Chapter Forty-Four Love: Part Three: Consumption

Gerard and I began to kiss again, the air of nervousness, forbiddance, and guilt completely gone between us. Gerard’s strong hands were shaking at first, and I chose to write it off as excitement. He was holding my camera, occasionally clicking and snapping a picture when his fingers would cooperate. He was proud of me; especially as I intercepted the object from him, and placed it properly where it belonged between my fingers. It was such a simple action to me now, just pressing the button and seeing the flash engulf the room, but to him it seemed like a fucking miracle. His eyes widened, his eyebrows raised, and his mouth fell agape, the breath gone from his lungs. It was a look of shock and utter amazement. And it was all for me.

He confessed to me that he really couldn’t remember when he had found his passion, it was kind of always there. Ever since he was a little kid, he colored in coloring books, he drew on random pieces of paper, and once he could find paints – fuck, he painted until the ink stained his hands so much he forgot what race he really was. Gerard had just always known he was going to be an artist. It was something he could feel in his blood the moment he was able to see things. He saw the beauty in everything, even from a very young age, and he wanted to – needed to show people. He couldn’t talk very well, having minor reading and comprehension problems, but you didn’t need to understand language to paint a picture. There was no language there, and if there was, it was something all by itself. There was a separate language, diction, and vocabulary for painters, photographers, and all those who were concerned with beauty – and now, to my utmost surprise, I was a part of them.

And fuck, Gerard was so proud of me. I had to crawl my way through my teenage years, on my hands and knees, covered in alcohol, only to get doused with paint before I could find an atmosphere where that part of me, the part that always fought to get out, could even have a fighting chance. I realized that though I had been living before, that part inside of me, the creative muse or something like that, had been dead. Or at least in an induced coma. Gerard had been the one to give it life. It started to breathe again when I was with him, but it took the camera, the flash in my hand, to set it living beyond a pulse rate.

And this new life I wanted to spend with Gerard, no matter what happened and what people said. He made me feel important and special, something that no one had ever done before. Sure, there was Jasmine. I loved Jasmine, I really did. But I also knew that I loved Gerard so much more, and she could never compare. There was an element of desperate measures to mine and Gerard’s relationship, even before we were caught. We knew we were doomed; we had to take our time and appreciate everything. With Jasmine, we weren’t doomed; only we could bring on that kind of damnation. Gerard and I never ever wanted to bring that on to each other, and I didn’t think we ever could damn each other. We fought, probably more than ever in the past few weeks, but we made up. We had to fight and leave and get separated to realize how much we did need each other. We couldn’t curse each other because we needed each other.

There was another element in our relationship that went beyond the creativity we shared with one another. We were saving each other. It was a risky business, saving lives. You could mess it up and let them fall and dash to pieces, or you could pick them up and let them fly high. It was a hard thing to do as well, but somehow I could see it in our eyes. We were saving each other, one painting, one picture at a time. We didn’t have time to curse this relationship because we were too busy saving the people in it.

I tried to take as many pictures as possible when we were together on his bed. It was hard, considering I wanted to keep my hands on his body and not on the cold piece of metal, but the room would occasionally be filled with the warm incandescent glow. In the split second it would fill the dark room, I could see his smile, and I knew that everything would be okay. I couldn’t wait to get the pictures developed, to show Gerard that for sure there was nothing wrong with this, and maybe show more people when the time was right. At that moment, I was still seventeen. My birthday was approaching faster than ever, but I still didn’t want to risk it. I couldn’t risk it. I would get these pictures developed, keep them and fucking cherish them as long as I could, and when I turned eighteen, was free and could do what I wanted, then maybe things would change. My parents would technically no longer be my guardians; I could do what I wanted then. I wondered if I could move out, and maybe Gerard and I could live together. I practically lived there anyway. I would just maybe have to bring a few more changes of clothing and I would be set (I wouldn’t even need much of that, considering we were naked half the time). I didn’t need much when I was with him. I didn’t need material things to make me happy anymore. The only material objects either of us possessed held onto something much deeper than what was on the surface. He may have held a paintbrush in his hand, but it was more than that. It had deeper meaning, like this camera, and like the photos from it. I knew though that once we started this relationship in the semi-public eye, even though it would be legal, it would be highly frowned upon. People would still think it was rape or at least unhealthy, even if they could gather no proof for it.

The issue with proving things though was that neither of the sides had evidence either way. Sure, Gerard and I could argue that we loved each other (maybe by the time I was eighteen and he was allowed to love me he would let himself), but people could still dispute that. Words could be read many different ways, and there was nothing solid to grasp. Once these photos – the things that didn’t distort the truth – came into the light, then we would have proof. And I could only hope that then they would leave us alone.

I was thinking years and lifetimes ahead in my mind, and quickly changed my focus to the present. Gerard had gotten a lot bolder with his actions, much to my delight. He had started kissing my mouth, sliding his tongue against mine in a heated kiss before he trailed down to my neck, while my hands started to undo his shirt. It was off in a matter of minutes, Gerard backing away for a moment to shrug it off his thick shoulders and then coming back to my body, getting on top of me like I had wanted since the beginning. He didn’t heave all of his weight on me at once, but gradually let our bodies blend together. I sighed and moaned into him, knocking our still clothed hips together and sliding my arms around his bare torso. I loved the feeling of his heavy body on top of mine. I began to kiss his neck slowly, while running my hands up and down his back, occasionally getting caught in his hair. He blew into my ear coolly, then began to traipse down to my neck and collarbone, His hands were on my bare chest and he stopped briefly at my nipples, lifting his body up over mine slightly, creating a space in between. I felt a sudden chill with his body removed, but he made up for it as his hand began to make its way to the rim of my pants again. After hearing a quick moan of approval from me, he stuck his hand down and gripped my cock once more.

