"Roberto, look at this."

I held the box of notebooks up.

"They're all Momma's, I think."

Roberto kissed me.

"I have to read them."

"Of course you do, Micol."

He settled beside me in the tiny second bedroom of the flat Momma and Pietro lived in, and pulled out a second ragged notebook. He smiled.

"You miss her, Micol. So do I. So does Teresa."

Momma died this year, in her own bed, peacefully and without pain. Alone, I should add, although until about five years ago she had never been alone in that bed for long. Not even fifty years old. Pietro had been good for her. Good for me and Roberto, too. And even if he wasn't her grandfather by blood, our little Teresa loved him as much as if he had been her real grandfather.

In all her professional life Momma had never lacked for clients. Of course I knew, by the time I was fourteen or fifteen years old, what 'modeling' really meant, but I forgave Momma for telling a small child that untruth. Pietro had been one of Momma's man friends for years, until the business transactions between them turned into love and Momma retired from the game.

I still laugh at the memory of Momma's spectacular farewell bachelorette gig, half-social, half-professional, half-party, half-orgy, the night before she and Pietro married. I'm told the boys at her neighborhood stazione dei pompieri continue to talk about it to this very day. Three alarms, all for Momma and Pietro and their friends and clients! It's fortunate Momma counted several senior police officers among her regulars, or there might have been trouble. It's also good that three alarms weren't really needed. The guys who arrived first saw what was going on and called their colleagues to join them.

The party was approaching warp speed when Roberto and I left to celebrate on our own, but I think just about everyone else at the party, including some of the firemen later on, got lucky that night.

Pietro and Momma had three good years together until the traffic accident. Pietro didn't suffer, but there was nothing to be done for him at the hospital. I know that, but it's still hard to accept. And it left Momma alone.

When I remember all the things that happened when I was little, I wonder sometimes what Momma was thinking. But then I realize she loved me, and she loved Grandma. That's not all. If I'm being very very honest, I know Momma loved sex. She loved making love and she loved to fuck. She loved giving and she loved receiving. Throughout her life she had men and she had women—cocks and pussies, Momma loved both. She loved teenagers, especially young ones.

I wonder if those American kids, Cathy and Brandon, ever thought about their afternoon in the water with Momma and me, and what happened later that evening? I hope so.

Next to me, Roberto smiled.

"May I read them with you?"

"Micol, we must talk."

I put my book bag down on the hall table and walked into the kitchen. Momma sat at our small table, smiling at me. We kissed, and I moved to the sink to get a glass of water. I sat down opposite Momma.

"What is it, Momma?"

"We must talk about university for you, Micol."

I knew how important uni was, how important it would be to my future. It sounds terrible to say it, but I didn't want to end up like Momma.

"What about it?"

"Your Uncle Ricardo and Auntie Giulia have promised to help."

I sighed. This was not a new conversation.

"I know, Momma. I'll get a scholarship, too, that's a fact."

It was a fact. I was at the top of my class and my professors loved me. Sometimes I wondered if they loved me because I was a good student, or because at least a couple of them, I knew, were also Momma's clients. I wanted to study medicine. I was going to be a doctor.

In the end, it didn't matter. I had a full scholarship to the University of Udine, never mind how far away it was. I left Naples crying, and I cried every single day during my first term in that cold northern city. It was Roberto, a transplant himself from Florence, who saved me.

"Micol, read this."

Roberto had the tattered notebook he'd been reading open to a page in the middle, and he was pointing to a long entry in Momma's handwriting.

August 25, 199x

This is awful. I used my darling Micol today in a way I never should have done. What is worse, I knew what I was doing, even if I told myself she wanted it as much as I. She did.

Grandma is not happy. She knows what I do. She doesn't have any moral objections. Sex is part of life, after all, and everyone needs to make a living. I'm not on drugs and I'm not being forced into this. I have important clients but I don't have a mezzano, what the Americans call a pimp. I control my own schedule.

But that isn't what bothers Grandma. It's Micol. She wants more for Micol. She doesn't want Micol to end up like me.

I don't want Micol to end up like me, either. God willing, she won't.

I let out my breath. I knew which afternoon Momma was writing about.

"I knew this, Roberto. Not exactly at the time, perhaps, but later. Right then it was a great adventure. Scary and arousing, but oh so very much fun."

Roberto leaned over to kiss me.

