Where the Anemones Grow
Summary: A Spanish-German boy goes to study abroad in his hometown in Granada, Spain. There, he falls in love with a gypsy boy, and a secret love affair begins. The end of summer approaches ~ is this something that can last for more than a year? PG-15 (mild sexy tiemz).
Word count: ~2000.
~~~
Voices ebb and flow alongside lazy trails of August's summer breeze as the laughter and chatter from the bar's patrons eases the evening's rhythm. Behind the counter, he hovers over the bottles and picks out a Cognac and Benedictine to serve a customer. His hands work quickly and smoothly as he takes pride in his work, happy to enable satisfied glances in his customers. Matéo lives in the background of the bar, preferring to be the invisible hand that guides people to the little glasses of cheeriness than be the one doing the entertaining.
A woman in a fitting dark dress murmurs through tight lips over her glass of B&B about how busy the bar is today; her smoke-grey eyes invite him closer.
The bartender smiles and acquiesces; he does not know how to react to that and flits over to the next customer. To cover up his cluelessness, he dons something resembling a patronising detachedness on his face. The barkeep shakes his head and mutters something about him being an idiot. He really would like Matéo to mingle better with the locals... The young man's pale skin often stands out amongst most of the darker Andalusians because of his German heritage, and though his hair is not blond, it is a sandy chestnut colour that changes hue depending on the light. But tonight is Thursday night; his mind is elsewhere. Tonight he will see him sing again in the caves of Sacromonte.
As soon as his shift is over, he takes his leave and heads out to where the juerga has gathered. Raw voices of gitanos and their impassioned footwork imprint themselves in the ground and air while the cajo player tap-taps the rhythm on his orange crate and the palmas pelt the music into the walls. The singer's bare voice jumbles through the dancers and players and is reflected in Matéo's glazed eyes. The rasgueado of the guitar twangs and bounces from person to person, shadow to shadow, until it finally fades out to the cave's mouth and washes up at Matéo's feet.
Today feels different. The singer's face is a wrinkle too early and his voice seems like it is slowly bleeding out of him rather than the song is bleeding into his voice. It sounds painful.
"Upa!"
"Ahíja!"
The crowd cheers like it is one entity possessed by the same ancient spirit that Matéo can only wish he could steal a piece of. But he will always come up against that wall that separates him from the breath that animates this bohemian culture. All he can do is scrape persistently against it like a fevered cat in the hopes that he might be permitted to get a better glimpse.
Once the night has run its course and dawn is not far behind and the gitanos have retired to their dwellings, the singer descends the bottom of the hill. He passes by an alcove deep in a small cobble street and stops to light a cigarette.
"You should quit that." Matéo emerges from the alcove and presses his forehead to the singer's back. "Alejo," he murmurs into the sinewy black ponytail. The singer breathes out a long plume of grey smoke.
"You sounded sad today," Matéo continues.
"It was a sad song," Alejo says.
Matéo hums into his back. "Can you come over now?"
Alejo takes two more drags on his cigarette before crushing it under his heel. They walk in the dead of the morning, the gypsy's song still ringing between them.
- - -
Matéo digs through Alejo's vest pocket as he is embraced in bed and pulls out a red anemone flower and entangles the stem in the gypsy's hair. His lips crease into a smile as Alejo tickles the hollow of his neck with his tongue.
"You should keep it like that."
Alejo pulls Matéo's hand to his lips and kisses the centre of his palm, burying his eyes under loose strands of hair. A queasy feeling seeps into Matéo's stomach, but he just as soon pushes it aside and leans forward to tear the rest of the man's clothes off, eager to run his fingers across the firm expanse of his sun-drenched skin.
Strained little moans slip past Alejo's lips as Matéo slides his tongue down his cock and licks back across the top. The gypsy tangles his hand in the young man's hair and arches back, revelling in the burning trails left on his oil-dulled skin. Matéo wants to cage this wild bird and keep him safely locked up, his and his alone to keep and coddle. For the past year he's never stopped wondering why it couldn't be so, even if they both knew from the beginning that this was only temporary. His student exchange year in Spain was already up and soon he will be returning to Germany to finish his degree. But it doesn't mean this has to stop. Matéo sinks his fingers into Alejo's thighs as the man's body shudders in pleasure.
Matéo drinks in every last bit of him then crawls onto his hips; he takes Alejo's face with both hands and tries to drink more of him. But it's never enough. There's no point if he's going to lose him in just a matter of time. He bites down on Alejo's lip and presses his nails even harder in the man's back, begging to hear him moan with the same pain he sang with in front of his people. He doesn't want Alejo to leave him behind, so the least he can do now is mark him.
Alejo pries his mouth away from his and looks at the young man's reddened face. Matéo thinks his olive-green eyes have lost their warmth; the man reaches down and strokes him until he keens and presses his forehead to his shoulder. In some hazy corner of his mind, Matéo thinks he can smell the red anemone on the gypsy's skin.
