Tattoos & Teacups

by Anna Martin

  There are too many complications. I have a mortgage on the flat I’ve lived in alone for the past few years and have to make sure that any rent I charge on it will cover that initial loan. All the annoyances and legal shit of being a registered landlord. And taking out a second, joint mortgage on a rather expensive second home.

  But there are things that stand in our favor.

  My job, for one, which leads nicely to my reputation within the academic community, for two. Chris’s occupation as a musician is slightly more problematic as it’s far less steady work, but he gets a great reference from the Boston Symphony Orchestra, which helps a lot. And finally, thankfully, I have enough in my savings that the move isn’t going to hit us too hard financially.

  The process of sitting down with Chris and working out exactly what we both earn and our outgoings isn’t easy. I have a child and a college education, neither of which came cheap. I was expecting for him to not have much in the way of savings, but I’m slightly humbled to find out he’s been working his cute little bubble butt off since he was sixteen years old. Apart from the expense of the motorbike, he’s been saving like crazy and has enough set by to be an equal partner in the house.

  We have a few conversations with John and Lexi to find out when they’re planning on moving back to the city, and manage to plan the move to mean that there’s not too long a period of time when my flat will sit empty.

  I agree to rent it to them furnished, since all they’ve really got in the way of furniture can be packed up into a camper van and trailer to be dragged up and down the country. This means shopping. Lots and lots of shopping.

  There are moments when I seriously consider giving Chris, Chloe, Luisa, and Jilly a list of things we need and just sending them off on their own; surely this is a better idea than being dragged around furniture store after furniture store and trying to agree with all three of them, which is possibly the most impossible, fruitless task in the given universe. Especially since Jilly and Lu are prepared to double team against me.

  With poor Mike left in charge of Cassie for the afternoon (he has plans to take her to the Boston Children’s Museum) and Carter strapped to his mother’s chest, Chris and I take them back to the condo so we can look at it again and Lu and Jilly can see it for the first time.

  Both women oooh and ahhh in all the right places, and Lu takes pictures on her camera phone in the desperate hope that this shopping trip will go better than the last one. It couldn’t possibly be any worse. Forcing myself to put the experience out of my mind, I begin to make a mental list. Apparently everyone else is doing the same thing.

  “Right,” I say in my decisive, man-about-the-house voice. “Where are we going for coffee? Because I’m damned if I’m going to wander around without a purpose again looking for bloody candlesticks to go on the mantel that we don’t have and cushions to match the sofa that we haven’t bloody bought yet.”

  Luisa looks amused. Chloe looks shocked. Jilly rolls her eyes.

  Chris grabs hold of my sweater and pulls me to him for a hard kiss.

  I’m entertained enough to flick my hand at the girls in a vague shoo motion as I let him kiss me. He hums against my lips and pulls away, only to kiss my cheek with a loud smack.

  “Love it when you’re all commanding,” he says in a low voice.

  “Let’s just go home and have sex,” I whisper once I’m sure the girls, my daughter in particular, have left the room. “They don’t need us there. They definitely don’t want us there. And they can probably do a better job than we can anyway.”

  “Nope.” Chris kisses me quickly on the lips and takes my hand to drag me from the room. “Come on, we’re gay men. Interior design is supposed to be something we’re good at.”

  I forgive myself for not believing him.

  Chapter 17

  THERE isn’t a lot to do in the way of decorating since the new apartment has been so well kept by the previous owners, but once the sale has completed and the place is officially ours, I decide I want to repaint my office. When we first visited, one wall was a deep, rich orange, which was nice, but I want something more relaxing for the space. And apparently Chris has agreed to help Chloe redecorate her room “however she wants.” This decision has been made entirely without my knowledge or prior approval, and by the time I find out about it, I can’t say no without looking like the bad guy.

  I have visions of lurid pink and purple swirling in my head as Chris takes her down to the hardware store to go buy paint. While they’re gone, I slap warm, coffee-colored paint on the walls in my office and sulk.

  When my phone rings, I seriously consider not answering it. I know that it’s Chris because he has his own ringtone. He seems to be the only one who doesn’t know this, since he’s never next to my phone when he’s the one calling it.

  “Hello?”

  I’m such a loser.

  “Hey, Rob. Do you know how to hang wallpaper?”

  I have visions of ’60s psychedelic swirls.

  “No. Sorry.”

  “Ah, well. No worries. See you in a bit.” He rings off. My heart sinks further for my beautiful, beautiful apartment. It’s okay, I tell myself. We can just keep the door closed up there. No one need ever know.

  When they return, I’m resigned to the horrific.

  And am forced to eat humble pie when Chloe shows me tins of paint in cream and gold.

  “It looks nice,” I say, trying to keep the surprise from my voice and failing.

  “Thanks,” she says, flushed and excited. “Chris said that I could paint the walls a different color to the windowsill and stuff. I’m going to get matching linens for the bed, too.”

  “Did he, now,” I mutter darkly. “Go on and change and we can get started.”

  She grins and bounds up the stairs. Thankfully, since the room is white already, there’s no need for base coats or anything like that. I raise an eyebrow at Chris once she’s out of earshot.

