“I want you to fill me, Charlie,” Dario eggs on. “Leave me dripping. Unload inside me.”
“Okay, Candy Man. Any second now you’ll get your filling.”
The silliest of sentences can be the sexiest when lost in the hedge maze of amazing sex. Dario’s cheeks and Charlie’s balls clap together, echoing in the night, like premature applause for a set that hasn’t ended yet.
Dario jerks his own cock in his hand, tension mounting. “I’m right there,” he whispers in exquisite agony.
“I’m right there with you.” Charlie groans deep, plunges deeper.
Charlie crosses the finish line first. The hot expulsion rippling through Dario prompts an exceptional orgasm of his own. Quivering and legs nearly giving out, he spills all over the tile on the terrace as Charlie pumps one final time inside him.
The musicians playing at the fortress conclude their set to a thunderous reception. Cheers crackle through the night, giving way to chants of “Encore! Encore!” Charlie leans in and whispers, “If they insist…”
Dario bites his lip and gears up for another round.
TWENTY-FOUR
CHARLIE
The house on Cemetery Street looks different after some time away and especially from the back of a hired town car. Dario wouldn’t hear of Charlie making his family pick him up from the airport, just as he wouldn’t hear of Charlie flying economy home. “My soon-to-be fiancé deserves the best,” he had said.
Charlie was amazed how differently you could be treated on the front side of a flimsy curtain. Complimentary champagne, a spacious seat that reclined all the way back, an eye mask and slippers, and food that actually tasted good. He could get used to these kinds of amenities.
Now he halts in the back seat, peering through the tinted window at the overgrown grass and landscaping showcased in the weak light that spills from the peeling windowpanes.
Two weeks seems such a short time when looking at a calendar, but Charlie feels a seismic change inside himself. Will his family notice the difference?
As he ventures up the front walk, he wishes Dario were beside him. Their parting outside Villa Meraviglia was mostly wordless and as bittersweet as an Amorina Indulgence bar, their darkchocolate with orange bitters artisan selection. As much as he longed to stay in the celebratory safety of Dario’s Italian hilltop villa, his family needs him too much, and of course he missed them dearly, so he steps through the door.
In the entryway, his family holds up a poster that says, Welcome home, Charlie!
His heart squirms a little. Somehow, the house on Cemetery Street doesn’t quite feel like home anymore. As they pass through the hallway and into the kitchen where a BBQ dinner is already laid out to be eaten, something seems off, and it’s not only his father’s distant indifference. These people are still his people, but perhaps this place is no longer his place.
They gather around the table. While he loved Paola’s cooking, he missed Dad’s BBQ. Corn on the cob gets passed alongside baked beans and chuck burgers. Charlie slathers his with barbeque sauce and frizzled onions. The all-American flavors he didn’t know he missed until now.
Sitting back at his usual chair, he can’t help but feel he dreamed up the last two weeks. How could something so spectacular have happened to someone who comes from this? The wooden table they eat at has a wobbly leg and the plates they use are dollar-store paper. The chandelier overhead has a lightbulb that’s been burnt out for several months. The windows are thrown open to let in a cross breeze because even in the evening the Pennsylvania humidity wreaks havoc that their ancient AC system can’t mitigate.
Throughout the meal, he regales them with tales of Europe. In his sketchbook, he drew pictures of monuments and dishes he enjoyed. It’s what he’s got in place of photographs. He lost all of those to The Great Phone Fall at the well in Perugia. He never wanted to pay for cloud storage. Now he regrets it.
Though, in a way, the sketches are more indicative of his time in Umbria. His perspective shines through in every stroke of his pencil in a way his phone camera could’ve never captured.
“Is this the Cotogna boy?” Grandpa asks, tapping on a face within the pages.
It occurs to Charlie as his family flips through his doodles that he drew a lot of Dario. Dario captaining his boat. Dario lying out beside the swimming hole on Isola Polvese. Dario teaching chocolate making in that silly chef’s hat. Dario Cotogna might be the muse of all muses.
“Yes,” he says, trying not to be embarrassed.
“Quite the looker,” Grandma says. “You can tell you really love him by the way you have captured him.”
When the sketchbook is returned to him, he stares at the drawings and considers what Grandma said. He was willing to enter a loveless marriage for money because he’d never been in love before. It was an intangible idea hovering way out of reach. He didn’t know what it felt like or how it changed you. But it’s clear now by the drumming of his pulse and the racing of his heart that he’s in love with Dario Cotogna, and that nothing will ever be the same.
Charlie smiles and doesn’t negate the sentiment nor confirm it. The first time he uses the l-word should be with Dario. “I can’t wait for you all to meet him.”
“So he’s coming, then?” Dad asks. Only the second thing he’s said since “Hello, Charlie.”
Charlie nods, heart abuzz. “In a couple weeks. He had some work to attend to, but once he has that settled, he will come out. He is really excited to meet you all.” Over his half-eaten corncob, he adds, “I hope you’ll give him a chance.”
“Of course we will,” Grandpa says, sounding light.
