Craigslist 51
WARNING
This story details explicit gay sex between men, teens and boys. If you find this kind of thing distasteful, or if you are underage wherever you live, then stop reading this now, and delete this file. The story is completely fictional; the author does not condone or encourage any of the acts contained herein.
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Craigslist
Chapter 51
By: Tim Keppler
Three months later a package arrives. It's a large package, probably 24" X 36", and about 3" deep. It's addressed to "Mr. Jensen" in really-elegant handwriting, and just as I'm about to open it, the DHL guy rings the doorbell again. "I'm sorry," he says, "I've really botched this delivery. There are seven more boxes in the truck for you," and saying that, he hands me two more. These are even larger than the first, and the remaining five are about the same size. I sign for all of them, all similarly addressed to "Mr. Jensen" in that really-exquisite handwriting. Oddly, there's no return address, although I imagine that the slips the delivery guy tore off each box had a return address. But because those slips represent the confirmation of delivery that I had to sign to take possession of the packages, he took them with him. I've no idea who these eight boxes are from. I move to the office, and rifle through my drawers looking for an Exacto knife that I know I have somewhere. You know how that works. You can never find something like this when you need it. I move next to the kitchen and look in the "miscellaneous junk" drawer that we all seem to have, and there it is. Back to the entryway I go, and I proceed to open the first box -- slowly, carefully. I've no idea what's inside, so I don't want to inadvertently cut anything inside. When I get the box opened, I slide out something wrapped in brown butcher paper. When I tear off the butcher paper, what I'm left with is a canvas, a painting, a very-colorful painting of a woman. She looks to be about sixty, and is wearing a colorful dress. She's actually rather beautiful, although she has clearly known life -- her face is lined and her hair streaked with grey. Her eyes are kind, and a little puffy. The pattern on the dress is intricate and took someone a lot of time and concentration to paint, I think. She's seated, her hands folded in her lap, in a large chair, upholstered in what looks like a brocade, and again, the pattern of the cloth is stunning, as is the carving on the frame of the chair. She has the tiniest of smiles playing around the edges of her mouth, a sort of shy smile. I can imagine her feeling a little embarrassed to be the subject of this painting. The painting is signed, but I can't read the signature, which I find ironic given how carefully the dress and chair are painted.
I prop this painting against the wall, and open the second box, and once again I slide another butcher-paper-wrapped object out. Tearing the paper away, I find another painting. This one is of a very old man, maybe 80 or 90. He's either sleeping or dead. His face is wizened, as are his hands, resting on the blanket that covers him. Here again, the pattern on the blanket is intricate, but that's not what's so impressive. It's the lines of his face. He is so peaceful, and so old. He looks Hispanic. His face is craggy, but stunningly depicted. And, there's an interesting effect between the foreground and background. It's almost like a photo. The painter has focused on the foreground, on the old man, and blurs the background, as though it's gone out of focus. This isn't to say that the painting looks like a photo. It doesn't. There's style and real technique, here. I prop this against another wall, and move to the next box.
From it, I get a portrait of an infant in someone's arms, presumably his or her mother. Again, the detail is spectacular. We only see the arms and lap of whoever is holding the child. It's the child who is the subject of this painting. Honest to god, it reminds me of a Georges de la Tour in the detail and the use of chiaroscuro, and the gown the child wears is so detailed. It looks to be lace, and is just spectacular, and nearly detracts from the portrait of the child itself. The child has fine dark hair that seems to sparkle, and he or she seems to be just waking up from a nap, because the eyes are half closed and drowsy. But, the child is staring directly at us. It may be the most dramatic of the three paintings.
Next is a landscape. It looks like a field of poppies. Out of the next box I draw a portrait of a Hispanic man. I don't know exactly how to describe this painting, because it's subject looks enormously old and yet very young. Like the portrait of the infant, this man is staring right at us, and doesn't look well. His skin is mottled, his cheeks hollow, and his eyes without expression, flat. His eyes are so different from those of the woman in the first painting, whose eyes are lustrous, alive. Once again, though, the detail of the face is extraordinary, down to the tiny mole on his left cheek. He looks sad, and not teary-sad, but resignedly sad. He looks hopeless, and I'm not sure why. I'm not sure how he gets that effect. Again, the artist blurs the background, manipulating the depth of field. And then I see the thing I've missed. This guy is holding a paintbrush. Maybe this is a self-portrait, one of those paintings where the artist paints it by looking in a mirror.
