Chapter Sixteen Comfortable and Confident 4 страницаGerard recovered quickly, mostly because he had to, and started to talk again, looking straight ahead. “But we did see each other and we gave ourselves to each other. We were naked to have sex at first, but now,” he looked over at me, and began to walk slowly back. I had been pouring myself over the edge of the couch watching him, but now sunk down into my seat. He sat next to me once again, and rested a heavy hand on my leg. “Now, we can be naked in other ways. We’re comfortable with each other, if you let yourself be,” he added, and left his voice open for interpretation. I was never good at his interpretations. Even for art, I had needed his assistance. This went way beyond art, though. We had left that behind ages ago, and I didn’t know if we would ever see it again. I knew we would, or at least Gerard would. He couldn’t just leave that behind without a single thought. At least art was something three-dimensional. I could grasp it and hold it in my hands. At least if I couldn’t make my own interpretation, I could appreciate the solidity of the object, the beauty of it. I had no idea what I could latch onto here, except for the sheet around me. “I don’t get where you’re going with this,” I finally stated, my voice dead and dull sounding. “It’s all about confidence, Frank,” he informed me, motioning greatly with his arms. “In order to be comfortable with me, you need to be comfortable with yourself. Both with clothing and without. In order to be comfortable with yourself, you need to be confident. ” Once his lips had articulated that God-forsaken word, it all seemed to click. He wanted me to be naked, not to play a game, not to piss me off, or fuck with my head. He wanted me to be naked because he wanted to feel closer to me. He wanted me to feel comfortable enough with him that I could just take off my clothing and walk around without a care in the world. We had bonded so much when we had sex, but we had skipped a lot of steps in the process. We rushed; Gerard admitted that. He also admitted that he wanted to do everything better now. The right way. I thought he had just meant sex before. That we weren’t going to skip all of the steps or bases (did gay sex have bases, and if so, what were they?) and we were going to take our time. But this wasn’t about sex; there was so much more to it than just sex. There were the emotional aspects to everything, not just the physical. He wanted to make sure I was comfortable – not comfortable in that I didn’t bleed anymore when we fucked, but comfortable in that I could take my clothing off around him. He was okay with himself, he wanted me to be okay with myself, and have us both witness the other. He had realized early on that this wasn’t as easy for me as it was for him. He couldn’t just skip right to being naked and nothing else. He couldn’t just make a rule and expect me to understand why it was in place. He had to go back to the root of everything, and that was confidence. I needed to be okay with myself before I was okay with him. And it was clear that I was not sure with myself just yet. I was getting there; I was definitely a lot better off than when I had first come into his apartment. I barely knew myself then, barely had any confidence. And that had been with my clothing on. The moment I stepped foot in his door, I started to build up what I had been missing with that protective shied because it was imperative at the beginning. Essentially, Gerard should have never taught me this lesson, but there were some things you couldn’t change or control. Gerard understood that, and he was making do with the situation at hand, and so was I, but much slower. I had enough confidence now so I was able to be naked during sex. It just kind of stopped there. I thought I was done. Just like I had on the outside world when Sam and Travis had been my mentors. Gerard was now my mentor (amongst other things) and he was showing me right now that there was so much more to everything. Different angles, different interpretations. And that’s when it hit me again, another realization, coming with a full force of electricity. This was art all over again. He was still my art teacher, but the lessons were diverging. He was now teaching me the ways of the world, this time using sex and our relationship as the main example. He wasn’t just teaching me how sex worked in the physical sense like he had that morning, it was so much deeper. When we had fucked the night before, I realized what it meant to be everything. And right then, he was trying to teach me how to be comfortable and confidence disguised in the folds of flesh. This was art all over again, even if the paintings weren’t present just yet. He was an artist; he couldn’t give up his craft, but he could mold it in many other ways. Suddenly, I felt his hand begin to reach down from where it lay on my waist, his fingers dancing eagerly where the sheet was bunched together, concealing myself and my confidence in hiding. He began to push his hand under the fabric, drawing it down slowly and more seriously than he had been the times before, glancing from my body to my eyes cautiously. He and I both had realized that this was no longer a game we were playing, but a lesson he was teaching. And he wanted to be that kind and caring teacher I had possessed, leading me gently into the world. Before I realized all of this, I would have fought him off; I would have fought that naked and exposed feeling. Now that I knew Gerard was only trying to teach me, starting different kinds of lessons, I let him push the sheet off. He released me from the cotton prison, kicking the dreaded object away and off of my bare body. He was about to get up and store it in his lockdown closet so I couldn’t change my mind, but when I touched his shoulder as he began to move, he saw the look in my eyes. I wasn’t going anywhere, and neither would he. The sheet would stay on the floor as we got up together to walk around the apartment, confidence exuding from our naked bodies. Gerard rose to the occasion first, extending his thick palm to me which I took eagerly. I was shaky on my feet, mostly because I had no idea what I was doing. Feelings and thoughts and fucking everything were washing over me, and I was glad he had a strong grip on my hand to lead me easier. We started up with the same walk he had taken only moments ago around the apartment, hand in hand. He shimmied a little as his feet went forward, and he encouraged me to do the same. I felt the awkward sensation I had been avoiding of my bare flesh out of context, but Gerard’s hand in mine made it easier for me to keep walking, talking and eventually, shimmying right next to him. “There you go,” he smiled happily, just as I gave my first hip thrust. I felt myself blush all over, and secretly beam over his approval. With his genuine smile still planted on his face, he pulled my hand high up in the air and over his shoulder, locking us into an embrace. I felt his naked body against my own, and I knew what it was like to be confident. I was getting there, I told myself, but more importantly, I was ready to learn. There was so much more I didn’t know yet.
