Tattoos & Teacups

by Anna Martin

  “I don’t think of myself like that,” I said.

  “Like what?”

  “A… cancer survivor. It was just there, you know, so they took it out, and then it was okay. I only had to have radiotherapy, you know.” I shrugged.

  “You’re talking shit, Rob,” Chris said dismissively, shaking his head.

  Maybe I was. I hardly ever thought about the cancer or my absent testicle anymore, except when I met a new partner or had to go for a checkup with my doctor. Being so young when I contracted the disease was something of a blessing as well as a curse; I was one of the most generally fit and healthy men my surgeon had ever treated, and I recovered very quickly. In so many ways, I was lucky to have noticed it so quickly and to have a doctor that took me seriously, especially since testicular cancer in younger men is much rarer.

  It had been a difficult couple of months when I first noticed that I was getting tired and rundown a lot easier than before, but I’d chalked it up to stress from the decision to leave Lu and Chloe and move into my own place. I still had plenty of contact with them both after I moved out. It wasn’t like I never got to see my little girl, and Lu never tried to restrict my access to her. From a situation that could have turned out to be a complete and utter nightmare, we found a way to stay such close friends even as our lives were turned upside down.

  To be told I had cancer when my daughter wasn’t even in school yet was fairly terrifying. Lu had just met Mike so I knew she’d be taken care of, but those few months taught me that I didn’t want my daughter to only know and have a relationship with her stepfather. It was a wakeup call, for sure.

  I didn’t even tell Luisa that before the operation I went and banked my sperm so that just in case the worst happened, I’d maybe be able to father another child, a brother or sister for Chloe one day. Well, she already had those from Lu, but I never wanted that opportunity to be taken away from me.

  As it was, they only had to remove the one testicle in the end, and the other one seemed to pick up the slack without any obvious trouble. I wanted, more than anything else, to be able to put the entire episode behind me and move on. Just… fucking move on from it all and the pain and the tiredness and the stress of it all, to graduate from my degree with honors and to start my career and leave all of that in my past.

  And then there was Chris, a man who was the epitome of youthful excess—beautiful and fun and creative and such a free spirit. It didn’t seem fair to drag him down with my history, full as it was of dark tales about unwanted pregnancy and the awkward discovery of my own sexuality and the one illness that makes mice out of men and doesn’t discriminate against any of us. Gay or straight, black, white, blue, rich or poor… there’s no way of avoiding the paralyzing fear of the grip of cancer.

  I wanted to keep him away from all of that and at the same time was desperate for him to know every part of me so that he might better understand where I came from. In my occasional odd, dark moments, I went back to that place where I was sure I wasn’t going to make it through, to see my daughter grow up or ever really, truly be in love.

  “Well, I definitely killed that particular experience,” I said with a touch of weariness.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m glad you told me.”

  There wasn’t any energy left in me to return his affections so he turned out the light and let me hold him as we inched toward sleep.

  He, at least, found peace quickly while I lay awake for a long, long time. Too many memories that I’d worked hard to keep locked away had been stirred back up to the surface by our conversation.

  In the darkness his face was so calm and peaceful, a stark difference from the stress of the day we’d had. I knew I should probably let him sleep, but I couldn’t stop myself from reaching out and gently stroking his face.

  “Sorry,” I murmured as he stirred and woke.

  He moaned a little and rubbed his face. “’S okay. You all right?”

  “Yeah.” I wasn’t sure what I wanted of him until it was staring me in the face. Or rather, straining to escape from my boxers. “Can I have you?”

  His dry lips stretched into a smile. “Course.”

  “Are you sure?” I had to check. “I didn’t mean to wake you up, but you just look so beautiful sometimes and I couldn’t sleep—”

  “Rob,” he said, pressing a finger to my lips to shut me up. “Come be inside me.”

  Of course, it was the most perfect thing he could possibly have said. Even though I was completely incapable of expressing what I wanted from him, he seemed to understand. I wanted—no, I needed to be as close to him as physically possible.

