35. The Gilded Mirror
35
THE GILDED MIRROR
A lberto’s meds kept him in a state of constant drowsiness. Only the purest form of anxiety could keep him awake. And tonight, he lay on his side of the bed, eyes wide open, waiting for a slumber which refused to come. Through the bedroom window, he watched the ocean lapping at the shore, relentless, while flush against him, Mathias slept soundly, an arm loosely thrown around him.
This should have been the best day of Alberto’s life. Mathias told him the impossible. He was in love with him. And yet, here he was… staring at the waves instead of enjoying his warmth against his skin.
Alberto gently removed the arm wound around his waist. There, he could breathe a little better. He brought his knees up to his chin and basked in the silence so characteristic to long nights.
Maybe the horrible truth was that he didn’t love Mathias after all. Not after everything that happened. He loved him once, but Mathias had broken his heart, and now, Alberto no longer wanted him. Did that even make sense? Just thinking of Mathias’s confession was enough to send a delightful chill through his spine. There were feelings still, and not a few. He could have him. He could, and that would be it. He wouldn’t be alone anymore.
…
…
And then what?
Alberto wasn’t fit to date anyone. Only a month ago, he had committed himself to the fancy loony bin, and until a few hours ago, he was determined never to get out. Mathias may have lured him out with his unexpected note and his subsequent confession, but that didn’t mean Alberto wasgoing to fall into his arms. Stasia was right about him: he wasn’t lovable. His father hated him. No one liked being around him. He didn’t even like being around himself.
Alberto should know better than to be wooed by a few words. He fell for that stuff once, ignored his instinct urging him to leave, and he was left with the consequences. If he chose to be with Mathias now, wouldn’t that be the definition of madness? Doing the same crap and expecting different results? Remembering Mathias’s confession earlier, his vulnerability as he professed his love, a heavy weight settled on Alberto’s heart. Even when offered the world, he thought only of a way out.
Alberto exhaled a sigh. There was no point counting sheep; he knew sleep wouldn’t come. His gaze fell on Mathias, his naked body handsome in the moonlight, hisexpression peaceful at last. His secret was out, and now he could rest.
It occurred to Alberto he already knew the answer. He got up and dressed, and with a final look at Mathias, he climbed out of the window and set off toward the beach.
Whether horrible or soothing, the truth was love wasn’t enough.
Love wouldn’t make him sane. Love wouldn’t make him healthy. Love wouldn’t smother the nightmares visiting him at night. It was for love he had taught himself to shut the doors of his mind, and it was love who tightened his lips when he burned to shout himself hoarse.
And at this exact moment, standing on the empty stretch of sand facing the Atlantic, it was love again that threatened to drown him.
Alberto wondered…
If, tonight, he stepped into the ocean, it would be like walking straight into the abyss. No one would find him again. Or the waves would return him such that nobody would recognise him. Maybe these were the Plutonian shores he often dreamt about.
It was right there, staring him in the face. Why couldn’t he make sense of it?
Mathias said I love you .
Shouted it, actually.
And he proved it, too.
His gaze lost to the black-and-blue sea, his heart full of unrest, Alberto mentally wrote his own note to Mathias .
Dearest Mati,
The ocean at night is a great, frightening thing. All sorts of creatures fighting for their life under the rolling waves. And above them, men in ships braving the storms. Hulls breaking against rocks, bodies flung overboard. Lungs, devoid of oxygen. Last breaths stolen, along with final words.
And then, you.
For the first time ever, I pictured myself rising above the wreckage with one hand raised to shield my eyes, and the other holding on to you.
The waves carried with them the briny scent of Alberto’s childhood, rare innocent times spent in his mother’s arms, smiling at their reflections in the gilded mirror. The memory of it almost drew a smile from him. The sand, the sea, the wind in his hair… The only thing missing was the scent of Mamma’s locks.
With a quiet sound of resignation, Alberto took out his phone and sent a text, before throwing his phone aside and falling to his knees on the sands. Above him, the moon hovered in the sky like a spotlight. Alberto thought of Mathias in the bedroom back there, his sculpted body stirring, his forehead creasing as he took in his absence by his side.