The next box contains another landscape. It looks like a rustic village, maybe adobe, I'm not sure. There is a dirt road and an old truck in the background is coming toward us. There are people on the road, and they've moved to the sides of the road to let the truck pass. You can see the face of the driver behind the windshield. Again, this is exquisitely detailed, but I'm not sure what to make of it yet.
I'm in the process of opening the second-to-last box, when the DHL guy rings the doorbell yet again. "I'm so sorry," he says. "There was one more package. I'm really a klutz today." He hands me the package, I sign for it, and he pulls off the confirmation slip.
I smile. "This is it, right?"
"I sure hope so," he says with an embarrassed smile, walking back to his truck.
This one is a large envelope, which I toss onto the chair. I'm just too intrigued with the paintings. I move back to that second-to-last box, cut it open, and pull out the painting which, like the others, is wrapped in butcher paper. When I tear the paper off this one, though, and turn it over, I gasp and immediately tear up. There before me is an absolutely-perfect representation of...Ian. He is resplendent, his blond hair shimmering in the sun. He has a sort of enigmatic smile on his face, and is wearing a shirt I remember well, a shirt he loved. It's an orange t-shirt, which goes so well with both his skin tone and his hair. It has printing on it that reads "¿ I M R U 2 ?" across the chest, but the shirt is wrinkled right down the middle of it, obscuring the "R", and that wrinkle is perfectly shadowed, and leaves just about half of the "R" showing. His eyes are so blue. He's holding a beat-up canvas bag that has something in it. It's not clear what. This picture tells me who the artist is, both by its subject, and by a signature I can actually read. I spend several minutes staring at it, trying to focus on it...through my tears.
And then I realize that I have one box left, one more painting. I slit the top open, pull out the painting and tear off the butcher paper. It's another of Ian. It's a nude. He's lying on a bed, on another exquisitely-rendered blanket, a blanket I know well, a blanket we bought at IKEA. He is breathtaking. His eyes are only half open, but sparkle. Like the infant, he looks like he's just woken up, but he has this radiant, this beatific smile, and like he's just woken up drowsily recognizing the person he loves most in the world. His skin is flawless. He's lying half on his belly and half on his side, facing the artist, his uppermost leg pulled up toward his chest, obscuring his genitals. And, again, the use of chiaroscuro makes this painting so dramatic! I set it against the wall, next to the others, and stare at them for probably half an hour, looking from one to the next, and back again. As a body of work, this is stunning.
Then, just as I remember the envelope, Jason and Kenny walk in the door, coming home from San Jose State where Jason has given a free concert to promote the Symphony. The instant they step inside, they freeze and stare at the paintings. And then Kenny gets glassy-eyed as his gaze falls on the portrait of the Hispanic man, the one I thought might be a self-portrait, the one I've sort of forgotten about. "That's him!" he chokes. "That's Alejandro. He looks worse in this painting. I honestly didn't recognize him at first when he came to our door. He looked so...sick. It was the sparkle in his eyes that I recognized. That sparkle is gone here...and he looks so...sad. He breaks my heart," he chokes. "Portrait of the artist with AIDS. And, what a waste. He's so...good!"
"He was," I say, tearing up as I read the contents of the large envelope. "He died two weeks ago, it appears."
Jason, who has been looking very sad, on the verge of tears, succumbs. He and Kenny hug as I translate what appears to be a cover letter from Alejandro's aunt -- written in Spanish.
June 13, 20XX
Dear Mr. Jensen,
I am sorry to say that my nephew, Alejandro, has just died of his disease. He was so young, and I am very sad. I miss him very much! My sister and her husband would have nothing to do with him, which is a great shame because he would have benefitted from their affection and support. He was a very nice boy, very considerate. And, he was so ashamed about how he treated you.
I look up in surprise. "Oh, Christ. These were intended for Ian. They were all addressed to `Mr. Jensen.' I assumed that was me. Oh, fuck!"
It was his wish that, when he died, I would send you several of his paintings. There are eight in all, and I've included his descriptions of these paintings with this letter. I hope you find them as beautiful as I do, and I hope you can gain some solace from them. And, I hope you can forgive him. He loved you very much, Mr. Jensen, and wept about how he treated you to his dying day. But, he felt he had no choice. He felt that it was unfair to put you through the agony of watching him slowly wither and die, and he felt so guilty about having betrayed you. He really was such a sweet boy, although his judgment was sometimes questionable. I loved him dearly, even if his parents did not.
