Guntram buried his head in his hands as he remembered all what he had done—drunk but not to the point of the oblivion—with Constantin and how he had enjoyed, contrary to his original idea. “Shit!” he mumbled softly. “I'm in deep shit,” he repeated squeezing his eyes, to escape the images assaulting him and the headache killing him too with the pain and nausea. For a second he wished to undo all what had occurred but he knew it was impossible. He took a deep breath, decided to face whatever could be waiting for him outside that room. Constantin had told him that he didn't want him at all. It was just an adventure.
“You look more relaxed this morning boss,” Oblomov commented, trying to sound like a little lamb. “Yes, thank you,” Constantin answered, giving all his attention to the coffee.
“Not as good as you imagined?”
“Better actually. Ivan Ivanovich, I don't ask you such private questions.”
“Did you score at all?” Oblomov gloated, skeptical that his boss had turned into a gentleman who kissed and didn't tell.
“He's off limits for you and the others. Understand it once and forever. Is that clear?” Constantin stated very seriously. “Do I ask you what you do with your wife, Ivan Ivanovich?”
“No, boss. I apologise if my words were offensive to the lad. I had no intention at all,” Oblomov quickly said as he understood the message; the boy was not a simple fling for a night and he was going to be placed over the status of lover. Where? That remained to be seen, but at the moment he was certainly along with the wives and should be respected. Oblomov decided to keep his gaze down as the furious expression dangling in Constantin's eyes was a very bad omen. He took his laptop out of his briefcase and plunged himself into Petrobras latest data.
Guntram got finally dressed, with his hair combed, after nearly dying of shame when he saw the hickey on the right side of his neck. For the tenth time, he pulled up the collar of his shirt in a vain attempt to hide it but it was useless. After finishing tying up his shoe laces, he asked himself how he was going to face Constantin. 'With the same face you have, what's done is done, Guntram. You screw it up and all by yourself,' his inner voice informed him very clearly. 'You liked it, didn't you? Take it as an experience and go home because the man already told you this is nothing else but an adventure.' “At least I wasn't so drunk that I can't remember a thing, but this will not be something to tell my children about,” he whispered to the floor. “Hormones and alcohol are bad advisers,” 'Let's admit it Guntram, the problem are not your hormones, but the fact that you fear he will send you home and be done with you.' “Shut the fuck up,” Guntram growled at his own conscience. “Fucking superego. I'm not in love with a man!”
Going trough the long corridor from the private stances to the living room and dinning room was a slow torture for Guntram as he didn't remember it to be so long. 'It's not long, it's that you walk slowly, Guntram. Like a dead man walking,' his conscience again told him. Standing in front of the door he fought again with his demons, 'how can Fefo do this every weekend? He fucks and even has breakfast in the morning with the girl. Yeah, that's the key word here. The girl, not the guy who you were giving head the previous night.'
Decided to finish it as soon as possible, he knocked on the door and Constantin’s voice only said something in Russian. Hoping that the phrase would be the equivalent of a “come in”, Guntram opened the door and entered the room where Constantin and Oblomov were sitting, still having breakfast and obviously in the middle of a business meeting.
“I'm sorry to interrupt you, Constantin. I just wanted to say good-bye. I go home now,” Guntram spoke mortified. “Thank you for the book.”
“Come, sit and have breakfast. I should get used to using English more. You don't understand Russian at all.”
“No, please. I don't want to importunate you. You're working. Good-bye.”
“All right. Come back at around five, Guntram.”
Guntram only nodded, willing to leave the room more than anything in his life, nearly tumbling with his feet in his haste to disappear.
“I've seen shy people, but this one takes the big prize,” Oblomov chuckled visibly entertained at the bad time the boy seemed to have.
“Let him be, Ivan Ivanovich,” Constantin grunted, still crossed that his angel had refused a direct invitation to stay once more. Tell Irina to remind him to be here at five.”
“Boss, with all due respect, this one will not take orders from you. You have already seen it. Artists are temperamental and whimsical.”
“Not the real ones. He just needs to be tamed. That's all. He's only nineteen.”
“That's robbing the cradle boss,” Oblomov laughed.
Guntram hoped to evade George, his more than intruding neighbour, but it was impossible. At 1:00, the man was standing in front of his door while he was checking some CV's model in his old laptop. “Well, look here's the party boy!” He sauntered, entering like a whirlwind in his small flat, the dog barking behind him and running to jump into Guntram's untouched bed.
“I did nothing!” Guntram answered very fast.
“Yesterday was your birthday, wasn't it? I waited for you with a cake, all excuses are good for a monster calorie intake, but you never showed up.”
“Sorry, I didn't know it. I was…”
“At your own party, it seems,” George chortled. “By the look of your neck, it was quite a party, boy,” he playfully added, enjoying the words and the blush creeping in Guntram's cheeks.
“Mosquito bite.”
“Child, you have so much to learn to proficiently lie to me. That's a love bite and made by a man, if I might say,” he sauntered.
“Are you in the CSI now?” Guntram yelled, losing his politeness for the first time since they had known each other.
“Oops, I hit very close. Did you blow the candles too?”
