─ The devil is not always characterized by fearsome horns and a long tail. Often, evil hides behind a pair of eyes that should not look at you with malice, much less with the presumption of being able to have you. Yet, this often happened.

Ellie, also your mother's best friend, a woman who lived in the house next to yours and who worked as a mechanic, had that day made the woman who had conceived you lose her mind. The way she looked at you was shameful as if she were stripping you of your clothes by just placing her irises on your body. More than once you had expressed the wish that she herself would go away, so that it would be easier for both of you not to give in to that sinful temptation. You could not desire her. Ellie was a mature woman and you were just a girl still in her bloom. A young girl that your mother tried to protect at all costs, dictating rules that often made you feel like a sparrow locked in a cage.

On that day in May, your nerves exploded following an argument that your mother herself had started during a family lunch. Her pretentious gaze had looked Ellie up and down, with arrogance. Then, she had commented aggressively:

"I don't understand what you see in my daughter. Why not a woman your age?"

Everyone sitting at the table had looked at each other warily, as surprised by those words as you were. And you had stood up from your chair, then shouted at her:

"I love her, mom!"

The hours that followed passed quickly when you felt fingers caressing your hair as if it were silk, with such delicacy that it made you look up, while you were lying on the bed and Ellie at the side of it, was watching you almost asleep. A light sigh escaped her lips and you got lost in her gestures, as docile as they were calming. Your cheeks became red for her care towards you, as if she were a mother protecting her daughter. But... in a different way. She touched you as if you were her little girl but just because she wanted you.

«You shouldn't be so hard on your mother. She only wants what's best for you.»