The prison

I saw him as soon as the cell door was closed behind me.

I had not yet realized that prison would be my home for the next fifteen years, due to that financial deal going so badly. It was done now.

I didn't have time to think further because I was immediately attracted by that mighty young man (he must have been no more than twenty years old) who was training to kick against a mattress resting on the wall. He was so focused on him training him that he didn't even notice my arrival, or deliberately ignored it, I don't know. I stood staring at the quick combination of kicks whose strength alone was enough to make that mattress stick to the wall in front of me.

The room was quite large, suitable for about six two-story bunk beds, therefore twelve prisoners. At the moment, apart from me, it was inhabited by only one tenant. Observing his agility, combined with a power that transpired only from the loud noise caused by the succession of targeted and precise shots, I was impressed by a muscular physique (at that moment he was wearing only the blue pants of the prison uniform) and by his game of legs, or rather, feet, whose prints were clearly visible on the crumpled and destroyed fabric of that makeshift punchball. His barefoot soles were blackened: there was no trace of shoes anywhere in the cell and I deduced that he must not have been very familiar with sandals or shoes. I was not wrong. His legs were long and well proportioned, his calves solid and those two feet, large, in constant action: when he aimed at the wall with a circular backhand kick, pieces of mortar and rubble fell to the ground, while he stopped, only to a moment, to look at the results of the blow with satisfaction. It was then that he turned and looked at me, just for a few seconds: shaved black hair, a regular face, virile even in the freshness of young age, with blue eyes and a rather mocking if not disturbing half smile. But why should I have been restless? Should I have given credit to the words of the guard who had accompanied me to the cell? "You better watch your back, little guy ... watch your back" the man said a little while ago as he squeezed my handcuffed arm. Who should I be wary of, if up until then I had not caught the presence of a living soul, in all that section of the prison in which I had just been imprisoned? The question, of course, was purely rhetorical.

It was late in the evening and we were brought the mess that we call dinner here. I ate it greedily, but my cellmate didn't stop training for a moment, alternating repetitions of push-ups on the floor with other bodyweight exercises, maintaining maximum distance from my position. It was now clear that he didn't care at all about me and I decided to adopt the same indifference; but who was I telling it to? The restlessness remained attached to my skin, as the acrid smell of his sweat filled the room. I looked at myself and saw nothing but my forty-five-year-old body overweight, devoid of muscles, a big face with big glasses and an innate inability to defend myself from anyone. Let alone the attacks of a fighting machine like the one that was working a few meters from me. Not to think about it, I decided to lie down on the first available bed, hoping to be able to fall asleep. It wasn't easy, with all the banging and wheezing of the boy who seemed to never stop. I was about to fall asleep shortly after hearing a strange silence. The room was dark, barely lit by the moon's rays that filtered through the bars of the small window: above me the mesh of the upper bed, absolutely spartan. Suddenly, everything was dark and I felt, simultaneously, an excruciating pain in my face. I immediately understood that he was using my face as a step to climb - indeed jump - on the upper bed, without bothering to step on a human being: or rather, realizing it perfectly because he seemed to linger making me feel all the weight of that mass of sweaty muscles , no less than that dirty foot, whose heel was planted firmly on my forehead as the toes propped up my chin. My nose was practically bent to the right, close to the cheekbone. I could smell a strong smell of sweat and blood, indeed, I could taste the taste of both: the septum must have been broken and the right eyelid seemed to have sunk. It seemed to me that his head was about to burst like a watermelon under the impact of a hammer. Fortunately, the momentum that my face had allowed him to carry out put an end to the torture. Although I could not yet open my right eye, with the other I had been able to admire the feline leap with which he disappeared, settling noisily on the bed above me. I was petrified by fear, more than by the evil that with the passage of time diminished. The blood that had congealed on the pillow and vest had stopped flowing, leaving room for another fluid: tears. Yet another strong emotion burst out vigorously, until it prevailed: I was excited as never before, so much so that I couldn't sleep for the rest of the night.