  Claiming him was easy; I could do that with kisses. Still, I felt somewhat awkward as I pushed my boxers down off my thighs and played with the waistband of his, partly to tease the soft hairs that made a line from his belly button down, and partly because I was still nervous about pushing my fingers underneath the slightly worn elastic.

  Sighs and smiles against my lips were encouragement to search out his cock; warm, not fully hard yet, the skin silky-smooth against my enquiring fingertips. There was something almost heartbreaking about his whispered pleas for more, the way his fingers wrapped around my arm as I smoothed his hair back from his face.

  It was Chris who pushed his underwear off his hips, lifting his bum from the bed and managing to get them down as far as his thighs before my mouth was on his cock and he stopped trying to move them.

  I knew from the moment my mouth wrapped around him that I’d left him in a state of frustration earlier in the evening. He tasted of salt and desperation, and with my cheek on his stomach, I could feel the rush of blood through his body.

  When my body separated from his, I chanced a look up at him. My gaze was met with wide, blown pupils so large that there was only the tiniest rim of bluey grey left. This clearly wasn’t the time for a slow buildup. Already we were both on the edge of something, and I didn’t want to wait, I just wanted him.

  With slick fingers I twisted and pushed inside him, the careful movement still drawing some inhuman sound from his throat as he arched his back from the bed and leaked steadily against his own stomach. A moment, just a moment of wishing I didn’t have to suit up for the occasion and be closer to him than we ever had before.

  But that kind of attitude had not borne good results for me in the past, and I slipped the condom on with practiced ease as he rid himself of his boxers and spread his feet wide, offering himself to me. In some ways, in these moments he seemed so innocent to me. Or maybe innocent was the wrong word. Vulnerable. He offered me everything: his body, his heart. And he trusted me to take care of them.

  As I pushed into him, I kissed him hard, distracting him with two points of pleasure at opposite ends of his body. I wasn’t really prepared for him to cross both his legs behind my lower back and his arms under my arms and around my shoulders, clinging to me while he pressed his face to my chest.

  Again. So vulnerable.

  So it was easy to treat him as precious cargo, moving with him like a delicate thing that I had the power to break. My own desire bubbled below the surface, only being set free in the noises I made in response to his.

  “Tell me,” he demanded.

  “I love you,” I said, forcing my voice to be strong. It wasn’t just the words; it was the act of it, too. I wanted him to feel it right down to his bones.

  I slowed down the movement of our bodies even further, now just a deep grind rather than the powerful thrusts that usually sent him over the edge. The soft sound he made could have been a sob or his voice catching as I found his prostate and stayed there, rocking against it over and over.

  “Tell me again.”

  “I love you. Love you, Chris.”

  The second time it was definitely a sob, then a cry set free from a throat thick with emotion. I hadn’t known that I had the power to do that to him, to strip him bare and, with just my words, make him orgasm.

  I buried my face in the stretch where hi
s neck met his shoulder and let go. There was no use in hiding anymore, not now that I’d given him pretty much everything that I was capable of giving to another person. There was no way I could let him go anymore.

  “Love you too, Rob,” he whispered as the last of the shudders wracked through my body, and even though I knew it, hearing it set something different off inside me.

  It didn’t feel right to pull away after what had just happened, and even though we’d both want nothing more than to fall asleep with me still inside him, neither physics nor biology were on our side.

  Still, clothes were out of the question as we realigned our still-sticky bodies and I pulled his head to my chest. This wasn’t the time to talk about it but to try and cling to the last wispy moments of what had passed between us as they disappeared through our fingers like smoke.

  I slept then.

  I RECEIVED a text from Chloe with the news.

  It’s a boy. Carter Michael Draco Robinson-Doyle xoxo Chlo

  “Draco?” Chris asked. “As in Harry Potter’s Draco?”

  “I wouldn’t put it past her,” I muttered darkly. “Then again, her other daughter is Cassiopeia, so maybe she’s going with the astrological bent.”

