Michelle's Story: "Alejandro me dijo" By ElSol



   Spanish to English Translations:

   Alejandro me dijo -- Alejandro told me

   Amiga M'a -- Female friend of mine

   Y solo se me ocurre amarte -- And it only occurs to me to love you

   Yo quiero darte mi alegr'a, mi guitarra y mis poes'as -- I want to give
you my happinness, mi guitar, and my lyrics

   Tan pura la vida y tu -- So pure life and you

   Gracias Alejandro, por esa noche -- Thank you Alejandro, for that night

   Amarte -- love you

   Maricon -- faggot Pero no puedo tocar -- But I can't touch (the word for
playing an instrument in spanish is touch)

   mi hijo -- my son

   Todavia puedes cantar -- You can still sing

   Padre - Father (Priest)

   Que vas hacer -- What are you going to do "Voy a cantar...  a llorar...
tocar mi guitarra y mi mujer.  Lo demás se lo dejo a Dios." -- I'm going to
sing...  cry...  touch (play) my guitar and (touch) my woman.  The rest
I'll leave to God.



   -----

   Dedicated to Michelle

   -----

   Nobody expected it, least of all me.

   I was a freshman scholarship student at a private high school with an
excellent music program.  One of my teachers, Ms.  Smith, sweat blood to
get me the money over an athlete or academic whiz-kid.

   I agreed to perform at the Winter Recital for her sake.  I also wanted
to see what it felt like to be alone in the spotlight.  It was the future I
wanted and getting used to the glare was a necessary step.

   The Recital was a big thing at the school.  The schedule of performances
was printed a month before and I was the only soloist with freshman in
front of their name.  Nobody asked why I had the spot; they formed the
opinion that best fit their high school social religion.  I guess I was a
heretic of the established order to most.

   Walking in the arrogance of a destined future, I made it worse.

   I touched my first guitar strings before "Ma-Ma" came out of my mouth.
My mother could lay a guitar on the floor and forget me for a morning or
afternoon.  I looked at the other Recital performers with the arrogance
that if our individual practice hours were summed up and compared they
would be years in deficit.  They cried for toys when they were children; my
punishments always involved taking away the guitar.

   Puking twice in the half-hour before I performed was not a favorable
omen.  Ms.  Smith tried to make light of my clammy, pale skin.  She laughed
when I looked annoyed and put the guitar in my arms.

   I felt grounded again.

   I performed near the beginning of the Recital.  Ms.  Smith wanted me to
close the show but was shouted down.  I was singing in Spanish to a
Caucasian audience went the argument.  I laughed when she cursed in front
of me about the prejudice of that stupidity since the final soloist was
singing from an Italian opera.

   They announced my name and even the guitar could not hold off the return
of stage fright.  I walked out and nodded to the audience as soon as I was
out of the curtain's protective cover.  I moved to where the stagehands had
placed the bar stool in front of the microphone.

   The lights were a painful white and I could barely make anyone out.  I
crooked my neck to the side trying to release the tension.  The microphone
was too high so I adjusted it with trembling hands.  There was a snicker as
the silence extended past what a good performer would have allowed.  I
looked behind me at the people who would be accompanying me.  They looked
bored which did not bode well.  I turned back and squinted my eyes to see
if I could make out anyone.  One of the lighting technicians took mercy and
pulled his light away so it did not shine on me directly.

   The silence was broken by feedback when I tried to say hello.  There
were a couple of laughs, increasing my nervousness.  The sound of those
laughs nearly cramped my stomach.  A line of sweat broke out on my brow and
I cleared my throat nervously.

   She saved me that day.

   The technician moving the light let me see the audience.  Directly in
front of me, a few rows back was Samantha Jones, or 'Miss Samantha Jones'
as the freshman guys called the Undisputed Senior School Princess.  Every
high school has one of them, the Unattainable Dream.

   She centered me.

   I knew who would be sitting next to her.

   I turned my eyes to her left and saw MY unattainable; Michelle Debreau,
a senior like Samantha.

   She was popular with the guys because she liked sports and laughed about
guy things.  Unlike Samantha, Michelle saw me when I passed her in the
school halls, even if I was a lowly freshman.

