in all this?

Another insight would take longer to occur -- actually, it came too late, and because of its lack and delay I got into deep trouble.

Well, it took me too long to understand that as much as I loved Catherine's body, I did not love her.

On the other hand, I truly loved Armand, but failed to love his body.

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Episode 34 | Not yet your mother

previous episode

nudity and sex

"In the broad silence, I could hear the girl vomiting in the bathroom. And also crying, angrily, and I think even cursing... She kept flushing the toilet, repeatedly, and I thought I should have warned her about how it was crucial to save water on the island..." And I realized that Carlo had, without warning, returned to the Île du Blanchomme, to the evening of Catherine's arrival. "I waited for everything to become again quiet, and as she did not return to the beach, I went upstairs to look for her in the house."

I found her sitting at one of the tables that Armand had placed on the veranda, around a small lounge which he called the Music Room, where he kept his guitar and the stereo. It was the only room in the house that actually resembled a hostel, with the four tables creating a small eating environment, a bit like a charming Parisian bistro -- and it was there that the girl had sat. She should have found the matches, because she had lit a candle, and under that gentle light, for the first time I thought she looked beautiful in her fancy dress, which bared her back.

I brought her some juice I had prepared that afternoon, thinking she might like to drink something to get rid of the vomit's taste in her mouth -- I didn't mention that to her, of course -- and as an apology for my previous rudeness.

"Merci." she said, when I handed her the glass with juice. Inadvertently I glanced at her generous décolleté dress, and I caught a glimpse of her breasts under the loose fabric. But luckily, she seemed oblivious at my indiscretion. "I hate boats!" And then she was telling me how sick she had been since coming to the islands, having to use boats to get around, and I realized that she too was trying to apologize for her bad temper. "I have once been on a cruise ship, and I also felt sick, but these tiny little boats here... They are dreadful! And worst of all was travelling to this island!"

I tried to tell her the probable reason for the sea being rougher around the Île du Blanchomme were the dangerous currents encircling it, but she did not seem to want to listen to it, and just cut me off.

"Juice?" she grinned, having drunk half a glass until finally realizing what she was drinking. "Don't you have anything stronger?" And she clarified it as I looked at her blankly. "Are you sure that you understand French? Have you ever been to France?" But she did not want to hear my reply. "Don't you have wine? Or anything alcoholic? I need to recharge my energies..."

I laughed. Not at the request properly, and of course not at the fact that she was feeling weak, but at the absurdity of thinking that there could be wine on a tiny island lost in the Indian Ocean.

"Sure!" I told her wryly. "I'll bring you our wine list..." I added.

But she didn't listen to the irony in my remark -- it seemed my Italian accent was affecting her understanding of my French --, and I saw she took me seriously, for she was happy with the offer. She only understood it was a joke when I did not leave her side. I laughed again.

She was immediately offended, and again I saw her mood worsen.

She was furious at me as she jumped from the chair, her anger exploding. 

The girl had a delicate constitution and looked fragile, her figure so slim and petite -- her arms were so thin that it looked like they could break with that emotional burst. In contrast to her round breasts, that I found myself watching, and which were not too full but so well made, ​​like those from a Greek classical statue. In her outbursts, her frailty transformed into recklessness. 

It is her way of imposing herself, I thought.

"How rude you are!" she cried, full of scorn. "If you intend to host civilized beings, how can you not have wine? What kind of hole is this hostel? Mon Dieu, how long will I have to wait to get out of here?" She snorted.

"Maybe a week..." I replied calmly, without stepping into her ​​anger. "...at least!" I confess I felt a certain pleasure in torturing her with that disheartening information. "I'm not sure how often the boat comes around the island, but I think it never takes more than ten days to return..."

"How come you don't know? Don't you live here?" She moaned. "Ten days? You must be kidding! I need to wait that long for that damn boat? At this hole... with you?" She emphasized the 'you', making it clear that my company was worse than the uncivilized island and the dreadful boat. "Where are the other guests? Is there anyone more educated here that I can talk to?"

