Dating : Massimo / Part 1

Just as Massimo Martori stepped out onto Viale Emilio Alemagna, a scooter dashed pass him on the sidewalk, startling him so that his heart missed a beat. “Those damn scooters!” he said to himself. He had only been in his hometown for 48 hours, yet was already looking forward to flying out the following morning. Massimo lit a cigarette and put on his Ray Bans as the southern sun struck down on his head and he could feel the heat absorbing the air all around him, until it seemed he was suffocating. It was just a matter of waiting one more day and then he would be lying alone on the white sands of Bathsheba Beach in Barbados. Massimo was counting the hours till he would be free of his loud countrymen, listening only to the sound of gentle waves with no buildings or scooters around him stealing the air.

He figured he should go back inside, say his thanks and pay his dues to the kind curators who had done a superb job of organizing his latest exhibition. He appreciated the good faith in which the director of La Triennale di Milano had taken him on as new artist in the museum, and from the turnout at his exhibition opening that morning he guessed that he had not been a disappointment. At least the Italians were cultivated enough to take an interest in the struggles of homosexuals living in conservative countries. Unless of course they had just come to gawk at the obscenity of his hard work, such as his photograph Romance in Russia. Moments before he had taken the shot, Massimo had caught sight of two young men walking hand in hand, presumably on their way home in the early hours. But as they were discovered by a group of drunkards who were clearly still carrying on with the night’s antics, one of the men had been quick to throw his arm around his lover as an empty beer bottle was thrown in their direction, and Massimo had been just as quick to snap a picture of the meaningful scene. But would other people just glance at the photo with the same eyes that they glanced at movies, without realizing that this was reality?

Massimo knew this was a possibility. After exhibiting his work across America over the past few years, he had learned that plenty of air headed philistines also visited galleries and museums because they believed that just the physical act of walking into a museum and looking at art with their eyes would make them cultural, without ever understanding the meaning behind the work. After travelling to countries like Russia, Pakistan and Chad earlier that year and witnessing with his own eyes and camera the bigotry that men and women in same sex relationships were subjected to in these corners of the world, he hoped that his photographs would not go unnoticed and his audience would feel the same sorrow that he did by these circumstances.

Though Massimo did have confidence in his fellow citizens and their engagement in the art world, and he was certain that he could become a known name among the Milanese if he continued to push forward. However he had grown tired of the constant resistance he met for being a man standing alone with no renowned family name supporting him. He had fully discovered how strongly the Italian nepotism still stood and it had drained him of all his energy as he time after time had to prove that he had something relevant to say, despite having no connections to the art world through his predecessors. Massimo laughed at that absurd aspect of the Italian mind and threw his cigarette so he could return inside and bid his final farewells. The only person he wanted to see the rest of the day was Ferrante; he was the only one he could stand in this hot hell. He threw Ferrante a message before going inside.
Hey, I’m almost done here. Meet me at my apartment in an hour? M

Too hot to take the stairs, Massimo rode the elevator to the second floor and stepped out right in front of his photo Outlawed Lovers and was looking straight into the brown doe eyes of Serene, the spirited 16-year old girl he had met in Beirut. Serene’s family had already found a future husband for her in the teenage son of some family friends and once Serene graduated from high school, she would be forced into a marriage with a husband she had not chosen. Serene was secretly in love with her schoolmate Hania and the two girls had to keep their relationship a secret due to the low LGBT tolerance in Lebanon. After listening to Serene’s story, Massimo’s heart was bleeding and he promised her to do his best to communicate the injustice permeating through her country.

Perhaps this was why she had invited him to the abandoned building where she and Hania would meet sub rosa, whenever their libidos called for more intimate interaction than what they could get away with in front of the austere gaze of their parents. She had asked Hania to meet them there and once Hania had also made her way through the dust and dirt of the first two floors and reached the third floor, Massimo saw why Serene was so smitten with her. Hania was a petite girl with olive skin and full lips that seemed made for offering pleasure to both men and women. Her dark hair was long and thick, falling past breasts that were not yet fully grown but already pressing against her green dress.

It seemed that this soiled building was their sanctuary, a place where they could throw off their tight head scarves and let their hair loose and enjoy the nakedness of one another for a short while. They had tried to make it comfortable with a mattress and some pillows stolen from their homes, though they feared that a bum would come along and turn their refuge into a bedroom. Massimo asked whether he could take a picture of them and they both eagerly agreed; they were not ashamed of who they were or what they were doing and they hoped that Massimo could bring knowledge of their suppressed situation to the west. So they posed on the bare mattress, lying in their long dresses fully immersed in a salacious kiss habitual of juvenescence, hands brushing through their hair and grabbing their tight adolescent asses.

Massimo was aroused as he imagined lying in that position with Ferrante and he checked his phone to see if he had agreed to the rendez-vous. But there was no answer and Massimo wondered whether he would be forced to spend the rest of the afternoon alone in his apartment with a glass of gin in one hand and his erection in the other. He was suddenly overcome with anxiety, scared that his photographs were a failure and that Ferrante knew and would never want to see him again. He knew he should have booked his plane ticket for that evening, how foolish of him to think that the divine Ferrante would want to see his boring boyhood friend when he had probably just spent the summer among similarly beautiful people, dancing on the beach, and did not want to have his memories ruined by talk of political oppression.

He walked over to Elena, the curator he had worked closely with over the past few months who he could tell was sweating just as he was, but had an earnest smile on her lips.
“It’s going very well Massimo, I already have clients asking about the price of your work, but of course I told them that we will not be selling until the exhibition ends in the spring. And are you still sure of your choice to donate most of the proceeds to InterPride?”
“Yes yes, of course. It’s the only right thing to do, I can’t expose these people without giving something back. The subjects in my photographs are the reason I can put on a show like this.”
“That’s really beautiful Massimo, I think it’s a great decision. And I can’t wait to contribute by buying one of the pieces.”
“Elena, you can have whichever one you want. It’s the least I can do after all your excellent help. But now I really have to go, I can’t stand all these people judging my work. I’ll come by in a couple of weeks, ok?”
“Yes, that’s fine. Enjoy your vacation, you deserve it. And thank you so much! Ciao!”
Massimo gave Elena a farewell kiss on her cheek. “Ciao!”

Just as Massimo was walking towards his shiny blue BMW convertible, he felt his cell phone vibrate in the back pocket of his slim, navy dress pants. Certain that it was just his mom checking in on him, he was pleasantly surprised to see Ferrante’s name on the screen.
Ciao Massi, I’m glad you wrote! I’ll come over so we can catch up. A dopo.
Massimo took a deep breath and was excited to get home quickly so he could shower off the sticky sweat from the long morning before Ferrante showed up.

During the ride home he thought about what to cook them for lunch, but by the time he pulled up at his building in the Quartiere Isola Massimo had already brushed past that thought and come to the conclusion that surely Ferrante was just doing a quick drop-by, paying a polite visit to his lonely friend. He thought back to the start of the summer when he had last seen Ferrante and all their friends at a grand wedding in Palermo. He recalled how he had followed after Ferrante, who needed to fetch something from his car, and they both laughed loudly, intoxicated and cheerful in the warm summer breeze. He remembered how he had sat down on the backseat of Ferrante’s spacious car as the champagne finally overpowered his equilibrium. And he remembered how the champagne also overpowered all the reservations that had kept Massimo from touching Ferrante the way he wanted for all those years. And he recalled the excitement of the moment when Ferrante had not pulled away, but instead closed the car door behind them.