Spend your velocities (on backwards motion) [4/4]
The interviewer is quite a looker, but,
‘The giggling, man,’ Juan groans into the bottom of his glass, ‘it was giving me performance anxiety.’
Cesare and Lucrezia have an entire conversation with just their eyes while Giulia snorts under her breath.
Their break officially starts today, before the second leg of the tour kicks off. And everyone is in that weird state of half exhaustion half exhilaration, moving like the world is all soft and fuzzy around the edges. Giulia’s top is soaked through with the drink she’s spilled over herself earlier, drawing colourful looks from the rest of the bar.
Cesare doesn’t blame them, she’s got fantastic tits.
Juan glances over, ‘Of course, you’re used to a little giggling by now.’
All four turn to look at Vittoria in unison, who is slumped over Giulia’s knee, grinning at thin air. Their bassist is a happy drunk, once the dreamy smiles start to creep up every 30 seconds, you know it’s time to swap the shots for water.
‘Alright punks,’ Lucrezia leans over to give Giulia a peck on the cheek, ‘some of us still have work tomorrow. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.’
Cesare chooses that moment to bodily pick her up by the waist, swinging them both over the booth amidst much flailing and whooping. They almost land on the floor in a tangle if not for Micheletto’s quick reflexes.
The chaos doesn’t last long: Cesare stumbling around with Lucrezia yelping in childish delight; and Micheletto ends up with an armful of Cesare, warm and solid.
If he’s momentarily distracted by the smelling of fresh sweat and subtle, expensive cologne, nobody has to know.
Vittoria is a skinny kid and a skinnier teenager. Throughout high school she spends a lot of time with both arms crossed in front of her, clutching the sketchbook like a shield. The few girls who would talk to her always moan about how lucky she is, how she never seems to put on a pound. Which makes her feel even more like a freak.
Giulia has normal proportions and no real friends. Not that she cares, strutting through locker room with her head held high. The whispers that follow her round would make Vittoria blanch with anger. She just shrugs it off with a lazy flick of her hand.
‘Why should I bother? They’re either jealous, or plain stupid.’ She tugs Vittoria closer, passing a funny looking cigarette over (‘a joint, honey, it’s called a joint.’)
‘Wanna try?’
The first clumsy inhale makes Vee wheeze until she’s red in the face. She looks up through the haze of tears to see Giulia smiling down at her, rubbing a comforting hand across her back.
‘Okay, okay, let’s do it another way.’
Giulia scoots closer, free hand sliding along the back of Vee’s neck, thumb tucked under her jaw, tilting her head back.
‘Open your mouth.’
Vee blinks, and does exactly that, feeling mildly ridiculous until Giulia’s face looms closer still; today her smile is Ruby Red rather than Passion Pink, the sweep of her lashes clouding most of Vee’s vision.
‘Breathe in when I breathe out.’
The corner of Giulia’s mouth is a bit chapped, that’s the first thought that floats to the front of Vee’s mind. The sting of smoke on her tongue barely registering. She tries to breathe and talk at the same time, ends up spluttering into Giulia’s face. Which, for some reason, makes her grin even harder.
Vee blushes to the roots of her hair while Giulia wordlessly takes another drag, a teasing glint swimming in her half-lidded eyes.
They manage to do it right the second time, bitter warmth slithering down the back of Vee’s throat, the full effect slams in almost immediately after.
It’s a peculiar feeling, weightless and leaden at the same time. Heat rushes to the tips of her fingers and toes before popping like champagne bubbles, leaving behind a tingling sensation.
She opens her mouth (a gasp, a giggle) and Giulia is there already, those lips back on hers, pressing hot and tight.
Exhale, inhale.
Sometimes Vee muses what life will be like if she’s never met Giulia: a lot safer maybe.
And unbearably, mind-numbingly boring.
A dude with spiky hair comes to pick Vittoria up. It takes three of them to help her climb onto the back of his motorbike, eyes already sliding shut. Giulia strokes Vee’s flushed cheek in lieu of goodbye, her own companion of the night waiting impatiently around the corner.
Juan has long disappeared to god knows where.
Cesare yawns, ‘where to, bright eyes?’
Micheletto just about manages to hide his shock---he’s mostly decided that one time in the parking lot was exactly that: a one-off drunken mistake. Even though the week after Cesare keeps mindlessly fingering the bruises Micheletto has left on his wrists.
Seriously, Micheletto should start requesting extra hazard pay, on the ground of his mental wellbeing.
‘I could ask your place or mine, but I’d rather not travel half way across the country just to have you naked on a bed.’
Put it like that, it’s hardly a choice.
