Lust Or No Harm Done

by Geoff Ryman

  Saturdays were spent on domestic chores. His mother would hum to herself all morning, polishing furniture and asking Michael to give her a hand with the vacuuming. After that she would take Michael with her to the supermarket to help carry the bags. Then Michael would have his homework to do, and she would sit through it with him. 'Come on now, Michael, you know how to divide numbers. And no, you don't use your calculator, you use your head.' Blanched with exhaustion, she might watch the television, or talk to her sister or her mum on the telephone.

  On Sunday, after breakfast, they would go and visit Granny Hobart. Gran lived in a self-contained flat for old people in Royston where Michael could watch the TV quietly and again help with the washing-up. Sometimes, for a treat, they would go to the cinema together, at 3.00 pm. Again they would take the bus, and it would be full of giggling gangs of independent kids who had escaped their mums.

  The quiet time for both of them was Sunday morning. On Sunday morning they had a big breakfast together: bacon and eggs and toast and jam. They would go through the Sunday papers, scrunching toast.

  That was how, at nine years old, Michael first saw a photograph of Pablo Picasso.

  By tradition, Michael saw the colour supplement first. He turned a page, and there was a picture of an old man in tight briefs. The old man had planted his fists high on either side of his chest, which was puffed out as if he were a muscleman. He stood on a beach and in the background people wore funny masks, all bright colours. The old man's head looked like a bullet, the eyes were dark and staring, merry and challenging at the same time, as if he would head-butt you for a joke.

  Michael, even at nine, was forced to acknowledge that something happened when he looked at that photograph. He skimmed the rest of the magazine but kept turning back to it surreptitiously. Michael knew it was somehow wrong that it was a man, and somehow even worse that it was an old man: but he wanted to keep the picture.

  His Mum stood up abruptly from the table. 'You won't forget to wash up now, will you love.' Michael's breath went icy. Mum usually took the supplement into the toilet with her.

  'I'm still reading this, Mum,' he said.

  She wasn't bothered. 'I'll take the Arts instead.' When she was out of the room, Michael quietly tore the page out of the magazine. He didn't want his mother to know it even existed.

  For the next few weeks, while his mother did the laundry, or rang up about the broken Hoover, or shouted at him to get ready for school, Michael hid in his room and looked at his secret photograph. It was embarrassing, something you couldn't talk about. Michael wanted to dance on that beach, be part of the parade with umbrellas and people in masks. He wanted to be enveloped and hugged in those brown arms. He wanted to see what was inside the briefs.

  Michael was not the only one. Many people lusted after Pablo Picasso, even at a time of life when most men are age-spotted ghosts of their former sexual selves. How can a photograph convey that? It was as if it were something that wafted around Picasso, a miasma of power that seeped even onto film. Michael at nine would look at the photograph, and duck away coyly. Coyly, he would look again.

  At nine, his father's absence was like a grey mist everywhere. Michael eyed men in the street: is my father like him? A big breezy Romford guy would stroll past wearing a football scarf and Michael would think: I'd like to have him for a father.

  Michael wanted to sit on Picasso's lap, and snuggle up against that old chest and be held in those arms, and feel those bare legs under him.

  Sitting on his bed before school looking at the photograph, Michael realized: this is how men look at photos of women. This is how girls look at pictures of Bobby Sherman or the Monkees. I feel about men the way I'm supposed to feel about women. I'm the wrong way round. I'm queer.

  This was a shocking thing to realize at nine in 1969. You could be called Big Girl's Blouse or Poof. Everyone knew what poofs were and they were horrible, and everybody laughed at them all the time. And he was one of them. He was a poof. That scared him. He was what he was not supposed to be, and Michael was otherwise a good little boy. He put the photograph away and then somehow, without meaning to, lost it.

  Michael forgot about Picasso. The next year he went to California and he found his dream beach and his dream father. A-levels and university left him little time for art.

  It was Mark, the rugby-playing art dealer, who finally kick-started Michael's interest in Picasso. 'I once popped in to a little exhibition of his work in the Camargue,' Mark told him. 'It was seeing them all together, actually, that did it for me. There was one whole wall of them, painting after painting in the most beautiful colours, and you began to realize the fantastic productivity of the man.'

