Out on the Street Pt. 03

Angelo. Angelo. Here. Right here. I know it's him, and I can tell from his face that the recognition runs both ways.

His friends make to leave, and he shakes his head, motioning with his hand for them to go on. When they've rounded the corner he steps forward.

"Vitto! What are you doing here?" A pause, a searching look. "What...are you doing?"

I shake my head. "Not - not that. Truly. I'm not waiting for anybody...for anything. Just...watching people go by."

He nods in that slow way of his, still so familiar, and...maybe it's the angle of the afternoon's light that's making his eyes water like that, or maybe...

"I thought I'd never see you again," he whispers.

Nor me, Angelo. Nor me...

We walk. After a time, we're on my regular beat, alongside the river, but I don't feel it tugging at me the way I usually would. So many things I feel today, and all of them emanating from a closer source, striding silently beside...

But what to say, what to say?

"I don't think much of your friends," I tell him.

He snorts. "Mm. They do like to have a bit of a fight when they're on the way to getting liquored up, but on the whole...they're okay."

"Okay? They ought to pick on people their own size!"

Another snort. "You punch above your weight, if I remember right."

He elbows me, and the constraint disappears like a bubble bursting. I huff on my knuckles, dust them against my shirt, and square up to him, dancing on my toes, making little jabs in his direction.

"Uh-huh? Uh-huh? You wanna find out if you do remember right?"

Angelo laughs. "Who's got time for that? I need myself some dinner first!" Then he sobers. "Vitto. I'm sorry I went away...like...like I did. It...I was all about in my head, and...but I know it must've made a lot of trouble for you, after."

I shrug. "I think I made plenty of trouble for you over the years."

He brings his cigarette up to his mouth, looking away over the water. "There was more good than bad," he says eventually.

I nod, not that he sees. There surely was.

As he turns back toward me I catch the slim shining of a chain at the side of his neck. "You still have it," I say.

He touches two fingers to his chest, feeling through his shirt for the medal hidden underneath. It's a familiar gesture. I do it myself when I'm...thinking about the past.

"Yes," he says. "It's...not that I wanted to remember Frank, as such. But..." he walks on without finishing.

We make for a place Angelo says is famous for its hash. I wouldn't know - I don't spend a deal of time down this end of town. I only come by here to see the river...and the men. But from the crush inside, he's likely right. Every chair occupied and a herd of bodies encamped around the bar, some with drinks in hand, some waiting for a turn, some no doubt for a table...

"Have to eat standing up," Angelo grunts. "No use waiting. I'll get it. You keep that spot," indicating a clear space against the wall not too far from the door.

It should've been the other way around, I think to myself, watching him shove his way through the mass of men - the one of us who actually takes up some space should be the one keeping the space...but nobody bothers me.

"What have you been doing meantime?" I ask once we're done eating, tipping my head to look at him as he's leaning back beside me. "Are you married now, or anything like that?"

"I was," he replies, pursing his lips, staring down at the cigarette nestled between his fingers. "I got married as quick as ever I could to the first decent girl I met when I got up to Boston. I lodged with a family there. They were good to me, and Edie was their daughter, so...and I...I wanted some family again, I wanted-" he breaks off, coughs, clears his throat, and the thought remains incomplete.

I say nothing, watching his cigarette, shifting slightly now as his thumb plays over it. He stays silent, too.

"What happened?" I venture.

He clears his throat again. "She died," he says. "It was...I guess about three months after we were married, that she got to be...you know, expecting a baby, but...it didn't go so well. Edie, she was sick the whole time, and then..."

He takes a huge drag on his cigarette and exhales, carefully, slowly, before continuing, "then, there were still a few months to go, but...something happened."

He turns to face me fully for an instant, but his eyes are unfocused, elsewhere. "She started bleeding and...it just didn't stop. I wasn't there. I came back from work and...her mother and sister, they'd laid her out already. They told me...they said it just happens sometimes, and you can't tell why."

"I'm so sorry," I whisper, my throat constricting, though it's his pain I'm sorry for, more than the fate of some faceless Bostonian girl named Edie.

"It's alright," he says. "It's going on for two years now. I don't dwell on it so much as I did, these days."

