Episode 30 | Closer to the truth

previous episode

"I agreed with your mother that you were too young to understand some events." Carlo said, gravely. "But now you are an adult, and you can use your discerning and understanding about the reasons why so many things have remained hidden from you. And the lies told to keep them secret... I'm sad that it has to be me telling them to you, my son, but I think Catherine will never find the courage..."

I felt a shiver of anticipation. And when I thought my father was going to start talking, he again retreated into a concentrated silence. I did not realize he was choosing the most skillful way of revealing the facts to me -- I thought he had chickened out.

"Is Armand my father?" I was direct and incisive. Wealthy, cultured, traveled, spoiled, a bit of a dandy, intellectual, even if he were a homosexual... now that I knew better my father's best friend, I could imagine Catherine falling in love for a sophisticated man like him, and not with a pauper peasant like my father.

Carlo laughed happily. I had already realized that Gabriel, the handsome bartender, had been following our conversation from the distance, and he too seemed pleased to see my dad amused.

"Of course not!" he looked at me, surprised. "What an idea! I'm your father, Laurent. And this is not one of those stories of mystery and adventure that you wrote and illustrated in your childhood years..." And reluctantly, because his memories about his son could not extend beyond, Carlo added, "... and early adolescence."

Carlo seemed amused with my guess. His laugh was so youthful and full of joy, and since I liked to make people laugh, I continued. "So... Armand is my mother?" In fact, I was anxious and distressed, and I could behave foolishly when I felt like that, especially in front of my father, whom I had not seen for twenty years.  "I don't know... I was an apparition in this story... why wouldn't I be a freaking aberration, too? Born from the womb of a man with another man... Weren't you on an island with a powerful spell, the Island of Births?"

Carlo looked at me puzzled. Realizing that it wasn't serious, he again burst into laughter.

"Hahaha! I don't think even the natives have envisioned such a miracle, Laurent!" Suddenly, Carlo became serious. "I'm glad you're in such a light mood to approach this story, son..." and he laughed again.

That laughter! It had been twenty years now -- or maybe more, perhaps much more, since Carlo wasn't very happy while we lived in France -- that I hadn't listened to his laughter.

Suddenly, scenes of my childhood came back to me, infused with an impression of tenderness and the feeling of happiness. Precisely that period about which Carlo had talked, when Catherine had gone to France, and it was only the two of us in Punaouilo... I had found out that I had the ability to make my father laugh -- for until then, I had been trying it only with my mother, who was always seriously immersed in her books. And she had looked on me condescendingly, a little sad at my childish jokes, as if saying... How silly my son is. What a waste.

But my father could laugh at my jokes, and suddenly I found myself creating a repertoire to amuse and please him. It was during Catherine's absence that I truly became friends and affectionate with my father, because until then my focus had always been my mother -- seeking to attract her attention, win her approval. 

Interestingly, I remembered the joy I felt during that period, and that Carlo had taught me how to ride a bike and swim, and our mutual fondness -- but I could not remember my illness due to sadness, that he had mentioned. Had I really been that sad, with my mother's absence. Or had it lasted only until she had finally phoned me to say that she was already in France? -- and 'already' meant several weeks, maybe two months even, I think.

"When I got that huge amount of money from Davez..." Carlo recalled, "I could quit working as a house painter and exclusively devote myself to you, while we waited for your mother's return... And I could give you the bike you wanted so badly... You were so happy, and I was even happier!" Carlo was moved. "You never, ever complained about not getting the things you wanted as a child, Laurent. We were almost poor... But then, you had no terms of comparison, I guess, since the natives we befriended were also leading a very simple life... Those were happy days, only the two of us, all the time together..."

"Gentlemen, would you care for dessert now?" The bartender named after an archangel, and with the face of an angel, was again hovering near us. "And I would like to draw your attention to tonight's full moon, another privileged sight of our restaurant... Our best table has been kept for you..." Gabriel poised his invitation with a sexy smile and a touch of irony, since all tables were free. "...with the best view we have. Could I serve you another drink there?"

When I was about to answer "No thank you", Carlo sprung up from his seat saying "Fantastico!", ordering yet another type of wine. And ahead he went, to the table at the corner where the huge windows converted, impressively opening to the wide sky and onto the city, like an invitation to fly. My father chatted spontaneously with Gabriel, and I overhead he was intrigued how such a wonderful restaurant could be totally empty -- and I knew the handsome waiter had rehearsed the right answer to give him.