His death was not easy. He wasted away, suffering from skin ailments, and finally blindness, which I think was hardest for him, because he was very visual. The drugs prescribed for his condition did not seem to help him. Ultimately, he died of pneumonia. While I loved him dearly, it was time for him to go. He is now in a better place.
I have shipped the eight paintings to you, the ones he asked me to send. The rest were sold before his death to finance his medical treatments. They were sold both here in Mexico, and to collectors in your country where they've been in much demand. He is well known in the U.S., I think, and is certainly well known in Mexico. He is very good, I believe, or was very good.
Sincerely,
Rosario Fernandez
By the end of the letter, we're all choking on tears. I move into the office, and call Ian, inviting him to dinner. "Bring Leslie. Can he come?"
Ian covers the mouthpiece and calls to Leslie. "Yeah, he can come," he replies, seconds later.
"Good. See you at seven?"
"Yup," he replies.
And, a little after seven, there's a knock on the door. I answer, blocking their view into the entryway. "I need to warn you both. This isn't just about dinner. There's something else, something that's likely to be emotional." Then I hug Ian, take his hand, and lead him into the house. The minute I move out of the way and he sees the pictures, he covers his face and starts to cry, and then he takes his hands away, and stares.
"I've never seen most of these," Ian chokes. "I've seen the one of the child. That's his nephew, his sister's first child. His sister was so kind to us. His parents rejected him, but his sister embraced him, embraced us both. And, the field of flowers is from Mendocino. He painted it while we were there. But I've never seen the rest. I've never seen the pictures of me, and I didn't pose for them. He must have painted them from memory after he...left me. The woman is probably his aunt, and the old man may be his grandfather, who was dying while we were still together. I don't know who the Hispanic guy..." And then he stops, freezes, stares at the painting, and starts to sob, turning to Leslie and hugging him, sobbing. "Please, can we go into the kitchen?"
I nod, and lead them to the kitchen where we sit. Leslie holds Ian while we wait for him to calm down. It takes a while.
"Why would he send these to me?" Ian asks, still crying. "Why would he do this?"
"Because he loved you," I respond, softly. "Because he adored you. And, I wonder whether that self-portrait didn't have something to do with guilt, with confession, with a desire to show that he suffered. It is really...devastating, that portrait." I pause for a long moment. "He died two weeks ago, Ian," I say, passing him the Aunt's letter.
He reads it, and as he does, he starts to sob again. Finally, he stops crying after several minutes. "I don't want them," he says. "The paintings, I don't want any of them. I just can't look at them. I'll never be able to look at them. They're just too painful. You keep them. Keep them here. Put them in a closet somewhere. Let them...collect dust," he chokes. I have no intention of letting them collect dust. They're just too beautiful, but we can find a place for them here where Ian will probably never see them. Yes, they make me sad. They make me profoundly melancholy, but they're also stunning. They deserve to be seen, and that gives me an idea that I'll pursue tomorrow.
In the mean time, we ordered take-out. None of us has the heart to cook. We order pizza from around the corner. Ian isn't very hungry, and Leslie spends his time comforting Ian rather than eating. In truth, none of us is very hungry. Only Kevin and Kai eat much, demolishing two slices apiece. They're blessedly oblivious, as they should be. The rest of us are not.
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I know one of the curators at the MOMA (Museum of Modern Art) in San Francisco. I met him at a party several years ago, and we've stayed in touch. Subsequent to the party, my interest was piqued by a Hockney exhibit, and, having met him, I called asking for information on the artist and his style, which I found a little...odd. Don't get me wrong, I really liked it, but it struck me as sort of...what?...neo-realist, I guess. He chooses very mundane subjects sometimes and paints them nearly life size. I was fascinated. It's this same curator I call today and I ask if he's ever heard of an artist named Alejandro Rodriguez, a modern Mexican realist painter.
He pauses for a long moment. "Umm...yeah. We just bought three of his paintings for our permanent collection, and I think we're lucky to have gotten them, certainly lucky at the price we paid because there are rumors that he passed away. That will quickly send the value of his paintings through the roof. He's very, very good, and in a style that's not especially prevalent now. He has an amazing capacity for detail, both in terms of textures, but also in terms of...emotion. He has a gift for depicting the...feelings of his subjects. That may be because he's gay. You sense the empathy in his paintings. Have you seen his work?"
