IV:
A little later we'd both dressed in loose-fitting T-shirts and shorts and nice, open airy sandals without socks. My shorts were a bit longer and more elaborate and had a lot of pockets, and straps at the bottom that you could pull for some reason like maybe if you wanted to shoplift and put your loot inside your pants or something. I don't know what they're for, really!
We went to Jon-Jon's parents' room, where they all sat on the balcony in the shade. The giant hotel cast a huge shadow diagonally off to the side now that the sun was lower in the sky, and I realized that in the mornings, the rear side of the hotel would probably get sunlight, while "our" side would be left in shadow.
Holger never got his cold one; his wife had immediately forbidden any use of the minibar fridge when coming back to the room due to the outrageous prices of everything listed on the inside of the small fridge door, so all we did was sit and chill together in the pleasant afternoon air. It would have been even more pleasant without the constant sound of cars going along the road behind the seemingly endless row of hotels, but hey... You can't have everything, I guess. I tried to block it out as best I could, and instead focused on the olive tree orchards on the hills up above and around the town. I pictured Heracles, or perhaps Jason and his Argonauts off on some adventure walking around up there, tracking their foe when I felt Jon-Jon's hand loosely encircle my wrist. He was looking at me, and I realised he'd probably been looking for quite some time. Again he seemed very happy. His sister on the other hand appeared completely bored with everything, in that sullen way teens can get when they try to appear older and more mature than they really are and fail.
Suddenly Jon-Jon started giggling as if he'd just remembered something funny. "You know why the Egyptian Pharaohs couldn't stay up late in the evening?", he asked rethorically in that way you do when you're telling a joke.
"No, why?", I said, following standard formula. I actually didn't know, so I was telling the truth.
He had this really peculiar expression of being on the verge of bursting of eagerness to reveal the punchline. "Because their mummies wouldn't let them." He laughed uproariously at his own 'joke', his sister Marie shaking her head at us both like we were the two lamest people on the planet. Our parents merely smiled slightly, either too old to appreciate the simple nature of the joke, or maybe they'd heard it before long ago. I don't ever wanna get old and rigid in my mind!
Even though Marie was probably right in that the joke was pretty damn lame, I still giggled. I realised myself that I giggled not so much because of the joke, but because I was with Jon-Jon, and we were enjoying each others' company. It was an uncomplicated moment in our lives, and therefore very relaxing.
Having calmed down, we got up and went over to the balcony railing to look out. Jon-Jon stood close to me and appeared very shy, yet happy. I was really beginning to love that aspect of him, his gentle happy-like qualities. It sort of sublimated out of his body, like dry ice creates carbon dioxide vapors that pour away from it. I took a peek at his face and he was blushing and smiling to himself, feeling me inching up next to him.
After about an hour or so, we went back to our room to get ready for dinner. We weren't going to change, me an Jon-Jon, but our parents wanted to dress up a little I guess. For what reason I don't quite understand; we're tourists! No need to get fancy, right?
But they did, and our mothers painted their faces a bit, to feel all proper and stuff I guess, as did Marie as well. I nearly gasped when I saw her, she wore a deeply-cut and colorful dress that fit snugly around her chest and waist and left off about halfway down her thighs, and you could see A LOT of her large, perky boobies! The make-up she wore and her shoulder-length straight hair held back from her face with a black, plastic headband with sparkly stones set into it almost made her look like she was like seventeen years old or something, it was rather scary. A seventeen-year-old who looked fourteen and actually was only fourteen. A pedo's wet dream in the flesh, scary!
Jon-Jon giggled when he saw I was looking at her. "She likes to draw attention to herself."
"As does someone else too I think." I nudged him in the side.
"Who, me?" He blushed an almost crimson red.
I sort of wanted to kiss him right then I guess, he was easily as pretty as her even without the make-up and fancy clothes, but I wasn't sure boys are supposed to do that. Copping a feel of each other, alright, that's not too serious. I'd done that before. But kissing? It occurred to me, that's kinda girly, isn't it? Kissing's what mothers like to watch on TV, the man - often with a square jaw and a moustache and/or beard stubble - kind of lifting the women off their feet. Not literally, but emotionally. And then there'd be a lot of tongue-slobbering which just goes on and on and on, which is kind of yucky to watch I think.
Anyway, with his family all there I sure wasn't going to kiss him regardless of if it's girly or not, I didn't even have to think it to know it.
"Let's just walk along the beach and see what we find", Kirsten suggested/ordered. "I don't want anything complicated today, we can save the town for the other evenings." Holger mumbled something about it being even easier going downstairs to the enormous hotel buffet we all knew would be served, but his wife just pretended she didn't hear him. Marie had also expected us to go down to the hotel restaurant I'm sure, because a look of petulant annoyance crossed her face when it became obvious we weren't headed in that direction.
