One More Day

by Fabio Volo

  To me Michela was that angel. NOW, NOW, NOW!

  That morning in New York I remained seated like in the theater when you just saw a good movie and in the end, when the lights come on, you don’t get up immediately. You stay there a little longer to allow your emotions to settle. Then I went to get some breakfast. Coffee and a muffin, and after walking around some more I got closer to my hotel. I would have liked to prolong that beginning to the day, but I was getting tired. I liked being with Michela, even when we didn’t do anything in particular, I never felt like I was wasting time. If I had fallen asleep in her arms and then woke up twenty years later, I wouldn’t feel like I had wasted any time. Why?

  Over the last few months, before I met her, my life felt like the exact opposite. I felt like I was constantly wasting time. Like when you’re waiting in line to pay for a ticket. You really have the feeling you’re throwing it away. Every time I feel like I’ve wasted a day, at night I never feel like going to bed. Those nights I experience an unbelievable urge to live. I want to watch two or three movies, to write, to read, to draw, or even just look outside the window. Sleep seems like a waste of time. I suddenly feel like learning. Anything, as long as I learn something. Even though the next morning, I’d like to sleep the whole day. Waking up seems like a terrible injustice. My stomach hurts. That’s it, I should switch these two different Giacomos: put the morning me on the night shift and the night one on morning duties. Instead, sometimes I like to fall asleep immediately, as soon as I get in bed. So I make myself a cup of herbal tea to help me sleep the whole night. But then when I drink it, I have to get up in the middle of the night to go pee and that defeats the purpose. Sometimes going to bed is a pain in the ass.

  At the moment, Michela was sleeping and I would have liked to find a way to enter her dreams and talk to her, to tell her all those things I hadn’t told her yet. I didn’t want to keep them to myself.

  Sometimes I felt embarrassed when I was with her. Michela could make me feel vulnerable. I had lost some of the confidence I usually had with women. It seemed like she could see right through me. And I would have liked to have been more manly while I was with her. I wanted to be that hug she wanted to lose herself in, as she had told me. Protected and free to let herself go, because I was there to take care of her, to defend her from the cold and from danger. I wanted to give her more… More everything. I wanted to take her by the hand when she crossed the street, like only a man knows how to do. Wait for her everyday outside her office to see her come toward me, smiling. I wanted to know how to buy her a dress she liked. To be a good thing for her, a nice thought, a kind word, a good moment of silence. I wanted her to call me by name when she spoke with her girlfriends, and it to sound like a warm word on her lips. Michela made me feel like putting on a clean shirt, combing my hair, pulling myself together, taking care of myself, taking care of her. Michela made me feel like cutting pizza for her, like you do with children.

  One day I even asked her, “Michela, what else can I do for you, what am I missing, what else can I come up with to make you happy?”

  “Nothing, Giacomo, you don’t have to do anything. Relax and enjoy these days we have together. Let’s learn to embrace this time and live it together. Without thinking. Look at me. Really look at me, Giacomo. Can’t you see I am a happy woman?”

  Michela pointed out how I always feel like I am not enough. When she said it, I thought about myself as a child with my mother.

  With the taste of coffee still in my mouth, I went to bed. With Michela, time smelled like a journey. A journey of knowledge. Before falling asleep, I wrote on my notepad, “What I like doing with her: walking, talking, making love, freely expressing my emotions. Remaining silent. Silence with her is a filling emotion.”

  18

  Sexy Manhattan

  That morning I woke to someone knocking on my door. I opened it. It was Michela with breakfast and a sunflower. Americanos in paper cups and banana-nut muffins. We ate in bed then we made love. I wasn’t too hungry for food. But for Michela, yes. As she was getting dressed she told me, “Downstairs, on the corner, I met a man who told me a joke for a dollar.”

  “Alfred.”

  “I thought his name was Bob. Do you know him?”