- - -
Little clinking sounds awake Matéo, prompting him to rub a hand over his face. He grabs a pair of boxers and drags his feet to the bathroom. Inside, he finds Alejo shaving his face. Matéo still can't get around how normal gitanos really are in the mornings; he doesn't know what he was expecting to see either.
"I wake you up?" Alejo says, and washes off the rest of the shaving cream.
"If I didn't wake, you would have left without saying anything," Matéo mutters and grabs a toothbrush.
Alejo looks at him, his face more tired than it should be.
"I'm getting married," he says.
Matéo bites down on his toothbrush, trying hard to ignore the sudden words. He continues to brush his teeth.
"We can't keep this up," Alejo continues, walking into the bedroom. "Sorry, I guess."
Matéo spits the toothpaste and washes his mouth out.
"Looks like my mother's caught wind of my extra night activities and is now pressuring me into marriage before I shame the family... or something," he says while dressing up. "They picked out a nice girl for me, too, apparently. A seventeen year old virgin. A quiet, hard-working girl."
Matéo washes his face and combs his hair.
"Say something." Alejo looks at him; his eyes have lost a bit of their colour.
Matéo shrugs on a shirt and gives him a weak smile.
"Let's go to the beach," he says.
- - -
The two hour long bus ride through the early sun-baked streets of Granada pass by in awkward silence while Matéo rests his head on Alejo's shoulder. It's not over yet, he thinks. The breathing under his cheek is still there; the feel of his skin through the light fabric is still warm. And yet, a creeping languor is spreading from inside him, it's like the cries from last night are tearing him up little by little, all the way down to his arteries. The world is escaping him and, as always, he's left behind like an idiot, always last to grasp what is going on.
They stop in the shade of some trees, their feet bare in the grass and sand. Matéo pushes Alejo's ponytail aside and starts nuzzling the back of his neck. Alejo bristles but does not move away.
"A year," Matéo murmurs. "Just wait for me."
Alejo looks to the side. "Are you going to say that you can't live without me?"
"You're always travelling..." Matéo says into his back. "Don't you need a home?"
Alejo shrugs him off and starts walking away.
"Give me a year," Matéo says as the wind beats his words into the sea. "I'll be your home, Alejo!"
"Shut up," Alejo mutters. "Saying things like that so loud..."
Matéo grins and catches up with the other man. Alejo pulls out the anemone from his pocket and holds it in front of him, letting the wind tear off the dead petals as they are blown out to sea.
"You'll wait for me, right?"
Alejo shrugs. "We'll see in a year."
- - -
Matéo is on holiday from Germany at his grandmother's home in Granada. The eight year old boy is playing cards with his grandmother while his mother is in the kitchen, cooking.
"Abuela," Matéo says, "can I go play with other children tomorrow?"
"What other children, mijo?" his grandmother asks, while rearranging her hand of cards.
"The children of caravans," he says in his budding Spanish. "They look like they are fun."
His grandmother looks at him and hums ominously. "Stay away from the gypsies, mijo. You can never tell what they're thinking. They only go where the wind takes them."
Matéo says nothing more, and they settle in a pocket of silence. He'll never forget the young boy he saw this morning, running carefree and wild down the streets, his olive-green eyes brimming with secrets. He wants to join and play with them; he wants to pretend for a while that he isn't him.
- - -
The sea waves unobtrusively crash along the shore while the wind barrels through Matéo's outgrown hair. It's been a year; his hands have memorised every dip and curve of the wild boy's body, and already he aches to bury his face in the pitch black of his hair. He stands under the trees where he had shared a promise and waits until the sun tires itself out. Yesterday he hadn't shown up; perhaps today he will. Matéo toes the grass under his feet and wonders when so many flowers had been planted here.
Something hard nudges him in the back. He turns around and finds Alejo in a light blue shirt rolled up at the sleeves, a cigarette in hand, nudging him with his foot. Matéo's heart skips a beat before he throws himself at the man. Alejo mutters something about him acting like a kid, but tightens his grip around him anyway.
"What..." Matéo starts to say after disentangling himself from the other man. "What happened to your wife? That girl you were supposed to marry?"
Alejo's face twists into an odd expression of regret and annoyance.
"It turns out she wasn't a virgin," he says and takes hold of Matéo's hand. "The marriage didn't go through."
Matéo smiles and presses his lips against Alejo's so hard he thinks they might bruise. But just before they part and start walking away, he thinks he sees those olive-green eyes shining with painful secrets again.
"Want me to read your future for you?" Alejo chuckles, pulling on his hand.
"No way. But you probably did anyway," he says.
"Did not." Alejo grins.
"Liar."