I smiled, recognizing the familiar grip around me, and then thrust into him involuntarily. The camera was long discarded besides us, his elbow hitting it every once in a while as he pumped me gently. He would occasionally look down at me while he did his action, but it was not to see if I was okay; we had established that by now. It was to make sure I felt good, and to see what else he could do to keep making me feel good. I looked up at him and smiled a few times, telling him nonverbally that pretty much anything he did to me at that moment in time was a good thing. He began to kiss my neck again, grateful for the encouragement.

Gerard went fairly slowly, stopping every once in a while to get himself comfortable. It was an awkward position he was in, but he knew I wanted to stay like this, with him on top of me. It made me feel more at home and it made me feel good, just like he wanted.
But then I realized something. All this time, he had only wanted me to feel good. He never wanted to force me to do anything I didn’t want to do to give him pleasure, and though I knew that was impossible, I couldn’t help but get the feeling that he wasn’t telling me something. I would do things to him all the time, but looking back on it just then, I realized that he did ten times more for me, as usual. It was always him who was first to kiss me, give me a blowjob, handjob, or anything of the sorts. It was always him who asked what position I wanted to be in for sex, if he even asked at all. Half the time I led him to the position I wanted to be in, working off his nonverbal cues. It was almost like his opinion didn’t matter.

At the beginning of our relationship, I had been grateful he took all the initiative because I was so scared of doing it wrong. Even as we progressed and I gained confidence, it was never about him and always about me, and I merely took it for granted, never thinking about it. I had no other relationships for comparison purposes to see if it was normal. I began to piece together his subtle reasoning for always putting my needs first before his own; it was another measure in making sure he didn’t hurt me.

I suddenly couldn’t believe my selfishness, and shifted my weight under him to get his attention.

“Gerard,” I called, when my attempts had proven futile. I ran my hands up to the sides of his face and pulled his gaze to my own. He stopped, removed his hand from my cock, and merely rested our hips atop one another. I closed my eyes, feeling the contact and his slight bulge. I smiled, knowing that my question would not go to waste.

“What makes you feel good?”

He furrowed his brows at me, surprised I was asking such a thing. He didn’t answer for a long time, nervousness creeping into his system. Sex was about two people in Gerard’s mind. If one person wanted it but the other didn’t, then it wasn’t going to happen. He knew all along in his mind that he wanted to be with me; he just had to check to make sure I still wanted to as well. It was easier for him to give pleasure rather than receive it because he knew that he wanted to, and that he wasn’t forcing himself. Now that the roles were reversed and he couldn’t see all the way inside my head to be sure, it made him nervous. I probably would have been in his situation as well.

“Ummm,” he uttered, taking his gaze away from my own. He brought a hand up to his hair, twirling it in a lock haphazardly. I reached forward and grabbed the hand, locking it with my own.

“Tell me what feels good,” I said, trying to make it sound as caring as it did sexy. “You make me feel good all the time. I want to do the same for you.” I looked up at him from wide round eyes. He bit his lip and started to mumble again.

“You don’t have to…”

I sighed heavily and pushed my lips forward to meet his own, in a desperate attempt to get him to shut up and just let me help him. I kissed him for longer than a mere ‘shut up’ request, letting our tongues slide together again. When I pulled away, he was still left with his mouth perked up and ready for more.

“Gerard, what is your favourite thing to do?” I asked him, my tone straight and to the point. “In a general sense. I won’t do it if I don’t want to, okay?”

Gerard sighed once again, and I knew he was going to give in. He didn’t really want to tell me, but I was asking – and Gerard tried to give me everything I asked for. It was a simple request really, but from the way he hesitated and his eyes darted around, fidgeting with his hair despite my many attempts for him to stop, it seemed like the biggest thing in the world.

“Well,” Gerard finally started, talking faster than he needed to so he could just get the words out and over with. “Honestly, I love blowjobs –“

“ Really?”

His request wasn’t a surprise per se; I could see why he loved the act - I did too. But this was Gerard the artist I was laying underneath. I didn’t know what I had expected – maybe something kinky and weird with the amount of hesitation that came from it – but I had not been expecting that.

A blowjob, or at least the term for it, was so cheap and dirty. All the time in movies or pornos they took the word and gave it a degrading spin, sending its appeal right out the window. You got on your knees and sucked him off until he came in your mouth – and then you had to swallow it. I knew in reality that was not how it worked at all, but Hollywood was such a persistent and spiteful force in our society, it was hard to wash away stereotypes with one go.

Despite those forces, when Gerard and I gave each other head, it was a lot more slow and sensual. It wasn’t just a few hard sucks and then it was over. We took our time, kissing the person’s inner thigh, lower stomach, and touching them other places while the mouth did what it was supposed to do. It was so comforting to have a mouth down there; it was so warm and wet, and fuck, it just felt good. But from the artist… I may have expected something with finer meaning. Something where you felt like you were one person, one solid and whole body together. With a blowjob, it could so easily be misconstrued. You were lowering yourself, being completely subservient to your partner. It took a very special person to do that with where you didn’t feel like trash afterwards.

When I looked at Gerard, I realized that those stereotypes to blowjobs didn’t apply to us. We knew we were equal in each others’ mind. We didn’t just drop down to the cock and start sucking, we trailed our way there, taking time to absorb things. It was just like kissing for us, only it felt ten times better. Even the way Gerard said blowjob didn’t sound as cheap and filthy as in those movies I used to watch when I was younger. It made everything better somehow, and I realized that was the real reason he liked it so much. Aside from the fact that it felt so fucking good most days.

