by A. E. Wasp
He found himself cruising the streets at night, windows down, and the cool air blowing through his hair. Mostly he stayed around the reservoir or took long drives to nowhere at eighty miles an hour on the highways.
When he started to find himself cruising slowly past small groups of kids huddled in doorways and in the parks, watching their hands as they traded packages of drugs back and forth, he’d stopped driving. He’d had to call his sponsor back in New York almost every other day. He could tell she was getting worried about him.
He had been getting worried about himself.
But now everything was better. Something that had been rattling loose in his head had settled at some point when Jay-Cee’s hands had been on him. He wanted more of it. He needed more of it.
It wasn’t love. They weren’t dating. It was only need on both their ends. They weren’t going to hold hands in the movie theater. Though screwing in the back of Jay-Cee’s luxury SUV at the drive-in movies did appeal to Chris’s exhibitionist streak.
He remembered the feel of Jay-Cee pounding into him, his face fierce and intent. Red lines circled his wrists where he had strained against the ties holding him down. Arousal stirred in him, and he palmed his cock. Maybe he could go again, just not as enthusiastically. Unless, of course, Jay-Cee insisted.
Grabbing a water bottle for Jay-Cee, Chris headed back to the bedroom.
But Jay-Cee wasn’t in the bedroom. Chris hadn’t heard him walking around the apartment at all, the sneaky fucker. He must be in the bathroom. Maybe Chris could talk him into showering together.
The bathroom door was empty, too. Fuck. There was only one other place he could be. Something churned in Chris’s gut at the thought of Jay-Cee in his studio.
22 – A cold and broken hallelujah
The feel of Chris shifting away from him woke Jay-Cee up, but he kept his eyes closed and his breathing even to give Chris some privacy. He took a second to luxuriate in the decadent bed and the feeling of satisfaction. God, he felt good. A little sticky and sweaty but good.
He can’t couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a connection with anyone like that. There were so many levels to Chris, so much to discover. It was like being with Chris pushed Jay-Cee to feel more than he had let himself in so long.
It pushed them both into a place where they couldn’t deny their emotions. Jay-Cee knew he had trouble accessing his. Between his upper-class WASP background layered with a West Point legacy, it was a miracle he could feel anything. He rubbed a hand over the tattoos. Some of the most personal ones were in the most sensitive places: his throat, his ribs, the backs of his hands. Feeling pain from the tattoos was expected, it was allowed.
His protectiveness, his–he let himself think the word in the privacy of his mind–love for Chris could come out with his hands on the boy whether in pain or pleasure. Not that those two feelings were ever far from each other. It was a circle of intensity, push hard enough in one direction, and the one tipped into the other.
At least this time he hadn’t slunk away as if they had done something wrong. He’d pulled Chris out of the whirlpool of his fears, given him pleasure in a way he’d always craved but hidden from, and then granted him absolution for those desires.
If only someone would do that for Jay-Cee. Some of the things in his head made him question himself.
With the satisfaction of having given Chris what he’d needed buzzing in his veins, Jay-Cee forced himself out of bed. If things went to plan, they’d be back in it soon enough.
Red-gold light leaking out from under the door to the other bedroom caught Jay-Cee’s attention again. He had to see what the space looked like in that lighting. Maybe he could bring some canvases over one day.
Opening the door, the first thing he noticed was the unimpeded view of the foothills glowing in the sun. No wonder Chris had taken this tiny apartment on the run-down edge of town. Jay-Cee was actually jealous.
Judging by the canvases stacked up along the walls, Chris was taking good advantage of this room. Most of the paintings that Jay-Cee could see appeared to be acrylic, but the one in particular that pulled Jay-Cee’s gaze irresistibly was an oil-painting. Incredibly detailed and glowing with the luminosity and jeweled tones of a Maxfield Parrish painting, the image hit like a punch to the diaphragm, knocking the breath out of him.
Reverently, Jay-Cee walked closer to the painting. It was a masterpiece; a portrait of a young man, a boy really, still in his teens, caught at the moment of his martyrdom. It could only be the Toby from Chris’s past.
