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At Junín

by Tem-ve H'syan (tem-ve@gmx.de)

"God almighty knows what he gets up to in that back room of his -- I don't really want to go find out. Not when the air out here is so pleasant and fresh..."

The spotty youth grins at the pile of manure my horse has left on his patio, and the measured sweep of his broom drowns out the grunts and groans oozing from the little window of the back room. Clean grey sweeps, an unsteady smile, lanky blond hair. New to here, from what I can tell. New to the livery stables on the edge of Junín, a half-collapsed set of sheds that scrapes a living from feeding and grooming passing travellers' horses. Not a promising place for a young boy to be, especially not with the owner grunting in the stuffy dark little back room doing God knows what.

He grabs a brush and sets to work on Estrela's dusty coat while she nuzzles greedily at a bag of hay. She's almost as grey as me, my Estrela, only the boy doesn't know, and he's beavering away like he could prove to the world that she's really snow white under all that dust. Or coal black.

Estrela whinnies, irritated at so much eagerness, with how he scrapes the sweat-caked dust off her and coats himself with it while doing that. The flies flock from her to him, and he doesn't seem to mind. It takes a lot to be so calm, out here, in the humid air of late, late summer, in the company of dirty men with ragged tempers. In the pay of the man everyone just calls El Chull, because he's never told anyone his real name but someone told someone else once that that was the word for ape where he came from, and the name stuck. Brazilian, from his accent, dark and thick-set and hairy, a lazy fat animal. For some odd reason it irks me to see the lanky birdlike youth dependent on him, and I hope to God they're family or something. And then, not. Hope that he can move on from this place to another one day, away from El Chull, at least. He doesn't deserve company, not even of the quiet spotty kind.

"Palpatinho!"

Fluttering. Yes, that's what he is of course, and I watch the boy's fingertips dance uneasily as he waits for the few coins I dig out of my pouch. He pockets them, two on the left, one on the right, and scurries inside, following his master's voice.

Now that he's left it's even quieter in the half-open yard. The dust has settled again on Estrela and me, and the only sound is her deep measured breathing, the busy hum of the flies she keeps in motion with her tail, and a faint splash of water from one of the stables, then a happy muffled sigh, and out comes Obi-Juan, rubbing his face dry with his jacket, hair clinging to his head in lanky russet strands. He grins as he ruffles it into shape, straightens his shirt collar, throws his wet jacket over the neck of his own horse, a slender brown gelding a good span smaller than my Estrela. The beast throws his head up in indignation, and Obi-Juan laughs. God knows he would have panicked and run only a few weeks ago. Now he laughs, as if he'd always laughed at a rearing horse, as if he'd always washed his hair in a trough and slept on a rug in the grass. Slept on a rug in the grass wrapped in the arms of a greying old gaucho who can't believe his luck.

"You are _not_ old," he says, emphatically, as if he's read my mind, cool grey eyes flickering at me over the back of his horse as his hands fumble for the saddlebag. I growl at him, half-mad at the open flattery of that comment, half wanting him to continue. "So you're saying all that grey in my hair is just the sand and dust of the road?" -- "Doubtless, Quijón mijo. It's the land that's settled into every one of your pores. Your hands span the width of the pampas, your face is hard and craggy and sun-drenched as the rocks, never to be worn down except by the silver rivers snaking away towards the horizon and dusty blue skies..." One of his hands is tangled in my hair again, stroking the back of my head and rubbing what little anger I had into a warm soft mush. I sigh, "Obi-Juan, however much you think so, I'm not a poem..."

"Nope." He grins, dragging his hand away from my hair to help his other hand untangle a length of blue ribbon from the entrails of the saddlebag. "You're far too long to be one..." the ribbon snaps free, and Obi-Juan nonchalantly ties it around his shirt collar, coming closer step by step until I'm faced with a perfect blue bow and a perfect pink mouth, smiling wickedly. "I mean, I've studied poems for the best part of three years, and look at me now...," his lips trace fluttering lines along my bearded jaw, "every time I get to the end of you I've forgotten what the beginning was like, and I've got to start all over again..."

