Drawn to You

by Jerry Cole

  The hotel room had two king-sized mattresses, layered in thick comforters and shiny white pillows. “Almost too white. You can’t really trust it,” Christine said, tossing herself into one of them. Her hair spread out on the pillow, so dark against the bright light. Max was reminded of taking Christine to an opening of one of his hotels in London, when she’d been maybe eight or nine. She had already begun to sour to him, at that point, but he’d resolved to make it right. They’d stayed up late the night prior to the gala, ordering room service—Indian curries, a favorite of both of theirs. And he’d made her giggle—real, little girl giggles. Perhaps that had been the last time.

  “I have to go out tonight,” Max blurted.

  Christine barely twitched. Her hand reached for the room service menu on the side table, and she lifted it, scanning the selection with bored eyes. “Something about the building?” she asked.

  “Um. Yes,” Max lied, wondering if this lie could somehow get back to her. Certainly, he would tell Mario not to say he was meeting about his daughter’s progress. It was confidential. A lie to protect her. Right?

  “All right. Will you be back late?” Christine asked.

  “I’m not sure. It’s not clear,” Max said, marveling at the way he was already giving such weight to this event that might not be an event at all. A meeting with his daughter’s teacher. That was it. “I can text you. I don’t think I have your new Italian number…”

  “Dad, nobody needs numbers anymore. Just message me,” Christine said, rolling her eyes back into her head, then yanking them out front again. “Seriously. It’s fine. I just need a good night’s sleep. And—and I might call Mom, if that’s okay. I wondered why I hadn’t heard from her the past few days… She knew you were coming to tell me, didn’t she?”

  Max nodded, allowing his shoulders to fold forward. He hemmed and hawed about potentially telling Christine about Amanda’s apparent date—but then thought better of it. While sure, the majority of Christine’s anger she attributed to Max “tearing apart the family,” he didn’t want any of that to fall back on Amanda for “moving on too quickly.” This was a kind of long-form game, for which he didn’t have the rule book. Regardless of who you were, he imagined, the situation was dire, and different than anyone else’s.

  As Christine busied herself with ordering room service, Max drew his suitcase into the second room and yanked out one of his expensive suits—a dark gray, which Amanda often told him made him look entirely GQ, or whatever. Of course, Max did have an eye for elegance, something which often labeled him “vaguely European,” amongst other architects, architect writers, and artists. It was probably the reason why Mario recognized him. He was a face. A brand. At least, among some. And that number, of course, was very low.

  He dressed quickly, listening to Christine’s lilting, almost little-girl voice as she ordered appetizers and pasta and bread and wine, all for herself. She was a trim, spider-like thing, her arms spindly. If she was anything like she’d been as a fourteen year old girl, she could really stuff down a meal. It was an impressive feat. At least, one Max had witnessed a few times, when he’d made it home for dinner.

  When he hadn’t been out of town, for business. Or else, sticking his cock into the rift between someone’s asscheeks—thrusting himself so that his thighs and butt cheeks clenched. It was always so cinematic, this retreat from his family. And it had been hissed about, throughout the artistic communities. “Oh, how typical,” many had said. “A gay artist. A gay architect. Keeping it from his wife, you say? Oh, gosh. How very much like everyone else.”

  Now, he was open. His life stretched out before him, without a path. He stepped into the bedroom again, finding Christine tearing open the minibar and tipping a bottle of whiskey into a tumbler glass. She’d dressed in a hotel robe, her thin legs like a cricket’s beneath the fabric. She whistled to herself, then spun her head just-so to look at him. “You’re heading out to that meeting?”

  “Sure thing,” he told her. He wondered at what Amanda might say to this image—their nineteen year old daughter, guzzling whiskey. They were a liberal family. Wide-open to possibilities. Yet, Max had never been one to know where to draw the line.

  After a short goodbye, Max shrugged off the hotel and marched into the shadowed streets and canals of Venice, a city that had always thrilled him. With admitting the truth to his daughter, he now had the mental space to see the city for what it was, to smell the air, the water, to feel the blood racing past his ears. He charged back toward the piazza, feeling like he was yanked toward a magnet. He wasn’t entirely sure what he was running toward. His conversation with Christine had bungled his brain.