Chapter Seventeen
Once I was able to open my mind to Gerard, now that we were naked and exposed, I began to notice all the other things he was trying to teach me. It seemed like all of the actions he did had some other meaning to them; something rooted deeper than face value, something to be interpreted like art. And though I knew that I was supposed to be making those interpretations, I couldn’t help but be distracted most of the time. I would be sitting and listening to him talk at the kitchen table, and then randomly zone out. I’d look off to the side and just think. It was an action so necessary and so foreign at the same time; it began to feel like I was relearning to live all over again. As if I was a newborn with fresh eyes and a sponge-like mind that could take in everything I needed, and clean off all the dirt I had accumulated before. I couldn’t believe I was at his house. I couldn’t believe I was going to be there until Monday – and that it was still only Saturday afternoon. Gerard and I essentially had so much time on our hands, even if he would never let me see a clock. The main fact that took centre stage in my mind of impossibilities unleashed was that we had had sex. And that I was still naked from it all. Being naked all the time really took some getting used to. It was weird feeling myself just hang out there with no support. I never liked to be constricted when I did wear clothing; I bought boxers and the loosest pants I could find, but the breathing space I gave to my skin between fabric was so much different than what was thrust upon me wearing only myself. It was almost as if I had been suffocated before, but with the removal of clothing that had been a gag, my skin really could breathe again – and now it was sucking up all the oxygen it could get. I felt light and ethereal at times, then weighed down and clammy the next. I became aware of how my skin folded, something I was normally (and happily) blind to. I never realized that the slight pudge I was used to feeling as I slipped on my jeans creased as much as it did. It made me feel fat at first, and I tried to wrap my arms around myself to hide my flaws. That was, until I saw the exact same markings on Gerard. His skin rolled and bunched together just like mine did. His was even worse in a way; he was older, and the skin had less elasticity. He sagged at some parts, like his thighs and legs, but it didn’t turn me off. It didn’t turn me on that much either, but it did something far better. It made me feel comfortable with my own body. I had flaws, I could see them and feel them now, but fuck, so did he. Only he didn’t care about his flaws. He sat down and talked, not caring that if he hunched at a certain angle, more rolls would become visible. He didn’t care about his wrinkles, or the sagging skin he had in some places. He just accepted it – flaunted it. It was amazing, empowering, and I unwrapped my arms from around my sides, exposing myself like he was. He smiled at me and continued talking, shifting his weight to the most unflattering position and just not caring about it. I couldn’t do that just yet, but I was getting there. It wasn’t only when I was sitting down that I would notice the difference in my body. When I stood up and walked, everything felt like it was falling down. I didn’t have the thick barrier of cloth, or even anything like a backpack to carry. I was just carrying myself, and that impossible to describe. I would walk odd at some points, totally thrown off by the new rhythm I seemed to have. I looked down as I walked, but had to stop that when all I could see was my cock moving haphazardly. I tried to avoid moving at all for the most part, but Gerard seemed to like switching the locales where we talked. There weren’t many places we could go in the small apartment, but he was determined to cover them all. I had to walk with my head up, looking around to avoid watching my cock dangle in front of me, but even that felt like a new and unmarked territory. I always walked looking down; it was just what I did. When I walked to his apartment, I just didn’t want to see the gray and drab streets of Jersey, nor did I want to see people in my high school all that much either when I ventured there. Now that I was forced to look up, it was a completely new experience, budding from a previous one. With my head up and my clothing off, I had a new skip to my step, something I couldn’t place right away. “It’s confidence,” Gerard informed me, placing a hand on my back as he led me to the bench by the window. “Pretty strange, isn’t it?” I nodded vigorously as I looked at him; really looked at him. It was the first time I had actually seen eye to eye with him on a literal standpoint. I was short for my age and there had always been a small gap in between our statures. As I looked into