A Magnetic Couple Dilemma (Unfinished Liaisons Series) (2 page)

Blind to the beauty of the early spring sky, and tired of
pacing the same spot in the little garden, Javier dropped under a leafless
tree. His mind was lost in the recent past as usual, unaware that the bottom of
the tree had become his favorite spot in the last three weeks. The only place
he could find any solitude during the day in the big crowded house in which he
lived.

The warm breeze caressed his face, pulling back his hair. He
wished that he could throw Mauricio's memories to the wind and forget that he
had been his entire world. From the start it sounded too good to be true, and
Javier suspected that passionate love would eventually become an addiction that
might kill him. Maybe not so fast, but yes, he might eventually die of having
loved Mauricio.

It had been love at first sight, in spite of Mauricio being
older than him. Javier had fallen under the spell of the most experienced man
he'd ever met. That charming smile and gentle disposition were irresistible
when matched with a lean muscular body and a handsome face.

He had to think that now, it was only himself—simply Javier.
He had to start again, stop thinking about the past, and Mauricio.

He'd given so much love, and at the end, even his hard
earned money; but today, adding all together, his countless tears were all he
could budget for. Although being fair, Javier had been happy beyond his wildest
fantasies.

Sometimes when Javier was silent, he listened to Mauricio's
voice, perceived his scent lingering in the air, or his hands embracing his
waist. Of course, it was only his imagination, but sometimes it felt so real,
it hurt.

He wished nobody thought of him, because no amount of kind
words would change anything. So much died together with Mauricio, that Javier
felt there was nothing else to experience, but simply remember he had been a
volcano erupting in passion within Mauricio's arms.

While making love, Mauricio had taught him hundreds of
caresses, but today sex was the last thing on Javier's mind. Having HIV, he
feared rejection from any possible partner.

Conscious of his only twenty-five years, in spite of the
legacy of being HIV positive, he should be looking forward to the future.
However, starting again seemed impossible, because without Mauricio's love he'd
collapsed, and the only thing that kept him going on was to fulfill Mauricio's
last wish.

Javier had to personally return twenty years of letters to
Mauricio's pen pal and best friend, Esteban Hidalgo. He knew little about
Esteban. When he'd met Mauricio, he noticed that he received letters and books
from this person.

Javier had asked, "Why don't you guys e-mail one
another? Letters are so yesterday."

Mauricio had looked at him as if Javier had insulted his
only religious ritual, and indignantly explained, "It's not the same.
This, he held it in his hand, and this, I wrote with my own hand. It's a real
way to keep in touch regardless of the distance."

It had been then, when Javier noticed for the first time,
the generational gap that Mauricio's bed skills had managed to erase before.
His husband died at thirty-nine, so Esteban should be around the same age.

These guys witnessed the development of the personal
computer, but they still wrote letters like it was the Victorian age or
something.

Before passing away, Mauricio had two obsessions, Javier's
forgiveness and returning Esteban's letters to him. Mauricio had said how sorry
he was for transmitting the virus to him so many times that Javier felt bad,
and the letters. Mauricio had put them in an expensive leather portfolio, all
of them, carefully packed, and had handed the portfolio to Javier as if instead
of letters, it were full of gold coins. Certainly, it weighed almost as much.

Javier moved out of the condo he shared with Mauricio for
the last three years. In the end, it had been too hard to pay the mortgage
Mauricio refinanced to cover the cost of the lavish lifestyle they'd enjoyed in
the last two years.

Many times Javier thought of reminding Mauricio that he would
probably outlive him, but it would have been cruel to say such a thing. Those
last months had been hard for Mauricio, so Javier would have done anything to
please him. And ignoring the future seemed to be one of those things.

Javier had been born into a family of classical musicians,
and he'd completed his Masters of Music degree at the Juilliard School shortly
after he married Mauricio. His mother was a gifted pianist and his father a
talented violinist. After they married and had children, seeing the talent the
kids inherited, they formed a string quartet with their four kids, and made a
living entertaining at social events of all kinds.

It had been during one of those performances that Javier met
Mauricio. Javier usually ignored the people who'd attended the parties they
entertained, because his father was strict about it. When Mauricio had
approached Javier while his dad had been distracted with the host, and had
introduced himself using his seductive mild manners telling Javier that he
wanted to know him better, that he'd had been observing him for months at
different events, and his dream was to have a private performance, Javier had
fallen in love at the first hello.

At twenty-two and having been raised in a conservative way,
Javier had been easily seduced by the experienced man, and in spite of his
father's opposition, ended up living with Mauricio only a week after they
started dating. The rest was now history.

After Mauricio died, Javier had come back to his family's
home. He was devastated, but because his family wouldn't understand, he'd tried
to hide his pain. Of course, it was still there.

Regardless of how much his family needed him to perform in
their quartet, they didn't comprehend when he explained to them what being HIV
positive really meant.

"So you don't have AIDS after all?"

"I do."

He'd answered his older sister, who sat together with the
rest of the family in their living room. She had shaken her head, confused,
"But you said that you don't have any symptoms yet and that you might live
indefinitely."

Well, that was her; she'd never been polite or considerate.

Javier had made an effort to explain again. "Being HIV
positive means I carry the virus in my blood, but I haven't developed the
syndrome, yet. It could be years before I do, and with the new meds, I could
live many years of a healthy life."

"If that's so, why is Mauricio dead?"

The one who asked the question had been his younger brother,
who probably guessed by Javier's expression how unwelcome the words were, but
with a sigh, Javier answered.

"He found out too late that he was infected, but even
then, he got better with the medications, and his cell count was so low that he
stopped taking his medications because of the horrible side effects some
produced. I didn't know he wasn't taking his meds, I thought he'd adjusted to
the side effects. By the time
I discovered it, it was too
late, and his body didn't respond to the treatments anymore. Everyone reacts
differently to the virus. I hope to be one of those who do well."

