The Artists - 4. The First Day, Afternoon, Part 4

“I don’t think our visit went well,” Kevin said when Eric came into their suite. Kevin laid in his recliner with his forearm over his eyes. He might have been crying.

Eric sat on the loveseat and stared at the floor. He’d been going over what to say to Kevin all afternoon; an afternoon spent “advising” arriving freshmen on what they were getting themselves into by becoming North Park students. Most were general students, freshmen who hadn’t chosen a major, but there were a couple who knew their future lay in literature. Those you had to handle with kid gloves lest their flame of curiosity burn out before they left the starting gate.

Advising wasn’t exactly teaching, but it was a required function of his position. In theory, you were guiding a young person in their pursuit of some esoteric goal only they could name. Mostly, though, it was signing a slip of paper, clicking a box on an online profile, or sending them off to see some other fool who might better serve their needs. It was tiresome work, but it had to be done or someone might not get paid.

“But he’s as pink as you were in the beginning,” Kevin said, “and you know what happened because of that.”

“You scared him with all that sex talk,” Eric said. Kevin was the scared one though. He was always scared when a new student came in pink. Usually, probably most often, the color faded to yellow or brightened to crimson and then faded toward orange. Seldom did pink hang around, as Eric suspected would be the case this time.

“He’s my nephew and he’s pink,” Kevin said. He pulled the recliner into the sitting position and made as if he was going to stand, but stopped once he picked up his cane. “Nephews aren’t supposed to be pink.”

“He’s cute,” Eric said. “Actually, I’d say he’s very cute. If I remember right, all of the pink ones have been cute. Then their pinkness gradually goes away when you realize you’re old enough to be their father, and now their grandfather, and any kind of relationship has absolutely no chance of budding because they don’t know you exist. It always the same, you’re simply irrelevant in their eyes. Hopefully, he’ll read the book and have a better understanding of you next time.”

“If there will be a next time,” Kevin said.

“What do you mean by that?” Eric asked.

Kevin stood up and started to walk toward the bedroom. Eric watched him and wondered if Kevin was going to notice he’d forgotten his cane. When he walked into the bedroom without saying anything more, Eric retrieved the cane and followed Kevin into the room where he found his lover had begun to undress.

“If you were offered a position in another state, say Montana, would you accept it?” Kevin asked as he rummaged through a drawer of polo shirts. He held up one. “What color?”

“Too bright of a red,” Eric said as he sat down to take off his shoes. “Today you should wear a light blue like the one on your right. Like something in Bozeman or were you thinking of Missoula?”

“This one?” Kevin asked. He held up the powder blue shirt. “We have that property south of Missoula. The little creek is pretty, even now in the heat of summer.”

“Yes, that one should be okay,” Eric said. “Do you think I need to shower? It’s been rather hot.”

“Yes, you need to be sweet for Bud and Dr. Arnold,” Kevin said. He opened another drawer and pulled out some Bermudas. “White?”

“Yes,” Eric said. He began to quickly undress. “You know I’m not as young as I used to be and I have tenure here. I should be thinking about retiring in a few years. Do you want to live in Montana or are you just wishing you had a way to get away from Six?”

“Okay, you caught me,” Kevin said. He turned and practically fell into Eric’s embrace. “He scares me and you’re right; he’s so damned cute my mind is probably just projecting my feelings of arousal into his color. You could, well; I will say he’s actually quite pretty. He reminds me of Cillian Murphy in Breakfast on Pluto.”

“He doesn’t look a bit like Cillian,” Eric said as his real hand softly caressed Kevin’s bare back. His wished they had time for a little intimacy, but zero hour was too close for a quick romp. Besides, these days a quick romp wasn’t what it used to be; they needed more time just to work up to a quickie.

“Not the face, the slender body,” Kevin said, “and, well, his ass.”

“You’ve never been an ass man,” Eric said as his hand wandered down across Kevin’s still firm mounds of flesh.

“You’ve always been interested in mine,” Kevin said. He kissed his lover’s neck just below the earlobe.

“And, only yours,” Eric said. “Not like Euphorbia flirting with the cute bagboys at Safeway.”

“She hasn’t done that in years,” Kevin said. “But it was funny, especially that dark haired boy back, when was that? Ninety-five or was it six? What was his name? You know the, oh god, he looked like Six. What was his name?”

“Dominic?”

“Yeah, Dominic, Euphorbia called him Dom,” Kevin said. “Oh god, what am I going to do?”

