Chapter Sixteen Comfortable and Confident 1 page

When I awoke the next morning, I had no clue where I was. I somehow knew that the artist was supposed to be with me though; it just took a long time for everything to come back. I was still half-asleep when I turned over in his large bed, expecting to find his body right next to me, just like it had been the night before when we had fallen asleep. Instead, I was greeted with a mere imprint of him, etched away in the scattered sheets. I reached over and placed my hand in the concave area of the bed, and no longer felt his warmth. He was gone, and I still had no idea what was going on.

I couldn’t ignore the pounding inside my small chest up against my ribcage, and the nervous anxiety that crawled into my system soon after. Sleep fell from my eyes rather quickly, the surroundings shocking me awake. I sat up and scratched my head, still feeling sweat from the night before. Memories replaced my sleep-filled gaze, and the final piece was put into place as I glanced down at my naked body, only covered by a small thin blue sheet.

I had had sex with Gerard. We had finally done what we were not supposed to do, the action we had been stepping around for months, and now, it had finally happened. We had kissed and touched and fucked on his bed. He had seen me naked, and I had seen him in that way too. We even fell asleep in the same bed after, not trying to run from the act we committed, but lying in its aftermath. We kissed for what had seemed like hours, barely exchanging a single word. We didn’t have to talk then; there was no need to talk, and we had done too much of it by that point. We had just focused on kissing until we had run out of saliva and stamina, holding our sweaty bodies against one another in the middle of the bed. There was such urgency in each action we committed, such desperation for understanding that we would never get from anyone else on the outside world.

In the darkness of the room, I barely saw anything. But I did remember seeing Gerard’s eyes. Somehow, they still shone as green even in the absence of light. I remembered looking at them, if only for a few seconds, and realizing that I never wanted to see the outside world again. If they were going to judge us for doing this, for acting like this, then I didn’t care. I wanted to be here, I wanted to be with him. I wanted to see his eyes in the dark all the time now.

Last night, I had only left his side for a few small seconds to call my parents and tell them I was staying with Sam and Travis for the night. I needed to tell them something, anything, to keep them from coming to look for me. I needed to avoid getting in trouble, too. If I was grounded now, all of my few privileges taken away, I knew I would probably die. You couldn’t give someone a taste of something so much better than what they had always known and always dreamed of, and then take it away in the next moment. I needed to stay here, at least for the night.

I had no idea what time it was when my mother answered, but her voice was tired. It was probably well past my curfew and she had been worried. She was reluctant to say yes to me at first, but eventually gave it. Whether it was hearing the happiness in my voice that did it, or just wanting to avoid the hassle of saying no and then having to come and get me from Sam’s (because that’s where I was, of course), I didn’t know or care. I just hung up the phone and got back in bed with Gerard. He placed his arm around me, pulling me close, and kissed my face again, before sleep finally took over.

That had been the last clear memory I had of last night. I vaguely recalled all other details, such as turning over in the night, only because when I did, I became aware of Gerard’s light snoring. I engaged in a minor freak-out then like the morning after, not knowing where I was at first, but it had lasted mere moments when I took in the view him laying next to me. It had been dark, but I could see the calm expression on his face, his lips moving slightly as he breathed. A smile had spread itself across my tired face as I watched, knowing that I had kissed those lips. I slid my arm around his waist, nestled my head into his pillow, and slumber hit once again. And for the rest of the night after, I was dead asleep. It was the best night’s rest I had ever had.

Come morning though, I couldn’t believe it all. I blinked my eyes rapidly, and looked around the room. I saw my clothing littering his floor, and the images from the night before replayed in my mind. It all seemed too much like a dream to me; I was imagining it all. I had worked this idea out in my head so many times, now that I was thrust into the situation, I had nothing left to dream about, to think about. The memories, the sounds, and the slight pain I was in still flooded me, and drowned me in my thoughts. I had to believe it. It happened and there was no taking it back.

