“I kept my lips pressed together, then I said to myself well, really, what’s a kiss, and I discovered what it was, I didn’t know—I swear to you that I didn’t know—and now I can’t do without it. I gave him my hand, I entwined my fingers with his, tight, and it seemed to me painful to let go. How many things I’ve missed that now are landing on me all at once. I go around like a girlfriend, when I’m married. I’m frantic, my heart is “pounding here in my throat and in my temples. And I like everything. I like that he drags me into secluded places, I like the fear that someone might see us, I like the idea that they might see us. Did you do those things with Antonio? Did you suffer when you had to leave him and you couldn’t wait to see him again? Is it normal, Lenù? Was it like that for you? I don’t know how it began and when. At first I didn’t like him: I liked how he talked, what he said, but physically no. I thought: How many things he knows, this man, I should listen, I should learn. Now, when he speaks, I can’t even concentrate. I look at his mouth and I’m ashamed of looking at it, I turn my eyes in another direction. In a short time I’ve come to love everything about him: his hands, the delicate fingernails, that thinness, the ribs under his skin, his slender neck, the beard that he shaves badly so it’s always rough, his nose, the hair on his chest, his long, slender legs, his knees. I want to caress him. And I think of things that disgust me, they really disgust me, Lenù, but I would like to do them to give him pleasure, to make him be happy.”
— Elena Ferrante, The Story of a New Name (The Neapolitan Novels)