Once outside, we noticed traffic had died down a little once evening started to fall, we followed the road further along the coast as it curved gently. Behind us, the sun had seemingly grown gigantic and blood red, as it was slipping down beneath the horizon.
Within about fifteen minutes we reached what looked like a nice Greek tavern overlooking the ocean. The area where the tables sat was open to the air on all sides, except the one facing the road where there was a wall made of weaved tough plastic orange bands that looked kind of tacky, while a roof held up on metal poles lent protection from above. The roof connected to a small concrete building on the side, where the kitchen and stuff was located, and the whole tavern sat on a tall foundation that while just a few steps above road level, meant it was about two and a half meters above the top of the beach. A slightly scruffy and rusted iron rail protected people from falling down, while a stair allowed access down to the beach. Naked lightbulbs hung from cables strung from the sloping overhead roof cover, casting a mild, yellow glow over everything that only just barely reached out into the darkness. Everything started turning dark only a few steps out onto the beach.
"This place looks nice", Kirsten said and nodded to herself.
"You mean it looks cheap", Marie complained, obviously favoring Holger's suggestion of eating in the elegant and extremely modern hotel restaurant instead. Perhaps she'd expected to meet the tall and dark stranger with the slicked-back hair she'd met at the pool earlier in the day, and that's why she'd dressed up that way.
Kirsten gave her a mild look, unusual for a mother of a petulant teen I thought. "Don't be so narrowminded. Most taverns look like this, it doesn't mean the quality of the food's bad."
"Whatever." It was really funny to see her whole demeanor change when we went up the steps into the tavern proper, and a slender and extremely handsome Greek youth wearing long black pants and a white, clean short-sleeved shirt appeared next to us as if out of thin air, wondering in his soft-accented voice if we wanted to be seated. I'd say he seemed no older than fifteen or so, certainly not old enough to shave yet because his cheeks were still baby-smooth, but he handled himself with the speedy kind of professionalism and skill you only get from having worked some years already. He got us all seated quickly and efficiently at a table near the ocean - the small tavern was only sparsely populated - and put out menus and little baskets with bread which we all started devouring immediately, and took our orders for drinks. Marie seemed completely infatuated, and the boy waiter flashed her smiles with his blindingly white teeth and exotic looks with his black-lashed amber almond eyes.
Me and Jon-Jon looked at him as well, but he was so clearly tuned onto the opposite sex it was just for reference, sort of. You can't get interested in a guy who isn't at all interested in you, even though he's handsome as hell.
"Octopus? Yuck!" He made a ridiculously comical face that just cracked me up something fierce. "No, I don't think I want that." I knew why. It wasn't really because he was picky with his food or anything like that, but because we'd been shown a movie in school about marine wildlife and that lots of species were becoming endangered. The octopus was portrayed as a shy, sensitive and intelligent creature, and I guess Jon-Jon just didn't have the heart to eat them. I know I couldn't.
...Not to mention the way that mollusk on the screen had crawled around the seabed in the weirdest, most freaky fashion you could imagine! It sort of flowed along the sandy bottom, sending out arms ahead of itself to grab stuff and pull itself forwards, squeezing itself through even the smallest gaps between rocks and such. The way it changed color and skin texture was also incredibly freaky, what looked like a lump of ordinary coral suddenly sort of started quivering and melting and shot ink in the face of one of the divers and rocketed away. I know I too would have found it difficult stomaching something like that, even if octopus been as abundant as seawater and all of them were dumb as rocks...
Holger still tried. "But it's good. I mean, REALLY good. It's got a nice meaty, kind of chewy texture. It doesn't taste much like fish either."
"You've eaten octopus?"
Jon-Jon's dad nodded. "Sure! Remember, we used to go to places like this before we made you." Jon-Jon blushed. "What about you, Marie? Feeling up for some octo-fun?", Holger then asked.
"Me, are you kidding?", she snorted on reflex and frowned as her dad laughed. That was exactly the kind of reaction he'd wanted to provoke. "Just give me something that used to walk on the ground on all fours, thanks."
"How about the souvlaki, dear?" Kirsten said soothingly. "I'm having that."
Holger agreed. "Yeah, you can never go wrong with souvlaki." Seeing her empty stare he just continued. "If in doubt, always pick souvlaki!"
"But what IS it?", Marie growled, annoyed that nobody would tell her.
"Grilled pork on a skewer, honey", her mother explained patiently.
"Yeah! It's really good. Check it out." Holger gestured at a nearby table, where two people were already enjoying their food in the form of souvlaki.
"Holger! Don't point at other guests! I swear, sometimes you're like a little boy." Kirsten swatted at him with her glittery purse that she always kept laying beside her on the table and he laughed. Jon-Jon also laughed.
