“Damnation. Never mind, I’ll sew it a bit shorter tomorrow, so it stays put.” I am about to pull it back up, scoffing, but he looks like he’s just seen a supernatural apparition.
“No!” he shouts. “No, don’t you dare touch it. It’s perfect. It’s absolutely perfect.”
His eyes have taken on that white-ringed, madly focused stare that I have come to know, the intense and slightly unhinged look that says his vision has shifted to another plane, and he’s not seeing me as flesh and blood but as some image of supernatural loveliness to be captured into pencil or paint. To this day, it is still a little bit unsettling.
I stare, incredulous. “You want to paint it like this?”
“Yes! Yes, exactly like this.”
“Oh dear. We will get arrested for public indecency this time,” I say, and he grins wide and then laughs.
I can’t take my eyes off him when he does.
At one time, in London, I told myself he’d be rather handsome if he didn’t look so much at odds with himself. I was wrong. As it turns out, he is remarkably handsome.
Here in the south, if I venture out in the sun, I burn a hideous pink, like a shrimp, and then I peel, and then I go back to white. But ever since Nice he has tanned an even brown, like a walnut, as if he has Spanish or Italian blood in him. His dark hair has grown, and bleached in streaks of coppery chestnut, and even near-blond in places. He has given up on trying to brush it flat, and it waves and tosses thickly about like a wild mane. He has also given up on shaving, mostly, and has grown a beard and moustache, not a full patriarchal beard—I couldn’t bear it—but enough to make him definitely very manly.
His clothes fit him well, now that I have a hand in his wardrobe, and he walks straight, like some weight has been lifted from his shoulders, or like he’s breathing deeper, wider.
He has taken to busying himself in the garden when he is not painting, and making repairs on the house, and between that and trekking up and down the hills, he has become almost as lean and muscular as an Italian model himself. He’s downright dashing lately, and almost a little rascally, with his broken nose and all, especially when, like now, in the intense heat, he wears just a pale cotton shirt half open on his chest. In his dark face his brown crazy eyes have a sort of amber glow, but they have lost none of that deep kindness that I have come to adore.
He is wilder, lovelier, and more desirable than any man I have ever known, and I wonder how on earth I can ever have thought him odd, plain, and awkward.
Or maybe he was, and he has changed. I thought he would not stand a chance in the real world, but it was me who didn’t. He has grown up, somehow. I can still make him blush with my antics, but there’s nothing of the schoolboy in him anymore. He had to grow up, and quick, in London, when I was so useless and dazed, and he had to think and save us both, and leave everything he had, all his precious books and drawings, for my sake.
He catches me gazing at him longingly, and he puts out both hands towards me, smiling.
“And can the lovely dress be put to, ahem, use?” he asks as I take his hands in mine.
“Gentle use,” I say, with mock-severity, always, always teasing him a little.
“Ain’t I always gentle?” he asks, softly, very seriously, drawing me close.
And, truly, truly, he is.
****
Nathaniel
I want to paint her in this severely luxurious black dress, with as much of her skin bared as is decent, or maybe a little more, against a dark background. Her whiteness will be the only light thing in the painting. It will shine, unearthly pale and pure. She’s the light in my life.
As I kiss her shoulder, and her neck, and run my fingers on her stiff bodice which shapes the elegant curves of her body like silk armor, it occurs to me that this dress truly is indecently erotic. I wonder if it will make a scandal in Paris, where it is meant to go, and attract too much attention, and eventually get noticed by unwelcome eyes in London.
I will take the risk. We cannot live in fear forever. We cannot hide forever. We are so far from England, and we are not nobodies anymore. We can’t be snuffed out like a candle.
“You are thoughtful,” whispers Gabrielle huskily. “What is it?”
“Nothing,” I say, kneeling in front of her. “You are beautiful.” Gently, I pull her skirts up to touch her leg, but under the sleek black silk there are so many layers of flounces, ruffles, poufs, lace and bows, and a bustle cage, and I know not what else to wade through that I give up.