I followed my father across the restaurant. But my mind was elsewhere, and in another time -- instead of design furniture and exquisite collection of art on display, it were breadfruit trees and messes of iguanas around me. It had wandered back to Punaouilo, to my childhood memories of full moon nights... I recalled how lively they were, and how I'd stand alone in the back of the garden, close to the mountain and at the edge of the tropical groves, listening to the unruly noises of birds and other usually quiet animals, aroused by the full moon. I also remember in other occasions reading under the moonlight, fascinated by its intensity -- and that I could even cast shadows in such nights. Which, to me as a child, had seemed so magical, as if I had gained supernatural powers to turn the nights into darkened days.

"You were a fearless boy!" Carlo had once commented about my childhood. "Not in the sense that you were brave or courageous... You were a peaceful child, with a confidence... a general confidence, in life, I guess... that kids don't seem to have at your age. Because of that, you seemed to face all things fearlessly."

And in fact, I recall having often crossed the garden at night, from our little cottage at the corner of the backyard until the mansion, to deliver Joanna one message or another from Catherine or Carlo. Despite the darkness, making the grass a wide extension of mysteries, and the nightly noises springing from unidentified sources, I walked confidently -- while Joanna herself, who believed in evil spirits hiding in the shadows, was terrified that I should be walking alone in the dark. It was only later, when we moved to France, that like her I would dread the night and the dark places, and become a frightened kid -- but not in Punaouilo.

I realized I was feeling nostalgic... and affectionate. How could it be? I had foreseen myself enraged, calling for justice and atonement during that reunion with my father. 

HOW? and WHY? I was going to ask him, with the resentment I had cultivated for twenty years. Instead, he had taken the word and the direction of our conversation, he had taken me back to his youth, to rough times I'd never imagined had existed in his life -- and to that matter, in our life, the life of the small family he had tried to run... Strangely, I could only remember the wealthy Carlo of the final years in Punaouilo and back in France, when he was already a fairly well know artist, his works being sold in a few galleries around the world. And he bought me plenty of toys, and gave Catherine fancy dresses -- things he had been incapable of doing, back in Punaouilo.

I guess I had also forgotten how friendly and charming Carlo was, despite being shy -- or exactly for that. And how he could subtly change situations and even people's dispositions to his favor -- just like he was now doing it with me.

But that's not true. 

I had not forgotten it, and that was certainly part of my resentment -- why had I been deprived of his warm, affectionate presence for so long?

"After Armand left, I led a life of solitude, discipline and austerity on the Île du Blanchomme. But because they had been merrily self-imposed, it was a life of great peace and happiness, too." Carlo recalled, a discreet smile lighting his face.

"Every morning, I'd wake up before sunrise for my meditation session, and to the apparition that intrigued and comforted me at the same time." Carlo paused briefly, as if to punctuate my previous explosion at the mention of the apparition. He smiled sweetly, when this time I remained silent and attentive. "I still hadn't deciphered it. I was yet to understand the message it brought me, but which I nonetheless perceived to be that of a good future. And thus I grew very fond of the apparition, and that's how it started keeping me company on the Île du Blanchomme."

I worked diligently in the garden, always on the shaded side of the house, to be gentle with the plants and with myself. Gradually, I managed to clean the weeds and the dead plants, and started applying compost to the soil. In response, the seeds finally started germinating and would grow many seedlings. It was a lovely sight, and the myriad of buds seemed to bolster the energy of the island!

 With equal commitment and determination I painted daily, although I hadn't yet found a theme in that lush part of the world -- unlike the old abandoned factory, where the decay and decrepitude all around had fascinated and stimulated me.

I still practiced every day, to soon realize the canvas scrolls that I had brought with me would soon end. At some point, I'd have to leave the island to buy more -- not that I had the faintest idea about where to go. I sensed that when that time came, I should take the boat from the Île and just ride it to its final port, probably the same one where I had embarked with Armand. But at that moment, I did not even want to think about that!

Like formerly in the factory, I felt no desire to go out and face the world. My mind was the only wanderer, and sometimes I thought of my grandfather Tarso. How would he have reacted to the letter I had sent him from Paris, shortly before leaving for the Indian Ocean, saying I did not know exactly where I was heading to, leaving him no address, and saying that it was for an indefinite period? How would those careless lines and vague news about my plunge into the vast, unknown world have struck him, he who lived a rather simple and solitary life of a peasant widower, isolated in the high mountains? 

