Tattoos & Teacups

by Anna Martin

  “That’s fantastic,” I tell him. “Where is it?”

  “At the ballet,” he says.

  “The Boston ballet?”

  “Yeah. They use a drummer instead of a pianist for a lot of their rehearsals, especially for the contemporary crap. But for the big classical numbers as well because it’s easier to keep in time with a drummer than some floaty music, especially when they’re learning new pieces.”

  “How did you get that on a contract?”

  “I told them I was happy to take the job but I needed at least a six-month deal because I want to stay in Boston and I can’t unless I have something more secure.”

  “And they bought that?”

  “I can be very persuasive when I need to be, Professor.”

  “Don’t I know it,” I mutter under my breath. He throws a pencil at my back, which Flea immediately pounces on. I hadn’t noticed that he was watching our conversation, probably from “his” windowsill.

  “So you got six months?”

  “Nope.” He pauses, for dramatic effect, I’m sure. “A year.”

  “That’s really great. Well done, baby.”

  He appears under my arm, insinuating himself into my embrace.

  “This could lead to good things, you know?” he says softly. “I could get some good references and be able to play for the bigger orchestras.”

  “That would be great. You’re really starting to build your portfolio, you know?”

  His smile lights up his face.

  “Yeah. That’s the idea.”

  “Do you want me to take you out to celebrate?”

  “Nah. That’s okay. Do you want help with your books?”

  I shudder at the thought. “Thank you, but no.”

  “Okay. I’m going to go set up my drums.”

  Before he leaves, I kiss him again. Because I can.

  I WILL inevitably rise before Chris in the mornings and pad around the house, making breakfast and getting dressed while he’s still passed out, spread eagle on the bed, leeching whatever warmth is left from the sheets I’ve abandoned. It’s okay. Despite the fact that my job calls for early mornings, I’m much more productive after midday and don’t particularly want to talk to him once I’ve rolled out of bed.

  I’m brushing my teeth in the bathroom when he comes in behind me and flips the lid up to use the toilet.

  “You didn’t kiss me this morning,” he mumbles, his voice scratchy-rough from sleep.

  I spit.

  “Hmm?”

  “This morning. You didn’t kiss me.”

  “Yes, I did.”

  I didn’t even know that he knew I did that. Before leaving our little sanctuary of too-small bed and warm skin, I always, always kiss him. Usually on the shoulder, but really, any patch of skin will do. It depends on the position in which he’s sleeping.

  He still looks grumpy as he flushes and nudges me out of the way to wash his hands. When he’s done, I angle his face into a minty kiss.

  “Promise,” I whisper to him. “Go back to bed, sweetheart.”

  He nods and pads out of the bathroom, and I decide he’s probably still at least half-asleep.

  By the afternoon he’s clearly forgiven me.

  Dropped the bike off for a service, his text reads. Can you pick me up from the studio? Finish at 7. Love yoooooou xxxxx

  For some reason this reminds me of Chloe’s “Dad can you pick me up” texts, and I wonder whether to be disturbed or amused. I go with amused. I can vaguely remember him telling me about the service the night before when we were curled up on the sofa, but I was tired and probably drifting.

  I text him back in the affirmative.

  The night is clear and not quite as dark as last night, indicating our journey toward spring has taken another step. I park the car on a side street and wander up to the front of the ballet company’s rehearsal space, straining my ears for any sound of Chris’s familiar drumming, but I can’t hear it.

  When the first few dancers start filtering out through the door, I guess he’ll soon be on his way.

  For some reason I can’t place my finger on, he looks subdued as he comes through the doors and heads straight for me, falling into my embrace.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask him, my fingers lightly combing through his hair.

  “Nothing,” he says, then corrects himself at my glare. “I’ll tell you in a minute. Tell me?”

  Now I’m worried. “Tell me” is for bed, for sex, and sometimes for showers. Not the middle of the street on a Tuesday evening.

