Excerpt from MY SAILOR by Susan Micari

I had come to London in 1972, with the thought of losing my virginity at 19, a long wait I’d had of it too. My comrades gay or otherwise engaged, and nothing ever seemed to come of my come and get it attitude.  Now I was in Italy, Genova, to be exact, waiting for the ocean liner I was supposed to take to NY but which was in dry dock, busted.  I’d taken a train to the center of town and wanted a place to stay.

I looked around for a bar where I could have an espresso and think.  Of course there was one on the corner, open, gleaming with marble and I began to ask in halting Italian if there was a hostel for girls anywhere around.  The waitress behind the counter said, “Si, un hospitale per le raggazze.  Santa Maria Stella di Mare.” And she drew me a map. Meglio e meglio!

I hobbled across the piazza dragging my pink suitcase over the cobblestones, and found the place, guarded by stern nuns. 

The nuns showed me to a cot in a room full of Italian girls who were in their underwear, playing records and lounging around in curlers, talking about home or about boys. They were all virgins too, I hoped, and their parents had them here while they worked as secretaries, and sent money home. There was time to explore the city that day, but the girls warned me that the nuns locked the doors at ten.  I decided to explore the town a little bit, and went out walking, climbing high in the hills to see the top of the ancient city.  Walls so old and colored, such I thought as didn’t exist in America, set there before my country existed, before my ancestors were born in Sicily.  A city as old as time, it seemed.

What I noticed very quickly was a tall, blond, handsome, muscular man with a charming mustache who smiled at me when I looked at him.  "Who are you?" he asked, and I told him about my year in London, my longed for acting career.  

"Come," he said, "I will show you the city and you will be my mascot.  See here?  This is the picture of my girlfriend in South Africa. No don't look at that picture, see this one."  He quickly hid a photo of a girl with naked breasts and showed one of the girl and him hugging.  "She loved me, I was there a long time.  Now I work again. I am first mate on a big ship.  I have five languages.  I am a big man, from Yugoslavia!"  He smiled again.  "I will entertain you!"  

And he walked with me all over town, fed me, met up with other sailors he knew. "Look at this girl.  She is an American.  She wants to be in movies.  My mascot.  We look after her."  And they all drank coffee together, and the men bought me sambucca and anisette and many rounds of drinks.  I trusted the sailor: he was built just like my grandfather in all his old boxing pictures.  I didn’t think he would harm me.  I had no strength left to fight if he did.

I didn't touch any of it.  "I don't drink," I said, and the men were amused.  They tried to get me to take the liquor in my coffee but I made such a face that they all laughed again and drank my rounds for me.  

"I walk you to the nuns, and you rest.  Tonight, I will take you to see the town." He wrapped his arms around me.  "I am on leave now," he whispered, and the rough blond stubble on his face tickled me and made me instantly wet.  He studied my face, "I see you.  You have very pretty lips, pretty girl.  Nice to kiss you now, I think."  His kiss was so soft, and it tickled, and I loved the way his face was so angular and weathered, yet his kiss was so tender.  "How old you are?" he asked. 

"Nineteen, twenty soon, really soon."

"Ah, I am 29. I am long time a man."  

That night he called for me at the hostel, took me to the waterfront, to the New York Bar.  It was under the ruined walls of the ancient fort that faced the bay of Genova.  Leaning against the sides of the wall were women, fantastic women in kilts, in gowns, in bathing suits.  All leaning languorously against the ancient stonework. "Who are they?" I asked. The handsome sailor laughed but didn't answer.  Inside the bar was dark and there was a dance floor already filled with people.  He ordered champagne.  A woman came forward in a low cut gown with the bottle and poured us two glasses. The sailor tasted it and spit it out.  

"Watered!" he growled. "Bring better."  He stood up menacingly and the woman retreated.  Better wine appeared.  I was watching the dancers.  They were strangely tall, muscular, feminine, made up...

"Look," I said, pulling on the sailor's arm, "What's wrong with them?"  The sailor looked up. 

"Transvestites, Jesus Christ," he said sternly.  

"Oh, like Lindsay Kemp?"   I offered the name of a famous drag actor in London I’d seen.

"Who?  Never mind, let's go."  And the sailor threw bills on the table and took me on to the next place.  

"This one is very classy," he said.  It was a private lounge somewhere in the hills, up a private elevator.  Everything was white and sleek, and there were many people, in elegant clothing, draped over sofas and sipping cocktails. 

"Have something," he urged.  

"I don't drink." 

“You must try anisette, then.”

"All right."  The sailor looked lost for a moment as I made a face at the coffee beans floating in my drink.  “This is disgusting,” I said.  “What is there to do here?”  

His face softened, and he smiled, shaking his head.  "I will take you to the nuns for the night."  He took me back to the convent in a taxi that went directly to the gate, no funny business, but the door was locked.  

"It's eleven! Oh, I'm locked out," I tried swearing.  The sailor looked aghast.

"It's ok. You stay with me.  You will be safe."  

So the sailor took me to his hotel, and gave me his toothbrush and a big shirt to sleep in.  I reached inside my bag when he was in the bathroom, and rummaged around for my condoms, moving them on top of all the junk in my bag so I could reach for them if, when, if...

"Hey," the sailor shouted, returning to the room as he wiped shaving cream off his face, "I saw you.  What did you put in your bag? You stole my money, you little puttana?" 

"What? No!  Those are my, my..these!" I reached into the bag and pulled out the box of condoms.  And then I was frightened, "Aiuta mi!" I cried loudly, "Aiuta mi!"  The sailor fell on his bed, laughing until he had tears in his eyes.  "What's so funny, you big ape!" I stared at him.  

"You said, 'Vieni qui, vieni qui!' Ha, ha, haaa! You said, 'Come here!"  The sailor wiped his eyes.  "I can do it to you, you know," he leaned toward me.

"I know you can do it you big ape, but you better not because I’ll hit you right in the nuts, BECAUSE I want to go home!"  

"No," he said, "I said I canna do it, I cannot hurt you."  

"Oh," I said, "Well I still want to go home."  

"Please stay," he said.  "I just got out of jail..I..I am afraid of the dark."  I looked at him in wonder.  "I am afraid of the dark.  Could you, just stay, hold my hand?"  And I did.  I sat fully clothed on the floor, holding the big sailor's hand.  Something hurt badly, and so I cried.  

“What is it, cara?” he said. “You are afraid of me?”

‘Yes,’ I thought,  ‘but, see, I’m a virgin, and.. and…when I was 16, a man I worked with, he scared me..he hurt me…in his car.  I try to be brave all the time, and I want to make love someday, but I just can’t.  Nothing is going to be all right, is it?  It will always be a big mess like this.’  I thought again, ‘I’m tired.  I’m tired.  I can’t be brave any more…I quit the church and I hate all the boys at school, and I can’t understand what everyone is talking about anyway.  Sex with boys looks just awful to me…I loved only a girl.’

What I said was, “I hate my mother!”  Who hadn’t protected me, who had blamed my beauty and sensuality for the attack.  Who wanted me to think she was ungainly, unredeemable, who hated me.

“All right, baby, no one will hurt you while I am here. I will hate your mama, too.”  And he went to sleep holding my hand.   

I watched him sleep, so handsome, so handsome... He cried out once in his sleep, so I stroked his forehead, and whispered, “Shhh.”   At dawn I got up, and he watched me sadly as I stretched and got ready to go back to the nuns. "Goodbye," I said.  He stared at me from big blue deep haunted eyes.  I was still a virgin.  I was exhausted.