Now in my heart I apologized to him, for being so cold and uncaring. And I promised myself to start soon writing another letter, that I would somehow send to him, describing my tropical idyll and renewed happiness.

When I thought about Armand, however, I was still saddened. Sure, we had already been separated before. Like when after we graduated, he had left for his tour around Asia. It had been without the promise of reuniting even, and yet I hadn't felt his absence so much. 

But unlike Paris and the factory I had occupied on my own, at the Île du Blanchomme all things made ​​me think of him. I felt like I hadn't absorbed his presence enough -- though he had always been wise and generous during our Parisian years, after the crisis in his family and his experiences in India, he had become ​​far warmer, and more intense, more sincere, more affectionate.

Armand seemed to acquire a new importance in my life, more essential, and deeper... I started wondering if what I was feeling... affection... tenderness... a longing... wasn't it what people called love? I had read novels, I had watched movies and plays, and yet, experiencing it was completely unexpected and new to me.

"And suddenly, being in love with my best friend seemed so natural and welcome..." Carlo sighed.

Listening to my father's words, at that point I thought I knew what he was going to tell me next. 

Our conversation had lasted only a few hours yet, but I already sensed where his narrative was leading us to.

An answer, and an excuse to have abandoned me and my mother -- and they both bear the same name: Armand de Montbelle.

next episode

Episode 27 | Ghosts in a hot tub

previous episode 

"How so?" I gasped, taken aback, feeling the surprise immediately cooling my anger.

"I recall having told you this story before, when you first wanted to listen to the song 'Sunrise Son', at the occasion it had just been launched..." Carlo replied, calmly. "But you were still a child, and I don't know how much you understood of it. You know you came into this world with the sunrise at Punaouilo, don't you?"

"This is my personal legend, isn't it?" I said, laughing and already feeling better. "I just don't really know much about that song... It became mythical, something like the core of a religion to many people around the world... I know that it was the reason why Catherine filed an injunction that prevented reporters, journalists, writers and photographers from approaching me until I was twenty years old... She hated this story."

"Haha, Catherine hated all my stories!" Carlo smiled gloomily. "Especially this one, for it happened when she was away from Punaouilo, that time she had returned to France to be with her family... It was the decisive episode that changed my career prospects, too."

"What happened then, Carlo?" I asked responsively, with genuine curiosity. My father had so kindly reminded me of my willingness to hear it through the night, and in fact I had the biggest interest in listening to anything he was willing to tell me about himself, about the early relationship with Catherine, and from my own childhood. "How old was I, then?"

"It was the year of 1981, when Catherine went to France. One of the few dates I am sure of, I am afraid." Carlo frowned. "You were... Six years old, right? I had been hired to paint a house and redo its garden. My professional situation was rather... challenging. In all those years on the island of Punaouilo, I had sold only three paintings in the one art gallery that there was. The money that supported our little family was sent from France by your grandmother... We lived as a favor in that small cottage deep in the back of the garden, in a colonial mansion owned by friends of hers. And even our expenses being modest, I could not meet our needs, not even accepting almost any type of job that was offered me."

The house I was working at was a modern mansion. That season, it had been rented by a musician who had been very famous in the 1970s, a rock star named Davez Drew, dubbed "Cosmic Scorcher" for his caustic, incendiary way of playing the guitar. However, I knew nothing about him at the time, much the less that he was at an impasse in his career, trying to fuse rock and jazz, but without the same success that Miles Davis had achieved, and taking the opposite route.

Because he and his girlfriend had decided to come a couple of weeks earlier, when they arrived in Punaouilo they had found me still working in the house. Painting the music studio was the only thing left. No one had warned me he was a musician, and so I had left the doomed building behind.

Despite not knowing English, I understood perfectly well what he said when he first had seen me -- he was shooing me out the house, unceremoniously. I tried to play dumb "non capisco, non capisco niente", talking to him in Italian, as I continued to work.

Davez wanted total privacy in order to compose -- as much as he also wanted to be left alone with his new girlfriend, a stunning blonde, rich girl who decided to intervene in our argument only to reinforce Davez' message in the languages ​​she knew. "Raus!", she hissed, which I misunderstood as a permission to continue working on the house, then followed by the unmistakable "Sortez d'ici" and "Vattene!", expressed with a vehement anger and disdain that left no doubts.

