Nymphaea

Chapter 4: Chinese meeting: sweet-and-sour

Paul and Stephen spent three days doing interviews and small exhibitions in China. This could hardly be regarded as work since Paul’s humour was at its best. Of course, they totally depended on the assistant that stood by them and helped them orientate in this unknown culture.

In the evening of their last working-day, they sat together and had a drink. Their hotel room in Shanghai was rather small, furnished in a simple, western style, so they sat on their beds enjoying the room service. They joked around as usual, talking about Anne’s excitement over the pregnancy, of her moods, of her spending hours in front of the mirror, one day being proud of the big belly that contained two babies at once, the next panicking whether she would be able to loose all the weight again. She had also bought tons of baby wear months in advance only to receive just as much at the official baby party her friends had organised for her.

Paul added that he had had to ask the friend of his who had made the furniture for their nursery to build another wardrobe and that he was happy Anne did not carry girls.

But then he came over and sat down next to Stephen. “Your turn, what’s up with that mysterious beauty you’ve got a crush on?” he asked with a smug smile.

“Can’t remember saying anything about looks,” Stephen tried to avoid the question.

“Oh, come on, you wouldn’t fancy an old frump! Don’t be so close!”

Stephen shook his head. What was he supposed to tell Paul? He would probably call a psychiatrist the moment they landed back in Britain if he told him the story. And Stephen was not even ready yet to admit openly to a close friend like Paul that he was bisexual and therefore did fancy men as well. No, he would not speak of Ayve. He simply could not.

“Please don’t be annoyed, but I really don’t want to talk about that,” he replied to Paul. “There’s nothing to say anyway. Haven’t seen that person for nine months now.”

Paul shook his head in wonder, grinning. “Man, you’re making me curious. You leave your family for someone you haven’t met once since? That woman really must have turned your head!”

“I did not leave Julie for anybody! I broke up because I have never loved her and didn’t want to fool her any longer,” Stephen defended himself.

“Be honest to yourself, Stephen,” Paul looked at him severely, “Would you have left Julie if you hadn’t met this other lady?”

Stephen did not reply.

*

Already overwhelmed by the size and the energy of the city and gazing up at the sky scrapers, they went to see some pieces of the old Chinese culture the next morning. Clinging closely to their guide, they visited a Buddhist temple and the Shanghai Museum. Despite being the pub-loving type of good Irishman, Paul had a special interest in culture and therefore took his time examining every sculpture, every piece of furniture, every painting, every sheet covered with calligraphy, and every single seal they saw. It was late in the afternoon when they decided to go and eat something.

On their way back to the hotel, they strolled through a few smaller streets, predominantly lined with old houses, containing small shops and the like. Suddenly Stephen stopped in shock. He stared towards a small, from the outside rather shabby looking teahouse. How could this be???

Paul nudged Stephen with his elbow. “What’s up, anything interesting?”

Stephen stirred. “No, I just thought I’d seen something I could buy for Melissa, but I was wrong.” He turned and went after their guide who had gone ahead.

Paul took another look at the point Stephen had been gazing at and raised an eyebrow as there was nothing there to be bought for a three month old baby.

They headed towards one of the bigger streets to find a cab. Stephen legged behind. Paul could see that something was on his mind. He gave him a questioning look. The crowds of people in the streets flowed by them as Paul waited for Stephen to make up his mind about whatever he was thinking of or at least to open his mouth.

“I need to take care of something. Go ahead to the hotel, I’ll find the way back by myself.” With that, Stephen turned and was swallowed by the crowd before Paul could react.


Stephen ran back. He found the street, he found the teahouse, and there he sat on the floor, close to the window in the corner. With his hair loosely falling to the ground and curling there, there he was, deep in contemplation it seemed, sipping his tea every now and again.

This was insane. Stephen hid on the other side of the small lane in the shadow of a vegetable stall, watching Ayve in disbelief. How could this be? No one was able to tell him where Ayve was and he ran across him in the chaos of this town without even knowing that Ayve was in the country? This seemed surreal.

What was he going to do now? His mind raced. Should he just go in and speak to him? With what kind of pretext could he approach Ayve? ‘Hello, I know you are already aware of it, but I have fallen for you. Could you please reconsider me?’ Or, maybe ‘Hello, I know I have no right to ask, but could you please explain yourself to me because I heard strange rumours about you?’

Should Stephen just go, decide this was the end? Should he take it as a chance to leave Ayve behind, to say ‘goodbye’? Would he regret that? One look cast above the street and he knew that was no option.

Since he had made up his mind, it was time to act. He entered the teahouse. An old lady in traditional clothing greeted him, in Chinese of course. It seemed she thought he wanted a place to himself and tried to guide him to a free table. How could he make her understand without pulling attention to himself by disturbing the peace in this room? He was embarrassed before he even managed to face Ayve. This wasn’t any good.

