How The Light Gets In - 7. Chapter 7

Luc, sitting alone in an otherwise empty row, dutifully checked that his seat was in the upright position. Then he leaned back and tried to relax as the Air Canada plane began its taxi down the runway for takeoff. He didn’t much like flying, especially not the takeoffs, the landings. He always felt that transitions were the dangerous times. He knew it was silly, but he always held his breath during those seconds in between land and air, air and land, as if holding the air in his lungs could prevent… contact, falling, explosion. Perhaps, if he were permitted to listen to his Ipod, he would be able to lose himself in his music, but the flight attendant had already stopped, asked him sweetly but firmly, in English and in French, to put it away until they were in the air.

“You can turn it on again as soon as the seatbelt sign goes off,” she’d said with a smile that hovered in the general direction of real.

He had smiled back, turned it off, removed the ear buds. Now he held the precious silver rectangle firmly in nervous fingers.

He’d been listening to Jeff Buckley, whose amazing voice, so full of emotion, was a new discovery and his latest passion. A collection of Buckley CDs had been his Christmas gift from his oldest brother Pierre. He’d thought it odd at first, unfamiliar music from Pierre who always seemed to come up with the perfect, perfect gift, but he soon found that his brother’s choice had been right again. Luc found an odd comfort in those unfettered sobs, the sweet, high cries of pain. In his usual obsessive way, he’d researched the singer relentlessly, and as much as the music thrilled him, the story of its singer had broken his heart.

He wondered, as the sweet, high voice always made him wonder, if his drowning had been suicide, and then found solace in the certainty of his mother, his friends, no, surely not, surely not.

He also wondered if Pierre had known about all that… if he’d him given him the gift of Buckley’s voice not just because he’d known Luc would love the music, but also because he wanted him to think about the young singer’s death. It was hard to know. Pierre was eight years older than Luc, had been little more than a holiday visitor to the Montreal house since Luc was a child. Yet of his three brothers, Pierre was the one most like him, not just physically, but temperamentally. And though he adored the twins, with their wild, sometimes overbearing, playfulness, their noisy exuberance, it was Pierre who seemed, instinctively, to understand him best.

Yes, Luc decided, Pierre had known all about Buckley’s death. He had given him the CDs expecting Luc to explore the story along with the music, expecting him to think about it...

It was the interviews with his family, his mother, that had hurt Luc most, made him think hard beyond his own pain to the consequences of what he had almost succeeded in doing. For some reason, it was the death of this younger singer, some ten years ago, that forced him to think about what his death would have meant to his family.

To his mother…

Oui, sa mere.

It had taken all of his powers of persuasion to convince her not to make this flight back to Halifax with him. She’d spent the last few days hovering about him like a helicopter. She’d practically insisted on making her company a condition of his leaving, and had even tried to solicit his father’s support. She’d almost succeeded: Luc had been able to see that his father was beginning to think it might be a good idea for her to spend a few days at the condo, help him get organized, meet his new roommate.

Finally, Luc had been forced to arrange for Scott to pick him up at the airport – though he’d have much preferred to get a cab alone. Still his mother had insisted on confirming the arrangements by discussing them with Scott himself in detail. It had been hard for Luc to sacrifice that independence, but it had been the price of leaving his mother behind, and he had paid it.

“It will be fine, Papa,” he had told his father in the crowded halls of Dorval airport. He’d whispered the soft assurance into his ear as his father, hands resting lightly on Luc’s shoulders, had carefully kissed him goodbye, once on each cheek as was his habit. “I promise you that I will be fine. I’m done with this. Fini. I promise.”

He’d meant it too.

He had never made such a promise before, and he knew from the way his father had gripped his shoulders tightly that his father realized that, too. And that his father had been relieved and comforted.

His mother, however, was clearly worried, almost frantic. He didn’t know how to comfort her. Promises wouldn’t help.

So he’d kissed her goodbye, allowed her to hold him hard, returned the embrace.

“Je t’aime, Maman.”

But all the way through security, he’d been able to feel her watching him. When he turned around to look at them a final time, he saw that she was watching anxiously after him, her face taut with worry. His father had been standing behind her, both arms wrapped around her, and she was leaning back into him, as if unable to stand alone.

Then, while Luc watched, his father had tilted his head, murmured against her ear, and Luc had known that he was doing what he could to comfort her.