He thought about him long enough to lose track of time, until a loud, sudden racket disturbed his reverie. A car was swerving near the entrance to the beach, tires shrieking as they mounted the pavement. Alberto threw a look over his shoulder and sprung to his feet in time to see a familiar SUV abruptly flattening a bollard and rolling straight onto the beach, tires flinging sand behind them until they screeched to a stop.
The driver door flew open, and out came Alberto’s mother dressed in jeans and sneakers,her loose hair and her Burberry trench coat flapping in the wind.
“ Tesoro! ” She didn’t bother closing the door and ran straight to him. “ Mon petit poulain ,” she said, pulling him into a hug. Only worry could make her use her favourite French nickname for him, a term he believed too cringe to even translate.
“Mamma?” He gave her a look of pure shock. “How long was I out here?”
“Ten minutes?” She blinked at him. “I wasn’t far. Oleg drove me to Deauville when I received your text this afternoon.”
Alberto couldn’t believe his eyes. His mother was here, in Deauville, right in front of him, her SUV parked — very illegally — in the middle of the beach. And to make matters even worse, Cher was singing “ Believe” on the radio, her vocals drifting through the open door of the car.
“What the fuck?” he said weakly.
Perhaps Mathias had done a number on him, and he came so hard, he actually died, and he was now trapped in some sort of Limbo.
“ Tesoro , don’t swear,” Mamma said in a reproachful tone. “It’s not elegant.”
“Elegance, Mamma?” Alberto resentfully pointed at the car. “Look at how you parked!”
“Is it bad?” She gave her surroundings a quick glance. “There’s no one here to fine me.”
Alberto was too shocked to disagree with her logic. “How did you even find me?”
“Your phone! I can always find out where you are, as long as it’s turned on.”
“Oh… Right.”
Although Alberto had agreed to have a tracking app installed on his phone, as well as his mother’s, for safety a few years ago, Alberto had quite forgotten about it. Now, he considered the implications. His thoughts fluttered toward all those nights spent at the Rodins’, and heat rose to his cheeks. “What do you mean, always…”
His mother seemed to have read his thoughts. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I’m not tracking your movements. I only use the app when I’m really worried about you. Like when you sent me that text just now.” She tightened his coat around him. “I saw you were alone on this beach, and I didn’t want you to get silly ideas, like swimming at midnight when the water is so cold.”
From the shaky notes in her voice, Alberto understood what she was implying. “I’m happy to see you,” he said, softened by her fussing. He pulled her into a hug, which she returned eagerly before kissing his cheek, her eyes glinting.
“Do you want to sit inside?” She took his hand and led him toward the car.
“I would prefer a cigarette.” He plopped himself on the hood of her car. His mother watched him take out his pack of cigarettes and light up with a disapproving look. “I know. It’s bad for me.” Before she could protest, he asked, “Where’s Oleg?”
After a moment of hesitation, Mamma took a seat by his side. “Back at the hotel. ”
“Isn’t he Dimitri’s employee? He’s still following you around like a puppy?”
“Ah, well…” She tilted her head with an innocent look. “Don’t you have puppies of your own?”
“Mm…” Alberto hummed vaguely. He suddenly recalled the number of calls he received from Xavier and bit his lip. “I can’t believe you’re here,” he said, changing the subject.
His mother reached out to touch his hair, her fingers grazing along his ear. “I wanted to be near, in case you needed me.” Alberto leaned into her touch with a sigh.
“What’s wrong, Tesoro ?” Mamma swung her legs back and forth in a rare anxious gesture. Her sneakers were Converse, like his, but classic blue.“Why are you out here alone at midnight?”
“I was watching the ocean through the window, and it reminded me of the house in Napoli.”
“That was a lifetime ago.” Mamma’s hand slipped into his own. “You shouldn’t think about it too much. Return to bed and get some sleep.”
“I can’t. I’m too full of thoughts.”
“Thoughts?” Mamma repeated. “What sort of thoughts?”
“Like…” Alberto’s shoulders tensed. “Tell me the truth, Mamma. What’s going to happen to us?”
She gave him a look of confusion.
“Now that it’s over between you and Dimitri.”