Suddenly, the old lady seemed to change her mind. She led Stephen in Ayve’s direction. How did she…? He looked at Ayve who had lifted his face towards him as well.

He had noticed Stephen.

The old lady left them. Ayve calmly pointed at the place opposite his. Stephen took it, uncertain what to think or feel now.

They did not speak at once. Ayve did not even seem to be very interested in Stephen. His thoughts were somewhere else apparently. He looked down, watching his tea move in the cup that he swayed in his hand. The left hand, the hand that bore this uncommon ring. Stephen couldn’t even tell what it was made of.

“I… This is an accident. I really didn’t know you were…,” Stephen tried to explain himself. Ayve lifted his hand slowly.

“I know,” he whispered, smiling.

They sat in silence. Stephen did not feel bad in this situation. He was nervous, but he did not feel entirely out of place as he would have with someone else. Silence seemed natural with Ayve. But indeed, he had not come for that. He doubted that Ayve needed company in this.

He put forth the question that mattered the most to him: “Why did you leave without a note, without… anything?” Kisses, words, an address?

“What would you have me write down for you?” Ayve asked, still whispering sedately, only this time with a strange undertone in his voice. Was this mockery? Stephen wasn’t sure.

“You know my mind,” he retorted. “I would have you write nothing. I would have you stay with me.”

Ayve gave him a smile.

Stephen went on. “And by the way, you may try, but I will not let you avoid my questions. Not today. My question is: why?”

Ayve put the cup down and placed his head on his hands, looking at Stephen. So at least Stephen had gained his full attention.

“Why this night, what was this about and why leave then?”

Ayve let his eyes drift away, return to Stephen, then drift away again. Stephen had never seen him like that. However, Ayve did consider his question. “Though you may not like this, the answer to your question is very simple; this is my routine.” He let this sentence sink in. Oh, he had chosen his words carefully. His voice was still low, but not a whisper anymore. He wanted to hit Stephen. Routine. A word picked to make him see his insignificance, that he had only been one of many.

“This is the way I choose to be intimate with somebody; I satisfy my needs and then I take my leave.”

Stephen waited for him to continue.

“Why I did not take you through the whole ‘procedure’, as you would expect of a one-night-stand?” Ayve’s eyes strayed aside again. He thought this matter through carefully. No matter how hard his replies might be, Stephen gained the impression that they carried truth. Reshaped truth maybe, but fit to be accepted. All the same, Stephen was totally taken aback by this change in Ayve; his rough behaviour, these cruel words.

They went on: “Usually, when I find it appealing to fuck somebody, I do it to humiliate.” Ayve paused. He frowned. “I suppose I’m not the nice one then. But I had no wish to do that to you.”

Stephen felt strange. He was reminded of his last encounter with the investigators from the Secret Service. Yet, he felt somehow privileged to be the one that Ayve spoke to so openly. It felt almost intimate, as if Stephen had been allowed to enter Ayve’s mind.

Ayve leaned back a bit, taking a sharp look at Stephen. He had not finished. “I think,” he said reluctantly, “I was a little scared I might enjoy that night a little too much.”

The old lady came back with a tray. She started to perform the traditional tea ceremony for Stephen. She asked a question he didn’t understand. Ayve answered for him.

“Is there a language you cannot speak?” Stephen asked on impulse.

“Many,” Ayve replied in the same calm manner with a severity that astonished Stephen, regarding the unimportance of the question. “But I have time.”

They sat in silence again. All the questions that had invaded Stephen’s mind seemed insignificant, suddenly. He was much too carried away by the atmosphere, the strange tension between Ayve and him. All that mattered now was how he could prolong his time with Ayve.

He had intended to wait until the old lady left them again, but this procedure seemed to take a lifetime. She couldn’t understand their conversation anyway, right?

“What if I asked you to spend another night with me?” Stephen wanted to know. He was not quite as excited to speak this out as he had expected to be, although the idea, Ayve might give him a positive answer, thrilled him.

Ayve smirked. “I would call you a liar then. You would be lying to yourself.”

“How is that?” Stephen retorted.

Ayve’s smirk grew even bigger. “Come on, you don’t want a night with me. You don’t want me to fuck you once and drop you like a hot potato again. You want me to have feelings for you.” Another blunt reply.

And oh, how right his sharp tongue was. Stephen turned away, ridding his sweaty forehead of his hair. He didn’t know what to say. This tension, this uncertainty left him wounded.

Ayve stood up slowly, his hair falling down in long, straight strands, reaching down to his hips.

Stephen stared up.

