by Jerry Cole
Max cut back from the kiss seconds later, biting at his bottom lip. “There’s just… I think we need to discuss a single problem. Pretty big one, actually. Nothing we can’t overcome…”
“Already saying such big words, Mr. Everett,” Mario said. His eyes twinkled with hope, with mischievousness. He cozied closer to this bigger man, curling his head against his shoulder.
“We just need to be careful about Christine,” Max said. “I know she looks up to you, and hates me. And if she thought I was in any way trying to fuck with the world she’s building for herself…”
“She has to know the truth, at some point,” Mario said. He felt a spark of anger in the back of his mind. Like, was Max really asking him to lie to his student, the only one who was giving his current career track a single jolt of life?
“I know. And I’ll tell her. I just think that maybe, just maybe, I’ve given her a few too many doses of truth, lately. And I want to give it a rest. You know?”
In any other relationship, any other beginnings of anything (not that there had been many for hot-headed Mario, he reasoned), Mario would have bucked back from this, demanded that they push forward with elements of truth, without starting on such unstable ground. Max’s eyes were so dark, so alluring; his aura was thick with importance. Important. Sturdy. Something, in a sea of so much nothingness. Mario had been flicking around his hometown, wondering where his life was going to go next.
And now, potentially latched to a man of Max Everett’s stature—potentially loving him, creating a life with him…
No. He couldn’t get so wrapped up in the romance of it all. His head stirred, swirling with emotion, and his cock filled, tight against Max’s leg, just below. He rubbed his torso up and down Max’s, so that his cock swelled against Max’s thigh. He dismissed this fear, deciding that this—this was the only life he had. And now, in this moment, as the boats crept past on the turquoise canal and the smoky fog lifted up from the Italian churches; as he kissed a man he should have never met, he wanted to lean into reality. Perhaps this was a whirlwind romance; perhaps Max would shift off to another continent in just a week, a month, abandoning Mario and his achy, Italian heart.
Live while you’re allowed to live, and then use that life for art, he told himself—echoing back what he’d explained to Christine. Feel all the feelings you can, as they’re all we have. And then use them, for good, or for evil. Whichever is more interesting.
Chapter Nine
Max
Over the following weeks of September and early October, it seemed that the Venice fog only grew thicker, a blanket over the top of everything that muffled out the city. At around two or three in the afternoon, the sun penetrated just enough, sparkling over the water and allowing the boats to cut through. Every day at around seven, eight, the fog poured over the city once more: putting its Italian citizens to sleep, letting them fall deeper into the wines and aperols, retreating.
Max, a complete sucker for Italian lifestyle, was falling deeper and deeper in love with his life. He felt oddly giddy, sizzling with creative energy that made him pop up from bed in the morning—unless Mario was beside him. In that case, of course, he popped in a very different way. The plans for the hotel he was building, he’d tossed out, deciding on another, wilder design, which hadn’t been approved by the city planner, an act that he was, admittedly, fearful about—but he had to stride forward, use his name in an arrogant, brash way. He was the world-renowned architect Max Everett, wasn’t he? He’d lost his mojo for too damn long.
He spent many hours on the construction site, alongside Carter, articulating the new design. They’d had to pause frequently, due to finding the ancient pottery and architecture beneath. Even for that, Max found fascination. He held a plate in his hands, crackled a bit, its paint worn down, and marveled at the artist—all those years before, who certainly hadn’t had a single thought in his mind for the year 2018. In some ways, Max had never had a thought in his head for 2018, either. For a time when he’d be allowed to be himself, wholly and totally—gay, out, falling in love with a volatile artist…
Of course, he couldn’t be completely out. Not yet. His eyes remained watchful on his daughter, who’d thrown herself completely into the art program. They met perhaps twice a week, never more than three times, over dinner. She stewed with worry, her words lined with expectation for herself and her art career. “Mario didn’t like what I did the other day,” was a frequent topic of conversation. “I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. It’s like, doesn’t he see I’m killing myself for this…” She blinked up at him, her fork toiling and circling in a platter of spaghetti.