Good thing I didn’t want to. Even as I rustled between the sheets a bit, and saw the slight rust coloured stain, and felt slight pain, I still didn’t want to take it all back. I had a feeling that I was probably going to bleed a little bit from what had happened. I had heard about most girls bleeding when they lost their virginity, and that had been in the traditional way. I could only imagine what would happen to me. The stain wasn’t too big though, which elated me to no end. Maybe Gerard wouldn’t notice it. I felt my cheeks take on the same rust colour as I was filled with embarrassment. He better not see this, I told myself. I didn’t want him to worry or fret like he had the night before, thinking he had hurt me. I was fine - better than fine. I was with him.

Well, not entirely. The bed was empty, his image only a mere shadow of where he had slept. I was worried as to where on earth he could be, but my wretched nerves were calmed by the fact that I was inside his room. Behind his black door, and essentially, inside his mind. Maybe now I would know what he was always thinking, and thus figure out where he had gone.

I sat up straighter in the bed, leaning my back against the headboard, looking around to take in the full view of this dark room. The night before I had seen it, but just barely; my eyes had been focused on other areas and other purposes. Now that I finally did have enough time to open my wide eyes and see this mysterious space, I saw a mere skeleton of a living quarter.

There was a queen size bed in the center, bedside tables in a light oak colouring lining both sides. There was a lonely lamp on one table with no shade, just the bare bulb out and exposed that flooded musty amber light into the room. The walls weren’t black like the door, but they still seemed just as dark. Coming from a man who was full of colour explosions, these walls were an insult to art. They weren’t white, but a creamy dull shade, made even more lifeless from the years of smoke and cancer breathed into them. The only thing that lined them were cracks and holes – no pictures or paint or works of art at all. If the room was a person, the furniture the bones and the wall the skin, then they were emaciated. Starved, and damaged. It didn’t look like the room belonged to an artist at all. There was no colour, no life, no light. The only mere resemblance of anything in the colour spectrum were the sheets, but even those were in a darker shade. They were blue, but it still managed to be as dull as ever. They were almost the colour of hospital scrubs, and they had much the same consistency of the thick bunching fabric. The floor held the most life in the room, my red shirt and other colourful articles looking back up at me. Light from the outside apartment cast its way inside the room, and danced on the hardwood, almost inviting me out of the drab area.

It didn’t take too much coaxing.

I suddenly felt very vulnerable as I noticed my bare legs under the thin sheets, and Gerard’s lack of presence. I had no idea where he could be. The last memory I had of him was snoring peacefully, and now he was just gone. As I looked for my clothing on the bed, I didn’t even see his corduroy pants and black shirt anywhere. It was all my stuff. I tried to convince myself that he was still in the apartment, because he just had to be. There was no way he was gone; it was his place, and just… no. There were no excuses for anything; it had to be a solid answer. We had just had sex. Why would he run off like this? I was sure he wasn’t running per se, but I still had a heavy feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach.

Why would he leave me?

All this time, I had felt safe with him. He may have looked dangerous to the outside world, but I knew deep down, he would never and could never hurt me. And yet… as I slid my clothing over my bare legs, and a shirt over my back and walked into the apartment, I saw nothing. The light came in through the bay window, illuminating the apartment in a blinding golden aura. I saw the dove, perched high in her cage, head bent down under its wing, sleeping. I listened closely to her breathy coos that I could hear all the way from across the apartment because there were no other sounds. There was no Gerard. There was no nothing.

And I was crushed. I felt naked all over again. Exposed and more vulnerable than ever. This wasn’t something that Gerard would do. Something was wrong. This was totally out of character. My mind began to extrapolate on circumstances, assuming the worse each time. Maybe something bad had happened. He had opened his door to get the paper, and the police had taken him away. Maybe he had been caught. We had been caught. All of these instances ran through my mind but I knew I was just over reacting. I would have heard if they had taken him away. There was no way anyone could have caught us this fast. We barely had a chance to start a relationship; it couldn’t be over all ready.

And yet, here I was, standing in the middle of his living room in my t-shirt and boxers. Gerard no where to be seen. Completely gutted.

Was this over already?

