Paint It Black

by Amy Lane

  “It’s like a fairy tale, you realize that, right?”

  Poor Marcia. “Well, I think we all need a fairy tale once in a while.”

  Cheever wanted Blake. Blake was his fairy tale. Now Cheever had to make it come true.

  THE NEXT day Cheever woke up with the urge to paint. He participated in morning PT—light, yes, but he could run a mile now, so that was good. He spent time after breakfast in a class that dealt with positive visualization, and he took his hour after lunch to himself.

  He went straight to his room and broke out his charcoal and sketchbooks, determined to do something, anything, artistic before he went to see Doc Cambridge.

  For a few panicked moments, he stared at the blank page, looming like a brick wall in front of a train, and then he did what he always did when he was stuck.

  He closed his eyes and cleared his head and made a few passes over the page with the charcoal.

  He opened his eyes and gasped, horrified.

  He’d been expecting to see Blake—he’d been thinking about Blake, hoping for him.

  But what he saw was… was a monster, a monster with a giant phallus pinning a poor man to a wall with his mighty weapon.

  Cheever’s breath caught in his chest, and his vision went dark. For a full five minutes, he had to fight actively not to visualize a thousand ways to end himself.

  Lazy thinking. There are other alternatives.

  Then his phone went off for therapy, and he stood up.

  He took a few steps toward the door and then grabbed his sketchbook with resolve.

  Well, the doc wanted to know what was on his mind? Turned out Cheever had a picture that would do the job just fine.

  Dandelion

  BLAKE FELT the oppression the moment he walked into Cheever and Marcia’s room, even over the strains of his CD, which was coming from someone’s phone.

  Cheever was in bed, lying on his side, handcuff still in place. Marcia was sitting at the foot of the bed, and Doc Cambridge was in Blake’s chair. All of them had closed eyes, as though from exhaustion.

  What happened?

  Marcia saw him first, and she pushed off the bed tiredly and came in for a hug without saying anything.

  “What—”

  “He’ll tell you,” she said. She pulled a piece of paper out of her pocket that had been balled up at one point in time and folded many times over after that. She pressed it into his hand.

  “Doc?”

  Cambridge startled. “Oh,” he said softly. “Blake. We’ve been waiting for you.”

  “What happened?” Blake asked, lost.

  “A good thing, I think,” Cambridge said, touching Cheever’s hand in the cuff. “This is just a precaution.” He grimaced. “It was a rough day, and let’s just say, I’ve learned not to trust the lot of you when you say you’re all right.”

  “I’m not Mackey.” Blake and Cheever both said it in tandem, and Cambridge’s acidic laugh told Blake more than he needed to know about his own problems.

  And Cheever’s.

  “You boys….” Cambridge shook his head. “That kid is not taller than a spit on a plate. If you get nothing else from Cheever’s time here, I hope you get that you cast your own damned shadows.” He turned to Marcia before either of them could respond. “Let’s go see about dinner. Or ice cream. Or cake. What time is it?”

  “Three in the afternoon,” Blake said, his throat aching.

  “Ice cream,” Marcia said decisively. “And then funny movies. All the goddamned funny movies.”

  “That there is the best drug known to man.” Cambridge paused at the door. “Maybe plan to stay tonight, Blake. It’ll probably be the last night we have to do this.”

  And then they were gone, leaving Blake holding on to the much-abused piece of paper. He sank into the familiar chair.

  Without thinking about it, he smoothed Cheever’s hair back from his forehead and caught the boy’s shadowed green eyes on his face.

  “You look tired,” Cheever said, his voice rough from what sounded like suppressed screaming.

  “Your mama kept me up last night,” Blake confessed. “Do you know she’s kept pictures of one form or another since Kell was born?”

  Cheever frowned. “I guess—”

  “She had all the phone ones put on paper, and she made books for all of you. They were supposed to be Christmas presents this year. She’s been working on it for… I don’t know. Since you graduated from high school.”

  “Oh God. I was so ugly in high school.”

  “You were not,” Blake argued passionately. “God, you were such a pretty kid. Unusual coloring, you know? I mean, we got redheads—we got Trav and Briony. But your color hair, your skin tone, the shape of your face. Your eyes.” Oh, how embarrassing. “You’re just… pretty.”

