Muscling Through

by J. L. Merrow

  Then she said, “You can’t possibly love him,” and I didn’t want to hear no more, so I turned on the TV and watched some program. I don’t remember what it was about.

  When they came out of the kitchen, Larry and his sister weren’t talking anymore. She had this sort of tight look on her face, and Larry looked all sad. After she left, I put my arms round him and just held him. I knew he’d tell me about it if he wanted to.

  He sniffed. “I just wish they’d accept that we’re happy. You’re happy with me, aren’t you?”

  I said “Yeah,” ’cause although I wasn’t feeling happy right then, most of the time he makes me happier than I’ve ever been in my life.

  “I don’t see what the hell our living arrangements have to do with them,” Larry said.

  “I could move out if it’d make it easier,” I said, but I didn’t want to. I just didn’t like seeing Larry sad.

  “No! No, you’re staying here,” Larry said. I got that. He’s a grown man; he don’t want his family to push him around and run his life. Sometimes you got to make a stand on something, even when the thing itself isn’t that important. It’s like the difference between paintings and photos—it’s what you don’t see in the photo that matters.

  But I kind of wished it was the photo that was real this time.

  We went to bed, and I fucked him extra gentle, and afterward, he cuddled up and said, “You know why I’m with you, don’t you, Al?”

  ’Cause my head was still full of the paintings and the photos and which one was the truth, I didn’t really think before I answered. “You like the way I fuck you,” I said. I mean, I didn’t say it nasty or nothing; it just came out.

  I knew I’d said something wrong straight away when he sat up in bed and looked at me like he did the night we met. “Is that what you really think?” he asked.

  I didn’t say nothing, ’cause I was worried I’d make it worse.

  “Al? Is that all it is for you? You just like the way we…fuck?” I was going to say, he said “fuck” like it’s a dirty word, but I guess it is, isn’t it? But he said it like that anyhow.

  But the question was okay; I could answer that. “I like everything about you, Larry. I like the way you look and how you’re so clever, and I like it when we laugh together and watch TV together. I like going to art galleries with you and hearing you get all bitchy about some of the artists. I like watching you when you’re doing marking, ’cause you get these funny looks on your face. I like watching you sleep and hearing that snuffly noise you make. I like waking up with you at weekends and spending the day together, just doing stuff like walking round town and shopping and cooking and stuff.” I kind of ran out of breath after that.

  For a moment, I thought he was going to cry. “Is there anything you don’t like about me?”

  I had to think. “Well, it pisses me off a bit when you finish up the milk and don’t say nothing.”

  Then he was laughing, but he still looked a bit weepy. “Al. Listen to me. I love you, okay?”

  “Okay,” I said, and I put my arms around him and pulled him back down against me.

  Chapter Four

  Larry came back from work one day and told me he’d been teaching his students about tempera, and had I ever tried painting with it? And I said no, so he said we should mix some up and I could give it a try. He had a recipe and everything.

  Tempera’s what they used to do paintings with in the old days, back before they invented proper paints and paint shops. You make it with eggs, but the paintings don’t smell bad or nothing. So we got some eggs and some pigments, and on my day off we had a go at making tempera. It was kind of like cooking. We had to separate the yolks from the eggs, ’cause you don’t use the whites, and then squeeze them out into a bowl. You dry them off with kitchen towels first so they don’t slip out of your fingers. I laughed a bit when I did that, ’cause they felt a lot like bollocks. I told Larry, and he thought it was funny too.

  Then we had to prick them with a pin and squeeze out the insides, and it didn’t seem so funny no more.

  We added a couple of teaspoons of water and the pigment. It was dead easy, really. I mean, we had to wear masks and stuff while we was grinding the pigments, ’cause that stuff’s nasty if you breathe it in, and measure it all out careful, but there wasn’t nothing to it, really. It’s funny what they make the pigments out of. Some of them are made out of bugs and snails and stuff, which is a bit gross, but most of it’s just posh mud.

  I had to get the panels ready to paint on first, but I did that a couple of weeks earlier while Larry was at work, ’cause it takes a few days and Larry gets bored easy. I used hardwood panels, little ones, ’cause I wanted to paint miniatures of Larry. I thought that would be funny, me painting little Larry in miniature. I didn’t say that to Larry, though. I thought he might not have got the joke.