  “Sometimes I stop to listen to his jokes, but I don’t always get them. But I like giving him a dollar; he has something good going. Why did you think his name was Bob?”

  “Because as he was telling me a joke he said that when he learned how to write he was the only one who could write his name backwards. Then he paused and said: ‘My name is Bob!’ It’s a palindrome.”

  I smiled. I thought about Dante.

  She kissed me and then went to work.

  We had six more days…

  That morning, when I went out for a walk, I found a shop that sold CDs for a few bucks. I bought some music that matched our story in Manhattan. They were songs I didn’t have on my computer. The price was so low I had to restrain myself from buying the entire shop. I bought Chet Baker, Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway, Smokey Robinson & The Miracles, Nancy Sinatra, Billy Holiday, Otis Redding, Sarah Vaughan. I spent very little and, judging from what I got, I believe I deserve first place in Michela’s category for ‘boyfriend with best music.’

  I also bought a couple of CDs that cost more but they were newer: Arctic Monkeys and She Wants Revenge. I had lunch at the 9th Street market on the corner of 9th and 1st Avenue. I spent practically the whole day in that neighborhood. Then I went to pick up Michela from work. An aperitif and a stroll.

  That evening we passed a sex shop and went in. They had all sorts of things. They even had objects that went beyond our imagination. After browsing for a bit, Michela whispered in my ear, “Buy whatever you want and I’ll play with you.” Then she walked out of the shop.

  I didn’t know what to buy. I had only bought things from a sex shop twice before that. Once in Madrid, with Maria, a girl I had met on a trip to Spain: I bought a vibrator, which in Spain bears the wonderful name el consolador. The second time I was with Monica. We went together because she told me she wanted to try something new. We went away one weekend just for that reason: we experimented a lot and played many games. Beads, vibrators, whips, silk ribbons to blindfold her and tie her up. Even the little vibrating egg, the one with the remote control. One evening, before going out to eat, I had her put it in and later, at dinner, I would switch it on from time to time. When she spoke to the waiter it was hilarious, or when she asked for directions on the street, or when she asked for something from the manager at the hotel desk.

  With her, I even played the submarine condom game: in a bathtub, you fill a condom with water and slide it in the woman. Then you squeeze the protruding part so that the condom balloons on the other end. Monica liked it. I wondered, “What should I do, suggest it to Michela?” Come to think of it, I also played the ice dick game with Monica. You take a condom, fill it with water, and then you put in the freezer: the final result is an ice penis. She will find it refreshing and you will too, when you enter it will feel crisp. As you use it will melt. P.S.: it must stay inside the condom. P.P.S.: best used in summer.

  I don’t think I could ever forget that weekend with Monica: unforgettable images and details.

  Having no particular sexual perversions, in the end, I opted for a few silk ribbons to blindfold her and tie her down as well as the vibrating egg, the Wireless Vibration Bol. I used it a few evenings later. We laughed like crazy. At that point, I inserted into our relationship everything I knew and everything I had refrained from doing with her. I remembered Silvia’s advice, “The polite fuck is the worst of them all.” Plus, there are certain women who do certain things and others who don’t. There are some women who do them immediately and others that must be led to them. With Michela everything was a game. Never a perverted one. We would spend a whole evening kissing each other, only caressing each other, or we would do the exact opposite. I’ve even spent entire days basically without leaving the bed. In
those days, we transformed into everything and anything. You constantly change, at every minute. You are lovers, then you become father, son, you become food for each other, you become boats, certainties, fears, mystery, misunderstandings. Memories, colors, rain. Caves. Love around a fire. Starry sky, windows overlooking the sea. Flashes of light through the leaves of a branch. Fruit. White sheets hung out to dry. Colorful tin boxes. Night gowns. Explosions of light… Bound up with love together in one volume, what through the universe in leaves is scattered…

  Making love to her was like doing it after you’ve had a fight, but without going through the fight. Staying in bed to make love and laugh is pure life.