“Fuck you!”
“Was the cream not to your taste?” George said, this time seriously. “Don't take it on me.”
“I'm sorry, George. I'm a total yokel. I didn't mean to yell at you,” Guntram apologised regretting his harsh words toward a man who had always been very generous and kind to him.
“No, just shout me vulgarly,” he snorted. “Come on, you can tell papa George what you have been doing because you didn't sleep here. I won't judge you, mostly because I have no stones left to cast.”
“You were right,” Guntram whispered, sitting in front of his small table and silently inviting George to do the same. The man left the cake he had in the hands and sat.
“It looks like confession time, Guti.”
“It is.”
“Then, I'll make some tea for us and serve the cake. Things don't look so dramatic in front of a cup of tea,” he said while he stood up and dashed to the kitchenette to boil the water, get two mugs left over from the
“Colombian Coffee” promotion. George made a face at the cheap brand for tea, but let it go as he put one teabag in each cup.
“So you can tell your big sins to Uncle George. School parties can be very wild. I remember when I was in…”
“It was no one from the school, and you're right. It was a man. A real man.”
“You were always telling me that you liked girls, a real pity if you want to know. Who was it? A teacher from the University? A customer from that sorry place you were working?”
“The later,” Guntram confessed starting to feel very uncomfortable and willing to jump inside of the steaming tea cup.
“Dr. Zhivago?” George nearly shouted, but Guntram only blushed more, rowing the cup with his spoon.
“Shit! Well, my boy, you have an excellent taste if you allow me to say so. That guy is really hot with those dark eyes and long eyelashes. The accent also helps too… Wait a minute. Was he not back in Russia?”
“I guess so. He came here for my birthday, we had champagne, too much and one thing led to the next and before I knew I was in the shower doing you know what. Well, you know better than I,” Guntram spat the words very n
ervously.
“No, I don't know. I wasn't there. Pity. The guy flew from Russia just to be on your birthday? Shit Guntram! I was glad if one of my boyfriends was sending me a postcard or giving me a phone call!”
“That's because your date of birth is Top Secret for everyone who knows you.”
“Don't change the subject. You won't escape from me. All right, you were doing “what I know about”
with him… Did you like it?”
“Yes, very but it's not supposed to be so!
“How's supposed to be? Don't tell me you're into masochism and need to have it bad!”
“NO, no, no… It's just I don't know why I did it. At the moment it seemed a great idea and then, I don't know, it just hit me that I only knew him for a few days and there I was sucking him like…”
“Only oral sex? Are you making such a big deal for a little oral sex? I was thinking that you have done much more.”
“Well, for me it was much more! I've done nothing with anyone ever before!” Guntram shouted.
“YOU DID NOTHING BEFORE?” The coiffeur yelled incredulously with Lola howling in unison.
“My landlady didn't hear you George. Can you shout a bit louder? No, I'm a fucking, freaky virgin with men.”
“You were in a boarding school, Guntram.”
“I did nothing there. It wasn't appealing at that time. Besides, all my friends were more into getting the poor girls in the neighbourhood than banging each other. You read too many novels about boarding schools. Nothing glamorous or sexy. Just a bunch of smelly teenagers fighting to get the biggest piece of meat in the canteen.”
“All right, after you have destroyed one of my fantasies, tell me what have you been doing.”
“I slept with Constantin, the Russian. In his bed.”
“Good choice, the bed I mean. Tables are overestimated and standing is not so great. You get cramps in the morning.”
“George! I've just told you I slept with a man!”
“Do you want a medal or what? I offered to hook you up with several of my friends, Guntram. Pedro is absolutely crazy about you and he's only thirty years old…”
“This was never supposed to happen! He told me it was just an adventure. I behaved like a whore and he won't like me ever again!”
“What did you exactly do?”
“We kissed on the sofa and then had oral sex in the shower. We slept together in the bed.”
“Only that? That's the minimum you get on a date nowadays.”
“Excuse me if I didn't do all whatever you are supposed to do! I slept in the same bed with him!”
“All right, you're not going to tell the whole story. What happened in the morning. What did he say?”
“Have breakfast with me. I refused and then he said come back at five. I'm not going.”
“Guntram, the doctor dropped you on your head when you were born… And then, you fell from a tree several times. Daily, I daresay. He asked you to stay and you left; then he tells you to come back and you don't want…
and you come crying to me because he only wants an adventure with you? Dear, you're behaving like the slut here.
Some sex and you run in the morning? You got your fun and disappear without an explanation?”
“He does not want me around!”
“And invites you for later? Normally, what you get is one croissant, some orange juice, a greasy coffee and an ‘I'll call you later’, line. Wash yourself, wear something nice, not those rags you like so much. Honestly you were looking much better in the waiter's uniform. No, better I'll choose something for you.”
“I don't know if I want to go.”
“Do you like him?”
“I don't know. It was fun what we did but it was not as extraordinary as people say it is. I like him and I was thinking a lot on him over the past month. Not in that way George!” Guntram added when the man lifted an eyebrow.
