Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2005 18:14:14 +0200
From: A.K. <andrej@andrejkoymasky.com>
Subject: Italian Brothers 2 - Tano & Maso - 04/11 (historical)

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ITALIAN BROTHERS 2
TANO & MASO
by Andrej Koymasky (C) 2005
written September 2nd, 1993
translated by the author
English text kindly revised
by Matt & Dave

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USUAL DISCLAIMER

"ITALIAN BROTHERS 2 - TANO & MASO" 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 4. The Bandits

The two boys grew up together and their mutual affection and harmony
grew as well. It had been three years now since Gaetano started to work
in the store, and he felt happy, thanks to Tommaso's love.

In June of 1859, his master received a large order of red morocco
leather from the Papal Court. It was a great strike of luck, and the man
was excited and restless to prepare the dispatch. He loaded the goods on
five mules and left for Rome, taking with him six men of his store, and
also the two boys. The caravan was formed, besides the five mules with
the goods and provisions, also by three horses, that of the master, his
trustee and his oldest son. The three men on horses also had firelocks
and pistols to protect themselves from the bandits that infested the
Apennine Mountains they had to cross. All the others went on foot and
led the mules.

Gaetano was happy for the change. And also, their master gave him and
Tommaso shoes for that occasion. It was the first time he wore shoes and
he felt almost like a lord. They walked for hours and hours, stopping
only for short breaks to eat and drink, or to go among the thickets to
relieve themselves. That evening, they reached San Severino. They
stopped at an inn outside the ancient embattled walls. The three men on
horses took a room, the six workers settled in the hayloft and the two
boys stayed in the stable to watch the mules and the horses.

The strong smell of the stable reminded Gaetano of his adolescence and
he was pleased. After supper, Gaetano took three armful of hay and
prepared a place to sleep in a sheltered corner.

"Here, Maso, we will be safe and we can embrace as we do every night."

"I will join you gladly! I was afraid that we wouldn't be able to do
that the entire journey!" his friend merrily said while caressing him
from behind and pulling him against himself. He started to caress him
intimately and to kiss his neck.

Gaetano quivered with pleasure, "I don't know if we would always have
such luck, but at least for this time..." he said, turning and starting
to kiss his friend and to open his clothes.

It was dark in the stable, only the scanty light of the moon peeped
inside from the narrow window. But the faint light was sufficient for
the boys to have a glimpse of each other, to see the other's eyes
glimmer. Finally half naked, they threw themselves on the hay, embraced
and softly laughing with happiness.

"You will never leave me, Maso, right?"

"No, never!" his lover answered, while slipping his hand between
Gaetano's thighs and caressing his already turgid member.

Gaetano kissed him and also lowered his hand to test the quivering
erection of his friend. And they joyously started to make love, not
caring for the hay that stung their skin. As usual, when they united,
nothing else existed for the two boys, only the need to give the utmost
pleasure to his lover.

They finally reached the top of their enjoyment, panting and happy,
while still embracing intimately. After a long silence, Gaetano asked in
a low voice, "Maso?"

"What's up?"

"The men... they also do it with women, these things."

"I know."

"You... you swear to me that you'll never do this with a woman? Promise
me that you'll never leave me for a woman?"

"I swear. I need nobody else."

"You swear you'll never fall in love with a woman?"

"Of course, because..." Tommaso said on impulse, and then became silent.

"Because what?" Gaetano urged him.

"Because I, with you..." Tommaso continued hesitantly, but became silent
again.

"With me you are what?" Gaetano asked, holding back his breath.

"I am... am already in love with you," at last Tommaso said.

"I too am in love with you, you know?" Gaetano radiantly replied.

They could at last understand it, and above all, tell it to each other.

"The priest, in confession, said what we are doing is a mortal sin..."

"To me too," Gaetano said.

"But I don't believe him."

"Me either!"

"Thus, when he asks me if I touch myself between my legs, I tell him I
don't. And when he asks me if I let others touch me there, I again deny
it..." Tommaso said giggling, and kissed him.

