The Artists - 5. No Picnic

Casey stood naked in front of the lavatory sink staring at the line of nearly half-inch wide peach fuzz on his upper lip. There wasn’t much choice in the matter. The caterpillar had to go. It might have been okay in high school, but here at college they were using it to make fun of him. He carefully spread a finger’s worth of shaving foam over the condemned shrub as he silently prayed no one would say anything about its passing. He dillydallied though as he washed the soap from his finger, putting off the inevitable removal of the offensive fluff.

Suddenly, Casey felt a familiar touch on his bare ass and looked up into the mirror to see Ben’s smile.

“What the hell’re you doin’!” Casey exclaimed as he spun around and stepped back from the older student.

“My aunt and uncle go to your church and said you take it up the ass,” Ben said with a leer. He was naked and his condom sheathed hard-on glistened with lube.

“Get the fuck away from me!” Casey cried. Ben stepped toward him, but Casey turned and ran into his rooms, shutting and locking the door behind him. His body trembled from the fear coursing through his veins, but he couldn’t move another step. He looked at the razor in his quivering hand and shut his eyes for a long moment.

This wasn’t the first time another guy had done that to him, but it was the first time while he was naked. What was the old joke? Don’t bend over to pick up the soap? All through high school there was some newbie jock that had been fed the lie the little fat kid liked to be butt fucked. Some of the boys actually seemed nice enough that if he was into boys Casey might’ve taken enough of an interest in the boy to the let the boy fuck him. Queers fucked all the time. It couldn’t be that bad if it happened all the time, but he wasn’t into boys, at least he didn’t think so.

So, Ben was from California, too, or maybe he just had family down there. That meant when Ben exposed himself earlier it was an invitation; except Casey didn’t accept the invite and went out to crawl down the column, further adding fuel to those who felt free to belittle him. What Casey didn’t know and didn’t want to ask was whether Ben intended to try again. Maybe his rebuke was enough to keep the boy’s dick where it belonged, but he couldn’t be certain of that. Maybe Ben might want something else, something that Casey might be willing to give if only to know for certain if he was like that. Like Six.

Six was gay. There was no doubt about that. Six hadn’t bothered to hide his erection or his body as if inviting Casey to touch it, which he did for the briefest of moments. It may have been brief, but it was long enough for it to explode. Casey wondered what it felt like to hold onto a guy’s dick when it exploded. Could you feel the semen spurting through it? Did he want to feel semen spurting through Six’s dick?

Casey looked down toward where his own pathetically short dick was hidden under a fold of fat. For all his attempts at appearing to be a boy, he looked more like a girl. He had breasts. They were quite large, but malformed like most guy breasts with more breadth than length, broad mounds rather than conical domes with little Chinese temples at the peaks. Even his nipples weren’t that inviting, or were they? What made a nipple desirous? What would it feel like to have another guy sucking on one of his nipples? Did he want that?

And, his dick hidden within those labial folds of fat; it wasn’t much longer than a clitoris. He’d been online looking for girls to excite him and seen pictures of overly large clits. The only difference between him and all those girls was his vagina was covered with a small fleshy bag containing two miniscule testicles. There was feeling down there, but it wasn’t enough to produce anything more than a dribble of fluid and an incredible agonizing ache in his balls that seemed to go on forever.

Casey looked in the mirror over the sink in his bedroom and with seven strokes of the razor removed the blond mustache. He ran his hand over the down on the rest of his face, but there wasn’t enough to bother shaving, so he rinsed his face with hot water and with a few long strokes of the razor removed all vestiges of peach fuzz.

Overall it had been a bad day, one that he’d prefer starting over; and, unfortunately, the day wasn’t over. He had to get downstairs and help Euphorbia serve at the picnic. The guests were expected at six and it was already after five. The t-shirt he selected was waiting for him. He almost forgot he packed it and was glad he remembered. Jim was going to like it even if everyone else laughed at him. Jim seemed okay for an old guy; harmless was what Casey thought of first. A harmless, seventy-something gay guy who wasn’t interested in eighteen-year-old boys or that’s what Casey hoped, anyway. Euphorbia, on the other hand, well, maybe she was interested, but Casey wasn’t quite certain what interested exactly meant.

One floor down in the southwest corner of the building, Six had finished with his shower and sat naked in the center of his studio in a full lotus position. He wasn’t Buddhist or Hindu, he just used the position as a means for concentration. His breaths were shallow as he sought that special place where his mind could float free of its earthly ties, but he couldn’t get past the first guarded door. The unnamed demon refused to move away.