I then tried to explain in French to blonde Barbara that I had to finish the job to get the money. I needed only a few days more, and I would be discreet, as invisible to them as possible. 

"No way! Pay him and send him away!", I understood the musician's response even before the translation came. I then amended that to me it was as much about the money as to finishing the job, in order to get more recommendations around the island. 

And while they were discussing how to get rid of me, I mouthed that they would need me at least to get rid of the ghost that haunted that studio, according to local legends.

Was it a sudden inspiration, out of desperation? 

The rock star seemed to understand the word "fantôme", and changed his behavior with me. He started demanding Barbara to translate every word I said, staring at me hungrily as I told what I knew about the spirit which was supposed to haunt the house, especially the studio. Davez was thrilled, to my surprise and Barbara's, who until then had maintained an attitude of disgust and estrangement towards me. Suddenly, while translating, she started regarding me with interest and suspicion.

The conversation followed to the edge of the pool where Barbara, our official translator, had settled to sun bathe on a lounger I had repainted. Davez wanted me to recount all cases of ghosts, spirits and demons that I had learned about in that part of the world. As you can imagine, Laurent, I recalled my conversations with Armand about the Portal Islands, and I recounted every tale and detail, lengthening the stories.

Barbara was bored doing the translation, but I realized that she was also surprised, as much as I was, to the musician's enthusiastic interest on that subject, and equally happy to observe, for the first time since the beginning of their relationship, something that truly stimulated Davez.

When I mentioned I needed to resume working, Davez replied something like "You're fine, man", and said that I could work the following day, after we'd finished the repertoire of local legends. I was so happy at his promise that I could work again on the house, and felt somewhat like Scheherazade!

The problem is that my repertoire had already finished, and I had to rely on some ghostly cases from the mountains that Tarso, my grandfather, had told in my childhood to distract me, as the three of us moved on to the hot tub.

In the late afternoon, when I was finished even with the ghosts from the Apennines, the rockstar still not being satiated, I promised him to talk to the natives to learn a few more legends. I knew there were plenty of them around the islands, but I had never really payed attention to them. And when I thought I would be dismissed, Davez invited me into the tub.

"You're a fine man. Come relax with us..." I tried to decline, telling them I had not brought a bathing suit, not to mention that I was naked underneath my pants, to which Davez replied "No problem... I'm taking my trunks off, too."

I had never been in a bubbling tub like that before, but I decided to accept the invitation out of my fascination towards the enigmatic Davez, who had gone from his initial terminal rage into a tireless, ardent interview with me -- and then had retreated to a concentrated, enigmatic silence, as if influenced by the night softly falling on the island of Punaouilo. At each step during that afternoon, he had been exuberant and exultant in his vast emotional scope, no matter how contradictory they had been. I had never met anyone like him before.

And there was Barbara, the most beautiful woman I had ever met in my humble, rather limited life, whom had remained blasé throughout the course of her translation, without uttering a single word of personal nature. 

I guess I must have fallen asleep, the water so warm and perfumed, and when I woke up Barbara was beside me, with her hoarse voice asking me a question I did not know if coming from her own, or still a translation for Davez.

"Do you believe in ghosts?" she inquired.

I immediately realized that this was a crucial question, the tipping point between the errand boy of local legends that I had been so far, into the narrator of my own beliefs and experiences that I could be.

And I decided to tell Davez about you, Laurent. 

How that luminous boy, the boy with hair so white like an old man, had appeared to me several times in front of the rising sun, serious and silent, and how I had rediscovered and recognized him a year later, in my own son. It was a rather emotional testimony for me, as you can imagine, and I guess it was the feeling that emanated from my sharing to captivate Drew so thoroughly.

When I finished talking, Davez stood still, silent for maybe two or three minutes. Then, he suddenly jumped to the middle of the tub, startling Barbara and me. He had not taken off his trunks, after all... though, well, I had! He then proceeded to a thorough, careful investigation. What had been my feelings towards the apparition... Had I sweated, trembled? Had I been fearful? How was it on the Île du Blanchomme... the temperature on the beach, what sounds, the light... the colour of the sand and the sea... he wanted details about the place... How many times I had seen the boy in a pool of light in front of the sun... What was the hour? And the legends about the Portal Islands... He was intoxicated, demanding Barbara to simultaneously translate my tangle of words.

