Those Days of Summer

A voice woke me up early in the morning. The sun was just starting to break through the French shutters, and I wasn't ready to get out of the sleepy haze of dawn.

"Vic? Will you go for a jog with me?" It was Marcel, not yet fully dressed and kneeling by my bed. "I don't know the area."

Vic... He was getting used to calling me with that stupid diminutive. I closed my eyes and rolled over on the mattress. What made him think I would even consider joining him?

"Try Google Maps. I'm not going with you."

To my surprise he didn't insist. His moves were noiseless now. Soon he left quietly, giving me a chance to sleep some more. Yet the sleep wouldn't come.... An image of Marcel's face and his broad, naked shoulders was vibrating in my mind, making me restless for reasons I didn't comprehend. Anger? Maybe... What else would keep me up at such an unholy hour?

"Can I take a look?" He accosted me later that day during his break.

"You can't." I didn't even raise my eyes from over the sketchbook.

Luca, the other model, was doing fittings. Mom was bustling about pinning the clothes. Careful not to disrupt, I sat at the armchair in the distance and used the scene as a reference for my sketch.

"Why so secretive?" Marcel laughed, reaching for a slice of watermelon laying on the table between us.

I tried not to pay attention to him, focusing on Luca's proportions. My new companion's eyes were set on me the whole time I was measuring the scene with a pencil. His piercing sight felt strong, almost physical. Was he aiming to throw me a challenge? Come on, look at me. I know why you're avoiding my eyes, coward. My body stiffened for the sole thought of turning into his direction. Suddenly I felt immense fear of meeting his daring, disturbingly knowing eyes.

"Alright, alright. No need to talk with me," he sighed finally and stayed quiet for a short while, chewing the fruit. "I'm going for a swim after we're done here. Wanna join?"

I finally looked him in the eye, squeezing the pencil with anger. Why was he still trying to make contact, I wondered. I was clearly showing no interest in becoming familiar with the guy.

"Why don't you ask Dragan?" I pointed at the door to the porch, where the third model was taking a smoke. "I'm not in the mood."

He was gazing at me with a light smile, as if he was testing me, mocking me. At least that's what I was thinking about his expressions back then.

"Don't be so bitter. I just thought you may use some company."

I saw him leaving the house as soon as the work was done. His heavily patterned shirt was blowing on the wind when he was running down the stairs. I heard him humming something under his breath, playing with a ripe apricot in his hands.

There were these little things I started to involuntarily notice about him. He was always moving, inventing the rhythms. His slender fingers were constantly tapping against everyday objects. Continuously humming, jiggling, dancing around, he was like an impatient child. He couldn't care less whether or not there were other people around, shameless in his hyperactivity.

No wonder he had to move at all times, considering his love for sugar. Judging the way he was eating, I believed his blood must have turned into pure fructose. He would feel the scent of a fresh watermelon from a kilometer away. Not surprisingly, since he started to live with us, all the fruit began to magically disappear from around the house. Cherries, apricots, melons, strawberries, he wouldn't spare a bite, hungry or not. Regular meals were a nuisance to him, a mild disturbance keeping him from spending all of his free time having fun outside. But as long as there was some ripe sweetness waiting in the fridge, he was ready to eat it away.

"Where on earth did he go?" Mom was looking at the clock nervously, while we were both sitting by our sewing machines in the evening.

"Swimming, he said." I replied, pretending not to have any interest in our guest's whereabouts.

In reality I was quite curious myself. Marcel skipped dinner that day. Hours passed, the sun set, and it was already dark outside when he finally decided to show up. Mom gave him a worried look from above the fabric she was working on.

"Sorry to be this late," he said apologetically and sat on a chair beside me. "I tagged along to some folks by the lake, and it ran over."

"Did you eat something? Tomorrow we're getting to work, you'll need some energy." She continued to express her care, treating him as one of the household. The attention he was getting at every turn was making me nauseous.

"No worries, we dined at Pizzeria. Oh, Franco and Guido asked me to convey their greetings. Lovable older gents."

Franco and Guido were two aged locals known for their extensive penchant for lengthy stories and gambling. They were my late grandpa's peers, old enough to remember the settlement of Vagli Sotto.

"I didn't know they speak English," I noticed, joining the conversation.

"Abbiamo parlato in italiano," answered Marcel, visibly satisfied when my brows rose with surprise.

So they talked in italian? He knew the basics? Well well, who would have thought! It seemed that athletic body of his was equipped with brains too. An unexpected turn of events indeed...

"Ragazzo sagio, wise boy" my mom smiled at him, finishing the seam of the blouse she was working on.

"Wait, did you play cards with them?" I asked, even more shocked. "They are notorious cheats."

Those guys were practically mugging unaware tourists enchanted with the atmosphere and steamed with local rosso. Was Marcel just another out-of-town getting naively duped by our local mafia-wannabes?

"I might have lost some money," he agreed, slightly embarrassed. "But I gained new friends. Good fun and good company are priceless."

He continued to boast about the afternoon, about the people he met, about the lake and the village. It turned out it was my childhood friends he went swimming with. I felt a thug of jealousy all of a sudden, not sure whether it was him I envied, or Carmina and Paolina he started to hang out with.

I wouldn't admit it then, but my intruder turned out to be pretty interesting. His enthusiasm about the place, about the people was somehow fascinating. He was falling in love with Tuscany for the first time. I was a little envious. Those were feelings a bored local like me, used to the beauty of these surroundings, could never fully comprehend. I could sense his excitement, the pure joy of living the moment. And my attitude towards him slowly started to shift...

