The Lying Life of Adults

by Elena Ferrante

  5.

  In the hours that followed I realized I had no urgent need to lose my virginity. Sure, Rosario, for some obscure reasons, sort of attracted me, but I didn’t call him. Instead, I called Ida to see if she had made up her mind to come to Venice with me, and she said she was ready, she had just told Costanza: her mother was happy not to have her around for a while and had given her a lot of money.

  Right afterward I called Tonino at the number of the restaurant where he worked. At first, he seemed happy about my plan, but when he found out that Ida was coming he let a few seconds pass, then he said he lived in a small room in Mestre, three of us couldn’t stay there. I replied: Tonì, we’re coming anyway to say hello; then if you want to get together good and if not we’ll survive. He changed his tone, swore he was glad, he’d be expecting us.

  Since I had already spent on trains all the money my mother had given me for my birthday when I left for Milan, I bugged her until she gave me some more, this time for my promotion. Now we were all ready to go when, on a morning of light rain and pleasant coolness, Rosario called at nine on the dot. Corrado must have talked to him, because the first thing he said was:

  “Giannì, they tell me you’ve finally made up your mind.”

  “Where are you.”

  “In the bar down below.”

  “Down below where?”

  “Down below your house. Come down, I’ll wait with the umbrella.”

  I wasn’t irritated. Instead, I sensed that everything was getting under way and that ending up pressed against another person on a cool day was better than on a hot day.

  “I don’t need your umbrella,” I answered.

  “You mean I should go?”

  “No.”

  “Then come on.”

  “Where are you taking me?”

  “To Via Manzoni.”

  I didn’t comb my hair, didn’t put on makeup, did nothing of what Vittoria had advised, except put on her bracelet. I found Rosario in the entranceway with the usual apparent cheerfulness stamped on his face, but when we ended up in the rainy-day traffic, the worst, he threatened and insulted most of the other drivers, who he claimed were incompetent. I was worried, I said:

  “If it’s not the day, Rosà, take me home again.”

  “Don’t worry, it’s the day, but look how this shit drives.”

  “Calm down.”

  “What’s wrong, I’m too crude for you?”

  “No.”

  “You want to know why I’m nervous?”

  “No.”

  “Giannì, I’m nervous because I’ve wanted you from the first time I saw you, but I can’t figure out if you want me. What do you say, you want me?”

  “Yes. But don’t hurt me.”

  “Hurt you? I’ll make you feel good.”

  “And you mustn’t take too long, I have things to do.”

  “It’ll take the time it takes.”

  He found a parking spot right in front of his building, which was at least five stories tall.

  “What luck,” I said while, without even locking the car, he set off quickly toward the entrance.

  “It’s not luck,” he said, “it’s that they know this is my place and no one better take it.”

  “Otherwise?”

  “Otherwise I shoot.”

  “So you’re a gangster?”

  “So you’re a respectable girl who goes to high school?”

  I didn’t answer, we climbed the stairs in silence to the fifth floor. I thought that in fifty years, if Roberto and I were much closer friends than now, I would tell him about that afternoon so that he could explain it to me. He knew how to find meaning in everything we do, it was his work, and to hear my father and Mariano he was good at it.

  Rosario opened the door, the apartment was completely dark. Wait, he said. He didn’t turn on the light; moving with assurance, he pulled up the shades one after another. The gray light of the rainy day spread through a big empty room, there wasn’t even a chair. I went in and closed the door behind me; I could hear the lashing of rain against the windows and the howling of the wind.

  “You can’t see anything,” I said, looking out the windows.

  “We chose a bad day.”

  “No, it seems like the right day to me.”

  He came toward me swiftly, grabbed my neck with one hand, and kissed me, pressing hard on my mouth and trying to open it with his tongue. With the other hand he squeezed one of my breasts. I pushed him back with a slight pressure against his chest, he giggled nervously and snorted through his nose. He retreated, leaving only his hand on my breast.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “Do you have to kiss me?”

  “You don’t like it?”

  “No.”

  “All girls like it.”

  “Not me, and I’d also prefer you not to touch my breasts. But if you need to, O.K.”

  He let go of my breast, muttered:

  “I don’t need anything.”

  He lowered his fly, pulled out his penis to show me. I was afraid he’d have something enormous in his pants, but I saw with relief that it wasn’t very different from Corrado’s, and besides it seemed to have a more elegant shape. He took my hand and said:

  “Touch it.”

  I touched it, it was hot as if he had a fever there. Since all in all it was pleasant to squeeze it, I didn’t take my hand away.

  “That O.K. with you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then tell me what you want to do, I don’t want to make you unhappy.”

  “Can I stay dressed?”

  “Girls take their clothes off.”

  “If we can do it without my taking my clothes off you’d do me a favor.”

  “At least your underpants you’ll have to take off.”

  I let go of his penis, I took off my jeans and underpants.

  “O.K.?”

  “O.K., but it’s not done like that.”

  “I know, but I’m asking you as a favor.”

  “Can I at least take off my pants?”

  “Yes.”

