Episode 69 | Interlude 1.14

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I was so intoxicated with Fabio that I did not realize how increasingly serious the conversations between my great-grandfather and my father were. I was used to Carlo and Catherine quarreling, lately often with screams that made me so fearful, so that these men's low, tense voices seemed not so threatening to me.

Preparing myself with days in advance, I even proposed my plan of taking Fabio to France, where he could focus on his academic studies as he wished. I have to say my proposal was not completely altruistic, since I could also imagine him with me at school, protecting me from the older boys.

"Ma che cose senza senso!" Nonsense! "Ma che assurdità!" Tarso had exploded. "It's just what I needed! The government taking away my ancestral land..." A National Park was in the process of being constituted, and Tarso was going to lose part of his properties, "and now I'm also to lose my employee!"

Since we had arrived, Carlo had been burdened with a lot of paperwork that he did not like to deal with, but that Tarso himself was totally unable to take care of. And besides all the personal problems that Carlo had in France, of which I knew nothing, my great-grandfather had added one more -- he insisted that my father should force Catherine to move to the Apennines, where we would all take charge of the family's farm. My great-grandfather was increasingly concerned about the fate of his property, as he grew older, and that National Park was threatening him. 

And he had never been able to forgive Carlo's defection.

"It's time that the D'Allegros return to where they belong!" Tarso spoke fiercely.I realized he had included both my father and me in his reprimand, for we were the only D'Allegros that were out of place.

But if at the time I did not realize how serious Carlo's problems were -- and the slightest of them was Tarso's will and wrath . While my father -- I'm inclined to believe, nowadays --, though I thought he had forgotten about me, had already realized my feelings for Fabio. Even before I did. 

Though not to ancient Via Flaminia -- I now considered it too far away, once I did not wish to leave the farm and Fabio's proximity, Carlo took me on a tour to the mountains. Just the two of us, like it had been when we first arrived at the farm. Since then, Carlo had gravitated into my great-grandfather's orbit, to the amount of governmental paperwork which Tarso was unable to deal with, and I had spent all the possible time with Fabio -- so that my father and I had actually enjoyed very few moments together in our ancestral lands. It seemed like he had met his fate in the family, and while I had found my destiny, our routes had taken us briefly apart. But we did not want to part from one another, and the reunion on a day's excursion was welcomed from both sides.

On that tour, we were able to again strengthen our affection. Especially when Carlo told me for the first time that story -- he'd return to it at the Nirvana Lounge -- about the albino baby chamois that had been rejected by his mother, and that he had tried to save without success.

"Did he die, dad?" I whined. I was moved to tears when I heard his narration on the struggle of the baby to survive, and on Carlo's struggle to try to help the baby, which nevertheless had been too scared to let my father approach him. "But even if he had no mother, couldn't his father have helped him?" was my next question. It was as if the albino baby chamoix had reincarnated in me, with all its painstaking helplessness. And... hadn't it? 

Aware of my emotional state, Carlo carefully explained to me that, in nature, such a baby could only be fed by its mother. And often males were hunted and killed on those mountains, so that the baby might have had no father. It was a very sad story that had marked Carlo's childhood, addressing his own orphanage. And at twelve, I identified with the little animal in my own struggles of acceptance and affection relating to Catherine. Would she have rejected me if I had been born albino -- because, with my white hair, I suddenly saw myself on the verge of understanding my mother's difficulties in liking me. 

"But you, my son," Carlo embraced me, "you have a father. And I'm here for you. I will not reject you for anything in this world. I will always be there for you, Laurent." A vow he would not be able to keep -- or at least break it, sooner than expected, and for twenty years.

Carlo did not speak openly about the love that I was experiencing for Fabio, but remembering that statement from him -- that, later when he abandoned us, would torture me like a deceitful promise --, I could tell that he was declaring his unconditional love and acceptance for me, even if I was to love other boys.

Perhaps my great-grandfather had noticed it too, or at least had sensed it, for he decided to send Fabio to the highlands, to prepare a shack that they used in winter. My adored friend would go and stay there doing repairs, and be absent from the farm until after our departure.

