RICARDO by Andrej Koymasky (C) 2009 written on on June 2, 2002 translated by the author English text kindly revised by Randhir
USUAL DISCLAIMER
"RICARDO" 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 2 - SANDRO
How many times I said, "I love you, I'm yours"? And how many times he said the same to me? Many times, even though not so very much, and each time I was totally sincere, even though later after all was over. As it had happened with Sandro.
According to Sandro I have the "syndrome of the vampire". I fall in love with people younger than me to suck their youth and so to stay young. So he accused.
He likes to play the psychologist. He always psychoanalyzes everybody and everything, and then passes judgement. He labels, catalogues and archives.
When he said me so, I just answered him, "Oh, really?"
I learned for a long time not to debate with him. One time it would have been different, especially when he was my boyfriend. I would have rebutted and we would debate for hours and yet in the end each of us would remain unmoved.
Sandro is a fascinating guy, even though at times he tends to be logorrheic. And also if he tends to always psychoanalyze everybody and everything in spite of not having such kind of studies. He has the enthusiasm of the outsider. He is not conceited, therefore he gets forgiveness. He has a sweet personality, therefore he gets love. His Antonio, when Sandro starts to talk too much, embraces, caresses, kisses himÉ and silences him. Antonio is really sensual. They met on the set, when Sandro was shooting a documentary for the town council about dogs abandoned in summer, and Antonio had been assigned to him as cameraman.
The spark shot during the shooting at the public gardens when a dog, a male dog, mounted another male dog.
They burst into laughter then Sandro said, "I should make a spot titled - the dogs are gay, but the gays are not dogs!"
At that Antonio said, "I think it would be self-defeating, as those who have prejudices would reach exactly the opposite conclusion - gays are dogs. Prejudice is hard to die. Anyway I'm afraid the city-council wouldn't finance such a film."
They are together for a little more than four years. They met a little after Sandro left me. Because I was sucking his youth, as I said. Even though he didn't tell me so on that occasion but two years later, and without referring directly to our relationship.
When he left me, he said it was because I was "giving him too much" and therefore our relationship was not balanced, and that with my love I was tying him to me, rising in him a guilt complex, as he could not give me so much love.
"I'm fond of you," he said, "But I would rather have you as a friend than as a lover. Before our relationship becomes sour, it's better to split, so at least we can remain good friendsÉ" he said.
We remained friends. But he did not know that for more than a year I saw no one else, not even one night flings, quickies, nothing. Because I was grief-stricken. I have been able to hide it well, at least I think. We remained friends and I also became a friend with Antonio, when they met.
As much as Sandro talks about what interests him, about what raises his enthusiasm, so much he doesn't talk about himself. He has a strong sense of modesty about his feelings. What doesn't concern him directly, doesn't involve him intimately, can be splendid, fantastic, or wonderful. But about what involves him the most, all he says is, "It's all right, it's fair, it's good."
So Antonio is, "all right". So are his movies, "good". I never heard him say "I love you" to anybody, neither to me when we were together nor now to Antonio. Even though his eyes are speaking. It was for me to say to him "I love you"; he smiled, his eyes answered "I too love you" but not his lips. Modesty? Fear? Insecurity?
Sandro's eyes - I never saw anybody with brighter, alive, talking eyes. His eyes were the first thing that bewitched me when we met. And later also his enthusiasm, his ability to be astonished.
After the ten years I've known him, his eyes, his enthusiasm, his astonishments didn't change, thanks to heaven. Pure eyes of a child, because he has the pure soul of a child. Possibly this is why his movies are luminous, lively and true.
Even if he plays the psychologist, he at once gets forgiveness.
His latest theory is that Ricardo needs to feel accepted for his black half and in me he finds exactly that - acceptance that he is a half-breed and that I find in him the exotics of the mestizo.
I was feeling merry, so I answered to him, "You are wrong on all counts, he finds in me the exotics of the Latin lover and I in him the fact he accepts me, a white European, even though we have been guilt of slavery - this allows me to unburden the racial remorse of my historical memory!"
The funny thing is that for the first time I saw Sandro thoughtful and finally he asked me, seriously, "Really? Do you think so?"
I burst in laughter and told him, "If you like I can churn out another dozen theories as queer as yours." Then I asked him, "Do you really think that I am a vampire who sucked away your youth, as now I'm sucking Ricardo's youth?"
He looked into my eyes and thoughtfully said, "Possibly not. Possibly you don't need that, you still are young enough inside, you achieved in the dream of many people - you didn't dry up with the experience."
"How can you say that?" I asked him.
"I was thinking to Dado." he said, sibylline.
I can't see the connection. It is the first time, after his death, that Dado returns to our conversations.
"Dado resembled you a little - he still had a child's heart, that's why he didn't fear the death, differently from us. You too don't fear the death, do you?"
