ITALIAN BROTHERS 3
ENRICO PICCIN
by Andrej Koymasky (C) 2005
written on February 2, 1996
translated by the author
English text kindly revised
by Dave
USUAL DISCLAIMER
"ITALIAN BROTHERS 3 - ENRICO PICCIN" is a gay story, with some parts containing graphic scenes of sex between males. So, if in your land, religion, family, opinion and so on this is not good for you, it will be better not to read this story. But if you really want, or because YOU don't care, or because you think you really want to read it, please be my welcomed guest.
CHAPTER 14 . A complete love
Raffaele family accepted Enrico, as his lover had foreseen, without any problem. The two young men received from Raffaele's father a small apartment in the same building above the pharmacy, where Enrico moved his surgery. Officially, for the others, it was only Enrico's apartment, but in reality the young man lived with his lover. On the same floor lived also the two married brothers of Raffaele with their families.
They fit well together and the more they got to know each other, the more they were sure they finally found the right person. Also the fact that Raffaele family accepted him, contributed to Enrico's serenity - nobody ever talked explicitly of their relationship, but Enrico was now a member of the family - when they all gathered for recurrences or festivities, Enrico was always with them. They didn't invite him, as they never invited the wives of the sons or the husbands of the daughters; everybody simply felt it was logical that Raffaele came with Enrico.
Enrico was exchanging letters with his cousin Samuele, so he wrote him also about this detail, as he always had written him all the facts of his life. Samuele answered that he was really glad for him and that he sent them the best wishes for happiness.
At times Enrico thought back to all the men he loved before meeting Raffaele - his tutor Augusto Sala, who had guided him not so much and not only to sexuality, but above all to love. Samuele, who in his own way had loved him, and who still had a deep affection towards him; Otello, who deeply disappointed him, but who also opened his eyes; Tonio, whose love had not been sufficient to decide to follow him; Gaetano, who gave him two splendid years, but whose love had not been sufficient for neither of them to make them decide to stay with the other; and then the sweet, shy, unvoiced love with Maurizio, who became aware too late of what he wanted and had to do.
All these loves gave him something, at time a lot, but all in some way had been incomplete, for his fault or for the fault of the other. But each of these loves helped him to mature, made him ready to love more and in a better way, prepared him to meet Raffaele.
Was Raffaele the "terminal"? At times he asked this question to himself and hoped it was. But, honestly, he knew that with each one of his previous lovers he had thought, hoped, desired that it was the terminal, therefore, how could he be certain, this time?
He talked about that with Raffaele, who smiled and said, "No, we never can be sure, my sweet Enrico. But it depends entirely on us, on both of us. We can do our best to learn to really love each other."
"To learn? But we already love each other."
"To learn, yes, because love has to be renewed each day. You see, to love each other is alike to that vase of roses we have on the balcony - it has to be regularly watered, sheltered from the wind, protected from the insects, or else the plant withers, dies, and dries up."
"But the roses have also their thorns..."
"Also love has its thorns. We will have our moments of pain, a pain we will cause to each other, or by ourselves, who knows?"
"I don't want to hurt you!"
"Neither want do I, but it will happen. It will be enough, even if the rose will prick us that we are able to continue to take care of her like before. Anyway, we will be careful not to be pricked, of course..." Raffaele said him with tenderness.
And they met the thorns - at times Raffaele closed in sudden taciturnity shutting up like a clam, he became surly, and Enrico needed all his patience and love to overcome those moments and to help him to come out of them. At times Enrico didn't understand how much, something that seemed absolutely unimportant to him, was on the contrary important to Raffaele, so he explained to Enrico, with great tact, his point of view and helped him not to undervalue what was important to him.
Their strength resided right on the fact that they always told everything to each other, all they felt, thought, hoped, and feared. They were, for each other, a more and more open book.
When at times one of them assumed a somewhat selfish attitude, the other at the right moment made him notice it. They both were extremely honest in recognizing that if the other had a complaint, there had to be a part of the reason, and so they searched together for the solution.
Yes, there were thorns, but they were few and little, and they were learning to blunt them out. So the rose was growing, and flowering and spreading its sweet-smell and both became happily inebriated with it.
They were together for two years and it was Easter day. All the family, as every year, after preparing the lunch-baskets for the meal on the lawn, went with their gigs up to the Vesuve. When they found a lawn overlooking the gulf, the men spread under the trees the blankets and the women brought from the gigs the baskets with the food and the drinks, while the children were shouting and playing all around.
They were a beautiful party - seven men, six women and fourteen children all between twelve years and a few months of life. Dado, one of the children, fell and started crying. Enrico, who was nearby, lifted him off the ground and started to cuddle him, drying his tears and telling him funny things until the little boy again smiled.
Some of his cousins approached them and the elder, Nicola, said to the small boy, "Dado, came to play with us, now."
"No, I stay with Uncle Enrico." the little one answered curling up on the lap of the young man.
It was the first time that one of the children called Enrico uncle, and the young man asked himself if this was a good or a bad thing - how would the others of the family take it, mainly the adults?
