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A Venetian Affair

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Part 2 – The Venetian Complication 


“Ciao,” said Bianchi.

“Ciao,” I replied.

“S-ciào vostro,” he grinned.

I am your slave.

He had discovered that ciao was derived from an old Venetian expression and couldn’t resist repeating it whenever he had the opportunity.

Venice woke early and seemed determined to wake us with it. The vibrating hum of delivery boats bounced off the brick façades of the Renaissance buildings, followed by the dull thunk of their hulls against the wooden mooring piles. Then came the metallic rattle of carrelli being pushed along the wooden decks.

“Slaves don’t sleep in the same bed as their masters.”

“But I have a good master and I must surrender to his wishes,” Bianchi replied cheekily.

My phone vibrated.

A message from Cola.

My mother is furious with you both. She knew that you would sleep together.

I smiled.

Bianchi crawled to the end of the bed and opened the curtains. He was naked, unlike the night before, and it was the first time I had seen him that way. He turned towards the window, completely oblivious to the effect he was having on me.

He had got his wish. Almost.

I had remembered Signora Bruschi’s warnings and allowed nothing more than a few kisses and cuddles. Nothing beyond that. Bianchi had no idea how much willpower it had taken not to give in to him.

But he was playing the long game and, for now, seemed perfectly happy.

Alas, the inevitable would happen eventually.

Sunrise had brought a soft morning light and a rising canal fog that would soon burn away.

“I shall make coffee,” Bianchi declared as he scrambled down the spiral staircase to the kitchen below.

I stayed in bed and closed my eyes.

I listened to the patter of his feet across the terrazzo, followed by the rattling of cups. Then came the sound of the French doors opening onto the stone balcony.

“Cazzo!”

He scuttled back inside.

“I did not know there were apartments overlooking us… and you can see everything.”

I peered through the newel posts and watched him grab a large towel and wrap it around himself.

I am going to struggle here, I thought.

The message from Charlie came at midday.

Ponte delle Guglie. 8pm?

I sent a thumbs-up.

Nothing more.

We shall see you then, he replied.

We.

My mind was made up.

I would definitely be taking Bianchi with me.

When I told him, I detected a nervousness that hadn’t been there earlier. But, as he explained, Signora Bruschi had sent him to accompany me and he would respect her wishes.

We resisted the urge to kick tourists into the nearest canal, seemingly oblivious to the fact that we were tourists too.

We spent the day wandering narrow calli, crossing little bridges and drinking too much coffee outside cafés.

It was a way of killing time.

I was apprehensive about seeing Charlie again. The outcome was uncertain. Was this going to be closure for both of us, or the beginning of a new chapter?

I was mindful that I had instigated our enforced absence, although I hadn’t intended it to turn out the way it had. Not for the first time, I had ruined something that, on the surface at least, had seemed special.

But I had forgotten that Charlie was stubborn. And if he believed he had been wronged, nothing would alter his mind.

An observer might have regarded the whole mess as six of one and half a dozen of the other.

Quite true.

Charlie had inexplicably posed naked for a French gay magazine, confident that I would never find out.

On the other hand, I had slept with his brother.

And that, it appeared, was a far greater sin.

The other question I kept asking myself was whether we were still in love with each other.

There had been an unwillingness on both sides to resolve the mess and move on. Months apart had only strengthened our positions.

Part of me hoped that our meeting would lead to reconciliation.

But another part told a different story.

That story involved Thomas in Paris.

The uncertainty wasn’t helped by Bianchi, who had become uncharacteristically subdued. His early-morning brightness had gradually faded until he slipped into an awkward silence.

It wasn’t until we were heading back that I understood why.

We had reached the end of a ramo — a dead-end alley overlooking the Rio de la Pleta — and stopped to watch the boats passing below.

“There is a boy at work called Cesco,” Bianchi began.

He paused.

“He doesn’t say much. When I first met him, I tried to make conversation. He simply nodded. Now he sometimes smirks and occasionally speaks. We are slowly getting there. I think he trusts me.”

I tried to understand where the conversation was heading.

“The other staff say that Cesco is a handsome boy. Such a shame about the spots. They wish he’d do something better with his hair. They want him to be more sociable. They often lose patience with him.

“But when he smirks, they think he is smiling. My friends say, ‘How do you get him to do that?’”

Bianchi sat on the stone step and rested his elbows on his knees.

“And so they send me to collect the orders. I stand and wait. I make small talk. Sometimes I get a reaction.

“I tell my colleagues that I enjoy the challenge.

“‘You’re always so calm and collected,’ they say. ‘What’s your secret? Why doesn’t he speak to us? Why do you make time for his bad habits?’

“The answer is easy,” Bianchi continued. “I like handsome people. I can do spots. I can accept bad haircuts.

“I look at him in his black jeans, black T-shirt and black apron. Everything about him is black.

“But underneath all that black there is something attractive.”

I sat beside him, suddenly unsure that I was going to like what came next.

“What is that?”

“I imagine him standing behind his counter,” Bianchi replied. “I imagine him transformed in my mind, and suddenly I can wait patiently.”

I didn’t know how to respond.

L’erba del vicino è sempre più verde, he said sadly.

I tried to translate it.

The grass is always greener.

It was Bianchi’s way of sending a warning shot, and I was determined not to react.

“I cannot wait forever, Miles.”