Gaetano told him, "But I, I want to touch you here, everywhere, I want
to touch you everywhere."

"I too, what do you think? It is just..."

"What?"

"A man and a woman, they can marry. Why we two cannot? Why is it that
two males can't?"

"And we... we will marry!"

"And how? And where?"

"Right here, right now. I marry you, Maso. I'm yours forever."

"And I marry you, my Tano. I'm yours forever."

They kissed, deeply moved -- they knew that those words were not said
for fun, and what they just did was real, sincere, and genuine.

Then Tommaso said, "And as soon as we can, we will buy the rings."

Happy, they resumed making love with all the tenderness and sweetness,
the desire and the joy they were feeling, towards one another.

On the following night, they stopped in Gualdo Tadino. They again slept
in the stable, but this time, there also slept a couple of boys from
another caravan, so they could do nothing. But in silence, and in the
darkness, they could exchange a furtive kiss and they fell asleep
holding each others hand tightly.

On the third night, they stopped in the outskirts of Perugia. In the
morning, they didn't leave right away, as the master wanted to meet a
relative downtown. Maso took advantage of that to tour the city. He came
back a couple of hours later, before the master did.

"Tano, come here for a second..." he called.

The boy parted from the men of their caravan with whom he was talking,
sitting at a table under a bower, and went to his friend. Tommaso,
taking him by his arm, led him behind the inn. He opened his fist and
showed him two thin iron rings, simple, but shining like they were
precious metal.

"Here, I found them, put one on my finger, then I'll put the other on
you."

They had the simple ceremony, with sheer emotion.

Then Gaetano said, his voice broken because of emotion, "I can't kiss
you here, now... but it is like I was doing it..."

"The same is true for me. Now, only death could separate us, isn't it
so?"

"Sure!" the boy assented seriously.

On the following night, near Todi, they celebrated their union by making
love in the deserted stable, under the eyes of the mules.

"You'll never get tired of me?" later Tommaso asked him.

"No never! And you with me?"

"Never," Tommaso answered assuredly.

They left Todi early in the morning. They were going downhill on the
road along the Tevere River, among the mountains and the thick forest.
The armed men seemed more careful than usual. The men on foot looked
around nervously.

"What's up?" Tommaso asked, feeling the caravan's nervousness.

"The inn keeper told us that sometimes bandits come here."

Tommaso became silent and now the two boys were also looking around
nervously. They walked for several hours, in an unusual silence. They
stopped to eat some lunch, and then resumed their way downhill, starting
to see a glimmer of the lake of Corbara.

It all happened very suddenly -- they jumped out from everywhere,
shouting, in a wild fury. They were just a dozen men, but with a
ferocious look and armed to their teeth. He heard the sound of gunshots.
Gaetano saw one of their men falling down and a gush of blood coming out
from his chest. He searched with his eyes for Tommaso and saw that his
lover, sheltered by a mule, was stepping backwards, his eyes fixed on
their attackers, and Gaetano realized that his friend wasn't aware of
the ravine abruptly opening to the river behind him, and he was about to
fall into it.

Then Gaetano shouted at the top of his lungs, "No, Maso! No!"

His lover turned towards him, but in so doing, he had a misstep, lost
his balance and fell down... down... down...

Gaetano was frozen in horror -- he saw his lover falling, almost slowly
but unavoidably, and he was not able to move, to do anything about it.
He heard the scream of his Tommaso but no sound could come out from his
throat. And Tommaso was falling, falling, and his scream continued and
all became dark. Gaetano lost his senses and collapsed on the ground.

When he opened his eyes again, it was night. He could see the glimmer of
a fire and hear its crackling. He heard voices and laughter of men. He
moved and became aware he was tied up -- tied at his ankles, his wrists,
tied behind his back, and he also had a rope around his neck, softly
hanging from a branch high above him, that lightly waved when he moved.
He tried to sit up, and after two or three tries, he managed to do it.
He saw three of the five mules of his master, tied together a few steps
from him. He now could clearly see the fire between the trees -- a
cauldron was placed on top of the fire and some men were sitting in a
circle around it. At each flickering of the flames, the dark silhouettes
seemed to wave menacingly. Gaetano felt his heart beating wildly.