"And you come down here after?" I ask.

"That's right," he replies. "I couldn't hardly stay where I was, could I? I'd killed their daughter, and all because I couldn't bring myself to - and they weren't even angry about it, but...anyhow, I've been at the shipyard a year and a half, little more. Hauling, mostly. How about you?"

"Um...I came down almost two years ago," I say, counting it up in my head.

"Strange it took this long for us to run into one another," Angelo puzzles, pushing off the wall, making for the exit. "Where are you working?"

"For the Evening Journal," I say, as we pass out into the early evening air. "Only donkey work. Folding, bundling and tying, stacking, sweeping up the floors - you know the drill."

"Ah" he murmurs, as though he has the answer to a mystery. "That's ink on your fingers, then?"

...and on my wrists and my cuffs, and anyplace else the aprons don't cover...

"That's right," I say. "It sinks into your skin after a while and you can't wash it off nohow. I don't mind. I like the smell of it."

Angelo gives me a sidelong look at that, shaking his head, laughing a little. "You always were a strange one, Vitto..."

Perhaps. Perhaps I always was. But it was you who made me certain of it. You.

I've been watching him all this time, in little snatches when I can, holding him up to the memory-mirror in my head. His eyes are grey rather than blue. Did they fade? Did I remember wrong? His hair's not golden any longer. More a pale dun brown, cut shorter than before and unevenly, hacked about all heedless.

His shoulders have broadened with the heavy work outdoors and the skin of his face is weathering. His neck's got thicker, his forearms, I'm sure, more coated with those curly hairs. There's a gap in his upper jaw where a tooth's been knocked out, and the one sat next to it is chipped, a small fibrous white scar on his lip likely a souvenir of the same fight. Or accident.

All these differences, and yet he's the same...the same, and the blood so thick in my body already from nothing but darting glimpses...it was never that I loved him because he was beautiful. I thought him beautiful because I loved him...

He pulls me back to the present, exclaiming;

"Ah, Vitto! I didn't ask whether you wanted to stop for a drink back there. Sorry about that. Soon as I had the edge off my hunger it was doing me to pieces how I couldn't move my elbows for all those bodies and all I could think of was to get out. D'you want to go someplace else? Or we could get a bottle of something and make an evening of it, between us? Could take it to my room - likely Fergus won't be back for hours."

I'd been going to agree, until he mentioned that name. "No," I say. "You room with those fellows? I don't want to meet any of them again."

Angelo shrugs. "I only room with Fergus. The other two are married. And, eh, he's everybody's friend once he's drunk enough. One of those, y'know..."

Oh, I know alright...everybody's friend, right up to the moment that he's not...

"We could bring a bottle to my room," I say. "I don't...share with anybody."

I see Angelo's brow's rise. "You must get paid a bit more than I do, then."

"No. It's cheap because it's not a real room - it's a storeroom. No window, no fireplace, but...it does."

This one's tacked on to the back of a haberdashers and the smell of mothballs still hits you as you open the door, even after nearly two years. No window, no fireplace, but also no moths, no neighbors, and no favors for anybody, not ever again...

-----

"I only have one cup," I say, gesturing toward the shelves at the back where my few possessions are arrayed.

"Who needs a cup?" Angelo shrugs, breaking the bottle's seal. He wrenches the cork out with his teeth before taking a swig and handing it off to me.

We sit side-by-side at the edge of my bed, taking turns at the fiery liquid for a few minutes, not saying much, waiting for the effects to take hold. I know I have to be careful. Being smaller, I need to take smaller sips and probably fewer as well, or I'll be drunk a lot sooner than he is.

Regretfully, I put the bottle down on the floor beside me when Angelo passes it over for perhaps the tenth time. I'd so like to seal my lips around that neck where his have been just one more time, but...when it comes to him, I'll always want just one more time, no matter how many there've been...

We talk about his work and mine, similarities and differences, good days and bad. Unsympathetic foremen, the floods in the spring, when the weather might finally break and give us a rest from this heat. Safe in the present, the here and now...

