"THE TRUE STORIES IN THIS FILM" "WERE COLLECTED DURING A LONG PERIOD OF RESEARCH" "AND ARE PLAYED BYACTRESSES AND ACTORS." "THE ORIGINAL TESTIMONIES WERE NOTALTERED." "So... she was seven." "She had childhood-onset diabetes." "She passed out, but actually she went into cardiac arrest." "This daughter was seven and my younger one was four." "Then it was all over." "I lost my bearings." "My husband, poorthing..." "Soon after she died, he left hisjob." "So our lives stopped." "We had no money." "No money at all." "He started to drink." "He'd come home plastered." "And he wasn't the typical cliché drunk." "He'd come home mute." "He wouldn't say a word." "So I became more and more aggressive." "In a really destructive way." "In an evil way, you know?" "Really bad." "I've always been very aggressive." "Maybe it was a defense of mine." "So when I bought something, I'd tell him," ""See, I bought this." "You can't buy that."" "And in the meantime, he got back his self-esteem." "So when I hurt him, he hurt me back." "I stood it, he stood it." "I rememberthat one day... I don't knowwhat I said, but I said something... and he pushed me." "He pushed me, so I pushed him back." "And I said, "You can't talk to me like that."" "I was feeling my oats." "He didn't hesitate, he grabbed me, he lift me up, and threwme against the wall." "I hit the wall very hard." "I was bruised all over." "All over." "He left home, and I went to my brother's house." "This was about 3:00 AM." "And I was crying, crying." "And the next day, I asked him to leave." "He went to his parents' home in Santo André." "Two months later, everything I wanted to happen before, happened then." "We had a daughter, Juliana..." "He would call to get news about her." "But he called in a nice way." ""Let's talk." You know?" "So we started dating." "We dated about four or five months." "It was the best time of my life." "And a real mature passion came out ifthis." "So respectful." "We'd talk about everything, even about what happened." "We talked about it." "So one day he said, "l shouldn't have done that, but you knowhowl am... I have these outbursts, I really have a temper, but you provoked me."" "And I did, I did provoke him." "What kind ofthings he belittle about you?" "At that time?" "Yeah." "He belittled everything." "The silliest, most cliché thing..." "For instance..." "you cut your hair." "And he doesn't say anything." "It can't be that he didn't notice." "Ok, I believe, he doesn't notice." "Bit it's horrible." "It's horrible." "Oryou make this big effort to lose seven pounds." "Seven." "It's real hard to lose seven pounds." "So you put on tight clothes to get his attention, and he doesn't say a word?" "He sawit, noticed it, but didn't say a word." "That pissed me off." "When we got back together, one day, I asked him," ""Marcos, why haven't you ever praised me?" "How can we have a relationship ifl don't feel admired by you?" "He said, "l admire you."" "I told him, "But you have to say it."" ""l do?" "Of course you do"" "And he said, "So you're that kind of person..."" "Howwas it?" "He said..." ""So you're that kind of person who always needs a compliment?"" "As if needing a compliment was a bad thing." "That really messed with my head, but I mustered the courage and said," ""Marcos, I need compliments." "I need compliments, the Yankees fans need compliments, everyone needs compliments."" "And there is this otherthing... I had a problem, I worked a lot." "I was always a bit negligent caring forthe kids and the house, and he took that, he used that." "Because... that would be my big flaw." "The impossibility of caring for my girls, sitting, playing with them." "This kind of... maternal thing really." "Actually, I never had the patience." "I don't have a lot of patience for that." "I'm not very maternal." "So I'd get home and say," ""l got more money." "I won another case."" ""Your daughter Juliana waited at school until six o'clock."" "So he kept working on lowering my self-esteem." "When we got back together... you knownobody changes over night." "So what happened?" "We could only continue being the same people because it was very clear to me the bad things that he did." "Maybe he does it to this day." "You knowthose women who love to get beaten?" "I began to wonder ifl was one." "I don't like getting beat up." "But sometimes I think it's necessary." "You knowkids who need a smack to knowtheir limits?" "I think it was a bit like that." "And there's something else I worked on in therapy." "It's the possibility of really being a woman." "From the moment I took on my role as a woman, my relationship, and everything else..." "My relationship improved." "So you had to be beaten to take on your role as a woman?" "Exactly." "And he took on the man's role after he hit me." "Because he started bringing money in, paying the bills." "But when you said you took on the woman's role, what exactly is that?" "I can't really explain it." "One day my therapist asked me," ""Why did you marry him?"" "I told her, "Fuck, he's real cute, he's gentle."" "And she asked, "Why don't you showthat to him?"" "So I became a nicer person." "Despite being very aggressive my whole life, I found out that I can be a gentle person." "A very gentle, caring, and romantic person." "I started to laugh, I became happier, a fun person." "I mock everything." "So I had this reunion with my delicacy, you know?" "It was really nice." "When I went to bed, I started to hug Marcos, to run my hand over his hair." "lfl noticed he was strange, was a little down, I'd say to him, "What's going on?"" "Gently, really gently." "An open attitude." "That was nice." "That changes a lot." "That makes a world of difference." "Of course, all this had a beginning." "To me it had a very clear start." "My mother was beaten up." "When I was a boy, I sawmy mother being beat up by people she had relationships with." "And a certain person beat my mother badly." "To the point ofleaving my mom in the middle ofthe street, fallen, passed out, and all that." "Up until I was 15, 16, I went through this." "I wanted to kill people who did this to my mother." "I actually picked up a gun to shoot the guy who did that to my mother... who wasn't my father." "My father hit her a fewtimes, because..." "There's nojustification, but actually my mom drove my father crazy." "My mom..." "my mom humiliated him." "My father was a naval officer and she'd say, "You're