Gianluca, the Italian gardener - Chapter 1 (Patreon)


Author’s note: All my characters are consenting adults (18+). All sexual acts depicted are consensual between the characters.

Chapter 1

Song suggestions to read: Guè - “Salvador Dali” and “Babysitter” 


My name is Kyle. I’m eighteen. Shy. Distracted. I like boys and I have no idea how to talk to them. I’m a virgin in every way that counts. I’ve never kissed anyone. I’ve never even held a guy’s hand on purpose. Most days I talk more to a phone screen than to a person.

My parents own three restaurants in town and they’re almost never home. Breakfast, lunch, dinner — they’re always somewhere between the kitchen and the books. My job until college is the social media. Photos of plates. Captions. The Facebook page. The house is too big for one person and too quiet when they’re gone. In the summer it feels worse. The pool sits used only by me. The garden grows faster than anyone has time to care about it. I should not complain, I know I’m privileged.

That’s how Gianluca ended up in the annex.

Twenty-one. Italian. Exchange student for a few months at the college across town. We were his host family. The little building behind the pool used to be storage. My dad had it turned into a room with a bathroom the month before he arrived. In exchange, Gianluca would do the garden and the pool.

The first time I saw him I forgot how to breathe.

He came up the driveway with one suitcase and a leather bag that looked older than I was. 5’11. Black hair combed back in that old-school way, like he’d walked out of a movie about men who settled things in back rooms with their own hands. Thick eyebrows. A big Italian nose. Dark stubble even at noon. A gold chain. A gold watch. He shook my father’s hand like they were already in business and then looked at me and said, “So you are Kyle,” with an accent so heavy it made my name sound like something else.

He dressed better than any American guy I knew. Linen shirts. Slim pants. Shoes you don’t wear to mow a lawn unless you’re him. Under the shirts there was dark hair on his chest, his arms, his legs. He looked like the son of a classic mafioso. I hated how much I liked that.

The first night he ate with us, he talked with his hands and called my mother signora and asked my father about wine like he was twenty years older than he was. I barely said a word. He noticed. After dinner he found me in the kitchen rinsing plates and said, “You are very quiet, Kyle. In Italy, quiet boys are thinking too much.” Then he smiled and left me standing there with wet hands.

By the third day I was watching him from the kitchen window.

He worked in the heat like it didn’t touch him. Shirt off by ten in the morning. Gold chain bouncing against his chest every time he bent over. Sweat running down the hair on his stomach. White socks pulled up to his calves. Dirty Adidas. Shorts that sat too low. He’d catch me looking and flex on purpose, laughing, that cocky little sound in the back of his throat.

“Eh, Kyle. You like the show, no?”

I’d pretend I was answering a comment on Facebook.

Thursday I brought him orange juice. I told myself it was polite. He took the glass, drank half of it in one go, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Sweat was running down his neck into the gold chain. He looked at me over the glass.

“You come all this way just for hand me a drink? Or you come to see me closer?”

“Juice…” I said.

“Okay. Juice.” He handed the glass back. His fingers touched mine. He didn’t move them right away. “Tomorrow you bring two. I get thirsty when somebody watches me work.”

I was sure he was straight. That same Thursday night I saw him leave with the blonde girl from next door. Madison. She had a laugh you could hear from the driveway. He had his hand on her back and that same gold watch flashing in the porch light. They didn’t come back until late. I heard the annex door. I heard him laugh. I told myself that was the end of whatever stupid thing I was doing in my head.

It wasn’t.

Friday I sat at the window longer than I needed to. He trimmed the hedges along the pool. Every time he lifted the clippers the muscle in his arm jumped and the chain moved. He knew I was there. He made a point of stretching after, both arms over his head, chest out, grinning toward the glass.

“Come outside,” he called. “The house is too empty. You look like a ghost in there.”

I didn’t go outside. I sat there until the tablet went dark and my neck hurt from not blinking.

Saturday the house was empty. My parents had a private event at the downtown place and wouldn’t be back until late. The sun was brutal. The kind of summer that makes the air feel wet. I took a towel, the iPad, and a fantasy book I was reading, and went to the pool because staying inside felt worse.

Gianluca was already there.

Short yellow swim trunks. White socks still pulled up. Dirty white Adidas. No shirt. The gold chain wet against his chest. Sweat running down the dark hair on his stomach. He was skimming the water like it was nothing, humming something in Italian under his breath.

I sat on the lounge chair and unlocked the tablet. Pretended to work.

He noticed immediately.

“You always work, Kyle. Always the phone. Always the restaurants. You never swim?”

“I’m working.”

He laughed. Came closer. Stood at the foot of the chair so I had to look up at him. From that angle he was worse. The trunks sat low. The hair on his thighs was dark and damp. The gold watch caught the sun.