I was shocked to hear the news of his leaving. But to compensate my shock, and the sadness that he also felt, including his abbreviated studies, Fabio had taken a day of his vacations -- he was abdicating from a free day and from earning regular money -- so that we could go together to the lake at the bottom of the valley. My great-grandfather did not oppose to that, neither did Carlo. 

I immediately realized that, as much as it was our farewell, it was also my last chance to have something with him -- at twelve, that 'something' was not quite clear to me. A stolen kiss? Sex? When I had just started experimenting with masturbation, what could sex have meant to me? I guess I simply wanted Fabio to take me in his arms and confirm that there was nothing wrong with the love that I was feeling for him. Maybe, even, reciprocate that love, blessing me with his acceptance for the rest of my life. 

It was the most beautiful excursion that Fabio and I did together. We strolled down through fragrant woods, and I tried to concentrate on walking and following Fabio without tripping, though it was very hard -- he was wearing his worn Army shorts and t-shirt, and I could not avoid but marvel at his muscular body. I was not planning to have another accident -- he would surely carry me back home, and no matter how much I longed to be in his arms, taking him away from the adults presence seemed essential to get from him what I wanted -- that undefined 'something'.  The trail ran along crystal clear streams, to dramatically arrive and emerge near the noisy waterfall that rushed from the icy heights, bringing the defrost water and helping to make the lake down the valley exquisitely beautiful and cold.

I was happy, even elated -- but sometimes I also felt sad, remembering that it would be our last day together. Or was it because I had many expectations -- we are as far from my great-grandfather's house as we had ever gone, and it was for the eternity of an entire day.

I had also been eagerly waiting for another chance to see him naked. Knowing it would be the last time, and perhaps predicting the visual artist I would later become, I wanted to have one last look on him in all his revealed splendor, to keep it before the eye of my mind in all its glory, down to the anatomic details. It's true that, back then when I was not yet painting, his vision was meant just to fuel my masturbatory fantasies.

But when we were down to our swimming trunks only, I realized how embarrassing it would be trying to hide my almost perennial erection from my friend, who was inadvertently causing it.

At first I felt awfully shy, and decided I would not go into the water, with the excuse that it was too cold. 

I sat on a stone, legs crossed, hiding the bulge that tortured and pleased me at the same time. The copious leaking that left a sticky stain on my trunks was not just embarrassing -- I was confused at its causes, but it was addicting pleasurable that I had abandoned the idea of being sick somehow. It couldn't be anything bad, I sensed, when I felt inclined to continually touch my organ through the cloth to make it leak some more. But I did experience some guilt, and it was like being back at school, afraid that my eyes longing for Fabio's beautiful naked body would denounce me -- and further humiliation and rejection would follow.

It was a very familiar darkness, that of fear and rejection. So familiar, that it had suddenly returned to take over and fill my heart, after so many days of luminous happiness in the company of my friend. 

And under that radiant sun, on a clear day, I found myself deeply immersed and helplessly trapped in my inner darkness again. Even my erection subsided, and stopped leaking, though Fabio had come out of the water and was now jumping close at the shore of the lake, to warm himself a little bit, but also to cheer me up and convince me to venture into the lake with him.

Fabio insisted that I should jump with him in the water. 

"It is not cold!", he shouted at me, though it was very cold indeed. "And it's not so deep!" Although my father had made ​​me promise to be very careful. 

But Fabio was not ready to so easily settle with my inner negativity, which would have spoiled all the joy of our tour -- and that actually was not my true will, not to mention my deepest desire.

Since I kept denying, while having miserably shrunk into myself, for the first time Fabio's strength felt threatening  to me -- when he walked toward me, his tremendous beauty turned mainly into muscles and power, and he just grabbed me and carried me into the water. Acting just like the school bullies did, tugging me to whatever corner, whenever they had wanted. Between fright and consternation, I offered no resistance to his will. For a moment, I felt like crying with rage. I had come that far, fooling myself about having a first friend -- first love? -- to see things happen exactly like they had in school. I was... being bullied again! Only that this time it was worse, for I was being bullied by my best friend, the only one I had so far trusted!

