The Italian Word for Kisses

by Matthew J. Metzger

  Tav found his own face twisting into a sneer. “So what, I’m meant to let him call my boyfriend a wop and a faggot? He put a note in Luca’s locker calling him queer!”

  “John has denied doing so, and without evidence―”

  “He’s the new kid!” Tav barked. “He’s the only one who didn’t know already! All the others are scared of Antonio or scared of me, Jack’s the only one dumb enough! And he called me a pouf, too, is―”

  “Quiet!” Mr. Arsin’-All shouted, and Tav glowered. “John’s conduct was entirely unacceptable and he will be punished for it, but hitting another student, tackling him to the floor and repeatedly punching him to the head is equally unacceptable, Mr. Tavistock! I will not have fighting in my school! And after your violent behaviour towards other boys when you first joined this school, may I suggest you hold your tongue!”

  “Come on now,” Ian interrupted in that mild, don’t-rock-the-boat voice of his. “Tav’s not been in a fight all term. Not since the end of last year, in fact. He’s done alright.”

  “Doing ‘alright’ is not fighting at all, which many of our students find perfectly easy,” Mr. Total Fucking Arsehole said icily. “I will not tolerate Christopher falling back into old habits, Mr. Pretty. If he is caught fighting with another student on school grounds again before Christmas, he will be suspended for the rest of the term. I have put a lot of effort into tackling the bullying problem at this school over the last five years, and I will not have a relapse of old problems. Christopher will keep his temper under control, or take it elsewhere.”

  Tav ground his jaw and glared at the floor. Ian squeezed his shoulder tightly before saying, “And the other boy?”

  “John will be made to understand that if he holds such bigoted views, he will also keep them off school grounds. I do not tolerate racism or homophobia in my school, and if Luca Jensen feels discriminated against by John, then he is welcome to discuss the issue with any of the staff, and it will be dealt with. Without fighting.”

  “That sounds fair,” Ian said, even though it totally wasn’t.

  “I suggest you take Christopher home. I think in his current temper, he is more likely than not to attack John again, and―”

  “He―!”

  “Quiet, Tav.”

  Tav shook off Ian’s hand angrily and stood up. “It’s not fair,” he told the head, hating the petulant tone in his own voice. He wasn’t whining, he was telling the truth! “He’s bullied Luca for being gay, and you’re ragging on me for calling him on it!”

  “Calling him on it does not involve beating a boy so badly that you break his nose and almost fracture his cheekbone.”

  “He deserved it!”

  “Christopher, I suggest you keep quiet and go home with your f―stepfather, before I lose my temper,” Mr. Arsewipe said coldly, and folded his hands on the desk. “Your record can happily do without another suspension. Mr. Pretty, I will call you or your wife to discuss the matter further tomorrow, once Christopher has had some time to calm down and I have had words with John.”

  Tav stormed out. He didn’t want to talk to Ian. He didn’t want to be at school anymore. Or ever again. They didn’t fucking get it, and they certainly wouldn’t fucking do anything about it. He wanted to go and punch Jack again, or punch Mr. Arsin’-All maybe. And either one would get him in major trouble, and Mam would murder him and cremate him in the shed or something, and then who was going to flip their shit at Jack? ‘Cause Luca was always way too slow to react properly to stuff. He took ages to deal with it, when a good early smack in the gob would have sorted it out in five seconds flat.

  “Tav!”

  Tav kept walking, fast-paced and furious, until he’d walked right out of the school and to Ian’s van. He jiggled the passenger door until the dodgy lock gave, and slid right in, scowling at the dashboard. “Just go,” he said furiously when Ian got in, and a gusty sigh was his response.

  “I’m not angry with you.”

  “I don’t fucking care, Ian.”

  “Language.” Mildly. “You need to control your temper, Tav.”

  “Whatever.” He’d heard it all before.

  “Luca has plenty of support at home. He doesn’t need you to jump to his defence with your fists. And that older brother of his…”

  “Ian. I’m not talking about it. Let’s go.”

  Ian sighed, and turned the key in the ignition. The van coughed and shivered into life, and Tav scowled out the window as they peeled out of the gates and down the hill towards home. Mam was gonna kill him. Jack was probably gonna try, though Tav had totally owned that fight, and he could easily take that little bastard. And Luca—

  Well. Luca would either literally bend over for him, or give him another black eye to even up his face a bit.