I didn’t know why I had a sudden urge to be with him; it wasn’t like I hadn’t just spent the entire night with the man. My urge was something different than just wanting to see him for company, or even for sex, though. I almost wanted to make sure he was still there. He had been a part of me last night – he had been in me last night. I couldn’t just relax if he suddenly disappeared. It was like we were one person when we had had sex, and it still pertained to now. If he walked away from me and I stayed put, I could feel us tearing.

And I could feel myself tearing right then. My chest hurt, right in the centre, where all of my anxiety seemed to bubble and swell within me. It wasn’t just the chest pain that riddled my body. I had pain in other areas too, like where he had entered me the night before. It wasn’t the exact same type of pain as when it had first occurred, but the after effects of it. There was a bit of a dull ache, only occurring when I moved a lot. I forgot about it for the most part, but my walking around his place and desperately putting clothing on to search for him, it had come back. My hole felt a little raw, and maybe even a little bigger. I figured that was a very good sign; maybe there wouldn’t be as much pain as before when we did it again. If we did it again…I sort of needed Gerard in the apartment for that wish to be fulfilled.

It wasn’t just my body that felt different, I felt different. I had taken someone inside of me, and that feeling alone was enough to shock my very core.

I had lost my virginity last night, and fuck, that whole concept in and of itself was just plain weird. I had dreamed about it for so long and in so many ways, but never like this. Never in a million years would I have ever thought I’d lose it to a forty-seven-year-old artist in his apartment up my ass. The chest pain subsided a little bit and I laughed to myself, shaking my head. This was just downright absurd and wrong.

If it was so wrong though, I asked internally, then why did it feel good last night? It wasn’t just in the physical sense that it had felt good. It had in other ways, deeper than that. I felt good knowing that we were connecting at a deeper level. That his touches, kisses, and fucks meant more than just sex to him. It felt good when I could still feel the after-sting of it all and I realized that he had been inside of me. A part of me.

The realization alone felt so good. Sex was one thing. Sex was fun and exciting and a little nerve wracking. But what we had done was not sex. I didn’t know what it was, but it was something more. We had joined and that felt good. And even after it was all over, it still felt good. And though we hadn’t really talked about it much more than consensus, I figured it had felt good for Gerard too. He hadn’t been the one in pain; I was taking it, not him, so he didn’t even have the physical downfalls of sex. Last night must have been good for him in every way.

If so, why wasn’t he here to reap the benefits with me? Why wasn’t he in his apartment so I could tell him that I wanted to do it again, in any way possible, just to feel that close to him? Did he not feel that close to me? I wondered to myself. Were things that much different when you gave instead of received? I didn’t know. Sex, and gay sex at that, was entirely new to me. Maybe leaving your partner alone in the morning was customary. I had no fucking clue, and for once, he wasn’t here to teach me the rules to everything.

I had always been naïve before; I hadn’t done much with any gender, I knew the terms, but not how to apply them. I knew little things, but was too shamed to speak up about them entirely, go into detail or ask questions. I may have done a lot of bad things in my life, but they were never my choice. Someone else’s. I had always held a foolish notion in the back of my mind that once I finally made my own decision to have sex, I became an adult and a man, and then the naivety would disperse. Everything would be easier. But now it only seemed to be ten times worse, leaving me half-naked and so fucking confused in a place that once used to be my home away from home.

I shook my head and ran my hands through my matted hair annoyed. I didn’t want to think about my own downfall; my naïve naivety. I had a feeling I would be thinking about that a lot later on, when Gerard did come back. If he came back… I knew I was worrying over nothing, because even if he had left me, he had to come back. This was his apartment, after all. He wouldn’t just get up and leave it all to a seventeen-year old boy (no matter how good or bad the sex had been). He was going to come back, I could convince myself of that much. But how long it was going to take, and what he would be like when he did come back was still up in the air. And I had nothing I could do but wait.

I moved from the centre of the room, drawing my attention to the kitchen. My tongue felt like the Sahara desert in my mouth suddenly. Gerard and I had both used up all of our saliva last night kissing furiously, and any other excess liquids were gone from my body completely, either in sweat or other forms. I was fucking dying of thirst.

