Chapter Nine Vivian

Vivian was one of Gerard’s models. They had met in art school, where she had been paying off her tuition by modeling for the senior art class. At first, it had been done with her clothes on, and only some sections of her body uncovered. She’d come in one day and have to extend her left leg for hours on end, so that the class could draw and get a good view of the ligaments, joints and contours of a foot, before moving onto anything else. The next class she’d roll up her sleeve and expose her delicate arm, hand, and fingers for them to ogle and draw, followed by her face, and then her entire – clothed - body; at first, anyway. She had never really been into the whole nude modeling thing before, and the teacher of the class never pressured her. But that didn’t mean Gerard wouldn’t have his say in matters.

Apparently, he had been in that art class, hiding in the back row sketching her foot like all the other students. But he always finished his drawings before everyone else, and it was then that Gerard would move on to her other features; ones that no one paid attention to. He once spent an entire class just drawing the way her eyebrows looked, when she frowned in distress for having her foot extended for over three hours. Gerard had come up to her after that class and insisted on taking her out for coffee. Reluctant, at first, to accept the offer from the much older guy in the senior art class, Vivian had finally been convinced by Gerard’s winning smiling and attention to detail. He had shown her his pictures, and she had been swept off her feet. They talked for hours that night in the small college café, until they were kicked out and forced to go back to Gerard’s place, only five minutes off campus. Apparently, it was then and there that Gerard finally convinced her to take off her clothes.

“He was such a little perv,” Vivian said, half serious with a smile on her face. She leaned over the kitchen table, where all three of us sat with coffee in front of our chests, only Gerard and Vivian actually drinking the warm liquid. I let mine sit in front of me, the cream I had put in it making swirled, textured patterns and turning the brown muck into a creamy caramel colour. The warm steam from the hot coffee floated in the air in front of me, penetrating my nostrils but not affecting me at all. It wasn’t that I didn’t like coffee; I was just nervous and awkward as hell. I thought it had been bad the day before when I walked in on Gerard half-naked, but fuck, was I wrong. It was way worse walking in on someone else entirely naked.

And then having coffee with them like it was nothing.

After Vivian had gotten up off of the putrid orange couch she had been carelessly lying on, she had grabbed her robe and tied it loosely around her waist. I wasn’t sure if it was just my mind taking a longer time to react and process events, but it seemed like she was moving at a normal – almost slow pace to get herself clothed. It was as if she didn’t care that she was naked in front of a stranger, or naked in general. And when Gerard suggested that the three of us get acquainted over coffee, she leapt at the idea, almost spilling out of the soft fabric that attempted to constrict her carefree spirit. She hadn’t even bothered to put on her street clothing again, which I saw lying in a pile by Gerard’s unused canvas. She was so lighthearted and exposed – and she didn’t give a fuck. She just sat down with Gerard, took her coffee, stirring it as she leaned over, gazed into his eyes and started to laugh like old times. She didn’t even seem to notice that the teenage boy who had just seen her completely naked was sitting at the table with her, shifting in his seat, trying to distract himself from what was actually going on.

“And that’s changed?” Gerard asked Vivian in a playful manner, referring to his perverted tendencies. He gave her one of his trademark smiles – the exact same one he gave me all the time. We were all sitting in a triangle formation at the table, with Gerard next to Vivian at the base and me folding in on myself across from them, at the side of the table closest to the door. I could have bolted if I wanted to, and there were times when I really did want to, but a part of myself dragged me to the table and sat myself down, unmoving. I wanted to stay; even if it was so awkward I thought ripping my skin off would be easier. There was something about Vivian that made me want to stay, other than her naked body filtering into my mind and bloodstream. Her character and sunny disposition made me want to pay attention to her, especially to the way she interacted with Gerard.

Vivian was a friendly person. I could see that from the way she carried herself, a slight skip in her step and a smile planted on her face. Her smile wasn’t like Gerard’s constant one, though. When Gerard smiled, you knew that he was thinking something else. There was always something hidden behind every single one of Gerard’s actions, even if it was pure and simple like a smile. He was thinking something different, and trying to hint at it to you with his stained, baby-like teeth. But when Vivian smiled, laughed, or even winked, you knew that was all she was doing. She was simply expressing her happiness and nothing else. She wore herself and her emotions on her sleeve, even if she didn’t have a physical sleeve to wear them on at that moment. She didn’t care what people thought. She was welcoming and loving and I could tell that from her gestures towards the man beside her.

