My heart was hammering inside my chest. To say that I was elated at the sounds and meaning of those words wouldn’t cover it. Finally, we were making headway. At that point in our lives, he still couldn’t understand that I’d do anything for him as long as he knew how to ask it. He’d learn, eventually; and I’d honor his requests for the most part, until I wouldn’t. Although, to be fair, I didn’t expect my refusal to play to his tune to hurt him as bad as it did. We all have our hang-ups, after all.
“Do you expect me to simulate pain?” I asked. “I doubt I’m that good an actor.”
He continued to hold my chin and stare at my body from head to toe. “Let’s see,” Adrian began, as if he was talking to himself, “I shouldn’t hurt your face because it’s too pretty, and I don’t want you to look like you’re about to shit yourself.”
“Whatever you have in mind,” I said calmly. My past experiences had taught me well; I could keep a poker face for as long as necessary. Since I knew too well that showing weakness led to worse things, I was an expert in pretending I didn’t care, no matter what happened to me.
“Really?” His eyes flashed with something foreign and ugly.
It did give me quite the trepidation to hear him talk like that. But he needed to get down to action, because, while I was doing a good job of schooling my face into a neutral expression, other parts of me weren’t so keen on listening to me.
Another smirk, an all-knowing one, colored his lips as he caught on.
“Are you a pervert, brother?” he asked, eyeing my semi without showing a smidge of remorse. “Models who pose for figure drawing don’t usually get hard.”
“They don’t have anyone staring at them the way you do right now,” I challenged him.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” His fingers dug into my jaw, hurting me.
“You look at me like you want to fill your mouth with my cock and suck it until I blow in your sexy mouth,” I whispered, trying not to let any of my pain show just yet.
“You’re wrong.” He dropped me like I was burning his hand. “I despise you. I wouldn’t suck your cock if you paid me.”
“You’re a strange one. First, you keep away, and that works just fine for both of us. Then, you can’t keep your hands off me or can’t stop goading me into touching you. Who’s the pervert?”
He laughed, but it was the sort of laugh that didn’t reach his eyes. “Valid question,” he said. “But I don’t have to tell you anything.”
Those were not lies. Adrian felt drawn to me despite knowing it was a bad idea. He was, in certain ways, a romantic, and I didn’t fit the image he had of me in his head. That frustrated and annoyed him to no end, because he wished he knew how to mold me into that guy he wanted. It was a weird tall order he gave himself, and I couldn’t help him.
Not directly. But I could take directions, and I didn’t mind acting complacent.
As long as he knew what and how to ask. I wonder sometimes how he could be so blind not to see it. All it took was to ask me.
“I know,” Adrian said, snapping his fingers and pretending he was having a lightbulb moment. “You obviously have no idea what an asshole you are, so you need to experience it on your own skin.”
“I have no idea what you mean.”
I’d have an idea and soon. He smacked my legs until I understood that I had to part them and let him get between them.
While I don’t mind a bit of pain in my sandwich, I did give him a guarded look. My balls were right there; if he started to slap them, he’d see soon enough how I looked in pain. That, reasonably so, made me nervous.
He had something else in mind. When he wet his fingers, putting them in his mouth and giving me a hooded look, realization dawned on me.
“So, is this payback for what I did to you when we went wishing?”
Adrian didn’t say a word and didn’t need to. When he pushed two fingers inside my dry hole, I hissed. Yeah, it wasn’t fun. Even wet, they were too blunt, and he moved too fast to make it feel good.
“I get it,” I said, grunting and grimacing. “It hurts. But you punched me, once in the face, once in the stomach, so I’d say we’re even.”
He leaned over me. I could see the flecks of gold in his green eyes, something I hadn’t noticed until that moment. It was so easy for me to lose myself in the unspoken calling behind that gaze. But I knew I couldn’t afford it. Good choir boys still need to go to heaven, and not the one of their choice.
“Read my lips, Jo,” he said, viciously twisting his fingers inside me. They were past the ring and I could feel them bending and punishing me. “Not by far.”
