Chapter Sixteen Comfortable and Confident 7 страница

As we lazed around on the floor for a few necessary moments, the off-white bird was still watching us. Her head was cocked to the side, and she began to coo incessantly as Gerard and I declared our mutual want for each other again through small pecks of lips. Gerard’s hands were on my waist, my back – everywhere, but so was the birdseed, and it was beginning to become a burden against my skin. The sharp edges stung and itched. I knew I needed to get them off soon. The dove, Frank, was now done eating and there was no way she was coming back for more. All of the seeds had been tainted by flesh, sweat, and other bodily fluids anyway; she wouldn’t want to eat them even if she was starving.

I looked at the bird as I got up out of Gerard’s grasp, and she stared right back intensely with her beady little black eyes. She was named after me now, acclaiming that I was an artist. I felt so awkward then, some kind of foreign celebrity forced upon me. I was not used to people paying attention to me for my actions, justified or not. I was always used to people focusing in on me, the image, or just not at all. I was Frank; the seventeen-year-old high school student with little or no aspirations. I didn’t even know that image all that well, mostly because it was a shell of something. Those were merely facts of a person, not traits. Traits were something unique and distinguishable, whereas facts applied to something rigid and were over generalized. I was a high school student, which meant I sat around and stared at a clock most days, wishing that I didn’t have to be there. But so did nearly every other high school student. That description was not about me as a person. You couldn’t tell who I really was from the label, and I didn’t really know who I was.

All of a sudden however, I was transformed into Frank the artist. It had only taken Gerard naming the bird after me, but it somehow sealed this new fate. Really, I had been acquiring this new façade for a few weeks now. It had all started with the blue paint can, covering me in my own metamorphosis. I was an artist; a person. Though the term artist was still just a fact – much like being a high school student – it embodied so much more than that. Being an artist allowed you to be born into something that was able to form specific traits to the individual. Artists were sensitive, intuitive, creative, and imaginative. Artists were real people with real thoughts, feelings, and souls. An artist could be molded into anything, any shape or form, using any medium. The term was flexible, unlike the harsh stone façade of a high school student. An artist was what Gerard was, and I was beginning to fall more and more for that ideal (if not the person manifested in its form) everyday. I was making a transition that I wasn’t even close to being finished with yet, even though I had already come so far – at least, in Gerard’s mind.

That was the issue though – it was all in Gerard’s mind; it was all his opinion. I couldn’t see what he was supposedly seeing: this young budding artist. It didn’t make sense in my mind. I had never displayed any talents before. I had only written something similar to poetry when I felt like my head was going to cave in, I only played guitar because of someone else’s dreams, and I only slathered paint on a canvas because Gerard wanted me to. Though I enjoyed those activities, I never really thought they were a talent, a calling. Maybe it was because I never really thought about things in the way Gerard did, I never really had that artistic focus on everyday life. I was sleeping on the normal side of the bed every night; I had to turn myself around in order to see what he saw, and maybe even dream while I was at it.

Apparently those talents were there. I was still learning, Gerard had said, but I had potential. The word itself was so alien and almost frightful when it had come out of his lips, and embedded in my mind. It was one of those delicate declarations that I would absorb as I listened to him speak only because of the way it glided over his lips. The sound of the word was hopeful, creative, but the implications left a mark on me – a mark only he could see. I could be Frank the artist, in time. Now, I was just the budding artist, learning my way through the pages and pages of uncalculated dreams inside my very own head. It seemed like a new and foreign land.

“But why do you have to name the dove after me right now?” I questioned, my insecurities dragging behind the lesson plan still. I looked up to Gerard, our positions now switched on the floor, my body leaning into his. “I mean, can’t you just name the bird Frank when I am an actual artist? I’m still just learning now.”

“I know,” Gerard nodded, his brows showing his disapproval. He laid his head back down on the mat, looking up to the ceiling as he talked. “Naming it now only makes everything possible for the future.” He paused, making me think he had something more to say. When he merely sighed, I probed further.

“What do you mean?”

“By naming something, you claim ownership of it. The situation is similar with a child or a pet. When you name it, it’s yours.”

