Înflori

Chapter 1: Însămânţa-5

Dustin had no idea why a wedding in April came with the express instructions to ‘dress warm’. Christina hadn’t been kidding either. She’d pulled up in…something that almost resembled a vehicle, albeit rattling, shaking, and puffing smoke, wearing full regalia—winter jacket, scarf, hat, gloves and boots—and promptly sent him back into his apartment to change. Twice.

He decided on well-fitting black jeans (“Slacks will be too chilly Dustin, trust me.”), high boots (“You do not want to wear those shoes if you like them, hon.”), and black leather gloves and jacket over a heavy gray sweater and scarf. It was the most bizarre outfit Dustin had ever worn to a wedding in his life. But he should have known it would be no ordinary wedding, Dustin thought, when they pulled up to the massive, unlit farmhouse and struggled to find a parking spot within walking distance; when they stepped out of the car and he was instantly met with the aroma of burning hardwood and the sounds of music. Somehow he should have known. “Christina?” Dustin called, stuck to the side of the car, suddenly terrified to go any further. She stalked back towards him, grabbed his forearm, and dragged him forward. “Come on,” she urged. “All you’re going to get standing here whining is cold. Besides,” she huffed, “after all this effort I want to see some guy on guy smooching tonight!”

Dustin frowned, yanked his hand back. “I’m kidding!” She laughed, then faked a serious expression. “Unless of course you can actually pull it off. Then I’m totally not.”

“Sick!”

“And why do I think that sick is just your kind of thing?” Christina asked playfully.

“Why would you say that?” Dustin asked, wounded. “You don’t even know me.”

Christina shrugged. “Just a hunch.” Then she grinned again. “We’re good with those kinds of things. Hunches, vibes, feelings. Papa and I both. Mama’s not bad either. I’m not sure if it’s a family thing or a people thing but I’m leaning towards our people. Because Nicolae’s not related and he is most certainly the king of the hunch.”

Dustin nodded. “Like you mean with the tea thing.”

She laughed. “No. I mean like with the ‘everything’ thing. You should see him with animals.”

“I did…”

“And weather! The man is just…weird when it comes to weather. If I didn’t know his mama personally, I would have sworn the man is a child of Mother Nature herself.” Christina wound her arm underneath his and began to walk towards the house. “I’m not entirely convinced he’s not anyway.”

Dustin dug his heels in and forced them both to stop in the gravel driveway. Christina looked up, he looked down, and the world seemed to freeze for a minute. “Do you think he’ll like me?”

Christina smiled warmly. “I think he already does.”

“Oh?” Dustin frowned. “Why would you say that?”

“No dogs,” she said. “Nico’s got two, Papa’s got one and at least three more live here. You’re a stranger. If Nicolae didn’t want you here you’d know by now.”

Panic gripped Dustin’s chest. “You think he knows I’m here?”

Once more feet were urged into steps. “I can guarantee it.

“In Dustin’s mind the words were met with the ominous sounds of heavy bass and dark violins.

Flames towered behind the house. No mere bonfire, this. Above the fire, wandering sparks skipped in pantomime of the figures below, some standing, some milling, some kicking up heels and swinging partners alongside. The entire space was alive with activity. Smoke didn’t seem to linger, it was swept high and away, while guests ate and chatted, danced and sang. A small band, from the looks of them no more than guests themselves, sat and stood in varying poses while happy notes poured from where fingers met instruments. “Food,” Christina pointed. She flitted to the left. “Wine.” Then she touched Dustin’s shoulder and pressed him off to the right. “Nico.” Then she was gone, swept up in a clutch of chattering young women, and whisked towards a lively group of dancers. Dustin watched her leave, felt a moment of disconcertion, and shrank back against the wall of what he assumed was a barn. While rough wood brushed finish from expensive leather and the heels of his boots sank into mud, Dustin watched Nicolae with the fascination of a child. Once again fashion had been pushed aside for comfort and convenience, and once again it still managed to look right on Nicolae’s frame. Heavy pants, perhaps corduroy, perhaps wool, a thick dark sweater, and long coat draped Nicolae’s form as the man sprawled lengthwise on the bench of a picnic table. Reflected flames gave Nicolae a look of youth and vitality and Dustin couldn’t help but wonder what the light did to his eyes.

Nicolae’s body swayed along with the music, even in repose, keeping perfect time to flute and strings. A large tumbler sat ignored on the table beside him, kept company by an all but empty plate. Dustin felt a twinge of hunger that he fought to ignore, not certain if the sensation stemmed from the intense aromatic presence of the heavily laden tables of food, or the man himself. He was suddenly at a loss, and Dustin was never at a loss when it came to seduction. No man had ever inspired the urge to hide. If anything, his usual reaction was the exact opposite: outright attack-mode. Find a target, coerce it, woo it, f**k it, and slink away. This man, however, this Nicolae, was so very different that it threw Dustin into a tailspin. That scared him. It freaking terrified him.

Dustin watched Nicolae lift his hand, wave over another man, younger, smaller, and say something into the man’s ear. Then Dustin watched in interest that quickly grew to absolute horror as the young man stood, looked in Dustin’s direction, and began to walk. Dustin drew back further, pressing harder against the barn, silently begging every known deity to cloak, to hide, to completely assimilate Dustin into the wood if need be.

“You,” the young man said, pointing. “There against the wall. Please step out into the light.”

Thought lifted a plea for diversion. Every nerve tensed. Yet it was impossible to stop his body from following the directive. “Nicolae has requested that I ask you to stop lurking in the dark.”

“I was not…” Dustin swallowed hard. “Lurking. I was just, uh, getting a feel for everything.”