   I looked at Samantha again, and then at Michelle.

   I had to smile.  I always had to smile when I saw 'Miss Michelle
Debreau'.  I could not see her brown-green eyes but I knew they would be
shining with sympathy.  I turned around, looked at the musicians behind me
and waved them off.

   I didn't need them anymore.

   I smiled at Michelle again.  She reflected it with a wide one of her
own. Those smiles reduced the world to her and I.

   I didn't have my own words, but hours of Alejandro had put his inside
me.

   Alejandro Sanz, Spanish singer-songwriter.

   He captivated me with 'Amiga M'a'.  The subject matter was the most
original I'd ever heard.  I bought every one of his album, and learned
every song by soul.

   He gave voice to what I wanted.

   He gave voice to what I wanted to say to the Dream's handmaiden.

   "Y solo se me occurre amarte"

   It began with the guitar.

   I watched as she leaned forward in the way she did when something
captured her attention.  I touched the guitar strings lovingly, drawing the
music I wanted to give Michelle.

   "Yo quiero darte mi alegr'a, mi guitarra y mis poesias"

   I sang the words to her, for her.  She didn't understand a single one
but that was okay.  I did not understand all of his words either.  I hadn't
done enough to know what they meant.  I felt each word when I was near
Michelle though, and that night I found a way to make one part of the song
true.

   I showed her my soul.

   It ended with the guitar.

   Everyone's silence came into focus.  I nodded at the audience and gave
Michelle a last smile before I walked off stage.

   Ms.  Smith hugged me tightly and kissed both my cheeks hard.

   "God, you're so fucking beautiful," she whispered into my ear.

   It wasn't me.

   I couldn't help smile when I was near Michelle.



   ----

   The details don't matter, not to me.

   Samantha Jones was envious of the five minutes I raised Michelle above
her, so what?

   Michelle's ex-boyfriend was a junior and a hulking brute of a football
star with jealousy running through his veins like acid, so what?

   The ex had two sycophants who would follow him into hell not realizing
that was searing heat they felt, so what?

   The important thing is the second night that Michelle and I came
together, and fell apart.

   We became friends.  Not friends in public, but friends in the privacy
outside the doors of the rest of our lives.  She was waiting in her car
when I came out of my guitar instructor's house a week after the Recital.
She smiled and waved me in.  I enjoyed the walk home but the invitation was
not something I could turn down.

   She drove to her house and led me into the basement.

   Michelle liked to talk, and I liked to listen to her.  She said even if
I did not talk back, she felt like I heard what she wanted to say.

   It ended the same every day for two months.

   The guitar and Alejandro's words.

   Our last night, it did not end like that.  She was on the floor and I
was sitting on her bed.  She took the guitar out of my hands and placed her
face close to me.  She kissed me but I was too overwhelmed to kiss her
back.

   "Kiss me," she encouraged.

   She put her lips on mine and I gave her my first kiss.  She placed her
hands on my hips and moved them underneath my t-shirt.  She separated our
lips and took my t-shirt off.

   I was afraid.

   Not stage-fright, but virgin terror.

   Those weren't my words.  There was no way I could live up to them skin
to skin.  I was a boy and Michelle deserved a man.

   I almost fled.

   She stopped me with another kiss.  I drowned in the lavender smell of
her perfume.  I was going to fail but I had to stay, like I had to smile
when I was near her.

   I had to be inside her even if it was only once.

   She popped the buttons of my jeans and tugged on their waistline.  I
pushed myself up with my arms.  She pulled my pants and underwear past my
hips.  She took my shoes off and finished stripping me.

   Michelle put her hands on the inside of my thighs and created a space
between them for her.  She winked at me and took my hard dick in a gentle
grip.  She kissed me and stroked me slowly.

   I could not have held out against the first touch of a foreign hand; the
hand I wanted touching me.  I groaned and my eyes felt hot as I failed her.

   "It's okay, baby," she whispered and I believed her.  "This is exactly
what I want."

   She tightened her grip and milked the last of the seed from my body. 
She pulled away and looked at me.  She stroked my face with her other hand
and touched my lips with hers.