Then Nicola said, "But uncle cannot stay all the day long with you in his arms, can he? Come to play with us, Dado, come on!"
The six years old Lucia ran to her mother and asked, aloud, "Mum, why they call him uncle?"
Enrico stood up, somewhat tense, and ready to excuse himself, to say that it was not him who asked the children to call him uncle, but Raffaele mother told her grand daughter, "Because he too is an uncle. Aren't you happy to have one more uncle, Lucia, someone so handsome and good hearted like uncle Enrico?"
"Oh, yes, sure!" the little girl said while Enrico was relaxing and saw a smile sprouting on Raffaele's beautiful face.
So, from that day on, he was called uncle by all the children. He had been officially adopted.
Later, when he was with Raffaele, his parents, brothers and in-laws, Raffaele's mother said him, "I hope it doesn't annoy you, Enrico, if I said to the children that you too are an uncle..."
"On the contrary, I feel really grateful. It has been an agreeable surprise."
"A surprise?" the father asked him looking at him with a questioning look.
"It is something like... being officially admitted into your family..." Enrico said hesitantly.
"But you are part of the family," the man said with a natural expression, "for two years now."
"Thank you..." Enrico said.
Raffaele was evidently happy, but objected, "But the others, hearing the children call him uncle..."
"Well, it means that we all have to start to call him cousin." replied one of Raffaele sisters with a sweet smile.
"Very right!" sentenced the mother offering to everybody the roasted meat, almost to sanction, with that gesture, the decision.
At evening, when they were alone, Enrico said to Raffaele, "Your family is exceptional... They accepted me so, with such naturalness..."
"Yes, but I will never call you cousin!"
"No? And how, then will you call me?"
"In front of the others, I will call you Enrico. When alone, my love, as my sisters and brothers do with their husbands and wives."
"And what would I be, your wife or your husband," Enrico asked with a cunning smile.
"My husband, my husband, of course, as I too am your husband, am I not?"
"But a husband implies a wife..."
"So! Then you are my spouse. Is this better?"
"It doesn't matter, in reality. Spouse, consort, better half, companion, lover, friend, husband... the important thing is that we love each other, isn't it? Simply, our civilization didn't coin a word for us, because not only didn't it acknowledge the legitimacy but nor either the reality of our relationship."
"Do we need to legitimatize it?" Raffaele asked.
"No. But it would be right. If a person has a relationship out or before the marriage, her man or his woman has anyway a term to identify his or her - lover."
"A beautiful word, meaning him or her which is loved, therefore suitable also for us."
"But a lover is always some kind of... an outlaw."
"And so we are." Raffaele smiled.
"But this in not right," Enrico objected.
"When man will be able to eliminate any injustice, we will be in the garden of Eden."
"Yes, and it is up to us to build it, to try to reach it. We cannot resign ourselves. Life is an endless change, a continuous improvement, even if tiring, painful. We have to believe in what is right and to fight for it."
"Like building a unified Italy?"
"That's so, right! When we started we were just one thousand men, and we conquered half of Italy." Enrico said, assuredly.
"The times were ripe - various forces were pushing, for different reasons, in the same direction. Otherwise it would have been impossible for you to achieve it, don't you think so?"
"All the changes are born from the ideal of a single person, and then it was spread and became popular and won!"
"At the costly price of suffering, tears and blood."
"But they won!"
"My Garibaldian, my idealistic man!"
"Are you sorry I am this way?"
"On the contrary, Enrico, I love your enthusiasm. I like you. Perhaps we Neapolitans are a little too much fatalistic..."
"But not Masaniello, for instance!"
"No, surely not all of us and not always, but will come the day when two men can love each other with the approval of society?"
"It will come, if we do something in order to make it come. It will come the day when your brothers and sisters can call me brother in law, instead of cousin."
"Anyway for the children you will be their uncle."
"Yes, but because I am your man... don't you see it is different? I deeply appreciate that your family accepted me, but you see they still feel the need of a mask. I'm not laying the blame on them, what they did is perhaps a first step. But how many steps remain to be done?"
"How long will it take?"
"Two, or three generations, possibly - a hundred years, if we will be able to do something at all."
"We will be here no more."
"Who cares? Even many of those who dreamed of a United Italy did pass away, and yet their dream is becoming real. And I contributed to make it real."
"Are you proud?"
"I am proud, but still Lazio with Rome and part of the north is missing."
"Leave something for the others... will you?" Raffaele said caressing him tenderly.
One day Enrico received a letter, a message he hoped to receive for a long time from General Garibaldi he was calling for them to free Lazio and Rome! Enrico at once felt inflamed. The hour had come! Then he thought of Raffaele - he didn't want to lose him, he could not lose him. He had always thought that Raffaele came before himself - now he had to prove it. "First Raffaele, then I, then all the others..." he always said to himself. Therefore he could not go against the will of his man he had to be ready to renounce, if he would ask him to do so.
When, closed the pharmacy, Raffaele went back home, Enrico simply handed him the letter, "Read this. I received it in the afternoon."