One of my failings is that I sometimes fail to see what is right in front of me.

Bianchi was in love.

He had quietly persevered, waiting for me to return his affection.

I wanted to tell him that I loved him too.

But I would become a liar if my reunion with Charlie ended positively.

Life can be complicated.

Charlie.

Thomas.

Bianchi.

They all had a hold on me.

“I am not looking forward to meeting your boyfriend,” he added.

“Ex-boyfriend,” I corrected.

“But what if you decide to get back together? Where does that leave me? I might never see you again.”

He bit his lip.

“I am not sure that I would want to see you again if you did.”

“If it makes you feel any better, you don’t have to come with me.”

“I will come,” he decided. “But it is difficult for me to accept.”

“I know you have feelings, Bianchi, and I’m sorry that you’re caught up in all this. But please realise that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side.”

“Then tell me there is hope. Tell me I am not wasting my time. If not, for my own sanity, I must look somewhere else.

“Even if it is the boy with spots and a bad haircut.”

I laughed, not unkindly, and squeezed his arm.

“You are not wasting your time, Bianchi.”

I wanted to hold him.

I wanted nothing more.

And he would gladly have let me.

But then the nose of a gondola appeared and glided silently into view.

Three women of various ages and sizes looked startled to see us sitting on the steps. Then they looked at us with curiosity.

Standing behind them, a young gondolier made light work of propelling the boat along.

“Buonasera,” Bianchi called.

And the gondola disappeared around the corner.

A Venetian Affair

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Part 1 – The Venetian Arrangement 


I have only been to Venice twice before.

The first time I was thirteen years old, and it was a cold, damp, misty day. I seem to remember wandering around alone for most of the day, although it was extremely unlikely that I actually did.

The second time was a couple of years ago, when I caught the train from Verona with Cola and stayed for only a few hours before returning. That day it was bright and sunny and completely different from the Venice I remembered. A thunderstorm rolled across the lagoon just as we were about to leave.

And now, for the third time, I have returned to Venice.

This time I will be staying considerably longer.

It was not by choice. There are too many things to do in the UK, and a trip back to Italy seemed more of a distraction than it would be to most people.

I think it was Truman Capote who said: “Venice is like eating an entire box of chocolate liqueurs in one go.” I’m not entirely sure what he meant by that, but I imagined that a stay here was more than most people could stomach.

For a start, there are the tourists.

On a typical day there may be as many as 60,000 of them. I hate tourists. Particularly those who wander around not so much looking at the sights as looking at the sights through a mobile phone. Hundreds of photographs they will never look at again. And if they do, it will probably be to bore the pants off an uninterested friend.

It’s not so much of a problem in Verona, but I imagined that you couldn’t escape them in Venice, which is, after all, a series of small islands.

If tourists get in my way, I will unashamedly kick them into the nearest canal.

But my visit is not for the purpose of being a tourist either.

I am above that.

Venice is neutral territory for a reunion with my long-lost lover, Charlie.

I’ll not bore you with the details, but we went our separate ways after my ill-fated trip to Paris in April. I took the advice of his father, who suggested that I play hard to get and Charlie would follow.

He never did.

Neither did he answer my messages.

He simply disappeared for the summer.

I moved on to Verona and my adventures with Signora Bruschi et al.

There comes a point when you think you have finally got someone out of your system. It is usually at precisely that moment that the least expected thing happens.

I received a message.

You okay?

I made the mistake of replying out of curiosity and allowed the floodgates to open.

Charlie had mistakenly believed that I had spent most of my time not in Verona but in Venice, and expressed a wish to meet up with me there.

For my sins, Verona had always been a secret I kept from Charlie. I wanted it to remain that way for as long as possible. Charlie’s older brother, Thomas, had subscribed to my wishes and, when pressed, had lied that I had settled in the floating city.

And so, we were to meet in Venice.

Signora Bruschi got in touch with an old school friend who lived in Venice, and I was allowed to stay in rooms close to the Ponte di Rialto.

“For as long as you wish,” Signora Bruschi told me.

But she had concerns about me staying on my own.

Alas, Cola had to remain in Verona for treatment on his broken arm. Instead, she insisted that Bianchi jump on a Trenitalia train and arrive at Venezia Santa Lucia in time for my own arrival by Alilaguna Linea Arancio from Marco Polo.

My heart leapt at the thought of Bianchi joining me.

But it would also cause complications for any reconciliation with Charlie, if reconciliation was actually on the agenda.

After all, Charlie had probably been the love of my life.

But I suspected that I had not been the love of his.

And there were too many secrets between us.

Before I set off, an English friend told me to watch The Comfort of Strangers because it would put me in the mood for Venice.

I did as I was told.

He was right.

It put me in exactly the right frame of mind if I wanted to get my throat cut by a psychotic stranger.

I met Bianchi near Rialto.

We had only been apart for a few weeks, but it seemed much longer.

Bianchi threw his arms around me and kissed me on both cheeks.

“I have missed you, Miles,” he cooed excitedly. “But we are together again, and we are going to have a good time.”

Signora Bruschi had told me that it hadn’t taken much to persuade Bianchi to come.

None at all.

He had jumped at the opportunity without hesitation.

But she had also warned him that I was unavailable and that we must sleep in separate beds.

“Signora Bruschi says that I am too young for you,” Bianchi moaned.

