Chapter Twenty The Art Of Sex

Part One – Names

All through Monday at school, I felt like there was something trapped in my chest. There was a constant gnashing and fluttering of something trying to escape. It felt like Gerard’s dove was there, wings rustling and hitting my tender organs, trying to break free and actually fly. I felt so restricted in the classroom. The teacher droned on and on about some math principle, and it took all of my being to not get on top of the desk and yell at the top of my lungs that math was useless, and we should be more concerned with the cubist period of Picasso than how to find the area of a cube itself. Numbers couldn’t help me, numbers couldn’t set me free – unless it were the numbers on the hands of the clock, slowly counting down until I could finally unleash the bird in my chest.

At first the feeling inside of me was a mixture of happy anxiety. Soon enough and my shackles would break and I could go to the artist’s house and see the real dove. I wondered if she was still flying out of her cage, and how far she had explored the apartment. I knew there were places that she had probably never seen before. There were places that Gerard probably hadn’t seen before, and I wondered if he was learning with her. If he was wearing clothing or not…I couldn’t believe it when I first had a sexual fantasy of Gerard in class. It took me completely by surprise. My mind had slipped, and so had my thoughts into his apartment on the night where it all happened. I swore I could feel the sensations all over again, him entering me. Thankfully I couldn’t feel everything, or I would have had a problem explaining my boner in the middle of computer science class. The fantasy only lasted a few minutes at most, but it still left me smiling, my chest swelling with something I had never experienced before. I reveled in it all.

Until lunch, however, and I met up with Sam and Travis again. That was when the nervous energy turned into desperation. The first words out of Sam’s mouth were ‘where the fuck have you been all weekend?’ Apparently, he and Travis had been ‘constantly’ calling my house. I felt my blood run cold when he mentioned this, images of the lies I had only just started to tell crashing in front of me and my dove being shoved with choking hands back into a confining cage. I didn’t say or do anything – I couldn’t. I didn’t know how to cover my tracks because I had not thought this far ahead.

Thankfully, Travis brought me back down to reality informing me that every time they called, my father had picked up and they didn’t want to deal with him. No one ever wanted to deal with my father, really. Even some of his business colleagues avoided calling the house and opted for coming over instead. I couldn’t blame them. My father was loud in real life, but on the phone everything was maximized. He didn’t have a concept of volume, or how close he should hold the device to his lips. Most of the time when I called home for a ride, I would hold it out a foot from my face, waiting to hear the tell-tale bark. Even with it that far away, I could still hear him and his harsh breathing distinctly. I was positive this was the reason my mother usually handled phone calls, but for whatever reason, she had been busy this weekend and had not bothered to pick up. Thank God.

Travis, always being highly sensitive to noises and sounds and lights (a side effect from being high most of the time), had nearly thrown the phone across the room when my dad had answered. That had been the end of that call. Sam had taken over the duties later on, but when my dad kept answering the phone, Sam never bothered to say a word. He hated authority figures, especially my father, and wanted to avoid them as much as piss them off. My father wasn’t worth pissing off, and he gave up calling after three tries. That was the definition of ‘constant’ for Sam with the attention span of a fruit fly. I felt like blessing every little fault all of my friends and my father had right then because they had just saved my ass. I was pretty sure I had never loved my dad so much in that very moment. I used to curse that loud and obstructive voice, but it had saved me from damnation.

I couldn’t imagine what would have happened if my lies had unfolded already. My mother would be crushed; she was already so worn out and tired, and that had been when she thought I was spending time with my friends. And my father, well, I knew he would kill me. I had been saved for now, for whatever reason. I still had time to keep weaving the lies that nearly choked me.

Sam, Travis, and I sat down for lunch, but barely exchanged any words. Travis was off in his own world, and Sam kept sending me snide looks from across the table. I had been looking down at my sandwich, when I told myself to hold my head up high instead. I saw over Sam, over Travis, over everything in the cafeteria and I felt a million times better. The dove inside my chest started flying again.

I was really shocked that they had been inviting me places that weekend in the first place. They hadn’t last week, or the one before that. I wondered what was so special about now, but when I asked Travis, he was half-asleep from the night before and gave little explanation. Sam was just so pissed at me for not answering the phone and ‘disappearing’ on them that he was of no use for an explanation. I found it ironic that they accused me of disappearing, when they had been becoming transparent to me for a long time now. But of course, it was all my fault, according to Sam. Even if we had known each other since we were five, he could still be mad at me without a problem. Maybe it was because we had known each other so long. We were sick of each other. We had each seen the other grow up (or not, in Sam’s case), we had each seen the other’s faults, and now we were realizing we didn’t like the other person all that much. We had been forced together from school, but school was almost over. We were both realizing that we had other options. Better options, even if we couldn’t fill them entirely just yet. Therefore, anger sparked quicker. We were way past that stage of being nice because we were still getting to know each other. We knew each other. And now, we didn’t like each other.

He and I would have our moments, however, when he laughed and joked around with me like old times. He would still invite me with him to places – but only when he wanted to and, probably, mostly out of the history we had shared. It was impossible to rip out our history together from the text we had made; there would always be frayed edges to pages of the time we shared together. At the moment, I was just the back-up friend, dragged along with when it was okay to have a third wheel. Travis was Sam’s best friend now. Normally, I would have been mad and hot-headed over it, but I was still riding on the afterthoughts of the night before. Gerard was my best friend now – he was more than they ever were or could be if they did want me back. And I realized that they would want me back. They needed me. They needed me to be there when they couldn’t take each other anymore. When Travis got to be too weird for Sam and Sam too angry for Travis, I was sent to be placed in the center. I remembered when that used to be Travis’ job. I wondered when the exact switch had taken place, and when it would happen again, only with someone else. Sam went through friends really fast, but I knew I was never going to get thrown too far back in the mix again. I would hang around during the day, but then I would be gone, free from my shackles.

