Neoki (or The Burlington Elf King)

In the days, when Scott MacKenzie sang out his invitation to come to San Francisco, Michèle, a 16 years old girl with a vague Asian or maybe even Inuit ancestry visible in her facial features, left Montreal, hellbent on a more exciting life than withering away in some suburban existence as a mother and house wife, and accepted Scott’s invitation. With the little money she had she took the train to the west, but once her funds were depleted at some non-descript station, she walked and hitchhiked the rest of the way.

Being one of the flower children, she had a real good time there, rolling from one wild party to the other. With her stunning looks of a somewhat exotic young girl, she had nothing to complain about as far as male attention was concerned. But since she didn’t want to make herself guilty of gender discrimination, she saw no objections in accepting bed invitations from female admirers as well. And if no bed was available, she slept on the beach. For a short period she worshipped the Sun God Ra, then switched to Hare Krishna but, after being more impressed by their sexual prowess than with their spiritual contents, she left the sect pretty soon.

When Frisco started to lose its appeal after some years and the over-joyous Flower Power era, a bit forced but great fun anyway, dissipated in huge fogs of marijuana, thick clouds of Nepali frankincense and stale cheap wine, leaving mass exhaustion from too wild parties with too uninhibited dancing and plenty of broken hearts recovering from all the “Make Love, Not War” (no matter with who you did that!) and with life settling down to a quiet suburban regularity with law and order restored, she left the West Coast and thumbed her way back to Montreal. She more or less settled down in an artist colony downtown, some remnant, maybe even a live museum, of the hippie years, that were just behind her.

There, after smoking some of her favorite Kashmir and strictly to her own liking, she took a bit of Catholic morality (be careful, not too much!), some Buddhism and Hinduism, added astrology, tantra and indigenous shamanism and mixed it with Voodoo and white witchcraft, as a result coming to her own somewhat contorted vision of the cosmos, that might be as best described in English as “Someism” or “Sampleism”.

While she lived an enjoyable life in the artist commune, she got pregnant from a never determined man and gave birth to a baby girl. No, she wasn’t certain of who the father was, but there were strong indications it might be Jean-Pierre, the only gifted painter in the commune, who happened to be talented in music as well. It was not that she recollected something about the moment of conception (among all those lovers and with all that Kashmir involved? Impossible!), but more because the little girl had a striking resemblance with that man.

However, the little girl grew up as some kind of disappointment to Michèle. It was not a lack of love between mother and daughter, but during adolescence the girl started to revolt against the overly free and alternative life style of the commune in general and her mother in particular, developing into some kind of reactionary bourgeois. The only thing Michèle was proud of was, that her daughter remained unmarried, never surrendering to any male chauvinistic pig.

Looks proved to be deceiving. Since immaculate conceptions weren’t common occurrences in the Montreal around the turn of the century, she must have surrendered at least once, as became pretty obvious when she gave birth to a baby boy, that was named Laurent.

When the day came, that the daughter was fed up with the fake theatre of total freedom and independence of her mother, thereby grossly misjudging her, she packed her stuff in an impulse and left for a place on the West Coast, somewhere around Vancouver, leaving little Laurent in his grandmother’s care.

When little Laurent started primary school Grandma Michèle was no longer a young beauty. She had gained weight in a pretty spectacular way and her once shiny raven-black hair had taken on a kind of ugly grey color turning to white later, while her face started to show deep wrinkles. But she still wore enormous colorful long robes reaching to the ankles and her mind remained young. She kept chasing her ideals of her own kind of freedom and independence, instilling her unsatisfiable greed for it into her grandson over the years.

Corresponding to Michèle’s gradual decline the artist commune as a whole started to down-grade over the years. The more talented members left, enjoying their increasing fame and associated income. The untalented capitulated after they found out, that art without talent led to poverty and they found themselves decent eight to five- or three shift jobs with a regular income in the outside grey mouse environment, adapting to it and becoming as inconspicuous as their surroundings.

It didn’t mean, that the commune bled white. The empty places were rapidly taken by youngsters and young adults, who were uncapable of coping with the fulltime competition rat race of overbidding each other in grades at school, fancy trendy and expensive designer clothing, cool gadgets and all the other things that were expected from someone, at least if he wanted to have any chance to be successful in life and love. They were the present day wanna-be artists, the paradise birds and the irreclaimable bohemians of the beginning of the 21st century. They sought refuge from an empty, hedonist world, that had turned egocentric in all its aspects with humanity tumbled down to a historical all time low, following the old saying:

“Everyone for himself, God….”

Now, that might pose somewhat of a problem: with no longer any God left it had become “Everyone for himself” without any escape clause of Divine intervention left.

Granny Michèle’s sampleistic world visions proved to be very attractive to these young people. She became like a flickering hot light in the dark night, drawing all the flies and mosquitos into its heath. And she had that extra special appeal: she was one of the few with real-time, firsthand experiences of the good old times down in southern California during the decade turnover from the sixties to the seventies of the previous century. Granny “had actually been there!”

Over the years the artist commune changed to some kind of asylum for the dreamers, the hyper-sensitive, the rebels, those who walked the streets barefooted without any financial reason and all those who were unable to resist an increasingly emotionless and demanding world. It became a reservation for a new generation of hippies, the kind of people for who the globalized, commercialized society saw no immediate need and for who nobody was particularly waiting.

Such was the environment in which little Laurent grew up. It was a fluid, playful, surreal environment, devoid of strict rules to be followed. Oh yes, any form of violence was banned, but for the rest everyone was free to do as he or she pleased.

That blissful situation became unattainable for Laurent, once he was forced by law to enter primary school, despite attempts by his granny to keep him out of it, stating bluntly, that their kind of education would be devastating for her sensitive grandchild. Since the city council and after that the police were not very impressed by her arguments, she finally somewhat opportunistically gave in and Laurent’s dreamy days seemed to be over.

Because his days in life before that faithful day were dreamlike indeed. As a toddler he mostly ran naked over the lawns of the commune’s premises during the balmy summer days, but somewhat later he was mostly clad in a faded jeans and a too large t-shirt, that fluttered around his very frail body with only his feet most of the time bare.

Laurent was the kind of boy that was dreamy by himself. He was perfectly content with his life, when he sat under a tree, looking up with eyes half closed and observing the leaves through his eye lashes, admiring the sunlight and the way it filtered playfully through the branches and leaves. And he remained that dreamy boy, prompting one of his primary school teachers in saying: 

“If dreaming was a curriculum subject the kid would at least have one A-grade”.

Because for the rest his grades didn’t exactly warrant the expectation, that he might develop into a genius.

Until subjects like music and arts came in his life. The art teacher noticed an uncanny ability in the boy to look at something or somebody for a few seconds, then put his observations on paper in a short time with only the most necessary lines in charcoal or lead pencil, creating a perfect duplicate of the reality at an extremely short shrift. When Laurent started to add colors to his drawings, they tended to become a reality on themselves. The music teacher found out, that the kid was a great singer as well, actually having quite a remarkable voice. 

When he grew older, he grew in length as he should, but as his five foot six and not even hundred twenty pounds showed, he remained a skinny boy, no matter what his grandmother fed him. He had a kind of girl-like face with the same vaguely discernable Asian or Inuit characteristics his grandmother had, black eyes that shone mysteriously and the same raven-black hair that his grandmother once sported, in his case falling straight to his shoulders. If one would have known his grandmother in her young, wild days, he might have wondered if her genes had skipped a generation, just to be planted in the kid with all of their strength and intensity.

At twelve Laurent left primary school and switched to école secondaire or high school. He was amazed, no…he was appalled by what he found there. The whole life of all these kids was reduced to grades, to being the best in ice hockey or basketball, to showing off their new fancy outfits or their new, even smarter and more sophisticated I-Phones. It was as if a whole bunch of promising kids forgot all about dreams, hopes and prospects of independent feelings and thinking, only being prepared for an early death by heart attack from running the rat race of emptiness and nothingness.

He started to revolt against it, first by wearing large, pearl-like earrings. The most macho boys started to call him a sissy, but he struck back by looking at them with poignant cold eyes full of contempt over their ignorant meaninglessness about all what really mattered in life.

Although not consciously planned, his revolt developed. When he entered 9th grade, he became appalled by the usual blue jeans. He started to see them as some kind of government-enforced school uniform, like soldiers who all wore the Army-regulation green clothing. He most certainly didn’t like government-prescribed clothing rules, so he started to look around for alternatives but, not finding what he wanted in the mainstream outlets, he resorted to the downtown flee market and secondhand clothing stores. Both had the advantage that the clothing was cheap and he could find the striking clothes he was looking for, colorful, sometimes even bizarre, not making any difference if the clothes were made for men or women. The only thing that mattered to him was, how extravagant they were. In that way he showed up in class dressed in a mix of boy’s- and girl’s clothes, but all of them striking the eyes of his class mates, who made him the laughing stock of the whole school. But he didn’t mind! He wanted to do his own thing, pulling it through into the extreme.

When he had just started in 10th grade he took the next step in his self-expression, when he started using eye shadow, giving his already girl-like appearance an even more distinct female touch and making him even more susceptible for name calling in the “queer”- and “sissy”-genre. 

All along the way he got his first lessons in the physical sides of love. A girl in the commune, the incredibly sweet but not very attractive Nadine, sucked his first semen out of him, Claude gave him his first taste of someone else’s sperm, Didier took care of his virginity in a most convincing and final way and it was Nadine again, who willingly sacrificed herself to liberate him from his “frontside virginity”. It caused doubts, fear and confusion in him:

“What am I? I am me, that’s what I want. But I can’t answer the question what “me” is”.

He seriously attempted to get answers from his grandma, seeking guidance on complicated matters, but she didn’t give him the support he needed, immersed as she was in her newest whim, one of the many insoluble mysteries of Zen. He just had to swim on his own or drown!

Increasingly he became a loner, but he didn’t mind. Better be a loner as an authentic person than another piece of cattle in the mindless herd, he reasoned. However, in certain things he harvested admiration from his class mates. Once he opened his mouth in singing, all laughing disappeared and all listened breathless. When his drawing became more than just “another drawing”, all looked in utter surprise at the end result, made in the short time span of about an hour, but despite that, showing vistas of surreal landscapes and situations in breathtaking color combinations and -nuances. Yes, his classmates thought him to be an odd bird, but in some aspects an ingenious bird as well.

Somewhere during his 10th grade Granny Michèle fell ill. She rapidly lost weight, becoming skin over bone in a short time, and grew weaker by the day. Regularly Laurent asked her, what she had, but no matter how often he pressed the matter, she refused to answer. Because of that the boy drew his own conclusions: it must be something terrible, leading to his being all alone on this hostile world pretty soon.

One night, shortly after changing to his 11th and last grade, he looked at his naked skinny body in the mirror from all possible angles. Then he lay down on his bed and started considering his situation and feelings:

“It is kind of weird. When I look at my backside, I see a girl…even my base is female, the same rounded, gracious lines. And when I turn around my body says I’m a boy…well…not fully…just the lower parts. The rest is as female as my back. What does that mean? Which signal sends my body to me? Am I male or female?”

He sighed and felt like some good music. He rose, switched on his cranky cd player and pushed a cd in it: “In-a-gadda-da-vida”, one of Granny Michèle’s favorites. Then he jumped back on his bed and tried to listen to the music. It didn’t work: his thoughts continued:

“Now, let us assume my body is right and I’m a man. Does that mean, that I have to behave like one, the sexistic pig that only follows the tip of his dick and only falls in love with girls? And that for the rest of my life until my dying day? Man…the thought makes me puke! Is body the only determining factor in this? How about how I feel?”

He sat on the bedside and rolled himself his first real stiff Kashmir joint, lightening it. Maybe it would help him in getting his mind clear:

“I only feel partly male…but on the other hand, I only feel partly female as well. I like being with Nadine, but I like being with the boys even more. What does it mean? Why doesn’t Granny give me these answers?”

He inhaled the sharp smoke, feeling it burn in his lungs and noticed how he got kind of light-headed. He lay down again, his eyes closed. Out of the Kashmir fog in his brains the answer seemed to come:

“I’m neither! I’m not male…I’m not female. Maybe I’m both, maybe I’m none of them and if I am both, then only partly and not the whole thing. Besides, I like boys more than I like girls. Now, does that make me a gay man or a straight woman? Oh, what the fuck…does it really matter? I…am…h-u-m-a-n! That is what counts! The rest is just some kind of socially-accepted role playing in a society I don’t want to be part of.  I’m human…I can be what I want, I can love who I want! I’m human and I love other humans, no matter what their bodies determine them to be”.

Despite his marijuana-induced exalted state of mind he noticed a tiny, practical problem:

“But…Laurent is a boy’s name, referring to my being a man. I have to get rid of that name…replace it with something gender-neutral, so that it matches my own identity…now, what can I do about that?”

He thought that over, long and hard. In the end a satisfied ear-to-ear smile slid over his face.

He completed his transformation the next morning during the French class, becoming an individual not identifying with either male or female gender but only manifesting himself as being a human being, released from all petty bourgeois considerations. One might think, that the kid wanted to express, that in the way of gender he was the Homo Universalis!

When his French teacher asked him: “Laurent, can you give an answer to that?” he rose. With his back straight and pride and determination shining in his eyes he looked the man in his face and answered:

“Je ne m’appelle plus Laurent. A partir de maintenant je m’appelle Neoki!”- My name is no longer Laurent. From now my name is Neoki.

“Comment?” the teacher exclaimed flabbergasted.

“Je pense, J’ai été clair, monsieur! J’ai fait mon point!” – I think, I was clear enough, sir, I made my point.

He was realistic enough not to expect, that his new name would be in common use right away, but by simply stubbornly ignoring the name “Laurent” and only listening to “Neoki” he managed to get everybody used to it and using it in a pretty short time.

One evening, about two weeks after his powerful declaration in class, Granny Michèle asked him to join her in her room. He found her lying in her bed, an old, weak lady, who breathed with great difficulty.

She invited him to join her in the bed with a pat of her hand and pulled his head on her shoulder. It was one of the very few intimate moments between grandmother and grandson and Neoki thoroughly enjoyed it. But he had no idea what he had to expect so he just waited in almost revered silence, while his grandmother stroked his black hair.

After a while she said:

“Mon cher, for all of my time on earth I have searched for the meaning of life. I tried to find it with Buddha, with the Sun God Ra, with Shiva and even with some funny sect. But none of them were able to satisfy my needs. Only late in my life I found the true meaning of it”.

She pressed a tender kiss on his forehead, rested for a minute and then continued:

“The meaning of life is the restless heart, your own heart, that whispers things to you, that the world around us doesn’t accept, even doesn’t condone to! It is not about some deity, about the now-a-days temptations of status and wealth, it is not about being male or female. The meaning of life is to follow what your heart tells you. It is the same powerful heart, that will propel you through life, overcoming the world’s foolish pettifoggery and that enables you to carve your own niche on this globe on your own conditions. Only that will give you a fulfilled life. I warn you, mon cher: you will find incomprehension and resistance along your way, but know, that what you do is right! You’re only following your heart! It makes you happy and only when you are happy yourself, you can give happiness to others. So, stay that way, keep doing it! But, be cautious: don’t give it away for just some brief physical pleasure. Be sure you’ll only give it away to the one, that makes your heart feel like a flittering butterfly, that is searching for nectar. One last thing, mon plus cher…”.

For another time she needed a rest. Neoki accepted it in silence without asking for that “last thing”. It took her longer than the first break but with damp eyes she continued:

“Even if some deity rules the world, it wouldn’t make any difference. But whoever it might be…it must have meant to give humanity great joy when it sent an envoy from the Nirvana to this world, when you were born! At least, that is the way this confused old lady sees it. Stay loyal to yourself, despite all ridicule and derision you will be facing. Promise me that!”

Hardly understanding that the weak woman had followed his development with keen interest and understanding, anticipating great promises in her slender grandson, and not knowing what she meant to say, the boy nodded and whispered:

“I promise, granny!”

“Then it is OK”, she reacted with a tired voice. She pressed another kiss on his forehead, then said:

“I’m tired, mon cher. I need to rest”.

Neoki got the message; he was dismissed. Full of questions and emotions he went back to his room, thinking over this peculiar monologue.

Next morning Granny Michèle didn’t wake up. She would never wake up any longer. Tears filled Neoki’s eyes when he realized, that he was alone now, all alone against a harsh, hostile world, where probably no one would understand him or accept his way of life, but determined to pull it through as he had promised the evening before.

Granny Michèle would have considered it great fun if she had been able to attend her own funeral: it was a strange, however, despite that, proper mix of heartfelt sorrow and a good old “like in the old days” hippie party.

The day after the funeral Neoki withdrew to his room. He vaguely realized himself, that it was nonsense to do that, since he could use the whole house now, living there all alone. But in a way he felt that the four walls, between which he grew up, gave him some kind of protection.

There he took stock of the heritage Granny Michèle had left behind: there were a few hundred dollars (on top of his own savings of about another hundred), an old ramshackle VW Beetle of almost the original model, a bunch of worthless furniture and a necklace, that looked like Indian craft, but that would probably be fake, made in China. On top of that there were a collection of sketchy sexual experiences, the lonesome feeling that he had to find out about his future all by himself without her help and guidance, the shards of insufficient assistance and support as far as his education was concerned and the feeling that he missed her, no matter how large her shortcomings might have been.

Next, he started to consider his short-term options. With Granny Michèle no longer there (his mind refused to use the word “dead”) he saw no reason to stay in Montreal any longer. He had no ties there, not even with the other kids in the commune, something that might fall in pieces pretty soon, after it lost its “spiritual” leadership. School was no hindrance for him. It was pretty clear to him, that he would never get to university, so why should he stay any longer?

In early night he decided: shortly before graduation from école secondaire he would quit school and find another place somewhere, where he could spread his wings. Because…that is what his heart said! And he had promised his grandmother to follow his heart and only his heart!

Next morning, he slept late. Then he rose, had some breakfast and took a long shower. While staring in the bathroom mirror, he put his granny’s necklace on and admired it:

“Fake or not, it really looks good! And it radiates her presence!”

Then he put on a baggy, black trousers and a kimono-like shirt with screaming colors of all kinds, put his eye shadow on, did his long hair in a ponytail and went out.

He loaded the old car with his extensive wardrobe, his paints, inks and drawing stuff, his portfolio with earlier products, that he still tended to call “drawings”, although someone more versed in art might call it “paintings”, his airbrush equipment bought in a secondhand shop, his sleeping bag and some small personal mementos. He left the furniture where it was; as far as he was concerned everybody who liked something of it, could take it.

Without saying goodbye to anyone he started the old Beetle, drove to the bank to collect his own savings and then steered to the south, in search of a new place to develop his life, a beautiful place, if he was lucky as beautiful as San Francisco had once been in the old days. He wanted to burn all the bridges behind him…but he was too young, too innocent and too inexperienced to foresee that he would never manage to do that completely.

A small, nondescript delivery van parked along the curb of Burlington’s King Street. A man, halfway his sixties, emerged from it and more or less dragged his body, that looked as if it could do with some pounds less, towards a shop, named Garnier’s Printing Service, with a fatigued pace, despite the early hour.

He unlocked the door and went in, opened the shutters to let the light fall in and looked around with an almost desperate expression on his face.

“Incredible!” he muttered, “It looks as if it has only grown overnight”.

The man did not mean the way his shop looked like. That was the same as when he had left it in late evening the day before and its surface most definitely hadn’t grown since then. But notwithstanding the fact that he had worked from about six in the morning to around eleven thirty evening for the last consecutive four days, the backlog in orders didn’t seem to decrease, no…it looked as if it had grown and as if all his long hours had been just a waste of time.   

Samuel (mostly known as Sam) Garnier made himself a coffee and sat down behind his desk, overthinking the chaotic situation. He had run this shop for forty years now and it had never been as bad as this time. But funny enough: his accounts didn’t show an enormous rise in turnover, so the amount of work must be about the same as it had always been. Did it mean that…:

“Does it mean I’m getting old? That I can’t handle the workload any longer?”

Taking a swig of his coffee he thought it over. He knew he couldn’t just say to old time clients to “find another printer”. It would be ungrateful to them and it would cost him turnover and income. Besides, it would weaken his negotiation position in case he decided to sell the whole thing and retired. But what could he do then? Saying “Later, later” to his clients would cost him work and turnover as well.

“Maybe hiring a young hand to help me out”, he mused.

It would not be easy. Nowadays youngsters preferred college and university and after that they went for the high-paid plushy jobs, not for a normal job as a printer, a job that would make your hands dirty and your body tired at the end of a working day.

“But if I make it easily accessible for a kid with less opportunities for high paid jobs…only thing I want is a kid, that wants to work and wants to learn”.