I took quick strides getting me to the fridge which I hoped wasn’t a mirage in my mind. It seemed to be that way once I opened the steel handled door and saw nothing but wine bottle after wine bottle. I sighed, yet another thing not going right this morning, and made my way to the sink. I filled up the glass, and had only gotten about a gulp in my mouth when I heard the familiar sound of keys jingling.

Gerard was back.

Watching closely from behind the corner in the kitchen, I saw him step into the apartment slowly, blind to my spying. He was fully clothed, his dove jacket hanging loosely off his shoulders, and his collared shirt flared underneath. He placed his keys down on the side table along with what looked to be some envelopes, bills perhaps, and ran his fingers through his hair. His face was expressionless, but seemed to radiate this cool nonchalance, especially as he discarded his jacket gracefully on the back of the door. He was completely unaware of me watching him, and my stare seemed to be frozen in place. He looked the same as ever before. And for some reason, that disappointed me.

I was not the same as before. Not only was I standing in the middle of his kitchen wearing far less clothing than I had started off with, we had done something so personal. I didn’t want to see The Artist Gerard in his front hallway, no expression but cool arrogance. I wanted to see Gerard, the person, the one I had slept in bed with. I wanted to see his green eyes again.

Suddenly, those eyes met with my own, as if heeding to my internal request. Gerard had finally noticed I was up and awake, inside his kitchen. He smiled right away, baring his rather ugly nicotine stained teeth, but the rest of his expression I didn’t see. I turned away, feeling blush rise under my cheeks (again), suddenly self-conscious.

“Hey,” I heard him call easily, then start walking slowly.

I kept my eyes down, looking at the beads of water collecting in the bottom of his steel plated sink. I could hear his shoes clonk on the floor as he came nearer, but even as I felt his body beside me, I didn’t look up. The connection we had shared was abruptly becoming too much inside my mind, especially if he was just The Artist again. That person had seen too much of me.

“Good morning,” he greeted in the same light and airy voice. He leaned against the sink, waiting for a reply which never came. My knuckles grew white as I gripped them tightly around the glass.

“Are you okay?” he voiced, skepticism and concern blurring into one within his voice.

I nodded.

“Are you sure?” he pressed again, leaning into the counter space, and trying to see into my line of view. He placed a hand gingerly on the small of my back, rubbing it up and down. It shocked me, sending electricity radiating into my spine. I had not expected him to do that. And what do you do once you’ve been electrocuted?

You jump. Far.

And so I did. My hands uncurled from the glass and my arms pushed it forward, sending it rattling and cracking into the sink. It landed with a dull thud, and a sharp break, though there wasn’t much distance between my arm and its now final resting place. The velocity of the action was strong enough to break anything, except the nervous anxiety between Gerard and I. As if things couldn’t get much worse, and I couldn’t look any more naive.

At least the glass broke in the sink, I tried to tell myself calmly. At least there wasn’t glass on his floor, and there was no way of hurting us. My logical reasoning did nothing to calm the deranged teenager inside me, however. I stepped back from the mess I had created for myself, my arms raised high above the counter and twitching frantically. I could feel my face flush with embarrassment, and my uneasiness didn’t settle whatsoever. Apologies fell from my mouth instead of curses, but Gerard seemed unaffected by everything. He had not moved against my sudden actions, and was still leaning leisurely against the kitchen counter.

“Don’t worry about it,” he insisted, stepping forward into my panic and what may as well have been a battle zone. I had been shifting my gaze all around, but still managed to avoid his eyes. I could not escape his touch so easily, and I felt his heavy palm connect with my back again. He rubbed it gently, but it was no longer electric. It was soothing. He was calming me down. Perhaps the water had dulled the circuit, but he no longer seemed threatening.

“I’ve broken hundreds of those damn glasses,” he joked around, natural charisma coming through. “Although most of the time it was on purpose.”