He stepped back and turned as if to descend the rough hewn limestone steps to the smooth granite aerie below him. Harpies reeled and soared, nipping at his bare skin. A gryphon swept down out of a shimmering gold cloud, its claws stretched out to snag the boy. At the last moment, Six sprawled onto the chilled stone and rolled away from the beast’s deathly grasp.

“Be gone!” the demon bellowed.

Six opened his eyes and felt a dribble of fluid tickle his forehead. Thinking it was merely fear induced sweat, he brushed at it with the back of his hand. It was only then he felt the jab of pain at the top of his head. Breathing in slowly, he stood in one smooth movement and walked over to the sink in his room. Blood seeped from a small gash about a quarter-inch behind his hairline. He wasn’t certain if it was one of the harpies or the gryphon as both had done this before.

Obviously, it was the orgasm that had done it. He hadn’t encouraged or discouraged Casey, thereby taking the pleasurable sensations as a supposedly unencumbered gift, a curiosity given into, or an irresponsible act of unforgivable selfishness. Reciprocation was required. He had to appease the Power. He had to give himself freely to the other boy’s needs, no matter what was requested. He could never go near the mountain again until Casey was satisfied, too.

Plus, Six was disappointed. That bore heavily on his heart. He wanted his first mutual experience with another boy to be a truly shared moment of unimaginable ecstasy. He’d played it out in his mind over and over as he jerked off in bed at night. The other boy was always older, but not too much older, and muscular, a lot more muscular than he was. Sometimes the boy was a football player, a defensive back or linebacker like he’d see in the locker room, while at other times it was a rugby player, like Ben. He could see giving himself to Ben’s lustful desires if Ben might have those feelings for another boy, but it was Casey who was owed, now; and, it wasn’t going to be mutual, unless Casey allowed it. The Power was very specific about things like that.

He daubed a cold wash cloth at the wound silently wishing they wouldn’t nip at him so much. What he couldn’t understand was how they did it. All of the mountain with its crags, woodland, trails, the steps hewn from rock, the harpies, the gryphon, the demons, the doors, all of it was a figment of his mind, but if he came to the mountain with a troubled heart seeking the awesome pleasure to be had from standing on one of the aeries or reaching the top and touching the multicolored crystal, if he attempted that with hatred, fear, or anything other than peace in his heart, the beasts swooped down upon him, the demons barred the doors, and the Power was silent; and, he came out of the trance with a wound on his head. It didn’t make any sense to him, but the pleasure to be had when he did reach the crystal was overwhelming. In fact, it was in some sense better than an orgasm.

After the bleeding stopped, Six went to his wardrobe and stared at the clothes he’d hung in there earlier. A chill swept out of his gut making him turn around and stare at the towel where he had been meditating. The book was still there. It was still open.

He walked back and knelt on the towel. The drawing of the gryphon seemed to quiver as if it wanted to turn itself over to protect the room from the hideous creature.

“Forgive this worthless creature,” Six whispered as he carefully closed the book. He softly caressed the cover, tracing fingertips over the embossed letters: Prester John on the Crystal Mountain; translated from the original Sanskrit text by A. G.

Although he hadn’t read the entire book, he’d read enough to get to the top of the mountain twice in the past year. Six laid the book on the sheet of calfskin which he folded over the book. The Power required propitiation, now. In the past couple of years, once he’d gotten through most of the book, he knew that lashing his bare skin with blackberry vines was acceptable, but he wasn’t certain he could do that here. Saying he’d fallen off his bike into a blackberry bramble a third time wasn’t going to go over with his mother. He would have to come up with something different, something just as painful or he’d never be able to approach the first aerie again. The harpies were more than capable of killing him.

Even though it was a hot Sunday evening, all of the guests were not expected until six o’clock, but by the time Casey arrived in his Spiderman t-shirt and khakis there were enough people to give him pause at the kitchen door. Jim was sitting over in the sun talking to a man about his age, while a younger woman, probably a mother with teenagers, sat beside him on the wooden bench. They seemed to know one another. Jim looked straight at Casey and smiled. Then he gave him a thumbs up sign and motioned for him to come over.

Casey had never been good around crowds of adults since that party his uncle threw the night of his arrival in San Angelo, the night he was almost impaled by a familial dick, the night his uncle’s stash of teen boy pornography was discovered by the police, and the reason he was put on an airplane headed back to Rancho Cucamonga and the ridicule that was to follow. Tonight, like that other night, he was the guest of honor. Well, he’d already almost been impaled, so at least he’d gotten that out of the way or he hoped he had. Ben wasn’t in sight which was good for the moment.

