The Musician and the Monster Read online

  “Oberon, I just—” said Ángel, his chest tight with anxiety, “I just want you to know that I’m here. I’m here for you, for however long you need me. Not because of what my dad did, or because of the contract I signed, but because I want to be. I want to be what you need. Even though I’m not, I’ll try. You can trust me to always be here and to always try, okay? I promise.” He gulped. “So you don’t have to say things like that.”

  “Thank you,” said Oberon, his tone warm, his skin fragrant, like jasmine and browned butter. “Oh, thank you. I’m happy for that, Ángel, truly. But how can you not understand? You’ve touched me. You know that I desire you. You are desirable. I admire you because you are admirable. I call you beloved because I love you.”

  Ángel’s breath was hot in his lungs.

  Oberon could feel it, surely: his bewilderment, his anxiety, his disbelief. He went on, “I promise you. Once we have learned each other, Ángel, and changed each other, and grown together, I will be yours, and you will be mine, in a way that no one else will ever know or understand. We are a new thing in the universe, and I love it. You are precious to me. I love you and I always will.”

  But Ángel didn’t believe him, and Oberon clearly knew it.

  “You’re angry?” he asked. “But . . . No, you’re not angry. You’re afraid. I don’t understand why you’re afraid.”

  “Well, you don’t know me very well.”

  Because this was, seriously, just an epic misunderstanding. It had to be. A failure to communicate of magical proportions. Born of desperation and sex and loneliness-gone-crazy. A basic inability to understand.

  No one loved Ángel, not really. Not once they got to know him. And the idea that he could be transformed by Oberon’s love into something lovable . . . permanently changed, unfit for anything or anyone else . . .

  “Oberon,” he said. “I can’t. I can’t. I will be here for you every day and every night for the rest of your life, if that’s what you need, but I don’t think I can be a new mandolin.”

  “We are saying the same thing,” Oberon said gently. He extended his hand again, his voice soft. “Come to me. Let’s go to sleep,” he urged. “We can argue another day. Tonight, come and sleep, and don’t be afraid. Sleep, and I’ll keep you safe. Tomorrow you can make coffee and explain Christmas carols to me.”

  Ángel nodded and went into his arms.

  “Welcome to The Oberon Podcast,” said Oberon into the microphone the next morning. “I’m Oberon, the cultural envoy from the Otherworld. Joining me, as always, is Ángel Cruz.”

  “Hi,” said Ángel.

  They had reversed the usual format of the podcast for this episode: Oberon was interviewing Ángel. Oberon had slightly mimicked Ángel’s speaking cadence, possibly not enough for anyone but Ángel to notice.

  Ángel grinned at him.

  He was warm and full of coffee. He’d taken a long walk in the snow after breakfast, and when he got back Oberon had kissed him. He felt young and strong and in love, and the fears and insecurities of the night felt insignificant. He loved Oberon, and Oberon needed him and liked him and enjoyed him. Everything else was semantics. They were together. For as long as it lasted.

  “So, Ángel, what do you do for a living?”

  “I’m a session musician.”

  “Can you tell us what that means?”

  “Well, I sing and play guitar. Usually acoustic. If you’re recording an album, or doing a show, and you need a good guitarist, you can hire me. Or maybe you’re producing a TV show and you want some nice interstitial music; you can hire me to play it. Or if you’re an ad agency and you want someone strumming a guitar in your commercial, you can hire me for that too.”

  “You’re based in Miami?”

  “Yes. I think you used to have to be in New York or LA or Nashville if you wanted to do this for a living, but the music industry has really decentralized. So usually I’m in Miami, but I’ve gone up to Nashville to play a lot too.”

  “What else?”

  “In between that kind of gig, I like to play live music. I never want to give up live performing. It’s what I first loved about music. I’ve toured with musicians, and I’ve played a lot of bars and things around Florida. I don’t make a steady income that way, but playing live is fun. So if you’ve ever sipped a beer in a hotel bar in Fort Lauderdale or Sanibel Island, and there was a guy in the corner playing Cuban songs on the guitar, that might have been me.”

  “Are you in a band?”

