by Jerry Cole
Max wanted to speak. To tell Mario how he felt he belonged to him, and vice versa. He bit at his bottom lip, waiting. In his professional life, he always knew to speak first. With Mario, he often wasn’t sure.
Instead, he allowed himself to drift off to sleep—watching as Mario’s smoke swirled toward the window, disappearing against the wood slats along the wall. Dream oozed into his consciousness; his lips parted, still coated in Mario’s cum, tasting of his lips and his sweat. Just seconds before he gave over to darkness, his brain rattled with a long, earnest feeling of what he could only possibly describe as love.
He knew it was nearly time to say it. Something within him made him cuddle closer, his lips emitting no sound but his inhales, his exhales. There was space for no more emotion, that day. It would make the whole architecture of their new relationship weak.
Chapter Ten
Mario
Mario couldn’t sleep. Max’s breathing flickered in and out, becoming a soft grumble, then a wisp. Outside, the rain continued to patter against the canal, filling up their watery home. Mario shifted, drawing his legs deeper beneath the crisp white sheets. His fingers rolled up another tight cigarette, popped it in his mouth. He traced the black hairs on his chest, still a bit crisp from dried cum, despite his wiping it off immediately after. He and Max had created another universe of smells, of feeling, there in that room.
Mario’s head spun with something a bit like regret. A bit like fear. He puffed once more at his cigarette before lifting up from the bed, marching toward the window. Another crack of lightning ignited over them. This rain storm was his secret, from Max, who dreamed with his back stretched toward the ceiling, his arms reaching for Mario’s frame.
His growing love for Max wasn’t avoidable. It felt like a balloon in his chest and his stomach, stretching out his skin. When he was with him, every cell simmered; his fingers felt hungry and electric, hyper aware of every texture, every temperature. And his words had grown progressively articulate, as if he were more in-tune with who he was, where he was going.
Unfortunately, “where he was going,” at that moment, was precisely nowhere. He spent his days at his father’s art school, honing the skills of other people—demanding that other people stretch themselves, while feeling that he, himself, was stunted. Venice was meant to be a temporary solution, just a blip in his career. In fact, he’d often thought that he would take off mid-way through the semester, make some other wuss take over the classes. Retreat, when he found another and better way to make money. Max had latched onto him, and, naturally, Mario to Max. His heart jolted in his chest, a reminder that what he was thinking—what he knew about this reality, this truth—could destroy him.
He wasn’t sure how much longer he could bear it.
Beyond that, Max was making it difficult on him, and it wasn’t just the issue with Christine—whose love for Mario had only really increased, in the previous weeks—an awkward thing, a thing he pushed against as best as he could). The Italians, the Venetians, the men and women with whom he’d grown, were turning on Max Everett. His name was whispered, the tone harsh, everywhere. “That horrible American. Have you seen that modern art monstrosity he’s putting up? It’s absolutely destroying the integrity of this place. Being from Venice used to mean something. Now, what are we going to be? Some sort of shit new-age Seattle?”
These had been words spoken by a friend at the nearby sandwich shop, who’d wrapped up a quick panini for Mario and splayed his fingers over the glass counter, almost spitting with fury. It was almost as if every Italian had an opinion about architecture, regardless of their training or where they’d been. It was simple: Max Everett was stomping over their world, leaving metaphorical dog shit in his wake.
Mario adored the fire that burned in Max’s eyes. Max hunkered over his drawings with the ferocity of a true artist, lashing out with a pencil, muttering to himself. It both empowered Mario and made him insanely jealous. When would his chance to push boundaries come? When could he find it within himself?
Now, he felt required to remain in Venice, because of Max. He felt stunted, trapped. Max shifted once more in bed, and Mario gazed at the glimmer of light atop his back, creasing over his muscles. His black curls spilled over the pillow. Again, he marveled at the strength of his sudden love, for this big, wide-open bubble in his belly. He felt if he didn’t retreat, he would never become the man he was destined to be—or the man he once had been.