  “I love you,” I tell him and bring him back closer to me. When he searches for my kisses, I give them to him willingly, despite the fact that we’re on the middle of the street on a Tuesday evening, or maybe because of it.

  When we break apart, another group passes us, and this time one of them stops.

  “Chris,” she says pleasantly, and I search my brain for a moment to figure out how I know her. “And Professor McKinnon. I’ll admit, I didn’t know the two of you were an item.”

  “Celina,” I say, finally placing the woman as someone I met at an AIDS benefit back in December. She’s one of the creative directors at the ballet, if I remember correctly; a tall woman with a soft brown cap of hair. “Nice to see you again.”

  “And you.”

  “Rob is the reason I came back to Boston,” Chris supplies. “I did some work for Celina before, but it was difficult for me to do anything more because of the band.”

  “Well, it seems I should thank you, then,” Celina laughs. “He’s been a great success here. Very popular.”

  For some reason this makes Chris look sick. I decide to make our excuses, and we leave.

  “What’s up?” I ask as we head back to the car.

  “Nothing,” he says absently. I grab his hand. He’s clearly upset about something, and as much as I don’t want to push or pry, I can’t help but feel like it’s my duty to look after him.

  “Let’s go for dinner,” I say. Chris looks at me as if I’m mad. I just shrug. “What are you in the mood for?”

  “Oh, Rob, I’m not hungry,” he says with a sigh. I grit my teeth and decide to battle it out.

  “Please? We don’t get to do this very often.”

  He nods, and I sense victory.

  Since it’s the closest thing to where I’m parked, I take him to Nando’s. The last—and only—other time we were here, I watched him eat chicken wings like they had just announced a global chicken crisis and this was his only chance to eat it for the rest of ever. My dramatic side is born of having a teenager.

  My choice of restaurant, such as it is, draws a small smile from him at last.

  I let him order and resign myself to Coca-Cola. Then the waitress brings me iced tea, and I realize that I’ve underestimated him once again.

  “I got you the unsweetened kind,” he says and slurps his Coke. “It’s probably still too sweet for you….”

  “It’s good. Thank you.”

  I purposefully don’t talk until the silence between us is heavy with unspoken words. This silent pressure is much more effective at coercing him into spilling his troubles than yelling at him would be.

  “I know what you’re doing,” he says.

  “Hmm?”

  “Bully,” he mutters. “One of the guys at the ballet hit on me, okay?”

  I frown at this complete nonconfession. Then my stomach drops. “Okay. That must be such a rarity for a beautiful and devastatingly sexy man like yourself. However did you cope?”

  He blinks at me.

  “You’re not mad?”

  “Did you act on it?”

  “No!”

  “Sure?”

  Now he’s mad. “Of course I’m sure, Rob. You know what you mean to me.”

  “Ditto,” I say and gesture to his ring. His eyes linger on it for a minute.

  “You’re really not mad?”

  I laugh now. “No, Chris. I’m really not. If you didn’t act on it and politely told
him no, then that’s fine. These things will happen over the course of our relationship. You just have to deal with it.”

  “Oh. I didn’t exactly politely tell him no.”

  This makes me snort with laughter. “Was he being a pest?”

  “Shit, Rob, that’s an understatement.”

  Our food arrives then, and we spend a few minutes rearranging the table and starting to eat.

  “I’m slightly confused as to your reaction, though,” I said, picking up the conversation several chicken wings later. “Why would I be mad at you?”

  Chris carefully wipes his fingers and takes a long pull on his drink. Then his eyes level with mine, and he grips the edge of the table—apparently unconsciously—as he chews his bottom lip.

  “Because someone before used to get mad at me.”

  Oh, fuck. There’s no precedent for this; we haven’t ever discussed Chris’s previous partners. I’m in uncharted territory and unsure of my footing.

  “Oh,” I say. “Did they hurt you?”

  He nods silently.

  “In more ways than one?”

  A pause, then another, shakier nod.