He stopped again, eyes transfixed with the thoughts above. My head was on his chest, chin angled so I could look at him as he talked. His arm was around my waist, and he dragged me closer, as if to focus on me more. I let my mind wander with his idea on naming to my parents. I cringed, thinking of the complete and utter trepidation I felt in the fact that they still owned me. It was so true, in a way. In a few months I would be eighteen and legally an adult, but I would always be ‘owned’ by them. They had named me; I was theirs. At this moment in time, they had control of my actions – and if they knew I was with a forty-seven-year old artist, naked on his living room floor, they would not appreciate it one little bit. I would have much rather be owned by Gerard, because at least he would keep my best interests at heart. And then it hit me, as the artist’s voice and my inner thoughts cascaded together into direct reasoning.

“My naming of my dove as you,” Gerard started to explain again, motioning with his free hand, “means that you can take ownership of yourself. You can take your artistry in your hands, like clay, and mold it into everything that you want.”

His hands moved in a fluid manner, as if constructing his own sculpture out of my potential – or perhaps ours together. He looked down at me, drawing my attention away from his flying fingers. “You have the power over yourself now, if you choose to take it, that is.”

He smiled through the stare, but all I could feel was intimidation. I couldn’t help but feel overwhelmed by everything. I had been used to someone else owning me all this time; myself as the object, not the possessor. I had always been empty-handed, so much so that now that something was in them, they felt odd, heavy, and chaffed with resistance. I wasn’t sure if I could take myself – all of myself – and truly own it just yet. That was why I had wanted Gerard to be the middle man before I was completely on my own. I knew I hated the idea of my parents owning me; they would never steer me in the right direction. But I knew I also hated the idea of myself owning me; I too, would never steer myself in the right direction, only crash on my way down. I was stuck, in power, with or without it. All of this power I had acquired so soon; too soon. I had only just started to grow up; there was no way I had already completed everything in this small weekend. I had lacked so many years prior to my meeting Gerard, I may have needed another lifetime to catch up. I wasn’t ready, and I didn’t think I ever would be. I began to feel all the hope I had mustered before, all of the confidence and security melt away, and I wanted to claw my way out of my skin.

My eyes darted away from Gerard, not answering anything.

“Do you want to take it, Frank?”

His voice called into my thoughts, rousing me from them. He was talking about the power to own, currently making me want to turn myself inside out. I let out a labored sigh and brought my eyes to meet his, ready to tell him I wasn’t, when something else caught my attention. A small smile was on his face, his expression softened from the initial intensity it had held before. It was warm and inviting, the invitation extended further as he began to rub my arm up and down soothingly. And then I realized something else, something that was less scary than ownership.

I recalled the not so distant memory of Gerard’s hands in mine and the dove’s wings fluttering throughout the apartment. Not only was I this apparent artist, I was Frank the dove. Not only had Gerard named my artistry so I could take hold of it, but he had named me his dove so he could take hold of me. He was going to keep me, direct me and guide me so I wasn’t completely alone in this task at hand. I had control over my art, but Gerard was going to be there to guide me until I got it right.

I looked back up to him and nodded to his question with a weak smile. Everything seemed far less scary than it had been only moments ago. I marveled at the sheer polarity of our relationship for a few minutes, as our mouths came together and our voice boxes dulled. Something was either good or bad, black or white, dangerous or safe. Our emotions seemed to teeter on the edge of despair, to the edge of euphoria with nothing (and everything) in between. It was a hard way to live, especially during those morose times. Art was like that though; the best in its extremes. There is no such thing as half a colour; just bright blinding red, to deep dark red. People don’t want what’s in between because it’s dull, and all around us. Art is an escape; you don’t paint daily life.

You paint dreams.

Or at least that’s what Gerard had taught me. There was always going to be art around our relationship, and there was always going to be a little fear, I realized too, even when I felt so fucking safe in his arms. There was always fear and pain in life, and with the new added benefit of apparent freedom, everything was going to feel strange. It wasn’t supposed to feel natural, he had told me. His arms were a smooth and even texture however, disputing that fact. He was comfortable; we were comfortable. And I clung onto him as I let my mind wander.