Bless my Obi-Juan for his forgetfulness.

"Quijón, Quijón, Quijón, come quickly, Mama needs you, and Dama Llisa too and they're all in the cellar because of the bandidos and the door, the... thingy, you know, and it's jammed, come _on_, Quijón!" The tiny girl tugs at my pants even as I get off Estrela and drags me bodily towards the door of Llisa's bodega, completely ignoring Obi-Juan who is one step behind me, following the lead of a curly black-haired kid with a line of concentration between her brows that would be cute if she wasn't so deadly serious.

The place is a mess. Chairs have been used as weapons, the remnants of which hang in the gaping window frames, sprinkled with shattered glass. Splintered wood sticks out of the bar, tangled between table legs. The piano's been smashed into a painful sculpture of mangled wood and wire, and there's glass everywhere, and the stench of alcohol from smashed bottles soaking into the floorboards. I pick up the little girl, and she glares at me, then understands as the shards of glass crunch under my booted feet. "They're in there, Quijón, under the floor only I can't get it up and they can't get it up either but I know you can cos you're so strong and I wish you'd been here before when they came and I'm sure you'd have driven them out, damn bandidos!" She kicks her little foot in frustration, hits my thigh and goes "oops" in an embarrassed girly voice. I sweep some glass from the bar and set her down on it, then try to clear some of the debris from the large hatch in the floor. Obi-Juan helps me, silently, a grim look on his face while the little girl chatters on.

"There were four of them, and only mama and Dama Llisa in here so they hid in the cellar cos they had guns and knives, then bandidos I mean, and I was so scared I climbed out of the kitchen window and ran all the way down the street to get help only there was no one there and I was so scared they'd see me and chase me so I went back here and got some broken glass and cut their horses loose so they wouldn't be quite so fast and I hid under the boardwalk and heard them breaking things and swearing but they came out again in the end, all four of them and mama and Dama Llisa still inside so I knew they were all right only I couldn't let them out and... it's so good you're here, Quijón!" The little one draws a long deep breath, clearly exhausted from talking so much in so short a span, and strokes my shoulder shyly with one naked foot.

"They'll be all right, little one... Obi, can you give me a hand with this? It's stuck, and it takes pulling on both handles... like so!" Obi-Juan pulls with all his weight, lips a thin line, tendons standing out on his forearms where he's rolled his sleeves up. Slowly, the hatch moves, a crack shows, muffled voices murmur in the darkness.

"Mama, Dama Llisa, Quijón is here! He's coming to get you!" the little girl squeaks, and I nearly drop my end of the hatch in surprise. Loudness seems to be something that grows in towns, and this little one has it in spades. It drives the loudness out of me too, and maybe that's what it took, a roar to set that hatch free and the big heavy thing flies open under me and I stagger and steady myself against the bar. Obi-Juan gives a startled yell and lets go of the heavy wooden hatch to avoid crushing his leg under it, and falls backwards on to the glass-strewn floor. I start, and I'm halfway towards him when he waves me away and gets up, a shaky smile on his face, and brushes the shards off his back. Ting, ting, they fall to the floor, a song of pain and destruction, tipped with Obi-Juan's dark blood.