  Trav had needed him to set up the house for Mackey—a special chair up the stairs, special equipment in the workout room, a special orthopedic bed in the bedroom, even a rail in the pool, because Mackey was going to be doing a lot more laps than running. He had apologized profusely to Blake about the trouble, and had asked about Cheever kindly, which was not a word Blake would have used to describe the big man when they’d first met. Blake had been happy to do it, but thinking about Mackey’s long road to recovery had left Blake sad and raw, and walking with a tearful Heather through the rough, painful beginnings of the guys he loved had left him sore and bloody.

  He had no barriers. No defenses now against the giant tsunami that had hit Cheever while he was gone. Anything of strength, of wisdom, of “We can deal with this” had been scoured from his soul over the past week, and he didn’t know where to reach to find a way to comfort the lost boy in the bed.

  “You really think I’m pretty?” Cheever asked plaintively.

  “I always have.” Blake smiled to take the sting out of the next words. “Didn’t always like you, but I thought you were gonna grow up pretty when you were a kid. You grew up… damn. Like the sun. Like autumn or the ocean. Pretty.”

  “Do you like me now?” Cheever asked, capturing his hand.

  Blake was too naked to fuck around. “Yeah. You’re hurt, kid. But all the ways you could have acted out, you picked the one that would hurt the family the least—at least until it all blew up in your head. Marcia thinks you’re a saint. That tells me something too. And… and you’ve been real respectful of me.”

  Cheever nodded. “I was raped when I was a kid.”

  Blake sucked in a breath, thinking he was ready to hear that, but it wasn’t any easier to bear. “I…. To be honest, I sort of figured.”

  “Wh…. When I was away at school, me and Aubrey Cooper kissed. And it was great. But his dad was trying to get in Mama’s pants. Mackey… well, he sent his letter home, and Aubrey’s dad… I guess he fucking overreacted.”

  Blake knew his eyes opened really wide. “I did not know—”

  “I don’t think Mom’s dated anybody since,” Cheever said, his voice clogged. “And Aubrey—he started… like, groping me and touching me. And the whole class hated me because I was the poor kid anyway, and because….”

  “Mackey had come out,” Blake said, horrified.

  “I talked to the press, you remember?”

  Oh God, yeah. The guys had been so pissed. “I remember.”

  “And it got a little better, but Aubrey…. And then he started coming to my room. And he warned me, right? So I was… ready. Like, I used Vaseline so I didn’t rip, because I was so afraid of pain. And he kept coming. And I told myself I was just… just getting a break. ’Cause people were talking to me again, as long as I didn’t tell about what he did to me in my room, and….”

  “Oh God… baby. I’m so sorr—”

  “Don’t you see?” Cheever managed between sobs. “I’m a whore!”

  “The hell you are!” Blake couldn’t breathe. Oh God, he knew it was bad. He knew it was bad. But this was the kind of bad he wasn’t ready for. “I’ve been a whore, boy. I lubed myself up and bent over and
dropped to my knees and cleaned it up, and I took that dime bag and that rent money and I said, ‘Thank you, sir, you can come back any time.’ I know what being a whore is, and what you were doing was just trying to survive.”

  “But I let him… I let him… I—”

  “You didn’t feel like you had a choice,” Blake told him. “You think I don’t know that? Where if you scream or cry or complain, your life is just gonna get a fuck-ton worse? So you just pull back in your own head and you walk away from the shit that hurts. I’ve been there, Cheever. But I got away from being used to offering my shit up for cash. You didn’t do that. You walked away. You walked away and tried to fix yourself. You know what? There wasn’t anything wrong with you. You needed to be heard, that’s all. You didn’t ‘let’ him—he forced you. Coercion is coercion, man. It’s not your fault.”

  “It’s not yours, either,” Cheever whispered.

  “I was strung out—”

  “And hungry. And sad.” Cheever closed his eyes tight and carried Blake’s knuckles to his lips. “You haven’t told me any of it. You just let pieces drop when you think it will help. But I know you were hurt, Blake. As much as I was. And you’ve been peeling off your armor so I can see that I’m going to be fine. But you’re walking around without your armor, just for me, and I’ve got to get better or you’re not going to make it.”

