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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.

My Week, For What It Was Worth

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Severin’s Next Move


Severin has decided to call time on Taormina.

Long days and nights working as a waiter have meant that his German juices have finally run dry.

Severin is a drifter — or, as he likes to put it, a rolling stone. He wanders from city to city, from job to job, looking for another Pietro; somebody who will take him in and pay for everything.

But he still has to find his next Pietro.

I confess I had thought Taormina might be where he finally settled down. His up-and-down relationship with Alfio had all the hallmarks of being long-term. I realise now that Severin is still looking for what he perceives to be the right person.

He has come up with a number of options for the months ahead — and they all seem to involve me.

With Verona out of the question, he is now considering a trip to Britain and would like to stay with me. I have explained that I am selling my apartment and will most likely be renting a room at Deej’s place in London by the time he arrives.

He has also raised his ‘World Tour’ idea again, and I have had to let him down gently on this one because my finances could best be described as unreliable at the moment.

Then Severin suggested meeting up in Rome. What’s more, he wants to invite Elio. It would, he reasoned, be a chance for Pietro’s three boys to get together again.

I have a soft spot for Severin, but I have my doubts about Elio. He was Pietro’s favourite and benefited most from his death. If my understanding is correct, Elio is pretty much set up for life.

Unlike Severin and myself.

The last I heard, Elio had launched a modelling agency in Milan which, no doubt, would boost his coffers even further. I had only met him once, at a Christmas meal at Bulgari Milano, where Pietro had thought nothing of showing off his three young ‘darlings’.

It might have been a disaster, but the three of us had actually got on rather well.

Severin and I never attended Pietro’s funeral.

We weren’t invited.

That is probably where some of my irritation with Elio comes from.

I confided all this to Signora Bruschi by telephone.

“I have never met Severin,” she said. “But I suspect that he has a good reason for wanting to spend time with you.”

“And that is?” I asked, rather dimly.

“Have you not considered that he might want to have a relationship with you?”

I hadn’t.

Signora Bruschi might be right.

After all, I hear from Severin most days. He messages and rings me during his breaks from the restaurant. I rather enjoy our conversations, but not once had I considered anything more.

“If that is the case,” she continued, “there is the problem of Bianchi.”

Oh! I thought.

The Chase Never Ends

Back in the UK. University city. Freshers everywhere. Oh, it brings back memories.

Young people dressed by their parents, scared as shit, homesick by the hour. I remember being a big brother, a lover, the older one who knew a little more about the world.

But I get older and they get younger.

Still, the chase never seems to end. I’ve missed this.

Bailey appears as though I’ve never been away. Doe-eyed, beautiful, and seemingly thick as shit — although perhaps that is part of his charm. He shows me the new tattoos across his back and, despite myself, they excite me.

Dilemma.

I miss Bianchi and his Italian charm.

Then Bailey tells me he’s disabled on his own prick, which raises a few questions.

And yet I’m tempted by the sheer stupidity of his beauty.


A Euro Child

There are two lives.

Italy versus the UK.

I’ve had the best summer. Montescaglioso, Taormina and Verona.

Not to mention too much about Paris.

Coming home feels like a sentence.

An apartment that is dead, yet full of good memories.

Charlie is gone, but his presence is everywhere. Clothes, books, paintings. A scent that still lingers.

But Charlie has disappeared.

I fear it is for good.

Who would have thought that a magazine could have brought it all to an end?

Estate agents pander to everything.

I think of Severin. I think of Cola. I think of Bianchi.

And I realise that I am, really, a Euro child.

Then I had a dream.

I dreamt of Sandro, the carabiniere, and his warnings. Of all the people who might have appeared, I dreamt of Sandro more than anyone else.

Why Sandro?

He has somehow crept, uninvited, into my consciousness. 

Fellini, Fascism, and a Fling: How to Spice Up Your 1970s Italian Art Crisis


Olivia Laing

Naughty.

Retro.

Short chapters.

Fellini.

A life I might have killed for.

And then I remembered—

that is exactly what happened to Pasolini.

I read a review:

“The Silver Book is a novel distorted by the medium it has shaped itself to flatter: it is an Instagram feed bound between book covers. There can be no ugly, unseeable truth here; only the artful pose is of value.”

Ouch.


A Stumble-Find and a Good Looker



I’m always on the lookout for a good looker. Even better if they came to a tragic end.

Gerry Sundquist turned out to be a slow burner. A stumble-find on a sun-soaked terrace in Taormina.

The actor who was once called ‘the best-looking man on television’ and who dated Nastassja Kinski deserved some attention. This was back in the 1970s and, unsurprisingly, I’d never heard of him.

I know a lot about him now. Just about everything except the size of his penis. Had I been around back then, I would have made damned sure I knew that too.

I know about his rise to stardom. His cataclysmic downfall. His gruesome death.

Always a winner with readers.

So thank you, Gerry Sundquist, for providing me with the most-read post on this site. It started slowly. Then exploded.

Who would have thought it?



The Ultimate Guide to Ruining a French Vacation

La Piscine (1969) – a summer moodboard. Alain Delon and Romy Schneider serve peak 60s quiet luxury by a Saint-Tropez pool, but it’s all high-key toxicity. Stunning on the surface; underneath it’s just pure, unhinged resentment. The most beautiful surfaces hide the deepest dangers. My new favourite word is feral. This is completely feral.


Unsent & Unfiltered

The secret lover can’t hold his shit. 

And so I wrote a message that was never sent.

