The Yellow Notebook

CONTENT WARNING: vulgar language and potentially offensive content.

Once upon a time, there was a whore who loved mathematics. Or rather, she loved numbers. Just as some collect stamps, she collected measurements.

Since she was very beautiful and sought-after, the clients let her do it. To them, it seemed almost like an erotic game when, perhaps at the climax, she pulled out a ruler.

Her comments were optimistic, yet plausible. You can’t tell a guy who’s tiny that he’s a giant. So she would say he was ‘above average’. She bumped him up to the next category, so to speak, and they left happy in body and soul.

However, the clients didn’t know that she noted everything down in a tiny yellow notebook with great precision: exactly one page per client. For example:

NAME: Commissioner De Vito Andrea
FLACCID SIZE: 20 centimeters
MAXIMUM EXTENSION: 25 centimeters
MEMBER CURVATURE: right
ADDITIONAL NOTES: nervous character, but jovial,
    shows signs of juvenile acne, do not mention rats.

At every visit, she added some data to the file: shoe size, wrist circumference… things like that. She also invented categories never heard before, but scientific-sounding: hairiness, mama’s-boy coefficient… and even other frankly incomprehensible measurements: dangliness, max rod-slap from supine position…

One can imagine this little scientist convincing clients to assume the most embarrassing positions to obtain very precise data. She must have been very persuasive given that the notebook was chock-full.

How it all came to light isn’t very clear. She had already been gone for a year or so when the notebook was published on an anonymous website. The author had even taken care to provide special lists to facilitate consultation. So one could more easily spot the “Super-endowed,” the “Micro-endowed,” those with superior dangliness, and so on. In short, a veritable catalog.

At first, the town tried to deny it. Surely it was a prank. Someone had made it all up. But there were too many accurate details, too much secret information. For example, no one knew that Lawyer Caputo had a testicle so pendulous that, for convenience, it was rolled around the other like a vine.

Or the fact that Accountant Cocchi, when at the peak of pleasure, whinnied like a horse. For years, Doctor Scalzi had searched the adjacent woods for that cursed horse that woke him in the dead of night. In the end, he had convinced himself it was a paranormal phenomenon. He had finally recorded it and had it analyzed. “No horse whinnies like that” was the verdict, which confirmed its supernatural origin.

There were many similar revelations. The notebook was authentic.

The second phase was defined as ‘the diaspora’. The wives kicked their unfaithful husbands out of the house. It all started when Mrs. Arrighi, who cleaned house for the priest, kicked her spouse out with the threatening words: “God will punish you for what you have done!”

Given the lady’s authoritative position, the others had to do the same. They did it reluctantly, however. Deep down, they didn’t give a damn about having been cheated on.

As for the husbands, once the initial bewilderment passed, they began to organize. Billiards, cirulla, and bocce tournaments were set up. There was also a bachelor vs. (ex)married soccer challenge that ended in a brawl due to a two-footed tackle on Caputo’s drooping testicle.

The most enterprising ones began frequenting the local night club. The Lithuanian ladies couldn’t believe their luck at that sudden influx of suckers. The suckers, in turn, couldn’t believe that such beautiful and kind ladies existed.

“What I’ve missed all these years!” declared Cocchi, happily brandishing his 250-euro bottle of Champagne. The supernatural horse whinnied with much enthusiasm during that period.

The wives, faced with this unexpected turn of events, were forced to take back their now doubly unfaithful husbands. It seemed they were having too much fun. And how much they were spending!

The husbands, somewhat reluctantly, returned to the fold. But not quite all of them. A group of clever clogs had devised a plan to keep going to the night club with their wives’ approval. The idea was to pretend to be afflicted by a disease very fashionable among American actors: ‘Sex Addiction’. They had to quit gradually, like Michael Douglas.

The scheme failed for two reasons.

Firstly, ‘Addiction’ is not a word with simple pronunciation. Despite the detailed instructions on tongue placement given by Commander Francetti, who boasted of being an ‘Anglophone’, no one understood a thing.

So, right at the crucial moment, they all got tongue-tied. The prevailing pronunciation turned out to be ‘Addisssion’, with a hissed ‘s’ like a rattlesnake. The wives, themselves not exactly Anglophobes, stared at them quizzically, so they had to explain.

Unfortunately, this medical condition, ‘Sex Addisssion’, sounds good when you read it in the paper, but when explained, it turns out to be total bullshit.