“I tell you what, if anyone says this dress is indecent, they can try getting through it to your skin. A nun would be safe as houses in this thing.”
She gives a snort of laughter and turns her back to me. “Get me out of it, then,”
So I undo the laces that I just fastened minutes ago, and remove her bodice, and unbutton her skirt, and everything else I can reach.
When she steps out of the gown with all its undergarments, like a pale nymph out of a pool of white foam and glimmering darkness, I hug her and kiss her again and again. Our mouths make all those funny little squelching noises such passionate kisses do, absurdly loud in the quiet of these thick old walls. She is rubbing herself against me, full of need, as she often is lately, but somewhat more than usual, and my body responds to hers with a fierceness that terrifies me, because I know that someone has hurt her, and scared her, and that I must never, ever let that animal hunger get the better of me. I hold her closer and tighter, but gently, and when she hooks a knee around my hip, I almost untie her garter to lower her stocking, feel the long smooth run of her leg. But I stop and step back, and give her a moment.
Because although to the world, to this world, she’s chosen to be Mrs. Grimsby, in here, to me, with me, it’s up to them every hour of every day, to decide who they are, what shape they wish to take.
But she makes no gesture to unlace her corset or remove her stockings. So I smile to her and lead her to the bed and we fall upon each other kissing ravenously, our members dancing between us. I grind my front on hers for a little while, not hard, to draw it out a bit longer, although I want her so much that I hurt, and I am a little taken aback when she pushes me off, and away, quite out of the bed.
I frown when I find myself kneeling on the floor, but she grins at me, and comes to sit on the edge in front of me. I lower my face to her lap, thinking she might want my mouth there, but she stops me again.
“Here, she says, laying back down and spreading her legs. She pulls her balls well up, and shows me the puckered, dark, tightly clamped hole between her lean buttocks. “I want you to come in here.”
“B—but,” I say, utterly at a loss, because I never did this before.
She laughs softly. “Please, spit on it first, will you? Make it wet?” There is this strangely pleading tone in her voice that makes me wary. I have the eerie feeling that I am treading on thin, thin ice.
“Are you sure, about this, darling?” I ask softly.
“Yes. Yes, I am. Please.”
I lick my finger first, to probe that tiny orifice, gauge its tightness, because I am scared of barging in like a stupid boy and hurting her. It looks so minuscule; I cannot imagine how it could be pleasurable to her to be penetrated there. She breathes deeper when I tentatively push a finger in, and then she smiles encouragingly.
“Yes. Yes,” she whispers, closing her eyes. “Deeper … push. Don’t be so bloody afraid. I am not made of glass.” She laughs a little, nervously it seems to me, but her body is heaving softly; she’s grinding her backside on the bed with every air of enjoying herself. The tightness of her sphincter is relaxing around my finger, as it twitches and gapes, fluttering like a butterfly.
“Do it, please,” she whispers again, in a soft, low, dreamy voice.
So I extract my finger, wet my glans as best I can and lean it against her. I am not as hard as I was before. This request took me so much by surprise that I’m somewhat thrown, but I pleasure my member with my hand until it seems like I mi
ght do it.
I take a deep breath. There’s only one way to go about this, I think, swallowing. My glans presses against her threshold, which is hot and alive and quivering, and spasms when I press. She gives a quiet gasp, a jolt, and I pull back hastily, deflating with the alarm.
“I can’t!” I exclaim. “I can’t! It’s just going to hurt you!”
She gives a sort of strange broken laugh and shakes her head.
“No, it won’t, Nathaniel, for goodness’ sake, stop worrying, and just fuck me. Just do it.”
I wish she had not said it quite that way, but there is no mistaking her earnestness and I lower my eyes to my reduced member, and stroke it a few times in the palm of my hand to revive it. I don’t think I ever did anything so bloody difficult in all my life.
