I was a little puzzled, and I wondered if Rita had said ‘material act’ or ‘material fact’.

I said: ‘What?’

‘No, I meant, do you want us to do something material right away or should I entertain you?’

After a while I was about to enter her, but she interrupted me again. ‘Excuse me,’ she said and naked as she was went to the door, opened it and called out:

‘Mammaaa!’ and then again: ‘Mammiiina! Mammina, the rubber!’

Anna arrived, smiling, holding the envelope with the rubber, put the head into it, asked me if everything was all right, explained to me that Rita, her niece, was afraid, so young, of getting pregnant and losing her figure. I must admit that I was disappointed, partly because, given Rita’s youth and freshness, Anna, with the rubber, wanted fifteen thousand lire instead of the usual ten, and she had added nothing of her own. I didn’t ask the girl if Anna was her aunt or, rather, her mother; anyway I never went back. Anna called me a few more times, but I always declined the appointment, making up an excuse, and now she, too, has stopped calling.

Finally she got it, that business is business, it’s true, but I, too, have to think of my interests, and I can’t spend fifteen thousand lire for a girl, as young as you like, but cold as a fish, and afraid of getting pregnant besides. No one understands that fear better than I do, but, on the other hand, if a woman wants ten or fifteen thousand lire for a single sex act, which lasts at most half an hour, all-inclusive, she ought to run some risk, no?

Call girls definitely have some advantages certainly. They are almost always cute and young, clean and probably healthy (we men, too, have to run a slight risk, I’ll admit). But usually you have to take them sight unseen, trusting the taste of the madam. Certainly, after you’ve met one you liked, you can return to her; but the trouble is that these madams don’t like to keep the same women around all the time. Partly because the client likes novelty, partly because after a while two women always end up quarrelling – always for some foolish reason, you know how women are – and then a girl who’s offended is quick to blow the whistle, or get someone else to blow the whistle, to the police. Behind the girl there’s always a man – a ‘boyfriend’, they say – and it’s he who goads her to go to the police when the madam has done a real or apparent wrong. Anyway, it’s well known that with the new Merlin Law the one who gets caught is the madam/pimp, never the girl.

Then, there are the neighbours, who are envious and gossipy, and the concierges, generally female, who are stuck in the Hapsburg era and act like spies. If they always see the same woman going up the stairs, they begin to talk, and the rumour sooner or later reaches the right person. So the madam also makes sure to move house periodically, but stays in the same neighbourhood, so that, for a tip, she can keep her old telephone number. Thus the clientele remains the same, on the whole, but the girls change often, and, since they never go more than two or three times with the same man, on the one hand, they have no way of gaining real professional experience; on the other, they’re not concerned with satisfying their partner, and always try to hurry the session along.