  He took off his shoes, pants, and underpants. He had very thin, hairy legs, long, skinny feet, he had to be at least a size 11. He kept on his linen jacket, shirt, tie, and, right below, the erect member that stuck out past legs and bare feet like a quarrelsome tenant who’s been disturbed. We were both ugly, lucky there weren’t any mirrors.

  “Should I lie down on the floor?” I asked.

  “What do you mean, there’s the bed.”

  He headed toward an open door, I saw his small ass, the sunken buttocks. There was an unmade bed and nothing else. This time he didn’t pull up the blinds, he turned on the light. I asked:

  “You’re not going to wash?”

  “I washed this morning.”

  “Your hands at least.”

  “Are you going to wash yours?”

  “Me, no.”

  “Then I won’t, either.”

  “All right, I’ll wash mine, too.”

  “Giannì, see what’s happening to me?”

  His penis drooped, shrinking.

  “If you wash, won’t it wake up again?”

  “Sure, O.K., here I go.”

  He disappeared into the bathroom. What a lot of fuss I was making, I would never have imagined behaving like this. He came back with a little thingy dangling between his legs. I gave it a sympathetic look.

  “It’s cute,” I said.

  He scowled.

  “Just say straight out if you don’t want to do anything.”

  “Yes, I want to, now I’ll wash.”

  “Come here, it’s fine like that. You’re a lady, I’m sure you wash fifty times a day.”

  “Can I touch it?”

&nb
sp; “Good of you.”

  I went up to him, I took it gently. Since he had been unexpectedly patient, I would have liked to be expert and touch him in a way that would make him happy, but I didn’t know what to do precisely so I just held it in my hand. All it needed was a few seconds to swell up.

  “I’ll touch you a little, too,” he said in a slightly hoarse voice.

  “No,” I said, “you don’t know how to do it and you’ll hurt me.”

  “I know very well how to do it.”

  “Thanks, Rosà, you’re nice, but I’m just not sure.”

  “Giannì, if I don’t touch you a little, then you’ll really hurt.”

  I was tempted to consent, he surely had more practice than me, but I was afraid of his hands, his dirty nails. I made a clear gesture of refusal, I let go of that excrescence, I lay down on the bed with my legs squeezed together. I saw him high above me, bewildered eyes carved into a happy face, he was so well dressed on top and so rudely naked from the waist down. For a fraction of a second I thought of how my parents had prepared me carefully since I was a child to live my sex life with awareness and without fears.

  Now Rosario had taken hold of my ankles, he was spreading my legs. He said in an emotional voice: what a nice thing you have between your thighs, and he lay cautiously on top of me. He looked for my sex with his, guiding it with his hand, and when it seemed to him to be in the right place he pushed gently, very gently, then suddenly gave an energetic thrust.

  “Ow,” I said.

  “I hurt you?”

  “A little. Don’t get me pregnant.”

  “Don’t worry.”

  “You finished?”

  “Wait.”

  He pushed again, positioned himself better, pushed some more. From that moment all he did was pull back a little and then go forward again. But the more he persisted in that movement, the more it hurt, and he realized it, he murmured, relax, you’re too tight. I whispered: I’m not tight, ow, I’m relaxed, and he said politely, Giannì, you have to cooperate, what do you have there, a piece of iron, a lockbox. I clenched my teeth, I murmured: no, push, come on, harder, but I was sweaty, I felt the sweat on my face and chest, he himself said you’re so sweaty, and I was ashamed, I whispered: I never sweat, only today, I’m sorry, if it’s repulsive to you forget it.

  Finally, he entered me, with such force that I had the impression of a long rip in my stomach. It was an instant, he pulled away suddenly, hurting me even more than when he had entered. I raised my head to see what was happening and I saw him on his knees between my legs with his penis bloody and dripping with semen. Although he was laughing, he was really angry.

  “Did you do it?” I asked weakly.

  “Yes,” he said lying down next to me.

  “Thank goodness.”

  “Yeah, I’ll say.”

  “It burns.”

  “Your fault, we could have done better.”

  I turned toward him, I said:

  “That was how I wanted to do it,” and I kissed him, sticking my tongue as far as possible past his teeth. A moment later I ran to wash, I put on underpants and jeans. When he went into the bathroom, I unhooked the bracelet and placed it on the floor, next to the bed, like a bad-luck charm. He drove me home, him dissatisfied, me delighted.

  The next day I left for Venice with Ida. On the train, we promised each other to become adults as no one ever had before.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Elena Ferrante is the author of The Days of Abandonment (Europa, 2005), which was made into a film directed by Roberto Faenza, Troubling Love (Europa, 2006), adapted by Mario Martone, and The Lost Daughter (Europa, 2008), soon to be a film directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal. She is also the author of Incidental Inventions (Europa, 2019), illustrated by Andrea Ucini, Frantumaglia: A Writer’s Journey (Europa, 2016), and The Beach at Night (Europa, 2016), illustrated by Mara Cerri. The four volumes known as the “Neapolitan quartet” (My Brilliant Friend, The Story of a New Name, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, and The Story of the Lost Child) were published by Europa Editions in English between 2012 and 2015. My Brilliant Friend, the HBO series directed by Saverio Costanzo, premiered in 2018.