  “Sort of? Sometimes people want to hire an ensemble to record, not just one guy, and so there are musicians that I partner with quite often. Marissa Sommers and Tonio Ortiz. I guess there’s a YouTube going around of the three of us playing a pretty wild party. That was before I started to get steady session work.”

  “We have a recording of you playing in a commercial,” said Oberon. “Let’s hear it.”

  He touched the tablet to launch the clip. A folky acoustic guitar melody filled the room, while a man with an attractive, gravelly voice said, “It’s summertime in Alberta, and the oats are ripening beneath the morning sun.”

  Ángel was laughing when the clip came to a close. As usual, they had outlined what they wanted to talk about on this episode, but they hadn’t actually scripted the conversation. “Okay, so. If you’ve ever seen this oatmeal commercial,” he said, the giggle probably coming through on the recording, “you know there’s this really handsome guy sitting in front of a barn, playing a guitar as he surveys his field of oats. That is not me. He’s an actor, and they’ve got him wearing farmer clothes, like, overalls? But he’s making that shit look good.”

  “So you enjoyed this job?” asked Oberon, his voice warm with humor. He actually sounded flirty.

  “Not like you mean,” chided Ángel. “I never met the guy. I was in a sound studio in Florida, and he was in an oat field somewhere. He’s not playing that guitar. The guitar is me. Also, I’m pretty sure that’s not him talking, either. That’s a voice-over actor. So there’s actually three of us, but they layered it all together to make it seem like the hot guy is playing and talking.”

  “I find that rather strange,” said Oberon. “Why not just hire one person to play and talk?”

  “I don’t know. I’m glad they didn’t, though, or they wouldn’t have hired me. I don’t look anything like an oat farmer.”

  “Tell us some of the other work you’ve done.”

  So Ángel talked about some of his other collaborations, and they played a few more clips. They wrapped up the interview with Oberon saying, “Ángel, why aren’t you a famous recording artist?”

  “Because I didn’t want to take that path. Everyone pays attention to the celebrities, but the music industry is full of people like me, you know, who love to play music, but don’t want to be big stars. I look at the stuff that famous people put up with, and it’s too much. It’s not for me.”

  “You mean fame.”

  “Fame, yes. Some people really want fame. They want everyone to hear their music and love it, and I get that. I get it. But they pay a high price too. Everyone knows their face, everyone knows their business. I never wanted that.”

  “Ángel,” said Oberon gently, “your picture was recently on the cover of Us Weekly.”

  “I know! Isn’t that crazy? I didn’t mean for that to happen. I especially didn’t mean for reporters and photographers to start following my friends and ex-boyfriends around, hounding them with questions.” He let his voice grow serious. “Listen, if you’re a reporter, could you not do that? We’d all be grateful, okay? Yes, I am gay. Yes, I am friends with Oberon. We play music together sometimes. No, I’m not going to talk about my personal life, not just because it’s no one’s business, but also because there are scary people out there. None of us intended to become targets. Including Oberon.”

  “It is my biggest concern,” said Oberon. “By being my friend, you and your friends have been exposed to danger of violence. Neither of us really anticipated that,
when we started this podcast. That was foolish of us.”

  “Last time you made a public appearance, people threw Molotov cocktails and set fire to the building you were in.”

  “Yes. I would like to make more public appearances—since we started this podcast we have had many invitations to do live interviews and events. I would like to listen to live music. But we get death threats too, and it’s usually very dangerous. Not only for me, but for everyone nearby.”

  “Because people want to kill you,” clarified Ángel.

  “I think most people don’t. There are a few people who are angry. Perhaps they are afraid. But most people understand that, like you, I am just a person who wanted to spend my life playing and studying music. When the opportunity came to travel to another land to study music— Imagine what an exciting opportunity that was! What musician, what scholar of music, would not go to learn about music from another people?”

  “Not me,” said Ángel. “Too scary for me.”

  “Well, but I did not foresee the Molotov cocktails. And certainly, I did not foresee that my friends”—Oberon purred the words—“would be in danger too.”