I never did find out what was so important about this weekend, but I assumed it was drug related. They invited me out again to do something with them after school that day. I said no almost immediately, thinking of the time I was planning on having with Gerard again. And honestly, I had the confidence in myself to say no regardless of Gerard’s presence now. I didn’t want to hang out with them anymore beyond the confines of school. They never treated me that well anyway. I was beginning to realize, slowly and surely, that my friends were not who they said they were. Apparently, I was not who they said I was. At least, not anymore.

“You’ve changed, man,” Sam spat at me tiredly, after hearing my decline. He twisted his already odd face up into a sneer and stepped up from the lunch table, leaving his garbage behind. He slung his backpack over his shoulder abruptly and signaled for Travis to follow. Travis merely shook his head at me, zipping up his coat all the way before he followed after Sam down the hall.

That used to be me, I thought to myself, watching the lanky boy follow closely behind. I was glad it wasn’t anymore.

My two friends didn’t speak to me the rest of the day, but it didn’t matter anymore. Maybe I had changed, but it wasn’t my fault. It was the dead and dull life that I had been surrounded in that changed me, and their apathy towards its all. It wasn’t my fault I had changed, when they hadn’t. Their disapproval of it for sure wasn’t going to stop me.

***

When I finally was able to make that trek to Gerard’s place, I wasted no time in removing my clothing. I had knocked on the door to let him know that I had arrived, but jabbed my key in at the same time, so fast I nearly broke it off. I was so excited and eager to see him, especially after the day I had experienced. It wasn’t necessarily a bad day, it was just different. Not something I wanted.

When I finally entered the paint clad home, the one place I wanted to be, I saw Gerard walking over to me from a small piece he had been working on for days now. He had the biggest smile on his face, a gesture not out of the ordinary for him. I kicked the door closed behind me as I leaped over to him. He wrapped me up in a large hug, pulling me close like he had the night before when I had left to go home.

“I missed you,” he said into my neck.

I felt my insides warm and jump around, like there were kids playing on the trampoline in my stomach. I hugged him tighter, jumping up a little and wrapping my legs around him. He was surprisingly strong, and was able hold me easily.

“It’s only been a day,” I teased him, even though I felt the exact same way. There were so many intense feelings in our relationship that it needed to be contrasted with sheer joy to make a perfect balance.

“Sometimes a day is too long, and sometimes a night is never enough,” he informed me gallantly, squeezing me right back. “And we shouldn’t have to wait. You know how I feel about time.”

He laughed into my neck, the hot bursts of air tickling me along with his vocal vibrations. We parted from the hug slightly, only enough for my feet to touch the ground again, and our lips to meet in a passionate kiss. We were acting like old couples in fifties films that had just gotten back from the war and hadn’t seen each other in years. It would have been comical, if it hadn’t been so beautiful at the same time.

He was wearing clothing surprisingly, but as we moved away even more we began to shed them bit by bit. Before long, we were naked and in each other arms, kissing any region of bare skin we saw. He was lying on his back on the floor, murmuring as I began to trace my way down his body with my mouth and teasing his entrance with my fingers. I was straddling him, but my position changed constantly while his hands remained strong and stationary on my sides.

It amazed me how much more confidence I had than the night before. The task didn’t seem so scary anymore, Gerard’s body no longer a mysterious landscape, but still so new I could explore and find new places we both liked. And that was what we did for the first little while. We didn’t have sex right away, though we were both naked, and the lube was in and on our hands. He had brought the warming one out from his room, and I took time to rub it on his chest like he had done with me on Saturday. His eyes were closed for most of the act, but when they did open, they were half-lidded and desire-filled. I eventually found my way to his opening, spreading the lube copiously, and entering as slowly as I could. Gerard dragged some of the couch cushions for himself to prop himself up on, the hardwood floor being too awkward for our sensitive skin. I fucked him this time, like the night before, but he was much more responsive. He was able to come, just shortly after I had, both of our hands bringing him to the final spot.

I lay on top of him after, too tired to move and not really wanting to. It was hard to stay inside of him too long after sex, both for comfort factor and because of the conditions changing. I tried to savor the feeling that I didn’t get to have the night before as long as possible before I finally needed to pull out. It was a security issue wanting to be inside of him, I figured, just to be that much closer. We kissed with slower darting tongues once freed, this action of sex the fastest yet we had participated in. Gerard moved and went to his bedroom, but instead of pulling us in there, he tore the contents away, dragging blankets back to our spot instead.

“What are we?” I found my lips forming a question that I was still knocking around inside my head. We were still basking in the afterglow of sex, both of our bodies naked, but half-hidden under the sheet. He had me tucked under his arm like a precious package, my eye level right with his neck and chest. I had been tracing my fingers over his skin, curling his hair, and mapping out an alternate route when the question had come to me, and I now drew my eyes to his own.

“We’re living,” he answered, his eyes staring up at the ceiling and his fingers dancing over hair.

It was not quite the response I had wanted, though I wasn’t sure what I was even asking. I knew we were in a relationship – we had to be - but I had no idea what to call each other. Boyfriend was too young and immature, though I couldn’t think of anything else to put in its place. If I didn’t have a name for our status, then I had no idea what we were doing every day, day in and day out.

“I mean,” I continued, trying to clarify my thoughts for him and myself. “What are we, together? What do I call you?”

I looked up at him unsure, while he was still staring at the ceiling, seeing some beauty I couldn’t quite fathom yet.
“You call me Gerard,” he said seriously. “And I call you Frank.”

I sighed. He was toying with me again and I wasn’t in the mood for it.