Not by far. He wanted to make me suffer the way he suffered at my hands. I couldn’t say it wasn’t apropos, what he was doing to me. An eye for an eye… since he wasn’t a Catholic, like me, he didn’t need to opt for forgiveness, instead. Not that it had ever been an option for me. We’re all about forgiveness, the lot of us.
“Fuck,” I whispered.
I threw my head back and squeezed my eyes shut. Even so, I couldn’t stop the two tears that fell at the corners of my eyes and mingled with my hair.
“That’s it,” I heard him say in a heated voice.
He dropped me and moved away. I let a shiver course through my spine, and the sensation of loss wash over me.
I could hear him scribbling on paper but didn’t open my eyes. As penitence, however, I turned my head toward his direction, to show him that naked part of me. If it was my pain he wanted, I’d give it all to him.
My body was slowly relaxing. Pain doesn’t last once the stimulus is removed unless permanent damage occurs. I knew my flesh could take it, forget, and take it again. But Adrian’s mark on my soul was a different thing altogether. And that caused permanent damage.
“Come here,” he said after what could’ve lasted hours or just minutes.
I moved slowly, to prolong his satisfaction at having hurt me. But like any artist, Adrian was already too selfish about his art to notice my discomfort which I was only displaying for his sake.
“Come already,” he snapped at me, his hands covering the sketch. A slow tremble moved them, showing his excitement.
I stood by his side and leaned over his shoulder. Adrian removed his hands slowly, as if presenting me with a gift I might not be able to fully appreciate.
For a few moments, I remained silent. I’m a practical man, with little appreciation for non-utilitarian things. Yet, I couldn’t deny the effect art has on people and its power.
There it was again, but this time more purposeful, more aware of itself. Adrian’s sketch showed me how I could never see myself. From a real being, I’d turned into a mold for him to use and produce this sketch which conveyed in rough strokes what I’d never admit out loud about myself.
“Well?” he asked impatiently. “How average am I?”
“You make me look more handsome than I am,” I said. “Shouldn’t art be true? Authentic?”
He scoffed at me. “Authentic doesn’t mean true to life. Look at it some more. Tell me what you see.”
I knew he was goading me into admitting things I wasn’t ready to admit, but I had to give him something.
“You’re talented,” I said half-heartedly. “But this isn’t me. It’s someone… much better, I think.”
He took the sketchbook and brought it close to his eyes, looking for something I couldn’t possibly name, being the ignoramus that I was in all things art-related.
“No, it’s not,” he said abruptly and threw the sketchbook on the desk, away from him.
Because I wasn’t praising him, he was pouting. He was too cute to resist. So, I wrapped one hand around the back of his neck and leaned over to kiss him hard. At first, he pretended not to like it but melted gradually into it. I had to stop before things got out of hand again.
“You’re good, Adrian,” I whispered when I let go of him. “But I’m not the one you need to prove it to. Impress your professors, make your mom proud.”
He tsked and pushed me away. “You don’t know anything,” he said, pouting again. “That’s all I ever do.”
“No, you don’t do that. That’s why you needed my drastic intervention.”
“Yeah, right. Does your ass still hurt?”
It did, but not so much.
“Yes.”
“Good.”
“Did it hurt you much when I did it to you?” It seemed to me like he wanted to have this conversation.
“Yeah. It sucked balls,” he said, pulling his sketchbook close and closing it like a miser closing the lid over his treasure.
“Should I tell you I’m sorry?” I asked.
My dick was inches away from his face. A part of my brain fantasized about him blowing me, but the rest kept its cool.
“Nah,” Adrian replied, looking blankly at his sketchbook, “you’d only make it worse.”
“Because I wouldn’t mean it?”
“Yeah. You may be an asshole, Jo, but at least I know you’re not a hypocrite. Don’t turn into one for my sake or I’ll get pissed.”
“But I like you pissed,” I taunted him.
He was on the fence – I could tell just by noticing the smallest things about him. Like how he brushed the knuckles of his right hand across the side of his cheek, as if there was a smudge there he needed to get rid of.
“Why don’t they do it for it?” I asked, readying my assault.
“They? Who are you talking about?” He lifted his pretty eyes to stare at me. If he thought he was impressing him with that glare, he needed to think again.