“Oh.” She looked thoughtful as the wind whistled past, messing their hair. “We’ll get a divorce. Maybe a bit of money, but not much.” Mamma pushed hair away from her face. “I don’t want to hurt him. He was always good to me.”
“So, he agreed to a divorce, then?” Alberto asked, surprised.
“Yes. We both know it’s impossible to fix things now. Anastasia hates us, and he loves her. He must stand by her. And…” She made a sound of resignation. “… Truthfully, it was over before I found out about her. We were done the moment I found out about that…” A small shiver rocked her. “That night. And now, I’m left to wonder?—”
Alberto stopped her, anxious to alleviate her concerns. “He was never weird around me, you know. Not that way anyway. I think it was just a big misunderstanding.”
“You’d think that,” Mamma said with a sigh. “But you don’t know men as I do.”
Alberto lowered his head. “Where are we going to go? ”
“How about Eastern Europe?” Mamma offered, leaning into his side. “We could live really well there once I sell my clothes, my handbags, some presents… At least until we can figure something out. What do you think?”
She waited for his answer, and when he gave none, she softly called his name. “Alberto?”
“I don’t…” he said, his head low. “I don’t want to go.”
It was his mother’s turn to fall silent. “Why not?” she asked at last in a small voice.
“Because…” Alberto pictured himself stepping into the Atlantic and diving under the waves. “I’m tired of moving, Mamma. I’m tired of… everything.” He tried to fill his lungs with air, and felt them strain with the effort. “All this time Stasia gave me hell, I was bearing it because I didn’t want you to have to leave Dimitri when he was making you so happy.”
“ Tesoro …”
“I knew you’d get me out of there in a heartbeat, just like before. Just like London. And I didn’t want to go.”
“You shouldn’t think of those things.” Mamma reached out to hold his hand. “It’s my job to worry about you, Tesoro . Not the other way around!”
“It wasn’t just that, Mamma. It’s more… complicated than that.” Alberto watched their joined hands with a tight chest. “Maybe part of me needed her to treat me like garbage because I…” his lip curled into a grimace. “I often think I’m garbage.”
“No.” Mamma gripped his hand tighter, all the while shaking her head. “You’re not garbage. How could you even think that?”
Alberto stared at her face, beautiful even when racked with worry. “I’m a whole person, you know. Independent of you. I’ve lived my own life, my own experiences, my own… secrets. So much stuff you don’t know about.”
Mamma forced a smile, but her eyes were gradually filling with tears. “I wish you’d told me about her, and about your fears! You always keep everything to yourself. You insist on carrying these burdens, and then you explode… Twice already. And I’m left to wonder what happened to you.” She bit into her lip; her expression a mirror image of his own. “You never told me why you shaved your head, that time,” she added quickly, “I know, you told me you didn’t like modelling. But why shave your head when you could have just told me you didn’t want to go back? ”
“I don’t… I don’t know…”
Once again, Alberto saw himself standing in front of the mirror, the red handprint stark against his pale skin. His fingers tracing over it. His mouth falling open in awe.
“Perhaps I did,” Alberto said, and a strange feeling grew in his chest. Something small yet resilient, like a seedling breaking through the soil of a barren wasteland.
“What?” his mother searched his eyes, confused.
“Mamma?” he abruptly asked. He dried an unwanted tear with the back of his hand before gripping hers. “Mamma…”
“Yes, baby…”
“Why did Papà hate me?”
There was a sudden flash of pain in his mother’s eyes. After a hesitation, she pulled him close, close enough that he wouldn’t miss a word.
“Your father didn’t hate you, Tesoro . He hated himself.” With the pad of her thumb, she wiped another tear from his cheek. “Some people, they take their anger on themselves, some take it on other people. You’ve never done anything to deserve that. You were a perfect child. But he had his demons, and he chose to follow them, over me, over us.” Mamma fell silent, no doubt haunted by memories of her own. Her own carousel of heartache.
“What does that mean?” Alberto sniffed. “What demons?”
“Your father is a proud man.” Mamma affectionally cupped his cheek. “What he wanted, he got. And he wasn’t one to share. So, the more you started resembling me, the more he believed you weren’t his at all.”