his olive eyes, however, there was no gap - no nothing. We were on the same playing field; both naked, both exposed, and now, both confident. We went to the window and sat down together, both of us unashamed and unabashed by our bodies. We were both men after all, we had the same parts, but we still appreciated the small differences. Gerard always held me in some form or another, either a hand on my knee, thigh, or in my own as he talked, and it made me feel more connected to the conversation, even if I did zone out every once in awhile. Gerard talked a lot, I noticed, trying to derive meaning from the smallest things. We stared at a vase for over an hour at one point, and I had only been startled back into reality by his lips against mine. That was pretty much how I was always brought back into reality; an embrace from Gerard. His hands would roam into my inner thighs, his lips would press on my neck, or his tongue would hover in and out of my ear. He had to touch me so I knew I was still there. And though everything was sexual for Gerard, his embraces were not always sexual invites. It took me awhile to learn that, too. We were on his ugly orange couch sitting and conversing, Gerard explaining some painting technique to me that I had never heard of. While his lips fluttered between the exotic words, his hand had oh-so casually slipped over my knee, and began to make its way further up, never quite reaching my cock. He stopped about halfway, just resting his palm on my skin and twirling his thumb softly, as his other hand motioned wildly, continuing his story. I was still sitting awkwardly, adjusting to the feel of the fabric on my ass when he did the simple action. My scattered (and hormone-filled) mind totally misread the situation and I dived forward, placing my lips against his and my tongue in his mouth. I shifted over and placed myself in his lap, responding to what I thought had been a proposal. Gerard and I had not had sex since the night before, though we had been close enough, and naked enough to proceed for many hours now. Sex still scared me, even if I had already engaged in the action, but I wanted to try it again. The feel of confidence running through my body and his trusting embraces gave me enough courage to lean forward into his proposal and make the first move into the desired event. Gerard kissed me back at first, though startled, but eventually broke away the embrace, his palm pushing my chest forward gently. “What are you doing?” he asked, tilting his head to the side with an innocent smile. He seemed to be pleased that I was suddenly showing an abundance of affection for him. He knew it was there; he just couldn’t place why it had come out all of a sudden. “I thought you wanted to…you know…” I looked down at our tangled legs and laps, and saw that out of the two of us, I was the only one getting excited. My face fell and started to blush beet red when I realized my mistake. I mumbled something through my raw lips and shifted back over to my spot on the couch, turning away from him. I wrapped my arms around my bare chest again, concealing myself. “Sorry.” “Don’t be,” Gerard countered, instantly placing a hand on my shoulder. He turned me towards him again, and began to subtly pry my arms away from my body, and place them around his instead. I met his warm and open eyes, head tilted downwards. “I still liked the kiss,” he whispered sensually. His eyes traced down my face once, before he spoke again. “I just don’t want to have sex right now.” He smiled as his hair fell down from his eyes, but his gesture, no matter how kind and compassionate, did nothing for me. I was still slightly confused (and really horny). “But you were…?” I trailed the question off, finishing it by pointing at his hand now making its way back to my inner thigh, just not as close. “I can’t touch you?” he asked smoothly, his voice so low and clear it was like water rushing over my body. He moved his hand up further, massaging the area slightly as my blood churned. Both of us closed our eyes into a deep breath, even if I wasn’t touching him back. He continued, eyes still closed, “Everything doesn’t lead to sex, but everything is sexual.” “Huh?” I broke the sensual appeal with my gawking gaze, trying to ignore the heat radiating between my legs. Gerard chuckled a bit, still loving the fact that even if he had taken my virginity and was sitting naked on the couch with me, I was still so inexperienced. “Everything is sexual,” he repeated, flipping his raven locks back and talking with the same hand after. “Everything has a will and want for passion in their life. Everyone wants to live. In order to live, we must procreate. We need this passion, this raw energy in order for that to happen.” He turned away from me with a sly grin and locked eyes with a lamp, minus its