Read The Scorpion's Sweet Venom Online
Authors: Bruna Surfistinha
The Scorpion's Sweet Venom (2 page)
A stranger. I was dancing alone when a boy pulled me towards him and kissed me. My first night on the town. I didn't even
ask his name. My first time out on my own at night. Freedom at the age of thirteen going on fourteen. I'd been there for less
than half an hour. My first kiss. We went from kissing to groping one another, right there in the middle of the dance floor.
Then, when I least expected it, he ditched me. Just like that, without any feelings, without a word. That night, I went with
ten other boys. One wasn't enough. I needed lots to satisfy me. Raquel had woken up to sex.
A stranger. Although I was nervous, I used an introduction that I'd quickly rehearsed on the spot.
'I'm Bruna. I do oral, vaginal and anal.'
I finished by stating my false age, eighteen, not knowing that no one markets herself like that.
No one could know this was my first client. I'd leftmy parents' house less than half an hour before to go to that new house.
My debut at the age of seventeen. I wasn't going to tell that stranger I'd never had sex for money. He'd chosen me straight
up. I wanted to disappear, make a run for it and go home to my parents. Instead, we went upstairs to the bedroom. I thought
about my mother. The stranger touched me and wanted to have sex without a condom. She must be suffering, I thought. I didn't
let him touch me. After sticking his finger into me, we had sex with a condom. All I could think was: I'm going to take this
guy's money and go home. There's still time to give up and leave. I ended up having six clients that afternoon. I never went
home again. I never saw my parents again. Bruna was born.
Little more than three years separate these two moments, so distant from one another. In the first, Raquel underwent a sea
change, from sweet, spoilt daughter to lying teenager with no limits. I'd practised lots of kisses on the bathroom mirror,
oranges, my arm, always following the tips I'd seen in teen magazines. The real thing had been even better. I'd found in my
body, between my legs, the key to freedom and my bread-and-butter, even though it meant lying about my age and putting into
practice, for 100
reals
an hour, the little I'd learnt the sixtimes I'd had sex with a serious boyfriend and another guy I'd gone with.
Each night I hit the dance floor at the Kripton, in the neighbourhood of Vila Olimpia, I wanted more and more. I wore short
skirts to make things easier for anyone who wanted to feel with their hands what the almost-darkness concealed. If I didn't
have sex there, if I didn't want to lose my virginity in the middle of the dance floor, it wasn't for lack of opportunity.
The pleasure of feeling a boy get a hard-on because of me, rubbing and grinding against me through his trousers, was almost
irresistible. Almost . . .
I unzipped lots of boys' trousers there on the dance floor, just so I could pull their underpants down a little and play with
their dicks. I hadn't the slightest idea how to masturbate a man, until one of them asked me to in no uncertain terms. 'How
'bout a wank?' There was no way out, so I told the truth. 'I don't know how.' While I leaned against a wall, feeling silly
and listening to his naughty laughter, he patiently took my hand and taught me the movement. From then on, I only didn't do
it to those who didn't want me to. Making a guy come, giving him pleasure, was amazing. I started wanking off everyone I went
with on the dance floor. No one around us noticed, because they were occupieddoing exactly the same thing. I saw lots of couples
having sex on the sofas. There was no problem with the bouncers. Whenever they caught a couple being a bit more daring or
exhibitionist, they just asked them to tone it down.
I never had sex there. I had lots of opportunities, but lacked the courage. To lose my virginity, it would have to be with
someone special. I'm romantic. Not that this stopped me from letting boys touch me more intimately. I'd pull my knickers down
a bit under my miniskirt, and just their hands touching my thighs and between my legs would make me really wet. I thought
that this was coming. Only later did I discover that 'getting there' was something else again - and better. I've learnt that
coming, for me, starts with a chill in the stomach. Even so, I still didn't want to have sex.
I got really close to going all the way. Twice I got in a car with a guy and we took off our clothes. We did everything and
I went as far as I could. And that was pretty far. But when it was time to do it, to have a guy inside me, I got cold feet.
'I've got to go.'
'Now that things're heating up?'
'Dad'll be here to pick me up soon.'