But she seemed almost too loving with the way she acted. The way she followed Gerard into the kitchen, casually brushing his shoulder as they got the mugs and coffee ready. (There were just enough mugs for all of us – only three left from my few days of constantly breaking them.) She laughed and joked with Gerard, batting him playfully and messing up his dark hair, causing him to scrunch his face up. When they were at the table drinking, Vivian was constantly leaning forward or off to the side, looking at Gerard with wide eyes. She would brush his hand and I could tell that under the table she was touching him with her foot, too. The way Vivian smiled at Gerard, it was more than just a friendly smile. She was comfortable with him, grinning over nothing. She was sweet and sincere – a little too sweet in my mind. She seemed so close to Gerard. She seemed to be in love with him. They were just friends, I had to keep reminding myself. They had known each other since art school. And judging from Gerard’s known age and what Vivian looked to be, that was a long fucking time. Vivian didn’t look old, but she possessed many of the same wrinkles Gerard did. Her hair was a dark strawberry colour and, for the most part, the hue carried all the way through. I could see some gray patches, popping out vividly from the initial shade, but that was only when I sought them out. She looked to be in about her mid-thirties, but that didn’t mean anything. I had thought Gerard was only forty or so and the guy was nearly fifty. I still couldn’t believe it. But now, I was given something else to focus my confusion on: Vivian and Gerard’s relationship.

They were friends; they had known each other a long time. But the more I watched the two interact again and again, not saying a word because I was too goddamn nervous, the more I thought they were something more. Vivian made attempts to talk to me, but I brushed her off, not knowing what to say. She mainly kept her attention focused on Gerard, as he did with her. I felt a slight pang of jealousy and I didn’t know why. I was used to Gerard not always paying his full (or even half assed) attention to me. But in those circumstances he had been too engulfed in his work to notice the seventeen-year-old cleaning paint brushes. Now though, there was another heartbeat in the room (besides Van Gogh) and it was taking his attention away. It made me want to jump around and make noise, just so he would turn my way again, but my knees were locked, my tongue swollen and thick in my mouth.

In all logic, I knew that Gerard wasn’t dating Vivian. He had told me days ago that he had no lover; that his art was his lover. But then again, he was drawing Vivian when I came over. He was making her into a work of art. Is that what he had meant? Maybe he was seeing Vivian. But that didn’t make sense. She was a woman, and I had definitely seen proof of that. Gerard couldn’t like her. Wasn’t he gay?

I started to scan over all of the conversations I had shared with Gerard within the past few weeks. I began to realize that never once had he told me he was gay. I had just always assumed it. No one could be that into art, culture, and French shit without being a little fruity. But Gerard was more than a little fruity; he had to be. That was just who Gerard was. I watched him while he painted and smoked. I saw how he lived. He had to be gay. He was the fag artist, after all.

But as I watched him rub his thumb over Vivian’s soft skin on her hand, I began to think otherwise. And I began to want to get out of the room as quick as I could.

“True enough,” Vivian concluded, nodding her head with Gerard’s remark about being depraved. My thoughts had been rushing by so fast that their conversation seemed to lag on forever. “You’re still quite the little pervert, getting me to come over to your house whenever you want and getting me naked.” Vivian smirked at Gerard and batted her hair over her shoulders. Her ugly, dingy green robe clashed with her dark red locks but I still couldn’t help thinking about how beautiful she looked. Her hair was in loose corkscrew curls, falling just below her shoulders before she had brushed it over. Her skin was fair, but still a little darker than Gerard’s from the amount of freckles that dotted her long arms. Her fingers were long and delicate, the whites of the nails extremely long and symmetrical for unmanicured hands. I found my mind wandering back to the rest of her silky skin that I saw all of on the couch.

I was not a moron, or completely sheltered. I had seen naked women before. But it was never in person, always in photographs or on film. When I was just starting puberty and in my preteen years I would stay up late at night past the point where my parents were well asleep, and go through the channels to find cheap porn. There were a few stations that played ‘adult only’ movies on Friday nights. I fucking lived for those Friday nights. I’d always sit on the floral loveseat and watch these films, jacking off with one hand, and clutching the remote in the other to change the channel quickly, if necessary. I always felt guilty after I came catching it in a towel I had swiped from the bathroom, but it never stopped me from coming back every Friday night and doing it all again. Sometimes twice. Being seventeen, I had finally grown out of the habit, or at least hadn’t done it in a long time probably. I stopped well before that age however, most likely when my mother started to do her nightly knitting on the same loveseat. I just couldn’t jack off there anymore after seeing my mother with her sewing needles battling away silently and sweetly oblivious. By that point I had enough visual memory of the women I had seen on TV to masturbate all by myself in my room.

