Around the end of the second week, whilst we were picking blackberries in the nearby woods, we were caught in a downpour and got completely soaked, it was raining cats and dogs!
"Shall we go back?" Edoardo asked.
"No, at this point we are soaked to our bones, we cannot get any wetter than this. Let's enjoy it all, I love being caught in a storm!"
"Me too, me too!" he said happily. Edoardo stripped off his shirt revealing his bare chest and started to jump and dance, he looked towards the sky, intoxicated with joy. I stared at him and mused that he was way too beautiful for this earth. His barely accentuated pectorals darted, streaming water at each of his jumps. I thought I would have liked him to undress completely, but I didn't dare to ask him even if I think (now) that he would have done it without a second thought. Rain lessened even if it didn't completely stop. So, we went back to the castle, dried and changed our clothes.
By the evening Edoardo was starting to sneeze and cough. This continued throughout the night. The following morning he had fever, so I called the doctor. He said it was just a bad cold. But in spite of all the drugs he prescribed him, his fever intensified. We called the doctor again. He said that the high fever could not be caused by a simple cold, carefully visited him again, but could find nothing. He prescribed stronger medicine.
During the night I heard him groaning. I got up and went to his room. I sat down near his bed. He was burning! He managed to tell me not to worry, he just had a nightmare. I went to the bathroom and wet a handkerchief to cool his forehead. I remained near him all the night. He continued to groan and to burn up. I was terribly worried and felt guilty because I kept him out in the storm. At times he seemed to lose consciousness, but perhaps he just dozed off. I didn't know what to do. I wanted to wake grandma, but then I thought that it was useless to make her too to worry. Then I thought that perhaps I was loosing precious time. I really was scared.
Dawn came. I looked at my watch, it was four forty five. Now Edoardo seemed quieter, almost serene, and his fever appeared to have gone down. I stroked his forehead. He opened his eyes and smiled at me.
"What time is it?" he asked with a hint of voice.
"Five 'o clock. How do you feel?"
"Have you been here all night long?"
"Yes. How are you now?" I asked bending over and looking in his eyes.
His eyes shone and stared into mine. Then he raised his arms, girdled my neck, pulled me forward and kissed me on my mouth. At first lightly.
"I feel good..." he whispered and kissed me again.
This time he kissed me more strongly and I reciprocated, happy that he was better, and I cried and held him against me. Our chests touched and I felt a shudder passing through me, a terrible warmth wrapping me. I was on top of him holding him tightly, and caressing him, and he pressed against me and caressed me. Through my gown and his bed sheet, I felt his erection pressing against me, and he felt mine. I slightly raised my body and he made the sheet slip away, opened my gown and caressed my turgid and throbbing member.
I excitedly murmured: "Oh, Edoardo, Edoardo!"
I felt his fingers travel the length of my member to my pubic hairs, while his other hand caressed my back. Our mouths united again in an intimate, deep kiss, our tongues searched each other and played together, my hands lowered to seize his beautiful, hard and quivering penis.
"Max, you have to teach me everything... it is my first time, you know it..."
"But you... do you want it?"
"Oh yes, yes with you!"
We caressed then I slipped to his side so I could admire at my ease his naked body, so beautiful, so fresh, so available... for me. And we made love. That first time just caressing, kissing, feeling, brushing against each other. When he reached his orgasm, he became radiant with beauty and that excited me so much that I too reached it just after him, between his hands that were still caressing it.
Then, he said to me: "Max... I am in love with you."
Perhaps it was because the excitement was vanishing, perhaps because it was the first time a man said such words to me, perhaps the sudden thought of Margherita, consequence of his words, I stiffened and looked in his eyes, unbelievingly.
"No. It's just... because it's your first time and... and you liked it."
"No, Max. I love you, I'm sure of that. From the first time I met you, when I was a kid, years ago. I always have been in love with you... I always dreamed about this moment. I just was afraid it would never came."
I looked at his passionate, dreaming eyes full of love. And I was scared. I parted from him, sat on the bed trying to put on my gown. I was trembling.
