I Watch You by Irene Cao

Author:Irene Cao
Language: ita
Format: epub
Publisher: RCS Libri/Rizzoli
Published: 2014-04-08T00:00:00+00:00

9

Darkness and silence surround me.

He’s left me here naked, tied to an armchair, a black silk blindfold covering my eyes. I feel small in the middle of this huge room, the ballroom, the largest room in the palazzo.

This morning, as I made my way to Leonardo, I didn’t know what to expect, I imagined a thousand different scenarios, but I knew that he’d still manage to surprise me.

And he did. Like always.

He opened the door and appeared on the threshold with that look on his face that says: I take no prisoners. He didn’t ask anything, only pulled me to him and kissed me, then he took me by the hand, leading me up and down stairs and along corridors until we reached this room. He stopped in the middle and started to undress me. My heart was thumping in my chest. I thought we were about to make love and I wanted it with the whole of my being. I wanted him to kiss me, to cancel out my nakedness with that of his own body. Standing there naked on my own, I felt awkward and nervous.

“Turn around,” he said instead. And I obeyed him. He blindfolded me before I could say anything, tying at my neck a black handkerchief that he had in the pocket of his pants. “You don’t need your sight today, Elena. I’ll teach you how to see in a different way.”

He sat me down, tied my wrists to the arms of the chair with something or other—maybe the tassels from the magnificent brocade curtains in the room—and did the same with my ankles, fixing them to the legs of the chair.

“What are you going to do?” I ask him, my voice cracking.

“Shh … this is not the time for questions,” he replied in a whisper. He covered me with a rough sheet, the kind they use to cover artists’ painted canvases, as if I were his creation, leaving my face and breasts exposed. He stroked my cheek and then I heard him walk away.

I’ve been here for more than an hour. At least, I think it’s been about an hour, given that I’ve the bells in the Church of San Barnaba once.

At first, I was disorientated, and my thoughts running wild. I was panicked, confused, suffering what I thought was a senseless torture. I cursed myself for getting into this situation, for having accepted that infernal pact. I just wanted to be free, to escape.

Then I understood.

The subtle, insistent scent of the room is slowly filling my nostrils: antique wood, dust, humidity. The velvet of the upholstery has started to tickle my back, while a gentle breeze has just begun to come in from one of the windows—a slight shiver ripples through my body, hardening my nipples. And even in the silence, I’m gradually immersed in sounds: voices from the Grand Canal, the far-off roars of the vaporetto, a drop of water falling somewhere, my own breath, now almost deafening.

Leonardo blindfolded me because my sight is too greedy.

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