Pretty City Eyes

Slice-of-life short. A sailor has an encounter with a pretty man in a coffee house.

Rated T, 1.5k, some M/M. A pirate from Lesbos throws himself eagerly at an anonymous handsome man — haughty Paris.

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On another night, on ninety-nine nights out of a hundred, Phil would never have seen him.

Hyssop is a pirate town that bustles with people at all times, is always busy, and this haven is a favourite of his. They’re a few days’ sail from Barbados, which is always a bit too busy and a bit too hectic for Phil’s preferences — Hyssop is more Turks and Berbers than many places, and there’s smoke on the air when Phil steps into the coffee house, smoke and big men laughing and nudging one another, a few old drunk bastards singing in the corner.

A man is getting up from a table as Phil steps in, and that’s the only thing that draws his eye, the movement — it’s the little Belgian cunt, the accountant who always wears a blouse with a high neck even when the air is so hot it steams, so of course, Phil looks his way. He’s a recognizable fella, and Phil knows he’s not the type to drink in a place like this for pleasure, which means he’s here for business.

“Mr Vermeer,” Phil says, and Vermeer glances up at him, his lip curled.

Phil doesn’t take it personally — Vermeer’s face always looks like that, and after a moment of this automatic scowl, he gives a stout nod of his head and bustles out into the street.

The man in the corner is not the sort that Phil would have expected to have business with Vermeer — perhaps that’s why he’s here in a coffee house in early evening instead of at the accountant’s office in the day. He’s nearly out of sight in the corner, shielded by one of the screens at one little booth table.

Phil steps forward with his bottle in hand, and he stands across from the little table, looking down at him.

He’s beautiful.

Brown eyes and thick, dark hair, dusky pink lips, a strong nose with a narrow point, nearly clean-shaven. Despite how dark the hair on the top of his head is, his beard is thinner and much wispier where a few whiskers are showing through, a much paler brown.

A tavli board is still open on the table, although Phil can’t imagine that the accountant was actually playing — God knows what that little bastard does for fun, but Phil doesn’t imagine it involves games or dice. The counters are set up to start, although the stranger doesn’t seem ready to play either.

He has a book in his hands, is just cracking it open when Phil stands behind what had been the accountant’s chair.

“You mind if I sit?” Phil asks.

The handsome man looks at him with his heavy-lidded, pretty eyes, and his expression is blank before his gaze flickers behind Phil and around the coffee house, at the various empty tables, empty seats.

“Thanks,” Phil says, pulling back the chair with his foot before stepping around the side of it and sinking down into the seat. “Vermeer your accountant? Mine too. A lot of people are scared of him. You ever seen him react when someone draws a weapon? I was in the building a few years ago when this half-drunk bastard, some Englishman, he drew his pistol and tried to threaten Coen, the fat Hebrew with the pretty hands? He threw his dagger fifteen, twenty feet, and it went right into his throat, missed the spine so it went through his windpipe and out the other side of his neck.”

The handsome man says nothing, his face still a blank mask. He’s holding his book with his finger marking his place, ready to go back to it at any moment.

“Wouldn’t let any of them pull the knife out,” Phil goes on. “Said, leave it in until he’s outside. He’s already dead, but it’s keeping the blood in — makes clean-up easier.”

The handsome man still doesn’t say anything, but his lip twitches.

“He’s a funny little bastard,” Phil says. “I like him a lot — and he’s the best accountant on the island.”

The lip doesn’t twitch this time, but he does blink, and that’s pretty. He’s got nice eyelashes.

His clothes aren’t especially fine, but they’re well-made — he wears a shirt that’s tailored to fit him, has an open collar with a lot of his pretty throat on show. The sleeves aren’t rolled up to the elbow, but cropped and open to show his forearms, and he wears his waistcoat, which is very thin and unlined, open.

“You a Turk?” Phil asks. “Egyptian?”

A slow blink, even prettier than the first.

