Episode 22.II - Rains Season

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Silently, the daring clouds arrived like a magnificent fleet that nothing could deter; in a few hours, victorious conquering the whole sky for the next months. Bringing the sky closer to earth, they extended and unified their reigns under the pour down.

Deporting the sun from view, their dark barrier made the days seem shorter, as the light grew dim -- until liquid light started falling from the sky, in the form of thick, shiny raindrops. As with great determination they gathered in puddles on the soil, taken hostage to their own will and purpose of reflecting the mother clouds above, Armand had the impression that the earth itself had liquefied too, becoming part of sky, drenched in one single element.

After days of running wild and free from their obligations, Armand and Dave readily resumed the former monastic discipline of meditating for several hours each session, many sessions a day, with renewed diligence. 

Instead of the monastery bells, rolling thunders and the splattering of water marked the steady rhythm of their meditation. Through their half-open eyes they observed as the rain fell continually, sometimes so thick and heavy as to fall in neat vertical curtains, other times lighter and brighter, often carried by gushes of wind, arching through the landscape like wild horses rearing to the menacing strikes of purple lighting that flogged the horizon.

Concentrating on his breathing passing in and out of his nostrils, Armand felt the quality of air change, as it grew heavily humid -- and he started to understand Dave's warnings about how everything about them would grow impossibly moist -- even his lungs, it seemed. 

He often felt like he was drowning from breathing the vapour of water that reached him, through the closed curtains even. Since they hadn't put the monastic robes on, staying in their underwear the whole day through, Armand became very aware of how the temperature oscillated several times, too. From a nasty, indolent warmth that made him sleepy, to the chilly breeze agitating the curtains and giving him goose bumps, there no longer was any possible comfortable circumstance to meditate. 

And as if his body was trying to become one with the dominant element, Armand sweated profusely. But except for the different odour, it was hard to tell if what covered him, and ran in streams along his muscles, was sweat or raindrops. It seemed pointless to bathe in the lake, once they never were really dry any longer.

Armand started regretting the rain not for having drawn away the silence, nor for ruining the books, the words of the Buddha turned discontinuous as their pages grew thick and glued to one another, or for spoiling the food -- but for making him and Dave grow apart.

They would surely endure the lighter rain without leaving their cushions, but still had often to retreat far back into their precarious rooms to escape the violence of passing storms, when the streams of water could hit them with the force of whips. 

After having kept constant company to each other for weeks, Armand hurt as a mere wall stood as a painful obstacle between them. Like before with Carlo, who had occupied the room next to his on the Île du Blanchomme, Armand could not decide whether to venture into Dave's cubicle -- even if it were to start a conversation he should have had weeks ago already.

Suddenly becoming aware to have not reciprocated Dave's confession, he regretted it now -- withholding his own sexuality from his colleague. But Armand had often sensed there was no space -- or need? --, no openness -- or interest? -- indeed, for him to talk about himself to his friend. Dave's confession had versed on his professional sexuality only, with all its torments, which included a guilty pride that ultimately stimulated fantasies from Armand's part. Nothing of a more personal, intimate nature had been hinted -- except, perhaps, for that film crew member who seemed to have taken Dave's virginity and, in the end, recruited him to the porn industry. Perhaps it was Armand's tragic tendency, which had led him into so much frustration, that of separating love and sex, almost opposing the romantic involvement he longed for, and the physical satisfaction he craved for, that made Dave's straightforward, cold and detached openness seem the more mysterious to Armand.

Armand's surrender to Dave's dominance was slow, and so subtle, that it soon became complete. In all everyday aspects, Dave knew better how to organize their retreat. Having learned the sutras by heart, he taught Armand how to correctly recite them while holding the privilege to conduct their religious practices. In practical matters, too, his experience with prior rains seasons had led him to take care even of the cooking, determining the times they ate their meals, imprinting the rhythm of their daily routine. Dave loved tea and prepared it throughout the day for both of them, often adding dried petals or peels of fruits to the leaves -- that Armand drank with pleasure. Naturally, the surfer monk conducted their tea ceremonies, too. 

