Keeping Lýkos Out of Trouble

Chapter 6

The five black cars stood at the entrance that early morning and Julian suppressed a sigh as big cars meant “big shots” were visiting Koiranos and most probably the man would be cranky in the afternoon instead of charming and talkative about his own study subjects.

“Assholes on parade,” he whipered to Lýkos and the wolfdog rose his ears, indicating he agreed with Julian's evaluation.

“Let's go to pick up those magazines and use the long way. It's not too cold today. We'll be back at noon and eat something good.” A vigorous shook of the tail showed Julian that Lýkos was happy with the plan.

Slowly the big dog left the boy's bedroom and walked towards the living room. “No, not that way. Kitchen today,” Julian said and tried to grab Lýkos by the choke collar, but he was faster and sprinted towards the end of the corridor, pushing the door open with one single push of his powerful paws.

The low and loud growl Julian heard coming from the living room could mean nothing good for his job or the person on the other end of Lýkos wrath.

He entered in the room and Lýkos was semi-crouched in an attacking position facing a bald man in his sixties, baring his teeth at the stranger as Koiranos rose from the chair he had been sitting. Julian walked fast towards the animal and stretched out his hand to grab the dog's collar.

“Don't touch him!” Koiranos shouted him in English and switched to a guttural language to address his wolfdog. Julian froze on his spot and watched how the animal was only focused on the stranger, not minding his own master. It was in this precise moment when the boy realised that Lýkos had more of a wild-rabid wolf than a dog inside him.

A short, low growl from Koiranos made the animal look at him and the spell was broken. “Take him out now,” he ordered Julian sharply but the boy didn't move. “It's safe to touch him now,” he repeated with a gentler voice.

“Lýkos,” Julian called him very softly and without knowing why, using a very respectful voice to it. 'It's a dog! He can't understand me!' “Let's go now,” he almost pleaded with the colossus.

Lýkos just turned around and left the living room. “Return at tea time, Julian,” Koiranos ordered and focused on his visitor.

* * *

“You almost screwed me up, Lýkos! Try to keep that temper of yours down or I'll lose my job,” Julian said to the big dog once they were alone in the forest. “Can you just nibble a slipper and be happy?” he complained to no one in particular, only willing to get the fear out of his body. He sat on the moist and cold earth, not caring if his new trousers got a bit dirty.

Conciliatory, Lýkos approached him, with the head partly hunched between his shoulder blades. The wet nose touched the point of Julian's one and the boy smiled weakly.

“I like this job and I like to look after you, but if you get me into troubles, your master will fire me. First thing he said? Keep Lýkos away from my visitors,” Julian reproached the animal as he ruffled the sides of his neck.

“This guy looked like a big shot. Big people like him thinks we are trash for them. Poor devils like me and dogs like you are at their soles level. I mean, I wouldn't like to be fired because a guy like him complains.”

“I wouldn't like to go away,” he whispered as the dog sat in front of him. “We are banned from the house till tea-time and that sucks.”

Julian caressed the long hair and thought on his problem. “On the bright side, we can be out till, or better after, tea time. Could spend the day in Sintra and lunch is on me, if we can find a place that lets you in.”

He stood up. “And restaurants, Sintra and bookstores have internet connection, meaning I can update all my things and see if the world still turns around. I still can't believe Koiranos has a fucking parental control installed in the computers! For my first time in my life, I'm near an Apple and zac! Parental control; only the school's website is available. Does your master never heard about google surfing? Half of the things I'm supposed to do are already done there! ”

“You should reach your own conclusions, young man,” Julian impersonated his employer's voice and accent, and the dog looked up at him. “Don't go around telling stories,” he warned him. “It's just... he's so brick-headed! “My library is big enough to satisfy your educational needs at this point. If you need any further reading material, order the book.” Sure thing, but the Library of Alexandria, the last one your master ever visited, right before Hypatia banned him for life for not returning the papyrus on time, closes at five p.m.,” he added with irony.

Julian resumed his walk towards the town with Lýkos trotting after him. “The prick you growled at looked very familiar. I think I saw him on the news. Politician or banker. Who cares? All the same fuckers.”

'What does Koiranos do with such people? He can't be over forty and yet they all come to meet him and he treats them like trash.'