“Breath of fresh air. So naive that it’s beautiful. But I will be pissed off if you show this to anyone. Please don’t piss me off. 😊 Stay gold.”


On the Cute and the Willing

Milan Ruoppolo. Photographed by Winter Vandenbrink (2026)

Norrie Always Wins

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In matters of the heart, Beverley Nichols was no match for Norrie

Beverley Nichols, by Howard Coster, 1929. © National Portrait Gallery, London

Norrie followed him in and all reserve then broke down. This happy state of affairs lasted for two days, but invariably short lived. There will be, he told himself, ‘rocks ahead’. It is just as well that he adopted this attitude, for who should arrive to accompany them to Henley, but the detestable Eddy, with his ‘bad complexion and a Cockney accent’. Instantly, Norrie was all over him and Beverley was forgotten. The weekend, not surprisingly, was a complete disaster. Once again, he tried to put a brave face on it and when they were joined by a boy called ‘Steegy’, he made a bid for the newcomer – only to be outflanked by Norrie who finished up with both Eddy and Steegy.

From ‘Beverley Nichols – A Life’, by Bryan Connon, 1991.

My Week, For What It Was Worth

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When the Sky Finally Let Go …

There had been a thunderstorm warning across the Veneto, but nobody believed it. They complained about the relentless heat and the pitiless sun, longing instead for shorter days, cold mornings, and snow.

Even so, the wind hinted that relief might finally be on its way. It rattled the café awnings, scraped chairs across pavements, and sent menus tumbling into the next street. In Signora Bruschi’s courtyard the washing twisted itself tightly around the line, while the terracotta pots overflowing with pelargoniums, lavender, salvias, petunias and Mexican fleabane bore the worst of it. One of the smaller pots toppled from the kitchen step and shattered. Even the tiny finches that usually flitted between the potted citrus trees abandoned the branches for the shelter of a shaded corner, where they sang with frantic urgency. Signora Bruschi rushed outside clutching a broom and shouted for us to rescue the washing before it blew away.

It was Cola who first noticed the bruised-purple cloud creeping across the sky. Others followed behind it, darker still, advancing with slow deliberation as though reluctant to commit themselves. They lingered above the city, steadily subduing the sun. With every passing minute the light faded, the heat loosened its grip, and the stale air trapped inside the old stone walls for weeks was finally released. When the wind eased, Signora Bruschi scolded us for throwing the clean washing into the basket instead of folding it properly.

An uneasy stillness settled over Verona. The city seemed to pause in expectation. Even the finches fell silent.

Bianchi stepped into the doorway and sniffed the air. It carried that strange sweetness that always arrives before heavy rain, reminding us of freshly cut grass. He pointed towards the sky, where the clouds had taken on an unsettling greenish hue, their tops spreading into broad, flat anvils. For a fleeting moment the sun broke through, casting dramatic shafts of light that sharpened every corner of Signora Bruschi’s courtyard.

Then came the first distant growl of thunder from somewhere beyond Lake Garda.

A blinding flash of lightning sent Bianchi darting back inside. From neighbouring houses came cheers, laughter and exaggerated cries of alarm. Only a handful of raindrops struck the marble flagstones before Signora Bruschi ushered everyone indoors.

Moments later the wind returned with renewed force, and the rain followed.

It swept across the city from the west in solid sheets, lashing the parched streets and hammering rooftops. The sheer weight of water became a roaring wall of sound that swallowed everything else. Gutters overflowed, torrents cascaded from the roofs, and water surged across the courtyard until it pooled outside the kitchen door. Drains that had lain dry for weeks surrendered almost immediately. Through the window we watched the neighbouring buildings dissolve behind a curtain of rain until they became little more than grey silhouettes.

“The heavens are teeming,” Signora Bruschi cried.

Brilliant forks of lightning split the sky, vanishing almost as soon as they appeared. Each flash was followed by a violent crack and then a rolling explosion of thunder that rattled the windowpanes and shook the house to its foundations.

Again.

And again.

“I hope it stops soon,” Bianchi whispered.

Cola, however, seemed delighted.

He dashed into the courtyard, pulling off his T-shirt as he ran, and stood ankle-deep in the rising water, lifting his face towards the sky as the rain drenched him within seconds. By the time he wandered back inside, his jeans clung to his legs and streams of water spread across Signora Bruschi’s kitchen floor. Without missing a beat, she clipped him around the back of the head, snatched a towel from the washing basket, and thrust it into his hands.

“My son is stupido,” she sighed, with equal measures of exasperation and affection.

Pietro’s Books, Bianchi’s Curiosity …

College has broken up for the summer and, when he is not working, Bianchi is usually either trailing me around Signora Bruschi’s house or reading in my apartment. Since my return, our hostess has been content for him to stay, but she has made it abundantly clear that no relationship of any kind is to develop between us. Consequently, Bianchi has taken up residence in my rooms while I have been relegated to sharing Cola’s bed.

My stay in Verona is only temporary, and I have no illusions that, once I return to the UK, Bianchi will have any claim on my Italian life.

For now, however, he has been quietly investigating my possessions in an earnest attempt to learn everything he can about me. He has also been working his way through Pietro’s boxes, which Signora Bruschi finally carried down from the attic for me to sort.

That is how Bianchi came to be sitting on my sofa with one of Pietro’s hardback novels from the 1990s.

Scuola di nudo is an intimidating thing: six hundred pages of uninterrupted Italian, which effectively rules out any possibility of my reading it.

“It is about a university professor in Pisa,” Bianchi explained, “who explores his obsession with male beauty and desire, and who is very critical of his colleagues.”