"Ana?" A face appears in the pale shaft of light falling down the cellar hole, and it's only when I hear the voice again that I can make out Llisa in the gloom. "Are you all right, baby?" Her face softens considerably when she sees me looming over the gaping hole. "John, thank God you're here. They pulled the ladder up, the bastards. Could you..." -- "It's currently part of what used to be the piano, Madama," Obi-Juan's voice chimes from the other end of the room, "but there's a chair here we could use, Quijón". Seconds later he's lowering the only remaining stable chair down the hole, and we grab Dama Llisa by the shoulders as she climbs up on it and haul her to ground level. Damn it, but all that mighty flesh is heavy, and I hardly know where to hold her without groping. Certainly a lot of body to keep her mighty voice in, and she slaps me across the cheek good-naturedly once she's caught her breath. It's Obi-Juan who gives the surprised little whimper as he hand connects with my face. I'm used to that kind of stuff from Llisa -- it's her kind of caress, and we both laugh out loud at the expression of utter shock on Obi-Juan's face. I guess you had to be there, all the times when I saved Llisa from worse cases of groping, and all the times she made a show of slapping me across the face to discourage anyone else from trying to rescue her. Obi-Juan wasn't there, and I think if Obi-Juan had been there someone else would have had to rescue Llisa after all, because I'm sure I would have been too busy rescuing Obi-Juan.

Llisa gives him an appraising look. "Don Peray's son, no? Heard you were staying over here for the summer. You must have been staying hard, boy, I haven't seen much of John all summer. Keeping him busy teaching you, eh? Say, do you have a name as well?" Obi-Juan's eyes fly up to her wide grin, and he extends a hand to her, sketching a bow. "Tobiah-Juan Peray. Though everyone calls me Obi-Juan."

"Aww." Llisa gives a sympathetic squeak at the sight of Obi-Juan's back and bundles him off to the kitchen to take care of his torn shirt and skin. I know her too well to protest really.

"Quijón?" Another face peers up at me from the dark hole, thin, almost timid, surrounded by black hair and crowned with a turquoise ostrich feather that looks ridiculous sticking out of a hole in the floor as it is. Of course. Ana's mother, Federiga, the kind-hearted broken whore who got stuck here last winter and stayed out of sympathy, like a character from one of Llisa's songs who had found her home. She is so small and slight that I can lift her up almost without effort, and she blushes as she thanks me, and brushes the dust and glass from her skirts, patched dark grey satin. It should have been a great night for her of course, except there's not much of the bodega left, and Llisa screams when she returns from the kitchen, a shirtless Obi-Juan in tow.

Turns out she's not screaming at the state of the place though -- she would nearly have forgotten about Ana's mother and is mortified for it now, in her loud emphatic way. Hugs and kisses for Federiga over, she pats Obi-Juan on the naked shoulder and stage-whispers to him, "don't worry, my young hero, we'll get on top of this. Like we've done so may times before, haven't we, John?" I smile uncertainly given the state of the place after this latest raid, and Llisa lifts up her skirts and pats a heavy leather bag clinking with coin. "Doesn't pay to keep it in a cash-box -- all I ended up doing was buying a new box every time I got raided... though this time Juan seems to really have made them mad -- " she grins at Obi-Juan's shocked expression. "Not you, lad, I mean my husband Juan, Juan Derecho. Mr Right, hah! Wrong 'un, he is, through and through, smuggling weapons and booze and stuff in Buenos Aires. Mind you, it'll be easy to get new whiskey off his friends," she resolutely sweeps the broken remnants of her previous stock into a bucket, "to replace the stuff his friends took. I just wish he didn't tell them where I lived. John, I take it you know where I keep the hammer and nails?"

Minutes later the bodega is filled with the noise of life getting back on track again. The gentle tinkle as Ana and her mother gingerly fish the unbroken glasses from among the debris of the broken ones, the harsh chime and scrape of Llisa's rough broom sweeping up the remains, the soft clatter of Obi-Juan piling up the irredeemable furniture against one wall while I do my best to hammer the still-recognisable stuff back into its old shape. We're all working away to our own little rhythms, hammering, sweeping, wood hitting wood, metal hitting metal, glass hitting glass. We all stop for a split second when the ray of light hits, and then carry on as before, metal hitting metal in a resolute ostinato, wood piling on wood in sharp little beats, glass tinkling fractured melodies on top, driven by the sweep of Llisa's broom... and her voice.