"No, Christ! No. Don't say such things. Shut up!" I shouted almost in rage.
He seemed baffled. His eyes dimmed with sadness, but always filled with love, whispered: "But it is the truth, Max. I love you."
"But we are two males!" I protested, feeling my head ablaze.
"That's it, that's why I love you. I am homosexual, I can't love but a male. And you undoubtedly are a male."
"But I am not gay! I am in love with Margherita!" I almost shouted, feeling in despair.
"But you enjoyed it..." he said quietly, as if to implore me to say the truth.
"No! Yes... I liked it."
"And you desired me, I know it. For several days."
"Yes, yes, but... But it is just... a game, this. A kids game! What has it to do with love!"
"Why are you so scared? I would be more scared if we did what we did just to play. We are no more kids. And you, anyway, you didn't do it just to... to amuse yourself. You made LOVE, with me."
"Yes, yes, yes! But making love and being in love are two different things. Don't you think you have confused ideas?" I said him sharply standing from his bed and tying my gown belt.
He too stood up in front of me naked and still half aroused, his eyes straight on mine, and took my arms.
"Max, Max! Why are you so scared? You have not to be scared of me, I love you, I told you. And you too love me, you made me feel it with all your body."
"No, no, no! I made love with other boys or men several times. But this has nothing to do with love! It was sex, just sex!"
"Max, I dreamed for years I could show you my love. And this dream became reality. I love you. I'm sorry you don't want to accept it, but I love you."
"But what do you know, about love?"
"I know nothing about sex, it is true. Now I just masturbated, it's true. But I know what love is, believe me. And you can refuse to have other sexual intercourse with me, it is true, but you cannot refuse the fact that I am in love with you. At most, you can not love me..."
"Edoardo, I like you, I love you but as a brother..."
He sadly smiled and shook his head: "Do you mean that with a brother... in bed... you'd do those things?"
"But I love Margherita!"
"Did you make love with her?"
"No, never."
"But you did with me!" he concluded serenely.
"What does that matter? Also wit Paolo, and Andrea, and others I did... but I was not in love with them. We just amused ourselves together. And that's all."
"And with me... do you like to amuse yourself?"
"Yes, but... but if you make such speeches... I won't have any more rapport with you."
"Do you want me to leave. To go back to my home?"
"But no, no. Listen, Edoardo, we both are tired. It is possibly better if we now try to sleep a little..."
"Yes, as you like."
"See you tomorrow."
"See you later. Today is already... tomorrow, isn't it?"
I went back to my room and hit the bed. I felt strange, almost shocked. I trembled. Happily I fell asleep almost immediately, in spite of the fact that I had a furious headache.
He came to wake me up at eleven thirty: "In a while we have to be ready for lunch. It's time you got up."
"Yes... are you ready?"
"I went downstairs to greet your grand mother. She was surprised and pleased to see me up. But I promised her that after lunch I would go to bed again. Then tomorrow, we will go out, won't we?"
I got out of the bed and put on my gown: "I have to take a bath now. I need it."
"I'll wait for you here." he said sitting on the edge of my bed.
While I was washing, I uselessly tried to keep out my thoughts from what happened just five hours before, about what Edorado said to me. I tried to focus my thoughts on Margherita, using her almost like an antidote. But unequivocally, implacably, the sensations of his body against mine, of his hands on my member, of mine on his, of our kisses filled my mind. I felt confused, excited, bewitched by his innocence and availability.
I went back my room hiding with difficulty the erection that those tortured thoughts awoke in me. Conscious of his glances to my body, turning my back on him so that he could not see my erect and throbbing member, I dressed. When I turned towards him, I saw his adoring, luminous eyes, and I felt ill at ease.
I looked at my watch and said hesitantly: "It will be better to go downstairs."
"Yes. But after lunch come to my room. We have to talk."
"No, I think I will go out for a walk..." I protested, uncertain.