So sad, really, and I felt defeated. I just lay on Fabio's shoulder like a limp cloth, without reaction, accepting that my fate to be bullied. I felt negligible and contemptible, to my worst. I decided to hold back the tears because of that shame that was so familiar to me, that even my emotions should be mocked because they sounded effeminate.  And I was feeling ashamed, fearing that he might have noticed my erection brushing against his chest. Against fear, my body had found that bewildering reaction. Humiliated, I tried to hide my emotions from Fabio, and I made an effort to bury them deep within.

 And in this process of burying my emotions, lost in the confusion of my impulsive bodily functions, I was surprised to have an insight that, even today, I think was quite deep for a twelve years old boy.

I realized that Fabio was not disrespecting my desire nor my will, but actually simply forcing me to accomplish them.

The moment we hit the water, I thought and immediately understood -- if he hadn't grabbed me and carried me without my consent, all along joyfully laughing as he had done it, all the time being no less than extremely gentle with me --, perhaps... I would have remained at the margin. Forever. Just like I had always done, throughout my life in Europe, huddled and fearful, sad and unhappy. Trapped in the corner of my own loneliness, while actually dreaming about being back in his arms.

That day, Fabio forced me to be happy. To happily spend a day of freedom and joy, of laughter and excitement in his company -- and that attitude would have profound echoes for the rest of my life.

Often, from then on, when I realized I was sabotaging myself, giving up on my own happiness -- or self-imposing difficulties and creating obstacles to it --, it was enough to remind myself of Fabio carrying me in his muscular arms. my face had been so close to his face that I could have kissed him. With his strength he had overcome my own resistance -- and I just had to decide to carry myself towards my own happiness, in my own muscular arms. 

I would be my own Fabio to myself!

I am so grateful to Fabio for so many things that I have overcome at different moments in my life by having known him!

And today I think, despite my frustration at the time, it was actually wonderful that he never touched me and did the things that I wanted him so badly to do -- and that I did not exactly know what they were, either romantic or sexual . Because the memory I have of him remains pure and delicate, like a very special and unique friend, and an ideal love.

But there would be one more thing to be thankful to him, yet.

When later in the afternoon we returned to my great-grandfather's house, Fabio was still impressed and had been so enthusiastic with the fact that I had won every swimming race. I not only swam better than him, but also much faster, even being weaker and smaller. And from the whole day that we had spent together, it was my swimming ability that he bragged the more about. He was elated.

"He is a true champion!", he had cheerfully announced to Carlo and Tarso. 

Carlo, who had taught me himself how to swim in Punaouilo, was not so surprised to hear of my prodigious breath, and despite not having seen me swim in a long time,  realized that having become taller with long arms, I had also become faster.

"I'll look into that..." Carlo had promised Fabio. 

And indeed, upon our return to France, my father would put me on the swim team at the country club, and set to build a pool at home -- his last gift for me, before he left.

*****

Our parting shortened by at least two weeks, Fabio was gone before me, leaving me alone on the farm.

The farm that I could not love, as my great-grandfather had wanted it to happen. Maybe if Tarso had been a little nicer, less silent, less strict, it might have helped me liking the family farm -- through him. But he had obliged me to do too many things I did not want to -- like working in the fields, that turned out being so lovely in the end --, and do things his way -- and Carlo invoked on my patience for obeying my great-grandfather while we were at his place --, always looking at me suspiciously or condescendingly, as I perceived it, which made me feel so inapt -- which I truly was, regarding the rural life. 

 But it had been on the family's ancestral lands where I had felt love -- and loved -- for the first time; it had been our family's farm to teach me what love was.

I did not love the farm, but I was grateful to it.

I had never cried so much in my life, not even when we left Punaouilo.

The majestic, dramatic landscape of the Italian mountains seemed so desolate and pointless, now that Fabio was gone, making me fell so lost and small.

My great-grandfather got mad at me.