"At time life is more fearful." I answered thoughtful.
"But you don't fear life no more. What do you fear?" he asked me, looking at me as if he tried to read my mind for an answer which I was not able to give him.
Sandro and Antonio have a rather special relationship - they are faithful to each other, in their way. I say "in their way" because at times they go out to look for a third person to take into their bed. But always and only if they are together. When it happens that they are seperated for a long period of time, neither one of them is unfaithful to the other. But at times, they look for a third one - they both have to like him, and he should be young, absolutely versatile as they are, and ready to spend all night with them.
Sandro says that the third one is the balancing element in their relationship, as just in two there is the tendency to shut themselves, and then as a consequence, to get tired of each other. The third one renews and refreshes their relationshipÉ Sandro says. I asked him if this was also what Antonio thought, or if he persuaded him.
"No,Antonio also thinks exactly so," he answered.
Then I asked him, "If we would have had some threesomes, would you have stayed with me?"
"It's possible," he answered, "because with you, after all, I was also well. But you are monogamous, you would have never accepted a third one; you are a traditionalist." he said, but without critique in his voice.
"I think so, Sandro, I think I am monogamous; meaning I want just one boy at a time." I specified, laughing.
"Did you ever cheat on me?" Sandro asked.
"No, not ever."
"You would never cheat on your boyfriend?"
"I cannot answer you about the future, who knows? But I hope to never do it, certainly not."
"And if your boyfriend cheated on you, would you throw him out?"
"No, I would try to understand."
"Would you feel bad?"
"Not before understanding the reason."
"Ah, I thought the contrary. As I, when we were together, at times have cheated on you. Not often, anyway."
"I never suspected it."
"Would you have forgiven me?"
"I think so."
"I was sure you would notÉ also because of that I left you."
"You did all by yourself." I then said him.
One day he told me, "I would still like making love with you, do you know?"
"Oh, really? What's this, an advance?"
"No, because you are not Antonio's type, and I promised him that either with him or nothing."
"Therefore nothing." I concluded.
"Of course." Sandro serenely said.
This is why I say that in their own way they are faithful to each other.
At Sandro's home I met Martina and Jenny. Two very agreeable friends. They have a four year age difference, Martina is forty-one and Jenny is the younger one, but when I first met them I thought Jenny was thirty-five and Martina less than thirty. The latter is the manager of the CITTeL, a translations firm "From and to any language in the world" as it is pompously written on her business card. Her office has nine full-time clerks, thirteen part-time, and an indefinite number of external collaborators, which I think is about thirty people. The office consists of eight rooms on the second floor of an art-deco building, equipped with computers and all the most modern resources. Martina started it nineteen years ago, in a small basement room.
Martina is beautiful like a mannequin, a fragile beauty, and yet aggressive, self-assured. She is really well-groomed, even though at first sight you would think she is a fresh and natural beauty - in reality she has skilled make-up, almost invisible, hair at her shoulders, waved, soft; she never has a single hair out of place. She is fascinating, feminine but not aÉ female. She is sincere and direct, even though she is able to soften what she says.
Jenny instead is more virile, in a sense. She too is sincere and direct, but somewhat ruder. Short hair and a determined expression. Differently from Martina she never has earrings, necklaces, nor rings - nothing. She never wears skirts even though you can't say she is dressed in a masculine way. She isn't masculine at all. She is the director of the regional branch of the Club MŽditerranŽe for ten years. This is how she first met Renzo and Mario and then, through them, Sandro.
Martina and Jenny met twenty-two years ago, lived together for three years, split after an incredibly violent quarrel, but five years later they met again. They had matured, as Martina says, they decided to live again together and since then they separated never again.
They know Sandro for four years and are close friends. They met him when Jenny contacted him for an ad short for the Club.
Through Sandro, they met also Ricardo. Therefore, when I heard that they too knew him, we ended talking about him.
Jenny defined him as "delightfully simple and simply delightful", a definition that I didn't dislike at all.
Martina says he is a uncut gem waiting the one who will be able to cut him, a flower waiting for the sun who will make him bloom: "It's a pity he can barely read and write, I could have given him a job, but I'm afraid his Portuguese is not hundred per cent correct and anyway I can't see him work at a computerÉ" she said.
When I told them I would like to be the one able to make Ricardo bloom, and that the only thing that restrained me towards him was our age difference, Martina said me I am silly to have such problems, "Between two people it is just a question of skin, not of age or other."
Jenny added that she would see us together very well, "You would not exploit him, but would let him lean on you, and each of us needs a point of support, once in a while."
Martina smiled and added, "The boy seems anyway a strong guy, and so you too can lean on him for support, when you need it. Yes, I too see you two together very well."
It can be also because of this opinion that I like them even more than before. An opinion I appreciate very much above all as I know their frankness - if they say so, it is because they really think so.
CONTINUES IN CHAPTER 3
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