Dina and Paulina had agreed that as soon as they ate lunch and finished their homework they would meet in the square. They had heard that Syngelides, the merchant, had acquired a new stock of attractive dresses with elasticized puffed sleeves and thick wasp-nest patterned busts in white, pink and pistachio. The two girls would not, of course, buy one; they only wanted to see and admire them. Looking at the dresses they would lose themselves in the fantasy that they owned them, that the dresses were tight against their skin and were lifted outwards from their legs by stiff petticoats. Since they could not satisfy their desire to own them, at least their eyes would feast on the wonderful colours and the sophistication of the metropolis displayed in their modern design.

      At five o’clock in the afternoon they met and, hand in hand, started out for the square. Sofia’s parents hadn’t woken yet from their afternoon siesta and Paulina's mother, the nurse, after a quick midday meal left in a hurry because she had to administer an injection to a patient outside town. When the girls stopped at the emporium they fixed their eyes on the shop window. The three mannequins wearing the dresses were stunningly beautiful and looked so alive that one almost expected them, from moment to moment, to walk through the glass and cross the street. Exclamations of admiration came from the girls' lips; they could not stop looking, and looking again, to choose the colour that suited each one of them.

      They stood transfixed for a long time, noting every detail of the dresses, from the hem to the necklines with the elaborate ruffles. Then, silent, and deeply disappointed by the reality that the dresses would never be theirs, they started on their way back home. The cafes were full of men drinking their afternoon coffee, playing gin-rummy and poker. Many of them were sitting outside, despite the bitter cold while the noise of bone dice on backgammon boards inside echoed off the vaulted café roofs. At the other end of the square Paulina saw her mother, Vaggelio, passing by. “My mother, my mother!” she said to Dina, pulling her along in order to catch up. The two girls had gone just a few steps further as Vaggelio was passing in front of the establishment called HOPE, the café that had the most customers at that hour, when a gaggle of men sprang up from their chairs and lined themselves outside the door.

      “What happened, Vaggelio? Was it sweet, was it sweet?!” shouted a taxi driver. “Screwing in the middle of the day! You certainly go for it, don’t you!” said the kiosk owner, and one after another the men followed suit with similar comments directed at the nurse. There was a frisson of banter; in seconds even those who were not in on the secret had been made aware of her achievements on previous afternoons. Vaggelio did not have a patient who needed an injection. She had a rendezvous at the grove below the chapel of St Fanourios for a tryst with Stelios, the boatman, a strong two meter-tall youth. Vaggelio was on fire, rushing to be held in Stelios’ embrace, to draw life from the vitality of his youth, to become one with his male presence. A widow from the age of twenty three, she had never managed for even a moment to harness the flame in her body whose insistence to couple with a male hadn’t given her a moment’s rest. Whenever she found a partner to quench her insatiable ardor nothing could stop her, she could hardly see in front of her, blinded as she was by desire. How many times had she switched partners, unconcerned with whether her lover-stud climaxed once, or a dozen times! Men interested her only from their waist down and by how much stamina they exhibited during their coupling. She didn’t want a steady companion because she was quickly bored and demanded new material to enter her voracious, insatiable vagina. Additionally, a permanent liaison, with its restrictions, would cause complications.

      Gossip about her was rife in the provincial town but she had sealed her ears. She did not care that she had become the area’s laughing stock. Snide remarks and derision in the cafes were minor annoyances to her. She didn’t even think about the effect of her behaviour on her children, who, at least in the case of her eldest daughter Paulina, who was old enough to hear and to understand the insinuations or the direct comments of their fellow townsfolk such as “Your mother certainly knows how to fuck, doesn’t she?” or “Ask her, when will it be our turn?!” made the girl bow her head, blushing with shame and anger at the crudeness of the comments. The unconscionable speakers made statements that from time to time were excessively rude, never taking into account that Paulina was not even twelve years old yet. Today Vaggelio had gone beyond her usual bounds and met Stelios at the isolated grove, assuming that no one would be around as it was the heart of winter. It was enough for her to wait for nightfall to have the dark as her ally and shield, but her need for sex today was so great that she felt her thighs scorching her. She thought she would die if a man didn’t enter her as soon as possible. When she met Stelios it was with difficulty that she gave him even a kiss. Her hands immediately seized his private parts and violently unbuttoned his trousers. Stelios grabbed her by her hair and threw her down onto the wet ground. He lifted up her blouse to let her full breasts spill out. He pushed his head between them, sucking on her nipples and cupping their roundness. Then, impatiently, he freed the gate to his erotic paradise from her panties and with his penis fully erect, he pushed it into her. A loud cry broke out of Vaggelio’s lips and her body stuck to him like a limpet, fervently following the rhythm of his movements. In spite of the biting cold her forehead was dripping with sweat, brought on by her sexual excitement. Each deep thrust made her cries even louder, bringing her ever closer to a climax. And when her orgasm convulsed her she felt as if a bolt of lightning had been released inside her, and instead of ashes, it left, as it ebbed, a slaking of her desire, a soothing retreating sensation of sweetness. Stelios climaxed with a groan and whispered “You are mine, you are my woman!” But Vaggelio didn’t even hear him. Then he lay down resting on his elbow next to her with his hands fondling her breasts which had tipped sideways. Absorbed by the whirlwind of their passion they had not noticed two intruders in the nearby thick bushes who were watching the heaven-sent spectacle, a sight that was so exciting for them that their hands tried to give themselves relief, initially by stroking their fully erect members, and then by movements that were in rhythm with those of the two stuck-together lovers’ bodies. When self-gratification had brought release from their fired-up state they pulled up their trousers and impertinently appeared next to the couple lying on the ground, saying “To your health!” and hurried away before Stelios had a chance to stand up and give them a good hiding.

      “Oh, My God!” Vaggelio said as soon as she saw the village witnesses, clumsily trying to cover her nakedness. “They’ll make a laughing stock of us in the village.”

      Stelios replied “It’s a pity I didn’t manage to catch those two bastards. I would have fixed them in no time! But what is done is done.”

      Vaggelio thought for a few moments about what would follow and then stoically accepted the situation. It wasn’t as if this would be the first time that everyone would have been gossiping about her and that her amorous activities would be the talking point in all of the town cafes. Coming to terms with the state of affairs she turned and started to stroke Stelios’ crotch to excite him so he could take her on another journey to a sensual place that had become the very reason for her existence.

      When Vaggelio was done with her sexual activities with Stelios, sated, she started homeward. The only thing that bothered her was that to go home she would have to cross the square. She knew that at this moment the cafes were all full and that the voyeurs would already have broadcast the news to the others, leaving out of course, their own reaction to the spectacle they had witnessed.

      “We caught Stelios on top of Vaggelio in the Ayios Fanouris’ wood!” They said, hurrying to let everyone present in on the stirring details.

      The news travelled like fire in a tinder dry forest. And just wait until the evening when all of those present would be back home for dinner and would let their wives know about the incident! It would be then that the whole village would be abuzz. The women would stigmatize, for the umpteenth time, the immoral behavior of Vaggelio, saying “the woman has no shame and makes her children objects of ridicule! Let the Lord protect us from females like that!”

      The truth is that if the village had other