"The D'Allegros are strong, boy!" He punched me on the shoulder, but not friendly like the other times. He actually hit me hard, and the shock made me stop crying. "We are resistant. We are persistent. We have a center, we have a story, we have a place!" I was trembling, afraid of him. Neither Carlo nor Catherine had ever beaten me. "A D'Allegro is never shaken! Stop crying now, bambino! Have you ever seen a rock cry? We are made of rock!"

I was embarrassed. For I knew I was made of sand, the fine and clear sands of Punaouilo, that any breeze took on a fanciful flight. I was smooth and soft too, and now that Fabio had been able to respect and admire me exactly the way I was, I could acknowledge it without feeling any shame. 

I was not made of rock. But then, if I had to pretend to be made ​​of rock to be able to live among other rocks, I would do it. Now I knew how rocks looked like, and how they were supposed to be.

Tarso's rude speech-- and specially that punch -- had reminded me of the school's hard reality to which I was returning. He was making me feel like a defective D'Allegro. If it hadn't been for the presence of Carlo, my sweet and submissive father, I would still be in disbelief that I was a D'Allegro. Or that I could be a true, rocky D'Allegro.

I would learn how to lie about my way of being, and how to pretend to appear having been made ​​of rock. Inscrutable, resistant, hermetically sealed. I had observed and experienced the mountains and I had learned exactly how to do it. Secretly, however, my kernel would still be sand, soft, so soft, sweet, tender, gentle -- but only in my heart, and away from all those eyes that could not accept or love me like I was.

*****

"I did not need to be strong, I just had to look strong. I could never be rough and rude like the other boys, but I could pretend I was like them. Perhaps, I thought, among the other boys there were others who also had to hide their weaknesses and suffering, showing off a strength and aggressiveness that they did not truly have, just to survive at school. That's what I discovered. The power and safety of the masquerade for the weak." 

I had never told anyone about that rite of passage from my childhood to adolescence with so many details, like I just had to Fabrizio. I had spent a whole afternoon talking to him. But before him, no one had demonstrated genuine interest in me. And our Icelandic, secluded house, quietly immersed in a vast desolate landscape, had brought us closer together.

"You had this insight at what age, Laurent?", he had asked, demonstrating that he was not yet bored from listening to me.

"It was during this summer I've been telling you about, my dear. The year of 1987. Until then, the only male figure that I had known so close was my father, Carlo. So sensitive, so intuitive, with all his doubts, conflicts and wounds, showing his fragility like other men won't. But at the family's farm I discovered my great-grandfather's strength, who would lead me away from my own passivity and fear, and Fabio's beauty, who awakened my desire and would launch me, almost catapult me into life. As well as his love and acceptance, which would be grounding for my self-acceptance."

 "This is quite an insight for a twelve years old boy..." Fabrizio pondered.

"It's like I have said. I stopped being a boy on my great-grandfather's farm. On the D'Allegro lands, our ancestral lands. 'We will make you a man.' At first, Tarso's words had sounded so threatening, but at last it confirmed to be so true! Tarso might have been disappointed in me, but the fact is that he truly succeeded. The Laurent boy stayed behind on those mountains, and it was the beginnings of a man who emerged from those mountains, and returned to France."

This man that arrived at your life, Fabrizio. And who loves you, with the courage and the will to face all he must to stay with you, I thought, but I did not say it.

From Fabio to Fabrizio, it was just a question of a few letters -- but between one love and another, so many men, so much delusion and pleasure, so much suffering, and decades of struggle for self-acceptance.

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 68 | Interlude 1.13

previous episode


nudity and mild violence

Fabio was the first friend I had made ​​since coming to Europe. 

At school in France, I was shy and tried to isolate myself from the other boys, who were all aggressive, competitive and noisy -- or at least I felt so. Egress from my sweet tropical school where we had all been friends, I missed wearing uniforms -- to not only look the same, but to somehow even feel and think the same. Though in fact, despite being also born in Punaouilo, I was the only boy with European looks in my class. 