  I used rabbit-skin glue to size the panels. I got it from the art shop. I don’t know if they use real rabbits in it. It seems kind of a shame if they do, but then it’s not like there’s a rabbit shortage, is it? And maybe they only used rabbits that would’ve died anyhow. I had to boil the glue up in a pan, and it stunk worse than my sister’s kids’ nappies. Even when they was ill. So I was glad Larry was out all day. I had all the windows open, but it still whiffed a bit, so in the evening I cooked up a curry really slow in the oven so Larry wouldn’t notice nothing.

  I primed the panels with chalk gesso, just like they would’ve done in the old days. I had to sand them down after. It made them really smooth. Like Larry’s skin. I thought about what that’d be like, painting on Larry’s skin, and I got so hard I had to jerk off ’cause I couldn’t concentrate on nothing. Then I looked stuff up on Larry’s computer. You can get all sorts of body paints. Some of them even have flavours. So I put in an order.

  I didn’t wait to ask Larry first. I was pretty sure he wouldn’t mind.

  When we finally got down to making the paints, Larry got kind of uptight when we was measuring out the water and stuff, ’cause he thought we had to do it exactly how the recipe said, but I knew the texture wasn’t right for what I wanted to do with it. So I just put in what I thought was right, and it worked a treat, and afterward Larry came and put his arms around me while I was painting with it.

  “You know,” he said, “you never cease to amaze me.”

  I didn’t say nothing. I thought he’d tell me what he was on about if I waited.

  “Here you are, a damning indictment of our education system, only one GCSE to your name, and you’re mixing up tempera like a modern-day Michelangelo.”

  I felt kind of hot and prickly when he said that, sort of half in a good way and half not. “I’m not Michelangelo,” I said, ’cause I know my paintings are okay, but they ain’t nothing special.

  “Mmm,” Larry said in my ear. “Michelangelo wasn’t anything like as sexy as you. Are you nearly finished there?” He put his hand inside my T-shirt and started feeling up my pecs. I wasn’t finished with the layer, but I figured it could wait a bit, ’specially when he started squeezing on my nipples.

  I put down my brushes, and I got hold of Larry and pulled him toward me. My cock was hard already, so I grabbed his hips and pressed him against it. “Oh yes!” he said, all breathy, and he shoved his hands back up my T-shirt. I yanked it off, ’cause I wanted him to suck my nipples. He’s really good at that.

  I think Larry knew what I wanted, but he made me wait. He bent his head down and kissed all round my chest, and then he nuzzled into my armpit. I thought it probably smelled a bit strong, but he didn’t seem to mind. He kissed me there too, and then he licked me, right where the hair was. It felt way better than you’d think it would, but I still wanted him to suck my tit. Just as I was about to say something, Larry started to circle my nipple with his tongue. It jumped up almost as hard as my cock, and I ground up against him. He started sucking on my nipple, and it felt great, but it still wasn’t enough. “Want to fuck you,” I said.

  Larry pulled
his mouth off my tit, sucking all the way so it got even bigger. His hair was all mussed up, and his lips were shining red. “How do you want me?” he asked. “From behind? Bent over the workbench?”

  “No, I want to see your face,” I said, ’cause I had a plan. I hadn’t had a plan before we started this, but it just came to me sudden. I wanted to paint Larry how he looks when he comes, so I wanted a good view of his face so it’d be fresh in my mind, though I don’t think I could ever forget that, really.

  So I let Larry go, and he took his clothes off as quick as he could. I pulled off my jogging bottoms, and that’s when I remembered we didn’t have any stuff for fucking up here. “We got to go down to the bedroom,” I said. “Get the lube.” We weren’t using condoms no more ’cause we’d both had tests and come back negative.

  Larry had all his kit off by then. “Isn’t there anything round here we could use? Aren’t oil paints, well, slippery?”

  I know Larry’s way cleverer than me, but that didn’t seem like such a good idea. “Uh, yeah, but I really don’t think you’d want them up there. They’re kind of toxic.”