  “Fucking hell, Chris.” I sigh and lean back in my seat. After a moment I pick up my fork again and spear a fry. “So, who are we going to talk about first? Ballet boy or mean boy?”

  He smiles and shrugs, selecting another wing. “Ballet boy?”

  “Works for me.”

  “His name is Nathan.”

  “Okay.”

  “He’s one of the principals. And gorgeous. You know, from a subjective point of view.”

  “Of course,” I said drily.

  “And half the guys in there are gay. If I were single—” He breaks off at my glare and hastens to add, “Which I’m not, obviously, but if I were…. Anyway. He was just a bit friendly at first, you know? Asking me where I learned to drum and stuff and where I’m from and my family. I told him about you, and he seemed interested. Nice. And I thought it would be nice to have my own friends in Boston, other than my friends I met through you or Lexi and John.”

  He pauses to finish eating, slurps his drink, and waits for my silent signal for him to continue.

  “Then he just started getting really touchy-feely, and not in the good way. And I was constantly moving away from him—stepping back or whatever, trying to get my personal space back. ’Cause he was always up in it. Then he sort of… I dunno. Said we should go out together, and I said sure, I’d check when you were free, and he laughed and said no, he didn’t want my boyfriend to come with us. And I should just go over to his place.

  “And since I said no, he’s just being a bastard to me. Complaining to Celia that my beats are out, which they’re fucking not, Rob. I’m good at what I do. Or that I’m too fast or too fancy or whatever. Jerk.”

  I agree with him. The guy sounds like a complete jerk. And this is one of those moments when I need to protect what’s mine, in the most loving and nonscary way I know how.

  “Do you want me to kick the shit out of him for you?”

  He laughs. “No, baby, I don’t. But thanks for the offer.”

  I shrug and make it clear that it’s his loss.

  “So that’s ballet boy out of the way. What about mean ex?”

  Chris, for the first time in all the months I’ve known him, looks almost apprehensive. Then I realize it’s not apprehension at all. It’s vulnerability. And somehow that’s much, much worse.

  “You’re not the first guy I’ve dated who’s older than me,” he says, then stops speaking to finish eating.

  “I guessed as much,” I supply, to fill the silence as much as anything else.

  “I don’t have a kink,” he protests. “It’s just that—in my experience—guys who are older than me generally treat me better. They’re done with all the crazy drugs and bullshit you get in the gay community wherever you go. Most of the time they don’t live with their parents.” He smirks. “But there are always exceptions to that rule.”

  I consider his words and decide they make sense. “But,” I reason, “there’s a much higher chance that older guys will come with baggage.”

  “Like kids?” he says. “Chloe isn’t a negative point against you, Rob. I do genuinely like her.”

  “And she likes you too. But you have to admit there were a few tense moments there at the beginning.”

  He shrugged. “You were worth it. Still are.”

  “How much older than you was he?” I ask, knowing now that there was someone in particular who hurt him.

  “About twenty years? Maybe more.”

  “And how old were you?”

  “Nineteen?”

  He said it like a question, and I wanted to go back in time, locate a nineteen-year-old Chris Ford, and kick his motherfucking ass.

  “Just tell me, Chris,” I sigh.

  “He was a leather daddy,” he says. “Proper old-school top, you know? Gnarly, mean guy with tats and a leather harness and nipple rings. I thought I was in love.”

  I snort. He ignores me and cleans another chicken wing to the bone, which he then uses to gesticulate with. “He liked to spank me, and, well, you know that I like that. And he liked to call me his “property,” which I thought I liked at the time. When we were out, I wasn’t supposed to speak to anyone else without his permission. He bought my drinks, he told me when to dance and with whom. Did you notice I just said whom correctly?”

  “I did. Well done.”

  “Thanks, Professor.” He smirks. “And then it got to a point where I was being punished more than I was being loved. He started to use stuff on me, paddles and whips and stuff, and beat me until I cried. I never knew about safe words or anything like that. He never gave me one. Then one night he went at me with his belt because I went out without him and another guy hit on me. I was punished for letting him buy me a drink. That night he made me bleed. Never saw him again.”

