Chapter 11 - Downward spiral

The August that year was unusual, Ivan told me. In the first week there had already been three thunderstorms, which ordinarily only managed to break into the cupola of heat over the Mediterranean towards the end of the month, starting from the north. For a few hours after each storm the temperature dropped ten degrees centigrade, to the great relief of everyone, and strangely enough, the summer was considered all the more beautiful because of the downpours. In the weekend between July and August a mass exodus had left the large cities empty as Italians either returned to their paese, the town where their family originated, or alternatively moved to a seaside resort or to the mountains if they weren´t enthusiastic about spending a month with relatives and in-laws. The industrial production of the country came to a grinding halt as all the largest factories shut down for the entire month, a sign of pure Mediterranean madness to Americans, and most Northern Europeans as well. Ivan´s parents weren´t an exception to the rule, and they were spending the first two weeks of August in the countryside before flying to Tokyo for ten days, an arrangement which put Ivan under tremendous stress as he juggled between his daytime perfect son act and his covert nighttime escapades to my place. Then his parents went to visit an uncle for two days and that night he insisted I go to the big house and fuck him in his room, to leave my scent in his bedclothes.

“Marinella´s family has returned from Paris,” he grimly said the following night, back in my place, lying naked on top of white sheets that made him look superbly tanned and very Mediterranean. “And my parents have invited her for the weekend.”

“I thought you´d broken up,” I said, leaning on one elbow and running my fingertips over the smooth perfect globes of his glutes.

“Well, sort of,” he answered, squirming a little. “But she wants to see me, and my parents want me to see her.”

“I see. So she´s coming.”

“I´m afraid so.” There was a trace of panic in his voice. “She knows something´s wrong.”

“Well, kid, for the last three weeks you´ve been fucked by a man every single night except the one we spent talking-” I tickled him, and he let out a spontaneous laugher like a child who hasn´t learned to repress himself yet. “-so she´s probably right.”

His face turned serious, “When she was here the last time, you know, after you and me, I couldn´t come with her any longer. I continued doing it, but it just… became impossible, until I thought about the things you did to me, and then...” he made a quick arching gesture, and one of his funny faces, making me laugh. “But she knew something wasn´t right, that I wasn´t really there with her.”

“Are you going to tell her?”

“Are you out of your mind?” Ivan regarded me with surprised alarm.

It was the quintessential Italian reaction, and I couldn´t help laughing again at his expression of incredulity at the mere idea of telling the truth. Then I grabbed him by the hard muscular waist and dragged him over to me, feigning hostility. “So you´re going to sleep with her?”

Naturally, he knew nothing about my continuing trysts with Angelo. There was little doubt the kid was falling, hard, and although I had warned him not to come over the nights there was a car parked in front of the house, with the excuse of ensuring Angelo his anonymity in case Ivan was ever questioned by the police, I couldn´t help worrying what would happen if he somehow found out. After Angelo´s last visit, it had taken Ivan fifteen minutes to show up at my door, at 3am, and a major effort had been necessary to keep him from climbing upstairs to discover the fucked over bed and the still wet bathroom floor. I´d seated him at the kitchen table and we´d had a long talk over glasses of the white wine I hadn´t had time to drink with Angelo, and before leaving, at the door, his face flush with the wine and some embarrassment, Ivan had revealed he was so glad about the way we´d spent the time just talking because it meant our relationship wasn´t only about sex.

He was taken in by my aggressive tone, and said hurriedly, “I´ll have to sleep with her, otherwise-“

“What, she´ll tell your parents?”

He nodded vigorously. “Everyone would notice something´s wrong if I didn´t. Our families are old friends, and ever since we were kids they´ve always thought we´d get married.”

Apparently, the kid wasn´t coming out of the closet any time soon.

“And if you can´t do it? If there´s trouble again?”

With a smug smile, he said, “There won´t be. I have many more things to think about this time.”

It was almost four o´clock in the morning, and it was time for him to sneak back home to catch some sleep to avoid suspicions. He pulled on his clothes and we went downstairs to finish off a bottle of orange juice before he left.

“Well, um, actually Marinella´s coming tomorrow already,” he said quickly, sipping his drink.

“Tomorrow?” This time my frustration was real. “It´s only Thursday.”

He shrugged. “My parents are worried about us, so they invited her early.”

