When we reached his home, Lorenzo showed me to the place where I would sleep. He had prepared a pallet especially for me. The room being small, in daytime we put my pallet on top of his pallet.
"So, you are Giorgio -- even now that I know, it seems incredible to me... you are physically so alike..." he said sadly. Then he added: "Giacomo fixed something for dinner, if you want, sit at the table... you must be hungry..."
"Not so much..."
"To tell the truth, me neither, but it will be better if we eat. Life continues, doesn't it?" he said trying to assume an easy tone.
"Lorenzo... I'm so sorry, really. For my fault..."
"Not on your life! He is the crown prince, he had to go anyway to resume his place. And then, we know, the beautiful things are doomed to end. What I cannot make out..." he started, then became silent.
"Is what?" I asked almost in a whisper.
"Is that... you see, I was in love with you... Then Giacomo appeared and I thought he was you, and I gave him the love I was believing to give to you, and I didn't notice nothing..."
"But he has been able to reciprocate your love, while I didn't... You in reality love him, not me..."
"This is exactly what I can't understand, that is what confuses me -- who do I really love, you or him?"
"You lived with him for months... you exchanged love... To me it is clear that you love him. Physically we are the same, but we are not the same person. We are different, inside."
"Yes, possibly yes. When I made love with you... and then with him... yes, there was something different. I thought it was due to the loss of memory, but now, I am aware, it was something else. You were more... impulsive. He was more tender. But very alike also in the way to make love. You possibly were a little more simple, he perhaps more refined. But you are both spontaneous and sincere. And so beautiful! And yet, I now look at you and see him... or perhaps it is more correct to say that he was looking at him and saw you... Anyway now I have no more him and no more you..."
"Giacomo loves you, he really does. He will find the way to be again together... I'm sure."
"But how? He would have to renounce to everything. Even if he wanted, they would not allow him."
"He can bring you to the Court, can't he?"
"Me? At Court? An ordinary low birth man? Can you guess that? Come on! No, it is not possible. And even if it was, I would feel like a fish out of water. And then, what could I do, at Court? The servant. And how can the prince, make love with a servant? Possibly in secret, at times. But it would not be living together, right? No, it's over, it is simply over. Useless to deceive myself."
I felt guilty for the pain I could feel in his words. I would have liked to be able to do something for him, but what?
No! I didn't think to that not even a single moment! And he neither, I'm sure. I was in love with you, and he with Giacomo. How much we are alike, we could not start it again, between him and me. Didn't you perhaps fear it could happen? Ah, good, happily!
That night neither one of us slept -- I could hear him tossing and turning in his pallet that he must have felt too empty. About my thoughts, they were divided between his pain, Giacomo's choice, and how much I was missing you.
On the next morning he prepared to go to work.
"I'll had to find a pretext to explain why he will not come to work. Our employer will be mad, he disappeared without a warning but... what can I do?" he said thoughtfully.
"I can come. As you worked together, you can tell me what and how to work, can't you? Nobody will notice anything."
"And what for? Anyway, you will have to stop, sooner or later, and then I will have to find a pretext anyway."
"Well, for three reasons -- first, I don't like the idea of having to wait for Gualtiero twiddling his thumbs. I would die with sadness and bore... The second is that I have to earn a living, I can't live on you, right? And last, we can prepare an excuse for when I'll have to leave... Please..."
I managed to persuade him. The work was not too difficult to do. And as I predicted, nobody noticed I was not "that" Giorgio... Lorenzo at work was calling everybody by name, so that I could then do the same, and similar things.
I found more or less the difficulty that Giacomo found going back to the Court, though for him the pretext to have found back his memory made possibly things a little more easy. And Lorenzo carried out with me more or less the same role you had with Giacomo.
How was Lorenzo? He mustered up courage... but for sure he was suffering very much.
Once he told me: "Yes, it is true, you are different. I can see it, gradually. No, not physically, you really are like twins. But your expressions, your way to gesticulate, your way of thinking. Well, a little you do resemble him in that also, but you are different. Who knows what he is doing, now?"
"Thinking of you" I would have liked to answer him. From what you told me, I really believe he was thinking of him... As I was continually thinking of you. And you of me, I know. But, I don't know why, I said nothing. Possibly I felt that like an inadequate answer, or perhaps I felt like if I risked to enter too much in his pain, with that answer.
Another time, instead, he asked me: "After living for more than half year as a prince, is it not hard for you now not having all that you had?"
"No, not at all. The only one heavy thing is not having Gualtiero..." I said, and at once bit my tongue -- I could soon have you again, but for him, on the contrary... But luckily he didn't seem to have had that thought.
Then he asked me: "How was life at Court?"