"Drink your cloud", he commanded Armand, with an inviting smile, as he offered him a cup of fragrant -- if oftentimes a bit too bitter -- tea. "Drink your mountain, drink your sun."

Dave could be surprisingly poetic, he could be strikingly philosophical.

But Armand wanted more, needed more, longed for more.

He wanted the surfer monk to be romantic, too.

Instead, as days passed under unceasing rain, and being confined to their rooms, perhaps just a little less wet than everything else around them, and to a monastic routine that demanded hours of immobility, made the tension and discomfort grow between them -- and not peace and camaraderie, that they should be cultivating.

During the brief intervals when the sun shone, in awe Armand observed Dave practice martial arts. With grunts and shouts, he cut the air with sharp punches and powerful kicks in continuous pirouettes, as if he were trying to bring down the bad weather with his violent fighting. When he couldn't, and the rain resumed, in frustration Dave would let out a cry of protest that sent shivers up Armand's spine.

One evening, weeks into their rain season's retreat, Armand had a dream. It was a welcome distraction, for he had been feeling sick -- though he could not precise how, since his stomach functioned normally, and there was neither fever nor any other symptom of any disease --, continually dizzy, tortured by constant headaches.

Not a complete dream, though. There was no action in it. It was just a scene, one that Armand had often fantasized about since Dave had shared with him about his days of hustling. Dressed in a tight tank top and jeans, that left little to imagination, wearing a cowboy hat and boots, Dave stood against a lamppost, waiting for clients. But none appeared, and he grew increasingly impatient and anguished, violent even, stamping his foot on the sidewalk. Until he found out there were no clients anymore, and the reason for that was Armand, who intently observed him from the distance, driving all other men away. 

For, in fact, in Thailand, on their floating monastery, they were indeed the only two men, living in enforced chastity.

Armand woke up suffocating, locked against the bottom of the hammock. On top of him, muscles bulging with rage, Dave weighed a ton.

*****

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Episode 13-II | Household battles

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"We found someone who will help fulfill Angelo's dream of progressing in life by going to the US to study in one of the best universities of that country." 

Feeling confident and happy, I made this announcement in one breath. Solemnly, although the last part about Vice City's University was not exactly true. Both Catherine and Edoardo eyed me in disbelief. They had gone on a romantic date, and upon returning home, a revolution had been launched.

"She will sponsor all his needs." I observed Catherine raising her eyebrows, while Edoardo`s tightened in a frown,  "At least until he can make a living on his own." Again, I was lying about Celeste's disposition. All I wanted was to make it sound so completely irreversible that Edoardo would have to simply accept is as fait accompli.  In fact, he was about to utter something when Catherine touched his arm slightly, to prevent him.

"My grandmother was very comprehensive about his will..." I cleared my throat, "that is, our will... to study to become a journalist. She understands studying is very important, for us to progress in life--" I stopped, when my mother lifted a hand in my direction, indicating I had lied enough about Celeste, that she knew so well.

Edoardo turned his back on me, and just before he rushed upstairs, I gave the best news I had saved to the end.

"Angelo is so happy that he is eating again. He had pane con prosciutto..." I hesitated, but could not avoid adding, "and milk." I laughed.

My prosciutto and milk, I wanted to clarify, but knew I'd better not. After that phone call, my boyfriend had thanked me effusively, skillfully using his mouth and tongue on me. His appetite opened after he swallowed all the protein I had kept for him, in weeks we hadn't had sex -- and he had indeed eaten a sandwich I prepared him.

A week went by before another crisis between Edoardo and me cooled down. I had implied in my discourse that a father, in his present, difficult financial situation, not being able to help his son was perfectly understandable, even justifiable. But prohibiting Angelo of getting help was unthinkable, and would only reveal Edoardo's ill will. 

He relented. Internally, I celebrated it as my final victory over him. The fact is, the final battle was still being fought, and his final, definitive blow, that I failed to anticipate, would come from the grave, nearly two decades after his death.