Alberto thought of the ridiculous painting Dimitri had commissioned on the bedroom ceiling. Even Mathias had thought, initially, that his mother’s likeness had been his own.
Alberto hesitated. “And am I? His?”
“Of course you are.” Mamma leaned away from him with a stern look. “I loved your father. I’ve never cheated on him, or anybody. Contrary to some…”
“Who would…” Alberto’s eyes widened. “Martin?”
Mamma nodded.
“No way!”
“Oh, yes.”
“I can’t believe it…” Alberto was genuinely stumped. “That bastard… And I liked him, too! He was kind to me.” He was also devilishly handsome, and the first man to ever give Alberto unusual dreams at n ight, but there was no point telling his mother that. “And he was fun, acting a bit like a kid at times.”
“And a bit of a rabbit as well.” Mamma’s lips stretched into a thin smile. “He was sleeping with everything that moved.” She shrugged at his outraged expression. “I’m a whole person, too, you know! I have secrets of my own.” She held him closer. “ Tesoro , you’re well aware by now, you can look like this and still have garbage thrown at you. It’s all fake. To find somebody who loves you, truly loves you, that’s the difficult part. That’s what I told that boy when he came looking for you. I wanted him to know what he was dealing with. You can’t be separated from what happened to you. It’s a part of you like it’s a part of me. And this one… he’s got his own baggage to deal with.”
“But his mother’s dead…”
“ You almost died, Tesoro . My soul shattered when I saw you bleeding out on that floor. And when you returned to me, you weren’t the same. You wouldn’t play, or smile… But you’re stronger than you think. You only gave me the strength to go on.”
“Mamma…”
Alberto leaned into her embrace. For most of his life, he thought he was a horrible person, a horrible child, and that’s why those things had happened to him. But now, he had proof that even if he had been a model child, it still wouldn’t have been enough. His father’s hatred had nothing to do with him. And if Alberto had been wrong about this, perhaps he had been wrong about other things. Perhaps he wasn’t as bad as he always believed himself to be. Not rotten, not a whore… and not irresistible.
He closed his eyes, and the image of his younger self standing in front of the mirror gazed back at him. The red handprint. In front of him the entire time.
In his chest, the small seedling grew. Relief came to Alberto in the form of quiet sobs, smothered by his mother’s loving arms.
“What’s going on, Tesoro ? Please, talk to me.”
“It’s the worst…”
“What is the worst?”
“I think I’m in love…”
All but surrendered, Alberto allowed his tears to fall freely. An astonished look on her face, his mother gave him a tissue, unaware her own eyes were streaming.
“He’s not the first one who asks, you’d say, but he kind of is, really. The only one who really asked about me. ‘What’s your deal’ he said, and that was it. I was doomed. I should hate him for it, and I do, I really do! He’s so… stubborn! And when I’m near him, I feel like I’m going to explode from how much I want him.” Alberto wiped his eyes with a groan of frustration. “And the worst part is… he says he loves me.”
“Cyril’s boy?” Mamma asked, sounding wretched. “Really?”
“ Cyril’s boy ?” Alberto gave her a cold look. “No, not to me. He’s not Cyril’s boy. He’s mine .” The seedling which had taken root in his heart was now expanding to his lungs, giving him voice. “He’s mine.”
“Fine,” Mamma said, reluctance plain on her face. “Mathias, then. I should murder him for getting you out of therapy.”
“No, you should thank him.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yes, he saved me. I hate Meudon.”
Mamma recoiled in surprise. “What?”
“I hate it!” Alberto too was surprised, at the accent of resilience in his tone. There was no stopping him now. “Roland’s a mean asshole. My only friend there wants to sleep with me. And I hate my meds. I hate being asleep all the time watching my life pass me by. If I stay there, I’ll fade. I’ll give up, I’ll take the meds, and I’ll take Berko, and I don’t even want to!” Alberto paused to catch his breath. His mother was observing him with rapt attention. “What I want, what I really want, is to change. For him… For you. For myself .”