Though this freedom had been there in the first place, I had never decided to take it. Maybe that was why the dove had needed to fly over to me; I wasn’t going to go to her. I could have named my artistry all along, I could have taken possession of it long before Gerard, but I hadn’t. I didn’t choose anything until it was all thrust upon me, in a mix of birdseed-covered flesh, off-white wings, and paint resin. And even when he had done it for me, I was still a little hesitant to everything. Freedom wasn’t supposed to feel natural; shackles were in place for a reason. Rules were still meant to be broken however, and we were doing a damn good job at breaking all of them. I had freedom, at least a little of it, and I was going to try and grab it by being all that Gerard wanted me to be.

But what did I want? I questioned myself, Gerard’s words popping into my mind again. I couldn’t just forget about myself in this. Artists were selfish people, so I divulged my senses. I wanted to paint, but that was more so to please him. I wanted to be like Gerard, just as much as I wanted to be with him; be inside of him. He was my mentor, teacher, and now my lover, but that didn’t change the fact that I wanted so much more out of him. I wanted to have his charismatic abilities and his phenomenal voice that broadcasted such lucrative beliefs. I thought I could only get that through painting, fully channeling his essence. It was not that I didn’t want to paint, or wasn’t good at it, but it didn’t really answer the question of what I really wanted, what I needed. I thought long and hard then, of what that answer would be, and only came up with one fairly universal conclusion.

I wanted to be myself.

It was just too bad I had no idea who that could be yet. There were so many roles, so many functions and traits being thrust upon me, good and bad, that I had too many to choose from. I was a high school student, but that was inconclusive. I was an artist, but that was daunting, and I still needed to find out what that meant entirely. In order to be myself, I needed to use art. That was how Gerard got to be the way he was.

I looked over at him, the forty-seven-year old artist lying naked beside me. What did artist mean for him? I knew it meant he could paint, draw, and all that other stuff, but what about personality? He used his art to find himself. He was self-assured with a smidgen of arrogance, kind and tender, and one of the most philosophical people I had ever met. He challenged the way people thought, and he felt things more than he ever let on. He had become this person before me because of his art. He had used painting to find himself.

What could I use to find myself? I turned my attention back down to myself, wrapped up in his embrace, and thought longer and harder than I ever had before. I didn’t have very many options, I realized, and I came to the most logical conclusion at the forefront of my mind.

I could make music. I could strum my fingers along the guitar and throw some words down to it perhaps. I could have people interpret what they heard rather than what they saw, like with Gerard’s paintings. Seeing was well and good, but music could shake a person’s inner core, literally shaking their surface as well. I could do that - in fact, I wanted to do that. I listened to music all the time; I always had my headphones on while I walked down the hallways at school and sometimes even during classes themselves if I could sneak them in. My bedroom wall was plastered with posters of bands I liked, not art. I admired musicians very much the same way Gerard admired artists. We were a lot alike, but with different vices.

The limited time I was at home, I would take the guitar out of its hibernated state inside my closet and play some notes. After Gerard had crushed and then feebly rebuilt my soul when I played for him, I was determined that the guitar would not see the light of day outside of my room again. I was still going to play it – in fact, I had that very night, muffling the strings so my parents didn’t hear – but I was going to keep it tucked away from anyone else until I could play better, play right. Even if that took ages and it never saw the outside world for years, I was still getting some form of creativity out.

At least the instrument didn’t look as sick as it had, the dull wood regaining some life anytime it was touched. The guitar really had looked sick before I had started to play it again; it was dull, lonely, and eating away at itself from being out of use. For something that creative to survive, it needed someone to help it along.

No one can do art alone, Gerard’s teaching came into my head from one of our very first lessons. A person may be able to paint a picture, but the inspiration comes from other people, other things. If each person painted something from inside themselves, without help from anyone else, there would be nothing. Just black. Each aspect of yourself is built through an event, sparked by another person, triggered by an experience…it just went on and on. You have to be creative to survive, and no one can survive alone.