Things again accelerated. The same day Angelo left his bed, he started making international phone calls. He had a notebook with numbers and names written down. Soon, letters were being exchanged. Documents were translated and sent by fax and mail to the US. Applications were filled, long essays written and translated. Instead of the usual piles of Cds and Lps, our room floor was a labyrinth of sheets of paper and piles of books. There were guides to the US, tutorials on filling different applications, text books for English Grammar.

Aware of all that was being spent, I asked Catherine about the money Celeste had sent us on my mother's bank account, worried whether it would suffice. She laughed.

"Celeste has sent enough money to send you boys to the moon. Just don't waste it, but go on, Laurent!" She had encouraged me.

I had to study harder than Angelo for the proficiency tests. But after having learnt the dialect of the mountains to speak to Fabio, my first crush, learning English to accompany my boyfriend seemed easy. And though less than Angelo, I still had a talent for languages.

*****

"I'm very impressed, Laurent." Catherine commented, after I updated her on the situation. She had just returned from Belgium, and I helped her unload the car, full with books. We had gotten our scholarships -- full for Angelo, like he had intended to, and partial for me, which was a good surprise. "If just with your love and dedication for Angelo." She added, "I hope he values and reciprocates your love, mon cher."

"He does, Catherine! You see, I owe him everything that is happening to me!" Now that all was settled, I was elated with the new life before me. 

My mother gasped.

"Don't you think it's the opposite, Laurent?" I just blinked, and looked at my mother in dismay. She was alarmed, and clarified. "Angelo would not be going to the US without your help, Laurent."

"No mother. None of this would have happened without Angelo. He did all the paperwork and--"

Catherine interrupted me. 

"You really don't see it, Laurent? Or you don't want to see it?" She inquired, looking me straight in the eyes.

I just shrugged, and carried a pile of books inside the house, contentedly observing the swollen muscles of my arms, aware that soon I would be showing them off in the US, land of the gyms.

*****

The last battle, in the war that our household had become, was to be lost by Angelo. Against a surprising coalition formed by Catherine, Edoardo and me.

My boyfriend wanted to leave France as soon as possible. That still was a possibility that we could join the University for the Spring term. But for that, we should leave before Christmas to arrange accommodations before classes started, since there were no dorms.

Edoardo not just insisted, but forced Angelo to attend what he called the 'last' Christmas and New Year's Eve they would spend together. My guess is that he new about his degenerative condition already, but hid it from his son.

Angelo gave in, trying to set our departure for January 1st, since classes would start only on the 6th. 

It was Catherine to raise impediments, then.  To begin with, she was alarmed that we would fly. Worse, that we would fly during Winter. News about snow storms in the US were just too frequent. Angelo tried to make her see we were flying to the South of the US. 

'Where Summer is everlasting', he assured her. 

One evening, that I recall being in November, around Angelo's birthday, the four of us were watching television. Suddenly, to the sight of stranded people sleeping on benches of closed airports, Catherine had responded with abundant tears. It was rare that my mother would cry, at least in public. I was heartbroken, and astonished that she did not hide her emotions. Leaving the sofa I shared with Angelo, I sat at her feet. Edoardo took her hand in his hand. At my mother's tears, Angelo pressed his hand to his chest, as if he had been stabbed and was trying to stop the bleeding. 

Not a single word was uttered. My mother just sat there, silently crying. Even when losing control, she remained elegant and discreet. When the news changed to the latest gossip on François Miterrand's secret daughter, she let out a deep sigh. A secret daughter herself, with dignity she stood up, and quietly made her way to the bedroom. A few moments later, Edoardo followed her. 

Left alone with Angelo, I gasped when I gazed in his direction. He seemed to have fainted on the sofa, one arm covering his face, the other hand tugging his clothes around his chest. For a moment, I feared he could attempt suicide again. But no matter how bad Catherine's tears had been for a birthday present, indicating the Spring term was an aborted plan, the US still shone right before Angelo. 

He would just have to conform to our parents wishes. And be patient. 

