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with relief. And lays her head on his chest. Then the two of them experience an instant of complete communion, beyond the sexual realm or perhaps coming after the sexual realm: “I could be more graphic by saying we had a child that night, born not of flesh but of the denial of the flesh. And I sometimes shudder to think it may still be alive in its own world, doing who knows what. And yet I sense it was an ephemeral being.”
    I remember when Mario didn’t want to have kids, or wasn’t sure he wanted them. We were just starting out and we thought our solitude was enough to fill the house. We spent whole afternoons simply clutching one another or holding hands, gazing out of the window. Whenever we spoke about it, Mario would tell me that we were our own child. That we cared for one another, nurtured one another. We felt we had created something attached to the two of us. That kind of creature who was both of us when we were together.
    In the end we were three. The house filled up. And something, I am not sure what exactly, was driven out from between us.

    As we become more confident in bed, Ezequiel begins to reveal himself. My initial response was instinctive rejection. I almost forbade him ever to touch me again. With his first attempt we screamed at each other. Not true: I did all the screaming. He remained calm. He didn’t even get up as I was putting myclothes on. He went on talking to me slowly, in that anaesthetizing tone he has. Lying among the pillows. Smiling, naked. With a slightly lopsided erection.
    Angry, I asked him if by any chance he took me for a sadomasochist . Ezequiel merely replied: If you were in my line of work, sadomasochism would seem the most natural thing in the world.
    After recovering from my initial shock, I couldn’t help thinking about everything that lay in store for me. That in any event I hadn’t much to lose, or rather that I couldn’t lose much more than I already had. I felt again the way I did the first night we spent together, when Ezequiel admired my composure in dealing with the situation and said to me: I can’t take my eyes off your breasts or your dignity.
    I agreed with trepidation. Just this once. To give it a try. As long as he promised to stop the moment I felt uncomfortable. That’s what we did. That’s what he did to me.
    It didn’t take me long to realize that it was exactly what I needed. To reclaim my body. All of it, not just a part of it. An unmitigated punishment. A pain that would awaken me.
    So now I am awakening.
    He wants to hit me and wants me to hit him. He asks me to penetrate him with all kinds of household objects. The more threatening they look, the more they appeal to him. Ezequiel suggests we do things that, until only recently, I would have considered reportable. He collects ghastly films that arouse me in ways I later feel ashamed of. He dreams up forms of masturbation where we suffer simultaneously. He takes me from feeling ticklish to panic, from panting to pleading. As we thrash about he insults me in a way that ought to revolt me. His fixation on my anus reaches extremes I had never imagined. I don’t mean penetration (we already tried that, with remarkable roughness,during our second meeting), but unexpected explorations involving all five senses. I say all five because, as well as seeing, touching, biting, and smelling everything, Ezequiel (I am serious ) listens to my flesh. I had never seen, or of course heard, of this before. He does it on any part of my body. He lays his cheek against my skin, his ear up close, like a gynaecologist monitoring contractions, and narrows his eyes. And he smiles. I don’t know what he is hearing.
    Tradition has it that sex results in the little death. I now believe that those who say this haven’t experienced the pleasure of harm. Because with Ezequiel I find the opposite is true: each fuck results in a resurrection. We insult each other. We tear into each other. We cause each other pain in order to