"No. You come to my room with me. We have an unsettled matter."
"I have nothing to say, nothing to discuss. I'm going to marry Margherita."
"But you come to my room, later. We will talk."
His voice tone was not menacing or hard, just extremely self-assured. In his words, in his eyes, there was gentleness, but also a force I never thought to find in him, and that completely subdued me.
"Edoardo, possibly it will be better if... No, you are right. We have to talk." I admitted, feeling defeated by his will.
During lunch I tried to behave normally and, with difficulty, I succeeded. Edoardo was unusually brilliant, in good shape and chatted in an easy manner with grandma Liza. After lunch he excused himself and went up to his room.
I was about to follow him, when grandma stopped by leaning her hand on mine: "I understand you are tired, after watching over him all the night. Go upstairs to rest a while, my dear. And continue to be near him. I see that your influence on him is doing miracles, and if you continue so, the ugly duckling will soon be a beautiful swan. I feel I am growing fond of that boy."
I nodded confused, said bye with a kiss on her cheek and went upstairs. I stopped uncertain in front of his door, hesitated for a moment, then entered. He already was in his bed, under the sheet. Just his bare chest was showing. He was looking at me, with a hint of a smile on his lips.
I put a chair near the bed and sat, looking him in his eyes: "So? I'm here."
"Do you regret having made love with me, this morning?"
"No... no and yes. I liked what we did. But not... what you told me afterwards."
"That I am in love with you? But it is the truth. And from the first day we promised each other to always tell us the truth, didn't we?"
"But I am not in love with you. And then, if it's true that you are in love with me for years, why have you never told me before?"
"Those other years you were not even aware of me. And this time... this morning it seemed to me the right time. Because this morning, when I opened my eyes, I had the clear perception that you too are in love with me."
"No way, you are wrong. I love you, as a friend, and that's all. But I am not in love with you."
"But you like making love with me, you desire me. Even before lunch, after you took your bath you were aroused because of the desire you felt for me."
"What do you know about that?"
"You were so careful to show me your back, that was evidence that you didn't want to show me your state."
"All right, yes, I desired you. But this doesn't mean that... And I am not gay."
"I am. I became aware of that when a kid."
"But if you told me I am the first with whom..."
"Sure. Because I decided then that I would only have sexual intercourse with the man I loved. And before you I never fell in love with anyone."
"On the contrary I've had sex with both men and women. But with Margherita, whom I love, I will not have sex until after our marriage."
"Good. Each one of us is different. Each of us is a world a part. I decided so when I was a kid. Then I fell in love with you and felt I could make love only with you. Even if at that time you seemed not to even notice I existed. When your grand mother invited me, I felt I could touch the skies with my hand. But at first you didn't show so much interest towards me. That is, you were kind, nice, friendly but not as I hoped, and I was almost resigned not to be yours. But then, I noticed you started to treat me in a different way, to be aroused by my proximity. And this morning I clearly read love in your eyes, so I brought myself to give you my love, and you accepted it... so I could at least tell you that I am in love with you."
"I was just worried for you."
"But you desire me."
"Yes, fucking hell! Yes! Even now, if you want to know, just to think of your naked body under that sheet, I feel like pulling it off to touch you."
"You can do it..."
"On the contrary, I can't! I want a normal life, with a wife, children... to me that's important, don't you understand? Can't you understand?"
"Is that what you really desire? What can make you happy?"
"Yes, sure. I love you, Edoardo. But we cannot live together, have a couple life in the sun's light, have children... only Margherita can give me all that, it's what I need."
"If you think that your happiness is there, if you are so sure, it will not be me to thwart you for sure. I'll hold back, even if..."
"So, you understand?"
"No, not at all. I love you. What I want, the only one thing I care about is your happiness. Therefore, if it is not me who can give it to you as I hoped, I will be happy for you if somebody else can."
This kind of submissiveness shocked me enormously - I didn't expect it. I again looked at him, and saw again his love filled eyes. I felt almost guilty. I thought that I was giving him a huge disappointment, perhaps pain, and I regretted it. But I could not help it! We looked at each other for a while. I felt more and more ill at ease.
