Image: Vitorio Benedetti, Flickr (CC BY-ND 2.0)
Author’s note: When I write from Narrm or Birraranga—lands that remain unceded—I do so as an uninvited guest and a beneficiary of Indigenous dispossession. My Indigeneity and Blackness don’t change this fact. I’d like to pay my respects to the elders of the Wurundjeri and Boon Wurrung people of the Kulin Nation, and to any other Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander folks encountering my work.
*
Fuego. Fogo. Fire. I love a good prompt but my brain’s gone fishing or something. I consult the countless ‘to write’ lists on my phone, computer, notebooks; but they are undecipherable word chunks that read like bad poetry by sad white dudes—the opposite of what I’m after.
This isn’t just any ol’ EWF showcase, it’s ¡Yo Soy!’s first official event and—being a member of the small Latinx collective—I want for it to succeed. No, not just that, I want it to slay like Beyoncé, to put the Melbourne literary scene on Fuego. Mine’s just the one story to be performed alongside a group of incredible Latinx artists, but I want to play my part well. I guess I’m putting a lot of pressure on myself here, hence the writers’ block.
I’m getting desperate so, naturally, I FaceTime Mamãe for help. She answers the call, but is nowhere to be seen. As is often the case on our calls, I find myself talking to a ceiling fan.
‘Mamãe? Are you there?’
Silence. ‘Mã-ãe?’
Her head pops into the frame. ‘Ana Maria!’ She yells. It’s a tone that tends to alarm the shit out of white folks, but it’s just how she speaks.
‘Oi filha! I have to leave in fifteen minutes!’ She walks away again, shouting news from somewhere in her house.
Ten minutes later, she finally aims the phone at herself, kind of. Far left, low angle, I can see her from the nose up, which is close enough.
‘Mamãe, what do you think of when I say fogo? I have to write something about it.’
‘Aah, sei lá, filha! I don’t know! Fogo. Do you mean sexo?’
‘Do you?
She shakes her head, giggling.
Mamãe’s laughter is so outrageous, that she overwhelms herself with it. It becomes punctuated by weird sounds as she tries to catch her breath. Sometimes she laughs so hard that spit and snot will just come flying out of her face, and if she’s losing it for real, tears will run down her cheeks, and her body will rock back and forth as if she’s in pain.
‘Ai ai, filha, só você mesmo.’ Only you. ‘Well, there’s fogo na bunda, for when you can’t stop moving you know? We say, Ou! Ei! Fulano! Is your ass on fire? But, when you say fogo, I think of sexo of course! When you’re subindo as paredes, climbing up the walls, with desire, you know?’ She does a little dance with her head and shoulders, the cheekiest look on her face.
‘Ana Maria! Are you going to write about me and sexo again?’ She covers her face with her hand and sighs, but soon begins chuckling. ‘Ai ai, filha. You and your spicy stories.’
‘Ana Maria! Are you going to write about me and sexo again?’ She covers her face with her hand and sighs, but soon begins chuckling. ‘Ai ai, filha. You and your spicy stories.’
Later that day, something finally clicks and I send Mamãe a message: ‘Is it okay if I write about the time you met my Amigo?’
She replies almost immediately.
‘Haha! Pode sim filha, claro. Of course you can.’
Over the next few weeks, I receive her lists of requests, suggestions and demands.
‘Ana Maria! How is the Amigo story going? I want to see it!’
‘Filha! I was just thinking, don’t talk too much about my sex life too much hein! The Adelaide family always reads your things, you know?’
‘You have to explain that the doctor told me to get one!’
And once, checking her surroundings as if to make sure no one could hear, even though she was home alone, she whispered into her phone, ‘I have so many really, very, very spicy stories for you, I just—ah, I feel weird telling my filha! For now, you’ll just have to use your imagination.’
*
It’s 2pm, and I’m still in bed. Mamãe, who got in on the red eye from so-called Perth this morning, won’t stop moving.
‘Mãe! Tá com fogo na bunda?’ I croak.
‘Ai filha, tô não. My head’s still hurting.’
‘Just take some painkillers already.’
‘No, no, I’m going to make um cafézinho. Won’t your friends be here soon?’
I start making my way towards the bathroom, begrudgingly.
‘But where is the medicine? Just in case.’
‘It’s on the bedside drawer…’ I begin. ‘Wait!’ I stop at the door. ‘This one here,’ I point to the right of my bed, ‘not that one. You don’t want to go in there, that’s where my, er…Amigo?…lives.’
She looks puzzled for a second, then her eyes grow wide and she bursts into laughter.
‘Ana Maria! Why would you tell me this?’
‘Well, I figure you wouldn’t want to see it.’
‘Ai ai filha.’
When I come out of the shower, I find her sitting on my bed, putting on earrings. No self-respecting Latina is ever seen without a pair.
‘Mãe, can you turn around? I gotta put a tampon on.’
