Read The Scorpion's Sweet Venom for Free Online Page B

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    I've already mentioned that one of the things that most irritated me about the brothels was the issue of the linen. Well here's
     another behind-the-scenes story. In the house on Rua Michigan, the girls had to wash the towels themselves (the bed linen
     went to the launderette). There were four washing machines and a bunch of clotheslines to dry them on. Except that when winter
     came and business picked up, the sun didn't come out and the dratted towels just wouldn't get dry. There was a heater in the
     room where we sat and waited for clients. We'd come downstairs after each client with the towel, and the manager would hang
     it in front of the heater, let it dry a little, check for stains and wrap it up again. Looks brand new, right? Several men
     would dry themselves with the same towel. Gross . . .
    All the confusion, discovering sexual desire, gossip, losing my friends, and the fact that I'd always been chubby, sent me
     into a painful spiral. I fell into a depression and ended up on Prozac and the lot. And with all this going on, my fear of
     getting fat again led me to bulimia. I'd stuff my face with sweets, then stick my fingers down my throat and . . . it became
     a compulsion. I was hungry and ate a lot, I think because of the medication and my anxiety, then I'd rush away from the dining
     tableto bring it all up again. On my way home from school, I'd stop and buy twenty reals' worth of sweets and chocolates every single day. I'd wolf them down practically all at once, just for the taste, then get
     rid of them a few minutes later. My mother caught on, probably because of the sound of the toilet flushing after every meal
     and the way I'd rush off. I took to vomiting in a newspaper so I wouldn't have to flush the toilet.
    Who knows why I went into such a bad depression. Well, actually, I do know. I thought I was fat and ugly, I was adopted, and
     I had problems with my dad . . . As if that weren't enough, when I turned sixteen, after the fuck-up at Bandeirantes and the
     fact that the story had also spread to Maria Imaculada, I found myself with no friends. It got to a point where I couldn't
     see any way out. I decided to kill myself. It'd have to be something quick, where I wouldn't feel any pain or run the risk
     of staying alive, but quadriplegic, for example. A gun would be the best way. Dad had one at home. Legal, of course. Not that
     he'd ever used it; it was from the days when we'd lived in the country. I knew where he kept it.
    One day, alone at home, I really hit rock bottom. I got the gun from its hiding place and, although I was shaking, stuck the
     barrel in my mouth. It's strange holding a gun. It's cold and its weight doesn't seem to match its size. It was as if I washolding
     something from another planet, a place that might well be my final destiny after firing the first and last shot of my life.
     I closed my eyes and got ready to pull the trigger with my thumb. There was this ridiculous pressure inside me, my head, my
     chest. I counted to three and . . . CLICK! The fucking thing wasn't loaded. Even so, I decided I still wanted to go through
     with it. I turned the place upside down and found the bag Dad kept the bullets in. I don't know what happened to me, but I
     was unable to load a single bullet in the revolver. I decided to give up. For the time being.
    A week went past and I was still really bad. I took Prozac to stay awake and something else to get to sleep. I don't think
     either of them had the desired effect, because I spent seven nights in a row going over my life, seeing just how much I had
     to work out. I decided to try again. I waited for everyone to go to bed, placed a chair by the living-room window, which was
     the only one that didn't have bars on it, and figured that falling from the ninth floor would be fatal, which was my intention.
     I climbed up, stuck a leg out the window and, with half my body inside and the other half hanging out, I thought about all
     the bad