Poison

Paddy saw him from afar on that steamy August afternoon in the Boboli Gardens, wearing low-cut jeans, a white t-shirt that showed off his slinky frame and sinewy arms, flip-flops highlighting the high arches of his tanned, olive Italian skin – and wearing aviator sunglasses on a face with a square jaw, luscious, full lips, a high forehead, and that Roman nose – Paddy, the freckled redhead from Dublin on holiday before the last year of university, was transfixed.

The boy walked past Paddy, peering down at him, smiling with a little twitch of that luscious mouth, and passed him. And as the young man walked away, he planted his legs just every so slightly forward – so as to pump his left glute, then his right, in a way that (Paddy was certain) was intended to entice Paddy to follow.

And so Paddy did follow.

The magical motion of the young man’s bubble butt had Paddy entranced. He followed him from one terrace to the next, past a Roman statue and then a Greek – one of the gods, Aries, Paddy was sure. When the young man came to a fountain with a statue of Poseidon, about to walk down the stairs to the next terrace, he looked back at Paddy. And smiled. Then disappeared down the stairs.

Paddy’s heart raced. He could feel his pulse just above both ears. The arousal he felt in his torso – which led to an arousal between his legs, overwhelmed him. He had to continue following that boy, that Eros who enticed him to fill a need he’d never felt, never experienced in his Dublin years – and then the boy with the swaying hips and the luscious glutes and that magical Roman nose crossed a street, and then Paddy followed him –

The last thing Paddy remembered was a loud, roaring sound coming toward him, as he turned his head to the left and saw the speeding Mercedes autobus –