I hadn't felt any different from my peers on the island, even if they all had the exuberant beauty from the Oceania natives in contrast to my pale suavity; however, in France I felt completely alienated from all other French boys -- compared to whom my physical aspect was no different.

Despite the French citizenship, I was a foreigner in France. My birth in the tropics had predestined me to be an outcast. I did not care for the games the other boys played, I did not want to compete, nor wanted to choose the appropriate clothes that I should wear to display a certain style and try to fit and belong to this or that group. I was aware that opting for being excluded from all groups and banned from all social activities in a school equaled suicide, but I held tight to my convictions of originality and  inadequacy, seeing myself as some sort of a quiet rebel.

Apparently, my education in Punaouilo had been faulty, and I was set one year behind at school in France. Being thinner and taller than the other kids, one year older but not as bright, gave me the perennial awkward feeling of misfit.

In class, I was ridiculed every time I spoke -- beyond my lazy accent from the islands that elongated the words, my voice sounded nasal and feminine. And so did my way of sitting, walking, making any gesture -- compared to other children, I was too slow and delicate, and I was considered effeminate. I had been nicknamed 'La petite fleur des Tropiques', the small flower from the Tropics -- at first, I had been concerned that I smelled different from other children, but that was not the case. In French, flower is a feminine word, and that's why it had been picked. I used to cry whenever someone threw that at me. 

Nothing I did seemed appropriate, and even in doing nothing, just standing still, motionless, paralyzed, someone would still think that my posture was effeminate, and I'd be ridiculed and swore at. La petite fleur des Tropiques. Once, they had tried to force me to dance the Hawaiian hula-hula -- using the straw skirt. I had fought and escaped when they tried to dress me, ripping my shorts in the process -- and had to come up with some story for Catherine, to justify ruining it.  

There was nothing I could do. I came to the conclusion that I had been born completely wrong and flawed, inappropriate for socializing with my peers. I just wanted to be left alone, and during the breaks I sought to isolate myself. I would usually take refuge in the library, or, if it was being used for some other purpose, at the remote corners of the school where not even couples nor smokers used to go.

But my invisibility had ended earlier in that year of 1987, when some of the older kids at school had found out that my dad was a famous painter and my mother a bestselling author -- and I, a weakling, timid and fearful boy. 

In fact, a happy occasion for me -- when Carlo had come to fetch me at school with his fast and fancy car, which was also very expensive -- had been my doom, as it stoked the interest of a bunch of bad boys on me.

They couldn't care less about my parent's fame, though they regarded them as an odd couple, too modern for the countryside community -- what had interested them was that I came from a wealthy family, or so they thought. That was the impression that the frequent trips abroad from both Carlo and Catherine gave, and their appearances in local newspapers talking about their careers, in addition to some foreign visitors who came on their foreign cars to our house, which was also too modern for that peaceful, somewhat old fashioned countryside. They couldn't care less about Mr. Chabrol or Mr. Leconte nor Mme. Varda, famous movie directors that were friends of Catherine and every now and then visited us. 

I did not have any reaction when the older boys began to drag me with them, during the class breaks, to the back of our school. There, they would take all my money, and even the fancy watch that had been a gift from my grandmother Celeste -- I had to lie to Catherine that I had lost it when they took it away from me. 

I had to lie at home about needing money to buy more books and do excursions with the school that never existed -- to be able to pay the daily toll to the boys who continually threatened me.

The school was the slaughterhouse at which I had daily to voluntarily present myself, to be massacred and humiliated, a renovated torture from Monday through Friday. I was afraid even to go to the bathroom for fear of what might happen to me there, and I spent all day with that urge, afraid that I would pee in my pants, which would have been the ultimate humiliation. 

But the guys from the gang would take me wherever they wanted, without asking me -- just pulling me by the ear or pushing me around, mercilessly.

The other students, seeing I was so weak as to be so easily mistreated, just laughed or mocked me, adding to my humiliation with more swearing. 'La petite fleur des Tropiques' had started sounding almost poetical, and I'd prefer to hear it rather than the daily slaps and smacks with which I was herded around by the gang that owned me. 