"Endurable, at times. But, sure, I am now a lot more free. The comforts... well, you know, I paid them at the cost of many, too many sacrifices. A prince is really a prisoner, in many aspects. I don't think I could have withstood much more... that's why I asked Giacomo to resume his place. I know that doing so I did you ill, that I acted as a selfish person, but..."
"No -- you had to come back to the place where you belong, and he too. It had to be just that way."
"But he felt good here. He was happy with you. The problem was just mine, and I took it all away from him."
"No, you rather gave him more than six months of happiness and freedom. He thought so, he told me so, before we parted. He is grateful to you, anyway."
"Because Giacomo is good."
"Yes. You said a right thing -- he is a good man... and he is a right man. He will be a wonderful King, when his time comes."
The pride in his voice moved me. In those words there was all the love that Lorenzo had for Giacomo.
When I received your fist letter, completely unexpected as you didn't tell me you would have written me, I was radiant. It was full of your love for me. You wrote me about the re-integration of Giacomo at Court, that all was proceeding well, besides the problem that Giacomo was sad for his separation from Lorenzo, and that he was racking his brains about a way to be again with him.
Well, even if just a little, I knew the Court -- so, after I received that letter, I started to think what would I do in Giacomo's place, if I wanted to have Lorenzo at my side. Well, you know well the fruit of my reflections that I wrote you in the answer I sent to you. And I am so glad that the plan I devised, even if with some changes, had been welcomed by Giacomo and was carried out.
I knew rather well, possibly because I made love with him for quite a long period, the mentality of Ermanno the secretary. I was sure that, approaching him correctly, he would have willingly become Giacomo's accomplice.
I agreed with you that, different from my plan, you thought that Ermanno should not be informed at all about the exchange between Giacomo and me, and therefore about my existence. This knowledge could have given him too much power on Giacomo. He had to believe just that Giacomo, in his sojourns at the castle, had had the possibility to meet with Lorenzo, and did fall in love with him, and so now wanted him at Court, near him. So this would be all that is told to Ermanno.
And I must say that Ermanno devised a really simple and good plan, proof be that it is working perfectly.
But what I didn't foresee, is that I had some difficulties persuading Lorenzo about the feasibility of that plan, and therefore to make him accept it. I think that what at last persuaded him, were not so much my words and my reasoning with him, but his love for Giacomo and his desire to be able to be again at his side.
When I received your message where you explained Ermanno's plan to me, I talked with Lorenzo.
"Listen, Lorenzo -- Giacomo, Gualtiero and me, have devised a plan to introduce you at Court." I started.
"Really? I really can see again Giacomo? Even if just from afar, even if just for a few minutes... I would like that so much! What do you think, tell me." he said brightening.
"No, it is not question to see him from far, and not just for a few minutes -- it is being able to live at close contact with him, and forever."
"Come on!" he said becoming gloomy again, with the expression of one who feels mocked.
"Listen, I have to explain something beforehand. When I was at Court, before falling in love with Gualtiero, for some months I made love with my secretary, whose name is Ermanno. He knows nothing about the swapping. But Giacomo (that Ermanno believes to be me) told him that when he came to the castle, he met you and fell in love with you, so that he now wants you at Court, at his side, and asked him to help him to make this possible. Well, Ermanno devised a very simple plan -- he will introduce you as his acquaintance and ask you to be hired as his helper. He will teach you the work and, when you are ready, he will leave you his place as the prince's secretary. Giacomo, in exchange, will raise him to a more important position. You know, the prince's secretary lives in close contact with the prince, you can, or rather should, meet every day, and so also make love without problems."
He listened, still gloomy, but without interrupting me. When I ended, he said: "Me at Court? Me a secretary? I can barely read and write! And then, I would not even be able to behave like one of the Court, nor... all those things. How could I... No, no... These are just daydreams."
"Ermanno will instruct you. Sure, you will have to devote yourself hard, and possibly at the beginning could be difficult, but... it is worth, isn't it? You will have Giacomo near you, and both he and Ermanno, anyway, will help you. It is not impossible at all. Moreover, if I succeeded in making off as the prince, how more easily will it be for you to live at Court? Don't you think it is worth at least to try? It is not sensible to surrender before trying, is it?"
"I... But then, can you imagine -- me the crown prince's lover! As long as I believed him to be you, one like me... but now..."
"Prince or no prince, he is always him, right? And he is in love with you, right? And you are in love with him, right? Do you think that love is so different according the social class a person belongs to? Giacomo, before being the prince, is a human being, like you, like me, and loves you..."
"Class -- here, you said the right thing. We belong to two social classes, classes too different."
"But when you made love with him, when you were living together, there was no problem at all, right?"
"No, sure there wasn't. But I didn't know he was the prince. I believed it was you."
"Therefore the problem is just inside your head. In reality it is not a true problem, it doesn't exist!"
