6. Naked in Naples
Naked in Naples
Bianca
I’m never moving back to the US. I’ll call and write when the mood strikes, but Naples and I go together now. Me and this three-floor penthouse I have all to myself.
That’s all I’ve been doing since I arrived three days ago.
Dreaming.
Catching up on years of sleep.
Reveling in the magic of Italian carbs.
I was drowning in Jersey City, constantly on the go but never moving to a destination that included peace or the stillness to enjoy it. Here, I have both. I wake up less stressed, with more time to sit in gratitude, not scrambling to catch a commuter ferry while checking bottomless work emails.
I’ll need to figure out my next source of income that won’t contribute to premature grays and stress hemorrhoids.
For now, I’m enjoying every inch of the three terraces and five bedrooms this penthouse offers.
I’ve already slept in three beds, one for each day I’ve been in the birthplace of pizza to find the right one.
Like Goldilocks, without the audacity or the breaking and entering.
Mama Vee would’ve loved this. A private pool and garden. Exposed stone walls. Panoramic views in the living room. She adored her HGTV shows and swore she’d travel the world to experience the luxury she read about in magazines.
I think about her when I journal with a latte on the balcony outside my room. What she’d think of me finally putting myself over a job I should’ve left while she was alive.
“There are no U-Hauls on the back of hearses, Bianca,” she’d scold with a hand over her wide hip, you know better trained in her stare.
If only she could see me now. Well, not right now.
The hammock sways next to the edge of the pool. It’s tied to two trees, holding my weight while obscuring my nudity from neighboring buildings. Because that’s what a girl does when she has a whole-ass penthouse to herself.
Sunbathe naked with pastries.
A deep moan slips through as my teeth sink into a fried wedge. Crispy dough dusted in powdered sugar slides past my lips with a custard topping threatening to snap every toe. My body melts into the hammock’s woven fabric.
The pastry I picked up at the cake shop across the street is no orgasm, but it’s close enough.
“I’m never going back,” I mumble, eyes closed behind a large pair of sunglasses.
The morning sun kisses my skin. I part my legs and sink deeper into the hammock with a sigh. Warmth laps each nipple, heating my flesh in ways no one has before.
…how long has it been?
The fact that I’m doing long division is a problem.
I’ve read about touch starvation, the craving for human connection after a long period without it, but I never thought it would be a personal testimony.
Yet here I am, dividing by five to remember the last person who touched me beyond a pat on the back or a familial hug.
Seventeen years at Hamilton Capital and only three men come to mind. Two were short-lived affairs. I cheated on my work schedule, a couple of weeks here, a weekend there. Neither man was memorable, but no one has come close to the two years of my life wasted on my first and only relationship.
Jordan Cohen is a top real estate agent in New York City. The sex was decent, and he always insisted on me staying at his Park Avenue penthouse. He was a workaholic who fed me crumbs with the occasional dinner each week. I was na?ve at twenty-three, fresh out of college with my first “real” job.
It never crossed my mind that Jordan had a family in Connecticut. I found out about his wife and son after showing up to surprise him at his awards ceremony. I got a surprise, alright, and was escorted out before I could make a scene.
K-Swift and Blaqstarr’s “Rider Girl” cuts across the pool. I yelp at the hammock swinging left but dismount without busting my ass or scraping my knees. The dimples in my booty jiggle on the quick jog around the pool to my phone.
“Are you fucking?” Stephanie’s smirk crackles down the line.
“Would I answer my phone if I were?”
“I have.”
“Don’t need the reminder, thanks.” Her groans had me looking sideways at my phone, worried about her guts, to hear her shout, “Deeper!” I learned that day not to assume her shame has boundaries.
“Can…hear me?”
I frown. “You’re breaking up.”
A door closes. “Girl, why did I take this contract in Wyoming? They got me around nothing but livestock and trees. There are stars and shit, but where is Kevin Costner?”
I lay back on a lounger. “Why are you looking for him?”
“Isn’t he in the mountains with a cowboy hat?”
“You mean Yellowstone?“ I cackle. “Wasn’t that based in Montana?”
“Who the hell knows! How’s Naples? You find an Italian to play between your legs yet?” She stresses the word “eye-talian” for emphasis.
“I’m not outside yet. I’ve been to a nearby restaurant and a florist—“
“Roses aren’t gonna fuck you.”
“Bitch, I know!” I huff, trying not to laugh at my friend doing a wellness check on my vagina. She’s eight hours behind and needs to go to bed. “I signed up for a tour tomorrow and will grab dinner at a hotel bar.”
A small group tour of Pompeii and Mt. Vesuvius. Then a pussy appointment.
“Maybe you’ll meet that man from 365 Days who will ask if you’re lost before he kidnaps you.”
“I’ll pass on the kidnapping,” I say. Stephanie has lost her mind.
Her laughter rolls through the bustle of morning commuters. The street my building is on is relatively quiet, but the surrounding area is active at eight in the morning.
“Don’t stand in the way of love, especially if he’s fine, has fat pockets, and a thick—“
“Let me let you go,” I laugh. Knowing her, she’s outside in somebody’s field about to run from her shadow. “I’ll message you with the deets the day after tomorrow.”
“Be safe and have fun, Dirty Diana!”
I jump at Stephanie’s piercing scream and clutch a titty. “What?!”
“Bitch, I think I saw a bear,” Stephanie says through gasps of air. “I… Tameka, is that you?”
“Yeah, girl!” a voice shouts in the distance.
Stephanie lets out a slow exhale. “It’s one of the other travel nurses. Looking like an offensive lineman with that housecoat on in the moonlight. Let me go see what she’s doing. Bye, girl!”
A mess!
Stephanie got one thing right: I plan to be dirty tomorrow.
One stipulation for house-sitting this penthouse is to pretend I’m Diana Peretti.
I don’t know why I have to act like who I assume is the owner.
Maybe the building side-eyes short-term rentals.
I don’t mind answering the door for maintenance or living a double life for the front desk employees.
I’m staying here for free, living my very best life on this trip.
I turn forty soon and can’t think of a better place to turn up and turn the page.