Then he remembered his Tommaso, and everything became blurred behind the
tears that started to flow copiously. Tommaso... his Tommaso... "Oh,
Maso! I've lost you forever! Oh God, God, God!"

He threw himself down again and cried for a long while, his body shaken
by his sobs, and he cried, and cried, until he fell asleep, worn out by
his sadness.

He was woken in the morning by some wrenches. He opened his eyes. The
sun between the trees made him close them again.

A voice with a strong accent said, "Hey you are you alive?"

Gaetano opened his eyes and looked in the direction of the voice. He saw
a huge man towering over him, his legs, just one step from his head,
slightly parted and wrapped with clear cloth tied with strips of dark
leather, black breeches short to his knees, a wide shirt that must have
been white once, and a short sleeveless jacket of a thick black cloth
over it, a high cone hat with wide brim, with pheasant feathers slipped
under its ribbon, a firelock, its butt on the ground near his foot, a
hand on its trumpet shaped barrel.

This, then, was a bandit.

Gaetano, dazed, confused, tried to sit up. The man bent down and helped
him to sit up with his other hand. For a moment, their faces almost
touched. The man had prickly cheeks, a long beard that hadn't been
shaved for a few days, eyes like burning embers, a straight nose, thin
lips parted in kind of a smile that revealed his white, perfect teeth.

"Welcome back in the world of living beings, little finch," the man
said, standing up.

Gaetano looked at him and kept silent, frightened. The man didn't have
an evil expression, but...

"Hey, what's up? Did you lose your tongue, little finch? Do you have a
name?"

"Ta... Ta... Tata..." muttered the boy.

"Your name is Tata? A funny name! Well, each of us has to make do with
the name that's given to him. Me, they called me Felice," The man said,
even though he pronounced it "feh-lee-sheh."

"Whe... whewhe..."

"Hey, calm down. I'll not eat you, I'm not an ogre. I'm an honest
bandit." he said and burst into laughter for his witticism. Then,
suddenly becoming serious again, he asked, "What did you want to say,
Tata?"

"Whe... where are the others?"

"Which others are you speaking of, yours or mine?"

Gaetano didn't answer and started to violently tremble all over. Then
the man, carefully putting his firelock on the ground, crouched in front
of the boy and looked at his face.

"Well, yours... killed or fled away. They took away two of the mules and
their horses. But we got three mules, and then it wasn't so bad. Mine...
The Passerby and those who don't run risks going downhill to the village
went to Terni to sell the booty and to meet their women. There are just
five of us here, to watch our hideout and our weapons Ð that would be
Gourd, Gerzo, Gabriello and Marino. If the authorities catch us, we will
get the halter without even getting absolution from a priest. To tell
the truth, that's also true for the Passerby, but he has enough guts to
sell, and he likes the challenge of danger. And here we are out of our
territory, far from Ravenna, where even the stones know him, therefore
possibly nobody recognizes him here. And then, he has his woman there,
like many others. We five, on the contrary, have none."

Gaetano listened at that long speech, dumbfounded. Then, trying not to
let his voice tremble, he asked, "How many did you... of mines, how many
have you..."

"Slaughtered? Just three."

"And among those three...was there also a boy of my age?"

"No. I saw him with my own eyes that one drowned in the Tevere it was
not us who sent him back to his maker. Not that one."

Gaetano felt frozen. He hoped that in one way or another he could have
been rescued, but on the contrary... And he cried again dejectedly.

For a while, the man looked at him, astonished, asking himself the
reason for such great sorrowful desperation, then he asked, almost in a
kind tone, "Was he your brother, perhaps?"

Gaetano, not knowing what to say, immersed in his sorrow, mechanically
nodded.