  Late in life, Michael read the biographies, and those demanding, sullen eyes began to work their way into him. The young Picasso was not handsome. Unlike the unambitious, famous people are often not more beautiful in youth. The young Picasso had a fat face, flat greasy hair and a double chin. His expression was disgruntled, and he was bundled in scarves against the cold. He looked older than he would in his forties.

  In his forties, Picasso posed as a boxer. His short arms and legs were rounded enough to imitate muscles. He wore baggy briefs that revealed his thighs and chest. The cloth was jammed up into his crotch, as if to show off his dick. Which was surprising as objectively speaking, he had hardly any dick at all. His body at forty, when most men are grizzling all over with greying fur, was as smooth as a girl's. His expression was serious, and his eyes obviously black.

  Thirty years later, Michael sat and sipped his mother's sherry. From nowhere, like a bubble rising up from the floor of the sea came a single word.

  Picasso.

  Before he had time to ask, the air of his flat welled up in ripples like muddy water.

  In Michael's sitting room was the most sexually powerful man of his time.

  Picasso was tiny, with a round, demanding face, blunt nose and black eyes that seemed to pop out of his head. He was already balding, which in his case simply confirmed his masculine state. A thick woollen jacket was thrown over both shoulders, and the sleeves were left empty. The effect was curiously feminine.

  Picasso ignored Michael. He sauntered in a semi-circle around the sitting room, his face curdling with bored disapproval. He sucked on a cigarette, then blew out the smoke.

  'Personne ne vit la,' he said.

  Michael dragged out his schoolboy French, kicking and screaming. 'Moi, j'habite ici.'

  Picasso turned a shameless gaze towards him. 'Vous? Vous etes une personne?'

  You? You are a person?

  Michael had the power of creation, however, and was growing used to it. 'Oui Je vous ai cree.'

  Picasso looked genuinely bored. 'Moi,' he said and let the word rest a moment. 'Je me suis cree.'

  Picasso was still scanning the room. His eyes flickered at Philip's portrait of Michael, as if it gave him an attack of the vapours.

  'Mon Dieu,' Picasso murmured. 'Ca a l'air d'avoir etre frit dans de l'huile d'olive.' It looks like it's been fried in olive oil. Like an athletic teenager Picasso spun around and flung himself sprawling onto the sofa. 'Du vin, s'il vous plait', he said, as if to a waiter.

  All right, thought Michael. I'm up to this. I'm more than up to this. From nowhere, by magic, he called up a small table with an ashtray, and a glass and a bottle of wine from 60 years ago.

  The Angel's mouth made a quick downward turn. Michael had succeeded in giving Pablo Picasso a moment's pause.

  Michael told Picasso, 'Please use the ashtray.' Michael pressed his advantage. 'You are a copy of a masterpiece,' he told the Angel. 'I am the student who has copied you.'

  Picasso had already recovered. He sniffed and poured himself a glass of wine. He had a private little smile, and his eyes said, be wary, student, I am more than a match for you.

  Michael got the preliminaries out of the way. 'Are you willing to make love with a man?'

  Picasso flicked ash into the tray. 'I would do so if I wanted t
o destroy him. Though I am not a destroyer. Unlike you, I am a creator, not a copier. Ultimately, I have no time for destruction.'

  'Except perhaps for making sure than no exhibitor would show Gilot's work after she left you?'

  Picasso kept smiling undisturbed. 'Is that what she said? Has it occurred to you that she was exhibited only because of me? And perhaps her work is not all that good?'

  They were negotiating. 'Might it interest you to find out how I am able to raise the dead?'

  Picasso sipped his wine. 'It interests me to be alive again. And relatively young.'

  He lowered his gaze at Michael, like a bull lowering his head to charge. He took a contemplative sup from his cigarette, his eyes appraising Michael. Then he ground out the cigarette, stood, walked across the room and grabbed hold of Michael's face. He pushed Michael's lips out of shape, into a parody of a Boucher mouth, and he shook Michael's jaws.

  'I fuck you. You never touch me as a woman, ever.'

