Page 22 of Marcello

As I listened to the shower start in the bathroom, I reflected on everything that had happened in the last 24 hours.

I got a job…

I had a place to stay…

And I’d met a girl who was really, really nice.

Bonus: she wanted to have sex with me.

I knew I wasn’t that into her, and I felt bad about that. Like I was using her.

On the other hand, maybe she just wanted to hook up. Maybe for her, this was just a fun time and nothing more.

Federica had done a lot for me, and I was grateful for that. I resolved to be as good to her as I could.

And despite being forced to come here to Naples, the first couple of days had actually gone pretty well.

For the first time, I thought that maybe everything would turn out okay.

I was able to hang on to that delusion for a couple of months.

8

After I moved in with Federica, life settled into a comfortable rhythm.

Work… sex… go out on our days off.

Work sucked ass. I hated washing dishes. But it kept me afloat financially.

The sex was nice but not mind-blowing. I still wasn’t that into her physically. However, I liked her a lot as a person, so I did my best to make sure she had fun in bed. She was almost always up for whatever I wanted, which was nice.

I learned a lot from her – mostly about the clit. I’m embarrassed to admit it, but before Federica, I didn’t even know where it was. I mean, I was only 21, though that’s not really an excuse. My past girlfriends had never demanded much out of me – maybe because they weren’t comfortable asking for what they wanted, or maybe because they didn’t even know what they wanted – so I’d just skated along, thinking that regular sex was enough.

Federica was very open about what she liked, and very confident in bed. I chalked it up to her being older than me – seven years older, I found out. So, thanks to her, I learned how to please a woman with something other than just my dick.

I didn’t like how much pot she did, though. After that first night in her apartment, I tried smoking out a couple more times and hated it. Weed made me feel stupid and slow, and usually made the room spin around. One time, I even got super paranoid. I was convinced the cops were going to burst through the door and arrest me for working for Fausto.

I decided to stick to alcohol – but Federica smoked out nearly every time we had sex. If there was one big turnoff I had, it was tasting marijuana when I kissed her.

I brought it up once and she got defensive. We argued until she grudgingly said she wouldn’t do it as much.

At first, she refrained from using pot about half the time we had sex – but it was obvious she didn’t get into it as much when she was sober. Like she couldn’t relax.

‘Half the time’ became one time out of three, then once every four. Eventually she was back to smoking weed whenever we fooled around.

After a couple more arguments (It’s just the way I am, I need pot to get into the mood), I wearily accepted it and bit my tongue.

But I put up with it because the rest of our time together was fun –

And incredibly helpful.

Federica started teaching me Neapolitan.

When she said it was a totally different language from Italian, she wasn’t kidding.

Take something as simple as the word ‘the.’

In both Italian and Neapolitan, the word ‘the’ changes depending on the gender and number of the word ‘the’ is describing.