Raffaele took and read it. Then, raising his eyes and meeting the gaze of Enrico, said in a low voice, "Well. When have we to go?"
Enrico looked at him in amazement, "Have we to go? But you... You never had... I mean... this ideal..."
"It is your ideal therefore I want to share it. I cannot ask you to renounce to what you believe, but I don't want either be separated from you. Therefore I'm coming with you, there is no other possibility."
"There is another possibility, Raffaele. I cannot ask you to risk your life for an ideal you don't share, but I too don't absolutely want to be separated from you. Therefore I can stay here with you."
"And will you renounce your ideal?"
"You come before all and everything, Raffaele, also before my life, before my ideals."
"But the same is true for me therefore I will come with you."
"Why it has to be you to adapt to me?"
"Because for you not going would mean to renounce something very important; for me, coming doesn't mean to renounce anything. Therefore it is up to me to come, it is evident."
"And if one of us died?"
"I think he will be happy to have the other nearby, right at that moment, wouldn't he? Even though for the survivor it will be hard, heavy. Let's hope to survive both of us... or to die together, anyway."
"Are you determined, Raffaele?"
"Very determined."
"And your family?"
"They will respect my choices, as they always did."
Thus, Enrico and Raffaele said good bye to everybody and left Naples to answer Giuseppe Garibaldi's call. When they met the other volunteers, the atmosphere remembered to Enrico their first meeting at Quarto, to go to free Sicily. There were several new faces but also several old comrades. They also met Pier Maria and Angelo who, with a pretext, had obtained a temporary leave from the Italian army and could thus participate, in secret to exploit. Angelo, in the Italian army, was a sergeant and Pier Maria a captain and they were still happily together.
The two couples resumed their old friendship, were always together, shared everything, and were inseparable. They rapidly penetrated in Lazio - they didn't have the population support, but not either an opposition from the pope army.
They were within sight of Rome when they were faced by the pope's soldiers - in reality the troops of the Austrian and French armies, sent to support the Pope. The Garibaldians barricaded themselves inside a villa to resist the attack of the enemy. Rome didn't revolt, the troops besieging them were overpowering and the battle raged without hope. Only the strength of despair and the blind faith on their ideals supported the group of Garibaldians.
Many died, many were wounded. At the end the survivors were ordered by their chiefs to surrender. They discussed for the surrender and meanwhile Enrico, miraculously unscathed, treated as he could the wounded. Raffaele helped him, in spite of being wounded himself too, but not severely, at the left arm - a bullet passed through the muscle without making too much damage.
Also Angelo was wounded, a bullet grazed him at the head, but could still stand up. Pier Maria, instead, was wounded in the chest. Enrico examined him. The bullet entered a little under his right nipple and went out from his back. The lung was pierced but no viable organ had been endangered.
Enrico gave him medical treatment, "He will survive, even though it will take some time to heal. Let's hope that in prison they will treat him as needed, or they let me treat him."
"Supposing that they will not shoot us," Angelo said with a tired smile.
They were lucky - from Rome came the order to disarm the Garibaldian and to accompany the survivors to the frontier, leaving them free.
It was a sad procession the one that left the villa, escorted by the enemy soldiers. They reached the boundary with Italy. Here, after asking assistance for the more seriously wounded, the others disbanded. The local doctor confirmed to Enrico that Pier Maria would get off with it. The two couples greeted each other farewell and Enrico with Raffaele went back to Naples.
"For my fault you are wounded... Your family will not forgive me." Enrico said when they were in the vicinity of home.
"The fault of others not yours, and then, I'm alive, this is what counts. Moreover my family knew I was not going to a marriage party. Don't raise problems that don't exist, my love."
When they ringed the bell of Raffaele parent's home, the mother went to open and, seeing them, yelled, full of joy, "You are both alive, you are alive, thanks to God! I never stopped praying to the Holy Virgin for you, and she heard me! Come in, come in! We have to throw a big party!" and embracing both of them she made them enter and sent a maid to call all the others.
There was no problem for Raffaele wound and the mother decided that on the following Sunday they will do a great meal with all the family to celebrate their return.
When they could go upstairs to their apartment, they washed themselves and went to bed, tired but happy.
"How long is it that we cannot make love?" Enrico asked caressing the naked body of his lover under the sheets.
"A long time, really a long time."
"Do you feel too tired?"
"Tired, yes, but not too much, come here..."
"Your mother received me almost like a son..."
"No, you are wrong."
"Am I wrong?" Enrico asked surprised, while Raffaele was hugging and caressing him with desire.
"She received you as a son in law."
"You think so?"
"Yes, she said: I was sure you would have watched over my son, over your Raffaele. Therefore she sees you as her son in law, it's evident."
"I wasn't aware..."
"But now, why don't you attend to me as you are able to do, my love?" Raffaele tenderly said him and kissed him with passion.
THE END
In my home page I've put some more of my stories. If someone wants to read them, the URL is http://andrejkoymasky.com If you want to send me feed-back, or desire to help revising my English translations, so that I can put on-line more of my stories in English please e-mail at andrej@andrejkoymasky.com ---------------------------