At that time, no one talked about bullying. I think even the teachers who saw me hostage might have thought it was "just boys being boys," and no one ever came to offer me help. I guess nobody perceived me as being terrified, humiliated, miserable. I was just the kid who happened to be the mocking target of the school, and everyone saw it as just a joke. And anyways, no one dared to oppose my tormentors, who were the worst boys in school. Punishments for the gang meant flat tires and scratched cars in the teachers parking lot, and no one would go as far as calling the police. It was convenient to leave the bad-asses their  distraction -- La petite fleur de Tropiques. Ecology was only to save the whales and the Amazon forest, and did not offer me any protection. I was fragile, helpless, and no one at school would really have cared about my extinction.

I had even stopped attending the library, despite my love and appetite for books. I did not go into any other room that was not the classroom, afraid to see myself ambushed. I used to cross all the corridors running, eyes on the floor to avoid anyone who would try to make me trip, as if running for my life and from the mockery that followed me in shouts and laughter.

"Are you eating well at school, Laurent?" Carlo had asked me one day. "You seem to be getting much thinner..."

The money I had to eat, it didn't stay with me. And if I took a snack from home, I had to devour it before entering the school, or it would also be confiscated. Later, even the imported food Carlo and Catherine brought me from their trips became a toll I had to deliver to the gang. 

"That's exactly how it's supposed to be!" Catherine had justified. "He is in a growth phase. Look how tall he is! And pimply! This boy needs to eat less chocolate, that's it! What's done of all that Swiss chocolate I have brought you, Laurent?"

But if it were only the financial blackmail, which forced me to repeatedly ask for money from my parents, it would not have been so difficult.

 The older boys, however, thought they would look older and way more cool by humiliating me. One of their favorite games was pushing me around among themselves like a ball, from one side to another, and back again, back and forth, until one of them would let ​​me fall to the ground. I had no courage to react, and I also tried not to cry in front of them, not even when I actually hurt myself from falling to the ground -- because crying was the worst shame and confession that I was not a real boy!

 I cried and sobbed like a little girl. Even Catherine had pointed that.

"Have you heard it said that boys don't cry?" Catherine had asked me one day, a bit annoyed with my tears. "That is nonsense!" She amended. "But boys cry like boys, not like girls! Please, Laurent!"

 And I tried to handle the violence and the humiliation without complaining, without exclaiming nor screaming, for I also knew that my voice at times sounded shrill like a girl's .

Still, there was a secret thing that terrified me the most, and that I could not understand so well, yet. 

Being constantly with the school gang, among those boys who smoked and drank beer and belched and were aggressive and noisy, I had realized how gentle I was, and quiet, shy, soft, fearful... and my perception was that I would never get to be a real boy like them. 

Not that I identified myself either with the futile girls' world of vanity and consumerism, gravitating around silly novelties and small, useless things. 

That's when I started wondering -- I do look like a boy, but I'm not like one of them... then, what am I?

Fagot... I had heard other kids call me that in France. The general abbreviation of my very special and unique nickname, La petite fleur des Tropiques.  Fagot -- that seemed to set me apart from the other boys, and define me. I was not sure what it meant, but the disdain with which it was said made me feel deeply ashamed, and different from all the other kids. It was also like a code that allowed others to disrespect me, like a confirmation that I was inadequate, unworthy, the worst and filthiest scum of all. They threw that swearing at me like stones -- fagot was the password to my daily exclusion from the school community.

Those holidays in the Apennines had also represented a break from that suffering -- and, in a sense, a redemption, to be able to befriend a boy who was older than me, and also much stronger, and tougher. But who was not the least threatening. 

I did not fear Fabio's company. He did not seem to judge me like the other boys. Beside him, I did not care if my gestures were boyish or sissy, I did not have to worry on how I looked, walked or sat, nor how I was talking and how my voice sounded to him. Fabio never looked down, condemningly on me, and never ridiculed me. Instead of stupid, wimpy, sissy, he just called me friend. Amico.

