Chapter 29
It’s Sunday but, for once, Callum doesn’t have to be dragged out of bed. He gets himself up early to do his workout. Through the open window of his bedroom, I hear him grunting and panting, as I sit on the patio, sipping my morning coffee, reading The Heart in Exile.
The book’s lead character is a middle-class psychiatrist struggling against his nature—a nature that, like Wilf, he finds it difficult to name, although he sometimes uses the medical term invert.
When his ex-lover dies in unexplained circumstances, the psychiatrist delves back into the underworld he gave up—because he found it “sordid”—to try and track down some answers.
While the plot’s gripping, I’m fascinated by the details of the subculture he describes—although the character’s self-loathing and hatred of effeminate gay men can be wearing.
And Wilf seemed to accept his class snobbery and treatment of working-class men as sex objects, but I find it difficult to stomach.
Once I’ve finished the book, I’m going to scour Wilf’s library to see if I can find any other novels about gay life at other stages of history.
I’m torn away from my reading when the others stir.
After going up to the temporary kitchen to make a breakfast of orange juice and fried eggs on ciabatta—and after we’ve thrown the oranges over the hill—the kids do the washing up in the cottage bathroom.
Then we look around the wine store collecting as many baskets as we can find and set about stripping the fig trees of their fruit.
Stefano examined these the last time he came to the house and told us they were ready.
Judging by the taste, he’s right. I’ve never eaten fresh figs before but they’re deliciously rich and sweet, somewhere between strawberries and currants, with a dash of dates.
All of us eat as we work, making appreciative noises, Callum and Mabel breaking off to take the occasional photo.
My favorite is of Archie holding up a fig in each hand, bolts of lightning shaved into the sides of his head, just like Marco the barber.
In the afternoon, we go shopping for hammocks, which we’ve decided we’ll set up between the trees at the side of the house, the opposite end to the chapel.
Everything I’ve read about holiday rentals says you need to create “Instagrammable moments.” I’m sure the castle and its views are going to rank number one on our list but I want to create some more, inspiring our guests to post several times.
We find two hammocks that aren’t expensive and are in pretty much the same turquoise as the front doors.
As Wilf and Arnaldo must have chosen this, I decide it’s going to be our signature color.
“Is that the color you’re doing the website?” asks Callum.
I suddenly realize that, other than registering the domain name for the Castello Montemagno—and setting up an Instagram account in the same name—I haven’t done anything. In fact, I’d forgotten about it completely. “I haven’t had chance to think about that yet,” I say.
“Adam, you need to get on it,” Callum argues. “It’ll take ages to do the design and get everything set up.”
“I know, I will!”
On the way back, we call at the supermarket to pick up everything we need to make pizzas.
On Friday, the builders finished rebuilding the roof over the pizza oven and told us to leave it a few days; then we could use it.
As we’re still in the temporary kitchen, we’re reduced to using ready-made bases, but the kids enjoy picking their own toppings and coming up with names for their combinations.
Next stop is the beauty aisle, where Mabel finds everything she’s prescribed for my new skincare regime.
“I’m looking forward to this,” I tell her. We exchange a smile.
Theo takes a detour down the sweet aisle, where he tells the kids they can each pick a treat for the car.
Archie goes for his usual chocolate buttons and Mabel asks for a bar of white chocolate.
I’m about to remind her she doesn’t like that anymore when she volunteers, “I know I said I’d gone off it but I like it again now. ”
Theo and I try not to smirk.
“And I know I said these were too hard for my brace but I was basically talking crap,” says Callum, picking up a protein bar.
Am I imagining this or do Callum and Mabel turn away so we can’t see them smiling?
Once we’re back at the house, we hang the hammocks, which are instantly claimed by Callum and Mabel.
Archie feels left out but, as he’s only interested in the hammocks for swinging, Theo has the idea of building him a rope swing.
He remembers seeing a thick length of rope in the wine store and retrieves it, along with as many tools as he can find.
The five of us spend the next two hours creating and erecting a swing from the thick branch of a tree that hangs over a slope.
We saw, sand, drill, measure and tie, with Theo acting as foreman.
Once the swing’s ready, Theo and I insist on testing it out before any of the kids go on it, then we sit one on top of the other to really test its ability to carry weight.
Mabel takes more photos and we all laugh loudly.
I’d never imagined DIY could be so much fun. If only Dad could see me now.
Then another voice in my head says, Dad could see you now—if you’d let him.
I clap my hands together. “Right, who fancies a pizza?”
Theo fires up the pizza oven while the kids and I sprinkle our ready-made bases with our chosen toppings, then slide them in.
As we sit on the patio eating, congratulating ourselves on our taste combinations, Archie spots two lizards sitting on the doorstep.
We recognize them as the ones that live in the larder.