I knew what women looked like, but those were women from porn movies. Unrealistic and sometimes ugly depictions. When I stepped into Gerard’s apartment and saw Vivian, it was something entirely different. She was real, and in person. She wasn’t stick thin like everyone on TV or in the movie business. She had some meat on her bones. Her pale dotted flesh met up in the centre of her belly, spilling over her pubic bones slightly. Her breasts were large, not ridiculously so, and it was not enhanced at all. She had big breasts because she had big hips and thighs. And between these thighs I saw something that I never saw on the women on TV: pubic hair. Vivian didn’t shave, but instead let the slightly darker shade grow in rough curls. And I honesty liked it better that way. In addition to her locks being the same beautiful hue as her hair, it just looked better seeing that triangle of shade between her thick thighs. When the girls on TV shaved it made them look prepubescent, and that grossed me out entirely. I did not want to pretend to fuck an eleven-year-old. I wanted to pretend to fuck a twenty-year-old. A woman. Not a girl, or even a teen really. I wanted a woman to fuck. And Vivian was a woman, quite a woman indeed.

I had to adjust myself at the table. I needed to stop thinking about Vivian and stop being so nervous. I could feel myself getting turned on and I didn’t like the feeling. Not only was it just slightly awkward to be feeling that way about a complete stranger I had accidentally seen naked, but she was also much, much older than me. She was almost Gerard’s age, maybe shy one or two years. I could feel myself shudder inside. If Gerard was as old as my dad, Vivian could have been as old as my mom. The thought made me retch inside, and quickly erased any chance of being turned on from my system. I was not having luck right then in my life with who were turning me on. Why couldn’t I just meet people my own age?

Then again, I knew I didn’t like people my age. Sam and Travis were my age and they never paid this much attention to me. They never cared this much about me or talked to me this much, about topics that actually interested me. There was a reason I kept coming to Gerard’s place, and it wasn’t just for painting. It was for acceptance and conversation. Even if it left me feeling inept as hell and pining for something I know I didn’t need, then so be it. I could deal with that; I could just suppress it. I was good at doing that, I had been doing it my whole life. At least now I was able to have something strong enough to feel real again and have something to suppress it.

“I can’t help it if you like to get naked!” Gerard insisted, moving his hands off of the table and raising them in the air to surrender. Vivian smiled and shot him a playful challenging grin.

“It’s all your fault,” Vivian jabbed cheerfully.

“Fine, blame me,” Gerard uttered semi-sarcastically with a wide grin on his face. He slowly waved his hands back down towards the table, sighing in sardonic defeat. “But one of us had to get naked in that class, and it wasn’t going to be me.”

“Why not? I thought you enjoyed taking off your clothes?” Vivian shot him another smile, bringing her full peach lips to her coffee mug and taking a long drink.

“Only at home. I’m not as much of an exhibitionist as you.”

“Again, I blame you for making me an exhibitionist,” Vivian patted Gerard’s arms again good-naturedly, placing her mug down. Suddenly, she shot a glance over my way and smiled. “I hope he doesn’t do this walking around naked when you’re here. It would be quite a shock to the system.” She paused and sighed over dramatically. “I know it was for me.”

“Hush, woman,” Gerard teased, widening his eyes at his friend. She leaned back towards Gerard and chuckled at him. A weird sensation entered my body at the mention of her words. She had seen Gerard naked? For some reason, out of their entire conversation on nudity (that wasn’t over yet) it was that part alone that sparked a reaction in me. Other than embarrassment, that is.

“Don’t call me that!” Vivian spouted, taking mock offence at Gerard, who merely shot her a look back. She seemed satisfied with the answer and exhaled a relaxing sigh. Gerard paused and shot a glance over at me. He winked slightly but I wasn’t sure what it meant. At least, until he opened his mouth.