'He can wait,' he'd say, his dick already out of his trousers and his hands like two octopuses, with fingers all over me.
'I can't.'
'But you're almost naked, and we've done nearly everything. The only thing left is'
'Well, it's not happening. Sorry.'
I always made up an excuse and disappeared.
For the boy, who was older, I'd be just 'one more'. And I didn't want to be just 'one more'. I would have felt used. There
was still a little reason left in my romantic head. Have sex in that place and never see the guy again? It wasn't my idea
of what my first time should be like. Not to mention my fear of the pain and bleeding that teen magazines talked about. I
thought I'd bleed a river of blood.
Truth be told, it was inexperience. Not wanting to confess that I was a virgin, and equally afraid to ask the guy to wear
a condom, I imagined myself in the shoes of a friend who'd got pregnant at the age of fifteen. She didn't even know who the
kid's father was.
'Mummy, who's my daddy?'
'I don't know, darling . . .'
I knew all too well what this kind of talk meant.
On my first day at the house on Alameda Franca, the last thing I wanted was for anyone to realise I didn't have any experience.
I arrived at about two o'clock in the afternoon, after walking from Paraiso, where I lived, leaving behind everything I had:
mother, father, bedroom, clothes. I was carrying a file and a schoolbag packed with a few clothes and lots of bikinis to wear
on my first job. I needn't have bothered. No one worked in bikinis . . .
I didn't have any decent clothes to work in, so the other girls found me some terrible things to wear. Me of all people -
who'd always expressed herself through designer labels, which made up for my chubbiness and ugly-duckling syndrome. I had
to accept the situation. I knew one day I'd have my own money and would buy all the designer stuff again.
The madam of the house on Alameda Franca, Larissa, was the only one I told part of the truth. She asked to see my ID, and
I couldn't hide it: I was only seventeen.
'Don't tell anyone,' she advised me.
Much as I pretended to be experienced in front of the other girls, I gave myself away right from the start.
'What's your working name?' asked Larissa.
'Raquel,' I said naively.
'No working girl uses her real name. In this place, you're going to have to change it.'
'You look like a Bruna,' said Mari, who ended up becoming a good friend.
I don't remember why, when or how old I was, but I got it into my head that I was adopted. When Iwas five, I asked my mum.
When she confirmed it, I didn't have the guts to ask what adoption actually meant. I took my question to my teacher, who explained
that people who were adopted had been abandoned as babies because their mothers couldn't or didn't want to bring them up.
A couple would come along and choose one of these children for adoption. 'Choose?' I felt like an object. Although my parents
had always treated me as a daughter, it was hard not to be angry, even if I kept it to myself. Kids came from their mothers'
bellies, for Christ's sake. I only began to accept that that wasn't true much later. Perhaps too late.
I tried to accept things, because I really did have a family. But someone would always come along and say that I was very
different from my older sisters and my mum. She is very European-looking, with fair skin and hair, dark eyes, and delicate
features. The only thing we have in common is our height. She is as short as I am. Sometimes we even wore each other's clothes.
But that was the end of our similarities. My two sisters, on the other hand, look exactly like my mum.
I even had an uncle who never treated me as a niece. For those who knew my dad, the excuse was 'She takes after him'. Never
in a million years. He's six foot two, fat, white . . . Sometimes, to protect mefrom prejudice and aggression, Mum lied to
strangers, inventing something to shield me. How I envied my friends who looked like their parents, like their real families!
My anger passed from my biological to my adoptive parents. When we fought, I called them 'aunt' and 'uncle'. My poor mum .
. . But I didn't have the maturity or inner resources to deal with it alone.
When I was seven, in 1991, we all went back to the city of Sorocaba, where we were originally from. That is, we moved to our
country house in Aragoiaba da Serra. Dad had had an accident and had to stop working. One day, in the garage, he bent over
to pick something up and when he stood up again he hit his head on a low ceiling-beam. I don't know how, but that blow seriously
affected his brain. It was only when I saw him black out, in the middle of the living room, that I realised how serious it
was. He couldn't continue working, at the height of his law career, and this crushed him. He went into a deep depression.