He switched on his computer and started to write a kind of “personnel wanted”- ad. Not being used to that kind of work it took him a long time and another two mugs of coffee, but in the end he was satisfied and the printed end product rolled out of his printer:

“We’re looking for a young person, who wants to help us out with printing a large diversity of printing matters for a large group of clients.

No professional qualifications or previous experience required. For a young person who wants to work hard and learn as much as he or she can learn about the graphical industry, we are willing to invest a lot of time to teach him/her all the ropes of the job.

Inquiries are welcomed in the shop”.

He printed two copies and taped them on the two large shop windows on each side of the door. Then he started to work at his backlog orders. The only thing he could do was wait and hope, that some kid would react.

Nothing happened for two weeks. It almost made him feel depressed.

On the way to the south Neoki crossed the border, causing suspicion right away. It turned out to be one of those small border crossings, that were only used by locals from both sides. And since Border Patrolman Brentner knew all the regular crossers, that were always waved through, he decided that a strange vehicle with a strange person needed further examination. So Neoki stopped in front of the clear red light.

Border Patrolman Brentner walked around the old Beetle, looking for signs of illegal activity. After Neoki had opened the driver side window he looked at her and asked for her passport. There the problem started: Brentner was very certain, that the person in the motor vehicle was a girl, but when he examined the passport, it clearly showed that the person in question was male. He was just about to ask some unpleasant questions about this discrepancy, when he suddenly decided, that such a course was unwise. The individual might explain it as a typical case of law enforcement officer gender discrimination, something that his superiors would not look very kind upon, especially when some newspaper started to publicize on it. Now, that would damage his future career prospects for sure.

So, he swallowed his questions and resorted to a thorough search of the vehicle. No, no, it was most definitely not harassment, but one might safely assume that such a strange individual must have some illegal substances in his car. And since he had taken an oath to uphold the laws of the US of A it was his sworn duty to interdict cross-border drugs trafficking.

With the fervor of someone, who was certain he was defending the country against the next godless hippie-invasion, Brentner started to search the car. The only things he found where bundles and bundles of extravagant clothes (“If I see my daughter wearing something like that, I beat the shit out of her!”), lots and lots of tubes of paint and inks, stacks of drawing paper, lead pencils, charcoals and crayons of every possible description and some machine, that the person kindly explained to be an airbrush compressor (“What the fuck is airbrush? Doesn’t matter: it’s not on the list of illegal substances”).

After what took almost a full hour he said:

“OK, you’re free to go”

Neoki just smiled amiably and started the car.

“Have a nice stay in the States…”, Brentner said, suddenly in doubt. He coughed and then added somewhat reluctantly “Ma’am”.

Neoki started to drive away, stifling a relieved laughter. Soon the first mile of foreign road was behind him and he was on his way in the country, where everything was attainable for everybody, provided you wanted it badly enough. At least, that is how the myth goes…something like that, anyway!

He had no idea where he wanted to go to, so for the time being he decided to follow Route 5 (at least that is what the small shields along the road said). He saw a small, pleasant-looking town on the other shore of a lake he was passing, but he considered it too small to find anything there he could use to his benefits.

South of the town he took the 58 to the west for no particular reason, apart from the fact it went west and that he liked the countryside that slid past him. He tried to maintain a western course, ending up on a number of other Routes but in the end, after about a two hours drive, he saw a larger city looming into view, apparently having the name Burlington.

Getting tired he decided to make an overnight stop there and he checked in in some motel at the city limit. While having a cheap dinner he heard a lot of pleasant things about the city, so he thought it to be a good idea to check it out for a few days. He had no fixed schedule, had no special purposes so why shouldn’t he enjoy his stay there and hurry?

After two days in the motel, he checked his limited funds, finding them to dwindle at a frightening speed. He knew, he had to find a job. Oh well, he had no plans to stay here forever, but some days extra wouldn’t hurt, finding himself a temporary job to replenish the spent cash.

“But not in this motel”, he mused, “This place costs me a fortune each night”.

He checked with the duty desk clerk, who was kind enough to give him the address of some cheap boarding house downtown. The man even gave him directions how to get there and gave him a free city plan for orientation.

The next day he moved to the boarding house. It was cheap indeed and even included one hot meal per day. In exchange he got a small room with a bed, a built-in closet, a table and a chair and a large window, that give him a full view of a small, but pleasant garden.

He sat on the bed side and stared with dreamy eyes out of the window, observing the movements of the leaves of the only tree in the garden, while they fluttered in a gentle breeze.

“I’ve no idea how long I will stay here”, he thought, “And I have to find me a job pretty fast before I’m broke! But don’t you worry…. It’ll be all right!”

He postponed his decision of how long he would stay in this city to an undetermined day and time, pending on his finding a job.

“And then we’ll just see what my heart whispers”, he muttered with an absent-minded smile.

Next day he started his job search. He bought the local newspaper, found himself a bench in some park near a large lake and started reading through the personnel ads. He found lots of them, but not what he was looking for. All the ads asked for qualifications and experience and he knew he had neither of them. He was just a kid who had left school for what it was.

“Merdre, de rien!” he muttered somewhat despondent - Damned, nothing!

Listlessly he walked back to his boarding house, passing through a street with a lot of small shops. One of them, it appeared to be a printing service or something, had two notes at his shop window. He stopped and started to read it:

“We’re looking for a young person, who wants to help us out with printing a large diversity of printing matters for a large group of clients.

No professional qualifications or previous experience required. For a young person who wants to work hard and learn as much as he or she can learn about the graphical industry, we are willing to invest a lot of time to teach him/her all the ropes of the job.

Inquiries are welcomed in the shop”.

Incredulous he read it again: no qualifications, no experience! That’s what the note said!

“Voila! Trouvé! These guys are willing to teach it to me”, he thought.

Briefly he thought it over. He might give it a try. If it turned out to be not what he wanted it to be, he could always quit, pick up the cash and move on to the next stop of his journey.

He resumed his walk to his room, not because he didn’t want that job for no matter how long but he wanted only to go in to apply for it when he was properly prepared for it.

An hour later he pushed the shop door open and walked in, his portfolio map under his arm. A door bell jingled and an old man showed up. Well, maybe he wasn’t that old, but for a kid of Neoki’s age even a guy of forty seemed to be a pre-historic fossil.

“Hi kid”, the man said with a kind smile, “What can I do for you?”

Somewhat shy and tense Neoki answered:

“I read the note on your window, sir. I was wondering if the job is still available”.

Sam Garnier looked at the kid in front of him, eyes almost bulging in surprise. When he recovered somewhat from the unexpected but very pleasant development he exclaimed enthusiastically:

“You bet it is, kid. Take a seat! Want a coffee?”

“Yes sir, I’d love to”, Neoki answered timid.

After the man gave him a mug of steaming coffee he sat down as well opposite Neoki behind a desk.

“So, tell me, kid”, the man said, “You’ve got any graphic qualifications or experience?”

Neoki looked at him in somewhat that neared shock and stammered:

“No, sir..but…but…mais…the note said it wasn’t necessary”.

“That’s right”, the man said with a reassuring smile, “It was just a question. I’ll be happy to teach you all about it”.

Sam studied the kid for a moment. He had something…peculiar, maybe even strange. First of all, Sam could not determine if it was a boy or a girl. Secondly: his whole appearance and the way he dressed, with this wide blouse with brightly-colored flowers on it, his long hair…it looked like…

“What was it? I’ve seen it before…but can’t remember”, he wondered in his mind.

Until the dime fell, when his memory went back to the time he was eighteen himself…a rough fifty years earlier:

“That’s it! He looks like a hippie! Never knew they were still around, especially not at his age”.

On the other hand: he liked what he saw. He saw a determined kid, maybe even a driven kid who wanted to make something out of his life. And Sam Garnier correctly noticed the French accent in the kid’s English, making him Quebecois.

“I would love to learn it, sir”, Neoki answered softly, feeling incredibly nervous.

“OK, then let’s do it”, Sam said determined, “I’m Sam!”

He stuck out his hand and felt how a small, almost girl-like hand threatened to disappear in his bear claw when the kid said softly:

“I’m Neoki, sir”

“Nice name”, Sam said approvingly, “Never heard it before”.

Neoki giggled a bit shy and muttered:

“It is a… very rare name, sir”.

Suddenly he thought of something and somewhat more confident he said:

“But I know about composition and colors, sir. I can show you, if you are interested”.

“That would certainly help a lot”, Sam replied with an inviting smile, “Show me what you’ve got. You make me curious”.

Neoki opened his map, well aware that what he had to show might make or break his chances on getting this job. He pulled some of his carefully selected drawings out and laid them on the desk.

Sam Garnier gawked in disbelief at the papers, his eyes becoming large from astonishment. Staring at the intense-colored pictures he exclaimed breathlessly:

“My God…this is plain beautiful!”

The man studied the drawings intensely, looked in Neoki’s eyes and asked:

“Did you make this?”

“Oui, monsieur”, the kid whispered, immediately realizing that he made a mistake, correcting it with a “Yes, sir”.

“When can you start, Neoki?” Sam asked, recognizing a talent when he saw one.

“Whenever you want me to, sir”, was the hardly suppressed excited answer.

“OK, then let’s get to the details”, Sam simply said.

About twenty minutes later Neoki wandered out of the shop with a job, starting the next morning. As a matter of fact, he found it to be a well-paid job: two hundred dollars per week plus overtime if required. That gave him eight hundred a month plus the extra hours. Singing softly, he wandered back to his room at the boarding house, expecting in silence that his stay in Burlington might be longer than he originally had anticipated it to be.

Sam Garnier sat at his desk, sipping from his coffee, with a satisfied smile on his face:

“Maybe the kid ain’t a trained graphical expert yet…but he sure is an artist!”

Neoki’s premonitions about a prolonged stay in Burlington proved to be correct. After a year he was still working at Sam Garnier’s print shop, enjoying it enormously. Sam taught him everything about rotation-and offset printing techniques, ink mixing to the required colors for some particular job, computer-assisted preparation procedures and all the many other things, that were associated with printing. Neoki all sucked it in like a greedy sponge, wanting to learn more and more. He learned to print everything: neighborhood newspapers, advertisement leaflets, folders, obituaries, business cards, sports club papers and all the other things the clients asked for, often at short notice. 

During that year Sam had given him a raise, bringing his monthly basic income to a round thousand dollars plus the overtime. He thought it to be a reward for his willingness to work and learn and it was indeed part of the truth. Sam Garnier saw it somewhat more pragmatic: he wanted to avoid, that the kid would be bought away by some competitor, once one of them would get wind of what a talented kid was working in his shop. Because Sam Garnier was sure about one thing: he had discovered gold and he wanted to keep it!

As an added benefit for Sam Neoki’s almost fanatical drive for work had diminished the backlog to manageable proportions. Overtime was still necessary so every now and then, especially when urgent orders came in, but Neoki always took his share of it, gratefully picking up the rewards in dollars at the end of the week with Sam always being meticulous about paying the right sum of overtime.  

But after working with the kid for a year Sam was still unable to determine if he had hired a boy or a girl. Both were possible but then there were other things that negated the final judgement. Not that it mattered, it just puzzled the old man enormously.

For a kid his age Neoki enjoyed a pretty nice income, enabling him to live an enjoyable life, much more enjoyable than he had known when he was living with Granny Michèle. He left his room in the boarding house and hired a larger room in a two-room apartment over a shoe shop in the same street where his work was. It took him a relaxed five minutes stroll to get to work each day. He would have loved to hire the whole apartment, but the owner was adamant on renting out the rooms separately, the other one being occupied by a young, gruff and macho construction worker, named Brad.

Brad had taken an immediate liking in the new girl on the other side of the staircase, but unfortunately for him this “girl” had a totally different opinion about her neighbor. Apart from considering him rude Neoki got irritated by the way Brad always “forgot” about doing his every other week rotating chores of cleaning the common bathroom and kitchen. Neoki made it very clear to him, that “she” had no intention to become his unpaid housemaid, doing his rotational chores for him on top of her own. But pigheaded as Brad turned out to be, he couldn’t help but marvel at the sight of this petite, delicate figure when she went down the stairs to go for work, often having to rush himself after dreaming for a while about how he would find this gorgeous and mysteriously promising sprite in his bed.  

No matter her rejective attitude towards Brad’s barely cloaked interest, it caused some reactions in Neoki’s body. He, or she, started to feel the hard reality, that he had no sexual contacts in almost a year. The question, if this was caused by a surplus of testosterone or estrogen, was hardly relevant. In the end both hormones caused a volatile mix of burning desire, for which there was no relief in sight. Having only worked and learned about his new trade and for the rest spending all his time in his room, trying to understand the study books Sam had loaned to him (here his mediocre school career caught up with him), he had no way of meeting someone, who would make his heart flitter. Without that condition being fulfilled, he found it no use to do anything about his longings, apart from the good old, always available and proved-over-the-ages self help procedure.

One evening, after a long and grueling tiring day and after closing the bathroom door carefully, he took a long hot shower. He didn’t exactly like the idea of Brad barging in, while he stood fully naked under the hot water. Once he was ready and had toweled himself, he stared at his image in the mirror, that almost covered the whole door.

What he saw pleased him. Apart from that one front-side male anomaly his body seemed to have turned even more female than it had before. No, it was not that he turned trans, that he felt he happened to be born in the wrong body. He was well aware he had his male instincts as well and since he considered them to have equal rights with his female sides, he wanted to celebrate them as well. It only confirmed his earlier notions: he was neither of them, not fully male, not fully female; he was the only thing that mattered to him: he was human! It dawned on him, that he had to carve out his place in the world based on this feeling and, stubborn as he had always been, he would not accept any lame compromises.

When he was ready, he put on his brand-new kimono style bed jacket (“I really love kimono-style clothing!”), the one he had bought a few weeks before when he fell in love with it the second he saw it. It was a black silk-like garment, decorated with embroidered gold-colored Greek classical patterns. It was rather short, just coming over his hips and barely covering his penis. It was the first time he wore it, scared to death as he was to make it dirty or even damage it. He studied himself a few seconds in the black-and-gold night clothing and smiled in satisfaction:

“It’s almost perfect!”

He took his towel and toilet gear and strolled back to his room, where he started to brush his long hair dry, in the meantime developing a line of thought over his present, isolated situation. 

“I did the right thing to concentrate on the job and learn all about it. I love what I’m doing and it gives me a future. But I concentrated too much and forgot about myself, because a future all on my own is no future at all! I need someone who makes my heart flitter and I won’t find him at work. But where can I find him then?”

In theory he knew part of the answer: it was called internet or maybe it was named google. There he could find a place where he could meet other people. Only problem was: he had no computer!

He shook his head, not out of despair but just to shake loose his dried hair. But by total coincidence the movement seemed to shake a solution in his head as well:

“Bien sûr, there is a computer at work. Maybe I can use it during lunch breaks”.

For the moment it satisfied him. He would start checking on the local situation tomorrow. He went to the kitchen, made him a green tea and then returned to his room, where he sat down in his easy chair and started to read in “Theory of Colors”.

He wouldn’t dare do use the boss’s computer without permission, not even during lunch, so during their coffee break he asked Sam’s consent, “Just to look around for something to do in town, you know, for after work”.

“Sure, kiddo”, Sam said cheerfully, “I already thought it was about time you start to do something else than working and studying. Remember, you’re only young once!”

Neoki liked it, the way how Sam always called him “kiddo”. It gave him a sense of confidentiality, the feeling of belonging some place.

When Sam left for lunch Neoki sat behind his employer’s desk and started his search. At least, that is what he wanted to do: by now he was very capable in handling the printing makeup programs but soon enough he found out, that his “alternative” upbringing had prepared him very badly for the modern age of information technology, including internet. After the umpteenth mistake he started to feel frustrated. By the time Sam returned he had discovered how he could enter a search but there was no time left to get any results.

“Well, kiddo, found anything to party?” Sam asked, cheerful as ever.

“No, I needed a lot of time to get to know the program, but at least I’ve found how to start a search now, so I hope I’ll find some things tomorrow, when I start from there”.

“Shall I give you a hand?” Sam asked kindly.

Neoki shook his head. He knew it was well meant, but he had no intention to let his employer mix up in his strictly private matters. He finished his coffee, sighed slightly and with a smile he said:

“Better get back to work. Otherwise, old Mrs. Callahan won’t have a funeral at all by lack of obituaries”.

“Yeah, you better”, Sam grinned, „Because that might really disappoint her!”

The next day Sam hadn’t been gone for a minute yet for his lunch, when Neoki started his second search attempt. Maybe he needed more time than an average internet user, but in a few minutes he managed to get a list of gay bars in Burlington. There appeared to be four of them. Somewhat surprised he looked at the small map, not really believing what he saw. He clicked the map with the mouse, hoping it would expand to a larger image this way…and yes: it did!

It only increased his astonishment. The four bars were not just in Burlington, but all in downtown Burlington. The nearest was not even a five minutes-walk from his place, the farthest about ten to fifteen minutes at the most.

“Incroyable…” he muttered, “So close and I never noticed anything. Complètement fou!”

He jotted down the names and addresses of all four bars on a piece of paper, stuck it in his trouser pocket and started planning a nice excursion to all four of them, starting the next Friday evening…provided there was no urgent order coming in!

The Friday evening remained free and Neoki, by now turned into a she, started her exploration of the small but lively Burlington gay scene. There was no particular reason why he turned she. He had no intention to play the transgender, it was just that he felt like it.

The first weekend turned out to be of mediocre results: she was just investigating the field so to say, was the center of lots of attention from men but with none of them fitting her expectations she walked back to her room early Sunday evening with a feeling that was both satisfied and somewhat disappointed at the same time: her reconnaissance had been a success, the results were far less than satisfactory.

“Only funny thing is”, she muttered with a grin, “that it didn’t cost me a dime with all the free drinks from these hot-blooded guys”.

The second weekend was about the same, but the third weekend things started to happen. Not feeling like being a “she” that night, Neoki went to the nearest gay bar, the Red Square, appearing as a person somewhere in between a he and a she. He chose clothing, that carefully disguised all external features of his true gender: another very baggy trousers and a non-descript too short t-shirt, that showed part of his smooth abdomen, while his face had only light female marks, such as modest eye shadow and eyeliner. It was all completed by a pair of Jesus Nikes over his bare feet. And exactly that evening, in this modest outfit, it seemed as if his heart started to flitter.

It all began when Neoki sat in the corner at the extreme end of the bar counter, studying the faces of the other men. What he saw told him, that it would be another boring evening. Until he noticed how a young man entered.

The man, in his later twenties, seemed nervous, as if he was questioning himself what he was actually doing here in this place.  He was clearly ill at ease between all these men. He had a beautiful face with high cheek bones, a well-proportioned nose and a sensual mouth, all of it topped off by light blond hair in a lower cut. And his body, as far as Neoki could see it, was like a statue from some Italian Renaissance master.

“I wouldn’t refuse, if he offered me a drink! And a breakfast the morning after!” he mused, hiding his smile by rapidly putting some peanuts in his mouth from the small bowl in front of him. He tried to follow the young man with his eyes, but somehow lost track of him in the mass of queer bodies in the establishment. Uttering a soft resigned sigh he took a swig from his orange juice-vodka while he started considering to go home after this drink.

The image of the young man lingered in his mind for a short while, coupled with a vague desire to get to know him, but with no further developments taking place it gradually faded from his awareness.

Neoki startled, when he heard a gentle voice behind him say:

“Hi there, little gorgeous elf…is that stool beside you still free?”

He felt his heart jump in his throat, where the damned thing started to thump uncontrollably and slowly turned his head in the direction from where the voice had come, only to stare in the most crystal-clear beautiful blue eyes he had ever seen. It was the nervous, godlike young man.

“Seems you are a charmeur, n’est pas?” Neoki reacted, in his funny English- and French mix, something he always did when he got excited about something.

“Ah, French-Canadian?” the man asked with a disarming smile.

Neoki nodded.

“But…is this stool still free?” the young man repeated his question without any sign of irritation about his still unanswered question.

“Yes, it is. I more or less kept it free in case something unforeseen might happen”.

“Like you, for instance!” the thought followed Neoki’s reply.

“And do you mind if I join you?” the young man asked politely.

“No, not at all. Why should I?” Neoki said softly, his eyes gleaming with excitement.

The young man sat down and stuck out his hand, saying:

“I’m Alain. I know, sounds French as well, but I’m really a full-blooded American”.

“I’m Neoki”, was the reply, given in some kind of shy giggle.

“Very nice to meet you, Neoki…beautiful name by the way. It fits you. I see your glass is empty. May I offer you a drink?”

Neoki accepted the offer in gratitude and with barely concealed pleasure. They started to talk small talk, funny enough with Alain doing all the questioning and Neoki giving all the answers. But he was so thrilled, that he didn’t notice the disparity. With the hours passing their talk left the area of idle chitchat and came on more personal and even intimate grounds. While discussing Neoki felt his heartbeat increase sharply and thought:

“Is this what grandma meant when she said, that the heart is flittering?”