  “So we’d like to thank all of our listeners who support this podcast,” said Ángel, “and who understand that we’re— I mean, I know it’s funny, because he is a magical being from a different world. But we’re just people who like music. I’m not a fame-whore. He’s not a monster. He’s a scholar, and I’m his friend, and that’s kind of the most important thing.”

  Oberon chimed in, “We would also like to thank those who gave us permission to play their songs on this episode, including the makers of Alberta Oats. And the Department of Otherworld Relations for making this podcast possible. And thank you, Ángel.”

  “See you next time, Oberon.”

  They turned off the recording and sat back in their chairs. Ángel felt exhilarated, his heart beating like a bird’s wings in his chest.

  “They will have to edit it a little,” said Oberon. “You said ‘shit.’”

  “Oh, whoops. Can they just cut that line?”

  “It was rather funny,” he said, gravely. “I will suggest they keep it.”

  Oberon was radiating contentment, both in his voice and in the air that filled the room, and Ángel wondered, not for the first time, if it was possible to become intoxicated by the magic rising from his skin. He felt intoxicated now, flush with pleasure and anticipation.

  “Can you control the security feed to this room?” he asked. “Turn it off?”

  Oberon wordlessly reached for his laptop and pressed some buttons.

  “The mikes too,” said Ángel. “Everything off.”

  “Everything is off.”

  He eased out of his chair and crawled onto Oberon’s lap, straddling him, wrapping his arms around Oberon’s shoulders. Oberon’s arms encircled his waist, and he rested against Oberon’s body. They breathed together for a moment.

  “I just came out to millions of people,” Ángel said.

  “You’re out already?”

  “Yeah, but you sort of do it again and again, with every new person you meet. I guess now that the entire world knows, I probably won’t have to do it anymore.”

  “Do you want to edit that part out? Or scrap the episode?”

  “No.” He leaned his cheek against Oberon’s shoulder. “It’s fine. It’s the only way to be, really.”

  Oberon stroked his back. “We think—in the Otherworld—that everyone is male and female both, sometimes. That it can change over time, that it’s . . . It’s not the most important thing about people. We are influenced by the magic of one another, constantly . . . It is not our way, to think that men must only love women, or women must only love men. Or that there’s a wrong way to have sex or to love. The only wrong thing is to violate the magic. To try to force or pollute it . . . But if the magic is there and true between people—” he gently pulled up Ángel’s T-shirt and ran a thumb across Ángel’s bare back, making Ángel shiver “—there can be nothing wrong.”

  Ángel shifted a little in the chair, tightening his embrace, wanting to feel more of the magic. “I was taught that it was the most wrong thing.”

  “So was I,” said Oberon, “when I first arrived here. I think the DOR was very shocked by me.” His fingers caressed Ángel’s back in little circles. “I was so frightened, and I needed comfort. Do you understand?”

  “Did you try to touch someone?”

  “I tried to touch everyone,” Oberon admitted. “Oh, it took me a long time to learn not to try to touch people. But by that point everyone was horrified by me. They told me I was too much. They told me that I was unacceptable. And they were right, of course.”

  “They were wrong,” whispered Ángel.

  “Someone shot me. I almost bled to death. They told me it was partly my fault, for being so . . . so elfin. So fae. So they made me cut my hair, and they bought me clothes.”

  “Oh my God.” Ángel pulled back, staring into Oberon’s still face. “The black clothes, the short hair—that comes from the DOR?”

  “They thought if I looked more like a man, I’d be safer. And they would be safer, the ones who have to protect me. So I try to look like a man. But it doesn’t work.”

  Ángel cupped Oberon’s face in his hands, thumbs stroking his high cheekbones. Oberon’s face was as still and remote and beautiful as the moon, but at some point Ángel had stopped seeing it like that, frightening and perfect and strange. Maybe it was the magic, tingling in his palms as he caressed Oberon’s smooth cheeks, his jaw, tunneled his fingertips into Oberon’s soft white-gold hair.

  “You’re in the closet. You’re pretending to be someone you’re not to keep safe. I don’t know why I never realized that before.”

  “I’m not as brave as you.”

