USUAL DISCLAIMER

"THE QUEST" is a gay story, with some parts containing graphic scenes of sex between males. So, if in your land, religion, family, opinion and so on this is not good for you, it will be better not to read this story. But if you really want, or because YOU don't care, or because you think you really want to read it, please be my welcomed guest.

THE QUEST by Andrej Koymasky © 2018
written on November 23, 1993
Translated by the Author
English text kindly revised by John
CHAPTER 4

Osvaldo and Giulio had decided to meet in the evening, to have supper together then to go to see a movie, just to make the time pass and to relax a little. Later, as soon as he was alone, Osvaldo called Leo. The boy was happy to hear him.

"May I come to your place, Leo?"

"Sure! Are you coming now?"

"Yes."

"Will you stop here for supper too?"

"No, I can't. I have a meeting, later..."

"What a pity. How long can you stay at my place?"

"Three hours, three and half."

"Then don't be late. Come quickly!"

Leo's haste to meet him, his pleasure, his desire gave a tingling sensation to Osvaldo. He decided to call a taxi to arrive sooner. Leo welcomed him as if he was an old friend, even though they had first met just a little more than forty-eight hours before.

Leo was wearing the same tracksuit.

"Am I disturbing you? Were you studying?"

"Yes, I was, but I'm glad to stop for a while to be with you." the boy said, pulling his sheepskin jacket off him and caressing him through the shirt. Osvaldo pulled Leo to himself and kissed him. He slipped his hands under the elastic band of his tracksuit trousers and caressed his small and firm buttocks.

"You aren't wearing your briefs, Leo..." he noticed with pleasure.

"One less thing to take off, right? I would even have waited for you naked."

"Why didn't you?"

"What if somebody was passing on the landing while I was opening the door for you?"

"He would faint because of your beauty."

"Mmhh, how flirtatious you are! Do you want to make me fall for you at any cost?"

"We would not even have the time for that, I'm afraid."

"A real pity. I feel so good with you."

"You're the second one to tell me so today."

"Another boy?"

"Yes, but he's the boyfriend of my sister. Nothing to do with him!"

"That's good for me. Is he handsome?"

"Yes, very."

"And I?"

"I don't know. Let me just check..." Osvaldo jokingly said and started to undress him.

When the boy was naked, assuming a model pose, asked, "So then? What do you think?"

"That if you don't undress me immediately, all my clothes will get torn like those of Hulk... but the trousers first, differently from him."

They laughed and Leo hurriedly undressed him. "Come here, terrible Hulk. Make me feel how strong you are."

"Leo, I do so like you!"

"Yes, I see that..." the boy answered, adhering to him with desire. "Do you know the meaning of Osvaldo?"

"It's a name... it's my name."

"It means 'power given by god'!"

"And which power did god give me?"

"The power to fascinate men."

"You think so? I never realized I have the power of fascination."

"Possibly that's why you are even more fascinating."

"And what does Leopoldo mean?"

"Daring amongst the people."

"Yes, you've been daring, with me."

"We both have the right name, then."

"Therefore we fit so well together. I'm sorry having so little time to spend with you."

"Then we have not to waste it."

They united with rapture until they reached the peak of pleasure. Then Leo relaxed on Osvaldo's lap, tenderly caressed by him.

"I hate those who run away afterward..." the boy murmured. "I'm so happy like this."

Osvaldo kissed him lightly, "But in a while I'll have to run away, I too..."

"Yes, and it's a pity. I am almost ready to start it again."

"But you also have to study, don't you?" said Osvaldo gently.

"Yes, linguistics. But I would rather study anatomy on you."

"You already are an expert on that."

"Never enough. And you are the most stimulating textbook I could dream of. And you too are an expert."

"If I can, I'll come again tomorrow. But I don't yet know... Nowadays I'm living from day to day."

"But don't disappear overnight."

"No, I promise."

They dressed again. Osvaldo stayed for a while to chat with that adorable boy, but then had to go.

He found Giulio waiting for him in front of Letizia's house. Osvaldo apologized for being late.

Giulio suggested having supper at his home, "I would like to show you my place. And so I thought I can fix our meal, if it's alright with you."