At some time during their talk Neoki felt Alain’s hand on his back, where it showed from under the too short t-shirt. He relished the soft tingling strokes from the fingertips over his naked skin and decided not to voice any objections.

When closing time approached Alain bent his head towards Neoki’s and whispered:

“They will close soon. But I’d hate to split up with you. Is there some place where we can talk, little elf?”

With eyes glistening in seduction Neoki initially giggled but then answered with a hoarse voice:

“Oui, un charmeur! We can go to my place. I live just around the corner!”

Alain let his head tend towards Neoki’s even further and unexpectedly their lips touched for maybe just a second. It made Neoki’s eyes burn with desire and he whispered:

“Do that again…please?”

Alain complied: their lips touched again, for eternal seconds this time. It felt as if all the world’s fires of love flared up between them. Neoki closed his eyes in delight and thought:

“Grandma, my heart is not only flittering! It is flying away!”

Once in Neoki’s room their lips seemed to be attached to each other permanently, as if they were connected by a very strong glue. Despite that, Alain managed to get Neoki’s short t-shirt out and he let his fingers stroke over the silky, smooth skin, marveling at the narrow shoulders and chest, that heaved in excited panting. 

The man’s fingers slid slowly and tenderly over the boy’s spine towards the bottom, where they invaded under the trouser belt and stroked over the lovely buttocks. Neoki felt what was coming: he kicked out his shoes and opened his baggy trousers without removing his lips from Alain’s. Once the trousers slid off his legs on the floor, he lifted his legs out and waited in burning anticipation, never opening his eyes during the whole movements, purposefully switching off the sense of seeing, thereby enabling his other senses to function at maximum sensitivity.

Because of that he startled when he felt how he was lifted in the air. Alain’s strong arms picked the featherweight body up in one smooth move without parting his lips from Neoki’s and laid him gently on the bed.

“I have to let go of your lips very briefly”, the man muttered.

Neoki opened his eyes and whispered:

“Do what you have to do. But promise you will return them!”

Smiling Alain nodded and started to undress, Neoki drinking in the sight of every body part that became successively visible, ending with a vista that made him gasp: it was the large, protruding penis, that sticked out like a proud flagpole. It was much and much larger than his own rather diminutive plaything but he shrugged mentally, thinking:

“It’s not about my dick. It is about my whole body, no…it is about my whole being!”

Alain laid next to him and took him in his arms, fulfilling his promise of returning his lips. Again, the man’s hands slid down and liberated Neoki’s delicate figure of his silver-colored shiny string after which they gently slid over the buttocks and then over the boy’s phallus.

“So…”, Alain whispered, “My elf turns out to be a boy!”

“No!”, Neoki objected softly, “I’m no boy”

Somewhat confused Alain looked at him with puzzled eyes, saying:

“Well, I think that lovely little tree, I’m stroking right now, proves you are a boy”.

“Yes, my body is that of a boy”, Neoki pushed the matter, “But the body is only the physical appearance, the outward shell so to say and it means nothing. It is the soul and the heart that really matter”.

Alain’s eyes made it perfectly obvious that he had no idea where Neoki was getting at. The slender boy just smiled and explained:

“My soul and body tell me that I’m neither boy or girl…or maybe I’m both at the same time or I switch from boy to girl and back. I haven’t figured that out yet. But what’s the difference? The most important thing is, that I’m a natural human being”.

Starting to understand more and more what the boy-turning-girl meant, Alain nodded and said:

“OK, now I get it. You’re non-binary”.

“I’m what?” Neoki asked in surprise.

“Non-binary, that is how they call it”, Alain vaguely explained, not fully conversant with the subject himself. It was only some vague thing he had picked up somewhere.

“I didn’t know it had a name”, Neoki muttered astonished, “Does that mean I am not the only one?”

“I guess you aren’t”, Alain smiled, “But…it doesn’t matter to me what my sweetest little elf is, as long as it is there for me!”

That said, the effects of the strong glue became apparent again when their lips closed for another time while Alain’s hands stroked the long black hair.

In very short time Alain lay on top of Neoki, who, completely unwittingly, spread his legs, enabling the man to settle between them. He stared in the blue eyes with intense yearning, wordlessly begging him to enter him and make him his possession.  

Alain seemed very capable in reading eyes, because he lifted his lips off Neoki’s and asked in a low whisper:

“You want me, my sweet elf?”

“Yeeeeessss!”, Neoki uttered in what sounded as a deep, longing, almost desperate sigh.

Now Alain took the reins fully: he got on his knees, grabbed Neoki’s ankles and pushed his girly legs up against the chest, thereby fully exposing the female buttocks, that were spread, giving him free access to the muscle, that closed the desired earthly sanctum in a trembling way, expressing anticipation. He spat a few blots of saliva on it, spread the fluid out carefully with his index finger and repeated the spitting process on his own dickhead. He moved back closer to Neoki, placed the blunt tip against the muscle and pushed inward. The muscle relaxed and the tightness opened as if the command “Open, Sesame” was given, expressing the unconditional submittance of the elf-like boy to his welcomed invader.

With Alain slowly and carefully entering him, Neoki remembered that hot summer afternoon, down in Montreal, when Didier had deflowered him. For him it had been curiosity, an adventure, maybe even an experiment. For Didier, older but most certainly not wiser, it had just been an indifferent and urgent relief of over-abundant horniness and raw lust and it sure had felt that way. Neoki needed almost a day before he could walk normally.

But this…what was happening to him now, was in a totally different league. If “tender fucking” had been an Olympic sport, Alain would certainly win gold.

His “sports gear” slid in very carefully and tender, moving in slow and very short thrusts, that seemed to hoover inside at a certain spot forever, but with the passing of time Neoki felt, that progress had most definitely been made without causing any pain or discomfort. And all this time Alain kept kissing him, his lips still chained to the lips of his elf. Neoki moaned, panted, cooed and cried all kind of utterings she didn’t realize herself, urging her lover on to go all the way. Even if she had wanted it any other way, she wouldn’t be able to, because:

“My heart is floating free in outer space. It drifts weightless between the stars!”

He reveled at the feeling of Alain slowly pushing on over the anal columns, sliding through the muscle layers, pushing them apart. Movement was careful, but nevertheless determined and inexorable, but finally the phallus came at the end of the road in the dark tunnel when Neoki winched with a:

“Ouch!”

Alain stopped his thrusting right away, looked in the black eyes and asked in concern:

“Was I too greedy? Did I hurt my little elfy?”

“Mmmmyessss….”, Neoki moaned with a painful smile.

“Sorry, I will be careful!” Alain said softly.

And he was, retracting somewhat and restarting his thrusting, much to Neoki’s excitement, who became so aroused that she clamped her legs around her lover’s bottom, forcing him to stay in exact that position.

It giddied Neoki, all the warmth and love and deeply intimate physical contact. She closed her eyes, concentrating her emotions on the hard rod, that so delicately stroked the inside of her inner body. She didn’t even startle, when she felt that Alain took her penis in his hands and started to stroke it.

Then, out of the blue, the man started to shock spasmodically, uttering equally spastic and unintelligible cries and Neoki felt the devastating explosion inside her, sensed how the lava from it spread through her lower body. A second later, maybe two, she started to pant as well as if she was robbed of breath and her own semen joined the general melee of sense depriving joy, screaming out in an uncontrolled delirium of love. Alain moaned in pleasure, feeling his shaft rhythmically compressed by Neoki’s sphincter, that started to contract from the ejaculation, squeezing out the last drops of the juices from his almost emptied balls.

Breathless they fell in each other’s arms.

“I love you, my little elfy!”, Alain whispered.

“I’m so happy you do”, was her soft reaction.

They laid for a while, kissing, cuddling and stroking. But then Alain suddenly rose, started to dress and said:

“Sorry, elfy, I have to go!”

“Must you really?” Neoki asked in disappointment.

“Yeah, I’m afraid I have to”, the man said with a shrug, “Work won’t wait tomorrow. I have a lot to do”.

She rose as well, not bothering to dress. She just pulled her most favorite black-and-gold kimono over her naked body, took Alain’s hands and asked, her eyes fixating his:

“Will you come back?”

“Yes,” was the direct reply, “Of  course I will. I couldn’t live without you any longer. As a matter of fact, I wonder how I managed to live until this evening”.

“Ah, oui, j’ai oublié”, Neoki smiled, “Tu est un charmeur!”- Oh, yes, I forgot, you are a Prince Charming.

But she didn’t let go and asked:

“Is it a promise, that you will come back, or just a cheap lie?”

Alain took her in his arms, kissed her tenderly and said:

“No, it is no lie. I will most certainly be coming back!”

“Then it is all right!” she sighed with love burning in her eyes.

Four blocks away from these erotic events, Jay and Alex came home in their small apartment from their strictly private just-the-two-of-them graduation celebration. They couldn’t have been aware of these going-ons, being not one of the participants. They had their dinner in an exclusive restaurant, thoroughly enjoying it. Besides, when Alex knew the restaurant’s pianist, they had a short chat with the guy and offered him a drink, Alex in the meantime introducing Jay as his partner in life and crime. It still made Jay blush. He felt no shame over his relationship with Alex, but as far as he was concerned it was nobody else’s his business.

Now they lumped down on their only couch with full stomachs and somewhat drowsy and very satisfied feelings. After a short silence Alex took a deep breath and said:

“Finally! At last, I’m free!”

Jay looked at him, at a loss what his lover actually meant. Alex saw it, smiled and continued:

“I’m free from all the limitations, rules, expectations, narrowmindedness, unwritten laws and dogmas from my professors, who were taught the same things from their professors, who learned them from their professors, etcetera, etcetera. In other words: I’m free from the completely stuck dogmatic approach in the classical music scene, an approach that is only based on a 17th century Italian concept, but that nobody cared for to change anything”.

“Meaning?” Jay asked, still not understanding a word of it.

“Meaning that I will not abandon my classical roots, but that I will use them to find new ways to interpret or arrange existing music in the way I see as the logical way and write new music, based on classical principles with a more modern approach”.

“Maybe I’m just a dumb graphic designer”, Jay muttered, “but I don’t understand what you want…or even what you mean”.

“Do you want another wine?” Alex asked.

Jay nodded. Alex rose, walked to the small bar in the cabinet and poured two of their cheap red wine in glasses. It was no comparison to the exquisite wine they had with their dinner, but it was the only one they had. Once he had put the glasses on the table he sat down again, took a sip of the wine and explained:

“I’ll give you an example, that might shed some light on what I mean. In the fifties of the last century there was a Canadian pianist, named Glenn Gould, who wanted to record Bach’s “Well-tempered Clavier”, but he wanted to record it in the way he thought it had to be played. In other words: he didn’t play Bach, he played WITH Bach. And he did it that well and with so much respect for the original music, that old Johann would be pleased. But no one bothered to ask Johann. The whole bunch, critics, musicologists, fellow-pianists, orchestra directors and not in the last place the lazy, spoiled classical audience reviled and demoted him for violating the holy Bach. But, my sweetheart, that is exactly what I want to do. Take old music, think it over like Gould did, make my own arrangement or interpretation and fuck the classical dogmatics”.

He took another sip of wine and continued:

“Now, that is Bach. The situation is even worse with classical singing, where the stages have been dominated for centuries by ladies, who sound like jet fighters during a dive bomb attack and gentlemen, who sound like rumbling freight trains. I admit, it might be functional in opera. But these same singers sing Schubert songs as if they are singing Wagner. Imagine...that is what I call violation, rape, even manslaughter on Schubert’s beautiful songs”.

His eyes shone in a way, that showed he was totally in his subject, when he said:

“Let us take “The Winter Voyage”, I guess the best song bundle Schubert composed. In it you’ll find the song “The Elf King”, a song full of driving rhythm and drama, of tension, of real stress and suddenly of a very delicate intimacy and tenderness. But no, the singers just roar on, nothing subtle about it. Or that other song, “The Lyre Man” about impending death”.

He chuckled when he said:

“Never knew that a dying man could have so much breath left for that kind of singing”.

“And what would you want to do with it?” Jay asked. He was no musician, knew nothing about it but he liked Alex’s reasoning. He had his own ideas about his own art as well, that tended to follow the same line of thought.

Alex smiled and asked:

“In which Amendment of the Constitution is it written, that you can’t do “The Elf King” as a rock song or the “Lyre Man” as a bluesy song or even against a background of a traditional indigenous Indian theme? I tell you: nowhere! It is all old, unwritten rules in the classical music scene. Call it artistic laziness or even a lack of artistic development. Only a few tried to change things, but they were ridiculed and defamed by the rest of the scene. Maybe they did things I don’t like myself, but at least they tried to change something”.

Jay put his head on Alex’s shoulder, being extremely interested in what his partner was planning to do about it.

“What do you propose then?” he asked with burning curiosity.

“Oh”, Alex replied, “I will continue to play classical music as it is expected to be played. We need money, don’t we? So, I will play Beethoven’s 1st Piano Concert in the way everybody wants it to sound. And I will go on playing jazz. But as some second avenue of approach, I will mix classical, jazz, blues, rock riffs and God knows what else into a new amalgamation for the present days”.

He grinned when he said:

“Actually, I have advanced pretty far with forming a new band just to do that!”

That surprised Jay, making him call out:

“Really? Where did you find these people? And what will be that band’s name?”

“I found them among people at the university, who think along the same lines. And the name will be EHG!”

He smiled mysteriously, noting that Jay didn’t get the meaning of these three letters. So he continued:

“Eternal Hunting Grounds”.

“Say again!” Jay said in disbelief, “Why that?”

Alex’s eyes twinkled, when he replied:

“Because I see the music history from let’s say the 10th century as the eternal hunting grounds, where the present-day musician can frolic to his heart’s content in search of worthwhile themes to adapt or re-arrange or re-interpret for modern day’s music, provided he does it with respect and love for the old sources. Now…”

His eyes turned pensive and he said:

“The whole line-up of the band is almost ready. Only thing I’m still looking for is a singer who can do it…a voice who can do it”.

“Must be plenty at the university”, Jay suggested.

“No, thanks”, Alex objected decisively, “I don’t need another ruined voice, brainwashed with the ages old singing techniques. What I need is an untrained, but natural voice…a clear voice…an unspoiled voice. That’s the last thing I’m looking for!”

“Don’t look at me”, Jay chuckled, “I can’t sing three consecutive tones without going wrong”.

“No, sweetheart”, Alex grinned, “To you I look for a nice cover design…and for these other things”.

“Come on!”, Jay cried out in mock-anger, “A cover design at this late hour of the evening? Are you out of your mind?”

“No, I wouldn’t dare to ask that”, Alex said, his eyes turning languid, “But maybe these other things?”

The only thinkable answer was an intense kiss, followed by a whispered:

“Then let’s go!”

They went to their tiny bedroom to do their own arrangement of the immemorial erotic themes, that were also taking place four blocks away from them.

The days and weeks after meeting Alain were like paradise for Neoki. He seemed to walk on small clouds and when he “floated” to work each morning he did so singing, his high and clear voice cutting through the traffic noise, causing smiles on the faces of many passers-by. He loved his work and he loved his man, so what could possibly be wrong with being alive?

But after a few weeks, when the purple and pink fogs of the severe crush started to lift and with life’s reality gradually re-conquering a place in his mind, he started to notice something peculiar. Although Alain had told him that he was single, re-confirming it regularly in their talks, he always insisted on meeting Neoki either in the Red Square, at the entrance of Battery Park or he came to Neoki’s place. Any suggestion Neoki made to come to his place was evaded with some vague excuses. In a way it made Neoki somewhat suspicious, a feeling he considered as having no place in their love. But the seed was sown and with Alain doing nothing to clear the uneasy feeling it mushroomed more and more.

So, one evening Neoki made up his mind: he would ask Alain straightforward what the problem was if he visited his lover. He took his cell phone and called him.

Alain reacted somewhat irritated, saying:

“No, not tonight! I can’t! But what is so urgent that we have to meet, elfy?”

“Maybe the fact that I want to see you, my love”, Neoki giggled, carefully leaving the real reason unmentioned.

Alain reluctantly agreed and they set their meeting for the next evening at the entrance of Battery Park.

The next evening she was so nervous, that she was at the park entrance too early. But Alain showed up, as promised, although a few minutes late. However, that was explainable by a multitude of logical and plausible reasons. They embraced, kissed and walked into the park, Neoki nestled against Alain, his arm around her waist. The weather was enjoyable for a pair of lovers: the summer evening sun shone and ahead of them lay the glittering surface of Lake Champlain with its large number of pleasure boats. After a few minutes of small talk Neoki was no longer able to swallow her question:

“Alain, tell me, why do you always come to me and why can’t I come to your place?”

Alain looked at her, with eyes as if he didn’t understand the question.

“Come on, sweetie”, Neoki insisted, “We meet at the Red Square, here in the park or at my place. But when I suggest to come to your place you invent all possible excuses to avoid that”.

Alain’s eyes slid away from her’s. It gave her an uncomfortable apprehensive feeling.

“Well?” she asked in her sweetest voice.

“I…euuuh…”, the man stuttered, “Well…I…I live in the student’s dormitory at the university”.

“I didn’t know you were at the university”, she said, more or less relaxed. It looked as if her suspicions had been unfounded, so in a light-hearted tone she asked:

“What are you studying then?”

Instead of giving a direct and clear-cut simple answer Alain turned his head even farther away from her eyes, his face becoming red. With panicky eyes he stared over the lake’s waters.

“Alain?” Neoki asked in a tone, which was no longer sweet. She felt a cold hand grab her heart and the suspicions didn’t mushroom any longer, they simply exploded:

“Which game is he playing?”

“I…euuuhhh…well…I…”, was the stammered reaction

“Yes?” Neoki said sharply, tightening the thumbscrews.

“Medicine…I study medicine”, he said, almost crying it out in relief.

“Took you a damned long time to remember what you were studying, ain’t it?” she asked sarcastically. With her eyes screaming mistrust she said with a voice like a razor blade:

“How about telling me which game you are really playing?”

“Well…”, Alain said defensively, “That is a bit awkward…I mean…it has nothing to do with you. Not with what I feel for you”.

“Yes, it has to do with me, because I’m the one who is treated like a fool and I’m the one who is cheated upon!” she reacted violently.

“OK, when you insist”, Alain uttered despondent. He sighed, visibly struggling in gathering all his courage and said:

“The truth is, that I live with my girlfriend and that we have a little son together. He’s called Mickey. But…you know…gradually I discovered that my feelings for men were larger than for women and I started to visit the Red Square secretively. And…when I met you there…I was lost! I swear it, that’s the whole truth”.

“Yeah, sure, and nothing than the truth, so help you God Almighty”, she sneered cynically, but her heart seemed to break and her mind went crazy when she thought:

“Mon Dieu, it is even worse than I expected. He just used me as a cheap whore. How could I be so blind?”

She looked at him. All the love, that had once been in her eyes was gone, replaced with disgust and hate. In a tone that stabbed like a dagger she asked:

“Are you trying to tell me, that you have only used me as the floor drain for your overflow of sperm, because she didn’t let you?”

She laughed hatefully when she added:

“With the added bonus you can’t make me pregnant!”

“No, Neoki”, Alain muttered in despair, ”You don’t understand!”

The hate and loathing in her eyes only increased, when she said:

“Oh yeah…You think I’m dumb, huh? No, I understand perfectly: I’ve never seen such a rat in my life before. You know what you did? I’ll explain to you what you did: you betrayed me, you betrayed your girlfriend and you betrayed your little boy! Man, you’re one sorry outgrowth of the human race. The sight of you sickens me!”

“Neoki…please, let me explain!”, he muttered weakly, reaching out towards her shoulders.

“Keep your hands off me!” she cried out loud.

At that moment two young joggers passed the quarreling couple, accidentally overhearing Neoki’s last outcry. They stopped their trod, looked at the duo for a few seconds and started walking towards them in a more or less threatening way.

“Hey, dude”, one of them growled, “Let the lady alone!”

“No, no…”, Alain cried out in anguish, “It is not what you think!”

“I don’t care what you think it is”, the jogger said menacing, “Keep your hands off the lady, dude. I only warn you once!”

Neoki looked at him with eyes, that spitted cold fire and screamed at the top of her lungs:

“Mind your own fucking business!”

For a few seconds the boy stared at her in bewilderment, then to his companion, muttered a “Fine with me, suit yourself” and both ran on, their heads shaking in disbelief.

“You really don’t get it…”, Alain said softly, his shoulders slumped and his face betraying, that tears were very close to the surface now, “Neoki…believe me…I love you more than anything else on this world. But I can’t hurt my girlfriend, it would kill her…and even more than that, I could never walk out on Mickey. Please, understand that!”