But this time Mabel doesn’t scream and Callum doesn’t attack them.
We just sit eating, watching them. And they sit watching us.
Theo finishes his pizza and gently dusts the flour from his hands. “Gang, I think we should come up with some names for these guys.”
“Len,” suggests Callum.
“Liz,” says Mabel. “Liz the Lizard!”
“Lionel!” quips Archie, his mouth smeared in so much tomato he looks like a clown. “After Lionel Messi!”
“All outstanding ideas,” judges Theo. Like a punch to the gut, I suddenly feel the force of his good looks—enhanced by his sharp, neat haircut. Something stirs inside me.
“Actually, not Liz,” Mabel corrects herself. “I don’t think they’re boyfriend and girlfriend.”
“Brother and sister!” yelps Archie, cramming the remains of his pizza into his mouth.
Mabel shakes her head, firmly. “I think they’re two boys.”
“Best friends!” says Archie, spraying tomato all over the table.
Mabel puts her pizza down. “I think they’re boyfriends.”
“Like Dad and Dadam!” chirps Archie.
I wince.
But this time Mabel doesn’t correct him.
In the evening, Mabel gives me my skincare tutorial, while Archie is in bed and Theo is speaking to Callum about his back and shoulder hair—laying out options he may or may not want to follow.
I have to admit, Mabel’s skincare advice is incredibly useful, although I do feel sheepish to be learning some of the basic principles from a thirteen-year-old, a week before I reach the age of forty-six.
She ends with the instruction to store all my products in the fridge and I hope there’ll be space in our new model when we’re back in the kitchen.
Once Mabel’s gone to bed, I have a shower.
As I’m drying myself off, I become aware of Theo standing in the doorframe.
He moves over to me and I sense an edge to his energy.
He takes his shirt off, throwing it on the floor, and kicks away his sliders.
He clasps his hands around my neck and pulls me closer.
He kisses me full on the mouth, his breath hot and quick. He tastes salty, like the sea. I run my nose up his cheek and breathe in his musk, the smoke of the pizza oven, the scent of the country.
“Mio tesoro,” he whispers in my ear.
I smile. “Mio carissimo,” I say into his mouth.
I let my towel fall to the floor so I’m naked.
He lifts me up with his powerful arms and I feel them tensing at my sides.
I wrap my legs around him, feeling the tickle of the hairs on his stomach.
He kisses me hungrily, feverishly, and carries me through to the bedroom, as if I hardly weigh anything.
He lowers me onto the bed and tugs off his shorts, throwing them onto the floor.
He’s hard, huge. I move my mouth down to pleasure him, guiding him in and out, savoring his taste, his size, his readiness.
He lets out a moan and buries his fingers in my hair.
Then he pulls back and lets himself out of my mouth.
“Sorry,” he says, “I need to be inside you.”
“You were inside me,” I say, with a giggle.
“Ads,” he growls, “I need to fuck you.”
He grabs the lubricant, gives a few pumps and slicks himself. Then he waits for me to do the same, his breathing growing faster and heavier. He kneels before me and pulls my thighs up ever so slightly. And with one push, he’s inside me.
“Yes.”
“Yes.”
He waits, knowing I need to get used to his size. I pant, forcing myself to relax, knowing the pain will be over soon.
“Ready?” he whispers.
I give him an eager kiss.
He begins driving himself in and out of me, so forcefully that I gasp. He silences me with a hot, open kiss. I grab onto him, pulling him deeper and deeper inside me.
Suddenly, I’ve no idea why I’ve avoided doing this the whole time we’ve been in Italy. And I don’t feel the slightest flicker of shame that the kids are under the same roof.
“I love you, Theo,” I burst out.
“I love you, Ads,” he rasps.
“I just love you so much.”
“And I love fucking you. I want to fuck you forever.”
I groan. “Yes, please!”
I run my hand down my body to start pleasuring myself.
Theo gently tugs at my nipple with his right hand, his left holding up my flank.
I feel him gaining momentum, his speed building.
I want to scream but instead cling onto his muscular shoulders with my fingers.
I dig into him as he bores into me, closer to my essence, the boundary between us blurring.
“I’m nearly there,” he tells me. “I’m going to come.”
“Me too,” I say.
“Fuck,” he cries. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
With a feral growl, Theo empties himself into me. At the same time, I climax, a wild, breathy grunt escaping me.
We fall back on the bed, catching our breaths. Then we both start laughing, loudly and uncontrollably.
I feel my entire body unclenching.
I remember just a few weeks ago thinking that if Theo dumped me, it’d be like unclenching a fist. But I realize now just how wrong I was. Because this is the ultimate unclenching, the ultimate release. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so myself.
Theo moves in for another kiss. “I’ll never leave you,” he says.
I feel like I’m smiling with my whole body.