A gay story: Hidden Flute. It took three concerts for him to notice me. Luckily it was getting progressively warmer in Munich’s spring. I had every reason to believe I’d have to attend the full season of the free outdoor concerts in the Hofgarten park before I could meet him. If I’d settled on this flutist in the fall instead, each time I had to come back would have been progressively worse.
A gay story: Hidden Flute
It would have helped if I initially enjoyed flute music. I’d certainly had my fill of young men playing the flute professionally in Bavaria. I was fairly certain, though, that this was the young man for me.
He had an air of melancholy about him that I found alluring when matched with the mournful sound of his instrument, which, in his hand, was nothing like the flute music I’d heard before. I could see the attraction of him. He was probably in his mid twenties. He was small and willowy and had an angelic face. His eyes were a watery blue, his skin the glowing alabaster of the serious scholar, and he had a northern European blondness about him that was belied by jet black, curly hair on his head. It was this mystery about him that had attracted me to him in the first place—an incongruity in his appearance. This was accentuated the second concert I attended, where he managed quite well reading his music without the eyeglasses he wore for the first and third concerts.
Could it be, I wondered, that he was really a blond?
He seemed a young man hiding from something. At first I thought maybe it was from life itself he seemed so withdrawn into himself as he played his flute in concert. But then I thought it perhaps was something more earthborn, something that spoke to me in my quest. And thus I stopped attending on other orchestra performers and concentrated on this one.
He did notice me in the third concert—as I wanted him to. I sat as close to him as I could—in the seat next to the one I had occupied for the second concert. I would have sat in the very same seat if it had been available when I arrived for the concert. And I wore the same clothes for both concerts.
I watched him intently throughout the entire performance, and when he finally looked at me, with a startled look of recognition of someone there was no reason he should recognize, I smiled at him.
After the concert was over, I remained in my seat as those in the audience as well as those in the orchestra on the bandstand gathered their belongings and moved to depart.
The young man was slow to pack up his flute. I had noticed this in the first two concerts also. He moved slowly, deliberately, and I could see that he winced from time to time. He seemed to be suffering from some sort of malady that caused pain in the movement of his extremities. He was far too young to be arthritic, I thought. But I also thought that this added an attraction of vulnerability and mystery to the young man.
I wanted him. I wanted to take him in my arms and gently make love to him. But that was only a surface want. I wanted to crush and possess him—to bring passion to those eyes. He played his flute with deep passion; even I could tell that. But his face, as beautiful as it was, seemed dead even while he was playing. I wanted to bring passion to that face to match his music. And I wanted to do it by possessing his body and making him beg to have me inside him. I could see how he would have this effect on other men. I increasingly was sure he was the one I sought.
“You play beautifully.”
“Danke,” he said.
Ah, I thought. Not really Suddeutch—southern German—a northern dialect. More Nordic, as I thought.
He had thanked me, but he hadn’t looked up from putting his flute away in its case. And he spoke in a soft, shy voice.
“I like it so much that I’ve come to all of your concerts in the park this season.”
“I noticed.” There was a blush on his cheeks, and he looked up at me and smiled. It wasn’t making me want him any less.
“Would you . . . would you care to have a coffee with me in a café nearby?” I asked. “I would like to discuss your music further. I know of a quintet a banker has play on salon evenings that needs a good flutist. Perhaps—”
“Sorry, I have a commitment . . . a class . . . to attend. Sorry.”
“Ah, you are a university student then? Studying music perhaps?”
“Yes. Yes, of course.”
“Ah. I am a professor myself. But not music. My university has a very good music department, though. Perhaps—”
“I’m sorry. I’m late now. Maybe another time.”
“Maybe no time, are you saying? Can you look at me, please?”
He looked up then, and I could see that I wasn’t unattractive to him.
“You looked so sad,” I continued. “I thought you might like to have a little company. Someone to talk to. You don’t have many friends here, do you? You’re not from here, are you?”
“I’m Dutch. And I do prefer staying to myself, yes. I don’t mean to be rude, but—”
“I believe you would enjoy having a friend. I won’t press. But I will come to all of your concerts until you decide you might like to join me for that coffee.”
After the fifth concert he followed me to the Café Wein, where other musicians gathered and that specialized in playing Mozart in the background. It had threatened rain at the park as he was putting his flute away, and the elements gave him very little time to hedge when I offered him the coffee again.
“Your accent doesn’t sound quite Dutch to me,” I inserted into otherwise innocuous chitchat, which had included passing conversations with a couple of men I had paid to address me as “professor” and make remarks on my brilliance in musical critique.
“I’ve only really been to the Netherlands on holidays. I was born and raised in Central Africa. My family . . .”
But he stopped there, his voice having choked up on the word family, and he turned his head from me. He didn’t do so, though, quick enough for me not to see the tearing up in his eyes.
I moved deftly into another topic—on where he had traveled in the world. I might have asked him why he’d left Africa and come to be here in southern Germany. But I increasingly thought I knew, and it might not have gone well for me to pursue that point. I was sure I knew, but I was not positive. I needed to be positive.
“Have you given any thought to the quintet I mentioned? The banker pays well, and they are quite good—I’ve heard them several times.”
“Yes, I might be interested, thanks.”
Here was the crux. “I have the information in my rooms, which aren’t far from here—in fact between here and the direction of your university. You could stop in and pick the contact number up.”
“Or you could bring the information to the next concert,” he countered.
“Alas I’m sure they will have filled the chair by then. There is another salon night soon, and they have little time.”
When we reached the apartment I had let by the week, having arrived here from Africa myself not more than a month earlier, I sat him at my small dining table with a bottle of cold beer and retreated to my bedchamber. When I reemerged, I had changed into a short cotton robe and held a slip of paper with a number that would connect to one of the men I’d hired—who would tell him “So, sorry, we have found a flutist” on the off chance the young man would have an opportunity to call. And in the other hand was a bottle of excellent Scotch whiskey. Although the young flutist looked a bit shocked—and like a deer in the headlights of an automobile—he didn’t rise from the table.