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When Carlo talks about his father with Romeo, he is vitriol and clenched fists. He is anger as his best friend has never known, hands raised in front of him as if worried Carlo might snap.
In truth, it’s the only time he lashes out. A stark contrast to when he’s back at the Geppetto estate for the weekend — at his own insistence, damned to repeat this same mistake ad nauseam, so desperate to be seen by the one person in the world who would rather see him rot.
“Son,” his father says, wiping away the veil of tears on Carlo’s face; dulling his vision, promising a headache that will linger through the night. Carlo lies on a sofa, hands reaching pathetically for the armrest above him as the logs in the fireplace snap.
I wanted this, he thinks as his father unbuttons his trousers, pulls down his underclothes. Fingers calloused around Carlo’s cock, slow as he strokes the head of his arousal, knowing where exactly he likes it.
I’ve always wanted this.
He is a sad, dying heart as his father straddles him. Once, Carlo hoped to be as handsome as the great Giuseppe Geppetto when he got older: silvery hair and creased cheeks that spoke of a long life lived. Now, Carlo doesn’t know what he wants, not as his father grips the base of his cock and sinks onto him, thieving that last bit of innocence that he hoped to give to Romeo. He clung to such a dream at the charity house, fingers wrapped around himself as he wept, brought to a shaky orgasm by the thought of both Romeo and his father, merging together in his mind. At some point, it became impossible to separate his father from sex.
Carlo was — is — a traitor to all things beautiful. He imagines Romeo above him: the glow of blond hair, wisps clinging to sweat-dampened skin. His lips parting to moan so sweetly, hips rocking forward. Bodies meeting as they cling to each other, Carlo’s hands on his waist, letting Romeo move with abandon. Seeking his own pleasure atop Carlo’s cock because this is all he deserves: to be used.
But Romeo is gone, back at the charity house — home, Carlo realizes painfully, too late.
“You have no idea how long I’ve waited for this,” says his father, but he’s wrong. Carlo remembers sitting on this very sofa before he was banished to the charity house. His father sat beside him, their thighs pressed together, fingers slipping between the seam of their bodies. Moving back and forth as if he were stroking some unseen pet. He didn’t understand why his father chose right then to see him, to want his body close, to acknowledge him with such confusing affection when it was something he was so often denied. Carlo wore his navy blue shorts, striped with white. Tight at the waist and loose round his legs. Later he would wonder if that was it: if the sight of thin, pale thighs had somehow tipped his father over the edge.
Caressing. Stroking. Calloused fingers tickling his skin, making him shiver.
This is why Carlo’s father sent him away in the end: because he couldn’t trust himself with the horror of his narcissism, wanting everything his son had to give merely because he had made him. Because he could.
And yet Carlo has begged to be seen. Words scratched out, letters sent; tears spilled, staining parchment. Please, Dad, can I come home?
In his own way, perhaps his father’s neglect, his refusal to respond, was meant to be a gift. If only he had been honest: No, son. Don’t return. You don’t know what I might do.
But it’s clear now. His father was his first kiss; the first to fuck his mouth, his ass. The first, too, to force Carlo inside him. It’s as if his father has been waiting all this time for Carlo to find love, to want someone else so badly it hurts, now knowing it could never be. Because he is dirty, ruined, and he has nothing left to give Romeo but his anger, forever enraged, unexplained. Romeo is the cup and Carlo is the spoilt milk, pouring and overflowing, sour and unwanted. How could he explain his rancid stench without spreading such rot to his best friend?
His father’s hands scratch down his chest now, hips rising before rocking back down. Cock semi-hard against his stomach, greedy, nestled amongst curls of silver, and Carlo hates that he loves him. Loathes the fact that he can get hard at all, enough for his father to take what he wants from him, body and soul. He is raw, scraped out, left bereft of anything that once could have been loved. If he were good enough for Romeo, his father’s touch wouldn’t arouse him; wouldn’t make his hips rise, desperate to be seen at last.
Carlo thinks of the way his father stroked his thigh all those years ago. He felt so uncertain then, knowing it was wrong and yet not quite understanding what it was. Telling himself it was a delusion, and so he sat still, back straight and hands clasped in his lap.
It was strange and exhilarating then, just as it is now with his father touching him. Feet sliding against the sofa cushions, fingers trembling as he reaches for his father’s waist: acquiescing, eager. This is what he wants, isn’t it? What his father has always wanted?
When Carlo’s orgasm hits him, cutting through him like a pleasurable burn, making him both want to seek such heat and shy away from it, he sees only reality. His father sits atop him while Romeo is nowhere in sight, too beautiful to be tainted by these hands that have only known grotesqueries. Of wanting him, too, deep down. Somewhere dark, decrepit.
Carlo reaches for his father’s arousal, twitching at his touch. What’s one more sin added to the pile of desiccated love?
What’s one more?