"With pleasure. Can we go?"

"Do you have any problems with food?"

"No, I can eat everything. Are you a good cook?"

"Well, I do like cooking very much. How about you?"

"I get off well enough. You know how it is, when you live alone, you have to be able to do the best you can about almost everything, from darning a hole on a sock to ironing shirts..."

"Yes, but after all it's also diverting." Giulio answered while they were getting into his car.

Giulio was living in an old building in Oltrarno, a little further than Pitti Palace. It was just one very wide room with a high coffer ceiling where Giulio had installed several alcoves using some modular office panels two meters forty tall. It was a really agreeable mix of ancient and modern. Osvaldo looked around, pleased.

"It's really beautiful, here at your place... did you furnish it?"

"Yes. I'm glad you like it."

"An apartment is something like the visiting card of whoever lives there. I feel as if I know you better now."

"A nice simile, that of the visiting card. Would you like to come with me to the kitchen while I fix our meal, or you would rather stay there to listen to some good music? Or if you prefer, I can switch on the TV..."

"No, I'd rather stay with you. Then if you want, I can give you a hand..."

"No, that's alright. Have a seat here then."

"Is this Letizia's place?"

"No, she prefers to sit in the other room."

"Ah! No, I like it better here. In my opinion receiving a friend in the kitchen is... genuinely welcoming him."

"That's true. We've only known each other for just a short time and yet I already feel that you are a friend. A real friend."

"Same here. I'm still asking myself why Letizia never told me about you."

"She sometimes told me about you, Osvaldo. Mainly when she was telling me about her childhood. But I imagined you quite differently."

"Ah, really? And how?"

"I don't know... more... more common, possibly."

"Am I not a common type?" Osvaldo asked, curious.

"Perhaps I meant more of an uninteresting person. But no, you are all but an uninteresting person."

"But what did my sister tell you about me? I'm curious..."

"That you were always hanging out with your friends. That you liked playing soccer. That you didn't like studying very much, but you never failed at school... Ah, and that once you got drunk with gin, and that then you were ashamed to go back home..."

Osvaldo laughed. "Yes, it's true, I was scared of my Dad. And at the bar Letizia was making me drink one coffee after the other telling that my drunkeness would pass. My god, how my head was spinning! And what a stomach-ache later!"

"Did your father see you were drunk?"

"I don't think so. Or at least, if he did, he pretended not to, I don't know. Letizia did her best to... to cover for me."

"Was there a good understanding between you two?"

"Yes, she always... accepted me. To Letizia I was above all her brother. She never judged me, never condemned me..."

"Well, a brother, like a friend, should always try to understand more than to judge, don't you think?"

"Yes, that's right, he should. Do you have any brothers or sisters?"

"No, I'm an only son."

"And your family?"

"They live in Prato."

"Do you have good relations with them?"

"Yes... average. We meet three or four times in a year and we call each other once in a while. When I decided to leave them, I was twenty-four... They took it badly, but they didn't make too much fuss. But I had my job here, and wanted to live here, by myself."

"Did you have other girlfriends, before Letizia?"

"Yes, three. But none like Letizia. And I'm not saying that only because she's my present girlfriend... or because she's your sister."

"How did you meet?"

"In a disco. She was alone and I liked her. I asked her if she wanted to dance so we danced all night. We amused ourselves. I saw her to her house and asked her if we could meet again. She said yes. We met some two or three more times and I started to court her - I was falling for her. Then once she asked me to show her where I lived. I brought her here and... and she said she wanted to stay sleeping here with me."

"You didn't expect such a request?"

"No. But of course I accepted with pleasure. Even though when it was time to go bed, I was embarrassed because I really desired her so much and... and I was ashamed she could see I was aroused."

"She should have been pleased..." Osvaldo objected, thinking that, at least, he would certainly have been pleased in her place.

"I don't know. With girls, you never know how to behave. If they see you are aroused, they accuse you of thinking only of sex, but if you aren't aroused, they ask you if you aren't by chance abnormal. Well, this wasn't a problem with Letizia, she liked seeing I was aroused. But that first time I couldn't know it."