She didn’t, because in a low, anger-filled hissing voice, her finger pointing at the man in front of her, the man that had been her lover until a few moments ago, she said:

“You should have thought about that beforehand! You know, you are one lucky guy, that my grandmother didn’t teach me about Voodoo. If she had, I would cast a curse on you right at this very moment. Now…get out of my sight…and stay out of it. I never want to see you again…never…you got that, mister?...Never!”

“Neoki, why are you doing this to me?” Alain pleaded, making it clear that he had never understood that one crucial thing: Neoki never made compromises!

She didn’t even hear it. She turned around and started running, tears streaming over her face. She ran the whole way to her room, not seeing anyone, pushing people aside, not hearing their protests and objections. She only wanted to run away from that monster, get to her own secure place, where nobody could hurt her again.

Once she arrived at the shoe store, she ran into the entrance door and stormed up the stairs, almost overrunning Brad, her neighbor.

“Wow, slow down, chick!” the boy exclaimed.

She turned around and for a second time she yelled as hard as she could:

“Don’t call me chick, damned. And piss off!”!

She ran into her room, throwing the door close that hard, that the flimsy inner wall shuddered.

Even gruffy Brad blinked his eyes at her outburst when he muttered:

“Ups, bit touchy today, ain’t we?”

Then he shrugged and went into his own room, wondering what had gotten into that normally reserved but kind girl.

That “kind girl” jumped on the bed and buried her face in the pillow, where she started to cry uncontrollably. Gradually “she” became a “he” again. His heart stopped flittering. It felt as if it was broken. No…, that was not true. When it was only broken, it could be mend. It was beyond that…it felt as if it had been shattered into many very tiny pieces, irreparable for the rest of his life. No matter how it felt, it hurt like hell and the excruciating pain in the heart remained unabated while tears kept flowing in river-like flows. It is only natural, that his initial tears were caused by heart-wrenching sorrow but gradually they were replaced by tears of anger, first of all at Alain, the swine who did all this to him. But the longer he cried, the more anger he felt at himself:

“Why was I so blind? Why did I behave as foolish as I did?”

Questions, questions, questions but no answers. Oh yes, by now he knew he had been carried away by a new feeling, an overwhelming one that he had not encountered before, that funny feeling called “love”. And he took the full brunt of this extremely powerful emotion. Since he was unexperienced in and unprepared for this onslaught it turned out to be a sure recipe for the deep tragedy in which it ended.

“Yes, it feels great when my heart flitters. But I must find a way, that I don’t lose it. That it doesn’t soar into outer space. I must invent some method to hold the reigns over my heart!”

But through the tears his eyes kept their hopeless expression and slowly he cried himself into sleep.

When he finally slipped into that uneasy sleep, his grandmother seemed to breathe the comforting words of solution in his distorted thoughts in some inaudible whisper:

“Oui, mon cher, a flittering heart is a wonderful feeling. But beware: don’t let your heart get out of control, so that it floats freely in the macrocosm. It will make you vulnerable. You stick your heart and your neck too far out. And if things turn sour, as it did now, your heart will come down with dizzying speed and crash on the surface of the earth, where it is blown to smithereens by the impact. But don’t you worry, mon cher, it will heal…and you will have learned!”

The days and weeks after the disastrous end of his love affair, Neoki had more than enough to cope with, but soon found out, that his tribulations weren’t limited to love sorrow only. He was checking on a printing press when he heard Sam call:

“Kiddo, you’ve got a moment?”

“Yeah, sure”, Neoki responded listless, “Let me finish this first, before the whole edition ends up in the wastepaper basket”.

With the press running smoothly again, he scuffed towards the office. He feared a ball busting, because he knew very well, he hadn’t been his real self since that faithful evening in Battery Park, only doing the job without any spark. But the outcome was a nasty surprise for him, although Sam greeted him as cheerful as ever with:

“Sit down, kiddo. How about a brew?”

Once sat and the coffee served Sam started talking:

“Kiddo, since I consider you a gold nugget in this small shop, I want to be frank with you”.

Neoki smiled at the explicit compliment but waited anxiously for an explanation. Sam was not hesitant in giving it, when he continued:

“You know, in a few months I will be turning seventy. Despite your real great help and input I feel I’m no longer able to run this shop and that my time has come to think about retirement. To put in bluntly, kiddo: I’m planning to sell this small company!”

Neoki looked at him in shock. After losing his love…might this mean he was losing the other thing he loved in his life, his job? Sam seemed to sense his thought, because he said:

“Now…, of course I don’t know if a new owner will keep you employed. Don’t get me wrong: I’ll do everything I can to convince him…or her…he should keep you right here, but I can’t give any guarantees. If he doesn’t, I’ll give you the most glowing recommendations and testimonials I’ve ever written, because you are worth every word of it. The same goes, if you decide to start looking for another job before the shop is sold, to avoid getting unemployed. Can’t say I would blame you, if you did. Better safe than sorry, ain’t it?”. 

Neoki looked at him, not uttering a word. His face contorted in shock, his eyes assumed a panicky expression, while he thought:

“What is happening to me? My life falls apart. First, I lose my love, now the second thing I love, my job, is in jeopardy! Was all the time in this city wasted time? Is it time to move on?”

Sam noticed the change in the kid. Comfortingly he said:

“Take it easy, kiddo. I haven’t sold the thing yet. And you’re free to go if you can find another job. I’ll give you all the help I can. Don’t you worry: the whole graphic industry in this city knows about you and many will offer you a good job once you decide to leave here”.

It didn’t help to put Neoki’s mind at ease: he liked it here, in this small shop! If he would like it someplace else…? And about moving on…? He didn’t feel like that either.

“I found my place here…at least, that is what I thought. But it is all going to pieces, it seems!”

Sam had had his saying, re-iterating another time that Neoki could count on all his help, when a new owner chose to employ him no longer. But it didn’t give him much relief: the rest of that day he did his job as he should but nothing more than that and he was shrouded in gloomy thoughts about...well, actually about everything. His after work walk home did nothing to improve his mood. And he certainly didn’t sing during the short walk.

After graduation the time of looking for a job started for Jay. It was a long fruitless search. No matter how many graphic industry professional journals he scrounged, all personnel ads he saw offered jobs too far away or requesting too much experience (he had some, but not what was asked for by a long shot!). It made him somewhat depressed. It appeared to him he had studied for four years, only to find out that getting a job in it was almost impossible.

He almost envied Alex, who rolled in a weekend job as a pianist and earned extra cash in gigs, recitals and sessions. In music the only thing that mattered was, that you were good in what you did, apart from a large dose of luck. Jay knew, that his Alex was a whizz kid as soon as it came to keyboards. And he seemed to be always lucky, establishing a solid reputation in town.

Unexpectedly Jay saw that tiny glimmer of hope: in one of the local newspapers, hidden between the screaming ads from the big companies and recruiters, was a tiny ad, in which a small printing shop in “downtown a city in Vermont” was offered for sale with a regular client base and one employee. It instantly made him dream: that was what he wanted!

“But it won’t work! I can’t pay that in a hundred years! On the other hand: it can’t do any harm to check the place out, can it?”

That evening he discussed it with Alex, who agreed wholeheartedly:

“Go and take a look at that shop. If it is any good, we can always try to find a way to get the cash together to buy it!”

Next morning, Jay took his cell phone and made an appointment with the shop’s proprietor. Hopes were low, but dreams were stormy when he ended the call.

He had never expected such an exuberant reception and such an extensive and intense guided tour as at the printing shop he was visiting.

It began right away, when he entered it, being greeted by a kid of about eighteen, dressed in a baggy trousers and a tank top, stained with ink spots.

“Hi, I’m looking for Sam Garnier. I’ve got an appointment with him”, he explained his being there.

The kid looked shamelessly at him, studying him from the top of his head to his toes with an undisguised interested glance in his eyes, only to yell to the back:

“Sam, your visitor his here!”

While calling for Sam, Neoki couldn’t see anything wrong in being waked up by this guy, who would then invite him for breakfast and felt a clear reaction in his erogenous zone, but standing behind the counter he managed to hide it and avoid a fearful embarrassment.

When the elderly man came in, shaking hands with the visitor and taking him to the office in the back, Jay smiled at the kid, saying:

“Thank you very much!”

Neoki looked at him with glistening eyes, replying with a high-pitched voice:

“You’re more than welcome!”

The slight lilt and pronunciation of certain words gave Jay enough reason to think, that this boy was French-Canadian.

Neoki’s short answer was accompanied by the first mysterious and seducing smile he had given since weeks before. He couldn’t help himself: while Jay and Sam walked towards the office, he felt almost physically forced to stare at the gorgeous young man with clear admiration and desire.  

Then the guided tour came with this Mr. Garnier peppering him with superfluous information about all clients, up to and including their personal lives. Besides: Jay felt how he was stared at by that kid, who seemed to be doing some adjustments and visual print checks on presses. During the looking around in the shop there was one thing that interested him and another that intrigued him.

The interesting thing was an old screen print table, clearly in disuse for years. His trained eye immediately noticed the reason: the vacuum pump was gone. But…there were still racks of screens in a multitude of dimensions available and in his fantasies he saw perspectives to fulfil his big dream.

And then the intriguing thing…that was this kid that was still putting on a perfect stage play of working hard, although in reality his dark eyes seemed to be glued to Jay’s stature and certainly not to presses and prints, following his every move through the shop. Jay found the kid attractive in a way: he was frail, small, with a somewhat wild, rebellious appearance. But at the same time, he was unable to determine if that kid was male or female. His whole appearance and movements struck Jay as feminine, his shoulder muscles and biceps seemed to be pretty male.

Once the tour was over and he said his goodbyes to Mr. Garnier and the kid, he made up his mind: the shop was what he was looking for. Now there was only one other problem, that needed to be solved: where could he find the cash?

And that proved to be a hard nut to crack or better: it turned out to be one of the uncrackable nuts!

Surveying their own finances only took about thirty minutes. They had hardly enough to make ends meet at the end of every month. And talks with banks all went the same way:

“Very nice plan, guys. I hope it’ll work for the two of you. But…a bit too risky for us. We wish you all the success in realizing it!”

In other words: plain banking bullshit and another no go!

Jay started to resign, that he wouldn’t be the one who would buy Sam Garnier’s shop and he knew he had to find some alternative. Maybe it was some idea to start from scratch: take his small savings, buy a screen print table and -equipment and then just start with that.

The weekend after he and Alex visited his foster dads. No, technically they were no longer, since he had reached adult age. But he still valued them as very close friends and trusted counselors feeling a close emotional attachment to them. In fact: he considered Jeremy and Noah his real dads. And since he trusted them, the subject of Sam Garnier’s print shop was discussed, Jay ending it with a sad smile, saying:

“I might as well forget about it and find some other solution”.

And as far as he was concerned: it could have been great, but it wasn’t to be in the first place, so in his thoughts the plan died a painless death.

However, the plan resurrected in a most unexpected way and with an unimagined vibrancy, when that same evening Jay’s cell rang. Alex was just watching tv and was immersed in the subject of that moment, so Jay went to the kitchen to answer the call.

The only things Alex picked up were a loud rebel yell and excited gibbering, destroying his concentration on the tv and mighty curious what that could be about. He didn’t have to wait long, because within minutes Jay stormed into their small living, exclaiming:

“Noah wants to buy the print shop for me!”

Alex was unable to say something, he only looked bewildered into Jay’s scintillating eyes until he was able to recover from his astonishment, asking:

“Why would he do that?”

“I asked him the same thing”, Jay stuttered from excitement, “He said: ‘Because I care for you!’”

“But…”, Alex questioned, still not convinced that this might realize his lover’s dream, “How is he going to pay for it? Don’t tell me a small bookstore like theirs makes that much money!”

“Funny”, Jay chuckled, “That’s another thing I asked him”.

“And?” Alex insisted.

“He only said ‘None of your fucking business, buddy”, Jay grinned, “And then ‘Now stay out of it and leave the negotiations to a professional. Got that?’”

“Who might that be?” Alex wondered.

Jay shrugged and replied:

“I’m not sure. But my guts feeling tells me he is talking about his old man, the town lawyer”.

“Smart thinking”, Alex muttered, “Two artistic amateurs in these kinds of things might only make a mess out of it”.

Noah’s generous assistance, which was still not fully comprehended by Jay as far as its intention and the origin of the money was concerned, the young man having no idea about the amount of funds available to his foster father, enabled him to realize his dreams. But a nice side effect to the whole deal was, that Alex could also fulfil part of his aspirations. Because with the actual printing shop came the overlying apartment, that was twice the size Jay and Alex had now. It enabled Alex to have a small music studio and for Jay to have an equally tiny design studio, apart from living, bedroom and kitchen. Upstairs Alex used his daytime hours to rehearse pieces he wanted to play during the evening or he tinkered about on modifying classical music into a more present-days sound, while downstairs Jay and Neoki worked on their printing processes. Yes, on Sam Garnier’s warmest recommendations Jay had decided to keep Neoki on the payroll, making the kid the happiest person on earth when Jay told him so. But this happiness had more reasons than only the fact that his job was secure.

The first time Neoki saw his new employer, the afternoon he came to see the print shop, the young man had an immediate impact on the kid, that was alternately and simultaneously a boy and a girl in the same life. And when it became obvious, that Jay was the new owner and that he, Neoki, could stay on the job, the impact became larger and larger, filling the youngster with a feeling of joy during every working day. Yes, his heart became restless and started to flitter again and not only on payday.

In other words: poor Neoki had fallen in love with his new boss. He swooned when Jay didn’t order him but only kindly asked him to do “such and so”, always with a heartwarming smile around his lips and in his magical clear blue-grey eyes. And since this happened several times a day the flittering of Neoki’s heart got worse and worse.

However, being no fool Neoki was well aware, that he had to hold back. First of all, there was this practical difficulty, that Jay had a longstanding relation with Alex, the musician, with whom he lived upstairs. Falling in love was one thing, forcing people to break up, making them unhappy, was not the kind of crime Neoki wanted to commit. He was no relation breaker. An even more important reason to restrain himself was, that he felt afraid and uncertain: it was the same heart, that yearned for his boss, that was also terrified of sustaining new wounds and new pain. It had had all the pain it could endure during the previous disaster.

So, Neoki tried to keep an uneasy balance: during working hours he enjoyed being in the same room with Jay, reveling in every word the young man spoke and every move he made and floating away at every kind smile. In the evening hours the youngster tried to sooth his emotions and longings, mostly ending up dreaming about futures, that might very well never come in the first place.

There were also evenings on which his imagination ran off with him. These were the moments how he visualized how his boss would look without clothes, how his skin would feel, which sweet things he would whisper, how his phallus would feel when it penetrated him. These were the moments, where he saw no other way out other than the fingers of one hand starting to play with his tight boy’s cunt, while his other hand stroked his dick until the shudders of delight went through his body. And then the downfall into gloom followed: once the reverberations of his do-it-yourself techniques had evaporated, the depression followed:

“It will never come that way! He’s with Alex and he has all rights to be so. He has no obligations to me. So, I’m only dreaming. Well…let’s look at the positive side: maybe there’s a chance of one in a million. But will that do for me?”

Most of the time he was clearheaded enough that he realized himself that there was another problem as well:

“But, what if he hadn’t this thing with Alex? What would I do? Would I let my heart fly away unconditionally for another time?”

At the end of these evenings, he mostly left the questions unanswered, because, no matter how hard he thought it over, all solutions kept eluding him. Alex was there, whether he liked it or not! It didn’t matter: next morning he would go to work again and restart dreaming.

But once he had fallen asleep, his grandmother seemed to creep into his skull again, whispering the answers in his thoughts:

“Everybody remembers his very first love for his whole lifetime. It is the most foolhardy, unprejudiced, engulfing love there is. If it holds, it will get in quieter waters over time but it will stay lucky. If it strands in catastrophe, the pain is excruciating and the result will be, that all new loves, that will come, will never be the same. Because you have learned. You will start the next loves with more prudency and more reserved than the very first one to protect yourself against any new heart pain. And as far as his being committed is concerned: be patient! Maybe some opportunity will come in the future, maybe not! One can never know how things turn out. But I caution you, mon cher, don’t waste your life in waiting for your chevalier on the white horse. If the chance doesn’t come, be firm and start looking for another squire, who might only ride a bike. It’ll cause no pain, because it will be your own decision!”

Having no brighter ideas Neoki more or less consciously decided to stop short at basking in his unattainable idol’s presence during working hours, waiting for some highly improbable opportunity, thereby following the old saying, that goes: “Hope gives live”.

On an early May Tuesday it seemed as if a small window opened, coming totally by coincidence, when at the end of the working day Neoki asked:

“Jay, can I ask you something?”

“Sure, what’s up?”, was the kind, actually inviting reply.

“Well”, Neoki continued somewhat hesitantly, “I wanted to ask Sam about it, but it never came of it. So, can you tell me what that table over there in the corner is?”, nodding with his head towards an old table, tucked away in a semi-dark corner of the shop.

“That’s a screen print machine”, Jay answered matter-of-factly.

“What’s that?” Neoki said, his curiosity triggered.

“I’m surprised Sam never told you”, Jay said somewhat nonplussed, “Come over here. I’ll explain it to you”.

And he sure did: he started an expose about the screen print technique, going over every detailed step of it, and he did it in such an inspiring way, that Neoki didn’t doubt for a second, that his whole heart was in it. Jay’s face started to glow with excitement and the pupils in his eyes became shiny little jewels. Neoki was captivated by Jay’s explanation but even more by the effects it had on the man. His eyes sucked in every detail of the glowing face and the shining eyes, prompting him to say without realizing it:

“You are always beautiful, but the way you are right now, you are simply outright gorgeous!”

Jay looked at him with surprise in his gleaming eyes and his only reaction was a:

“Huh?”

It hit Neoki that he had gone too far, that he had said something that trespassed onto forbidden grounds and his face turned red with shame.  Instinctively he didn’t mutter some vague apology. That would only serve to emphasize his mistake. Instead, he tried to defuse the situation by asking as casually as he could:

“Why don’t we use this technique? It must give beautiful results!”

“Yes, it does”, Jay answered, returning to his exalted enthusiastic state, “But it is too time-consuming. You can’t use this technique for high volume editions like we mostly do”.

Neoki took a deep sigh of relief: the move away from his own mistake seemed to have worked, so he decided to continue on that track:

“But…if I understand it well…you can use this technique for high quality prints in low editions?”

“That’s right”, Jay answered, “High quality posters, art posters, graphic art, that kind of stuff”.

“Would you like to do that?” Neoki asked.

“I would love to”, was the honest reply, “But I must have time to design first. And we are that swamped with work that I simply don’t have the time”.

“But I have”, Neoki muttered that soft, that Jay couldn’t hear it, only to continue with:

“Can we do some screen printing once?”

Jay considered it briefly, then answered:

“Sure we can. But it will be after hours work and only after I had time to design something”.

“Let me worry about that!” Neoki thought with a mental smile, “But please, honey…teach me to do screen printing! And give me some more time with you!”

Once he got home after work, he immediately took his portfolio map and started to leave through the many drawings he made. Back home, in Montreal, his school mates had called him a gifted draftsman, his teachers had thought him to be a natural artist. But now, in the light of present circumstances with failure being no option, he was hardly able to mark two of his products as mediocre and he was damned sure, that Jay would reject the rest out of hand as “not worth the expensive ink”.

“So”, he muttered pensively, “I have to make something new, something flashy, something that will be noticed as art”.

“Now, what can that be?” the question formed in his mind. Because he considered the stakes to be high: it might convince Jay he was an excellent designer as well and even more…it might make him see that he was an outstanding lover!

Neoki thought about his next art project, long and hard! But at the end of the evening he saw no solutions coming. He shrugged and thought:

“Oh well, I’m in no hurry. Better take it slow and make something good than do it fast, producing another piece of shit!”

With that thought he went to bed.

While Neoki went to bed, Jay sat in his living room with a glass of Californian wine and some music on the background. He was alone tonight. Alex had a gig in some jazz club and wasn’t due home before the early hours of the night, by which time he would be sound asleep.

On his knees was a piece of paper and thoughtlessly he sketched some things with a lead pencil, having no idea where it might lead to. At the same time his mind raced as the direct result of the talk, he had with his only employee that afternoon, with his thoughts centered on practical matters initially:

“Why not doing screen printing? That is the thing I love: make graphic art. That’s the thing I studied for, not to become a print shop owner who does obituaries, ad leaflets and school magazines. My heart is in graphic art!”

But he saw the drawbacks of this line of reasoning as well:

“But my turnover is dependent on that kind of jobs. As a matter of fact: my income is dependent on it. OK, I could do with less money. But what about Neoki? His wages are also determined by the present turnover. If I turn to screen printing, I have to sack him. I couldn’t do that!”