  As he rushed forward, he spotted the man seated at the edge of the line of tables: his posture firm and upright, his expensive-looking shoe tapped at the edge of his opposite knee. His hair was wild, curled and black, and his eyes snapped up toward Max upon his approach—as if they could sense him. Max stalled, taking in the view of this angsty painter, so angular and unlike the easy-going woman he’d spent the previous nineteen years with. She was a breeze, a hug, a comfort. While he—he was abrupt, demanding attention, setting fire to his daughter’s painting as a show of power.

  “Hello,” Mario said, rising from his chair. He reached forward, dotting a kiss first on one cheek, then another. He allowed his lips to linger on Max’s cheeks for a moment too long. Max could feel the heaviness of his breath, hungry and lined with the smell of wine. He drew back. For the first time in a long time, he was terrified of this man’s youth, of what he might do to Max and his family and his relationship to his daughter. Somehow, using a strength unseen, he stepped forward and glided into the chair in front of him. He brought his hands together over the tablecloth, then moved them apart. Mario hailed the waiter and ordered another glass of deep red, from a nearby winery. His Italian was cutting, wild, frenetic. It made Max’s stomach bubble with fear.

  “You came,” Mario said, when the two wine glasses were filled before them.

  “I had to. You’re my daughter’s professor,” Max said, knowing he was leaning on words that didn’t matter at all. They just filled the space, and were completely superfluous. They were nothing.

  “Christine? She’s a daring girl. A lot of pep to her. A lot of anger. I don’t suppose she got that from her mother. I’ve never seen that in her paintings,” Mario said, his eyes flickering. “It must be from you.”

  “We were never very close,” Max said, shifting in his chair. “But Amanda has a large exhibition upcoming, in October. So, I had to be the one…”

  “The one to explain to little Christine that her family is tearing apart?” Mario said. He leaned forward, his lips lined with red from the wine. “It was you who cut the ties, wasn’t it? Your idea, in the first place?”

  Max marveled at this. Mario seemed completely out of line. Yet, Max felt he, himself, was outside the lines as well-dancing alongside him. “Yes.”

  Mario snuck the rest of his wine down his throat, gulping in a way that made Max fixate on Mario’s Adam’s apple. Somehow, Mario reminded Max of the early days of Max’s architectural career—when he had to almost play the part of a young rockstar, stating arrogant thoughts about the world of architecture in a way that made people listen.

  “How old are you?” Max asked.

  “I’m thirty. And you?”

  “I’m thirty-eight,” Max said. He remembered thirty. He remembered it well. Christine had been eleven years old, a snotty mess, nearing puberty. Max had been sleeping with a man located in Los Angeles, and often journeying there for “business.” Amanda had had a particularly invigorating exhibition that year, based in Paris, and she’d taken Christine to Paris for the summer—for long days of painting and walking the Seine. Max had remained in Los Angeles, sleeping on the chaotic, humid sheets of his lover.

  And still, he hadn’t had the heart to tear his family in two.

  “Why now?” Mario asked him.

  “What?”

  “Why
divorce now? You must have always known. Always known about yourself,” Mario continued, his voice lowering.

  Max allowed his chin to fall, his eyes to trace his fingers. Then, he moved his gaze toward Mario’s large, painter hands. They were stretched out over the tablecloth, lined beautifully. He could trace a line from Mario’s hands, all the way to his, on the other side. His hands itched with desire to stretch across the table, to grip Mario’s.

  “I wanted to preserve something,” Max murmured, the words tumbling from his lips. “I wanted to make the world believe that I could never possibly make a mistake…”

  “And. Now?” Mario asked.

  “Now, I can’t go on living that lie. It’s unfair to Amanda. To Christine.”

  “Not to mention yourself,” Mario said.

  “The lies felt too heavy, at some point,” Max offered.