******

New Year's Eve dinner was never a tradition in my family.

Since it would be the last occasion the four of us would celebrate something formal living under the same roof, it promised to be a big event.

The problem was -- Edoardo wanted to cook. Foreseeing a greasy ossobuco and plain pasta, I placed my protests.

"We are in France, not in Italy." I stated. Full of confidence since Celeste had started backing us, I no longer feared confronting Edoardo in front of my mother. "I'm not eating anything but French food." I said, clapping my hands, like Catherine would sometimes do,  and as I had seen in a documentary about Tibetan Buddhist monks. " French food, or I won't eat."

Without much drama and further ado, I won that battle, too. 

Catherine made reservations at the only Michelin starred restaurant in our region. Dressing our best clothes as an attempt to lift our spirits for the occasion -- a gloomy farewell, more than a celebration of the year to come, when we would split -- we got ready. 

 Upon seeing Edoardo starting my mother's car, I started complaining.

"I won't get inside this car if he is driving." I announced. Calmly. Instead, it sounded like a shot. 

A few minutes passed, as I stubbornly paced near the car. The road starting at our door turned into a cul-de-sac. Catherine and Angelo tried to dissuade me. But then and there, I promised myself I would not die in a car accident caused by the man I loathed.

"We are getting late, Laurent. Please!" My mother begged taking the passenger's seat.

"You can go, then. I'll stay. Happy New Year to everyone!" I said, loosening my tie. Only when I backed a few steps towards the house, did Catherine realize I was not just bickering. Motioning Edoardo out of the car, she let loose a strange choreography. 

"Mérde!" she uttered, stepping out of the car and going around the front of the vehicle to take the driver's seat.

Only when Edoardo stepped out, too, did I approach the car again. From the inside, Angelo observed us with a bored look. True hostility ensued when Edoardo bumped violently into me on his way to the passenger's seat. Gasping, I fell against the car's door. But in a moment I regained balance to, in turn, push him against the car, too. Even if only slightly drunk, Edoardo bumped against the car and then fell to the right. The mirror held him, before breaking. My mother screamed, and that seemed to take Edoardo over the edge -- he ripped the hanging mirror off the car and threw it on the floor. We did not hear the crash because Catherine started blowing the horn in rage. 

"Someone will have to pay for this!" She shouted, looking at me through the mirror.

"Sure." I retorted, "The person who broke it. But he doesn't have--"

"Shut up, Laurent." Angelo said, coldly, before Catherine could reprimand me.

"Shut up, Edoardo." She said, when Edoardo entered the car, swearing in Italian.

Catherine still protested one last time, before starting the car. "This will ruin my gown!" -- and from then on, there was only our silence and the sound of the engine accelerating.

We made it sharp on time, thanks to Catherine dangerously overtaking all cars and trucks we met on our way. 

The restaurant had been someone's house. I mean someone important, famous or historic -- but I did not care to check who. There was an extraordinary garden around it, that could rival Monet's . The murmur of crickets blended to the soft spray of fountains, underlined by invisible toads sitting on the margins of the water mirrors, spoke of enduring summers and sequestered winters. The trees canopies stood like a mass of dark clouds lingering over the garden, but above them, stars shone in the crisp clear night. Pale lights placed on the floor along the paths illuminated the bushes bearing perennial varieties of flowers. 

Catherine took Edoardo by the arm to explore it.

What an extreme change, I thought. The same person who had ordered Uncle Will to cut all the bushes around our cottage in Punaouilo was inspecting the flowers and letting out sighs and exclamations of contentment. Wearing a gown of black velvet covered with hand painted flowers in red and orange, Catherine looked like a flower bed moving among other flower beds.

Edoardo followed her like the sequitur of a queen, in an attitude of adoration. While my mother had eyes only for the flowers, I noticed how his eyes never left her figure, as if she was the only thing he could see. No matter how much I loathed him, I had to give in to the fact that he truly loved her. He seemed to have quieted her sexual appetite -- and Edoardo himself seemed to be faithful to my mother.

