850 not special

That summer, just before leaving for Milan, my best mate Gianfranco and I met two girls from the city. They were spending their holidays in Ginosa Marina, about forty kilometres from Taranto in Apulia.

I had only just got my driving licence, the prize I’d dreamt of for years, but the only way to reach those Milanese girls was to borrow my father’s Fiat 850 – white, with bright red seats, strictly upright and unyielding. When you pressed the rock-hard accelerator, the engine roared like a Ferrari. Perhaps that explained the colour of the seats.

My father always grumbled when I asked for the keys. He wasn’t unkind, just set in his ways. Out of pride, I often told him to forget it and stayed at home. But not that time. I swallowed my pride, let him talk, snatched the keys and picked up Gianfranco. That evening, we were heading for something special.

At Ginosa Marina we collected Mariangela and Manuela and set off for the disco. It was the late seventies, when the dancefloor belonged to Donna Summer, Barry White, Gloria Gaynor and the rest of that immortal generation. Yet it was Love to Love You Baby that became my accomplice that night. The sensual rhythm, the sea breeze, the moonlight, youth and curiosity — and Mariangela’s desire to try a southern boy — all conspired to bring me my very first kiss.

Inside that modest 850, not even the “Special” edition, I hardly felt like a playboy. But it was my chance. After that long kiss, I kept asking myself: How did I do? I found the courage to fumble with her blouse, and when my fingers touched the small, tender curve of her breast, a voice inside me shouted Wow!

We were both clumsy, both new to it all, our hands and mouths eager yet uncertain. She wore a short skirt that seemed an invitation, and I thought: Go on, now! My hand slipped lower, her thighs parted willingly, and soon I was touching what, until then, I had only seen in magazines or diagrams. She was warm, soft, real — and her shy little sighs made my head spin.

And then came the questions. What now? How on earth does one manage in this position — with a steering wheel in the way? Worse still: What if she falls pregnant? I’ve no condom with me. And even if I had, When exactly is one meant to put it on?

Not the most erotic of thoughts. All those books and magazines I’d devoured, convinced they’d made me an expert, deserted me in the moment I needed them.

At eighteen, at least, the body never betrays you — but once again it was courage I lacked. Somehow, I managed to retreat with a scrap of dignity, choosing to step back rather than blunder on. Mariangela did not see it that way; from that evening, she wanted nothing more to do with me.

What did I tell Gianfranco? Naturally, rather more than had actually happened. I couldn’t bear to lose face with him as well. Looking back, though, I’m glad it ended that way. At that age you never want to wait, but some things are meant to happen in their own time.

What has not happened yet will happen, and when it does, it will be all the more beautiful, I told myself.

And so it proved. The timid, insecure boy in that battered Fiat 850 was only the beginning of the man I was yet to become.

✍️ A short story by Roberto Salvo