Perhaps so, I thought.

But I also knew that teenage boys have a habit of ignoring good advice.

We manoeuvred through the hordes of ignorant tourists I had already taken a dislike to. Like Piazza San Marco, they descend on Rialto as though these are the only two places worth visiting in Venice.

At last we found the quieter calli and crossed small bridges until we reached the place where we would be staying.

Palazzo Pesaro Labia dalle Rose had been described to me as a small but elegant two-room apartment overlooking the canals and located in a fifteenth-century palace.

From the outside, it looked as though it hadn’t been touched since the fifteenth century, with its weathered appearance and crumbling brickwork.

We accessed it through a private courtyard and climbed a set of steps leading to a locked door, beyond which another staircase led upwards to a pair of old double doors.

But as soon as we saw inside, we both loved it.

It was so far removed from Signora Bruschi’s house in Verona, which, up to this point, I had always considered grand. It was even further removed from Bianchi’s modest family home in San Giorgio in Salici.

For a start, it wasn’t small.

Its two rooms dwarfed my own apartment back home.

I would describe it as grand Italian.

The living room was stylishly furnished with antiques, and the walls were covered with tasteful prints. The second room consisted of a kitchen space, a huge dining area, and a small bathroom attached.

The roof space was so vast that a half-mezzanine floor had been built, with a circular staircase leading to the sleeping area.

And there, occupying most of it, was a huge double bed.

Bianchi looked at it.

I looked at Bianchi.

It was plain to see.

We would both have to sleep together.

“I hope that this doesn’t disappoint you,” Bianchi said rather sheepishly.

“It doesn’t,” I told him. “But we must be careful not to tell Signora Bruschi.”

“I do not think that either of us has the courage to do so,” he innocently replied.

The Lost Room

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Two lovers. One forbidden night. And a ghost who remembers everything 


The room was lined with cork. The air smelled of dried lavender, lime-blossom tea and the faint, sweet decay of old paper.

A pale light filtered through the heavy curtains, and dust motes danced in a single beam.

The bed was narrow and firm, made of brass and covered with a blue satin bedspread. Beneath it, a mattress of coiled steel springs offered no comfort.

“It’s cold,” said Jean-Luc, snuggling further beneath the sheets. “Why are we doing this? What if we’re discovered?”

“Relax,” said Marc-Andre, sitting upright and scrolling through his phone.

All he could see was the top of Jean-Luc’s head on the pillow. He reached down and stroked his thick black hair, an affectionate gesture of reassurance.

Marc-Andre knew they were safe.

When Jean-Luc turned on his side, the bed creaked and the sound echoed around the room. He ran his fingers over Marc-Andre’s stomach.

“Are we going to have sex?” he asked hopefully. “We’ve had sex in many strange places, so why not here?”

“No,” said Marc-Andre, resisting the temptation. “I have to write three thousand words before we leave. You must be quiet, Jean-Luc, or I won’t be able to concentrate.”

Jean-Luc sighed and contented himself with sniffing Marc-Andre’s armpit instead.

Marc-Andre felt the deep quiet of the room, the place where the great writer had shaped his memories.

Time felt slow and heavy here.

The scratchy texture of the vintage wool blanket contrasted with the sleek, cold glass of the smartphone in Marc-Andre’s hands. Occasionally he looked up from the screen and felt that the shadows in the corners had deepened and shifted.

Jean-Luc fell silent. He drifted between wakefulness and sleep. He felt safe with Marc-Andre; safe from the fragments of dreams that made no sense but which he could still somehow control.

“Are you asleep?” Marc-Andre asked.

“Hmmm,” Jean-Luc murmured drowsily.

Marc-Andre smiled and tapped furiously at the screen. He wrote about the excitement of being there, about how he felt, about how the completed work would look to others.

If it was successful, he knew they would be in serious trouble.

But that was the thrill of it.

Jean-Luc woke with a start, but Marc-Andre hadn’t noticed.

The air had become thick and cloudy. It smelled of strong cigarettes.

Marc-Andre had switched on the bedside lamp with its green shade and was lying back with his head resting on two pillows.

“Turn the light off,” Jean-Luc whispered. “It will draw attention to us.”

While Jean-Luc had been sleeping, Marc-Andre had found the school exercise books he carried in his backpack. He was writing in one now, propped against his bent knees. The others were scattered across the bed.

“Don’t worry. I’ve nearly finished.”

“How can you possibly write like that?” Jean-Luc asked. “It looks extremely uncomfortable. I thought you preferred using your phone.”

Marc-Andre looked at him with annoyance.

“He took it away with him.”

“Who did?”

“I did.”

The voice startled Jean-Luc.

A figure had materialised beside the small writing desk.

He wore a dark, heavy overcoat. His large, dark, melancholic eyes were fixed upon them both. He gestured faintly towards the glowing screen with a pale hand.

“Ah,” he whispered in a soft, rasping French voice. “Do you carry your entire past in a tiny glowing box as well? Do you also look for lost time there?”

“Who are you?”

The man gestured towards Marc-Andre, who was still scribbling in his exercise book.

“I did not write in bed out of laziness. By shutting out the sensory details of the modern world, I was able to plunge deeply into the world of my own memories. I did not need a magic box.”

“Wake up, Jean-Luc. I’ve finished.”

