EPISODE 5 – THE TASTE OF PARADISE

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SONG

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LYRICS

He said, “Come join me on the field,”

“The olives wait, there’s work to yield.”

I followed fast, my breath was tight,

I got to stay, it all felt right.

We walked the path behind the stall,

A donkey and its foal would call.

The foal nuzzled his open hand,

He laughed, "no time", with other plans.

He said, I’ll show you paradise,

A promise shining through his eyes.

He said, "I’ll show you paradise,

I’ll let you try the taste of paradise,

I’ll show you paradise!"

(Mmmh…)

Are you my paradise?

My paradise.

He spread a cloth beneath the trees,

He took out apples, smiled with ease.

“These are the best you’ve ever seen,”

Their sweetness spoke of what could be.

I thought he meant a sweeter sin,

A place where breath and skin begin.

But all he offered was the day,

And still it took my breath away.

Chorus

He said, I’ll show you paradise,

A promise shining through his eyes.

He said, "I’ll show you paradise,

I’ll let you try the taste of paradise,

I’ll show you paradise."

(Mmmh…)

you are my paradise

My paradise.

The apple’s taste was sweet, unwise,

It touched my lips and stole my paradise.

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STORY

ENGLISH

EPISODE 5 – THE TASTE OF PARADISE

While I was still petting the cat at his feet, he asked,

“Hey, kid, I need to go to the field to pick olives. Want to come along and hang out with me for the afternoon?”

It felt as if someone struck a match inside me.

My heart reacted faster than my head.

“Yes, sure,” I said, jumping to my feet immediately, and I could hear myself how overly quick that reaction was.

He raised an eyebrow slightly, as if he had noticed that little flare inside me, and grinned at me.

“Well then, let’s go. Come to the field,” he said. “The time is right, the olive trees are waiting for us.”

He got up, and I followed him out of the kitchen, through the cool hallway into the glaring daylight. The path was short, yet my breath was shallower than necessary. It was only a little stretch between the house and the stable—yet for me it felt like crossing from one life into another. I was allowed to stay with him.

We went into the stable behind the house first. Inside, it was shady, the air smelling of hay, animals, wood, and a hint of iron. A donkey stood there, and next to her, her young one, still a bit too skinny, too wobbly for those big ears.

“These are Peppina and her little Principe,” Giorgio said with a smile. “The little one is still a bit clumsy, but charming enough to win you over right away.”

He approached the foal and held out his hand. The young animal hesitated just a moment, then pushed its soft muzzle into his open palm, pressing into it as if that was exactly where it belonged. Giorgio kept his fingers loose, letting it sniff, letting it nibble. His laugh was quiet and warm as the little one chewed on his hand.

I watched that wet muzzle moving in his hand, watched how naturally that small creature accepted his closeness, and how the mother even allowed me to be there through him. A cat at his feet, a foal in his hand—everything sought him out.

I felt caught thinking that I was doing exactly the same.

“Well then, little one,” he murmured to the foal, “no time today, we’ve got work to do.”

He slowly pulled his hand back, gave the animal a final stroke along the neck, and turned to Peppina. He prepared the donkey and led her with him.

“Come on,” he said. “Behind the stable there’s a path. That way.”

We left the stable and turned onto a narrow track running behind the buildings. To the right a low wall, to the left dry grass and a few scattered stones. In front of me his back, his shoulders, his neck. Beneath me the gravel crunching under my sandals. Above us the sky opening wide.

“You hungry?” he asked after a while, without stopping.

I was hungry. But not for what he probably meant.

“Yes,” I said. “A little.”

“Good,” he replied, and I could hear the grin in his voice, even though I could only see the back of his head. “I’ve got the tastiest thing you can imagine. When we get there, I’ll show you what paradise tastes like. Something unique—something you’ve never had in your mouth before.”

I almost tripped over a stone.

“Paradise?” I repeated, a bit too breathlessly. “What do you mean?”

He glanced over his shoulder at me, his eyes dark and calm, yet carrying a shimmer I couldn’t interpret. “You’ll see,” he said simply. “A little patience. Everything in its time.”

It didn’t sound like a joke. It sounded like a promise.

In my head, images began to grow—ones I shouldn’t allow: the two of us somewhere between the trees, no one else in sight; his hand at my nape; my face pressed to his hip; his voice telling me where my place was. My paradise. Is he my paradise?

I knew I was imagining too much. But the idea slipped into my bones, hot and heavy.

The path opened up, and I caught up to him so I could walk beside him. Only Peppina, the donkey, was between us. We didn’t speak much. It wasn’t an uncomfortable silence. I just saw him in my mind. Naked. My paradise.

We walked for a while, and soon the sounds of the village faded. I had no idea where his olive grove was; we were following a path I had never walked before.