“Yeah,” Gerard said, addressing my previous question’ or something. He looked away, a little embarrassed. I had been so lost in my thoughts around the matter, I had almost forgotten he was there on top of me. I grabbed his hands and face gently again, making him look at me. I could see the flush echo across his fair skin, that for once wasn’t because of the position we were in.

“I can understand why you always give them to me now,” I said, letting him know that his choice wasn’t as startling as I had once thought it was. He smiled, a little embarrassed, but played along with me.

“I wanted to make you feel good,” he informed me, his voice barely above a whisper and practically spoken down into my chest. I wrapped my hand around his face, and chin, tipping his head up to me, fractions away from my lips.

“You do make me feel good,” I told him, scanning his face to make sure he did not feel one fucking ounce of guilt. It was a useless emotion, he had told me many times before. But just because something was useless, that didn’t mean we still didn’t try to make it work.

I brought my lips together with his, starting another passionate embrace. He gave into me once again, letting his hands rest on my waist and sides, rubbing up and down. My fingers traced over him the same way, rocking slightly into his still-present bulge. I was still hard as well, and I got even harder thinking of my next move, even if it wasn’t directly for me.

I began to wrap my hands around the waist of his tight pants, moving to the front in one slow (sort of awkward in between our heated bodies) motion, and started to undo the infernal item. He did nothing to stop me. I felt his cock come forth and knock against my half tugged down jeans, causing a groan to come from both of us. I focused as hard as I could on taking off his pants, running them off and around his hips, thighs, and butt, until I couldn’t push them anymore.

“Turn over,” I whispered into his ear, my breath hitched. I had been kissing him as our actions progressed, his hand working its way into my pants and pumping again. I broke the kiss and spaced out our bodies as much as I could so he could get the hint. He looked down at me, saw my devious smile, and realized where this all was heading. I didn’t just ask questions for the fun of it.

“You don’t have to…” he started, trying to assure yet again that this was not a forced act. But in my mind, I was determined. It didn’t matter what he told me anymore. I was going to make him feel good, and really, if there was any chance of a forced act, it was going to be on him.

“I want to. A lot. Just let me, please.” Before he could answer, I kissed him quickly. Feeling the persistence of my tongue, he slowly went back and laid exposed on his bed, his pants to his knees. He looked over at me, eyes pensive.
“Are you okay?”

“Never been better.”

I smiled, waving him off with a hand before I descended upon the rest of his pants, sliding his white legs tenderly out of the black fabric. I took my own off as well, laying our garments next to each other on the floor.

This was not the first time I had given him a blowjob – that was a definite no. There were plenty of times I had actually worked up the courage to do it and learned what to do with the thing when it was actually in my mouth. It was a lot harder when it was in my mouth and it took me way too long to develop some kind of technique. Even then, I still didn’t think I had it down pat yet. I didn’t avoid his cock entirely, though. I liked to hold it in my hand, squeezing and pumping it hard, rather than putting my mouth on it. Perhaps it was because that way, I got to see how his face looked when I did things to him. It always made everything so much better when I saw his mouth drop open in ecstasy as I gripped him, knowing that I was the one causing that pleasure flowing through his veins. Occasionally, I would dip down and plant a few kisses on his cock, but I tended to only do that for a few minutes at most, then move on to something else. Blowjobs were usually used as foreplay for us, never the main act – only on rare occasions.

Determined to change my past course of action, I lowered myself to in between his open and bent legs. I was going to make this the best and most detailed blowjob he had ever had.

He wasn’t completely hard yet, and though I wanted him to feel good instantly, I felt like working up to the sensation, teasing him a bit. He did the same with me all the time, and the anticipation was probably one of the best parts. Just seeing someone’s head start to go lower and lower, and just knowing that it’s going to feel good was almost enough to make me come on some days. Gerard was far from that stage, despite the lack of contact that had been thrust upon us for the past few days. I heard him moan almost instantly as soon as my hand gripped the base of him, pumping him slowly to get him erect the rest of the way.

I smiled, watching his eyelids flutter as his eyes went to the back of his head. I began to place kisses on the top of his knee cap, my lips and tongue gradually working their way further down. I stopped at his inner thigh the longest, my hand motions going right past my ear as I sucked and nipped at the tender flesh. I stopped slowly, realizing that Gerard had gotten hard faster than I had anticipated.

Not leaving his dick unexposed and un-stimulated for too long, I took a deep breath and placed my lips over the head. As I progressed, I tried to mimic and remember all of the actions he had done to me, testing out others to see if I could find any special quirks individual to him. I sucked hard, hollowing my cheeks and pulling his tender skin into my mouth, then languidly, letting my tongue slide gingerly down his shaft and over the slit. I could taste his precome, and though it wasn’t the best taste in the world, I knew it would probably be better than when he did finally come.

Usually, Gerard and I never swallowed the whole thing, and most of the time, we spit it out next to us. I had wanted to taste it before once, just to see what it was like, but I soon realized that once had been enough. It was gross, to be honest. I hated the taste, texture, and the smell. The smell was probably the worst. Its aroma was different from him and from the sex that filled the room after we were done. It smelled like feet coated with glue and I hated it. When we gave each other blowjobs, most of the time they weren’t to orgasm. When they did go to climax, sometimes we would pull away and just watch.

The memories of other prior experiences began to come back to me as I sucked on Gerard, and I decided that despite the nasty taste, I was going to try to swallow whatever he dealt me. I wanted to make him feel good and give him the best blowjob of his life; I had to try it at least once. I knew Gerard wouldn’t make me do it again if I didn’t want to. And I loved him for that, I realized, and began to suck him more.