I could tell he was smiling, though I still didn’t bother to look at his face. I was calming down however, and I slowly lowered my arms back on the counter, stance returning to normal, no glass to grip for stress. His hand felt warm on my back, and this time, sent shockwaves of realization into me. Despite his recent disappearing act, I knew I could trust him. He had come back, after all.

“Yeah,” I breathed out shakily, still nervous under his touch. His hand was nothing sexual, and no matter how far he moved it down, it still stayed on my back, and maintained a caring edge. He would have done this type of thing before; he was just making sure I was okay.

I could see the periphery of his black locks in my view, and I remembered how they had fallen over his face as he slept, like cobwebs forming over his sleeping mind. I had the sudden urge to forgo my nervousness and looked at him straight on. I only saw his eyes, those eyes I had seen in the dark, and had to turn away again. It was still too intense for me to handle. I didn’t want to look at him full on, just in case he disappeared once again.

“Frank,” he called my name, noticing my hesitation. I didn’t move. I grasped the counter tighter; so tight I thought I may break it too.

“Frank,” he repeated, a little more insistent, but never angry. His hand motions on my back stopped, and he began to slink his way up my neck gently. He curled his fingers in my hairline, sending shivers down the spine he had just touched before he took his hand to the base of my neck, thumb trailing along my jaw line.

“Frank, are you okay?” he said again, imploring nature to his voice.

“Yeah,” I insisted, swallowing hard, my eyes closed, as his thumb began to move down my face ever so slightly.

“Then why won’t you look at me?”

There was a quality to his voice I had never heard before, or maybe I had, just forgotten about it until now. He was sad – not desperate, but disappointed. And the way his fingers furled and unfurled against my mane, proved he was nervous, too. It wasn’t a caring rhythm (though that was there too), but a nervous twitch.

More shockwaves came through me. I realized I wasn’t talking to the arrogant artist anymore. I never had been. Gerard had been with me the entire time, and now, he wanted me to look at him. If I only had before, then maybe I wouldn’t have been so skeptical, nervous and broken so many things before us. Gerard was just as exposed as I was, and the fact that no one was seeing this side of him hurt just as much as me being left behind.

“Look at me and tell me you’re okay,” Gerard repeated again slowly, some resilience finding its way into his voice. He must have seen or felt the way my body changed, stiffened under realization, because he shifted closer to me. He moved his hand from the back of my neck, gingerly tipping my head up to meet his eyes. And there, even with the blinding golden rays of the sun shining in at odd angles, I saw what I had seen in the dark.

“I’m fine,” I told him, and this time, it wasn’t so hard to keep staring at him. I looked at his face too, branching away from his eyes and seeing his caring expression.

He smiled, and for a moment I could have sworn he was going to kiss me. His hand was still on my face, thumb rotating in small circles, even though I could now look at him. I wanted him to kiss me, but I was still a little nervous about everything. I didn’t know what things meant, exactly. I knew that he cared about me; that was clearly evident with this recent display of affection. I still possessed some reservations, probably due to my naivety.

“Where have you been?” I found myself asking boldly. It was a strong question, coming from someone who couldn’t even look anyone in the eye a few seconds ago, and who had just broken a glass, but it was less daring than actually reaching out and kissing him again. I would have thought it would have been easier with all the practice last night, but nothing seemed to come free flowing and natural anymore. I hoped I hadn’t fucked his up already.

“Oh,” he uttered, as if he had been caught in a forbidden act. He let his hand fall away from my face slowly, resting on my shoulder. “I just went out. Got something.”

He motioned to the counter, where a small cellophane bag had been placed. It was an opaque white shopping bag, the red logo for the store scattered in amongst its folds. I stared at it for the longest time, not trying to decipher what it was, but when the hell he had put that there.
“Oh,” I uttered, my turn to commit the forbidden act. I shifted my weight on my bare feet, looking back to him. “Why didn’t you say goodbye to me?”

Gerard sighed deeply, his brows knitting in a wrought concern. He ran his free hand through his black locks, but still kept the other on my shoulder.

“I didn’t want to wake you.” He smiled suddenly, drawing his hand back to my face. He brushed his thumb along my cheek, finishing his line as he curled my hair over my ear. “You look really beautiful when you sleep.”