  One could never quite tell with Luca.

  * * * *

  “Oi!”

  Luca was not in the best of moods. Tav had gotten in some kind of fight yesterday, been sent home, and then vanished off the face of the earth. Which was a real sign of Tav being in a major hissy fit, and Luca hated it. He hadn’t been replying to texts or answering his phone, and when Mrs. Pretty had arrived home and screeched her battered Citroen Saxo to a halt outside the house, Luca had decided to leave it alone for a bit. Mrs. Pretty angry was kind of like Tav angry. She went supernova, man.

  But still. Jack Collins had vanished, too, and the rumour mill was rife that Tav had rugby-tackled him in the middle of the corridor for calling Tav a dirty word. Which wasn’t quite like Tav. He was a violent little shit when he got going, and Luca remembered the days of schoolyard fights when Tav would whale on a kid twice his size and win, just because he had anger issues up the yahoo, but he’d chilled a lot in the last three years. Like, a lot. And it had never bothered Tav when people called him names. It was like…calling his mam a slag, or their Becky a darkie. Stuff like that.

  And Luca strongly suspected—and the radio silence on his phone was semi-confirming—that it had everything to do with him.

  So on Saturday morning, Luca really wasn’t in the mood for Jack’s shout across the flagstones leading up to the leisure centre doors.

  “What?” he snapped.

  “You see that?” Jack demanded, jabbing a finger towards his own face. ‘That’ was a spectacular black eye, the size and darkness of which bore the trademarks of Tav’s knuckles. It was accompanied by a swollen, split lip, and a pinkish graze across the angular cheekbone under the half-closed eye.

  “Hard to miss it,” Luca said, and narrowed his eyes. “You and Tav get into it, did you?”

  “He attacked me.”

  “Yeah, he’ll do that.”

  “You keep your fucking pet under control.”

  Luca tightened his jaw and tilted his head back. Mamma’s trick. And it had the desired effect—Jack’s nostrils flared, and his stance widened at the snotty, condescending expression. “I don’t control Tav. If he lamped you one, maybe you need to keep your gobbing off under control, yeah?”

  “I didn’t say shit nobody else ain’t thinking.”

  “What did you say?” Luca sneered.

  “Told him the truth,” Jack snarled, a lip curling up towards his nose. “Told him your kind need to stay away from me. S’all I fucking said.”

  “My kind?”

  Jack snorted.

  “Like, Italians? Like, swimmers? Or like,” Luca hissed, lowering his voice, “faggots?”

  Jack’s sneer rose again.

  “You put that note in my locker.”

  “Didn’t touch your fucking locker,” Jack spat, but Luca was a middle child, and knew a lad for a liar well enough.

  “Seems obvious to me,” he said coolly. “S’only you that didn’t know, maybe. Nobody else’d dare. Everybody else knows what happens when you fuck with the Jensens.”

  “Oh, right, yeah, ‘cause I’m fucking scared of your boyfriend.”

  “S’not the boyfriend you need to be scared of,” Luca retorted, and found his own
sneer. “S’Antonio. And you’d know that, if you weren’t the new kid.”

  Jack scoffed. Luca snorted. “Right,” Jack said, “like anyone comes to the defence of a f―of you.”

  “Faggot,” Luca said calmly. “You said it before, you might as well say it again.”

  “Whoever,” Jack drawled, “left you that note—and I ain’t stupid, Jensen, I’m not saying I know nothing about it—but they were right.”

  “Right about?” Luca prompted icily.

  “‘Bout your kind,” Jack reiterated, and half-turned towards the leisure centre. “M’only gonna say this the one time, Jensen, and don’t try making me repeat it—but you need to stop coming here.”

  “What?”

  “Swimming.”

  “You want me to fucking quit? ‘Cause you don’t like queers?”

  “Yeah,” Jack said, and Luca’s gut twisted in something that felt caught between upset and anger. “Nobody wants a pouf in the changing rooms, you get me? Nothing gives you the right to come in here perving on us all and checking us out, and―”

  “You fucking wish, you ugly twassock.”