  Mario yanked up from the chair, nearly causing the table to tumble to the ground. He shook off, motioning for the waiter. Max’s wine glass teetered to the left, before collapsing to the ground. So much broken glass today. So many shattered dreams. The wine dribbled across the cobblestones, edging along Max’s expensive shoes. He, too, shot up from the chair and followed Mario, falling into the fog. Around him, the world was a compete daydream: an Italian night, hazy, with stars dotting the sky above.

  “Where are we going?” Max called, hating that his words sounded spastic, unsure.

  “I have a surprise,” Mario called back, without turning his head to face him. “Don’t you want some surprise in your life, now that you’re treading off the beaten track? Isn’t this what you signed up for?”

  Max’s stomach flipped. He ducked his head downward, surging toward Mario and finding himself walking along with him, matching him stride for stride. With his hands at his sides, his left fingers trickled along Mario’s thigh—feeling at the dark fabric. Mario tilted his head, giving Max a mischievous smile.

  “Already, so eager,” he said, his eyes twinkling.

  The wine swirled in Max’s head. He cut to the side, his fingers burning with desire to touch, to be kissed, to be felt. He bit down too hard on his bottom lip, feeling cast out of orbit of his own self. He wasn’t Max Everett, world-renowned architect. Not now.

  “Come on. We’re nearly there,” Mario murmured. He drew his hand toward Max’s dark hair, which he knew was peppered with gray—salt and pepper, Amanda had said—and cast the curls around the edge of his ear. The motion was so tender, an act a mother might do to her son. It made Max’s heart throttle up into his throat. Could he possibly breathe, when being touched so tenderly?

  “Okay,” Max heard himself agree, giving the man a slight nod. “Okay.”

  Chapter Six

  Mario

  “I don’t know if you know a thing about my work,” Mario said, arching a single eyebrow. Max paused beside him at the edge of the pier, a full foot away. Mario felt the distance between them like a cavern. When he’d reached out, touched Max’s hair and wrapped it around his ear, he’d felt like he was reaching across many continents.

  Max shrugged his shoulders slightly, not because he didn’t care, Mario knew, but because he was struggling to come up with the proper words to say. At eight years older than Mario, Max seemed stunted, somehow. As if he’d memorized the many possible expressions he was meant to use in life, and now—he felt unscripted, off the map.

  “Anyway, I had a very successful decade. My twenties, that is,” Mario continued. “I was rather famous. Ran in some of the circles you did, I know. I remember hearing your name whispered at several parties, in Europe and Asia. And back then, quite a few of my paintings were sold to some of the upper-echelon of the music industry. Rock stars. Assholes, really,” Mario said, scoffing to himself. “For a very brief period of time, I rolled in money, in the way that people roll in it when they don’t know what to do with it. I bought very horrifically expensive suits. I took myself and my boyfriends on lavish vacations, and—of course…”

  “Why are you telling me this?” Max asked, tilting his head.

  Mario slashed his hand toward the canal before them, where the boat he’d purchased—The Madrigal—rocked back and forth, latched to the dock with rope. “Well, after a particularly frugal sale to a woman in Amsterdam, I went ahead and bought this boat,” Mario offered. “A silly purchase, really. Now, I’ve been sleeping on it for the better part of a year, and I couldn’t be happier. There’s something about being able to reach out and unlatch your entire life, float on down the canal and find yourself a new life. I had to sell most of my possessions, of course. I’m back in Venice for a reason—I needed a job, teaching these sniveling youths. Your daughter not included in that definition, of course…”

  “No, no. She is, in some respects,” Max said, his voice low.

  Mario watched Max slide toward the boat, reaching for the edge of it. His body rocked with the boat, which creaked against the bricks, the metal rod of the dock. The noise echoed through a silent Venice. Always, the city went to bed so early; its people latching their windows, diving beneath the sheets to fall into wine dream after wine dream. All of them fuzzy and unremembered.

  “It’s beautiful,” Max said, turning his head back. Mario studied his fine profile, his strong, almost-Italian nose, his sturdy jawline. Again, his cock grew heavy and tight in his pants, pushing up against the dark fabric. He knew if he glanced down, there would be a bulge.

