"Will it hurt me to be on top?" I asked in a tone that was almost reproachful.

"Who cares?" he exclaimed without looking at me.

I clambered on top of him and guided his lance to the center of my body. I felt a slight pain, but nothing terrible. Feeling him inside me didn't provoke the frenzy I had expected. On the contrary, his sex just gave me an annoying, burning sensation, but I felt obliged to stay glued to him like that.

No groan issued from my lips, which were clenched in a smile. Letting him see my pain would have meant expressing those feelings he didn't want to acknowledge. He wanted to make use of my body, not penetrate my light.

"Come on, little one, I won't hurt you," he said.

"Don't worry, I'm not afraid. But shouldn't you be on top?" I asked with a faint smile. He sighed and agreed, throwing himself on top of me.

"Do you feel anything?" he asked as he started to move slowly.

"No," I answered, thinking he meant pain.

"How can you say no? Is it the condom?"

"I don't know," I continued, "I don't feel anything bad."

He looked at me with disgust and said, "You're no fucking virgin!"

I didn't respond immediately. I looked at him, shocked. "Sorry, but what exactly do you mean?"

"Who did you do it with?" he asked as he leaped from the bed and picked up the clothes that were scattered across the floor.

"No one, I swear!" I raised my voice.

"We're finished for today."

There's no point telling the rest, Diary. I left without even the energy to cry or scream, with only an infinite sadness that wrenches my heart and little by little devours it.

6 March 2001

Today at lunch my mother gave me one of her inquiring looks and demanded to know why I so was preoccupied.

"It's school," I sighed. "They're loading me down with assignments."

My father kept shoveling in the spaghetti, lifting his eyes only to catch the latest drama in Italian politics on the news. I wiped my lips on the napkin, spotting it with sauce. Then I dashed out of the kitchen as my mother railed that I never showed any respect for anything or anyone, at my age she was responsible and cleaned napkins instead of dirtying them.