  Larry shuddered. “Fair enough. Just use spit, then. It’ll be okay.”

  I wasn’t sure, ’cause he’s such a little guy, and my dick ain’t small. Then I remembered the boiled linseed oil I got for when I’m using oil paints. You get different effects if you mix it in. “I got this,” I said, grabbing the bottle. “This’ll be okay.”

  “See?” Larry grinned at me. “I knew you’d come up with something.” He put his arms round me and kissed me while our cocks rubbed together. Then he lay back on the floor, all sprawled out and waiting for me. I nearly dropped the bottle, I was so keen to get down there on top of him. He pulled up his legs so I could slick him up and stretch him out a bit, and my dick was aching, I needed him so much. “Put it in,” Larry said, so I used some more of the oil getting myself ready, and then I lined up with his hole and pushed.

  Larry always looks so little, folded up beneath me. It makes me kind of scared I’m going to hurt him. I pushed in really slow and gentle, so he could stop me if he needed to. “Yes, yes—don’t stop!” he said, and I thought it was probably okay. He was still hard, so I guess it couldn’t have hurt that much.

  When I was all the way in, I stopped for a minute, just so I could feel him around me. I felt like the luckiest guy in the world. But then Larry said, “Move! Now, for God’s sake!” so I started thrusting in and out of him, and when I do that, I always get carried away, going faster even if I don’t mean to, and soon I was slamming into him like my dick was a fist and Larry was a punch bag. “Yes! God, just like—yes!”

  Larry’s face was all pink, and his hair was dark with sweat. He looked beautiful. I told him to wank himself off, and when his hand wrapped round his dick, it felt like it was around mine too, and I couldn’t help, I started coming ’cause it was all so fucking amazing. And then Larry went “Oh God!” and he was coming too, shooting his load up between us.

  I just kept looking at his face, and it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

  I got the egg tempera pictures finished in the end. I did one miniature of Larry all normal, just smiling, and one of his face when he comes.

  Larry really liked the normal one, and he put it up on the mantelpiece so everyone could see it.

  He made me promise never to show anyone the other one.

  Ever since I moved in with Larry, my mum had been on at me ’cause she hadn’t met him yet. So I was going to ask her round, but Larry said we should take her out somewhere. Somewhere proper. So we took her for afternoon tea at the University Arms hotel. Larry thought it would be a nice place to go. I thought my mum would probably rather have us round for tea in her front room, but Larry said he wanted to take her out proper.

  I liked that idea because it was like he thought we was proper, you know? Like, not just fucking. So I told Mum where we was going, and she said “Bleedin’ hell, that’s posh! Do I have to buy a bloody hat?” but I asked Larry, and he said we wouldn’t need hats or nothing for afternoon tea.

  So that afternoon, Mum got them to let her work a split shift at Sainsbury’s, and I went and got her, and we met up with Larry at the University Arms. Mum was a bit nervous about what she was wearing, even though she bought it special from her catalogue. “Are you sure I don’t look cheap, love?” she asked me when I picked her up.

  “I think you look really pretty, Mum,” I told her, ’cause she did. “I like you in pink. It looks nice with your hair.”

  “You think so, love? You can say what you like about that girl at the salon, her with the piercings in her God-knows-where—and don’t think I don’t know what I’m on about, ’cause she goes to the swimming pool same as me and I’ve seen them—but she knows her way around a bottle of bleach. You don’t think these heels are too tarty?”

  “Anyone calls my mum a tart, I’ll deck them,” I said.

  Mum gave me a hug. “That’s nice, love, but we don’t want ’em thinking it neither. And we definitely don’t want you up on another assault charge. Sod it, I’m wearing ’em. Take me as I come, that’s what I always say.”

  Larry was waiting for us in the entrance of the hotel so we’d be able to find him okay. I was really proud of him, ’cause he’d dressed up all nice for my mum. He had on a creamy shirt that toned in with his hair and made him look really pretty, but no tie or nothing, ’cause he knew I wouldn’t be wearing one. I don’t like wearing a collar and tie if I don’t have to. They don’t really make them for guys with necks as thick as mine. Larry was looking at a picture hanging on the wall and he didn’t see us come in. “Larry,” I said, and he sort of jumped and twisted round at the same time, and I worried he’d get a crick in his neck. “This is my mum,” I told him.