illiterate." "I'm forced to live in the suburbs, in this miserable life, when I wanted to live in a good neighborhood, and have a good life." "But you can never give me anything because you're a crummy NCO, from a poorfamily, with no money."" "In fact, my mother's family was poortoo." "Because herfather hit her a lot when she was a girl." "So she rebelled against the husband as a way to rebel against her dad." "Or maybe imitate him." "I mean, nowl see things like that." "And I myself began to hit girls I was dating." "Which was one way to redeem my mom for being beat up." "When I was 18, I remember I hit my girlfriend." "Kid stuff, jealousy, lack of respect." "But she also hit me, jealous of some girl." "She tried to slap me, but I was quicker and hit her." "So I got used to hitting her, I hit her several times." "That's something I regret." "She was a good girl, a great person." "I started dating this guy when I was 16." "He was my first boyfriend, he was 20 years old." "I thought I was an angel in his life." "The first strange thing that happened was like this..." "We had a group that used to go out to dance." "I went out one day, but I said I wouldn't dance." "I went to the bathroom and there was this guy from the group." "He asked me to dance and I said okay." "I danced with the guy." "My boyfriend looked radiant." "We left, but he didn't say anything." "It took him 3 months to mention it." "But every time he mentioned it we'd argue." ""That day you said you wouldn't dance, but you did."" "And then the threatening tone began." "He'd say, "You think I didn't do anything to that guy?"" "And I wondered ifhe really did something." "Was he capable of doing something?" "I still believed he could change." "Then came the time when I realized he was never going to change." "So I tried to break up." "I tried, but he started to threat me even more." "He said he'd kill me, kill my uncle, my mother, my whole family." "At first you hear that and you think," ""l'm going to turn my back and walk away." "This guy is nuts." "Just let him talk." "But it's not so easy." "Because there was a history." "There was this personality problem I began to notice." "I didn't knowwhen he was telling the truth and when he was threatening me so I'd be afraid ofhim." "Time went on and I became addicted to beating people." "The women I dated, the women I had sex with." "Sometimes, I became violent." "Ifthe girl didn't like it, I'd take a step back." "But if she liked it, I had no limits." "I could really hurt her." "And this comes from something that has no explanation." "It can become an addiction, a pattern." "No, no, I have two lovely, marvelous girls." "But unfortunately I hurt my wife a lot." "After my children were born, I stopped hitting her." "I mean, I didn't stop being an aggressive person." "Other kinds of aggression continued." "But the heavy boxer type of aggression ended." "This is something that really stayed with me." "The fact that I hit my wife." "Awoman who only did good things for me, who loved me, and who I loved back." "But I had the nerve to hit her." "That's something I can't forgive, that has no explanation." "I don't knowif you've gone through something like that." "If you haven't, thank God." "But it doesn't depend on anything out ofthe ordinary." "These things come from the most trivial human relations." "The desire to hurt." "Everything is an excuse, There's the need to hurt." "It's almost physiological." "It's like our need... to eat... to shit... to piss... to fuck..." "Get it?" "It's a need to hurt." "But afteryou satisfy this awful instinct, you regret it." "And there are people who don't, which is worse." "Can you excuse me a minute?" "Hi, honey." "Yeah." "No, I'm doing the interview I told you." "REENACTMENTOF A SITUATION THAT OCCURRED DURING THE RESEARCH" "She wants to continue listening to the conversation." "is that okay?" "Sex was something I did to calm him down." "I didn't want to do it, I couldn't bear looking at him." "So I kept making up excuses." "One week passed, two, by the third week, he wanted to beat me." "So I did it." "But I couldn't let it show that I didn't want to do it." "He asked if it was an obligation for me." ""No, why are you saying that?"" "He said, "l can tell you didn't want it."" "lfl said I did, he'd get medieval on me." "That was my defense mechanism." "I used to say, "Today I have to want it."" "Because then he'd be calm and I could have some peace." "I worked as a dentist for a long time." "Physically, I have no doubt women are stronger than men." "Women's resistance to pain is much greaterthan men's." "Men would piss themselves to sit on my chair." "Women didn't even blink." "Very fewwomen ever showed any fear." "Men used to offer me money to not feel any pain." "Men are really sons oftheir mothers!" "They have to get rid of this fucking Oedipus, this dependency, this umbilical cord." "Men have to emancipate themselves orthey'll go on making women suffer." "Because usually the man can't give love." "He doesn't know howto love back." "He's selfish, you know?" "Because the best place is his, the best food is his, the TV channel is his, and that's fucked up." "I say this and it sounds like I'm this model citizen, but I'm not. I suffer from all these things." "I'll need a fewincarnations to heal this stuff." "There was this situation around the end of last year, close to the end." "I called him and asked him not to come to pick me up, because my father was coming." "So he asked why." "I told him my father was coming." "And the threatening tone started again, my stomach would be in knots instantly." "He said he was coming because I'd done something wrong." "So he came to pick me up and I couldn't react." "Because I did everything he told me to." "He said, "l'm picking you up." l said okay." "Because I was very afraid ofhis reaction." "So I couldn't go against anything he said." "I got in the car and he said," ""We're going to my house and you're taking off your clothes and ifl find any marks that showyou betrayed me, you'll regret having been born."" "He kept saying that and it got into my head, because I knew I hadn't done anything, but I was thinking," ""My God, something is going to happen."" "I was sure of it." "he was going to find some invisible mark." "We got to his house, and I turned around for him, he was looking at me and said, "What is this?"" "I said, "The mark of my bra."" "Then he