“What?” He glared at me. “Shit, Joe, you want t’ try makin’ some sense?”
“Well, I ... I don’t know if I can, Aaron,” I said. “It’s just ... there’s something not right about doing this. It’s like I’d be spitting in the eye of God after he’s shown me the world or ... or something and I can’t ...”
“Aw, for Christ’s sake!” He hiked up his briefs and grabbed his shirt and yanked it on, almost tearing it. “You’re really somthin’, Joe! A real prick tease! You talk me into getting’ all worked up then pull some psycho-crap before you even try to ... to ... shit, I thought you wanted to ... you said you wanted to do it and ...”
I rose to my feet, suddenly afraid he’d just leave, and I’d never see him, again. But also unwilling to let my connection with him be dragged into something as common and simple as lust.
“I did!” I said. “But I ... I think the only reason you’re letting me is because you like to be touched. And held. And you need it so much you’ll put up with anything. Almost anything.”
“What!?” Man, for a second I thought he was going to hit me, he got so red in the face. “You freaky fuckin’ faggot, you think I’m that screwed up?!”
“No! No. It’s just ... I think you’re lonely. I think you want something ... and you don’t know what it is ... and I don’t, either ... but maybe I can give it to you.”
“Man, you are a true freak,” he snarled. “This was one big mistake an’ it’s best t’ cut it ‘fore it gets any crazier.”
He yanked on his shorts then started pulling on his socks and shoes, and I didn’t even think to try and stop him. I just sat on my stool, eyeing him like a cat as I said, “I’m sorry. And you’re right, it does sound crazy. But the fact is, your meaning to me is deeper than a ... a one night stand or ... or two nights or a thousand.”
He rolled his eyes. I could tell, even though he wasn’t looking up and tied his shoelaces with the fury of a strangler.
“Aaron, I mean it. If I ... I blow you, then you become nothing to me. You’d just be one more guy I gave a head job to and ... and I’d become exactly what I do not want to be – a queer artist who paints pretty boys just before he fucks ‘em.”
“I told you, I’m not turnin’ queer for you!”
“And I mean it when I say I don’t want you to! You’re too important to me for that! But I didn’t realize till now just how important! Aaron ... please try to understand ... the other night ... when I was touching your face ... I connected to something deeper inside me than just lust or longing. And I ... I ... I saw more to you than just the skin wrapped around your body. I saw more than just the public face you offer the world. And I saw that until that moment, I’d been trying to paint only what I saw – a dream ... and not a person …” Shit, that sounded so lame. “… and everything I’ve done up to now reflects that ... that stupid, surface simplistic mentality.”
He looked at me, slowly – warily – even more confused, and I can’t say I blame him; I was now confusing myself.
“It’s because of you ... through you that I found ... I’ve been wasting my time on nothing, and I can’t do that. Not anymore. And I can’t let you become nothing to me.”
He finished tying his shoes and rose, his wariness increasing. “You ain’t makin’ one damn bit of sense.”
“Fine,” I said, moving towards him, “let me show you what I mean.”
He backed away. “No, I ... I better head on.”
“Aaron, please, just sit in the chair. I won’t touch you. I don’t need to, anymore.”
He stopped before opening the door and eyed me as if I was from another planet. At that particular moment, I couldn’t have proven to anyone that I wasn’t. I backed to my easel and positioned the stool before it.
“We don’t have to talk,” I said. “You can keep an eye on me the whole time. And if I try anything, you have permission to smack me into next Sunday.”
“Man ... you got me so fuckin’ confused.”
“I know. I know. I’m trying to explain something that I can’t explain. Not with words. So please ... let me show you. It won’t take very long. And you ... you’ll get your portrait out of it. Okay? Then you can run clear to Tulsa, if you want.”
He finally nodded and sat on the chair. “Let’s get it over with,” he muttered. Not the best way of putting it, but I wasn’t worried about that, just then.
