Date: Fri, 08 Sep 2006 11:43:56 +0200
From: A.K. <andrej@andrejkoymasky.com>
Subject: "The Choice" 14/15 (Adult Youth)

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THE CHOICE
by Andrej Koymasky (C) 2006
written on November 12th 1996
translated by the author
English text kindly revised
by Khasidi

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USUAL DISCLAIMER

"THE CHOICE" is a gay story, with some parts containing graphic
scenes of sex between males. So, if in your land, religion, family,
opinion and so on this is not good for you, it will be better not to
read this story. But if you really want, or because YOU don't care, or
because you think you really want to read it, please be my welcomed
guest.

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CHAPTER 14 - THE MOTHER

Adriano wasn't too careful about how he was dressed as he went to the
entrance door. He presumed that the light drumming on the door indicated
that Gustavo was returning from the market. During the week they had
lived together, the two beautiful young men hadn't felt the need to wear
much, they were so happy to look, admire, touch each other, that they
usually felt it was enough to wear just their skin to better savor the
splendid intimacy that was born between them. And, while they waited for
Adriano's wounds to heal, and since Gustavo was "unemployed" they basked
in their intimacy, parting only when Gustavo absolutely had to do some
shopping. Moreover, the only clothes he had were those with which the
boy left his family's house and they were now in the washing machine.
They really needed a good washing. A clean undershirt a couple sizes too
big and boxers somewhat too abundant that he had taken from Gustavo's
drawer were all the clothes the boy was wearing.

The drumming at the door became impatient and was followed by a long
loud ringing. The long legged boy smiled thinking that his man forgot to
take the apartment keys. He stood up from his place on the studio's
carpet, in front at the TV, to go to open the door and to see if Gustavo
needed some help. Until that moment, he had not been aware how hungry he
was and saw it was already late afternoon. With one only thought in his
head the beautiful boy ran to the entrance, longing to see his man again
and to see what he had bought for their supper this evening.

Adriano opened the door wide. "Oh!" he gasped. Clara, his mother,
confronted him on the threshold.

The normal warmth of Clara Crespi's face and dark eyes gradually changed
as the woman's eyes closed in two tight slits and her expression to a
frozen glare. The tall woman's icy glance quickly flickered in a circle
from the dumbfounded face of her son to his bare feet, then back again.
She bit her lower lip, then bent her head slightly to the side and said,
dry and direct, "Your father told me that it had suddenly become a
problem for you to keep your clothes on. I see that Ubaldo was not
exaggerating."

"I... Mum... come in." Adriano answered moving aside embarrassed and
stepping a little back from the door to let the woman in.

As she entered, Clara threw him the same penetrating glance she used to
give him when the moment of judgment had come, "Don't worry about it,
darling. I had intended come anyway," she said dryly. Adriano sensed
that there was really very little affection in that "darling." She came
through the doorway dragging a big leather suitcase at her side and
stopped in the middle of the small entrance hall. Once inside, she
looked back at Adriano and said, "Well, don't stand there staring at me
like a dried cod. Close the door before all the heat escapes from the
apartment." She stalked resolutely towards the kitchen.

The proud, slender, dark-skinned woman made no effort to talk again with
her son. Instead, in a very feminine way, she ran her eye over the
spotless kitchen, from the appliances to the floor, the table, the
cupboard, the window curtains. It was as if she were seeing each item
for the first time. Adriano watched her warily from the kitchen door.

Expressing no opinion, good or bad, about the kitchen, which was poor
but very clean, Clara again directed her eyes at her son. Her voice was
controlled and quiet, but her tone aroused a sense of foreboding in him
as if he had seen a storm cloud in the distance. "Adriano, I don't have
the faintest idea how this man's apartment is organized, but I imagine
your clothes must be here somewhere... and if there is one thing I'm
sure about, it is that it will be better if you go put something on.
Now. Instantly! Did you hear me?"

"Mum, all my clothes are in the bathroom, in the washing machine,"
Adriano informed her quietly. "I have nothing else to wear." He was
trying not to betray all the sadness that awoke in him at this
admission.