"No tiene llave por mi corazón..." and it's so damn right that moment, how he doesn't hold a key to her heart, can't lock her in, that big metallic voice filling the cracks in the walls and making the broken glass dance and shimmer on the floor, this big wonder of a woman. There's no way that little bandido can hold her down, and she mocks him in song already, and it feels glorious, me hammering defiantly at the broken chairs and tables, Obi-Juan gathering the remnants, Federiga and Ana picking through the clear broken notes of glass, and above it all soars Llisa, sweeping across the floor, dancing with her broom. It would be ridiculous if it didn't ring so true.

"No tiene llave por mi corazón..." and little Ana twirls her way over to the carcass of the piano and puts one tiny hand on one of the remaining keys and another a little further up, and punches out a faltering, lilting bass, ringing with the overtones of the shattered piano, face scrunched up in a tiny frown of concentration. She stops dead in her tracks at the second line --

"Mi tiene todo, mi gentil león..." Obi-Juan's voice soars over Llisa's effortlessly, and a smouldering gaze answers all questions as to who that gentle lion is that he's singing about. "Obi-Juan!!" He's shocked almost all the wind out of me with that free admission of his love, here before everyone's eyes, and my shout blends into the insistent rhythm of the work going on around us. Ana giggles as she picks up the syllables of the boy's name, and replays them on the piano. Obi-Juan, two, three, four, and he sings like a man possessed, advancing towards Llisa as she sweeps across the floor with her broom and her song, filling all the spaces in her rich metallic melody, taunting her like a bullfighter, spurring her on to more dramatic lines, wilder poetry, more passionate singing, and effortlessly matching her in all. Ana laughs wildly at the song unfolding between the two, each describing their men in glowing detail, Obi-Juan always winning out with his over-the-top yet heartfelt anthem to me, and I don't know whether to blush or whether to grab him and devour him right here and now, and I keep hammering, in time with my heartbeats, in time with the throb of his song...

"Mi tiene todo, mi león Quijóóóóóón!" He finishes with a flourish, clean above Llisa's soaring voice, down on one knee, mercifully in one of the places where she's swept already, arms outstretched and I rush into them like some blushing maiden and crush him in my embrace. Dimly, through the rush of blood in my ears and the choked sobs gathering in my throat, I hear Federiga applaud, and Ana laugh, and Llisa say something about tonight.

Something about tonight. Something about how the place looks almost as good as ever. Less glasses and no spirits, but new barrels of wine and beer from the cellar, and new rags on the floor and the scent of spilled whiskey in the air. Something about how Llisa always manages to carry on, and I'm sure half the people here don't even notice, don't even see what a shambles this place was only a few hours ago.

"Antonieto! C'mere, Dama Llisa wants to tell you something!" With a grin and a businesslike stride, Ana leads old Nieto into the kitchen, and for a while the clatter of pots and pans is woven through with the strands of her voice singing and the strained notes of Nieto's breathless bandoneon. I can't make out Obi-Juan's voice, maybe he's gone somewhere else. Probably upstairs. Llisa insisted we stay here at her expense tonight, and frankly I don't mind a town featherbed once in a while. Especially not when I can share it with Obi-Juan. So he's probably washing his hair again, or trying to stitch his shirt back together, I'd go find him but I can see Llisa's getting ready to sing, and dammit I'm not giving that up, not even for the most delicious boy in the world...

Nieto squats down on his chair and wheezes his 'doneon into shape, and Ana stands beside him grinning shyly and saying sorry but the piano's in bits so tonight she's finally allowed to play it and gee how good it's in bits cos otherwise there wouldn't be this new song and she wanders off and starts playing that little riff that shouts 'Obi-Juan' to my ears as clearly as if it was my own voice. Obi-Juan, Obi-Juan, Obi-Juan, pounding in my temples, my heart, my groin. Llisa sits up on the bar as she always does when she sings, and lets rip about the sad bastard who doesn't hold a key to her heart, and it fills me with longing like her singing always does, but longing of a different kind now. Now I know what it's like to hold a key to a heart, to be let inside, to live inside another, and I feel completed so much that I ache when that second voice joins in from behind the shattered piano, and a face emerges, and a body slinks out towards Llisa in a sinuous dance...

