STALKER

Chapter 91 - 21st May 1725 - Venice

An hour into my visit and Alvise was getting used to my face and stopped staring while we chatted. He also stopped fidgeting and pulled himself together, even if only on the surface. He sat composed on the chaise, only his hands gave him away. They clutched the front of his shirt like a virgin about to be deflowered.

Giacomo opened the magnum for us and poured out the first of many glasses before discretely disappearing. Alvise made a number of attempts to escape the room so he could, as he put it, dress more suitably for a guest. Insisting he was practically naked dressed in only a shirt and breeches.

I pointed out, after the third time I had to quickly chase him down and return him to his seat, that I wasn't a guest...I was a friend. He was horrified to be in such a state of undress and even more flustered at being manhandled. I pointed out that everything important was covered and he had nothing to be concerned about. That made him blush deeper and his features turned cold. As crude and vulgar as Gizelle could be, Alvise was all about decorum, even if someone was having sex two feet away from him. You would think I was talking about two different people but no...just one man determined to distance himself from a part of himself he loathed.

In the old timeline, it took another 5 years before Alvise let his guard down completely around me and trusted me with all his secrets. I intend to move that up to now, as a part of my new NO WASTING TIME policy. We need a crash course in male bonding, as a pub crawl was out of the question in 1725 I had to think of something else.

"Never in my life have I been in the company of a guest..." FRIEND I repeated for his benefit. He continued never the less in the same vein. "Not even my family without wearing hose and shoes. It is most unseemly." Alvise curled up his toes as if he was making them invisible to me and pushed his feet as far as he could under the chaise. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry at how uptight he was. I came to whine and complain, to wallow in self-pity but he was doing a great job of distracting me. Maybe it was a good thing, laughing is the best medicine so they say.

"So what category does the  guest I met earlier this evening fall into...hmmm."  Blowing up his argument with one shot. He sent daggers in my direction. In the 20 years I've known him I only know of one other time he broke character and that was a deadly mistake. He wouldn't risk his reputation for just anyone.  Whoever the person was who I crossed paths with must be very special to Alvise. I didn't push it.

"Tonight you have seen my face after four years and I've seen....your feet. I think this is progress." I downed my champagne and poured another. I broke one of the large slabs of rich dark chocolate into two and threw one half at him. "Have some, it'll release endorphins into your system and make you feel good."

"Dolphins?" Alvise looked at me confused. I laughed so suddenly and violently that the chocolate flew out of my mouth. He was priceless, just what I needed to get me out of my funk.

"Forget it." I blew out a deep breath trying not to burst into laughter again.

"What's wrong with your feet anyway. They look like normal feet. Small, perfect just like the rest of you as far as I can see." I bent down to take a better look at them and I could see him cringe. Considering the things that went on in San Gabriele, it boggled the mind that he was mortified to show his naked feet. The more he tried to be prim and proper, the more frustrated I became with him.

"Have you ever had a foot rub? They are the best thing....ever. When I was little and I couldn't sleep my mother would sit at the bottom of my bed and rub my feet, for some reason it put me to sleep."

From the look on Alvise's face, I think I said incredibly inappropriate.

He cleared his throat "Sometimes the things you say Signore Morrison horrify me." I smirked. I was back to being Signore Morrison instead of Timothy...I was seriously in his bad books. He made it sound like I had a weird foot fetish. I'm not sure what came over me, well actually I do five or six glasses of champagne, I jumped up and joined him on the chaise.