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03/03/01
Fandom: The Talented Mr Ripley Peter Smith-Kingsley/Tom Ripley Spoilers: either you've seen the movie or you haven't Feedback: Jane likes attention, dammit. janestclair15@hotmail.com Summary: Peter basks and ponders. Disclaimer: Things "Ripley" belong to Patricia Highsmith, Anthony Minghella, and Paramount. No infringement intended. Yadda. Sex disclaimer:
Hell, if you saw the movie, you can read this. I mean, there's sex, but
it's British.
Light
He came to Venice, and after two weeks he couldn't imagine going back to England ever again. There was more sun, and it was warmer, but he could have lived without either of those. But the water. This house. Italy is so old. Quite romantic, if he feels like admitting to feeling something so un-British. When he was a boy, playing expanded scales with the big leather-bound dictionaries piled under him and no way to reach the pedals, he used to think about places like this. Defined by music and light. Where the things you dreamed of could expand to fill the available space, and the grandeur overcame your inability to ever be quite rich. Peter's aware of his Britishness in this country, but he can't quite bring himself to give it up. If he stopped being British, he could only be a false Italian, and he isn't quite prepared for the pretension that goes with such a transition. And as long as he's foreign, he can continue to be delighted with the things he finds here. His house, which, damp as it is, is at the heart of the things that make him happy. The clear sound of the piano when he plays in the small hours of the morning. Bach. The graceful stretches of notes that draw his hands outward against the keys. Warm sweaters against the damp. Tom. Tom wrapped around him in this stripped-down Venetian bedroom. Naked walls because he's here so seldom, but the bareness of the room gives him this immense and wonderful sense of Tom's body. Tom upright is a quiet affair. His slouch locks him away from people except when he's seated at the piano, and then he doesn't admit anyone into the space between himself and the instrument. Even his occasional bursts of self-confidence have a brittle edge to them. Tom laid out in their bed is different. Pale under the first-layer tan he picked up on the southern beaches. Fine-skinned and freckled. Soft, slightly curving belly. Lovely legs, marked with hair so pale that Peter can detect it only by touch. A crooked smile that lights when he's on his back, propped up slightly to watch the man kissing him from sternum to navel. Radiant. Tom laid out under him, both of them naked and kissing. There's a long list of things he doesn't like, and sex like animals is high on the list, but he's never encountered anything as wonderful as Tom's body wrapped around his. The warmth of it. Warmth like the first time he came to Italy, when he realized that there were places where the sun shone constantly and that the chill could be kept out forever. Slow and very tender. Kisses around his mouth, and his jaw, and his ears, and the base of his throat. Tom is nothing if not thorough. Tom must know every inch of his skin by now. They made love this afternoon like that. Their legs so tangled that his feet struck flesh and he couldn't name it for certain as his or Tom's. Music on his ribcage from Tom's fingers. Slowly into his mouth, and nestling under his heart. Afterwards, with the sheets tangled around their hips, he pulled Tom into the hollows of his body and held him, rubbing his lips against the back of Tom's neck. Told him about those first English days when he was just starting to learn where the piano could take him. When he was always cold. The kiss his tutor from the Conservatory gave him when he was twelve. How he used to soak in hot baths all day, trying to get warm. How the house was cold to keep the coal bill down. He gets a shudder out of Tom with that one. He's well aware that Tom's poverty is a deeper thing than he's ever revealed, but touching that weak place is a process of days and weeks, trying to soften the armour with sun and the warmth of his body. One big window and
the late afternoon light pouring through it. Tom's thin enough that Peter
can wrap both arms around his waist and just hold him. Knees up behind
Tom's knees, holding both of them semi-fetal. Later, when he starts to
lose the feeling in his arm, he can lift it up, lay it along the back of
Tom's neck and hold his skull in the palm of that hand. Cradling it until
it opens.
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