Marc-Andre was shaking him by the shoulder.

Jean-Luc blinked several times.

The room was cold and dark. The smell of cigarette smoke had disappeared.

“It’s time to leave,” Marc-Andre declared.

“Shit,” said Jean-Luc. “Who was that man?”

“You were dreaming,” Marc-Andre told him. “It will soon be light, and we must leave everything exactly as we found it.”

Four Drummer Boys and a Piccolo

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The church doors swung open and the newlyweds emerged into the afternoon heat beneath a shower of rice and the ringing of bells.

Forty paces away, five young musicians stood against the ancient stone wall of the piazza.

Four drummer boys and a piccolo.

They were impossibly handsome. Young, dark-haired and brown-skinned, dressed in white shirts, black trousers and polished black shoes. They stood in a neat row, looking rather more serious than the occasion required.

I fall in love too easily.

As the bride and groom stepped into the sunlight, the drummers raised their sticks.

The first strike seemed to shake the whole piazza.

Then the piccolo began.

A bright, piercing melody rose above the deep thunder of the drums, slipping between the old buildings and disappearing somewhere among the terracotta roofs. The five boys played without looking at the wedding guests. They simply stood there and played, as though the music belonged to them and we had merely been permitted to hear it.

I watched them.

I knew nothing about them.

Not their ages, where they lived, what they did when they weren’t playing at weddings. I didn’t even know their names.

And yet, for those few minutes, I loved them.

When the music ended, the bells suddenly seemed very loud.

The boys lowered their instruments. There was no bow, no waiting for applause. They simply turned and walked away, disappearing into a narrow alley beside the church.

As they went, one loosened his black tie. Another rolled up his sleeves. One of the drummers said something that made the others laugh.

And that was all.

They vanished into the old town, five young Italians swallowed by the afternoon.

I stood there for a moment longer.

It seemed terribly unfair that people could enter your life so completely and then disappear from it without ever knowing they had been there.

I would never see them again.

I would never know their names.

But for a few minutes in a sunlit piazza, four drummer boys and a piccolo had made me fall in love.

I took out my notebook.

I wrote only six words:

four drummer boys and a piccolo.

The Company

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Rehearsals. Day 1.

We met in a room somewhere in Hackney. I got lost and turned up thirty minutes late. Max, the director, bawled me out and made sure everybody knew who I was, even if I didn’t know who they were. I chucked my bag on the floor and tried to make myself invisible.

It was an old church hall with arched windows looking onto the high street and a wooden floor worn smooth by years of feet. Max sat at a long table with people I didn’t know. Neither did I know the rest of the cast, who stood or leant against dirty cream-tiled walls. We were silent. Nervous. Not knowing what the thing we had fought so hard to get would entail.

Max laid down his three rules: promptness — I’d already failed the first — dedication and professionalism. Then he told us that we were going to be family for the next twelve months, whether we liked it or not.

I looked around. There were about twenty of us. Everyone nodded in agreement and smiled at their neighbours; people they had never met.

The one person I might have recognised wasn’t there.

Rehearsals. Day 7.

The same dingy room that now feels like home. The same monotonous dance routines.

The leads started a week after us and were holed up next door learning their vocal parts. We rarely saw them.

Except that today, I saw him for the first time.

Nobody else appeared to notice.

After lunch, he leant against the doorframe and stayed for a few minutes while we rehearsed. I watched him out of the corner of my eye and mistimed my move. I crashed into another boy and we both ended up on the floor.

I got bawled out by Maria, the choreographer, who told me to concentrate.

We started the routine again.

He smirked and went back next door.

This time I got it right.

Afterwards, dripping in sweat and smelling awful, we grabbed our belongings and piled downstairs into the street. Bonds had been formed. Outside, we laughed and joked and made plans for the evening.

Rehearsals. Day 10.

Now comes the difficult part. The part I dread.

Dancing is key, but most of us have forgotten that we must sing too. Joey, the musical director, sits us in a circle and reads through each song. I have never understood the reason for doing this. Why not sing them the first time? Most of us know the songs already.

But dancers hate to sing.

My fears are unfounded because Joey turns out to be a shortcut man. Instead of getting us to sing individually, we go through each song as a chorus while he tiptoes amongst us, making sure we’re giving our all. He stops us once or twice and gives advice.

At least there isn’t the piano that often gets rolled into the rehearsal space. I’ve grown to hate the sound of a solitary piano.

Joey is hi-tech, preferring to have someone play the scores through a laptop and big speaker.

After the first run-through, we high-five each other and feel pleased with ourselves.

None of us had noticed that Max had slipped into the room with a big frown on his face.

He tells us that we sound like a piece of shit.

Rehearsals. Day 14.

The point at which everyone is fed up to the back teeth with the musical.

We tell each other that we will never audition for this show again.

Endless hours spent matching the choreography to the singing, or, as Maria puts it, matching the singing to the choreography.

It is also the point where some of us break the monotony by daring to add little flourishes here and there. A turn of the head in another direction. A twist of a wrist. An extra wriggle of the body.

This means that the overall spectacle becomes a bit of a shambles.

Maria is ready for this and makes us sit down while she rattles off an age-worn speech about synchronisation and togetherness. She finishes by saying that Max will spot anything that shouldn’t be there.

She would hate us to upset Max.