“And to answer your question,” Gerard said, looking at me but speaking to Vivian. “I don’t walk around naked when Frank’s here. I’m saving that for later.” He raised his eyebrows to extend the joke – because that’s all it was, a joke. But even as the words exited his mouth, I could still feel my blood change temperature. Only instead of going to cold like it normally did when I was freaked out, my blood started to grow warm. And it scared me even more. Some ‘joke’.

“Gerard, stop it!” Vivian teased, arguing with the artist like they were a married couple. They were so comfortable with each other, insulting and calling each other names, but doing it in such a lighthearted and loving fashion. I was glad Vivian was there suddenly, because even if it had to be awkward (which seemed to the general consensus emotion at Gerard’s), at least she was there to ease some of the tension between the old artist and me. It wasn’t bad or angry tension, just something that I couldn’t name yet.

“You’re scaring the poor boy,” Vivian concluded. Gerard looked at her and merely shrugged his shoulders, turning his body away from me. I felt myself let out a breath of air then, completely unaware that I had been holding it.

“So,” Vivian started again, leaving Gerard to turn and look at me. “What do you do here?”

I was about to answer when Gerard cut me off. Under normal circumstances I probably would have been mad, but I was slightly relieved this time. I didn’t know if I had a voice.

“He cleans my brushes for me. And my dishes,” he smirked, causing Vivian to good-humoredly smack his arm and mutter something about not treating me like a maid before Gerard continued. “But I’m going to start to teach him how to paint soon. I was hoping we could start a lesson today, actually.”

For the first time since I got there, I felt something other than nervousness. Gerard was going to teach me how to paint soon. I felt the happiness from that simple statement radiate through my body. I even let my mouth drop open and display a smile, to which Gerard returned, nodding his head nonchalantly.

“That’s wonderful!” Vivian gushed, bringing her hands up towards her chest, creating some cleavage where the robe split. She suddenly got up and went over to Gerard, standing over him as she gave him a hug. I couldn’t help but notice Gerard’s face ending up right in the middle of that cleavage, but since his face was buried there, I didn’t know whether he enjoyed it or not. Just like the sloppy kiss Vivian placed on the centre of the man’s forehead after the hug was done. I watched in horror, my smile suddenly gone and my nervousness returning. I didn’t know what to feel. Jealousy, I know, swarmed within me, but when I thought long and hard about it, I had no idea who I was jealous of: Gerard for being buried in Vivian’s cleavage or Vivian for kissing Gerard.

“You’re finally being nice for once,” Vivian teased the raven haired man, placing another kiss on his head. I felt my blood change temperatures again. I was getting hot in my own skin and was going to melt into my pants sometime soon. I had to get up.

“I’m going to go and clean up the dove’s cage, okay?” I asked quickly, my own voice sounding foreign in my own ears. I had not talked that entire conversation. Even when something had been directed at me, I had been too shocked and slow to answer. My own inquiry didn’t register in both of their minds until I actually vacated my seat. It was only after that when they seemed to miss my presence, even if I hadn’t uttered a word until that moment.

“But I brought cookies!” Vivian called after me. I looked back and saw her go over to the doorway of the kitchen and bend down, shoveling through in her bag. Again, this woman seemed completely oblivious that she was naked under her robe and she exposed the top parts of her white thighs even more as she bent down. I turned away, not wanting to tempt myself with anything anymore.

“Thank you, but I’m okay,” I told her as politely as I could. I began to walk the short distance to the birdcage, but I could still hear the conversation that was taking place.

“Ohh, cookies!” Gerard expressed, actually seeming excited for once. For the most part there was always another emotion hidden underneath Gerard’s initial outburst. But this time, there seemed to be just genuine excitement. Vivian had that effect on him; she broke down the layer of paint Gerard kept himself inside. It didn’t happen often, but I was seeing Gerard without the coating he kept around himself. And in a way, it was like I was seeing him naked.

“You can’t have too many!” Vivian lectured, batting his hands away from the Tupperware container that held the baked goods.

“Just let me be fat, Viv,” Gerard whined and I could tell without looking that he was patting his small pudge of a belly. He did that a lot – patting his belly - I began to notice. He seemed to be very proud of it. I remembered him once saying that his brother was bone thin and he always felt the need to be different. They already were extreme opposites of the spectrum but Gerard always had to further things. He would wear skintight pants and then revel in the fact that his belly would always seep over the edge. He liked being fat. He was only a few pounds overweight, though, nothing drastic. I had seen fat people before; Gerard wasn’t fat. He was attractive.