“Hey, we’re almost there. That up ahead is my land. Further back are the apple trees. Here are the olive trees. There aren’t many, so it won’t take long. I’ll give you something paradisiacal soon.”

Before us lay the olive grove. The trees stood in uneven rows, gnarled and familiar, their leaves casting a silver shimmer in the air. The heat was gentler here, broken by the shade.

Giorgio stopped where the ground was level and two trees nearly intertwined their crowns.

“Let’s take a short break here,” he said. I looked around. We were alone. It was quiet. I wondered what he would do next.

He opened a bag on the donkey and pulled out a folded blanket—coarse, a bit faded, but clean.

With a smooth motion he spread it out on the ground, as if he’d done it a hundred times.

“Sit down,” he said.

I lowered myself onto the blanket, a bit stiffer than I wanted to be. My knees found their place; my hands didn’t. I set them side by side on the fabric, as if I had to keep them from doing something foolish. He smiled at me. Then he returned to the donkey and took a cloth bag from the other side. He came toward me.

He opened it and set a few things in front of him: a piece of bread, a small pouch of olives, a knife, and a bundle wrapped in cloth. With almost ceremonial calm, he unfolded the cloth.

Giorgio placed the bag on the blanket and sat next to me.

Underneath were apples. Round, smooth, shiny, as if painted in a still life rather than grown from the earth.

“These,” he said—and by now I recognized that tone, that quiet pride of a man who doesn’t claim, but knows—“these are the best apples you’ll ever eat.”

He didn’t smile widely, only a small twitch at the corner of his mouth. But I could feel how much love was in those fruits—in the soil where they grew, in the water that passed through his body before reaching their roots.

“Paradise,” he added. “That’s how it tastes. Try.”

The word made my heart race again, softer this time, deeper in my chest.

I took the apple from his hand. His fingers brushed mine—just briefly, but my body reacted as if someone had hooked me up to a battery.

He took one for himself too. He stretched his legs out a bit; his feet were only a hand’s width from my thigh. Dusty, tanned, familiar. I felt their closeness almost more than the apple in my hand.

“Go on, take a bite, boy. I’m curious what you’ll say.”

I lifted the apple. The skin was cool, taut, smooth. Part of me was still expecting something else to happen—that he’d pull me toward him, that his hand would sink onto my neck, that the word paradise would suddenly turn into something that smelled of skin and breath.

Instead, he just looked at me. Calm. Waiting.

I bit into it.

The skin cracked softly. Juice flooded my mouth, sweet but not sticky; fresh but not tart. It was like a piece of sunlight turning liquid under my tongue. I closed my eyes for a moment because the taste surprised me—more than I had ever expected.

“Madonna…” I murmured. “You weren’t exaggerating.”

Giorgio laughed briefly, pleased. “Told you,” he said. “Some things can’t be explained. You have to have them in your mouth.”

I almost choked on the line. Something inside me roared, something that looked like what he had promised: a special place, a forbidden thing, a secret garden where I could be small and he could be everything.

But instead, we sat side by side, eating apples, sharing bread, passing each other an olive now and then. The wind moved through the leaves, casting shifting shadows across his face. From this angle his profile looked even stronger—the line of his neck, the faint twitch of his jaw muscles as he chewed.

I had imagined something else. Something with more skin, more closeness, more body. Something that smelled more like something forbidden than like a midday break.

But this simple day—the blanket, the trees, his quiet chewing, his calm presence beside me—stole my breath in a different way.

He noticed me looking.

“Well?” he asked, without turning his head. “Disappointed? I bet you imagined something big when I talked about paradise.”

I felt the blood rush to my face. “I…,” I began, but every honest answer was deadly. “I didn’t know what you meant. But I think I get it now. Your apples really are from another world. Truly paradisiacal.”

I watched his hand breaking the bread, his fingers removing the pit from the olive, the veins just visible beneath the skin. Everything in me screamed to be needed, to be more than just the boy sitting next to him eating. Part of me wanted to tell him: You are my paradise, not the tree, not the apple. You.

But I stayed silent.

I bit into the apple again, though I wasn’t really hungry. Still, the taste was intoxicating—sweet, full, almost too perfect. And at the same time I felt something inside me crumble: the illusion that with the word “paradise” he had meant another kind of door, one that would open only for the two of us, secret and forbidden.

In that moment, Adam and Eve came to mind. How they bit the apple unwisely and lost their paradise. And that was exactly how I felt. By biting the apple, I was losing the paradise I had hoped for. Him. Giorgio. He only wanted to let me taste his paradisiacal apples. Nothing more. And I had to admit, painfully, that he hadn’t promised anything he didn’t deliver.

But I comforted myself with the thought that there was a little bit of him in that juice. And maybe that was what made the apple so irresistible.