Free The Stars That Tremble by Kate McMurray Page A

Gio that this was amazing, but he found he couldn’t make words.
    Then the song changed. Mike didn’t know this song either, but there was something hauntingly familiar about it. Gio knew this one of course, too, and he tightened his hands to fists, grabbing onto the fabric of Mike’s shirt. His body went tense suddenly. Mike moved, encouraging Gio to keep dancing, to forget about whatever was bothering him. Gio clutched at Mike and then pressed his face into Mike’s shoulder. There was an odd fluttering sensation against Mike’s collarbone, but then Gio picked his head up and Mike realized he was singing softly.
    It was in a language Mike didn’t know—Italian, probably—but the look of anguish on Gio’s face went so deep it could not have been acting. Mike kept dancing, kept moving Gio in slow circles around the cellist, tried to encourage Gio to stay with him.
    Then Gio whispered, “ Vincerò. ”
    And Mike understood. This was “Nessun Dorma.” Emma had played him a recording of it at his request the evening after his lunch with Gio. She’d had a Pavarotti recording on her MP3 player. He recognized the song now, recognized its meaning to Gio.
    The cello was rich and vibrant, ringing out in the night. Then it was silent.
    Gio pulled away from Mike. Mike didn’t want to let him get away, and definitely not when his hold on things was so loose. He reached forward and wiped a tear from Gio’s cheek. Gio reached up and clutched at Mike’s forearm.
    “I still miss it so much,” Gio said softly. “Every day, my soul aches because I can no longer do that. I can’t sing. I’ll never have that again. I’ll never be Calaf shouting into the night that I will win the princess.”
    Mike reached for him and pulled him back into his arms. “But you’ve won me.”
    Gio squeezed him tight. “Yes,” he whispered. “Yes.”

Seven

     
    M OST baroque concertos followed the same pattern.
    The first movement was usually fast, something to catch the audience’s attention. It was an allegro or a presto or perhaps a vivace —fast and bright. The excitement of first love, the initial rush of lust. Sex started that way, with excitement and urgency. It was grasping and pulling. It was mouths fused together, licking and biting, nails pressed into skin. It was the violin tremolo in an opera’s prologue, designed to crescendo and build anticipation. It was trembling fingers and limbs, fluttering hearts, shallow breaths. It was music swelling. It was the rending of garments.
    No longer able to wait, Mike and Gio tore clothes off each other as Gio pushed Mike toward his bedroom. They kissed hard and fast, sucking and pulling and pushing. Gio grabbed Mike’s hair and tugged him closer, needing to be closer to him, around him, inside him. His desire was the sort of desperation only characters in an opera could feel for each other at first meeting. Gio’s erratic pulse beat like a mezzo-soprano singing the opening bars of an aria that would bring the house down.
    Then Mike pushed Gio onto the bed and crawled over him. His body, clad now only in a pair of black boxer briefs that left almost nothing to the imagination, was a thing of beauty. His skin was smooth, not too hairy, tan from the summer sun. He was sculpted perfectly, though he had a scar on his abdomen and another up near his collarbone. A tiny tattoo of a star on his bicep looked like graffiti on a smooth marble sculpture. So, not perfect, but lived in, experienced. Gio reached up and kissed him. He hooked a hand around the back of Mike’s head and held him close while he explored that mouth. “I want to be inside you so bad,” Gio said.
    “Mmm, yes,” said Mike. “I want that too.”
    The second movement was usually slow. It was an easier adagio or a largo . It was an opportunity for a soloist to show off or for the composer to pull at an audience’s heartstrings. A gifted violinist could make the audience weep with just the right pull of the bow across