Sitting in the lecture hall, I strained my vision to read the slides on the screen. They were swimming before my eyes, and the light of the screen set off jolts of pain in my throbbing head. I looked away, focusing on the professor.

Professor Lopez was a well-known historian and, in fact, one of the reasons I’d applied to this college was to study under him. His were the only lectures I was still going to. They were that damn good, that even if I’d largely given up on my overall degree, I still wanted to attend his classes.

“Isabella and Ferdinand’s authorization of the mission West for Colombus proved a turning point in world history, but at home the Spanish population was more concerned with the final stages of the reconquest of territory from the Moorish caliphate for Christianity…”

His eyes met mine and he looked at me quizzically. I realized he had seen my upper torso swaying. He had realized that my head was lolling slightly. He knew.

“So, there’ll be no class tomorrow, as it’s the May Day Bank Holiday. Dismissed. Roser, could I speak to you please?”

“Yes, Professor?” I said, shuffling on my feet.

“Is everything ok, Roser? I hear you haven’t been to many lectures lately?”

“No, I’m fine.”

He pursed his lips, then said,

“Roser, anyone can see that isn’t true. It’s eleven o’clock in the morning. And it’s apparent you’ve been drinking.”

I blushed, looking down, as if I were a little girl being scolded. I was unable to meet the gaze of a man I respected in the state I was in. When this teacher spoke, I listened.

“I’d like to give you the email of the university counsellor…”

He got me to promise I’d email her. I did not. I went on a bender instead.

                                                                                                *

That night, I dreamed I was naked and riding a dick. We must have been outside, because we were surrounded by thick mist, so thick, in fact, that I could not see the face or body of the man who was inside me. He was big, though, and feeling him inside my vagina was an extremely pleasurable experience. I looked down. My breasts seemed to have grown. I had a crucifix on a chain around my neck. He was deep, deep inside me, and I threw my neck back and rocked hard back and forth. I was so wet. Who was this monster of sex? I pinched my nipple and had his cock work my clitoris. I was surrounded by mist, as if I had ascended to heaven and my reward was to be granted an eternal orgasm. And, indeed, when I came, it seemed to last forever. But then, the strangest thing happened. The penis melted away, leaving me naked and on my knees in the fog.

I wandered through the shimmering clouds, naked and alone. I was afraid, lest I met anyone whilst totally exposed and vulnerable. At last, I found a building, which loomed out of the murk, and I saw it was a church. There must have been people inside because there were bright yellow lights shining at the window. But the gates were padlocked shut with a chain. I walked around the edge of the cemetery, but there was no way in.

Who was going to save my soul if I couldn’t even access the church? I decided to climb the gate. When I was inside the cemetery, I was able to read the graves. A disconcerting number of people whose lives the tombstones marked had passed younger than I was. I made my way to the door, but it too was padlocked shut, and on it hung a sign in red paint. I walked up to it and, in the second before I awoke, I saw that it read,

“Thou Shalt Not.”

I awoke, or at least I regained consciousness. I opened my eyes. My vision was gone. My eyes were not working.

I was blind.

Desperate to be still dreaming, I opened and closed them many times but nothing. Still in my pyjamas, I got out of bed. Fighting panic, I stumbled out of my room and knocked on my flatmate’s door. Her name was Paula, and we were not particularly close, but rubbed along well enough together.

I knocked on Paula’s door, desperate for help. She opened it.

“What?” she said irritably.

“Paula, I need to go to hospital,” I stammered, “I…I can’t see.”

When I persuaded her that I wasn’t joking, she drove me to the emergency room.

“Have you been drinking, Roser?” the doctor asked.

“Yes. Not since I woke up, but last night.”

“How much did you drink?”

“I don’t know. Quite a lot.”

Paula put in, “Last Tuesday, I took out the glass and on Friday morning there were eight empty wine bottles in the box. I don’t drink wine.”

They ran some tests. I sat next to Paula, who held my hand. She tried to reassure me. But I’d never been more scared. The doctor came back to us.

“Ok, Roser, we’re referring you up to the renal department. It’s almost certainly your kidneys. And you’re going to have to quit drinking…”

They put me on dialysis. With the machine whirring away, I slept.

When I awoke, to my intense relief, my eyesight was back. Paula picked me up from the hospital. They let me go, with about a dozen leaflets about alcoholics anonymous.

*

The next day, when I got home from college, I had a surprise in store. Paula was with Professor Lopez, sitting at the kitchen table. Lopez was flanked by my brother and my parents. My best friend, Maria, was there too.

I was shocked. I was defensive. I’d just been in hospital. Now I had to have a fight?

“I wrote to Mr. Lopez when you were in hospital. I’m worried about you,” said Paula.

“Sit down, Roser,” said my father, “We need to have a little chat.”

Five hours later, while the whole country celebrated the workers Bank Holiday, I attended my first meeting at the drying-out clinic. I hadn’t taken much persuasion. I wanted to quit.  

But the shot of adrenaline that each sip of alcohol produced was the only thing that silenced the voices. Those whispers that came to me when my head hit the pillow that were telling me I was no good. That no man would ever again make love to a woman who took money for sex with strangers.

Without the inner warmth of the wine, how else could I challenge my fear that to be pushed about, gagged and roughly sodomised, as I had been in my last adult film, was the only fucking dirty Roser truly deserved?

                                                                                                                *

“So, what did you do in the summer holidays, Roser?”

His name was Christian. He was American, but his Spanish was nearly perfect. He was tall and thin. He was a first-year student, and we had matched on Tinder.