  Picasso relinquished Michael's mouth, but kept a hand hovering as if to slap him.

  'That's all the same to me,' said Michael.

  The hand was lowered and it unbuttoned the front of Picasso's trousers, and Picasso indicated what he wanted Michael to do. The tiny brown penis was erect, straight up and hard against his belly, as it was almost every time Michael saw it. Michael knelt and swallowed. Picasso kept drinking his wine. The penis was spicy; it reminded Michael of nutmeg, in its colour and scent.

  Picasso grew tired of standing. 'It's late, we go to bed now,' said Picasso, patting Michael affectionately on the top of his head.

  Picasso claimed Michael's side of the bed and snatched up the newspapers, and began to read, lips moving, eyes burning through them.

  'Je ne peux pas lire l'anglais facilement. Traduisez ,' he demanded, pushing the papers at Michael.

  So Michael found himself reading laboriously through British politics in bad French.

  'So there was a socialist revolution in Britain ?'

  'Of a kind. They unelected it thirty-five years later.'

  'Tuh. That is why English medicine for warts does not work. They have never had a real revolution. I hate England. The stupidest things about my work are all written in English. My friends translate them for me. I'm tired.'

  Without asking, Picasso nipped sideways and turned off the light. Quick as blinking, it was dark, and Picasso had somehow enveloped Michael in his tiny arms, thick short legs. Picasso twisted Michael's head around and kissed him with a passion that bewildered Michael. This was a man who basically preferred women. His breath was heavy and scented with cloves and he sucked in Michael's spittle. Before Michael could quite adjust to being so swept up, he was hoisted onto all fours and found himself, with no preliminaries – cream or tentative, gentle penetration – being fucked.

  The penis was the right size. It was so small and comfortable that Michael tightened his arse around it, to hold it, caress it. Suddenly impatient, Picasso unfurled and reared up, balancing on the balls of his feet, and began to thrust himself in and out of Michael's body with a speed Michael had never encountered before or even imagined. Picasso was otherwise silent. He came quite quickly and then collapsed. Michael, bewildered, had by accident come at the same time, into his own hand. Picasso rolled off him and looked at Michael and said, 'If you were a woman I could have really fucked you.'

  Then he kissed Michael on his nose. 'You make a funny creator, my friend.'

  And, just as instantly, he was asleep.

  Picasso snored, loudly and incessantly, as if he had an appetite for it, as if he claimed space by doing it, as if he snored to proclaim his genius.

  He grew suddenly affectionate in his sleep, and clamped Michael from behind, and snored like a camel directly into Michael's ear. Michael fought his way free. Picasso snorted and then chuckled. In his sleep he began to laugh, continuously, uproariously.

  'Are you awake?' Michael asked, feeling battered.

  Picasso grunted and rolled onto Michael again. His dick was hard, and Michael was surprised at his own compliance. His arse wasn't sore, and he made no protest. The penis entered him again, and this time it was gentle. It lapped inside him like waves. Michael was to discover that the only way to stop Picasso snoring was to let himself be screwed. And then together, like a boat untethered, they could drift away together.

  Michael woke up and it was still dark, and Picasso was still inside him, and around him. Picasso had been inside him all night.

  'Hmm,' said Picasso and began to rock inside him. He nuzzled and then chewed Michael's ear. 'You are life,' he said. 'You give me life. I will give you life in return.'

  And this time the fucking, though slow, was hard and slamming. Picasso's flat belly thumped into Michael's backside. The penis went all the way out and all the way back in with one thrust. Michael began to make noises he had never made before: he couldn't stop himself. He groaned and grunted and sighed like a bad actress in a porno movie. Picasso seized hold of his long hair and pulled back hard on it, like reins. Michael came before Picasso did, whinnying like a horse.

  Picasso finished, slapped Michael's buttocks, and hopped out of bed. 'You are dirty, wash,' he said.

  He commandeered Michael's kitchen to make coffee. Michael padded dazed and flushed from the bathroom. Picasso was wearing a pair of Michael's best long grey knickers, but he used one of his ties to make a kind of pirate sash around his waist. He was so short he had to lunge forward on tiptoe to reach things on top of the counter.

  'We will move,' Picasso announced.