In spite of noticing a light in the tunnel of our relationship, I still refused to spend time with Marcel the following days. He didn't stop trying to take me out running the next morning. And after work he kept nagging to spend the afternoon by the lake with Carmina and Paolina.

"They're not my kind of people," I answered when asked about the reason.

The ascertainment wasn't far from the truth. While Carmina seemed to be a pretty decent human being, Paolina, an only child of Vagli Sopra's mayor, always occurred to me as childish and way too self-centered.

"What is "your kind" of people then?" He asked banteringly.

He was observing me closely. I kept drawing Luca, who was posing for the photographer at the square near the church, where we were shooting that day. My kind of people...

"Considerate, sensible... kind," I replied after a short while.

"Just like me?" He gave me a wide smile.

"Quite the opposite."

"Am I not kind?" He bridled jokingly. "Who else would be so nice to a forever sulking guy like you?"

"You're only kind when it's convenient to you" I smiled back at him. "And you tend to do before thinking. Way too careless for my standards."

"Carelessness is the privilege of youth, my dear." He retorted to me with a satisfied smirk. "You should try it sometime, while you still have a chance."

What was he referring to? Did he mean my reluctance towards spending time with him and his new friends? Or was there something more to his words?

The thought of the latter made me surprisingly nervous. There were questions I was too afraid to ask even inside my own head, feelings I was scared to notice, impulses I was terrified to answer to. Did he spot it? Was it exactly what he had seen in my eyes the first time he came to our house?

I was walking back and forth on the attic terrace. It was my secret hideout, a place I used to come to sit by myself whenever something irritated me. For quite some time it's been serving me as a spot to hide cigarettes and smoke from time to time.

Mom raised me in a relaxed atmosphere with almost no restrictions. I was free to make my own mistakes and learn from them. Yet cigarettes were an exception, the only thing strictly prohibited. It wasn't the nicotine itself attracting me to this drug, but the thought of doing something forbidden, something that only I knew about. Although that particular night I might have reached for the pack of Camels solely out of my nerves getting out of control.

I was restlessly checking the hour, again and again, with some itchy feeling crawling under my skin. I knew exactly what I was waiting for, and at the same time was fooling myself into forced oblivion. It was getting dark, and my intruder still hadn't returned from his afternoon out. Was he swimming? Playing cards? Drinking beer at the shore of Lago di Vagli? Was he flirting with the girls? He was a guy to kill for - handsome, bright, with an interesting job, traveling a lot. They would flirt with him for sure, if only he was interested. But was he?

Crumbled concrete of the floor was crunching with each step taken. The air was slowly cooling down, and the sky covered in deep purples, insinuating that even the longest days of the year must surrender to the night. I leaned on the railing when the roar of engines disturbed evening's silence. Cheerful laughter followed the sound of tires braking on the scoriaceous road. It was him - saying his goodbyes to Carmina, Paolina, and some guy I didn't recognize from afar. They were sitting on the scooters, chatting joyfully. I observed their farewell carefully with a cigarette in my mouth. Will he hug the girls before leaving? Yes. Will he spare the guy? Yes. Will he turn around to wave once more before going up the porch stairs? Yes... Oh sweet jealousy, deplorable goddess of bloodshed. Why is it so hard to avoid you? Why is it so hard to admit to you?

I watched the company dispersed, and the scooters disappeared behind the neighboring building. Thankfully no-one saw me, not even Marcel. What would I say if he had caught me watching? I was getting some air... I was counting stars... I couldn't stand the wait for you inside... Of course I was waiting for him. One look at my face, and he would know exactly what was going on, no matter the nonchalance I would use to serve a lie.

I waited some more, burned another cigarette and turned my steps towards our bedroom. He was sleeping already, spread on the bed in a funny position, with his arm dangling a few centimeters over the floor.

Although I shook my head in indignation, my eyes were wandering around his body, impressed. The shy moonlight falling through the French shutters was softly painting patterns on his well-defined abdomen. I stared at him stunned, observing his chest wave rhythmically, as the light kept stroking his skin. Masterpiece, I thought, he is a masterpiece.

I quietly walked up to the desk. Careful not to make a sound, I grabbed the sketchbook and a pencil, and sat at the verge of my bed. The sketch was chaotic. The moonlight was dancing beautifully on his body. All the shapes and angles were placed correctly. He looked gorgeous both in the flesh, and embodied by the lead of my pencil.

Muscles, tendons, bones, wrinkled material of his shorts, locks of his brown hair swirling around the pillow, all gathered in a perfect composition of Marcel. Marcel... Was he an intruder or a muse? Could he be both? I hated his presence, and at the same time I was craving it. His body was calling me to draw, to shade, to guide the pencil, to stroke the paper mercilessly, as if that sketch was a matter of life and death.

Suddenly, when detailing his jawline, I noticed his eyes were open. The scrubbing of my pencil must have woken him up. I froze in terror. We kept staring at each other for a while, until his lips shaped into a cheeky smile, and his eyes sparkled.

"Do you like what you see?" He asked. Why was his voice so dangerously seductive? Or was it just my imagination?

I immediately shut the sketchbook, pretending nothing had happened. Lying down, I hid the book under my pillow like a meticulously kept secret. Keeping quiet, I laid there still, facing the wall, too scared to move. He had every right to mock me further, but he stopped there. No more words were uttered, and I was grateful for this silence.

Though concededly embarrassed, I was too tired to stay awake much longer. Too exhausted to reflect upon his words, my actions, his body, my sketchbook, his skin, my pencil, my...