  “At least it’s not Columbus,” he said soothingly, patting my hand. “Cassiopeia?”

  “Cassie, for short,” I corrected. “She’s three. And a little terror.”

  “What’s her middle name?”

  “I can’t remember,” I said honestly. “I’ll ask Chloe, she’ll know.”

  I sent off a text message, offering congratulations from us both and making the necessary enquiries.

  “Cassiopeia Ariana,” I said after a few minutes.

  Chris shrugged. “I don’t get it.”

  “Me either. Chloe was just Chloe Ellen. I have no idea what happened to Lu since Chlo was born, but something has clearly messed with her head.”

  “Did Lu not fight you on Chloe’s name?” he asked.

  “No,” I said, thinking back. “We discussed it, and we both liked Chloe, but I think she understood that I wouldn’t have any other kids, so she let me go with what I liked best.”

  “That was nice of her.”

  “Yeah. She’s a good person.”

  We arranged to go and visit the new mother and baby a few days later, once they were home from the hospital. Chris said he hated hospitals, even if it was only a maternity ward. I had a suspicion it was precisely because it was a maternity ward.

  “Do you want to come and meet Luisa?” I asked Chris.

  “Why would I want to meet your ex?”

  “Because she’s one of my best friends,” I said reasonably. “And she’s Chloe’s mother. And I need to go and see her new baby and I’m scared.”

  He laughed. “Really? But you’ve got a kid!”

  “Newborns terrify me. They’re so… breakable.”

  “Was it different with Chloe?”

  “Mm. A little bit. I was terrified but in a completely different way. She forced me to be there when she gave birth, you know.”

  “What a bitch.”

  “Yeah. If I didn’t know I was gay, I did after that experience.” The memory still haunted me.

  “So when will you be going to visit?” he asked, playing with a rip across the knee of his jeans.

  “Hopefully on the weekend. She’ll be out of hospital by then.”

  He was silent for a few more minutes, during which the cat stopped prowling and decided he was going to settle on Chris’s lap. Flea had turned into my first line of defense for when Chris decided it was time to leave. Despite all his powers of resistance, a grey ball of fluff on his lap seemed to be all it took to get him to stay.

  “Okay,” he said eventually, once Flea had stopped pawing and turning circles and settled down. “I’ll come with you.”

  Clearly I had an ulterior motive inasmuch as getting him to visit Lu would stop her from nagging me that she wanted to meet him. Apart from that, I really did need him as backup when it came to the baby.

  I’d called ahead so she knew to expect me, and Mike had taken their now middle child out for the afternoon, leaving my daughter as the responsible adult in the house. She answered the door, scowled at me, smiled brightly at Chris, and skipped back up to her room.

  “Lu!” I called out.

  “In here!”

  She was sitting in some kind of rocking and reclining chair with a bundle of blankets on her lap.

  “Hi,” I said, and she beamed at me. “Lu, this is Chris. Chris, this is… my once ex-girlfriend, current good friend, and mother of my daughter. Luisa.”

  “Hi, Chris,” Lu gushed. “I’ve heard so much about you. Not from Robert, of course, but Chloe has plenty to say about you. Have a seat.”

  “I’m sure she does,” I said darkly, taking the sofa next to Chris and hopefully providing a buffer between him and my over-inquisitive friend.

  “Nice to meet you,” he said, turning on the Southern charm and making my tummy flutter in response. “How’s the baby?”

  “Oh, he’s good,” she said, bouncing the bundle in her lap. “All seven pounds, ten ounces of him.”

  “That sounds like a lot,” he said.

  “Oh, Chloe was nearly nine pounds,” she said breezily. “He was fine. Want to hold him?”

  “Nope,” I said quickly.

  “Thanks,” Chris said. “But I’ll pass, if it’s all the same to you.”

  Lu laughed and hoisted the baby up onto her shoulder, rubbing his back slowly and murmuring to him. I could remember having that connection to Chloe when she was still a baby. Comparing my memories of the tiny little person who’d commanded all of my time and love and attention to the grown-up person who commanded all of my money hurt, just a little bit.