Max recognized that look. He pulled his eyes back toward the spaghetti, counting the pine nuts in the pesto, waiting for the conversation to pass. Christine’s clear love for Mario was a complex love, one she would never verbalize to her father. He knew she and Mario spent several hours alone, after class—that Mario was trying to press her toward choosing a direction. “She has raw anger, Max,” Mario had explained, popping grapes into his mouth that morning, eating so much like a child. “I mean, you can see it in her.”
Still, Max refused to tell Christine about his relationship with Mario. It was budding, a bright light of energy that seemed to permeate over everything. Christine was still the center of his darkness, a reminder of all the fucked-up ways he’d lived the previous nineteen years. He needed to proceed delicately. To ensure that nothing he said or did dismantled her life.
Max had moved himself into a large apartment, along the Grand Canal. And, after night fell, Mario often slipped in through the heavy oak door, standing in the hallway. Max was ordinarily seated in his study, his blueprint stretched out on his desk, his pencil stitching together new elements of the building. The investors were frustrated, yet equally excited. Was Max Everett preparing to build a building that generated such press, like his more youthful days? By that time, it had been leaked that he was going through a divorce; that Amanda was already dating around Chicago and New York. With her daughter gone, with her husband becoming her “ex,” she was a hot commodity in the art world. And, with her incredibly successful art show coming to a close, she was on top of the world.
Max wanted to be similarly “on top.” He was competitive, by nature, and he wouldn’t have his ex-wife bolt past him in success. Of course, Amanda recognized this in him, often sending him teasing text messages. “I see you were in the news again,” she sighed. “Something about you getting so angry at your construction workers that they had to take a three-hour strike in the middle of the day. Jesus, Max.” As always, the messages were in good humor.
Christine almost never muttered anything regarding his project, except to tell him that, from what she’d heard, some of the Italians weren’t incredibly happy with his construction. They stated that, ordinarily, he kept within the laws of the surrounding architecture of a city, but that this time, he was tearing down boundaries, crafting something that was very much beyond his original “Max Everett” architectural world. It was something oddly offensive to the Italians, who loved their history and didn’t deign to push beyond it.
Something within him couldn’t align with remaining the same, any longer. He didn’t want to follow any rules. He’d been doing it too goddamn long.
He knew it was the creativity, bubbling up from his growing love for Mario. That love for this Italian seemed to contrast the Italians’ desire to remain stalwart in their original design. It was a conundrum. How to press forward, when the world you found yourself within tried to yank you back?
Today, it was mid-way through October. Mario ambled through the door, whipping his scarf from his neck and smacking it on the back of his chair. Max sized him up from his desk chair, placing his feet onto his desk. He leaned back, arching his eyebrow. Mario placed both hands flat on his desk, spreading his fingers wide. He leaned forward, dangling his lips just a few inches from Max’s.
“You taste so good,” Mario whispered, cutting into him. He brou
ght his legs around Max’s stomach, so that he straddled him. Max placed his hands on Mario’s ass, cupping it. It was so firm, the muscle so taut. His fingers bounced against it, making Mario dig deeper into him.
It was strange. In this moment of intimacy, Max felt like the words “I love you” could have tumbled out from his lips, without thought. He remembered having to memorize when to say he loved Amanda, during the early days. He had to make sure he remembered to tell her what he was supposed to be feeling, rather than what he actually did—which was a lot of panic and then nothingness, over and over again.
Mario and Max kissed, with Mario straddling Max’s cock—pressing the girth of his own against it, tighter and tighter. The fact that they were still clothed made it even more exciting, like they were about to tear through reality and find the freshness, the sincerity, the truth lurking on the other side. It was always this way, when they stripped down to nothingness. Like finally, they had found the truth.
Mario began to unbutton his shirt, guiding the black fabric over Max’s round, thick shoulders. Mario’s lips tucked around the top, kissing his left one with a tender touch.
“I guess this means I won’t get any more work done tonight, doesn’t it?” Max murmured.