  “So you’re my Alan’s fancy man, are you?” Mum asked Larry. “I must say, it’s the first time he’s ever introduced me to one of his boyfriends. Not that I haven’t met them, mind, but it’s the first time he ever done it proper. I always knew he was that way, though. Do your parents know you’re that way, Larry?”

  Larry’s eyes went big, so I gave his hand a squeeze. I don’t think he knew which question to answer first. He smiled at her. I smiled too. Everyone likes my mum. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Fletcher,” Larry said in his posh voice. He held out his hand for Mum to shake.

  “Oh, it’s Mrs. Jones now, but call me Lizzie, love, everyone does. I wasn’t never a Mrs. Fletcher anyhow, though I won’t tell if you don’t! You don’t mind if I call you Larry, do you? That’s what my Alan calls you. He talks about you all the time when he comes round these days—not that it’s as often as he used to, mind, but I know what it’s like when you’ve got a new bloke!” Mum laughed. “Alan tells me you work at the University, Larry. Teaching. My granddad was a teacher—’course, it was all different in them days. Teachers got a bit of respect, or the kids knew what was coming to them.” Mum’s eyes narrowed. “Do your students give you respect, Larry?”

  “Er, yes, I suppose so. Well, you know.” Larry looked a bit nervous.

  “I’m glad to hear it, love. Now, are we going to go have a cup of tea, or are we going to stand around nattering all afternoon? Don’t know about you, but I’m spitting feathers, as my old Nan used to say!”

  We had tea in the lounge bar. We had to walk through this circular room with the biggest chandelier I ever seen. “I’m glad I’m not having to sit underneath that thing!” Mum said. “I’ve seen Phantom of the Opera—I know them things aren’t safe!” She jabbed Larry in the ribs with her elbow, and he stumbled and nearly fell over a table. I probably should’ve warned him she does that. “Oops! Sorry, love! Don’t know my own strength sometimes!”

  Larry laughed, though, so it was all right. “Well, I think I know where Al gets his impressive physique from, at any rate,” he said in his smooth voice, the one he uses when he wants people to like him. He was rubbing his stomach a bit, but I don’t think he was really hurt or noth
ing.

  “You reckon? There’s nothing of me in that boy. Not a bleedin’ thing. When the midwife give him to me, I said ‘Take him back, I asked for a small one!’ And she goes ‘Sorry, love, round here all sales are final!’ and hands me a flippin’ elephant! Bleedin’ massive, he was. If it’d been up to me, I’d still’ve been on the gas and air three weeks later. He’s the spit of his father, though, bless him.”

  “Al never really talks about his father,” Larry said, looking at Mum all interested.

  “He was a boxer. He’d just got out the nick for GBH when I met him down the pub. I was a barmaid back in them days. He’d broke some copper’s nose—well, I ask you! Should of known, shouldn’t I? Bloke who goes round beating up coppers ain’t the sort you want to be settling down with. Poor sod didn’t have two brain cells to rub together, neither.”

  “Mum,” I said, ’cause I didn’t like her talking about my dad like that.

  She gave me a hug, and I felt better. “His heart was in the right place, that’s what I always say. He always came round on your birthdays if he remembered, din’t he, love? And give me money and stuff, when he had it, which wasn’t often, but not for want of trying, was it? Now, where do we sit? You two lovebirds go on the sofa. Cuddle up a bit, don’t mind me!”

  “Mum,” I said, ’cause I felt a bit funny cuddling up with Larry in public. It’s daft, ’cause I’m dead proud of him—I mean, he’s the one who ought not to want to be seen with me. I guess I’m just a bit shy. So we sat on the sofa but a bit apart, and Mum had the chair on the other side of the table.

  “So where is he now?” Larry asked. “Al?” I’d been looking at the windows, which had stained glass in them like a church, except just in little round panels in the middle, not the whole window, and was wondering how they stained the glass and whether I could have a go at it. I had to think about what Larry meant.