"No guests! I've said it before... this is not a hostel..." I said it gently, but it was as if I had punched the girl, who leaned over her own body, moaning, and walked towards the couch at the Music Room, where she collapsed.

"Can I help you? Do you want more juice?" I did not know what to do, I did not know what to say, I did not know how to behave in such a situation, but I guessed I should try. "Haven't you been overexposed to the sun on the beach, this afternoon?" I had noticed her skin was so pale and delicate, and it seemed to me to be overly pinkish, as if she had been assaulted by an army of sun rays. "It could be a heatstroke, and drinking water probably helps..."

"No!" She groaned, and gestured me to back away from her. "I want to be alone!" She fidgeted on the couch, restlessly. "Is the ground of the island moving?"

"No, of course not..." Her ideas were so ridiculous, but I tried not to laugh, and instead empathize with her suffering. "You could still be feeling the rocking of the boat..."

"Damned boats..." she whispered, and it seemed to me that in a couple more minutes she fell deeply asleep. 

I went to the kitchen to wash the dishes of the day, and I had to smile as I saw the lipstick mark on the girl's glass. Did I place my own lips on it, before washing the glass? I don't remember if I did it that first night already, but I certainly did it afterwards...

When I returned to the Music Room, she was sound asleep. Against my will, against my education, I again glanced at her breasts... and more intently this time, since I knew I wasn't being observed. From the way her body was twisted, I could see the edge of one of her nipples appearing under the fabric -- and I almost felt vertigo from the overwhelming wave of desire that invaded and dominated me. I had to run away from the room, confused, not to act brutally against the asleep, helpless girl.

I went down to the beach, as far as I could from that girl. What was that?!? Lust burst in me more violently than anything else I had ever felt, an urge like nothing I had experienced before... If I had stayed a moment longer beside that couch, watching the sleeping girl, I could not have stopped my hand from touching her... and not only grabbing her breasts, feeling her nipples... Next, I could have thrown myself on top of her, and maybe...

Maybe... I would had been conceived! I could not help but think.

I was a little embarrassed from the way Carlo was telling me his story, including such intimate confessions. But at the same time I was fascinated with the possibility to acknowledge my own conception... I guess many children have that curiosity about the occasion of their conception, and as a teenager I had once asked Catherine about it. Shamelessly, she had told me a story I now discovered had been thoroughly made up, about their romantic encounter in a fancy resort in Punaouilo -- and I was about to discover the truth.

"There haven't been many women in my life..." Carlo pondered. "From my mother, I remember very little. And when I moved in with my grandfather, he was already a widower. I think I took from him a certain asceticism, and my celibacy never bothered me. In my teenage years in the Apennines there was nothing sexually exciting -- the animals having intercourse and procreating, yes, but that did not arouse any desire in me, to try it myself. Moreover, sometimes we had some guys helping on the farm, but until Armand's heartfelt confession I had never thought of having sex with another man."

Parisian women astounded me, and I simply dismissed, them thinking they were meant for guys like Armand. To my eyes, they were voluptuous, sophisticated, intellectual, all full of attitudes and style -- even the waitresses and shop assistants seemed like untouchable queens to me. I could blush when I recalled them, especially at the Cinematéque, engaging in long, passionate kisses with their boyfriends. And I never considered having one for me -- I had to struggle to survive in Paris, make good use of my time to get the best training possible, and try to somehow establish myself in the city. Most of the times, despite Armand's generosity and hospitality, I felt like a transplanted tree striving to grow roots, against all odds, in foreign soil.  

Returning to the house, I thought I'd take a cold shower to calm myself. But that was not what happened at the bathroom, and for the first time since coming to the island, I jerked off. Not even the smell of her vomit still lingering in the bathroom turned me off. I stroked myself feeling a guilty pleasure all the time -- for I was finally wasting the sexual energy I had been diligently accumulating and transforming into vital and spiritual energy, like I had studied in that book about Indian philosophies. And I felt even more guilty for being so aware of the girl's presence in the house... and in my mind... and the fact that she was the reason why I was wildly touching myself like that... and when I came, I was thinking of her bared nipple and how it would have tasted in my mouth...