Suddenly the fire in the mother's eyes died. The rage in her face melted
in dismay. She let out a weary sigh, almost nodding, "Yes, I know.
That's why... I brought you your things from home." She nodded towards
the suitcase near her. "Go, cover yourself up. Put something decent on."

Adriano complied without comment, immediately turning around and heading
for the bedroom. He had just moved away when Clara, more than baffled by
her son's absent-mindedness, asked him, "But where is your head,
Adriano! Come back here to get your things, no?" Frowning and annoyed
again, she lifted the heavy leather suitcase and brought it with heavy
steps to her son at the door of the kitchen, where she met him coming
back.

Adriano blushed. "Oh, right," was all he could say in justification of
his heedlessness. Glancing down in embarrassment from his mother's
sardonic expression, the boy bent nervously to pick up the suitcase.

"Oh, for heaven's sake!" she said dryly, while her son went back fast
towards the bedroom, "Just get going. Try to find something in there to
cover yourself up with, beanpole!" She watched him disappear into the
study and beat an impatient tattoo on the doorframe.

She turned back and went over to the table where she put down her black
leather bag. She slipped her gloves off and laid them next to the bag.
Then she unbuttoned her woolen coat, but she didn't take it off.

While she waited for her son to dress, Clara Crespi pulled a chair out
from the table and sat down. She examined the wedding ring on her
finger. She had worn it for twenty-one years. As she stared at it
absently, she thought about what it represented - sadly, it seemed like
a pretty poor value, all things considered.

An instant later the noise of a key slipping into the lock of the door
interrupted her meditations. She lowered her eyebrows and rapidly
swiveled on the chair so that she was looking towards the kitchen door
just as Gustavo entered with two big white plastic shopping bags, filled
to the brim, in his hands.

As soon as he saw her, Gustavo stopped in the doorway and, searching for
appropriate words, murmured into the uncomfortable and tense silence,
"Good evening, Mrs. Crespi." Even though he didn't say anything else,
his expression was apologetic.

Clara's gaze examined each individual detail of the tall, handsome man
with attention. "Well, mister Cirasa, you seem rather surprised. Didn't
you expect to see me again?" she asked, emphasizing the "mister" with a
low voice, her sharp sarcasm as unnerving as was the bewilderment that
her half smile provoked in the man.

He understood that the storm rising in the woman's angry eyes would soon
engulf them both. To stem the flood of immediate conjectures about what
might unexpectedly come from this unexpected visit, the young man
prudently decided to remain silent. There was not much to do, nothing to
say, he had simply to wait for the confrontation to begin.

Notwithstanding the growing discomfort that was twisting his middle, the
athletic man went over to put down the two heavy shopping bags and
turned around, leaning lightly against the cupboard. "So, that's that.
May I offer you something, Mrs. Crespi?" he asked in a hesitant voice,
"A cup of coffee, or perhaps some..."

"No, thank you, nothing for me," she interrupted him sharply, "I don't
need anything, thank you." But, as she spoke, she lost some of her
hardness and, when she spoke again, seemed almost melancholy. "All I
really want, more than anything, is something that you and I both know I
can't have any more... never again."

As she offered this opening, the slender woman straightened her
shoulders, but remained seated. She guessed that the ex-priest might
take advantage of the opening offered to him, to give her his view of
the problem in which, in some ways, they were each the protagonist. She
hoped that he would, because she intended to use his defense as a point
of leverage to start to list, in detail, all of her sentiments. But she
was not given this satisfaction.

Gustavo understood at once where she was trying to lead him and of
course he preferred not to go that way. He remained silent in spite of
the opportunity to defend himself. He was not yet ready to help her, nor
had he the stomach to run through all that had happened over the past
several days again. Instead he went to light the gas burner for the
moka-machine which had already been prepared.

The only sound was the faint hissing of the gas and then the jingling of
the cups and the sugar pot as he placed them on the tray on the
cupboard. Other than that, nothing disturbed the tense silence of the
room.

