by Jerry Cole
Mario thought, with a sense of urgency, that Christine would be destroyed if Peter chose to end his own life. How could he possibly tell her what had happened, if he learned the news first? How would he ever cast her off that couch?
Once inside the bakery, he bid “Bonjour” to the large and wobbly woman behind the counter. Her cheeks were pink and floppy, and her lips were ordinarily pursed, showing her continual disparagement at everyone, everything. That is, everyone and everything besides pastries, besides bread.
“Bonjour, monsieur,” she grumbled, arching her thick brow. “Qu’est-ce que tu veux aujourd’hui?”
Mario fell into his French easily, building a sort of song with his words as he ordered a baguette, three different kinds of pastries with three different kinds of frostings and creams, along with a few juices and a pad of natural butter. He slid several euros onto the counter and tossed out some coins, barely enough to fit the bill. The baker looked at him ruefully before counting out the money, coughing, seemingly hating that he’d forced her to go out of her way in this manner.
Mario slipped the items into a plastic bag and turned back toward the door. At the front table sat a newspaper, one from two days ago and one he’d incidentally hidden from Christine. The front cover illustrated, once again, that painting of Mario — VENICE IS BURNING. The painting had been sold yet again and would be featured at a grand gala event the following evening. Mario had been approached several times by unnamed, dark-eyed mystery men, explaining that it was absolutely necessary that he and Christine attend the gala. He’d brushed them off, stating that he and Christine wanted nothing to do with that painting.
It had caused enough damage.
“You don’t even want to know who purchased it?” the last man had asked, again cutting in front of Mario, so that he couldn’t continue his walk home.
“No. I don’t care. Whoever did wasted their money.”
“Are you saying it’s not a beautiful painting?” the man demanded.
Mario’s voice sliced out, volatile and angry. “You can’t possibly think that I would ever insinuate that. I think Christine’s talent is immense. She should be championed. But her work is much bigger, much better now. And that painting should be left in the past.”
***
Mario ducked out of the bakery, inhaling the strangely crisp August air. He felt drawn by an invisible force, yanked quickly across the road back toward Christine. The previous days had drawn her face so tight, so that her cheeks looked vaguely hollow. He wanted her to reach for a second pastry with the sort of hunger she’d had before. “You always eat like a child,” he’d told her.
It was up to him to care for her.
She had no one else.
And it had been his fault that Max had left her behind.
The thought again hit him like a brick in the gut. He sniffed, feeling achy, knowing fully this devastation. This loss. Then, he shoved his feet forward, continuing on toward the alleyway. Once he was back inside; once he’d slipped his feet back into slippers, he could go back to doing what he did best — trying, and usually failing, to find a way to make Christine smile.
That’s when he spotted him.
The tall, stoic man stood at the corner just near Mario’s alley, broad-shouldered and firm, allowing all matter of rain to splatter across his shoulders. He hadn’t bothered with an umbrella. Instead, his thick hair smeared on either side of his head, twirling slightly at his ears.
In every way, Mario felt he was seeing a ghost.
“Max.” He whispered the name to himself, feeling it echo through his chest, through his belly. He stopped short, five or six feet away from this mysterious being, unsure if he could trust himself to move forward. What if he took a step too far and Max disappeared? What if he was akin to a mirage of water on a heated road, apt to be sucked back into the sky when you got too close?
What if it truly was Max, and he didn’t want anything to do with Mario at all?
The two men faced one another. Time had passed, enough so that Mario no longer thought Max was some sort of ghost-like figure. People surged around them, darting off to wherever it was they were needed. They left the men to stare.
Finally, Mario forced himself to speak.
“You’re drenched.”
Max didn’t react, beyond blinking a bit too fast, casting droplets down his cheek. It seemed he’d recently shaved, and his skin gleamed bright, too bright for the month of August. Mario took a slight step toward him, yearning, suddenly, to press his nose against Max’s cheek. To inhale his smell.
“I don’t know that I’ve ever cared about anything less than that,” Max offered.
It had been almost two years. Two years since Mario had sprung up, cold-feet darting across the Venice canals, taking him to his hiding place. Two years since Max had set fire to the Venice building and cast himself far, far away from Mario and the life they’d been building. In every way, it was both of their faults. In every way, both had suffered.
“Christine. She’s all right?” Max asked. His throat seemed to tighten at the question. Mario couldn’t possibly comprehend the weight of missing a child, one you’d raised.
He gave Max a soft nod. “She’s fine.”
“I know about Peter Eclaire,” Max continued.
“I made sure he never hurt her,” Mario murmured.
In Mario’s bag, the bread had begun to grow soggy from the rain. Cars whizzed past, splashing water across their ankles, staining their socks. With an abrupt, yet clear motion, Max erupted through the space between them and slid his lips over Mario’s, holding onto the right side of his head with five firm fingers.