“Would I like it?” I asked.

“Probably not. I think you like magazines instead.”

The remark was aimed squarely at the infamous French copy of Le Pénis lying beside my bed, a publication that, until then, he had politely pretended not to notice.

“There is no plot,” he continued. “But it is interesting. And there are many scandals.”

I suspect Bianchi has already grown bored with the novel, despite his insistence to the contrary, and is persevering with it largely because he thinks it will impress me.

I looked up the author, Walter Siti, and discovered that he taught at several Italian universities, wrote screenplays, and has also been a reviewer for La Stampa.

As for Scuola di nudo, I remain none the wiser. Bianchi’s fractured English synopsis is, I suspect, as close to understanding the novel as I am ever likely to get.


Not my Taormina …

Severin wishes I were back in Taormina. I’m not so sure.

Dolce & Gabbana recently unveiled its new Alta Sartoria collection at the Teatro Antico, with the Ionian Sea below and Mount Etna rising behind it. The guest list was suitably glamorous: Erling Haaland and Isabel Haugseng Johansen, Theo James and Ruth Kearney, Christian Bale, Monica Bellucci, Jennifer Lopez and Michele Morrone.

I wasn’t invited.

That, in a way, is the point.

Taormina isn’t really for north European wastrels like Severin and me. It’s for people willing to spend the equivalent of a monthly mortgage on a single night’s stay, pay limousine prices for taxis and happily buy things marked up tenfold simply because they can.

It is the most expensive destination in Sicily.

We visited out of season and enjoyed it, although even then the White Lotus pilgrims were beginning to get on my tits. According to Severin, they’ve since become unbearable.

I left after a few weeks. He stayed.

He now spends sixteen hours a day working in a restaurant, and even the flat that came with the job has lost its appeal. The owners have suggested he share it with three other young waiters, each expected to pay an exorbitant rent. Rooms are scarce in Taormina, they say.

Watching from afar, I realise the place isn’t really for me.

Give me the Taormina where writers, poets, artists and photographers arrived on the backs of flea-bitten donkeys and drank cheap wine in tiny houses with compacted earth floors.

Give me Alfio, paid peanuts to work in a hotel whose rooms now cost five times what I paid only weeks ago. The same Alfio who took us where the locals ate, introduced us to the Taormina hidden behind the postcards, and preferred the company of ordinary people to wealthy tourists.

Give me the sweaty boys chasing a football across a dusty patch of wasteland, before somebody decides it would make the perfect site for another luxury boutique hotel.

Severin won’t last the summer.

Sooner or later, he’ll leave Sicily in search of something better.

I’m tempted to invite him to Verona. But that would test Signora Bruschi’s generosity.


The First Twink …

“Adam, as in Adam and Eve. I think he was the first twink and he was definitely a power bottom. The snake of it all in the garden is sus to me.” –  Grant Gibbs

Adam in Paradise. Kristian Zahrtmann (2020)

On the cute and willing…

Ruslan Danilchenko. Photographed by Kiana Beijleveld

My Week, For What It Was Worth

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He was absolutely right …

It’s been a week of emails and rewrites.

Back and forth.

It’s not normally like this.

The editor of a magazine received my latest submission. It was different from my usual work; this time there were 2,500 words of creative writing. 

Thankfully, he liked it.

Then came the revisions.

Lose the opening paragraphs. Move a sentence. Remove the relationship angle. Tone down my favourite character. Rewrite the ending.

He was starting to annoy me.

A typical comment read:

“Your writing has become noticeably more restrained… Readers tend to trust narrators who don’t feel the need to interpret everything for them.”

All I wanted to do was submit the piece and see a payment appear in my bank account.

But we got there in the end.

Before sending the final draft, I read it one last time and realised something rather irritating.

He was absolutely right.

*****

Photo by Victoria M.

A lesson in speaking Dutch …

Signora Scala lives in the building next door, but spends more time in Signora Bruschi’s kitchen than in her own. It is not unusual to find her sitting at the table chopping vegetables or helping to make bread. All the while she will be engaged in animated conversation, sharing the latest gossip with Signora Bruschi, who appears to tolerate these daily intrusions.

Though she does occasionally test her patience.

“Is there not a week that passes without her mentioning that she is related to the Della Scala family?”

The Della Scala family was the influential medieval dynasty that once ruled Verona. Signora Scala is not technically related to them; she acquired the surname through marriage. Nor does she seem aware that there are thousands of modern-day Scalas living in circumstances every bit as modest as her own.

Signora Scala speaks no English, which makes my presence a constant source of frustration for her, but a welcome distraction for Signora Bruschi and Cola whenever I wander into the kitchen.

“She’s talking bullshit,” Cola might announce loudly, while Signora Scala smiles and nods in complete agreement.

I am something else she struggles to understand.

She cannot comprehend why Signora Bruschi refuses to charge me rent for the apartment.

“He is family,” Signora Bruschi replies.

“But you could live comfortably if you made him pay.”

The truth is that Signora Bruschi is far from poor, and she seems genuinely offended whenever I suggest contributing financially.

Cola insists that his mother fears I might not be able to afford it, and would simply leave.

Signora Scala will tut loudly, make the sign of the cross, and declare, “Ed è anche omosessuale.”

As though I hadn’t understood a word, Cola inevitably provides a translation.

“She says you like to take it up the arse.”

This week, perhaps determined to prove a point, Signora Scala announced that she was taking in a lodger for a month. He was a young Dutch dancer performing with a contemporary dance company at the Teatro Romano. For this, she informed us, she would be paid €150 a week.