I felt loved, accepted, just as I was, without the struggle to try be someone else -- nor silence, bury who I was.

And a feeling I had never had before, and that I did not know how to name yet, had been born. It slowly grew in me, with each day I spent in Fabio's company.

One day, an accident happened. 

I was looking raptly at Fabio and not to the ground where I walked, and I stumbled on a root.  I had been so relaxed and enraptured with Fabio that I fell without anyone having set a trap for me, unlike school, where despite all my precautions I was frequently being led to trip and fall by the other boys.

I slammed my face against the ground, scraped my hands and knees, and my left foot immediately started hurting a lot.

Fabio carried me through the woods to the house -- and though I was in pain and even bleeding, I just remember the feeling of being supported in his powerful, strong arms and being held against his broad chest, feeling his intensely masculine scent invading me, that made me shiver with pleasure, his sweat wetting me -- and when I cried, it was not like a small boy, of pain or fright, but as a teenager, crying from happiness and love, on the discovery that, after all, I wanted to spend the rest of my life in the arms of men.

For the first time, I had the perception that I liked boys. 

My great-grandfather, after all, had been right, when he said that the mountains would make me a man. At that moment, in Fabio's arms, I stopped being a boy to start being the man that would forever be in love with other men.

But at that time there were no other men -- I cared only for Fabio, he alone existed, and it was with him that I was in love. But maybe a part of me remembered that at the end of the holidays I would have to go away from him, and that I would have to look for lovely Fabio in the other guys, among those who were aggressive, competitive and noisy -- and so I sobbed on his shoulders, nested in his arms.

It was the first time my heart broke from loving.

Nothing serious had happened with my foot, but neither Tarso nor Carlo let me go to work the following morning. I spent all day long in a familiar sad mood, that I hadn't cultivated in a while, and I only rejoiced when at the end of the day, Fabio came to visit me in my room.

For some days I was prevented from going to work, and so a new ritual was inaugurated between me and Fabio, who would visit my room in the early evening, before he went home. 

I made him sit on my bed on purpose, so that after he was gone I would still have the smell of him, and I'd become inebriated and sleep on it.

He visited me even during the weekend, when he had no obligation to present himself for work on the D'Allegro lands -- to me, that was proof that our friendship was real. We had agreed to do a tour together on the mountains, but when my injury got it canceled, he still came to be with me.

I was not expecting him, and he found me in my room, writing. It was some adventure from which I cannot remember the plot, but the hero was clearly modeled on Fabio, so beautiful and extremely kind, absolutely perfect and wonderful as himself.

I was embarrassed and wanted to hide my notebook, without realizing that he did not know French.

It was then that I discovered Fabio's other beauty. He was not only a handsome and muscular young man, who was helping me overcome my fear of older boys. He would also bring a new meaning to my school learning -- when he marveled at my writing, and was enthusiastic with the fact that I wrote stories, and at my ease in learning Italian, and so many more things that I knew and had studied. All that I usually took for granted in my education, it was Fabio to teach me how to appreciate and value.

I was happy when he asked me to teach him all that I could. More Maths, more Geography, whatever I wanted and could remember, even if it was in French, he was eager to learn. I was surprised and embarrassed by the difficulty he had in reading, and I suddenly realized how much effort could there be in doing something that I considered so easy and simple.

Thus, we were also getting together after his shift, in my room, where I enjoyed the freedom of looking at him at length, without the fear of being observed by my father or great-grandfather -- without my wandering presence around the house, now limited to the upper floor, Carlo and Tarso finally dedicated themselves to the complicated bureaucracy that was threatening the farm.

One afternoon, the last of my enforced rest, I went in search of Fabio, wanting to invite him to study outside in the woods instead of my room, which was too hot.

And what I saw that afternoon buried forever the boy Laurent had been -- and put definitely in his place the teenager who would become Laurent, the man.

From behind a bush, I watched Fabio bathing, preparing to meet me.

And if until then my love for Fabio had been idealized and mixed with friendship, although some sensual elements had been there, like trembling when he touched me, or when I aspired his sweat -- that evening, upon seeing Fabio naked, my sexual desire sprang to life.