"Alright, I'll have that then." Marie had finally let herself be convinced it was safe.
"I'm having the moussaka, dad", Jon-Jon said bravely.
"You sure?"
"Yeah, we had that when we went to that restaurant on my birthday two years ago and I remember it was nice."
"Sure, moussaka's great." Upon hearing that, I felt emboldened and ended up ordering that too. This earned me an approving look from Jon-Jon.
We - meaning our parents - talked in low voices while we waited for our food to arrive. Not having any more bread to eat (it tasted so good it disappeared off the table pretty much in seconds), I mostly confined myself to listening to the ocean and occasionally peeked at Jon-Jon, who in turn was looking at me the whole time. He was holding his head in his hand as he leaned on the table. Soft Greek folk music played from two tattered old speakers fastened with rusty metal clamps to the wall of the tavern building. The moist and salty ocean air had had its way with the poor things.
I won't speak ill of moussaka - lest I insult the entire nation of Greece - but next time I too will have souvlaki, because it looked absolutely delicious, with expertly grilled succulent meat and a generous heap of golden chips on the side, along with a large clove of juicy lemon. Of course, Marie had to go and act like a helpless fussy girl, complaining she couldn't get the pork chunks off the skewer after fruitlessly attacking her food with the knife and fork, so Holger had to give her a hand. *Sigh!* Sometimes I feel so happy I was born a boy.
The moussaka tasted really nice I have to say, but it was really really hot so I had to eat it slowly. It came in a small earthenware pot with straight sides and a flat bottom that somehow managed to contain a lot more food than you'd think just by looking at it from the outside, and I quickly became full. And with fullness came sleepyness. It hit all of us kids and we almost started nodding off at the table, especially since all evening light was now gone and the sky was completely black. The only light came from human civilization, and it wasn't enough to illuminate anything but the most immediate area around the lightsources. My mum paid for the two of us, and she seemed pleased it wasn't expensive.
I'm not sure how we made it back to the hotel, somehow we did it, me almost stumbling along as I walked. Marie was supported inbetween her parents and was very quiet, I think they liked it that she wanted to be close right then. Maybe it reminded them of when she was little, and not so busy at pretending to be a grownup all the time. I hope I don't get like that in a couple years. I don't think I will, mum and I have a decent relationship.
All we heard was the now mere trickle of cars and the somehow ethereal, scratchy-chirpy sound of cicadas. Even the ocean seemed to drown in the rippling waves of cicada callings. It was coming from everywhere, you couldn't tell the direction, and it wasn't anything like I'd ever heard before. Jon-Jon's hand was gently clasping my wrist.
I found myself leaning up against my mother in the elevator ride to our floor, so tired I didn't know if I'd make it to our room, much less the bed - which I intended to just throw myself upon and pass out straight away as soon as we got inside the door. Still, mum made me undress down to my underwear and brush my teeth first of course.
It was nearly pitch black after turning out the lights, the thick curtains covering the sliding glass balcony door in our room effectively blotted out everything that would otherwise have leaked inside from the pool area. I heard mum get ready for bed on the other side of the door, and was suddenly aware I'd not been so close to her as she was getting ready for bed since I'd been a little babe. It felt a little weird. The mattress creaked slightly as I sat on the edge and went in under the sheet. It was a really thin cotton sheet, but it still felt very warm in the room, despite the absolute darkness. Some sound reached us, mainly the ocean and traffic and the slight hiss of a mild ocean breeze, because mum had opened the sliding doors slightly to create some ventilation.
A soft, quiet patter of naked feet near me told me Jon-Jon was on his way to the bed as well, walking slowly and carefully to not bang into anything. He went in on his side and I felt the mattress bob up and down just slightly from the weight of his light body. I was winding down my mind in order to fall into slumber when he rolled over twice to reach me; I thought he wanted to wrestle a bit before sleep when he stealthily climbed up on top of me, but suddenly he stopped struggling and just sank down against my body, his face all squeezed in against my neck. His lips barely grazed my skin as I heard him speak. "Please, don't say anything...", he whispered, and then he just laid there, relaxing.
I sprung a stiffy, feeling his tight, warm and soft body on top of my own like that and his breath and lips against my neck, and it stabbed right into his lower tummy/hip area, but I sensed it was alright. In fact, he thrust a little with his hips, to make me feel his stiffy as well, and then I slowly, slowly let my right hand wander down his back, and in under the puffy waistband of his tight briefs. He quivered momentarily as my hand cupped his right buttock, and his arms squeezed my sides.
Despite the still warm air in the room and the tremendous heat of his amazingly soft skin, our closeness made me fall asleep quickly and peacefully. I don't know if I'd ever slept so well to be honest, it was just the most remarkable feeling ever. A peaceful bliss that's hard to describe in words for someone who's not even a teenager yet.