Rehearsals. Day 21.

Them and us.

The leads and the ensemble.

We came together for the first time.

Max stood in the middle of the room and said that it was time we put things together. The leads were quietly discussing the script in a corner. We hung onto every word Max said because if we got it wrong, we were easily dispensable.

He wanted to start with the opening dance number that sets the scene for the musical.

The leads stopped talking.

We found our starting positions while Maria fired up the music on a laptop.

It went well until one of the girls slipped and ended up in a heap.

We improvised our moves to allow her to rejoin the routine.

Maria let it pass, but Max called a halt and screamed that it was fucking shit.

Start again.

In the corner, the leads exchanged knowing glances.

The girl apologised and we told her not to worry. It happens to all of us.

But Max was having none of it.

He told her not to make the same mistake because next time she’d be out.

It put pressure on all of us.

None of us had worked with a director like this before.

We began again and this time it went without a hitch.

But Max called us sloppy.

At lunchtime, we sat outside drinking lots of water.

Everybody called Max a cunt.

The way he speaks to people. They understand that everything needs to be perfect, but he demands it by spreading fear amongst us.

Then one of the boys pointed out that he doesn’t talk to the leads like that. Even though they have repeatedly fluffed their lines, he has let it ride.

We are aggrieved conspirators and have taken against them.

Rehearsals. Day 28.

The last day in the rehearsal space.

We’ve been here eight hours a day, six days a week, for a month. We’ve been through every scene a hundred times and danced until our feet hurt. I have blisters on my feet and have had to buy a new pair of trainers that are more comfortable.

Max tells us that if we thought it had been tough so far, then the next two weeks are going to be tougher.

The audience will expect a spectacular dance, he tells us.

And even though we are shit, he will make sure that is what they get.

He has fired two dancers, including the girl who slipped the week before.

The animosity with the leads has got worse.

Simon is the big name and they take their venom out on him most. He forgets his lines. Keeps referring to the script. Finds himself in the wrong place.

He is a has-been.

This is never to his face, of course, but within the confines of our group.

I try to remain positive and make excuses for him. At least he has been a has-been, I tell them.

One of the boys calls him a camp old queen and everybody laughs.

We rehearse the closing scenes in the afternoon.

The boys take off their vests to try deliberately to distract Simon. It is a wave of sweaty flesh, lean muscular bodies and eroticism.

Simon is all eyes and not much else.

He stumbles over his words and Max attempts to cover up for him by screaming at us instead.

Rehearsals. Day 35.

We have spent a week doing technical and dress rehearsals in a purpose-built space at Hammersmith.

But we miss the church hall.

In between rehearsals, we are fitted for costumes. We must practise fifteen quick changes.

We aren’t quick enough.

Max screams again.

Then we have to stop rehearsals so that they can tweak the lighting and sound. And then the recorded music is replaced by a sixteen-piece orchestra; eight of whom will travel with us, the other eight sourced locally at each place on the tour.

One girl suggests that we are now spending as much time waiting as we are rehearsing.

Everybody is tired by the end of the day, but Max insists that we stay behind because he wants to make changes to the big number that opens the second act.

The leads tut amongst themselves and mention Equity rules, but he flannels them until they can see the benefits of staying an extra hour.

We are the ones who must find extra bursts of energy, but none of us gets a say in the matter.

Disaster strikes.

One of the boys lands awkwardly and injures his foot.

At first everybody thinks it is a bad sprain, but a first aider, who none of us knew existed until now, insists that he goes to hospital, where it later turns out to be a broken ankle.

Max swears at us.

We are already two dancers down and the boy in question has an important role in the opening sequence.

It throws everything into turmoil and I am unfortunate enough to be standing close to Max when he makes a snap decision.

He clicks his fingers and points at me.

He calls me the wrong name and says that I must take over from the indisposed boy.

We abandon the planned rehearsal and instead improvise with the opening number.

My steps must change and it feels like a completely new dance routine.

Whereas I previously ended stage right, I must now finish dead centre.

It takes ten attempts to get it right.

And then I must stand and wait for Simon to come up from behind, put his arms around my waist and say, Hard work is how you succeed in life.

And then I must give a big smile and shout, Gee, Mr Dilalio, I think I’ve got it now.

But it is the first time I have ever spoken onstage and Max bawls me out for not being loud enough.

I point out that I will be miked up during performances.

Big mistake.

He comes right up to my face and whispers that he will turn the fucking mike off.

We go through the moves again and my voice is hoarse after shouting Gee, Mr Dilalio, I think I’ve got it now for the hundredth time.

Rehearsals. Day 38.

It feels strange.

My ranking amongst the ensemble has risen.

They like it that Max constantly screams at me.

I can do no right.

He criticises my dancing, maintains that I don’t project my voice enough, and now I am not smiling correctly.

I point out to Max that Mrs Brown from Bradford won’t care a toss if I smile correctly or not. She won’t have a clue, will she?

Max throws his mobile phone on the floor and storms over to me.

I couldn’t give a fuck about Mrs Brown from Bradford, he bellows.

My colleagues think I am deliberately winding Max up and therefore I’ve become a bad-boy hero and simply wonderful.

But my body aches. I’m tired and extremely short-tempered after two days of tech and dress rehearsals. I’ve never known a production have so many of them, and each time I get bawled out.

Something else has also happened.