said, "Okay."" "As ifl was a piece of meat on display, a rotisserie chicken turning around." "I got dressed, I went home." "He was going to take me, and said, "l'm not taking you home." "If you go home, you're going to see TV and laugh." "So you're coming to my house and stay there with no TV."" "He took me, shut the door, turned the TVoff and we were there till midnight." "All this because he didn't want me to laugh." "It was very crazy, he couldn't stand me to be happy." "That was his objective." "It's a fact." "One thing is the psychological, the other is the physical." "And they mess with you so much that you actually believe it." "Sometimes I stop and I think," ""l did something wrong, I'm the guilty one."" "I've always been very jealous." "My thing isjealousy." "I'm very jealous." "She's here, on the phone with me." "She lives in Spain and I live in Brazil." "It's hard." "Man, this is something very private." "Forthe love of God." "Not that I'm hiding her from anyone." "I'm still living with my ex-wife." "We're actually separated." "Not legally, but we are." "I want the best for my ex and she wants the best for me." "That to me is a victory." "To be friends, after we separated." "And why did you want your girlfriend to hear all this?" "Because I'd already had episodes of violence with her." "For what reason?" "The same thing that always moves me with women." "My insecurity, excessivejealousy, a need to punish." "I think this goes back to my mother, it's a hard thing to resolve." "You want to know something?" "I think my mother deserved the beating she got from my dad." "Not from the other guy, but from my dad." "My mother drove my father crazy." "And he wasn't a guy to hit women." "She humiliated him, attacked him physically, hit him in the face, broke his comb, ran it on his face, stamped on his clothes, threwthem down in the mud." "There came a moment when he lost control, he hit her back." "So he hit her with a..." "The guy was a naval officer, a boxer, fucking strong." "My mom was skinny, 86 pounds." "The first time he hit her, he broke her denture." "I'll tell you, it's tragic and it's comic." "It's comic." "You knowas a filmmaker, that nothing is so tragic that isn't also comical." "Now, after so many years, I can find it funny." "My father broke my mom's and the maid's dentures." "I mean, it was a lot of damage." "But it was profitable forthe dentist." "The maid tried to help my mom, my father hit the maid too." "And also broke her denture." "THE INTERVIEWEE KEPTTHE CELL PHONE AT HIS EAR" "DURING THE WHOLE RESEARCH INTERVIEW" "This movie can turn into a comedy." "Are you satisfied?" "It was clingy." "From my part it was clingy." "And men, when they get clingy... I think that was my mistake." "I really fell for her!" "I spent 15 days in her home." "I left my wife, my kids, to be with her." "The mother of my kids said it was a complicated moment in our relationship." "Because I've been married with her for 28 years, man." "I raised five kids with her." "And there are two small ones." "That complicated it even more to suddenly be living with the mistress." "So once I was close to Butantã, going by her house." "Then I called her." "She asked me to bring something from the market for her." "I went to the market and bought what she asked." "As I was leaving the market, I sawthis guy who lived close to her." "And he came with this boy." "It was really hot that day." "So I said, "Hey, Júlio, don't you want a ride?" "Come in and I'll take you there."" "So I dropped the guy off and got late at her house." "She blewup, man." "She exploded." "She was with her girl." "She went to the door screaming." "All the houses are close to each other." "So I kind of pushed her back." "And she called her mother, this time she did." "She never called." "And she went to the precinct to make a complaint." "That's when she asked for a restraining order." "Why didn't she come to me?" "Why didn't she tell me about that restraining order?" "It could have been just a thing ofthe moment." "But at the time, I didn't understand that." "I started to drink." "I felt really bad with the restraining order." "We had another date, we had ice cream, me, her, and her little girl." "She has a three-year-old." "Actually, I'm the girl's godfather." "I baptized her." "Got it?" "What was the incident that made you lose control?" "She worked on a Sunday." "No, she worked from Saturday to Sunday." "She says she did." "She worked, but she didn't call me." "That made me wonder... lt began to influence me." "She never stopped at the pay phone." "Was it so hard to call me?" "Even if she had no cell on her." "She could find a pay phone and say," ""Paulo, I'm doing a night shift." "I'm working all night."" "Was it so hard for herto call me?" "Tell me." "So I became suspicious." "I was very suspicious from then on." "I had spent that whole night drinking." "I drank all morning..." "Then I got there." "When I got there, it was normal." "She opened the door, treated me fine." "Because on other days, she shut the door, she wouldn't let me come in." "So when I got there, I told her," ""Don't tell yourfather I'm here."" "Then she picked up the phone and called herfather." "And herfather called the cops." "Howis that for you?" "Call the fucking police?" "Why didn't he talk to me?" "I hadn't killed her." "I wouldn't have done anything bad with her." "That was when it hit me." "Man, to call the police?" "I got her like this and I hurt her a lot with a knife." "She survived." "She's back to work." "And I felt very sick." "She sent me away." "I got one ofher clothes because mine was all bloodied." "I really felt sick." "I fell on the sidewalk." "The sun was boiling hot." "The neighbors came and threw cold water on me." "Their landlord came and took me to the hospital." "Ever since we were together, she said she didn't love me." "But that day there was a moment when she said, "l love you."" "I was trying to hit her, on the bed, and the little girl showed up." "That's when she managed to push me with her feet." "She pushed me, and I stood by the door." "She stood there at the sink." "She said, "Oh, I love you." "Why are you doing this?"" "Man, at that moment, I... I threweverything up, I threwthe knife." "I lost it." "I couldn't think of anything." "I was crazy." "It was an impulse." "My emotions were on fire." "Angertoo." "There are a lot oflaws to protect women." "I want a law with my name