Signora Bruschi, quietly folding the ironing, rolled her eyes.

“And what is this Dutch boy called?” she asked politely.

“Jort,” Signora Scala replied.

Except she had decided there was a proper Dutch pronunciation, producing something closer to “Joooorrrrrt.”

Cola pounced immediately.

“Joooorrrrrt,” he bellowed in an impossibly deep voice.

“Sì, Joooorrrrrt,” she confirmed.

“Joooorrrrrt!” he shouted even louder.

“Joooorrrrrt!” she echoed.

“Joooorrrrrt!”

“Joooorrrrrt!”

By now they were practically competing to see who could produce the most theatrical rendition of the poor boy’s name.

It was the finest Joooorrrrrting I had ever witnessed. 

“Oddio,” sighed Signora Bruschi.

*****

Photo by Paul Jasmin

On explaining a one night stand to Cola …

You just know, don’t you?

It is always the timid one, sitting quietly in the corner with the girls who want to protect him. 

Halfway decent-looking, too.

Johnny from Tunbridge Wells.

He’ll ask if I want to play Spider-Man 2 and snort lines of coke from his psychology notes. He rarely has the coke, but it sounds impressive.

I ask whether his mother still buys his underwear. He blushes. He says no, but we both know he is lying.

He freezes like a rabbit caught in a trap, yet he has no real desire to escape.

The next few minutes will make or break him. At least, that’s how it will feel.

Eventually, he drops his jeans, revealing the underwear his mother chose for him.

Now what?

You tell him to take off the underwear. When he does, his embarrassment is written all over him.

*****

My favourite newspaper quote …

“Oh dear. Such a shame to see the US lose at football after their insanely embarrassing president cheated for them. Still, it really brought the world together. The last time this many people cheered on a Belgian resistance, it was 1914 and the Germans had just crossed the Meuse.”


Marina Hyde, writing in The Guardian, UK.

*****


On cargo shorts and crop tops …

Imagine that one hundred years from now someone discovers a single photograph of you. Your music has vanished. No recordings survive. No interviews. No reviews.

What would you want that photograph to say about you?

“Cunt-serving twink.”

Severin introduced me to a rising German Gen-Z singer called Siovo. He played him incessantly in Taormina and, now that I’m back in Verona, I find myself doing much the same.

Siovo is one of the few openly gay artists working in the German pop scene, writing songs that explore queer identity, unrequited love, modern relationships and isolation.

At least, that’s what Severin tells me.

My complete ignorance of the German language means Siovo could just as easily be singing about bin collections or discounted washing powder.

He has also cultivated a distinct visual identity, usually appearing in an unlikely combination of oversized cargo shorts and cropped tops.

Naturally, I was delighted to discover that he had recently collaborated with photographer Nikolai Voelcker, whose work has a particular talent for capturing chavvy young men in various states of undress.

Lampoon magazine describes his photography rather more elegantly than I ever could:

“Photographer Nikolai Voelcker focuses on male dynamics. Friends joke, stretch limbs, shift postures, and press next to each other. Shoulders bump. Arms connect. These gestures do not carry disclaimers. They occur as part of casual time together. The camera records moments that raise questions about erotic currents in shared male space.

Photos by Nikolai Voelcker

*****


The Silence of Roca Rey …

The last person I saw fervently stroking and kissing rosary beads was Nico, my ex-boyfriend, who went through this disconcerting ritual every time we had sex.

I thought about Nico while watching Albert Serra’s riveting documentary Afternoons of Solitude, about the Peruvian matador Andrés Roca Rey, who appears to share the same devout Catholicism.

Cola watched the documentary on Mubi Italia. It was in Spanish with Italian subtitles, and the only things I understood with any certainty were the bulls.

“Uomo coraggioso,” Cola murmured.

“Uomo bellissimo,” was my reply.

I watched it again later, this time with English subtitles.

Roca Rey is a strikingly handsome twenty-nine-year-old: a man of countless facial expressions and very few words, capable of selling out bullrings across Spain, France and Latin America.

The global controversy surrounding bullfighting rests on a direct clash between animal welfare and cultural preservation.

It is utterly riveting, but an extremely difficult watch.

There is blood. Lots of it. The bulls, after all, never come out on top.

Supporters defend bullfighting as a deeply rooted art form and historical tradition: an epic celebration of human skill, courage and intellect overcoming the raw power of nature.

Phil Hoad, writing in The Guardian, observed:

“Filming Rey in transit in a people carrier, getting apparelled in his hyper-camp getup, rehearsing his mannerisms in a lift, Serra is fundamentally interested in questions of performance and style. In the arena, he documents the finesse and attitude with which the matador confronts, corrals and quells the raw force of nature. In the ring, Rey has an extraordinary repertoire of gestures: preening head tosses straight from a Whitesnake gig; a glowering demon kill-mask out of kabuki theatre.”

Roca Rey spends much of the documentary sitting silently in a people carrier while an entourage of yes-men shower him with endless praise. You were magnificent. So brave. Nobody does it like you. Hoad captures it perfectly: “There’s something almost insecure about the nonstop stream of compliments Rey’s entourage lavish on him.”

Roca Rey rarely responds. More than once I found myself willing him to turn around and shout, “Shut the fuck up!” But he never does. He remains almost unnervingly silent, and those cherubically handsome, boyish looks only make him more fascinating to watch.

*****

On attempting to pick someone up …

I woke him from his slumber. He had been staring without realising it. When I moved, he was startled. That was the moment you knew. You were in complete control; he wasn’t. Sometimes it made me think I hadn’t lost it after all.