"Obi-Juan!!" I can't help it, I'm too overwhelmed, and my mouth hangs open as I faintly hear Ana's piano mocking me ('Obi-Juan... Obi-Juan'). He fills my senses totally, all of them, the flaming sprite of a man, sets me on fire as I watch.

He has not mended his shirt. It hangs off him in shreds, even worse that it had been after his fall into the glass. Glimpses of smooth pale skin and fresh slashes, dried black blood on perfect flesh. His hands are black too, encased in Federiga's fingerless satin gloves, ghostly white fingers playing the air as he advances towards Llisa. My Obi-Juan, intense grey eyes ringed with smudged black paint in thin lines, half whore, half demon and moving in a way that screams at me to tear the rest of his shirt off him and feast on him, grab him and claim him and show him what that lion of his song can do to him. I want to thrust into him, see him screaming his pleasure into everyone's faces right here, right now, in words more primal than those of the song...

Raging with fury and hot hard lust, I leap off my chair and stalk towards him, in time with the insistent beat of Ana's left hand. Obi-Juan, Obi-Juan, Obi-Juan... and he smiles, that soft hot liquid smile, as if this was just what he wanted, me going after him like mad, and he twirls in front of me, turning away from me in a heartbeat, showing me the back of his torn shirt and his glorious taut bottom... I grab him round the waist and before my arms are tight enough to hold him fast, he's squirmed around again and is facing me, head thrown back, arms outstretched, satiny hands pressed against my shoulders and one knee rubbing between my legs. I roar in lust and fire, and he takes an elegant step back, dragging me with him across the floor, stopping abruptly, letting me catch up again, whipping his head round in time with the beat just to see me grabbing hold of his wrists and pinning them behind his back. He writhes sinuously, grinding into my raging hardness, and winds one leg around my thighs, bends all the way back, suspended over thin air, hanging from me, hanging on me, clinging. I spin free, and for a split second he hangs in the air, then gracefully lands on one knee as if he's seen this coming. Damn, he's playing me like an instrument, and singing all the while, long delicious moans of song weaving between Llisa's improvised lines, and climbing up my body like a cat, twining around me rubbing me red with desire and then when I'm ready to pounce, he dances away again, inviting chase, holding on to me by just one satin-gloved hand, just one calf rubbing against my leg.

I growl every time I catch him, and Ana delights in reproducing my growls on the piano for all to hear. He drives me mad, all this elegant strength hidden under the playful boy's skin. He leaps out of my embrace, spins away stomping his feet to the rhythm, intoxicating throbs that go straight to my groin, and dammit, I want him so much now I can't think straight!! One last time, with the last repetition of the title line, I stride after him and grab his wrist high above his head -- only to watch stunned as he spins away once more, thrusting his palm into my face, that delicate black satin hand, and I kiss it ravenously as his voice rejoins Llisa's ... "mi león Quijóóóóóón!!", and two more steps and he's entwined himself in my arms and I can't tell how he got there but sure as hell I'm not letting him go again and the sweet spicy taste of his lips drowns out the applause and the embarrassed little laughs from the men impressed with my Obi-Juan's dance. My Obi-Juan. I catch a glimpse of these glowing dark-ringed eyes and know we're both thinking the same thing.

Nieto strikes up a slow milonga and Obi-Juan glides around me, slowly leading me towards the stairs. We drag each other up step by step, pushing and pulling, as much heated skin on skin as possible. He strokes my face with his gloved hand, and I bite the soft black satin and pull the gloves off him with my mouth like the beast that I am, driven insane by Obi-Juan's seductive creamy beauty. More, I need to see more of it, and rip the tattered shirt off him just as Llisa's voice soars into the chorus. Oh, to eat him up -- I bite him everywhere I can reach, marking him mine in tender purple crescents, and he squirms so beautifully, squirms his way up the stairs until we're completely out of sight. Not out of reach of the throbbing music and Llisa's fluid song, though, that drifts in through the floorboards and through the door I hastily close behind me. Obi-Juan's been waiting for that.