Suddenly the old refrigerator started up. It's monotonous buzz rent the
cloak of silence in which the kitchen had been smothered. The cheerful
domesticity of the sound was joined in a moment by the gurgle of coffee
squirting into the upper part of the moka. The pleasant aroma spread in
vague spirals from the spout. Just at that moment Adriano returned, this
time completely dressed. His mother watched the way her son slowly
entered the kitchen with evident curiosity.

Seeing Gustavo standing near the cooker, Adriano, until then completely
enervated, suddenly felt strong inside. Raising his chin, the graceful,
enamored young man greeted the one who was, in his eyes, the most
beautiful person in the world, with a smile, "Ciao!" Even though his
expression was rigidly controlled, his voice was sweet and tranquil and
his eyes shone.

"Ciao!" Gustavo had, until then, been nervous, but he answered with
exactly the same proud, warm look.

Glancing from one side of the kitchen to the other, Clara carefully
observed both her beautiful son and the man to whom he was giving
himself in a way that she suddenly didn't want to examine too deeply.
Anyway, the evidence of the feeling they shared, a kind of feeling that
she hadn't experienced in a long time, was so obvious that she couldn't
pretend not to be aware. The woman saw clearly, and without the faintest
doubt, that theirs was a relationship involving much more than simple
infatuation, much more than the rapport of physical desire. The strength
of the feelings that she saw in her son's eyes when he gazed enraptured
at the man across the room seemed to tear something inside of her. She
looked at her wedding ring and thought again that it had been more than
twenty years since she had shared such feelings with her husband.

Adriano, even though he still felt unable to bear the scrutiny of his
mother's gaze for long, sat down quietly on the other side of the table
in the chair directly opposite her.

"How about some coffee, Adriano?" Gustavo almost whispered across the
room.

"What? Oh... yes, thank you."

Clara picked up her bag from the table and put it on her lap, as Gustavo
slowly approached with a tray holding three cups, the sugar bowl and the
steaming moka, in his big hands.

"Please... have some coffee," the big man offered kindly, almost
begging. "And," he added, hesitantly, "If you like, there is also some
fresh cake I just bought."

Clara let a sigh escape, "All right," she consented shortly; and, almost
to let them understand that she intended to stay for a while, she pulled
her arms from her coat sleeves and, without standing, let go of her coat
to so that it hung inside-out over the back of the chair.

Gustavo filled the cups and served them along with three paper napkins.
He pushed the sugar bowl towards Adriano's mother and sat down at the
short side of the table, between the two of them. He felt extremely
self-conscious and ill at ease. As he leaned back in his chair, he
contemplated his clasped hands which rested on the table in front of his
coffee cup.

The three members of the trio, strangely connected by different
relations, sat around the table silently until Gustavo, releasing a deep
sigh as he faced his duty, began, "Mrs. Crespi, I don't exactly know
where to start. I..."

All the apparently simple words that the young ex-priest had quietly
chosen from the clean ensemble of thoughts and sentiments he had in his
heart, and that he wanted fervently to make known to Adriano's mother,
became entangled like a heap of brush-wood inside his throat.

Pursing her lips, Clara sat up even straighter in her chair. The
corrugation of wrinkles that rose on her forehead seemed like waves
pushed by an angry wind, a wind that still she held back. "Well, then.
Why not to let me try to lead you in the right direction," she said. "I
have a precise idea where to start from." Clara leaned menacingly toward
the man. "Why don't you start by simply telling me how long this mess...
whatever you two have gotten up to... this mess between you and my son
has been going on?"

Adriano intercepted Gustavo's answer protectively. He wanted to honestly
assume his share of responsibility so he spoke at once, saying to his
mother, "It's not like we were meeting in secret or anything like that.
It happened, just... a couple of days before Dad came here and..."

"Adriano! Did you hear me ask you a question? Shut up!" his mother
interrupted him in irritation, treating him like an annoying child.

"He is telling you the truth." Gustavo quickly affirmed.