“Yeah, but what does that mean, Gerard?” I emphasized his own name, to almost spite him in his previous point. He smiled, realizing what I had done, very proud.

“It means whatever you want it to mean, Frank,” he countered, the tease in his voice balancing out the seriousness. I smiled in spite of myself as I let the information process. I lowered my eyes back down to his smooth chest and started to rotate my thumb around while I thought hard.

“What does it mean to you?” I finally asked, not meeting his eyes. He took a deep breath and stopped rubbing my hair. He placed his hand down my bare back instead.

“It means a lot of things to me,” he began, thinking hard and still looking up. He furrowed his brow, searching for something deep inside his mind. “We gave ourselves to each other in more than just bodies. I showed you my art, and you showed me yours. It’s deeper than what we just did right here. And honestly, I don’t think there is a word for that.”

He paused, rubbing a hand to his chin as he thought. “I suppose you could call us lovers. Artists use that term a lot. And they had many lovers, sometimes at the same time.”

I had been listening intently to what he was saying, enjoying and agreeing with everything he said. Until he came to that last part. What did he mean when he said they had many? Did he have anyone else other than me? I had merely assumed that I was the only one he got naked with every day. I never thought there was a need to ask him.

I shot my head and looked up at him, my brows wrought with concern. He saw me, his face falling as he leaned down to place a small kiss on my still twisted lips.

“But I only have one lover,” he stated after, rubbing my hair again to soothe me. “I’ve never needed anything more. You’re quite the handful.”

He smiled, trying to ease my tension. I was still a little afraid, but not because of him anymore. It had been my reaction to the simple honest statement. My stomach had dropped out and a wave of panic had washed over me. It scared me how intense my feelings were, and how much jealousy and fear seeped into my system when there was just the thought, the mere implication of someone else. And it had just been a weekend.

With Gerard passion and intensity were praised, never feared. I had to get used to this. He tipped my chin up from where it rested against my chest, and kissed me hard. I was more than willing to try.

“What about you, Frank?” he asked, when the embrace was done. “What does it mean to you?”

“Umm…” I said, thinking hard and trying to process my scattered thoughts. The memories of all the times we had had together came back to me, even before we had started having sex. I thought of meeting in the park, him throwing paint on me, and then teaching me with that very bucket of paint. And then my mouth just opened and I started to talk, pouring the feelings on like the cool liquid.

“You’re my mentor, I guess. My artist. My teacher. My friend. And now, I guess my lover, too.”

I sort of shrugged my shoulders, trying to get the attention off of me. It felt a little weird using the term lover. I felt like I was in a bad eighties romance novel when I used it; it felt weird against my tongue. Maybe it was one of those things I had to get used to. The wine had felt bitter at first, too.

“That’s a lot,” Gerard said, cutting me off from rambling. He was smiling, beaming with the praise he was getting. “But that’s not what this means to you. It’s what I mean. What does us together mean to you, Frank? What would you call that?”

I bit my lip thinking, feeling inadequate because of my answer. Then, as my brain riffled through even more memories, one leaped to the forefront.

“Everything.” My voice enlightened, my emotions riveting. I looked up and Gerard and smiled, and I saw his eyes flash, recalling the same thing I was. “We’re everything. Just like the night we first fucked -”

“We don’t fuck, Frank,” Gerard cut me off, spoiling the mood. He crushed his eyes closed and shook his head slightly, confusing me.

“What do we do then?” I asked a little harshly, the tone to which he ignored.

“We for sure don’t fuck,” he repeated, making the word flick violently off his tongue. He raised his eyebrows high to emphasize his point. “Fucking is the raw natural animal urge to just fuck. To enter and thrust and come all in one go. To obtain pleasure and to get off. Our relationship is definitely focused on pleasure,” he added with a coy smile, his hand massaging my body even more. “But we obtain pleasure in other ways than just getting off. Like touching and kissing.”

As Gerard stated the last line slowly and seductively, he began to bring our mouths closer together, opening and sliding his tongue into my own, deepening the kiss. I smiled and laughed as he did, pulling him closer. The act didn’t last long, only there to prove a point in a fun manner.

“You could say we’re having sex,” he continued, motioning with his one free hand that wasn’t wrapped around my shoulder. “But that is too technical. Having sex is the biological term. You have sex to procreate and to bind marriage. I somehow don’t even think we’re going to be able to make babies.” He smiled down at me before he added with a slightly somber tone, “Or get married.”

I found and squeezed his large hand in my own, making him smile again. It was silent for awhile, before I realized he hadn’t even answered my question.

“What do we do then?”

He nodded, as if he had been waiting for me. “We don’t fuck or have sex. We make –“

“Love?” I finished for him, hoping and praying that was the answer he wanted. It was cliché, and I had heard it on all the televisions shows, and again, more eighties romance novels. But if the term lovers worked, why not this?

“No!” Gerard scoffed, almost immediately and sending my heart sinking to the bottom of my chest.

“Oh…” I uttered, looking down and away, ashamed I had even suggested it. I suddenly felt his free hand on me again, his finger running down my jaw line and bringing my face up to meet his own.

“We don’t make love,” he emphasized and repeated. “We make art.”

In one quick and swift motion, before I could make any utterance, he brought our lips together in a kiss. He turned me slightly, pressing my back into the sheet in order for him to mount me. Our hips and areas connected, and though his words, gestures, and devious smile radiated sex, we were far from it. He leaned down and kissed me lightly, and we made art again.

We continued in this pose, this position, this piece, for the rest of the night, his words echoing through my head. He always found the right words for everything. He always knew how to describe things and what they meant. Of course we made art, I told myself harshly. We made art every day with our bodies, with our minds, and with everything else, even if we hadn’t touch the paint cans in awhile. I should have already known this.