“This is Casey Pale, one half of our freshmen this year,” Jim said as he stood.

“Bud McDonald,” the older man said holding out his hand. Casey took it and hoped his hand wasn’t too sweaty from nervousness.

“Nice to meet you sir,” Casey said as he looked into the man’s clear eyes. The face was stern, used to informing the world of his honesty.

“Doctor Arnold,” the woman said as she reached across the small table in front of the bench.

“Nice to meet you ma’am,” Casey said as he adjusted his grip to the woman’s softer grip.

“So, Casey what do you think of my husband’s little college?” Dr. Arnold asked.

“It’s okay,” Casey said. He’d signed his life away to them. What else was he supposed to say?

“Just okay?” Dr. Arnold asked. Her calmness belied any anger.

“I haven’t been to a class,” Casey said, “and I haven’t met any professors yet, other than Dr. Parker. It’s pretty with all the trees, flowers, and green grass; and some of the buildings are architecturally interesting, especially the library with the gargoyles. I really liked the gargoyles. You don’t usually see a lot of them anymore.”

“We have gargoyles?” Jim asked.

“There you are, you naughty little boy,” Euphorbia said as she came up behind Casey and grabbed his arm. “Say goodbye to our guests, you have work to do.”

“Be nice to him Euphorbia,” Bud said with a wink.

“Don’t tempt me,” Euphorbia said. “Where have you been?”

“I needed to take a shower,” Casey said, “and I wanted to change clothes, too. Like the t-shirt?”

“Spiderman, yes that’ll do just fine,” Euphorbia said. “You have plates and silverware to put out, the soft drink cooler needs to be iced and filled, but first I’ll help you with the tablecloths. There’s a bit of a wind so we’ll have to use the clips.”

“Okay,” Casey said. He tried to look through Euphorbia’s makeup and clothes to see the man underneath, but nothing seemed to help. For one thing she, too, had changed her clothes and was now wearing a bright yellow dress with a high collar that went down past her knees. She’d put on a little more makeup, too. Other than the obvious flat chest, Euphorbia looked quite attractive, but she was sixty so that bore some significance on Casey decision.

“Also, when you’ve finished, we need you to be with Dr. Orlov,” Euphorbia said. She’d stopped and turned to face Casey. “He’s nearly ninety and talks to someone you can’t see, but we need you to take him under your wing and keep him safe. Do you think you can do this?”

“Why can’t Six do something?” Casey asked. “It’s because he’s family, isn’t it? He doesn’t have to do anything around here because I’m a scholarship recipient and he’s here because he’s family. What if I said no?”

“Then we’d have to tell everyone you’re a selfish, spoiled little boy who can’t help a bunch of old queens who need you right now,” Euphorbia said.

“You’d tell them you’re gay?” Casey asked. Somehow that didn’t sound quite right.

“Everyone who’s coming to the party knows we’re gay,” Euphorbia said. “What they don’t know is that you’re being uncooperative.”

“But what about Six?” Casey asked. A memory of the feel of Six’s dick in his hand flashed through his mind. Strangely, he kind of felt experiencing that feeling again might not be so bad at all.

“Everyone helps in the house,” Euphorbia said. “He’ll have his assigned duties even if he’s here just because of his trust fund. Okay? Good. Now, come on let’s get the tables covered.”

Casey went about his duties only a little disgruntled that Ben, Tiffani and her boyfriend Karl, were able to sit around with the other guests while he had to work. He kept his eye on Ben, but the other boy wasn’t giving any hint about his intentions. No matter what happened, Ben was never going to be permitted into his room ever again as he seemed too earnest in his desire to fuck. As far as Casey was concerned at that moment, he was not going to allow another guy to do that to him, ever. Period.

“Hey, what happened to you earlier?” Ben asked behind Casey.

“Hey, that’s mine,” Casey said as he stared at his Shuffle clipped to Ben’s green pocket tee.

“Well, you know what you have to do to get it back,” Ben said. His lips quivered slightly as he tried to smile.

“That isn’t going to happen,” Casey said. “Now, give it back or I’ll call the police.”

“You aren’t going to call anyone because I think this is your cell, too,” Ben said holding up a cell phone that looked very much like Casey’s.

“You’ve been in my room without my permission,” Casey said.

“My room, they’re all mine and you’re going to have to pay me rent fuck buddy o’mine,” Ben said as he slid up beside Casey and cupped his ass as a finger slipped into the crack.

“I won’t do it!” Casey exclaimed as he quickly shied away from the disgusting touch.