I scrambled to find the one clean sheet of illustration board I had and dropped it to the ugly carpet. I frantically swiped both sides of it with a wet sponge to prep them then pulled out half a dozen empty Jif jars and half-filled them with water. Then I realized it was dark, so I turned on my easel lamp, and I spun my desk lamp around to shine on him. I had a floor lamp by my bed that I moved to his other side, to give him a bit of fill light. Then I began mixing acrylic paints in their caps, using a different jar of water for each color, all like someone possessed. By the time I was ready, the board was dry and open to my use.
I didn’t pay much attention to Aaron, during this, but I know he watched me flit around like a sketcher on a high. And any time I got too close to him, I know he tensed up and readied his fist. I didn’t care. I was in some kind of art zone, and I’m still amazed at how easily I slipped into it.
The actual painting took a few hours, nothing more. I wish I could describe what I did, but it’s so, it was so simple and straightforward, it would just seem boring and incomplete. Whipping through the outline of his head and shoulders. Putting down the first layer of paint and then the second. Working in the filler and then the details and then the shading, it sounds academic when it was really instinctive and sudden and almost, well, ephemeral. And even though I remember the chime of the school’s bells (nine o’clock; ten o’clock) and Aaron breaking to grab a Bock and bring me one, too (I drank half of it before forgetting about it, completely) and ordering in pizza (which I ate, though I can’t remember what kind it was) and taking a pee (winding up with burnt umber and portrait pink on my dick), I was not in this world as I wove and spun and conjured my new life.
Just past midnight with paint streaked across my body and layers of colors on my fingers and my jeans a full and complete mess, I was done. I don’t know how I knew it was ready. I just thought if I add one more dot or line, it’ll be ruined. So I signed it and stepped back, still in that netherworld of being here and beyond. I didn’t have to say anything; Aaron knew it was ready. He slowly stretched and carefully joined me, and I stumbled back to this world an instant before he cast his first glance at my work.
Oh, and what a piece of work it was. Sweet Jesus, I had him. The thick and golden hair. The smooth and glowing skin. The bright and shining eyes. All in whispery layers of color that seemed more rich oil than flat water based. Lips with a hint of rubies. Cheeks with a bit of blush. The line of his neck. The flow of his shoulders. The sense of calmness covering a shattering want. This was more than just the combination of shades and tones that offered a photo-like representation of a good-looking guy; this was art. This was my explanation, my proof.
His eyes held layers of wariness and need and longing, all at one time. His secret smile was painful in its cool emotion. His posture was proper and correct yet demanding and distant. I could compare the effect to that of The Mona Lisa (give me a few more years of working on my ego and I probably will) in its simplicity and meaning. I could never be as proud of anything I did as I was of that portrait at that particular time; I just knew it.
Aaron did, too. I could sense the tension and weariness whisper out of him as he took it in. Oh, sure, he was impressed; I already knew he would be. But I needed to show him why my work also impressed me.
I drifted to my portfolios and dug through them for the best portrait I’d done up to that point. It was of the guy in my life drawing class, the one with the beard. It was an upper torso layout, from just above his navel to include all of his head. His eyes were closed, his arms were at his sides, and I’d made him to look a bit like Christ. It was
good, but when I set it next to Aaron’s portrait on the easel, it was like comparing the work of a child to that of Renoir.
Aaron looked at it, and I could tell even his untrained eye could see the difference. I slipped up behind him, put my arms around his shoulders, drew myself close to him, held him like a brother, and whispered into his ear, “You see? This is what you brought me to.”
He didn’t move, just let me mold myself against him. I lay my chin on his left shoulder.
“I now know that to paint ... to create ... I have to connect with the soul of my subject. You’re the one who let me do that. You’re the one who showed me there’s a bridge that takes you from being a fool to being a king ... and that I was worthy enough to cross that bridge. You’re the one who showed me that my paint is priceless, and I shouldn’t waste it on nothing. Yeah, before I ... I knew you, I was attracted to you. And I thought it was just for your looks, but now I know it was because I sensed what you could show me. Where you could lead me. To have ... to have sex with you now would be a desecration.”
Aaron took hold of my arms and held them tight to his chest. I could tell he was weeping lightly and still with some basic control, but enough to fill me with gratitude.
“I ... I’m sorry, boss. I really thought that’s all you were after.”
“So did I, once.”