And maybe to be sure about everything he had heard, he questioned me again, going over each point I had reported to him, and finally he wanted to know in detail about you, Laurent... Your appearance, and at what age it had come to be the same of the apparition, and when I'd been totally sure that you were the same luminous boy of those bright sunrises... 

And when I told him that your birth had taken place at sunrise in Punaouilo, he groaned and swirled in the center of the tub, and then dashed towards the music studio.

"It was the evening that the mythical song about you was composed, Laurent. 'Sunrise Son'. It is always among the top 100 songs of the 20th century. As you said, it became the core to something of a religion to people around the world, that album being like an entire bible to them, but your song, the main mantra and teaching... It was also Davez' musical revival..." Carlo sighed, and smiled, appeased.

"Are you sure it was me, Carlo?" I asked, when his silence grew too long, and I knew my father wouldn't continue speaking without stimulation. "The apparition, I mean? Haven't you said it before that it represented your own future?"

"At first, I had thought so. But when your mother told me she was pregnant... It was then that I understood. That boy coming up to me from the future... was to be my son! The moment I realized it, was precisely when the apparition stopped visiting me, confirming that I had finally gotten the message." Carlo smiled, comforted. "And when you were born, with a hair so blond it was almost white, such as the luminous boy of the bright sunrises, I recognized him in you. An elderly baby, a baby with an antique soul..." My father looked at me, basking in tenderness. "When you were six years old you were the living portrait of the apparition that had visited me on so many mornings at the Île du Blanchomme! Precisely when Catherine went back to France, leaving just the two fo us in Punaouilo..." Carlo suddenly fell silent. He raised his eyebrows, looking astounded, and pointed to something on the other side of the restaurant. "Look over there, Laurent... It is just... magnificent!"

I turned my gaze in the same direction of Carlo's, to find a bright full moon framed by the windows of the Nirvana Lounge, floating over a table as if set to be a superb visual feast -- so infinitely beautiful that it was to indelibly mark my memory of the reunion with my father.

But less and less I understood why he had left home twenty years ago, to never return, never even try to meet nor contact me -- his 'Sunrise Son'.

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.

Episode 15 | Brotherhood

previous episode



Those were days of being happily lazy.

In the first hours of the afternoon, when the heat was greatest, we took a nap, right on the floor of the master bedroom, that Herr Weissmann, having studied, investigated and experienced the island before building, had placed at the breeziest corner of the house.

We had been excitedly talking about the plans for the house all day long, and I think so much excitement had drained our energy. We feel asleep on the floor, side by side as we had been conversing, where I dreamed...

Dreamed the apparition.

But it was not a remembrance from that morning.

It was a new apparition. Or the same apparition, but more clear, and closer.

And in my sleep, I was not so scared.

Because I was able to distinguish that at the center of the pool of light stood a boy, beautiful like a cherub.

And suddenly, as the apparition took features of something closer to a revelation, my feelings in relation to it radically changed. I felt it soothing me. It was a pacifying experience, as the fear in my heart ceased.

I woke up feeling untroubled, to discover it was about time for our 'movie session'.

The sunset was one of our few daily appointments, and I knew Armand did not want to miss it, so I woke him up with a gentle whistle. Just like I used to, in Paris, when we had shared the same bedroom, but the alarm clock wouldn't wake him. 

"Oh, mon cher Carlo!" Armand always woke up in a good mood, looking restored and refreshed. "I missed you so much! I missed everything about you... Even your snoring." He laughed. "Yes, you were snoring when you fell asleep this afternoon." I was embarrassed, and astonished, for Armand had never commented on that before. Had he always been too polite to do so? "And this whistle... I missed it so much!"

"I missed it too, Armand. I haven't done it in such a long time! But now let's go down to the beach..." I sprang to my feet, and offered a hand to my friend. "Nothing can stop that sun from leaving us..."

I was an only child. My parents had died in a boat accident, when I was two years old only. I had been raised by my grandfather, who was already a widower at the time. I guess this somehow explains why I've always been a loner, or "reclusive", to use the art critic's term. Don't you think so, Laurent?

And Armand had also been an only child... Well, in face of the new events that had recently unfolded in his life, he had actually just been brought up as an only child, unaware of his half sister's existence. But the effect was just the same. He too, was somewhat a loner, and though cherishing his privacy, just like me he longed for a special company.

Our brotherhood, always so strong over the years, had grown stronger and deeper in the couple of the days spent in that paradise to the point of redemption -- redemption of all past suffering, all past expectations and frustrations. Or so I thought.