“Your girlfriends. You’re popular, Adrian. Girls compete for your attention, and I’m sure they step on each other’s toes to suck your dick. So why are you so dissatisfied?”
I could tell my questions were hitting close to home. But whether he was ready to admit the truth or not was a different matter.
“I’m not.” He leaned back and continued to look at me like he wanted to bite my head off. “You’re just a thorn in my side.”
I reached out and caressed his cheek gently. “I can move out. You don’t have to see me again; you only have to say the word.”
He narrowed his eyes. Could it be that he was sniffing my trap, and, like a skittish animal, wasn’t sure whether the risk of the tasty morsel offered as bait was worth it or not?
“I’d see you at the next Thanksgiving dinner in the family, anyway,” he said.
I remained silent, curious to see if he was able to connect the dots.
“Fuck me,” he moaned mockingly. “The chick left the coop for good, didn’t he?”
I nodded slowly. “I’ll never go back. My place isn’t there.”
He seemed disoriented by my frankness for a bit. I think he expected to hear protests and lies from me, just another proof of how little he knew me, and how much he imagined instead.
“No, you will go back,” he said, defying me directly. “You’ll come with me.”
I frowned and took a slow step back. “Is this your idea of torturing me?”
“Yes,” he said, his glee too obvious to ignore. “I will hunt down all your weaknesses, Jo, and make you suffer.”
“Am I allowed to ask why?”
He looked away and leaned back harder in his chair, making the thing swing for a moment. “I don’t get you,” he said. “And it’s annoying. I don’t suck dick left and right. While I don’t mind fucking any girl who wants me to give her a dicking, I’m a lot more selective about guys. I really have to like them to get on my knees for them.”
“But you don’t like me,” I said matter-of-factly.
“No. I fucking hate you,” he replied, still looking away from me.
“Why? Because I fingered you too hard?”
This time, his eyes snapped back at me. He looked pissed. “I gave you something, and you pissed on it.”
Well, now that was a bit of honesty that deserved praise and a small prize, as well.
“I did it for your own good. You said it yourself, countless times already. I’m an asshole. I’m not good for you.”
“Why?” He searched my face for signs that I was lying.
I wasn’t. I was at my most honest, and I wanted him to appreciate me for it.
“Do I really have to give you the blackest version of myself? No one likes to talk about themselves in disparaging terms, you know?”
“Let’s hear it,” he said aggressively. He even gestured with his hands to prove that he meant it. “Is it because you’re a choir boy? I have it on good authority that you actually don’t give a damn about religion.”
“And how do you know that?” I asked. “The Lord works in mysterious ways. Maybe, deep inside my dark soul, there’s a believer seeking to repent.”
Adrian smirked. “Yeah, right. You haven’t sinned enough to even start to repent.”
What an interesting thing to say. I didn’t want to show any sign of surprise, so I crossed my arms over my chest. The fact that I was naked didn’t matter to him in the least. We were strangely comfortable with each other if my casual nudity didn’t seem to interest him at all, now that he’d proven his artistic prowess to me.
It hurt a bit. I wanted him to be so crazy about me that he’d want to give me a good suck.
“The mere idea of thinking of you,” I started slowly, in the gentlest voice I could manage, “of you on your knees for me, taking my cock in your throat and moaning like a whore – that makes me a sinner. There’s no need for me to actually do any of these things. I’m already condemned. That’s Catholicism 101 for you.”
“Bullshit,” he blurted out. It looked to me like he was struggling to get his ideas out. He was better at sketching his feelings, rather than voicing them. “That might be true, not that I care. But you’re pushing me away because you’re an asshole.”
“One well aware of the fire and brimstone that might fall upon his head if he insists on fantasizing about fornicating with his brother a bit too much,” I said, mocking him from my pulpit.
“You suffer,” Adrian said slowly, still struggling with words, “and you want me to suffer, too. Because no one has ever loved you or some shit.”
I scoffed at his clumsily put together theory. “Love, Mr. Artist, is fucking overrated.”
He stole a glance at me, realizing his mistake. Despite his olive complexion, I could tell he was blushing. He really hadn’t meant to let that slip.
But it was enough for me. It gave me the occasion to realize that he did have feelings for me.
And that made me fucking happy.
tbc
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