   Michelle moved downwards and I thought I was going die.

   I did die, more than once, as she licked, kissed, and then took me into
her mouth.  I wanted to live when she kissed my testicles.

   She stood up and looked down at me.  I was on my back with my legs off
the bed.

   "Stay right there," she said.

   Oh yeah, I had somewhere else to be!

   She turned around and walked into her bathroom.  I wished she had not
closed the door so that I could watch her.

   I did not want her to leave my sight.

   I lay my head back and stared at the ceiling.  I heard the bathroom door
open and looked towards it.  Michelle walked towards me naked.  I got hard
and bit my teeth down on each other.  I lost focus for a minute as a tear
formed in each eye.  I blinked them away and looked at her again.  She
stood between my legs and touched her nails to my thighs.

   "Ms.  Smith told me what song you sang at the Recital," she said.  "I
tried to do a word for word translation, and then paid to have it
translated right.  I bought every Alejandro album so I knew each song you
sang to me in the last two months.  I paid to have each one translated
too."

   I nodded.

   "Are you ready for your first time?" she asked me.

   At fourteen, no.

   I nodded.

   "Good," she said and climbed on the bed, then past me.

   She lay down on her back and looked at me.  I scrambled up and got
between her open legs.  She kissed me and took me in her hand.  She guided
me to her center and I thrust.  She must have winced as I penetrated into
dryness.  I did not know it wasn't supposed to be like that so I pulled
back and thrust harder.  I was fully seated inside her before I looked at
her again.

   Her eyes stopped me.  She wasn't feeling what I did.

   The desire to flee returned.

   "It's okay," she whispered.  "There'll be more times.  This is for you."

   But that's not the dream.

   My body and heart fought over which would control the rest of my life.

   "Tan pura la vida y tu"

   In whispered lyrics, my voice was not deep or dark.  It sounded as
heartfelt as my heart felt living Alejandro's words for the first time.

   She opened her legs wider and gripped higher up my body.

   Gracias Alejandro, por esa noche.

   It was the unattainable as I sang for us.  She pulled me down and I gave
her the song with my lips against her ear.

   She moaned softly as I finished the first chorus and moved her hips
beneath me.  She was wet and warm.  I put my forehead on hers and pulled my
hips back.  She squeezed me hard with her arms as I moved into her.

   The song kept me in place.  I could not move and sing, so I sang and she
moved.

   She danced beneath me and as the last amarte left my lips I kissed her.
She came and I knew...  knew it was the first time she had done that with a
male inside her.  It was in her eyes, the tears and a small part of what I
felt when I looked at her while she passed me in the halls.

   It didn't make me a man, but it sure felt like it.

   "Your turn," she whispered.

   I was lost for a second, my turn for what?

   She stroked my hips with her hands and my sex answered the question.  I
pulled back and thrust hard into her.  There was no dryness, only
invitation.

   I came inside Michelle.

   -----

   I guess the tears that touched both our eyes at one time while we made
love meant we cried.

   We definitely loved, even if not completely.

   We also laughed afterwards, with each other, about nothing.

   I walked out of her house alive.  I could smell the night air.  I'll
remember the clean smell of it for the rest of my life.

   They jumped me a few blocks from Michelle's home.  They pulled me into a
dark alley and the two sycophants held my arms as Michelle's ex opened the
guitar case.

   I knew my life was over when he smashed the guitar against the wall.  It
wasn't jealousy in his eyes, but raw hatred.  He pulled out a hammer and
stroked the head.

   "Samantha says you should have sang for her," he told me.

   They never proved that Samantha knew what the three were going to do. 
She admitted egging them on when they told her they wanted to get even for
my stealing the football star's girl.

   I struggled as they lay my hand down on the barrel.

   "Let's see you play now, asshole," the ex said gleefully as he raised
the hammer.

   It came down in slow motion.  Inch by inch I watched its path until the
pain lanced through my heart.

   They shattered my hands.

   ---

   "Not Guilty" was my second death at their hands months later.

   "Not Guilty" means "It never happened" when the person it happened to
hears them.

   I never woke up in the hospital.

