PIETRO
I look good today but I'm empty. The only thing that helps is wine.
I want attention. I think.
The light is beautiful on the rooftops.
The light is molten.
The good-looking Italian man is staring at me.
It's all so depressing.
Nothing fills the void, not even Rome.
I'm on my phone too much. I need to be more present.
What is present? The world or the phone?
A Dad is pushing his profoundly disabled son in a wheelchair through the square. The poor boy. I’m a miserable, ungrateful bitch. It's not the first time I've realised that. I'll not be grateful until I have cancer or something.
The son makes eye contact with me. He is fully conscious. I don’t know whether to smile or not.
I don’t.
A smile changes nothing.
It’s close to sunset.
Golden light.
I just need to be around people. To do things. For something to happen. Even if nothing happens.
An old woman is at my table, begging.
She is barefoot and shawled.
The Dalai Lama says not to give money to beggars as it perpetuates their situation. I tend to agree with him.
I try to be kind in my head shake of no.
She pulls down her top and shows me her mastectomy scar. It's butchery. Like it was done in the Middle Ages.
I can't be a cunt. I put five euro in her plastic cup.
She is grateful.
Maybe the Dalai Lama is a cunt. Who knows.
Cripples.
Come to be healed by the light.
The good-looking man walks to my table. Asks if he can sit with me.
“Yes”.
“Where are you from?”, he asks.
“Ireland”.
“What is your job?”
“I train Artificial Intelligence to speak like us”.
“Very interesting”.
It isn’t.
I ask him the same questions.
Roman. Architect.
Inorganic conversation.
What’s the point?
Nothing of pleasure starts like this.
“I took a trip to Ireland in 2012”, he says.
Where?
“Dublin and Galway”, he replies. And he starts to elaborate.
I drift off and think about him. He enters me too often. I don’t know if he is entering me or if I can’t let go.
He is angry I came to Rome.
I’m angry at everything.
Emptied for nothing.
I nod my head at the Roman. Smile.
He seems nice, I suppose. I feel nothing.
I came to Rome for this and I feel nothing.
Except some irritation that he is interrupting my thoughts.
“How long are you in Rome?”
“Maybe a year, or more, I don’t know”.
“Would you like another drink?”
“I would but I have to go back to my apartment and check into work”.
“You can’t stay for one drink?”
“It was nice to talk with you”.
I leave the table.
The wine hits me as I walk towards the river. Good.
Most people look sad if you look closely enough.
Birds fly off a statue.
I need more wine.
This bar will do.
I order.
There is a Priest drinking Prosecco on his own.
A table of three Italian women similarly aged to me.
An English couple having an argument and trying to be discreet about it. The Italian women are loud.
I sit down.
The evening lights have turned on.
He said he is going to come and visit me. It’ll start again if he does. And end in the same misery.
The Priest looks at me.
The Priest is not a virgin.
I search the percentage of virgin priests. On Quora someone has linked an article from 1990 which says that 60% don’t pass the definition of celibate.
I walk to the bathroom.
The Priest watches me walk.
I fix my makeup.
One of the Italian women comes into the bathroom.
She also fixes her makeup.
“Where are you from?”, she asks. I tell her.
“Why are you in Rome?”
“I don’t know”, I lie.
“You can find what you are looking for here”.
I hope she is right.
“I like your dress”, I say, “where did you get it?”
“It belonged to my Mother”.
“It’s beautiful, you're beautiful”. She is.
“I am 62”.
She couldn’t be, she looks no older than 30.
“You’re joking, right?”
“I tell the truth, there is a way to stay young”.
“Tell me”.
“You must drink a special man”.
“Is there such a thing?”
“Yes”.
She takes her ID from her bag and hands it to me.
It shows that she is 62.
“Wow”, I say.
“Are you Catholic?”, she asks.
“Yes”.
“I will take you to Pietro”.
“Who is Pietro?”
“He is Pietro”, she says firmly.
I wonder if she is a recruiter for some kind of sex trafficking operation. Makes no sense. She’d recruit someone younger than me.
“We will go now”.
“What do you mean by drink a special man?”
“It is just a small drop, it is easy”.
“I’m not sure”.
“It is a gift, it will not come again”.
“Ok”.
Why not. Something is happening. I wanted something to happen.
I down my wine and we leave the bar.
We walk. Her pace is fast.
Through the crumbling alleyways.
Trash.
Talking walls.
“He is very old”, she says, “do not be shocked”.
“How old?”
“He is Pietro”.
“I’m nervous”.
“You must trust me”.
We stop at a building and she buzzes eight times. The building is covered in graffiti. The windows are boarded up. Looks derelict.
The door opens and she takes my hand.
We pass through a velvet curtain.
Inside is like a church. Religious statues and candles line the hall. No electric lights. I stop walking.
“Do not be afraid”, she says, “we are all women here with Pietro, it is safe”.
“Ok”.
“We have been caring for him for a very long time”.
“Who is he?”
“They want him”, she points to something beyond the front door, back outside.