Secondly, to the males of the village, these American actors’ names all seemed the same. So everyone cited different actors as examples, many of whom were not afflicted by this disease. To muddy the waters further was the fact that some of the mentioned actors were notoriously gay. The wives thought the husbands were confessing a hidden homosexuality.

The only one who managed to make himself understood was Francetti, the Anglophone, who however heard his wife reply: “I’m so relieved! I have the ‘addisssion’ too! I’ve been cheating on you with Caputo for five years. And here I thought I was just a common slut!” Taken aback, he asked: “But the one with the drooping balls?”

Then there was the question of measurements. At first, indifference was feigned. Even at the village bar, the subject wasn’t touched. But this didn’t last long. A defeat at cirulla was enough to unleash hell.

“With a cock like that, it’s a good thing you win at cards!” That phrase broke the spell. From then on, all restraint was lost.

To begin with, it was nicknames linked to the measurements or notes present in the notebook. The bartender became ‘Minimum’, for obvious reasons. The postman, who was already suspected, became ‘Big-Dick’ or ‘Big-D’ for simplicity.

A poor old man, who rode around the village on his beat-up bike, was renamed ‘the Whipper’ or even ‘Whippator’, to quote Francetti. Although no one knew how to decipher the meaning of ‘coefficient of whippability’, the village youths took to applauding him when he passed by on his bike, pissing him off to no end and almost making him fall.

The women initially refused to adopt these shameful nicknames, but over time they had to conform to common usage. So around the village, one would hear phrases like: “I’m stopping by Big-D’s to get bread, then by Limpy’s for the meat. I hope to run into Penetrator, he needs to fix my boiler.”

These nicknames slowly lost their original connotation and became the main way of identifying the village males. “Did you speak to Ambrosi?” “Who?” “The Tit-Squeezer.” “Ah, no.”

Some more enterprising women tried to popularize a nickname of their own invention to elevate their spouse’s social status. But these subterfuges didn’t have much success, given that everyone had access to the real measurements. For example, Minimum’s wife tried to tell a friend “Black ‘n’ Decker”, pronounced exactly as written, or even worse, “he wants eggplants for dinner.” “Who?” “My husband, didn’t you know they call him that?” And the friend replied dubiously, “If you say so…”

The notebook also revealed one of the village’s longest-standing mysteries: why many ladies insisted on getting their hair done by Robertino, despite the incontrovertible evidence that, as a hairdresser, he really sucked. He gave them all a high and very voluminous perm. When they gathered in front of the church, it looked like the court of Versailles—pronounced as written, which is not how it is pronounced. The fact is that, despite the name and profession, he wasn’t gay after all. Quite the opposite.

At a certain point, a message appeared on the notebook’s website saying: “If you believe your measurement is incorrect, send a proving photo with face, member in full extension, and reference ruler.” “A sort of selfie with your cock,” commented Francetti.

Despite many attempts, no one was able to assume a position such that those two anatomical parts, which nature placed so far apart, were in the same photo. It was therefore thought that the author intended a frontal bust photo holding a ruler placed in such a way as to measure the full phallic extension.

Thus reassured about the mechanics of the operation, Minimum thought of a way to rehabilitate his reputation. He made Big-D swear a vow of secrecy and convinced him, upon handsome compensation, to participate in the enterprise. This enterprise consisted of transforming him, using a fake mustache and a wig of horsehair, into a copy of Minimum to be photographed.

The problem, however, remained how to make him reach a state of maximum extension. They tried with magazines, videos, and websites, but nothing seemed to stimulate Big-D. Then Adelina, Minimum’s faithful wife and a pious church woman, burst out: “Oh well, I’ll sacrifice myself.” And the photo was taken.

The email was sent with a concise subject: “Correction measurements Mr. Amadei bartender - see attached photo”. The reply arrived telegram-style: “Nice photo of Big-D in costume - reserve right to share gay biker site”.

I imagine you’re asking yourselves how I know all these things. At the beginning, the idea was to collect data for my thesis for the Imperial College of London titled: “How big is it? A field study of penis dimension of the average Italian male”.

I thought of the website later. I created it for my second degree in sociology. This thesis was also well received, perhaps due to the title: “A Big Ben? An experiment in radical anatomical transparency.”

Do I regret what I did? Some suffered a bit; others gained. After a few years, nobody gave a damn anymore. Only the nicknames remained.

Big-D lives here with me in London. He hasn’t learned a single word of English, but I don’t care. There are other important things in life.