As I looked up at Gerard and his crafty smile, I envied him. He possessed something I never imagined, never thought possible. He had a talent for discovering the blatantly beautiful, and I was still so far behind, though already given the materials to work with. I took some satisfaction in the fact that at least I could see the picture we were painting.

Part Two – Colors

We got quite good at making art with our bodies; we were always practicing. Whether it was the way Gerard took my hand as soon as I entered the apartment, or the way I said his name, it would always come back around to the most primal and most basic art form: sex. We would be naked on the floor, or in his bed, or even against the wall, one of us gasping and whispering something incomprehensible as penetration occurred. I gained more assurance, while he gained more stamina, and we even began to switch positioning half-way through the act, just to change things around. Gerard always liked to see different viewpoints of art work, different interpretations, and different meanings. Switching positions was his way of doing that. It made a new picture with a new meaning. We were sleeping at the other end of the bed again.

Everything seemed to always lead to sex with us. We could be doing the most mundane task and the next thing we knew we were on top of each other, our hips crashing together, long and hard. Our sex always changed slightly with each time, a tongue finding a new pleasure spot, tasting a new area or a slightly different position. He held all the ideas with the new placements, my naïve mind knowing nothing about standard gay sex before I came here, let alone mixing it up a little bit. Some of the positions he suggested were awkward, for me and for him, but when his hands clutched my waist reassuringly, everything was fine. There was something sturdy and safe about his hands on me. They were always warm, much larger than my own, and gripped me tightly. His fingers splayed out along my tender skin, kneading me, and his palm drawing me closer. I let myself be led into new adventures. I found out how far I could bend. I had never known I was so flexible, so bendable. And still so gorgeous, according to Gerard.

I was pretty sure we had had sex on almost every surface in that apartment. At the beginning of the week, the floors and bed - anything horizontal - held our delicate interest and focus. We even tried his kitchen table at one point, after we had eaten a small dinner he prepared for me. Soon enough, horizontal surroundings were no longer good. We were insatiable, and we moved to vertical horizons. His walls screamed out to us, and without exchanging words with each other, we were up against them, him supporting me much like he had in the shower that one night where we had deviated from our scopes. Gerard always had to be the one to hold me up; I wasn’t strong enough to carry all of his body weight. My back sometimes returned with paint flecks that had dug into my skin from our positioning, but it was okay. Art covered his walls, and since we were art itself, we covered it right back and had it consume us too.

We laughed at a lot of the time when we had sex, each action carefree and innocent, as much as it was alluring. Once when I had been pinned against the wall, Gerard dropped the lube when we were just about to start. Instead of cursing and becoming aggravated with how strained his arms were becoming, we just laughed it off, and he started to kiss my neck slowly. We directed ourselves over to the couch, and he picked up the lube, ready to start again. There was no sense of urgency when we had sex either. If something went wrong, we dealt with it. We had encountered a few more incidents like the Sunday before where Gerard couldn’t get it up, but there was no more freaking out. I just had sex with him, or we didn’t have sex at all. Though not having sex was a rare thing for us. There were no more, or at least not many, discussions about age, fear, or guilt. We just had sex and tried not to dwell on things too much. Gerard hadn’t even been teaching me that many lessons anymore. Everything was a lot more art focused, pleasured focused, and in turn, I supposed that was a lesson in itself. There was something worth living for in this world; it wasn’t all bad, and he was trying to show it to me. For the most part, we were just having fun, and it seemed like something we both hadn’t experienced in a long time.

I was pretty sure the reason we fucked everywhere was because of Gerard. It was his mission; his new project. He wanted our art, our story, our everything written all over his apartment. He wanted to look around and have a reminder of us somewhere, a reminder of what we had done, or were going to do soon. He needed to leave our mark everywhere in that place because we couldn’t step foot outside the way we were. The only place we had not fucked in the small apartment was on the balcony, its surface closed off, the window remaining locked because of the risks the outside world possessed.

“But I love risks,” Gerard countered one day, after I had brought up the subject.

“There is a difference between good risks and just plain stupid ones, Gerard,” I retorted, batting his hand away as he tried to pull me towards the balcony. We were in the middle of tearing our clothes off for that day, myself only clad in my jeans by that point, and his body completely naked save for the unbuttoned black collared shirt that hung loosely on his shoulders. Despite my pulling against his grasp so he didn’t toss us off the balcony or get us caught by showing our secret to everyone, I grinned at his childlike nature. It was times like these where I forgot his age and the fact that he could be taken away from me at any point.

I knew what we were doing was dangerous. Many times before I had played out scenarios in my mind of what would happen if we got caught. It was how I spent most schools days, when math class got too boring, or my computer tech too redundant. Instead of risking getting a boner by thinking of what Gerard and I would do that night (or to talk one down) I thought of the consequences. Almost getting caught by Sam and Travis, so close to the beginning, had made me be more vigilant. At least, more vigilant in not hanging around with them all that much, and keeping my thoughts on more serious topics. I would replay the scattered images of what I would if everything folded down around us; Sam’s disgust, my mother’s tears, and my father’s wrath. I imagined jail sentences, police cars, and trials. Discrimination and no hope for redemption. Never once did I imagine a good fantasy. I didn’t think there could be a good outcome in all of this. I toyed with the idea every once in awhile, images of Gerard and I running away if we were caught (there were no scenarios where we weren’t caught either), but knowing how the police system worked, we would have been caught before we even made it out of Jersey. Most of the people living here couldn’t make it out of Jersey while trying, and they weren’t risking everything. Gerard and I were doomed no matter what, I was growing to realize and accept. Society would get us eventually, tearing us apart bit by bit, creating destruction for no apparent reason.