"Forget it! Me at Court..."
"Don't think like that. Think rather that you can live with Giacomo. Is that not what you desire?"
"What I desire, you say? What I dream! But dreams are of two kinds -- those you can perhaps also make real, and those that are absolutely impossible to make happen. And this dream of mine belongs to the latter category, that's the way it seems to me!"
"To make dreams happen, at times, depends solely on us. And this dream, now, depends only on you. Try to become aware of that!"
Well, we almost quarrelled. But I didn't intend to surrender. Not only because the first idea of that plan had been mine -- but because I was feeling remorse for the unhappiness of Lorenzo and Giacomo as it had been my fault. If I convinced Lorenzo, I could lift this guilt from my conscience.
Well, you know that... I love myself, don't you? Sure I wanted to feel well, not to have remorse, does that seem so strange to you? But it is also true that I am fond of Lorenzo and Giacomo, very much, and really I was also thinking of their happiness.
We discussed the issue for several days, that's why you didn't receive my answer -- I wanted to be able to write you that we could start with our plan. Anyway, after a while, finally Lorenzo agreed.
He told me so in a rather peculiar way: "Giorgio... did you and Gualtiero decide what to do once you will be back together again?"
"Well, not exactly. He will leave the Court and will come here. And then, we will decide. We will have to find a job, a home. We didn't really have time to do detailed projects."
"Is he wealthy?"
"His family is, for sure. But he, on his own, I think he has very little. And he cannot ask for help from his family, with the choice he will make. Somewhat as it happened to you."
"Yes, I see. You know, I was thinking... at least as a start, as long as you don't find something better, you two can live here, in this house."
"Thank you, you are very kind... but here it is just good for a couple. With three we would tread on each other toes, even unintentionally. And then, being at last together, he and I, we would like to have our intimacy, you understand, and here it will not be possible."
"Who talked about living here in three? I would leave, anyway."
"You would leave? And where? Are you perhaps thinking about going back to your family?"
"To my family? Never in my life! I was just thinking that... I could even try becoming... a secretary."
I was so happy that finally he decided to accept, that I felt like hugging him! So, at last, I wrote you. And all was set in motion. Well, I must say, as much before all seemed to me easy, so much, once Lorenzo left to meet Ermanno, a thousand difficulties started to come up in my mind. And between others, also that Ermanno could try it with Lorenzo, making everything more difficult.
You laugh? Well, I agree, it didn't happen, but knowing Ermanno, it could have happened, believe me... Well that's also true, if he tried he would have risked too much with the prince... Yes, it was a silly fear, but in that moment, or rather in those days, I thought also to that possibility.
Therefore Lorenzo left his job, but I continued -- exactly the opposite of what we foresaw. Rather funny, isn't it?
I was waiting for you. A month had elapsed and the fact that Giacomo asked you to stay some more weeks didn't please me, even if I understood that we were for sure not in the conditions to refuse him that. Yes, right, mainly because he didn't refuse to take his place back.
Yes, I know that you missed me very much, Love. And in those days it was a heavy burden for me too. But all's well that ends well, right? And for sure it couldn't end in a better way. Besides the fact that Giacomo rewarded us more than abundantly for what we did for him and for his lover, didn't he?
So, this is all...
Ah, no, there is one more thing that I didn't tell you... No, it is not a secret I wanted to keep -- you know that I don't want to have any secret with you! It simply slipped my mind. When at last I met you again, and just now that I am thinking again about all that happened, for the first time it come back I remembered. Exactly because it is not a really important thing... Yes, yes, I'll tell you now...
Well, Lorenzo had left for some days. As usual, I was going to my work place. On an evening, while I was going back home, passing in front of the Cockspur Inn, you know, that one in front of Saint Taddeo's church, a customer comes out and we nearly clashed into each other. I apologized, he apologized and... we recognized each other.
Can't you guess who was he? Timoteo, yes, you are right, he in person.
Well, he recognizes me and says: "Oh, long time no see, eh? So you are now here in town, Giorgio? What are you up to?"
At first I felt tempted to tell him he was wrong, I was not Giorgio, but then I thought that it would have been silly and useless.
"Back home from work... and you? Why are you in town?"
"Business. For our inn... are you alone?"
"No, I'm going back home to him." I answered on the defensive. In fact I didn't like his way of looking at me.
How? With... irony... lust... shrewdness... I can't tell you exactly, but I didn't like his look at all. I thought that, telling him that I was going back to my "him", that is that somebody was waiting for me at home, my man, at least he would not have tried to come home with me.
"Ah, your Lorenzo?" he asked.
I knew that Giacomo didn't tell him about Lorenzo, therefore I pretended an amazed expression and answered: "Lorenzo? What has master Lorenzo to do with me?"
