Claustrophilia by Ezra Blake

Author:Ezra Blake [Blake, Ezra]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

The villa is too quiet without Ivan around, and there’s nothing to do. One can only read so much Dante before the entire world starts stinking of sulfur.

He's confined to the property unless Ivan drives him somewhere, which will probably happen in time. He did mention something about sightseeing; Chris hopes he wasn't just making small talk. He doesn't bring it up.

It's a drive to Florence, and the nearest town isn't far, but it's too far to walk, for sure. Chris can barely walk around the perimeter of the grounds, though he does, every day, sometimes more than once. It exhausts him. Sometimes the pain in his feet, constant dull ache in the right and occasional bursts of agony where the left should be, necessitates breaks upwards of twenty minutes. He gets winded walking down the stairs to the wine cellar. Months of torture and malnutrition will do that to a person.

He feels purposeless without a job or a house or a family, without any real plans for the future. He's mentioned it to Ivan, but Ivan just tells him not to worry and to focus on recovering for as long as he needs.

Chris doesn't know how long that will be, but he's only been here for two weeks and he's already getting a little stir crazy. He scours the place for entertainment. No television, unsurprisingly, and there's wireless internet but Ivan takes his tablet to work with him, leaving Chris isolated.

He fiddles around with the piano in the foyer and eventually finds some sheet music stashed in Ivan's desk drawer. It's advanced, but Chris has all the time in the world to learn.

Maybe he has an ear for these things, even, because it doesn't take all the time in the world—more like eight or ten days of intensive practice. He's always careful to replace the music in the drawer when he's done. He doesn't want Ivan to notice and make him perform it. He plans to show him eventually, on his own terms. Once he works up the nerve.

But it happens a lot sooner than he intended. He's halfway through the piano suite, lost in the music, when he hears Ivan's car pull into the driveway. He's home from work early, in the door before Chris even has a chance to get his leg on.

“Good afternoon,” he says. He sets several paper grocery sacks on the hall table and slips off his jacket. He really looks the part of art professor in that plaid monstrosity with the elbow patches, in boat shoes and sock garters and pressed slacks, ginger hair brushing the tops of his eyebrows. “I didn't know you play.”

Chris shrugs. He must be quite a sight, poised at the keyboard in just a pair of silk pajama pants tied off below the left knee. The prosthetic is comfortable, but something about it makes Chris feel trapped, so he keeps it off when he can. Ironic that without it, he can't flee if he has to.

“I don't really,” he says.

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