"Umm...yeah. My son owns eight of his paintings."
There is a long, long pause as he processes this information. "Are you sure? They're very difficult to come by. Many have been bought by private collectors. They've been...dispersed."
"Oh, I'm pretty sure. They were a gift from his Aunt. Ian, my son, was his lover...a lover. And Alejandro is dead, by the way. His Aunt confirmed this in a letter we received yesterday. He died of AIDS."
There's another long pause while he sniffs. Finally, "Yes, I'd heard that he was ill. How tragic," he croaks.
"Yes. Ian can't stand to look at the paintings, so they're sitting in my house right now. Two landscapes, and six portraits, one a self-portrait of Alejandro painted shortly before his death, we think. They're pretty remarkable. They're amazingly detailed, and what impressed me most, I think, was his use of light and shadow, of chiaroscuro. They remind me of a de la Tour, or a Breughel. I didn't know anyone painted like this anymore."
"Yes. That's what I meant when I said that his style wasn't particularly common. He's reached back to a previous age, but his brushwork is unique -- very modern. Umm...could I see them?"
"Actually, I was hoping you'd want to, both because I'd like to share them with you, and because I'd like to get a vague sense of what they're worth. I don't know that I'll ever want to sell them. I think they're staggeringly beautiful. But I need to insure them, and would be willing to loan them to the Museum from time to time for special exhibitions. When would you like to see them?"
I have never heard a faster response to a question. "Are you free this afternoon?"
"Umm...yeah," I laugh. "two-ish?"
"I'll be there! You're still in San Jose? Give me your address."
At 2:15pm, one John Tindall, assistant curator of the MOMA knocks at my door, and he's flanked by Jeremy Butters and Valerie Jameson. Butters is the lead curator, and Jameson is another associate with expertise in this period and, specifically, in Alejandro, as well as a number of other modern artists. When I open the door, and they see the paintings lined up along the wall of the entryway, they are mesmerized. Ms. Jameson moves instantly to the self-portrait, kneeling to look at it. "Can I lift it," she asks. I nod. "Would you mind if I carry it into your living room?" she asks, seeing the directional lighting shining on a cheap print of a Chagall
I lead her into the living room.
"I'm sorry," she says. "Would it be alright if we took down the Chagall and hung this in its place?"
I smile, and lift the Chagall off its hook, and she hangs Alejandro's self-portrait. And then she puts on a pair of glasses and begins to examine it...minutely. She's looking at the brushwork, I guess. And then she moves back and looks at the whole picture, getting a sense of the totality of the work. Finally, after perhaps ten minutes during which she works her way over every square centimeter of the painting, in some cases with a magnifying glass, she goes back to the entryway, and motions to the nude of Ian. "Can we replace it with this one?"
This time, I lift Ian's picture while she removes Alejandro's, but rather than setting Alejandro's self-portrait against the wall, she places it carefully on the couch. I hang Ian's nude on the wall, and she works her way over that one, and, subsequently, over each of the other paintings.
Finally, after nearly an hour and a quarter of this, she looks at Butters and cocks her head, asking permission to speak openly, I think. He nods. Then, she looks at me. "This is an extraordinary collection, Mr. Jensen. They are clearly all in Mr. Rodriguez's style. I have no reason to doubt their authenticity. I think you have more paintings by this particular artist than any collection in the world, private or public. And he's an extraordinary...was an extraordinary...talent. His pieces have picked up value in the last year, and as they have, they've been sold to various collectors, dispersed to many different collections. But no one has this many, I think, and no one has anything quite as exceptional as the portraits of the Hispanic man or the nude. They are remarkable for their beauty and depth of feeling."
"The Hispanic man is a self-portrait. That's Alejandro not long before his death, we think."
"Yes, I gathered from the paint brush in his hand. It is really extraordinary, really perceptive, painfully perceptive."
"What are they painted in?" I ask.
"Oh, this is oil. All of them are in oil. I believe that was his only medium. He could never have done this kind of brush work in anything else. That's his signature. It's unique. That's why I'm sure they're genuine."
Again, she looks to Butters, and he nods. "For our three paintings, we paid $1.1 million, a little over $365,000 per painting, although not to Mr. Rodriguez. He made substantially less than that when he sold them initially, perhaps less than $500 for all three." I am absolutely stunned.