I recalled the art lesson in which I walked in on Gerard destroying his own work. You destroy the things you love, he had told me before smashing his art into pieces. If society was going to destroy us eventually, it was only because they were jealous of what we had. They were afraid, because they secretly loved us. They wanted what we had; they wanted art, they wanted to be free.

I didn’t know how long it would take for society to ruin us, and I hoped it took another thirty years for it all to catch on, and I was the same age as Gerard. I knew I didn’t even have to wait that long. I was going to be eighteen in a few months; I would be an adult and I could make my own decisions. For once, that thought excited me. I wanted to grow old then, if only by a little bit. I was still scared shitless of bills, responsibilities, and jobs but I would give into that fear if it meant that I could choose to be with Gerard and not have anything bad happen to us. Gerard made growing old seem like a way of life, something you just did. And it was, but he also had a way of making it beautiful.

When you grew old, that didn’t mean you had to be old. Being responsible didn’t have to mean boring or uptight, and getting jobs didn’t have to mean nine-to-five. I hated the whole nine-to-five existence. It was what my father had, and what my mother had part-time. They were miserable, even if they didn’t want to admit it. I had seen other people go through that dull repetitive life and they were miserable too. I had been so dejected only months ago, on my own, and I didn’t have a job, nor had I ever worked. I could have only imagined the depression that would have set in if I had been catapulted into the real adult world and I had never had Gerard to influence me.

Gerard had never had a nine-to-five job in his life. He had worked before, in petty employment when he was trying to put himself through college, but almost all of them related to art in some way. He gave tours at a gallery, sold paint and paint brushes, gave art lessons on the side, tutored at the school. He had worked, but he had made his work exciting. And all of that was only temporary. To get ahead enough so he could solely do art and art alone. He wanted to get on his feet like everyone else, only unlike them, he ran once he was there.

Gerard was showing me then that bills, responsibility, and jobs were not the only thing that you had to look forward to in adult life. There was also art, sex, and freedom to do whatever I wanted. He was giving me a taste of that life, and himself, before my real age had even begun to set in. I was teetering in limbo between adulthood and childhood, and he was guiding me gently with his hands on my back, and lips over mine.

After sex, he would let me explore his body with wide eyes and eager hands, just feeling out where he was different from myself. We were both men, but there were so many differences I spotted, so many ways he was unique from me, and I wanted to find them all. I explored, but it wasn’t like before when I found the age spot and cowered away in surprise. I knew he was old, and I accepted that. The way he carried himself, the way he chose not to let his age affect him I admired so much. And it made me want to get closer and closer to him. He was letting me now, so I did.

“You have a mole here,” I informed him one day, touching the browned fleck on his inner thigh. I had been in the process of giving him a blowjob, when I suddenly noticed the disparity of his skin. I waited until after we had finished until I told him, though I was pretty sure if I wanted to stop the action right then and there and discuss this new ‘flaw’, I knew we would have.

His head had been arched back on the pillow, Adam’s apple cleanly exposed and covered with the markings I gave him. He swallowed hard before he raised his gaze to me. He squinted his eyes curiously as I tried to show him the spot far on the underside of his thigh. I ran my finger over it compulsively, showing him in touch when he couldn’t spot it yet. It wasn’t too big or anything special, but it was something I had found, and when Gerard’s eyes had locked on it, I knew it was something he had never seen it before. I felt an odd sense of pride wash over me.

“Oh, what have I done to you?” he questioned quietly.

“What?” I gasped, not recognizing his tone right away. I thought I detected melancholy at first, and it perturbed me. We had been getting along too well the past few days to bring up anything about corruption or guilt. Seeing my distress, he pulled me towards the center of his unclothed chest. He was sitting up now, and he rubbed my hair with a smile, easing my thoughts as I eased into him.

“You’re getting better at this than me,” he quipped simply, and my pride returned.

Not long after, he began to explore my body too.

***

We began to paint again. He was still teaching me art, bit by bit, inch by inch, and kiss by kiss. I would take off my clothes when I got there, sliding up next to him and giving myself up to him completely. He would dictate what we did for the most part, whether we painted a picture first before we had sex, or the other way around. When I showed up one night, I found out that we were combining the two art forms.

Gerard told me one night as I left his apartment that the next time we were together, he would have a surprise for me. He tried to play it off as something he had thought of just in that moment. It was very like him to be spontaneous and change things constantly, but I could tell from the slight off-cast grin he possessed that he had really been planning this night a long time in advance. I had no idea how long; we had only been together a short time. I figured he had wanted to do this ages ago, with perhaps another lover, but the idea never got off the ground. Either they ignored it, or Gerard never spoke up about it (I found the latter harder to fathom for the sheer fact that Gerard never shut up). Whatever there the reason, I couldn’t wait for the next day.

When I got there, Gerard was already naked and ready, in front of his mural. It had been left destroyed with paint swirls everywhere on it since that day of the destruction lesson, but now it was painted all black for a completely new base. He held the used paint roller in his hand, admiring his job from afar, evening up sketchy patches. The stench of fresh paint clung to the room, making me start to breathe shallow within moments of entering the apartment. I dropped my bag and pressed on, just as Gerard turned around and gave me a small wink. There were a few black patches from misshaped paint swipes on his forearms, along with one small line down his left cheek. I smiled back and walked over shedding my clothing with each step, and appeared behind him, resting my head on his shoulder next to his ear.

“What are we doing?” I asked, though I already had a fairly good idea. I knew Gerard always liked to voice his muse – as he called it – so I let him. I waited patiently for an answer, tugging on his ear lobe as I did.

“We’re going to paint tonight,” he stated clearly, still staring at the wall. His hands were crossed over his thick chest. There was a lull in speech before he said the next part. “Using the best supplies there are. Us.”