I asked why he had been staring. He denied it.

“Well, I was staring at you,” I replied.

That was usually the point where they folded. The bolder ones called your bluff, and when they did, I made a tactical retreat, giving them just enough space to realise they had missed their chance.

They always came back. By then, they wanted what they had pretended not to.

*****

On the cute and willing…

Tim Wolf at East West Models, Germany. Photo by Ralph Geiling.

Stolen Words: Tell England – A Study in a Generation

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“You know I like Archie Pennybet very much indeed. In fact, I think I like him better than anyone else in the world, ‘septing of course my relations.” – Edgar Doe.

One of my recurring frustrations with old books is this.

Every so often, I pick up a novel now regarded as homoerotic and wonder how on earth its first readers failed to notice what was sitting in plain sight.

A second dose from Ernest Raymond’s 1922 First World War novel, Tell England: A Study in a Generation, a book that goes to extraordinary lengths to beat around the bush.

When it was published, the poor dears read it as a patriotic, high-church Anglican tribute to the tragic “lost generation” of British public schoolboys sent to Gallipoli. The lingering focus on male beauty and passionate friendships seems to have passed them by.

You may recall from an earlier post that Raymond himself later openly acknowledged the novel’s homosexual subplot.

The first half of the novel, Five Gay Years of School, introduces the narrator, Rupert Ray, and his classmates as young men who are acutely aware of their own attractiveness, opening one school chapter with Archie Pennybet’s  boast: “I’m the best-looking person in this room.” Time and again, they are presented as magnificent, almost perfect creations of God.

At the heart of the story is Rupert’s deeply emotional attachment to his classmate Edgar Doe, who is quite unmistakably homosexual. Their relationship is marked by jealousy, devotion, and emotional intensity that often resembles a love affair far more than ordinary friendship.

“I say, why does Doe avoid us now?” 

“The Gray Doe,” sneered Penny. “Oh he – She’s in love, I suppose. With Radley.”

“Don’t drivel,” I commanded. “Why does he hang about with that awful Freedham?”

“When you’re my age, Rupert,” began Penny, in kind and accommodating explanation, “you’ll know that there are such things as degenerates and decadents. Freedom is one. And very soon Doe will be another.”

“Well, hang it,” I said, “if you think that, how can you joke about it, and leave him to go his way?”

“Oh, the young fellow must learn wisdom. And he’s not in any danger of being copped. I’m the only one that suspects, and I guessed because I’m exceptionally brilliant. Besides, if he wants to go to the devil for a bit, you can’t take his arm and go with him.”

“No,” I said, “but you can take his arm and bring him back.”

The schoolmaster, Radley, is described as regarding the boys with a “strong, active love.” Rupert comments: “We were his hobby. I have met many such lovers of youth.”

In the second half of the novel, the boys are sent to Gallipoli. The emotional and physical admiration established during their schooldays evolves into a romanticised martyrdom, where dying beautifully for England becomes the ultimate fulfilment of their youth.

By Jove, Ernest Raymond was clever.

He wrote about male intimacy with remarkable emotional and physical closeness without provoking the censors of the 1920s. Wrapped in high-church religiosity and fervent patriotism, it was accepted by the general public as nothing more than an innocent, heart-rending tribute to fallen soldiers.

Shadows of Verona – Mine to Lose

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“I don’t think your brother liked me,” I suggested to Bianchi.

His English had improved enormously since our last meeting, but he failed to understand what I had said. This, I realised, was how our conversations were going to be. My Italian was considerably worse.

“Lorenzo,” I persisted. “He hated me.”

“Enzo does not like me either,” Bianchi replied. “He says I must change. If I do not, he will make me change.” He paused before adding with a hopeful smile, “Is my English good?”

The memory lingered.

Bianchi’s mother scarcely looked old enough to have three grown children. Her eyes sparkled as she welcomed me into her home. Cinzia had clearly told her about me. Like most of the family, she spoke no English, and Cola translated.

She is delighted that you have come.”

In the background, Lorenzo had made his feelings perfectly clear. As we left the apartment, I glanced back just in time to see him draw a finger slowly across his throat.

We settled in the small courtyard behind Signora Bruschi’s building. Four sun-bleached walls, their peeling ochre and sienna softened by deep green ivy, enclosed the space. Around us drifted the familiar soundtrack of Italy: overlapping conversations spoken in rapid, melodic bursts, punctuated by warm laughter and the rhythmic clink of porcelain spoons against ceramic coffee cups.

Cinzia seemed to interpret my return as a declaration of intent towards Bianchi, who sat casually between us.

“Lorenzo è uno stronzo,” she declared. “He is a complete asshole. Ignore him.”

“I disagree,” Cola interrupted. “Miles must be careful not to antagonise him, otherwise there will be consequences.”

“I do not like the sound of this person,” Signora Bruschi frowned.

For the first time that day I was able to study Bianchi properly.

He was small in stature but lean and athletic. His olive complexion carried the faintest flush across his cheeks, while his pale eyes seemed incapable of hiding emotion. Whenever he spoke, his hands moved instinctively, every gesture as expressive as his words.

Bella figura.

Like many boys his age, he dressed with understated style: dark skinny jeans, immaculate white leather trainers, a pale button-down shirt, and around his neck a simple silver chain from which a small St Christopher medallion occasionally caught the light.

He noticed me watching him.

The unguarded charm of a working-class country boy surfaced immediately. His hand brushed gently against my knee, and the hopeful expression on his face suggested that he was still searching for my approval.

