Читать книгу Melina Breaking Free - Dimitra Mantheakis - Страница 8

Anesti’s and Mary’s wedding took place with as much glamour as the pharmacist’s family budget would allow. The wedding dress was a masterwork, white and plain in design, projecting the bride’s fine body and emphasizing the sweet charm of her face. Looking at the groom standing next to her in church, Mary banished the shadow that lodged itself deep in her eyes. How much she wanted to be madly in love with the man who was becoming her husband, how much she wished that his charming appearance would electrify her and make every cell in her heart and body long for him! Yet, however, there was nothing in her, beyond respect, a surfeit of liking for him, and the carnal wait. She had been unable to tie her heart to his with a bond of love in all the time that they had been secretly engaged…

The girls who had shared passionate sexual siesta hours with the architect were also invited to the wedding with their families. Each of them, separately and secretly, was seething with anger and envy, because sexual passion, their imaginative games in bed and their limitless submission to every desire of Anesti, whether conventional or beyond socially acceptable limits, had been unable to tie him down. Their mothers were equally annoyed, considering that the groom had slipped through their fingers, taken from them by Mary the Bland, who, moreover, was penniless; but none of them betrayed the true feelings well-hidden behind the hypocritical smiles of joy that they put on for the bride’s happiest hour.

After the bridal couple’s dance they went back to a table which was exclusively for Mary’s childhood friends. Paulina, Sofia, Dina, Urania, Iakovos and Sarantos once more voiced, with much gesturing of hands, their plans for the future to their school friends. Dina told them that she would pursue her dream to be on the stage now that she had graduated from high school. Paulina would become a dress designer, a field in which she had displayed talent, filling many albums with her sketches. Their problem was that in Athens things were still in a primitive phase regarding their chosen professions and would limit their career potential. They wanted to spread their wings to other places. Their burning aspiration was directed at New York which appeared magical in their minds. The problem was how to find a way to pay for the expensive tuition at the schools there. They would also have to overcome the objections of their parents, but that, for the moment, didn’t much bother them. They would overcome hurdles in their own way, come hell or high water! Sarantos told them to contact immigrant Greek organizations to apply for scholarships. Perhaps luck would be on their side and they could find the much-needed economic help they were looking for.

“Isn’t Spiros Andreadis, the photographer’s son, studying to be an engineer with funds provided by the Church and by Greek emigrants? His father didn’t have a bean to send him to America,” said Sarantos, inflating the girls’ hopes. Urania had no professional ambitions to present to the others. She wanted to get married and to occupy herself with her husband and children as soon as possible. Sofia on the other hand told them that she wanted to work as a municipal employee at the town hall and her father had already had a discussion with the local Member of Parliament they always voted for, and he had promised he would assist in getting her hired. She was a pampered only daughter and didn’t want to distance herself from her family’s embrace for any reason...

Iakovos didn’t have room for dreams beyond the narrow limits of the small family shop at this given moment. He had an unmarried sister and his mother to look after as he was the only male at home now that his father had become a mere visitor, coming and going to prison and from exile to exile. The only person who had nothing to say was Melina. Looking at the pretty dresses of the other girls her heart tightened. The dress she was wearing had been lent to her by Mary, as had been her shoes, otherwise she wouldn’t have been able to attend the wedding. She forced herself to swallow her pride not to hurt Mary on her wedding day. What plans could she make for tomorrow, to establish herself in a career and have better prospects? Jobs in the provinces were difficult to land and were only available to those with an ‘in’. She had nothing, except for poverty, privation and daily humiliation. Being a top student at school didn’t seem to offer her better prospects. She indeed had a will, but she did not have a way. It looked as if the rest of her life would be like this. She would be lost as a salesgirl in some shop, or as an assistant in a restaurant kitchen somewhere, if indeed she were lucky and managed to get even this, and never able to break free from a life of drudgery and her destiny. Tears welled up in her eyes and she stood up to move away not to be noticed by her school-mates and for them to start asking questions. This was not the time for compassion or for her to spoil her friend’s milestone day with her melancholy. No one noticed her leave the venue where the wedding was being held as she made her way towards the beach. She took off her shoes not to spoil them with the wet sand, borrowed as they were and having to be returned. When Mary said she could keep them and the dress as well, she had refused. She did not want charity. All she had wanted was to be helped out temporarily...

