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It’s one of their usual evenings. Just the two of them, sipping wine and reading with the record player playing in the background. They sometimes get up and dance across the room, feeling the call of the music.
Andres is the nearest to the player, so he changes the vinyl when the one playing stops. He spotted that in Martin’s collections and decided to put it one because Martin never did.
He moves the stylus to the plate and sits again. The notes from “Shut up an dance” start spreading trough the room.
Martin literally freezes, with his book still in one hand, clenching his jaw thigyly.
Then he tries to shrug it of and act unaffected. He gets up and get a random vinyl from the library.
“Oh, this one is here” he says, with the worst fake surprised face Andres had ever seen on him. “I’ve been looking for it all week, we have to listen to this one”and while saying so he is already stopping the other one on the plate.
“Martin?”
“Mm”
“What’s wrong with that song?”
“Nothing, just wanted to listen to this one”. He similes and he could trick everyone, but not Andrés.
“Martin, you haven’t been looking for that one, we listened to it literally last night. And you literally jumped off the chair to stop it, don’t act like I am dumb”
Maritin is looking at the floor, like his shoes are the most interesting thing in the whole room.
Andres gets closer to him and lifts his chin up to look him in the eyes. “You don’t have to explain if you don’t want to, just, don’t lie to me, ok?”
Martin was quiet for some time and Andres went back sitting. He had just picked up his book again when Martin speaks.
“Do you remember your first kiss?”
“What?”
“Your first kiss, do you remember it?”
“Oh, yes. It was some girl with brown hair I met at the bus stop in front of my old house. I think her name was Kelly, or something like that. Why do you ask?”
“Because mine is what’s wrong with that song”
It’s quiet in the room, Andrés doesn’t want to force him into speaking but he puts his book aside to show him that he is listening.
“You know how every one describes their first kiss, right? “ Marint begins “ The rush of adrenaline because you don’t know how this is going to be, the lust for your partner, the warmth inside when you finally kiss. When I try to remember mine, it is nothing like that. All I remember is fear. The fear of being discovered by my family, the fear of him being straight and outing me to everyone, the fear of what would my life be if I let myself love a boy, the fear of everything I could lose with just a single kiss.”
Andres moves from the armchair to the sofa and leaves a spot on it for Martin too. Martin sits down too, but he is facing the wall in front of him to not look at Andres.
“His name was Luca. One day I invited him over, because no one else was going to be home. When he entered in my room I was so nervous that I put on some music to lightening the mood. When this one started he asked me to dance, laying his hand out for me. I was so nervous I had to concentrate a lot to not step on his feet. At half of the song I tripped into the carpet and we both fell down. As the song continued to play I sat on the floor next to him with my legs crossed. I was so unsure but he got closer so I gave in and kissed him. It would have been better if I hadn’t.”
“Why? Was he straight? Wasn’t he into you?”
Martin laughs, a sound deeper and more broken that his usual one.
“That’s not the case, he reciprocated, how could he not be attracted to me?” His impression of a smile is the most far things ever from a real one.
“Then why don’t you like the song?” Andrés can’t hide that he was by now genuinely curious.
“Because that one time I miscalculated. My mother come back home earlier than what I though. She entered the room just in time to see us kiss. It would have taken just a second more not to get caught, but we didn’t got it. My first kiss ended because she pushed us apart screaming before we could even realize she was in the house too. I was left alone in my room with the record player still playing the end of the song while she dragged Luca out of the house by the arm screaming at me what a slut I was and to him to never come back. And he did, I never sow him again”.
Andres slides an arm round his shoulder and pulls him closer.
Maritin had finished talking but not thinking. There was no need to tell Andres that when his father got back just half an hour later he beaten him until he couldn’t breath. There was no reason to tell that his mother locked him into the closet until after dinner, in the most thick dark Marint has ever been in for all of his life. There is no reason to tell him this too, but the same there is no way he can forget that.
He is still deep in though when Andres gets up and makes that vinily start aging, and it’s almost too much, the combo between music and memories, like the worst of all flashback.
But his mind doesn’t have the time to sink down because Andres is next to the sofa, holing his hand out and saying” Dance with me?”
And Martin doesn’t even know when he took his hand but he finds himself dancing to the beat in Andres arms.
In his mind everything is double. He sees his moccasins sliding on the floor and at the same time he sees old black convers ,a little smaller, dancing on the floor of his old bedroom. And when Andres makes him trip in his own feet and seats with him on the floor, his eyes water. Then, when he comes closer and kisses him, he doesn’t make any noise but tears start to slide on his checks.
When they part he whispers to Andres with the voice he can make pass trough the lump in his troath.
“Why did you do all of this?”
Andres response makes him lose it completely and start sobbing.
“Because you too deserve a good first kiss”
Then he hugs him thigh and continue whispering into his ear.
“Because you deserve to smile at this song and not freeze. Because you deserve a love without fear. Because your mother was wrong, you are the most intelligent and brave person I have ever met. Because they feared your love because theirs wasn’t even big as a quarter of yours. Because there is nothing wrong with you. Because I love you”
When Marint calms down Andres shifts a little to look him in the eyes.
“Healing is dancing to the same song you used to cry to. Now you can dance to this one too” and then he hugs him again.
This time when the vinyl ends, Martin is crying again, but this are tears of happiness and love, and pain and shame have no place in them.