AN: In the movie, Ivo is made out to be condescending, snobbish about wine and such, belittling Tim for his lack of refinement (he makes the comment about "taste" when he is having dinner with Tim). This is very far from the book character! There is absolutely no bullshit with Book!Ivo. He is as down to earth as they come, consumed by a drive to comprehend things and perhaps a bit unfeeling in his quest but never self-conscious enough to care about his position in the relationship. His aloof demeanor when Tim first moves in is to protect himself from developing any feelings for him. When he learns that Tim is unfaithful to him, he says, "I should have gone on as I meant to when I began... Stayed cool, kept you guessing, kept my feelings to myself. But I didn't because I loved you. Too bad, isn't it? I love you too much for your own good and far too much for mine." This was actually where I first got the idea that Ivo must have been badly hurt in a relationship (hence, the introduction of Danny Reyes). Tim is the one who feels insignificant for not having Ivo's education and experiences. Tim is the one who introduces his insecurities into the relationship. Ivo simply wants to love him and get on with life. Indeed, Ivo is genuinely shocked to find that Tim is unhappy. He can't imagine what is wrong. Whatever anger he feels towards Tim - and he does periodically flare up and say some rather unforgivable things (though he is always apologetic for losing his temper and saying hurtful things) - stems from Tim's flagrant infidelity. Ivo is first and foremost a family man. Once he and Tim take up with one another, he assumes they are family. "Tim," he says, "I want us to be together permanently. I don't think you've understood that." Tim, of course, has no concept of 'permanent', having never had it in his upbringing.
Réponse à Azerty: Voilà un nouveau drabble qui devrait apporter des réponses à tes questions. J'espère qu'il va te plaire. Merci pour ta review et à bientôt !
"Life has but one true charm: the charm of the game.
But what if we're indifferent to whether we win or lose?"
― Charles Baudelaire
Lie With Me
At what point do the lies we tell others become the lies we tell ourselves? When do we lose ourselves and start becoming what others want us to be?
I learned early on to play the game; I lied to please my mother. If I didn't like something, if I was afraid, I knew from experience she would reject me – and that was more terrifying to me than anything else. I craved her attention, her affection. Thus as a toddler, I learned not to cry since crying did me no good. And by the time I was six, I was compliant with her every wish. Already at that earliest stage of my development I was learning to suppress all of my emotions. I bottled everything up tight so that in time I came to feel nothing at all, for her or anyone else.
By the time I had reached the age of eight we were both worn out trying to overcome our fundamental incompatibilities. Eight years is a long time for a parent, I suppose. So we went our separate ways, my mother and I. She sent me away to school for others to work on me while she stayed with my father. And work on me they did - in ways she could never have imagined. At Leythe I found the attention I so desperately needed. I wasn't particularly good at anything but I was pretty and therefore sought after by all the older boys. Even the odd professor now and again, I'm ashamed to say. My confidence grew being the object of desire. For the first time I was loved. Or so I thought. I even imagined myself happy and actually took pleasure in the acts I was asked to perform. How they cherished me when I laid myself bare for them. How they kissed me and promised me pretty things, whispering pretty lies.
It was a rude awakening. I was sixteen when the ugly realization that I was being used - like a woman - hit me. Suddenly they had careers and fiances and responsibilities and I was nothing more than everyman's dirty little secret. Angered, humiliated, I took it upon myself to use others, a revenge of sorts. Following their example I turned to women, callously. But it felt wrong. I felt guilty. At school we had been trained to be gentlemen and my egregious violation of that code made me hate myself. I was a low stinking beast, the type that lived on the dole drinking himself senseless. The type that robbed his mother, beat his wife and raped his children. The type that had no business being alive. I fled Leythe and tried again.
University proved much harder; my brain was lazy from "lack of exercise" as Ivo would say. Still I was able to master it, figuring out what my professors wanted and giving it back to them, more or less. Patching myself back up in my suit of honor, I discovered first that I didn't like sex at all. In fact, I didn't really like people. I didn't like Emily. I didn't like my friends. (I did like learning but I wasn't sure how I felt about Martin; I only knew I needed his approval.) In truth, I didn't know how to be anything more than a superficial friend or lover. I knew all the correct responses, the things I had been taught to say and do. It was the emotions I couldn't summon. How could I – having never known them in my life? I had no idea what I felt, what anything felt like. I knew how to be a gentlemen but the rest of my education was incomplete.
And then came Ivo - like a gentle breeze of summer, a hurricane in autumn, the beer at my wine tasting party. He crashed into me and everything just fell apart. He was an enigma consumed by some inchoate passion that left him hunting, haunted. He was seeking but he hadn't found what he sought. I wasn't sure he ever would find it. The question seemed to be changing with everything he touched. But I didn't care about the questions. I only knew I wanted to be the answer to that insatiable hunger.
Ivo wasn't the type to play games but he kept me at arms-length the first six months of our relationship – to protect himself rather than win me (though he succeeded in the latter, not the former as planned). He approached me as he approached everything in life, breaking me down piece by piece so that he could figure me out. In exactly the same way he turned a figurine over to see what it was made of or reread a letter to find the hidden message, he exposed me - thoughlessly, cruelly. He made me question myself - rejecting all I held sacred, dismissing my efforts as unacceptable, peeling my flesh away layer by layer by layer until I was nothing but a raw nerve, a rudimentary life form struggling just to survive. And then –
He challenged me to rebuild myself. Not in his image or my mother's or Martin's or anyone else's. But in my own way by discovering what I felt and thought.
"Don't write about writing!" he groaned from the sofa, sounding a good deal like Martin. "All writers make that same mistake. Go find something new – some discovery in the ancient world, life on Mars, the Red Scare. Figure out what that tells you about your protagonist. Then people will want to read what you write."
So I wrote of spiritual matters and the origins of life and later, much later, when we were both past the pain, I wrote about Danny. And in so doing I uncovered the paths of my own life, was able to see where I had made wrong turns and gotten lost. In so doing, I was able to find myself.
I discovered I loved sex with him. It was terrifying and often painful but the sheer thrill of intimacy honesty brought me to life – like a thunder storm or the calving of a glacier or the chemical charges of the Northern Lights.
Like a butterfly emerging from its dark cocoon or the first sunrise over Antarctica after six months of darkness, with Ivo I came to life. With Ivo I learned how to be.