“Y’know ... that’s all anybody’s ever really wanted out o’ me. The way I look. The way I act. My folks. My brother. Andrea. Everybody. They never me just ... just for ...” His voice whispered away. Finally, he cocked his head to look at me. “But you ... you’re ... you’re a funny fella, Joe.”
I couldn’t think of a nicer thing from him to say, so I just smiled.
He hugged my arms closer to himself and looked back at the portrait. “Is it really mine?”
I nodded. “Let it dry overnight, then I’ll spray some fixative on it. You can pick it up after twelve. Get it matted and framed and it’s ready for the parents.”
“I’ll let Andrea do that; she loves that crap.” Then he looked closer at the portrait and glanced back at me. “You signed it ‘Jam The Cat’.”
“That’s my name, now.”
He gave me a hugely quizzical look and pulled away from me. I didn’t mind; it was time for him to leave, and I was feeling the desperate need of a bath. We moved toward the door.
“My name’s Joseph Allen Martin. At my high school, if your initials formed a word, that was your nickname.”
“But ‘The Cat’?”
“Well ... I tell people it’s because I’m an artist and I’m cool, but the reality is … my junior year, I got into a shoving match with this jerk in calculus. He wound up pushing me through a window. We were on the second floor, so I did a back flip and landed on my feet. Broke a bone in my right foot. Might’ve been worse if I hadn’t hit some grass. I was on crutches for weeks. Anyway, one of the kids who saw it said something like, ‘Jam landed like a cat!’ The name stuck.”
He grinned and said, “Okay, boss. I can see that.”
I stopped him by the door and said, “Aaron, I’m not your boss. And you are nobody’s servant.”
“I know that.”
“Do you?”
He smiled and sort of shrugged. “T’morrow, ‘bout noon?”
I nodded. Then he drew me close and kissed me, long and hard, with a deeper affection than he ever had before, and then he left.
He came back, the next day, Andrea in tow. And, of course, she rattled on and on so much about how great the portrait was. It was irritating. I think she wanted me to offer to do one of her, but she held no promise for me; too cloistered in her superficiality. So I borrowed a photo student’s camera to shoot a couple of transparencies of it then handed it over to Aaron.
I didn’t see him for two weeks. Not that it mattered. I knew he’d come back, again. I finished the mural of his face on my dorm wall, then contacted my folks and told them I wasn’t returning to school the next year. “Oh and, just in case you didn’t know, Mom and Dad, I’m gay.” They already knew. Dammit. In fact, they were disappointed I didn’t tell ‘em after what happened with my asshole roomie. So much for any overwrought drama in my coming out.
Aaron finally dropped by one evening to show me some photos of his parents’ anniversary party. His folks were nice well-off Republicans (scum of the earth) and his brother was an overweight chunk in comparison (tho’ with him, I would have gone all the way). The centerpiece of just about all the photos was the portrait I’d done. It wound up hanging over the family’s fireplace, which was a position of honor, according to Aaron. He even carried a nice handwritten note from his mother thanking me for doing it (well, at least she was raised right ... pun not intended). Then as he sat and I sketched (or painted or drew), we talked and ordered in pizza and drank Shiner Bock.
He got into the habit of dropping by two or three times a week, so I got to build my own little “Helga” portfolio. Faces. Hands. Torsos. Clothed. Nude. Face up. Face down. Whatever I wanted him to do, however I wanted him to sit, he did. We never again referred to our near death experience, and when the semester was over, he went back to Dallas, and I moved to San Francisco to invest completely in my new life. We haven’t seen each other, since.
So here I sit in my overpriced studio, taking a break from my latest work (an old Jazz saxophonist with arthritic fingers and eyes that reach to heaven) happy as a cat that’s caught his mousie. I’m seeing this photographer named Ric who’s a few years older than I and who likes taking shots of me working; says he’s trying to catch creativity as it sparks to life. He’s still trying. He’s not as beautiful as Aaron, but his meaning to me is deep and different. He tolerates my moods, and he brings me peace, and his eyes shine with the joy of a kitten discovering the world. I’ve painted him a dozen times. I want to do a dozen more. That alone should tell you how much I love him.