on it." "Alawto protect men too." "One day, we were with a bunch of people at a college party." "and when she got to the door, she didn't want to come in." "I didn't want either." "So she decided to give me a ride home, and when she got to my home l decided to kick it off." "I told her, "Why don't we try it?"" "And she said again that we were friends and stuff." "And it was funny because I told her to have a friend's kiss." "This story is great." "And so we kissed." "It was amazing." "There was an awesome chemistry." "At the time, my mother was out oftown, so we locked ourselves in my room until 4 p.m. the next day." "That year we decided to spend New Year's together." "But she was going to Búzios, with her family." "We decided to go as friends." "From the start, they weren't receptive because of my piercings." "From the start, her family wasn't very welcoming." "And her parents didn't like us staying in her room for hours." "And we did." "Imagine the two of us at her parent's beach house locked in the room until 3:30 p.m." "It was a bit too much." "We were being a little too obvious." "But come on, we were too blind." "It was this fascination, all this desire." "I've never had that either." "Being so happy with someone in bed." "With her I discovered newlevels of orgasm." "You know, female ejaculation, stuffl'd never experienced." "So it was very strong." "But there was this controversy in the house..." ""Your friend isn't cool."" "So I called my mom who was in Cabo Frio." "I asked herto come visit me so people wouldn't think I had no family." "So she brought me a box of Xanax, because I had run out." "And this was normal." "For my family, it was fine." "I'd been taking it since I was 15." "So I left the thing on the table, her parents sawit and were horrified." "They told Júlia, "See, yourfriend is crazy, she takes drugs."" "They had a fight and I was watching it all." "But Júlia told them I was her girlfriend." "I decided to wait outside the house." "It was December 31st, the rain was pouring, I went to drink something at a nearby beach kiosk." "Something awful happenned... I was at the kiosk, drinking and talking with the guy selling drinks." "It must have been around 6 p.m. There was no one on the beach." "I was talking to this guy and I felt the need to go pee." "So I went behind the kiosk." "When I bent down, I sawhim coming to fuck me from behind." "I pushed the guy and ran off towards Júlia's house." "But I tripped, fell down and passed out." "Then came her sister, who was also very uptight, I wasn't herfriend or anything." "She came and took me back to her parents' place, and you can imagine." "They already had a lot of prejudice against us, they sawme in this situation and it only got worse." "Luckily, I had this old friend living on the same street." "Julia and her sister took me to this girl's house." "I spent the night at my friend's." "But the next day we packed ourthings, put it in the car and went to Rio." "I gained about 90 pounds during my relationship with her." "That made me very insecure." "I became very jealous, very possessive." "So I developed a serious self-esteem problem." "And besides beingjealous and possessive, I started cheating on her." "Not because I didn't want to be with her, I did, but I had to boost my ego, I felt the need to be wanted." "I wanted to have hot girls desiring me." "At the time, it was my solution to... boost my self-esteem." "That created more stress, more shouting, more fights." "I cheated on her, felt guilty and told her about it." "And she lost control," "She started to hit me, punch me call me a bitch, a real shouting." "She realized the drug thing was getting out of control for us." "We decided to stop snorting together." "But she did it and I didn't." "We would go out, at a certain point she'd leave and I'd stay." "This gap brought on more drugs, more cheating and stuff." "Once I got home at 6 p.m. thinking it was 6 a.m." "I got home and she was out of her mind, desperate, aggressive, shouting, "Where were you?" "!"" "I didn't knowwhere I was, I was totally deranged." "I came in and she was punching me hard." "I remember I went to bed and lay down on my stomach, covered my face and she jumped on me hitting me." "I just felt the pain..." "in my back and my neck." "I felt I deserved those punches, I felt she was right." "In that situation, ifl could I would have helped her." "Then there was..." "another situation." "We were going through a calmer phase." "She decided to invite some friends and have a party at home to showthe apartment." "And that day I woke up sick with the runs." "But so far, so good." "These were her childhood friends." "But this girl from college called, a girl I was sure was into her." "That was crazy because the girl never showed any interest..." "The girl called Julia who then invited her over." "I lost control. I felt awful." "I was totally enraged." ""Why did you call this girl today when I'm feeling sick?"" "I picked up a glass and threwit on the wall." "You're having a party?" "Let's see a party without glasses!"" "And I broke every glass in the house." "Then what happened?" "All the girls showed up, I felt better, we went out, bought some plastic cups, had this huge party, and there is this picture of me with the girl, with my arm around her during the party." "It was such a crazy moment." "You didn't try to heal yourself ofthat possessiveness?" "She was also possessive." "She was very possessive." "She was less aggressive than me, but she hit me too, and she poisoned me against everyone." "Especially against my mother, my family." "Because she wanted me just for her, that was her way ofbeing possessive." "It was a symptom ofher possessiveness." "She wanted me all to herself." "We each acted differently." "In my possessiveness, I would throwglasses." "She poisoned me against everyone and I let myselfbe poisoned." "Because when I started to believe she was the only one who really believed in me, I gave her words absolute power." "It was an obsessive, possessive relationship." "It's very funny because the sex, right until the end, it solved everything." "And in the middle of everything, when we had sex, everything was erased." "It was like a compensation." "The crazy thing is our sex also grewmore violent." "We enjoyed hitting each other during sex, scratching each other, burning our backs with wax." "But that was good." "That was pleasure." "Usually