I had not known how to deal with women, and less did I know how to deal with my own lust.

I had learned from the masters of India that lust was the chief enslaver of human beings -- and since I had never really felt it before, I had considered myself naturally free of it. I took myself for the one remarkable exception to all beings. 

Until that evening on the Île du Blanchomme.

It was a tremendous explosion, or as if the walls of a huge dam had collapsed  -- and I could no longer contain the force of the waters of my desire. Neither wanted I.

"I went to sleep, and after having fidgeted in my bed for a few minutes, again I masturbated..." Carlo suddenly looked at me, as if returning from the Île du Blanchomme. "Am I embarrassing you, son? You know, I was in my early twenties, and a virgin... Now that I am older this seems so far away... almost a curiosity... and so unlikely to have happened. That strong lust... I was guiltily masturbating in my room, aware of being separated only by a tiny wall from the girl sleeping on the couch, whom I evoked in my wild fantasies... Was she real, or was she just an image? Her presence was real, but what she performed in my mind..." Carlo shrugged, dismissing those recollections. "That girl, Laurent, was not yet your mother... And as I furiously jerked off I was thinking of Armand, too, and equally feeling guilty, and confused..." 

Carlo gulped, and the continued. "I was as tormented as I had been the previous night, but it was a different kind of suffering -- instead of nightmares, I was fully awake and aroused by an imperative lust, which I did not seem to want to get rid of... In my mind, I could understand how enslaving it was, but those bodily sensations were so addictive good, so intensely pleasurable... And I gave in, again I gave in to it and masturbated until I exploded and was left drained..."

I eventually fell asleep, exhausted.

I woke up a few hours later, before dawn, again with a hard-on -- and needing to go to the bathroom to pee.

Since Armand had been gone, instead of using the corridor, I had taken to crossing his room, which was next to mine, to get to the bathroom, adjoining his.

I stopped halfway.

The girl must have woken up in the middle of the night, and having left the Music Room, wandered through the house without my noticing it -- but had she seen me, lying naked and hard on my bed?  She had found Armand's bedroom and taken hold of his big, comfortable bed.

For a moment I was just confused and baffled. But next I was furious with her, for she had occupied my friend's bed with such ease, something that I had been unable to do even in his absence. I almost kicked her out of that room, such was my indignation at her disrespecting the bed where I had experienced so many emotions and special feelings and sensations with Armand. Of course, to her it had been just an available bed in the hostel, not a love nest...

 But I did not wake her up in my rage, only because my demanding hard-on humiliated me... and I cautiously turned back, returning to my room.

Once back there, though separated by a single wall, my fury and indignation quickly vanished to give in to lust -- and while servicing my raging hard-on and watching dawn breaking, I fantasized about both Armand and Catherine, and I was now inside him, then I was in her, and in my thoughts I could not distinguish whom I was with, riding that bed that now united and mingled their bodies into one gender-less body, confusing them in my mind.

I saluted dawn with another big spurt in several ropes that I aimed at my body, so that I didn't have to clean the room afterwards. And all covered with sperm I went down to the beach to bathe in the sea, so as to cleanse myself and to calm down.

For another day in a row I did not meditate in the morning. I did try to sit, but the problem was no longer just calming my mind... since my thoughts kept going back to the girl, my body was no longer like a safe and stable mountain to which I'd bring back my wandering mind. The solid mountain had turned into a blazing volcano.

 So I just sat there, feeling the breeze on my naked body, watching the sun rise, and then I swam as long as I could, against the currents, trying to tire myself and pacify my desire. 

I felt I was losing it... but what was it? My freedom, probably. My privacy, surely. My peace of mind, of course. I was finally, essentially losing myself, as painful and pleasurable and definite as it could be!

next episode

Author's note: having been imported from a former version of the story, some of the comments below are dated previous to this post. Once the plot has not been altered, just the pagination, I am keeping them since they are very dear and precious to me.