The New Boy

Here he is, Julian. He's nothing like the princely Guntram who had two gentlemen fighting over him or the sweet Marcial, who had an obtrusive trasgu following him everywhere (much to his suitors annoyance). No, Julian has nothing of the sort, his manners leave a lot to be desired (but he's willing to change), no noble backgrounds or fortune (and he desperately needs one). On the bright side, he's intelligent, flexible in his thinking, fearless and willing to do anything in order to change his monotone suburban life.

I would love to hear your comments.

No, no title yet. Nothing decided so far. Not edited too. 

Chapter 1 (excerpt) 

If there was a turning point in Julian's life, the TV was certainly responsible for it. “I'm gonna sue the shit out of you! All of you! Motherfuckers!” yelled the most popular, well-known, well-loved and well-worn out talk show TV co-host, the Spanish TV had. Watching his whole family gathered around the flickering lights projected by the peroxide blonde screeching her indignation against a tabloid denouncing her poor motherly skills, was too much for the young man.

He never knew what set things in motion. Was it the profanity uttered at five p.m.? Probably not. He was used to such foul language. Was it the time? Julian couldn't have cared less about social conventions or daytime TV regulations. Was it the fact that his mother and brother looked at the howling blonde with unbound admiration? No, Julian was well aware of his family's I.Q., below any median.

Disgusted and angry, but without knowing the target of his anger, he stood up, slightly frowning at greasy stench coming in waves from the oily plastic tablecloth.

“Are you going to work so early?” her mother asked him but he didn't bother to answer.

“Sure thing! Maybe he gets fucked by another disgusting alien,” his older brother mumbled.

Julian looked at Carlos and shrugged, so used he was to his manners. “ 'Least, I've got someone to fuck with,” he answered calmly. “You're not good enough even for a disgusting alien.”

“You fucker!” his older brother howled, half rising from the chair, to be stopped by his mother. “You're not even a real Spaniard! Look at you!” he pointed out at his younger brother's long and white hair. “Queer!”

“That's your best?” Julian asked. “Should stop smoking joints. Burns out the brain, if you'd had any to start with.”

Julian had just jerked the door open when he heard his mother ask through the avalanche of insults his brother was dedicating him if he could give her another salary advance from his money, just a hundred Euros.

“What for? Didn't I give you two hundred two weeks ago?”

“It's for the mobile. You know I need it. Maybe someone sends me a work offer.”

“I'll see what I can do,” he mumbled, closing the door behind him.

* * *

Instant-YOU. Connect with the world

TEXT: Ripped off by family. Why don't you all get a job? Oh, you have to look for one.

MOOD: Punkish

* * *

Briskly walking by the street that led to the metro station, Julian did his best to ignore his brother's friends, sitting on the pavement, taking care of several bottles of beer, coca cola and cheap liquor standing around them. 'Getting ready for tonight', he thought and ignored several of the insults aimed at him.

'What's their problem? Me working or having a boyfriend? I don't live off my social welfare like my mother or brother do! Who's the parasite here?'

He increased his pace as he discreetly tried to switch on the music player on his smartphone, glad that his long-white hair covered the earplugs well and in this way, he wouldn't attract the attention of the group of Latinos, which had so many troubles with his brother's own gang no less than two weeks ago.

He doubted between jumping over the old turnstile or not, but then, he remembered that the turnstiles at his destination were new and wouldn't open without the ticket. 'Probably full with cops at this hour too.'

As usual the metro reeked with a combination of sweat, foul air and grease from the trains. The empty train arrived and the screeching iron wheels overpowered the music flowing through his earplugs.

Supporting his back against the rear wall of the compartment, Julian directed all his attention towards the music. Already sensing the glares aimed at him by two old ladies, sitting in front of him, he buffed loudly, tired of what he could almost hear them thinking: “If my grandchild would have such hair, I would shave it”; “Is that a boy or a girl?”; “What kind of family can produce this?” or his favourite; “Things used to be a hundred times better in the good old times”.

The train stopped at the station and more people entered. A group of six or seven teenagers, boys and girls entered in the wagon, laughing and pushing at each other as they took the an entire line of seats all for themselves. “Toshiro Hitsugaya,” one of the girls whispered into another's ear, her head bent towards Julian. Both bent their slender bodies with their laughter, carefully eyeing him.

Julian chose to ignore them as the old ladies had once more aimed their animosity at him, disregarding the noisy teenagers vulgarly dressed in their Saturday-night downtown outfits.

The ladies descended from the train at the next stop, just to be quickly replaced by a family. Troubled by the haggard looks on the parents, as that kind of regard was very familiar to him, as it had been the same his grandmother had had when the bank was about to evict them, Julian turned his head the other way.

The teenagers giggled more strongly and Julian felt their furtive movements as an item passed through their hands. The subway stopped and opened its doors again but the street musicians grimaced when they saw the half-empty wagon and the obviously penniless customers. At full speed they ran to the next compartment, hoping their luck this time would be better.

