“Your point?”
“Many great men were known to have had much younger lovers who could inspire and invigorate them in exchange for wisdom and guidance.”
However poetic his words, his plea couldn’t be any plainer. “I am happy to share my wisdom and guidance with you without any sexual compensation,” I tell him. I must remain firm.
He’s quiet, processing what I hope is a gentle redirection, but he doesn’t go back to reading. Instead, he asks, “Do you have a lover, Valentin?”
“At present, I do not.” Nor have I had one for a good long while.
“Are you lonely?”
Sometimes the loneliness is hard to bear, but that’s why I have my close friends to keep me company. And my paid escorts. And my work.
“How could I be lonely when I have you to entertain me with all sorts of surprising conversations?”
“You’re placating me,” he says, slighted.
“Perhaps.”
“Is it because you knew me as a child that you don’t see me now as a sexual being?”
It seems he will not be deterred, so I decide to turn it back on him. “That might be part of it. Why do you feel the need to turn our friendship into something sexual?”
“Because I like it when you touch me, and I want you to touch me more.”
Simple, honest, and direct. Truthfully, I’m not sure how to counter it.
“I appreciate your generous offer, Giovanni, but the only thing I want is for you to be healthy and sober.”
He sighs discontentedly and goes back to reading, but a few minutes later he says, “I hope you’ll change your mind.”
I’m morecareful after that, limiting our interactions to the very barest of intimacies, touching him with the affection of a brother or a parent, trying very hard not to read into his covetous gazes and obvious sexual desire.
We’re having dinner a few nights later. Giovanni is quiet, having withdrawn into himself like a turtle. Sometimes it’s merely his intellect working; other times it’s the voices in his head fucking with him. If only I could cut them out as easily as a testicle or a necrotic limb.
“Is there anything on your mind?” I prompt in case there might be something distressing him.
“Do you know the story of Bluebeard?”
Giovanni expresses himself through art and literature. I have learned much more about his interior life through these avenues than by asking him direct questions.
“No, I do not.”
“He had a reputation for murdering his wives,” he begins. “And after much convincing of the local townspeople that he was not a murderous bastard, he marries again, taking his new bride to a chateau in the countryside and giving her keys to all the rooms in the house. He then invites her to explore each of them, except one.”
I have a suspicion as to where this is going but I nod for him to continue.
“So, she has her friends over, and of course they get curious, and they convince her to open the door to the forbidden room, and do you know what they find?”
“What’s that?”
“The murdered corpses of his former wives hanging from meat hooks on the walls.” He pauses there and studies me with his shrewd eyes. “Do you have something you want to tell me, Valentin?”
He means the only room in the penthouse that is off-limits to him. “Well, for one, you know that I’m gay, so I can assure you, you will not find wives in that room.”
He grins, genuinely amused. I would pay good money to see that smile more often.
“Dead lovers then? Nude men?” he asks, sounding hopeful.