when I got nervous, I broke things." "But I won't say I never hit her, because I did." "Once I tore her clothes." "Not the ones in the closet, but those she was wearing." "It was as ifthis hitting wasn't important, because we enjoyed so much the good moments we still had." "But when you hit in anger, did you feel like killing?" "No, it wasn't like that." "It wasn't anger." "We didn't want to kill each other, it was a feeling of misunderstanding." ""l want to get along with you, but you're not understanding what I'm saying."" "And so we did that to come closertogether." "Even when we fought, we thought we'd spend the rest of our lives together." "We thought we'd go to Barcelona to get really married." "Till one day she woke up early and I was screwing someone else in the living room." "But what really split us up was this drug thing." "Because she was getting clean and I got deeper into it." "And I became more and more promiscuous." "And she became disgusted with this and we stopped having sex." "That's when our balance stopped." "I wanted to have sex with her, but she couldn't do it with me." "It hurt me so much, I brought someone into our house." "So, of course, she decided to leave." "She said she wasn't leaving for good but we needed some time apart." "Because we never split up." "That day she said, "l love you, we will be together, I need some time alone."" "So I cut myself all over." "She came help me and I said, "Go away, I don't need you!"" "Then she called me at my mother's, she talked to me, said she liked me, that we would be together, we'd never be apart..." "But we were splitting up." "We didn't want to see it because it was inconceivable, so we kept feeding this fantasy that everything was fine." "Till the day she started seeing someone else." "That was the end for me." "It was over." "Of all the relationships I had, this was the most intense, and the most pleasurable, also because I was very young..." "When you discover you love someone, you feel it's the most important thing in the world." "That it's never going to happen again." "And truly, if I'm honest, I can tell you, am I better off today?" "I am, but it never happened again." "And when you cut yourself, what did you feel?" "I think it was a lot of things." "I felt guilty because I let my life come to this point." "I did this to myself." "I ran out of money, I got addicted, my family didn't want me, I had no more friends around when the relationship ended." "So it was also something to punish myself." "And I wanted to showJulia, "See what you did to me."" "It's one thing ifl say I'm suffering, it's another if you see blood everywhere." "Isn't it?" "Also, when you have something that hurts inside, you can't put on a Band-Aid, a salve, get stitches." "There's nothing you can do." "But on the outside you can, so you..." "Do you get it?" "If you see one pain, it softens the other." "But that's something I only realized a short while ago." "You tried to manipulate her by cutting yourself." "Yeah." "I learned to manipulate with her." "She was good at that." "I was 14 then." "I lived at Leme, I never had a boyfriend and I met Fernando at a party." "So it started." "Like every relationship in this town, dancing and stuff." "He was very strong, a body builder." "At that time, I had a very repressive upbringing." "I couldn't go to the movies, go out at night." "Fernando would pick me up at school, we walked home." "Actually, I learned howto masturbate thanks to him, because he taught me howit was done." "But there was this detail." "There was violence in my house from my father towards my brother and I." "One day I was going to a ballet class with my mom and this stranger in the street asked her about my bruises." "She said I had fallen, got hurt, but I said my father had hit me." "I told the truth to that complete stranger." "And the fact that I wasn't scared is what made my father lose control." "I actually think he... he loved us a lot, but that made things worse." "We couldn't separate the love from the occasional violence." "I think it's hard for a man to be violent from the start." "Violence is an insidious thing, it appears little by little as the man realizes he has power overthe woman." "Or as he grows so insecure that he getsjealous to the point of releasing this latent violence..." "We all have a latent violence." "We're capable of doing all sorts ofthings, but we're educated, civilized, and we learn to contain our violence." "And a sick, uncontrolled person can't control that violence." "Fernando started getting violent because ofjealousy." "I was a virgin and I stayed a virgin, I didn't have sex with him." "But despite being 14, I was always very big, pretty." "I used to draw people's attention." "That was a wound in his soul, he couldn't take it." "When he picked me up at school, he had a lot of questions," "Where did you go?" "With whom?" "Anyone talked to you?" "Anyone messed with you?" "Where are you going?" "I began to realize he wasn't very normal." "But when it becomes a little too constant you're already in love." "So you can't tell where the love ends and where the violence starts." "lsjealousy a sign oflove or is it violence?" "So when I said I wasn't going to answer, he would pinch me, grab my arm." "When he sawhe was really hurting me, he'd apologize and say he wouldn't do it again." "And I think that at that time... I was beautiful, attractive, and wouldn't put an end to it... because of my family history." "Because I was used to being submitted to a relationship of power and aggression, and love at the same time." "So I thought it was normal to a point, when I was pinched or slapped." "But when he started to pull my hair real hard, and I had hair down to my waist, that really started to hurt." "And I thought, "lfl ever marry this guy, he'll kill me."" "But I insisted..." "because it was good." "It felt nice." "So you think that violence was attractive to you, did you like it a bit?" "No, I don't think I thought violence was attractive, but..." "The fact is my father hit me, so how could I interpret a slap, a pinch as not liking?" "That, for me, was part oflove." "But I felt angry at myself for not being able to break up." "Then one day..." "One day something happened... I was at the beach, I used to surfwith a T-shirt so not to bruise my belly." "I was at the beach with some friends." "I went in the water without my board and swam real far." "There