   I never screamed at Michelle to get out of my room.

   I never cried in my mother's arms like I had never cried before.

   I never heard the words "You'll never play the guitar like you did,
Miguel" come out of a doctor's mouth.

   I never dropped the guitar from the pain.

   I never.

   I NEVER!!!

   "It's over, Miguel," Ms.  Smith whispered into my ear as she hugged me
when the jury spoke those words.  "Let it go, sweetheart, please."

   The jury looked at me with pity in their eyes.  Later, one of the jury
members called it a youthful indiscretion that had to be looked at in the
context of the boys' ages.

   Those words were worse than 'it never happened'.

   I smiled at the television when I heard them.

   I was young too and I did not have anything to live for anymore.

   ---

   "Hello, Joseph" I said before I threw the bat in her ex-boyfriend's
face.

   I had been waiting for them in the weight room by the school stadium. 
There was no one there and I could watch for Joseph's car from the window.

   I counted seconds and opened the door when they were about five feet
away.  They looked shocked but Joseph had the reflexes of a star athlete.
He caught the bat easily.

   He should have been looking low.

   My dad looked on my music with masculine distaste and tried to make sure
I was not going to turn out to be a maricon.  He personally drove me to
martial arts classes Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays.  I
thought he looked funny sitting among the moms but never said anything.

   The kick was perfect.  I had practiced it a thousand times when I
decided to be indiscrete.  It angled downward and struck at the knee.  I
hit Joseph with my shin in a kick that would have hurt even if it had
struck higher.  The human body is so fragile, hands and knees break
irreparably with so little pressure.

   Joseph went down with a horrendous scream that mirrored the one my
throat had produced that night.  I took the bat out of his hands and
pointed it at the other two.  They froze seeing their fate in my hatred.

   I pulled the bat back and hit Joseph with as much of the barrel as I
could strike his chest with.  His scream stopped as the air was forced out
of his body.

   One life for one life.

   My guitar, his football.

   Even Steven, as any kid might say.

   The two turned tail and ran when I looked at them.  I smiled as I threw
the bat end over end at the smaller.  He tripped and slid a few feet.  He
tried to get up but I smashed his jaw with another thousand-times practiced
kick.

   He was out.

   I looked up and saw the back of the last one.  I knew where he was going
so I picked up the bat.  I walked back to Joseph who was also out and took
his car keys out of his jacket.

   I didn't know how to drive so Joseph's car was the worst off for my
attempt.  Somehow, I made it to the third boy's house before the cops did.
I knew he was running to mommy and daddy.  They were the ones that paid for
the high-end lawyers.

   I hit the door at the lock with the bat.  It popped open and I walked
inside.

   "I've already called the cops," the father screamed at me.

   His son was standing behind them.

   "Sit down, or I'll kill him instead of just hurting him," I said to the
man who bought his son's innocence.

   "Not my baby, please," his mother pleaded.

   I pointed to the sofa and pulled the knife out of my back pocket.  The
father understood the edge they had pushed me to and gathered his wife in
his arms.

   "It's time to make a man's decision, Robert," I told the last of my
guitar's destroyers.

   "I'm going to give you a choice, your head or your arm," I said.  "You
have to the count of three."

   "We didn't mean it," he pleaded.

   "One."

   "I'm sorry, I didn't know he would go that far,"

   "Two."

   "Put your arm out, Robert," his father yelled.

   "Dad, help me," the boy cried.  "Mommy, please."

   "Three."

   The arm went out automatically as his mind chose life.

   I brought the bat down on his elbow.

   ---

   "Hello, Miguel" said an instantly recognizable voice as I sat with a cup
of tea warming my aching hands at the college coffee shop.

   I looked into brown-green eyes.

   "Am I disturbing you?" she asked sitting down.

   I scanned the room.  Her friends were looking at her curiously. 
Michelle was staring at me.

   "Hello, Michelle," I said with a sigh.

   "How have you been?" she asked looking at my hands.

   "I hurt everyday," I told her honestly.

   Somewhere in the years between, I guess I lost the need to smile around
her.

   A faint sheen of tears covered her eyes, and I ran away.