Once Neoki came in his mind, his thoughts changed to a personal, more emotional level. Neoki might have perceived his defusing the awkward situation a success, but Jay had noticed the remark and the embarrassment after that into the smallest detail:

“Neoki, what is it with you? Shit, I am still unable to find out if the kid is a boy or a girl, but he intrigues me beyond logical reason. No…I feel attracted to him”.

He grinned when the thought continued:

“Doesn’t matter if the kid is a girl. I’m as gay as gay can be, so girls don’t mean a thing to me. But…if he’s a boy? That changes the whole ball game”.

He sighed deep, feeling that his reasoning started to get some dangerous edge:

“If I had been single, I would do it. If he’s a boy, the kid is too interesting to ignore. But I love Alex! I can’t…no, I don’t want to leave him after all he has done for me! So, what can I offer Neoki? At the best a flirt, maybe even a one night stand, a sidestep. I wouldn’t forgive myself doing that to Alex and, as a matter of fact, I couldn’t do it to Neoki. The kid is far too sensitive to handle that. It will break his heart!”

He shrugged, seeing only one viable option:

“I have to make it clear to him, that I like him a lot but that that will be all, that is in it for him: like him! My God…it’ll cost me a lot of effort to hold back, because the spark is right under the surface, poised to ignite the fire! A fire I don’t want!”

Confused as he was, he threw his piece of paper on the table, took a swig of wine and stared ahead of him, no longer thinking but only feeling a hurricane of conflicting emotions.

That Wednesday Alex felt frustrated. For weeks he had been working on converting an early 20th century piece to something, that was more suitable for the 21st century, but Francis Poulenc’s Concert Champêtre proved a very tough nut. It was not the harpsichord parts, they were converted to piano quite easy, although getting them in the fingers was a different cup of tea. But the long orchestra parts formed a problem. He was unable to find good solutions for that, despite the fact he could count on a whole battery of synthesizers to imitate a symphony orchestra. That was exactly the difficulty: he didn’t want an electronic imitation, he wanted something that sounded new within the characteristics of the original piece.

He shrugged and muttered:

“Maybe I want too much in too short time. Why should I rush? I’m twenty-five, not eighty-three”.

And he still had that particular problem: the band line up was more than fine, all bright young musicians. The only thing still failing was that unique voice he was looking for.

He decided to leave it for the time being and concentrated on what he wanted to play this evening in the downtown bar. Maybe something “down to earth” would ease his feelings of frustration.

He started to play through some passages from the songs he planned, making sure he wouldn’t find unpleasant surprises that evening. He was just through some part, leafing for another, when he heard it: a high, thin and fragile but crystal-clear voice, singing some tune Alex didn’t know. He listened intently with open mouth, but finally mumbled:

“That’s the voice I’m looking for!”

The voice continued its singing and Alex frantically tried to find out where it came from or ascertain if he was only dreaming it. He ran out of his music studio room and listened: the singing was still there! It came from downstairs!

“From the print shop?” he whispered in surprise.

Alex ran down the stairs, barged in to the print shop and cried out:

“Who is singing over here?”

The two people in the print shop looked at him with amazement in their eyes.

“Why?” Jay asked sullen, “Is there a law against it?”

“No, of course not. But it sounded incredibly good”, Alex kept crying excited, “So, who sang?”

“I did”, Neoki replied, his dark eyes mirroring his incomprehension about all the fuzz.

“It was great!” Alex kept calling out thrilled, “What were you singing?”

Neoki just shrugged and, feeling somewhat confused and insecure, answered under his breath:

“I don’t know. Just some tune that whirled through my head”.

“Can you sing it again?” Alex wanted to know.

“I’ll try! I’m not sure I can remember it”.

But he tried and started singing again. It was not exactly the same but pretty close to what Alex had heard to start with.

“Goddamn, Jay!” he shouted, “You know I’m looking for something like this and you never mentioned, that it was right here in the print shop!”

“Come on, Alex”, Jay protested, “I knew you were looking for some voice, not what kind of voice!”

“Can I borrow Neoki for an hour?” Alex asked with glistening eyes.

“Hey, I pay him to work here, remember?” Jay objected.

“Just an hour, then he’s back at work!” Alex re-assured him.

“OK, one hour!”, Jay grinned, “If he’s not back by then, I’m coming up to fetch him!”

“Come on up, Neoki”, Alex invited the boy.

After more than the agreed hour it was clear, that Neoki was not only the only employee in Jay’s print shop, but also the new singer in Alex’s band, despite his lack of musical knowledge. For Alex it was only the unique, unspoiled and natural voice that mattered. Jay didn’t even bother to walk upstairs to get the boy once the hour had passed.

His second career resulted in very long working days for Neoki. First there was a full day at the printing shop and then twice a week rehearsals with Alex and with the band. He had no idea about musical theories, couldn’t read a score and kept silent to hide his ignorance when the other musicians discussed keys, just feeling dumb at these moments. All he could, was hear with his ears, understand with his gut feeling and sing with all his heart.

After one of these long days, he strolled home. He didn’t feel like making dinner at this late hour, so he picked up some take-away food. While walking he started thinking:

“It feels good to sing again. It has been such a long time ago that I did. But this being a part of the band makes life not exactly easier. I like Alex. He is a patient and good teacher, who opens a new artistic world for me, apart from my obsession with drawing. He coaches me through the songs, never loses his temper. There is however one problem: I love the same man he loves. Taking away his lover would hurt him immensely and it would cut off my development as well. Oh no, forget about that development, that is not the issue. I can live without singing. Fact is, I simply like him too much to cause him any pain! And I don’t know if I can live with that!”

For a few seconds he thought he saw a solution when the idea came:

“Would they both settle for some kind of menage a trois – a triangle relationship?”

But he dismissed the idea right away. First, he couldn’t see the possibility that both Jay and Alex would accept that. Secondly: it wouldn’t solve his problem. Which was, that he only liked Alex but loved Jay.

“Oh shit, how do I find a way out of it? Any ideas, granny?”

When he got home, he ate the tasteless food and then went straight to bed. Tomorrow was another day of hard work. He was even too tired to play around with himself and just switched off the bed lamp.

He woke up with a shock and stared briefly in the dark room, then at his alarm clock. The digits read 02.43.

“I’ve been dreaming”, he muttered.

He wasn’t sure, closed his eyes: maybe he could remember something of what he had seen. As soon as his eyes were shut, the image was back, clearly and vividly.

Concentrating, he considered what his eyes seemed to observe. There were two almost identical figures…but what was important: they were ALMOST identical.

“It is a vision”, he whispered, “It is a vision, that guides me to a design. I must make sure I remember it, when I’m awake. I must not forget, what I just saw!”.

He took his time to inculcate the vision in his memory, but once he managed to do so, he rolled over and returned to dreamland with a satisfied smile on his face.

Having no rehearsal the next day he left the print shop when all was done, but instead of going home he casually strolled to the art supply shop in Pine Street. That was the main advantage of living downtown: all was within walking distance.

He bought himself the largest dimension drawing paper the shop had available and once home he taped it to the floor. Next, he put his working lamp on the floor and switched it on.

For a long time he stared at the virgin-white paper, estimating compositions and dimensions. Then he closed his eyes and focused his attention: last night’s vision was back right away. He sat down on the floor and whispered:

“This has to be my master piece up to now! I can’t fail. I must impress Jay with it!”

He took a piece of charcoal and started sketching with intent.

While Neoki suppressed his conflicting feelings and thoughts about his love for Jay by fully concentrating on drawing his newest piece of art, Jay didn’t have that luxury and for a second evening he sat staring in front of him at no particular object.

He was simply unable to grasp, how the small gem of moderate admiration (the thought of “That’s a real cute kid!”), sown at the very first visit to the then Sam Garnier’s print shop, could develop is such an all-encompassing but at the same time unwanted, almost forbidden feeling of love. He felt as if he was breaking a tabu. He loved Alex for what he was, what he gave and what Jay owed him for and shouldn’t love Neoki! But for reasons, obscure to him, he did love Neoki as well. And life hadn’t become any easier with Alex wanting the kid as the singer for his new band, drawing him even more into the inner circle.

“Talking about singing: there was this old song once about this awkward situation”, he muttered.

He thought it over, trying to remember its title. It took a long time but then it came:

“Torn between two lovers”.

He considered that this title nicely summed up his situation: he was torn between Alex, who he still loved and didn’t want to leave, and Neoki, who he loved as well but couldn’t get without leaving Alex. There was another consideration: how long was Neoki willing to wait? Maybe, if he finally would decide to split up with Alex and turn towards the kid, he might say: “Too late, pal. I’ve been waiting long enough!” In other words: it was turning into an unsolvable issue.

And the worst of all was: he had to figure it out all by his own. There was no one with whom he could talk it over. Alex was absolutely ruled out, as was Neoki. For a moment he considered to discuss it with Jeremy and Noah, his old foster dads, but even they might not understand what he was talking about, probably dismissing the whole thing as some temporary crush at short shrift. Despite his loving and caring partner in life he felt terribly lonely.

He couldn’t shake off that dreadful premonition, that two lovers was one too much and that, when he was careless, he might end up with losing both of them. Now, that would really make him feel lonely!

After thinking long and hard he could only come to one reasonable conclusion:

“Man, I got myself in one hell of a mess!”

Which was all very well, but the question remained: how to get out of it?

Some weeks after Neoki had started his new art project he behaved as excited as he had never before at work. Normally he was a cheerful person, but not overly excited. However, this morning something had to be in the offing, because he chattered like a congregation of sparrows in a hedgerow and behaved like a whole class of six years old kids, waiting for the bus for their first school trip to the zoo. He talked and giggled continuously and was somewhat more distracted from work than normally. Jay had already made some remarks in the way of:

“Slow down, buddy!”, “Cool down, we’re in no rush!” but he was unable to fathom what was bugging the kid.

During the morning coffee break around ten Jay was a bit fed up with it and wanted to know what was going on with his always so controlled employee, so he asked:

“Hey, Neoki, what is going on with you today? Did yesterday’s dinner contain super fuel by coincidence?

“Didn’t Alex tell you?” Neoki reacted in surprise.

“Tell me what?” Jay wanted to know.

“He’s going to take me to the Art Riot tonight to this session to make my debut as a singer!”

“Ah, now that’s a good reason to get excited”, Jay smiled, “He told me he had this session, but he has a lot of gigs and sessions. If you have a relationship with a musician, you don’t keep track of all of them. He hadn’t told me you would sing. But he is throwing you for the wolves pretty fast, isn’t he?”

“Just one song”, Neoki smiled unpretentious, “But we worked hard on it! I know I can do it”.

“Well, I wish you all the luck in the world!” Jay said heartfelt.

Neoki stared at him with dreamlike eyes and softly said:

“Jay…”. Then he hesitated, fumbling with his wide t-shirt.

“What is it, Neoki?” Jay asked as an invitation.

“Well…, what I wanted to ask: will you come tonight? To listen?”

Now it was Jay’s turn to become hesitantly:

“Well, I don’t know…I mean…Alex might not like the idea of me being there. We keep our jobs pretty well separated”.

“Please?” Neoki insisted, his eyes turning into a glance that was impossible to resist, the kind of eyes no person in his right mind could refuse something, no matter what it was.

“OK”, Jay laughed, “I’ll be there! How late do you guys start?”

“The session starts at eight thirty, but I believe Alex has planned me in the second set”.

“I had no other plans anyway”, Jay confirmed his intention, which was not fully true: he was working on some design, but that could wait, “You can count on one avid fan in the club!”

“Great!” Neoki cheered. He jumped up, embraced his boss spontaneously and kissed him on both cheeks. When he realized what he had done he muttered with a red face of shame:

“Ups! That might be a bit too enthusiastic”.

But he kept it to himself, that he had improvised this reaction consciously and that he found it extremely thrilling.

Jay just chuckled, emptied his coffee and said:

“Come on, buddy. There’s a whole lot of work waiting for us!”

Jay lingered in the back of the club, that was slowly filling with jazz-loving audience. He felt out of place. This was Alex’s world; his world was at home, feeling happy behind a drawing board, fooling around with forms, compositions, colors and shades. In a way he felt as if he was intruding.

He hadn’t seen Alex since this morning: he had his work at the print shop and Alex had rehearsal for exactly this session, so they didn’t have dinner together. Jay grinned about it: it was the price for having a relation with an increasingly successful musician. Life could get somewhat irregular from that.

He startled somewhat when he heard a very familiar voice saying behind him:

“What a nice surprise! It’s like in the old days!”

He looked around and stared right into Alex’s face, who smiled from ear to ear. After they kissed, Jay asked:

“What do you mean, honey? Old days?”

“Just like when we met. You listening, me playing. I hope I can count on that glass of orange juice between the sets?”

Jay remembered it, chuckled and then he inquired:

“Weren’t it two glasses, as I recall?”

“No”, Alex smiled, his head emphatically shaking, “That was at the end of the concert! But what brings you here?”

Jay shrugged and replied casually:

“I’ve got this employee, who cajoled me in coming here tonight to be his only fan!”

Alex put on a face of mock disappointment and said:

“Ah, so you weren’t coming for me?”

Jay put his arms around Alex’s neck, kissed him another time and whispered:

“Yes, honey…I’m here for you as well. It’s been some time since I heard you playing. So, let’s say, that Neoki gave me a good opportunity for that as well”.

“He still loves me dearly after all those years”, he thought. It felt good! And at the same time, it felt oppressive, almost threatening.

“You won’t regret it”, Alex said, “That kid is damned good! The guys are waiting. Time to start this thing and get the music rolling”.

After a last tender kiss he moved toward the piano on the small stage.

The session started with audience being engulfed in the jazzy tones: Gershwin’s “Summertime” was played in a compelling long version with improvisations on the main theme by all musicians, taking almost fifteen minutes, some Cole Porter, “Stormy Weather, one of those eternal jazz evergreens, Miles Davis and a very jazzy piano improvisation on Bach’s “Well-Tempered Clavier”, tastefully accompanied by double bass and brushed drums. As at their very first meeting Jay was captivated by how Alex’s fingers seemed to have a life of their own, still dancing so fast over the keys, that the eye was hardly able to keep track of them.

As promised Jay brought his lover an orange juice during the pause, causing loving smiles and an occasional giggle with both thinking back to the small concert hall in Newport, but when it was time for the second set, he withdrew to the rear of the club to await developments.

After a few instrumental tunes Jay didn’t know, Alex started to improvise around some theme, that was vaguely familiar to Jay. The way he made the piano sound, delicate and soft, invited the audience to quieten down, becoming really silent in the end. Then Alex announced:

“As a small extra in this session we have a special guest, a wonderful singer who is making his debut this evening. A warm welcome for Neoki!”

Under some wavering applause Neoki took the stage while people were looking at one another with eyes that wanted to say “Who the hell is that?”. He sure didn’t look as someone who made his debut: dressed in a white gleaming and glittering wide blouse with wide sleeves, that fell over his hips, a black skinny jeans, shining red boots that came over his ankles and with some orange strands in his long black hair he walked towards the microphone, took it in his hands and waited for the cue Alex would give him. There was no sign at all that indicated stage fright. He acted like a real pro!

“Wow”, Jay uttered visibly impressed, his heart skipping a few beats, his mind flashing:

“What a beauty you are!”

He looked at the two persons on stage, his two biggest loves in life. One love, that for Alex, was allowed. The other one, for Neoki, still appeared to be out of order in a most grotesque and bizarre way.

While he listened to Neoki’s high, fragile, almost filigree and crystal-clear voice and to the subtle accompaniment from Alex’s piano playing, the thoughts tumbled through his mind:

“Are those two on stage actually aware they are rivals. Maybe Neoki does, but Alex? No, he hasn’t got a clue. My God, if they only knew which ferocious fights and battles on life and death they have in my heart! But they better be kept in the dark about that”.

However, it seemed as if Neoki had decided to take up the challenge: with his back carefully positioned towards Alex he searched the familiar narrow face with the blond croft. Once he found it in the back rows of the audience he stared into the eyes, their color unrecognizable at this distance but that he knew to be a clear blue-grey and he sang the song with an intensity that even exceeded Christine McVie’s original sweltering recording:

“And the songbirds keep singing
Like they know the score
And I love you, I love you, I love you
Like never before, like never before,
Like never before”

Jay felt himself growing hot and cold at the same time with shivers running over his spine.

“Please, Neoki, don’t do this to me!” he muttered, “Don’t make it any harder!”

But lucky as he was, the song ended. When the last piano chords had died down the audience broke into a roaring applause. Neoki bowed his head in gratitude, but then there was this delightful, magical elf-like smile that, unbeknownst to the rest of the audience, was directly targeted at the man he loved, the one in the back of the audience. Then he went off the small stage, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened, leaving Jay behind in severe emotional turbulences, while he stood numbed in the middle of all excitement in the audience:

“Who is this kid?”

Or: “That’s one great singer!”

Another remark: “Is that a boy or a girl?”, prompting her neighbor to say:

“I don’t care. It must be an elf. Whatever it is, it has a wonderful voice!”

“You hit the nail on the head, man”, Jay mused, “No matter if it is a boy or a girl, the voice is beautiful. The whole kid is more than beautiful! No, not a boy or a girl but surely a fairy, an elf!”

Without knowing it, he had understood the quintessence of the quaint Quebec kid, that happened to work in his print shop.

September made it clear to everyone, that autumn was lurking and that the rain- and snow squalls could be expected to hit the city from the west, with the wind blowing over Lake Champlain, any time now. Its first symptom was the persistent morning fog, that rolled in over the water, covering the city in a vague grey mass, especially the downtown district, that was close to the shore. When one walked to the west in King Street, he could hardly see the lake and when he happened to look to the north, he could only discern Battery Park by a collection of trees, that appeared to be dark-grey shapes, vaguely silhouetted in a large mass of light-grey.

On one of these early misty mornings Neoki walked to work, carrying a large green cardboard folder under his arm. When he arrived at the printing shop, he opened the door and walked in with a cheerful “Good morning”, like he did every morning.

“Hi, buddy”, Jay responded, “What’s that you’re carrying under your arm?”

Not willing to give up the secret at this early hour Neoki just smiled enigmatically and answered:

“We’ll discuss it during the coffee break. I have to get the presses running first”.

He put the folder in a corner, pretending he had forgotten all about it and just started with his work.

When they started their morning coffee break the phone rang coincidentally and Jay answered it. Neoki sat opposite him, drew his legs up against his chest and stared at his boss with a naughty smile. When Jay finished the phone call Neoki said:

“Jay, do you remember I asked if we could do screen printing once?”

Jay nodded. He was well aware that he had promised that, but added:

“But I haven’t got a good design for it yet, so it’ll have to wait”.

Neoki’s face changed in a blissful smile when he replied:

“No need to wait. I’ve got a design ready for it!”

Jay’s eyes slid curiously to the green folder in the corner when he softly said:

“Ah, so that is, what it is…your design?”

Neoki nodded with gleaming eyes, but remained seated. It gave Jay the impression that the kid was afraid to show his artwork.

“You make me burning with curiosity, buddy”, Jay exclaimed, “Come on, show it to me!”

A shy giggle was the only reply, followed by:

“But don’t you laugh, OK?”

“Cross my heart!” Jay said reassuringly.

Neoki rose, took the folder and laid it on the desk. Then he opened it.

Jay’s eyes grew to saucer-size. Never before he had seen anything as beautiful as what he saw now. He gasped for breath, then muttered:

“Jesus Christ!”

“No,” Neoki grinned, “He’s not in it. I made sure of that!”

Jay was too absorbed in the piece of art on his desk to hear the sarcastic remark. He observed the drawing intently, at the same time scrutinizing it for the technical parameters that had to be concerned when printing it. Pretty soon he reached the conclusion, that the challenges in printing would be very high, but most certainly not impossible. Then he returned to the image itself.

More or less in the center were two figures: one of them, clearly a boy, was chained to a capriciously formed burning tree trunk (clearly in Roger Dean-style), apparently destined to die. In front of him another figure walked away from him without looking back to the doomed boy. What was funny: the walking figure appeared to be an exact copy of the burning boy. He had the same face, the same physique, the same haircut. But something was out of the ordinary. Only after studying the image very intense Jay saw the difference between the two figures: the one chained to the trunk was a boy, having a penis. The other had…all: penis, vagina and tits. All discernable genitals of the human race were there, both male and female.

Both figures were illuminated by the flames of the trunk with the walking figure coloring a soft orange glow. This illumination effect was maintained in the center, but towards the edges the colors became darker and darker, but Jay was unable to find any dividing lines between one shade of purple to the next darker one. The darkness became more intense that gradual by some mystical way until the in the meantime extremely dark purple shade turned full black at the edges of the paper.

“This is…awesome”, Jay muttered, still breathless.

Neoki just stood, smiling shyly.

Jay looked at the small lettering in the right under corner, written in white ink:

“Rebirth” and under that word:

“Neoki”

“Does it mean something?” Jay asked fascinated.