'Does he have a platinum mountain hidden somewhere?'

'Did I just say Hypatia? Shit!'

* * *

Convincing a waitress with his limited Portuguese skills of letting Lýkos inside the restaurant was quite a foe for Julian. Nevertheless, the wolf-dog had been allowed to sit under the table with the promise of not moving much or scaring the few customers away. One thing was a small poodle, but this one was large enough as to order a full steak for itself and the economical crisis along with the low tourist season made waitresses more flexible.

Despite his stormy morning, Lýkos behaved like a well educated dog, eating and drinking in silence before he laid down at Julian's feet, unnoticeable and well covered by the trims of the tablecloth.

'Free wi-fi and mobile connection,' Julian sighed, closing his eyes as a familiar bliss warmed his soul.

* * *

Instant-YOU. Connect with the world: Free day having lunch with a hot-shot.

Mood: Happy and entertained.

* * *

Twenty minutes later, there were no comments to such a good post. Not even Jenny or Jessy had written anything back! His indignation knew no limits and he tapped the table till he heard an irritated growl coming from under it. Lýkos hated to have his nap interrupted.

Julian opened his e-mail account but there was nothing more than 3497 Instant-YOU update notification made by his friends, some junk mail, but nothing marked as “important” or “personal”. He read some of the updates, but none of them was about him.

Nothing at all.

His 169 contacts had continued with their lives and none of them had wondered the cause of his silence for three or four weeks. He didn't remember for how long he had been living in Sintra.

Nothing from Jenny, Jessy, Shiro, who allegedly were his best friends, Ahmed, his former boss or colleagues, his brother, mother and a long etc. of people who had just vanished him from their lives.

'Take a shit, you all...' the boy thought as he furiously began to update his Facebook wall.

@juliansan92 is alive ;-) @Jennymoststar91

@juliansan92 Wanna chat? @Jennymoststar91

'Someone remembers me. Or she just read my Facebook update.'

@Jennymoststar91 Sure! :) @juliansan92.

You: Hi babe!

Jenny: U in the university? LOL

You: Distance learning. Royal Holloway. Belongs to the London School of Economics.

Jenny: Where U not in Portugal?

Julian had to suppress an annoyed buff at her lack of attention. She was just asking the same things she could have read at the Facebook wall!

You: I pay a fee, get the books, study and present the tests next May. Hopefully, one day I could be an Oxford PhD.

Jenny: From where?

You: Oxford. If I get good grades, they will accept me without hesitations.

Jenny: WTF? Why did u go there?

You: I want to be somebody and this is my ticket to do it. Back home, I'm nobody. Just one more in the list of losers.

Jenny: What r'u studying?

You: History.

Jenny: 'Story? That's for losers! Teacher? YUK!!!

You: If you're accepted in Royal Holloway, you ARE NOT a loser. Losers look at you FROM the other side of the gate.

Julian pressed the enter button before he could have rethought about his answer and immediately felt ashamed of his words. 'She's just an aspiring Zara saleswoman. I shouldn't have said that.'

Jenny: Swot and slut. That's u Julian.

You: Likewise, Jenny but at least I can read and' going somewhere.

“Jennymoststar91 is no longer available. Any further messages will be delivered once the user connects again.”

'Great, she's upset. Should apologize later,' Julian thought as he motioned the waitress to ask her for a cappuccino. He opened the new book that he had just picked up that morning “The Prehistory of the Mind,” and he got lost in it, doing his best to remember most of the technical words he was learning the hard way.

The big canine head over his lap made Julian slightly jump at the interruption of his reading. One glance showed him the sun was quickly setting. He had been studying for three hours and they had just felt like ten minutes.

“You're right. Time to go home. Maybe Lucia has something for us for tea,” Julian told his companion as he paid the bill “with my own money' and left the waitress a good tip.

Walking down the narrow streets he felt complete and happy as he had not been in a long time. 'I'm going somewhere now,' he realised. 'Not just a good-looking bum. Perhaps one day, I'll be Dr. Julian Santos Pardo.'

'It really makes no difference if I apologize to Jenny or not. It's a waste of time as she will never understand anything else beyond her suburban wits. She's out my life as I'm out of hers. She brings nothing into my life.'

'She's a dead-weight, just like my mother and brother.'