“Realize he’s your nephew and there’s nothing you can do except love me and admire his beauty,” Eric said. They kissed deeply.

“Go shower,” Kevin said. “I’m going upstairs to talk to Six.”

Six knew his father hated Robert Charles because he was a homosexual, as he practically hated his own son for the mere suspicion of not being as straight as required. Kevin hadn’t killed their mother, but had been forced to languish in state hospitals because his own father projected his guilt onto his son. Kevin had been rescued by his uncle Robert Charles and grew into an acknowledged, albeit not quite too famous, writer of children’s books with a couple screenplays that had done fairly well.

Six picked up his cell and looked up his father’s number. Since it was late in the day, but not the cocktail hour, he selected his father’s cell number.

“Hello?” A not too familiar voice asked. After all, they hadn’t spoken in over three years.

“Dad? It’s Six.”

“Who? Is this some kind of crank call because if it is I have your number on my caller ID and I’ll use it to prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law,” a strangely vitriolic voice said.

“Dad, this is Kevin, Kevin David Charles, the Sixth, your son.”

“Is your mother alright?” The voice asked. Six tried to imagine the body that went with the voice, but it had been too long for anything definitive other than maybe a little more gray hair on the edges and a little less hair on top.

“Yes, she’s fine. Do you know where I am, right now?”

“What’s going on son; is this some kind of joke or something? Are you still a faggot?” The voice asked, anger slipping in between the syllables. Six could hear children playing in the background, but didn’t know if it was his niece and nephew visiting their grandfather or the kids his father made with his new wife. It didn’t matter, really, since they probably hated him anyway.

“I’m at Charles House at North Park College. My great uncle Robert Charles put me in his will and I get a four-year free ride at North Park. And, guess what, your brother, Kevin, he’s here, too. I’ve spoken to him and he seems nice. I know we haven’t spoken all that much since you left; and, I just wanted you to know that more than likely we’ll never speak again. I could hate you, but you’re very much better at hating than I am, so I’ll leave the hate for you.”

Six listened to the hard throb of his heart then looked at his phone. The connection had been broken sometime during his tirade. His father hung up on him. Six very much wished it had been toward the end, but suspected it was closer to the beginning.

There was only one thing that could settle his mind and now was as good a time as any to start learning the bike routes around North Park and Seattle. Unfortunately, it was hot, nearly a hundred and that wasn’t Six’s idea of an ideal temperature to be out climbing hills because, like Portland, Seattle and North Park were built on hills. North Park College sat halfway up the side of a drumlin left over from the last ice age. That meant a climb up to Oak Park Boulevard which was the main north-south thoroughfare through the city of North Park; or, down and up the hill to the east and down to the Burke-Gillman Trail along Lake Washington.

Six picked up his MP3 and headed down to the exercise room to burn off his anger. Sometimes a fake bike ride could be just as useful as the real thing. There were two ellipticals, a cycle, and a treadmill facing a 42 inch plasma TV. He slipped an unmarked DVD into the player and adjusted one of the ellipticals just for something different.

The TV screen displayed an urban scene that was changing in a manner unfamiliar to Six. He turned on his music and began to exercise while trying not to pay too much attention to the TV. The camera panned around and there stood an electric train that was being checked by a worker. The scene changed to the engineer in the cab as he moved a lever and the train began to move.

Six paid little attention to the music flooding into his ears as he tried to figure out where in the world the train was. Obviously, it was a foreign country, quite possibly somewhere in Europe because most of the people appeared to be white. He knew there were people of color in Europe, but wherever the train was located there didn’t seem to be very many of them.

He saw a lot of mountains, too. Unfortunately, geography was not Six’s best subject so that clue was not forthcoming. The mostly red train had a white symbol on the side followed by the words “Rhätische Bahn.” Another clue wasted on eyes that knew nearly every bike route around Portland and Bend, Oregon, and hadn’t shown the least bit of interest in anything else.

The good thing about the train video is that it kept Six’s mind focused on something other than his father. That, however, didn’t last as his interest waned and frustration in not knowing where the train was located and where it was going increased. That frustration allowed his father asking whether Six was still a faggot to float to the forefront of his consciousness.

Anger flooded his body with adrenalin which nearly threw him off the elliptical. He stared at the train as it sped through a conifer and rock filled canyon with whitewater splashing below. He wanted to know where that train was, but what he really wanted at that moment was to be on that train going to wherever was at the other end of the line.