“Hey, you two, hold it down,” Euphorbia said. “Ben, you help Casey put the cooler on the bench beside the bar.”

“I don’t need Spiderman’s help,” Ben said. He closed the lid and picked up the cooler. “You come to my room tonight, buddy o’mine, and be ready to do it.”

Casey swallowed and thought about his options; unfortunately, he couldn’t figure out if he had any choice in the matter other than to offer himself to Ben’s carnal desires.

Six sat in his studio staring at the empty canvas. The Power was in there and it beckoned his carnal heart. He’d gotten hard from his uncle’s touch and he’d allowed a boy who disgusted him to touch that hard-on which caused almost immediate orgasm. The book was quite explicit about carnal desires poisoning the heart.

A supplicant with a lascivious heart
Found the path, the righteous path
The gryphon wheeled above ever vigilant
Gnashing claws found their mark
The supplicant lies in the soil of his dirty heart
Chapter 6, v. 3-7

His choices were few. He could sink into depravity and act on his body’s desire for Uncle Kevin’s touch. The man was over fifty, but he was somewhat fit and probably could still get an erection. After all, Uncle Kevin and Eric were still together; they must be capable of having some sort of sex. Six would suck him to show his willingness to submit to the man’s need. Real sex would surely follow. That’s what gays did, right? Except, the thought of his uncle’s dick buried in his ass somehow repulsed Six with a burning, nausea deep in his gut.

Doing Casey’s bidding was the other option. Whatever the other boy wanted sexually Six would have to freely give, even if it meant giving in to the boy’s basest desires. Thoughts of sadism and all of its implications filled his mind. Could he willingly give his young body to a person who only desired to cause him physical pain? Yet, pain was what was required to achieve true oneness with the Power. The book was very implicit about the rewards and consequences of pain. You didn’t have to read between too many lines to figure out what Prester John went through during his own treks up to Nirvana and union with the Power. Could he convince Casey to try giving pain?

Six did not feel his body lift up from the chair. He didn’t feel pain until he was flung onto the floor. He lay sprawled on the paint splattered linoleum with his face pressed into an unusually large expanse of pale sky blue. His eyes bore into the blue as the Power spoke to him in the language of the Ancients. He understood none of what was being said, nor was he certain the words were meant for him. It was a beautiful, tonal language full of Eastern rhythms that reminded Six of a broad, sun filled valley with song birds in the distance; yet, close by, somewhere off in the tall reeds, a large cat growled deeply. Six swallowed the taste of fear in his mouth.

Suddenly, pain seared through his back as he was pulled up and stood on his uncertain feet. His head was forced downward as the blue on the floor came up and seemed to splash into his eyes. Six looked at the bare canvas then went to the cabinets along the wall where he pulled open drawers and doors searching for his tools.

Just as unexpectedly, he now stood in front of the canvas with large globs of cobalt blue and titanium white on the palette which he quickly mixed to match the color on the floor. Only after he was positive he’d matched the color did Six begin to spread long strokes of the color across the waiting canvas. He continued on, top to bottom, bottom to top, left to right, and back again, trying to get the background, the base for whatever was to come, ready to receive the image.

A flicker of consciousness deep in his mind knew something wasn’t quite right about all of this, but it had been pushed back into the nether regions where barely remembered thoughts lingered before finally being dissolved into the nothingness of age. Nearby a remembrance of a young boy stood in his sister’s bedroom wearing panties and training bra as she carefully applied blush to his bony cheeks. Back then he was Davy, or David if he’d done something wrong, which he was to find out in a few minutes when his mother came looking for two children who were being too quiet.

Totally unaware to events around him, Six continued to work the pale sky into the canvas. The Power was going to lead him through this exercise as had happened during earlier lessons for one who chose the rocky path to the multicolored crystal. He had it back in his mind to touch the crystal the next time he was there, but that wasn’t going to be for many months. The Power didn’t allow transgressors to approach the seat of Authority without the proper cleansing as he was being cleansed at that moment by moving the brush to the rhythm of the words.

Words were being said around him, but Six still could not hear them. They were a noxious din like a flitting fly that broke one’s concentration during the essay portion of a final exam. Six slowly became aware of his body being moved away from the easel. He watched the brush seem to fly away out of his awareness. He wanted to stop it because the Power hadn’t been satiated. Then the palette was wrenched from his hand as his body was turned.

The first slap on his right cheek was startling, but it didn’t release the Power’s hold on his mind. Fortunately, a second slap quickly followed causing Six to collapse to the floor. The Power was gone and as Six’s mind took back control his eyes picked up images of shoes, socks, and bare ankles. He felt strange being rolled onto his back. Uncle Kevin stared into his soul.