  'I'm sorry?' burbled Michael.

  'This apartment faces east, good, but it is low down and has trees in front that block the light. And it is too small. I cannot paint here. We will move.'

  Michael felt a jumble of feelings. No other Angel, no other man had ever made the decision so quickly and simply to live with him. No other man had demanded that Michael sell his flat after the first date.

  Michael said, 'I like the trees. This flat is worth money because it faces a garden.'

  'Humph,' grunted Picasso, unimpressed.

  'It's not that easy.'

  'I will make it easy.' Picasso turned and his expression surprised Michael. Picasso was smiling, affectionately, gently and sweetly. Life is ours, the smile said. We can do with it what we want. It was a smile that promised: no harm can come. Michael found that he would do anything to make that smile continue.

  Picasso passed him a tiny cup of what looked like tar. 'You cannot make coffee. I can tell.' He led Michael out to the sitting room, in front of the bay window. It was only just beginning to get light and everything was grey, as if wrapped in cushioning plastic. They sat at the table in the bay window.

  'My friend,' Picasso said. 'You give me life, and I am grateful. You are like a mother to me. You are like a physician who asks only kindness in payment. It is easy to be kind, that is why I don't trust it. But I will be kind to you. You are a sweet man. So understand. I will give you kindness and love, but I will want to screw women, so I will bring them back. Don't try to stop me; that would make me mad. If you are a jealous man, that will be a pain in your heart, not mine, so learn not to be jealous. All right?' Picasso's own eyes were kind, and stroked Michael's knee.

  'All right,' agreed Michael.

  'All right,' said Picasso, grinning and slapping his knee. 'So now we look for a new place to live. How do we do that?'

  'I don't know,' Michael admitted. 'When I first came here to live, I rented, and then they sold it to me for a low price. So I don't know how to find houses, or get another mortgage.'

  Picasso tutted. 'You are a child. Are you poor in spirit to stay here without thinking? For how long have you lived here?'

  'Thirteen years.'

  'You need a new life?'

  Michael found that the answer was, 'Yes.'

  It was a trifle. 'We move,' said Picasso. He stood up abruptly, walked away, and came back with heaps of newspapers that looked like an unmade bed. He pushed thes
e at Michael, and growled, 'My baby boy. My baby boy needs to grow up.'

  It could get awfully tiring living with somebody who went straight to the truth without passing Go.

  'Here. They have ads for houses? You read the ads, I will go get us bread to dunk in the coffee.'

  Michael began to look. Everything seemed to start at £200,000. Picasso came back from the shops with croissants. He flung the grease-spotted bag on the table, dunked a croissant in Michael's cup and demanded, his mouth full, 'You have found somewhere?'

  'It's not that easy.'

  'And that one there?'

  'I've already looked.'

  Picasso seized the newspaper and read out loud in criminal English: 'Two-bedroom apartment three floor roof garden? Garden. Camden Town. One hundred eighty thousand. Sounds OK!' he declared and pushed the billows of newspaper back down onto the table.

  'Sounds good,' repeated Michael, mystified, and picked up the newspaper again to look again at the page of ads to make sure it was actually there, and try to understand how he could have missed it.

  'We have to make an offer quickly, if it is a bargain, yes?'

  'I think so. But I have to go to work today.'

  'No you don't. No one has to do anything. They choose to do it. You choose not to work today, so that we can buy this apartment.'

  'I'm sorry, I can't do that.'

  'Hmm.' Picasso looked suddenly worried and concerned, and he swallowed. 'My friend,' he said and took Michael's knee again. 'Look at me. Look at me in the eyes. I am hungry to paint. If I think you are stopping me painting, I will go evil. Do you believe me?'

  Michael rang in sick.

  Picasso sang while he washed up, and Michael looked at his pay slips and his bank balance and tried to find ads for apartments similar to his own to see how much it might be worth. He only earned £35,000 a year, partly from the lab project and partly from teaching. The bank would be nervous about the temporary nature of the project, but even so, he should be able to get a mortgage for about £99,000. If you called the study a bedroom, this was a two-bedroom flat. One of those in a mansion block around the corner was selling for £350,000.