She looked impossibly beautiful and young. A woman of over forty, she seemed to be thirty, or even a couple years younger than that. Just slightly older than when she had given birth to me. I had grown to be eighteen, almost nineteen, while those nearly two decades had imprinted only a few more years on her. 

Her fountain of youth, I knew, was the Italian man standing by her side. I wish it had been another Italian man -- Carlo, my father. But with him she had only quarreled, while with Edoardo she hardly fought. 

That evening, despite my bellicose disposition, I finally realized the woman my Catherine was -- not just my mother. And Edoardo too -- the man he was, and not simply Angelo's father. And how that woman and man lived a great love. How, as parents, they might have worried about our trip to the US  -- but as a couple, they might be secretly relieved at the fact that we were leaving them alone, to their own story -- their love story.

When Angelo went to the washroom, while we waited to be seated, I overheard the murmurs of Catherine and Edoardo's conversation.

"I love this place, already. Don't you, chéri? So many magnificent flowers!" she exclaimed, delighted with the arrangements that decorated a table at the entrance hall. Personally, I found the whole atmosphere too old fashioned, and not as sophisticated as I'd have expected. I had my doubts that Celeste, for instance, would approve of the restaurant. Rather provincial, she would have nailed.

  

"Fiori?" I heard Edoardo asking Catherine. "What flowers? I don't see any flowers..."

Catherine gazed at him in disbelief, inspecting his countenance. Had he drunk too much? But Edoardo went on, before she could say anything.

"I see only one flower!" He whispered, in a husky voice. And because his French was often not clear enough, he took her by the waist. Softly, yet very manly, in a gesture that made me think of how passionate their sex life should be like. "There is only one flower for me." he added, pulling her closer. Catherine seemed to offer no resistance, a subtle smile on her lips telling she was enjoying it. "The only flower I need in the garden of my life."

Of course, they had kissed, despite being a public. I simply turned my back to them, embarrassed.

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Episode 07-II | Front and rear

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The first time I met Edoardo was an early dinner at our home, when he had cooked. After having failed in engaging in any sort of conversation, we moved on from the living room to the kitchen area, where it had taken ages for him to prepare some very simple pasta with olive oil and herbs. It was rather plain and tasted to almost nothing in my opinion, despite him praising the Italian homemade pasta. Later that evening, I was going to assault the fridge looking for a proper meal, but at the table I tried to please him by eating as much as I could from that unimaginative food.

In a bad way, Edoardo reminded me of Tarso. He was just as silent and reserved as my great-grandfather had been. That went so well with Angelo and Catherine, who could be so talkative. But because I was also more silent than not, and a 'good listener' like my mother had already stated, it was often that between Edoardo and I a very tense, uncomfortable silence fell. 

My first impression was that he was ill humored, bad tempered and arrogant, and I wondered why my mother had fallen for him. He was good looking and well built, attractive in a very manly way -- but so had Carlo been.

I might have been simply jealous. I had never seen Catherine trying to speak Italian to my father -- first of all, because Carlo's French was fluent, if tinged by a rather charming accent. But Edoardo's was really poor -- he had never properly learned French, and he was never going to. I thought it was extremely indelicate of him to try to impose Italian right from his arrival.

"I heard you speak good Italian, Laurente!" were Edoardo's first words to me. I hated how my name sounded when he pronounced it, like a stone falling on cement, or like a long burp, though he had tried to compliment and include me in the Italian night we were about to celebrate. "But it can always improve, don't you think?", he had added. But I did not want to speak Italian, and I did not say a word that evening that was not in French, though I normally used Italian words with Angelo. And I felt mad at Catherine for actually trying to speak their language. Why hadn't she ever tried it with my father, and only criticized him in the rare occasions when he had accidentally exclaimed something like "Madonna mia!"... Why? 

"Because they were our guests at the table and at our home, Laurent. And you might as well try to please guests and make them feel welcome, can't you?" Catherine had reprimanded me, weeks later.