Toby’s face stared up at him from the canvas, beatific and bathed in the same golden light that coated the foothills outside Chris’s window. Chris had depicted him as a contemporary St. Sebastian; naked, tied to a tree, and pierced by hypodermic needles instead of arrows. Leering men in suits, debauched and dissipated, surrounded him. Draped over each other and other naked young men, they drank from champagne flutes and laughed while Toby died in front of them.
Jay-Cee couldn’t have stopped the tears if he’d wanted to.
He cried for that boy and for Chris. They’d felt like healing tears; as if by mourning this one specific boy, he could finally mourn for all the men who had fallen.
This was the power of art. And Chris’s art reached deep into his heart.
23 – I like to keep some things to myself
“Jay-Cee?” Chris called, fear already a tickle in the back of his throat. There was only one place left for Jay-Cee to be. The door to the small bedroom he used as a studio stood half-closed. Pushing it open all the way, Chris walked in and stopped dead.
Jay-Cee stood in the middle of the room, one of Chris’s larger canvases in his hand. Hearing the door creak open, he turned. Seeing him there, Chris felt violated, like Jay-Cee had walked into his brain, into his soul, instead of into a room.
Were those tears on Jay-Cee’s face? Oh no. Chris could not handle that. His brain shrieked to a stop as it tried to shift gears from arousal to dread.
“Oh, Christopher.” His voice carried a deep sadness. Jay-Cee tilted the canvas to Chris like an offering. “Is this Toby?”
“Yes.” Chris strode into the room and took the painting out of Jay-Cee’s unresisting hands. “Don’t touch it.” God damn it. Of all the paintings in the room, why did he have to pick that one? He fought to keep his fingers from clenching around the canvas. “What are you doing in here? You shouldn’t be in here.” He sounded shrill in his own ears, but he couldn’t help it.
Chris knew why Jay-Cee had been drawn to Toby in particular. The painting glowed in the dim room, the layers of varnish he had used after each color caught the smallest bit of light and magnified and reflected it. The colors had a depth you could get lost in; it pulled the eye. Chris was a harsh critic of his own work, but this one was his masterpiece.
It had taken him almost a year and an ocean of tears to finish. Working on it had gotten him clean and kept him sober. But Toby had been stared at enough in life, this memoria to his death wasn’t for public consumption. It was so Chris would never forget.
And Jay-Cee was looking at it and crying over it, tears running unimpeded down his cheek. If Jay-Cee couldn’t handle Chris’s past, how the fuck was Chris supposed to deal with it?
Breath shallow and rapid, Chris pulled one of the stacks of canvas forward and hid Toby in the between two other paintings. He would take him back out when they were alone.
Jay-Cee had turned away to look at the work in progress on the easel in the corner, and Chris noticed that he was naked. The overlapping tattoos covering his skin made Jay-Cee seem dressed even when he wasn’t. The light slanting in through the windows poured over the riot of colors, and the dip and curves of his muscular back in a symphony of light and shadow that Chris’s fingers itched to get down in ink and watercolor even as he wanted to push Jay-Cee out of the room.
Jay-Cee crossed his arms across his chest, rubbing his upper arms for comfort as he studied the painting in progress on the easel.
&nb
sp; Chris had blocked out rough charcoal lines to guide his brush, and had laid down the first wide swathes of color to fill in the image. It was a promise of a painting, yet detailed enough that a viewer could make out the disembodied arms, bruised and track marked, that crossed the canvas. A photograph clipped to the top of the easel showed a younger Chris and his friends smiling as they held their arms out, crossed over each other in a brutal mandala of addiction.
“Oh, Chris,” Jay-Cee sighed, turning back to the room.
Chris felt blown open; the sex had hollowed him out, and he felt raw. He hadn’t been prepared to face this, and he definitely wasn’t ready for Jay-Cee to even be in this room. He’d been trying to forget the past.
“This isn’t for you,” Chris said louder than he’d intended. “This door was closed.”
There was pity in Jay-Cee’s eyes. Or maybe it was compassion. How could you tell the difference? Whatever it was, Chris didn’t want it, and he didn’t need it.