  “Oh, you owe me one,” he says. “You owe me an hour-long rimjob while I eat ice cream and watch Gossip Girl with no sarcasm.”

  “At the same time?”

  “Fuck, yeah. I can multitask.”

  He rummages through the bags and extracts the other cans of paint, rollers, brushes, and trays. “We went through pretty much the entire spectrum of girlish, nauseating color schemes. I’m serious, at one point she wanted to paint the ceiling blue with white fluffy clouds on it.”

  “Jesus.”

  “Damn straight. There’s no fucking way I’m having white fluffy clouds in my house. Then we moved on to wallpaper, and she wanted this gold brocade shit because it was ‘elegant’, so I jumped on that and talked her into the gold paint.”

  “An hour-long rimjob? Sure you can last that long?”

  He’s laughing as he pulls me down into a messy kiss. “I love you.”

  “Love you too, you silly bugger.”

  THE new furniture arrives in dribs and drabs, meaning one or the other of us is constantly speeding across town to let the delivery guys in. We end up dumping most things in the living room on the top floor, because it’s easier to get the bigger things up there to begin with and take them back downstairs after rather than having it all on the first level and having to haul it up the stairs.

  When our official “moving day” comes, it’s something of an anticlimax, since we’ve been doing so much stuff in the apartment already. Nearly all of our clothes, the pieces of kitchen equipment we’re keeping, and my books and DVDs and photographs have all been taken across town in the back of my car. The last few things that we’ve been living with are easily packed into a couple of suitcases. Then it’s just Flea in his carry box (which he hates), and it’s time to say goodbye.

  Which is ridiculous, when I think about it, because it’s not like I won’t still get to see the place. My name is still on the deeds, and I’ll probably be the one called out to fix the blocked sink or whatever. But this was the place where I fell in love.

  The makin
g love “one last time” in our bed starts sweetly, tasting all the memories behind us of doing the same thing so many times before. Then Chris slaps me on the ass and forces me to fuck him hard, and that’s better, somehow.

  Lexi and John arrive right on schedule while Chris and I sit out on the front step waiting for them. Laughing, Chris surges to his feet and runs to greet them with warm hugs, and I realize that it’s been a good few months since he last saw his closest friends.

  I, too, envelop Lexi in a warm hug and obligingly pat her tummy, which is still impossibly flat, although she claims a bump is starting to poke out.

  “I’ll take your word for it,” I tell her with a smile. We force her to sit down and not lift a finger to help as Chris, John, and I haul their boxes in from the trailer, although almost immediately she starts to sort things by where she wants them to go.

  When the others go back down again for the last load of boxes, I catch Lexi standing in the doorway to my office. To the room that used to be my office. She has a little smile on her face as she sees me watching.

  “Your nursery?” I ask, and she nods.

  “I don’t think I’ve said thank you yet for letting us have the place. And at such a reasonable rate.”

  “It’s my pleasure,” I say genuinely. “Chris and I were never going to stay here forever. I’m just glad it meant you could come back to Boston.”

  She tucks red curls back behind her ear, then hugs me again. “You’re so perfect for him.”

  “I know,” I whisper. “But he’s so perfect for me, too.”

  John agrees to load up my old desk and take it across town in their trailer, which is a blessing because I hadn’t quite worked out how I’m going to move it, and Lexi clearly won’t need it if she’s turning the room into a nursery.

  We follow in my car, Chris holding Flea on his lap, who I swear is sulking at being locked up and refuses to listen to my promises to let him out just as soon as we can.

  “Just think, Fleabag,” Chris says to him through the bars of the cat box. “No more coming in and out through a window anymore. You get a real cat flap.”

  “Mmrow.”

  “I don’t think he’s too impressed,” I say, signaling to turn onto our road.

  Of course, getting my antique desk up several flights of stairs, through the front door, down the hall, and into my office is about as easy as the entire operation sounds. When it’s done I’m sweating. But that’s it. The last piece moved in.

  We thank John, lock the front door, and let Flea out to explore his new house.

  Chris sighs heavily. “What first?”

  Books, the little selfish voice in my head demands. Unpack and arrange all your books.

  “Bed,” I say—surprising myself.

  Chris grins impishly, as if he knew I was going to say something else and stopped myself.

  “The frame and the mattress are already here,” he says. “We just need to assemble it.”

  “Sheets?”

  “Are in the box marked ‘sheets’. You should know, you packed them,” Chris says, taking my hand to drag me down the hallway. The bed was the only thing I managed to direct to the correct location when the delivery people were here. I didn’t much fancy having to drag it back down the stairs again.

  Much to Luisa’s amusement, on our epic shopping trip, Chris and I chose another small double bed, the same size as the one in my old flat. I claimed, at the time, that this was because it was easier to keep the same sheets that I already had rather than having to replace them all with new. She saw right through me.

  I’m not surprised that when we’re assembling the thing, we end up in a debate (not an argument, definitely not an argument) about the position of the furniture in the room. Unfortunately, when we viewed the apartment for the first time, this room was completely bare, so we had no guide on how best to place things.

  I want it on the wall facing the window so we can watch the sun rise every morning.

