The following entry has been graciously provided by an acting contributor, Saviabella, as part of an exercise to relieve me in the midst of much offline writing. Visit her now and often.

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So, did I ever tell you about that time my cousin tried to fuck me?

Funny story.

Ten years ago, I went to Italy to visit my family. I hadn't seen them since I was seven. Once I got there, it turned out I had all these relatives I never knew existed.

One was my second cousin, Mass. My brother and I were excited to meet him, because he was 24, a DJ in a club, had a car, and was going to take us out with his friends. We were thrilled, because we had been trapped in rural Italy for weeks with nothing to do but watch our pre-teen bratty cousins fight with each other about fuck knows what because it was in Italian and we had no clue what they were saying.

Mass did not disappoint. He spoke not a lick of English, but was charming, funny and a bit of a "bad boy" who smoked in a suave European way and hit on girls walking down the street. He was my brother's new best friend.

The first night, Mass and I were sitting on his bed waiting for my brother. I made a lame attempt at small talk in broken Italian. I tried to say the first thing that came to mind, which was, "I like your cologne." Unfortunately, I didn't know how to say "cologne", so I said, "I like..." and started gesturing. He said something that sounded like what I wanted to say, so I agreed.

Mistake number one.

When he started telling me how much he liked me and how hot I looked in my bikini at the pool that day, I realized we weren't talking about cologne. I had accidentally told him I liked him.

Oops.

I started laughing, because you gotta admit, that's pretty funny. Besides, there was no way to correct him with the language barrier.

The next night, a bunch of us went to the beach at Pisa. It was a beautiful evening, with a full moon and warm, fresh air rolling in with the waves. Some might even call it romantic. Mind you, they weren't on alone on a balcony with their cousin. Anyway, I attempted to converse with him in Italian again and was doing okay until I tried to make a comment about how he had a lot of friends.

Mistake number two.

He thought I had asked if he had a girlfriend. He said he just broke up with someone that I should stay in Italy with him and after a few months, he'd come to Canada with me.

Um...yeah...this was starting to get weird.

We went down to the beach and watched my drunken brother play in the waves. I'd had too much wine at supper and was feeling silly, so I tried to race Mass along the shore. He was beating me, so I grabbed his arm to try and pass him but instead tripped and fell on my ass in the wet sand. He picked me up and brushed me off as we both giggled like school kids.

My drunk bro had to pee, so Stephano and Giuseppe (their real names, I kid you not) took him away and left me alone on the beach with Mass. He asked me how to say "beautiful" in English and then said, "The night is beautiful like you are beautiful," followed by something in Italian. All I could make out is, "I want...I want...I want..." I just said, "I don't understand" again and again.

Mistake number three.

He grabbed me and kissed me. I froze out of shock because I couldn't get my head around the fact that my cousin's tongue was in my mouth. I pushed him away and laughed because I didn't know how to deal with it. He said, "Do you understand now?"

Yup, that was pretty clear.

Later that night, once everyone was in bed, Mass came up to me with a look of desperation in his eyes. I tried to get out of the encounter with a friendly hug, but he grabbed me and kissed me again. He said we were going to the beach the next day and we would swim out into the sea and be together. He asked me if I understood. Shocked and numb, I nodded.

I didn't sleep that night. I was freaking out because I didn't know what to do. I had gotten myself out of sketchy situations in the past, but this whole incestuous Italian cousin thing was a new one. I made a plan to stick by my brother at all times so Mass would have no opportunity for more weird shit.

At the beach, we played volleyball and things seemed cool. Then, Giuseppe swam off into the middle of the sea by himself. The water stays at chest height forever, so I wanted to try it, too. I took off, leaving Mass, Stephano and my bro on the shore.

Mistake number four.

I was alone in the middle of the sea when I turned to see a leering Mass swimming in my direction. I looked around for my brother, who was nowhere to be seen. Mass was coming for me, making the "curvy girlie" gesture with his hands and telling me how good I looked. I said, "No!" and took off back to shore, with his cries of "Come back! Come back!" fading behind me.

Safe on dry land, I curled up on a towel and flirted with Stephano, who was incredibly cute and not at all related to me. I thought Mass would get the hint, especially when Stephano and I disappeared later to make out.

Mistake number five.