He waited, but his mother only offered silence, her gaze falling on the sea. “You’re right,” she said at last. “It sounds like giving up. Like what I did all these years. I felt so guilty about what had happened to you with your father… watching you turn away from the joy of being a child… Watching you…” she closed her eyes momentarily. “When they gave me a way out, I couldn’t resist, and I did what I’d always done. Take it. I didn’t want to keep dreaming of that night, and the pills kept the nightmares away. But look at us now. If I’d been a better mother, you wouldn’t feel the need to hide things from me to protect me. You wouldn’t have had to hit Stasia.”
“So…” Alberto slipped her a sheepish look. “So, you’re not mad that I hit her?
“No, baby. I’m mad at myself that I didn’t. And mad, so mad at myself for not noticing how she treated you. You say you don’t want to watch your life pass you by… Well, I don’t remember the last time I was awake enough to take proper care of you.”
She pulled him into her arms and pressed a kiss to his forehead. He let her hold on to him, his chest warm, until she pulled away, her cheeks glistening. “It’s because I want to be there for you that I have to tell you… I don’t think Mathias is right for you.”
Alberto had not expected the conversation to take this turn. He stared at his mother wordlessly.
“His father told me of his anger issues,” Mamma went on. “Expelled for hitting two boys. You expect me to trust him with you? How long until he hits you ?”
Alberto took a moment to consider her words. Was there a part of him, as small as may be, who thought Mathias was capable of it? He kept searching for signs and he saw none. When he pushed him to the limit, all he got was the kind of sex Mathias knew was his thing. He wondered what Mathias would be like, once assured of Alberto’s affections. Defanged, probably. Pawing and nuzzling at him like a lupetto ? 1 .
“It’s not all black and white, you know…” he said, his heart leaping in his chest. “He punched someone to defend his friend from a bully. I know it’s not ideal. I know. But sometimes, I think if the first time Stasia hit me, I’d put a stop to it, it wouldn’t have gone that way.” Alberto paused, thoughtful. “But that’s the thing with bullies. People like her, and people like Papà, they’re counting on it, on our silence, on our inability to fight back. They thrive on it while we get smaller and smaller. Until we fade away.”
Alberto lifted his gaze toward the inky sky. The moon still hung like a spotlight over them, bathing them in cold light. “You couldn’t hit Papà back, and that’s not your fault. But if Mathias wants to use force to protect me, I’m not going to cry about it.”
“Alberto…”
“You don’t get it! I’ve never felt safer than when I was with him. Just being near him gave me more confidence. I trusted him in ways I’ve never been able to trust anyone, and he’s never hurt me.” Alberto suddenly recalled the times they spent together at Christmas. Mathias was always scowling at him from a distance, but one dark joke from Alberto was enough to soften his features, to earn himself a kiss. “Of course, I’m afraid of him sometimes. I’m afraid he’ll leave… He did, once, and that’s when I stopped taking my meds. I wanted to be normal, just for him. But I had it backwards. I should focus on myself first. That’s what it means to fight back.”
Mamma still held his hand, a faint smile dancing on her lips. “ You’re in love, Tesoro ,” she whispered, her eyes welling once more. “It hurts, and it’s beautiful.”
“Beautiful…?” Alberto tossed a glare at the sky, as though it were responsible for his troubles. “If feels like I’m at the edge of a precipice, and I’m afraid. I’m so afraid to jump…”
Mamma squeezed his hand between her own. “If you stumble, I’ll catch you. It’s my job. I promise I’ll do better from now on. For you, for us… and for myself.”
Alberto looked at her face, so similar to his own. Despite their perfect features, their eyes carried the exhaustion of older people. And then it hit him. It was always going to end this way. He and Mamma against the world. The two of them tonight, facing the ocean.
“The truth is…” He was calm as he spoke. “I can’t be with him if you don’t want me to, Mamma. If you don’t like him, or don’t trust him… It’s always going to feel wrong to me. It was always us, always, from the beginning. I’m not going to let a man stand between us ever again.”
“Nor will I!” Mamma shook her head with such force, tears flew in every direction. “Never again. But if he loves you, and if you love him…” Alberto shuddered. “If you love him, I love him, too.”
There was a silence, punctuated only by the waves, indifferent to the delight swelling in Alberto’s chest. “He said he loves me… You should have been there… It was so romantic…”
Well… to him, at least.