He paused and looked at them. They were speechless at first,
then, with clenched fists at his side, Javier's father had blurted, "That
man was an irresponsible moron, and if he wasn't dead I would kill him!"

After that, he'd stormed out of the room, and everyone else
followed suit.

Javier stayed there wondering if coming back home had been
the right choice. He went to his room, and viewed the briefcase with Esteban's
letters. He had to deliver them, and afterward, maybe he could really put those
three years behind him and start over again. When that thought crossed his
mind, the realization that in order for that to happen he would need to leave
his family's home again, hit him almost in a physically painful way.

His mother kept cleaning with a bleach solution after him;
the whole house reeked of it. She kept a big plastic container with water and
bleach in the kitchen sink for Javier to put in it any tableware he used,
before it could be placed in the dishwasher. All of that was kind of
humiliating, because no matter how many times he'd explain the ways the virus
passed from one person to another, they didn't get it. He'd noticed how they
avoided touching him, how their relatives stop visiting, and if any of them
ever showed up, they didn't bring in their kids.

Then he'd cut himself while peeling an orange. The cut
wasn't that deep, but it bled as if it were. It had occurred while they all
were watching a TV show, which for a few minutes reminded Javier of when he was
a child, giving him a false sense of security.

It took merely seconds for his brothers and sister, followed
by his parents to walk away from him to a corner of the room, where it seemed
safe to stand.

Javier stayed sat, putting pressure over the cut in order to
make the bleeding stop. He'd felt ashamed, but mostly, hurt by the fact that
his family reacted as if his blood were radioactive, or he was some sort of
monster. Well, his blood carried a virus that could eventually kill, and he'd
read somewhere that legally if he spread his blood to anybody this could be
considered a weapon, so maybe his kin's reaction wasn't that wrong.

In the end, his mother handed him a first aid kit, somehow
he'd managed to mutter that he couldn't do anything holding his finger with his
hand. He suggested that she use gloves and help, she was about to do so, when
his father stopped her, saying that Javier simply needed a Band-Aid. She
extracted one from the box and set it on Javier's lap, moving back to her
position next to her husband. Javier put the Band-Aid over the cut, and walked
to the kitchen where he dropped the orange in the trash, after putting the
knife in the container of water with bleach.

Now, he spent more of his time in the backyard under that
tree, feeling like the dog the family never had. He wished there was some place
he could go, but his mind was somewhat blank now.

The sound of his cellular phone surprised him, because it
rarely sounded at all, very few people wanted talk with him. The fact that it
was Esteban Hidalgo's voice surprised him even more. Because he only called him
at night, and it was only noon, he answered his greeting still in shock.

"Javier, I'm leaving New York for the time being, and
thought of coming to your place to pick up the letters."

When Javier didn't say anything for a few seconds, Esteban
quickly added, "I hope this is not a bad time for you."

"No, on the contrary, I'm glad you called."

"Are you sure? I don't want to impose myself."

"Yep, when are you coming?"

"In about twenty minutes, if that is okay with
you?"

"Sure. I was thinking of calling you to find out when
was the best time for us to meet, so I could give you the letters."

"It doesn't have to be today, Javier. I can come back
when you're ready, and we can meet then."

"Today is fine! It's perfect, trust me!"

"Great, this is good timing for both of us. My usually
busy schedule has been unexpectedly cleared, so we will be able to spend some
time together. I'm looking forward to meeting you."

"Oh, I'm so sorry if you got laid off."

"I fired myself, or something to that effect. I'll
explain to you better when we meet."

"Okay. Esteban, you have no idea of how much I wanted
to talk with you again."

After a few seconds of silence Esteban asked, "Are you
okay, Javier? Is your family giving you a hard time again?"

That was the understatement of the century, but Javier
didn't want to admit it.

"We are not getting along as I thought we would;
they've changed." he paused, "scratch that, they are the same, I have
changed."

"I understand. Javier, the offer I extended the first
time we spoke still stands. If you want, you can come with me, and you can stay
with us as long as you feel like. Diego will be pleased to share time with
another musician."

Javier's brother-in-law, Diego Alvarez, had always been nice
to him, but suddenly he wanted to know if Diego was the "we" part of
us. Because Esteban always talked in plural, like there would be a whole town
waiting for him, or was it only Diego?

When Javier didn't say anything, Esteban added,
"Listen, you don't have to make your mind up right away. Come and visit
us, and decide if we are a better option than your family."

Javier thanked him again, and they agreed that he would be
picking him up to go to Hoboken after lunch, and Javier probably would stay for
dinner, or overnight, depending on how Javier felt.

The minute Javier ended the call he knew what to do, and
what he wanted, which was to be part of the life of Esteban Hidalgo, even if
only as a close friend.

For the first time ever, someone offered him a few choices
that depended only on what Javier wanted to do. He liked that, because in the
past it had been his father's will, and later Mauricio's that only mattered.

Today, he felt like following his own will.

In that instant, he realized that listening to Esteban
became his only pleasure, maybe his musician's ear had been touched by the
other man's rich baritone voice. Esteban definitely missed ghetto 101, his
manners over the phone were impeccable, and his diction, perfect.

During the times they spoke, Javier tried to guess more
about this mysterious person that had been his husband's best friend, and who
somehow had become the only brightness in his current state of mind.

Did he really grow up in the same neck of the woods as
Mauricio? If not, how did they meet? He'd asked Mauricio a couple of times and
all Javier got was that they had attended school together. Maybe it had been
college. Not many hints about Esteban's profession there, because Mauricio had
dropped out and hated to recall that time.