Chapter One

Father's last moan was also the starting pistol of the spermographic race in which the winner became a zygote. Already standing on the podium, I watched from first place the misfortune of my competitor-brothers, who sank to a destination far less luxurious than the uterus: the toilet in my parents' house.

The race itself was nothing new—it was once often depicted in films and books. Mama used to say that people should first pay attention to their work and only afterwards have fun, but small (microscopic) me tried to bring the two together.

Early on, I realized I was different from other boys. Soccer, for example, was not within my field of interests; it was too violent. As the preferred childhood games of the boys of that age were always linked to demonstrations of force, I preferred to be alone. Even with seven siblings, when I played with them, my tendency to lead was clear. I was the one dictating the rules of the game. Most of the time, however, I was alone in my world, and, when adolescence arrived, while my sexuality began to explode and my doubts darkened my vision like smoke from a locomotive, I turned to literature.

Meanwhile, much had already happened. In fact, my first sexual experience—I'm not talking sex itself, but rather intimate contact—occurred well before my teens. It was when I was seven years of age and we lived in the house of a lady named Andrea. Nearby lived Maria de Fátima and Francisco. They worked from home as cooks. One evening, Mother sent me to Maria de Fatima's for bread, and, once there, Francisco led me to a plot o