And it was about to get worse. When I finished my food, realizing there was only more of that plain pasta to eat and no dessert, I thought dinner had finished for me, and saying "Excuse me" I stood up to take my plate into the kitchen.

"I haven't finished yet!" Edoardo declared, rather sharply.

"Oh, I am sorry..." And I truly was. I had done that mistake before, with a few others of Catherine's guests, and I was again ashamed. Some of them had been famous movie directors and accomplished writers or brilliant professors, and yet none of them had told me what I heard next.

"Now sit." arrived the order from Edoardo. He made a hand gesture that was not the least inviting, but demonstrated his was the last word about me standing up and walking away or not.

"I beg you pardon?" I still tried to be polite, but no longer sincerely. My heart was pumping hard, my hands had started shaking.

Edoardo did not repeat his marching order. He just glanced in my direction with a severe look, lowering his eyebrows like he often would glance in my direction. He had said it once, and it should be enough, his demeanor indicated.

That moment, I decided my whole future, concerning my relationship with my mother's greatest and perhaps only love, who was the father of my own boyfriend. 

I turned my back on Edoardo and walked into the kitchen area.

"Laurente!" I heard him shout, and at the same time coming from my mother, "Where do you think you're going, Laurent?"

"To the toilet." I replied. It wasn't true, but it was the only reply that occurred me in the heat of the moment. It was almost a polite and very appropriate excuse, had I intended to come back. And then, giving in to my anger, I blurted "I need to shit."

It was the equivalent to an scandal in our house. Of course there had been quarrels and fights before -- Carlo and Catherine, Angelo and me. But it was the first time I was confronting an adult -- and if there is one thing I can thank Edoardo for, and that's the only thing I can think of, plus the fact that he had the ability to please Catherine and make her truly happy, is that he aggravated me so much and constantly that my daily confrontations with him, sometimes with shouts, sometimes in a tense silence, were very important in my blossoming into a young adult, developing my own confidence and imposing the limits that people could not trespass with me.

That evening of our dinner, I went upstairs and waited for Angelo to show up in my room -- the room that we were going to share. But he never came. Although it was a Friday night and he could and should have stayed with me, Edoardo decided to tow him away to their motel room. I did not see Catherine either, because she did not come to my room -- I heard the door of hers bang, and that ended the disastrous night.

It might have been my first clash with Edoardo that changed plans for us all -- and instead of Angelo moving in first, Edoardo moved in with him at once.

Catherine never talked to me about that incident. 

She simply left home, without warning me where she was going. And if she would return. I had to go into her bedroom to check whether her traveling bags where there or not -- to actually start hinting that she had probably gone abroad, maybe to Belgium where she was still teaching. I don't remember exactly for how many days she was gone, but nevertheless, enough for me to again feel the panic of losing my mother. Angelo knew nothing either, and at school we just sat side by side apathetically. Every time I was struck by the fear of having lost my mother's affection, I was back at Punaouilo, to the days when she had returned to France and for months not given me any news. The difference was that now Carlo was no longer there for me, and he hadn't send any news in years himself. I was all on my own.

It was a rather puzzling process, that of growing up and yet, going back to infantile feelings of abandonment; that of developing the confidence to confront Edoardo and yet being terrorized of losing my mother. I was tore between two extremes, aggressiveness and passivity -- and that's how I grew up to be what I am. That's also how I forgot about Carlo, trying to find a balance between fighting for my space and dignity in my own home, and at once relegating all the things I found unacceptable in Edoardo -- for the promise of being still loved by my mother.

For the first time in all those years, Catherine did not call me from Belgium to check how I was. Not even once. I cried everyday, sitting in her empty room. If I was still in doubt, her silence and the ostracism I was condemned to, made me fully realize there was a new condition for Catherine's affection -- or maybe, a new opportunity? Being a good student, obedient, taking care of the house chores and respecting my mother's need for privacy and distance had never facilitated my access to her heart. Maybe bearing Edoardo was a new key I was being given the chance to try?