When I randomly played my guitar at three in the morning one night, I realized I was not alone, but it was in a peculiar way. I knew I had Gerard, that was obvious, but I also came to the conclusion that I was a lot like the once dull instrument I played. I had also been sick; sick of my life and friends and just everything in general. But now, the playing of the guitar was a reciprocal life saving action to both me, the guitarist and healer, and the guitar, the patient. We both had a metaphorical type of cancer, and together, we were seeking treatment, bringing ourselves back to life one note at a time.

During those nocturnal playing sessions, the door was closed and I hung my comforter over it to muffle any other noises. I’d stop periodically, my ears strained and listening to see if I could hear anyone coming. I had not been caught so far, and I thought I was getting pretty good at being inconspicuous. I was getting to be a good liar too, bluffing the places I had been when I stumbled into the house past ten every night. (Most artists are liars; they just don’t always need to speak them - they can paint them). Even with my amount of lies (or art pieces?) piling up, my mother and father just somehow knew I was playing the damn instrument again. Maybe they had spotted the bleak wood suddenly coming to life when it was sprawled across my bed. My mother would occasionally ‘clean’ my room when I was at school, and no doubt she saw it and told my father. It was his guitar after all, he deserved to know.

My father didn’t even like the fact that I was listening to music most of the time, always saying it was a waste of time. I could be studying. I could be getting a job. I could be doing a lot of things, according to him – none of them creative. He had been especially hard on me ever since I had asked to take the music course. We never brought the subject up again, but I could tell from the way his eyebrows raised slightly and his jaw locked when I got home late at night that he thought something was going on.

Art, in his mind at least, was even more of a waste than music. He had played an instrument in his youth and could comprehend its importance, to some degree. I was pretty sure that was why he had yelled the way he had at the dinner table. He had been angry, but it wasn’t whole-heartedly at me – it was at himself. He was resentful and bitter for the fact that he had to give up music. He had given the guitar to me, passing down his dream, but at the same time, he never wanted to see it fulfilled. He wanted to see me fail. If his hopes of a guitar player were never matched, then why should my own? He passed down his dream, giving up on it – but he wanted me to do the exact same thing as him. And after I had, we would partake in some sick and twisted father-son bonding session because now we both had caught our fantasy, just to let it go. It was part of the ownership he had by naming me. He wanted to make me suffer like he had, so he forbid me to take the course. He hadn’t insulted the ideology behind the music itself because he couldn’t; he had done the same thing, in his youth.

But art? There was no way he would support that, even if I told him I was getting free lessons. He could barely grasp the music he used to live for; there was no way on earth he could ever understand art, something he had never even bothered to study. Art was fruity, and my teacher even fruitier. My dad would have had a fit if he had known about my relationship with the artist when he was merely my unqualified art instructor. Now that we weren’t just doing art, I knew my dad would kill me. Or Gerard. Or maybe both of us together in a bloody mess, stabbing us to death with paint brushes. I didn’t want to think about what would happen if anyone – not just my father – found out about Gerard and me. The consequences would be way too harsh, painful, and I knew I couldn’t take them. Gerard and I were just beginning; hopefully it wouldn’t turn sour too fast.

I shook my head, wanting something else to focus on, something frivolous. I got my answer when I heard the seeds from my chest fall off around me and grip my skin in other places. They were fucking itchy, and I needed to get them off soon.

I slid out from under Gerard’s arm, getting up gradually from the floor and starting to make my way over to the bathroom. He grunted as I stirred, his weight shifting to accommodate my leaving. His eyes were half-closed, and though it was night, he was not sleeping.

I could feel the seeds under my feet as I got up, and could hear them fall off my body, making minuscule sounds of pitter-patter as they hit the ground. I shivered, feeling the coolness of the rest of the floor under my toes, only accentuated by the tiles in the bathroom. I flicked on the light, sending a great flow of bright florescence into the room, causing me to squint.

Gerard’s apartment had been pretty dim up to that point, the dark sky coming through the window and only one small lamp on. I put my hand up to block part of the demanding light, looking at my reflection in the mirror. The door was jarred open still, and I could see Gerard in the mirror image of the glass. The bathroom hadn’t been too far away.