"Oh, yes," she says. "Mr. Rodriguez has become quite well known both here and abroad, and has quite a substantial body of work given the shortness of his...career. With his death, you can probably double that $365,000, although the five portraits -- the woman, the old man, the self-portrait, and two of the blond young man -- those are by far the best I've seen of his work. Those will probably go for more. Do you know who the blond subject is, by the way?"
"It's my son. It's my Ian."
She nods. "Do you need the money?" she asks, directly.
"No."
She nods. "Then I think it would be prudent to hold them. At a really good auction, you might get $5 to $6 million for the eight paintings. Give them 10-15 years, and that price will double or triple, I predict. I've been watching Mr. Rodriguez's paintings move on the market over the last six months. He's in play, and will stay in play given his unfortunate death." And then, she smiles. "If the Museum had additional funding, I would never have told you any of this, because I'd love to add the self-portrait and the nude to our permanent collection. But we don't have funding for additional unplanned acquisitions at this time. But...please...would you consider loaning them to us for an exhibition? They're all so...beautiful...and should be seen by the public."
"Yes. Absolutely. You'll protect them, I know."
"Absolutely! And...umm...please don't leave them on the floor," she says "They need to be protected, and I...see you have a cat..."
"Yes," I say, giggling. "I just have to find somewhere to put them where Ian, my son, won't see them. They...umm...make him...cry."
"I have a suggestion..." she says with a snort.
"If you'll frame them, you can hang them as soon as you like."
"We always frame unframed works of loaned art, Mr. Jensen," Mr. Butters interjects. "We have a department that does just that. If you'll commit to loaning them to us, we'll collect them, frame them, and help you display them wherever you'd like them, here or elsewhere."
This is a deal I instantly agree to. The paintings will be collected in two days time, framed, and returned here to be hung in the bedrooms. Later, when the Museum can arrange an exhibition, they'll collect them, and display them for the public to see. Perfect. I shake the hands of all present, and they leave me with my treasures -- Ian's treasures. I honestly don't want to sell them. I think they're so beautiful, especially those of Ian. I don't think I can part with them. Instead, I call my insurance agent and increase my coverage. That won't help me in the event of fire or flood, but at least we can add them to the college fund...in case Kev or Kai want six PhDs.
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Atonality always worries Jason, and dodecaphony scares him to death. Arnold Schönberg was the father of the twelve-tone technique, and composers like Alban Berg and Anton Webern weren't far behind. It's actually very jarring when you first hear it. Just as medieval modal music sounds strange to modern ears, dodecaphonic music initially sounds very odd, as though there's no harmony at all. After a while, though, you start to "get it," you start to understand. Schönberg's Pierrot Lunaire is probably the first and most famous piece of dodecaphonic music, and is actually quite soft and soothing, given the level of dissonance built into the composition. It's more of a theoretical compositional style than anything else, but it led to more harmonic composers like Igor Stravinsky and Béla Bartók. Jason has been commissioned to write a dodecaphonic concerto by a long-time patron of the symphony, and has been struggling with it for weeks. He now has three weeks to complete it so it can be rehearsed, and he is just frantic.
"Why would anyone want to do this, want to commission this?" I ask him.
"I don't know," he whines, "but they do. And...I don't know if I can do this."
"Jason," I say, narrowing my eyes, "it's just music. It's pure mathematics. Of course you can do this."
He slinks off depressed, and that depression continues for days. In the middle of dinner, two days later, he spontaneously starts to cry. "I can't fucking do this!" he screams. "I don't fucking know how!"
Kevin, who has a mouthful of squid, looks up abruptly and stares across the table as he swallows. "He said the F-word daddy," he says, looking at me. "He said `fucking'."
And the minute Kevin says "fucking," Kai's eyes open to the size of saucers. He's shocked...stunned...but still chewing.
"Yes he did. That's what he said, Kev. But don't you say it, okay? I don't want to hear that word out of your mouth. If I hear you say that, you're going to get a swat."
He nods, embarrassed, and a little scared. I've swatted him before. He doesn't like it. It's humiliating for him, I think.