“They’re unbelievable. So raw. Beautiful and heartbreaking.” Jay-Cee shook his head. “You’re amazing.” Cradling Chris’s head in two hands, he leaned in and kissed Chris.
Oh, there was so much in that tiny kiss.
Chris had been calm, and at peace an hour earlier when Jay-Cee had held his face in the exact same way and shoved his cock so far down Chris’s throat he couldn’t breathe. Sex he could handle. He wanted everything Jay-Cee could give him there. He craved being pushed beyond what he’d thought were his limits. But this kiss was undoing him. In it, he sensed the possibility of something else between him and Jay-Cee; something terrifying in its implications. He wasn’t ready.
Lungs screaming for oxygen, Chris put both hands flat on Jay-Cee’s chest. “No. No,” he muttered against Jay-Cee’s lips. He shook his head back and forth, denying something he couldn’t define.
As Chris tensed under his hands, Jay-Cee pulled away. “What’s wrong?” he asked though he thought he knew. Chris had come in and seen Jay-Cee apparently breaking under the burden that he had been trying to learn how to carry. The timing was so bad. He hadn’t had time to teach Chris how surrendering made you strong. He didn’t realize yet that acknowledging pain is what made it possible to let it go.
“You’re not supposed to be sad about this,” Chris said, voice shaking. “You don’t get to be sad!”
Jay-Cee frowned. What was that about? “That’s not fair, Chris. How can I look at these paintings and not feel something? Of course, I feel sad. I care for you, and you are in pain. I’m not a robot.”
“That’s why you’re not supposed to be in here! This, this—” Chris pointed at the room “– this is separate. Things need to be,” he threw up his arms in exasperation, “separate.”
It looked like Chris had as many walls as Jay-Cee. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to invade your space. But this? Your past? It’s part of you. You can’t just cut it out of you and hide it away. That’s not how you heal.”
“That’s why I have a therapist.”
Jay-Cee tried to reach for Chris’s hand, but Chris twitched away, and Jay-Cee let his hand fall to his side. “Please. Can we talk about it? We really should.”
“Yeah, maybe we should,” Chris scrubbed both hands through his hair, making it stick up even more that it had been. “But not tonight. I just, I fucking can’t, alright? It’s been a long day. A really long fucking day and my head is spinning, and I need to be alone. So go. Please go.”
“I’m not going to leave you. Please. Come back to bed. We’ll get something to eat and talk.” Neither one of them had eaten all day. Food would help the situation.
He could tell Chris wanted to leave the room, but Jay-Cee stood between him and the door.
Why was everything going so sideways so quickly? If he could get Chris back in bed, get his hands on Chris one way or another, everything would be fine. He could feel Chris receding without taking a step. “Come on, come back to bed. Let me take care of you.”
“No! I don’t want to.”
“Is it because you’re worried I’ll think less of you because of this? Do you think there is any part of you I would reject? Can you seriously think there is anything about you I don’t love?”
Chris looked stricken, his face twisted in anguish. “I don’t want you to love me!”
No, of course, he didn’t. Jay-Cee knew that. “Why are you with me then? What do you want from me?” It felt like the thousandth time he had asked Chris the same question.
“You make me forget this,” he waved at the stack of paintings. “It feels good. When I’m with you, I just forget everything and feel good.”
“Jesus Christ, Chris. That makes me your new heroin!”
24 – Here to relive your darkest moments
Jay-Cee looked as angry as Chris had ever seen him. Well, that made two of them. Emotion swirled like a hurricane inside of him, and he grabbed onto that righteous anger like a life preserver. “Did you really just say that?”
“You just said you were using me to help you not feel. What part of that sounds healthy?”
None of it, Chris realized. He knew he was being unreasonable. The majority of his brain was still stuck back where Jay-Cee had said he loved Chris. At least parts of Chris. What? That was too much. Everything that had happened since getting the call from the hospital was too much, too soon. Jesus, was that just this morning? His hands shook, and he didn’t think his legs were going to hold him up much longer. He had to get Jay-Cee out of here before he had a breakdown.