“We've got nothing but we live fucking great,” Julian thought when the first sweet scent of a sweet-acrid smoke reached his nostrils. 'Typical.' He turned around his head and his gaze got lost in the darkness the subway travelled at full speed. The bitter-old ladies, the happy potheads, the noisy immigrants, the bored family, were no longer part of his reality.

It was none of his business and it shouldn't matter at all what they did or thought. Their passing instant in his life was over. They had disappeared yet their bodies still remained with him in the wagon.

* * *

Instant-YOU. Connect with the world

TEXT: Going to work. Avoided rush hour to discos.

MOOD: Bored to tears to make a witty remark.

* * *

“I just finished with the boxes down the basement,” Julian announced merrily, his earlier anger at breaking two nails with the heavy boxes forgotten the minute he saw the tall, dark haired man, dressed in a black suit, who had stolen his heart.

“That's my job,” Ahmed barked at him, making the boy slightly jump backwards, surprised by the harsh tone used.

“You were busy. I just did it so we could go home earlier,” Julian protested as he smiled feebly, smelling that this one was going to be another of those nights when his lover was in a stormy mood.

“We are finished.” The man announced with an emotionless voice and shrugged.

“What?” Julian couldn't believe that Ahmed was dumping him right there, in the middle of a narrow staircase. His mind raced through their last encounters and it couldn't find anything that could explain his lover's change of heart. Only the previous weekend when he had said that he was feeling poorly with the flu and refused to take him to his flat.

“My fiancée will arrive from Fez in two days. Get lost, Julian.”

“You say it like that? Where did you get her? You told me you had nobody here!”

“My family arranged it and now you're out. Simple as that. Now, out, skinny boy.”

“You have no right to do this!”

“You're not Moslem. You understand nothing. I told you so”

“What the fuck has it to do with this?”

“Everything. Now, go upstairs and be nice to the customers. Don't want troubles with the boss because of you.”

“People are hanged in Iran for what we do! I saw it!”

“For what you did with me, not I. I did nothing haram.”

“We are together since a year! How can you be such an hypocrite? You were very happy with me in bed, and that wasn't halal at all!”

“Fiancée will be here soon. I'm legal now. We are getting married in a month and we are going to have several children. No place for you in my life.”

“I hope someone slits your throat and you bleed to death like a good halal-goat,” Julian said in a low voice that didn't seem to come from him. “Your children won't be yours,” he added before he turned around and climbed the stairs up, taking the steps two at a time, furious and enraged like never before

* * *

Instant-YOU. Connect with the world

TEXT: Dumped by boyfr. One year to the trash.

MOOD: Fucked up.

* * *

Tipping the words in his mobile phone didn't improve the dark mood looming over him. He flipped off the phone and dropped it inside the pockets of his black, tight jeans. One quick look at the large mirror located at one side of the cloakroom showed him his dishevelled long-white hair.

“Don't frown or you'll get wrinkles,” a doll face girl, slightly older than him, told Julian with a smile.

“Hi, Jessy,” Julian answered miserably as he took her black coat.

“Smile for me, will you?” She said.

“Ahmed dumped me just now,” he confessed her. “I don't know what I'm going to do.”

“Open a bottle of good champagne, not the shit we sell here,” she answered without hesitations. “You deserve so much better.”

“I love him and he's getting married!”

“Were you expecting something else?” She asked genuinely surprised at her friend's naïveté. “He's Moslem!”

“What the fuck has this shit to do? First he, and now you!”

“Darling, the only reason why he's the only one of all the doormen in this joint who doesn't pinch our bottoms is because we are “impure Christian women”. He's not gay or anything like that! He despises us because we are not Moslem and will cut a hand before touching one of us! As he can't go to one of “his kind of girls”, he hangs around with you,” she exposed her theory with a laced with compassion voice. “I prefer this kind of crazy Moslem before one of those losers who believe we are bitches in heat.”

“Now you sound like the fucker of my brother and his Nazi-pals.”

“Darling, I was there way before you. I met one in school, fell in love like an idiot, and he dumped me when he had saved enough money as to bring a cousin of his to marry her! Do you know what he told me? 'Non Moslem women are bellow the level of dogs for us!'”

“Ahmed is not like that!”

“I'm not saying that all of them are like this, but many are, love. You got the wrong one. Shitty luck.”

“This is just stupid!” Julian exploded and fought to control his tears. “What am I going to do?”

“Nothing. Finish your shift and come home with me to get the hangover of your life. The alcohol ban is lifted now,” Jenny said with her voice laced with sympathy and a weak smile. “Don't look so sad or the boss will kick you out. Show me that big smile of yours.” She said as she looked inside her duffel bag for a comb and some eye-drops. “Fix the hair too.”

“Thanks,” Julian mumbled.

“And keep those at hand,” she said placing five mini eye-drops vials in his small hand. “No red eyes, remember?”

“And big smiles for the customers,” he gloomily finished the sentence.

* * *

Instant-YOU. Connect with the world

TEXT: One hour more to go. Fucker still standing at the gate. Thank you guys for the support.

MOOD: Hate my job.