(Some might find putting on a tampon in front of their mãe weird, but listen: mornings at our place in Brasil—a family of four in a tiny two-bedroom apartment—consisted of one person showering, another one shitting and someone else brushing their teeth, all at the same time.)
She sits down on the other side of the bed.
‘Well, let’s meet this Amigo then,’ she says.
I nearly miss the spot with the tampon as my mãe opens the bedside drawer and pulls out my vibrator.
‘Mãe!’
‘O que? I want to see what it looks like.’ Boundaries: they’re a white people thing.
Mamãe squints, ‘What’s that bit there? Is it for your anus?’
‘No, it’s for your clitoris,’ I wrap myself in my robe.
‘But how—?’
‘Hang on.’ I walk over and pick up the vibrator. It’s pretty non-threatening; simple, relatively small, black silicone.
‘Okay so, this larger part,’ I gesture to it, trying to channel the educational, kind energy of the shop assistant who sold it to me, ‘you put it inside the vagina. I know it’s not very big, but, see how it curves in a bit here? That stimulates your G-spot.’
Mamãe’s sitting very quietly and still. She’s paying attention, a rare sight. This might be the most bizarre show-and-tell ever, but the curiosity on her face is so pure that the situation doesn’t feel awkward.
This might be the most bizarre show-and-tell ever, but the curiosity on her face is so pure that the situation doesn’t feel awkward.
‘When you have the larger bit inside, this smaller bit here, it’s supposed to press against the front of your clitoris. But because everyone’s bodies are different, this part is flexible see? You can move it around like this.’
She nods, fascinated. ‘Mm, it seems like a good one!’
‘Then there are different settings, so if you turn it on…’ I press the red button on the toy.
‘Ooh!’ Mamãe jumps back in surprise and lets out the most girlish giggle I’ve ever heard come out of a grown woman. She waves her hands in front of her face as if to say okay, okay, enough.
I drop the toy back in the drawer, close it, and begin getting dressed. She opens it again, considers the toy for a moment, then lets out a sassy chuckle.
‘Maybe I should get um amigo!’
‘You should! I mean, you know, John travels a lot for work and—’
‘Ana Maria!’
‘Just because you’re older doesn’t mean you shouldn’t—’
‘Ai ai filha, só você mesmo.’
She walks away giggling.
*
Mamãe and I are sitting in my small backyard with my friends Pansy and Mouse. It’s chilly out, but they’ve brought their dog Twig, whom Mamãe has been on a mission to keep warm for the last half hour. It’s adorable, my tiny mãe trying to swaddle a full-grown greyhound with blankets.
The rest of us are chatting when, suddenly, she yells out in Portuguese,
‘Ana Maria! Why are you telling them this?’
Before I can clock what she thinks I’m talking about, she decides to take control over her own narration and starts telling my friends all about my Amigo—not the topic of the conversation until then. Things often get a little lost in translation with multilingual parents.
Pansy and Mouse are surprised and a little shocked at first, but then the conversation flows naturally from there. We talk about the importance of masturbation, its numerous health benefits, the patriarchy’s oppression of women’s sexuality.
Mamãe tells us about how her gynaecologist recommended she get a dildo after she had her hysterectomy, which apparently horrified her. But the doctor had likened it to physiotherapy. If she didn’t stimulate her vaginal muscles regularly, it would be incredibly painful to have penetrative intercourse when she chose to. She might even need additional surgery.
‘This was maybe twenty years ago now. I bought one just before we moved, but then I had to go see a gynaecologist because something was wrong! I was so embarrassed, but she said lots of single women use toys and they were always embarrassed about this! Anyway—’ Mamãe starts cracking up. She tries to keep talking but she’s reached the weird sound-making stage.
‘Turns out I was allergic to the thing,’ she takes a deep breath, ‘and so I had to buy condoms for it! Can you believe?’
‘Oh no!’ Pansy and Mouse join in the laughter, I suspect more because of its contagiousness than the actual story itself.
I think we all felt a pang of sadness—at the injustice of the stigma behind masturbation for people who aren’t cis men. Mamãe grew up Brown, poor and so Christian that she ended up marrying a preacher. Sexual liberation was never a part of her life. But she’s the best person I know, and I reckon she deserves an orgasm here and there.
Mamãe grew up Brown, poor and so Christian that she ended up marrying a preacher. Sexual liberation was never a part of her life. But she’s the best person I know, and I reckon she deserves an orgasm here and there.
Although, I remind myself, she did say she has ‘so many really, very, very spicy stories.’
*
‘Ana Maria!’ she yells over FaceTime, ‘Have you finished the story about your Amigo yet? I’ve been thinking. Maybe I really should get one.’
‘You should!’
‘I’m not too old?’ she asks.
‘Mãe, you’re not dead.’
Pause.
‘Ai ai filha.’
And she walks off again, leaving me staring at the ceiling.
*
An earlier version of this story was originally performed at EWF x ¡Yo Soy!: Fuego in 2019.