She walked along the beach crying, unaware of the natural beauty of her surroundings. She had been overcome by the ugliness of her own life. At least she could be alone for a little while before going back to her stifling hovel to face the usual questioning by her parents who would bombard her with pressing questions if they saw her clouded mood, something that today fortunately would not happen as her younger siblings were home alone with their sick grandmother. Her eye had caught her mother secretly folding sweets in paper napkins and putting them in her worn handbag to take home to the younger children. Even this act made her feel shame and pain. She felt sorry for her family and self-pity at being an integral part of this humiliating situation; a state of affairs that had not changed in years, no matter what effort or physical exertion she had expended for them at what was a permanent grindstone for her. What was worse was that any hope that a better future would one day dawn, had died in her. And this was killing her; slowly, slowly, but steadily…

She spread out her scarf and sat on a flat section of a rock that had not been wet by the waves. How much she longed to ride a wave that would take her far away to a world that was different from her daily routine, where there would be rays of light for her too; a chance to change the void she almost always felt inside her as a result of the pessimistic thoughts that wandered about inside her head not allowing the birth of even a fleeting smile of optimism to reach her lips! She leaned her head forward inside her folded arms, resting it on her raised knees, and cried, and cried, seeking release through the outburst brought on by the fathomless sorrow in her soul…

She almost didn’t notice Sarantos’ hands as they gently touched her shoulders. The youth had discreetly followed her having noticed from her dulled eyes that his Melina was not well. And when Melina was not well, Sarantos felt even worse. Such was the pain and love he felt for his ever-beloved…

Melina turned and looked at him with eyes that were full of stars from the reflection of light in her tears. Without a word he opened his arms and she huddled into his embrace. Sarantos began drying her wet cheeks with gentle kisses. Then, he started cautiously at first kissing the lips he had dreamed of kissing from the time they were children, and then progressed with passion as years of pent-up desire overtook him. Melina did not react. She clung to him, like a leach, as if to a savior. Tonight she wanted to belong to someone, even temporarily; she wanted to be special to someone outside her family. No one, except Sarantos, had ever been by her side, not a single youth among the many in the village had ever tried to approach her, to flirt with her, or even to look at her with interest and persistence, to show that he had noticed her. Lost in the maze of her complexes Melina had never realized how stunning, and at the same time wild, was her beauty, but at the same time so off-putting with the hardness of her eyes, her mask of indifference and the coldness of her face that made all those who admired her unable to cast a second, more direct glance for fear of provoking her, untamed as she was, to attack them verbally and to make fools out of them…

Without her realizing it the girl had raised, on her own, a barrier between herself and her secret admirers, believing that poor and humble as she was she was unworthy of attention and not worth approaching. What idiot would want to accompany someone who was the very embodiment of wretchedness, to enter her house that was in a state of disrepair and to become witness to her family’s struggle to survive for yet one more day? These were Melina’s thoughts, her self-respect in tatters, having lived through traumatic experiences that had become hurdles to every natural ambition, barriers cutting her off even from those things that anyone else would consider to be normal and expected. She was in a hole, never expecting to ever find her way out into the light of day, never to be able to spew out the bottled-up sentiments that were choking her. At this moment, with its burden of sentiments, Melina, who could feel Sarantos’ hands touching her lightly and gently, as if she were fragile as crystal and experiencing a wave of tenderness emanating from his words and actions, wanted to think of nothing else and nobody else. She was the one taking the decisions that influenced her actions and not the mores of society, she said to herself tossing her full head of hair aside into a crack in the rocks. Sarantos strong hands moved across her back, stroking her from the base of her neck to her buttocks. She let her head fall back, allowing his mouth to explore her lips her neck and the top of her full breasts. Her young flesh woke, putting forth pressing demands which, fired by passionate kisses and sensual caresses, became a need that insisted on immediate satisfaction. Distant and frigid Melina had metamorphosed into a living flame, feeling for the first time in her life that someone else was totally dependant on her wants and on her approval or rejection in order to proceed to the next level. She had been unaware that Sarantos had achieved some expertise in the management of matters of the flesh. Or was it perhaps her own submissiveness that guided her to take the right steps to gain that total knowledge and to excite every cell of her body?