* * *

The soft wool coat felt heavy in his small hands. With a sigh he took a larger hanger and rearranged the cloth over it before he started to brush it. Being invisible to the fancy customers was not a problem for him. In fact, he was used that most people coming to the cloakroom never made eye-contact with him, only with his hand to pick the ticket. The largest token of appreciation he had ever received was someone dropping a few coins over the desk.

'At least I've got my friends,' he took comfort in the thought as he put away his mobile phone, the screen filled with more than thirty encouragement messages after the net had informed the world that he had been dumped in a cellar. With slow and ample moves, he began to brush the coat.

“Excuse me?” he heard an angry man's voice coming from the counter. Putting his professional smile on, he quickly pried the ticket from the wrinkled hands before the customer would complain for the delay to the manager.

Mind absently, he unhooked a man's coat and skirted the counter to help the client with his coat.

“Do you really think this could be mine?” The man asked again, this time his voice showing a well-known edge of annoyance. “That thing?” he repeated louder as he took a step away from the offending coat.

Julian looked for the first time the customer and realised his mistake. A real tailored suit always carried within the worst kind of troublesome client; haughty, short-tempered, educated...

A ninny who would certainly complain about the fly which shit on his coat.

“Is it not yours, sir?” Julian asked politely as he checked the receipt and the number attached to the coat. They matched.

“Something from Zara in size 8? No, I don't think so,” the stranger insisted and Julian knew he was doomed.

“If you could describe me your coat, perhaps I could find it.”

“Beige, Kashmir and from Bowle's of London,” the man replied somewhat appeased that the boy was not cocky or insolent as the waiters had been. He watched with interest the lean black figure, gracefully going through the jungle of clothes. What struck him most was that the boy, was very young, almost just out of school, had the largest blue eyes he had seen in a long time and his features were very soft, making him doubt if he was male or female.

“Bowle's of London. I think this is it,” Julian announced after reading several tags. The coat felt heavy but very soft at the same time. “I'm sorry for the confusion, sir,” he added as he approached the man to help him with it.

“It happens if you argue with a second class call girlie boy and he leaves you for something better,” the man answered nonchalantly as he put a twenty Euros note over the counter. “This place used to be better some years ago. For you.”

“This is too much, sir. I can't accept it. I could be in troubles with the manager,” Julian answered.

“Twenty Euros is too much nowadays? It's worse than I thought,” he smirked. “In the old times, this was a small tip and leaving less than a hundred was an insult to the waiters.”

“New management, sir. I work here since fourteen months ago.”

“Well, start looking for another job because this place won't survive for long. People used to be good professionals three years ago and now there are only newcomers with no idea to the trade. Reducing the prices of the drinks will not attract the people like me, and the middle-class customers will be out of the game for a long time.”

Feeling uneasy at the arrogant words heard, Julian cast his eyes down, and the stranger took another good look at him, finding his long-white hair exotic and intriguing at the same time. He also noticed one of the doormen, a very tall Arab man not so discreetly coming to them and watching him with barely disguised belligerence. Faster than a right of light, Julian's eyes met with the Arab's and the youth violently blushed. 'Someone was caught doing something wrong,' the man thought amused, quickly realising the nature of the two clerks relation.

“Good night, sir,” Julian said very quietly, wishing he could go away too.

“Yes, see you later,” the man replied casually gauging the look of total fury that flashed through the foreigner, who turned around and left the building with long strides. “He has quite a temper, doesn't he?” he asked Julian and the youth felt worse than before. “Boyfriend of yours?” he added casually, already excited at the prospective of eating from someone else's dish, especially if the dish looked so tasty.

“We broke up today,” Julian mumbled miserably. “He broke up with me, tonight.”

“You'll find something better in no time.”

“That's what everybody tells me,” he answered automatically. “I'm sorry, sir,” he said as he remembered the golden rule: NO personal talks with the customers. The stranger only looked at him for a long time, making him feel uncomfortable before he turned on his heels and left the place, brushing Ahmed aside with only one derogatory glance as if the bouncer was nothing but trash.

* * *

“What are you listening?” The strange man asked once more when Julian left the bar-discotheque-restaurant-private club-whatever he worked at. I took some time for him to recognize the tall, arrogant prick from the “Kashmir coat” story. “One Direction?”

“No, that's for little girls. Should update your material. This is from some old folk. John Dowland. Brit, I think.”

“Do you like classical music?” The man's grin was very skeptical.

“Not bad.”

“How come?”

“It was already in my smartphone when I got it.”

“I see,” the man smirked. “Stolen?”

“Ask my brother. He found it. Fifty euros finder's fee,” Julian answered with a mischievous smile that made him look much younger under the early morning lights.

“It's strange to find someone of your age and looks that is able to appreciate his music nowadays. Renaissance madrigals are not exactly a popular choice. Have you ever heard Alfred Deller's renditions?”

“Who?”

“I have some of his records at home. The quality of a good record can't be compared to this MP3. The sound changes completely as it evolves you. Did you ever try it? You could come home with me.”

“You sound like a pervert trying to convince a kid,” Julian smirked openly now.

“You look legal enough.”

“I am,” Julian replied. He cast a glance at the entrance door's direction and saw his former boyfriend busy with some of the other bouncers and a pang of sadness made him make his decision. “Lead the way.”