As they start walking towards the bus stop, Matéo glances one last time at the bed of anemones under the trees. He begins to wonder what could have been buried underneath to give such a beautiful blooming.
- - -
End..
Word count: ~2000.
~~~
Voices ebb and flow alongside lazy trails of August's summer breeze as the laughter and chatter from the bar's patrons eases the evening's rhythm. Behind the counter, he hovers over the bottles and picks out a Cognac and Benedictine to serve a customer. His hands work quickly and smoothly as he takes pride in his work, happy to enable satisfied glances in his customers. Matéo lives in the background of the bar, preferring to be the invisible hand that guides people to the little glasses of cheeriness than be the one doing the entertaining.
A woman in a fitting dark dress murmurs through tight lips over her glass of B&B about how busy the bar is today; her smoke-grey eyes invite him closer.
The bartender smiles and acquiesces; he does not know how to react to that and flits over to the next customer. To cover up his cluelessness, he dons something resembling a patronising detachedness on his face. The barkeep shakes his head and mutters something about him being an idiot. He really would like Matéo to mingle better with the locals... The young man's pale skin often stands out amongst most of the darker Andalusians because of his German heritage, and though his hair is not blond, it is a sandy chestnut colour that changes hue depending on the light. But tonight is Thursday night; his mind is elsewhere. Tonight he will see him sing again in the caves of Sacromonte.
As soon as his shift is over, he takes his leave and heads out to where the juerga has gathered. Raw voices of gitanos and their impassioned footwork imprint themselves in the ground and air while the cajo player tap-taps the rhythm on his orange crate and the palmas pelt the music into the walls. The singer's bare voice jumbles through the dancers and players and is reflected in Matéo's glazed eyes. The rasgueado of the guitar twangs and bounces from person to person, shadow to shadow, until it finally fades out to the cave's mouth and washes up at Matéo's feet.
Today feels different. The singer's face is a wrinkle too early and his voice seems like it is slowly bleeding out of him rather than the song is bleeding into his voice. It sounds painful.
"Upa!"
"Ahíja!"
The crowd cheers like it is one entity possessed by the same ancient spirit that Matéo can only wish he could steal a piece of. But he will always come up against that wall that separates him from the breath that animates this bohemian culture. All he can do is scrape persistently against it like a fevered cat in the hopes that he might be permitted to get a better glimpse.
Once the night has run its course and dawn is not far behind and the gitanos have retired to their dwellings, the singer descends the bottom of the hill. He passes by an alcove deep in a small cobble street and stops to light a cigarette.
"You should quit that." Matéo emerges from the alcove and presses his forehead to the singer's back. "Alejo," he murmurs into the sinewy black ponytail. The singer breathes out a long plume of grey smoke.
"You sounded sad today," Matéo continues.
"It was a sad song," Alejo says.
Matéo hums into his back. "Can you come over now?"
Alejo takes two more drags on his cigarette before crushing it under his heel. They walk in the dead of the morning, the gypsy's song still ringing between them.
- - -
Matéo digs through Alejo's vest pocket as he is embraced in bed and pulls out a red anemone flower and entangles the stem in the gypsy's hair. His lips crease into a smile as Alejo tickles the hollow of his neck with his tongue.
"You should keep it like that."
Alejo pulls Matéo's hand to his lips and kisses the centre of his palm, burying his eyes under loose strands of hair. A queasy feeling seeps into Matéo's stomach, but he just as soon pushes it aside and leans forward to tear the rest of the man's clothes off, eager to run his fingers across the firm expanse of his sun-drenched skin.
Strained little moans slip past Alejo's lips as Matéo slides his tongue down his cock and licks back across the top. The gypsy tangles his hand in the young man's hair and arches back, revelling in the burning trails left on his oil-dulled skin. Matéo wants to cage this wild bird and keep him safely locked up, his and his alone to keep and coddle. For the past year he's never stopped wondering why it couldn't be so, even if they both knew from the beginning that this was only temporary. His student exchange year in Spain was already up and soon he will be returning to Germany to finish his degree. But it doesn't mean this has to stop. Matéo sinks his fingers into Alejo's thighs as the man's body shudders in pleasure.
Matéo drinks in every last bit of him then crawls onto his hips; he takes Alejo's face with both hands and tries to drink more of him. But it's never enough. There's no point if he's going to lose him in just a matter of time. He bites down on Alejo's lip and presses his nails even harder in the man's back, begging to hear him moan with the same pain he sang with in front of his people. He doesn't want Alejo to leave him behind, so the least he can do now is mark him.
Alejo pries his mouth away from his and looks at the young man's reddened face. Matéo thinks his olive-green eyes have lost their warmth; the man reaches down and strokes him until he keens and presses his forehead to his shoulder. In some hazy corner of his mind, Matéo thinks he can smell the red anemone on the gypsy's skin.