I leaned on a friend's board talking to him." "Fernando arrived and they pointed me out." "When he saw that from the sand, me talking with my friend on the board, he decided to go into the water." "He swam in my direction and I swam towards him." "When I got close to him, I sawhis face and he looked out of control." "I talked normally with him." ""Hi, honey."" "He looked at me with great anger and pulled me under the water." "You know, like kids do on the beach." "But he held me underthe water." "I tried to surface and I couldn't." "I tried, but I couldn't surface." "My feet couldn't touch the bottom." "I became desperate." "I thought, "l'm going to die here."" "That was very clear to me." "I was going to die here." "I started to cough up water and he began to let me go." "So I cried desperately." "It wasn't a cry of relief." "It was a cry of desperation." "That was so crazy..." "What's the line between loving someone and wanting to kill her?" "Maybe not wanting to kill, but ending up killing." "Do you remember Eloá's story." "The guy went to the hospital and asked how she was." "He shot her in her head and groins, then he goes to the hospital and asks how she is?" "I mean, was it premeditated?" "Did he want to kill me?" "I don't think so, but something went out of control." "He forgot any kind of limit." "I think that after that I became a person with... with such a desire forfreedom." "Because while I lived with my parents, I lived in a prison." "I couldn't do anything." "The only thing that saved me were the books." "I could live other stories, live other lives..." "Actually, I think the paternal violence was..." "When I think of it, the paternal violence was worse." "There was a true power struggle there." "It changed when I decided I was going to work, I'd make my own money and leave their house." "An the violence changed... when I turned 18." "My father came to slap me in the face, but I slapped him and told him to go fuck himself." "I told him he was a son of a bitch." "I told him not to hit me, that I was strong." "If he hit me, I'd hit him back." "And he looked very surprised." "He didn't expect that from me." "When I think of it, violence is a loss of control." "And the person who stays in this kind of situation isjust as sick as the person who hits." "Orthey're masochists." "Because the masochist doesn't exist." "The sadist and the masochist depend on each other." "That was my situation, but I changed in my favor." "My brother always hit his kids and he thought it was good for them." "And so did his wife." "They also hit each other and had a very violent family situation." "I think violence is a loss of control." "I sawthat in myself when I lost control." "I had a son." "I would lose control and spank him a bit." "But then I thought..." ""My God, I'm turning into my father." "I can't turn into my father."" "So when my son had 3 years old, I looked at him and said," ""Look, Mommy is never going to spank you or pinch you." "But I'll give you a time out."" "That was a relief for me." "It was a huge relief." "Huge." "You never had another violent relationship?" "No, never again." "Never again." "Never again, I decided." "I would never let another man lay a finger on me." "I would never again date someonejealous, and I would never be hit again." "And I neverfound anyone like that again." "I didn't want to find them, because there are lots ofthem out there." "I was really lucky l didn't die at 16, but a lot of women become addicted to that." "So I think I turned my story around in my favor." "First we need to understand what it is to love." "If you told me, "two people who depend on one another,"" "it'd have been easier than "two people in love."" "The love relationship is a permanent act of piracy, where you take from the other what you lack." "It's combat where the sweat oflove can be... the excretion ofhate one has forthe other, for not having all the things the other has." "And since this possession is precarious, I love and I am desperate for love." "That through a survival instinct, because my instinct tells me I need to have a child with her, because that will beget me strong children." "Or because I'm incapable ofliving alone..." "Or because ofthe need to transform the other into a representation of my success, or a public exhibition of my conquest." "Or yet to have the beauty, intelligence, sensitivity, or any other quality the other has and I need." "We hang onto each other, deluding we can take what the other has, in a vampire like manner." "It's a cannibalistic thing." "I happened to reach my limit a fewtimes." "When managing thejealousy for a woman, if she's a free spirit, you'll suffer a lot." "You have no idea." "You have no idea what it's like to be manipulated." "Your hormones won't leave you alone." "Your balls are producing spunk that has to be ejected and because the warmth and wetness ofthat cunt which has a certain smell, a certain feeling, makes you feel like you're invulnerable." "I had a girlfriend..." "And I only realized howmuch I loved her after we broke up." "Then I had lunch with her, it was awful." "We were trying to have a hard conversation." "This guy went by, a good-looking guy I knew." "When he sawme talking to this beautiful woman, he looked at me and kind of greated me." "Moments later I sawwhen she looked at him thinking," ""l think I'd suck this guy's dick."" "I sawthat in her." "That left me in a state I thought I had overcome, that thing ofthe argument, the misunderstanding, the melee combat." "I thought I were Zen and I could generously allowher to live without guilt." ""Let's live without guilt." "Me too, for fuck's sake."" "It was so beautiful." "Remember when we were at that beach hotel?" "After we fucked l looked up and said, "Fuck, what happened?" "Did the sky change?" "Did I turn into Van Gogh?"" "There were such lights and colors." ""What's happening to me?"" "And I hear her saying in my ear," ""This is love." "This is love..."" "Then suddenly we stab each other, metaphorically speaking." "But my words were as a saw, cutting offlegs, arms, sticking my pen knife in herthroat so it would gush blood from her neck." "How can you go from an unbelievable ecstasy to a situation in which you are a normal person?" "Where does that brainstorm go?" "The nerves trembling?" "That sense of peace and completeness." "How can I allowanother person to come like that with the woman who gave