The thing most people don’t know about Cesare is that he’s ticklish, just beneath his ribcage. He also snores in bed from time to time. Fails at any culinary challenge more complicated than making toasts.
Plus, he is, hands down, one of the dirtiest lays Micheletto has ever had. The rock and roll life obviously has its perks; that mouth should be illegal in all fifty states. Certainly doesn’t mind a bit of rough handling. He also seems to know the perfect way to tease his tongue inside Micheletto’s ass, clever guitarist’s fingers skilled in torture, among other things. One time Micheletto fucks him with a vibrating toy and watches, petting him with pretty words breathed into the shell of his ear. Words like gorgeous, taking it so well baby, wish you could see yourself. Cesare comes without a hand on him, shaking and bowing.
There are many sides to Cesare, Micheletto has discovered that a while back: the flirt; the performer; bleary eyed with mussed hair; putting away fries at an alarming speed; irritable and monosyllabic when his latest composition is going nowhere.
Micheletto likes him best when he’s all sated and soft in their bed (a hotel bed, he reminds himself, not that he can mistake the king-size for his own Spartan cot), hogging the pillow. Cesare doesn’t become angelic in sleep, but it does take years off him.
They sleep in until noon, then go out and eat a million sticky donuts, or just lounge in the sun for hours. The nights are often spent cruising from one smoky, anonymous bar to another, inhaling Southern food and bourbon.
Sometime after midnight, Cesare always walks, albeit a little unsteadily, back to where Micheletto is nursing a beer. Half a dozen phone numbers in one hand, the other crawling up Micheletto’s thigh under the cover of the table.
It’s hard to be annoyed with Cesare’s sense of entitlement when he’s tasting that Cheshire grin from behind Cesare’s teeth.
Things are never quite the same after that.
There is the tour, sweeping everyone up again, always marching forward, forward at a punishing pace.
Then there is The Borgias’ adoring crowd, camping outside live houses, lurking around hotels for a glimpse, cameras at ready.
They hardly get a moment alone.
Cesare throws the last few picks into the pit; there is a flurry of limbs dashing towards where they land. Giulia steals Juan’s broken drumstick and is banging merrily away on one of the cymbals. Vee sits leaning against the amp, beaming dazedly.
They are all dragging their feet towards the dressing room when a roadie passes Cesare’s phone over.
‘Rodrigo.’
Cesare catches it in mid-air, groaning.
‘I’m sore and tired and dying for a smoke right now, can this wait?’
Micheletto watches his eyes narrow in resigned irritation, and follows soundlessly when Cesare starts shoving his way through the crowd into the bathroom.
The building has been swept beforehand, so he waits by the door, trying hard to block out the words filtering through.
‘I don’t give a flying fuck what the tabloids say.’
‘…’
‘What’s different this time? Everyone knows I sleep with guys too.’
Silence, followed by a dark laugh, ‘It’s a bit late to be coming across all paternal now.’
A muffled bang
‘I won’t choose, and you can’t make me.’
The door flies open a second later, and out storms Cesare. His face shadowed, taut, a whole tangle of emotions chasing one another in quick succession when their eyes meet---so fast it’s making Micheletto’s head spin.
For one breathless moment, Micheletto thinks he can feel Cesare’s body swaying closer, curling towards him as if for comfort.
Then he is straightening up, shoulders squared, his smile young and fearless.
Devastatingly so.
It’s almost anticlimactic when they do catch the culprit behind the threats. Just a regular guy with an overzealous moral compass.
Micheletto signs the non-disclosure agreement the second time, and walks away.
He tells himself he’s too busy to seek Cesare out. New cases coming in, new clients knocking on his door.
The same goes for Cesare, he supposes.
The two phone calls he’s ignored will soon be forgotten.
Except that somewhere towards the end, there is a little sliver of time, impossible to say how much, that rests against Micheletto’s ribs like a prickly feather.
Cesare is sitting in a pool of sunlight by the bus, long legs folded in front of himself, an old acoustic in his lap, plucking away at the strings. The chord he comes back to again and again could be the start of a new song or sheer whimsy. He gets bored soon enough and follows it by a fanciful flight up and down the finger-board.
He is talented, Micheletto can tell that much at least. Something that’s perhaps frequently overshadowed by his model good looks, the fascination over his private life.
Cesare’s head rests against Micheletto’s left knee, the weight getting heavier and heavier as his eyes flutter shut, fingers automatically fall into an old folk tune, smiling a little.
Neither says a thing.
Micheletto watches him from the corner of his eye, the jut of his wrist bone, and is grabbed by the strangest urge to press his mouth to the hollow bit underneath. Not even a kiss, not the type that will lead to feverish exploration anyways.
They lean against each other, lost in the moment of silence, before the real world eventually catches up with them.