Over the course of maybe an hour, Angelo grows steadily more introspective, sinking into nods and grunts in response to my observations. It doesn't bother me. He's done plenty of talking this evening - for him. It's only in thinking this thought that I realize he likely hasn't - for him - done plenty of drinking, that I should've handed the bottle back, rather than keeping it by me.

I reach down for it. "You want some more of this?"

"No," he tells me, and it comes out sharp, abrupt. He's angled away from me, and I don't...

"What?" I say, confused.

"No," he repeats, more forcefully, getting to his feet, striding for the door. "I don't want any more drink. I don't want-"

He stops, turns. His body's facing me now, but his head...he's staring to the left, past his shoulder, down at the floor...my eyes track the spot. There's nothing there. Nothing at all.

Seconds pass.

"Vitto?" he says, and even in profile it looks like he's in pain. "If...I asked...to touch you again...would you let me?"

Still that head of his, averted. I don't truly know what he's looking for...or what it will mean. But I know the answer's yes.

I go to him, and when we're toe to toe, I let my head droop forward, my forehead coming to rest on his right shoulder, hands at my sides. Yes. I would let you.

I feel muscles shift and slacken as he turns my way. One arm across my back. A fistful of shirt and a fistful of hair, and he breathes, slow and deep, chest rising and falling against my own. One, two, three...then those hands are scrabbling at my waist, tugging my shirt and undershirt free - Angelo unbuttons from the bottom and I from the top and he drags it free...

His eyes meet mine. They flick down to my undershirt, back to my face. "Take it off," he hisses, and I pull it over my head, cast it aside.

Then my hair's caught up again, tilting my head to the side, his other hand holding my shoulder open, keeping me extended in a long sweep for him as he licks, upward to my ear, and then he...oh, dio...sometimes Frank would have him worry my ears, and always it would send me spinning, loosen my knees. The hot breath, the strange silky wetness, propelling waves of delicious chills through my body, one after another...

It's too late already to hold myself down, far too late, but...I reach between us to unbuckle my belt and thrust a trembling hand down inside my drawers so that I can appear to be stroking myself, so that I can seem to be the author of this thing which arose entirely of its own accord...

My other hand's at Angelo's hip, gripping hard, using the steady bulk of him for a buttress against my swaying. I was already tipsy from the whisky, and now I'm thoroughly drunk, mostly on him, and with my head at this angle I can barely...

I'm glad of both my handhold and his grasp on me when he brings his teeth together, nipping my lobe before drawing away. The sudden shock of it makes me start violently, and if I hadn't been held I might've stumbled, gone over backward.

His lips find my own, and oh they're soft and wet now from his suckling, but he's leaning into me hard, using his extra height and weight to drive my head back even as he's cradling it with that hand still threaded in my hair...I let myself rest in his grasp, relax my jaw, and Angelo eases up a little, exploring now rather than demanding, delving deep with his tongue...and the taste of him, the taste of him, even masked by the whisky...I recognise, I know, still, after all this time.

He pulls back so it's only my lower lip he's got caught up and it feels so good, delicately caressed and rolled around by his tongue - and then another bite, before he trails down my neck, down...he's moving outward along my collarbone, sucking then biting, sucking then biting, most gentle, some...not.

Why is he doing that? Why is he biting me like this? He never did it before. The answer, when it comes, spreads heat through my flesh like fire in the grass. He never did it before because Frank never told him to. This isn't Frank's idea. This is Angelo's idea. This is what he likes.

Suddenly I like it too...my arms, both of them, come up to cradle his head and urge him in, spur him on...and if he's gone again tomorrow at least I'll be able to see where he was for a few days yet. I'll be able to touch it. Feel it. Live it over.

He dips his head and draws my nipple into his mouth, and ohhh...oh. Oh. Those waves of chills again, the same yet...different. These don't ripple gently outward from the source, they surge, each faster than the last, catching and magnifying as they go, downward to my groin, wonderful and terrible, swamping my mind with sensation, and it's only because I've forgotten all else in the sheer delight of this that I'm unprepared...

Again, before drawing away he bites me, and this time I yelp - the sound of it echoes back in the narrow space. Strangely though, the pain doesn't cancel anything that came before. It rushes down those same channels, sending the same message...