It really was best for us to move to the country.
Although Dad's illness was a very tense, difficult phase, I can't complain. There were breathers: I played a lot, sometimes
with Mum and occasionally even with Dad. He hung a basketball net in the garden between the fruit trees, and I'd spend hours
practising, dreaming of one day playing professionally. With my height, that was to be yet another impossible dream . . .
To my mind, all the prostitutes in Sao Paulo were on Rua Augusta. I'd been there many times, even with my parents. Look at
the pros, someone would always say. How does a woman get to that point? I used to think. I thought that was the only place
where there were prostitutes, on that dirty, ugly street. Either there or in those old crumbling houses with heavily made-up
women hanging out of the windows, calling to men passing in the street. Inside, all they had to do was spread their legs and
wait for the client to come, and that was it. The so-called 'life'. Were call girls like that too? Not according to the newspaper
ads. 'Girls between 18 and 25: earn at least 1,000 reais a week attending executives!'
The weeks before I ran away from home, when I'd already decided that that was what I was going to do, I bought newspapers
for the classifieds and skived off school to visit a few of these places-clubs, brothels, massage parlours. I didn't see anything
as shabby and run-down as on Rua Augusta, much less a bunch of women who'd gone to the dogs. Most places, like the Bahamas,
were tasteful, really elegant. From the outside, you don't even realise what's inside. They impressed me. There wasnothing
abnormal about the girls I saw there. They didn't have 'pro' stamped across their foreheads, nor did they hang around in doorways
offering themselves to passers-by.
The house on Alameda Franca, in the neighbourhood of Jardins, was the one I chose. I didn't know how to do anything. I had
no experience and hadn't even finished secondary school. To leave home, I'd have to bite the bullet and give it a try -and
earn those 1,000
reais
for what I did. My prejudice disappeared and I said, 'That's what I'm going to have to be.' And I confess, I fantasised about
having lots of men, and the idea started to grow on me. After all, I'd only had sex six times, very mechanically, and I'd
never seen a porno film in my life. It was a chance to discover where sex could take me.
'That's it, open your legs nice and wide.'
'Like this?'
'Now let the doctor examine you to make sure everything's OK.'
First one finger, then another, which he pulls out and sniffs.
'Hummm, you've passed the medical.'
After my debut with the 'gynaecologist', my illusion that all you had to do was spread your legs crumbled. So did my fantasy
of having lotsof different men, because I'd only considered
my
idea of men. But this 'shock treatment' was a good test to see if I really did want my independence.
It was hard going to bed with a stranger, even if he was a neatly dressed would-be gynaecologist. So imagine what it was like
going upstairs with an enormous old Japanese man of about sixty. He was my second client. Never in my life had I imagined
myself with a guy like that. But he picked me - and paid. To say no, I'd have to pay the house what the client would have
paid. That was the agreement. I did my maths. To earn 100
reais,
I had to have three clients. Be chosen, don't choose. It's no accident that lots of girls snort coke and smoke a lot of dope.
I knew firsthand what that was all about. Snorting and smoking.
The Japanese guy started taking off his clothes, and I tried to focus on the money. I had an hour of him in front of me. He
was older than my dad! All I could think about was trying to make him come fast to get it over and done with. We chatted a
little. He couldn't get it up. I gave him a blow job, played with him, and nothing. I felt lots of different sensations, smells,
things I didn't want to feel. I told myself I didn't feel a thing. He ran his hands over me. I didn't like it.
To this day, I sometimes feel sick when I see ahand stroking my body. I do it to them, but I don't always like it in return.
I only have sex listening to music, which helps me tune out, get on to another wavelength (besides which the CD lasts exactly
one hour, which helps me keep track of time). Sometimes I imagine another man there, a boyfriend. And I look to one side,
so I don't have to see the hand exploring my body, my private parts. It's all about chemistry. But I ploughed ahead and managed
to give the Japanese a hard-on. I didn't know what was worse. I put a condom on him, got on top, rode him, let him fuck me
and, of course, it wasn't good. It was more than mechanical. That day, I actually cried with another client; I told all of
them it was my first day on the job.