“We were worried because you hadn’t come to the picnic,” Kevin said.

Six tried to smile, but understood only a couple words.

“We sent up Ben and he said you were doing something crazy,” Eric said.

Six tried to remember Ben being in his room, but the door was locked, so that’s what he said, “Door locked. How could he come in?”

“Yeah, Ben, how did you get in?” Kevin asked.

“Well, uh, Euphorbia gave me her key,” Ben said.

“No I didn’t,” Euphorbia said from the door. “Is he okay?”

“I think he’s close to what we at the school used to call nutso,” Kevin said. “It doesn’t look like drugs, though. Right Eric?”

“No, I don’t think it’s drugs,” Eric said. “Maybe he’s been meditating. You know that stuff Robert was doing back in the early Seventies with that weird guy from Carmel.”

“Oh, yeah, that guy,” Euphorbia said. “So, Ben do you want to talk to me about getting into Six’s room or do you want to talk to Jim?”

“Uh, well, I guess you,” Ben said.

“I think he can talk to both of us since we still haven’t found that master key that went missing last spring,” Jim said as he walked up behind Euphorbia.

“He’s got my cell and Shuffle,” Casey said in a brief moment of bravery.

“It’s my cell,” Ben said with a sneer.

“What’s a Shuffle?” Kevin asked.

“A small iPod,” Eric said.

“I can prove it’s mine,” Casey said.

“How’re you going to do that, Spiderman?” Ben asked.

“Enough of that, Ben,” Jim said. “Come on Ben, we need to talk. You too, Casey.”

“Maybe I should talk to my lawyer,” Ben said.

“Maybe you should think about packing your bags,” Euphorbia said. “Or, maybe we should just call the police and let them handle this.”

“I can talk,” Ben said.

“Thought so,” Jim said.

“Now, Six, it’s your turn,” Eric said.

Six looked at Kevin, then at Eric. He didn’t want to come between them as it was more than obvious the two men were in love, but it seemed Eric was taking control of this situation, so there was little he could do at the moment. He would have to wait for another day to begin his seduction of Uncle Kevin. He wasn’t quite certain how to go about that. Probably, it would be a lot easier to get Casey to punish him sexually than to get his mouth over the head of Uncle Kevin’s hard dick.

Later that evening after everyone had gone home satisfied Charles House had, once again, two over-qualified freshmen, Six sat in the parlor of Kevin and Eric’s suite.

“Well, boy, do you have an explanation for what happened?” Kevin asked.

“No,” Six said stoically.

“We have two choices in situations like this,” Eric said. “Since you’re still a minor, your mother may need to be called.”

“She won’t do anything,” Six interjected.

“Yes, well, if we send you home,” Eric said, “she may very well have to do something.”

“Send me home, why?” Six asked.

“For acting like you were either drugged senseless or something more sinister,” Kevin said. “If you remember from the book we gave you, I spent a lot of years in state hospitals. I know what crazy looks like. I’m sure there’re a lot of technical words for catatonic painting. In fact, I bet if we call the loony bin down at County, they’ll tell us one or two of them. Well?”

“Well, what?” Six asked.

“See, Eric, there’s a reason not to have children, they turn into teenagers,” Kevin said. “Listen, boy, if I had my way, you wouldn’t be living here at all because some aspiring high school artist gave up his or her chance of a lifetime so you could live in this house.”

“I didn’t ask to live here,” Six said.

“No, you didn’t,” Kevin said, “but you’re here now and we have to decide right now if you’re going to stay. Unfortunately, your options don’t include going into a dorm. You can stay here and accept our help or you can go home and forfeit your trust fund.”

“Do I have to decide right now?” Six asked somewhat defiantly.

“No, you can sleep on it,” Eric said, “but we’ll need an answer in the morning because one of us will have to take you to Portland if you decide to leave.”

“Thanks,” Six said dejectedly. He stood and walked out the door.

“Strange boy,” Kevin said.

“Do you think he’s having mental problems?” Eric asked.

“No, not something organic,” Kevin said. “Whatever it is, he’s in over his head and we’re going to have to find out before he tries something that may harm him. Remember that guy from Carmel. He thought he could fly. It was that book that did it. Good thing he jumped over water.”

“Yeah, only broke some of his bones, not all of them,” Eric said. “Do you think Jim might remember that book?”

“Probably,” Kevin said. “If I remember right, it was wrapped in some kind of leather. That guy was so weird.”

“As weird as Six?” Eric asked.

“Yeah, kinda.”