  Jack twisted back and shoved Luca hard in the chest. “Don’t you fucking talk about me.”

  “About how you’re the last bloke on earth I’d check out? Why not—it’s fucking true. Want me to gouge in your locker?”

  “I’m warning you, Jensen…”

  “What’s your problem?”

  “I could’ve caught something offa you! I gave you CPR! I could’ve caught―”

  “Caught what?” Luca interrupted hotly. “The gay? The HIV? Or—oh, actually, yeah, that’s a point, you might wanna get tested, Tav’s got a raging case of the clap, and I did suck him off before I came to school that morning!”

  Jack seized the front of Luca’s shirt and yanked him forward until they were nose-to-nose—an ironic kissing distance—but Luca’s own temper had flared, and Luca…

  Well.

  Tav could be volatile. But Luca had an Italian mother.

  Chapter 8: “No bugger else here thinks like him.”

  Luca lost his temper.

  It took a lot to get Luca to do it. But calling him a faggot? When it had taken so fucking long to accept what he was, and stop being scared he was a sick freak because of it? Fuck you.

  He slammed both palms into Jack’s chest, and shoved. Jack staggered back, and Luca—a dirtier fighter than most boys—swung his swimming bag off his shoulder and right across Jack’s face. The swimming bag that held, along with towel and trunks, his cycling helmet.

  Jack yelped as the bag smashed his head sideways on the concrete. A woman screeched inside the leisure centre; Luca swung the bag back again and evened up that ugly mug a bit.

  “Don’t. You. Ever. Call. Me. Faggot. Again!” he bellowed at the top of his lungs. Every word matched a swing of the bag—then a weight hit his knees and he and Jack went down in a tangle of fists and fury.

  “Fucking hell!” someone yelled, and arms were flung around Luca’s waist. He elbowed the interloper in the face, and swung his fist forward into a puffy black eye that was already swelling closed.

  “You stay the fuck away from my boyfriend!” he roared. “You stay the fuck away from me—and if you don’t like, if you don’t like changing with a queer, you quit the fucking water, you piece of worthless―!”

  “STOP IT!”

  The command was accompanied by a shrill whistle, and then Luca was seized by the scruff of his neck and physically thrown backwards. He landed on the pavement with a thud, the air bashed out of his lungs, and coughed helplessly on the concrete. An arm hooked under his, and Aaron hauled him up. Coach Cooper was standing in the midst of the chaos, holding Jack by the scruff of his neck, and glowering.

  “I have never,” he rumbled threateningly, “been so goddamn ashamed of you boys. You got differences, you keep private. You do not brawl in the middle of the road where women and children can see you!”

  Luca grimaced. This was so getting back to Mamma.

  “Explain yourselves.”

  Luca scrubbed his sleeve over his nose and picked up his swimming bag. “Jack told me to quit swimming ‘cause he doesn’t want to change in the same room with a gayboy.”

  Coach Cooper’s lips thinned. “Right,” he said. “Rest of you, inside. Get in the water and start doing laps. No wasting anymore time.”

  He kept hold of Jack, though. Through the eye that wasn’t swollen shut, Jack shot Luca a filthy look, who returned it tenfold and reluctantly followed the tug of Aaron’s fist around his jacket sleeve.

  “Mate,” Aaron said, “remind me never to fuck with you.”

  Luca snorted.

  “Did he really say that?”

  “Uh-huh,” Luca said grimly, shoving his hands in his pockets. The rest of the team were already flocking into the changing rooms, and Luca paused at the top of the stairs. “Is he the only one?”

  Aaron hesitated. “Uh―”

  “Az.”

  “Well…no, you know, er…people…some of the guys were a bit…um, uneasy, you know, when you first came out, but—he’s the only one now, I’m pretty sure. I mean, you know, we all know you’re not like perving on us or nothing.”

  Luca scowled over his shoulder towards the doors. Outside, he could just about see Coach Cooper and Jack. It didn’t look like a friendly conversation.

  “Luc, come on, mate, you know me,” Aaron said in an exasperated tone. He hit Luca in the shoulder, and some of Luca’s dark mood lifted. “I don’t give a fuck. And the other lads know better by now, ‘specially after that. Just ignore him. Jack’s a twat.”

