Date: Fri, 09 Dec 2005 18:17:05 +0100 From: A.K. <andrej@andrejkoymasky.com> Subject: In Full Flight - 05/10 (t+t+m - High School) ---------------------------- IN FULL FLIGHT by Andrej Koymasky (C) 2005 written on September 17th 1993 translated by the author English text kindly revised by Brian ----------------------------- USUAL DISCLAIMER "IN FULL FLIGHT" 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. ----------------------------- CHAPTER 5 - The mother... Giovanni found a small furnished room for Daniel in Bartolo Street. With Pietro's help, Daniel started going to high school again. He soon caught up on the five days of lessons that he'd missed. Giovanni would often, stay the night with him, so they were able to make love more often and better than before. It was in the last days before the Christmas holidays when his mother approached him as he left the school. When Daniel saw her, he grabbed Pietro's arm: "My mother! Stay with me, Pietro!" His friend nodded in assent. His mother stopped just a step in front of them. "Ciao, Daniel." "Ciao." "How... how are you?" "Fine." "I was hoping I'd find you here..." "Oh?" "Listen, Daniel..., I've managed to... to sort things out with your Dad. Why don't you come home?" "No." "Please.... Dad was angry that day, but..." "But what?" "Now he's prepared to... to talk. And it's Christmas, after all..." "The feast of good children. But, you see, I'm not a child any more and, it seems, I'm not even a good boy, to you. So..." "Well, it was just an adolescent mistake..." "Ah, I see, now it's become 'an adolescent mistake'!" Daniel said sarcastically. "Don't be so harsh, Daniel. Don't do this to me..." "Why? What do you think you've done to me?" "Dad is willing..." "... to give me back my letters and pictures?" "What does that matter, now?" "It matters. The day he gives them back to me, maybe then I'll be prepared to talk to him. Not before. Go and tell him that." "But.... Listen, Pietro, tell him as his friend - the family is sacred." "Just for the children, Mrs. Giusti?" Pietro asked slightly ironically. "No, for everybody, of course. But you see, he's like his father..." Daniel interrupted her sharply: "No, no, I'm not like my father. I stay with the one I love, and don't go around looking for... for adventures. I'm sorry, but until I get my letters and pictures back... there is no point going on talking." "But your father has them..." "Yes, because you gave them to him. Well, just as you stole them from me, now steal them back from him, if you really want to settle things with me." "Can't you forgive...?" Daniel, at this cue from his mother, laughed bitterly: "You, rather.... Now you're worried about your husband, about yourself, possibly. And as for me? I have nothing to forgive. Not even anything to ask from you, apart from what is mine. Merry Christmas. To both of you. C'mon, Pietro." "Daniel..." the woman murmured again, but the two boys were gone. When they were far enough away, Pietro said: "Fucking shit, Daniel! D'you know, I really admire you!" "I felt sorry for her, but... I couldn't say anything else. She started all this - if she really wants to put a stop to it..., I've told her how." "She probably thought she was doing the right thing..." "Yes, Giovanni said the same thing. But if she thought of me as a son, already of age, a person... she would've talked with me before running to tell her husband." "Perhaps you're right.... You know, I noticed that you never say Dad or Mum, not even to her...." "Oh? - I hadn't noticed. The fact is... those two words don't even occur to me. I used them when I trusted them. Now... It's not that I avoid them on purpose, just that they don't come out, not spontaneously." "I understand." "Anyway, your answer was to the point. Thank you." "It just came out of its own accord. But more importantly - how are things with you and Giovanni?" "Wonderful. Even better than before, if that's possible. Perhaps because now we can spend more time together, and be more relaxed, too." "I see. Every cloud has a silver lining, then." "It seems that way." The Christmas holidays came and Giovanni took Daniel skiing at Campo Imperadore. They spent nine dreamlike days there. Giovanni booked the room in his name, for two, with a double bed. Daniel liked it very much when they were in their room and made love, naked, under the soft eiderdown, wide and warm. When they checked in, the receptionist said: "There seems to be some mistake, Mr. Benedetti . Did you book a twin bedroom?", with a clear insinuation. "No mistake at all, I booked a double." Giovanni answered angelically. The clerk insisted: "But..." "Madam, there is no mistake, I do assure you." During the New Year's Eve dinner, at the midnight toast, their neighbour at table toasted them, saying: "A Happy New Year to you too! It's good to see two brothers so close! Quite unlike my two sons, who nearly always seem to be quarrelling... Cheers!" Later Daniel said to Giovanni: "It's good being mistaken for brothers - it means that we must resemble each other, at least a little. I like that." "Yes, I thought we resembled each other too. Above all, the way we both smile." the young man replied. The younger man asked sweetly: "Then again, aren't we two in fact just a single whole?" "Sure, that too, without a doubt." "I would have liked to have given you my wooden clock, as a Christmas or New Year present. And instead..." "Does it matter? I have you. No better present could exist." "If I wasn't already madly in love with you, you would make me be now." "I fall in love with you each time I look at you...." "Let's go upstairs. I really badly need to make love with you." "But