I remained uncertain whether this was a path I truly wanted to follow.

The oppressive heat mirrored the suffocating intensity of obsession.

Much had happened during the past year.

Bianchi was studying sports science at Liceo Scientifico Statale Angelo. He had also found part-time work as a porter at a hotel in Verona. Once school broke for the summer, he would spend the season picking peaches, cherries and kiwi fruit on a large farm before moving into the nearby vineyards for the September grape harvest.

Then Signora Bruschi announced that she would prepare lunch for everyone.

Almost immediately, Cola declared that he and Cinzia were meeting friends later at Pedrotti on Via Venti Settembre.

“But Bianchi will stay here,” he added with a grin. “No doubt he will spend the night with Miles.”

His announcement made it sound as though I had been volunteered to babysit Bianchi, who was still considered too young to spend the evening drinking with the others. Pleasant though it was to be included, I could not escape the feeling that Cola and Cinzia were quietly steering events.

Signora Bruschi immediately crossed herself.

“That will not happen,” she said firmly.

Her reaction caught me by surprise.

Like many Italians, she held deeply rooted Catholic beliefs, yet she had raised no objection when I had lived with Pietro several years earlier. After his death, she had even insisted that his rooms were mine whenever I wished to return.

“Bianchi is welcome to stay,” she continued, “but he must sleep in Cola’s room.”

“Cosa vuoi dire, mamma?”

There was, I had come to realise, a distinctly Veronese form of compromise. Family harmony always came first. Certain realities were quietly accepted, provided nobody spoke about them too openly.

“Bianchi will share a bed with you, Cola.”

“Ma, mamma…”

She folded her hands as though in prayer.

“I must protect both boys,” she said. “Miles is already in a relationship, and I will not allow anything to happen beneath my roof that might threaten that.”

Only then did Bianchi understand.

His shoulders dropped, and the disappointment on his face was impossible to miss. He had lived on memories for an entire year. Now it seemed he would have to keep waiting.

No one had asked for my opinion.

The more I thought about it, the more I realised that obsession did not belong to Bianchi alone.

The thought of Cola and Bianchi sharing a bed stirred a jealousy I had never known I possessed. Whatever doubts I still harboured, I suddenly recognised that I regarded Bianchi as mine to lose. Cola, who had no interest whatsoever in Cinzia’s younger brother and would never dream of taking advantage of the arrangement, had nevertheless become the one person standing between us.

Only Cinzia seemed amused.

“Cola,” she teased, “I hope you can survive the smell of Bianchi’s cheap body spray and teenage sweat. Perhaps it would be better if you slept with Miles instead, and Bianchi could have Miles’s bed all to himself.”

The Boy Who Never Grew Old

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I think I may have fallen in love with someone.

A twenty-something with soft, youthful features and a quiet demeanour. He is highly desirable; his image has become an indelible symbol of Californian beauty and desire.

There is a problem.

A Bigger Splash, directed by Jack Hazan, was a groundbreaking film that merged documentary with scripted drama to explore a poignant period in David Hockney’s life between 1971 and 1973.

Released in 1974, A Bigger Splash chronicles the emotional fallout and creative struggle that followed Hockney’s devastating break-up with his young partner and muse, Peter Schlesinger. It received mixed reviews, with Private Eye dismissively referring to it as A Bugger’s Pash.

And yes, I have fallen in love with Schlesinger as he was more than fifty years ago.

In the film we see Schlesinger, clad only in white briefs, dancing with himself before an easel. He gets it on with a friend, the actor Eddie Kalinsky, skinny-dips with a pool full of twinks, and later swims alone, completely naked, before climbing out and revealing everything we wanted to know.

He was a handsome fellow with long, floppy hair, and Hockney was understandably devastated to lose him. In retrospect, A Bigger Splash is a remarkable piece of filmmaking, freezing Schlesinger in time.

He was in his mid-twenties and was rumoured to have agreed to appear only during the final months of production, and only if he was paid.

Hockney was said to have been “utterly shattered” by A Bigger Splash and allegedly offered Hazan $20,000 to destroy it.

These old films play tricks on us. They invite us into an imagined one-to-one connection, creating the illusion that we know the subject’s true personality. We fill the historical gaps with our own desires, values and fantasies. In effect, we create the perfect partner.

But it is a one-sided, unreciprocated affair. It gives us the experience of romantic love and emotional attachment without the risk of rejection or conflict. He can never disappoint me, change his mind, or break the spell of his visual perfection.

Schlesinger became the myth of the eternal muse.

There is another problem.

Our minds struggle to comprehend the ageing process, and the fact that Schlesinger is alive and well, now approaching eighty, threatens to shatter that myth.

Schlesinger was born in 1948 in Encino, in California’s sun-drenched San Fernando Valley, the son of an insurance agent and a social worker. He studied drawing at UCLA and, in 1966, aged eighteen, met Hockney, who was teaching a summer class. He soon became the subject of one of Hockney’s best-known paintings, Peter Getting Out of Nick’s Pool.

He had stepped into an unfamiliar world, and who could have blamed him? Suddenly he was socialising with museum curator Henry Geldzahler and art dealers Nicholas Wilder and John Kasmin, while also befriending novelist Christopher Isherwood and artist Don Bachardy.

After graduating, Schlesinger moved to London with Hockney and enrolled at the Slade School of Fine Art. There he was introduced to Hockney’s bohemian circle, including the designer duo Ossie Clark and Celia Birtwell.

Hockney and Schlesinger were together for three years, and it was fortunate that Hazan chose the period of their separation as the backdrop for his documentary.