Suddenly she was overcome by a sensation of having total power, even if this complete dominance had only one object, Sarantos. Melina wanted to travel along the entire route without caring if she came up against a dead-end at its end. The future had no connection or dependence on the present and she wanted, with all her will, to remain enmeshed in this warm embrace and to taste the present…

As if she had years of experience she cupped his face with her long slender fingers, tasting his lips with light bites and then pressed her mouth against his, wanting to suck out his very soul with deep and exhilarating kisses. She felt him moan and shake in reaction to her passionate response. At one moment Sarantos getting his breath back murmured, “Stop now, my Melina, I won’t be able to control myself if you stop me later, if you don’t want me to go on…”

“I don’t want to stop you!” Melina said, out of breath. “Teach me everything, show me everything, right now!”

Sarantos hugged her with an iron grip against his body and Melina felt herself being pressed below her abdomen by a part of his body that she had only seen in statues. The evidence of his response to her made her shiver in anticipation as to what was to follow and which she was now more than ready to accept. Only he could give her what she wanted, here and now…

Sarantos pulled down the material of her neckline and her round and heavy breasts spilled out before his eyes. The youth caught his breath at the magnificent sight. Unable to control himself he stroked every curve and her nipples became hard to his touch. He put his head between them, licking every inch as Melina hugged him tightly to her afraid that he might stop this enthralling sensual exploration. Waves of electricity coursed through her body making her feel such tenderness and such heat between her legs that it was almost painful for her. Her passion was so intrusive, so hot, so demanding that it made her vision blur and created a sensation of dizziness that welled up from her stomach.

Sarantos lifted her dress over her head, placing it on the rock to keep it dry and then took off her panties. Melina was not wearing a bra. The girl was completely naked now in front of him with her perfect curves exposed to his view and to his wandering hands. The sight of her beauty burned him like a hot wind in a summer drought. He lifted her up in his arms and put her down on his jacket that he had spread out on the sand. When he leaned over her Melina impatiently unbuttoned his trousers and without any hesitation or shame stroked his penis that had become as hard as steel for her. “Don’t Melina, don’t!” he implored her. “Not yet, please!”

Melina stopped stroking him and waited. He opened her legs wide and lay on top of her. His moved his member slowly up and down along her Mound of Venus, stroking her clitoris and the outer part of her vagina with his erection. A cry broke free from her mouth as she pulled herself even closer to him, following his movements.”Don’t stop! Don’t stop!” she shouted in a hoarse voice, as if any man could have checked his passion at that stage. Sarantos wanted to make the foreplay last as long as possible to make her reach the heights of longing. He had been in love with her for so many years and now that she was giving herself to him he sought to reach the limits of his will, which, to tell the truth, he was about to exhaust, in order to give her the greatest possible pleasure. Her immediate response, in reverse proportion to her customary iciness and her refusal to allow anyone to read her sentiments, including her very closest circle, was an unexpected, or rather, a welcome surprise for him that made him melt with tenderness tightly interwoven with strong desire…

Sarantos looked at her face and Melina responded by exploring his, her eyes half-closed with heavy eyelids. Melina discerned a tension such as she had never seen before. He resembled a hunter who had finally trapped his prey, looking as if the only object of importance was the valuable quarry which in this instance was she. But her pursuer at this moment was trapped between her two legs and instead of being the hunter, he was the quarry and had been totally conquered…

