Fiorella was graced with a thick, sensuous mouth and large round hips. She married a merchant of moderate wealth and managed to squander all his money. How could he say no to her: his petit-golden-bird, his cherry-lipped-queen, his heavy-lidded-panting-princess-of-misfortune-and-need.
Fiorella suffered from greed, she wanted everything. Golden bells for her shoes, ivory combs, sheets of purple silk, velvet pillows, porporie of the finest flowers from around the world, dainty lace underthings, large mirrors surrounded by gold casting. This ailment of hers would not be cured. Once she spied something she craved, Fiorella’s stomach twisted and turned till her husband bought it for her. He was powerless to say no, with her large eyes outlined in dark charcoal, too large for a face and body that small, a needy bird, a pouting baby, depending on her husband for life, bread, breath, and bronze encrusted rings.
After spending the last of his money on pear-scented soap for Fiorella and filled with shame, Fiorella’s dear husband hung himself in the family den. He had not known that Fiorella was pregnant. Fiorella’s father and mother had already passed away so she had no where she could turn. She found lodging in a brothel in the small town of Bolsena and began working as a prostitute. Soon her daughter Christina was born.
Christina was a serious and plain girl. She has dull brown hair which she pleated into two even braids. She rarely smiled or spoke. When adults would talk to her she would simply stare back with her natural humorless expression. She didn’t dote in her mother’s frivolity; she chose to wear a plain tattered brown dress and wore no jewelry or decorations. She refused to even put flowers in her hair.
Fiorella married again, a wealthy man named Ilario who had several wives and a belly as wide as a boat. Ilario was not a modest man and would often walk around his house stark naked, pinching and tickling Fiorella till she squealed while Christina was in the room. Fiorella let Ilario do whatever he liked as long as he supplied her with many expensive and beautiful things.
Ilario worshiped a ox named Harri. It was said that by praising this ox god one would have their wildest dreams come true. Throughout the living room we golden and silver statues of oxen, horns made of diamonds and iron, hooves decorated with rubies and emeralds. Christina, who had learned about God from one of Fiorella’s prostitute friends, felt her bones rattle and her veins rage at these pagan symbols.
She was ten when she destroyed them all while Ilario and Fiorella were passed out from wine. Her head rang with righteousness while she crushed the ceramic oxen with a hammer, her fingers numb and strong, prying gold and precious rocks from hooves and horns. She was panting heavily when gathered all the pieces in a burlap sack and went out to the streets, spreading the stolen wealth to the poor who slept in the streets and begged for food.
Ilario was furious. He hit her repeatedly, till her cheeks and mouth and nose bled freely. Christina’s braids had come undone and she was red all over. He pounded bruises into skin, tore chunks of hair from her scalp. Fiorella watched from the doorway, bird eyes wider than ever, and nodded: Yes yes, she deserved this.
Ilario decided to rape Christina as punishment and throw her out to the streets, but Christina’s thighs were unyielding to his prying hands, determined and ridged, shut tightly against his angry red-hot rage. She kept her eyes closed and murmured prayers to god while blood and spittle dripped down her chin. Ilario spat and sputtered, cursed and screamed. He grabbed a dull knife and slashed at Christina’s breasts. Fiorella nodded vigorously at this: Deserved. This was deserved.
Christina’s chest didn’t drip with crimson blood, but rather with frothy, white pure milk. She stared up at Ilario, stone faced, and announced: I will die three deaths.
Ilario tied a boulder around Christina’s neck and dragged her to Bolsena Lake and threw her in the middle of it. Ilario then went home and fucked the weeping Fiorella. The next day Christina was on Ilario’s porch, dripping and shivering but very much alive. She was still murmuring prayers quietly to herself. Ilario grabbed her by the hair and dragged her inside, where he cut off her tongue and tossed her into their furnace. She screamed and cried words undistinguishable for a whole night. When Ilario had sex with Fiorella that night, she tried desperately to drown out her daughter with her own cries of pleasure. When Christina’s yelling had stopped and the fire burned down, Fiorella opened the furnace to collect the bones only to yelp when she found a charcoal skinned Christina, serious, alive and awake.
Ilario dragged Christina outside and set her in a field. He then got his bow and arrows and began firing into her. Christina didn’t run away, only clenched her teeth, noticing her lack of tongue, and let each arrow pierce her skin. It wasn’t until forty arrows later, an hour of torture, a well-aimed arrow ran through her heart and she died. Ilario kicked her corpse for good measure. He then went inside and killed a weeping Fiorella and finished off the sherry he had been saving for an important occasion.