The question I kept asking myself was simple: why did the relationship end?

By then Hockney was in his thirties, and the imbalance in both age and influence inevitably played its part. Schlesinger struggled to establish an identity of his own while living within Hockney’s enormous social and professional orbit.

There was also the suggestion that Hockney became consumed by his work, leaving Schlesinger isolated, waiting for an artist who often seemed to prioritise the canvas over the relationship.

The cracks had already appeared.

The most convincing explanation, however, is that Schlesinger had fallen in love with someone closer to his own age—someone equally beautiful.

Schlesinger met the Swedish-born design student Eric Boman in March 1971 at Mr Chow’s restaurant in Knightsbridge. Following the London premiere of Visconti’s Death in Venice, Paloma Picasso invited Boman, Manolo Blahnik and Andy Warhol’s business partner Fred Hughes to dinner with Hockney and Schlesinger.

Hockney later regretted deciding not to attend.

“David was not interested,” recalled Boman, “so this adorable boy turned up at our table in a camel hair Ossie Clark coat.”

Schlesinger said it was love at first sight.

The final straw came a few months later during a group holiday in Cadaqués, Spain, where Schlesinger and Boman met again. Fatigued by constant drama, emotional claustrophobia and the pressure of being Hockney’s primary visual obsession, Schlesinger found himself drawn ever closer to Boman.

“Peter came with David Hockney and notoriously stayed on, causing their real dramatic and public break up. It was considered best that Peter and I go home, and we left at the crack of dawn in Ossie Clark’s Bentley, hoping to spend a night at Tony Richardson’s on the way, but he’d have none of it out of solidarity to DH. So we ended up at Mick and Bianca’s (Jagger). The next morning, Ossie put us on a train at Sainte-Anne, and since we had no reservations, the conductor let us stand in the corridor all the way to Paris in our swimsuits – the beginning of our new life.”

Hockney sank into depression and responded with bitterness and jealousy. In A Bigger Splash, he remarked that he might consider destroying the ‘Peter’ works. But, in fairness to Hockney, and all others who had lost their first love, who could have blamed him.

It took Schlesinger a long time to escape Hockney’s emotional pull. Jack Hazan later recalled in a Vice interview that Hockney would entice Schlesinger back under the pretence of painting him, simply so he could be near him. Schlesinger reportedly found this both “petulant” and “suffocating”, and longed to escape Hockney’s web.

One of the most important paintings from this period—and one that features in A Bigger Splash—is Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures). In 2018 it sold at auction for a record-breaking $90 million.

“I don’t even think it’s a portrait of me, really,” Schlesinger said. “The figure standing beside the pool was a solution to a ‘conceptual’ problem, regarding composition and light, rather than an outpouring of romantic longing.”

After the break-up, Schlesinger moved into his own studio around the corner from Hockney. His relationship with Boman involved a lengthy commute between Notting Hill and Battersea by bus and bicycle.

Alongside painting, Schlesinger had always been interested in photography, but it was Boman who made a career from it. After borrowing Schlesinger’s Pentax camera, he became highly sought after for his art, fashion and society photography.

“Eric is very methodical and likes setups. I just snap pictures and he doesn’t understand that,” Schlesinger once said.

Eric Boman

During the 1980s Schlesinger also became disenchanted with painting and turned instead to ceramics, an art form he continues to pursue.

The couple moved to New York in 1978 and, a year later, settled in a tenth-floor loft where the Flatiron District meets Chelsea, in a building that had once housed a girdle factory. Four years later they bought a mid-nineteenth-century Greek Revival house near Bellport on Long Island, where they spent their summers.

Schlesinger and Boman remained together for fifty-one years, with Hockney once referring to them as a “couple of old maids.”

Eric Boman died of pancreatic cancer in 2022.

In recent years Schlesinger said he had no contact with Hockney and, referring to A Bigger Splash, reflected: “It’s not about me. It’s so long ago, it’s like a different person.”

But Schlesinger is like a painting in a museum.

Perhaps the only way to live forever is inside a work of art, and Schlesinger’s life remains preserved in Hockney’s paintings and, to some extent, in A Bigger Splash.

It is vintage media: a pre-digital art world, a lost world of effortless style, leisure and raw creativity.

And I am still in love with the young Peter Schlesinger.

Peter Getting Out of Nick’s Pool. David Hockney (1966)
The Room, Tarzana. David Hockney (1967)
The last word. Peter Schlesinger’s Instagram post after Hockney’s death.

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.

Shadows of Verona – You Are Here

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“C’è un ragazzo che viene a trovarti ogni giorno e ti chiede quando torni.” There is a boy who comes to visit you every day and asks when you are coming back.

Bianchi had been turning up at Signora Bruschi’s doorstep daily.

“Credo di essere nei guai. Sono nei guai grossi.” I think I am in trouble. I am in serious trouble.

Bianchi messaged me too, sometimes several times a day, and each time I replied with words designed to prolong the chase.

“Torna presto, per favore. Ho bisogno di parlarti.”

“I will come over soon,” I promised.

But that was last year, and I never did.

Bianchi was now seventeen, and on his birthday I sent the same number of red roses. His sister, Cinzia, provided me with updates. In her eyes, I had crossed a line. The time had come to make a commitment.

Cola, meanwhile, painted another picture.

“There is only one way to end his heartache,” he wrote. “There is only one way to calm a stormy sea.”

I was never entirely certain what he meant.

I had missed Cola.