me this unbelievable compensation?" "How can I accept that?" "Because while she says, "l love you", it means "l love you, I give you all I am, all I have."" "Then it's taken from you." "How can I go on living after that?" "How can I accept it without violence?" "And this violence of yours is the manifestation of yourfear oflosing... oflosing what makes you happy." "Actually, the fear oflosing what makes you unhappy." "There is a masochism imbued in all this violence." "And the question is:" "why continue the friction?" "Why continue with this love-hate relationship?" "Why think it's the last person, when there are three orfour women on this street you can get along with?" "Why?" "Why this permanent repeating of a thing that makes you unhappy, that brings you anguish?" "In the psychotherapeutic world, they call this masochism." "But there are other words to describe this and the best are:" ""cowardice to confront your fragility,"" "your fear ofbeing alone." "What about the other side, women's violence against you?" "It's the female game, the female silence that despises." "I think women knowhowto hurt more than men." "Women have a natural gift for hurting." "Men can hit." "But women are more intelligent, more subtle than men." "We live in loneliness, we have to pay a therapist to talk to someone." ""Doctor, I think I'm queer, but I'm not sure."" "They talk about everything, look howmany magazines there are about that." "All kinds of psychological, emotional subjects, all the TV shows they have." "They talk, we live in solitude, we talk when we drink." "Talk what?" "With whom?" "Who are we going to expose our machoness to?" "The great philosopher oflove was Nelson Rodrigues..." ""Forgive me for betraying me."" "I think that's the basic phrase over which all other speculations about love take place." "You give me a cause, you create the reason and you hate yourself for being the cause of what you destroyed." "But you don't know if you really wanted to destroy it." "There is a masochism imbedded in all this violence." "In my case, whenever there were fights, jealousy, the melee combat, the misunderstanding, there was always a reason." "But I was always the one to blame." "In my last relationship, for example, a very complicated relationship." "During a fight, I told her," ""Let's take some time out." Overthe phone." "I punished her not talking to herfor 15 days." "A punishment, ironically." "When I showed up, she had another guy." "We went to a restaurant, she said, "Let's get back together?"" "I say, "You're the woman I love the most, the woman I want the most." "But today I couldn't fuck you even with three condoms." "Just to imagine some guy fucking your asshole and licking your cunt, that makes me sick." "Go away." "Get out of my life because it's not going to work." "Love... a lot of love." "No, not love." "A lot of unresolved passion." "She wanted to get back together during that lunch." "I asked her, "When you fuck this guy, what do you think?"" ""Ninety percent of the time I think of you."" "God, that's cruel." "How stupid of me to have asked." "Her nerve to have answered." "You want to knowhowit was?" "It was with another girlfriend, it's been a while." "She'd already cheated on me a fewtimes." "She traveled to New York for 15 days, when she comes back, she gives me the clap." "I went nuts. I broke everything, the fridge, the TV, I tore the clothes in the closet." "I hit her real hard." "I hit her with an open hand." "I'd kill her with my fist." "Her eye retina tore off." "I took my pen knife." "Suddenly, when I looked up, there was blood everywhere." "There was blood on the ceiling moldings." "When I looked, my finger was cut, almost cut off." "I went to a friend's house and she took me to the hospital." "When I came back, she wasn't there." "I got my .357, got into my car." "I had an Audi at the time, and searched for her in bars, restaurants." "I don't drink, but that night I had four whiskeys in one bar." "I came back home and she was there." "I stuck the .357 in her mouth." "I cocked it, put my finger on the trigger." "It was like I said, the blood pulsating in the neck, the heart, the neck." "I didn't shoot." "I don't knowwhat stopped me." "She left." "It was like this." "I fell for him because he was the opposite of me." "I sawing him the chance ofhaving this experience that wasn't mine, of wanting this experience." "I was fascinated by all the stories of the years of repression, the resistance to the dictatorship." "But it was his story, not mine." "Well, when I met him, I was married, I fell in love and in a week I packed my bags and left." "And I left for life, because I had a thirst for life, I wanted to leave that life, I was opening myself to a newworld, I was living a dream with him." "The first big surprise happened at a barbecue opening our house for his friends." "Because this kind of person has a personality that starts hampering everything that is your world, everything that's good foryou, restricting your world to his." "So we were there with his friends, he had a fewbeers too many and he had a violence outburst towards me, out ofthe blue." "I was very surprised because it was the first time... lt was my first contact with that." "But I'm guilty." "You put yourselfin a position of humiliation and you stay." "I was humiliated several times in front of other people." "Several times." "There was this time at home once..." "This friend ofhis, Roberto, they were trying to set up a company, this project together, there was a third person and it was a dinner." "We were talking, I don't knowwhat, and something was said about this person, a woman, and I criticized that woman." "That provoked such a fury against me." "He started to scream, attacking me, asking who was I to criticize that woman?" "I was an imbecile, a little shit, and all these awful things against me." "And I don't really remember what he said to me, but they were things to meant to diminish me." "I remember I got up to leave and he said, "Yeah, go ahead, leave!"" "Did I go?" "You think?" "Not at all." "I went for a walk around the block because I couldn't leave." "Then I came back, sat and kept quiet." "Do you knowwhy you couldn't leave?" "I liked him." "I really liked him." "At that time, I think I felt I couldn't live without him." "That's where the psychological dependence comes in." "Because he realizes he has control and domination." "He had