With an impatient movement the young man unbuttoned his shirt that stood as the only obstacle between him and the nakedness of her flesh. In front of Melina’s eyes was spread the largest, widest expanse of smooth male skin that she had ever seen. Tight muscles were folded under its surface, inviting her to touch them to test their strength and endurance. She lifted her head and with her mouth found his nipples which she sucked on, just as he had sucked hers, with the same sensuality. Sarantos shivered bodily and his skin stood up in goose-bumps, thrilling her. He then turned sideways and started stroking her vagina slowly, gently, arousing her, centimeter by centimeter, sending waves of pleasure and warmth through her body. With a touch as gentle as that of a feather he stroked the length of the inside of her legs, not stopping. He leaned forward and with his tongue he touched her private parts. Her body responded with an involuntary spasm and her lips, beyond control now, begged him to touch her again with his manhood. Her hands tried to pull his head up towards her face, holding him tightly and digging her nails into his flesh because she had run out of patience in her anticipation of reaching another, higher, peak of pleasure…

At last his penis was back between her legs and was playing again around the periphery of her opening, guided by his hand. Then, slowly, carefully, he put the tip of his erection into the opening of her vagina. He pushed forward a little with his hips and then drew back. A cry came from Melina’s lips.

”Don’t leave me, don’t stop!”

Again his erection toyed inside her, for a little while longer, a little deeper. The girl grabbed him between his thighs and with as much strength as she could muster she stuck him to her in order not to allow him to try and withdraw as he had done before. She felt the large hot entry of his member sealing her vaginal cavity, moving inward, bit by bit. A momentary sensation of pain was immediately drowned out by passion and her desire to climax. Now he was completely inside her, deep in her interior, and she wanted nothing else in the world at this moment. Every deep thrust made her groan and her hands sought to confirm that he was fully inside her. The lower part of her body moved without guidance, on its own, to the rhythm of his movements, stuck to his body and sending such strong waves of pleasure that she thought she was about to lose her mind…

Their rhythm soon became more intense, more frantic, and suddenly a bolt of lightning appeared to burst inside her; a new sensation bringing satisfaction that she never before could have imagined. Her body shuddered from the overwhelming orgasm that continued vibrating in her, up and down, prolonging the infinite sweetness. After a few seconds she felt Sarantos’ convuslion deep inside her and heard his cry of release. They continued moving for a little while longer with their bodies together with the intent of prolonging for as long as possible the exquisite mutual feeling of utter bliss.

“I love you, Melina!” whispered Sarantos, pulling himself carefully out of her vagina to lie next to her. Melina felt wetness in her private parts; the wetness that was evidence of the pinnacle of the unexpected carnal pleasure she had just experienced. “So this then is the sexual act!” she thought. “It’s worth doing all the time!” Silently, she leaned forward and kissed Sarantos passionately on his lips. His chest rose up and down as he tried to get his breath back. Then she reached out with her hand and stroked his manhood that had lost its previous stiffness. “It was wonderful, Sarantos!” she said. “Can we do it again?”

The youth smiled and started sucking on her mouth before wandering over her breasts with his lips, stroking the hair on her Mound of Venus with his hands, and directing his tongue to sensually lick her clitoris. Melina squirmed and continued stroking him, while at the same time sucking on his nipples and nibbling on his earlobe. Her hands did not for a moment wander from his penis which she now felt rising up and coming to life again. The harder she felt him become, the more she was overcome by waves of desire coursing through her body. When she felt him hard as iron she bent down and her tongue started wandering up and down, with more attention to the head, exactly in the manner that Sarantos had done for her clitoris. Sarantos responded to the exquisite sensation of her tongue on his now complete erection with a series of groans, inarticulate exclamations and uncontrollable jerks.

Suddenly he caught her by her bent shoulders and said to her, “Enough! I can’t take any more!” He grabbed her, turning her onto her back and rushed to enter her. Melina shouted out, egging him on to continue with his frantic movements. “Deeper, deeper, Sarantos!” she repeated, again and again. Their bodies rolled left and right, stuck together as if they were one. The hardness that was moving inside her made Melina feel such vibrations of pleasure that she felt she would die from unfathomable bliss. How she wanted this wonderful sensation to last forever! But the time for the final outburst, for the magnificent climax, had come for them both in perfect synchronization. Their bodies had identified with one another in the mutual quest, in this unbelievable journey towards a common destination that was the soothing of their desires and passion, and for the satisfaction demanded by their flesh in its hunger for sex.