The next morning there was the wake-up call with the control inspection. Judging by the look the guard gave me, the appearance of my face must have appeared rather deplorable, with one eye half closed and a bruised nose. Fortunately, the teeth were still whole, at least for now. The young bull still deliberately continued to ignore me and I played along, although I had considered starting some sort of presentation: it was clear that I was not leading the dances. It was raining outside and the planned interval outdoors could not take place, during which the inmates were allowed to meet and chat, so I had to be content with spending the whole morning in my cell reading and ... watching my back. My adventure companion had resumed his sequence, always the same, of training, punctually interspersed with short moments of recovery and muscle stretching. My readings weren't very interesting, or, let's face it, something else piqued my interest: throwing fleeting as well as frequent glances, I was unknowingly attracted by the spectacular movement of that massive yet harmonious physique, proportionate in every detail, attracted how I never was before by an exponent of my same sex; to tell the truth, I had not yet had the opportunity to meet such a perfect specimen. Evidently he noticed it and at a certain point, without speaking, with a hasty hand gesture, he motioned me to come closer. Like an automaton, I replied almost without realizing that I was placing myself at the height of his mattress, predicting that I would not be a mere spectator for a long time, but I would take an active part in the training. I don't know if I was really surprised to feel the weight of his front kick in my stomach, right under the diaphragm: I had the feeling that my guts were shooting in every corner of my body and I literally doubled over. It was the slightly hairy back of his big bare foot, already well sweaty, that gently raised his chin, increasing however the pressure until I got up, despite the spasm, making my shoulder blades adhere to the wall, whilehis leg stretched towards me and the foot, now cut, pressed on my adam's apple, almost preventing me from breathing. I began to speak, or rather, to emit some muffled sound to beg him to let me go and, as a consequence, put my hands around his ankle. As soon as I touched him he withdrew his foot and, balancing on the other leg, in the lateral cast position he literally started slapping me now with the sole now with the back of the same dirty foot with which he had kicked me (and stomped my face the night before). I immediately lost count of the blows that followed one another against my poor cheeks: I believe that for almost five minutes straight my head was forced to rotate 180 degrees, like a weather vane moved by the wind, an increasingly impetuous wind so much almost knocked me out. I seemed to no longer hear each other, so strong was the tinnitus induced by that continuous violent solicitation; in the same way I believed that the size of my face had doubled, giving me the appearance of a pig, unable to control the streams of blood that came out of the nostrils and from the corners of the swollen mouth. Even the sight was blocked by the new swelling of the cheekbones and eyes, which added to the bruises of the previous evening.

“That's enough for now,” he said in a thunderous voice, “with a half saw like you I can train for too little time; Is it possible that they continue to send me useless invertebrates that are not even good for cleaning their feet? ”he exclaimed impatiently. "Open your mouth and stick out your tongue, so at least you will do something!" I was not understanding anything: what kind of ideas did he have in mind? First he kicked me like an inert sack and then asked me to lick those smelly, greasy slices? While these thoughts were piling up in my mind, he took the initiative and thrust my fingers, or rather, the entire metatarsal into his mouth, almost touching my tonsils with his dirty nails. He was shortly before he dislocated my jaw, already severely tested by the recent dusting of kicks. I had no choice but to suffer that literal violation of my oral cavity, between hiccups and gagging that failed miserably. Shortly after he drew back his foot, soaked in my saliva mixed with the blood caused by this unexpected violence. I decided - as much as one can decide in such situations - not to react to avoid further retaliation and I did well, because his next move was to spread the sole of his foot exactly one centimeter above my face saying: "And now lick that good one. crap with which you dared to smear my foot: it must return to shine like never before ". Fighting back the disgust, I carried out the order and put the tip of my tongue to linger in the spaces between my fingers, where dirt and sweat had long been encrusted to end up directly in my mouth, unwilling to savor those new aromas. Nonetheless, the explosive excitement I felt yesterday, when I was transformed into his platform to mount on the bunk bed, reappears with force. I also eagerly licked the entire arch, including the heel, interrupting me only when he used my teeth to remove the blackened patina that covered his hard skin. I still don't know how I managed to repeat the work on the other foot as well: perhaps it was helpful to me that he never lowered it to the point of crushing my face under that boulder, the strength of which I had been able to experience.

With my mouth completely mixed (and filled) with drool, blood, dirt and sweat of feet, I watched from the ground, as I was unable to get up, at the new training session on the mattress and when lunch arrived I did not think for a moment. swallow anything. I had eaten enough for that day.

End of the first part.