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“I’m only about ten years older than you, a little less,” he said. “I remember your mother being happier than I’d ever seen her. She was just absolutely bursting with life after having given birth to you. And your father, he was so proud. You would hiccup and he would act like you were
Moses parting the sea. The three of you were just…the perfect family.”
“I don’t know if most people would see a mafia family as ‘perfect,’ no matter how loving my parents were, or how cute my baby hiccups.”
“You shouldn’t care about what ‘most people’ would think,” Damien said, making air quotes with his hands. “Most people, after all, are idiots.”
There was a pause in the conversation for a moment.
“To me, you three were perfect. Then again, I think any family would have been better than mine.” I did not know how to reply. Truly, Damien’s parents seemed awful—justterrible. “Actually, I used to run away and hide in these woods, happy for any time away from them. Can I tell you a secret?”
“Of course.”
“You can’t make fun,” he said.
“I promise.”
“I used to love fashion magazines. I would steal them from Barnes and Noble and then bring them out to a special spot in the woods, where I knew I could read them without my parents punishing me or making fun. This was long before smart phones, of course. Back when you had to look at stuff like that on a printed page.” “These woods?” I asked.
“Of course,” he replied.
“I want to laugh, but not to make fun of you,” I told him. “I want to laugh because it’s so cute. You understand that most guys like you would have been stealing porn and hiding it from their parents, not Anna Wintour’s fashion magazine?”
“I guess that’s true,” Damien said, a smile forming on his face.
“Can you show me?”
“Show you what?” he asked, turning towards me.
“Your secret spot in the woods,” I said back, as if it were obvious. The strength of whatever magnet was pulling me towards his obsession-worthy lips was taking over me. I wanted to escape with him to somewhere special.
“Sure, why not,” he replied. “I’ve never taken anyone there.”
Damien began to walk away from the gardens towards the towering trees, which were dripping wet with the melting snow. It was as if it were raining, but only beneath the towering branches. Stripped of their foliage, the trees stretched their skeletal branches towards the sky, their twisted forms creating eerie silhouettes against the winter sunlight. Clumps of snow clung stubbornly to some of the branches, glistening like diamonds in the sunlight, while others shed their frozen burdens as the day warmed. The forest floor, likely blanketed with a pristine layer of snow just the day before, was revealing patches of damp earth and dark, decaying leaves.
Damien walked in front of me, and I followed along carefully in his footsteps.
“Why do you think your parents made so much fun of you?”
“They resented me for being weak,” Damien replied. “They never thought I would be a big, strong mafioso. I guess, and no offense, they thought I was a bit too much like your parents.”
“In what way?”
“That I was kind, I guess. I wasn’t the type of kid they thought would grow up to be powerful and relentless—again, no offense—but like your grandfather, Pakha Obolensky. Your family has had quite an evolution, really.”
Intermittent streams of water trickled down from the higher ground, forming small rivulets that meandered through the uneven terrain. Again, seeing nature like this in a New York suburb was not the usual for me. The melting snow created a soothing symphony of dripping and soft, rhythmic splashes, echoing the promise of the changing season, perhaps mirroring some change in myself. Patches of slush made the ground slippery underfoot.
We walked for a few minutes without speaking.
What if I could really be with Damien? Tucked away there in that magical forest, I felt that he might be different. He might be safe. He was my protector, for heaven’s sake. If I couldn’t trust him, then who?
Occasional glimpses of wildlife could be seen darting between the trees – perhaps a squirrel foraging for forgotten acorns or a bird perched on a branch, its feathers ruffled by the cold breeze. The forest seemed to hold its secrets close, with the play of light and shadow adding an element of uncertainty to the path that lay ahead. The air carried the earthy scent of wet leaves and the lingering chill of winter
“Here, beneath this hill, do you see that little thicket of bushes?” Damien asked. “There’s an empty space where wildflowers grow in the summer, just in the middle of them.”
I was careful while making my way down the icy hill, taking small steps until, suddenly, I felt myself begin to slip and fall down. Damien turned and grabbed onto me quickly, but it was no use; despite his formidable strength, he was now falling as well, to the point where—somewhat comically—we were both rolling down through the watery snow, unable to stop until we found ourselves caught by the bushes’ branches. Damien was lying on top of me, the incredible weight of his muscular body pinning me down against the earth. After a moment of shock, we both began to laugh—I could once again smell what my body identified as the scent of vanilla coming out of his mouth. For a man with such beautiful black eyes to smell like eggshell white vanilla ice cream was an undeniable and beautiful juxtaposition.
Still lying on top of me, Damien peered into my soul with those eyes, the laugh on his face slowly fading and turning into something more serious, an undeniable longing. Slowly, he brought his face towards mine and kissed me—this time on the lips—and I kissed him back. As our lips touched, it felt like kissing no other man I’d ever kissed before. With water dripping off of the bushes’ leaves, I felt a sort of nirvana I’d only heard about in documentaries of Himalayan monks. I felt, perhaps for the first time since my parents had died, at total, heavenly peace.