“Look, just leave. Please.”
“I can’t do that.” Jay-Cee approached Chris cautiously, hand out as if Chris were a wild animal who was going to bolt. “You’re upset. Please. Come on. Let’s get something to eat. We can go out if you want.”
“Stop talking to me like I’m slow. I’m not a child. You pushed in somewhere you weren’t invited. And now I’m asking you to leave, and you won’t leave. Don’t tell me what I need like you know me better than I know myself.”
“I do!” Jay-Cee yelled. “I do know you.”
Chris leaned in close to Jay-Cee, raising a shaking finger. “No, you know what you think I am! You think you have me all figured out.”
Jay-Cee laughed harshly. “All figured out? I never have any idea what you are going to do next. You constantly surprise me.” He shook his head, then bit his lip and turned away. Taking a deep breath, he turned back to Chris. “You are the most brilliant, complicated, beautiful, difficult person I have ever met.”
Even angry, he still sounded like he thought Chris was something special. Someone to be taken care of.
“Stop saying shit like that!” Chris didn’t know why he was yelling anymore, why Jay-Cee’s words flayed him open in a way his hands could never match.
“You said you wanted this,” Jay-Cee said quietly, looking at Chris, his expression open.
God, so open. There was too much in his eyes. Just like his kiss. Was he hurt? Had Chris managed someone to hurt him somehow? Chris’s stomach flipped over at the thought. He never wanted to do that. He stepped back, putting more distance between them.
“You said you wanted me,” Jay-Cee continued, every word a bullet to Chris’s heart.
Jay-Cee didn’t belong there, in this room, in Chris’s heart. No. Chris had not signed on for that. He wanted freedom from choice, from pain. He’d wanted sex. Some external control. Not both of them bleeding out surrounded by the ghosts of every bad decision Chris had ever made.
“I wanted that!” He flung out his arm, muscles trembling as pointed in the direction of the living room, the bedroom. He pointed back through time to when Jay-Cee had gotten him high on pleasure and pain and made everything else go away.
“I didn’t want this. Not this. Not you, you fucking crying over me. Over my life. This is mine; this is private. It wasn’t part of the deal.”
“It doesn’t work like that!” Jay-Cee pushed his fingers through his hair in exasperation. God. How had they gotten here? He didn’t expect Ch
ris to love him, but he had to trust Jay-Cee, or this thing behind between them couldn’t work. And God it hurt to realize Chris didn’t trust him. He’d let Jay-Cee into his body, but not into his soul. Not yet. And Jay-Cee wanted all of Chris. Every bit of him. So much so that he was willing let Chris see parts of him even he hadn’t wanted to look at in years.
“What about…” He clenched his teeth to hold the word back, then thought fuck it. He couldn’t get his feet under him with Chris. Everything he did was wrong anyway. And he hurt. He wasn’t a machine, as much as he sometimes wished he was. Chris had opened him, flayed him with his gorgeous submission and these paintings and his fierceness, and he hurt.
This was the real pain – spanking, flogging, all pain of the flesh - they were nothing. Jay-Cee stared at Chris, arms crossed protectively over his chest. “What about me, Chris? What about what I want? What I need from you?”
“What?” Chris blinked a few times as if the thought had never crossed his mind that Jay-Cee needed anything from him. He probably hadn’t. “What do you need from me?” Chris asked.
Oh God. Jay-Cee could feel the tears pricking against his eyelids. That was the last thing they needed right now. He turned away and walked out of the small room.
The apartment was suddenly stifling with the heat of the lowering sun pouring in through the windows. Jay-Cee strode to the couch and grabbed his underwear. He couldn’t stand to be naked in front of Chris anymore.
Jamming his legs into the black briefs, he turned back to Chris who stood looking lost and unsure in the doorway. “What we have, what I thought we had, goes both ways. It’s not just me to you. You think all I want from you is your body? Just to what? Beat and fuck you and leave? You make me feel like a monster.”
Well, maybe he was a monster. Somewhere along the way, he’d lost the ability to tell man from monster.