Phil looks down at his book — he doesn’t read much in English, but he can read enough for this. “Arcadia?” He drops his English and speaks in Greek instead: “You from the Peloponnese? Of course you are — look at you. Blessed by Aphrodite, hm?”

The handsome man exhales, and he removes his finger from between the pages of his book and sets it aside, leaning forward. Phil sips at his drink to hide his victorious grin as the handsome man rolls the dice on the tavli board and makes his move.

“Arcadia, that where you’re from? Messenia, Laconia?”

Nothing.

“You an islander? Kriti, Rhodes? No, no… Attica? You an Athenian?”

The handsome man scoffs, and Phil laughs as he picks up the dice and makes his roll.

“Now now,” he says. “What’s wrong with a man from Athens?”

The handsome man raises his eyebrows.

“Not that I’m an Athenian,” Phil says. “Me, I’m a Lesbian.”

The eyebrows stay raised, but he doesn’t get the laugh he was hoping for, and Phil sighs.

“I’m from Mytilene,” he says. “Well, I was born in Keramela, but I grew up on the ports. You, handsome Aphroditodoro… You a Macedonian? Oh, maybe you’re a Cytheran — you come up from the sea foam like Aphrodite herself?”

The handsome man makes his move, and Phil picks up the dice.

“Boeotia?”

The handsome man inclines his head, and Phil laughs.

“Okay, okay, we’re getting closer. Now, you, you, you are… You are not a country-boy. No, no, I can tell, you’ve never even seen a farm, eh? Bet you never even saw an olive grove until you left home. You’re from a city — I can tell. You have pretty, city eyes, pretty, city hands. But not Livadeia. No, you, you a son of Aphrodite, Eros himself, you must be from roundabout Mount Helicon… And that makes you a Thebean.”

“Are you a passionate geographer when not harassing strangers in coffee houses?” the handsome man asks, and he’s got a handsome, haughty voice — he is a Thebean, Phil guesses, his accent really not so different from Phil’s own.

“My father was a mapmaker,” Phil says. “My brothers took over the business — me, I went to sea.”

“Did you turn immediately to piracy?”

“Wanted to fuck the Turks,” Phil says, shrugging his shoulders. “Had a bounty on my head by the time I was twenty-six, couldn’t sail — went on foot ’til I got to Portugal, got on the first ship that was leaving, came to New Providence.”

“The ship was sailing from Lisbon to New Providence?”

“That wasn’t the original plan, but given some outside pressure…”

He laughs, and it’s a beautiful sound, honey-sweet and yet with a smoky quality to it — beautiful, musical.

“What about you?” Phil asks. “You a sailor?”

“No.”

“Trader?”

“No.”

“Fellow accountant?”

“No.”

“Want to give me a clue?”

The handsome man tilts his handsome man, laying his chin on his hand. “No,” he says. “You lose.”

Phil looks down at the board between them. “Fuck,” he says, and then has to bite back a verbal protest as he watches the other man drain the last of his glass and get to his feet. His hips sway somewhat as he walks, and Phil stands to his feet, rushing to pick up the other man’s book and hold it out to him.

“How old are you?” he asks.

“Me?” Phil asks, and laughs. “Why, does it matter? You’re only as young as you feel, huh?”

“Perhaps,” says the handsome man. “But you look to be…” He looks Phil up and down, his gaze analytical, and then meets Phil’s gaze. “Fifty-three?”

Phil stares at him.

“We each have our party tricks, it seems,” he says quietly, amused.

“I’m only forty,” Phil says, too late, and the handsome man’s laugh is even more handsome this time.

“You’re not a good liar, for a pirate.”

“I’m a better sailor,” Phil says. “I’m on the Sunken Dream. What do you do? You’re evidently very literary — are you a student? Or, do you sell something, anything?”

“I sell something,” says the handsome man, and before Phil can stop him, he’s walking through the crowd, and he’s away.

Phil softly sighs, and takes a sip from his glass.

Whatever that man is selling, he’s going to make a point of buying it the first he gets the chance.