Refuge
Elias loved this place. He loved the sunshine. Loved the way their pork was sweet but did not make him feel weak. Ate it in glorious raw fatty strips crystaled with salt. And olives! There were few plants Elias could eat, but olives were new and he gorged himself on these little fruits.
He could stay here in ecstasy, skin browning and soft with plant oils. Bathe with men like him in warm waters, in rooms that echoed in sighs.
He met a girl and brought her to his rooms just to feed her sweet fruits and sleep in a bed that was not so cold for the first time since he left home.
She played for him from an instrument of strings, ran curious fingers over the marks on his back, the scars on his face.
Let him braid her hair in a crown the way he did his sisters and sang low and quiet as he wept.
She kissed him sweetly on the cheek, though he did not ask for it, before scampering back onto the streets.
He could forget himself here, if he did not have money that would run out and purpose to fulfill.
Elias left Viareggio and boarded a boat to somewhere much colder.