shade. “Even inanimate objects are sexual. They remind us of what we want to see in things. We see what we desire, what we crave. We give our own interpretations to things even if we don’t see that we’re doing it.” He turned his gaze back to me, the grin continuously growing on his cherub face. He brought the hand he was speaking with forward, brushing my cheek sensually, extending his point. I didn’t turn into the embrace, not yet, at least. “Okay…” I said, not really getting it, like most of Gerard’s theories. But that always happened; I never got them when I first heard them. He may as well be talking to me in a foreign language. Once he gave me time to adjust however and a few examples, I understood. Or could at least fake it for awhile. “What do you see when you look at that lamp?” Gerard cut into my thoughts, answering my dilemma. He motioned to the light, the bulb a dirty yellow colour from its ember inside burning long and bright. Its base was long and cylindrical, standing up straight. I looked from the lamp and back to Gerard a few times, biting my lip afraid to say my answer. Gerard said everything was sexual… and well, that lamp looked like a cock. When I finally released my lips from my teeth, spilling my thoughts (and apparently my cravings) to him, all he did was laugh. A deep belly laugh that was not directed at me, but felt like it all the same. “That’s what you desire at this moment in time,” he smiled and chuckled again, rolling his eyes and hair out of his face. I blushed, red veins creeping like spiders’ legs across my face. In between spurts of his laughter, I swallowed my pride and raised my chin high, challenging him. “What do you see then?” He stopped laughing, took a deep breath, and exchanged glances between the two objects he was set out to study; me and that fucking lamp. He let his face rest in his palm, clucking his tongue in thought as his breath became shallow. Finally and more serious than I had ever seen him, he answered, “I see life. The light at the top, though dirty and repugnant still serves a purpose. Though the lamp is ugly, broken, and missing pieces, we still turn it on because we want what it offers. I see life.” He took a deep breath again and turned his full attention towards me. “I want life. I crave it now.” “Didn’t you always crave it before?” I asked him, feeling slightly intimidated by his stares and brain power. “I want this life,” he stated seriously, eyes probing deeper inside of me than he had the night before. He clasped my hand in his own, squeezing our skin together. He leaned forward, never breaking eye contact, even through his thin lids when he closed his eyes and placed a small kiss on my lips. I tried to dive my tongue into his mouth, but he pulled away and grabbed me into a hug instead. Not a sexual grinding hug; just a hug. A wrapping of old and new tainted flesh into one person. I felt his fingers curl and uncurl against my hot skin, and I could feel him breathing me in – not just breathing on me, but breathing me in as a person into his lungs. He wanted me. He saw life in the lamp that I saw a cock in, and I was what he desired. Our desires were different at that time, but we wanted the same essential thing. And then I understood. Everything was sexual; it reminded us of our cravings, our needs, our wants. But everything wasn’t sexual in the juvenile way. Gerard wasn’t giggling at stuff that looked like a dick, and he wasn’t making sexual innuendoes whenever possible. He was making philosophies whenever possible. And he was sticking by them. When he touched me and tasted me only for those split seconds, he wasn’t craving sex. We had done something sexual an hour earlier. He just wanted to touch me, to be with me, and make sure I was still there. He wanted to remind himself of the life he loved, and the life he wanted at that very moment. There was something more intimate than sex in his actions. He was appreciating me with all of his senses, smelling my hair and running his hand through it as he pulled me into his lap to deepen the hug. But we would not have sex, even though I could feel him start to get hard as our hug and kiss intensified. We wouldn’t fuck on the living room floor. We didn’t need to then. I draped my arms around his shoulders, pulling my face into the crook of his neck. I placed soft kisses there, my tongue staying in my mouth. I started to breathe him in more and more, just like he did with me. I started to do the same actions he had been doing all along, masking his viewpoint over my previous one. And when I looked at that lamp, I no longer saw a cock. I saw life; a life with Gerard who I could and would hug – but that was going to be it. At least, for right then. Everything was sexual, I told myself, smiling into his flesh. But it was possible to touch without sex itself.