“You look at me a lot,” he said. Not accusing. Amused. “Every day. From the window. From here. You think I don’t see?”

My face went hot.

“I don’t—”

“Yes you do.” He flexed once, lazy, just to be an asshole. The muscle in his arm jumped. “Is okay. In Italy, boys look. Is normal. You Americans are… how you say… shy. Always ashamed of what they want.”

I looked back at the iPad. The words on the screen meant nothing.

Gianluca sat on the edge of my chair like he owned it. Close enough that I could smell him. Intense sweat. Grass. Something warm and expensive underneath, like cologne that had given up hours ago.

“You have girlfriend?” he asked in his broken English.

“No.”

“boyfriend?”

I froze.

He grinned. Slow. Delighted.

“Ah. I think so. You look at me like that. Not like Madison look at me. Different.”

“I don’t look at you like anything.”

“Kyle.” He said my name like it was funny. “You are red. Is cute. Tell me. You kiss a girl already?”

I shook my head.

“A boy?”

Another head shake.

Gianluca’s eyebrows went up. He whistled, low.

“Virgin. Completely. Eighteen and nothing.”

He leaned in a little. The gold chain swung between us. “That is dangerous, no? A house this big. Nobody home. And you watching the Italian boy sweat in the garden every morning.”

I couldn’t find a sentence.

He reached out and tapped the tablet with one finger.

“Close this. You are not working. You are hiding.”

I closed it.

The pool was being louder than me, the water slapped the tiles. Gianluca’s knee was almost touching mine. Up close I could see the sweat in the hollow of his throat and the way the hair on his chest was flattened in wet lines.

“You want to ask me something,” he said. “I see it in your face. Ask.”

“I don’t..”

“Ask.”

I swallowed.

“Are you with my neighbor Madison?” I asked the first thing that came to my mind.

He laughed, loud, like I’d said something stupid.

“Madison is fun. She like the accent. She like the gold chain. She don’t like when I talk too much. You… you listen at dinner. Even when you pretend you don’t.” He tilted his head. “You want to know if I like boys too.”

I didn’t answer.

“I like who I like,” he said, after a second. “When I want something, I take it. Is simpler. You Americans make everything a problem.” He looked at my mouth. “You make this a problem already. I can see it.”

Gianluca stood up. The sun hit the sweat on his chest and made it shine. He stretched, slow, showing off on purpose, then looked down at me.

“Come. Help me with the filter. Since you watch so much, you can work a little.”

I followed him around the side of the pool like an idiot. The concrete was hot under my feet. He crouched by the pump, trunks riding up, socks still on, and I hated how horny I was just from standing there next to him. I could see the dark hair on the back of his thighs. I could see the gold watch when he reached into the water.

He glanced back at me.

“You are shaking.”

“It’s too hot.”

“Is not the sun.” He stood. Stepped into my space. One hand came up and flicked the gold chain against his own chest, like he wanted me to look at it. “You never touch a man.”

It wasn’t a question.

“No.”

“You want to.”

I should have said no. I should have gone inside. I should have opened Facebook and posted a photo of the lunch special.

I nodded.

Gianluca’s smile changed. Less teasing. Hungrier.

“Then you do it here. In the sun. Where you always watch me.” He took my wrist and put my hand on his chest, over the hair, over the sweat, over the chain. “See? Is just a man’s body. You don’t die.”

He was burning. The hair was spiky since he trimmed a little. His heart was going faster than his voice.

He kept my hand there longer than he needed to.

“You feel that? I work three hours already. I smell like a horse. You still want it. That tells me everything, girls are not like that. They always complain.”

He moved my hand down. Over his stomach. The wet trail of hair. To the waistband of the trunks.

“You want this, Kyle? Say it. In English. I want to hear the shy American boy say it.”

“I want it.”

“What.”

“I want to suck you.”

Gianluca made a pleased sound, almost a laugh.

“Bravo, ragazzo. On your knees. Here. The tiles are hot, I know. You deal with it. In Italy we call frocio to boys like you. Search the word on your iPad, you’ll understand.”

I went down without thinking twice.

The concrete burned my knees. From there he was enormous — the gold watch, the socks, the dirty Adidas, the bulge already pushing the front of the trunks. He hooked his thumbs in the waistband and shoved them down just enough.

His cock came out heavy. Long. Curved a little downward. Veiny just like his forearms. Already wet at the tip. A musky scent invading my nostrils.

“Cazzo,” he muttered, looking down at himself and then at me. “You see? Not small. You sure, virgin boy?”

I nodded.

“Open the mouth. Apri.”

I opened. I didn’t understand the words he was saying in Italian, but I was not dumb to not understand the context.

The first taste was salty and skin and the heat of the afternoon. I took the head and he exhaled hard through his nose, one hand landing in my hair.

“Così. Slow. You never do this, I know. Use the tongue. Yes. Like that. Around the head. Don’t rush. I want to feel you learn.”