Wasn’t that the historical reason anyone left anyone? To push themselves, alone? It was certainly the reason Max had left Chicago, his wife…
Now, because Max couldn’t even explain his truth to his daughter, the very girl Mario spent several nights a week with—draped over her painting, pointing…
It was complex. Wasn’t that why Mario hadn’t bothered with this love bullshit before? He’d shoved it from his head, focused on his career and his body and his eclectic mind.
Mario scrunched up the cigarette in the ashtray and slid toward the large door, placing his fingers on the pane. His feet were bare, so soft on the bottom—a much younger man’s skin, Max had marveled. Yet, he opened the door and brought his right foot against the bricks outside. A puddle splashed back, up to his ankle. He shook his foot up in the air, feeling the pattering rain on his toes, before taking a dramatic step out. The door remained open, creaking back and forth.
Mario took his sweet time on his walk to Christine’s, dragging his naked feet through the cobblestones and allowing his toenail to bobble back and forth. He felt somehow guided by an invisible force, shoved toward a reality that included perhaps both a demise and an impossibly beautiful, rise-from-the-phoenix-like future. His shoulders shivered. In the pit of his stomach, he ached to return to Max’s bed, to curl up against him and feel his hot breath across his nose and forehead. How he loved to inhale his scent, to slip his tongue across the crest at the tip of his cock.
Mario rapped at Christine’s door. At just after two in the morning, he could feel the depth of her dreaming on the other side, as if she whirled through an impossible black hole, hardly hearing his knock and then his second one.
Just after his third knock, he heard the pattering of her light feet. He squeezed his finger and thumb around his throat, knowing he would look akin to a crazed lunatic, so unlike the man who lit a fire behind Christine’s eyes. He had to yank himself out of this reality.
Finally, she cracked open the door, her eyes youthful and blinking. Mario was reminded of a baby animal, creeping out of a cage, assessing the danger. When at once she witnessed him, recognized his face, she guffawed a bit, in the way American girls often did.
“Jesus Christ, Mario,” she said. “You really scared me.” She paused, allowing her smile to stretch wide. God, she truly was a magnificent creature, a force of anger and volatility and girlishness. When she finally did know this within herself, she would be unmatchable.
“Christine. Do you mind if I come in?” Mario asked, his nostrils flared.
Perhaps it was his tone that led her to the assumption that something was wrong. Or perhaps it was the image of him, dripping wet, his cheeks sallow and his eyes hard and somber. She yanked open the door, her lips drooping with want. Mario felt she would soon slip her arms around his neck, hold her body against his. And in some ways he welcomed this idea, knowing that it would mean he was wanted, he was needed, he had someone.
Rather, he was ridding himself of them both. For what?
Once inside, Christine scampered to her bathroom and removed a towel, tossing it back to him. Mario yanked it from the air, dotting it across his cheeks.
“It’s really quite embarrassing that you’ve come just now,” Christine said, her voice bouncing.
“Oh?” Mario asked, hardly hearing himself. He removed the towel from his face, holding it outstretched in his hands.
Christine reached forth, dropping her hand across his wet shoulder. She sniffed, allowing confusion to throttle across her face. “You really do have something ami
ss with you, don’t you?” she sighed. “It’s why I think I’m so drawn to you. I know that we’re similar, Mario. That I was meant to come to this art school and know you, discover your talents and become your student.”
Mario paused. His knees clicked together, giving him away. He longed to stretch out on the bed beside him, to float his head upon the pillow that was meant for only her and retreat from the world. Perhaps, the given context meant that he had to push forward. To retreat, now, would mean to give up on his resolution. He had to move forward.
“Why is it embarrassing?” Mario murmured, drawing his shoulder back from her grip. “You said it was embarrassing that I came by.”
He blinked again, searching through her apartment. It felt traditionally mock-artistic, the sort of thing any sort of nineteen year old wannabe-artist would yank together, especially in the heart of Venice. He felt called with a memory of his early days of dating life, spewing nonsensical ideas about Faust and Kafka and Foucault whilst shimmering between the sheets of both boys and girls.