I had a very good vocabulary when I was in fourth grade, which I think is a bit remarkable, because I didn't really learn to read until I was in sixth grade. I was dyslexic as a child. That was before educators had figured out what dyslexia was. So, my vocabulary came from my parents, and they were...volatile. My mother could (and did) swear like a sailor, and my father was no different. So, I knew a lot of...words, and used them in class, which is why my vocabulary came up at all, I think. "He really does have an excellent vocabulary," my teacher had apparently said, "well above his grade level, but a lot of the language is pretty...foul, and given that he can't...umm...read very...well, I'm...confused about where he gets...these words." This he said to both my parents at a parent / teacher conference. I was ten. My father related this conversation years later.
"Your mother looked him in the eye," my father told me, "and you could see the anger. `He gets them from his fucking father!' she said, looking over at me. `Goddamn sonofabitch!' And you could see the shock on the teacher's face, and then the struggle he had not to laugh. I could see his agony." My parents did love each other...at some level. Not always, but mostly, but sometimes...
"Jason," I say, "I think we need to talk...in the bedroom. About an hour after dinner." I am stern. I am angry. He's knows he's in trouble.
I often read in the bedroom. It's quieter than the living room, with the kids running through the house, and that's where I go after dinner. I have several proposals to evaluate as part of this new job. But, in anticipation of my meeting with Jason, I've taken the razor strop out of the cupboard and laid it on the bed -- lengthwise. Then I sit down in the chair with a highlighter and a pencil, and start to work through the proposals, jotting notes in the margins. Fifty-seven minutes into the process, Jason knocks on the door, opens it, and comes in. I glance at him over the top of my reading glasses. He sees the razor strop on the bed, and takes off his clothes without a word being uttered between us. And then, he lies down, lengthwise, on his belly. I put down my papers, get up from the chair, and cross to the bed.
"Was that called for?" I ask him.
"No," he whines.
"Was that a good example for Kevin, or Kai for that matter?"
"No."
"What the fuck is your problem, Jason? You know goddamned well you can write this thing. You know goddamned well you can do this. We've talked about this before. If you need confidence-building, come talk to me, but I have no idea why you'd need that. You're so good at this. Combine a superb musician with a math whiz, and what do you have?"
He's silent.
"What the fuck do you have?" I shout.
"A composer?"
"Goddamn right! And it doesn't matter whether it's dodecaphonic, or simple three-part harmony, does it?"
"No," he whines.
"Then get on with it. Okay?"
He nods.
"I'm not going to spank you tonight."
He looks into my eyes, pleading.
"And if you don't have this thing at least partially written by tomorrow, I'm not going to spank you then, either. And, I'm not going to fuck you until it's written, until it's complete. Understand?"
He nods, sorrowfully.
"You're really good at this, baby," I say, stroking his back. "Just fucking do it!"
I return to my chair, and he looks absolutely dejected. But he gets up off the bed, dresses, and leaves the room.
"What happened?" Kenny asks, meeting him in the kitchen.
"Nothing," he whines, bursting into tears. "Nothing happened. He won't touch me."
Kenny hugs him. "I think you'd better get over it, Jase. Just write something. Write anything. Start with the first melody that comes into your head, and then transform it.
He nods. And that's what he does. I wake up at 4am to the sound of the piano, and again at 6am. He is up all night, but when I wake up at 10am, Jason is asleep with his head on the keyboard, and a completed piano score on the music rack of the piano. And it is really beautiful. It is dodecaphonic, I guess (I'm not really smart enough to know) but it's not as atonal as a Schönberg piece. It actually sounds to me...a little...dare I say...like Shostakovich. It's very nice. And when he plays it for me, I'm rapt, and, of course...well, you know. It's really nice.
But, it's a concerto, isn't it? It needs to be orchestrated. The piano score is wonderful, but it needs the rest of the instrumentation. And this takes him the next two weeks. Two weeks during which he is absolutely not allowed to cum. I told him years ago that if he didn't perform, I reserved the right to withhold sex, and that's what I do. No score, no sex, and this for a guy that's been used to getting off once or twice a day. He knows the penalty for masturbation, knows that's not an option, so he's celibate, his motivation to finish the concerto. At the end of those two weeks, he brings me the completed score, he brings it to me even before he takes it to Tilson Thomas. He brings it to my office and sets it on the desk in front of me. Then he stands at the edge of the desk, hands folded meekly, and waits with his head bowed. I leaf through it, and he watches me oh, so carefully.
"It's done?" I ask.
"Yes," he says.