I felt him place his hands on my shoulders, gripping me hard. His breathing was becoming erratic, the occasional moaned word falling from his lips, but for the most part all I could hear were his pants in between my head bobs. His hands gripped me, expressing more than words ever could.

I always loved it when he touched me during this act; it made it feel more human and personal. He never forced my head to go deeper or at a different rhythm. He was merely letting me know that he was still there and he was very much appreciative. He touched my skin, letting his hands caress my shoulders and go up to my hair, encouraging me even more.

I tried to take Gerard as deep as I could in my mouth, feeling him hit the back of my throat once. I had to suppress a gag once that happened, and my eyes watered a bit. It wasn’t too bad, and I kept trying to do it again, listening to his louder groans fall through. I had no idea how he did this act with what seemed to be great ease. He had probably had a lot more practice than I would ever get, or maybe he just had no gag reflex. Whatever the reason, I tried to work on getting rid of mine.

It was a lot harder than it sounded. My eyes started to water so much at one point I had to wipe a meager tear away, hoping he didn’t notice. He was far from it – his breathing had started to come in harsh gasps, lapsing as he tried to bite his lip to keep from vocalizing too loud. I was touching and playing with his balls before, causing him to buck into my face slightly. He was going to come soon, and with the threat of the upcoming action, I held his hips in place and positioned my hand at the base of his shaft to prepare myself. I sucked his head, the most sensitive area, until I felt the initial warm surge, followed by Gerard’s choking and gasping breaths. His hands lost their tight grip on my shoulders, which I was grateful for; I could sit up more and not be so confined within his legs.

My eyes flung open as soon as I felt the initial bitter taste in my mouth. It stung at first and was so hot and unexpected I nearly choked. I loosened my grip, remarkably still keeping my lips there in place and felt it all absorb into my mouth. I kept trying to swallow as quickly as I could, getting the horrible shit out of my mouth, but that plan wasn’t working so well. I became aware just then, once I had stopped pleasuring him, just how fucking hard I was. My bobbing action had caused some friction between me and the bed, giving me some kind of arousal. I needed something to get me off soon.

Once Gerard was done and I swallowed the vile substance, I was grateful for the distraction of my own erection. It only took a few strong pumps until I came hard in my hands, wiping the remnants of my own emission on his sheets. I looked up at Gerard, still panting hard and completely obvious to the action I had just done. He was lying in the weak and boneless state, his eyes closed in a desperate attempt to catch his breath while his body felt like it was going to float away. I smiled, knowing that I had done a good job, and crawled up to meet his face. I slid an arm around his chest and brushed some hair out of his eyes, but didn’t attempt to kiss him. I didn’t know if he would have wanted me to after what I had just done, and besides, he was still way out of it.

“Hey,” he said when he had come down, his voice still thick and sultry from the event. It had been a few moments that I had been by his side, pressed into my little corner of his body, when he finally looked down and met eyes with me. His lids were still positioned halfway down, dopey smile on his face. I laughed at how fucking relaxed he was, and felt him draw my face closer to his own. I hesitated at first, again not knowing if he really wanted to kiss, but apparently it didn’t matter – or he didn’t see me swallow – and he kissed me anyway.

“You swallowed,” he mentioned after, still quite peaceful from his euphoric state. I felt my body tense a bit, sensing that I shouldn’t have let him kiss me, but he pulled me closer for another one anyway.

“I’ve always hated swallowing,” he stated, rather conversationally.

“Really?”

He scoffed for a bit at his own remark, adding on a slight humoristic edge. “I know, I know. I’m a horrible gay man.”

“Haven’t you done it for me a few times before?” I asked, still laughing a little from his remark.

“Yes, but it didn’t matter then. You were happy, and so was I.”

He looked down at me with a large smile, baring his baby-like teeth once again. We may have both hated swallowing, but the fact that we had still done it solely for the other person made the bad taste in my mouth easier to bear.

“Speaking of happy,” Gerard mentioned with a quick seductive tone. I felt his hand rub my shoulder sensually, easing down my arm bit by bit. He kept eye contact with me, cocking an eyebrow to the side. My body was facing into his, my limp self-hidden beneath our folds of skin. His hand grew lower and lower, but stopped at my chest, asking me a final question. “What would make you feel good?”

I heaved a contented sigh, knowing my answer very well. I had already come and was perfectly fine with doing it on my own. I didn’t want Gerard to have to worry about making me feel anything anymore. Our relationship was about being equal. He had pleased me so many times the past few weeks that I could stand not having anything done to me for a while.

“I’m fine the way I am,” I informed him, no ounce of sultry tone in my voice. Gerard’s face softened, his hand relocating to the small of my back and pulling me closer to him.

“You sure?”

It was right then, in the way he looked at me, that I could tell he loved me back, without having to say a single thing.

I reached up and placed a kiss on his lips quickly, pecking softly a few times before snuggling close to his body. I extended my arm to the foreign object we had nearly forgotten about during this entire action.

“Trust me, Gerard,” I told him, feeling his own arm wrap around me tightly. “I’m better than good.”

I brought the camera to both of our eyesights, holding it high up and clicking it, the warm light flooding down on us, catching us in a moment of weakness together. I placed the camera down after one photo, still grinning. He was the one who placed the kiss on my lips this time, a lot slower and more sensual. When it was over, we pulled the covers over our bodies on the bed, arms, legs, and minds interlocked.

“I think we’re both better than good.” Gerard placed a small kiss on my matted hair. My hand was across his chest, gripping his other arm. I looked up at him with a sly smile, thinking of the best response.

“Picture perfect,” I answered, curling my tongue behind my teeth at the corniness of the remark. Gerard didn’t say a word, just rolled his eyes and kissed me quickly once more. We both sighed and prepared to go to sleep again, together in each other’s arms, the camera right next to our bodies.