The motion caught Mario off-guard. Still, he leaned into it, allowing his lips and tongue to trace over Max’s, allowing himself to fall back into the memory of him like putting on an old glove. A soft moan escaped his lips, and Max echoed it, pushing his chest further toward Mario’s. They pressed against one another, their hearts beating wildly beneath ribcages that had been separated for far too long. Mario wondered if the man looked different naked; if everything would be the same, despite time and distance apart. Of course, this negated what he’d always known; nothing was ever the same. Time took its steady pace across every person, big and small and old and young, and that for too, too long, he and Max had been separated, the stuff of the same being yet living their lives so far apart.
Mario’s cock grew hard and thick. He dropped the baguette bag to the ground and reached his hand around Max’s neck, drawing him tighter against him. Their kisses grew more violent, now, as if they were trying to swallow the other one whole.
Panting, they parted. Mario huffed, “Where the hell have you been for so long? Why did it take you so long to come back?”
Max had no answer. He took a slight step back, drawing the back of his hand over his mouth. He gave Mario a strange shrug, his eyes gleaming with a mix of fear, of sadness.
“I really hope you and Christine can attend the gala in a few nights,” he said.
It took a moment for Mario to comprehend what Max meant. He blinked several times, feeling unsure which day, month, or year it was, currently. He longed for a winter coat. He longed for another kiss. He longed for a day two years before, when this level of love couldn’t have been a possibility.
“The gala… What do you mean, the gala?” Mario demanded.
“You know what gala I’m speaking about,” Max said.
Once kissed, Mario craved so much more of him. He took another step forward, drawing his hand across Max’s neck. He placed his nose against Max’s, inhaling the scent of his lips. “Take me with you. Wherever you’re going. Please. I can’t… I can’t handle another night without you. Please.”
The honesty both thrilled and exhausted Mario. Max responded with nothing except a soft, subtle kiss. Mario blinked down at the bread inside the plastic bag below them, at the way it wrinkled and turned toward the cement.
“I need to buy more. For Christine,” he whispered. “
She’s so hungry.”
“Let me buy it,” Max said.
Hand in hand, the men returned to the bakery. The woman was incredulous, her eyes ducking from Mario to Max and back again. Max kept his hand along Mario’s back, seemingly unable to end contact.
Mario ordered more than he had before. He was suddenly famished, suddenly felt his hunger like a wave crashing over his stomach and showing the depth of its emptiness. The woman muttered to herself in French, which Mario couldn’t quite make out as she stocked the bag high with pastries, with breads, with butters, cheeses, and jams. Max placed a fifty-euro bill on the counter and then collected the sack, drawing his arm over Mario’s shoulder. There, the fully-wet Max Everett smacked a big kiss on Mario’s lips, demonstrating their total love, for the flummoxed baker before them. It was the sort of day she would remember the rest of her life.
When Max and Mario arrived back at Mario’s apartment, Christine let out a soft moan, a “hello.” Mario’s lips parted, watching as Max slipped off his shoes and set them to the side of the door before proceeding forward. He still held onto the plastic bag of goodies. Mario was reminded of a father coming home after a long day of work, bringing home a snack for his daughter. It was just routine.
Mario hung back near the door to the living room. The gray light filled the room, making Christine look strangely angelic, wrapped beneath the blanket. Her eyelashes fluttered open as Max approached. She began to speak, words that Mario knew were meant for him.
“I was wondering what took you so long…”
To this, Max answered, “I’m sorry. I got held up.”
The recognition was electric. Christine bolted upright, her eyes remaining forward, toward the far wall. It was as though looking at him head-on would destroy her with its suddenness, with its fire. Max remained before the chair, his posture a bit too far forward, as if he weren’t entirely sure what to do with his body. Mario cleared his throat, wishing he could think of the right thing to say to quell Christine’s anxious mind. At this point, didn’t he know her better than anyone? Didn’t he know what this meant?
“You got held up?” Christine repeated, her words rather flat.
“It will never, ever happen again,” Max murmured. “Getting held up was the biggest mistake of my life.”
Finally, Christine turned her eyes toward Max. With this motion, she drew her legs to the side of the couch, dropped her blanket to the ground. Her legs looked pasty white and thin. Mario knew Max noticed, too. Before Max could speak again, Christine darted up and threw her arms around Max, yanking him close to her. She let out a soft, child-like sigh, then closed her eyes. Her face was pure, soft. She held onto her father in a way that showed she couldn’t let him go, emotionally, if she tried.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured, her entire body shaking. “I was so, so terrible to you, Daddy.”
“I was the parent. I was meant to put you above everything else,” Max offered.
There was silence for some time. Christine slipped her chin over Max’s shoulder, over and over again, until she drew back slightly, gazing past Max and toward Mario. She cleared her throat, giving Mario a bright smile. Her first in weeks.
“How could you possibly think straight, when you were falling in love?” she asked.
Max turned quickly, facing back toward Mario. The two, father and daughter, Mario’s favorite people in the world, were a team, united. Mario suddenly felt their world was off-kilter. As though he’d been the piece to bring them back together, and now he would be discarded.
After a long, pregnant silence, Christine yanked at the plastic bag, spreading it wide atop the counter and ripping off the top part of the baguette. She chewed quickly, looking half-crazed. “Daddy, you have a lot of explaining to do,” she said. “Really.”