“You’re not fat,” Vivian lectured again, reading my mind. “But I already have a diabetic mother to take care of. I don’t need to take care of you too.”

Gerard mumbled something else, most likely with a cookie in his mouth, but I couldn’t understand it. I shrugged it off and went over to Van Gogh’s cage, opening it up and petting the bird with my index finger. Over the past few weeks I had been helping out, the dove grew more accustomed to my presence. She even let me take her out of the cage once and I was able to hold her in my hand for a few minutes. It was when Gerard had been asleep on the couch and I had been so afraid he would wake up and see me taking her out of the cage that I only held her for a few minutes before I stuffed her back in. Gerard told me I was allowed to play with her, though he didn’t use those exact words. I was ‘allowed to be free with her feathers’ or something just as fruity is what he called it. But I still felt like I was infringing upon something I shouldn’t have. Gerard was so close with that dove. It was his pet, his baby. He talked to it all the time and I was pretty sure that’s who he sung his opera to when I wasn’t around. He had boasted once before that the bird was special and exotic, all the way from Paris. I had always ‘ooh’ed and ‘ahh’ed and made all the appropriate noises in a half-assed manner when he talked, but that time, I was actually impressed. It was shortly after I discovered that the bird was from Paris that I began to gain more respect for it. The thing wasn’t just a damn dirty bird that looked like a pigeon. It was a dove, a beautiful and precious dove. And I began to play with it more, if only when Gerard was sleeping. He loved that bird; I just didn’t feel right getting in the way of it. I was there to clean. I just couldn’t help myself most days.

“Hey Van Gogh,” I whispered as I began to pet her smooth feathers. Even when the bird was dirty, rolling around in its own filth all day, her feathers were always so soft. I felt myself become more at ease around her, the stroking actions giving me something to focus on.

“Her name isn’t Van Gogh!” Gerard called at me from the kitchen, snapping me out of my dazed state, confusion hitting me awake again.

“What?” I asked, taking my hand out of the cage and shutting it. I leaned back and looked into the kitchen. I could see from where I was that Gerard had cookie crumbs all over his face, adding a childlike aura too him and successfully knocking years off his age. “I thought you told me her name was Van Gogh? After the artist who cut his ear off?”

“It was,” Gerard enunciated, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. I, on the other hand, was still confused until he clarified. “I changed her name.”

“Why?” I asked, still baffled. I had always been taught since I was younger that you give things a name, it sticks. If not, then I probably would have had a dozen name changes by that point.

“Why not?” Gerard called back, lifting up his eyebrows and challenging me. I was about to use my argument that people just didn’t do that when I realized that was futile. Gerard probably did change the name constantly because he wasn’t supposed to.

“It’s not like she’s going to come when I call her,” Gerard retorted, chuckling at his own joke. I couldn’t help but nodding, agreeing with him even if I did think the idea was a little dumb. I looked back at the dove – now no longer Van Gogh.

“What’s her name now, anyway?” I asked, probing for more information. I needed to name things; it gave everything more clarity.

“Dali.”

I screwed up my face. The name he had chosen before had been so unique and profound. The one he had now was just plain stupid. “You named your dove Dolly?”

A sudden eruption of laughter made me cease my thoughts. I had made another error of something that was much farther beyond my reach. Again.

“Dali,” Gerard repeated slower, the smile still on his lips. “After Salvador Dali. He’s another painter, but you probably don’t know him. He didn’t cut off any body part.”

Gerard looked over at Vivian and they shared a chuckle, one of which I was not invited into. Some art school inside joke to which I had no knowledge of. Though I liked learning when I was at Gerard’s place, I hated feeling like such an uncultured moron when I didn’t get something. I sighed heavily and shifted my weight around the window, emptying an ashtray into a nearby garbage bin.

“Gerard changes the name of the bird every goddamn week,” Vivian called over to me, her voice pleasant sounding and approachable. “So you better get used to the change.”

I turned my attention towards her and nodded. “He just names it after artists?”

“Pretty much,” Gerard answered for himself, nodding and taking a sip of his coffee while Vivian added to it.

“Ever since I got him the bird years ago from when I worked at a pet store, he’s been changing the names. And so far, he hasn’t run out of artists, which always surprises me.” She smiled at me, taking a drink of her coffee too. I looked back at her perplexed, but no longer by the names. It was another detail that caught my attention.

