“Well, one part of you certainly is.” He nods at my crotch and my eyes follow the gesture.
“Nope. That’s definitely very alive.” I sigh but then sit up further and put my hands on my knees ready to push up and stand.
“Want me to help you do something about it?” Marcello asks.
I turn to look at him again. “Pardon?”
He takes a few steps into the room. “I could… you know. Help out.”
“Oh, no, it’s okay.”
“I mean, I may not have your oral skills but I have years and years of being great friends with my fist and he’s served me well so far.”
Oh, great, a pity hand job. My favourite.
I shake my head as much to refuse his offer as to try and shake off some of the unwarranted bitterness.
“You really don’t have to. I’m sure you have better things to be doing.” I stand up and turn to face him.
Marcello’s face falls. “Actually, I don’t. I kind of… I thought I’d be here for the rest of the day.”
“Oh,” I say, stunned into not having any other words.
“But if you’re busy, I can go.” He sticks his thumb out and down the corridor behind him.
“I’m not busy, I just…” I begin, ready to tell him how this isn’t going to work. That I’ve changed my mind. That this really isn’t a good idea at all.
“We could watch a film?” Marcello suggests and I couldn’t have been more surprised even if he asked me if I wanted to knit a jumper with him.
“A film?”
“Yeah, you know long-form moving pictures that last around an hour or two, sometimes made with huge budgets and sometimes done on an indie scale.”
When I smile at him, although it’s deliberately disingenuous, it feels like a relief to move my face in that way.
“I am aware, but more I’m surprised you want to watch a film with me.”
“Well, you won’t let me wank you off so…” Marcello shrugs with all his trademark physicality.
“It’s not that I won’tletyou…” I begin.
“You don’t want me to,” he holds his hands up, “I get it. I’m a rookie. It would probably be awful.”
“I don’t think it would be—” I stop myself before revealing too much. “I just… I’m just feeling a bit weird.”
“About blowing me?”
“No,” I lie.
“About not coming?”
“Maybe,” I say unsure how true it is.
“Well, obviously that will be lesson two,” Marcello says with a confident smile. “Which can be whenever you want it to be, by the way.”
The ball couldn’t be more in my court if he’d thrown a basketball right at me. Now is exactly the time I need to tell Marcello that this isn’t going to happen again. That I can’t give him these sex lessons. That I need to stop so I can hold onto whatever sanity I have left.
“Okay, I’ll let you know,” I say instead.