***

It took me longer to fall asleep than usual; in fact, I laid awake for a long time after we had settled in together. I was tired, I could feel the weight of my eyelids dropping down by the second, but inside my head I was far from exhausted. Thoughts ran through my mind over and over again, repeating what had happened that night, the night before, and everything all at once. I saw that movie I had replayed for Jasmine of Gerard and our entire life together. I had to call it a life with Gerard, even if it had only been a few months. It was my life, since it had never started before. I wondered what Gerard called what we had; he had lived so many lives before me. He had had so many lovers, personalities, and friends that had made an impression on him. He had been to so many places and met so many people. He was fucking thirty years older than me. He had so many stories folded in his brain and masked out on his skin. I spent a lot of time tracing his chest, trying in vain to fall asleep. I took note of the certain little minuscule differences he had; his mistakes, though I knew the term in itself was impossible. A mistake was something that had gone wrong, something you didn’t want. All of the slight imperfections made Gerard who he was; it made him whole. I remembered his talk on imperfections; they kept you grounded. Gerard was pure though he was marred, because he chose to keep those imperfections right in front of others. I was dipping into the grooves and valleys of his wrinkles, loving them so much more than I ever though possible.

When I had been with Jasmine, her skin was so soft, delicate, and smooth. It had been a nice change at first, I guessed, but I felt like I could taint the skin with my very essence. I didn’t want to crack Jasmine; I wanted her to remain that delicate and fragile child. You couldn’t story-tell with Jasmine’s skin like you could with Gerard’s. I had never even thought that she had had sex before me; her skin didn’t tell me. Gerard’s told me everything, and I was never afraid of damaging it with my presence. I loved how his skin was tough, and despite my reluctance at first, aged. It made him appear so much deeper than he really was. His wrinkles and lines told his story, ones that I couldn’t always be around to hear. He had so many, lived so much, that I had to keep reminding myself of this fact, by simply touching him over and over again.

I was also touching him to make sure he, himself – as a whole, as a person - was still there. There were too many times where he was too close to leaving me, I just didn’t want it to happen again.

So I clung to his skin, his body, everything when I thought he was fast asleep, watching his stomach rise and fall rhythmically. I clung to him and thought of this man in my arms, and all the other stories he had up his sleeve. I had never known about Mikey until that night; there had not even been a hint of anything like that, or so I thought. Maybe I hadn’t been listening or looking close enough. Maybe I had ignored some of his stories, his hints and clues, and that thought alone scared me. I wanted to remember every last bit of Gerard, whether it was the name of his first pet, to where the mole was positioned on his inner thigh. He knew so much about me, or at least it felt like that some days. But then there were times like tonight, when he threw another curve ball at me, where I still felt like a stranger in his arms. A very welcomed and loved stranger, but unfamiliar nonetheless.

My mind reeled with this conclusion, coming back to a conversation we had taken part in the last night we had been together. Suddenly, I couldn’t just keep my thoughts bouncing off the tired walls of inside my head. I needed to talk to Gerard, even if that involved waking the sleeping artist.

“Gerard?” I asked hesitantly, wondering if my vocal outcry would do anything. He had always been a heavy sleeper, sleeping through some of our first few lessons and meetings. But to my surprise, he answered me, his voice thick and clear.

“Yes?” He moved his hand up and down my arm, showing me that he too had not been sleeping. We were both tired, I could hear it in his voice, but so captivated by our thoughts that even darkness could not let us go.

“Last time…When we were together…” I felt like a moron, not being able to just spit out what I wanted, and I hoped he contributed it to lack of sleep. He didn’t say a word, just kept rubbing my arm encouragingly.

“You said that life was just a bunch of experiences. Chapters in a book…When do you think our chapter will be over?”

I felt him breathe hard and heavy, tired in more than just the physical sense. I knew this was a hard topic that I kept drawing back to, but I couldn’t help it. I needed answers and clarification; if he wasn’t going to give me that in love, then I needed a timeline.

“I don’t know,” was all he finally answered. Even in the thick darkness of the room, I could see his lips pursing. “It could be a year from now. It could be tomorrow. I don’t know. I honestly don’t. But I have a feeling it’s coming soon.”

“Fuck,” I uttered, letting my head sink in heavy on his chest. I felt his arm grip me tighter, to try and make it okay, but it did nothing. He said nothing as well, leaving me to spill my thoughts. “I can’t have this be over so soon. I need for us to stay like this. Like how we were before we got caught. I need to stay with you. I’m not ready to leave.”

“I know,” he cooed, rubbing a hand through my hair and placing a kiss on my forehead. “You’re not. But you’re getting there faster than I ever thought possible.”

There was a sadness in his voice, attempting to be masked by his sense of pride for me. I crushed my eyes closed, never feeling so horrible at my accomplishments. He had always pushed me to keep going, keep learning as fast as I could, and I absorbed the knowledge like a sponge, but now we were running out of things to clean. I almost wanted to throw the camera off the bed, thinking it would help matters, when I would just end up losing the film I had waited so long to develop. But if this was all going to be over, why even bother keeping the pictures?

Memories, I told myself. Gerard was big on memories; he had called upon all of his in his own chapter book, still not done being written, and regurgitated them for me. I shouldn’t live in the past when this was over, but preserve the time I had with him now. Take the photographs, for more than just proof that it was okay. Proof that it happened.

“Frank, you found your passion,” he stated, as if mentally trying to deter me from sabotaging myself. “You’re getting closer and closer. You found what you have always been looking for. You’re almost yourself now.”

“What do you mean almost?”