control and domination over me." "And my life became a living hell." "You have to wonder if what you'll do will botherthe other, and awaken the beast that lurks inside him." "So one day I went to buy aspirin at the drug store." "I got out ofthe car and left the door open." "Leaving the door open created this 24 hour crisis, the guy just kept screaming at me." "My life became like that." "You don't knowhow to avoid the problems." "And you never had the courage to do anything?" "Life was moving on." "Then he started to... he wouldn't showup one day, three days... and you sort of..." "Life became... I moved on with my life." "At that time, I had an affair with a friend ofhis." "One day I came home after being with his friend and I told him I sawthat friend." "I didn't go into details, because it was normal, we would get together, like friends." "We argued a bit about it and then we went to bed." "At that time I was creating a discotheque, arranging his records in a super cool shelfl made." "It was coming out very nice." "And I called him to the room to come see." "And then he came like a beast, covering me with blows, because ofthe story with the friend." "And he kept hitting me, pinning me against the floor, covering me with blows, I obviously became scared, I tried to get out of that, I managed to escape, and I ran to the door," "in my socks, without shoes, it was raining like crazy outside." "I run out the door in the pouring rain like crazy, afraid that he might come after me." "And he runs to the door and yells," ""Run, you little bourgeoisie shit."" "Suddenly all the differences come up." ""You little bourgeoisie shit." and all that." "And the little bourgeoisie shit sought refuge with her sister." "On that day, he tore my clothes and burnt them." "Real crazy, right?" "This friend of ours set up this meeting between us at a public place." "It was a..." "Was it a reconcilement court?" "No. lt wasn't a family court." "But it was a public place." "We were there at this restaurant, everyone there, and to everyone's surprise instead of split up, the idiot here goes back to the guy." "He took my hand, looked at me with tears in his eyes and said," ""This will never happen again." "It will never happen again."" "This kind of relationship destroys our self-esteem." "I think it's a process." "I don't knowif the other one is conscious of what he does, but he keeps on crippling your life and making you believe you're shit, you don't exist, your self-esteem doesn't exist." "So you become a non-being next to this person." "Where's the good side ofthis story?" "The good side ofthe story..." "There's something I didn't tell, I guess I jumped over that part, I don't knowwhy." "One day, he took me to a friend's home." "And he introduced me to cocaine, which wasn't well known at the time." "I'd never had cocaine." "It was a marvelous night, I loved that thing." "It was something else." "And I was..." "He traveled, and I who had loved that thing, but had no idea, decided to call his friend to buy a rock and surprise him." "When he came back and sawthat, he was surprised, he said, "Wow" ." "He couldn't believe it." "It wasn't in his universe of possibilities that I could do that." "And the rock turned into a party, because we snorted, and snorted." "Why did I tell you that?" "Oh yeah, because I quickly realized that if anything happened, a fight, an argument, a bad mood, I would go and buy coke." "I knewthat when we snorted together, we got along." "And we snorted a lot." "We had huge trips..." "Once when we snorted..." "Anyway..." "Once we had sex for eight hours straight." "And you'll make me the classic question." "Doesn't the dick go soft?" "It does, but that's not a problem." "Because it's all in the head, the pleasure is in the head." "We had great trips, amazing moments made eternal by the coke." "There are times... when you have a fraction of clarity." "I think my fraction of clarity came during a New Year's eve l spent by myself." "All by myself." "He came the next day, about six in the morning, grabbed some coffee, sat on the bed and said he didn't come because he was with another woman and he was torn between the other woman and me." "That for me was the end." "So I said, "Look, I've put up with everything, but I'm not putting up with that." "I want you to leave." "So get yourthings and leave."" "He didn't want to got." "He wanted to live both things and then decide." "That was the limit of my limit." "I wasn't going to take that." "But then there was..." "At the time, there was another majorfactor." "We already had a son together." "I had a child at a time when I was addicted." "But I was a normal person, I worked, I had a lot of work even." "When I became pregnant, I stopped snorting, I manage to stop doing coke." "But then I took it up again soon after." "My daughter must have been a fewmonths old." "She was always in her crib." "And there was this night when we snorted quite a lot." "It was a party, we snorted a lot, I did too much and passed out." "I passed out in a strange way." "I couldn't move, I couldn't see, I couldn't..." "But I could hear, and I heard him calling the emergency." "The ambulance was coming." "We lived in an alley at the time." "It was hard to get in." "I heard the car, it was the middle ofthe night, the ambulance couldn't get in." "They were trying to get closer." "And two thoughts ran through my head." ""l'm not going to die because I'm not seeing my life go by."" "And another thing I thought before passing out was..." ""They'll take me to the hospital, the ambulance will come and take me away and this guy is gonna forget the baby in the crib."" "That for me was the thing." "When I woke up and I hadn't died, I thought, "Fuck, there's a baby in the crib."" "And so... I think that was my salvation." "I think the baby was my redemption." "The baby was my redemption." "Sorry." "But you've gotten over all this." "Sure, but the memory ofthat, the panic ofthat moment." "I'm sorry, it got to me." "You never had another violent relationship?" "No, never again." "Not like that." "My life moved on... I think it led me to another direction." "We were together for a long time." "We had two children..." "A lot of things happened." "I think that when a break happens... lt's very... significant." "It's something that really changes your life." "Man, it's been so long." "I didn't think it would affect me." "Sorry." "is it over?"