“You bought it at a pet store?” I questioned. She nodded and I continued. “But Gerard said he got it in Paris…”

Again, another eruption of laughter. But thankfully I wasn’t at the end of this one. Vivian’s wide smile turned to Gerard, who tried to hide behind his Formica coffee mug.

“You little liar,” she teased, punching his arm. He mumbled something to her that I couldn’t hear, which only caused her to wrap Gerard in a big hug, mumbling a few incessant, lovey coos into his ear.

“Gerard only wishes he’s been to Paris,” Vivian commented, turning again to me, the embrace with Gerard over. He was still hunched down, but he didn’t seem as embarrassed as he had been before. “He should have gone after art school but he didn’t.” Vivian glanced over at Gerard, a fiery meaning in both of their eyes.

“I couldn’t take you with me,” Gerard stated, trying to joke, but a hint of honesty slipping through. “That’s why I didn’t go.”

“You could have been a famous artist! Fuck – you are a famous artist. Minus the millions of dollars and shit. You certainly have the attitude for it,” Vivian continued, totally missing the candid quality in Gerard’s remark.

Gerard scoffed. He knew the attitude part was so true it wasn’t even funny. But the rest of it, well, there was something else I could tell he was hiding. “I’m happy the way I am,” Gerard said quietly, his voice almost lost in the depths of his coffee mug.

“I know you are, sweetie,” Vivian ushered, pulling him close for another hug. Gerard gave in slowly, not moving but allowed the woman to plant a kiss on his forehead. They stayed like that for a moment, while the commotion and eruptions of laughter subsided. Vivian looked behind herself at the watch on the table and gasped.

“I should get going,” she stated, getting up and rubbing Gerard on the shoulder one last time. She walked in my direction towards her clothes, undoing her robe as she went. I turned my back as she dropped the fabric again and began to dress right in the middle of the apartment.

“I don’t bite, Frank,” she teased as she poked her dark red hair through her shirt collar. I merely mumbled a response, not knowing what to say. She gathered up the rest of her things, giving Gerard a final hug and me a small meager wave before she closed the apartment door, leaving the artist and me alone.

And as soon as Gerard and I were alone, I couldn’t help but open my mouth. When I did, all of my mixed up thoughts came out to the surface.

“What the hell was that?” I asked, not in anger but in sheer and utter confusion. Gerard was still sitting at the kitchen table, his empty mug of coffee in front of him, leaning back on the chair. He widened his eyes from my sudden outburst as I walked forward. I was a few feet in front of him now, just at the beginning of the kitchen, my arms open wide, shrugging up to an unknown person.

“What was what?” Gerard asked me, his normal countenance setting in. He cocked his head to the side and squinted his eyes, somehow making his already powerful stare ten times deeper.

“That!” I said, motioning my arm towards the door Vivian had just left through.

“Vivian?” he asked innocently. I knew he was pretending though. His smirk and glimmering eyes gave him away. He was merely playing dumb, only to get me more worked up. And though I hated the idea of him having control over me, I played along.

“Yes!”

“She’s just a friend, Frank,” Gerard replied coolly, his voice almost liquid like the coffee he had just consumed.

“She was naked on your couch!” I couldn’t help but hear my voice crack as I said the last part. I was still nervous and awkward and remembering Vivian in the way she had been brought the feelings back and etched them in my voice.

“She’s also a model, Frank,” Gerard replied coolly again, his smirk raising high. He was enjoying this.

“But… she was naked…” I trailed off and looked down and my clenched fists. I was running out of things to say that made sense. A lot of thoughts were coming at me, but they were too garbled to get out of my mouth.

“So?” Gerard interjected. He stood up from the table and paced the small kitchen as he talked. “The female body is a work of art in itself.” He paused, looking over at me to see if I had anything to add to what he was saying. When I didn’t, he smirked as he continued, making hand movements so I could see just what he meant. “The ridges, mounds and curves – they’re all gorgeous. A woman’s skin is soft and malleable. When I paint it, I can make it anything I want. But there is already enough beauty for me to work with. The waist that indents slightly, then flows over to the round hips. Round, childbearing hips. They’re gorgeous, and useful. A woman’s body is full of life, tucked discreetly in between her legs. It’s fucking gorgeous, Frank. I’m surprised you haven’t studied it more often.” He looked at me again, that fucking devilish gleam in his eyes. I couldn’t say anything back to him. Sure, I had looked at women before, but never in the way he was describing them. He was defining them as beauty; as art. When I looked I could barely get past ogling breasts. I could never focus on the art of it all.