"Love, the real thing, is not just spiritual ecstasy. It's also physical desire and therefore... for us males, a hard-on." Osvaldo observed, then said, "The beauty of love is exactly in the total involvement of body and soul. It's something... total. You are in it, all of you, entire."

"Yes it's true. But it seems that women always make a distinction between soul and body. Either you love, or you fuck, according to them... Well, I'm possibly making a generalization, but this is my impression, my experience. Either you say sweet little words and give tenderly caresses, or you fuck like rabbits! For me, on the contrary, the two things have to go together."

"Sure, it really is so!" Osvaldo said, with decision.

"Man is not made in boxes, in watertight compartments. Or at leas not the well-rounded, complete man... Yes, sure, there could be the occasion when one is interested only in fucking, but only when there is no love. If one really loves, sex is the most right, natural way to express it."

"And the more complete." Osvaldo added.

"Yes, right, and the more complete."

They ate. Osvaldo praised Giulio for his cuisine.

Giulio was modest: "Oh, nothing special, just something made quickly. One day I would like to make you something really special, like the Orloff timbale, for instance."

"I never ate that. Just the name make me feel it's tasty..."

"Yes, I'll make it for you one day. Now that we've got to know each other, we'll still meet, won't we?"

"Of course. Let's just hope we can find Letizia."

"Yes, of course. You'll see that we will be able to find her."

"We don't have very many clues..."

"Let's wait for that cartoon copy... who knows..."

"I don't have a great hope. But we'll see."

"Sure. But I'm confident."

After they ate, Osvaldo proposed washing up, but Giulio said to leave it all as it was, "So, then do you want to go and see a movie?"

"Do you have one in mind?"

"No. We can check in the newspaper."

"I... if you don't mind, I'd like staying here and chatting with you better."

"Very good."

"But if you want to go to the movies..."

"No, no. I like the idea of staying here with you too."

"So, then, let's wash up and tidy the kitchen."

"No, later. Come in the other room, I want to show you some of my computer animations, if you like."

"And how!"

Giulio switched on his computer, put in a disk, opened the animation program and then a file on the disk. The screen went black, then started to colour and some moving shapes emerged. At first they seemed just coloured shapes but they gradually changed their colours, assumed a shape and appeared as a little dancing man and, moving, he left in his place some letters, until a publicity message appeared. As a backing it had a merry jingle. Osvaldo was watching, fascinated.

"Did you do all this?" he asked, amazed.

"Well, I just put together shapes, colours and music. I have then a program that animates it all following a special script I created for this work. If you create a character following some parameter, the program is able to make it move according to the sequence you want, both in the single parts of the body and in a virtual three-dimensional space..."

"It's wonderful! So, with this program, you can make real cartoons."

"Yes, in fact."

"Could you give life to the characters of my comic strips?"

"Yes, sure. It would be enough if you draw them in front and in profile, then the program processor can do all the rest."

"For instance, to prepare the sequence you just showed me, how long does one have to work?"

"It depends on the skill of the programmer and on the complexity of the movements. When I made it, I worked for a little more than two weeks. But if I had to do it now, I think that I could do it in fewer than five days."

"It's fantastic! It's really fantastic!"

"I'm glad you like it."

"Do you have other of your works to show me?"

"Yes, a few. But the best of my productions are at my work place. Here I have just my first proofs, and some experiments..."

"How much does such a computer with that program cost?"

"Around eight millions."

"Wow! But at least you earn good money?"

"Yes. Even though I reinvest a great part of what I earn in buying new equipment. My dream is to be able to work on my own one day. But to do that I'll need to spend several more millions."

Giulio took some other disks and showed Osvaldo more of his creations. He watched Osvaldo, pleased at the enthusiastic expression of his guest.

"Good lord, I feel as if I am a child once again, I feel filled with astonishment. The world of fantasy becomes real!" Osvaldo exclaimed.

"It's good being able to retain the amazement of a child. It means that you still have a pure heart." Giulio said, almost in a whisper.

"Possibly comic strip designers remain forever children, in the depth in their hearts." Osvaldo answered." But you too, to be able to create such beautiful things!"