  I heard a shriek from the direction of the front door and Mike calling out that they were home. Then Cassie, white dress, blue tights, blonde ringlets Cassie, who looked like an angel but I knew better, came skidding around the corner into the living room.

  “Mommy—” she started but stopped short when she caught sight of Chris.

  Suddenly she turned on the coy, sweet charm and dug her toe into the floor, twisting the hem of her dress between dirty fingers. Luisa winced. I had to wonder why she’d thought putting Cassie in a white dress in the first place was a good idea.

  “Cassie, did you want me?” Lu said gently.

  “Who’s he?” she asked in a stage whisper.

  “Hi,” Chris said, smiling at her widely. “My name is Chris. I’m Rob’s friend.”

  “My friend,” I clarified. Then, to Chris, “She knows me as Uncle Robert.”

  “Hello. My name is Cassie, and I’m three years old.” She held up four fingers. Chris gently folded down the fourth, and Cassie blinked at him. “Do you want to come play with me?”

  “Sure,” Chris agreed. He winked at me as he took Cassie’s hand, and she led him out to her playroom.

  “How is she handling having the baby around?” I asked Lu, relaxing a bit more now.

  “Not so good.” Chloe had been eleven when her younger sister was born, so there wasn’t much sibling rivalry. She had the good grace to be completely bored and disaffected by Cassie’s arrival. Cassie, however, was used to being the little princess of the family.

  “I guessed maybe as much.”

  “She’ll get used to him soon enough. I’m not worried,” Lu said, hoisting Carter up further onto her shoulder. “Tell me more about Chris.”

  “What do you want to know?” I said. “Talk to him yourself. He’s actually very nice.”

  “I don’t doubt it.” She frowned. “He doesn’t have a Mohawk, though. I’m disappointed.”

  “I made him brush his hair before we came out.”

  Lu smirked and tilted her cheek down onto Carter’s head. “Are you happy, Robert?”

  “With Chris? Yes, of course.”

  “He’s much younger than you.”

  “I know that.”


  And I knew she was only being protective of me. There wasn’t anyone other than her to be protective of me, and although that thought stung just a little bit, at least I had her. We made a very odd little family.

  Carter started to fuss, and I took that as my cue to leave.

  “Let me… go round up the troops,” I said to her. Luisa was barely listening to me. That was okay, though.

  I knew where Cassie’s room was, but only in relation to Chloe’s. Fortunately for me her bedroom door was open, and I stood slightly back from it as I watched her with Chris. They seemed to be conducting high tea around an impossibly tiny table and chair set, several stuffed animals making up the numbers.

  “I’m sorry to interrupt,” I said, approaching them at last. “But we need to go.”

  “No! I want Uncle Chris to stay!” Cassie cried.

  “She started calling me Uncle Chris,” Chris said. “It seems to have stuck.”

  I offered him a hand to pull him up from the little chair, and he smiled as he took it. Cassie looked at me as if I was the root of all evil for stealing her playmate.

  “I’ll bring him back to play again,” I promised her.

  Passing Chloe’s door, I knocked on it lightly. “Going now, Chlo,” I called out.

  “Bye, Dad.”

  “That’s what I’ve been reduced to,” I said to Chris as we took the stairs back down to leave. “Hi Dad, Bye Dad.”

  He squeezed my hand. “Cassie is adorable.”

  “Oh no,” I groaned dramatically. “She’s snared you.”

  In the car on the way home, I held his hand and wondered if this was equal to me introducing him to my parents. Since he was unlikely to ever meet my mother or father, I decided it was, and that the afternoon had been an unparalleled success.

  Clearly, we needed to celebrate with sex.

  Chapter 8

  IT WAS assumed, rather than an invite ever extended, that I was going to go to the next gig that the band had booked. This one was in a larger venue and held a much bigger crowd, who were all there to see Ice on the Tracks rather than the tribute band. When I asked Chris if he was nervous, he gave me a puzzled look.