At the Île du Blanchomme, it finally seemed like I was living in that here and now the zen master would talk about, where there was me and Armand as the only witnesses to the sun, the moon, and the stars.

"Carlo... Mi scusi..." My voice reverberated across the lounge like a crash, and though I was sorry to interrupt my father's narration and drag him from the past, where he was so happily dwelling, my intention was to help him feel at ease. Was he trying to make a confession? "To make a long story short..." He had brought up the subject of my sexuality in the first place... As an introduction?, I was inclined to think. I guessed I had finally figured out the point in his telling me stories about his closest friend, when in my mind we should be talking about ourselves and trying to reestablish connections. 

Suddenly, I could devise a quite unexpected link between my father and me. "Were you and Armand lovers?"

"Gentlemen, may I interrupt you?" Another crash, to which both Carlo and I startled. It was Gabriel, my crush, the angel who doubled as a barman in that lounge perched high in the sky. "The chef wishes to inform you that our salad buffet has just been served."

"Si, che buono! Let's get something to eat, Laurent. I've been talking about starving in that abandoned factory some 30 years ago, then recalling Armand's delicious exotic meals, and it has made me actually hungry! Aren't you hungry, son? We can continue later!" And Carlo stood up at once, following Gabriel ahead of me. He made some comment about the restaurant.

"Your English is very good, sir." I overheard the barman compliment my father.  I didn't know of my father, but I hated getting that compliment, since it denounced I was clearly a foreign. But hadn't I been born a foreigner? My French had the relaxed accent from the islands, making me sound foreign in France. And I had never striven to lose my French accent speaking English. Carlo was fluent, despite his British pronunciation being tinted with a heavy Italian accent, making it sound either funny or charming.

From following his career through Art publications, I knew he had lived in London for quite some time, and that's where he probably got his English from. But I had never learned why my father had left home. One day, when I was thirteen years old, I came back from school and did not find him is his atelier as usual, where the last canvas he had been working on still displayed some fresh paint. Nor was he to be found anywhere else in the house. I was intrigued, but not necessarily alarmed at first.

Nor was Catherine to be seen -- she had gone somewhere to give an interview to some journalist about her latest novel. When she returned, I asked where my dad was. "Gone." she answered, without any trace of emotion. "Forever." she added, while already flipping through a new book she had just bought. "WHAT?!?" I had screamed. "WHY???" But Catherine hadn't answered me.

Much later, she had once said something intriguing about Carlo's mysterious departure. "It was more than time he left. He never belonged here. He had to go live his own kind of life, which did not include us." It had never made any sense, but now... His 'own kind of life'? Was Armand de Montbelle the reason why my father had left? Had they been lovers? Were they lovers still, and now? 

I had always struggled with that "WHY?" And I had wanted, needed an answer. Maybe I was trying to interpret and shape Carlo's narration into that answer I longed for. Perhaps I was forcing it into an answer that could also fit my own private, personal questions, like those about my sexuality and commitment issues. As if my father was the source to all my problems.

"Sir... Won't you have something to eat, sir?" I startled as I heard Gabriel's question addressed at me, and realized I had followed my father up to the buffet, completely unaware. "The meal was specially prepared for you and your guest..." he added, lowering his voice so that my father would not hear him. "Is there any problem, sir? Is anything not according to your expectations?" I realized the handsome barman still wouldn't call me Laurent. With that 'sir', was he implying I was too old for him?

"Oh no, everything is just perfect." I assured him. "So perfect." I couldn't have dreamed of a hunkier waiter, I thought. And I realized my father had already served himself, and taken a table without waiting for me. Was Carlo avoiding me now? Running away from my question? Had I been indiscreet?  Not polite enough? How polite should I be with my own father? Should I respect him -- or could I? "I'd like to meet the chef later, and personally thank him. And in advance I'm thanking you, Gabriel." I tried my best, most charming smile, though I was feeling tormented with the story my father had just started telling me. "For being here on your free day... Thank you for helping. It means so much to me!"

"I'm glad you like everything, sir." He made a funny gesture, which seemed to include himself in that 'everything'. "And I'm so happy to help..." He had a lovely smile, if a bit fake, like it was too beautiful to be true. "I'll invite the chef to come to the dining room before he leaves."

And I'll invite you to my atelier, Gabriel.-- I thought. Such a beauty deserved to be honored. In my paintings -- and in my bed.




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.