"Oh good God! Oh my God!" Clara exclaimed, crossing her arms and
pretending to be scandalized, "I swear, I would have liked it if you had
had so a glib tongue when Monsignor Bishop chose you to become the
parson of our parish, young man! I would have liked it if you had been
clear then! Above all, I would have liked it if you had been clear about
this vice of taking boys into your bed!" she said, shaking her head in a
severe censure. Then she added, "If the bishop's See had known at that
time of your... tendencies, it would surely have saved us a lot of
problems!" Then, looking straight into her son's eyes she added, "And
possibly it would have saved me a lot of pain, as well."

Keeping her gaze, sharp as a steel blade, on Adriano, Clara threw an
incredibly cynical question at him across the table, "And you want me to
believe that this business between you and this man just started?"

"I swear, Mum!" Adriano answered solemnly nodding.

The woman suddenly turned again towards Gustavo, "Well, let's say I
believe it; even though I know how men get around when they rut! How
many boys did you get your hands on over all these years? And which
ones?" she asked harshly, "And then, why did you have to chose my son?"

"Mum! He is not like that at all! And anyway, I'm not a kid any more. We
both..."

Gustavo raised his hand quickly in a plea for Adriano to keep silent.
"All right, Adriano. Thank you, but I can talk for myself," he said in a
clear voice, as he looked straight into Clara's eyes, "There is no way
to prove this to you, Mrs. Crespi. I know because, while it is possible
to prove the existence of something, one can't prove its
non-existence... it isn't possible. But, as God is my witness, in my
whole life, I have never, ever done such a thing."

"All right, let's suppose that is true. So then explain this to me - if
it is something you never did before... why the hell did you decide you
wanted him now?" Clara asked, unconvinced of the truth of the man's
words.

"There are a thousand reasons. All special and most of them come from
the better part of my heart; but I have no way to offer you an
understandable explanation of these things. I..."

"Mum..." Adriano's voice valiantly interfered, unwisely presuming he
could settle things once for all, "It is something that I wanted to
happen... always... since the first day I met him, when he was still an
assistant-parson, six years ago. Even though I only understood it
clearly just a couple of days ago." The tall, slender youth cast an
adoring glance at the beautiful man, a glance that revealed all his
enchantment to the other two people. Then, turning again to his mother,
he reaffirmed this point, "I want to stay with him. I... I want to
belong to him. This is what I want, Mum! It's the absolute truth."

Horrible words and sentences, similar and recurring, passed through
Clara's mind. In every hour of every day for the last three days she had
been hounded by her imagination. Ever since Ubaldo had forced her to
listen to the venomously honest story of his accidental discovery of
their son in this man's house. In spite the sincere good intentions in
her son's exposition of the facts, coming to realize that her son had
willingly assented to this relationship came like the fulfillment of a
horrible prophecy, feared and at the same time denied. It came down upon
her, drenching her like a rain of acid, burning her ears and shriveling
her soul. She was visibly shaken by the impact of her son's confession;
but, in spite of her dismay and the tears she tried to hold back, the
slender woman continued to sit straight, her chin stubbornly high and
her lower lip bent in a sharp fold that expressed all her indignation.

She supported herself against the straight back of the chair trying to
maintain her calm. In spite of her bewilderment, her face went blank.

A moment later, seeming to recover her composure, but obviously refusing
to easily believe him, she questioned her son, "Are you telling me
that... that you were chasing men, Adriano?"

"No, Mum... no. It's not like that, either ... I..." the boy answered
with a quivering voice.

"Damn it, boy, then how is it!?" The woman asked with a venomous roar,
letting him understand that she wanted hear no embroidered tales, "Tell
me how it is, then!" she again shouted.

Remembering how Gustavo told him that only truth could make what they
were feeling for each other right and keep them united, Adriano took a
deep breath, "There has been nobody else but him, Mum. There has never
been... there will never be... not for me." He answered in a respectful
but completely honest and sincere tone. For a boy who was just testing
his wings, the bottomless pit of judgment Adriano saw in his mother's
eyes was a terrifying sight. Nonetheless, the youth in love gathered his
strength so as to be able to hold his mother's look without flinching
and tell her, "Mum... I love him."