  One day I managed to do something with Michela that I had tried other times but failed: staying inside without moving. Once I read in a book that when a man and woman stay one inside the other without moving, without reaching an orgasm, they recharge their energy. We stayed in bed to chat, with me inside her. We caressed each other, kissed each other, and spoke for hours.

  I still remember her face in my hands. Her eyes sparkled like my life over those last few days. We spoke softly, whispering. Something else happened with her that had never happened to me before. We were in bed, I was lying on top of her, we weren’t making love, we were kissing and I was whispering in her ear: she had an orgasm without me touching her. I was just kissing her neck, her lips, and I was whispering a few fantasies in her ear. They weren’t really fantasies. I was merely listing what I was going to do to her shortly thereafter.

  That evening, with the sex shop bags in our hands, we walked back to her apartment. As we were walking, Michela saw someone entering a building. She ran after him and asked him to hold the door, saying that we lived there. Then she held the door open and waited for me. When I got close to her she whispered, “Follow me.” We went up.

  “Do you know anyone who lives here?”

  “No, I’ve never been here before.”

  “Where are we going then?”

  “To see if we can get to the roof.”

  “Couldn’t we do that in your building?”

  “It’s too far away.”

  Once we arrived at the top of the stairs we found a door that led out to the roof.

  It was the first time I had seen the roof of a building in Manhattan. I had only seen them in movies. Let me tell you, it’s an unbelievable spectacle. You could see all the skyscrapers light up downtown; it looked like a poster. As I was mesmerized by that spectacle Michela started kissing me and told me she wanted to make love right then and there. She leaned against a short wall and drew me near. We started kissing, she unzipped my pants, I lifted her dress, and slid her underwear to the side, she put one leg up and held onto me. I looked at her and I looked at the city from above. I was making love to her, but also to all of Manhattan.

  Coming down the stairs, we kept stopping to kiss. Making love instead of calming us, had turned us on even more. When we got home, I grabbed the silk ribbons. Luckily I had remembered that Michela’s bed was one of those where you can’t tie someone down, so I bought five ribbons. I started tying two of them around her thighs as if they were garters. Then I used two on her wrists. Then I tied those to the ones around her thighs. I used the last one to blindfold her. Playing with her that night was very exciting. Almost as much as the time I took the mirror of the wall and put it on the floor. We made love like that, Michela leaning on the table, with me behind her, and in the mirror, down there, we could see the reflection of our bodies. That time she told jokingly I was a romantic erotomaniac. I don’t even know what she meant. I thought she meant I’m one of those who buys a rose but then tries to stick it up her butt.

  At four in the morning, as we were having breakfast before going to bed, I had some fun with her, “When are we going to make a baby together?”

  “Well, that depends on what name you’d choose.”

  “That’s right. Who knows what horrible names you have in mind. If it was a girl, what would you name her?”

  “Cassia, Lucia, Michela junior…”

  “Michela junior isn’t bad… And if it’s a boy?”

  “Giacomo junior, Filiberto, Luigi, Clemente, Giacinto.”

  “Other than Giacomo junior, I don’t like any of them, which means no sons. At this point even Veronello would be a step up.”

  “Let’s hear yours then.”

  “Girl: Giada, Lucilla, Beatrice. Boy: Matteo, or Alberto, after my grandfather.”

  “Those won’t do. Let’s do this: we’ll choose depending on the sex, meaning if it’s a boy, I decide and if it’s a girl, you will.”

  “After hearing your names for boys, I’d really do the opposite: if it’s a boy, I’ll choose and if it’s a girl, you will.”

  “Fine, even though I regret not being able to call my son Filiberto.”

  After a moment of silence, I was wondering whether I really wanted a son with her: at that moment, I would have said yes. I could understand those who had babies with people they’ve known only for a few months, because you feel so enthusiastic and everything seems to be going so well that it doesn’t look like a hard thing to do. Maybe it’s also true that everything speeds up at our age, meaning that if you want to have babies it’s not like you stay with something for a few years before doing it. At out age, the issue comes up rather quickly. In the end, that evening I would have said yes, but not a “real yes.” I would have said yes in a manner of speaking. As a hypothesis.