"Well, now try to sleep. We both need it. The first to wake calls the other, agreed?" I said standing up.
He lightly caressed my hand, and nodded. I went to my room, undressed and flung myself onto the bed. But I couldn't fall asleep. I continued to think about Edoardo. In a certain sense I was angry with him - if he didn't talk about love, we could just amuse ourselves without complications. Yes, I desired him, I was aroused.
I started to masturbate, thinking to him and his body, hoping I could give vent to my excitement, and then to sleep. While I was masturbating, I thought about what I would have liked to do with him... Suddenly I stood up, with a mix of rage and desire. I rummaged in the drawer of my night table and found the Vaseline tube. Naked as I was, my member fiercely erect and with the tube in my hand, decided to possess him, I went out of my room end entered his. He was asleep.
I approached him, decided to wake him up, to take him. But something held me back. He too was completely naked, his sheet on the floor. He lied on his back, a leg folded, his foot under the other leg's knee, his arms slightly spread, one arm folded on his chest. It was a vision at once erotic and pure, of an enormous tenderness. He seemed armless.
His face was serene, his lips barely parted. His slow and calm breathing rose rhythm his hairless, wide and firm chest. The sun entered by the open window and lapped on his velvety skin. I felt an incredible sense of sweetness, and desired to brush that body, to kiss it... My first impulse to possess him, to penetrate him with force, abandoned me. I drew nearer like in rapture, and all my body was trembling. His member, not erect but neither soft, surrounded by a thick aureole of dark, curly hairs, lied languidly on his thigh. I stretched my hand and lightly caressed it.
He opened his eyes, smiled and murmured, without moving: "You came back... you want me."
I felt like a knot in my throat and was just able to nod in assent.
He again smiled, held out his arms towards me and whispered: "Come... don't be afraid. How beautiful you are, Max!"
I drew nearer, he sat up and put his hands on my sides, pulling me to him.
When he noticed the Vaseline tube in my hand, he looked straight in my eyes and said: "If you want to take me... I am ready... I want to be yours..."
I went on my knees on the bed, letting the tube fall on the floor, I lay down near him and surrounded his body with my arms and legs, clasping him to me, in the attempt to wrap, to submerge, to almost absorb him inside me.
"I want you, Edoardo, I want you." I almost sobbed, hiding my face between his neck and his shoulder.
He tightened his arms around me: "Yes, Max, I'm here. I'm yours..."
I felt his member pushing against mine. I turned my head, he too did, and we kissed, prey of a yearning passion. We started making love. We reached orgasm quite soon, also this time without sucking or penetrating.
He pulled out from under his cushion a small towel, dried me and himself, then embraced me again: "Are you happy, Max?"
"Yes..." I answered hesitantly, my eyes shut, my breathing still difficult. Then, always without looking at him, I asked him: "You don't tell me you are in love, this time?"
"No. I know you don't want to hear that."
"But you... do you still think you are?"
"Sure. I know I am."
"But... not I, you know?"
"I know it."
"And that's all right with you?"
"I can't help it. It is just so."
"Do you know ... all will end soon."
"When your girlfriend returns, yes."
"And... you accept that all the same?"
"I can do nothing. You desire me and I... I cannot say no to you."
"But afterwards... you will feel bad. Is not that worse?"
"No. For the moment I live the day. Tomorrow... still doesn't exist. I take what you can give me, what I can have, however little or large it might be. For now, it is wonderful. To me it's enough if you are happy."
I shook my head, confused: "Don't you want anything in exchange? Don't you want promises or conditions?"
"In exchange? You have already given me so much, in return. I have nothing to ask you. Promises? They are of no use. Promises seem to be made just to... to be broken. What you have given is enough. I am content in having made love with you, to hold you now, here, in this way..."
"But anyway you know it is doomed to end."
