The first movement was usually fast, something to catch the audience’s attention. It was an allegro or a presto or perhaps a vivace—fast and bright. The excitement of first love, the initial rush of lust. Sex started that way, with excitement and urgency. It was grasping and pulling. It was mouths fused together, licking and biting, nails pressed into skin. It was the violin tremolo in an opera’s prologue, designed to crescendo and build anticipation. It was trembling fingers and limbs, fluttering hearts, shallow breaths. It was music swelling. It was the rending of garments. No longer able to wait, Mike and Gio tore clothes off each other as Gio pushed Mike toward his bedroom. They kissed hard and fast, sucking and pulling and pushing. Gio grabbed Mike’s hair and tugged him closer, needing to be closer to him, around him, inside him. His desire was the sort of desperation only characters in an opera could feel for each other at first meeting. Gio’s erratic pulse beat like a mezzo-soprano singing the opening bars of an aria that would bring the house down.