This whole idea of finding myself had been weird and foreign at the beginning. I didn’t know who I was, other than Frank. Sam and Travis had always had titles. They were Sam the high strung druggie kid I had known since kindergarten, and Travis the kid who always smelled like pot. Even Gerard had possessed a name and a term when I was still just Frank. He was the fag artist, the creepy one that lived alone and no one talked to. But when I had come into his house, things had changed. He became a teacher, and I became a student. My role kept changing, but was never dead set on something. I morphed like a chameleon, only switching species. Now that I had found this camera, the entity that I could channel myself with (like the paint that ran in Gerard’s veins). I could find my whole identity. Like Gerard said, it was coming faster and faster. Things that you are passionate about don’t go slow; they seem to speed up time, making up for what you had already lost. Gerard and I may have kissed and touched slowly, but again, we were making up for lost time, engulfing ourselves in what we had in front of us just then. And right at that moment, in his arms on his bed, we could see it slipping away. I knew we would never drop – he would never just drop me and expect me to fly. He would lower me down slowly, right by my side every step of the way. He was sinking me slowly with just merely talking about finding myself. I didn’t want to be completely there yet, so I needed to find out what I still had to do, and avoid it at all costs. I had managed to evade it seventeen years, what was another little while?

“I don’t know,” he sighed, shaking his head against the pillow, debating the answer that swirled around in my own head. He thought for a while, the silence becoming thick as the jet black room before starting again. “You don’t seem quite ready yet. You’re almost there, but you’re still a newborn. You need to work up your vital signs still. And,” Gerard took a deep breath, willingly going into the painful confession. “I don’t think I’m ready myself to let you go.”

I flipped over so our chests were touching and I could look him in the eyes. “So don’t let me go,” I begged, my eyes wide and hands clutching at his shoulders. “You don’t have to let me go, Gerard. You don’t have to save me. You can keep me like your dove. I’ll still be your dove. I want to be. You can keep me in a cage if you need to.”

I was desperate by this point, and I clung to his clammy skin, grabbing at his thick shoulders. I let my head rest on his chest, not wanting him to see the anguish inside of me, and wanting to hear his heart beat. He let me turn away, his hand touching my back gingerly, as if I was still that breakable bird, just hatched and not wanting to be pushed from the nest. Gerard’s breath was cool and calm, despite the jagged nature of my own. I could feel his heart beating like the deadweight of a drum and I crushed my eyes shut, feeling my throat closing in on me. God, he wasn’t even leaving me yet and I was already like this. It was the first time we had been together in a long while, and I felt like I was spoiling it.

“You don’t have to leave…”

“You’re right. I don’t have to leave,” he stated, holding me closer. His words were too serious for me to handle, and the context that came out of them was not something I was used to. I dragged my face up to look at him again, his gaze catching me off guard. “I don’t leave, but you do.”

I let my head collapse onto his chest again, and felt his heart start beating faster, longer. It was like a bird was trapped inside his ribcage. It was like I was trapped in there, only I wouldn’t want to get out.

“You have to be the one to leave, Frank,” he reiterated, his hands still on my back. He traced his fingers up and down my spine lightly, sending shivers rendering my system, despite the heat of our bodies clinging together for some kind of validation.

“I won’t leave you.”

He scoffed, and brushed my back jokingly. “You say that now, but I know you’ll change your mind. It’s all part of growing up.”

“I don’t want to, then.”

“You’ll want to, trust me on this. You’ll want out of this place. You’ll want to be free. You’ll want to fly.”

“I don’t need to fly if you keep me in a cage.”

“But cages are pointless. Cages don’t let you be yourself, and more importantly, cages don’t let the creativity flow through your veins.”

His voice was so alive and carefree, it floated up into the air like the clouds. And yet, I was unresponsive. I just pouted like a three-year-old child, reverting into something I wasn’t. He sighed, picking up the camera from beside us.

“See this?” He held it in front of my face, making me sit up and actually look at the device. I was half-way down his chest, the object in between me and his chin. I nodded, and though I loved the object, I wanted to fling it across the room in that moment. This wasn’t about photography. This was about us.

“These are your wings. You’re still leaning how to use them. Doves don’t want cages. Why do you think mine flew away?”

I cast my eyes downward, not wanting to think of the majestic creature that was no longer in our lives. I fucking missed that bird, more than I thought I ever would. I found myself thinking about her as my mind was vacant and alone at home. She was the next in my train of thoughts when I wasn’t thinking about the artist himself; I was thinking about the bird that embodied the artists he studied.

“Do you think she’ll ever come back?”

“Depends,” Gerard debated, placing the camera down in between us, rather than holding it in his hands. His head bobbed from side to side, his mouth pushed forward in a thinking stance. “Sometimes you have to fly away first, and then come back before you really can be free. And sometimes, the keeper has to be the one to let the dove itself go.”

He looked down at me with a weak smile, and though I reciprocated, it was one of the hardest tasks I had to do. I had a strong feeling though that there would be many more of them.

“I guess…” was all I managed to say, resting my head back down on his body. I felt him pick the camera back up, but instead of moving it to beside us, or off the bed completely again, I heard the distinct click that was becoming as normal as a heart beating. Light flooded the room, and I knew he had taken a picture. I looked up at him, a mischievous smile on his face.

“You’re gorgeous,” he offered as an excuse, the smile twisting into sincerity. I leaned forward, taking the camera gently out of his hands and giving him a quick kiss as a thank you.

“No more taking pictures with my camera,” I teased him, half-seriously. “This is in my hands.”

“You’re completely right,” he stated seriously, catching me off guard. “This is yours. I should stop interfering.”