"Yes. But everything is destined to end. Also life. And we don't know when. In a hundred years? In a hundred seconds? I just know that I am alive and that I am happy being alive, as long as I live." He was silent for a while, then he asked: "You didn't use the Vaseline. You brought it but didn't use it. Why?"
"I felt like... like I profaned you. You are so clean, naive, innocent."
"I would... have liked it."
"What do you know? You never tried it. I could have hurt you, especially the first time."
"But I would have been happy all the same. I care just to make you happy."
"But don't you think of yourself, your own desire?"
"Yes, of course. And my biggest desire is to see you happy, and so I too will feel good."
"Even if, to make me happy, you have to renounce to me?"
"Even."
"But... is not masochism, that?"
"Absolutely not. It is..."
"It is?"
"Then you became mad with me..."
"No, say it."
"You know what I was about to say, don't you?"
"Tell it all the same. It is...?"
"... love." he whispered.
"Then, I am not able to love. I think just to feel god. Also with Margherita, also with you."
"It is not true. You desired to take me, but you didn't, afraid to hurt me. You thought more to me than to yourself, isn't that so?"
"But I don't want to hurt anybody. It is just a question of respect."
"But respect is nothing but the first step of that stair that I call love."
"I... I don't love you, I told you."
"But you respect me. Isn't that something?"
"I feel at ease with you, anyway."
"Me too, Max. Me too..."
For several minutes we remained so, silent, embraced. I was thinking and thinking again to what we did say. And I felt sorry that I was not able to love him, because Edoardo was more worth loving than any person I had ever met in my life. But one, I was thinking, cannot simply decide to fall in love with another. I couldn't help it, even if I knew I was giving him a bad blow.
After a while, I proposed that we shower together. Then we dressed and went downstairs. In the evening, after supper, we watched a movie on the TV, then we played billiards for a while, then we went to bed.
I perfectly remember the dream I had that night.
I was in a kind of orchard. Trees with some full of flowers, some loaded with fruit and some withered. Woodsmen arrived and cut the roots of the withered trees. Then women with tall ladders cut all the blooming branches to make great bunches, and they were happy, but the trees were left bare. Farmers came and manured the trees with the fruits. Then I saw one particular tree, green and full of leaves, but without any flower or fruit. The woodsmen were about to cut it. I said, no! let it live! A minor quarrel ensued. They were menacing me with saws and big pruning scissors, those with hoes insulted me. They all derided me. But I alone, was able to hold them at bay. I protected that tree.
Then a flight of birds came, and they picked all the flowers of the bunches, and all the fruits of the trees and spoiled all. The people furiously tried to kill them. But they took refuge in the foliage of the green tree, the one without flowers or fruits, and as soon as they entered amongst its leaves, they became invisible. But they were there, because I could hear them merrily chirping and twittering, and I was happy, too.
Then I became aware that all the people that could not see the birds, were staring at me and laughing. They pointed at me and I realized that I was stark naked. I tried to hide, to cover myself, to become invisible, but I couldn't, because they chased me and surrounded me with their sneering, ugly, grotesque faces, until, in my attempt to escape, I found myself with my back against the green tree. So I turned and climbed up, and up, and I too became invisible and so the people left. I climbed and climbed up the tree and saw that from the ground it seemed to me a tree like all the others. Climbing made me aware that it was a lot higher than I thought. It was a strong old tree, even more so than the oak of grandma Liza. Up there, high above the ground, I found blooming branches full of perfume. I climbed up higher, and I found branches bending with ripe and sweet fruits. Even higher, where I could see the sun and a blue, cloudless sky, with little birds merrily singing. Now I could see them again singing, warbling and trilling.
The ring of the alarm clock brought me back to the reality. I sat up, it was eight of the morning. The sun flooded my room and on the window sill of the open window there was a chirping sparrow. I greeted him and he, as if in reply, turned towards me, chirped again then fled away.
I don't think that dreams are messages and less that that forewarnings. But this dream remained impressed in my memory, probably because it was really beautiful. At least its end was!