  Not for real.

  Especially since we were about to break up.

  19

  Picnic

  The next day I woke up to her voice, “You have wings, you have the wings of an angel.”

  I opened my eyes. I turned around and I saw her looking at my back.

  “You have the wings of an angel. I just realized it.”

  I saw that she was referring to the tufts of hair covering my shoulder blades.

  “They are disgusting hairs that decided to grow there without any good reason.”

  “They’re wings.”

  It was the first time that I thought of them in that way. I started walking around the house on the tip of my toes, pretending I was flying.

  As promised, Michela took a couple of days off and we decided to have a picnic lunch in Central Park.

  She cooked; I didn’t do anything. Actually, I was in charge of the drinks so I went to buy them. When I came back, I saw, on the kitchen table, the little basket filled with the food she had prepared. Exactly like in the movies. A basket with some fruit, a few sealed containers, and some cheese. When I picked it up, she told me to put it down because she wanted to carry it.

  “But it’s heavy.”

  “Don’t worry. I can manage… You grab the blanket, the drinks, and the radio.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m strong. Look at my guns!”

  Then she did something girls sometimes do and that I really like. She flexed her arm and said, “Look at this guns, go ahead, touch ’em.” I like it when women do that. They’re like children. They show that little pipe with a line in the middle and their face is filled with pride. “Touch ’em, touch ’em.”

  We went down stairs and hailed a cab. I asked her if she knew how to whistle so she could call the cab the way Audrey Hepburn did in Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

  “I can’t whistle.”

  “What do you mean you can’t whistle? Everyone knows how to whistle.”

  “I tried to make a sound and instead only air comes out. As if I was blowing. It’s my childhood trauma. Everybody made fun of me for it.”

  “That’s why you ended up kissing Amarildo. Because nobody wanted you. Oh well, that’s okay, I can’t dive without pinching my nose. I’ll get water up it if I don’t.”

  “It’s not hard, you just have to blow out your nose.”

  “Are you talking about the fact that you can’t whistle?”

  We smiled.

  When we got to Central Park, we set everything up. S
he had prepared eggs, a potpie, and some guacamole. I’m crazy about guacamole. She had also brought cookies with nuts and cinnamon, and a thermos of coffee. In the meanwhile I had found a radio station that played good music. We started nibbling on the food. I had chosen a red wine from California. Not bad.

  After coffee, we laid down in the sun. She rested her head on my chest. We were silent. At first we weren’t doing anything, then she started to read. In my head, I had a few questions for her. The radio played one of my favorite songs.

  “I want to go down to the studio and kiss the deejay on the mouth.”

  “What is it?” Michela asked.

  “Fly me to the moon, the version by Shirley Bassey.”

  “It’s beautiful.”

  When it was over, I broke our silence and said, “How did you come up with this thing of the temporary engagement?”

  “I thought that this way you would be more relaxed, given that you can see the beginning and the end of it. And I’m probably more relaxed, too.”

  “At least I have the excuse of having been abandoned as a child. I’ve finally been able to joke about it over the last couple of years. But your parents have been together their entire life.”

  “I have my own trauma, too. That of the united family. My mother married when she was still a virgin and she has only been with my father, and she was happy to do it. In my opinion, they’ve stayed together because, for their generation, it was impossible to live any other way. How can I model my life after theirs? I could never do it. When I think about it, it traumatizes me. On the one hand, women’s emancipation, independence, work and freedom; on the other, being at home and becoming a mom with a beautiful love story, like that between my mother and father. Until not so long ago I began to feel this internal conflict.”

  “We really are in trouble, Michela, aren’t we? And yet, why do I feel like this? How come we get along so well? Can two people really sit down and plan on falling in love and being happy together?”