I know exactly where this is going because he's been really emotional for the last several days. Some times he'll burst into tears for no apparent reason. Sometimes at dinner he'll just sit and stare into space. Jason is so even-tempered that this is very unusual behavior. I rest my hand on the cover of the score, look up at him, and smile -- much too sweetly. "What should we do?" I ask, pausing for effect. "With it?" He was just about to jump in, just about to ask, just about to plead with me, and when I say "With it?" he becomes distraught, near to tears.
"Umm...it needs to go to Tilson Thomas. He needs to begin rehearsing it. It's complex. It'll take longer than...umm...most tonal concertos."
"That's probably true," I say, handing the manuscript back to him. "Guess you'd probably better take it to him."
He's so frustrated, and looks at me so sadly, longing etched on his face. And then he turns, walking toward the door, preparing to leave. And I'm right behind him. I put a hand on his shoulder. "Before you go, though..."
He turns. There's hope in his eyes -- hope and desire.
"Before you go, could you make me a sandwich?"
The hope vanishes. He just looks sad. He nods, putting his hand on the doorknob, and as he opens the door, I say, with a bit of a giggle, as quickly as I can get it out, "But, before you make the sandwich, can I fuck you?"
He turns abruptly, smiling so broadly. "Yes, please," he says. I lean forward and kiss him, and we make our way to the bedroom.
"So, how do you want to get off, Jase? What do you want me to do to you?"
"Please, just fuck me. But we can't kiss, and you can't touch me anywhere else, because if you do, I'll cum way too quickly. I want this to last. I want to luxuriate in it."
I nod. He's overwrought. All it's probably going to take to get him off is a nod. We'll try to make it last.
Jason is naked in an instant. I take my time, and he watches, becoming more and more excited the nakeder I get. By the time I, too, am naked, he is fully erect, fully erect and throbbing. He is just so excited. He told me I couldn't kiss him, but the minute I'm on the bed next to him, he's on top of me, his lips sealed to mine. I push him away and give him an are-you-sure look. He remembers and rolls off me, turning onto his belly, rearranging his hardon for greater comfort -- so it extends down between his legs. "Please Tim, please fuck me." I stroke his back a couple of times, and reach into the nightstand for the lotion. And then I grab his ankles and pull him down to the foot of the bed so he's actually kneeling on the floor with his upper torso laid out on the mattress. This is going to give me a better angle, a better shot at hitting him where I want to with every thrust. I lube my dick, and am about to lube his asshole, but when I touch it, he stops me. "You can't do that. I'm too close. Just fuck me. It'll be fine."
I place my hands on either side of his body for support, and begin a slow process of working my dick into him. "No," he says. "We haven't got much time. Just fuck me. Just push yourself inside."
That's what I do, in one slow thrust. He grunts and hisses a little, but takes it, and after entering him, I wait for several seconds for him to get used to me. "Don't wait," he says. "We haven't got time. Just fuck me." I start to move my hips, slowly at first, then more rapidly, withdrawing from him completely before plunging back inside. I'm not gentle because I sense that's not what he wants. We establish a rhythm, and he is nearly frantic, tossing his head from side to side. After maybe ten minutes of this, during which I haven't touched him anywhere but his asshole, he starts to moan, and then cries out. And then he cums, and it is massive. His dick, which has been hanging over the edge of the bed, just...unloads -- for maybe twenty seconds. I'm right behind him. At the end of maybe 45 seconds, we have a large pool of cum on the hardwood floor, and as I withdraw, he begins to leak. He's leaking my cum this time. I grab a towel from the bureau and clean him up. Then I push him back onto the bed and rolling him over, and we start to kiss. We kiss for maybe fifteen or twenty minutes. We kiss until he's hard again. Breaking the kiss, finally, I look down at his dick, and then smile at him.
"What would you like to do now?" I ask. "Would you like to play a transcription of the Toccata and Fugue in D-minor?"
"Umm...no," he says, evenly. "Now is not a time for Bach. Now is a time for improvisation. So improvise!"