He turned into me, discarding the paint roller and wrapping me up in his arms. We kissed heavily for a while, before I felt his hand on my back, slick and wet with an unfamiliar substance. I gasped into his mouth, pulling away. He stood in front of me, holding out his hand, which was covered in the green goo of paint. He smiled at me deviously and brought his hand forward, tracing his fingers down my jaw line seductively, leaving a wet trail where he went. It sent shivers up my spine. He drew closer to me, still spreading green handprints all over my body as if there wasn’t anything foreign invading his pores.

“What are you waiting for?” he whispered to me, his lips hovering above my own. Both our eyes were open, and we stared at each other’s pristine gaze, practically feeling the other’s eyelashes move as they blinked. He was always so intense during sex, during art, I couldn’t imagine how we would be when we literally combined both forms.

Breaking the stare, he took my hand in his wet one and brought me over to the many buckets of paint I had to choose from. They were all set up and open, adding to the fumes of the room. I felt my head spin and the rainbow blur.

“Pick your favorite color,” he told me, then let go of my hand. I was covered in green in some places, but that didn’t stop me from diving my hand into the medium shade of blue paint can in front of me. Though the label on the side was caked over in its color, and some others, I was pretty sure the name of this blue was Azure. I had always loved that word, and the way it sounded in my mouth. It felt even better all over me.

“Why blue?” he asked, tilting his head to the side, very proud that I had dove right into the paints without a second thought.

“Blue is what started it all,” I told him honestly, looking him in the eyes.

Without a second thought, he nodded. He understood. Gerard knew right away I meant that day which seemed so long ago. That day where I was still a kid trapped inside a coating of paint, wanting to break out but too afraid to do anything. That day where he had first started his enticement, and his lessons, though I hadn’t even realized it yet. I was sure Gerard knew all along what blue meant to me, but wanted reassurance in his actions.

As I watched the liquid bubble and ooze in between my fingers, I realized how much I had grown up. I had never wanted to do that; I had been so afraid. But here I was. I was with someone I never thought possible, and they were making me believe in things I never thought I could believe in. I could be creative, exciting, and a work of art. Gerard and I could be a work of art. Together.

“Sacré bleu,” he whispered softly, nodding his head with his eyes closed. He took a deep breath, diving his hand into the green, a distinct shade between a traffic light and a pine tree. It’s labeled was peeled away concisely, but I was pretty sure it was called Jade.

“Why green?” I asked him.

“It’s the color of nature, of new beginnings,” he began, his eyes still closed a bit longer than a standard blink. He opened his lidded skin when he delivered his last line. “Of growing up and old.”

I nodded with a grin, knowing exactly what he was saying. I liked the way jade sounded, too.

“Are you ready?” he asked, brushing over memories and focusing on the now.

“Just a sec,” I informed him, another idea coming to my mind. I reached over with my other hand, not yet coated, and dipped it into a red can of paint.

In technical terms, this red was called scarlet. The name sounded sexy and exotic, but it didn’t do the color justice inside my mind. Red was so much more than sex, than passion, than anything like that. Red was for the anger I felt being attracted to Gerard. All the nights I wanted him out of my head, only to have the red color, that scarlet hue over and over again in my mind. Red was for when I realized that something else was there. That it wasn’t just red but scarlet. It was a deep shade that I couldn’t shake off. It stuck to me, stained me. I had seen the shade, that tinge, and something more in his eyes that day I was supposed to start work for him. Red was the shade I had been afraid of, but now that I held it in my hands, it wasn’t so scary anymore. It was just red again, and I could deal with that.

“Why red?” Gerard asked, a new hint of curiosity to his voice. This time, and for once, he really didn’t know the interpretation.

“Red is forbidden, Gerard,” I deterred his question, and answered it all in the same sentence. “I’m not allowed to tell you.”

I gave him a sinister smile, and he gave me one right back, lolling his un-coated hand in my hair and tousling it. Then we started to paint.

Our colors made sense, and followed a succession. Blue was for the beginning, for change and for cursing the present. Red was for the fear and passion that we managed to capture when things started to progress further. The green that Gerard had marked the future. Green meant you grew up, like me, and old, like Gerard. These colors made sense; they were us.

As we threw them against the black wall, mingling and mixing them, nothing could go wrong. In art, we had the power to control things. The society was the black background and we were painting over it. Society was going to destroy us, eventually, I knew that. I could accept it now. But I also could accept art, and I had been doing that for a long time. Art was my weapon of choice, and by fighting myself first, painting with myself, I knew I could fight any other battle with anyone who came along. And Gerard could do the same. We could stop the society from crushing us here in this little apartment using paints for our mock battle. It was small, but nothing ever was. The smallest fleck of paint on a canvas could change someone’s life, and the smallest action could change the world. That was what the butterfly effect was about. We were becoming butterflies; we coated our bodies from head to toe in paint. We let our hands blend together as one, and spread the mess over ourselves, inside and out, metaphorical and real. Then we slammed ourselves against that wall, against society, against everything.

No – not against everything. For everything. We were everything, and as the paint started to harden, forming cocoons, I wondered how beautiful we would turn out in the end. I didn’t care if we won the battle or not anymore, I just wanted to look good in the process. And really, that’s all art was. Meaning and purpose, but looking good while achieving it. Maybe if we covered the black wall or society in an aura of paint, we could change it. It was worth a shot; I had been changed the very same way.

We began to add more colors, after we set the basis for those three. It was going to be an abstract piece, but Gerard always said that for it to be a true abstract, a picture would always be born by nature. You could find an image amongst the swirls and splotches; you could find another interpretation to chaos. But you had to be blind to the entire process. The moment you set out to make the picture is the moment it loses all meaning. If you tried to make a sunset represent love, it won’t by the time you’re done. It just won’t. The best things in life, people don’t plan for. Gerard had been planning for this night for a long time, but his constant mental processes stopped the second after he put his hands in the paint. We were both blind now, but we still managed to find each other’s hands in the process.