Ayve went around the old lady, who paid no attention to him whatsoever, and knelt down behind Stephen. He embraced him from behind.

Stephen’s blood rushed through him. He tried to push Ayve away. “Not here,” he stammered, his eyes fixed on the old lady. She showed no reaction.

“I could take you right now, and she wouldn’t see or hear it as long as I tell her not to,” Ayve whispered into Stephen’s ear.

Strangely enough, Stephen relaxed.

Ayve let his hands feel Stephen’s chest. “You can have me tonight, if you want. It’s up to you. As long as you can take the years after…”

Stephen gave himself up to Ayve’s embrace for a moment, the safety he still felt with him. Then he snapped back to reality. “Ayve, are you exercising control over my mind?” he managed to ask with great effort.

“No,” was Ayve’s immediate, yet calm response. “I do not manipulate you.” His hand ran through Stephen’s hair. “But if you are referring to the incident with that old man - yes, I shielded your thoughts and I will do so as long as necessary. Otherwise you would be in danger.”

“Why?” Stephen asked surprised.

Ayve gave him another smile. “Well, as you have been told, there are certain rumours circulating about me. I am not the most popular of my kind. And as I happen to know how to defend myself, someone might just think it’s clever to hit somebody else in my stead, somebody I might have taken a liking to. So you running around displaying memories of our little night a year ago might just be what this someone is looking for.”

“So you do this to protect me?” Stephen asked disbelievingly.

“To protect you and my reputation,” Ayve admitted.

“I didn’t think you cared about such things,” Stephen remarked. He was a little disappointed. Disappointed because Ayve’s main motive was surely not his wellbeing.

“It doesn’t matter what I care about. I cannot allow myself to be regarded as weak or as vulnerable. I am left alone as long as they know they do not stand a chance against me. But enough of this talk.”

Stephen felt Ayve’s embrace tighten. “Do you wish to bed me or shall I leave you alone now?”

Stephen did not want to part yet. He wanted more information, wanted to know it all. He gave it another try, “I still don’t really know anything about you. What’s your age, where were you born?” He knew this was no display of negotiating skill; this did not force Ayve to answer, but aiming for that would be illusionary anyway, wouldn’t it? Stephen was speaking his mind; that was all there was left to try.

Ayve shook his head. He stroked Stephen’s cheek softly, breathed a kiss on it and whispered into his ear, “I take this as a decline of my offer then. Good-bye, Stephen.”

Stephen sensed how Ayve rose behind him and went to the old lady to pay for his tea. Stephen did not turn. He let his head sink and buried his hands in his hair. He still felt Ayve’s embrace as Ayve stepped through the door, letting in the roar from the street outside for a second or two.

Stephen stayed a few more minutes, giving himself up to the melancholy that had taken hold of him, sipping his tea. Why couldn’t he just stay with Ayve forever? Sit with him like this in a close embrace, contemplating the world, no matter how unworldly that sounded. Everything else looked pale and unimportant when he was with him. Stephen felt like an addict who had lost every sense of reality.

*

He left the teahouse, his thin white shirt clinging to his sweaty chest. His golden hair gleamed in the last rays of the sun that slowly disappeared behind the buildings. By-passers stared at him, this obviously European, relatively tall (at least by these people’s standards) and well-built man, tanned by the hot sun.

He watched Stephen, from a short distance. The young man came towards him, striving to find points of reference on his way back to the main street. He passed close enough for Ayve to smell the scent of his body…

He would have liked to feel him once more. It was a tempting thought to make him his, to break his reluctance and seize him. Perhaps for more than one night even.

But this was nonsense. No, this one had not deserved such treatment. And Ayve was not the one to give it undeserved. The idea of using Stephen for his low needs was only taking place in his imagination. He was no sadist after all. Sometimes Ayve wished he had been brought up differently, it would have made life easier in many situations he had had to face. He liked to act as if he was the cruel one, the arrogant one. But he was not, was he? Maybe the soft part in him surfaced now, longing for this innocent young man (an innocent human? Get a grip!) to ease his loneliness for a while.

No matter what, Ayve would not let this happen.

Talking about upbringing, he longed for his father’s advice. He wished above all he had inherited his father’s talent in foretelling. This life seemed so empty, so useless. He would not allow himself to fill it with the desire for a mortal – especially not for a human! – who was likely to die sooner or later anyway. Still, he longed for more in his life, apart from the obligations he had inherited from his father, something that was his own.

Why had they destroyed everything? Why had they destroyed him? Why was he not gifted with his father’s wisdom?

He turned and left, the image of golden hair in his mind, the scent of sun-tanned skin in his nose, the desire to shed tears in his heart. Only he had never been able to cry since that night, one and a half millennia ago.

***