Neoki smiled teasingly and answered:

“You know what they say about art. It means what an observer wants it to mean”.

Jay looked at him, clearly puzzled by the cryptic reply.

“Just think it over!”, Neoki encouraged him, “You’ll find the answer”.

Knowing he wouldn’t get any further on the topic of “meaning”, Jay shifted his attention back to the technical side:

“Is this airbrushed?”

“Partly”, Neoki said matter-of-factly, “The center parts are with pastel crayon”

“Impossible”, Jay objected, “The colors are too dense, they are fully opaque. You can’t achieve that with pastel crayon”.

Neoki just giggled and coyly muttered:

“I developed my own technique for it. I’m not saying that others didn’t find the same method, but I figured it out all by myself”.

“My God, this kid is a better graphic designer than I am!” Jay thought, feeling himself pretty uncomfortable with this realization.

“Which technique is that?” he asked.

With a smile Neoki shook his head, answering:

“That is my little secret!”

“Good thinking”, Jay concurred, “Never make the competition wiser than they are.  But tell me, Neoki: why don’t you go to university, to study Graphic Design?”

The kid broke in roaring laughter. Once he calmed down, he said:

“Jay, they wouldn’t take me. I’m only a high school drop out!”

“There are programs to solve that”, Jay tried. He really considered this design too good to waste the talent this kid had.

“Besides”, Neoki continued, “University would ruin my own creativity. I would have to adapt to what my professors demand and expect. I’ll have to conform to certain fixed ideas”.

He smiled crookedly when he said;

“You may find this hard to believe, but I’m not very good at adapting and conforming! To be honest: I hate it! Nobody prescribes me how to make my art. I’m too much an indie kid to accept that. So, just let me do my thing, some things good, some things mediocre, maybe even complete shit. But at least they are my things and that is what matters to me”.

“Another dead end!” Jay thought. And his next thought was, that it was really a shame, that such a talented kid didn’t want to go to university to explore his possibilities any further.

“What are your plans next Saturday?” he asked, changing the subject.

“Why that?” Neoki reacted in surprise.

“To do some screen printing on this great design of yours!” Jay replied.

“Yeah, that’s legit, man!” the kid exclaimed.

“OK, we’ll go through it all, that is design analysis, screen preparation and everything after that until we have a full print of it”, Jay explained what he was planning to do, “I want to teach you the whole process. I hope we’ll manage in one day, because this design is mighty complicated and requires a lot of print runs”.

“What time you want me here?” Neoki asked, beaming enthusiasm.

“Will eight do?”

“I’ll be here!” the kid exclaimed with glistening eyes.

Jay interpreted the shining eyes as excitement for the planned screen printing. But Neoki had another, very good reason for the glistening:

“Another glorious day together with you!”

September might have been foggy, but November was stormy, cold and wet, at least this particular evening…although, it is better to call it very early morning. Fierce blasts of wind came in from the lake, picking up even more force when they were funneled in the west-east situated streets, and drove the sleets that hard, that these hit pedestrians, cars, lampposts and traffic lights right-angled.

Despite walking home through the horrible weather with the front of his coat becoming whiter and wetter with every minute, Alex felt pleased with the previous evening, when he had been working in his regular job as bar pianist. His satisfaction was not caused by his regular repertoire of jazz evergreens and pop hits, but without telling the audience what it was, he had played the first tentative jazzy version of Poulenc’s Concert Champêtre and it was received with enthusiastic applause once he finished. It gave him an enormous boost to go on converting the piece into some final, modern form. Maybe he would find a way to record it.

“Not too optimistic, man…keep your feet firmly on the ground!” he grinned.

He turned a corner into Saint Paul Street, taking a short cut home, that had the added advantage of being out of the sleet storm for a short while. Being weekend there were people around him. Well, in downtown there were always people around. He hummed a part of Poulenc’s orchestra and felt absolutely great. He would even feel greater when he was warm at home with Jay. He had a very good idea how to top off an already perfect evening.

Out of nowhere he heard a voice, that changed his content mood into one of icy fear. His plans for the rest of the evening seemed to be blown away by the next cold wind blast. It was a voice he recalled from the past, using words he knew so well, and the voice did it in a real terrifying way:

“I’ll be damned. Look who is there? Ain’t that sissy Mozart?”

Alex needed all his courage to turn around and face the owner of the voice. He knew it was Frenchy Matelot, the prime bully of the Newport high school, who mostly chose him as his victim for the simple reason he was gay. But he couldn’t have expected what he saw: Frenchy had never been a small kid, but now, in that dark alley, he looked enormous with his six feet eight inch and an estimated three hundred pounds, all of it muscles. His face was as mean as it had always been, but any hope for a reasonable talk vanished when Alex took a good look: first of all, Frenchy slurred when he talked, meaning he was dead drunk. Secondly, his eyes betrayed a very liberal intake of speed. This awkward and dangerous combination made the chance for a normal conversation a very remote possibility.

“And where is that fag boyfriend of yours?” Frenchy asked in a low growling voice, “I’ve got an old score to settle with him!”

“I don’t know where he is”, Alex lied, but he noticed right away that it hadn’t sounded very convincing.

“Come on, sissy, I don’t buy it”, Frenchy grinned as mean as could be, “The two of you were so cozy, that no one is telling me the two of you split up and each of you has married some brood”.

Alex knew no better reaction than to shrug without saying a word. It seemed to irritate the enormous man, because his bear-claw type hand grabbed Alex by the shoulder.

“Will you take your hands off me?” Alex asked, frantically trying to keep his voice from shrieking at high pitch.

“And if he doesn’t, what can I do about it?” his mind raced near panic, “I wish Jay was here, he would know how to handle this!”

“Are you aware, that your fuck buddy turned my life into hell?” Frenchy continued, “Coach kicked me out of the football team and after I was beaten by some midget, nobody took me serious any longer. Not to mention the false front teeth and the crooked nose. All by that boyfriend of yours. I have to get even, one way or another!”

“Well, he ain’t here and I have no idea where he is”, Alex tried to evade.

“Bullshit”, Frenchy growled. The smile on the ugly face became meaner by the second, as if the giant had some bright idea.

“But since he’s not here, as you say,” he said thoughtfully, “I’ll have to get even with him by punishing you for what he did!”

“Hey, Frenchy”, Alex muttered, “In case you forgot: I was the one who peeled him off you. If I hadn’t done that, he had beaten you to pulp on the spot!”

It didn’t work! Frenchy was in his drug- and alcohol-induced reasoning, coming to fearful conclusions:

“So, if I hurt you enough, then it will tear his heart out! He’ll suffer for the rest of his damned life, making it as miserable as mine is. And he rightfully earns that, that miserable rat!”

The voice was filled with so much hate, that Alex started to tremble all over his body. He had no idea what this moron was considering, but he knew he had to get out of here. He knew he had to get away from this idiot, but his legs seemed to have become jelly from pure fear.

Nevertheless, he attempted to make a mad dash towards some people a bit further down the sidewalk to ask for help. But experienced brawler that Frenchy was, he was faster. He grabbed Alex by the neck and pushed him with his back against some wall with one hand.

“Say hello to your fuck buddy from me”, the giant hissed hatefully.

From the corner of his eyes Alex saw it coming: a sudden flash of something metallic. Next thing he knew was, how the steel blade was thrusted in him, right under his ribs, causing an indescribable and excruciating pain.

He wanted to scream in pain, in agony, in panic, but his voice failed to produce any sound. The only thought that went through him was:

“Oh God…it hurts! It hurts like hell!”

Vaguely he noticed how Frenchy let go of his neck and he felt how he slid down with is back over the wall on the sidewalk. He heard people around him, yelling and screaming, but was unable to grasp the meaning of it.

“I have to get up! I have to go home. Jay is waiting for me!”

He didn’t want to give up, but all strength seemed to flow out of him. He knew his life was damned near over.

When all sounds around him dissipated, he thought in this absolute, deadly silence:

“I don’t want to go…I wanna stay…I wanna stay with Jay!”

They say, that people, who had a near-death experience, all reported seeing a blinding white light. Science is still trying to understand this: is it a neuro-physiological effect or is it heaven indeed? It will never be known if Alex saw this white light, but if he did, it made him understand two things very abruptly: first, his living days were over; secondly: what had been going on the last months, all these little things and clues he saw but that he choose to ignore, because he didn’t want to see them. As a result, his last thought was:

“Take good care of my Jay, Neoki! He is worth it! He is more than worth it!”

Then not only all sounds, but all thoughts were gone as well. The only thing left was an intense blackness. It would never be light again!

The cops had just left, after they had guaranteed him, that they would take care of notifying Alex’s folks.

Jay sat like a bronze statue, in total shock, in some kind of stupor, stunned and stared at the living room door without actually seeing it. There were no conscious thoughts, just feelings, questions and denial:

“The cops are lying…it’s just a bad dream, it’s all fake! Alex has his normal gig…he’ll be back soon”.

Denial was the easy part: why bother or be afraid of something that wasn’t there in the first place? Alex would be back; the cops were just trying to scare the hell out of him with their gruesome tales. Just keep on a bold face and tag it all as fake facts, as bullshit. Even a fool can do that! That is: many politicians managed to do it for years on end!

But after a while denial made place for doubt. The hours were ticking away and there was still no sign of Alex. Jay tried to reason it away:

“Guess he met some colleague and they are having a few beers right now!”

But…those two cops, they told him something different:

“My God, what if they weren’t lying?”

Gradually the truth seeped in and Jay felt his life collapse around him. He wanted to cry, to scream out his despair and grieve. But he couldn’t! It was as if all emotions were stored in a high-security air-tight vault.

He lost all track of time. He could have been sitting there, staring at nothing, for ten minutes or many hours, he had no idea. He wasn’t thinking. But he felt guilty: he should cry right now, he should feel the pain, think about Alex but…his mind remained completely empty! Nothing was there: no thought, no question, no emotion, not even anger or resistance, simply nothing!

Unconsciously his hand hoovered over his cell phone, that lay on the table. He picked it up and his finger pressed the pre-select for Noah and Jeremy without him actually deciding such an action.

It took a long time before the phone was answered, but finally a sleepy man’s voice muttered:

“Hello?”

“Hi, it’s me…Jay”, he answered completely monotonous.

“Jay?” he heard Jeremy say, “What’s up, buddy? It’s half past four. I don’t hope it is only a social call!”

He said nothing. He didn’t know what to say. It was impossible to find the right words for his message.

“Jay? You’re still there? Jay…hello? Say something, buddy!”

“Who is that in the middle of the night?” he heard Noah ask.

“It’s Jay”, Jeremy’s metallic voice came through the small loudspeaker.

“I have to say something. But I do not dare to say it. As long as others say it, it can be fake. When I say it, I’ll make it the irreputable truth! And I don’t want it to be true!”

“Jay”, Jeremy insisted, “What is happening? Why don’t you talk to me? Tell me what is wrong…! Damned, he’s not saying a word!”

He heard some rumbling through the phone, then came Noah’s voice:

“Hi buddy…what is going on? Will you tell me what is going on, please?”

No answer…only silence!

“Honey”, Noah pressed the matter gently, “Please, tell me!”

“It is true! I’ll make it true! What else can I do?”

“Noah…Alex is dead!” he muttered toneless and forlorn.

There was about ten seconds of deepest silence. Then Noah was only able to stammer:

“Say…say… that… again!”

“Alex is dead”, he repeated with a voice, that seemed to come right out of the unfathomable depths of a grave.

“Where are you now?” Noah asked, “Are you at home?”

“Yes”.

“Stay there, honey. We dress and we drive to Burlington. Hold on, we’re coming as fast as we can”.

Without thinking Jay pressed the disconnect-button, ending the phone call, and kept staring at the door, that didn’t want to open.

They must have flown the distance, because Jeremy and Noah were at Jay’s place in a little over an hour and a half.

Noah sat beside him on the couch and took his former foster son in his arms, who pressed himself against Noah’s body. It felt good: it gave him some protection against the cruel world and it gave warmth. But no matter what…there was still not a single tear.

Despite Noah’s body warmth Jay felt utterly abandoned and lonely. He felt as if he was floating all on his own in the inky darkness of outer space, but that the Creator had forgotten to lighten the stars.

He was so incredibly tired. He knew he should cry, he knew he should tear the place apart in some distraught frenzy. But there was only one thing that he wanted: he wanted to sleep! Be away from this angry town, that had taken away the dearest person he had, and just forget for a short while.

At sunrise Noah took a decision. He saw very well, that Jay was at the end of his rope in a physical, mental and emotional way. He took him by the hand and brought him to the bedroom, where he undressed the desperate young man, like he was a little kid. Then he put him into bed, tucked him in cozily like he was dealing with a toddler, only to give him some sense of warmth and security. He kissed him tenderly on the forehead and quietly walked out of the room. Before he had left it, Jay was in a deep, exhausted sleep.

That Monday morning Neoki walked to his work. First snow had fallen that weekend, but now most of it had gone, apart from some mushy, grey-dirty spots at the curbsides. Despite the fact it was a dark, chilly morning, he sang some kind of vocalize-style song, a song without words, improvising around some theme, that hummed through his head. As usual it elicited several smiling faces from passers-by, which he all acknowledged with one of his stunning smiles.  

But he stopped singing when he arrived at work. He abruptly stopped in utter surprise: the shop was still closed. All rolling shutters were still down, including the one to the door. It posed no problem for him, he had a key. But it was not as he was used to.

“OK”, he grinned, “So bosses oversleep as well so every now and then”.

Still grinning he unlocked the door shutter, let it roll up and opened the door. He got in in a pitch-dark shop. But that changed soon enough when he opened the window shutters and put the lights on.

While unlocking the window shutters he heard someone coming down the stairs. Without looking he called out a bit teasing:

“Good morning, beautiful dreamer, did you have sweet dreams?”

“Sorry?” he heard a strange voice ask.

Neoki turned around in mild shock. He saw a stranger standing in the shop. He stared at him, not understanding what was happening.

“He looks like Jay’s older brother. But I didn’t know Jay had an older brother”.

“Who the fuck are you?” he asked sharply.

“I’m Jeremy. I’m one of Jay’s foster dads”, was the direct answer, in which no hesitation could be noticed, “I assume you are Neoki?”

He nodded. What else could he do? But without delaying for even a second he asked with eyes piercing the man’s face:

“Where is Jay? What is going on with Jay?”

The man, who called himself Jeremy, avoided his eyes for maybe a second, rubbed his own eyes and said:

“Shall we sit down, Neoki? So that I can explain it to you?”

Once they sat, Neoki waited, but Jeremy took his time before he started talking. It drove Neoki mad: he was worried what was going on with Jay but knew he couldn’t express his anxiety. So much concern for what was nominally only his employer might be considered suspect.

When Jeremy finally started talking, explaining him in fits and spurts, what had happened the weekend before, Neoki felt relieved and shocked at the same time: “his” Jay was unharmed, but the fact that Alex was so brutally killed had a great impact on him. The news made the blood drain from his head and his jaw drop in dismay. Only his heart had its own independent, strange reaction, when it seemed to cheer:

“This is my chance!”

The reaction made him almost vomit. The bile already came up from his stomach, but he barely managed to suppress it. He found it so inhuman, cruel…immoral to react that way. A beautiful young man was killed and the only thing his heart could feel was, that this was the chance! He felt his face become red with deep shame for that kind of shocking selfishness.

“Are you OK, Neoki?” Jeremy asked, seeing the physical reaction, but interpreting it in a totally faulty way.

Neoki quietly nodded and uttered under his breath:

“How is Jay? Where is he now?”

“Jay is…as might be expected. He’s totally…can’t even find the good word for it. I guess ‘devastated’ covers it nicely. Noah, my partner…and Jay’s other foster dad…took him with him back to Newport. I wanted to stay here to tell you what had happened and then I’ll be going to Newport as well”.

There was a lapse in gleanings and information exchange, leading to an uncomfortable, long silence in which both wrestled with thoughts and feelings. Once he felt the silence becoming slashing, Neoki said with a sigh:

“I’m gonna make me a coffee. You want some too?”

Jeremy nodded, still wordless.

While he was making coffee in the small kitchenette Neoki struggled to get a grip on the tsunami in his head. Especially his very first, totally weird reaction still made him feel ashamed. But, he reasoned:

“Strictly logically speaking, it is correct. This is my chance”.

This line of thought, that actually confirmed his first egoistic and immoral reaction, caused him a new bout of shame, but nevertheless it persisted in an uncontrollable way:

“But not now! I must be patient. I only have to be there for him, help him in getting over this, support him…and everything will turn out just fine in due time. But only then: in due time! No mad dash in this situation”.

The clean and logical thinking pleased him. And the result brought a small smile on his face. Once the coffee was ready, he swallowed his smile and went back, putting the two mugs on the desk. Once he sat, he asked:

“What about the shop?”

Jeremy shrugged and answered:

“Jay is really in no condition to work right now. I guess he will be later, so I think the best thing to do is to close it down for a few weeks. Of course, you can consider it a paid holiday. I think, that is the best solution”.

“No, it ain’t”, Neoki’s mind raced, “I know we manage quiet well and can live both from it. But if we close down for a few weeks, the clients will run away and that will be the end of the shop. Besides…isn’t this my first chance to be there for him?”

He made a split second decision and said matter-of-factly:

“No, it ain’t!”.

Jeremy looked at him with huge surprise in his eyes, that spewed the question:

“Why not?”

“Well”, Neoki explained business-like, “When we close down, the clients will run away. It would bring Jay even more problems. Apart from having lost Alex, which is on itself bad enough, he would find the shop bankrupt once he gets back. I don’t see that as a viable option, do you?”

Jeremy seemed to consider Neoki’s arguments seriously and then asked:

“But how can we do that?”

Showing more confidence than he actually felt himself, Neoki simply answered:

“I can keep this shop humming!”

“Are you sure?” Jeremy asked incredulous.

“Sure”, the boy answered.

“OK”, Jeremy said, “Then we’ll do it that way. If you need some help or advice, I’ll give you my phone number, if that is OK with you”.

“Fine with me”, Neoki said, “But don’t count on it that you will hear me. Just get Jay back on his feet. That’s your part of the job!”

Since he considered that all important things were said, he drained his coffee mug, rose and started the printing presses running. He had lots of work to do the coming time.

The weeks after that Neoki worked like a slave, making eighteen hours a day to keep the shop humming. When he got back in his apartment in late evening, after almost crawling up the stairs, he was only capable to undress, plunge in bed and sleep like a log, only to be awakened again by the alarm at six o’clock to restart the whole thing all over again. During weekends he didn’t rest but tried to reduce the backlog in work.

He prioritized the orders and became very inventive in thinking out excuses to keep clients, whose orders were delayed, happy, at the same time making mental notes which excuse he used for which client, so that he wouldn’t use it another time if a second order was delayed as well.

Finding excuses for creditors proved more difficult. He knew certain invoices were overdue, but he had no access to the bank, because he was just an employee. But even there he became very adept over time in finding evasive loopholes, making notes on the most obstinate creditors, so that their invoices could be settled right away after Jay was back.

And on top of that he managed his own accounting of those clients, who paid cash. Since he had no possibility to go to the bank, he took the cash money home with him, storing it in a case, including the receipts, so that he could transfer it all to Jay, once he returned. And he made sure he could account for each and every dollar.

After little over three weeks Neoki went to the printing shop in early morning, hardly rested from the days and weeks before. He was that tired, that he didn’t even sing while walking to his job. Singing costs energy, that he no longer had.

He was about to reach his breaking point, especially when a really stubborn supplier threatened him and Jay, because he still hadn’t received his money. Neoki saw no other way than to tell the truth:

“I’m sorry, Mr. Flynn, but Jay has lost his partner and he is in no condition to work right now. I hope you can understand that”.

He heard the man snort through the telephone, then he heard:

“Then tell your boss he has to pay me soon, within next Friday. Because if he doesn’t, he has not only lost his partner but he’ll lose his company as well. You got that, kid?”

At exactly that moment Neoki discovered his inborn resilience, something that amazed him about himself: he overcame his despair and bounced back in fighting spirit, when a brilliant idea popped up in his mind:

“I got a few thousand dollars company money in cash at home!”

“How much is it, Mr. Flynn?” he asked coolly.

“Eleven-hundred”, was the snarled answer.

“If you settle for cash payment, you can pick it up tomorrow”, Neoki answered in an ice-cold, business-like voice, “But of course only against written acquittance”.

Next morning Neoki lay eleven hundred-dollar notes on the counter and took the receipt. He stuffed it in his pocket and then said with a mock sigh:

“What a pity. We’ll have to find another paper supplier!”

The Mr. Flynn looked at him, clearly not understanding, so Neoki explained with a honeyed smile:

“I can’t see no reason to continue with your company. And I’m sure that Jay will see it the same way, once he gets back”.

“Don’t you guys chase your defaulters?” the man asked incredulously and more than slightly annoyed.