“Men, however,” Gerard continued, looking away and pacing still, his hands dancing like the flames trapped in his eyes. “Men are ugly. Right out fucking ugly.” He looked at me there, a smile spread across his thin lips. I looked back at him in shock, wondering if I had heard him right, but the look he gave me made it very clear. There was no misreading what he had said. And he continued, knowing just how strange it seemed. “Men don’t have curves. Men have ridges and bumps; ugly, straight lines. I don’t like straight lines, there’s no freedom with that. Men are ugly; not works of art. We have hair in places where we don’t need it, and there’s too much of it. We are large and gangly. We have corners. And don’t get me started on a penis. It has to be the ugliest thing ever created. It looks like a goose neck and gizzards. It just hangs there, limp and loose around piles of wrinkled flesh and stray hairs. Men are ugly. ” He sighed with the repetition of the last line, shrugging his shoulders and his hands coming to rest at his sides again, concluded.

I stared at Gerard a long time after he finished talking. What he was saying made a lot of sense, so much sense that I felt uncomfortable in my own skin and I had to shift again. I already felt ugly, but his description now gave me validation for that. I had ridges that got in the way. And when he put it in those terms, a penis did look like a goose neck and gizzards. I was reminded of all the turkey dinners my mom had prepared where the entrails were left inside the bird. It did look like a dick. And I felt disgusted being a guy. But I still looked at Gerard, perplexed. What he said made sense, but in another way, it didn’t.

“Aren’t you gay?” I asked quietly, finally being able to assess the courage to ask the mysterious question. I had only assumed it before, but now that my assumptions were being challenged - by Vivian, by this talk, by fucking everything - I had to know for sure.

Gerard smiled, in taking a breath through the corners of his open mouth. He leaned his head back, but didn’t laugh. He had stopped pacing by that point and when he placed his head back to its normal stance, only his hair moved as it fell across his eyes. It was silent for awhile before he answered the question, so much so that I thought I had offended him.

“Oh, yeah,” he finally uttered with that smile. “I’m gay. Very gay.”

I nodded my head slowly, feeling better that I had an answer to the indefinite question. But now I was only flooded with more.

“But what about Vivian…?”

“Like I said,” he stated seriously, nodding his head forward, the smile gone from his face and for once no second meaning in his countenance. “She’s just a friend. My best friend. And she models for me. I like the female body; it’s beautiful. But it doesn’t turn me on. At least, not anymore.”

“Anymore?” I screwed up my face again, probing this man for details. Though he had spilled his soul to me through his art collection, we had never discussed personal details. And now that we were, I could sense something opening up between the two of us. Gerard’s face was honest; no second meaning; no smirk. He was talking to me, really talking to me.

“Vivian and I were an item once,” he stated seriously, then rolling his eyes slightly as he added the next part. “Oh so long ago.”

“What happened?” I probed.

“Nothing, really,” he stated, thinking hard, trying to remember years in the past, to a time when I probably wasn’t even born yet. “It was when we were in art school – a time where everything was sexual. I wanted her to model for me, so I could get ahead of the class and draw her before anyone else did. We ended up having sex that night and a few nights after. But…” he trailed off, his eyes drifting to the other corners of the apartment as he gathered his memory together. “Things changed. Art school was over and we weren’t as sexual as we used to be – at least, with each other.” Gerard smiled remembering something distinct. “She became a complete exhibitionist. That woman could not keep her clothes on. And well, I couldn’t shake my affinity for the same sex. Despite the ugliness, I needed to have men in my life.”

“That’s so weird,” I finally stated after Gerard had paused for a long time, remembering events, just not letting them come to life again.

“Hmmm?” Gerard asked me, pursing is lips. He had zoned out slightly and wondered just what I found so weird. It was all so natural to him that he couldn’t fathom me not understanding.

“I don’t get how you can have sex with a woman but still be gay,” I asked him honestly, motioning vigorously with my hands from side to side, as if moving along a spectrum.

“There are exceptions to the rules, Frank,” he stated again, regaining his devious smirk. “Remember that. We all have our own exceptions. Vivian was mine. You still have to figure out yours.”