“My body can’t do anything else around yours,” Mario whispered back. “What did you expect?”
Max knocked his head against the top of the chair, easing his ass closer to the edge of the seat. This stretched them both out, so that Mario’s body was thrust over Max’s. His nipples lined up with his, beneath the shirt.
“Why aren’t you getting naked, too?” Max asked.
“Why don’t you make me?” Mario teased.
Max pushed Mario’s body forward, stretching his back over the desk. His body tore at parts of the blueprint. Max’s cock pulsed with every heartbeat, filling with need to be in Mario’s mouth, wrapped with Mario’s hand. He wanted so bad to jump to the middle of the story, when he could thrust himself deep into the cavern of Mario’s ass, wrap his fingers around Mario’s waist, shove himself harder and harder until Mario groaned, until Mario’s cock was thick in his own hands…
As always, they played with one another—knowing that there wasn’t a rush, they had all goddamn night. Mario jumped up from the chair, sauntering toward the edge of the room and then gliding toward the bedroom, at the far end of the hallway. Outside, a very rare fall storm had begun to rumble over them, shaking the building at its core. Sometimes, Max allowed himself to think about how very few things had to go wrong before the entire apartment building around him crumbled. Sometimes, he allowed himself to daydream the most horrific thing. He imagined sinking to the bottom, with this ancient building over the top of him.
Max stood from the desk chair, feeling at the fabric of the floor rug with his toes. He walked slowly, listening as Mario snapped on a local jazz station. Grinning, Max poured himself a glass of wine, then another for Mario, tapping the hefty red bottle back on the counter top. Outside, a boat blared its horn, alerting that it was making its way to shore.
This little universe, with Mario. It was his, totally and completely. And, it had to be a secret. Still. To make him feel that—what? He was maintaining his commitment to his daughter?
Slowly, it seemed, their relationship was getting better, gaining strength. “She asked for my advice about you,” Max had said the previous week, almost giddy with it. “She’s never asked for my advice about anything.”
“Even you telling me that is giving her up, you know,” Mario had said. “You’re giving away her secrets. How fair is that?”
That had stuck to Max for a long while, this thought that even discussing his daughter with her teacher, with his lover, made their relationship complex. He marveled that they were currently holding a very trepidatious world in their fingers. One that was bound to collapse.
Mario awaited Max in the bedroom. He stood with his feet shoulder-width apart, his feet bare and stretched out on the gorgeous, textured pattern of the Italian rug. Often, Max had thought back to the home in which he’d raised Christine and played husband to Amanda. It didn’t have the artistry of Venice; it had none of the beautiful texture of the past.
This was the life that had been awaiting him, the entire time.
“Come here,” Mario said. “I can’t wait any longer.”
“You need to work on your patience, don’t you?” Max asked, clicking his tongue.
“Nobody ever said that patience was one of the things we Italians could do well,” Mario said. He reached down, unlatched his belt. As he did, a flicker of lightning streaked across the window. Mario undid his zipper, stripping off his black pants. Beneath, his underwear was scrunched up tight against his ball sack, and his cock was rock-hard and pointed directly toward Max, beneath the fabric.
Max’s tongue flicked from between his lips. He joined Mario at the center of the rug, passing him a glass of wine. They clinked glasses, their eyes meeting. Around them, the air grew tight with want. They’d been fucking for over a month, now, and still—their fucking felt charged with adrenaline, as if it was the first time they’d ever done it before.
“Get naked,” Mario said, before sipping at his wine and falling back on the bed. “Come on. I can’t have you in that office all night, making very tiny adjustments to the blueprint.”
“You know it’s important to me, that work,” Max said, chuckling. “And look at you, here, belittling it.”
“There’s nothing little about you,” Mario said.
“Fuck.” Max stripped off his pants, standing naked, his ass tight and his thighs strong, his black hair glimmering in the soft light from the lamp. He towered over Mario, who remained stretched out on the bed. Mario’s hand found refuge at his cock, the strain of the fabric, rubbing at himself. Max loved to watch him toy with his dick; loved to watch how his eyebrows relaxed, his lips parted. It felt like being allowed a small glance into Mario’s internal universe. It was so rare to ever really know anyone.