That opening sequence where Simon comes up behind me and says, Hard work is how you succeed in life, has become noticeably weird.

At first, I was too pumped up to realise, but Simon’s hands didn’t rest on my hips anymore. They had moved a few inches higher until his hands grabbed both my sweaty flanks.

Then he started to squeeze them.

And with each rehearsal the squeezing got harder and harder until my sides were so sore that I winced when he grabbed me.

I got bawled out for that too.

At the point where the audience were expected to clap as we made a quick stage exit, Simon pinched the cheeks of my arse.

It was so fleeting that nobody noticed except me.

But it happened every time.

Late in the day, one of the girls slips me a cigarette during the break. She suggests that I go around the back and chill out for a bit.

I hadn’t smoked for months but gratefully accepted her offer and slipped outside.

Simon was smoking a miniature cigar.

We nodded at each other.

Then he spoke and I looked around to see who it was he was talking to.

It seemed that I was his only audience.

Have you heard the phrase That Was Then, This Is Now? he asks.

I shake my head.

It comes from S. E. Hinton’s 1971 coming-of-age novel. That specific line — The difference is that was then, this is now — is spoken by the main character, Bryon Douglas. It is also the name of a 1983 song by pop band ABC.

That Was Then, This Is Now.

How poignant a reminder that is, he continues.

I know that everybody thinks I’m a washed-up old actor. They’re probably right. I didn’t want to do this tour. But we hang onto the dream that our star might rise again.

It never does, he sighs.

I’m not sure how to reply.

I’ve made over fifty movies, he tells me, and have been top billing in the West End and Broadway. Now I’m consigned to entertaining Mrs Brown from Bradford, as you eloquently put it.

So, he says with an air of finality, please don’t begrudge me pinching your backside when I get the chance.

It is the only pleasure I have left.

The door opens and Max walks out.

Simon walks inside.

There you are, Max says to me.

He is about to address the company and I am the only one missing.

I throw away the cigarette and quickly follow him.

But Max stops and grabs my arm.

Before I do, he says, I want to tell you that you have done very well.

We’ll make a star out of you yet.

Instead of walking back into the hall, I float on air.

Max shouts for everyone to gather around because he has something important to say.

First, he tells us that tomorrow we have a day off.

Then he tells us that we are about to start the tour and that he is proud of us.

That we are the best company he has ever worked with.

The Hall Mirror (Ο καθρέπτης στην είσοδο)

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The Hall Mirror

The rich house had a very large, old mirror in its hall.
It could have been bought not less than eighty years ago.
One day a youth called with a parcel;
Only a tailor’s messenger, but an amateur athlete on Sundays
And a very beautiful young man.
He gave his package to someone of the house,
Who took it and went in to fetch a receipt.
The tailor’s man stood waiting alone –
He walked up to the mirror, looked at himself and set his tie straight.
In five minutes they brought him the receipt;
He took it and went away.

But the old mirror
Which in so many years
Had seen so many thousands of things and faces,
The mirror was left rejoicing
And proud to have had hold for some moments
An image of the perfect beauty in its glass.

Translated from Greek by C.H.O. Scaife in collaboration with Constantine P. Cavafy.
Originally published in The Spectator on September 27, 1935.

Constantine P. Cavafy (1863–1933) was an extraordinarily influential Egyptian-Greek poet widely considered the most distinguished voice of modern Greek literature and a towering figure of 20th-century Western poetry. Born and based mostly in the cosmopolitan hub of Alexandria, Egypt, his work uniquely blended historical realism, profound skepticism, and deeply personal, intimate expressions of homosexual desire. He spent over thirty years working as a quiet clerk in the Irrigation Service of the Egyptian Ministry of Public Works while writing poetry in his spare hours

C.P. Cavafy

Short Story: The Silence Between Summers

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Photo by Aitana Valencia for Fucking Young! (2026)

Tyler distrusted men… including Kyle. And there was a reason for that.

It was something their parents had never spoken about, at least not in front of him. Yet Kyle had always known that something terrible had happened during that summer by the sea. Something that caused Tyler to retreat into a painful silence and refuse to leave his bed. Something that made both families weep behind closed doors. Something that brought the police to the house, speaking in hushed voices before taking Tyler away.

Their holiday ended that day.

Soon afterwards, Tyler’s family moved away from the neighbourhood. When Kyle asked where they had gone, his father sat him down and told him, “There are some things that don’t concern little boys.”

For years, Kyle wondered whether it had somehow been his fault.

Then, ten years later, he overheard his mother speaking on the telephone.

“I shall ask him,” she said. “I’m sure he will agree.”

That summer, Kyle and Tyler saw each other again for the first time since their childhood. They returned to the same house where their families had once stayed — the house that overlooked the beach where they had played, swum in the sea, and laughed at each other’s terrible jokes.

It was there that Kyle finally discovered what had kept them apart all those years.

Tyler distrusted men… and it had become impossible to ignore. His therapist had suggested that the only way to confront the past was to return to the place where it had happened, accompanied by somebody he could trust.

The Avid Reader and Those Who Watched Him

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Hollacombe Court was a typical new-build apartment complex just off the Uxbridge Road. Four six-storey blocks stood around a large courtyard, entered through a gated archway at one end or via doors at the base of each stairwell. It was elegant without pretension and suited young professionals who preferred life beyond the city.