"Well little finch that's life! One day we are born, and the next day we
are dead and we don't even know why. Yes, cry, little finch, you have
the right to cry... and it will do you good," the man said, and left him
alone.

Gaetano again abandoned himself on the grass and gave vent to all his
pain in silence. When Felice appeared again, the sun was already high in
the sky.

"Hey, Tata!" he called him.

Gaetano didn't answer.

The man crouched at his side, "I brought you some food. Come on, I'll
help you to sit up."

"I don't want to eat." the boy said weakly but determinedly.

But the man sat him up and untied his wrists. Gaetano massaged them, his
eyes staring at the ground.

Felice raised his chin with two fingers and forced him to look at his
eyes, "Listen, Tata..."

"Tano is my name, not Tata..." the boy said in a low voice, annoyed by
that ridiculous name.

"Well, I just misunderstood; Tano then. I understand you feel sorrow for
your brother, and it will take you some time to make it pass, and a scar
will remain inside your heart, especially if you and your brother were
close. But that's life and life continues, and you have to eat."

Gaetano shook his head.

"Listen, even if you starve yourself to death, he cannot come back among
the living, can he? Therefore, what for? Eat, come on."

Gaetano again shook his head.

"If you were the one who died, and he was now here in your place, would
you be happy if he wanted to starve himself to death?"

The boy looked at him, astounded, and again shook his head.

"Do you think that he, who is looking at you from up there if he was not
too bad a boy, would now be happy to see you starving to death? And if
you don't eat, it would be like killing yourself, therefore you would go
straight to hell, even farther from your brother than right now, you
know?"

The man continued to reason with him patiently, until he persuaded
Gaetano, even although unwillingly, to eat something under the attentive
eyes of the man.

Then Gaetano asked, "The other four of you... where are they?"

"They are at our hideout. You, we keep you here out of prudence. For the
moment, we will keep you here, but then... we will see."

"What do you want to do to me? Kill me?"

"What? No way, what we would gain from that? We don't slaughter
Christians just for fun, do we? If your men didn't shot at us, we would
have just shot at the sky, we'd have taken the load, and we'd left you
in peace. Instead we lost two mules and three horses, and you lost three
men. Besides your brother, but it's not us who killed him, anyway, it
was just fate, unfortunately."

"Why do you keep me tied up here, if you are not planning to kill me?
Nobody would pay any ransom for me."

"Well, even a dumb-ass would know that, just by looking at your clothes.
No, it is that, as I told you this morning, we five don't have a woman.
And you are a pretty boy, then... for us you can be a good...
company..." the man concluded, caressing the boy's face.

Gaetano immediately understood what the man meant. It would be something
like with the sailors, he thought. So he asked, "Do I have to stay with
all five of you?"

"Well, that depends... It's me who decided to keep you and brought you
up here on my shoulder, and you are heavy... If you feel like keeping me
company without any fuss, if you are kind to me, I mean... you may only
have to do it with me. Or else..."

"Or else?"

"We would need to keep you still, but... well, you would become
everyone's boy... whoever kept you still for another of us would demand
his share, do you see? Here at our place, this is how it works. But I
would like it if you are kind to me. I always liked young and kind boys.
I don't dig women, you see, and my mates know it, therefore they always
leave the first choice to me whenever we pick up a young boy instead of
a girl. And I would like it if you become my boy. I'd treat you nicely,
and the others will too. You'd only have to fix our meals and then...
nobody would touch even a hair on you if you are my boy, unless he wants
to taste my wrath... and my knife."

"And do I have to kill people?"

"No way, you'll remain at our camp."

Gaetano looked at the man, and for a moment saw a gentle light in his
eyes. So he said, "Maso... he was not really my brother."

"You mean the one who drowned in the river?"

Gaetano nodded.

"But then... why do you mourn him so much?"

"Because he and I... because he was... he was my..." the boy started to
say, but burst into tears again.