“I see,” the man said, and nodded towards Nicolae. “You should go and say hello. I’ll get you some wine.”

The walk through hell, to face one’s accusers, could not feel more treacherous than the walk towards Nicolae did. As the fire danced, as people moved out of the way to let Dustin pass, every flicker of instinct was on alert. Even though Dustin knew that Nicolae could not see his advance, he had no doubt that Nicolae knew he approached. Like a moth to the flame, Dustin recalled from some long drawn out passage from his youth; pulled by warmth, by comfort, but to the unavoidable result of consumption.

“And you find me,” Nicolae said when the distance was gone and Dustin stood within the range of comfortable speech. Nicolae lowered his heels to the ground and patted the bench alongside. “Now you can tell me why.”

Butterflies began uproarious flights within Dustin’s stomach; meandering out to brush teasing wings all the way from chest to bowel. “I…did. Tell you why?”

“Yes,” Nicolae prompted. “Why did you search me out? What do you need?”

“I need…” and Dustin’s mind provided the good reaction to stop his tongue before it foolishly uttered the “you.” “To say thank you. For the tea.”

Nicolae made a sound that could have been taken as acceptance, or amusement. “You went to some trouble for a simple thank you. But, if that’s your wish, consider yourself most welcome.” Nicolae once again lifted his heels back to the bench and began to whistle to the music. Dustin frowned. Was the man being smug? Or making a point?

Dustin tried again. “And…” Words failed him.

“Ah.” Nicolae let his legs fall for a second time and reiterated his call to the bench with another light tap of palm. “There is always an ‘and.’“ Nicolae waited, head tilted, and Dustin could only imagine what the other man must have been thinking as Dustin stood in front of him and stuffed and unstuffed pockets with fists, shifting weight from foot to foot like a preschooler with a full bladder. “Please,” Nicolae said, “sit.” And though his voice was lowered, there was a commanding tone that made Dustin’s knees want to buckle. The choice between sitting beside Nicolae and falling to his knees had Dustin moving quickly.

Was it reality or mere fantasy that voices suddenly seemed that much further away, Dustin asked himself? As he sat beside Nicolae and found the man’s eyes, did the fire really seem that much warmer? Or the sky so much darker? “And…to meet you. I guess.”

It was only an inch that Nicolae moved, a lean to bring Dustin’s quiet words closer to his ear, but it made Dustin’s heart start to beat like Nicolae had just offered to remove clothing and dance naked. An eyebrow lifted subtlety up Nicolae’s forehead. “So, have you met me?”

“Yes?” Dustin said, because damn it, what were you supposed to say to that?

“And?”

“And…” A million things came to the forefront of Dustin’s mind: and your eyes really are mesmerizing in the firelight, and I’m pretty sure I’ll never get your face out of my mind now, and would you be totally against me stripping bare and letting you f**k me senseless right here, right now, on the table? Dustin settled for socially acceptable. “And it’s a pleasure to meet you.” Nicolae smiled. “But we haven’t really met, have we? I do not even know your name.”

Dustin gave his name, almost too quickly, ridiculously pleased that Nicolae would ask. It was a question, in all fairness, that did not make it into many of the conversations Dustin had with other men. Nicolae hummed. “How fitting: dust. That which we come from, to that which we end. Scattered on wind or lying silent on dune. Worn on the shirt of every downtrodden man and scraped from the foot of every wealthy one. Dust is everywhere, unconquerable and yet constantly fought against. The ultimate contradiction.”

“Uh.” Dustin shifted nervously. “I think it means fighter or something.”

The frown that Nicolae turned his way almost made Dustin flinch. “I do not care what it means to anyone else. I only care what it means to me. Or, perhaps, to you. Does it, Dustin? Mean anything to you? And do watch to your left.”

“It’s just a name,” Dustin scoffed, turning his head slightly, not seeing anything although not really paying attention either, and raised both hands in a gesture of question. “Whoops,” came a voice and Dustin watched, mortified, as his fingers knocked the tumbler of wine being handed his way before it was gripped again by another set of fingers. Stunned, Dustin stared at the blind man that had just caught a full tumbler of wine without spilling a single drop. “I did tell you to mind,” Nicolae said.

Dustin ignored the reprimand. “How’d you do that?”

Nicolae’s expression softened though he didn’t outright smile. “I reached?”

“Ha, ha,” Dustin deadpanned. “How did you know where to reach? How did you know he was coming? You…you’re,” Dustin pointed, a gesture no doubt lost to the man in front of him, but Dustin wasn’t sure how to say it without sounding rude. He decided to stop trying. “Blind, right?”

“Blind?” Nicolae’s lips quirked. “Never.”

“So you can see?” Dustin frowned. “Or no?”

Nicolae handed Dustin the cup and then reached for his own. “I see,” he said, “that my definition of sight and vision are not the same as yours. Perhaps, Dustin, you are the one who is blind?”

Dustin blinked. “Are you always this cryptic?” The question inspired a reaction that just about melted Dustin’s soul. Nicolae put his head back and laughed, a deep, throaty laugh of the likes that Dustin had not heard in a long time. It was neither faked nor forced. It was the kind of sound that encouraged a smile out of everyone who heard it. “Actually, yes.” Nicolae finally chuckled. “It is, apparently, a fault of mine.” He held the wine out in front of him. “Dustin, my friend, it is a pleasure to meet you.”

A shy smile played on Dustin’s face. He didn’t know why he was smiling, but it felt good to relax the suspicious frown off his forehead, to soften the pull at the sides of his mouth. Dustin clinked his glass against Nicolae’s suspended one. “No, sir. The pleasure is all mine.”