Elian—meaning God has answered—was of Iberian descent, though born in Dartford, and he had never considered moving to Spain. He had arrived at Hollacombe Court that summer and quickly became known to residents whose windows overlooked the courtyard. In his twenties, he might easily have been called handsome, and his athletic build drew the curious attention of anyone in search of an eligible bachelor.

He spent most summer evenings in the courtyard, with its cream flagstones, raised flowerbeds, and central water feature. He was often found sitting or stretched across one of the dozen stone benches set into the planted borders. He seemed to favour the one nearest the fountain, where water slipped between the fingers of the Greek god Zeus and fell into a circular pool below. Whether any of the residents could have named the statue, however, was open to question.

This was how Elian came to the notice of those living at Hollacombe Place.

Most assumed he had finished work, eaten, and chosen to pass the remaining hours of the evening outdoors with a book. That, above all, was what people noticed. While others switched on the television, Elian could almost always be seen reading. What he read remained a mystery, as few residents used the courtyard, leaving him—more often than not—undisturbed.

To those who glanced out, Elian had become a fixture. His presence lent a quiet reassurance. If, by chance, he was absent, it stirred a faint unease, as though something were amiss. Many had even taken to checking for him several times over the course of an evening. When darkness fell, it became customary to watch him close his book and make the short walk back into his block, though no one knew which apartment was his.

But there were those at Hollacombe Court who watched Elian for more selfish reasons. Had you challenged them, they would have denied it, yet it was hard to ignore that they had fallen in love with him—his Mediterranean looks, olive skin, and thick, black hair. On hot, humid days, they took particular pleasure in seeing him in football shorts, his six-pack on show, his long, smooth legs stretched out before him.

Elian enjoyed those evenings because he was an avid reader, with a particular fondness for novels, and for that reason he never felt lonely. He could summon characters from any book he had read; they were his companions.

His favourite writers were Lee Child, Alan Hollinghurst, and Colm Tóibín, and he often imagined himself as the protagonist in their novels. He had also discovered the work of André Aciman and Tim Parks, whose books stirred his imagination in different ways. When he finished a novel, he placed it carefully on his bookshelf, arranged by author and in order of publication. The classics, however, held little appeal; he found them too dour and overly wordy for his taste.

But reading aside, there was another reason Elian liked to sit in the courtyard.

Reading in full view of so many people made him feel connected. He knew they watched him, desired him even, and he welcomed the attention. He wanted to belong to a society that saw only his outward form; his need for acceptance was universal. Being seen confirmed his existence and importance, satisfying a deep psychological need for belonging. At times, he wondered whether this desire to be observed was a way of compensating for a lack of inner confidence.

And he was able to do this without interference. He liked that people looked at him yet respected his solitude. This paradox became a careful balance between the social need for validation and the personal need for quiet, self-reflection, and protection. He wanted the thrill of being in the spotlight, but also the safety of anonymity. When alone, Elian was answerable to no one, and in that freedom he could exist without fear of judgement.

And so the summer passed in a kind of quiet contentment. Elian with his books, and the curious residents of Hollacombe Court satisfied to watch over him.

Short Story: What the Crowd Cannot Have

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The first time Brodie and Archie met was not under the best of circumstances.

It was a Friday afternoon beneath the Miller Theatre on West 51st Street. Brodie – hi-viz vest zipped to the throat – stood amid abandoned scaffolding, photographing stress fractures in the concrete. The air was dense with dust, old and mineral, as though the building itself were exhaling.

A figure emerged at the far end of the tunnel and walked towards him.

Brodie lowered the camera. He waited until the young man was close enough to see properly, then snapped, “What are you doing here? This is a restricted area. Turn around and go back the way you came.”

“I’m sorry,” the young man said. He spoke with an English accent, careful, almost courteous. “I didn’t realise. What was this tunnel used for?”

“The other side of that wall is backstage,” Brodie replied. “Probably for actors crossing beneath the stage. But there’s no time for questions. It’s unsafe down here. The roof could come down at any moment.”

It was an exaggeration. But saying it gave him a small, illicit thrill – authority borrowed from the place.

The young man hesitated. He had floppy brown hair, eyes dark and inquisitive despite the rebuke. “What are you doing?”

“I’m inspecting the structure,” Brodie said. “Everything looks glitzy up there. Down here it’s rot and age.” He paused. “You still haven’t explained why you’re trespassing.”

“I was just exploring.”

“Explore somewhere else.”

The young man’s shoulders dropped. As he turned, he fumbled the folder under his arm; papers spilled across the dusty floor.

“Shit – sorry. My script.”

Something softened in Brodie then, too late to retract the sharpness he’d already spent.

The second time they met was in the staffroom.

Brodie was entering notes on his laptop when the door burst open and a tide of people flooded in, loud with laughter, trailing the smell of coffee and citrus wipes. Lunch packs appeared: protein bars, yogurt, hummus, cut vegetables. Actors, Brodie thought, irritated beyond reason.

Michael wanted renovation proposals by Monday. Concentration felt impossible.

Then he saw him – the boy from the tunnel – laughing with the others, sleeves pushed up, script tucked under his arm as if it were a talisman.

Of course.

On their way out, the young man stopped at Brodie’s table. “I’m Archie,” he said, holding out his hand. His eyes lingered, dark and unguarded. “I think we got off on the wrong foot.”

