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The Scent of Your Breath

Melissa P.
Chapters (45)
  1. Cover Page
  2. The Scent of Your Breath
  3. Dedication
  4. ONE
  5. TWO
  6. THREE
  7. FOUR
  8. FIVE
  9. SIX
  10. SEVEN
  11. EIGHT
  12. NINE
  13. TEN
  14. ELEVEN
  15. TWELVE
  16. THIRTEEN
  17. FOURTEEN
  18. FIFTEEN
  19. SIXTEEN
  20. SEVENTEEN
  21. EIGHTEEN
  22. NINETEEN
  23. TWENTY
  24. TWENTY-ONE
  25. TWENTY-TWO
  26. TWENTY-THREE
  27. TWENTY-FOUR
  28. TWENTY-FIVE
  29. TWENTY-SIX
  30. TWENTY-SEVEN
  31. TWENTY-EIGHT
  32. TWENTY-NINE
  33. THIRTY
  34. THIRTY-ONE
  35. THIRTY-TWO
  36. THIRTY-THREE
  37. THIRTY-FOUR
  38. THIRTY-FIVE
  39. THIRTY-SIX
  40. THIRTY-SEVEN
  41. THIRTY-EIGHT
  42. THIRTY-NINE
  43. FORTY
  44. FORTY-ONE
  45. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Cover Page

Praise for 100 Strokes of the Brush Before Bed:

“The erotic adventures of a sexually ravenous girl … A wisp of a book that had a wallop of an impact … Readers have simply devoured it.”

—The New York Times

“A mixture of old soul and sexual newcomer … [Melissa P.] brings an emotional authority to her work…. 100 Strokes is by turns romantic, erotic, sensationalistic, and disturbing.”

—Bust

“Melissa P. is the ne plus ultra of an eye-watering literary phenomenon.”

—Telegraph (UK)

“Catherine Millet can go put her clothes back on.”

—Les Echos (France)

“Melissa P.’s fictionalized memoir is shockingly frank, explicitly detailed—and, she insists, entirely true.”

—Teen Vogue

“What’s most remarkable about this staggeringly assured debut is not the sexual smorgasbord—voyeurism, sado-masochism, group sex, etc., etc.—but the utter lack of any distractions from sex.… A junior-league Catherine M. bound to raise just as many eyebrows this side of the Atlantic.”

—Kirkus Reviews

“Remarkably self-assured … the shock waves of this self-revealing schoolgirl’s confession … are still reverberating.”

—The Times (London)

“An erotic chronicle of loss of innocence, charged with high-voltage sex.”

—El Pais (Spain)

“Speaking with the honesty of Céline and the sensitivity of Duras, Melissa P. has given us a book that is at once astonishingly sad, astonishingly perceptive, and ultimately, astonishingly beautiful.”

—Nic Kelman, author of Girls

“Scandalous, word perfect, languid like those thoughts that first start to coalesce in adolescence … a story that cannot be put down.”

—Gazzetta del Sud (Italy)

“The clear and uninhibited style of 100 Strokes of the Brush Before Bed is a great literary achievement.”

—Het Parool (Holland)

“The sex diary of Melissa P. shows she is experienced—and wise—beyond her years … A combination of candor and intelligence, and a compelling mix of aggression and passivity.”

—GQ (UK)

“Remarkable. With any luck this book will utterly scandalize the people who still think of teenage girls as half-formed dolls in pretty boxes.”

—BelleDeJour.com

“Melissa P.’s impressive autobiographical novel … makes a rather sophisticated commentary on desire. Combining adult subject matter with a child’s imagination, the author succeeds in powerfully capturing a young woman’s sexual coming-of-age.”

—The Observer (UK)

The Scent of Your Breath

Also by Melissa P.

100 Strokes of the Brush Before Bed

The Scent of Your Breath

MELISSA P.

Translated from the Italian by
Shaun Whiteside

Image

Dedication

To Thomas, who knows how to sniff my skirt,
to my mother the forest,
to my sister the storm,
to my Nonna Madonna.

So go, take the train
’cause if you don’t go now, you surely will

—Virginiana Miller, “Elsewhere”

ONE