“Well, you’ll see it eventually, I suppose,” Christine offered, her voice sheepish.
She reached for his hand and he gripped hers like a child, allowing himself to be walked toward the next room, the kitchen and dining area. He slumped over in the first wooden chair he saw, feeling it creak beneath him. Why did it suddenly seem as though he weighed four hundred pounds?
“You’ve such fire in you, Christine,” Mario mumbled, half-crazed, his lips and tongue fumbling into each other like bumper cars. “I can’t imagine having it at your age. Perhaps I did. I can’t remember, now. So washed up. So washed the fuck…”
“Mario, come on. You must be wasted,” Christine said, clearly pleased that he’d allowed her to see him in this vulnerable state. “Just—just tell me, before I put you to bed. Just tell me what you think?” Christine chirped, gesturing toward the wide wall near the fridge.
Mario dragged his head up, wide eyes pointing toward a massive canvas, upon which Christine had begun a painting. It was perhaps ten feet by eight feet, stretching near to the ceiling and ending directly at the corner of the wall. The gestures of the painting were stark, alienating, crafting the image of a man. The man was gritty, his face pained with anxiety and his body stretched out like a rock star’s—very much in the vein of the sorts of painting Mario had created for the men and women he’d worked with, throughout his twenties. The years during which he’d touched “rock star royalty” before springing back to Venice, like some kind of wounded animal.
Christine had crafted him into that kind of royalty, building a provocative image, one simmering with sexuality and intrigue and lust and hatred. It was clearly the man she thought he was — the man that, perhaps, he’d once assumed he was, as well. It held no relation to the shivering spectacle he’d currently crafted before her. Jesus, how wretched it was to fall so low.
“Christine,” Mario murmured, slipping his fingers across his lips. “It’s truly remarkable. The way you’ve used the line… I haven’t seen you sculpt it in such a way. Not in our classes. You’ve been saving this. Why?”
It was as though Christine herself glowed, a sunlight bubbling up in her stomach. She blushed, murmuring, “I had imagined this moment. This moment when you would finally see it. I have to admit, I didn’t think it could possibly be like this. But I’ll take it.”
Mario felt stunted, cold. He allowed his smile to ooze away again. His metaphorical toes splintered along the edge of the cliff, aching to burst off. After a long, horrific pause, he whispered, “I’m falling in love with your father.”
Christine’s fingers squashed into fists. She gaped at him, looking as though she was gazing into a sort of abyss, without seeing the other side. She took a step back, then another, until she’d shivered herself into the corner of the kitchen. When she spoke, her words were hollow, almost echoes from within her.
“What the fuck did you just say?”
Mario draped his hands across his knees, shaking his head. “I don’t know how this happened,” he murmured.
“You said you’re in love with my father? MY father! Max Everett…” Christine blurted, sounding increasingly foreign.
“I didn’t know he was your father when we first met,” Mario said, feeling overtaken. Her words were like fire, making his brain boil out of his ears.
“But you… You’re saying my father is gay,” Christine stuttered. “You’re saying that you… You’re gay. You’re saying that all this time…”
Mario draped his head forward, his shoulders sagging. “I’m saying this, yes. I’m saying we were both dishonest with you. And what was it you said, those weeks ago? You said to say the thing. You said to ensure that honesty was uttered, above all things.”
Christine lifted her fist and smashed it back against the painting on the wall, tearing a hole into the canvas. The sound was horrific, a ripping that rang out through the night. The clock on the wall said three in the morning. Mario flew up from the chair, stomping his naked legs across the kitchen and toward the door. Christine spewed a raucous, terrible sigh, one of anger, that ended with a strange laugh. Mario didn’t have the strength to spin back and look her in the eye. He reached the door, placing the hand that had painted multimillion dollar art around the handle, gripping hard.