Notwithstanding all its luminous beauty and honesty, this declaration
failed in its implicit plea to elicit understanding from the woman.
Adriano could read this at once in his mother's eyes. When the boy saw
that his mother maintained a mocking silence as if in rejection of an
idiotic remark, he became instantly as furious as he was wounded.

"It is real love!" Adriano shouted, "Why can't that be true?"

The fury she had borne since she had entered in Gustavo's home had been
neutralized during the last moments, as if it had been obliterated by a
miraculous stroke of lightning. It was as if the main point of what was
happening between her son and the man sitting near him at that table had
suddenly vanished between her hands, volatilizing in the thin air like a
puff of smoke. Clara bent back her head and looked at the ceiling. Then
her hand struck the table with force and her body started to shake and
jerk on the chair as if it were made of a steel spring as she burst out
in loud, hoarse laughter.

"Love? You are in love? Boy, for God's sake, do you know what are you
talking about?" She asked, this time with the most sincere astonishment.
She continued to laugh.

Eventually, her laughter died out and her face became serious again,
"But what do you know about love, other than what you see on those silly
soap operas that you and Diego and Loredana watch on TV?" she asked.
"Sweet words, tight embraces, and long kisses don't make love, boy! They
never did. And not even being in bed together to do... those things,"
she went on, shooting a disgusted glance at Adriano and Gustavo.
"Love... is having the common sense to go looking for somebody with whom
you know you have a good chance of building a life with, here, in this
world... no matter how hard it may be. Love is going forward and living
together anyway, even when it starts to seem that the love you had isn't
there anymore. It is discovering that the garbage of life doesn't go
away, it is true, but is just replaced by days of rubbish... and yet you
are able to maintain your peace, in spite of what you feel inside. Day
after day, months and years of nights spent watching over your children.
It is paying bills and suffering and holding out any way you can... for
the good reason that you have a door behind which to take shelter. This
is love, boy! But, in any case, all this has nothing to do with... with
a man loving another man. No!

"And now I want you to answer me, and I want you to answer frankly and
bluntly," She ordered, pointing her finger at Adriano, "Who did you talk
to get an idea like this? What kind of books did you read that I didn't
see?"

Even though she was no longer controlled by anger, Clara felt all that
anger rise up in herself again. She leaned forward toward Gustavo, ready
to accuse, "Was it you who put this nonsense in his head?" she asked,
brusquely.

"Mrs. Crespi, this is not something one can instill in someone else's
head. It is a natural sentiment. One discovers that he is wearing it
like his skin, or his eye color. It is part of a person. It is how he
feels... his nature. I have felt this way all my life, and all my life
long I told myself, no... But this time, this time, I couldn't say no
anymore to myself... and I couldn't say it to him, either. We are just
following our nature. This is the main point to understand."

"I don't give a damn if it has been just once or a thousand times! Why
do I have to understand?" Clara asked, getting heated. But she didn't
wait for an answer. Watching the young ex-priest stand up and leave the
table, as if he wanted to keep a distance from her and her wrath, she
said, "Do I really have to understand something that is making me suffer
so much?" She was shouting now "So much that I am not even able to
explain even half of why I feel as if I had been cut into pieces?" Clara
smashed her bag down on the table. "In pieces, I say! Today, this story
is giving me so much pain that it seems ten times worse than the pain I
had twenty years ago, when I would have sworn that my body would tear
itself apart, the day I gave birth to this boy!"

"Mum!"

"You shut up!" Clara roared.

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CONTINUES IN CHAPTER 15

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In my home page I've put some more of my stories. If someone wants to
read them, the URL is
http://andrejkoymasky.com
If you want to send me feed-back, or desire to help revising my English
translations, so that I can put on-line more of my  stories in English
please e-mail at
andrej@andrejkoymasky.com

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