It was easier than I thought it would be. Natural, almost. My jaw stretched and I didn’t panic. I took more. The curve of him made it easier and deeper than I expected. I gagged once, barely, and Gianluca laughed.

“Eh. Almost nothing. You are born for this, Kyle. Look at you. First time and already you take it.”

He started moving. Not gentle. Not cruel yet. Just sure. Using my mouth like he’d already decided I could take it. The gold chain swung every time his hips rolled. Sweat dropped from his chest onto my forehead.

“Succhia, Frocio. Suck. Don’t be shy now. You watch me all week from that window. Now you have it. Show me what you were thinking.”

I sucked. I used my hand on what I couldn’t fit. He was long enough that I had to work for it. Every time I went deeper he swore in Italian, low and pleased.

“Cazzo, che caldo. Your mouth is better than Madison. Don’t tell her.” He laughed at his own joke. “She don’t go this deep anyway. Not half. She is… how you say… polite. You are not polite. You are hungry, ragazzo.”

The sun was brutal on my back. My knees hurt. I didn’t care, all I wanted is to absorb him, to retain that memory for the rest of my life. I could smell the garden on him, the cut grass, the sweat from hours of work. I looked up. He was watching me like I was something he’d won.

“Guardami. Eyes on me. I want to see the shy boy with my cazzo in his mouth.”

I kept looking.

He got rougher. Both hands in my brown hair now. Short, deep thrusts that made me wet around him. Spit ran down my chin and onto the tiles. He didn’t stop. He talked the whole time, mixing English and Italian like he couldn’t be bothered to pick one.

“Bravo. Che bravo ragazzo. Use the hand too. Yes. Like that. You stroke what you cannot swallow. I teach you. In Italy we don’t waste a mouth like this.”

I made a sound around him and he grinned.

“You like when I talk. I see it. Okay. I talk.” He pushed deeper and held me there for a second. “This is mine now, Kyle. You live in this house. I work this garden. When I want this, you come. Capito?”

I couldn’t answer. I nodded as much as his hands would let me.

He pulled back enough for me to breathe and then went in again, slower this time, watching my face.

“You barely choke. Incredible. A virgin who sucks like he has been practicing his whole life. Maybe you have. All those hours at the window.”

He sped up. The wet sounds were loud in the open air. Anyone coming up the driveway would have heard it. He didn’t seem to care. The gold watch kept flashing at the edge of my vision. His socks were still on. The Adidas were still dirty from the garden. It made it worse. More real. Like he hadn’t even bothered to become someone else for this.

“Don’t close the teeth. Soft. Yes. Cazzo. That’s it. Take it. Take more.”

I took more.

My jaw ached. My eyes watered. He wiped the corner of my mouth with his thumb like it was nothing and then put the thumb in my mouth too, just for a second, laughing.

“Look at this. The American boy who cannot talk to anyone is on his knees for a real Italian man. Your parents would kick me out. I like that. Danger.”

He started using my throat properly then. Short, deep, sure. Every time he bottomed out I made a wet sound and he swore. The chain hit my forehead. Sweat ran down his stomach and onto my lips.

“Sto arrivando vicino. You feel it get harder? Don’t pull away. You stay. You swallow when I say. Inghiotti. Everything. I work in this heat, you take what I give.”

I stayed.

His breathing changed. The cocky smile slipped. His hips got less careful. One hand tightened in my hair until it burned.

“Sto per venire. Don’t you dare stop, frocio. Show me the shy Kyle can finish what he started.”

He held my head and came in my mouth with a long, broken “cazzo” that bounced off the water. Thick. Hot. A lot. I swallowed because he’d told me to. I kept swallowing until he was done twitching on my tongue. It was sweet and bitter at the same time. I never tasted nothing similar. I was addicted at the first drop. Some of it still escaped the corner of my mouth. He watched that too.

He stayed there a second, still in my mouth, one hand in my hair, the other on his own chest like he needed to remember how to breathe.

Then he pulled out.

I stayed on my knees on the hot tiles, lips wet, the taste of him all the way down my throat. Gianluca tucked himself back into the trunks, adjusted the gold chain, and looked at me like nothing in his life had ever been a problem.

“Good boy,” he said. Soft. Still cocky. “You did well. Much better than I thought.”

He reached down and wiped my chin with his thumb, then flicked the gold chain again, like he wanted me to remember it.

“Tomorrow I do the hedges. You come watch again. Maybe I let you do it twice. Maybe I make you wait. We see.”

He picked up the skimmer like the last fifteen minutes hadn’t happened and went back to the water. The socks. The dirty sneakers. The sun on his back.

I sat there on the burning tiles with my heart trying to leave my body, already knowing I was going to be at that window again in the morning.

And that I was going to say yes to whatever the Italian boy asked me to do.