That night, Mass told me that he was going to sneak into my room once everyone was asleep. Horrified, I said, "No!" He said, "Yes!" and we fought back and forth like that for awhile until he said, "Yes!" with finality and left.

I had no idea what to do and decided my best defence was to pretend to be asleep [Cut me some slack, people - I was 21, naive, and still cared about being "nice". These days, I would grab a heavy, blunt object to use as my teddy bear.]

Mistake number six.

Awhile later, I heard him whispering my name at the door. I ignored it. Then, he started poking my leg. I continued to pretend I was asleep.

Savia poke poke poke Savia poke poke poke Savia poke poke poke Savia poke poke poke Savia poke poke poke Savia poke poke poke

After awhile, this got extremely annoying. Pissed off, I sat up and said, "What?!" He said something I, of course, didn't understand, jumped on top of me and shoved his tongue down my throat again. I shoved him off. At this point, I was done with the whole, "I'm such a nice girl and everyone has to like me" crap. This was seriously pissing me off.

Savia: No.
Mass: Why?
Savia: No!
Mass: Why?
Savia: No!!
Mass: Why??!!
Savia: [in broken Italian] You are my cousin. We are family.
Mass: But we are just little family. It doesn't matter.
Savia: You are my cousin. We are family.
Mass: Just little family.
Savia: You are my cousin. We are family.
Mass: [snaps] No! No! No, it's not true! Oh God, no, it's not true, it's not true, it's not true! [tries to kiss me again]
Savia: No. You are my family. My Nonna will kill you.
Mass: If we're really quiet, no one will know.
Savia: No.
Mass: Yes or no?
Savia: No.
Mass: Yes or no?
Savia: No!
Mass: Yes or no?
Savia: No!!

He started kissing my neck and tried to go down my shirt. I shoved him off. He tried to go down my boxers and I kicked him off and said, "Fuck off!" That made him laugh, because it was one of the only English phrases he knew. It didn't phase him, though, and he climbed right back on.

Our arguments were conducted in whispers because his parents were sleeping in the next room. I could have screamed and made a scene, but I knew I could handle the situation on my own. I was in the best shape of my life, a head taller than him, and outweighed him by 20 pounds. I knew I could take the little twerp. That, and I'm stubborn as hell and I wanted to send him off with his cousinfucking dick tucked between his legs. Did he seriously think I was playing hard to get with the whole, "Hey, we're related" thing and if only he kept at me long enough, I'd quietly fuck his brains out?

Still lying on top of me, he said something in Italian.

Savia: I don't understand.
Mass: [says it in a different way]
Savia: I don't understand.
Mass: [says it in another way]
Savia: I don't understand.
Mass: [says it in yet another way]

It slowly dawned on me that he was telling me that he was aroused. I tried not to burst out laughing, because quite honestly, I couldn't feel anything.

Mass: Mass good beautiful good.
Savia: What?
Mass: Mass good good beautiful good.

Oh, God, now he was telling me how good he was in bed in an effort to convince me to have sex with him. I just kept saying, "No." I figured, hell, it's the same word in both languages, so it wasn't like he could pretend he didn't know what it meant. He started trembling out of sexual frustration.

Mass: I love you!

It was the creepiest phrase I had ever heard in my life, not only because it was coming out of cousinfucker's mouth, but also because the accents fell on the wrong syllables - it sounded strange and so very wrong.

Mass: Yes or no?
Savia: No.
Mass: Yes or no?
Savia: No.
Mass: Yes or no?
Savia: No.

I have no idea how long this whispered struggle of wills went on, but eventually, he got the hint and left. I breathed a sigh of relief.

Then, I heard a whisper at the doorway.

Mass: Yes or no?
Savia: No.
Mass: Yes or no?
Savia: No.
Mass: Yes or no?
Savia: No.

That went on for awhile, until he finally gave up and left, for good this time.

For years, I made jokes about my incestuous Italian cousin, even using it as a pick up line at the bar, "Hey, I'm so hot that my cousin tried to fuck me." (Surprisingly, that one worked pretty well.) I thought there was something seriously wrong with that guy to have gone for a relative as hard as he did. It was as though he were obsessed, possessed, under some kind of spell. I didn't get it.

And then, ten years later, I went back to Italy to hang out with my not-so-bratty-not-so-pre-teen-anymore cousins. And something happened that made me understand just a little better where he was coming from.

[To be continued]