“Where are you going?” he asked me slyly, lying down and splaying his legs out so all of him was visible in the mirror. He wasn’t hard, but I could tell that his mind was wandering around to sex in some form or another. I squinted back at him, still blinded from the light.

“Shower,” I called to him, cocking my head to the side so I could see him more. I threw in a playful bit of spite to my next words. “After all, someone just covered me in birdseed.”

“All for art,” he smiled, leaning his head back and exposing his throat. His Adam’s apple protruded and bobbed up and down as he swallowed. Even in the faint radiance I could see that his neck was littered with patches of purple hued skin. I smiled, knowing that I had been the one that made those marks. Looking into the bathroom mirror still, I shifted my gaze to my own body, seeing what I looked like for the first time in over a day.

I was shocked by what I saw. Not only was I still covered in the finite black and orange specks of seeds, but my whole body, not just my neck, had Gerard’s markings all over it. There was a particularly dark shade of purple on my left side, right below the ear, close to the chin. I looked over and touched the spot, feeling my skin clench into goose bumps as I did. I could still feel Gerard’s lips on me, his teeth nipping at my flesh and his hands roaming everywhere. That spot was probably Gerard’s favourite on me; he was always sneaking up from behind and surprising me with a kiss to the area.

I closed my eyes tighter and savored the memory, remembering just how good it had felt. I cocked my head back like Gerard had done on the hardwood floor, exposing my neck and throat fully, Adam’s apple out. I touched the skin with blind fingers, sensing out and feeling each memory over and over again, making it new. I didn’t know how I was going to hide the hickeys when I left his place, but that was the farthest thought from my mind. When I opened my eyes again to look at what I thought were bite marks on my chest, Gerard was standing behind me, Cheshire cat grin planted on his face. He was standing in the door frame solidly, his arms folded over his chest, body leaned against the wall.

“Gerard, I have to shower,” I said quickly, somewhat startled. I did not hear him come in.

I snapped my head back to its normal position, removing my hand from my neck and shifting my weight. Instead of listening to my request, the artist walked closer, his pace agonizingly slow. He placed his feet sturdily behind me, his hands slinking around my waist like a snake, as his lips relocated to his favourite spot, previously investigated by my hands. I cringed to the newly sensitive area as his tongue came out and began to undulate against the fair, yet darkened skin.

Though I didn’t want to, I melted into the embrace, Gerard’s hands flicking off seeds as he wrapped himself tighter around me. Giving up, I reached a hand behind me and placed it on the nape of his neck, trying to pull him down closer, but he ignored me, stopping the action. He was a fucking tease most of the time.

“I made a work of art on your body,” he whispered, looking at the hickey. He touched the spot carefully with his free hand, the pads of his fingers just hovering as he screwed up his face, rethinking his statement. He looked at me in the mirror, nestling his head on my shoulder, and smiled. “But then again, you already were a work of art.”

I grinned at the comment, meeting his eyes in the pane of glass before he bent down and started to kiss me again slowly. He spotted my shoulders with small kisses, tongue staying put in his mouth. His patterned motions reminded me of the disorganized mess that was still littering my torso.

“I have to shower,” I repeated, my voice hitching in my throat.

Gerard’s hands that had been placed along my waist were cupping my hipbones, slowly reaching down to my cock. He gripped me in his hand, touching and stroking, though I wasn’t hard. It was still a little too soon for me to get it up again since our last action, but his hand still felt good. If he kept doing what he was doing though, I would probably have an easier time than usual getting an erection again so quickly. Gerard knew what to do with his hands and lips and just… everything. I somewhat felt bad, not being able to do all of the wonderful things he did to me – I just didn’t know how. Gerard never seemed to mind.

“How do you know what to do?” I asked, pressing myself into his chest, my arms coming out and making sure he didn’t leave from his position.

“Do what?” he inquired right back, accepting me into his body. There was no space separating us, and his lips hovered above my ear. He still stroked me, long and slow, setting up a constant pattern until it eventually became something so normal, so comfortable, it wasn’t even about sex anymore.