When she came back from Belgium, and Edoardo moved in with Angelo a few days later, I had fully repented. I was determined to soften my edges and be as polite as I could, even if I sounded hypocrite. I'd do anything for my mother, even treat cordially her loathed boyfriend. That I sometimes forgot was also my boyfriend's father.

And that is why it was easier for me than for Angelo to pardon a few things coming from Catherine and Edoardo --- because when I thought of my mother, I was willing to forgive and forget. While Angelo didn't think of anyone but himself.

It was a very uncomfortable and delicate situation when Edoardo and Catherine made love in their room, that was directly next to us. I had heard Carlo and Catherine making love before, and I have already expressed how happy I was when the sounds of their intercourses reached my room, for it meant that after their quarrels, they were making peace that way. And Catherine had never brought any lovers home, at least not when I was there. So this was new and confusing to me, as much as it was annoying to Angelo.

And Carlo had always been a gentle lover, and his love making must have been the same, despite or perhaps because of his being well endowed and easily hurting Catherine when he penetrated her.

Edoardo, if I was to take his son for example, would need to be a fierce and very skilled lover to make the best use of a rather mediocre tool -- and that's exactly what he was. We would often wake up to the sound of their bed forcefully banging against the wall dividing our rooms. Catherine did not hold back her moaning under Edoardo's power, and his grunts were heard even louder than my mother's cries when they came.

We would each time be awoken by their noises, which we listened to in dismay. No, it did not excite us the least, nor inspired us to do like them.

First of all, because my relationship with Angelo remained a secret kept from Edoardo. Around Edoardo, we had to pretend to be two little boys, and look like brothers, never like lovers. I tried to constantly tease Angelo, and give him hard-ons, but that only upset him, and in time I had to stop.

"Now quit it, Laurent! I'm not letting you make me gay before my father, too! No way! There is no coming out because I am not gay, do you understand it? Opening up to my father is not an option. That's it!"

"Why are you so afraid of your father?" I had challenged Angelo.

"I am not. But I know him. It will only worsen things."

I couldn't imagine it being any worse than it already was. We had lost our freedom at home. And since the door to my bedroom couldn't be locked,  we were confined to have sex in the bathroom, with the shower and the music on. It was a rather melancholic backlash from the times when we had taken the whole house for our experiments with different positions and add-ons, like whipped cream from the kitchen or the very convenient lounge with interchangeable cushions at the living room.

And it did get worse.

From the fight that had started at the adults bedroom upstairs, Angelo and I knew we just had to wait for a while until the storm fell upon us, too. Edoardo came down to the living room to meet us. He spoke only Italian, but I understood it fairly well.

"Do you have anything to tell me, Angelo?"

"Nothing new at the front, father."

"Well, maybe at the back?" I gasped at Edoardo's words, and I was not quite sure to have understood them, but Angelo kept on his cool act. "Because I think you do! And just before you say it, let me tell you already... I am disgusted!"

"Really, father? Why?"

I thought Angelo's cynical approach was dangerous, for it seemed to aggravate Edoardo. But this time it was my turn to just be present and silent, like before Angelo had stood by my side when I came out to my mother.

"Don't mess with me, you little brat! You know perfectly well! This is unacceptable!" Edoardo's deep voice thundered.

"It depends on who is willing to accept what..."

"Now shut up, Angelo! You have not been invited to speak. This is a sin! This has to stop! This is filthy, this dirty, this is unnatural..."

And Edoardo would have gone on with his ranting if I hadn't interrupted him.

"And this is the Medieval ages, again." I blurted.

Our luck was that I spoke in French, and Edoardo didn't really catch it.

"What did you say there? Repeat it! Repeat it to me if you are a man, Laurente! What did he say?" Edoardo demanded translation from Angelo.

And I think I would have repeated it, if Angelo hadn't asked me to go upstairs.

"Let me sort this out with my father. Please, Laurent, please!" It was the first, and perhaps the last time that I saw Angelo kindly asking me to do anything, almost imploring it.

And that's how it got worse. We started being stalked. From then on, Edoardo would break into our room, always checking  and trying to catch on us.