We forgot about any rules to our painting, sometimes we forgot about the painting itself. We stopped every once in awhile to rub some of the goo on the other’s back and face, toying around with body art that we would try to press into the wall after. We’d sometimes just stop in the middle too, our hands dripping, and just kiss. I ran my stained fingers through Gerard’s hair and he did the same for me. I didn’t care that I could feel the strands he had contacted clumping together. We touched each other everywhere, leaving greedy handprints that soon got smeared into seductive splotches. Gerard touched my lip with his thumb, leaving a dark blue blemish which I passed onto him as well. It was a mutual transfer of inspiration and ideas.

We got so into our mural, we’d pant and sweat and curse as we threw each color down. Sometimes we got so into each other too we’d pant and kiss and thrust our hips into the other. Art was sexual, after all. I was getting harder and harder as we began to finish everything off, adding a pink hue here, mixing purple there, but we were not going to have sex yet. Gerard was very determined on that fact. Anytime I tried to do more than just crashing into his hips he would pull apart our mouth and declare, “We can finish ourselves, but the art can’t.”

And we’d begin the painting process all over again.

I was never sure how long we painted for. Time seemed to always slip through my fingers, much like the paint we tried to hold when we were together. The wall looked gorgeous in my mind; it was full of pinks, yellows, and bright oranges alongside the three colors that composed us. Though colors bled and mixed into one, sometimes creating colors I had never seen before, nothing was ever ugly. Even the burnt brown shade we had gotten when blue and orange were mixed too deeply was not an imperfection. There were no imperfections in art; imperfections made art. Though it sometimes hurt my eyes to look at the shade, it was supposed to do that too. If it hurt, I would remember it. We needed some pain in our lives.

It was always very hard to tell when an abstract work was done. Since there was no design pattern to begin with it was always based on natural instincts. Fifteen minutes before we actually finished the piece, I thought we were done. I had been adding less and less, watching as the black disappeared before me turned into a hue of other colors. I started to stand back and just watch Gerard go at it. I knew painting was his life and he could do it for ages, going right over a masterpiece without knowing it, so I pulled him aside too. He went willingly, gaining the composure he had shed when the paint had stripped him of his inhibitions.

We stood back from the mural for awhile, just looking at our placement of colors. The brightness of the hues seemed to fall around the outside border while on the inside were the three colors that we represented. The distinct handprints no longer existed, but were spread into little waves and spirals, taking on a pattern of their own. I loved it, and I wanted to keep it how it was. But Gerard still stood there, paint-coated hand on his paint-stained face, thinking hard. We had given up on being clean. Both of our faces were streaked with paint, making us look like the savages we were.

After waiting for some time, I slid an arm around his waist, nuzzling his shoulder with my head. I was trying to pass the hint to hurry up, but he wasn’t getting it. I started to bite his shoulder slightly, and though his breathing changed a bit, I got no response out of him.

“It’s beautiful,” I breathed honestly.

“Of course it is… but…” Gerard said, trailing off and looking around. He glanced towards the end of the wall, where the door leading into his bedroom was. That was the only place where we had avoided putting paint. It was Gerard’s door after all. It was supposed to be black. That was where he kept all his inner feelings, that was where he cried, and that was where he was the person that no one wanted to see. It needed to stay black; it was a nothingness that had so much meaning.

Gerard began to walk towards his door, looking at it with bright eyes.

“I know what we need now,” he stated, exchanging hot looks between the abyss and myself. I furrowed my brow at him, knowing how clever he was, but also being skeptical at the same time.

“What?”

“Frank, come here,” he redirected the question, tender air to his voice. He bluntly pointed to the spot right next to him. I was a mere foot or two away, but it seemed too far, especially since I didn’t know what was going on.

“Bring the paint can too,” he added, raising his eyes wide with anticipation.

“What color?” I inquired, looking at all the rainbow shades we still had left. Some lighter colors, like the yellow and rose pink, now had flecks of the darker colors in them, spiraling at the top. It looked good at the moment, and still would even after being mixed, despite some eyesore qualities.

“Yellow,” he said without hesitation.

I picked up the paint can, noticing its true identity. Goldenseal. I liked the sound of that, too. I handed the bucket over to him, standing steadily by him, not uttering a sound. I didn’t bother to ask why he chose yellow, knowing that he would probably explain it later, along with what the hell he was going to do just then.

“Great,” he said, the enthusiasm dripping from his voice as he rubbed his hands together devilishly. He turned to my side suddenly, offering out the can to me. “Now, put your hand in the paint.”

Slowly, and trying to cock an eyebrow, I did as he asked. The previous paint had dried on my hand, so there was no threat of anything but the goldenseal color coming out. It felt oddly synthetic getting the thick liquid over the dried cocoon. I stood there for a moment after my hand was removed, feeling the color begin to drip down my wrist.

Gerard gave me a devious smiling, a light in his eyes ten times brighter than the yellow coating my fingers. “Now put your hand on the door.”

“What?” I almost choked, widening my eyes. My actions only caused him to grin harder.

“Put your hand on the door, Frank,” he said slower, but his dictating tone still resonating.

“I thought you wanted the door black?”

“I did,” he answered honestly. “But it doesn’t matter anymore.”

“But…” I trailed off. I had always loved his black door and the meaning behind it. The fact that the door itself possessed a lack of color and shapes that most paintings strived for, it was just as drenched with so many interpretations. It had always fascinated me. Now he was asking me to ruin it.

I had a feeling this was a test.

“I don’t care, Frank,” he told me, eyes on fire. He wasn’t trying to trick me. He was being honest and sincere. This is what he wanted.