He’d never been this mad at his father. He couldn’t remember ever being as mad as he felt and he wanted the feeling to go away. He turned and saw his Uncle Kevin staring at him. Six ripped the ear buds out and turned away from the man who didn’t quite resemble his father even though they were brothers. He felt a hand on his shoulder.

“Are you okay?” Kevin asked. The man was close to him, but Kevin didn’t know Six was angry.

“I read the book and then I called my father; he hung up on me,” Six said. He felt the hand begin to caress his back. He knew the contact wasn’t anything more than familial. Uncle Kevin was simply trying to ease his pain, but the man’s touch was making him hard and his tights were not going to hide anything.

“I’ve got to go,” Six said as he shrugged away from the hand and tried to hide the growing bulge in his groin. “I’ve got to take a shower.”

Jim stayed in the kitchen with Casey and Euphorbia. He sat on the stool and watched their subtle interactions which weren’t quite flirting, but came very close. It troubled him a little that Euphorbia would even consider seducing the boy, what with the admission he’d been nearly raped by a pervert uncle, but Euphorbia always was a bit over-the-top when it came to sexual attraction. After all, they’d had their own fling after Bobby died.

He felt an unwanted tear fill his right eye—the tear ducts on that side always seemed too willing to empty their contents—at the thought of his partner for life that had died less than three years earlier. They’d been together for almost exactly fifty years when an undiagnosed aneurysm filled his abdominal cavity with freshly oxygenated blood until his overactive brain ceased to function. It would have been a horrible death to witness, but thankfully Bobby staged his performance in the express line at the all night grocery.

They’d had a good, full life together. The years in the City hanging around the edge of the Inner Circle, the far edge, actually, when Bobby used a vague second cousin to gain access to Burroughs, but Jim’s writing was not mainstream or major artery. He wrote mass market paperback sci-fi in the grand tradition of the dime novel, with young, tanned heroes with bulging muscles battling intergalactic ogres with green skin, wiggling mouthparts and acidic ooze seeping from ultraviolet pustules.

It’d been Bobby’s idea to write under a number of pseudonyms which enabled Jim to average three or four books a year. It was all a plan to maximize his talent at the beginning when stories come to mind so quickly. Under Bobby’s tutelage he’d made a lot of money that was wisely and conservatively invested so that when Bobby died and the Charles family came looking for loose assets he was protected from their accountant’s loupe.

Now, he sat in the kitchen watching their resident transvestite and her new sidekick, the gelatinous boy known by some as Casey, who had a cute, pudgy face and nearly nonexistent butt hidden by yards of lose clothing, prepare the traditional move-in day barbecue picnic. They were expecting the college president and his wife, the chairman of the board of trustees and his guest, the dean of students and her partner, the chair of the art school and her husband, and at least half of the art department’s faculty including their guest, wife, husband, partner, significant other, or whatever. In the case of Professor Emeritus Peter Orlov, who was in his late-eighties, they would get an unseen individual who’d been the professor’s companion for the past seven years. No one was certain whether this conversation partner was male or female, but its name was Chris and didn’t say a word, so you only got half the conversation which could be quite funny at times.

“Jim? Are you okay, honey?” A voice asked.

“What? Oh, yeah, just remembering, again,” Jim said. He took out his handkerchief and loudly blew his nose.

“Why don’t you go and lie down for a bit,” Euphorbia said.

“No, I’m okay,” Jim said as he stood up and walked over to the refrigerator. He stood before the closed door for a moment uncertain why he was there. He couldn’t drink alcohol anymore and still couldn’t tolerate soda pop. Water out of the tap with a few cubes of ice was just as good as those various bottled waters Eric and Kevin brought into the house. He couldn’t see the point of bottling water unless you lived somewhere the water was actually vile like, say, Wichita, Kansas, where he was born or Amarillo, Texas, where he spent a lot of time with his mother’s parents.

“You want something?” Euphorbia asked. “If you want something to do, take Casey outside and show him how to set up the barbecue.”

“Sure, I can do that,” Jim said. “Come on Spiderman, let’s go play with gas.”

“You’re going to call me that for a long time, aren’t you?” Casey asked. He followed Jim over to the slider and out onto the covered deck. “I don’t mind. It’s better than Peach or something else referring to my immaturity.”

