Episode 59 | Interlude 1.4

previous episode



Some time later after Fabrizio's abbreviated stay in Samsara Heights, I rediscovered Shantideva's book in the drawer -- on the very day I learned Andrea, our only friend in common, had a new restaurant in town. I had been in Vice City at its opening date, but I had not even received an invitation.

Andrea was an affair of mine that had lasted no more than two weeks, and unfortunately he had decided to be my declared enemy by the end of it. Suddenly, I sensed that maybe he might have said something venomous about me to Fabrizio, and decided to go after him.

"He will be in a porno!" That was the first thing Andrea said about me to the two people who were with him, his most recent boyfriend and a woman, when I found them on the second floor of the new restaurant.

"Wow, is he?!" Andrea's young boyfriend exclaimed excitedly.

"Yes he will, dear, but do not get carried away..." Andrea was feeling jealous after his own bad joke. "He has a fairly big dick, but yours is even bigger, haha!" Andrea intended to humiliate me, to make me feel unwelcome at his restaurant. Just as I had expected, and I tried not to take it personally. "What do I owe the displeasure of your presence to?" He spoke calmly, enjoying all the irony he could fit into each sentence.

"The new restaurant is beautiful, Andrea." Sober colors and vigorous patterns on the latest in furniture design, wide spaces turned cozy by seductive lightning, high windows opening onto an imaginative garden with boulders that seemed to float over water mirrors, creating an almost oneiric atmosphere. I was certain that the food would be supremely good, but beyond that, Andrea knew how to offer a 'remarkable experience' to his customers. "Congratulations!" I was sincere, and polite. But I had already regretted coming.

"Oh, it is doing very well, too... Without customers like you!" Andrea had fallen in love with me, and though I had told him I did not want to start a romantic relationship with him, nor with any guy, he felt like I had dumped him when I did not call him after a two weeks liaison -- already much longer than anything else I was having during that period of my life. I was the 'one-night stands only' man at the time, but Andrea was cultured and traveled and I did enjoy his company. And since I didn't want to encourage him, I did not want to see him at all. For days, I avoided answering his insistent calls, until he stopped. He had refused being just friends, and fuck friends was out of question, since bed had been awful. When Andrea learned I had been with other guys already, the very day after I had quit seeing him, he decided to become my enemy. And he fought me as if I were some public plague he had to stop in the name of mankind.

"I think we have a mutual friend... Fabrizio." I did not want to fight Andrea back, since I had a very strong and sole purpose in coming to his restaurant, where I knew I'd be antagonized. "It was he who told me of your new restaurant..." I lied. My best friend in Samsara Heights, Darren Cox, was a chef, and he always kept me updated about his metier.

"I think he will not be your friend any longer, darling!" Andrea said emphatically. "He's already been warned about the kind of person you are."

I should have heard his menace, and pretend to be at least worried. But instead, unfortunately, I laughed at the restauranteur's statement, which seemed to irritate him even more.

"Fabrizio is an angel!" Andrea's use of the term 'angel' gave me goose bumps since it reminded me of my far from angelic experiences with Gabriel and Angelo. "He is a god living on the Olympus, well away from the gutter where you crawl..." He snapped his fingers to change the subject. "In that porn... will you be top or bottom, honey? They say bottoms get better paid..."

The funny thing was that, each worse fact that Andrea invented and threw at me, seemed to increase his young boyfriend's interest on me. But the youngster was not my type, and I hardly looked in his direction -- so that soon, he was antagonizing me as well. It also seemed to increase the interest of the woman by Andrea's side, who remained silently staring at me. All around there was an increasing activity, as the restaurant was getting ready to open for dinner, and I was glad the employees were busy and not paying attention to our conversation. Among the waiters, there were two guys, and the maître himself, that I had already taken to bed. In other times, I would be wondering how my score were to rise if I could check the kitchen staff too -- but since I was trying to revive my connection with Fabrizio, I was slightly embarrassed.

"It will be an orgy scene, Andrea!" I retorted. It was rather annoying to have such a dedicated enemy in Samsara Heights, when we were seeing the same people and had many acquaintances in common. "The more the merrier, don't you agree? I'll do a flip flop with another three or four actors." I laughed, relaxing. The conversation theme seemed surreal to me. "I'm versatile." Unlike you, I thought, and mouthed "But you wouldn't know it." -- to which the restauranteur's boyfriend gave a short laugh. Andrea preferred to bottom only, usually laying very still, pretending he was either sleeping or even dead. He enjoyed feeling helpless, and being abused. Making out with him was too creepy and weird for me, and despite our great conversations, it hadn't lasted. 

Andrea snorted. "Charming!" He glanced severely at the boy, who immediately stopped smiling. "I foresee a double penetration!" The restauranteur teased further. He was not easily losing any battle. "Is it your biography that they are filming?"

"Yes, indeed, Andrea!" I had kept my sense of humor, which seemed to aggravate the restauranteur the most. "But don't worry! The chapter in which you appear will not be filmed. It was too boring. In fact, it hasn't even been written. Ciao, Andrea."

Already going down the stairs, I still heard him swear, not too loud as not to shock the customers that had started arriving at the lounge downstairs. And I also heard when the girl asked, "Is he really a porn actor, Andy?"