“No, it’s okay,” I insisted, reaching a hand out and bringing his face towards my own again. “I would have never found this without your help. I just wish you didn’t have to let me go so easily.”

“Hey,” he called, brushing my face like I had his own. I looked at him, though I pouted. “You’ve got the terms mixed up. Don’t think of it so negatively. I’m not letting you go. I’m setting you free. Think of it as a gift…”

I nodded my head, comprehending the idea. It was a gift – and a fucking amazing one at that. Though I knew the contents of the box it came in, I still had no idea what was inside for me. It was a gift I wanted, but had never asked for. And really, those were the best kind. I just didn’t know what I could ever give him in return. I glanced back up at him, his smile raised from the depths of the dark room. He seemed fairly content without a present of his own.

“Gerard,” I questioned again after being in the room in a comfortable silence. I still had a lot more things on my mind to ask.

“Yes?” his voice was clear and concise, his hand brushing my hair. I could have almost fallen asleep right then, if it were not for the banter in my head.

“When we’re done with this,” I nearly choked saying the words, “will there be anything more? Like with Vivian?”

“It’s hard to be something when you used to be everything,” he answered clearly, his palm resting firmly on me.

“So, when we’re done…are we done forever? Like the end?”

“There is no such thing as forever, Frank,” he told me seriously, making me think of the discussion on this we had had before. Those words gave me hope – a paradoxical hope that maybe, just maybe, it would never be over since nothing could last forever, a beginning or an end – maybe we could stay in a transparent state of time. It still was impossible, I knew, especially as Gerard carried on.

“But there will be an end. Just not the end of the book.” He paused, his serious state falling a bit. He scoffed as he continued, trying to add a black humor to the matter. “You never know, though. I’m old. It could be the end of my book soon too.”

“I hate when you talk about death.”

The words came from my mouth slowly, barely even there, like my wish for that dreaded element. I hated talking to Gerard about death and dying even more than about his old age. The two corresponded with each other, and reminded me over and over again of the negativities of this aspect of us. I tried to focus on the positive all the time. Yeah, Gerard was old, but he was wise and knew a lot more. He had a lot of stories, he was more distinguished, and he could appreciate me more, for some odd reason. I didn’t like to hear him talk about his upcoming death, even if he was only almost fifty. Ray, his first long term lover, had died when he was about Gerard’s age. It kept me on the edge of my seat, making me realize that Gerard and I may not only be separated by the society and each other, but by a fucking element that no one – not even the government – had control over. It was scary. I didn’t want to hear about it, especially when other fears were eating me alive.

“Okay, we won’t talk about death,” Gerard consented, maybe the same thoughts coming into his mind as well. The only thing scarier than death was thinking about your own. We both had so much to live for right in the centre of the small bed, in the small apartment in the small town, nestled in the fucking huge world. It was times like that, where even the arrogant Gerard, felt like a speck of dust. When death lay waiting at its most prominent of times, he doubted he could change the world.

“There will always be an end,” his words almost mocked his own mortality, and I buried my face into his neck.

“Don’t say that…”

“Frank, there are some things you have to accept,” he came out quick, his words sharp and ready to mark. They weren’t set to scar, just to imprint. I was paying attention again, trying not to whine my way through it.

“There are some things in life you cannot control, and the moment you understand them is the moment you can fight them.”

“Fight them?”

“Yes, fight, of course,” he said, smile on his lips, practically oozing the strongest philosophy to date. “There is so much passion in fighting. So much freedom in it too. You fight to break the rules, you fight to make your own rules, and you fight to reclaim everything as your own, everything you are.” He paused, looking down at me as I gazed at him with my mouth agape. I liked his words, I liked them a lot. It was the first time I could feel hope fluttering inside of me.

“There may be an end to a book, Frank, but that doesn’t mean all books follow it.”

I furrowed my brow, liking where he was going, but not grasping it fully. I felt like we were starting our relationship all over again, and I was back to being the naïve boy that had fallen in love with him, despite his many, many tries to stop. Some things were just too good to pass up.

“What do you mean exactly? Don’t all books have an ending?”

“Yes, but there is no such thing as ‘the end’. It’s just when the author chooses to stop writing. There is an end in that sense; that something can’t go on and on forever because there is no such thing. It needs to end somewhere; the author needs a rest. But that doesn’t mean that something will never happen again. There are things you’re forgetting. Things you’re missing. Keep thinking, Frank.”

I did as I was told, relating to his words in some odd manner. There were some books I had read, though I didn’t read all that many, that I had felt so attached to I never wanted to put them down. The place they were set in was real, the people were real – even if they were only characters. They felt three-dimensional some days. I wanted to reach out and touch them, or to at least go into that world of theirs. It was the same way with the movies I watched. They were my form of escaping, because I hadn’t liked the world around me. I used to cling to the screen when I was younger, because I had no story of my own. Now that I did, I still felt attached to the pieces of cinema I chose to watch because they reminded me of my own story. The weeks I had spent with Jasmine and we fed our daily movie kick, I started to wonder how Gerard and I would end, and if it would be big-screen worthy and how I could make it such. I thought declaring my love for him in his apartment would be one of those climactic moments, monumental to the film’s plot. Though it had been, it definitely did not go off how I wanted it to. I began to comprehend that I couldn’t plan things and make assumptions like I had because there was no one writing this. This was not a movie or book or anything fictitious. This was real, and dealt out to us. Nothing could change it, no matter how much we wanted to try. This was fucking real life, and the end really did mean the end.