What would that mean, he wondered now, staring out the tiny plane window at the still slowly moving runway. What would it mean to have someone you could lean on like that, so trustingly, so completely? To have someone who had that strength, the capacity for love, to be such a support?

Luc knew in his heart that Scott was such a man. Although he wasn’t much older than Luc himself, Scott already had that kind of personal strength, that capacity to give, to love, to support absolutely.

The plane slowed, stopped, and then the engine revved loud and hard, preparing for that sudden burst of speed to takeoff. He tasted blood in his mouth, and realized that he had been gnawing on his lower lip. Luc’s knuckles were white around his Ipod.

Scott was such a man.

But Daniel? Would he have grown into that? Daniel, who had been his protector all through boyhood? Luc had always thought him so fierce, so brave. But in the end Daniel had turned out to be even more frightened than Luc himself…

He closed his eyes, and found himself there again, there with Daniel.

That day.

That day.

He pressed his forehead against the small window as the plane lifted to that space between earth and sky.

His forehead was cold against the glass.

His cheeks were wet.

***

Josh awoke to the golden light of late morning. The act of waking was slow somehow, a sweet extension of a dream he couldn’t quite remember, and for an instant, a few drowsy heartbeats, he felt a little lost, unable to place himself in space or time. The golden light seemed filtered, somehow unfamiliar. But Scott was there and pressed close, and so his world was anchored. He felt safe, and somehow not knowing quite where he was didn’t much matter.

He didn’t fight for it, the dreaming or the awakening. He just laid there for a few heartbeats, letting the new day have its way with him, the magic of Scott’s warm, familiar smell, and the sleepy golden light.

He was lying on his left side, his face pressed against the hard, smooth heat of Scott’s shoulder blade. His right arm was around Scott’s waist, his fingertips resting just below Scott’s navel. He flexed his fingers and pictured the fine gold hairs against his fingertips. Then he closed his eyes and breathed deeply, filling his head with the intoxicating scent of Scott’s skin.

And then it all awoke in him, the heart-deep memory of a sweet, wild night of loving, and he smiled.

He shifted a little, careful not to disturb Scott, a quick look at the clock which confirmed they still had almost three hours before they needed to be at the airport, and then allowed himself to relax into a lazy cloud, feeling uprooted somehow, free-floating.

They had made love all night, first by candlelight, and then as the candles burned low and flickered out, in the heavy darkness where, in the deep, black of night, they had shared the sweet, sweet pleasure of loving each other by touch alone.

Scott loved to touch in the dark, when every caress, every whisper, every smell, was just that much more intense. Josh was learning to love it, too. It was all so very new for him, and so very wonderful. Only with Scott had he experienced that kind of isolated touch, totally loving and safe, totally sacred. Only with Scott had he experienced touch that was only felt, completely unobserved.

He and Graham had never had sex in the dark. For Graham, sex had always been both a participative and a spectator sport, and he’d never touched Josh without watching the impact of that touch, studying Josh’s reactions, calculating their effect. Especially, he had studied Josh’s face, for he was, after all, primarily a portraitist, and studying faces was his obsession.

And not only had Graham always insisted on a light, but mirrors as well. In his studio in Scotland, and in the old farmhouse he’d rented here, the artist had kept huge mirrors propped against the walls. He’d been particularly driven to take Josh from behind before these large mirrors, and then watching the reflection of Josh’s face the entire time, devouring his reactions, gorging himself on them.

Sometimes, he’d been gentle.

Sometimes determined.

And sometimes he’d forced himself into Josh so suddenly, so brutally, that Josh had fought and screamed and wept. Graham was more than 20 years older, hard and wiry and extremely strong, and no matter how Josh struggled, in the end Graham got what he wanted, how he wanted it. Afterwards, ripped and torn and with a breaking heart, Josh would almost hate Graham, and absolutely hate himself, and vow never to return.

Even now, after several years of therapy, he didn’t really understand it. He was not a fundamentally weak person, and far from growing up emotionally needy, he’d grown up with elderly parents who’d adored and indulged him. Maybe that was it. Maybe deep down, he couldn’t believe that in the end he couldn’t make Graham love him like that.

Whatever the reason, no matter how deep the hurt, how determined his vow, somehow Graham had always found a way to lure him back. Inevitably, with gentle words and promises, Graham would soothe him, lure him, take him softly and gently to show how it could be, and Josh would forgive him, and the whole God damned circle would begin again.