He was now nineteen and no longer the skinny boy I remembered. I suspected that he had been spending time in the gym. His body had broadened, his shoulders were stronger, and he seemed taller than ever. With temperatures stuck in the mid-thirties, he wore sunglasses, a baggy white T-shirt and black shorts that showed off his long, sun-darkened legs.

But some things had not changed.

He still drove too fast, as if the possibility of death around the next bend had never occurred to him. He pushed the bright yellow Abarth 500 along the E70 before leaving the main road and cutting through the countryside towards San Giorgio in Salici.

Before I had arrived, Cola had sent me one of his strange messages:

In love, conversation is direct but risks becoming too harsh; measure your tone. In love, you desire stability, but someone is testing you.

I wondered whether it was a warning.

San Giorgio is a highly venerated figure in Italian Catholicism. He is also St George, the patron saint of England.

“Maybe it is a sign,” Cola said, his arms stretched along the steering wheel as he reclined in his seat.

I had arrived in Verona the previous night. Cola had collected me from Villafranca Airport and wasted no time suggesting that we visit his girlfriend, Cinzia, and her brother, Bianchi.

His mother, Signora Bruschi, had been less enthusiastic.

“The boy is too young,” she warned. “He is not old enough to know what he wants. Are you not happy with your boyfriend?”

I did not have the energy to explain about Charlie. I had neither seen nor heard from him since our falling-out in Paris, and the likelihood was that I never would again. My future suddenly seemed to contain too many possible paths.

Cola had not told Cinzia that we were coming.

“She is working this morning, but it is a half-day and she will be home around lunchtime. There is always somebody at home.”

I had my reservations.

My appearance in San Giorgio in Salici might reopen wounds that had only partially healed. Bianchi still messaged me, though now perhaps only once a week. It felt as if he was slowly moving on, while leaving a door open in case I chose to meet him halfway.

Cinzia was different. She had hoped that I would satisfy her younger brother’s desires and now believed that I had treated him badly.

Would I still be welcomed in the same way as the year before?

“I must tell you that Lorenzo will be there,” Cola warned.

“Who is Lorenzo?”

“Cinzia and Bianchi’s older brother. I suggest that you ignore whatever he says.”

“What do you mean?”

“Lorenzo is trouble — for his family and for himself. He makes life difficult for Bianchi because he is gay.”

Cola ran his hand through his short hair, leaving only one hand on the steering wheel, which did little to calm my nerves.

San Giorgio in Salici emerged from the Veronese countryside, surrounded by flourishing vineyards, a village that seemed little more than a collection of houses stretching along its roads. Cola screeched to a halt on Via Celà and announced that we had arrived.

The building where Cinzia and Bianchi lived looked tired. Four storeys high, its crumbling exterior had been patched with uneven concrete repairs. The ground floor contained a garage and storage rooms; the floors above were residential.

“They live at the top,” Cola said, pointing towards a balcony that stretched across the façade.

I followed him up the communal stairs. There was no lift. On one of the walls somebody had sprayed a single word of graffiti.

Vaffanculo.

“Go fuck yourself,” Cola translated.

I had long realised that Italians rarely knocked on doors or rang bells when they were not strangers. Once Cola had made sure I was behind him, he walked straight into the apartment and moved down a long corridor lined with family photographs.

The living room was filled with more memories — framed pictures, hand-painted ceramics and Catholic iconography: crucifixes, rosaries and a statue of Padre Pio. A large dining table stood by the window, covered with fine linen and carefully arranged dinnerware.

A young man — presumably Lorenzo — was stretched across a sofa watching a game show. He looked at us but did not move. Cola greeted him with a high-five and exchanged a few words in Italian.

Lorenzo turned his eyes towards me.

There was suspicion there.

He spoke quietly to Cola, but his expression suggested that he had already decided he did not like me.

“Cinzia is not home yet,” Cola explained. “Bianchi has gone to the grocery store with his mother and will be back soon. Sit down.”

There was an obvious resemblance between Lorenzo and Bianchi, although the older brother was taller, with shorter hair and the kind of beauty that seemed almost commonplace among young Italian men.

I remembered something David Hockney once said: if handsome New York boys ranked at one hundred, handsome Italian boys were almost certainly at one thousand.

But Lorenzo lacked Bianchi’s warmth.

“He does not speak English,” Cola said. “But Bianchi has been learning at the liceo.”

I remembered the days when our conversations had relied on Cinzia’s excellent English and her willingness to translate.

“Be careful of Lorenzo,” Cola continued in a lowered voice, although Lorenzo undoubtedly knew we were discussing him. “He hates that Bianchi is gay and will not like the idea of you being here, especially if he thinks you have come to take his brother away.”

“Then why did you insist that I come, Cola?” I asked.

“They are family to me,” he replied. “Just as you are like a big brother to me, Miles. But Lorenzo spends time with bad people — criminals who go into Verona to steal from shops and tourists. I do not like it, but he is Cinzia’s brother, and I must respect him.”

Suddenly, the apartment door slammed.

“Bianchi. Vieni qui. C’è qualcuno che ti aspetta.”

“Aspettare?” he replied.

There was a muffled exchange in the kitchen, followed by the sounds of cupboards opening and closing. Then their mother laughed — a sharp, joyful shriek, as though Bianchi had said something unexpected.

“Bianchi!” Lorenzo shouted impatiently.

It is difficult to describe the expression on his face when he appeared.

He stood in the doorway.

His eyes widened. His eyebrows lifted. His mouth fell slightly open as he struggled to draw breath.

His gaze fixed on me.

“Miles,” he whispered.

“You are here.”