For a few minutes they lay next to one another with their hands entwined, sunk in sweet torpor. Only their irregular breathing revealed that they were alive. Suddenly Melina jumped up. “How long have we been away?” she exclaimed anxiously. Sarantos fumbled for the watch in his trouser pocket. “An hour and a half!” he said. “Oh, we’ll get into trouble!” Melina replied and running, she plunged into the sea. Sarantos, still lying down, leaning on his bent elbow, observed her naked buttocks as their white roundness shone in the moonlight and he again felt passion stirring his private parts.

“Come to your senses, Sarantos!” he chided himself. “They’ll catch onto us and we’ll be in trouble.” He stood up and entered the water to wash off the sand that was sticking to him. They came out of the water, holding hands and exchanging kisses and then stood for a while to dry off in the summer breeze. They then put on their clothes after shaking them carefully.

“I’ll leave first!” said Melina. “Come later from another direction not to raise suspicions!” A final kiss and Melina started in the direction of the wedding venue. Anxiety had welled up in her. “And what if they looked for me?” she wondered. “What will I say? I’ve been away for almost two hours! And what if they connect my absence with that of Sarantos? I’m done for! Who’ll be able to stop their tongues wagging?”

When she reached the wedding party she discovered with relief that nobody was at her table. The couples on the floor were following the rhythm of a melodic slow dance, the lights were dimmed and the silver light of the moon illuminated the tightly clasped figures of the dancers. Mary and Anestis were tightly clenched and were kissing. When the dance finished and her friends came back to her table, no one asked her where she had been. It seems, she said, freed from her earlier anxiety, that they had not noted her absence among so many people, absorbed as they had been with eating the flavorsome food and drinking good wines and dancing. It wasn’t as if they did this every day. Besides, it was a unique opportunity to flirt with the girls or the boys they liked and they weren’t about to lose it by spying on the doings of other invitees.

Sarantos arrived fifteen minutes later and sat at the opposite corner of the table. He filled his glass with wine and whenever he could he stole glances at Melina, thinking over every detail of the past hours. She had opened the Gates of Paradise for him, she had offered him unique moments of such intense carnal pleasure that they had been almost painful for him and which the young man was sure he would never experience again for the rest of his life. This girl was not only the goddess of his soul; she was also queen of his body. She had offered him her body with a sweet willingness that became a fire that had burned him. She wasn’t a girl; she was a volcano whose lava of desire and her responsiveness, after setting him entirely on fire, had calmed his years-long desire to dominate her, to make her his completely, something that he couldn’t have dreamed of at the beginning of the evening. Sated with pleasure, he silently begged that the experience that had been a fantasy beyond his wildest dreams and ambitions would continue…

Mary went from table to table, talking and joking with the guests who were slowly beginning to leave, having eaten their fill and exhausted themselves by dancing without stopping. The last to leave was her own group of friends. She invited them all to come for a farewell meal at her house the next day. In the evening she and Anesti would leave for Italy on their honeymoon. The first night of their wedding would be spent at the seaside hotel where the reception was to be held. When the last of the wedding guests had left the couple went up the stairs hand in hand to their tastefully decorated room. They sat for a while on the balcony admiring the silver reflection of the moon on the sea which appeared to shiver at the contact, and then they went into their bedroom. Anesti took off Mary’s wedding dress with practiced hands and while kissing her passionately he removed her lace underwear.

