Angel of Little Deaths

Ange des Petites Morts

Florence, Italy. 1975.

"Have you always been here?" Louis asks his angel. Their first words spoken to each other— something he will remember until he dies.

It's a dark discotheque at night, and Louis is already quite tipsy on apéritifs, but this man has just stepped into his line of vision, and there's no going back once Louis sees something he likes. Something he wants. He wants to talk to the angel, the name he coins once he sees pale skin and light eyes and short curls begging to twist around his ears as they would in statues in the Louvre, in paintings in cathedrals. Lips so plump and deeply colored, tinted with whatever wine was drunk just now.

"Well I'm not new," says the angel, laughing. British accent— perhaps a tinge of French, which isn't uncommon. The French sometimes trickle down from Paris into Florence, for holiday or during breaks in schooling.

How very pretty the angel's voice sounds, a deep thrum like the plucking of a cello by Louis' ear. Sends a sweet vibration through his skin beneath the clatter of music and the crowded bar at midnight on a Friday. "I just sat down now. Have you always been here?"

"Always," Louis answers. He clanks the bottom edge of his glass repeatedly against the hard wood of the bar, then looks over at the angel. "Been here since the beginning of time, love." He means this, really, in a self-deprecating way; but to swallow the pity, he adds, "Swear I'm gonna turn into an aperol spritz."

"Mm! Citrus-y."

He laughs, raspy and loud.

"Yeah, that's me. Tha's what I taste like right now."

"Bet you taste lovely."

He looks up to the angel's face, and is met with the largest eyes he's ever seen. Green in this dingy discotheque light, but bound to change color once he brought the angel home. The eyes are wide, set far apart but not in a way that looks silly. Curious face. Just slightly round at the edges, but sharp at the jaw. Lips bitten and bruised and undoubtedly sweet, and Louis just can't stop thinking—

"You're cheeky."

The angel laughs sweetly, then smiles bright; green eyes glimmer with yellowish flames, now.

"Just trying to have some fun..." With a petulant tone a child has when they get caught.

"You've been bored, then?"

"Before meeting you? Not bored. Just... Pre occupied . You know?"

Louis smiles to himself, looking ahead at the mirror behind the bar; he feels less guilty staring at him like this. It's dark in here, with lights flashing behind them to the music that just bounces around them. But there they sit, side-by-side in the mirror, the only ones at the bar whilst everyone else is dancing or kissing or living.

Louis snorts into his drink. "Ah," he says, lamely. "I get it."

Then there's a mischievous hand at his shirt collar, making him freeze up. It thumbs over the white crispness of the corner of his collar. His angel speaks casually, with a lightness that stuns him, "Are you a student?"

Before letting go of the collar, hands so close to the warm skin of Louis' neck, where his gray stubble has grown in over the past few days and where he undoubtedly smells like smoke and slightly of sweat. Smiling with a tremor in those lips, an evil glimmer in the eye, that says, instantly, I won.

Oh, the confidence! Louis wants to play the game, so he does.

Eye contact— they put each other to the test. "I graduated over ten years ago, love," Louis says, smiling sweetly. Was it too dim to notice his age? The gray in his hair, the crow's feet at his eyes. Louis knows he doesn't look that old— he's only thirty-nine, for Christ's sake— but it's flattering nonetheless. "Fine arts."