"You've never told me what happened later that night, after the American parents came back."

"Are you sure you want to know?"

Even as the words came out of my mouth I realized how silly they were. If I hadn't told Roberto about that night it was only because there were so many other adventures I'd entertained him with. Many of them were happy ones—but not all of them, especially that last one not long before I left for uni. As often as not Roberto and I screwed each other's brains out after I'd finished a happy story.

I took another deep breath.

"Well, the American kids and I were asleep, but the laughing and giggling of their parents when they got back to the suite woke us up, and we saw Momma kiss the mother and hold her breasts when the mom kissed the father. Then Momma told me she and I had been invited to stay the night.

"I still didn't know really what Momma did, I mean, not exactly the money part of it, not then, but I could see that the Americans were going to be the same kind of friends who visited Momma in our little flat, at least for that night. The parents came in to kiss Brandon and Cathy good-night, and Momma kissed me."

I kissed Roberto.

"I'll tell you the rest some other time. Not now."

I softened my words with a smile I hoped sent the right message.

Roberto leaned in to kiss me. He kissed the side of my neck, too, something I really like. I felt his hand go under my t-shirt and his warm palm move north. After a moment, Roberto put down the notebook he'd been holding and shifted closer to me. His other hand invaded my t-shirt and held my left breast. I shivered when he kissed me again on the neck.

Message received.

"Ummh."

"Yes, Micol?"

"I like that."

Roberto continued to massage my breasts. I was starting to get warm, and I leaned back into his chest. He stopped for a moment and lifted my t-shirt up and off. It was hot and the room was stuffy. I wasn't wearing a bra and I was getting itchy, in a very good way.

Roberto stretched me out on the little rug in the bedroom and slipped my sandals off.

"Raise your bottom, my love."

He pulled my shorts and panties down, and crawled up my body and covered me with his and fastened his mouth to mine. I closed my eyes and went with the flow, and after a moment to get his own clothes off Roberto mounted me and his hardness filled me and he rode me to a climax, his and mine.

The sounds from the other bedroom where Teresa had been napping brought us out of our post-coital tranquility. I gestured at the notebooks as we gathered our clothes.

"Roberto, I'm taking these back with us."

He put his arms around me and I knew I would be safe from all bad memories.

Tomaso kissed me in front of our apartment house on a Friday night in June. I was fifteen years old and a big girl now, at least I thought I was, and I snuggled in his arms. When I felt his erection press against my center I ground myself against him. I wanted to make him come. I wanted to feel him spurt, even if I couldn't see it. As our tongues dueled and I lowered my hands to his rear end to hold him tight against me while I continued moving, I got my wish. He spasmed, and a moment later he melted in my arms. That's a strange thing to say, I know. Usually the girl melts in the man's arms, not the reverse.

"Tomaso?"

I gave him a gentle shake. His eyes opened and he had a crooked grin.

"Hi, Micol."

"Hi."

He straightened up.

"I think I need to go, now."

We hugged and I kissed him on his cheek. He wandered off down the street as I unlocked the heavy cancello and entered the building. I made sure it was shut and locked before I went upstairs to our little flat.

Momma was waiting up for me in the kitchen. To my surprise, she was alone. No man friends or even a fellow model with her tonight.

"Micol?"

"Momma, it's OK. Nothing happened."

Momma's eyebrows lifted.

"Nothing? Really?"

I giggled.

"Well, Tomaso went home with wet underwear."

Before I knew it, I was laughing.

"Does that count as nothing?"

Momma stifled her own laugh.

"Good, Micol. Very good."

She leaned over to kiss me on the cheek.

"I want you to be careful, but I didn't raise you to be a tease."

I reached out to hug her.

"I know, Momma."

I looked around.

"No friends tonight, Momma?"

She shrugged.

"Change of plans."

"I'm off to bed, Momma."

I kissed her.

"I love you, Momma."

"I love you, Micol."

Roberto looked up from the page he was reading. He licked his lips.

"When are you going to tell me more about your Uncle Ricardo and Giulia and your mother? Did your mother ever tell you about her first time and that boy?"

I looked out the window. Where the gutters overflowed the water made little streams down the side of the building across the street, the cobblestones below shiny and slick in the rain. Here in the Centro Storico we weren't going to see them covered in asphalt any time soon if the preservationists had anything to say about it. They wanted to ban automobiles, too.