I had to turn away from him then. Not because his gaze was too intense, but because I didn’t want him to see me blushing. I was not used to these kinds of compliments or behaviors. And it seemed a little foolish in my mind for a guy to be beautiful. Wouldn’t he be handsome? And myself being handsome, or even beautiful, was out of the question.

“I kissed you goodbye,” Gerard’s kind words broke into my train of thought again, his hand moving through my matted hair in a vain attempt to straighten it out. “But I didn’t want to wake you. I didn’t know how long I would be, and I didn’t want you to wait up. I didn’t even want you to know I had been gone…”

His voice grew softer, as his eyes drew down to his feet. If I had known any better, I would have thought he looked ashamed. But this was Gerard; no matter how real he was to me then, shame was not something he would know and embellish.

“I wanted to be alone.”

“Why?” I asked, cocking my head to the side.

“I needed to clear my mind. Think about a lot of things…”

“Like what?” I knew I was being annoying and insistent. He was a grown man and could do what he wanted, but I was still clinging onto him for answers.

He raised his eyes to me slowly, taking a breath before he decided to say anything. “You…”

“Oh,” I uttered, and then ran out of questions as we both ran out of words.

“Here, let me explain,” Gerard cut in rather quick. He removed his hand from my shoulder, gliding it down my arm and linking our hands. “Come to my room for a little while. Just to talk, I promise.”

He looked at me for some kind of approval before he started moving again, taking the bag on the counter with him. It crinkled loudly as he ventured back into the same space I had just come from. He placed us at the end of his bed, both our knees touching as we faced inward to talk. I closed my legs tightly, feeling the fabric of his pants against my skin, and realizing I was still very much exposed. He placed the bag behind us, and then fidgeted with his hands, trying to find his words.

“Last night…” he began, an unsure tone to everything. He tried to look at me, but looked away, and I was tempted to cup his face in my own hands and make him stare directly into me. I knew I could never emulate him, no matter how hard I tried and how much he had been apart of me.

“We don’t have to do what we did last night again,” he finally spat out, and then I was glad we were both looking away from each other.

I felt that same sensation in my chest again, coming back full force since it had ceased momentarily when he entered the apartment. Did Gerard not want this anymore? Did he not want me? Is that why he left? Was all of this a big mistake? Had I been right all along? The questions came at me like bullets, but the vest I had been wearing was only twisting with my flesh, mixing as I grew wounded and making me this hard statue before him. I stared at my bare feet, naked like I had been last night, trying to make sense of things.

God, fucking sex changed everything. And not in the good way. I had hoped by giving me giving myself to him, allowing for us to be together, and even fucking building our own world, our own picture, that everything would be okay. We would be together and things would be easier. I would be an adult; it was just the same principle as my waning innocence and naivety. I wanted it gone, and my adult relationship with Gerard to begin.

I had honestly really liked what we had done that night. Despite the pain, the initial awkwardness, the fact that I was completely naked and the bleeding, I had liked having sex. It did end up feeling good about halfway into it, which surprised me to no end. I didn’t know putting anything in my ass would feel good. I didn’t really sit at home and wonder these things at night. And what pain I did have from the action was something that Gerard had told me needed to be there. I needed to remember it. And I would for a long time. Not just because I had lost my virginity that night, but because of who I lost it too. I had no idea I would lose it this way, and with this man, but fuck. That didn’t matter anymore. I wanted this.

What had changed? Everything had, or at least it seemed to be that way. I just hoped that the metaphorical everything, the one that he asked for – and I fucking gave him – didn’t change. Maybe Gerard was just nervous now. Maybe something had happened when he went out. There were dozens of possibilities, and my rash thinking and his rambling solitarily weren’t helping either of us.

“We don’t have to do this again,” Gerard repeated, motioning with his hands as his eyes stayed focused on the floor. “I know we went really fast, and we don’t have to have sex again. We can do something else, or we can not do anything at all. You can leave if you want, too…”

Date: 2015-12-17; view: 503