Notturno (8 page)

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Auselmo, it has been a year and still your sweet face is the first image
in my mind every morning and the last I think about at night. Being parted
from you is unbearable. If not for your letters, I would surely have lost all
desire to live. But live I do yet, my love, if only for the faintest hope that I
shall see your face again.

My wife has given birth, beloved, to a son, and for this, if for nothing
else, I will esteem her. She is such a vile woman; I have constantly to make
amends to guests and servants alike. She goes about complaining from
morning until evening, and while she was with child, I thought I would go
mad and kill her myself. Yet the boy is perfect, Auselmo, his tiny face the
image of my mother. He does nothing at all but bawl and spit back food,
but he holds my heart in his fisted hands, and I am well and truly
enraptured by his every squawk.

I have been given to understand that you too will make a marriage in
the spring. Please forgive my presumption, but I know you. I know your
innocent heart better than my own face in the mirror. Go to her and let her
give you pleasure and fine sons. This takes nothing from me, you know
that, and God willing, you will believe me also when I say that nothing I
do, nothing I engage in with my wife, could ever even begin to fade the color
you bring to my life.

Speaking of which, yesterday the snow fell and the lack of light sucked
all the color from the world at once, as though my eyes had simply failed me
and refused to register anything but gray. This, Auselmo, has been my
world without you and will continue to be until I hold you in my arms
again and love you until you give me the sweet cries I crave. I will wait for
you, and the color and warmth that only you can bring to me, as long as my
life allows it.

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48 Z.A. Maxfield

Adin sipped his drink with shaking hands. Still fully dark, the

night sky held so few stars that it wasn’t hard to believe that

what little sky Adin could see from his hotel was blank, as the

young Niccolo imagined, because of Auselmo’s despair. Adin

closed the journal. It was four in the morning, not yet dawn,

and he was exhausted and ashamed. Had he made light of this?

Had he really trivialized the man and his journal, calling it porn?

He threw his reading glasses down on the desk, put the

manuscript back into its protective housing, and restored it to

the room safe. He grabbed his key card, intending to go for

coffee somewhere, anywhere, where that manuscript wasn’t

making him think things,
feel
things, he’d never contemplated before.

Donte, he thought as he closed his hotel door behind him.

Donte, forgive me…
It was so easy to look at those drawings and make assumptions about the artist and the book. Now that he

knew…now that he’d read even a little piece of it, he didn’t

want to fight anymore. He wished he’d never seen the damn thing.

He punched the elevator Down button, and when the doors

opened, Donte was there, inside, still in his suit, looking as fresh as if he’d been on ice for the night.

“Donte?” Disbelief and not a little fear limned Adin’s face.

“Adin.” Donte wore a small and slightly bemused smile.

“Did you know you could call to me?”

“What, me?”

“Yes, apparently…only with you…it works both ways.”

“Why should that be?”

“I don’t know. But I was called here to this place by you.”

“I thought about you. I thought your name.” Adin got into

the elevator. “You’re not playing some kind of twisted vampire

game?”

“Not at the moment, no,” Donte murmured dryly.

“Although I reserve the right, if I should choose to do just

that.”

“I see.” Adin paused. “Fair enough.”

NOTTURNO
49

“What were you thinking, caro, that brought me here?” The

elevator slowed down considerably, and Adin had the sensation

of hovering above L.A. in a clear glass Christmas ball.

Adin chewed his lip. “You didn’t eat last night when we

were out.”

“No, I didn’t,” said Donte.

“Have you…since then?”

Donte raised his eyebrows.

“How often do you need—”

“Often, if I don’t want to take too much from someone…

What are you really asking me?”

“I—” Adin stepped closer to Donte in one easy move,

kicking his legs apart and sliding between them. He put one arm

around Donte’s waist along his spine, and one on his neck,

pressing Donte’s beautiful face into the junction of his own

neck and shoulder. “Here,” Adin whispered into Donte’s ear.