  Luca pulled a face, but allowed Aaron to tug him down the stairs to the changing rooms. It was like a bazillion degrees in here, and Luca started shedding layers the minute the door swung closed behind them. Most of the boys were already nearly done; Luca ducked his head at the curious side-eyes, and ripped his shirt off over his head. Stupid Jack and his stupid views and stupid face. Luca regretted blowing his lid now. Kid wasn’t worth it, and Mamma’d go spare if Coach Cooper kicked him off the swimming team for fighting. He’d kicked kids off for less.

  “Hey.”

  David’s hand landed on Luca’s bare arm. His voice was quiet, but his face was open and sincere when Luca glanced up at him.

  “He’s not worth it, mate,” David said earnestly. “No bugger else here thinks like him.” The words not anymore hung unsaid between them. David himself had once been uncomfortable being around Luca—and yet somehow that made what he said all the more reassuring.

  “Just struck a nerve, y’know,” Luca grumbled.

  “Yeah, well, we knew he was gonna mouth off sooner or later,” David said. “After, uh, after the accident, you know, he was…”

  Luca frowned. “He was what?”

  Aaron cleared his throat. “He was asking a lot of questions. You know? Tav gave himself away a bit, right, and Jack…Jack got his nose put out of joint by it, started asking a bunch of questions. We didn’t see any harm in telling him you guys were a thing, right, everyone knows. Just…didn’t reckon he were like that.”

  Luca snorted, stuffing his things into his locker and slipping the key band around his wrist. David clapped him on the shoulder, told him not to worry, but Luca’s mind was elsewhere already. He shouldn’t have snapped. He wasn’t daft—of course some of the other lads were uncomfortable with him. But they didn’t say owt, so it was fine. He ought to have just sneered and walked away. Jack wasn’t worth the trouble he was going to get into for this.

  The changing room door clanged. Luca looked over his shoulder, and saw Jack’s dark glower. Involuntarily, Luca shivered—then ground his teeth and stormed off towards the pool area. Stupid. He was being so fucking stupid.

  The moment he walked into the pool area, however—

  It was like peace washing over him. The humid heat; the echoing noise. The flicker of light off the walls and water. The slick feel of the damp tiles under his bare toes,
and the way the wet warmth in the air made him feel simultaneously naked and clothed. This place—this pool—was home.

  And yet, something stuttered in Luca’s chest as he loped across the tiles towards the water’s edge. He hadn’t been back since the accident, and he hesitated as he reached the lip of the pool. He still didn’t remember anything. He remembered—in flickering bursts—swimming along the bottom of the pool, like a frog lazily exploring. And he remembered hearing a woman gently calling his name and calling him ‘honey’ occasionally, but Luca suspected she had been a nurse and he simply had nothing left of the accident itself.

  So why did he hesitate?

  “Jensen!”

  He flinched back from the edge, disoriented. Coach Cooper was striding across the tiles, trainers squeaking.

  “A word,” he said, jerking his head towards the plastic seats of the observers’ stands.

  “Uh,” Luca said. “Yes, Coach.” He followed meekly, knowing better than to push his luck with Coach Cooper. He was a harsh teacher. He had kicked more than a few boys off the team for just mucking about instead of taking training seriously. And frankly, he was six foot eight and fucking scary when he was pissed.

  “Sit.”

  Luca sat.

  “What exactly did Collins say to you.”

  It wasn’t a question. Luca tucked his hands between his knees, stared at his bare feet, and said, “He got in a fight with my—with Tav, at school. And, uh. We had a slanging match, me and him. I ‘fess to that, I said stuff, too. Only then he told me to quit swimming, ‘cause he wasn’t going to stand for changing in the same room as a queer. And then he said he gave me CPR—other week, you know—and he could have caught AIDS off me. He was spitting mad, and it pissed me off, Coach.”

  Coach grunted.

  “I don’t have anything he could catch,” Luca said flatly, “and him saying I shouldn’t be allowed to be in the club ‘cause I’m gay, it’s bullshit. I…I spent enough time telling myself stuff like that for him to do it now.”

  Coach clapped Luca on the back. So hard it probably left a handprint, but that was Coach for you, and Luca forced a smile out of the grimace.