  Instead of his own eyes falling, he watched as Max’s did. The intensity between them made it difficult for Mario to draw breath. Max’s eyes scanned his thin frame, finding refuge at the girth in his pants, the bulge at his cock. A small dribble of cum escaped from his cock, easing out onto his underwear. Mario shifted, for a moment becoming the uncomfortable one. The one on display. He wasn’t accustomed to being looked at like some kind of slab of meat.

  And in some respects, it turned him on more than ever.

  Mario shot forward, placing his hand on Max’s upper shoulder and smashing him into the side of the boat. The boat rocked chaotically, bolting backward and forward. Max’s shoulders lodged against the wood, flattening behind him, as Mario brought his chest tight against Max’s. Mario was perhaps an inch taller than Max, perhaps less, putting his lips just a hint above Max’s. He inhaled Max’s breath, tinged with wine, with fear. It was hungry and hot, making Mario’s cock unbearably full now.

  “I’ve wanted to do this since I saw you at the piazza,” Mario whispered, his voice raspy. “To use your body. To control you.”

  Max’s eyes gleamed. Mario sensed Max had never heard such words used, in a sexual space. That he’d never been put down in any capacity. Always, he was the one with the secret, the one with power and celebrity. Now, with Mario as his daughter’s teacher, Mario held far more power than he was accustomed to. He brought his hand to Max’s throat, slipping it tighter against his neck. Max’s eyes grew larger, but he didn’t hesitate. His lips drew closer to Mario’s, before latching onto them. The kiss was wild, rough. Mario’s teeth cut against Max’s lips, wanting to taste his blood. Max yanked back, wanting to fight him, maybe. Mario’s heart fluttered wildly. They were two forceful men, two artists, almost too colorful for the rest of the world.

  He’d never met a match like this before.

  “Get on my fucking boat,” Mario said, his nostrils flared.

  Max moved back from Mario’s grip, stepping onto the boat. The boat flashed back and forth on the water. Their expensive shoes smacked across the wooden floorboards. Mario loved watching Max analyze the little shack-like boat, a place he was rather proud of. After making and spending millions of dollars, after letting fortune flash through his life like lightning, this was all Mario wanted to have. Of course, he still guzzled elegant wine, ate only the most excellent Venetian food. Dammit, he was Italian; it was simply in his blood to love the finer things.

  “So. This is the life of the struggling painter, huh?” Max said. He turned, spreading his legs wide on the floorboards. His shoulders drew
back, widening. He seemed much larger than he had on the piazza. As if, in the small space of the boat, they were facing off as animals.

  “Sorry to invite you into such a shack,” Mario said. He reached upward, undoing the first button on his own shirt. Something about Max, in this moment, told him he shouldn’t touch him. So, he would only mess with his own body. His own clothes. He unbuttoned another button, and then another, until his entire chest was exposed—dark hair, coarse, his nipples perky.

  He watched Max’s eyes scan his body hungrily.

  “You want me. Don’t you?” Mario asked, biting at his bottom lip. “You’ve wanted me ever since you saw me.”

  “I didn’t know you were Christine’s teacher,” Max said, his voice low. Dangerous. “I wouldn’t have ever…”

  “As if you can possibly decide who you want and who you don’t,” Mario said, scoffing. “How ridiculous. You mustn’t reveal yourself as such a banal idiot, right now, Max Everett.”

  Mario allowed his shirt to slip from his arms and fall to the floor. He reached for his own belt, unlatching it. Still, Max remained dressed. His fingers flickered across his belt. He kept his lips pressed tightly shut, as if he were on pause, waiting for Mario’s next move. And, in this case, Mario flashed his pants to the floor, revealing the girth of his cock—surging forward and tipping out of his boxers. Mario kicked off his shoes and his pants, standing in just the boxers. He brought his long, thin foot atop the mattress, letting it bounce slightly. His cock, full and rock-hard, shuffled against his thigh. Max’s eyes followed it. A small drop of cum peppered out from the hole, falling to the wooden floorboards below.