“You can’t possibly think…” Christine began, her voice breaking. “You can’t possibly think that I can just deal with this. Move forward, and continue to be your student, all the while…” She paused, her voice growing grittier. “My father. I always knew he was in some way unfaithful to my mother. That he crept away from her, in some respect. But to completely and totally…”
Mario whirled around, fire simmering in his gut, now. “You shan’t speak to me about Max Everett again,” he demanded. “To be frank with you, Christine, this has blasted me through the heart and the skull far more than I could have realized. I didn’t know that I would come to care for you both in truly unique, incredible ways…”
“Fucking get out of my house,” Christine blared, her eyes swimming with tears. “Get the fuck out. I don’t want to see you ever again. To think that you would make yourself the victim, here…”
“That’s my very point, Christine!” Mario cried. “I’m trying my hardest to ensure that you don’t get caught up in all of this! You’re a young girl. A girl without much experience. A girl who has so much to learn.”
“Mario! Listen to how much you belittle me! How is anyone supposed to grow in this cage, one that you and my father have created for me? Get out. Get OUT!” A final time, she thrust her finger toward the door, shivering with rage. She swallowed so hard, Mario felt sure she would swallow her tongue.
Within seconds, he tossed himself through her door, throwing the door back behind him. He ripped his knees through the air, throttling down the alleyways of downtown Venice, running in a blind, manic way, until he found his boat, latched to the canal. Still, he felt he could hear Christine’s screeches and screams, echoing out from her apartment. He imagined her splayed out on her kitchen floor, the painting she’d crafted of him above her head like some sort of religious symbol. What on earth had drawn her to him in such a way? What on earth had surged through her, made her so sure?
Mario rushed into his boat. The moonlight fluttered across the windows, then cast out toward the water, glittering. Around him was a sort of prison of the ancient world, buildings glowing beneath the foggy black sky.
Without thinking, he cranked open the engine and burst out from the canal edge, driving his boat across the clapping waves. He pointed himself toward an outer island, where an old friend lived in a dilapidated apartment, untouched by the thought or mention of tourism. As he sped forward, his brain became numb to the events of the previous few hours. With a lurch of dread, he knew Max would awaken soon, the bed empty and barren beside him, with Mario’s shoes still at the door. “Where on earth could he be?” he might mutter to himself, in that lackadaisical way. In that way that had become childish
and very much “theirs,” as they’d grown accustomed to one another and loving one another…
Mario lashed the rope from his boat around a bridge, yanking it toward shore. There, he hobbled out, glancing again toward the water. His feet tore at the cobblestones, picking up dirt and stones. He heard his boat smacking against the dock as he moved toward his friend Alexander’s place, his heart pumping in his chest. He sensed Alexander would take one single look at him and utter, “What on earth have you done wrong this time?” To this, Mario wouldn’t know what to say.
Chapter Eleven
Max
Max’s dreams swirled with thoughts of Mario. He felt warm, foggy, his cock lining the side of his thigh, as he moved toward Mario’s side of the bed, reaching for him. It wasn’t just their custom to have morning sex, to slip into one another and give tender, morning kisses. It was rather their bridge from one dimension to the next, allowing them to canter side-by-side, hand-in-hand, toward reality, building strength to plant their feet upon the ground and live.
As Max cast his arm across the bed, he found nothing beside him. Just a flat, stretched sheet, chilly and fresh, sans Mario’s taut male form. Max’s eye blinked open, searching. He half-expected Mario to be lined at the end of the bed, perhaps leaning toward him, watching Max during his last moments of sleep.
Instead, he spotted nothing at the foot, nothing but the wardrobe, gleaming in the foggy sun that streamed in from the window. He bucked up, his eyes full and wide, before collapsing to the floor and reaching for his boxers. He stepped into the kitchen, scrubbing his fingers across his hair. The espresso machine, the refrigerator, they gleamed back at him, empty and naked and without what he wanted — a Mario, standing before them, hunting for something to eat.