I do. Using my best instrument, my mouth, I begin to play him sensuously, taking him into my mouth and sucking him for all I'm worth, swirling my tongue around his dickhead as I move up the shaft, and taking it into my throat with each descent. Jason is delicious, truly. It doesn't matter whether I'm sucking his dick, chewing on his nipples, or licking his ass. He has a unique flavor, one I find intoxicating, and his cum is remarkably sweet. I've missed him. For the two weeks he's been working on this fucking concerto, I've missed him. Don't get me wrong. Kenny, too, is very...tasty. But I have missed Jason. There's something so...different about making love to the two of them. Kenny is more...active. I was going to say "aggressive", but that's the wrong word. He's just a more active participant. His hands are all over you, and his mouth, and he does things to me that I don't expect. He experiments. Jason likes to be made love to. He's more passive. But he's so appreciative of what you do, either verbally or through caresses, that you're never in doubt that you're giving him pleasure. I find both responses really erotic, and enjoy both experiences, depending on my mood. Today, as I suck him, I can't think of anything better, and apparently he can't either, because it doesn't take long before he blows again, panting and squirming.
"What now, baby?"
"Time to get you off again," he says, giggling. "And...umm...I'd like to be spanked."
I look at him, confused. "For what," I ask.
"For taking so long with the concerto, for lacking confidence in myself."
"But, isn't that double jeopardy? You paid for that with two weeks of abstinence. Why would you want to pay for it again?"
"I just think I'll feel better," he says. "Do you remember when we were in Hawaii, you had a really-creative punishment for me... This time, though, let's just use the razor strop."
I look at him puzzled, and then I remember. I'd used a combination of a riding crop and a junior cane that time in Hawaii, and I'm surprised that he wants the razor strop instead. He's never much liked the razor strop. He must have some serious contrition to deal with.
"Okay," I say, retrieving the razor strop. "You know the position, sweetie."
Jason is hard again, I notice, and has some trouble managing the position of his dick, but he quickly flips around so that his head is hanging off the end of the bed. "You understand that this is a little dangerous for you right now. I've cum within the last hour. That means another orgasm might...umm...take me a while."
He nods. "I know."
The object of the exercise is for Jason to get me off by sucking my dick. Until he does, I get to spank him. I'm a little concerned that the razor strop might do him more damage than I'm willing to do before I can cum, so I'm going to swing easier than I might normally. Still, I am really hard just thinking about this, and so is he. "Okay, babe, let's do it."
He lifts his head, and opens his mouth, and I slide into him, and as I do, I begin to spank him -- softly. Suddenly he stops, and pulls off me, looking up into my eyes. "I need this, Tim. I want this. Please don't be...gentle."
I nod, and he takes me back in his mouth, and begins to suck for dear life as I begin to spank him again, applying considerably more...muscle to it. He gasps, and moans, but continues to suck me, and I realize that we're going to be okay, because Jason is good at sucking cock, and I can feel my excitement rise after just a few strokes. It's all in the throat action, I think. I mean, he's pretty stationary here. It's not like he can run his mouth up and down my shaft. So what happens is that my dick gets lodged in the back of his throat, and as he swallows, and swallows, and swallows, he's actually rubbing the head of my cock, the most sensitive area. After ten good, hard strokes, I'm really close, and after twelve my breathing is ragged. Jason is sobbing, but still swallowing like crazy. On the fourteenth stroke, I cum in a gush, and it must just run down his throat. I stop spanking him. He continues to suck me, and continues to sob, until I'm spent and panting. I pull out of him, drop the razor strop, and pick him up to take him to the chair in the corner. It's then I realize, from the puddle of his spunk in the middle of the bed, that he came, too. I giggle. "I gather you enjoyed that?" I say, carrying him to the corner.
"I did," he chokes through his tears.
"Good," I say, hugging him.
It doesn't take him long to stop crying, maybe ten minutes, but we sit for another hour anyway, hugging and talking. Jason likes to cuddle. Well...Jason likes to do a lot of things, but he does love to cuddle. We cuddle, and whisper to each other as he drapes himself over my shoulder. Finally, after nearly two hours in the bedroom, we head to the shower and clean up. It's really nice to have these two weeks behind us.
When Tilson Thomas finally gets the score, he's delighted. The orchestration is superb, lush and florid, really lovely, but Jason is right -- it takes the orchestra every minute they have to make sense of it, but they do, and it's a tremendous success. Not with the rich-and-tone-deaf portion of the audience, of course, for whom it's way too avant-garde, but certainly with those who know and appreciate good music. Almost instantly, it's picked up for their own performances by both the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the Bavarian Radio Symphony. The latter is one of my favorite small symphonies in the world. Jason is really establishing himself not only as a consummate musician, but as an exciting composer. And despite all this success, he's still so sweet, so lovable.
It's amazing what a little motivation will do.
Published first at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Nemo-stories/