   ---

   She had something to say and regardless of my not wanting to see her she
was not going to let it go.  She was in my floor lounge everyday or at the
cafeteria, when I had breakfast, lunch or dinner.

   "He sang a song for me once," I heard her tell her sorority sisters when
they asked why she was pursuing a freshman.

   She had more patience than I did, and finally she made it into my room.

   "Do you blame me?" she asked sitting on my bed.

   "No, Michelle," I said.  "I don't blame you, I don't even blame them
anymore.  Something bad happened.  I have to live with it for the rest of
my life."

   "I was glad you got even," she said ferociously.

   I nodded.

   "Do you know how sorry I am?" she asked softly.

   I nodded again.

   Everyone was sorry.

   "I couldn't stay away from you back then," she said.  "I was too young
to know I was doing something wrong trying to be with you."

   "There was nothing wrong with what happened between us," I said wearily.

   "It caused that," she said angrily pointing at my hands.

   I nodded.

   "Do they hurt?" she asked with concern in her eyes.

   "They ache in room temperature," I replied.  "If I hold a cold glass for
too long, they hurt."

   The tears rolled down her cheeks.  I closed my eyes to steel myself
against them.

   "You looked at her and you looked at me," she said.  "And you chose me."

   I opened my eyes and stared into her.

   "Nobody ever did that," she said.  "I was never someone's choice when
Samantha was around."

   I didn't know what to say.

   "You gave me something she wanted, probably more than anything else in
her high school life because you didn't want to give it to HER," she said.
"Ms.  Smith said you played and sang beautifully but she didn't get it. 
You made me feel beautiful, more beautiful than every girl there."

   "They weren't my words, Michelle."

   "No, Miguel," she said.  "But you meant every one, even the ones you
didn't understand."

   I looked away.

   "Everyone in that auditorium felt it," she said.  "With your voice and
guitar, you were better than most of us could be at anything.  We weren't
angry though.  Someday, we would be able to say we were there at Miguel
Sanchez's first public performance.  'You think he's good now, you should
have seen him then.  Young, innocent, and so pure when he sang that first
time.'"

   "I had a recording contract," I told her.

   "What?" she gasped.

   "A Spanish album," I said with tears in my eyes.  "Ms.  Smith got me the
audition.  It was all women when I walked into the room.  I thought about
you while I sang for them."

   We never told anyone.

   "No!"

   "They were looking for the right songs for the album," I said closing my
hands in pained fists.

   She hugged me tight and sobbed into my shirt.

   We were skin to skin moments later.

   I was on top of her like our first time.

   It was only my second.

   I waited for her body to warm as we kissed.  She was the one who led my
dick to her.  I pushed in slowly and her pussy welcomed me.

   She was like the warmth from a cup on my hands; the pain fell away.

   I pulled back and thrust into her fully.  She wrapped her legs around my
waist.  I pulled back and fucked into my lost dream.

   She had been waiting those years too.

   It felt like her body heated and then released all of it into me.  I
loved the pressure her pussy surrounded me with and the sound of her
pleasure.

   She kissed my hands before she fell asleep.

   There was no music, no laughter but there were plenty of tears.

   ---

   I woke up as the sun hit the window of my dorm room.  They had given me
a single because I needed to keep the room warmer than most people liked.
Michelle was still asleep beside me.  I climbed out of bed and went to the
bathroom to brush my teeth.

   I opened my closet door and pulled out my guitar case when I came back.
My father had commissioned my new guitar.  There were tears in his eyes the
first time he heard me on it.  I pulled the chair out to the middle of the
room and turned my back to the sleeping woman in my bed.

   The guitar, the music and me held back the pain as long as we could.  It
always won in the end though.

   I couldn't touch the strings like I had before.  The music sounded off,
stilted, over-precise, hesitant.  The weakness in it grew with each passing
minute until I gasped as the pain became too intense.

   I put the guitar back in the case and looked out my window.

   "I thought you couldn't play anymore," Michelle asked.

   "I can play now," I said.  "Pero no puedo tocar."

   "It's the same thing," she said.

   I turned to her in surprise.

   "I took a Spanish major," she explained.