Angelo steps back a pace and centres his palm on my chest, flat and spread. He shoves. Two tottering steps later my calves run into the bed's edge, and over I go. He follows me down and we're lying side-by-side, my hands finding his head again as he envelops the other nipple...at least this time I know what I'm in for...

Only I don't. This time, those teeth clamp down as his opening move, just hard enough to burn...and there they stay, anchoring the little bud while the very tip of his tongue plays across it, over and over and over...my whole body's flailing like a fish, stilled only at this pinpoint tiny centre, this hook from which everything hangs, and the noises I'm making, it sounds a little like I'm protesting, but I don't think I am. I don't truly know...what I'm doing. Dissolving, maybe?

One of his hands begins to creep slowly down my side, down...what is he going to?...I detach one arm from his head and quickly shove it back inside my drawers just in case, but he wants to go in at the rear...there isn't room, there isn't room for both of us, even with my flies all unbuttoned now there still isn't room but that's not stopping him trying...

I give way, remove my hand, let him have what he wants, and in a moment his palm's splayed broad across a cheek, near-encompassing it, determined and possessive, squeezing and releasing, lifting it away from its twin, widening that furrow...squeezing, releasing...without realizing it, I've been flexing in time with his ministrations, offering myself to him, and suddenly he's gone, standing up and away and...

No! Don't leave, don't leave me wanting like this! Come back to me. Finish the job. Please?

My ears, straining for the sound of the door latch, rejoice instead at the rustle of clothing, the thud of his belt falling to the floor. Oh, dio...come back to me...

His hands first, now guiding me over onto my front, now taking hold of my trousers and drawers, tugging them down, now urging my ankles apart, now...now the mattress shifts with the weight of him kneeling in between - coming back to me. But not quite as expected.

His lips, his tongue, in the crease at the rear of my knee, flickering and teasing, and the feeling of it - who knew? - I have ears behind my knees...and all up the inside of my thigh it's the same, so sweetly sensitive...already before he's halfway I'm silently begging, do it, Angelo...do it. Bite me.

He does, marking the path toward where both his hands are now, squeezing and releasing, all the way to the cleft where my leg meets my rear, and then his thumbs dig in, holding my cheeks spread as his tongue trails toward the center, in and then up...

I draw in a sharp breath. Cristo santo - surely he's not going to...Angelo, no! This isn't right...why would you...oh...don't debase yourself like this, Angelo...not for me...

Merda, his tongue, it's inside me now, writhing wetly, and I can't protest, I can't, because I'm afraid that if I open my mouth to tell him, 'Angelo, you shouldn't, shouldn't, shouldn't,' I might accidentally say, 'Please...even though you shouldn't. Please? Do it more...'

More...more...

He draws away, rears back. I hear him working up fresh spit, and the gentle squelch of it as he's slicking up his cock, and I'm almost in goosebumps, tingling all over, waiting, waiting...these last few precious, agonizing moments...

Yes, the sharp pinch as he enters, yes, the spreading ache when he bears down...all my self and all my soul, singing, sobbing...yes, yes. Every kind of yes.

He works gently inward, flexing his hips, seeking, finding more ground until he's buried in the very quick of me, then he lays down all along my length, entirely aligned, his flesh flush with mine inside and out, the warm welcome weight of him covering me like a shroud, and links his fingers between my own.

"This was how you liked it best, wasn't it?" he whispers.

My heart skips a beat - two - three. How...? He knew. He knew.

"You knew?" I hear myself breathe.

His lips at the base of my neck, tickling as he speaks into my skin. "Of course I knew, Vitto. I knew you so well..." There's a catch in his voice as he says, "Maybe better...than I knew myself."

Now I'm shedding true tears, not trying to hide. Crying for the waste, the waste of it, the loss of even one day when it might've been like this, never mind a thousand, and it seems like he knows, he knows this thing as well...

"Ah, tesuro," he murmurs, laying his cheek on mine for a moment, "I won't run away again. I promise I won't. I won't ever run away again."

He lifts up a little and digs in with his toes for purchase, straining to embed himself further, and coming down he cranes his neck to kiss my temple...and as his lips meet my skin, the medal on that chain of his slithers down and comes to rest with a tiny clink atop my own...