“I would have to agree with that,” Mario offered, chuckling. He, too, reached for a pastry, pressing his teeth against the puff of it and pressing down.
Max leaned back against the side of the couch, giving them one of his world-renowned smiles. With a shrug, he said, “It’s a long story. God, is it boring. The good part has only just begun.”
Chapter Nineteen
Max
They waited. They waited through the afternoon of laughter, of pastries, of communication and kindness. They waited until Christine rushed out to buy a bottle of wine before they even touched again — he and Mario, Mario and he — drawing their lips together and inhaling one another’s warmth. Max drew a line down Mario’s thigh, feeling the thick, hard cock awaiting him. They both knew there would be more waiting. And wait they did, as they’d had two years to practice the waiting, and thus it had become the only thing they really knew.
Christine didn’t drink like she had at nineteen. She sipped slowly, giggling at Max’s jokes and stories, asking light questions about his life at the cabin. She didn’t verbalize how much she’d been worried, although it was written across her face. She tore into one pastry, and then another. Max worried briefly about the hollowness around her mouth, at her clavicle, but told himself he would feed her, and feed her well, whilst he remained in Paris. He hadn’t a clue how long that would be.
Perhaps it would be forever.
Christine excused herself for the night just after ten, swirling with drunken life and love toward the door. She blew both Max and Mario a kiss, saying, “I can’t imagine a better gift Peter could have ever given me.”
“You won’t go back to him, will you?” Mario asked, his voice a bit high-pitched, worried.
Christine rolled her eyes back. “Am I really going to have two such anxious dads? I could barely handle one of you at a time.” She paused, arching her brow and allowing the words to sink in. Then, she spun toward the door and unlatched it, rushing out into the August night. Max wondered, at first, where she could possibly go. Hadn’t her home been with Peter?
It was as though Mario could read his mind.
“She stays with a friend, Amelie. Quite frequently,” he said. “I don’t worry about her much when she goes there. The way she’s discussed Peter… Frankly, I’d be surprised if she ever speaks to him again.”
“He came all that way to find me,” Max offered.
“It was truly the first good, unselfish thing he’s done in his life,” Mario returned.
Max slid his hand up Mario’s thigh, drawing his thumb across his belt. Max leaned heavily against him, pressing his forehead into him. He let out a long, ragged sigh. Mario’s fingers laced over Max’s shoulders, feeling at the biceps, then drawing toward his nipples. He pinched them lightly, causing electricity to jolt across Max’s skull.
It had been years since he’d been touched like this.
Mario echoed something similar, telling Max the truth. “I haven’t been with anyone else.”
Max pressed Mario against the back of the couch, falling to his knees on the ground below. The moonlight had replaced the gray, and it cast firm shadows across their bodies. He began to unbutton Mario’s shirt, bringing his fingers across the coarse chest hair. He drew lines toward the belt below. Mario let out a soft moan as he dropped his head back.
Max unlatched the belt and slotted the pants down Mario’s legs, causing the girth of Mario’s cock to spring up, to point directly toward Max’s mouth. It glinted with a spot of cum. Veins popped out on either side. Max drew his right hand around the base of it, making his thumb feel the thin skin of Mario’s balls. Everything he did, he did delicately, enjoying the feeling of having Mario’s complete and total attention. Any small gesture, any small click in a different direction — it affected Mario, and it made him moan.
Max shoved the rest of Mario’s pants to the side and stuck himself between Mario’s legs, cutting his lips over the tip of Mario’s cock. His cock seized up, then pulsated, as Max drew his lips further and further down his stiff rod. His tongue traced the veins as he pushed him back, back, forcing the tip of his cock against the very back of his throat.
Mario’s fingers traced through Max’s hai
r, guiding him tighter and tighter against him. Max got faster, more volatile with his motions, until Mario finally forced him back, huffing. He gazed into Max’s eyes, before thrusting forward and kissing Max hard, inhaling his own cum and Max’s spit.
Mario ripped Max’s clothes off, tossing them across the old-world floorboards that shined with the moon. His hands were splayed across Max’s ass, with the thumbs spreading it apart. He dotted a kiss just above, on Max’s lower back. The tenderness of this act made Max’s heart surge with love.
Mario exhaled, drawing his tongue over Max’s asshole. One finger, then another, drew inside Max, spreading him wide. Max initially feared that perhaps, as he hadn’t done this in ages, he wouldn’t be able to take Mario like he used to. He found that soon, Mario slipped easily within him. He thrust hard the first time, shooting himself as deep as he could, before beginning to ease back and forth. Max stretched his body sideways, drawing his lips over Max’s. It was the sort of manic kiss that came in the midst of fucking — one that said, “I can’t possibly do anything but have every single inch of you.”
The two men rested between sessions, curling up in one another’s arms and whispering stories about the previous years, things that had happened while they both pretended that they could live without the other.
“How stupid we were,” Max murmured.
“I can’t imagine another day without you,” Mario returned.
They whispered and fucked, cuddled and slept off and on until morning, when Paris revealed a suddenly fresh, blissfully bright blue day. Mario’s head was draped across Max’s chest. They both smelled of cum, of sweat. They reeked of exhaustion.