  “Fucking hell, Chris.” That’s all I can come up with. Fucking hell.

  “I guess, other than you, he’s the only other person I’ve had a long-term relationship with. So I’m sort of still learning what’s okay and what’s not, you know, in a normal relationship.” A long pause. Then: “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

  It’s not a request.

  “I feel bad for spanking you,” I admit, and he’s shaking his head before I even finish the sentence.

  “Don’t be. I wasn’t lying when I said I’m into that. He was just into really hardcore S&M stuff. You love me, Rob, you don’t control me.”

  “Couldn’t if I tried,” I say softly, attempting to joke with him. He smiles.

  When we finish eating, Chris lets me pay for dinner and we hold hands as we walk back to my car. It’s rare for us to do it in public, but I think we both need the reassurance tonight. When the sky cracks open, the rain is immediately torrential, and we duck into a covered alley to wait it out.

  It’s not particularly cold out despite the rain, but we still end up snuggled together. Then he kisses me.

  I back him up against the wall and loosely pin his wrists to the brickwork either side of his head, making my exploration of his mouth a thorough one. I know his taste so intimately, the way he fights back for more of my tongue and demands the rough, slow, needy slide of tongue against tongue, teeth and lips and the curve of his neck down to his shoulder.

  The alley smells of wet cement and a little bit like trash, but I don’t care. He’s hard; I can feel it poking my thigh, and when he whispers, “Suck me,” it’s a raw demand rather than a request.

  “Here?”

  “Fuck yeah. There’s no one around. Do it. It won’t take long.”

  And then I’m crouched down, my face level with his button fly as I push metal through denim, and his fingers are in my hair as I pull his cock out. He wasn’t lying—he’s more than half-hard already.

  For reasons completely unfathomable to me at this point, I don’t suck his cock very often. Sex between us seems to focus on his ma
in source of pleasure, which has always been his ass. He smells so fucking good, though, like man and musk and Chris.

  I take him to the back of my throat, and in seconds he’s wet and thick against my tongue, and I can feel that he’s all the way hard now. Not huge, but big enough.

  He hisses at the cold air on his damp skin as I pull back, then let him slide back into my throat. My fingers hold his hips steady, forcing him to stay fucking still and not thrust, because to be honest I’m not good at having him push it in. It’s something I need to control.

  Soon I’m bobbing my head back and forth with a slightly firmer suction than what I’d normally use, my fingers rubbing at the responsive spot behind his balls that seems to have a direct, zinging connection to his prostate. He’s muttering something under his breath, but I can’t hear him over the sound of the rain.

  A slight tug on my hair is all the warning I get that he’s about to come, and then heat floods my mouth, and I’m forced to swallow quickly to stop it choking me.

  When I straighten up, he’s still laughing and pulls me in for a kiss. Although I’ve swallowed all of it, I’m sure he can still taste himself on my tongue, and fuck if that isn’t one of the hottest things I’ve thought in a while.

  “Tell me,” I say when he pulls away, his fingers combing though my hair, which is now slightly damp from the rain in the air.

  “Love you,” he says. “You miserable bugger.”

  I throw my head back and laugh.

  THE mornings are starting to get lighter as we creep toward spring. Still, Chris rarely wakes before I do, so I have something of an uncomfortable moment finding an empty bed and a light bedroom, and the smell of tea and hot, buttered toast coming from the kitchen.

  I find a pair of boxers on the floor and deem them suitable and sufficient to wander through the flat to look for him. In the kitchen, my cat is curled on one of the chairs and Chris leans back against a counter, one of my white, wide-bowled china teacups with the blue willow patterns cradled in his hands.

  In the early morning light, I can see the ring I placed on his finger glinting softly. He notices my eye line and looks down at his hand, then back at me. It’s so right, so absolutely fucking right that he’s wearing it. Nothing could be more perfect.