  Blake’s hands were shaking too bad to even take them from Cheever’s grasp and use them to wipe his eyes. “I can make it, baby boy.” He was the grown-up here. He was the grown-up, and he was falling apart. “As long as you can make it, I’ll be just fine.”

  “I’m going to make it,” Cheever promised him. And Blake had needed to hear that so bad, he almost slid out of the chair. “I’m going to make it. I’m not that little kid anymore, trapped in that room. You gotta know that. You gotta know that so you can stop worrying so hard about me. So you can be okay too.”

  “You’re gonna be fine.” Blake couldn’t breathe. “You’re okay. You’re gonna be okay.” Oh God. He couldn’t breathe. This boy—this beautiful boy, who kissed him out of the blue and smiled and made sure he was okay when neither of them were okay, when everything hurt and Blake felt like an open nerve dancing with sandpaper—he was going to be all right.

  “Breathe, baby boy,” Cheever whispered. “C’mon, breathe—”

  The first sob felt like it was going to rip him apart. The second sob shook him from his groin to his throat with an extra punch to the stomach.

  The third one tore through his throat like a grappling hook, and Blake was done. He rested his head next to Cheever’s and let go, naked, squalling, as hurt and needy in this moment as he’d ever been in rehab.

  Cheever was stroking his hair back from his forehead, whispering comfort words in his ear, and Blake drank them in and believed them, like a child believed promises of warmth, of safety, of love, because he had no choice. And his heart—so seasoned to the matter of betrayal, of disappointment, of being alone—was soft and young now, and he had no way else to be.

  The sobs subsided, leaving him clean and empty.

  Cheever said, “You still got the picture. The one I drew.”

  Blake fumbled with the little paper pellet and started to very carefully disengage it from the folds. “Oh my God,” he muttered when he saw the monster with surprisingly wide and limpid eyes in the middle of raping a boy with curly hair. “That’s… that’s—”

  Cheever took it from his hands and folded it gently, the handcuff rattling on the bedrail. “It’s awful,” he said, his voice tender. “Don’t worry, Blake. It’s not yours to worry about. That’s mine.”

  Blake wanted to argue—but it was Cheever’s. Blake could help him get out of the room, but Cheever had been there. That monster breathing over his shoulder had been Cheever’s reality. It wasn’t Blake’s to keep, as much as he might want to shield Cheever from the pain.

  “Can’t say it’s boring,” he managed to say, his voice rough and broken and not hardly his own.

  “Nope. Here—put it next to my bed, would you? I have the feeling me and the doc are gonna hash out that little piece of paper until it falls apart in sympathy.”

  Blake did that for him and then turned back, unsure of what to do or even where they were now.

  “Come here,” Cheever commanded softly. “Take off your shoes and climb in bed with me. I need to be held.”

  Blake wondered if Doc Cambridge would approve, but he didn’t have anything in him to do more than wonder. He kicked off his boots, shed his denim jacket on the chair, and scrambled up awkwardly behind Cheever, pulling that long, slender body along the front of his own. He didn’t wrap his arm over Cheever’s shoulder at first—that picture had been so damning.

  “Full hug,” Cheever whispered. “Don’t worry. Not feeling trapped. Just alone.”

  Blake moved his bottom arm so it was under Cheever’s head and the top arm so his hand spanned Cheever’s stomach. Cheever covered his hand and laced their fingers together, and Blake closed his eyes, letting Cheever’s closeness seep into his body.

  This implies that we’re lovers. Or that we will be when this is done.

  “Who was your first?” Cheever asked softly. “That you wanted?”

  This was actually such a lovely memory, it gave comfort when he shared. “A girl named Cindy Crosby. She had a reputation for being easy, but really, she was just lonely. Afraid of being rejected. Like me.”

  “What was she like?”

  Blake thought about it, remembering that first furtive, quiet grope, the way she’d guided his hands and touched his face. Cheever complained about being ugly in high school—Blake still had scars from where acne had pitted his cheeks. He’d gotten his teeth fixed in the last eight years, but there’d been no braces then to fix his crooked overbite, and shitty nutrition gave you shitty bone structure.