"Come on! First you told me you were in love with another man, then you two disappeared from our village at the same time... two and two it makes always and only four, doesn't it? A love elopement, right?"
"With master Lorenzo? What the hell do I know about master Lorenzo! I don't live with master Lorenzo!"
"And with whom, then?"
"You don't know him..."
"I would like to meet him, then..." he says.
"Why? I don't see the reason..."
"Come on, Giorgio... after all, you have been my boy. Don't you remember how many good fucks? I would like to see who fucks you now... meet him... To see who did you prefer to me, to my beautiful fucks."
"Beautiful! ... As long as you didn't force me. That, I really can't forgive you."
"Come on! You liked it, you can't deny that. Well, honestly, I too liked you, or rather, I still like you a lot. No, after all I'm not interested in meeting your paramour. Rather, what would you say to go back home a little later, tonight? We can find a place and..."
"What's that, a proposal?" I asked him in a scoffing tone.
"You know, after you left, I really missed you. Yes, honestly, I missed you. And now, here you are again... and you are desirable more than ever..."
Ah, really? What's up, your wife is not enough now?"
"No, it's not that. I mean, I now have another boy. You know, the youngest son of the miller. We took him at your place and... he really took your place, even in that meaning. But, to make love, you were better. Well, Giuseppe does his best, but... He was still a virgin, you know, when I first took him. How was he yelping! You, at least, didn't make a fuss. But now he got used and he doesn't complain any more, on the contrary..." he said laughing.
"I bet that you forced him as you forced me when I told you I didn't want to continue, right?"
"Well, you know... I tried first to persuade him with gentleness, but he... while he was touching me or letting me touch him, he was game, and how! But when I asked him to give me head, he didn't want to do that and you see... I was so turned on, I really wanted him so much. So, I just took him and put him under me, and then instead of in his mouth... God, wasn't he tight! It was hurting almost more to me than to him! But then, what fun! After I cummed, I continued fucking him, and I cummed twice, that first time! Anyway, now, he readily does all I ask him, he gives me head and lets me fuck his little ass without fuss, and he also likes it, I swear. But, honestly, with you it was better. And now that we meet again, look how hard it became just seeing you!" he concluded pointing at his more than noticeable erection under his clothes.
"I'm sorry for you, Timoteo, but you'll have to make it soften without my help. Because I now go home to him. Good night."
Timoteo grasped my arm: "Come on, wait! I'm asking you a kindness, just a kindness to an old friend. I know that you like how I took you. And then, I was your first man, right? For a last time, just to part with a good feeling. Let's find a quiet place, come on. Don't make such a fuss, now!"
"Let - me - go!" I said with a determined tone, even if without raising my voice. He looked at me suddenly serious (he had had a cunning smile on his lips to that moment) and let me go.
But he said: "Why are you doing me such an insult? If you want me to be your enemy, I can make you regret it, you know?"
"You are just able to menace, to speak threateningly, eh? Poor Timoteo. You are used to have what you want, and to take it if they don't give it to you, eh? Do you think to scare me? What do you want to do, menace me again to kill me if I don't give you my ass? Or to fuck me here, in the street?"
He didn't expect such a decided reaction from me, and above all absolutely not scared, I think. I cooled him down.
"But... no... I was just joking, come on..." he said with an awkward smile.
"Good. But your jokes don't amuse me. Absolutely not. Go back to the village, Timoteo. Fuck your wife, your boy, at least until he is game, fuck whoever you want, but leave me alone!"
"It is just that... I like you too much." he then said, completely changing his tone.
"I liked you too. Yes, it is true, I liked you. Before you forced me. You could be a likeable man, if you just understood that the other is not your toy, an object... a hole to use to have fun. And on the contrary... Good night, Timoteo. Good bye."
He looked at me serious. Then said: "Good bye, then..." and, turning, he went away with fast paces. I drew a relief sigh and went back home. In a sense, I pitied him.
No, I never again met him after that time. To tell the truth, to go back home after that evening, I changed my way. I didn't want to risk ever meeting him again.
And so... now you know everything about me, really everything. Well, yes, it is possible... Yes, I can have forgotten something, but if I recall it I will tell you, all right? We have so many years in front of us, God willing, don't we?
Listen, Gualtiero, would you please put some more wood in the fireplace? No, I don't yet feel ready to hit the bed, tonight. Yes, sure... but we can also do it here, can't we? I like so much doing it in front of the fire, like the other time... Yes, I locked the door with the key, don't worry. Anyway you know that he would not enter without knocking, don't you? Sure, I think he understands about us, but he is a faithful servant, discreet. We will not have any problem with him.
You are tickling me so... come on...
Yes, I like it better now.
Yes, a lot better.
I like it.
I like you...
I love you...
. . . . . . . . . . .