   "Do you remember when I sang to you?" I asked her.

   "I remember every night," she answered.

   "Do you think I was playing?"

   ---

   "Forgive me, father, for I have sinned.  It has been two days since my
last confession."

   "And a good two days those were, Miguelito," he replied.

   We were sitting face to face like the new confession rules said we
should.  I preferred the screen.

   "At least, there were 48 hours for you to get yourself in trouble this
time," he said with a sigh.

   I went to confession everyday after the judge announced in open court
that he would not imprison someone who had been failed so grieviously by
the justice system because someone could run with a football.

   My mother had prayed even though we were only as religious as going to
church every Sunday made us.  I found some comfort afterward in the silence
of confession and the prayers our priest set as punishment.

   "So exactly what is it that you've done, Miguelito?" he asked.

   "I lied to a woman," I confessed.

   He was silent for a moment and nodded.

   "She asked me if I blamed her for my broken hands and I told her no," I
said quietly.  "I told her I didn't even blame those boys."

   "Why did you say that, Miguel?"

   "Because I thought it would make her think I was a better man than I can
be," I told him.

   He nodded and looked away.

   "Do you blame her?"

   "Yes."

   "But you want her to think you're a good man?" he asked.

   "I know I'm wrong," I said.  "How much I blame her is nothing compared
to those boys or me."

   "And God, of course," he finished for me.

   I bit my lip.

   "It's what you've never said.  What you've never asked these two years,
you've been coming here, Miguel."

   I bit harder until the pain in my lip matched what I felt when my hands
touched guitar strings for too long.

   "You've been coming here hoping I would tell you why God did this to
you," he said.

   I shook my head.

   "Don't lie to me, Miguel."

   I smiled at him.

   "I prayed for Michelle.  I remember lying in bed, and saying 'God, if
you give her to me, I'll be happy.'"

   "And you think, he gave her to you and took away the guitar."

   "He gave me a gift, and I spit on it because I wanted her."

   "That's not the way God does things, Miguel."

   I was silent.

   "You're going to have to bring this girl to Mass, Miguel," he said
suddenly.  "I like her.  She makes you feel.  It's good for you.  She's
good for you."

   I looked at him angrily.

   "False piousness isn't going to make God give you your hands back, mi
hijo."

   "Then what is, Father?" I asked desperately.

   He looked at me sadly.

   "Todav'a puedes cantar," he said.

   "I don't want to sing, I want my guitar back."

   "God gave you a gift, Miguel."

   "TAKING MY HANDS IS NOT A GIFT!" I yelled at him.

   He closed his eyes and shook his head.

   "Your mother's going to like this girl too," he said finally.

   I looked at the floor.

   "She tells me she cries when you come home," he said.

   I raised my eyes to him.

   "Your father and her stand outside your room when you sing, and she
cries," he said looking at me in wonder.  "She knows the pain in your
voice, not as your mother, but as someone that has suffered too.  God gave
you a gift, Miguel."

   I shook my head.

   "You don't want to blame Michelle, do you?"

   I looked at him in surprise.

   "I was there when you sang to her.  I know who she is."

   "No, I don't want to blame her anymore."

   "Then let it go, Miguelito," he said.  "That's the gift, I'm talking
about.  God brought her back to you because with her you don't need to come
here everyday."

   We sat in silence for fifteen minutes.

   I got up and shook his hand.  I turned to walk out of his office.

   "Que vas hacer, Miguel?" he asked.

   "I can only play for a half-hour before the pain is too much.  This
morning, she was in my bed and I played for forty-five minutes."

   "A woman that makes intolerable pain half-again as bearable.  She is a
gift," he said.

   I turned to look at him.

   "I didn't know you were a poet, Padre," I said.

   "When you're ready to stop singing Alejandro's songs, and start singing
your own, come back.  I didn't always want to be a priest."

   I nodded slowly and turned around.

   "You didn't tell me what you're going to do now, Miguel."

   I opened the door and looked into the church.

   "Voy a cantar...  a llorar...  tocar mi guitarra y mi mujer.  Los demás
se lo dejo a Dios."

                          The End


   