“I could call you Dummy for pulling that stunt,” Jim said as he turned to face the boy, “but I figured you might think Spiderman was a bit more respectful. I know Peter wants me to call you Casey, but that stunt was too good to go unnoticed. You know he’s flirting with you, don’t you?”

“Who?” Casey asked as if he really didn’t know. “There wasn’t another man in there. Or, was that when Ben came into my room before I tried to climb down the post?”

“What about Ben?” Jim asked.

“Does he always wear gym shorts with nothing underneath?” Casey asked.

“Hey, you two! Either stay in or go out,” Euphorbia called out. “You’re going to fill the place with bugs.”

“Quit worrying so much, bitch!” Jim exclaimed. He walked out the door and Casey followed, closing the door behind him. “How do you know he didn’t have anything underneath? Were you checking him out?”

“No! I’m not like that,” Casey said. “I was sitting on my bed and he was on the sofa across from me and he had his legs spread so I could see his dick. I figured he was trying to get me to do something so he could say I was queer. Some guys at my high school were always trying to trick me into messing up so they could ridicule me even more, but I was too smart for them. That didn’t stop the taunting though.”

“I don’t think Ben is gay,” Jim said, “but, then I don’t have any reason to know one way or the other. It’s none of my business whether another guy is gay unless that guy is having problems or if he’s old enough for me to be interested in, but Ben’s too young. If Spiderman has a problem, then I might be able to help. This is our barbecue.”

“It’s big,” Casey said as he pulled off the cover.

“You’ll think it’s a whole lot bigger when you clean it tonight,” Jim said.

“Why do I have to clean it?” Casey asked. “Is it because I’m Miss Euphorbia’s assistant and cleaning the barbecue just goes with the job?”

“Bingo!” Jim exclaimed. Casey couldn’t be much over five feet, but he was nearly as round as he was tall. No wonder Tiffani called him Peach. That immature mustache of fuzz was definitely going to have to take a hike. “You haven’t called him Miss Euphorbia, have you?”

“Him who?” Casey asked as Jim went over to the nearest picnic table and sat down.

“Come over here kid,” Jim said. Casey sat beside him, innocently too close. The boy was eighteen, but he was very immature. They were definitely going to have to get him to that specialist at the University. “What do you know about gay people?”

“Not much,” Casey said. “Gays do it with guys, however that works. I don’t know much about sex either.”

“Didn’t you learn anything in health classes?” Jim asked. The boy’s blond eyebrows were so sparse they barely seemed capable of doing their job.

“Like I said before, my mom is a weird Christian and I wasn’t allowed to attend any class where sex was discussed,” Casey said. “According to her, all I need to know about sex is in the Bible. It’s not, I know that much. So you’re saying Miss Euphorbia is a guy.”

“You’re not such a dummy after all,” Jim said. He put his arm across Casey’s shoulders and said, “His name is Peter and he always liked to dress up, plus he’s one hell of a cook. Back when Kevin first came to us on Diego Island …”

“That was the Diego Art Institute, right?” Casey asked. “And, there’s a Peter Wood listed as one of the trustees of the foundation. Will I ever get to see him?”

“Maybe, Peter tries to keep a low profile around here,” Jim said.

“Do you think she was flirting with me because I look twelve or because I might be gay?” Casey asked. “My uncle tried to mess with me because he likes boys just at the brink of adolescence. Plus, Peter’s kind of old; young guys don’t do it with old guys, do they? It’s not that I’m saying I want to, but I’d just like to know why. It kind of makes me feel funny inside that he’d be interested in me, ’cause you know I don’t know what to do.”

“I think he was hoping you were gay and might’ve been picking up on what he was doing,” Jim said. “Do you want me to talk to him?”

“No!” Casey exclaimed. “Well, you know, I’d prefer talking to him myself. Do you think it would be okay if I went up to my room for a little while?”

“Sure, I’ll help Euphorbia with whatever needs to be done,” Jim said. He stood up and held out a hand to help Casey to his feet. In some ways, there did seem to be a cute kid somewhere under that pudgy face.”

Jim walked back to the kitchen, but stood at the door as if he couldn’t remember why he was going in there, which he could, sort of. It was all a part of growing old. Bobby had been quite bad about forgetting things. Nothing close to dementia, but there was a definite loss of capacity. He saw Euphorbia busy with getting the marinades ready. She knew what most of the guests wanted. The two new boys would be given plain steaks and Casey would definitely be given a half portion. They were definitely going to have to start restricting his diet. He pulled back the slider and stepped into the brightly lit room.