“Oh yes”, Neoki said, still with his sweet smile on his face but with a touch of venom in his voice, “We do. But we prefer to stay human in doing so. Have a nice day, Mr. Flynn!”

With that he just turned his back on the man and continued with some job on one of the presses, leaving the former paper supplier flabbergasted until the man departed.

Neoki heard the door slam shut and sighed deeply:

“That was a close call! One more like that and I’m finished!”

But he was too stubborn to call Jeremy. He had promised to keep this shop humming and he intended to hold his promise. He could handle it! He had to…at least, that is how he felt about it.

If psychiatrists had invented the term “juvenile burnout”, then Neoki was at the verge of it at the beginning of the fourth week after Alex’s death. He more or less dragged himself from his small apartment to the printing shop in very early morning for another grueling and tiring day of work.

Despite that his heart jumped of joy when he arrived at the shop halfway this fourth week: inside light was on and the door shutter was already up. Could it be that…?

He unlocked the door and walked in. In surprise he looked at the figure behind the desk and excited he exclaimed, at once forgetting all his exhaustion:

“You’re back!”

The man at the desk looked up with hollow eyes, that had dark rings under them, and only a soft “Hi, Neoki”, came over his lips.

It was Jay…but at the same time it wasn’t Jay. Jay was the guy who made his heart flitter. The man, that sat at the desk in front of him, was Jay’s shadow, who only succeeded in making his heart cry.

He sat with bowed head and slumped shoulders, his eyes were devoid of any life and if he spoke, it was so tame, that Neoki had to strain to hear and understand it.

“Oh fuck”, it flashed through Neoki’s mind, “This is burning him up completely!”

Gently, no: carefully, Neoki laid his fingertips on Jay’s shoulder and asked:

“How are you feeling?”

He immediately cursed himself for asking such a stupid question: the answer was pretty obvious by just looking at his boss.

The only reply was a droopy shrug, that was followed after a full minute with:

“I feel so empty!”

“That doesn’t sound good!” Neoki’s mental reaction was.

But he found nothing better to say than:

“You want coffee? I need one!”

Jay just nodded.

“This isn’t the same guy”, Neoki thought while making coffee in the small kitchen, “This has got to change. I have to think out how I can help him. But I’ll give him two weeks to recover on his own devices. It’ll give me time to find a way if he doesn’t manage”.

Two weeks passed, but no matter how Neoki looked: he saw no improvements in Jay’s behavior. To the contrary: the man continued to deteriorate. His eyes hardly showed a flicker of life in them, becoming duller and emptier by the day. Jay had never been a muscle man, but now he was hardly more than a walking skeleton. Even his skinny jeans fluttered around his incredibly thin legs. And worst of all: he never spoke a word and if he said something, that was absolutely necessary, it was almost inaudible. His boss rapidly degenerated into a regular zombie.

“It’s as if Alex’s murderer has killed him as well!” Neoki mused, when he was in his bed one night, almost at the end of his self-determined two weeks term, “But he killed him slowly! And it has got to change! Mon Dieu, how can I do that? He’s ruining his life, he is destroying his company, he is making a huge mess of it all”.

He shook his head despondently, continuing the thought:

“I don’t want to see the man I love die slowly from his sorrow. I have to do something, but I don’t know what. I don’t know how to revive him!”

Simple despondency was replaced by sheer despair and with a choking voice he cried out:

“I don’t know how to solve this. Please, grandma, tell me what to do!” 

There was no reply. Which was hardly to be expected anyway. After some more brooding Neoki managed to fall asleep, aware that he would need every ounce of remaining energy the next day.

But while asleep his subconsciousness spitted out a long-forgotten memory like some inactive volcano, sputtering and smoking: Alphonse, one of the kids in his grandmother’s “commune” had lost his girlfriend in a car crash and had reacted exactly the same way Jay did. That is: until his grandmother decided, that it was about time to do something about it. Neoki couldn’t remember what was said: the talk between the two was in private without him being present and his grandmother hadn’t confided him in afterwards. And then it was as if his grandmother gave the reply he was looking for:

“Shock him out of his lethargy. It is your only chance. Mon cher, it is the very last thing to do, after all comforting and compassion have failed. But it seems your Jay is at the point, that this is the only way to get him really alive again. Shock him to the bone. Make him see what he is doing to himself. And don’t feel sorry for him while doing it. Don’t be afraid for the possible consequences. Be hard and ruthless. You can always sympathize with him later, when it has worked! That is the way I handled Alphonse years ago. Bon chance, mon cher. You are going to need it.”

When he woke up next morning he was in doubt and relaxed at the same time. His anxiety was caused by the question what gave him the answer while he was sleeping. Had it been his grandmother? It couldn’t be…she was dead and dead don’t give answers, not any longer. But on the other hand: in some mysterious way his mind had become clear about what had to be done!

When he rose and stood in front of the mirror, he saw his two determined eyes. He had made up his mind. He would use next evening to plan the way he wanted to do it. Which was just fine with him: including today Jay had left two days to recover by himself. And if not: then it would be D-Day.

The next day, D-Day, Neoki kept rigidly to his well thought out plan. It was no use to implement it at an early hour, so while doing his work he kept a careful eye on Jay, observing him like a hawk, looking for signs of improvement that would make the whole operation superfluous, which would suit him just fine. He didn’t take pleasure in it. But no upswing could be found.

At the end of the regular working day, he just stopped the presses, despite the fact that there was still enough work for a number of overtime hours, went to the small kitchen and made two coffees. He took both mugs, placed them both on the desk and bluntly sat down opposite Jay, who was just sitting there, head low and shoulders slumped. Neoki started his desperate one-chance-only move by casually saying:

“I call it a day for today. I’ll give Mr. Howard a call, that his order is delayed by some technical problems”.

Jay looked up, but his eyes didn’t show any real interest. Despite that, he asked in his graveyard-toned voice:

“What problems?”

Neoki shrugged and answered with played indifference:

“None that I have noticed. But there’s no need for him to know that”.      

Under normal circumstances he could have expected a deserved dressing down, but not now: Jay bent his head low again without any reaction. So, seeing no alternative, Neoki started his attack.

He opened it by staring intensely at Jay’s head, as if he wanted to force the man to look up by the sheer willpower in his eyes. It took some time, but to his surprise he managed to do so: Jay looked up with a light questioning expression in his pale eyes.

“Do you really think you will get Alex back by doing this to yourself, dude?”, Neoki asked in a mean, vicious voice.

He could almost literally hear his heart break when he said it and swallowed, only controlling himself by the knowledge it was a last, very last attempt to get Jay back to real life. He reinforced his head-on attack by saying:

“I certainly hope you weren’t in this condition when the two of you met. If you were, I really can’t figure it out how Alex managed to fall in love with you!”

Jay’s eyes grew to saucer size, expressing genuine, intense deep shock. It made Neoki shiver: it was as if he was looking into the crevasses of hell!

“What do I have to do then?” Jay softly lisped, clearly at the end of his rope.

Neoki gave him a few seconds to think it over for himself, then placed his elbows on the desk, propped his head in his hands and stared intently into Jay’s still desperate eyes. Slowly, emphasizing every word, he said:

“You…better…man…up, dude!”

His heart cried out with joy when Jay actually reacted with a soft:

“How? I don’t know how!”

“By facing the music, no matter how sad the music might be at the moment”, Neoki replied, balancing his voice between tranquility and acerbity as well as he could, “But over time the music will cheer up and life will get better, even grow beautiful again”.

“I can’t manage that on my own”, Jay reacted atonic.

“Then you’ll get help!” Neoki said matter-of-factly.

“But…who will help me?” Jay almost cried out forlorn, slightly retreating back in his gloom.

That was something Neoki didn’t want to happen, so quickly he reacted with:

“I will. And I’ll start right away. When did you have your last decent meal?”

Jay just shrugged.

“I thought so”, Neoki said with a sigh, “Let me close up the store and we’ll go upstairs, so that I can make you the first decent meal in what is probably for weeks”.

After a few minutes Neoki was almost physically pushing Jay upstairs, went to the kitchen and started rummaging through the deep freezer, the fridge and the cabinets, looking for ingredients to make some decent meal. The results of his search were scanty but with a liberal dose of herbs he managed to make something palatable and nutritious for the two of them.

Once he put the plates on the kitchen table he sat opposite Jay and started to eat, keeping an eye on his involuntary dinner companion. Jay was not eating, but was dabbling with his fork in the pasta, clearly struggling with the question if he would eat or not. Unfortunately for him, Neoki gave him no slack. With stern eyes and a threatening growling voice the kid said:

“Eat, dude!”

To Neoki’s astonishment and unprecedented happiness and relief Jay looked up. There was a faint twinkle in his eyes and the tiniest smile slid over his face. It was hardly noticeable, but there it was: the beginning of a smile.

“Yes, mum!” Jay said obedient and humble.

Neoki felt his heart jump in joy:

“It worked! I’ve done it! I broke through!”

Yes, it did, because apart from that microscopic smile it was Jay’s first attempt at making a joke since the day Alex died.

After their makeshift dinner they went to the living where they talked. Well, it is better to say: Jay talked, Neoki just listened, absorbing all what Jay said, just acknowledging with an occasional nod. The longer the evening and the talk took, the more Jay switched to crying. It might be called a highly unusual action, but Neoki felt no shame or restraint in taking his boss in his arms, letting him weep, comforting him by softly stroking his hair and the back of his neck with his fingertips. Neoki’s apprehension was overcome by the realization that he was desperately needed to give support and comfort.

The nightly hours crept by. Tears started to get in short supply and finally dried. Neoki was exhausted, first of all by a full day of work and then by hours of emotional exertion, but nevertheless he was satisfied and elated with the results of his last-ditch action. Fatigue won and unwantingly he started to doze off. He shocked wide awake again when he heard Jay whisper:

“Neoki, will you spend the night with me?”

His heart flittered briefly and cried out an unheard, jubilant:

“YESSSS!!!”

He felt a surge of intense desire flooding through his whole body, as if the situation warranted its release after all those months of bottling up. But on the other hand, there was this doubt: was this the right thing to do under the present circumstances? If he conceded to Jay’s suggestion, wouldn’t it be a cheap form of taking advantage? And wouldn’t it be inhumanly disrespectful towards Alex?

An internal battle of epic size followed in the few seconds after Jay’s question: heart against mind, emotions against common sense. His common sense prevailed:

“No, it is too soon. I don’t want him for one night, how wonderful that might be. I want him for life! At this moment he’s only looking for a way to escape his loneliness. If I agree, he will wake up tomorrow with a monstrous feeling of guilt, because he will see it as that he betrayed Alex. And guess who gets the blame for that? Yes, me! It’ll ruin everything!”

He mustered every bit of self-control, deciding on the spot that, no matter how much he would love to sleep with Jay, it wouldn’t be in his present ghost-like condition. He looked Jay right in his sad eyes and with a soft, kind but determined voice he spoke:

“If you mean to talk: yes. But I’ll sleep on the couch”.

“Why should you?” Jay stammered, “The bed is large enough for the two of us”.

Neoki shook his head decidedly and replied:

“No, Jay. It is too early for you. You are only searching for someone beside you in the bed to sooth the pain of sleeping alone. I can understand that, but it won’t be me. I’ll be happy to talk to you for hours, but I stick to my point of view: I’ll sleep on the couch!”

Jay bowed his head and stared at the table in front of him. Only after a long time he muttered with a deep, sad sigh:

“OK, I guess you’re right. But please stay here tonight, just to talk with me!”

”I will”, Neoki said with one of his gorgeous smiles, “That’s what I’m here for, I guess”.

“I hope, I do the right thing. I pray, I don’t break his heart and destroy it a second time. Mon Dieu, why is life so damned difficult? Why is love so damned complicated?” 

He didn’t want to disappoint the sad man, he didn’t want him to feel it as rejection. But most of all he wanted to calm down his own fears, that the opportunity was lost forever. In an attempt to keep the door ajar for the future, he laid his hand on Jay’s and with a warm, soft voice he said:

“Maybe later! When you’re no longer so sad. When you are stronger”.

The church bell of the Unitarian Church told him it was two o’clock…in the morning. Jay had been tossing and turning since eleven last night, when he had gone to bed. He couldn’t find peace of mind, was unable to switch his mind off for the moment and the oblivion of sleep wouldn’t relieve him of his thoughts.

“I start to feel better, Alex. I can’t explain what happened to me after you went away…”

Funny enough it only occurred to him this night, that he always called it “go away”, as if he was still petrified to use the phrase “Since you’ve died”. But feeling better, he decided this was as good a moment as any other to change that right away:

“Since you’ve died, I mean. I tumbled down in a bottomless dark shaft and I couldn’t stop my falling down. My fingers clutched at the shaft’s walls but I simply kept falling deeper and deeper. I couldn’t cry…I really couldn’t. It made me drown in all these tears, that flooded my body and mind. It grew unbearable and suffocating. I was hardly able to breathe, let alone able to live. And then this little elf came and kicked me in the balls real hard and big time”.

A grin slid over his face when he thought:

“I never knew that being kicked in the balls could be such a wonderful feeling!”

But then his thoughts turned serious again:

“He broke through the dams, releasing my tears and my pain and got me out of that shaft. When all my heartaches were thrown out, there was this ray of sunlight at the pit’s edge, holding me in his arms…or was it her arms? I still can’t figure it out. But it sure felt good, Alex, it felt damned good not to be alone! It was great to be held again in the way you held me when I needed it…”.

He sighed at the memory, but recovered. He had found the new fighting spirit to start a new life, a life after Alex.

“You know…when you were still here, alive and kicking, there were days I felt ashamed. Because…in a way I didn’t understand myself, I felt attracted to Neoki. He is such a wonderful and special kid…In the end I was torn between two lovers, the lover I was happy with and the lover I wanted to be happy with. Now, don’t get me wrong, sweetheart: I never cheated on you! Although I admit that I wanted to do that so every now and then. But I guess desire and deed are two different things”. 

His eyes got somewhat damp. He knew he was “telling” the truth: he had never made sidesteps during his years with Alex. He didn’t need that, Alex had given him all he needed, sexually and emotionally. Nevertheless, there was a certain guilt about the desire to do so. But since he was aware that by now things had changed in a revolutionary and dramatic way his thinking took another turn:

“I know: I have to go on living. I must build a new life without you. I must find a new love…well, that’s not completely the right way to say it, I already found him. Don’t think I will forget you, I never will. No matter who this new love will be: he has to accept that you will be in my heart and memory for ever…even Neoki! And if he can’t accept that, it’s a no go. So, I hope I don’t hurt you but I think it is time to start moving. I’m truly sorry, honey, but I see no other way! Will you give me your blessing, my sweetest?”

He thought it over what made Neoki so desirable. It was not only about sex, although the kid surely had a tremendous appeal in that respect. It was more…it was the mystic emanation he had, that made him a special person. It was Neoki’s one of a kind uniqueness in a world that was filled by hurried, overstressed and mediocre people. No matter what other reasons he could dream up, the result was, that Neoki was a person that Jay wanted to know, understand and above all love.

On top of all thinking about Alex and his future love life there was a decision he took: he wanted to go back to Newport and concentrate on his really big love: designing and screen-printing graphic art in limited editions in the quiet environments of the North East Kingdom and sell them via selected outlets. He didn’t want to end as nothing more than a mass producer of standard printed matters for the rest of his life. He was an artist, not a manager. He knew he could make a living out of that, although he had to compromise in incomes. He was a good designer and a good graphic expert. Even more: he had found out, that he had a naturally talented top designer in the house right at this very moment and he truly hoped, that Neoki would come with him. And this desire was not only born out of professional reasons. 

That he could live closer to Jeremy and Noah, to whom he still felt very closely connected after they had been his foster dads for four or five years, was an added advantage. But, what was bugging him as well about this living so close to them: how would they react to Neoki? It was not that he accused them of being narrowminded, far from that. However, Neoki was not ”any gay boy”. Neoki was Neoki: self-conscious, assertive, headstrong, with a certain eccentricity and mystique of his own. He shrugged: either they would get used to it or they would keep their distance from his elf. 

Without knowing it he nodded: he made up his mind, it was time to start his opening moves! When the church bell announced four o’clock he was finally deep asleep.

The last winter months were cold, wet and uncomfortable. But the year’s cycle harbored a promise in them: soon spring would be around and life would be a lot more bearable for everybody.  

In the small print store in Burlington’s King Street life had already become more bearable, actually it had become a lot more pleasant. Jay seemed to recover from his gloomy depression, gradually taking more and more of his fair share of the workload, thereby giving Neoki some respite from the grueling past months. His body, that had lost weight so terribly, regained some pounds and volume, his eyes were increasingly cheerful and full of life and he even smiled and laughed. It made Neoki immensely proud, not only about his own insignificant contribution, but more about Jay’s will to fight once this will was ignited again.

Maybe younger people are more capable in coping with the loss of a beloved one, because they have a larger will to survive and to rebuild the rest of their life. Maybe they can rebound easier than elder people, who have tired over the years and whose remaining lifespan is reduced already by sheer age. Anyway, Jay showed, that he was able to rebound in an exemplary way.

Despite his delight Neoki also noticed an emerging problem: how would he approach Jay to advance their friendship to the level of relationship? Should he approach Jay or should he wait until Jay took the first step? It was a question that nagged him, causing him many a sleepless hour during the night. The fire had been ignited the day he met Jay, but had gone out of control that faithful night, when Jay had asked him to spend the night with him. And now it seemed to have reached inextinguishable proportions.

But Jay didn’t repeat his question. Had it been what Neoki had suspected it to be in the first place that evening: a desperate daze to dodge nocturnal loneliness? Or had more been involved? Lots of worries, but no solutions, especially not from the one who could give them!

So Neoki just bid his time and kept doing his work, hoping for better days once spring would come.

Nothing happened until that gorgeous spring Friday in April. Neither of them had made a move and it started to drive Neoki mad, giving him the feeling that he had overplayed his hand and had lost his chances in the gamble. But then, that Friday, shortly before the end of working time, things started to happen.

Neoki noticed, that Jay was somewhat excited during the whole afternoon. Maybe tense or nervous was a better word. He was cleaning one of the presses at the end of the week when Jay came next to him and asked:

“Neoki, do you have any plans for tonight?”

Normally Neoki would have reacted over-enthusiastic, but since he was just concentrating on a delicate part of the machinery, he just said somewhat business-like:

“No, not really. I’m just working on some design. But there’s no need to do that today. There are more days in life”.

“A new design?” Jay inquired, “Did you make more over the last time?”

Neoki looked at him with a grin and said:

“Don’t understand this as a reproof, but over the last months there hasn’t been that much time to do much of designing anything”.

“Oh yes…”, Jay said, blushing with shame, “Sorry, that was a dumb question”.

“Doesn’t matter”, Neoki said condoning, “But why do you ask?”

“Well…”, Jay stammered, “I was wondering if I can invite you for dinner at my place. I owe you one, you know”.

“You don’t owe me anything!” Neoki reacted.

“Yes, you cooked dinner for me”, Jay objected.

Neoki started to laugh and said:

“And you paid for the groceries, because they all came from your fridge. So, you don’t owe me anything”.

Jay looked in the boy’s splendid dark eyes. With a soft voice he said:

“Yes, I owe you one. It meant a great deal to me. Actually, I owe you more than one dinner can make up for but…well…eeeuhh…I guess it is a good starting point”.

“OK”, Neoki said cheerfully, “But on one condition. That you will let me go home after I finished this to get a shower and change. I can’t come to dinner in ink-stained working clothes, can I?”

“You did so last time”, Jay said teasingly.

“Yeah”, Neoki grinned, “but that was an emergency!”

Neoki would come at about eight. For Jay the hours until then were fully filled with cooking the meal and preparing the living in the right atmosphere. Shortly before eight he looked around to make sure that he hadn’t omitted something: no…the candles were burning, the wine stood readily available, soft music was playing and the smell from the kitchen was enticingly delicious. He had opened the whole Casanova Lady killer box of tricks…or was it Gentleman killer? Because he still hadn’t the faintest idea if Neoki was a he or a she. It didn’t matter to him…if he was lucky, he would find out. If luck turned sour, it might result in him looking for another employee because Neoki might consider his behavior as “sexual harassment”, although he had no plans to let it go that far. The main theme was, that he felt attracted to that quaint and curious kid.

Almost exactly to the second the apartment door bell rang at eight o´clock. With a “Jeez, right on time” Jay ran down the stairs to the shop door, doing it so hurriedly that he almost tripped over his own feet. Only a lightning correction avoided, that the whole dinner wouldn’t take place, because the host had fallen off the stairs.