The “us” referring to him and Marinella made me realize that the inchoate lurch of something I´d just felt was jealousy. I considered lugging him back upstairs for an extra half an hour but it was late, and he needed his sleep to be able to study the next day, in addition to charming Marinella of course. Once he was gone, I walked around the house restlessly, thinking of the long nights ahead without his addictive presence. There were signs of him all over the house: a single sock that had disappeared mysteriously and was later discovered in the cold fireplace downstairs, and had been left there untouched as a proof of our hurry that previous night; his toothbrush; a piece of crust of a sandwich he had wolfed down after the first quick round of sex. I was certain Ivan couldn´t help visiting me when everyone else at the big house was asleep, but there was no way we could spend more than an hour together each night, perhaps not even that. Luckily, Angelo was expected to show up on Friday or Saturday, this time driving up from Rome where he was spending the week with a reluctant Luca before moving down to Taormina, in Sicily, for ten days to celebrate the pinnacle of the Italian holiday season, the Ferragosto.

As it turned out I needn´t have worried about being bored. The next day I was back in the headlines, big time. When I woke up and tottered downstairs for my breakfast, eyes barely open as I flicked through national TV channels, I came across a teaser about a possible breakthrough in the case. I sat up straight, all traces of sleep suddenly washed away from my system as tried to figure out what exactly they were referring to. With a shaking hand I set down the orange juice, lest I spill it, and was told that the Police Chief of Milan, Dottor Matarazzi, would hold a news conference at 7pm, and according to anonymous sources within the police force they apparently had found an eyewitness. Logically, a witness could only help my case, but as I wasn´t accustomed to Italians displaying anything similar to logic I was plunged back into the severe anxiety of my first days in the house, when even the slightest noise outside sent me running to the windows and when I sometimes had even had trouble breathing as if a tight, smothering belt had been fastened around my chest. I didn´t know how long the channels had been running the teasers, and wondered if Ivan had heard the news already or if wooing Marinella had required all his attention. Angelo would probably be on the gay beach in Ostia, outside Rome, and the news would spread there like a wildfire as soon as someone happened to hear about it. During the hours preceding the news conference I tried to play several games, watch a movie, and read one of the Italian novels Angelo kept showering me with, the latest one consisting of two gay short stories by Pier Paolo Pasolini, but none of the attempts lasted for more than fifteen minutes before I had to get up and try something else. Two of the networks would be running the conference live, and well before seven I was already in front of the computer, suffering my way through the interminable advertising that was being thrown into the suddenly coveted slots. At ten past seven the live feed from Prefettura began, Dottor Matarazzi entered the room, and the show began.

The lingering hope that the eyewitness would help my case was quickly vanquished. Although the witness´ identity wasn´t disclosed, it was immediately clear that Matarazzi was talking about the Czech truck driver. Having returned to Italy he had learned that there was now a substantial reward on information leading to my capture, provided by Gabriele´s family, and he had promptly marched to the nearest police station. Whatever story he had told them obviously had very little to do with reality, but the point wasn´t what had happened, but where and when. A large traditional map was brought behind Matarazzi, in a strikingly unhollywoodian manner despite the carefully studied beginning of the conference, and he proceeded to point out the main roads forking off from Genoa.

“Whoever was helping him - Loefgren didn´t have a car, and all the persons who rented a car in Milan the following morning have been controlled - most likely either continued to the north and took him across the border to France, or chose the autostrada to the south towards Tuscany, Rome, and eventually perhaps Sicily.”

So far there had been no mention of Angelo. His bogus story about me blackmailing a client had apparently been successful and he continued to take extensive precautions every time he visited me, never even bringing his cell phone along to avoid leaving a trace on towers, but I wondered if the police was aware that he was spending his holidays in Rome and if that would now seem suspicious. I remembered how he´d taken me to the beach that morning to break the gruesome spell of the night, despite the personal danger he was putting himself in, and the thought of him facing jail time as an accomplice tightened the smothering belt around my chest one more notch.

“In Italy, the most likely hiding places are the coastal towns, and even more so Rome,” Matarazzi added. “We´re hoping that the public collaborates…”

Rome. He´d said it. There was no way Angelo could come to me this weekend, not now. I would be all right until Thursday or Friday with emergency rations and then, hopefully, Ivan might be able to help until Angelo thought it reasonably safe to visit me again. However, I found the idea extremely aggravating. It was one thing to be helped by one´s best friend, and another to ask for help from a teenager who thought he was in love with you and so could neither consider the situation objectively nor refuse you. It made me feel dirty in a way that even my worst hustling experiences hadn´t, and after thinking about it for a moment, while Matarazzi droned on about matters everyone in Italy already knew, I realized I couldn´t do it; this was the moment to exit Ivan´s life before I messed him up as well.

Then it was time for the questions, and the first journalist went straight to the point. “Your eyewitness didn´t see the person helping Loefgren?”

Matarazzi shook his head. “Unfortunately, no. However, he believes that the car, which he didn´t see clearly, was of ´new design´.”

Would a classic sports car count as new design, I wondered. Hopefully not.