'Fucking Oliver, he was teaching much more than anyone else ever did.'

'Pity he only wanted a toy and I have much more brains than what is needed for the job,' Julian thought sourly. 'I can be much more than a Ganymede serving drinks and looking great. I'm sure that smarty stole the recipe for nectar and founded his own brewer company.'

* * *

“Go inside. It's about to rain,” was the only thing Koiranos said to Julian when he and Lýkos returned home.

Glad that the fact that he had returned well after tea-time, Julian only nodded and quickly obeyed, wondering why Koiranos had said that as the day had been sunny and slightly warm for wintertime. Besides, the man was busy with some funny looking plants in the garden and not paying attention to him any longer.

In the kitchen, Julian served Lýkos his dinner and watched how the animal ate it heartedly. At some unheard signal, he lifted his head from the dish and sprinted out of the room.

Slowly, the boy began to take the dishes and cutlery out of the cabinets. The pattern engraved on the white china formed a fringe of ivy and he wondered why Koiranos would have chosen that motive, more appropriate for girls than for a short fuse giant. 'Funny he likes plants, too. Pedro will be in troubles if he finds a single leaf out of place.'

'Koiranos is weird. No doubt about it.'

'But he's a good person. Better than most people I know.'

'Does he like girls or boys? I still don't know. With his looks and money he shouldn't have problems to get someone, but he has nobody. I'm sure of that. He never goes anywhere and is the most antisocial person I've ever met. He was not even knowing what Facebook is!'

“Weirdo,” he mumbled as he set the dishes and cutlery in perfect symmetry. 'He's not gay. Any other would have given me any hints, but he does nothing but looking bored at everything.'

'That's really bad. He puts Ahmed to shame. No matter if he was a piece of shit, he was great in bed. At this point, some of his religious crap wouldn't matter to me if he wanted to fuck some.'

* * *

The dense curtain of rain loudly colliding against his window woke Julian up. He sat on the bed and noticed Lýkos had still not returned home from his nightly-escapade. His eyes were fixed on the deep darkness outside his room and Julian suppressed a shiver. 'Where could he be? It's more than 3 a.m.'

'He might be soaking wet or lost.' nervous, he left the bed and bedroom.

With accustomed use, he waded the tables, lamps, sculptures in total darkness. With the weeks, Julian had been getting more and more used to live in a dim light and follow the natural day and night-time cycles to rule his life.

He opened the rear door but quickly closed it before he would get soaked under the gust of rain and wind which stormed the kitchen.

'Where could he be?' he thought as he walked towards the main entrance, hoping he could catch a better glimpse of the front garden. 'If he gets cold, I'm not dragging him to the vet.'

Still walking in the darkness, Julian went to the front door, opened it and called Lýkos but he didn't show up. 'I hope he's fine,' he thought as he violently shuddered from the freezing wind that had swept him over.

The flickering game of light and shadows coming from the living room's open door attracted his attention and hoping to get warm again, the youth walked to the fire in a straight line.

Feeling the biting cold disappear under the power of the flames, Julian rubbed his sides as he watched the fire, enjoying the hypnotic shades of red, blue and yellow dancing with each other.

“Don't you use lights any more?” he heard Koiranos's voice coming from the farthest corner in the room.

“It's really not necessary, sir. I'm used to darkness now,' Julian answered once he recovered from his initial shock. “The fire gives enough light. We don't need so much light.”

“Your people always had the eyes of cats,” Koiranos commented as he once more was enthralled by the dancing lights of the fire.

“My people?”

“Getae,” Koiranos explained him. “Good hunters and ferocious warriors. The Moon God was their ally.”

“The moon is a female deity,” Julian mildly corrected the man, surprised that he had committed such a mistake.

“Now is a female figure, but before it was a male, like Arma, Mên. An old and wise man who taught men the secrets of metals. Only men were allowed to know their secrets. Women were the sun and the life. Although Thracians and Dacians had already feminine figures in their altars.”

“I'm looking for Lýkos. He's still out,” Julian said embarrassed without knowing the reason for it.

“Let him be. He's a wolf and knows better than you.”

“He could get sick.”

“He will know where to hide or how to return home if he feels like it. He's a wild animal.”

“Why do you say I'm... Getae?”