"He is! And an escort, too, the cheapest in town." Andrea added, disdainfully. A disdain that I probably deserved, as I had mistreated and verbally abused Angelo, at the time he was my boyfriend in Vice City, when I had learned -- just heard, actually, because he denied it -- that he was exchanging sex for money. And watches, designers' clothes, good grades, a chance at the local TV channel -- whatever Angelo could trade for his good looks and carefree sexuality.

 Descending those stairs, I realized the sad truth -- deep within, I was happily confirming to have indelibly hurt Andrea. In the past, and now still.

I could tell myself that I had unintentionally hurt him years ago when I had refused to have a love affair -- but it hadn't been only with Andrea. Since Angelo had left me, I had had mostly one-night stands. And when a guy showed any romantic interest in me, like Andrea had, I was sure to dump him, mercilessly. I was keenly cultivating my heart-breaker reputation -- just because, in fact, being heartbroken, I felt I had to pass on my own suffering, as a way of alleviating it. So middle class, so cliché, so unwise of me.

Wouldn't I have behaved exactly like Andrea if I had met Angelo? Had I ever forgiven my one and only ex-? It was rather sad that I was so hurt still, after all those years... Gabriel had again and recently stirred that turmoil in me, reopening scars that had not quite healed. And that evening, Andrea had brought up the bitch I could be at my worst, inflicting suffering on other men just because I had myself suffered. And Fabrizio was succumbing under all that, as I was leaving the restaurant without having any news from him.

What saddened me most was the fact that, no matter how much meditation I practiced, my suffering was still there, still strong and ready to arise and take over.

"Hallo!" I heard someone calling me when I reached the ground floor. It was the silent girl who had descended the stairs behind me.

"Hello?" I replied, with curiosity. "And before you say anything... no, I don't do porn." The invitation to pose naked for photos had come more than once, since 'The Dark Room'. And guessed the girl could be a photographer or some kind of visual producer. 

"Schade... What a pity!" She laughed at her own comment, and I could identify her Nordic accent. "I would watch a porn movie with you..."

"I'm desolate, but it would have been gay porn..."

"Selbstverständlich... And they are the best!" She laughed louder. "Why would I want to see naked women?" She was then serious. "I know who you are. I'm a friend of Fabrizio. He told me about you."

 "Did he?!" I exclaimed, pleased and puzzled.

"He asked about you..." She thought for a moment, searching for the words in English. "But Andrea delivered your skull to Fab..."

"Glad to hear that! Anyway, it doesn't matter! I just wanted to give him a book..." It wasn't a lie I was telling her, but certainly not the whole truth.

"And that's it?" She grimaced. "I thought you were the Big Bad Wolf wanting to know Little Red Riding Hood's address..."

"And do you know that address?" I really liked the way she talked, jokingly, and I got into her playful mood. Though I could not picture Fabrizio as Little Red Riding Hood.

"Not exactly, aber..." The woman knew instead the name of the company that Fabrizio had founded. By that time, I feared it was the one that had been sold. But she also knew the building where he lived in Vice City, on the penthouse. It was enough for me.

"Thanks for the information... But I don't know your name..." I was curious about her relationship with Fabrizio and Andrea.

"Kein Problem. I don't know yours either, Mr. Porn Actor. And we do not need to know, do we?" She laughed, winking at me. "When you give him the book, send my kiss to Andara."

"It'll be a weird thing to do, not knowing your name... But who is Andara?" It had sounded like Andrea, but I was sure it was a different name. Did Fabrizio have a dog, I guessed?

"Lieber Got! Don't you know who Andara is? I think I have mistaken you for someone else..." She looked at me incredulously. "Andara... is his fiancée!" She noticed my astonishment, and how I skipped one breath. "Where did you two meet, again? Aren't you his roommate from--"

"Sorry, but I have to go now. It was nothing, really. It's just a book I intend to send him. I can post it. I thank you." Astonished, I pulled away from the girl and left Andrea's restaurant, determined to forget Fabrizio.

Bastard indeed, that's what the Fabrizio guy was! My first impression, at the airport, was rather accurate. And how I had fooled myself!

Once, the news of a hetero wanting to have a night of sex with me would have excited me enough to start hunting him. But after having had so many experiences, it simply depressed and bored me. Or was it that such a smart and well educated guy like Fabrizio would rather have a steady lover with whom to betray his fiancée, and it wouldn't be just a one-night stand with him? 

Anyway, I was not applying for the position.

I had promised myself that I would not honor my grandmother Celeste's melancholic legacy -- her acute bitterness had come from the fact that Monsieur de Montbelle had never espoused her, just like he had never acknowledged my mother as his daughter. No, too many married men had already come into my life -- and after having had sex with them, I had thrown them out of my bed. They were actually the problem why I could not publicly assume that all the models I portrayed had been my ex-lovers. I had their public consent to paint them, but not to tell the story behind the portrait.

 I wouldn't become the lover of a married man. Striving to escape my grandmother's fate, I had vowed that to myself, more than once.

I was not going for yet another ride on the roller coaster of love.

Goodbye, Fabrizio. I'd rather have not met another prick like you -- I thought, as I left Andrea's restaurant in Samsara Heights that evening.

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.