“But why?” I probed further, not understanding at all. It had been a long time since I had been this confused around him. I felt like we were back to the beginning, and he was spouting knowledge everywhere and it had been too much to handle.

“Just put your hand on the door!” he exclaimed in excitement. He waved his hands in the air slightly, trying to get me to convey his emotions. It didn’t work too well. I only jumped back at his loud out cry, wiggling my fingers that were coated in the soon to be dry paint.

Gerard subdued himself, placing a hand on my shoulder and guiding me back. “If you trust me, put your hand on the door.”

I swallowed hard, looking at the blackness, and then him again. I couldn’t say no to his request. I walked forward the few steps and stood there for the longest time. I could feel Gerard hover behind me like a shadow, and when I glanced back at him, he gave me another encouraging nod.

“Go on,” he probed, more excited than I had ever seen him. Taking a deep breath, I heeded to his words and lunged forward, channeling some exhilaration from his remark. My paint dripping hand collided with the black abyss, and I kept my eyes closed. I felt as if the world would crumble around me, or my hand would be burned off from the act it was committing. Or worse, I’d fall through into the abyss and never return. Instead, I hit the old aching wood with an exasperated breath. It was just a door, I told myself. And we were just painting, my hand print now in the center.

“Good,” Gerard breathed, the smile still on his face. He came up behind me and began to rub my back up and down, supporting me as I stepped away.

“Thank you. That was all I wanted.”

He glided away from me just as fast as he had appeared, running off to get something from his art supplies. I stayed there for awhile, just looking at the door. It was so odd now; the bright sunshine yellow in a sloppy handprint in the middle of blackness. It made something inside me twist around, but I was unsure if it was good or bad at that moment. All other meanings were lost on me.

“Why did you have to use my hand?” I called over to him, hearing the crash and opening sounds of the paint supply drawer.

“I told you,” he started, not looking at me, “I like hands.”

I rolled my eyes. “Why did you have to use mine?”

“Because there are some things I can’t do on my own,” he said clearly, lifting his head from going through the drawers. I nodded my head, his words cracking part of the paint shell around myself.

When Gerard came back shortly thereafter, he was carrying another bottle of paint. It was smaller, hand held, and he unscrewed the tiny cap with his clumsy fingers, crouching down again as he began to write something beneath my handprint. I watched from a small distance, not going down to his level yet. I couldn’t read the words until he stepped away and stood back proudly, arms folded over his multi-colored chest. I struggled to read the words that were obviously in another language.

“Come… le … what?” I spat out, squinting my eyes and hoping that the paint was just blurring the letters. They were written in fairly delicate handwriting, but some of the sharp edges were now turning into curves as the white liquid began to drip down. I got on my knees and drew myself closer, but it was no use.

“Comme le soleil interminable,” Gerard corrected eloquently.

“What does that mean?” I asked, still confused.

“Like the endless sun,” Gerard nodded his head, his pride for his work disappearing, and his humble nature coming out. “It’s a line from a poem I like. I’ve forgotten what one now it’s been so many years, but that line has always stayed with me. I thought it was perfect for here.”

He looked over at me and smiled, raising his eyebrows, wondering if I liked it too. I got up from my knees and stood next to him, but didn’t answer his question.

When Gerard asked people for opinions on his art work, most of the time, he didn’t care if they liked it or not. Paintings could be interpreted different ways. Interpretations depended on life experiences and not everyone had the same life, and therefore, not everyone would get the same thing out of the painting. The same went for any other piece of art, he assured me. Gerard always wanted to know others opinions, but if they didn’t get it and therefore didn’t like it, he had learned to shrug it off. It wasn’t his fault. If it meant something to him, it was worth it. After years and years of harsh criticism and rejection, he eventually learned that lesson by himself.

But the way he looked at me then, his eyes pleading and smile crooked, it was almost as if he needed my approval. We needed to come to the same interpretation on this art piece, in order for it all to be worth it.

I stared from him, to the writing, and back at my bright yellow hand. I had a vague idea of everything, but nothing was set in stone. I knew this meant a lot to Gerard; he was letting me taint his abyss of nothingness with a part of myself. My hand. My endless sun… I guessed that was what the yellow was for, and why I had used my hand. On the door, the way my fingers had splayed against the backdrop sort of made it look like a sun…But I knew there was more to it. It was Gerard I was dealing with – there was always more to things. It was a comparison for something, something I had not figured out yet. There was double meaning behind this all, triple meaning even, but at that moment I wasn’t getting it. All I knew is that it meant a lot to Gerard; I could see it in his olive eyes. Really, that was all the interpretation I needed.

“I love it,” I said, not really lying. I could still love something, without knowing exactly what it meant. Gerard’s smile branched out fully, losing the nervous edge. He reached over and grabbed me into a hug, just breathing as our paint cracked bodies touched. I clutched back onto him just as hard, burying my face in his neck.

I could have guessed from the tentative way he kissed me after that he knew I wasn’t entirely sure what this was. I was still a naïve teenager, no matter how much I had grown up. But he let it all go, and he kissed me more passionately than ever with his blue stained lips. This entire process had always been about me, anyway. He wasn’t going to let his own feelings, his own art, overshadow my own. He knew I would come around eventually and get what he meant. I still had a lot of teaching to sit through.

He ushered me off into more lessons, but my mind still wandered to the endless sun. I’d occasionally look past his gaze as he was yammering on and on about other colors and their shade meanings, only to see my snaking yellow fingers, dancing on his door. I’d get this warm feeling each time, deep down inside of me. I didn’t understand, I didn’t know if I ever would, but I wondered if Gerard could ever comprehend that this still meant everything to me. He seemed to notice my sneaking glances, but he never said a word.

Date: 2015-12-17; view: 535