“I’m confused”.
“You will understand”.
“You can’t tell anyone about Pietro”.
“Ok”.
“It won’t work if you do”.
“I promise I won’t”.
She takes me through a door and down three flights of stairs.
We must be deep underground. It’s cold. Smells of damp stone.
We come to a vaulted door. She opens it with a code.
The hallway is wide with roughly 10 chairs on each side. There is another vaulted door at the end.
Two women are on chairs. One on each side.
She tells me to sit. She sits opposite me.
The woman on my side is waiting for Pietro. The woman on the other side brought her here.
“What’s your name?”, I ask her.
“Stefania”.
“I’m Karina”.
“We must be quiet”, she whispers.
The door opens and two women come out. They don’t look at us.
They leave.
The two women at the front of the queue enter.
We move to the front of the queue.
I can’t see into the room from this side of the corridor.
I’m drunk and warm-headed. It’s easy to be still.
How bad could it be?
I close my eyes and breathe into the dark.
Two more women enter and sit beside us.
I fall back into the warm-headed nothing.
The door opens.
They leave.
Stefania takes my hand.
Shit. I’m anxious.
She squeezes my hand reassuringly.
“It is ok", she whispers, "it is a good thing”.
The room is candlelit.
The walls and floor are ancient Roman. It’s undecorated.
Pietro is naked on a big hospital bed.
I've never seen anyone this old. It doesn't seem possible.
There are varicose veins all over his body. Black ones. Twitching. Like snakes trapped under his skin in the candlelight.
He seems barely alive.
His hair and beard are dyed black. It doesn’t help.
He’s wearing DVT socks.
There is an old wooden cross above the bed. It’s upside-down. It’s huge. An elderly woman is at the head of the bed, wiping Pietro’s forehead with a facecloth. He is unresponsive.
Another elderly woman is at the side of the bed, stroking his hand.
They nod at me.
The room smells clean. That's good.
“You must take off your clothes now”, Stefania says.
I don’t do it.
“Do not be shy, we are all women here”.
I take off my jacket, my dress and my boots and I hand them to Stefania.
“Your underwear too”.
I do it.
The old women each put a finger in their mouths.
“You must do the 69 with Pietro”, Stefania says, “no sex, it is not allowed, only the mouth”.
His dick is thin and black. The Mother snake.
“You receive Pietro and Pietro receives you, it is the way”, she says.
The elderly women nod.
“Ok”.
Stefania sits on a chair at the foot of the bed.
I climb onto the bed and position myself on his face.
Pietro licks me immediately.
He has a fast tongue.
He doesn’t smell bad. It’s ok.
Deep breath.
I close my eyes.
I suck.
Suck it lightly.
Tease it.
It’s not responding.
I look at Stefania.
"Relax", she whispers, "you must orgasm for it to work".
Pietro is good at it. I might be able to.
His dick is still unresponsive.
I suck faster.
"Concentrate on you", she says.
We keep eye contact.
She looks aroused. This is helping.
Pietro is relentless.
Stefania leans in closer.
“Let go”.
His mouth is strong.
“Let him”.
Forget his age.
He’s good at it.
I can feel it building.
Stefania’s eyes.
Her youth.
I need to get out of my head.
Think from my body.
Feel.
Pietro’s mouth.
Can he talk?
Stop it.
Sensate.
Be present.
I’m barely sucking.
What if they are filming me?
I look up at the roof.
“No”, Stefania says.
I look back at her.
“Think about what you need to”.
I close my eyes.
“You must orgasm”.
I think about his need for me.
It’s nebulous.
Like mine.
I think about him jerking off in anger.
I see it.
Anger.
I think about how much he hates me.
I visualise anger.
It’s enough.
I tense.
I open my eyes to let Stefania know.
Pietro is slurping. Drinking me. It’s the first noise he has made.
Close to my sensitivity limit.
He goes quiet.
“It is done”, Stefania says.
He didn’t cum. I didn’t get my drop.
“No, he isn’t finished”, I say.
I suck him.
The old women clap their hands. Not in celebration. Sharp. Twice. Like schoolmistresses asserting authority.
"You have done a very good thing", Stefania is smiling.
She stands up. Asserts her authority.
“It is done”, she says again.
I get off him.
She hands me my underwear. I’m still shaking.
“He didn’t cum”, I whisper to her.
“Ok”.
“Will it still work for me?”
“Yes, of course, he is Pietro”.
She doesn’t look me in the eyes. The bitch is lying.
“Who is Pietro?”
“He is Pietro”.
by Karina Bush
Karina is an Irish writer and artist who lives in Rome. Her fourth poetry chapbook ROTTEN MILK has recently been published by Tangerine Press. She is also the FOURTH INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION SLUT, the world’s hottest dissident.
Rotten Milk: https://www.thetangerinepress.com/WALKING%20WOUNDED%20SERIES/WWS-KB-RM/
FOURTH INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION SLUT (password clue: all roads lead to ?): https://www.karinabush.com/fourthindustrialrevolutionslut