His mother smiled fondly at his bashful expression. “Go on then, be in love, you deserve it.”
“Mamma…”
They fell in each other’s arms again. Alberto’s tears were no longer caused by worry, but by overwhelming relief. “My tissue’s completely soaked,” he complained when they parted.
His mother gave him another one. “There, I have more.”
“Are you sure you’re okay with this?”
“Yes. In any case, if Mathias hurts you, I’ll take it up with his father.”
Her words, uttered with complete confidence, broke the spell between them. Alberto leaned away from her, all traces of joy vanished from his face.
“Now that we’re here…”
His mother seemed to read his mind. Blinking fast, she slid off the hood of the car. He held her hand in a tight grip. “What the hell is going on between you two?”
“Don’t swear, Te ?—”
“Mamma!”
“What!” her defiant tone gave Alberto pause. “Can’t I have my own thing?”
“No, you can’t!” Alberto stood up as well. “Mathias and I have been hooking up for months. Do you know how it feels to find out you two have your own thing ? That’s gross!”
His mother’s mouth fell open in outrage. “ Alberto !”
“No! I don’t want you to get married to his dad! Gross, gross, gross!”
“But I don’t want to marry Cyril!” Mamma snapped, looking genuinely offended. “He’s my friend!”
“Don’t lie to me.” Alberto scoffed. “You don’t have friends, Mamma. You have mean girls and guys who want to get in your pants. I know what I’m talking about,” he added, speaking from experience.
“I have this one, and I want to keep him!” Mamma folded her arms over her chest. “I’m not letting him go.”
“But—”
“No buts. It’s such a relief being around someone who’s not interested in getting into my pants.” She tilted her head. “Cyril’s a very faithful man. He’s never given me a single thought of that kind!”
“But what is the deal between you two? Mathias claims he saw you together several times.”
After a hesitation, Mamma gave in with an unladylike sort of groan that had Alberto arch an eyebrow. “All right,” she said, her entire face flushing. “It’s a bit embarrassing, and obviously, I never told Dimitri, because he wouldn’t like me having a friend who’s a straight man.”
“Go on…” Alberto said, worried.
“Back in September, when school resumed, I attempted to come to the first teachers-parents meeting. I was concerned about you, so I wanted to see your teachers, your class. Become more involved. But I arrived late because I drove myself, and the traffic at that time was madness.”
Olympia explained that she hurried on her new pumps, a gift from Dimitri she couldn’t walk with, twisted her ankle as she was entering the building, and basically face-planted into Cyril Rodin’s arms, who was so shocked, he let go of her as if she had the plague. Her emotions got the best of her, and she burst into tears. Overcome by remorse, a horrified Cyril took her for a coffee in the break room, where Mamma’s defenses broke down when faced with his genuine kindness. She ended up oversharing, telling him of her worries concerning her son.
“Cyril’s very nice. Instead of embarrassing him, my behavior encouraged him, and he ended up telling me about his wife, and how his own son, like mine, hadn’t laughed in years. We exchanged numbers, and sometimes, when life is hard, we meet, and we talk.”
Alberto gave her a dubious look. “And you promise you’ve never, ever slept with him?”
Mamma scoffed. “Alberto, no! Cyril is like a pen pal, except we don’t write. We sob miserably over a cup of coffee, and we blame ourselves for being useless parents.” Mamma laughed. An occurrence as rare and as delightful as a shooting star briefly lighting up the sky. “I told you; Cyril is still in love with his wife. I don’t think he’s even noticed I’m a woman. To him, I’m just a friend. It’s an amazing feeling, really,” she added with a smile. “I told him of my recent troubles, and he said he’d introduce me to his gay friends so that I wouldn’t have to be alone.”
“O-kay.” Alberto’s brow wrinkled. “You don’t seem to be all that saddened by your divorce.”
“I’ve never been on my own,” Mamma said, shrugging. “But now you’re old enough to make your own decisions and choose your own path. You choose Mathias, and I choose to swear off men for a while. Maybe I should focus on myself getting better instead. How does that sound?”
“It sounds… good.” Alberto gave a small nod. “I’m just happy to see you smile, for once.”