  “No,” Ángel said, “no, you’re a thousand times braver than me. But I wonder if they were wrong. I wonder if they shouldn’t have defied everyone and showed the world the real you.”

  “I don’t know,” said Oberon. “It’s hard, when people hate you.”

  Ángel nodded. He knew that.

  “They thought people would hate me less if I pretended. You’re the only one who’s ever thought they’d hate me less if they really knew me.”

  He thought of Oberon’s room—the thick carpets on the floor, the piles of down duvets on the bed. “You like soft things against your skin,” he guessed, tugging at the crisp collar of Oberon’s shirt. “Not this. You like silk and cashmere. You have a blue silky robe that you never wear.”

  “You looked at my things.”

  Ángel’s hands thrilled with magic. Oberon smelled peppery, and his voice had gone hot. Oberon was delighted that Ángel had looked at his things.

  “Bring your soft blankets to my room,” whispered Ángel. “Wear your pretty robe when you’re alone with me. When it’s just us, when no one can see you but me, you can be yourself.”

  “I can.” Oberon was whispering too. The signs of his arousal bloomed on the white skin of his throat, and the air hummed with sex. “Oh, Ángel. How I need you.”

  Ángel slid off Oberon’s lap to his knees, stroked up Oberon’s thighs, parting them. He nibbled Oberon’s stomach through the fabric of that hateful crisp black shirt, and then pushed the shirt up to press his open mouth to Oberon’s flat abdomen.

  “Ángel,” murmured Oberon, his hands gently stroking into Ángel’s hair.

  Ángel licked and nibbled the lustrous suede-like skin that covered Oberon’s abdomen, hairless and strange and delicious against his tongue. He undid Oberon’s belt and zipper, and Oberon lifted his hips to let Ángel slide his pants down. His penis bobbed free, erect but not large.

  He took the moment to examine him. The rosettes turned into red-brown ringlets on his cock, like a raccoon’s tail. The skin was rougher at the base, napped like velvet, but smooth and shining-slick on the shaft and tip. Ángel nuzzled him, pushing his legs apart and licking his body, his balls, probing with his tongu
e, sucking. Oberon moaned. His head had fallen back against his chair, his pelvis canted up to give Ángel better access.

  “You can get a little bigger, baby,” Ángel whispered, and watched. Oberon’s dick pulsed, swelled before his eyes. Longer, thicker through the length, while the head stayed relatively small. Silky and flushed. “Nice,” said Ángel. “Right there.”

  Ángel sucked the tip of the cock into his mouth, then slowly went all the way down, pulling him all the way in. It was smoother than a human penis. Small roundish head, widening to a thick bulge on the shaft that opened Ángel’s mouth. No foreskin, but the skin on the whole shaft was satiny and slightly loose, and Ángel moved it with his lips and tongue, up and down. Oberon liked it slow.

  Moisture flooded Ángel’s mouth. Not spurting from the tip of Oberon’s cock—he wasn’t coming—but the whole length, tip to base, flushed with slippery moisture, musky-sweet. Ángel sucked, swallowed. He could taste Oberon’s pleasure, take it into himself. Ángel’s mind whirled; he felt drunk, painfully aroused. The lube kept coming out of Oberon’s skin, too much for him to take in, so he let it flow out of his mouth as he bobbed his head, and at the same time grappled his own jeans open. He pulled up long enough to gather a handful of lubrication from Oberon’s weeping cock and began to jack off with it, sucking Oberon back into his throat while steadily working his slickened fist on his own dick.

  Oberon began to pant. Ángel was barely holding on himself, his balls tight, his skin burning, his hand rubbing Oberon’s sex magic right into his skin while he drank him up, more and more. More. Oberon cried out and gripped his chair and began to come, his head thrown back, seed pouring out of him in a long gush. Ángel tried to take it in, choked, pulled off, pressed his face to Oberon’s belly as he came, sweet and piercing, onto the chair and Oberon’s legs. Oberon gasped, come surging out of him into Ángel’s hair, onto his neck and face. Ángel wrapped his arms around Oberon’s waist, and Oberon collapsed forward onto him, his cock still emitting spurts of come onto Ángel. By the time he was done, Ángel was laughing.