“Where’s Casey?” Euphorbia asked.

“You’re in deep doo-doo,” Jim said. “What do you need me to do?”

“He knows, then?” Euphorbia asked.

“Yeah, he knows the important things,” Jim said. “I suspect Peter will have a visitor tonight. I hope he’s up to it.”

“I see,” Euphorbia said. “Here’s the key to the liquor room; go get some micros and we’ll put them on ice.”

Six ran as fast as he could while still concentrating on whether his dick was making a show of itself. He was embarrassed, scared, and angered that he’d become aroused when his uncle was only trying to comfort him.

After he entered his rooms, Six stripped off his clothes and stood in the filtered sunlight staring at his erection. It seemed to stare back in defiance; daring him to touch it, give it the reassuring touch his uncle had just given him. How many tugs would it take before erupting onto the carpet?

He suddenly noticed that he was standing on carpet. Did come stain carpet? Was it safe to do it right here, now? Or, should he go into the bathroom or back into the studio? Was the door shut? Would he be interrupted? Should he simply lie on the bed?

The doorbell chimed.

“Fuck!” Six exclaimed.

Was it Uncle Kevin? It didn’t seem long enough for Uncle Kevin to have gotten to the elevator and come upstairs. What should he do?”

The doorbell chimed, again.

“Fuck!” Six hissed with frustration.

His engorged dick demanded attention.

He went to the door. It was locked.

The doorbell chimed once again.

“Shit!” Six hissed.

He stood behind the door and opened it a crack. It was the other freshman; he appeared to have been crying.

“What? I’m busy,” Six said.

“I need to talk to someone,” Casey said was he forced himself into Six’s studio. He turned and stared directly at the erection as Six shut and locked the door. “Oh, fuck!”

“Yeah, don’t we wish,” Six said as he followed his erection back into the living quarters. “You ever fuck?”

“No,” Casey said timidly.

“Ever been fucked?” Six asked. He wasn’t sure why he was doing this or where he was going, but the guy interrupted him and it seemed like fun.

“My uncle tried to rape me when I was thirteen,” Casey said. He watched Six rummage around in his bags until he found a bath towel and a bottle of body wash.

“Did he get it in?” Six asked. He’d heard that it hurt like hell when a guy fucked you, but maybe Casey knew better.

“No! As soon as I figured out what he was trying to do, I screamed and headed for the door. The police slammed his ass and took him away. Do you want to fuck me?”

Six turned and stared at Casey. He never considered that to be an option. The kid was fat, pudgy faced and he’d heard that fat guys had little dicks. What if he shit on him when they were doing it? He heard that sometimes happened. That had to be a major turn-off.

“No, I’m not into fat guys, sorry,” Six said. “Do I turn you on?”

“I’ve never seen a guy with a hard-on,” Casey said as he continued to stare at the appendage of sexuality before him. “Well, other than my uncle, but I really didn’t see it because he came up behind me. To tell you the truth, I don’t even think I’m gay.”

“But you’re staring at my dick and it’s making you hard, too, right?” Six asked.

“Yeah, I’ve got a boner and, well, it’s there, you know,” Casey said as he stood up and walked over to Six. He was so short and Six was tall enough that it wouldn’t be much for him to bend over and put it in his mouth, but he couldn’t decide if that’s what he wanted. Was he gay? Could he willingly do it with a guy?

“Look we need to get cleaned up for the picnic,” Six said. He didn’t want this to be his first time with another guy. He wanted his first time to be something else. Besides, Casey truly didn’t turn him on. His clothes were too loose and baggy. There might be a twelve-inch hard-on in there and you’d never know. “Are you wearing that? Don’t you have some Dockers or something and you might want to shower, too.”

“Yeah, okay,” Casey said as he stepped back from the edge of oblivion. He still wanted to touch it, though, so he reached out and lightly grasped it just below the head.

“Shit!” Casey hissed as he quickly let go as if the dick burnt his hand. “I’d better go.”

“I thought you wanted to talk,” Six stammered as a flood of sexual sensations overwhelmed his mind. Another boy had just touched him. He was going to blow and there was nothing he could do to stop it. He pressed the towel in front of him and grasped his enraged dick as semen exploded out of him.

“Oh, god, I’m sorry,” Casey said as a gob of semen spewed up from behind the towel and fell to the floor in front of him. He turned and hurried as fast as he could out the door.