“And I want you to smile, Tesoro . Do you know how you look when you smile? There’s nothing more beautiful in the entire world.”
“But Mamma… You keep saying smiling gives wrinkles.”
His mother’s eyes widened. “ Tesoro , my love, I only started saying that when you stopped smiling so you wouldn’t feel bad! People noticed and were constantly going on about it, and I could see it was making you miserable. I didn’t want you to force yourself; I wanted you to be okay. So, I came up with this line so you wouldn’t have to pretend to smile.”
Alberto stared at his mother. “You… You made that up for me?”
All this time, he had misunderstood her intentions. He who claimed he was the best at reading people. Maybe what he was the best at was misreading intent, or seeing everything in a negative light. Poorly analyzed through the lens of his childhood trauma.
“You can smile, baby,” Mamma said, her own lips curled into a gentle smile. “You can do whatever you want. On your own terms.”
All this time, the radio had been spitting out old tunes, relics from the past intended to warm the heart. Just as they stood, now shivering in the cold, Mamma’s favorite Italian song began. They both stilled, challenged by their memories of a certain night.
“If only we could change the past…” Alberto whispered, the thought of Mathias lying alone in bed becoming more and more unbearable.
“We can change the way it affects us,” Mamma said wisely. “Like this song.”
“It was your favorite before that night.”
Mamma nodded, but she was still smiling. “Do you remember the moves?”
Alberto puffed out a laugh. “I don’t know. It was a lifetime ago.”
“Should we find out?”
“Mamma…”
“Come on, you and me, for one final round. No one to bother us this time.”
The eagerness, the childish mirth in her eyes would have convinced even the gods. Alberto got up.
They did dance, that night. Two shadows in the middle of the beach, taunting the dark waves hugging the shores. Not silent, but laughing, as loud as they could in tandem with the wind.
And she was right: no one bothered them this time.
Alberto removed his shoes and his socks before he climbed into the darkness of the house. On the bed, his face lit by a bedside lamp, Mathias was sitting with his head in his hands. He started when he heard Alberto. His face pale, his eyes wide, he looked like a little kid.
“I thought you were gone,” he said, his voice hoarse. “I thought you…” He didn’t finish his sentence.
Alberto removed his coat and draped it over a chair. “I was, and now I’m back.”
Confusion blurred Mathias’s features. Perhaps, like Alberto, he was worried about saying the wrong things. Alberto stood in front of him and waited. Mathias looked fearful when he finally met his gaze.
“What happened? ”
Alberto chose his words carefully. “There was something I needed to do.”
“What—”
“Shh…” Alberto slowly slipped on top of him, straddling his thighs. “It’s all done now.” Mathias’s hands hesitated before settling on his waist.
“What you want…” Alberto said in a whisper. “I want it, too.”
Mathias studied his face, his chest rising and falling rapidly. “You do?” he asked in the same tone.
Alberto nodded. “Let’s do it your way.”
He caught his lips in a soft kiss, a tentative gesture which Mathias received with a broken sound, before he cupped Alberto’s head between his hands, deepening their kiss with the same gentleness.
“Mati…” Alberto called, his voice hoarse with desire.
“That’s my name,” Mathias replied, before joining their lips again.
They stood slowly, at the same time. The room twisted and turned. Alberto gave all his attention to the kiss, the mutinous intimacy of it, and barely registered being laid down on the bed, until inspiration struck, and he rolled them both over until he was on top.
Something shone in Mathias’s eyes. Striking enough for Alberto’s heart to briefly stop in his chest. Alberto pushed away the impulse to run.
How do you tell someone you like them? Actions, not words. Alberto slowly undressed, removing his shirt by lifting it over his head, and he did the same for Mathias, goose bumps flaring across his skin with every breath. Hands took their time to explore shoulders, neck, waist, and chest, and then lips took over. Eventually, they were fully undressed, and Alberto was still on top, and on top he remained for some time. Their love was gentle and awkward as a colt’s first steps, its newborn eyes meeting a wondrous world filled with light. And then, the silence. Silence which filled the room and blanketed their satiety and never threatened it.
There were no tears. Only morning.