“Take what you need.”

Donte froze. “Why are you doing this?”

“Donte.” Adin pulled him in.

“No, I need to understand why you would offer yourself to

me.”

“I’m sorry,” Adin said into the skin on the side of Donte’s

face. “I didn’t understand. I decided to read a little of…”

Donte stiffened. “So…you decide to offer your neck to a

hungry vampire out of pity? How
does
the race survive?” Donte put his forehead against Adin’s.

“Not pity.”

“What then, caro? What, if not pity?”

“Regret? Compassion? I don’t know, Donte. I just wanted

to—” Adin pursed his lips. “I
want
to. Take it or leave it. Your food’s getting cold.”

Donte laughed. “Of course I’ll take it. Don’t be afraid, più

amato.” Donte’s hands wound around Adin and clutched at his

ass cheeks as he lifted him up. Adin wound his legs around the

50 Z.A. Maxfield

man’s waist, and Donte struck. Adin felt both searing pain and

pleasure deep within his skin. There it was again, the impossibly

erotic thrill of being devoured by this man. Adin knew he

hadn’t mistaken it. Donte was suckling at the wound on his

neck, lapping at the blood as he crushed Adin’s smaller body

into the window. For the second time in twenty-four hours,

Adin came in his trousers, completely taken by surprise.

Donte licked the wound on Adin’s neck to seal it. “Thank

you.”

Adin said nothing.

“Invite me in, Adin,” pleaded Donte, who rocked Adin’s

light body gently, swaying with the minuscule motion of the

elevator.

“You know I can’t.”

“I know you won’t,” Donte complained.

“It’s not mine to give back to you, Donte. It doesn’t belong

to me. I’m a courier.”

“What will you feel, I wonder, when I take it from you?”

Donte asked grimly. “Because make no mistake, I will.”

“I understand.”

“Do you? Or do you hope that by giving me scraps, like a

trail of bread crumbs, you will distract me from my purpose?

Please don’t underestimate me, più amato. I have no wish to

betray your trust.”

“Don’t worry”—Adin sighed—“and don’t make the

assumption that I trust you.”

“You offered me your neck. Your very life. Yet you keep my

journal from me and make us adversaries.”

“My life is mine, Donte, and all that I
can
give you.”

Donte hissed at him, then kissed him like he meant it.

Adin looked at the floor numbers. “I’m on seventeen.” He

was beginning to feel a little faint from the loss of blood again

and knew he had to get to his room, without Donte, to lie

down. He left the elevator without a backward glance, assuming

fatalistically that if Donte had a trick up his sleeve, he wouldn’t NOTTURNO
51

stand a chance anyway, but he entered his room alone, using his

key card, and fell finally into bed and a dreamless sleep.

Adin groped for the ringing phone.

“Yes? Tredeger here,” he murmured around an eye-

exploding headache.

“Oddball? Where are you?” asked Deana. “I’m at

Greengrass. You’re late.”

“Oh, hell…” Adin picked up one of his watches from the

nightstand. “I’m so sorry. I couldn’t sleep…jet-lagged…and

then I started translating the journal.”

“You stood me up for porn?” she asked incredulously.

“It isn’t porn,” he snapped, more harshly than he’d

intended.

“Okay…”

“Look, stay where you are. I’ll be there as soon as I can.

Shop. What’s not to love? You’re in Barneys.”

“Well, there is that… But I’m supposed to get back to

work…”

“Like work ever derailed one of your shopping expeditions.

I’ll buy you shoes…” He dangled a carrot, qualifying, “If they’re

on sale,” while he rummaged through his bag looking for a T-

shirt.

“I’ll be here. Don’t take forever.”