When I press it to her anus again, she wraps her legs around me, so that I could not pull back even if I wanted to. She looks me in the eyes, and I can’t read her expression at all, but her need stirs something inside me and finally, I find the courage to press a bit harder. She takes a great gulp of air and closes her eyes, and it takes me all my nerve to keep pushing. And suddenly she opens to me. Like a strange, dark, man-eating flower, her flesh spreads and rises to mine, and engulfs me. I sink into it slowly, and she pulls me closer and closer with her legs, smiling now, a thin smile that spreads exultantly.
When I am entirely sunk into her, which takes a little while and some careful thrusting, I lean my hands on the edge of the bed.
“Is that good?” I ask, uncertainly, because I cannot imagine how it can possibly be.
She smiles again, shifting gently against me, so that I sit easier inside of her.
“Yes,” she whispers. “Yes, with you—it is.”
Perhaps I should be chilled by that answer, but I am not. I feel a quivering gladness rising, and I move my hands to her long, narrow hips, to stroke her, and gently, gently, pull her against me before swaying back and then forward again to thrust in her, and again and again, and again. It seems that my body knows what to do better than my head, so I let myself go. For the first time, I give myself leave to follow this simple, basic ancient rhythm.
She is wild, wild with pleasure now, and I am enthralled. I hadn’t known that I could do this to her, with her. And it’s just the most natural, the most right thing in the world, that she would take her own member in hand, and stroke in time with me, so that when I come, which is embarrassingly soon, by some miraculous coincidence, she does the same, and we climax together, she arching off the bed moaning, me pulling, pulling, pulling her body to mine, as I empty my pleasure in gushes inside the creamy silk and heat of her flesh, all thought and vision annihilated for a moment in pure liquid light.
Later as we lie spent on the bed, her back against my chest, as I hold her close, kissing her neck softly, she strokes my hand and arm and turns to be kissed on her lips. Her mouth still wears that catlike half smile, and our fingers weave together lazily.
“I didn’t know you wanted to do it—that way. You never told me,” I whisper.
“I didn’t. Want it. Not that way. Not for a long time. But I do now. I want you … in every possible way.”
I smile at her. I want to ask her questions, but I don’t. Her eyes have a lost look for a moment, sadness, grief, relief mingling as she stares at the ceiling, or perhaps at nothing in particular. But then she smiles again and turns to me, and cups my face in her hand, to pull me closer and kiss me again.
“Thank you,” she whispers. “For this, for everything. For loving me. For saving me.”
I make her turn completely then, to embrace her properly, and hold her and kiss her again and again and again.
“You saved me,” I say, softly in her ear. “I was like a dead man walking. And you made me live again. You are worth living for. My love. My darling.”
She shakes her head, but says nothing, and smiles, and we just hold tight to each other, rocking gently.
Much, much later, I wake up in the middle of the night.
We fell asleep without going down to dinner and I am ravenous, and I don’t care.
Gabrielle must have woken up, too, earlier, and she has undressed, and lies naked in the warm night, looking like Gabriel.
It’s becoming harder to tell them apart, now that their hair has grown longer and Gabrielle doesn’t wear a wig anymore. It’s hard to say when she’s her or he’s him, and there are times when I don’t know what name to call them. But it’s just words. Abstruse classifications and definitions and simplifications. Philosophy will clip an Angel's wings.
It’s not that I am not good at words. It’s that there aren’t the right words for describing what she or he is in the English language, and perhaps there will never be, because how could any word be so beautiful, so effortless, so complete in itself?
I can tell her, or him, or them, much better with a pencil and paper, when all the lines of their body play the unearthly song of their unique, mesmerizing, androgynous beauty, and there are no boundaries, no hard divides, just this unbelievable, indescribable, angelic perfection, strong yet delicate, graceful yet majestic.
I kiss my way slowly down along Gabriel’s slender body, to his member, where it lies between his slightly parted legs. I kiss it until it stirs, and when I feel the life of it against my lips and tongue, I take it in my mouth, and just hold it there as I fall asleep again, holding his middle tight to my face.