it'll be the fireworks soon..." "We'll make our own, in bed... come on!" Giovanni liked the feeling of being desired this much. After they'd been making love for a long while, with calm passion, Giovanni whispered to his lover: "Tell me... what did I do to deserve someone like you?" "You were born. You exist. D'you know, they say that God makes them, then matches them. And he made you really nicely. He must have been in his best ever mood that day." Daniel concluded, caressing the whole of his lover's body under the eiderdown. After a while Giovanni asked him: "Would you still be in love with me, even if I became ugly?" "No." "No?" "No - because being in love with you, I could never think of you as ugly." "But what if I'd been born ugly?" "Perhaps that might have been harder. But it would have been a real shame, because I would have risked missing out on the beauty that is inside you." "So it's lucky that I am handsome, then?" "Well, if God made us for each other, I would have found you all the same, wouldn't I?" "I hope so." "I'm positive." Back home again, Daniel applied himself to doing his vacation homework. Pietro dropped by to see him. "Y'know, your mother called me on the 28th." "Oh, what for?" "She asked me if I knew where you were living. Of course I said no. So then she asked me if I could take you a message. I told her yes, but not till after January 6th, when lessons start again. So she said in that case, she can come and wait for you outside the school again. 'The 7th is a Thursday, what time do your lessons finish?' she asked. I told her we have PE so we'll be out at 6 p.m. 'Well,' she said, 'I'll be there.'" "Who knows what she wants this time?" "Perhaps she'll give you back your letters and pictures..." "I doubt that." "But if she did give them back to you? Would you agree to see your father?" "Yes, but not at home. Somewhere else. Home is his territory." "Scared?" "No way! I just don't want to give him a psychological advantage over me." "Shrewd. But right. Would you agree to go back to live with your parents?" "Only if they will accept me and my sexuality, and my relationship with Giovanni. And only to avoid Giovanni's spending out more money for me. He's already spending too much." "He has the money... and then, he does it willingly, doesn't he?" "Yes, sure, but..." "Isn't it your pride that's bothering you? You accepted being maintained by your parents, but not by your lover?" "You're not... not wrong. So then, no. I wouldn't go back home. I am OK now, we can meet whenever we feel like it. But I somehow feel that's not a choice I'm going to have to face. I'm never going to get those letters back again. I'm quite amazed that my father hasn't already found out who Giovanni is - or if he has, that he hasn't already confronted him." "So much the better! Perhaps your mother's managed to make him change his mind." "No, I don't believe so. Make that man change his mind? It would be more likely for the Pope to declare he's gay and appear at his window on St Peter's Square with his lover at his side." Pietro laughed uproariously at that image. But Daniel continued: "I feel that he is hatching something. Or he really hasn't yet realised who my Giovanni is...." "What can he do anyway? Nothing legally - in law it's not a crime if two grown men fuck like rabbits, in private. And besides... Giovanni is rich, he would have the means to protect himself and you, wouldn't he?" "A scandal. My father threatened to stir up a scandal." "That anyway would involve him too. Would that be to his advantage? He just said so in the heat of the moment, but if he is not a fool, and I don't really think he is, he won't do anything." "He might confront Giovanni and abuse him." "But Giovanni is strong, he certainly wouldn't be shaken by such an... old- fashioned gesture. Thankfully, we're not still in Oscar Wilde's times." On January 7th Daniel's mother was waiting for him outside the school. "Ciao, Daniel..." "Do you have my letters and photos?" "No... I don't know where your father's put them." "Ask him." "He wouldn't tell me. He just said 'In a safe place'." "A safe place!" Daniel sneered. "Listen, Daniel... Dad is still willing to talk to you..." "Well, I am not willing to talk with him until he's given me everything back." "Excuse me, Pietro, but I would like to talk with my son alone..." "No, Pietro, stay. Pietro knows everything. He knows I love a man. He knows how you've treated me. So if you want to talk with me, you can do it in front of him too." "But there are things that..." "He knows that your husband has a lover too, and who she is as well. Do you want to know her name too?" "No, I don't want to know anything, anything! You're wicked!" "No, Mrs. Giusti. He's just hurt." Pietro intervened calmly. The woman's voice rose, quivering: "HURT? HE's hurt! But it wasn't me that did what he's done! The way he hurt us, that doesn't count, does it? You're all the same, you boys, all the same!" "The hurt you inflicted on yourselves, you should say. Because you thought you'd made a puppy-dog, and not a son. A dog in heat, you just geld it. But your son, you weren't able to geld him in time, and now it's too late. I love a man, that's true. But at least I didn't steal him from someone else, as that woman has done with your husband. And at least I don't cheat on him, as your husband does on you!" Daniel said passionately. "Stop going on about that story, Daniel! It's a problem that's got nothing to do with you. It's between your father and me! Stop it!" "Ah. So then my story doesn't concern only my man and me? Why are you so biased?" "But that... that's against nature!" "Oh really?! Against whose