“Well, to be honest, I had some personal issues. I had to go to rehab. Hence…”

I indicated the diet coke in my glass. I thought back to when I had planned to travel around Europe with the money I’d made from porn shoots and smiled ruefully.

“Oh. Are you doing ok now?”

“I went away for six weeks and now it’s been six months since my last drink. I got the chip at the meeting yesterday!”

“Congratulations!”

Christian was warm and nonjudgmental. He listened well when I told him about life in rehab. He made me laugh. We agreed to meet again.

On the second date, we ate Chinese and played Playstation together.

On the third date, we went to the pictures. He kissed me. I hesitated, but I responded. Afterwards, in the bar and without making a big show of it, he joined me in not drinking alcohol. It was a gesture of support that touched me.

We spoke on the phone daily from that point. I found myself looking forward to speaking with Christian at the end of the day.

On the fifth date, he asked me, “Would you like to stay with me tonight, Roser?”

I had not been with a man since the awful experience of the film. I was scared of giving my body to a man again.

I was also afraid I couldn’t enjoy sex sober, having spent nearly my whole first year of college completely half-cut.

Most of all, I was afraid of getting close to someone only for them to learn of my secret past.

But on the fifth night, he asked me. I said no.

On the sixth date, he didn’t ask.

The seventh date was at mine. We watched a movie and ate popcorn. For about ten minutes. The rest was making out, lying on the sofa. I loved the touch of his hands on my hips. My body thrilled to the tender kisses on my neck. But I couldn’t do it. I wanted desperately to take him to bed and make love to him, but the words stuck in my throat. I asked him to go home.

After our eighth date, he asked again. I said no.

“Is it me? I mean, do you want to be just friends? That’s cool, but we’ve got to stop making out, it’s putting the wrong ideas in my head!”

“No, no. It’s not you. I just…I…haven’t done the sex thing for a long time.”

“That’s ok. You still remember how it works, though, right? The thing between my legs goes into the…” He smiled, but I did not.

“Christian, my last experience was…bad.”

He grew serious.

“Can I ask how?”

“The man…didn’t treat me respectfully. He was very rough, in fact. He made me do…”

I hesitated. I knew there was a stigma about what I’d agreed to.

“He made me do anal, and he wasn’t gentle at all. And he hurt me.”

Christian frowned.

“Did you call the cops?”

“No, it wasn’t like that…”

“What do you mean, it wasn’t like that? I don’t understand, Roser?”

“Perhaps we could just do you?” I suggested, suddenly seeing a way out, and a way of changing the subject, “Let me give you a hand job. It’ll help me get used to the idea.”

“I’d rather do it with you,” he said. “And if you don’t want to tell me, it’s your life but I was under the impression you trusted me?”

“I do, Christian.”

There was a long awkward pause, then I said, “Let me sleep on it, ok? I’ll sleep in the bed with you. Then I’ll see how I feel in the morning.”

I went back to Christian’s place. We made out some more.

“How about that hand job?” I said playfully.

Christian undressed, then sat up against the headboard. His cock was a decent size. I took hold of it on my knees and, fondling the tip in my right hand, I leaned in to kiss him. I did feel safe with Christian, I had to admit. I applied lube to my palm and massaged his penis. He was soon rock hard. He reached over and gently massaged my breasts with one hand through my dress. It felt so nice to be touched.   

I knew I had to go further. I had to bare myself before him. I unhooked the straps of my dress off my shoulders and let them fall, then I discarded my bra. I applied more lube, then resumed the hand job, twisting my palm on his skinless head and jerking. Christian breathed deeply through his mouth, occasionally closing his eyes. I enjoyed the feeling in my chest as my nipples were pinched and my breasts massaged. I enjoyed the signs of evident pleasure he was showing.

More lube was added. His hard penis felt very natural in my hand, as if the hand fitted it like a glove. I worked up my rhythm, gradually increasing speed. I watched as the veins of his penis stuck out more and more. I watched his pre-cum start to ooze out. And I watched his face, and the ecstasy he was in shone through.

I enjoyed a surge of confidence at being an object of genuine desire again.

He wanted Roser. He wasn’t interested in Joana La Loca. Somewhere, I knew, young men were jerking off to the extant videos of Joana La Loca. They were living my sex life vicariously. No one was interested in her. Not really. Not as a person. But here was a man to whom I was only, uniquely me. Roser. P. With a dick in my hand, I was happier at that moment than I had been in the last year.

Christian lasted ten minutes, then came all over his belly.

We lay holding each other for hours that night.

The next morning, I allowed him to see me naked. We had a bath together. We soaped each other’s bodies all over. He had a raging hard-on when he got out of the tub.

“Shall we get dressed?” he asked.

“No.”

Leading him to the bed, we applied a condom, and I invited him inside me.

Christian’s touch was not the bloodless rub of the porn star. The thrust of his penis in my vagina was not the manic pounding of the adult actor. The look in his eyes was not the cold, penetrating glare of the performer. He could not have been warmer and gentler. I had a delicious orgasm.

Christian’s orgasm was not the frantic pullout and jerk onto the face of the porn star. He held my naked hips and kissed me on the lips as he came inside me.

And when we were done, I had him get dressed and sit at the kitchen table.

“Christian, there’s something I’d like to tell you. I’m going to tell you the truth about why I was nervous today. And if you don’t want to see me again, I’ll understand. But I hope you will.”

Ten minutes later, for the first time in eight months, I spoke aloud the name of Joana La Loca.

                                                                                                                *

The next part of the series concludes Roser’s tale. Tune in to see if Roser’s newfound happiness is to last, and if Joana La Loca really is dead and buried. Thank you for reading my stories!