“Because of the shape of your face and eye colour,” Koiranos answered. “Quite typical of these peoples; Dacian and Thracians, or Getae as the Greeks used to call them.”

“I'm Spanish and my father was Russian. Vitaly Something.”

“You don't know who your father was.”

“I do know who he was, just the last name is missing,” Julian answered very irked. “My mother was never very clever and I guess she forgot to ask his last name. Or maybe she did and couldn't remember it if it was a foreign one. She didn't last long in school. In any case, The Civil Registry wanted his signature to write it in my documents, but he was already gone when I was born.”

“I understand, but you really don't look like a Russian. The Dacian provinces were located in what is Romania today.”

“Maybe he was Romanian for all what I know. Romanians are more common to see than Russians,” Julian admitted. “But I don't look like a Gypsy at all.”

“Gypsies are not Romanians or Russians. They may bear those nationalities but they are a people on their own,” Koiranos said and noticed how Julian's body shook from the cold. “You are not dressed warm enough.”

“It's a bit chilly in my room. I'll ask Lucia for another cover,” he answered.

“I prefer low temperatures, but you are not used to them.”

“I'm not complaining at all,” Julian said in a hurry.

“It's all right. If you are cold, sleep with me. My bed is big enough.”

Julian gaped at the man like an idiot. “Sleep with you?” he stammered.

“Yes, two bodies can generate more heat than one. I have some fur covers too. I'll tell Lucia to put one in your room.”

'That's an improvement in my working conditions,' evaluated Julian. 'Not bad at all,' he considered as he eyed Koiranos from head to toes. 'For someone in his thirties, he looks great.'

Silently, the boy followed the large man to his bedroom, wondering how would be the sex with a man of his size. Violent? Tender? A mix of both? He couldn't wait to see it as Koiranos with all his aloofness and coldness was more sexy than Ahmed.

The main bedroom was very large and as Julian had expected, furnished with old furnitures and books and papers. Koiranos switched one of the lamps at the bedside on. The dim light illuminated some of the cabinets where a few old sculptures and objects were stored. “Take the left side,” he said nonchalantly as he looked for his bedclothes under the pillow on the right side.

Taken aback by the casual way Koiranos had formulated the sentence, Julian obeyed and slid under the covers. His hand travelled across the sea of fur and the cover reminded him of a wheat crop caressed by the wind. Not looking but dying to look he guessed more than knew the muscular body that lost all his clothes.

The large hand pulled the covers aside and Julian held his breath, expecting what he was sure would come. The shadows of a well defined torso and broad shoulders had been all the encouragement he needed to forget Ahmed, Oliver and all the previous lovers that had passed through his life.

“Night,” said Koiranos as he turned the light off.

Julian turned around and watched the form of the man looking for a comfortable position in the bed. 'I thought...'

“Are you still cold?”

“Yes,” Julian answered with that raspy tone he knew drove other men crazy.

Koiranos simply grabbed him from the arm and pulled him close to his body. Clumsily, his hand patted the side of his face and caressed him exactly as he petted Lýkos. Nothing seductive or sexual. Julian felt crushed under the man's chest as the hands now rubbed his left side vigorously.

“Better? You should be warm now,” Koiranos said

“Yes, thank you,” Julian answered, feeling the sky fall over his head. Never in his life, he had read the signs so badly. If someone wanted to go to bed with him it was for having a good time, not for rubbing him as a puppy and then use him as a pillow.

Disappointed, disoriented, dismayed, he felt asleep fast.

* * *

The low and resentful growl woke Koiranos up. Lýkos was standing at the feet of his bed and his eyes shone in a grisly way.

“You were away. He sleeps with me now,” Koiranos said in a quiet voice.

Lýkos bared his teeth but Koiranos disentangled his arms from the unnaturally deeply asleep boy and sat on the bed, closing his fist, ready to strike his wolf down for challenging him.

Lýkos immediately bent his head and sat on the carpet.

“That's better. Remember who you are. You can stay there.”

Still keeping a weary eye on the animal, Koiranos settled his body on the mattress again. He waited until the wolf's breath returned to normal before he closed his eyes.

“You were always a good general Lýkos. As usual you were right. He's good for us,” Koiranos softly admitted and the wolf was pleased that his place as beta was to be respected.