I’m slated to have my first full viewing of my work at a gallery in three months. My paintings of Ric will make up one section – Life. My portraits of old Jazz musicians from the “Beat Period” will make up the second section – Liberty. And the third section (if you haven’t already figured it out) will be the first Conte pencil sketch I did of Aaron all by itself, but without a word to identify it, except for the one that flows from deep within my soul. And to those who ask why it has no title, I’ll respond in the only way I can.
“How can you label perfection?”
About the Authors
Bearmuffin – A native Californian, Bearmuffin lives in San Diego with two leather bears in a stimulating ménage a trios. He writes erotica for Honcho and Torso. His work is featured in several Alyson and Cleis Press anthologies.
Dan DeVeaux – DeVeaux grew up, went to college, and now lives in the Midwest after living in eight states and Europe. His background is in advertising writing and straight fiction and poetry, some of which has been published. DeVeaux is new to erotica, but two of his short stories were purchased by Mandate Magazine.
Jay Barbera – Barbera has had twelve highly erotic books published on a variety of sexual topics. In addition, his short stories have appeared in dozens of adult magazines. Jay Barbera, who has been writing since 1982, lives in Cliffside Park, New Jersey.
Jay Starre – From Vancouver, Canada, Jay Starre has written for numerous gay men’s magazines including Mandate, Torso, and Men. His torrid stories have also been included in over forty-five gay anthologies such as Daddy’s Boyz, Kink, View to a Thrill, Love in a Lock-up, Unmasked – Erotic Tales of Gay Superheroes, and Don’t Ask, Don’t Tie Me Up – Military BDSM Fantasies. His steamy gay novel from STARbooks, The Erotic Tales of the Knights Templar, was released in autumn 2007.
Jordan Castillo Price – Price is the author of the PsyCop novels, Among the Living, Criss Cross, and Body and Soul. Price’s short stories have appeared in the anthologies Bloodlust: Erotic Vampire Tales, Got a Minute? and Torqued Tales.
K. Appleby – Appleby was born in Sydney but moved to a farm in regio
nal Australia at an early age. To his parents’ horror, he became a vegan while working and growing up on the farm. He now resides in a small country town between the coast and the bush.
Kyle Michel Sullivan – Sullivan is an award-winning screenwriter with one published book to his name (available on Amazon.com). He was born in San Diego, raised in Texas (with only the usual scarring) and now lives in West Hollywood. He writes, sketches and paints, loves French films and plans to move to Ireland to write the world’s greatest novel.
Lew Bull – Bull has been published in such anthologies as Ultimate Gay Erotica 2007 and 2008, Travelrotica for Gay Men and Travelrotica Vol. 2, Fast Balls, Dorm Porn 2, Treasure Trail, My First Time Vol. 5, Secret Slaves and Ultimate Undies. He is also being published in STARbooks’ Don’t Ask, Don’t Tie Me Up – Military BDSM Fantasies. He lives in South Africa with his partner of thirty years and should you wish to make contact with him, send an email to [email protected].
Mark Dante – Dante is old enough to remember what it’s like to face the terrors of a homophobic world, and he has written nearly a dozen short stories plus one novel on the subject. He is married to a charming and patient French lady, and they have a grown son and daughter who know his story and understand.
R. Forestier – Forestier grew up in Cambridge, MA, left at age nineteen in 1956, and quickly the learned facts-of-life. First stop, Houston, Texas, then New York City. Fifty years later, South Florida. Lots of casual sex, plus a few LTRs set Forestier up for his present and, hopefully, final relationship. Currently, a brief vignette of life in New York appears in the Apollo Network Library.
R.A. Padgett – Padgett lives in Ballard on the outskirts of Seattle, the land of lost souls and lutefisk with his partner of twelve years and their Boxer bitch. He has been published in PUSH Magazine and Handjobs Anthology and is a frequent contributor to various Websites.
Ryan Field – Field is a freelance writer who lives and works in both New Hope, PA, and Los Angeles, CA. His work has appeared in many magazines, anthologies and collections over the years. He is currently working on a new novel.
Boys Will Be Boys - Their First Time Page 32