"You have no right to come into my room like that! You will have to knock first!" I had hurled at him once.

"I will come in whenever I want!" he had retorted, just before storming out of the room, banging the door behind him. "My son is in this room, too!" 

That's how the only privacy we'd find was in our bathroom. But even there. We almost had a double heart attack when we were at it, and suddenly Edoardo was banging at the door, almost bringing it down. 

"Go away! We are fucking!" I had shouted. In French, because I did not really want Edoardo to understand it.

Next, Angelo was pushing me away, and swiftly getting dressed, and going out of the bathroom to calm his father.

"What did you tell him? Have you explained that we shower together to save water, haha!?!" I had ironically inquired.

"Shut up, Laurent!" Angelo had retorted; our sex session for that day being thus canceled. "Go fuck yourself!"

Most of this happened when Catherine was away, be it for a few hours or a few days. She had changed her teaching routine and never again spent more than a week in Belgium -- and even that was long enough for our home to be turned into a battle field. But when she was home, though there was tension and often mutual provocations between Edoardo and me, it was all veiled and kept at a decent level. He loved Catherine, and so did I -- but we found it unbearable and impossible to even accept the other's presence in the same room. 

But when the sounds of my mother and his father making love would start, it was Angelo who responded worst. He felt so tormented. Often, he left the room, which we considered to be our private kingdom,  and went downstairs; other times, he tried to muffle the sounds by burying his head in a pile of pillows, when he would snatch mine even. Once, he said he thought the noise was aimed at him, as if his father was demonstrating how a true man behaved, making love to a woman. 

"You have to consider, Laurent, that they could be making a baby!" he threatened.

I was immediately alarmed. Sharing a territory that in sixteen years I had never fully conquered, to which Catherine had always been a reluctant queen? The idea seemed hideous. A baby was too definitive an establishment of Edoardo in our household -- because I still hoped  that someday Catherine would realize the loser jerk he was, and get rid of him.

"Oh gosh, no! Please no!" I grimaced and shivered at the prospect of having to compete for attention in my own home with a baby brother. But I knew Catherine had no talent as a mother, and she wouldn't make that mistake again, not when she was over forty already.

I was surprised when one day, after having started narrating what he thought was being enacted on the other side of the wall, Angelo had screamed above the adults moans and groans.

"Wooohooo! Go, go, go, go, goal!!!!" he shouted.

For a moment, Catherine and Edoardo had silenced, and I was afraid that they had mistaken Angelo's voice for mine. For a whole minute I awaited for Edoardo to storm into my room, and finally try to beat me. But they had simply resumed their love making, muffling the sounds, at least for the rest of that session.

"Please, Angelo. We have to respect them..." 

"Respect? What do you mean by 'respect', Laurent? They are not showing any respect for us! Listen! Today it must be anal! It's when your mother screams the most!"

"Angelo!" I was truly offended, "This is my mother's house! You have to respect her."

"And we finally come to this! Yes, this is her house! And I respect her. You know that very well, Laurent, how much I admire your mother! But I am not going to let her rule over me. Catherine can rule over the other two meek men in this house... But not over me!"

"What are you talking about, Angelo?" But I knew what he was talking about. My mother manipulated Edoardo and me the whole time, making us practice hypocrisy as the highest form of art, for it actually was the only thing to keep us at a minimum convivial level, instead of exchanging punches from breakfast until supper.

"I am talking about leaving, Laurent. That's what I am talking about!"

"Would you do that to me, Angelo?" My voice broke with my heart at the perspective of being abandoned again.

"From the day I got here, you know very well what my single plan is, Laurent. I am not staying in this God forsaken, shitty hole! And you can come with me or not, I don't care. I am leaving. You can stay in this hellish situation, if you wish, but I shall not. I know you don't have much will or determination, so I will share mine with you. Are you coming with me or not, Laurent?"

next episode

Author's note: having been imported from a former version of the story, some of the comments below are dated previous to this post. Once the plot has not been altered, just the pagination, I am keeping them since they are very dear and precious to me.