In the meanwhile, Matarazzi continued. “Consequently we´ve been re-checking the cars of every person who has been in contact with Loefgren.”

“In contact with Loefgren? You´re talking about the people whose numbers were found in his phone?”

“Yes, we´re including them. Along with everyone in his complete phone record.”

There were several demands, quite loud, to release the list of all the numbers.

“That´s obviously out of question,” Matarazzi answered curtly.

The rest of the conference dealt with subjects I had already heard time and time again on the news and talk shows, except one surprising question regarding a recent divorce of one of the major national football stars.

“Is there any truth to the rumors that Paolo del Zardi´s wife filed for divorce because his number was found in Loefgren´s cell phone?”

“That is completely untrue. I can tell you with the most absolute certainty that his number is not in the list.”

“And the Bonamici divorce?”

Matarazzi´s conviction wavered for a fraction of a second, and realizing it he almost lost his temper. “Are you going to ask me about every recent divorce in the country? I´m here to talk to journalists and not gossip columnists.”

He had answered the question badly, and he knew it. From now on Signor Bonamici, whoever he was, would be branded as my client, and judging by Matarazzi´s reaction he most likely had been. No more questions were allowed, infuriating the crowd, and Matarazzi left the room looking rather grim for someone who had finally had some good news to tell.

At three a.m., a small rock flew into my room, bounced from the wall and landed somewhere under my bed. Smiling at the teenage antic, I turned off the light and found my way downstairs. Ivan slipped in and I felt his full lips close on mine in the darkness, his breath warm and sweet, and as we kissed I slipped a hand into his loose trousers from the back, and cupped one of the smooth round buttocks. He pulled back, wanting to slow down, and I let my hands rest on his hard, slim waist.

“I was worried at first when I heard the news,” he whispered, as if someone was listening. “But you´re safe, they don´t know you´re here.” He let out a soft mischievous chuckle. “You should have heard what my parents said about you while they were watching the news. If they knew–”

“Ivan.” I took his head between my hands, making him look up to me even though we were in almost complete darkness. “You can´t come here again until we know that the police isn´t following Angelo.”

He tried to protest and I pressed my hand over his mouth to keep him quiet, the way I sometimes did while fucking him rougher than usual. This time he pushed my hand away.

“Like hell.” He stood still for a moment, silently fighting the idea. “And how long would that be?”

“A week, at least. Probably two, or more.”

“No way.” His took a few fast breaths. “In two weeks´ time he may have taken you somewhere else. You´d leave without telling me, wouldn´t you?”

“I´d probably have to. This is no game, Ivan.”

“You´re right, it´s no game,” he hissed. “Not to me.”

Then he was gone, out of the old creaky door and into the darkness of the hot summer night. I waited for a while, but he didn´t come back, and in the end I locked the door again. I stood in the dark, thinking about the way he felt in my arms, my heart still beating fast, and I cursed myself, unable to decide if wanting to fuck him meant I was weak and giving in to my basest instincts, or if I was being strong not giving a damn about social conventions. Me and my motives were no longer the point, however; the risks Ivan was taking were fast becoming very real.

The next evening, close to midnight, I lay in my bed with the lights out to watch the flashes of one of the anomalous storms of the season raging in the distance, too far for the thundering to be heard. The night breeze had brought in fresh air from the storm front, and the house was pleasantly cool; I would sleep under covers tonight, for the first time since the high summer had started. Ivan hadn´t yet reappeared, which was to be expected with his show of temper the previous night and Marinella´s presence in the house, but I found myself unable to focus on anything else while I was waiting for him.

I knew he´d come; after having done his duty with Marinella he´d be at my door, and the awareness of seeing him soon was like a constant low wattage charge buzzing through my body. Idly, I touched my hard-on straining against the simple white briefs that were a continuing turn-on to him, and thought of the things I´d do to the kid as soon as he arrived. Then I heard the car.

The pit of my stomach went cold with the usual adrenaline shock, and without turning the light on I moved cautiously to the window. Instead of flashing blue and red I only saw the familiar headlights of Luca´s BMW; Angelo had gotten away from Rome. My erection swelled back to full hardness, threatening to burst the seams of the white briefs, as I walked downstairs and opened the door.

It was Luca.

His eyes dropped to my bulging hard-on, and the expression on his face tightened even further, if that was possible. I quickly stepped back, and turned away while gesturing him to enter.

“Come on in,” I said, talking to him over my shoulder and aiming for the right pitch of modesty. “I was waiting for someone who lives near by. I´ll be right back.”

“Right,” I heard him say as I walked up the stairs to the second floor.

He´s going to call the police tonight, I thought. The way he looked, he won´t care if the fallout brings him down, too. This is fucking it.