****
The post in Garda is a rather hit-and-miss affair. I always travel to Verona to send off my work to London, and letters may be delivered at our house, or left at the minuscule post office in the village, or lost in transit, or delivered to the wrong house entirely. However, the local population is so small and tightly knit, and all in all benevolent, that most stray letters will make their way to us, given time.
This letter arrives with a basket of figs, hand delivered by Sandro, the ten-year-old son of a market gardener down the road.
I have stopped being surprised by these things, so I just take the basket and the letter, thank him profusely and make a mental note to bring some sort of thank you gift to the house later today. The letter is from Henry, and as I enter the dining room, where Gabrielle is measuring out some fabric on the table, I give a gasp of astonishment.
“Oh my God!”
“What?” she asks, alarmed.
“It’s Henry! He’s coming here—” I have to check on the letter’s date, and make some calculations, “next week!”
“Next week? It’s Saturday today!”
“I know! Damn letter was lost in the mail for weeks!”
I am half over the moon that Henry is coming, and half at a loss where to stow him. For the first time in our long friendship I will be the host, instead of the guest, and I suddenly wonder, do we have a decent guestroom? Is it the room where the bats nest? I am rather fond of the bats. Is there a washbasin in it? Clean sheets? Towels? And what about food? Henry must be properly fed on the best things the Veneto can offer, and I have no idea where to start. Gabrielle looks at me as I stand rooted in the middle of the room like a pillar of salt, my chin loose with shock, and she drops her chalk and her measuring tape.
“Don’t you worry your darling head. I’ll take care of the spare room. And I will talk to Amelia about meals and things. When she turns up again. You go painting.”
“Nonsense, we can do it together.”
“I know your idea of making order in a room. It will not do. You go painting, Nathaniel, please do.” She gives me a fond kiss to sweeten her rather well-deserved rebuke, and gives me a light push towards my studio.
****
Henry arrives on Tuesday afternoon, barely preceded by a note sent from Verona. There is a cloud of dust rising on the road-bend under the Rocca, like a whole regiment of horse has suddenly descended on the lake-shore.
I have gone down to the village to meet him, and I am astonished to see not only a pony trap coming down the road but also a larger cart pulled by two draft horses.
>
Henry jumps off the trap, bellowing a greeting that is probably heard as far as Sirmione on the opposite shore of the lake, and he pulls me into the sort of hug broken ribs are made from.
“How are you, how are you, how are you, my dear boy?” he asks, holding me at arm’s length to inspect me as closely as a canvas he is considering to buy. “No, don’t answer. You are absolutely blooming, I could tell from a hundred yards away! And have you lost your razor? Ah, never mind, you sport a beard well. And this climate suits you. Or is it the married life?” He wiggles his eyebrows meaningfully at me.
Henry himself is obviously blooming, too, a little plumper than he was, and beaming with happiness.
“It’s wonderful to see you again,” I say, in utter earnest, returning the embrace with equal fervour. “But what did you bring? Half the house?”
“Gifts,” he says, simply. “Can we have a drink of cool wine? I am absolutely parched with dust. And then something to eat? Is that little decent tavern still there? The one behind the church, with the pretty girl? And I’ll need a hotel room. I am fainting with the heat.”
“The tavern is still there. The pretty girl is a stout mother of five. Still pretty, mind. But you will come home with me. Your room is ready, and there’s dinner being cooked as we speak.”
“Cooked by whom?” he asks warily.
“You’ll see. We won’t poison you, I promise,” I say smiling, as he climbs into the pony trap again.
****
Gabrielle
Henry’s arrival at the house on the lake is both cause for celebration and for a certain amount of apprehension. Nathaniel is obviously elated to see his old friend again. And so am I, sure. We owe him everything we have. Not only we would never have left London without his help, but also, we’d never be able to sell Nathaniel’s work without him. It is lovely to see Nathaniel so happy.
Bus as for me, I am rather more anxious than delighted.
I have become used to being la signora Grimsby.
After Paris, I had to choose if I wanted to travel and live with Nathaniel as his friend or his wife, and I chose to be his wife, because I didn’t want to have to love him in secret.
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