Now Josh sighed, a small intense breath that caught in his throat, and he tightened the arm that circled Scott’s waist. Bowing his head, he placed a small, soft kiss just there, above the little heart shaped mole below Scott’s left shoulder blade, near his spine. It was the only mark on that flawless golden skin, and it was so very lovely.

At the touch of Josh’s mouth, Scott stirred in his sleep, sought out Josh’s fingers where they rested against his belly, and laced his own fingers through them. Josh almost wept at the unconscious tenderness. Graham had never offered him an unconscious touch or word; every movement, every touch, had been deliberate, self-conscious.

He’d had taught Josh a lot about sex, but nothing at all about this.

Graham had tried to explain it to him once.

It was just after he’d shown up in Halifax, deepest February - God, almost six years ago now. It seemed like a lifetime ago. Two months had passed since the crazy couple of weeks in Edinburgh when Graham had… done what Graham had done, forced Josh the way he had forced him, so that he could paint Josh’s pain and betrayal into the series of post 9/11 paintings that had been tearing at him. They were at the farmhouse Graham had rented as his studio. Except for the mattress where Graham slept and huge mirrors propped on three walls, the small second floor room was empty.

It should have been a glorious moment, the first time Josh had been inside another man’s body.

It wasn’t glorious. Graham had made sure of that.

He hadn’t allowed Josh to make love to him; he’d just used Josh’s body to fuck himself, then abandoned him, empty.

Beneath Scott’s larger hand, Josh felt his fingers tightened into a fist. Why did he have to remember these things? Why did they haunt him still? He forced his hand to relax.

Graham had been fighting a painting that wasn’t working, and in a flare of frustration had phoned Josh and had more or less ordered him over. Josh had gone, but the comfort, the respite he had wanted to offer was not what Graham had had in mind.

Though his passion had started, as it often did, hard and fast and intensely physical, the older man had turned suddenly wild and viciously strong. And it had been exciting, for awhile. But in the end, Josh had been allowed nothing. Graham had simply held him down, then lowered himself fiercely. It had been so fast, so intense, that Josh could hardly breathe.

Graham had held him down by the shoulders, his fingers biting so deep the bruises lingered for weeks. And soon as he was done, he ripped himself away, leaving Josh suddenly alone and shivering with cold, his physical desire unfilled, his emotional desire desecrated. He’d watched in a daze as Graham strode across the room for the bottle of single malt Scotch, the heavy crystal glass on the floor by the corner, poured himself a couple of fingers, and returned to stand beside the mattress, staring down. His eyes, hard and shining black, never left Josh’s face, and though he wanted to die, Josh had not been able to look away.

As Graham had stood there watching, refusing to speak, to touch, to comfort, Josh eventually found himself weeping, feeling as used and brutalized as he had that horrible afternoon that Graham had raped him. He felt more alone then he’d ever felt in his life. Abandoned.

Finally, Graham dropped to his knees on the floor and thrust a hand into the thick waves of Josh’s hair, which he had worn fairly long then, as Graham had liked it.

“Jesus, God,” Graham said, pushing the hair back from Josh’s forehead. “It’s not just that you’re so fucking beautiful, baby boy. There are a million beautiful faces out there. But I’ve never seen a face, or a body, more expressive than yours, never seen anyone who just…”

He stopped, tossed back the rest of the Scotch, put down the glass, and tightened his hand painfully into a fistful of Josh’s hair.

“Nobody who opens to me the way you do,” he ground out. “So completely. So goddamn nakedly. The expressions on your face, baby boy. The way you move. The lines of your body.”

The brutal hand that was fisted in his hair gave a swift, painful yank, and Josh had cried out as his head was pulled back, his throat exposed.

Josh was trembling when Graham lowered his mouth to Josh’s neck. He cried out when he felt the scrape of angry teeth, the scrape, the pressure, the bites. Graham bit and sucked and scraped until Josh had been frightened into silence, afraid even to breathe.

Only then did Graham raise his head again, and he was laughing, looking fiercely down into Josh’s face. His mood, always mercurial, had changed, and he reached out and caressed Josh’s cheek with a hand that was suddenly gentle, almost tender. Dropped his mouth to Josh’s lips. Kissed him softly.

And Josh, barely 18, so frightened and so very innocent, had closed his eyes, sighed into the kiss, and clung to its gentleness. Wanting so much to love and be loved, he forgave yet again, even as Graham raised his head.