Recalling that occasion, I have to think that it was not Fabio's nudity that made me stay hidden behind a bush watching him.

 That would have seemed natural to me. I had seen my father naked before, and sometimes we had even showered together. 

It was the first awareness of my own desire, caused by his nakedness, that kept me behind the bush, my body and senses having awakened in a sudden burst.

I had an intense erection as I had never before experienced, and when I got up to leave, seeing that my friend had turned off the shower, I had my first ejaculation. 

I froze, not knowing what to do, not knowing what had happened, feeling scared but also pleased with that new sensation, that was not the same thing as a nocturnal, unconscious emission, but so much more pleasurable, and clearly caused by Fabio and his male beauty.

From that day on, I started looking at Fabio in a different way.

It caused me to feel doubt and guilt, because my friend did not look differently at me -- he seemed different, but just to me.

Just looking at Fabio and inhaling his manly smell was not enough anymore -- I now wanted to touch him. And without any malice, but perhaps with a bit of pride and vanity, he often allowed me to touch his muscles.

"You are so handsome, Fabio..." I felt unsure in praising him, for it sounded almost like a confession of my love. I was suddenly afraid that maybe Fabio would estrange me, starting to ridicule me like the other kids at school had done. "You could be a model and earn money!" That was the biggest compliment I could conceive, and it still felt wonderful to be so sincere in my admiration for him, if a bit risky.

  "No." I actually had nothing to fear from Fabio, no rejection, no violence. He had just laughed at my proposal. "I don't need that! I want to own a farm!"

"You are so strong..." I had started to praise him openly, anchored on a courage that was absolutely new to me, grounded as it was on my desire, and I was even bold enough to propose games in which we would have physical contact. "I bet you can carry me easily to the top of that hill..." All I wanted was to be back in his arms, only this time I might as well embrace him.

Now that I think about it, Fabio never realized my desire simply because homosexuality was not part of his repertoire. He never had considered its existence, I think, and so he was never suspicious at my constant and exaggerated praise on him. I also think he did not care about being beautiful or strong, since the goats and tomatoes that had been his daily companions didn't care about his beauty either.

"You are also getting stronger, Laurent!" he had replied. But unlike my praise, Fabio's contained no lust for my body. He did not notice my provocations, and was completely oblivious to my desire. For him, there was no other healthy feeling between two guys that had not been friendship, brotherhood.

And indeed, not only had my body developed with the work on the fields,  along with a natural and enhanced nutrition, but I was also actually feeling stronger. If at first I had been cautious in carrying an empty bucket, I now felt confident to carry a stack of wood into the house and until the fireplace. 

The force that I felt was also interior -- and along with it, a new sense of incredulity directed at my own past, at how helpless and passive I had been before my classmates.

I owed this new confidence to Fabio. 

Not just because I adored him. He had actually respected and valued me -- although I was no more than a twelve, almost thirteen years old boy, he saw in me all the things I had already learned and knew, and he valued my talents and abilities that I had taken for granted.

And it was with guilt that, even during our study sessions, when he was so serious and concentrated in his readings, trying to learn everything I could teach him -- perhaps far more aware than I was of our imminent separation --, it was with guilt that I bent over him, rubbing against his muscles and his hairy skin, drunk with desire, wanting to awaken in him an interest in me that would be bigger than the one he manifested for the Urals or even for Punaouilo, and for everything else he did not know across the planet. 

There was guilt, and also fear that he would finally realize my lust, and that it would put an end to our friendship, so sincere and pure on his part.

next episode

Author's note: if you are reading this, and you are being bullied, and the burden is too great on you, you can find help and solace, right now. For English speakers -- in the US, the National Suicide Prevention Hotline is 1-800-273-8255 and the Trevor Project’s Lifeline is 1-866-488-7386; in the UK, the Samaritans can be contacted on 08457 90 90 90; in Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14. For other countries, please check these hotlines. Please, don't let bullies win. YOU are much more precious. I hope this helps. Like Laurent, I am a survivor myself.