Brodie hesitated, then took it. The contact was brief, oddly charged. “I’m Brodie. Forget about it. Just – stay out of the tunnel.”

Archie smiled, chastened and amused all at once.

After that, Brodie thought about him more than he liked to admit.

He knew he could be abrupt, inflated by his own sense of usefulness. Actors irritated him on principle. But Archie – English, polite, quietly intense – had unsettled him.

Late one night, Brodie searched the Playbill bios. Archie was a rising star: television work, the National Theatre, lead roles in the West End, now a Broadway debut.

Impressive.

What Brodie didn’t know was that Archie had been searching too. He’d asked about the surveys, about the renovation. He found the company. He found Brodie’s photograph.

Hazel eyes. Skin warm-toned, as if lit from inside. A face shaped by movement rather than posing.

Tasty, Archie thought, surprised by his own boldness.

Two years later.

Archie slipped out of the Walter Kerr Theatre the moment the curtain fell on Chatterton. No shower. No linger. Wool coat, beanie, scarf pulled high. He moved fast, before the autograph hunters gathered.

Outside, Broadway surged and glittered – yellow cabs, steam vents, neon, voices colliding. It still thrilled him. It always did. A world away from Buckinghamshire.

At the apartment, Brodie checked the clock: 10:30. Any minute now.

The flowers were arranged just so. Archie liked flowers. Brodie liked that Archie liked them.

When the door opened, relief moved through him like a current.

Tea was requested. Always tea. Archie shed the night – coat, scarf, public self – and collapsed onto the sofa. He spoke about the show, about the line he’d missed. Brodie stroked his hair, grounding him.

Later, Fleet Foxes floated from the bathroom. Steam curled beneath the door.

Brodie knew the routine by heart. He would collect the clothes, note the forgotten boxers, breathe in the faint, intimate salt of them – something human beneath the polish. It embarrassed him how much that scent moved him.

Archie emerged clean and fragrant: Le Labo, Dior and mint. Blue silk pyjamas. He smiled like someone stepping into safety.

They ate together. They watched television under the blanket Archie’s grandmother had made. Archie pressed close, smaller than he seemed onstage, all softness and thoughtfulness and unspoken worry.

Sometimes Brodie felt the weight of what he was not allowed to be – unseen, untagged, absent from photographs. Invisible by design. But here, in this private room, their bodies fit without explanation. The most erotic moments were those that could not be shared publicly.

Brodie was Archie’s shelter. Archie was Brodie’s undoing.

Brodie had watched hundreds of videos of Archie on YouTube, moments in which he appeared entirely at ease – charming interviewers, holding eye contact, listening with an attentiveness that felt generous rather than rehearsed. 

His answers were always articulate, delivered with that unmistakable smile. But Brodie could see what others missed. 

The exposure beneath the polish. The small betrayals of nerves: the way Archie’s smile lingered a fraction too long; the absent-minded stroking of his own arm as he spoke; the slow, circular massaging of each finger; the hand lifting to his hair, not to adjust it, but to reassure himself it was still there. 

These gestures were invisible to the audience, but to Brodie they were intimate, almost confessional – proof that the confidence was something Archie stepped into, not something he owned.

Thomas Chatterton had been an ideal role for Archie. The eighteenth-century poet – celebrated as the marvellous boy for his precocious brilliance and dead at seventeen – had been reimagined as the subject of a hugely successful Broadway musical. 

In his twenties, Archie might once have been considered too old for the part, but his fine, boyish beauty dissolved any such doubt. Night after night, he stepped into Chatterton with such ease that the distinction between role and actor began to blur. 

To the audience, he seemed timeless, suspended in youth and promise. To Brodie, there was something quietly unsettling in this devotion – the way Archie gave himself over to a boy who never lived long enough to be disappointed by what came after.

When the movie ended, the future rose between them.

“Would you come to London?” Archie asked quietly.

Brodie had been waiting for this. “Yes. If you ask me to.”

Archie’s eyes filled. “You’ll have to share me.”

Brodie pulled him closer. “I already do.”

The Patron Saint of Foolhardy Teenage Boys

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A solitary figure stands above Kinder Scout. He cannot be seen, yet he watches from afar. The darkness thickens over the peaks, and a westerly wind rises as if summoned from nothing, but neither deters him. This is not a place for the unprepared. The temperature will fall; the warmth of the day will slip away, unnoticed, into the stone.

As the figure observes the six boys pitching their tents, a quiet certainty settles within him: he is powerless. He cannot call out. He cannot warn them. Leaning on his stick, he endures the bitter air and waits, bound to witness how they will meet the night. Their laughter will thin, their bravado ebb, as loneliness takes hold. Escape will become a wish rather than a choice, and sleep the only surrender, each of them willing the morning to arrive.

When he is certain the boys have fallen into a restless, unhappy slumber, the figure moves. He steps softly across rock and scrub, listening, careful not to betray his presence. Only when he is satisfied that he will not frighten them does he pause to peer into each tent. There he sees them cocooned within their sleeping bags, clinging to one another, sharing the fragile warmth of slender, adolescent bodies against the cold.

At last, he chooses a broad, ancient rock and settles there, a silent sentinel. He remains, guarding their sleep, until the first pale glow of the new day begins to rise in the east.