Max dropped to his knees in front of Mario, reaching for the waistband around his underwear and tugging it toward Mario’s toes. The underwear flicked to the ground, making Mario’s rock-hard cock rocket toward the sky. Mario stretched back onto the bed, placing his hands behind his head.
“So you’re just going to sit back and make me work, are you?” Max asked.
“You’re the workaholic around here. Not me,” Mario said, chuckling.
Max brought his lips over the tip of Mario’s cock, allowing his tongue to glide over the hole, tasting the dribbling cum. His eyes closed, while his mind became frenetic, electric. His tongue traced the thick veins, first on the left side, then on the right. Through his mouth, he could feel Mario’s body strain with desire. He reached up, his fingers tracing the muscles along Mario’s stomach. He was turned on by it all; his thin thighs, the depth of his belly button, the dark hair around his nipples. It was all his, and he was in the middle of memorizing it. He marveled that he’d ever had any time like this to memorize Amanda. It hadn’t seemed the same. He hadn’t nourished every step of the memorization, of knowing her. Then, she had aged before him. He’d hardly noticed the beauty in it.
He promised himself it would be different, this time.
It never occurred to him that he and Mario would be anything but forever lovers. He never gave power to the thought. How could Mario ever want anyone but him?
Max’s lips drew tight against the end of Mario’s cock. His sucking grew tighter, his lips forming a rough O. Mario’s back arched, casting his hips toward the air. He removed his mouth slowly, staring up at Mario’s face. Another jolt of love came over him.
Mario moved toward him, kissing his lips and tasting his own cum. He drew his arms around Max’s shoulders, gripping at his skin, almost like he was trying to tear him apart. He brought his naked legs around Max’s torso, so that his sweating body was lodged against Max’s. Max slid onto the comforter. Outside, thunder rumbled close, so that it felt that the entire island was sha
king beneath them.
Mario undressed Max, tossing his pants toward the rug and rubbing his hands down his legs, feeling at the softness of his toes. Max stretched his legs wide, so that his cock pointed directly toward Mario. Their smells stirred around them, joining. Mario knelt his head, kissing Max’s stomach with a delicate touch of his lips, before wrapping his lips around the girth of his cock and sucking, sucking.
“Oh, God, you do that so fucking good,” Max whispered. “I can’t even… Oh my god.”
Mario’s tongue found Max’s balls, then snaked back up his cock. Max fell to his side, bringing his ass up toward the window. Mario placed both hands on Max’s ass cheeks, dropping his nose at the very top of the crack between his ass cheeks. Max felt completely exposed to him, completely known.
Mario’s tongue drew across his ass crack, the hole itself, before falling into it. Max gasped, his back arching. “Deeper,” he murmured. “Please. Deeper.”
Mario complied. His tongue, so wet, so textured, slid deeper into Max’s asshole. Max’s eyes closed as he fell deeper into darkness. Outside, another crack of thunder shook the very core of the water on which they stood.
When they finally did make love, Mario’s cock thrust deep into Max’s ass. Max gave himself a rough hand job, as Mario was far too gone—moaning, thrusting, hungry, to help them both. Their sweat oozed together. Mario’s lips and tongue traced along Max’s shoulder, his back. They made the bed shake with their volatile lovemaking; the earth seemed to rock around them.
When Mario came, his cum dribbled out of Max’s asshole; his body fell to the mattress beside him. Max came, an eruption that cast his own cum across Mario’s chest, making his dark hair sticky. In the silence that fell, they listened to the rain, both gasping every few moments—hunting for the air they’d lost.
Finally, Max fell to his back beside Mario. Mario reached for his pants, drawing out his cigarette papers, his tobacco. It was an act that Max had grown relatively accustomed to, over the previous weeks: watching Mario’s quick motions as he wrapped together a cigarette, popped open the side window and smoked with a wistful look in his eyes.