When I had read those few select books, I had always wondered just what happened to the character at the end. I was only there for a split second of their life, split into the many pages, letters, and words. Same with movies; it was only a reel of film, not the reel of their entire lives, even if they were fictional. They kept on living in my mind, and I sometimes made up stories for them to continue. But I wasn’t a kid anymore, Gerard and I were writing our own story, even if he wasn’t that good with words and I couldn’t find the right way to speak most of the time. We were doing this together, and if we ended it – we really did end it. When our lives ended, so did our theoretical book.

Didn’t it?

“What do you mean? What am I missing? What about us?” I pestered, coming up with nothing. “I really don’t get it.”

He sighed, but explained easily. “Some stories, though they have endings, that is not all there is. There is sometimes an afterward, providing closure and including one other story. The technical term is an epilogue; a key piece of literature wrapping up the character’s fate. It may be short, it may be seven years after the initial piece is finished, it may be in another country, another lifetime away, but,” his breath caught him off-guard, cutting the statement in two, “ fuck, it’s well needed.”

I grew quiet, absorbing everything. I saw the metaphor that he had presented in front of me, and though I wanted to grasp it with my hands, I couldn’t. It wasn’t a book he was talking about, it was a life. A real human life that we were sharing together.

Sometimes, ever since I was young, I would sit in my bed at night. I would stare at the ceiling and just think. I figured the first time this phenomena had happened was when my goldfish had died, and the idea of death was given to me to ponder for that night. I laid there under the covers, looking at the drywall. I counted the ridges and then counted the days my fish had been alive. Twenty seven days. In that moment, inside my tiny eight year old body, I had an epiphany that this was life I was living. This was fucking real, and not everything lasted forever. Gerard’s words from before punched me in the stomach, just like that sensation of being did just then. I had looked at my hand when I was eight on that bed, and really saw it. I was real. I was animate. This wasn’t a story or a book or anything. I was living. And that meant I could die.

Everything suddenly seemed a lot more permanent and a lot more fragile in that split second of time. If I didn’t like what was going on, I couldn’t just wake up or re-write something. No, in reality, there were no such things as erasers. Instead of wondering how to fix what had happened, I had to live with it – and live with it for the rest of my life. But I was still fragile in the sense that life could be taken away any at moment, in any instant – and I couldn’t do a thing to stop it.

Did death mean the figurative ‘the end’ though? Was that when the author stopped writing? Was Gerard hinting at something more than just the life and death and what I thought to be rules of life? Was there something more to that, or was it just a book he was talking about, rambling off at the mouth like he normally did? I didn’t know. And when he said his next words, I didn’t care anymore.

“There will be an epilogue just for you, Frank,” he said, drawing his words out, dripping with sincerity. “There will be that much needed closure after everything is over. Whether it’s at the end of our chapter, or the end of something else, we’ll break the rules again, just like we are here and now.”

Gerard looked down at me and we just stared at each other for the longest time, while thoughts ran through my head. He grasped my hand, squeezing it harder than he ever had before. I didn’t know if I felt it more because I was weak, or I was so exposed. Or because I felt the exact same way about him.

Everything started to piece together again. I had almost taken the pieces for something normal, when they began to fall back into place, I didn’t recognize what I was looking at or feeling. I need to shove off my growing up. My growing up was another chapter, another experience in my own book, another picture I could paint, and another photograph I could take. It was a part of me. I needed to keep it. Gerard and I may end at some point, but characters always came back into novels later on. Jasmine came back from the cottage when I didn’t think she would. I thought I had ditched Sam and Travis when I met Gerard, but they came back. Even Vivian, who I had only known as the naked model in Gerard’s apartment, had come back. Things worked out in the end, they always did, in some twisted form of mangled fate. And if my fate didn’t reach its full potential during the main context of the story, then that was what the epilogue was for. It sealed up all the loose ends and gave something well needed. Gerard was the main character in his book, and I was the main character in my own. And together, we would both have an epilogue about the other, because we were the other person’s fate. Our books could go on for ages, for years (his already had), but in the end, in the afterward, after everything else was closed and left off, we would be together. It may take years - some of the best works of art and literature did. But it would be worth the wait.

We just had to enjoy our chapter in the moment, be there for every step every detail of it being written.

Logically, I knew this was real life and not a piece of fiction, but art imitated life. Life imitated art, and eventually there were no distinctions between the two. They bled so readily together that I just had to accept it for what it really was.

Coming to my senses, I pressed my lips against Gerard. We kissed easily, adding more detail to the metaphorical page we were writing on. I kissed him like there was nothing wrong with it, like we had all the time in the world. Our mouths met like usual, but it was so much more than that. There was a painful intimacy, as our noses brushed up against each other, hands going to the others flushed cheeks to keep it in place. The pain we felt was something we wanted and expected. There is pain in everything, Gerard had told me once, when I had feared the element. But we need pain in our lives to know it was real, but just enough so it was not enough to stop. It was real; we were real. We didn’t live in a book, but it felt like that some days.

The kiss had to end, our tongues too swollen to press on. We were both tired and aching from the awkward positioning and the emotions brought to the surface. I still kept my body on Gerard’s, my head going back to its original position on his chest. He wrapped his arms around me tightly as I continued to trace his skin in the dark. My hands didn’t want to do too much work, and I gave up soon after, letting myself rest solidly on his chest as it rose and fell. He tangled his own hand in my dark hair, and I felt the goose bumps seize my body from the lack of contact to the area. He must have heard my breathing change, because he began to stroke my locks slowly, almost luring me off into sleep.

“Frank?” His voice conjectured with his actions, making me stay awake a little longer to hear him out. His voice was higher than normal, the uncertainty coming through. He still stroked my hair, the rhythm slowing and the pressure increasing.

“Yes?”

He took a deep breath, finally breathing out the words that hurt him as much as made him smile.

“I love you.”

Дата добавления: 2015-11-14