Mary responded with ardor to his kisses and caresses. The girl had waited, after all, for six whole months. She was young and her flesh had its demands. Her husband dragged her to the bed and before long, and without taking enough time in foreplay, he rushed to enter her. Mary screamed in pain and her passion dissolved. With effort and in extreme discomfort she put up with him until he had finished. When he lay down next to her, panting, the girl tried to rid her face of any signs of disappointment. The sexual act was in no way like the ones she had read about in “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” where every scene had tickled her senses and made her look forward impatiently for the moment when, she too, would experience something similar. How many times had she not thumbed through the forbidden book that she had bought secretly on a trip to Athens with her father and had been hidden in a steamer trunk carefully wrapped in a thick shawl covered with a pile of clothes? How many times when her parents were away had she not read, and read again, the passages describing the heroine’s sexual encounters, spinning her own erotic romances where her senses were awakened and her unquenched desires could only be tamed by the force and the art of an experienced lover! Tonight the scene that she had been nurturing for so many years in her imagination and had fed with her sexual urges had nothing in common with what she had experienced and which had been particularly painful for her, despite its brief duration. “Perhaps it was unpleasant because it was my first time,” she thought, and the explanation sounded convincing to her. “I hope the next time and the ones after will be completely different,” she said to set her mind at ease.

In a little while Anesti was back on top of her and deep inside her again. It wasn’t painful this time, but she found it impossible to follow his rhythm. He couldn’t touch some relevant spot that would strengthen her longing and her passion to allow her too to get somewhere, and after a while all this back-and-forth of male hips tired and annoyed her because she was unable to participate. She listened to Anesti grunting and soon after he fell by her side, satisfied, while she felt that she was suspended somewhere else and not a part of what had taken place, as if it were not her body that had been conquered. She bit her lip to prevent herself from crying and creating a situation with her husband. He put his arms around her waist tightly and went to sleep on her shoulder with a smile of contentment on his face…

Mary stayed awake for the rest of the night. A fear had been born inside her that had not been there at the beginning of the previous evening. Could it be that she was frigid and unable to experience satisfaction and that her body was incapable of reaching orgasm despite her strong desires?

She put aside this annoying thought and the next morning when Anesti woke up with an iron-hard erection, Mary concentrated on the stirring sight. She stroked Anesti everywhere on his body, she kissed and was kissed by him passionately and longing woke up in her for what was to follow. And what was to follow, followed, and Mary’s thirst was again not quenched this time either. She felt anger well up inside her, looking at her husband who was satiated and rid of his load, smiling with satisfaction while she was still in suspense and hungry, with a sense of pressure in her vagina that had not found a way out to release her. She wanted to shout out, to tell him something, to make him concentrate on her problem, but, seeing his contentment, she did not dare. “Next time maybe things will be different. I’ll get used to accepting him inside me, I will get used to his rhythm, and doing that I will climax too!” she thought, and hung her hopes on it…

But even this hope ended in disappointment in the times that followed, and they were many, as Anesti was brimming with youthful vigour and sexual release was a pressing issue for him. The fact that he wanted her and sought to copulate with her, excited Mary, but for her an orgasm had become a rarely stumbled-on treasure, or rather something belonging to an unseen world. The woman tried all possible positions since Anesti was particularly inventive, liking variety and whatever was different. The result was the same. Mary was driven to a frenzy by her desire to climax, with a fire burning her private parts that could not be extinguished by the entry of her husband’s organ, slowly or quickly, into her, or in any permutation. And the woman found refuge in the bath after their encounters, finding release by masturbating. “What do I need a man for if I can satisfy myself?” she asked herself cynically and in anger on occasion. Immediately afterwards she would repent for being unfair to Anesti. It wasn’t Anesti’s fault. His private parts were well formed and of generous proportions, and he was experienced in this field; even the frequency and variety he brought to their bed was enough to prove that he excelled in the sexual game. It was more than clear that the problem was hers. It was impossible for her to climax with a man inside her, even one who was dynamic and vigorous, and this realization almost brought her to a point of despair. She decided not to think about the matter in order for it not to become an obsession with her, and, additionally, to never tell Anesti about her inability to climax. She pretended to experience release, assuming a facial expression of ecstasy so as not to upset him, since, despite the fact that Mary discreetly guided him many times to do what she wanted and he followed her instructions willingly, there was never however a cure to her sexual problem…She would leave things as they were for it would be a pity to disturb the equilibrium of her otherwise harmonious marriage because of what, clearly now to her, was her own physical dysfunction.