- - -
Little clinking sounds awake Matéo, prompting him to rub a hand over his face. He grabs a pair of boxers and drags his feet to the bathroom. Inside, he finds Alejo shaving his face. Matéo still can't get around how normal gitanos really are in the mornings; he doesn't know what he was expecting to see either.
"I wake you up?" Alejo says, and washes off the rest of the shaving cream.
"If I didn't wake, you would have left without saying anything," Matéo mutters and grabs a toothbrush.
Alejo looks at him, his face more tired than it should be.
"I'm getting married," he says.
Matéo bites down on his toothbrush, trying hard to ignore the sudden words. He continues to brush his teeth.
"We can't keep this up," Alejo continues, walking into the bedroom. "Sorry, I guess."
Matéo spits the toothpaste and washes his mouth out.
"Looks like my mother's caught wind of my extra night activities and is now pressuring me into marriage before I shame the family... or something," he says while dressing up. "They picked out a nice girl for me, too, apparently. A seventeen year old virgin. A quiet, hard-working girl."
Matéo washes his face and combs his hair.
"Say something." Alejo looks at him; his eyes have lost a bit of their colour.
Matéo shrugs on a shirt and gives him a weak smile.
"Let's go to the beach," he says.
- - -
The two hour long bus ride through the early sun-baked streets of Granada pass by in awkward silence while Matéo rests his head on Alejo's shoulder. It's not over yet, he thinks. The breathing under his cheek is still there; the feel of his skin through the light fabric is still warm. And yet, a creeping languor is spreading from inside him, it's like the cries from last night are tearing him up little by little, all the way down to his arteries. The world is escaping him and, as always, he's left behind like an idiot, always last to grasp what is going on.
They stop in the shade of some trees, their feet bare in the grass and sand. Matéo pushes Alejo's ponytail aside and starts nuzzling the back of his neck. Alejo bristles but does not move away.
"A year," Matéo murmurs. "Just wait for me."
Alejo looks to the side. "Are you going to say that you can't live without me?"
"You're always travelling..." Matéo says into his back. "Don't you need a home?"
Alejo shrugs him off and starts walking away.
"Give me a year," Matéo says as the wind beats his words into the sea. "I'll be your home, Alejo!"
"Shut up," Alejo mutters. "Saying things like that so loud..."
Matéo grins and catches up with the other man. Alejo pulls out the anemone from his pocket and holds it in front of him, letting the wind tear off the dead petals as they are blown out to sea.
"You'll wait for me, right?"
Alejo shrugs. "We'll see in a year."
- - -
Matéo is on holiday from Germany at his grandmother's home in Granada. The eight year old boy is playing cards with his grandmother while his mother is in the kitchen, cooking.
"Abuela," Matéo says, "can I go play with other children tomorrow?"
"What other children, mijo?" his grandmother asks, while rearranging her hand of cards.
"The children of caravans," he says in his budding Spanish. "They look like they are fun."
His grandmother looks at him and hums ominously. "Stay away from the gypsies, mijo. You can never tell what they're thinking. They only go where the wind takes them."
Matéo says nothing more, and they settle in a pocket of silence. He'll never forget the young boy he saw this morning, running carefree and wild down the streets, his olive-green eyes brimming with secrets. He wants to join and play with them; he wants to pretend for a while that he isn't him.
- - -
The sea waves unobtrusively crash along the shore while the wind barrels through Matéo's outgrown hair. It's been a year; his hands have memorised every dip and curve of the wild boy's body, and already he aches to bury his face in the pitch black of his hair. He stands under the trees where he had shared a promise and waits until the sun tires itself out. Yesterday he hadn't shown up; perhaps today he will. Matéo toes the grass under his feet and wonders when so many flowers had been planted here.
Something hard nudges him in the back. He turns around and finds Alejo in a light blue shirt rolled up at the sleeves, a cigarette in hand, nudging him with his foot. Matéo's heart skips a beat before he throws himself at the man. Alejo mutters something about him acting like a kid, but tightens his grip around him anyway.
"What..." Matéo starts to say after disentangling himself from the other man. "What happened to your wife? That girl you were supposed to marry?"
Alejo's face twists into an odd expression of regret and annoyance.
"It turns out she wasn't a virgin," he says and takes hold of Matéo's hand. "The marriage didn't go through."
Matéo smiles and presses his lips against Alejo's so hard he thinks they might bruise. But just before they part and start walking away, he thinks he sees those olive-green eyes shining with painful secrets again.
"Want me to read your future for you?" Alejo chuckles, pulling on his hand.
"No way. But you probably did anyway," he says.
"Did not." Alejo grins.
"Liar."
As they start walking towards the bus stop, Matéo glances one last time at the bed of anemones under the trees. He begins to wonder what could have been buried underneath to give such a beautiful blooming.
- - -
End..