“Even your fear is beautiful,” Graham said with a weary sigh. “It’s more than beautiful. Fuck, I don’t know. It’s just what I have to do, you know? Capture it. Capture you. Find a way to fucking capture you.”

He stroked Josh’s neck where the marks he’d left would be so brutal Josh would have to hide them for a long time.

“Christ, I’m afraid sometimes that there will be something of you in every face I paint for the rest of my life,” Graham muttered, and he stared into Josh’s eyes in a way that seemed to go right to his very soul. “A line. A curve. A shadow. A feeling. I can’t help it. I need them all. I need them all.”

And that, Josh understood now as he breathed in the comforting warmth of Scott’s skin, had pretty much defined his relationship with Graham: Josh completely open no matter how hard he tried, and Graham fighting at once to possess him and to free himself. Whatever Graham had felt for him had had nothing to do with love, or even with Josh as a man. It had always been about Graham as an artist. Ultimately, Josh had never really been anything more to him than line and space. A sacred line and space, to be sure, but still only that.

Line and space.

Shape and mass.

Light and dark.

Motion and stillness.

Pain and pleasure.

Graham had been obsessed by him – but he had never loved him. He’d devoured him – but never accepted his love. Graham had simply taken him, captured him, possessed him, and in return had given Josh nothing of himself at all. Josh wondered now if he even had anything to give – anything that he didn’t bleed onto canvas.

But last night – last night – Scott had taken him so far beyond that. Last night, in the dark, dark room, the frightened boy on the mattress who could hide nothing, was free to be a man who was learning again to show something. Last night, the boy on the mattress was able to be a man who loved and was loved.

And to glory in it.

And it was all so easy, so natural. Josh had found himself whispering, soothing. And Scott had gone still and quiet beneath Josh’s trembling hands, until finally, finally, the moment came, and he had given himself – generously, completely. Josh whispered, caressed, and beneath him and around him Scott came alive in a way that had left both of them so breathless and trembling and connected that Josh had to believe it could be forever.

And when they had finally fallen asleep, the late January dawn was already breaking the sky, and Josh was still deep, deep inside, too exhausted to move. He smiled now, even thinking of it.

He let his hand wander in the golden morning light, confirming that Scott, too, had slipped into sleep exactly as he’d collapsed a few hours before, his left leg stretched out, his right drawn up to his chest. Their connection was broken, but only by a little. Josh was still close, so beautifully, magically close.

He kissed that perfect little heart-shaped mole once again, rubbed his cheek against the soft golden skin of Scott’s back. He tightened his arm again, shifted his leg to wrap it around Scott’s thigh. Scott sighed, pushed back against him, but did not wake. Josh had never felt as close to another human being as he did just then, with the entire length of his body pressed against Scott’s back.

Josh moved up a little, nuzzled Scott’s ear. The hair on Scott’s head was a non-descript mid brown, but his body hair was surprisingly, wonderfully golden, lightening as it moved south, from the brown-gold chest hair to the fine gold-brown hair of his stomach, which in turn thickened into the secret golden curls just beyond the edges of Josh’s fingertips…

He let his hand drift a little lower, his fingertips graze, tease. Scott’s breathing changed again, and Josh smiled and pressed more soft kisses against the skin of Scott’s back. They had to get up soon, after all. They had to be at the airport…

He was so hard, and he pressed that forward, too.

“Mmmm,” whispered Scott, not really awake, but pushing back trustingly in a slow, sleepy haze.

Josh dropped another kiss between his shoulder blades, this time tasting where his lips had touched.

“It almost time to get up,” he said.

“Mmmm…” whispered Scott again.

Josh nibbled softly and Scott groaned.

“Again,” he whispered, pushing back. “Please.”

Josh, now fiercely hard, nuzzled the back of Scott’s neck, tasting him. “You sure?”

“Mmmm.”

“You’ll be walking funny.”

Scott’s laughter was wonderfully soft and low and sleepy. “I’ll be walking funny anyway.”

***

Luc spent the entire flight with his face pressed against the glass, his mind pressed to memories of Daniel. He didn’t even notice the landing. As the other passengers began to make their way down the aisles, it was all he could do to make himself unbuckle his seatbelt.

The idea of seeing Scott again...

The idea of Scott with Josh…

The idea…