I am standing in the middle of the road, wondering if a car would run me over, it would be so easy because I’m right on the curve out of the tunnel. He says there are barely any cars in the whole town but it’s a nice feeling to know that I could die just like this and regret nothing.
I’m collaborating with GQ Italia, my job is to bring some talented models and photographers to the website, take interviews, select photos, I think I’m an editor but it all happened out of the blue, as usual. Me and Him spend a big chunk of our time reading the answers some people send me back, because one thing is to talk, another is to write; we laugh our asses off, some things just don’t make any sense and it’s my task to piece someone else’s concepts together... He tells me I am creating monsters, they’re going to look so much more than what they are; I say it’s my job.
I like how clever He is, the kind of guy you don’t have to explain anything, he just needs a word, a glance, and he is smiling, he knows. An easy and graceful communication! It’s a shame I am not ready for that yet. But we spend our time wisely, we fuck on the sofa in the kitchen hoping his flatmates won’t come in, we walk the streets of Milan in search of a good beer, we are both redheads so we trick people into thinking we’re brothers and then kiss in their faces; I pick him up from work at the pub, I come an hour earlier and just watch him serve people and I’m astonished by how effortless he makes it look, like pouring some beers to friends and not to some grumpy and arrogant costumers. He is slim, very underweight, he has long fingers and beautiful lips covered in freckles just as the rest of his body, I take so many photos of him because I’ve just recently brought back my dad’s Zenith from Kazakhstan, and he is perfect in every frame.
I take the camera to the lake, he wants to show me his parents’ house, and I still have photos of him playing the piano and I wish I sat there and listened instead of taking pictures. We smoke weed in his room and he turns the wifi off for the night, that is really strange but he says his parents prefer it that way. I also have a photo of him eating grated carrots, and everything in that photo is orange, the entire room, my whole universe.
I don’t remember every detail of our sex life, it was good, and sweet, and passionate but I don’t feel the memory anymore, and I don’t know who he is now so a memory is just a memory anyway. When I write, my brain makes up emotions and sensations, it’s a good drug, I literally feel the dopamine release and it’s incredible it is just my mind trying to piece something together, I need no one when I write. But I do remember his moans, partly, the way he breathes, his way of longing for more and not stopping until he’d get it, and I remember his smell so that’s a precious bit of information.
Here we are, on top of the hill, looking down at the lake, endless, endless, endless water disappearing into the fog, flowing into a dark majestic mountain, and the time stops again, and I feel like it wouldn’t matter if I died because I am the time and He is the space and we can do whatever we want and I am taking one more photo of him looking away, into our future, his past, that sense of home, the feeling of safety, the wind telling us it’s all going to be fine.