***
I felt so warm then, even when Gerard took his body away from mine. I was wrapped up in the moment, in the second, in the everything that we were. I stretched out on the couch, hitching my feet up at the end opposite of where my head rested. I looked up at the smoke stained ceiling, the thick, yellowed clouds of nicotine painted to the stucco over time, and appreciated the warm air on my body. I was totally exposed then; my arms were above my head, making a pillow, and I was naked from head to toe, legs wide and all of me on display. I felt myself shiver internally, but it didn’t get to the surface this time. I was getting more comfortable, confident, and the display I had created was not only for Gerard, but myself too. I knew that when I got up the next time, my legs would stay strong and I wouldn’t be so out of rhythm. Gerard came sauntering by me, taking a seat on the armchair adjacent where my feet lay. He gripped the neck of the emerald green bottle with his fist, bringing the uncorked top to his mouth without a glass. He smiled at me, proud that I was making myself more than at home on his couch, some of the deep purple liquid trailing out of the corner of his lips. He wiped it away with the back of his hand, and I breathed out a laugh at his slight mishap. I rolled my eyes, but when they met again with his, it felt like we had just had an hour-long conversation in split second reaction time. We just knew what the other was thinking at that moment, and corresponding to it without words, and barely any actions. I couldn’t believe how comfortable we were with each other already, and it had barely been twenty-four hours into our relationship. I studied Gerard’s face as he studied me, realizing that I had only ever seen him this comfortable with Vivian. He had known her way longer than he had ever known me, seen her naked many more times, but it still felt the same. It felt longer; better. Right at that moment, I was displayed in the very same manner that his friend and part-time nude model had also been displayed the time I had walked in on them together, what seemed like ages ago. Only this time, Gerard was naked too. “You never did draw me,” I stated, the sudden thought and the images of Vivian coming to my mind. I tried to continue staring at him, but I found my vision wandering to the ceiling, feeling a tad odd for saying what I had. A part of me really wished that he had drawn me that night, just so I could see what his interpretation of me as a person had been. But as I felt my bare skin under my hands, and the fabric of the couch on my bare backside, I knew I had gotten a far better trade off. My compromised state was altered when Gerard responded with a clear and concise, “I did.” “What?” I asked unsure. I craned my neck as I looked over at him, furrowing my brow. He had taken out a pack of cigarettes (from where, I had no clue) and was beginning to light one. The spark of the lighter matched the embers burning in his eyes, excited for my reaction. He still held the bottle by the neck, but he alternated what vice took main priority in between his fingers and thin lips. “I drew you already,” he smiled smugly, the cigarette bouncing in his lips as he talked. He moved the stick away, taking a giant swig from the wine bottle, closing his eyes. I watched as his throat rose and fell to accommodate the consumption, before he stopped and passed the bottle to me. I waved it away, ignoring his subtle change of subjects. He was still smiling complacently, sticky remnants of wine and smoke on his chin. “When?” I asked, my brows knitting in the centre of my forehead. “While you were asleep.” He took a long drag from his cigarette, sucking his cheeks back to his face before he blew out a cloud of smoke. He closed his eyes, I noticed, and I wondered if he consumed me the same way he was doing with these two vices. “It was early this morning.” He began again; his eyes open but far away in a memory not so long ago. “I woke up hours before you. I don’t need sleep. I hate sleep.” He twisted his face into a sneer, then took another drag, extending everything because he knew I would sit there on the edge of my seat, even if it took ten years for him to reply. Gerard had this way of captivating people, especially when he was smoking. Or drinking. Or talking. “Sleep interferes with my work. Takes up too much time and is essentially useless. So, I drew you.” He looked over at me, giving me a sly smile and a bit of a wink; I couldn’t be so sure through the tendrils of smoke around him. “You said you wanted me to anyway, and so had I for awhile now.” He nodded his head, indicating that he was done. He took another puff on his cigarette, focusing his gaze back onto me in the present, and not the past that was a few hours ago. “Can I see it?” I asked, shifting my gaze and weight around, unsure of how this worked. I had realized by then that some of Gerard’s drawings were like his own little diary, and though I had been apart of his entry for that day, I still wasn’t sure if I was allowed to see it. Maybe he kept his diary under a lock and key like some people did. Also, I was a little nervous to see myself, if he did let me into his world. I sort of wanted to be awake and around for when he had drawn me; I felt like I would have had more control over it that way. But then again, this was Gerard; no one had control, especially over him. Sometimes, I wasn’t even sure if he had control of himself most days. The artist sat there, blowing smoke out of his mouth and nose for awhile, thinking hard. His elbow rested on the burgundy, felt-like material of the armrest, his thumb just under his chin. His other hand was on his bare knee, holding the cigarette out between long fingers when he wasn’t smoking it. The wine bottle was now completely forgotten about, his thirst quenched, as it lay by his left side on the hardwood floor. His breathing became shallower, only deepened when he breathed in and out the thick smoke. Finally, he clucked his jaw and nodded. “Come with me,” he ushered, getting up quickly from his statute-like stance and walking over to his bedroom. I followed behind him reluctantly, still unsure. He led me into his black abyss of a room, surprising me to no end. I had always thought that he kept all of his art supplies in the large clearing in the middle of his apartment. The limited amount of conscious time I had spent in his room it looked like it was not a place where he got his creativity out. The walls were drab and dark like the door and it appeared to be a sheer vessel for sleeping in. I thought creativity meant colour – and hell, that was all over the damn apartment, from the butter yellow kitchen, to the ruined mural, and the putrid orange couch, it was as if a rainbow had exploded in Gerard’s place. There was no way an imagination could exist through a black abyss. When Gerard opened the bottom drawer of his bedside table, however, I was proved to be very wrong.
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