Adin showered quickly and dressed, placing both his suit

from the day before and his jeans in the hotel laundry bag to be

cleaned. How horrifying. No doubt they would think he made a

habit of creaming his trousers. There was probably some

obscure dry-cleaning blog where acne-crusted minimum wagers

shared their thoughts.
You won’t believe it, everything we get from this
one room is soaked in semen…and the guy is staying by himself…

Arriving by cab at Barneys on Wilshire, Adin was just in

time to purchase a pair of strappy white sandals for his sister at

54 Z.A. Maxfield

the end-of-season sale. They looked cool against her

inauthentically tanned skin and had lethal heels, which put her

at just about five feet four inches, still short by most standards.

She was shamelessly delighted.

“Having a queer brother with a credit card?” She mimicked

the popular commercials. “Priceless.”

“Sorry I’m late.”

“All is forgiven,” she said as they got into the elevator to go

to Greengrass, the deli, on the top floor. “You look like yak

splat, Adin. Are you okay?”

Adin avoided her gaze but answered her serenely. “I’m fine,

Deana Beana. I’m damned run-down, though. I’ll need lots of

food, maybe a protein shake.”

“You are taking care of yourself, though, aren’t you? You’ve

been…”

Adin heard the subtext. “I’ve been tested, and I’m still

negative. Bean, I may play hard, but I play safe.”

Deana unconsciously let out a breath she’d been holding.

“I’m a scientist. You know I worry. Especially when you look

like you do now.”

He’d seen himself in a mirror. “Point taken.” Even Adin was

a little surprised. He looked like one of those worst celebrity

DUI booking photos. He had dark shadows under his eyes and

was paler even than usual. It didn’t help that the light yellow of

his T-shirt, which he’d gotten from some charity event, was not,

and never would be, his color. His jeans fit like skin, with a wide belt holding them in just the right place to show off his butt and

the hollows of his pelvis, but today they made him look thinner

and more hollow than usual. He needed Queer Eye for the

Dead Guy.

The door chimed and they got out.

“I should never wear yellow,” he stated before they asked

the host to seat them. They were late for the lunch rush, and he

led them to a table on the terrace.

NOTTURNO
55

“Good observation,” Deana said, picking up the menu.

“Yellow was never your color, or mine for that matter. Makes

you look bloodless.”

Adin almost did a classic spit-take with his water.

When the waiter came over, Deana took the lead. “I’ll have a

Caesar salad with diced chicken. What are you having?”

Adin briefly scanned the menu and made up his mind. “I

think I’ll have a cup of matzo ball soup and a brisket sandwich.”

Deana smiled at the waiter as he left and then as if she’d

used up all her patience she confronted Adin. “When are you

going to tell me what’s bothering you?”

“What?”

“Come on, oddball. Who knows you?”

Adin sighed deeply. “I’m translating that book. It is, of

course, erotic. But the man writes so intimately of his love affair that I feel…”

“Whoa, back up. It’s a love affair? I thought it was a book of

erotica.”

“So did I. Except I was mistaken. It isn’t at all what I

thought it would be.”

“I see.”

“Do you? Here I was kind of flip about it, you know? But

this man, he was in love and faithful for his whole life. He

writes about it as if… In such rich detail… I don’t know. I feel

as though I’m intruding.”

“How could you be intruding? It’s five hundred years old.

It’s a lucky thing you found it, or it might have been lost.”

“I know. I just wish…”

“Adin, it’s your job. If you didn’t do it, no one would even

care about these men. No one would have any idea that a love

like that existed in those days, right?” Deana smiled at the

waiter when he brought Adin’s soup.

“I didn’t.”

“What?”

56 Z.A. Maxfield

“I didn’t know that it existed in any age.” He stirred his

broth with a soupspoon to cool it.

“Do you think it’s true?”

“What? That the journal is authentic?”

“No. That their love existed. That it was real, and not a

story, like a fairy tale for an audience.”

“It was real.” It is real, he thought. Donte still cherished the

memory of Auselmo as if he were alive. He watched as Deana

drank her water. “What about you? How is Miss Deana’s love