nature - mine, or my man's?" "Against nature, full-stop." "Fair enough, if that's what you think, I have nothing more to say to you. Let's go, Pietro." "Daniel... Pietro, stop him, you at least..." "Madam, if you want I can stay here. But after all, we boys are all the same, aren't we? You just said so, didn't you? Do you really want to understand? Or just to judge? Forgive me, madam, for daring to tell you such things. But I... I have a lot of esteem and respect for Daniel. Do you?" The woman looked at him with empty eyes and murmured: "But I'm his mother..." "Yes, madam, I know that, Daniel knows it, everybody knows. But so what?" "But... what?" "Besides being his mother, besides having brought him into this world I mean, if you had esteem and respect for your son, for Daniel just as he is and not as you would have liked him to be, you would try to understand him, to understand how he can be in love with a man. Not judge him and try to change him to be the way you like best... possibly having him undergo some supposed medical or psychological treatment. For your own good, madam, go and talk to a serious, up- to-date doctor or psychiatrist and then perhaps you will be able to understand... a little." "You wouldn't be talking this way if it was YOUR son who was... abnormal." "Madam, if being in love with a man makes a person 'abnormal', and hence if my son was 'abnormal' as you say, I would love and cuddle him even more than before. I would avoid at all costs making a fuss. An abnormal son, whatever his abnormality, is to be protected, not crushed down. And anyway, it has yet to be proven that loving a person of ones own gender is abnormality. That's why I advised you to get... better informed and not to speak out of prejudice. Don't be a bigot, Mrs. Giusti." "It's useless. You can't understand." "You're right. It is useless. You don't want to understand. Maybe I can't, but you don't want to, and that's even worse, I think. Good evening, madam. Daniel is waiting for me." Pietro said, kindly but firmly. Reaching Daniel, Pietro asked him, disconsolately: "Did you hear?" "Yes, and I feel more pity than anger for her. She is acting in good faith, but she's hurting herself. And I'm certainly not the one to be able to help her. She doesn't want to be helped. She just wants her son to humiliate himself, like the Emperor Friederich in Canossa in front of Countess Matilda. But I am not Friederich." "Are you hurt, Daniel?" "No, not really hurt. But not good either. I pity her, I told you. At least I have Giovanni. In reality she... she doesn't even have her husband." "And she is losing her son." Pietro concluded, though not reproachfully. When Daniel arrived at his room, Giovanni was already there waiting for him. He told him about the encounter with his mother. At the end Giovanni murmured: "Poor woman. She's probably suffering a great deal." "Yes, I think so too. But what can I do to help? Cut my balls off? Kill myself? Or maybe just cheat on her, go back home with my tail between my legs, perhaps marry to make her happy, then go around fucking boys in the bushes?" "Heaven forbid!" Giovanni said, laughing, then added: "Anyway, I feel sorry for her." "I do too, love, believe me. I cannot, I don't want to forget all the ways she's been a good mother. I still love her. But... but..." Daniel said and burst into tears. Giovanni hugged and cuddled him. "Forgive me, Giovanni. I love her, but I can't accept her if she doesn't accept me, and above all, you." "I understand. But... it hurts, doesn't it?" "Sure it hurts. And happily you are here to help me going forward, giving me strength. If they had discovered my sexuality and I hadn't had your love... I think I wouldn't have been able to stand it. No, I really don't think I could have done. But why does it have to be so difficult to really love, care, understand? Why?" "Because... because we are small, and ugly, and limited. Because we are not able to move ahead without schemes, in black and white, perhaps not wrong, but well- defined... Because it is uneasy and difficult and heavy having to work out every time what is right and what is wrong, what is good and what is bad... And because nothing is never completely right or completely wrong." "Because we are not humble enough, in a word." "That's true! Yes. I've never thought of it in those terms, but I think you've just hit the nail on the head. We're not able to recognise our limits, limits in judgement, limits in comprehension, because we are not able to let go of our certainties, to believe we are strong... Yes, I really believe you are right. Because we are not humble enough." "I... I don't want to get like that, Giovanni. If I'm ever lacking in humility, honesty, love... will you help me?" "Of course. We shall help each other. To really become men." "But you always are a man." "No, Love. I am just a boy who's a little older than you." "Well then, at what age will we become men?" "Never. But every day a little more. It's not a question of age, you see. It's a question of progress. Never stopping." "It will be easier together, won't it?" "Sure. That's why I said that you must help me too." "But I... what can I give you?" "Love. And that's no small little thing. And you see, just a moment ago you gave me a lot, by helping me to understand that what I had only guessed at actually has a name - humility. You see, you too have a lot to give me." ----------------------------- CONTINUES IN CHAPTER 6 ----------------------------- 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 (really appreciated, be it positive or negative), please e-mail at andrej@andrejkoymasky.com ---------------------------