"Yes, you're right. So, then, do you like my toys?"

"To be crazy for! A lot better than going to the movies, Giulio! This is really beautiful."

"Letizia is not interested in them... She calls them my videogames..."

"She understands nothing! You made them; you don't use them. This is art, anything but videogames. No, really, if she says so, it means that she just doesn't understand!"

"Well, but you, as you love drawing, can possibly be inclined to understand this kind of work better, I think."

"No way! Well... yes it could be a little as you say, but... but it is just a question of... of..."

"... of not having killed the child that lives inside us, right?"

"Exactly so!"

"At times Letizia reproaches me to be too naïve."

"Well, I'd like being naïve a thousand times more than being malicious."

"Yes, I agree. But she seems not to understand it. She says that the world belongs to crafty people, not to simpletons."

"And they can hold the world tight! The fact is that the crafty people, in reality, deceive themselves to possess the world. But what do they really possess? Money, possibly. Power, possibly. But the world... the crafty people cannot possess the sunsets, or a starry sky, or the flight of a butterfly... they are not even aware of all that!" Osvaldo exclaimed. "And so they don't ever realize the beauty of your work, or the poetry of my drawings. They can also deceive themselves that they possess the whole world. But the world, in reality, belongs to us, Giulio, it's yours and mine. And this because we don't deceive ourselves believing we possess it, but we are able to see it. We are able to enjoy it... us, and those like us."

Giulio smiled with bright eyes, "You are able to say wonderful things, that I already thought were forever buried inside me, or inside others. Buried, hidden. Possibly because of the fear that the other's incomprehension could... crumple them."

"Incomprehension, Giulio, is a really bad beast. I also have often to hide... to conceal a part of myself out of the fear that the others could besmirch things that are beautiful for me that they could not understand."

"And isn't that sad, Osvaldo?"

"Yes, at times I can feel all the sadness of it, it's true."

After some time they became aware of how late it had become. Giulio wanted to see Osvaldo back home with his car. They talked some more, in the car parked at Letizia's apartment, almost if they both were unconsciously reluctant to part. But finally they said good night to each other and Osvaldo went upstairs to go to bed.

He opened the night table drawer and took out the two photographs of Giulio. He looked them for a long time, and kissed them.

"Is it possible that I'm falling in love with you, Giulio? You are the most rare pearl I've ever met... and you are forbidden to me. Yes, I'm already in love with you... even though I know it's a hopeless love. If I had the courage to confess it to you, you could possibly even understand it... but never return it. You are in love with my sister. But, I'm asking myself, what do you see in her? She doesn't understand you, she's not able to appreciate you... I would... but she's a woman, and you like women. When I first saw this picture, I thought you were really beautiful. But you possess a beauty that is way more precious than the physical one... I have to content myself with your friendship... It is somewhat like seeing, smelling a delicious dish without being allowed to taste it. And you are not even aware of what you have aroused in me... I would like to have told you, like my sister that night, that I wanted to stay and sleep there with you... but this time it would have been me to be the one ashamed to let you see my arousal, from a fear you would mistake my love for the desire to just fuck... She wanted your body... you only my friendship. How droll life is!"

He put the pictures on the night table, switched off the light and waited to fall asleep, but it seemed not to come. His mind was going on feeling filled with Giulio.

The next day, when they met again, this time in Letizia's apartment because they were waiting the courier's arrival, they noted the facts of the situation - from what they got from her colleagues, it seemed that she didn't have friends in Florence besides Giulio, that she did those five short and mysterious trips to Rome for a medical check up, or to do shopping, or possibly for both, and that all summed up she was happy with her job even though she possibly would have liked to earn more money... and that, for some reason, when she left, she tore Giulio's picture in pieces...

They had also tried to have a talk with the neighbour living above her apartment, the one having the spare key, but from her also they didn't get any more clues, beside that when she saw Letizia leave, she was alone and had with her just two suitcases and a vanity case. Letizia had said nothing to her about where she was going, nor for how long.

When Giulio had checked Letizia's wardrobe, he said with amazement, "It seems that nothing is missing, or almost nothing... What did she carry then in her two suitcases? The clothes she was usually wearing are almost all here, just two or three of them are missing..."