  Chris wants it on the wall facing the door so he can protect me from scary intruders.

  Yeah, right.

  Of course, this leads to us needing to locate all the other furniture for the room and put that in place as well, so we can work out where’s best for everything to go. I don’t want to argue with him, I desperately don’t, but I can’t help but think that if we’re going to have this debate in every room we come to, we’re going to need a lot more than the long weekend we’ve planned to get everything unpacked.

  When I give in to him, Chris only throws another strop.

  “What?” I demand.

  “I don’t want you to let me get my way because you love me, I want you to let me get my way because I’m right.”

  “Oh, fuck’s sake,” I mutter, sitting down on the edge of the bed (that’s facing the door) and rub my hands over my face.

  He somehow manages to squeeze his way onto my lap between my elbows and knees and wraps his arms around my neck.

  “We have a house together,” he whispers.

  “A flat,” I correct.

  “An apartment,” he contradicts.

  I flick his ear.

  “Rob?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Can we have a bath?”

  “Don’t see why not.”

  There’s a big tub in the bathroom as well as a standing shower unit, and for the size of the flat, it’s larger than one would expect, which is good. I like a big bathroom.

  From somewhere, God only knows where, Chris locates a bottle of shower gel, which will have to do in place of bath bubbles because we don’t have any. I’m aware not to over-fill the bath since two of us are going to be getting in it and, you know, Archimedes’s principle of displacement.

  I get in first, and Chris naturally settles in front of me with his back to my chest. I idly think that the light in here is too dim and I’ll need to replace it to make sure I don’t cut myself shaving in the mornings, especially during the winter.

  My hands trail up and down Chris’s arms and over his chest as our feet and legs twine together. For once he seems to be completely relaxed, not buzzing about something or another or hyped up on caffeine. Usually the only times he’s like this are after we’ve had sex—or when he’s asleep.

  I carefully take one of his hands—his left one—between both of mine and start to massage his long fingers. There are calluses from years of gripping drumsticks, and I rub them gently, surprised at the intimacy of this act.

  Chris drops his head back to my shoulder and hums in deep, deep contentment.

  “Another first,” he murmurs.

  “What was that?”

  “I’ve never done this before.”

  “Taking a bath with someone?”

  “Yeah. It’s nice.”

  I slipped his silver ring off his right hand and put it on his left thumb for safekeeping while I turned my massage to his other hand.

  “Will you fuck me later?” I ask suddenly.

  As Chris tilts his head back to my shoulder, I can feel the blush creeping up the side of my neck. Outbursts are usually his domain, not mine.

  “Yeah,” he says, sounding amused. “Of course. Any reason in particular? Or just christening the new bed?”

  “Bit of both,” I say and attempt a nonchalant shrug.

  “You’re strange.”

  There’s a sentiment I can agree with.

  Unpacking, as I predicted, takes a good three days to do, and even then we don’t get everything done. My initial confusion quickly turns to annoyance as I realize that I’m not going mad, and yes, Chris is following me around and rearranging stuff. It takes a lot of self-control not to snap at him. I’ve lived alone for far too long and have had everything just the way I like it, which admittedly is not the same way things would make sense to other people.

  As I carry another box of books destined for my office down from the lounge, I almost trip over Chris sitting on the bottom stair. He’s talking on his phone rapidly to someone and gesticulating wi
ldly with his free hand. I maneuver the box around him, and he grins up at me impishly. He’s turned me into such a sap.

  In my office, I set the box down on my desk and start to methodically stack books on shelves. The task is calming, and I hum to myself as I do it.

  “Hey,” Chris says, leaning on the door frame.

  “What’s got you grinning like a Cheshire cat?” I demand as he meanders over for a kiss.

  “That was my brother.”

  “Which one?”

  “Drew.”

  “The one with the kids?” I ask. My box is nearly empty now, so I lay the last few books on the shelf. They’ll get propped up with the next one.

  “No, Jacob has the kids.” When I turn back, he’s sitting in my desk chair, still grinning away at me. “Drew is the one who is going to send The Box up here.”

  I take the bait. “The box of what?”

  “Not the box, The Box,” he corrects, and the second time I hear the capital letters.

  “Okay, The Box of what?”

  “Porn,” he says delightedly. I roll my eyes and disassemble my very standard box, taking it back upstairs for the next one. Chris follows me.

  “I find it hard to believe you have no porn with you at all,” I say.

  “Well, I do,” he concedes. “But The Box is epic. It’s not just porn, really. There’s butt plugs and lube and this gorgeous, massive bright-red dildo….”

  His sigh, when it comes, is one of deepest longing.

  “I had no idea you were such a little pervert.” I did, of course.

  “Yes you did.” He knows me too well.

  He’s still following me as I take the next box down, and I don’t realize until we’re back in the office that he’s brought the last one with him.

  “Give me kisses,” he demands. I’m happy to oblige him. “I’ve got something else to tell you.”

  “Go on.”

  “I’ve got a job. A proper, regular job. It’s not full-time hours or anything, but it’s good.”

  I can’t for the life of me figure out why the box of porn was more important than this, but I’ve long stopped questioning anything to do with Chris and sex.