He lunges at me with renewed fervour, small strong hands fisting into my shirt and tearing it clean off me... teeth latch onto one nipple, and he directs me to the bed with his mouth and throws me down on my back, gasping. Oh, let me take you, you devious sprite, you so deserve to be writhing in need under my heavy body... only it's me writhing on the bed as he deftly unfastens my pants, insistently rubbing the iron hardness inside, then grabs hold of it as if it were the reins of a horse, holding fast, squeezing all sense out of me, holding me down, holding me in his hand and damn, does it feel right and good and tight. I am in his hand, squirming and thrusting, and I distantly hear myself begging and moaning for more, for his hot wet mouth, his hard tight ass, or more of that strong little hand, just more of him, more please...

He grins with his black-ringed eyes like a painted angel as he stuffs one of the satin gloves into my moaning mouth, then pulls my pants down fully, dreamily licks two fingers and slides them inside me.

Fire. It feels like fire, like liquid metal running down the inside of my ass, burning me up with sheer sensation. It feels small, and insistent, and wriggly, and I tear the gag out of my mouth and moan for more, I'm past caring now, let him use me if he wants, all I want is more of him, and fast.

Patiently, and ignoring my ragged pleas, he works another finger into me, thrusting in and out in time with the beat of the music filtering through the floor, tortuously slow milonga, and I watch, thirsty, as the tips of our cocks meet , exchanging sparks of sensation and drops of moisture. "Oooooooh...." that slight touch nearly burns me up, just that tiny flare of feeling on top of the building burn inside of me, and he grins and says my name, Quij, and spits on his palm, and slicks his hard red cock hurriedly and yes, c'mon, Obi...

Eeeeaaaaaagh -- fire! Coursing up my insides, stretching me impossibly, flaring up with each thrust, and thrust he does, mercilessly, and with every thrust something else pierces through the fiery pain, ever harder, and then he grabs my thighs and levers me up and hits that spot again and again and a pool of pleasure blooms inside me, thick and hot and I thrust back with all my might now, to get more of him in that hot spot, beg him to fuck harder, faster, drown me in that wave of lust, and he grabs hold of my cock as if to steady himself and pulls, hard, and I jerk and spurt and yell and shatter in a blinding orgasm, clenching up into a tiny spot of bright light, a tiny spot being fucked by a living flame and as I come up for air I watch him flare up and throw his head back and coat me with sweet liquid heat, inside.

He sinks on top of me, and I catch his shoulders and spin him round to land on the mattress next to me. I laugh when I realise what I've just done, and Obi-Juan opens his heavy-lidded eyes and flashes me that wide sated smile I so love about him. "Yep, you're a dancer now, and no two ways about it, Quijón. And, if I may say so, quite a bit of a singer too."

I stare incredulously as Obi-Juan, note-perfect, reproduces my scream of just a minute ago, the scream I didn't hear myself as I exploded, impaled on my Obi-Juan's tender hard heat. And it fits as perfectly into the song throbbing downstairs as Obi-Juan himself fits into my arms...

Llisa still sings that song, on her own now, and somehow it doesn't feel like it's about me when she sings it alone, and that's good because I'm concentrating on writing. Letters. God knows I've never written letters in all my long life, and now I'm doing it, and loving it, loving it like a starving man loves food.

I sit at my usual table at Llisa's bodega in Junín. Somehow it doesn't feel right to write these letters at home, and I don't want old Peray coming in and finding them. He still doesn't know, and he won't know. Here, where there's people, I feel more alone than at home, safer with my feelings. When Llisa sings, they pour out onto the paper. It takes two hours to write one.

It takes two days to get home, two days from Junín.

It takes two weeks for the letters to reach Obi-Juan in Buenos Aires.

It takes two months until the round-ups are done and I am free to go for winter.

I count every second, in time with Llisa's song.

--- The End ---