"Did you often come here?" Osvaldo asked him.

"No, rather seldom. Usually she came to my place."

"And I bet that... you never made love here."

"No, never here. And not only because at my place I've a king size bed."

"What do you mean?"

"One day that we were doing some petting, embracing in the other room, on the sofa, and we were about to do something... more, when she blocked me and said - no, I don't feel like doing it here at my place..."

"What an odd thing. Why not here at her place? It doesn't make sense..."

"I asked but she didn't want to explain to me."

"When a couple feels desire, any place that is not under the eyes of other people, is perfect. But, tell me something, when you made love, it was always and only on the bed?"

"Yes..."

"Never, what can I say, in the bathroom, on the carpet, on a table, on the armchair... standing..."

"No. She didn't want that. She said she is not a porno-star..."

"But what the fucking shit has it to do that with porno-stars! It's so good doing it where it happens... At least, when it happens. I don't say doing it on purpose, as if asking - where haven't we done it yet? But I don't see why only in bed. Good heavens, my sister, what a traditionalist! For sure I never thought she is like that! Letizia seemed to be more... rebellious, more full of fantasies, more non-conformist... I didn't think she had become so middle-class."

"To tell the truth, when I first met her, she was more... as you say. I would say that she became conventional or middle-class in this last year."

"Did you notice other changes in her, in this last year?"

"No... well, just in these last months... something indefinable, but... if we were not here discussing it, I could possibly not even have become aware of it."

"What is it about?"

"She was a little more... absent. As if she listened to me less, less than usual. And possibly she was also more restless... Oh my god! It could possibly just be that I'm going out of my mind now, I don't know..."

"You mean that she changed towards you?"

"No, not really changed. Or just a little bit. Perhaps more distant when we were talking but... hotter, when we were making love... But this is what I can say now... I wouldn't have said that in March, possibly. I didn't realize it, at least not consciously."

"But she evidently was already hiding something from you." Osvaldo said.

"Yes. It seems so."

"But what could she hide from you, and why?"

"Above all, why. I always thought that in a relationship there must be the utmost trust and the strongest mutual sincerity."

"Of course it has to be like that. If there isn't mutual trust and sincerity, it means that there isn't true love, that one is using the other, in a way. Possibly unconsciously, but still using the other."

"Osvaldo, you have a vision of love, of the couple relationship, of sexuality that totally matches mine. You must have had beautiful love experiences, I think."

"Oh, just one when I was adolescent, but it's true, it was like that."

"And how did it end?"

"Oh... we remain very good friends... I'm even the godfather of their son... But love between us couldn't go on... A complex story..."

"Do you still suffer for it?"

"No, I'm now totally serene. We still are friends, as I told you, close friends. Of course at first I felt bad... very bad. But when I understood that it was the right thing to do, I gave up..."

"That is real love! I think that the peak of love is to give up the person we love to secure her happiness."

"Yes... but it's a cold comfort. Anyway, life mends everything. Man is the most adaptable animal."

"I think that for love... I would be able to accept everything." Giulio said in a dreaming tone.

"But one has to be really strong to accept... and also pass for a weakling to the other's eyes."

"Don't you think that it is love that makes one really strong? So strong that makes you free even from yourself? So strong that it makes you able to surpass your limits, your weaknesses, your selfishness, and your prejudices? Love is the only really revolutionary force I know..."

"Revolutionary?" Osvaldo asked.

"Yes, because when you fall in love, all your inner world is revolutionized and all your values system is reorganized in a deeply new system. My job, for instance, was the most important thing to me. But now that I'm in love, it became the second, the third... First of all comes the person I love and her happiness, I come second, as I am her love object, then my job, then..."

"Yes, it's so, I see what you mean. But when a love comes to its end... doesn't everything crumble into pieces?"

"Of course, yes. And then you need to pick up the pieces and start to rebuild them into a new order."

"Yes... to pick up the pieces... I know what you mean." Osvaldo commented, thinking of Marco and the end of their love affair.

CONTINUES IN CHAPTER 5


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