Jay knew who was standing in front of the door, but the way the he…or she, looked took him totally by surprise. Neoki was in two words “breathtakingly beautiful”! It seemed as if he had decided to be a “she” for tonight. The ever-present baggy jeans and stained t-shirt were gone and replaced by tight white trousers of a slightly gleaming texture and over it a black silk-like kimono style jacket, decorated with gold- and white colored cranes. Under the kimono was a white top.

But most stunning was Neoki’s face. It had a modest but tasteful makeup, applied in a way that all attention was immediately drawn to the smoldering dark eyes. These were accentuated by a carefully applied eyeliner, topped off with a not too noticeable light pink eye shadow, while a delicate touch of rouge could be seen on the cheeks. And as always there were the pearl-like earrings. Jay couldn’t remember he had ever seen such a godlike face before. 

“Hi”, Neoki said with a blinding smile, showing his pearl-white teeth, “I hope I’m not too early. But the truth is, that I’m famished. And of course, I’m curious about your…cuisine”.

“No, no”, Jay stammered, still catching his breath, “Come on in…you know which way to go”.

Once in the living Jay unconsciously decided, that if Neoki wanted to be treated as a lady this evening he would treat her as such. Courteously he offered her a chair the way a gentleman is supposed to offer a chair to a lady. Don Juan would have been real proud of him.

“It smells great”, Neoki exclaimed, “What is it?”

“Pasta di Mare”, Jay replied modest, “I guess you would call it pates de la mer in French”.

“Sounds good!”, Neoki said with a beaming smile.

Jay served dinner. Not being used to drinking wine when he was eating, he almost forgot it and added as some kind of afterthought:

“How about a wine with dinner?”

Neoki nodded enthusiastically. According to the rules of etiquette Jay asked:

“You want to try it first?”

Since Neoki nodded another time, Jay poured a bottom of the ruby red wine in the glass and Neoki tasted it carefully.

“Hmmm…it’s real good. What is it?”

Somewhat taken aback Jay read the label before he answered:

“Montepulciano Abruzzo…or something like that!”

“Never heard of”, Neoki grinned.

“Neither did I”, Jay chuckled.

Once the main dish was liberally sprinkled with parmesan both started eating. They tried to stay away from shop talk, but with two people having dinner, who worked so closely together, that was hardly avoidable.

Neoki complimented Jay with an excited:

“This is great, man. Did you make this yourself?”

Having his mouth full with pasta Jay just nodded. Speaking would be too impolite under the circumstances.

“Wow”, Neoki grinned, “You’re a regular kitchen prince”.

“Not always”, Jay retorted, “I let burn things as well!”

They ate and chatted through the main course. When dessert came up Jay apologized almost embarrassed when he said:

“The dessert is ready made from the supermarket freezer. I have no idea how to make cassata”.

Neoki didn’t object, because even when ready made the cassata was top notch and delicious.

But when dinner was finished, the dishes brought back to the kitchen and with only their glasses of wine still standing on the table, tension rose high in the sphere of the candlelight. Initially both were silent. Jay knew he had to do something, otherwise the whole dinner had been meaningless. He was in two minds: admit defeat or take a gamble.

He decided the last: carefully he laid a few fingers on Neoki’s hand, that lay invitingly on the table, gauging the reaction. There was no reaction at all, at least no noticeable: Neoki’s hand remained on the table under Jay’s fingers. He felt encouraged and let his fingers play around a little in a stroking movement. The small, almost feminine hand stayed where it was!

Jay coughed as if he was about to say something. With supreme effort he overcame his fright and looked in Neoki’s eyes, that looked penetratingly in his. The hand might not have reacted, the eyes did: their smoldering had gone to a higher level of intensity.

“I eeeuhh…”, Jay tried to start with what he wanted to say, miserably failing in ending the sentence.

Neoki tilted her head without taking her eyes off him, clearly waiting for what he was about to say. Jay knew he was trapped now: he had started, quit talking and now he had to continue if he wanted to get anywhere. Almost stuttering he uttered:

“I heard some guy at the club call you an elf, you know, that night you were singing”.

Neoki rolled her eyes slightly, that by now were naughty and twinkled with pleasure, and chuckled:

“That happens to me often, yeah!”

Jay smiled at the delicate face, that stared hopefully at him, and said:

“The people, who called you an elf, have done you great wrong!”

“Why that?” Neoki asked, somewhat alarmed.

“Because you’re far more than just one of many elves. They should have called you the Elf King!” was the reply.

“Or Queen”, Neoki gently objected.

“Then we’ll leave that open as a matter of conjecture for the time being”, Jay whispered.

He thought over his next move, decided to give it a try and with a blush on his cheeks he muttered:

“I want to ask you something”. 

“Fire away”, Neoki said with an encouraging smile, the intensity in her eyes increasing even further.

“Well”, Jay started hesitantly, “I was wondering, if you would want to come to Newport with me?”

The smoldering in Neoki’s eyes disappeared, being replaced by astonishment. Disappointment was almost screaming from her face.

“Where is Newport?” Neoki reacted with a counter question.

“It’s up north, just under the Canadian border”, Jay replied as matter-as-factly as his nerves allowed him to.

“Wait a minute…”, Neoki said pensively, “A small town on a lake in the forests?”

“That’s the one”, Jay answered, feeling somewhat relieved.

“I’ve passed it when I came here. I liked it, but it was too small to find anything to do, so I just continued driving”, Neoki said softly with dreamy eyes. But then her mood seemed to shift, when she asked in a voice, that was somewhat on the sharp, suspicious side:

“What do I have to do in Newport? And for how long? You mean…forever?”

Jay nodded. He made a huge mistake in asking it so abruptly, he knew he made it and his heart thumped in fear.

“But why?” Neoki asked, not really sounding overly inspired by the idea.

“To make graphic art, the two of us”, Jay attempted meekly in an ultimate attempt to salvage as much as possible from his idea for this evening.

“And the shop here?” Neoki wanted to know. But the tone in her voice indicated, that Jay had got her interested.

“I want to sell it”, he said, “I’m fed up with mass production of obituaries, business cards and company stationary. I want to make art…just like you want to make art! Together we can do it. The two of us can be successful. I’m certain of that!”

Although her mouth was still open from the surprise after Jay’s unexpected question the smoldering returned in Neoki’s eyes. After what seemed a few seconds of consideration she said softly:

“You’ve sold the idea to me. I’m coming with you”.

Jay was only able to sigh in relief.

Neoki’s eyes wandered off to Jay’s extensive cd collection. Well, it wasn’t actually his collection, it was Alex’s. He inherited it nolens volens. Neoki rose and went to the cabinet for a closer look. After a few minutes she turned around and said with an insinuating and seductive smile:

“Ah, Steve Reich…great background music for making love!”

Her smile turned roguish when she asked:

“And the other question?”

Now it was Jay’s turn to be surprised. He had no idea to what other question the kid was referring to.

“I only had one question”, he said clumsily.

The mischief in Neoki’s face increased, as did the seething in the eyes. Seductively she licked her lips and said:

“That is what you said, yes. But your eyes say that you have a second question”.

Jay looked a bit sheepish. What was she talking about?

“Do I have to spell it out, honey?” Neoki asked in a low, hoarse voice. Jay stared in her eyes: they burned that intensely that one might suffer from burns from only looking at them. Wordlessly he only nodded.

“How about posing the same question you did during our first makeshift dinner”, Neoki suggested in that same husky voice, adding naughtily: “I might even say yes this time!”

“Of course”, Jay thought, “What a stupid fool I am to forget that!”

He rose,  took both Neoki’s hands in his, looked in her eyes like a lovesick puppy and asked:

“Neoki, will you spend the night with me?”

With tilted head and a mock shy smile, she whispered:

“Yeah, you can be damned sure I will!”

Once in the bedroom both were somewhat apprehensive and reticent in the beginning. It had nothing to do with a lack of will or desire, but everything with a lack of courage. Both knew, that they were about to set out on a paradisiacal voyage and maybe even a long voyage for life, something that both had often dreamed of but that neither of them had held for possible. Each of them wanted to surrender to the other, but a kind of fear withheld them for some time. There was just staring in the eyes, trying to gauge the other’s wishes, praying that they had the right explanation for what they thought they were seeing. But once he overcame his anxiety, Jay kissed the elf of his dreams.

There was this mantra playing through his head while doing so:

“He chose to be a woman tonight. So, treat him like a lady!”

As a consequence, he gave her a soft, tender kiss in the neck. Neoki reacted immediately: with closed eyes she threw her head in her neck, offering her full throat for exploration by Jay’s investigating lips. He jumped at the opportunity: he let his lips slide along the neck’s right side to a point directly under the larynx, just to have them slide up again along the left side, ending at her ear lobe, that he started to tickle with his tongue tip. He heard a soft moan of pleasure and excitement in reaction. 

The first item of clothing that slid off Neoki’s body was the black kimono, revealing that the white t-shirt under it was actually a tank top, giving Jay the chance to let his lips and tongue slide over the readily available naked narrow shoulders. He was just starting to remove the tank top as well, pulling it upward from the smooth abdomen with delicate movements, when Neoki seemed to recoil, hissing out a sharp:

“Stop!”

Jay looked at her in horror; had he misjudged it that badly?

“Don’t…don’t...you…want it?” he stammered in shock.

“Yes, I want it”, Neoki answered softly, her head nodding, “But first I must explain something to you”.

Jay shook his head and with a soft soothing “Husssshhh” laid his index finger gently on her lips. She looked at him questioningly and expectantly.

“There’s nothing to explain”, Jay said, “I love you the way you are. I love who you are. I love the Elf King as he is and I pray he’ll stay that way for ever”.

“Or Queen…”, Neoki muttered under her breath with a blinding smile, “Like I told you earlier this evening, remember?”

Jay shrugged and replied with a cheeky:

“I guess I’m about to find that out, ain’t I?”

Neoki opened her eyes wide, letting the fire in them escape and hissed:

“Then find out! Make sure you get what you need!”

The second attempt to remove the tank top encountered no opposition and once this clothing item was on the floor as well, Jay lifted the featherlight boy in his arms and laid him carefully on the bed, joining him there within seconds.

He let his hands slip in the gleaming white trousers and stroked the soft skin of Neoki’s buttocks, kneading them gently, immediately noticing that there was only a skimpy string under the trousers. He couldn’t resist the urge any longer and worked on opening the tight trousers, pulling it off the legs. Only a shiny red and indeed very tiny string remained on Neoki’s body, that was hardly able to conceal his born gender, its main physical feature forcing its way to freedom. Cautiously Jay let his fingertips slide over the protruding phallus, waiting for the reaction. It was only a blissful sigh.

While enjoying the multitude of tender caresses over her whole body Neoki experienced a feeling of extremely positive surprise, chasing her in a kind of elation:

“No questions asked! No remarks made! No explanations required! No justification needed! This guy accepts me for what I am. This is my man…the one I have been looking for!”

This conclusion pushed her over the edge of the purple and pink nebulous universe, in which love rushes are mostly spent:

“Oh grand-mère, my heart flitters….it flitters so fiercely…I hope I can control it. It wants to fly away…into the wide space…it wants to float…oh, grand-mère, I don’t know what to do!”

For a second, he thought he was losing his mind: he was certain he heard a gentle voice in his head, that spoke comforting and encouraging words:

“It is OK, mon cher. You have been courageous. You remained your own unique and beautiful self. Now, you have found the right one, the one who accepts you unconditionally as you are and who will take care of you. So let your heart fly away. Let it free…let it float between the rainbows and the stars. Surrender it to him and enjoy it thoroughly. You won’t regret it! Bon voyage, mon cher”.

His anxieties quenched he sub-consciously spread his legs, making a clear invitation to Jay to enter his most intimate inner tabernacle. Jay seemed to sense its meaning and maneuvered between Neoki’s legs, pushing them up in the air to get an unobstructed path. Then he positioned his penis in position and gently, incredibly gently and respectfully, entered with a hardly noticeable tender thrust. While all this was proceeding, their lips and tongues never parted, searching for still unkissed spots on each other’s body and inviting each other to another sensuous dance in one of their mouths or just in the open free space between their them.

Neoki felt Jay enter, reveled at the feeling of being filled inside out…his heart seemed to part from its physical surroundings in an upsurge of joy and happiness of an unknown intensity.

He noticed Jay’s deliberate and careful thrusting: it was gentle, subtle, relaxed…almost laybacked. He consciously clamped his sphincter around the slowly moving shaft, urging it to stay where it was. Jay did not step up the pace of his movements. It remained a slowly moving piston in a very tight tunnel, that had exactly enough tolerance to let it move up and down, while at the same time stimulating it with an incessant physical contact between the rod and the tunnel lining.

“I want to carry your baby!” Neoki muttered softly, feeling himself blush at that much nonsense. The fact that he felt a woman right now did not mean that he was equipped with a womb and he knew he had been blabbering out of emotion. He certainly hoped Jay hadn’t heard it.

Jay hadn’t; he just continued his lazy thrusting, gradually getting deeper and deeper inside Neoki.

 “Oh, this guy makes love so deliciously! He’s so gentle, so sweet, so slow…Mon Dieu, let it go on forever!”

Maybe God gave him part of what he bargained for: it took Jay a long time before he was able to ejaculate with a low, hoarse “Aaaaahhhh”. There was no other way; his slow, deliberate and delicate thrusting delayed his culmination time and again, but he was determined to give his new-found lover all the pleasure the moaning boy required of him, who was showing his exaltation by the continuous wriggling under Jay’s hot and sweaty body.

But once Jay had cum, his rapidly shrinking dick made it obvious, that God determined it to be sufficient for this evening, maybe because the Almighty was a practical deity as well, taking into account that these two mortal lovers had a full workload waiting for them the next morning.

However, Neoki was not interested in God’s plans. Suddenly he rolled over, ending on top of Jay, kissed him furiously and whispered:

“Do it again to me! And then again…and again! And tomorrow another time…until the day I die…just do it to me, in that marvelous, sweet and gentle way! Love me!”

Jay looked at him with gleaming eyes and gladly complied. Who was he to refuse such a wonderful request?

But in the end, after half the night had passed in passionate love making, the Divine got his way and both snugged up together looking in each other’s gleaming eyes, caressing skin, damp with sweat, with their fingertips and indulging in bountiful kissing.

“This was so beautiful”, Neoki whispered.

“Yes, it was!” Jay confirmed in a low, husky whisper, “I hope that…”.

He fell silent, the rest of his sentence hanging in the air.

“What do you hope, my gorgeous?” Neoki asked, looking in Jay’s eyes with some concern. Because in the sparse light of the bedside lamp he saw how the clear blue-grey eyes became damp.

“No, forget it!” Jay muttered, “I might hurt you and that is the last thing I want!”

“You won’t hurt me”, Neoki whispered encouraging, “A sweet person like you can’t hurt anybody. So, what is it that you were hoping for?”

Jay shrugged, clearly unwilling to say what was on his mind, but a demanding glance in Neoki’s eyes made him surrender:

“It’s just this thought that popped up in my mind. The thought of ‘I hope Alex will approve of this’. I’m…I’m sorry!”

“Don’t be sorry”, Neoki said compassionately, “You lost the love of your life, the one you wanted to grow old with, by cruel, brute violence. It’s completely normal that he plays an important role in your mind and memories. I can understand and handle that. And besides…if you ask me…I think Alex will approve. I even think he encourages it! I can’t see him as some person, who would expect you to live the rest of your life in bitterness and prohibit you to start a new life with someone else. But to be honest: I sure hope and pray that I will be that someone else”.

He snugged up against Jay and both relived their joy and luck mentally without a word, but the non-verbal communication between the two exhausted lovers by means of glances and stroking was overwhelmingly abundant.

After a long lapse of silence Neoki lifted his head slightly up from the pillow and looked in Jay’s eyes.

“What are you thinking of?” he asked.

Jay produced a kind of shy grin and answered:

“I better not tell you. You might think I’m losing my mind again!”

“Tell me!” Neoki insisted in a low whisper.

“You know”, Jay started vacillating, “There were days when I found life no longer worthwhile, days when I just wanted to stop living. Then some power in universe sent Alex along, making me happy for the first time in my life. With him my life was great and exhilarating again. And then the day came, that it was abruptly cut off: some black demon took Alex away from me”.

He sighed deep and Neoki saw a tear rolling over his cheek. But Jay recovered and continued:

“It put me on a crossroads, the crossroads of picking up the pieces of my life and get on with it or become mad again. And then…this same benevolent power, who understood what had to be done, sent this little elf to earth to kick me in the balls and force me to get on with my life, no…to start with a new life!”

“You sound like my granny Michèle”, Neoki muttered under his breath with a soft giggle.

“How that?” Jay asked somewhat surprised.

“The way you talk about higher forces, demons and symbols in life. The way you behave, like you’re an atheist, but deep inside still believe in some higher power, that controls things in life”.

“Jeez, you’re some smart elf as well”, Jay exclaimed.

Neoki shrugged and with a smile he said:

“Mais non, I’m not smart. Let’s just call it female intuition”.

After this passionate night and the one after it, which was as wonderful as the first, Neoki cancelled the rent of his small apartment and moved in with Jay. He said his goodbyes to the ever-gruff Brad, who looked very disappointed that this lovely girl left without him having had the chance to lay his hands on her. Neoki correctly read the message in his eyes and smiled mentally:

“Like a wise man once said, Brad: life is a bitch!”

Then he kissed his index finger and pushed him on Brad’s lips, immediately running off the stairs before Brad might develop too optimistic ideas about his chances. The boy was hardly able to think something anyway; he was too dumbfounded.

It took some time to sell the print shop. It was a hard time: both had no longer their hearts in it, but turnover should remain stable to make a sale possible, so their work got a dreadful, boring touch. But in the end Jay managed to sell all to a competitor, who actually was just interested in the turnover. With the exception of the screen-print equipment the whole shop was turned over at such a price that Jay was even able to make a small profit on the original buying price.

It was almost as hard to find a new place around Newport but in the end they found what they were looking for, even at an affordable price. It was a small farm, composed of a small house, that was large enough for the two of them, and a large shed, where they installed their design studio and the print shop. It was just outside Derby Line village, a small distance from the Canadian border, and in a quiet spot situated on the rim of a forest.

Within two weeks after moving in, the first limited edition art posters came off the press and were delivered to the first exclusively selected outlet, not surprisingly the small book- and record store in Newport that went by the name Syllables & Sounds. 

In the beginning times were hard: there were even periods that they had to take side jobs to live or when they had to draw on their limited reserves. But in the end, the number of outlets grew and sales went up with the posters of both their designs rapidly gaining a kind of cult status among graphic art lovers and -collectors.  

The locals in their new town were a bit surprised when they arrived. Especially Neoki managed to draw a lot of attention and create a lot of gossip. It was not because he spoke French fluently; most people in this border town spoke more French than English. It was more, that people found him eccentric and strange. But in the end his headstrong and indestructible kindness and sincerity made that they accepted him as well as part of the village, since she was a sweet girl…or could it be “she” was a boy?

For those readers who don’t like loose ends in a story there remains one mystery to be solved: what happened to Frenchy Matelot?

Well, Frenchy’s pleasure and satisfaction about his “revenge” was short-lived. With a large number of witnesses who had seen it all happen, the cops were able to catch him within fifteen minutes after his brutal deed, the bloodied knife still in his coat pocket.

At interrogation the detectives found his motive so incredibly confused and weird, that the court ordered him into a psychiatric clinic. But since the doctors found no signs of a mental disease, he ended up for trial. With the overload of available evidence the DA, the jury and the judge made short shrift of him. With US justice tending to be a bit draconic Frenchy ended up with thirty years hard time. 

In a way you might say Frenchy was right: without actually wanting to do that and certainly not planning it that way Jay did destroy Frenchy’s life. But he paid a high price for it: he lost his lover and his life was also almost destroyed, hadn’t it been that a non-binary petite elf with a funny French accent in her (or was it his…?) English had appeared to save him. 

In the end it turned out just great for Jay and Neoki. They were overwhelmingly happy with each other’s unconditional love, they found great satisfaction in the work they were both doing, feeling comfortable with designing and screen-printing graphic art, and they enjoyed living and working in their small studio/printshop at the forest rim in the North East Kingdom. Even Jay’s fear proved ungrounded: Neoki conquered the hearts of Jeremy and Noah with his usual storminess and candor.

A year after they moved to the Kingdom they married and continued living and working in a very happy relationship, in which Jay’s memories of Alex were accepted by Neoki as something totally natural and an integral part of their love.

Was it Fate or was it Divine Intervention? Or might it have been Neoki’s hippie grandmother, who steered developments the way they went from her other universe? The choice is up to you, reader. Just put a circle around the reason you prefer!

That was the last part of my trilogy “The Kingdom Boys”, that will be published as an e-book bundle in the beginning of 2022. 

I’m afraid it will be quiet for a while around me. I’ve decided to embark on a large project, that will take a lot of time in research and writing. But I’ve got the distinct feeling it will be worth the effort. So, faithful readers, I hope you can muster the patience.