I found his words seeping into me, getting under my skin and making me uncomfortable again. So I changed the topic, trying to sort out some of my confusion. “But why do you like men if they’re so ugly?”

He chuckled at my remark, a deep throaty chuckle. “You’re forgetting that I like imperfections. In real life, we need them. They keep us grounded and whole,“ he explained, his voice clear and resonating. “Imperfections are necessary. Why do you think I keep you around?” He smirked at me, the double meaning radiating from his countenance. But I was too tired to figure out double meanings anymore. I had cleared up a few questions, but now I wanted to move on.

“You said we were starting our painting lessons today?” I probed, scratching behind my head. My voice came out weak and unsure, but at least I had broken the silence.

“Oh, yes,” he uttered, looking down at himself. He wiped his hands on his tight pants and began to clear away the table. He put the cookies inside his fridge (why I have no idea) and began to put the mugs in the sink, knowing that I would just clean them later. I started to walk over to his painting area, unsure of where else to head when his voice interrupted me.

“Just one thing, Frank,” he called from the kitchen. He dug through a pocket of his gray stitched dove jacket, retrieving something in the palm of his hand and walking over to me. He smiled as he took my own weak hand and dropped the object there like a dead weight. It took me awhile to adjust to everything, it had all happened so fast. But when I looked down in my palm I saw a pack of red and white staring up at me.

Gerard had just given me cigarettes.

I felt my face grow flushed, with memories of what I had done the prior day coming back to me. I raised my eyes and looked at Gerard who, though was on the same level as I was, appeared to be looking down at me. He wasn’t lecturing, just smiling, relishing in the fact that he had me right where he wanted me. I was caught.

“Next time you want cigarettes,” he informed me, the smirk spreading on his face fueled by pride. “Just tell me. You don’t have to steal from me. I would have gotten them for you.”

I took a deep breath and shut my eyes. I felt so fucking embarrassed. I couldn’t believe he had caught me. I didn’t mean to steal from him; that was not my intention. I just hadn’t been thinking. I didn’t know what I was doing when I took them, especially now that he handed me my own pack. He was handling this so well. Most people would have yelled at me, kicking me out of their place and never letting me come back again. I was a thief, but Gerard didn’t see it that way. When I was able to grasp enough courage to look at him out of the corner of my eye, all I saw was understanding. He seemed to know why I had taken the cigarettes. He understood that I wanted to make art on my own. And now, he was helping me.

If I had not been so embarrassed, I probably would have hugged him.

“Thanks…” was all I could manage to pull out of my brain and force through my mouth.

“No problem,” he insisted. He placed a hand on my shoulder to steady me; I hadn’t even known I was shaking. “It’s an awful habit to start, though. Really ages you.” He clucked his tongue humorously.

“Yeah, I know…” I nodded my head, not meeting with his eyes. I was convinced my cheeks were a scarlet colour and I wasn’t really in the mood for his joke. I needed to deflect all attention away from what had just gone on. “Can we just start the painting lesson?”

“No,” he said easily, shaking his head.

“What?” I asked, my voice catching. I finally looked up at him, wondering if I was being punished for my theft attempt. But I saw nothing but deep concern in his eyes.

“Go home, Frank,” Gerard told me. It was an order, but his soothing voice made it sound like more of an option.

“But why?” If I wasn’t being punished for stealing, then I saw no fucking reason to leave. It wasn’t even close to five yet. I didn’t want to face my house and mother.

“You have some issues to sort out today,” Gerard informed me. I cocked my eyebrow and tilted my head. How did he know if I had issues or not? I thought long and hard then, trying to come up with something. I just felt embarrassed beyond recognition. That was it, or at least that was all I was letting myself think was it. Was Gerard right? Was there more to my anxiety then what had just gone on today? I wondered, and my mind drifted back to what had happened the day before. I felt my cheeks grow hot.

“You can come in tomorrow for a lesson,” Gerard told me. “It’s a Saturday. We can paint all day if you want. Just show up whenever and we’ll get started.”

I looked at Gerard and he just smiled at me. I nodded slowly and the next thing I knew, I was outside in the hallway, my jacket on and a bag full of Vivian’s cookies in my arms. The realization that I would not be painting at all hit me hard and made my body feel weighed down. I wouldn’t have to wait too long for tomorrow, I told myself. I could come in the morning if I wanted to. But until then, I knew I had a lot of thinking to keep myself busy with.

Дата добавления: 2015-10-24