"He was... your boyfriend, you mean!" Felice exclaimed in a low voice,
finally guessing the truth. Gaetano nodded. The man then pulled him to
himself, against his chest, and said, "Oh, gosh! Of course you mourn
him, then! Come here, little finch, and cry as long as you need to."

Gaetano embraced him almost violently, clung to him and cried aloud,
grateful for those arms wrapping and cuddling him. They remained so for
a long while, until Gaetano gradually calmed down a little.

Then Felice said, "Listen, little finch, I'm possibly crazy, but... you
don't know where our hideout is anyway, and you are not from around
here, your accent tells me. And I want to trust you. Will you swear to
me that you won't try to run away if I untie you?"

"I swear. And anyway, where could I go, at this point?"

"Then I'll untie you. Then I'll go see my mates to tell them you are my
boy now, so they will leave you in peace. Then I'll come back here..."

Gaetano nodded. The man untied his ankles and pulled off the rope from
his neck.

Then he asked the boy, who was massaging his ankles, "You will stay
here? You'll wait for me, won't you?"

The boy nodded again, the man stood up and went away.

Gaetano didn't intend to run away. He really didn't know where to go
now, as his Tommaso was no more alive. He touched the thin ring around
his finger, and waited. After some time, which seemed very long to him,
the man came and sat near him, but kept silent for a while.

Then he said, "You know, I thought that maybe I would no longer find you
here. My mates said I'm completely crazy. But anyway, even if you had
fled away, you could not betray us, as we change our hideout often
anyway, I told them. But I am glad I was right. You are a good boy,
besides, I like you."

Gaetano was listening in silence.

"You see, I understand you. Oh yes, I understand you because in a way
you are like me. Once, I was a boy... it's something like... twelve
years ago, you know... I became the lover of the son of Riolo's
Magistrate. I am born in Riolo. We really loved each other. At that time
I was sixteen and he was eighteen. He was your age, I think. He was my
first, my only man. One day he told me he thought he was in love with
me, and he wanted to make love with me, I at once accepted. At once!

"So, he took off my clothes, took me on his bed and taught me how to
make love. We made love at his place, in his room, whenever his father
went to the Bargello and his mother was downstairs with the servants to
cook or sew. I was the son of the coach driver of his Excellence. We
felt we were happy, or rather, we really were, he and I. His name was
Riccardo, such a beautiful name... And he too was beautiful, both his
body and his soul. So very beautiful!

"But one day, we were caught while we were making love. We didn't even
have time to cover ourselves up, you see? Then his father made them take
me and throw me in jail, without a trial, without even letting my father
know where I was or what I did, because he didn't want a scandal. And I
would have died there. But in that same jailhouse there was also the
Passerby, who had a liking for me. So when he ran away six months later,
he took me with him. But I wanted to look for my Riccardo -- I cared
only about Riccardo. I knew he was waiting for me...

"But I was wrong. He... he couldn't wait for me any more.

"His father, I came to know later, told him that I was dead, shot while
I was trying to run away from jail. His father thought this could make
his son forget about me. But Riccardo, when he heard the news... he
believed it, sadly... and... he hanged himself..."  Felice said in a low
voice, and Gaetano saw that his eyes were filled with tears. "Then," the
man resumed, trying to hide his emotion, "then I followed the Passerby.
But I swore revenge, as it was his father who killed him with his lie.
And at last, five years ago, I did it, I killed Riccardo's father. So
now the rope is waiting for me. I killed him, but not with my firelock,
no. No. I pierced his heart with a scabbard, along with a piece of paper
that I asked a public scribe to write for me three years before. I asked
him to write on it just two words, my first name and my last name, in
elegant writing. Therefore, if they catch me... I only hope to be able
to go where my Riccardo is... that is, to hell."

"You want to go to hell?" Gaetano asked, perplexed.

"Sure, since he killed himself, and I killed his father. But at least we
will be together again, and forever, this time," the man concluded.

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CONTINUES IN CHAPTER 5

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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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