Look at Me One More Time

Missing Linguiça

That was a rough week for me. Coming back from Turin, I caught a cold which could have been prevented if I was vaccinated before winter came.

Although they said it was just a common cold, I felt it differently that what I was used to when I was living in a tropical country. I told Ben not to worry, but after 2 days of not getting any better, he started considering whether he should come over.

I didn’t want him to come, so I pushed myself to get a proper medical treatment by going to the hospital rather than taking cough drops from the pharmacy. They checked and prescribed a few things, with medicines that cost a bomb since I didn’t apply for the blue card, the tessera sanitaria.

In fact I thought, why didn’t I do that before? After all, it takes only a week to get it sent to my address.

I probably just had too many things on my mind that I even ranted a lot on Facebook without even checking whether people were leaving comments.

So, the moment I felt a bit better, I spent a morning at Questura to apply for carta di soggiorno through my working visa which allows me to stay in Italy as a resident, and request for the blue health card as well.

“You’re lucky,” the lady at the counter said. “With this, you don’t even need to apply for visas anymore when you travel within Europe.”

“I have a fiancé in Portugal,” I said. “I am supposed to be living in Europe, married, but my country has different ideas about it.”

“Come to live in Italy,” she said. “It’s easier to get a PR here and get a citizenship. It will take time, but shorter time.”

Though I needed to be able to converse in Italian fluently. I had no idea at all about all this since my employer did everything for me and Lin. Learning Italian was not that hard considering I’ve learned Portuguese and they both derived from Latin.

Suddenly I received a message through my Facebook inbox from an old lecturer of mine when I did a short course for Spanish in Malaysia. She’s now living in Madrid with her family.

“I read your post, and I couldn’t help but ask if you’re okay,” Ms. Mariati wrote there.

It was a pleasant surprise, so I had to reply. “Just feeling terrible about a few things.”

I knew she migrated to Madrid with her husband and kids, probably not even planning to go back to Malaysia seeing the pictures she posted with them and the kind of life she’s enjoying right now.

And she thought maybe if I needed help with my situation, she could suggest a few names that she knew.
My health was getting worse as I don’t handle stress very well. I didn’t like moving on knowing there was nothing I could do.

“I really want to leave Islam,” I said, honestly. “And I thought I could do it by marrying a foreigner.”

“Does he know about this?”

“Yes. He knows that I’m also very stubborn about not wanting him to convert and turn our whole family tree as Muslim. There must be another way.”

“There is, definitely,” she said. “But this  means you can never go back to live in Malaysia anymore. You can forget having a life there.”

She gave me a name of a woman who was living in Sicily. “This is her number. Tell her what you told me. Let me know what she says.”

The woman just wants to be known as Elisabetta, and she belongs in the family of Don Pellegrino who, back in 1990s, used to 'own' the whole town just near Palermo. They were once fearsome group of people and have known many important people.

Though at heart, Elisabetta is just a humble Malaysian who found her love in Sicily and when she chose to stay there, her family and siblings in Malaysia disowned her for being ungrateful, as they call it.

“It was weird because I was still a Muslim, yet they repeatedly used the word 'apostate' against me, wanted to kill me, and tortured me at my own house,” she said, and went laughing. “And there I was, thinking the Sicilians were terrifying while the actual terrorists are my own family members.”

I explained my situation as detailed as I could. She said she couldn’t do it by phone, so she would fly to Milan and talked to a few people before letting me be in contact with them.
I don’t even know who are these people in between, all I cared was to get the things done in the right way.

“And her husband still has the habit of hiding stacks of cash under the tiles of their house and in the walls instead of using the bank,” I laughed as I told the story to Ben via webcam. “Some kind of scary mafia family I guess.”

Ben was not so happy about this as it sounded dangerous. He wanted to come too. I told him to come when I need him. There was no point wasting money on unnecessary stuff. We never knew we might need to use money for our documents.

Or for our wedding.

“This is one awesome salsiccia,” I said, as I ate the Italian sausage I bought for dinner. “Have you tried this before?”

“I have linguiça,” he said. “You may want to put that down if you see mine.”

He was actually implying his dick. I got so aroused all of a sudden.

“Come here right now!” I insisted.

“Would love to,” he said. “I’m so horny that I feel like hurting a small girl with my huge cock.”

“Me me!” I said, went to take my dildo. “Well, a fake cock but whatever.”

We both laughed at this. For once we felt like there was still hope in our relationship.

I wanted to feel his fingers touching my skin again. I needed him to be by my side to hold and cuddle.

“Soon, baby,” he said. “And just like you said, we’re just a flight away.”