“Go back to him today at five and see what happens. Perhaps you love him or perhaps not. There's only one way to know and that's by experiencing it. Forget all the shit you got over the years about being gay is wrong! See if you like it or not. If you don't, go away, but never let my boy, that other people tell you what is best for you!
Choose your own path! Make a stand like a real man, not like one of those idiots you have for friends!”
“It's too much for me!”
“Because he's a man? Because your landlady will think that you're a faggot? Who cares? I fought with my whole family when I left my home and moved from Mendoza. I formed a new family here with my friends and much better than the one I used to have. Don't be afraid of living your life fully. If you don't do it, you will spend the rest of your life hiding in a corner and wondering what it could have been. Live for yourself, not for the others.”
“I don't know,” Guntram said very confused.
“You're clueless, but it's part of your charm, dear. You live in another planet most of the time. Pisces, no doubt.”
“I'm Libra.”
“The ascendant is what matters for the personality and you must be Pisces. All of them truly adorable, but crazy as cuckoos. I couldn't live with one of them. I need a decided Leo, an Aries, a Capricorn or a Sagittarius, if you want some laughter in your life. Cancer is too dull and Scorpio is dangerous. Speaking of I'm overseeing your dressing today. Leave the Che Guevara fan look out of the picture. It's hideous for a well educated man as the Dr.
Zhivago.”
“He told me her mother was the daughter of an immigrant from the Revolution but his father had a position by the Communist Party in Georgia… or was it Odessa? He studied chemistry and engineering at the Moscow University.”
“So we bathe you in addition. Would love to trim your hair too.”
“George! I know how to dress posh! Do you remember where I spent most of my life?”
“Yes, but the minute you saw the PCR guys you asked them about their tailor! Lord, what a waste! A good looking boy like you wearing a llama infested pullover with cargo pants! Burberry for you dear and nothing else.
Honestly, you and your ‘I'm the Rebel’ look reminds me of a chicken with a bear's skin. It just doesn't fit you!”
“I still don't know, George.”
“Go and shower while you think about it. Don't dry your hair, I'm trimming it; you're an offence to my profession and I can't stand it any longer. Do you have a light blue pullover? That makes your eyes much bigger and blue, almost like a lemur. Don't look at me as if I were an alien. Rich people pays me a lot for my advice and if I can get that vulgar tart on TV look like a lady, I can fix you in no time.”
Uncertain of his next course of action, Guntram rose from the table, his cake untouched and went to his bathroom to shower.
George was definitively pleased with his work as his little boy looked perfectly elegant and well groomed with his clothes and haircut. 'I totally side with Pedro's opinion that he's a true prince with the manners of one. He has the real courtesy of them and not a single move is faked. Poor man, he's totally in love of him and now a Russian steals him away!' “Are you sure you don't want to come with me to the disco? I'll get you a good man in no time, Guntram.”
“NO! This is your idea and I'm not sure it's good. I'll go home.”
“This is your flat, boy. Don't be so nervous, you look great, are intelligent, talented and the man already eats from your hand.”
I don't know if this is what I want, George. He only wants an adventure with me and I don't know if I'm into men at all!”
“Denial phase it's called. Go and see, if you don't like it, you come home and cry on my shoulder. If you like it, you send me a postcard for my birthday from wherever you are.”
“What if I like it?”
“Enjoy your dinner or whatever you're going to do, Guntram. Stop thinking so much; it wrinkles you.
Bye bye,” George finished the conversation before the boy would think it over once more and hide in his closet. 'It's hard but he needs a push in
the right direction, or we will be here till midnight,' the coiffeur thought before steering Guntram out of the flat and putting some money in his jacket pocket. “Here, for the taxi if you don't like it. Don't take a bus in the middle of the night, boy.”
“George…”
“Have fun!” He said before closing the door in his face.
Guntram was still undecided. Much to his chagrin he had enjoyed what he had done with Constantin the previous night but something inside him was telling that it was wrong. “Sinful,” as he had told the man, but he wanted more. 'Father Patricio will hit me with his Bible tomorrow. Why am I going at all? It's the perfect opportunity to disappear. I don't show up and he feels insulted and leaves me alone.' Guntram stood in the bus line, getting some looks from a group of young girls, no more than sixteen, dressed with their finest probably on their way to the cinema.
After getting several protruding looks from them, he had to divert his gaze when one of them winked at him, making him blush while the others girls roared with evil laughter at their exchange. Although he was first in the line, he automatically moved away to let them enter first on the bus, making them laugh at him even louder. “Don't bother boy, those are not ladies,” a man in his forties mumbled behind him.
Mind-absently he threw the coins in the machine and went as far as possible from the girls as they were laughing and commenting on his look in a rather vulgar way. 'No wonder Fefo tells me they're only good for one thing. Those could never be the mother of your children,' he thought. 'Wait a minute, what am I doing? I want to have children and I'm going to a man's bed? Shit, I'm totally crazy! I want to be an accountant, marry and have babies, three or four. I want a family with a good woman. I don't want to be a painter or live with a man who buys a Picasso like other men buy a t-shirt! I go home now, but I should leave a note at least. He came all the way from Venezuela for my birthday. I can't stand him up again.'
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