  But he remembered that she’d closed her eyes and enjoyed his touch, smiling and even laughing when he’d said something self-deprecating like ‘damn, that was a quick ride.’ And then she had slowed the whole thing down and made it sweet.

  “She was kind,” he said now. He’d learned then that “easy” often meant kind and gentle, when the rest of the world could be a real shithole. “We were together right up until I ran away.”

  “Tell me why.”

  Blake groaned, burying his face against the back of Cheever’s neck. “Boy—”

  “Say my name.”

  “I know who you—”

  “You call me baby boy to be the grown-up so you’ve got control. I don’t need you in control. I just need you. Say my name again.”

  “Bossy little shit.”

  Cheever laughed. “That’s not on my driver’s license.”

  “Cheever Justin Sanders.”

  “Mm.” Cheever closed his eyes. “I used to hate my first name. Named after a daddy not good enough to stay. But I figured later that she was trying to give us the best parts of our fathers. Sure, the relationship didn’t last, but at one point, she saw something good about this person. That’s who she wanted us to see when we looked in the mirror.”

  “Your mother’s a good woman,” Blake said, meaning it. It wasn’t fair, her being alone. She deserved someone.

  “She’s the best. But you skipped out on the question.”

  Blake’s temples were throbbing, and he gave a little whimper. “My mom’s boyfriend,” he muttered. “Lots of groping. Then there was one shitty night where he did all the drugs, and I needed some painkillers for my ass in the morning. I took off before he woke up. Didn’t finish high school, just grabbed my guitar and my iPod—” He laughed. “’Cause it was that long ago. I didn’t even have a fucking phone. Just music, a backpack full of clothes, and some street savvy. I eventually found some clubs, was backup for a couple of outfits, worked a day job flipping burgers. Then I saw the ad for tryouts for Outbreak Monkey.” That memory was still fresh. He’d had to run from his day job to the studio because he couldn’t even find a bus.
By the time it was his turn to go, he’d been sweaty, tired, pissed off, and so fucking desperate.

  And they’d liked him.

  Suddenly he was surrounded by people who liked him, wanted him in their group.

  Everybody but the guy he admired most.

  “You know the rest,” he finished, and Cheever grunted.

  “No. No, I don’t. But I don’t want to hurt you any more right now, so I won’t ask.”

  Oh, thank God. “Good.”

  “Tell me about your first guy.”

  “Why?” He scrambled to find the moment in his head.

  “I… I’ve been sort of… sexless, the last few years. I know you all think I was hiding that I was gay, but that wasn’t it.”

  “What was it, then?” Blake had been honestly curious. “Mackey was afraid his brothers wouldn’t love him anymore, or his mother—”

  “But they did.” Cheever shrugged, his body snugging against Blake’s some more. “It was never a question of that. It was that… that I felt dirty. Contaminated by… what happened at school with Aubrey. I didn’t want to share myself because I didn’t want anyone to see that filth—”

  “No…,” Blake whimpered, and Cheever petted his hand.

  “Shh. I need to hear good memories about sex. I don’t have any. Please, Blake? Let me hear yours?”

  Okay. This really was a good one. “He was pretty,” Blake said, remembering. “We were on tour, and we had some time off. We were all in a little club, listening to local talent—we like to do that, you know?” He and Kell had made some good discoveries, kids like they had been that they’d been able to give a hand up. Made them proud when they did that.

  “I didn’t,” Cheever murmured. “That’s good. And important. Good to know.”

  “Whatever. So this guy played this old Damien Jurado song—and he was sort of short and slender, and he had that giant gruff workingman’s voice and these big brown eyes. He came to sit with us when the set was over, and… and sat right next to me. Touched my shoulder. Touched my thigh. And I… I let him. It felt good. The attention felt good. I… I was beyond that whole ‘I’m not gay’ bullshit by then, but hadn’t really admitted I was bi. And then the party was breaking up, and he just grabbed my hand. So I told them all I’d meet them there in the morning. And….”