The Dove Keeper (Frerard)

Chapter Eighteen / Art & Age

As we lazed around on the floor for a few necessary moments, the off-white bird was still watching us. Her head was cocked to the side, and she began to coo incessantly as Gerard and I declared our mutual want for each other again through small pecks of lips. Gerard's hands were on my waist, my back – everywhere, but so was the birdseed, and it was beginning to become a burden against my skin. The sharp edges stung and itched. I knew I needed to get them off soon. The dove, Frank, was now done eating and there was no way she was coming back for more. All of the seeds had been tainted by flesh, sweat, and other bodily fluids anyway; she wouldn't want to eat them even if she was starving.

I looked at the bird as I got up out of Gerard's grasp, and she stared right back intensely with her beady little black eyes. She was named after me now, acclaiming that I was an artist. I felt so awkward then, some kind of foreign celebrity forced upon me. I was not used to people paying attention to me for my actions, justified or not. I was always used to people focusing in on me, the image, or just not at all. I was Frank; the seventeen-year-old high school student with little or no aspirations. I didn't even know that image all that well, mostly because it was a shell of something. Those were merely facts of a person, not traits. Traits were something unique and distinguishable, whereas facts applied to something rigid and were over generalized. I was a high school student, which meant I sat around and stared at a clock most days, wishing that I didn't have to be there. But so did nearly every other high school student. That description was not about me as a person. You couldn't tell who I really was from the label, and I didn't really know who I was.

All of a sudden however, I was transformed into Frank the artist. It had only taken Gerard naming the bird after me, but it somehow sealed this new fate. Really, I had been acquiring this new façade for a few weeks now. It had all started with the blue paint can, covering me in my own metamorphosis. I was an artist; a person. Though the term artist was still just a fact – much like being a high school student – it embodied so much more than that. Being an artist allowed you to be born into something that was able to form specific traits to the individual. Artists were sensitive, intuitive, creative, and imaginative. Artists were real people with real thoughts, feelings, and souls. An artist could be molded into anything, any shape or form, using any medium. The term was flexible, unlike the harsh stone façade of a high school student. An artist was what Gerard was, and I was beginning to fall more and more for that ideal (if not the person manifested in its form) everyday. I was making a transition that I wasn't even close to being finished with yet, even though I had already come so far – at least, in Gerard's mind.

That was the issue though – it was all in Gerard's mind; it was all his opinion. I couldn't see what he was supposedly seeing: this young budding artist. It didn't make sense in my mind. I had never displayed any talents before. I had only written something similar to poetry when I felt like my head was going to cave in, I only played guitar because of someone else's dreams, and I only slathered paint on a canvas because Gerard wanted me to. Though I enjoyed those activities, I never really thought they were a talent, a calling. Maybe it was because I never really thought about things in the way Gerard did, I never really had that artistic focus on everyday life. I was sleeping on the normal side of the bed every night; I had to turn myself around in order to see what he saw, and maybe even dream while I was at it.

Apparently those talents were there. I was still learning, Gerard had said, but I had potential. The word itself was so alien and almost frightful when it had come out of his lips, and embedded in my mind. It was one of those delicate declarations that I would absorb as I listened to him speak only because of the way it glided over his lips. The sound of the word was hopeful, creative, but the implications left a mark on me – a mark only he could see. I could be Frank the artist, in time. Now, I was just the budding artist, learning my way through the pages and pages of uncalculated dreams inside my very own head. It seemed like a new and foreign land.

"But why do you have to name the dove after me right now?" I questioned, my insecurities dragging behind the lesson plan still. I looked up to Gerard, our positions now switched on the floor, my body leaning into his. "I mean, can't you just name the bird Frank when I am an actual artist? I'm still just learning now."

"I know," Gerard nodded, his brows showing his disapproval. He laid his head back down on the mat, looking up to the ceiling as he talked. "Naming it now only makes everything possible for the future." He paused, making me think he had something more to say. When he merely sighed, I probed further.

"What do you mean?"

"By naming something, you claim ownership of it. The situation is similar with a child or a pet. When you name it, it's yours."

He stopped again, eyes transfixed with the thoughts above. My head was on his chest, chin angled so I could look at him as he talked. His arm was around my waist, and he dragged me closer, as if to focus on me more. I let my mind wander with his idea on naming to my parents. I cringed, thinking of the complete and utter trepidation I felt in the fact that they still owned me. It was so true, in a way. In a few months I would be eighteen and legally an adult, but I would always be 'owned' by them. They had named me; I was theirs. At this moment in time, they had control of my actions – and if they knew I was with a forty-seven-year old artist, naked on his living room floor, they would not appreciate it one little bit. I would have much rather be owned by Gerard, because at least he would keep my best interests at heart. And then it hit me, as the artist's voice and my inner thoughts cascaded together into direct reasoning.

"My naming of my dove as you," Gerard started to explain again, motioning with his free hand, "means that you can take ownership of yourself. You can take your artistry in your hands, like clay, and mold it into everything that you want."

His hands moved in a fluid manner, as if constructing his own sculpture out of my potential – or perhaps ours together. He looked down at me, drawing my attention away from his flying fingers. "You have the power over yourself now, if you choose to take it, that is."

He smiled through the stare, but all I could feel was intimidation. I couldn't help but feel overwhelmed by everything. I had been used to someone else owning me all this time; myself as the object, not the possessor. I had always been empty-handed, so much so that now that something was in them, they felt odd, heavy, and chaffed with resistance. I wasn't sure if I could take myself – all of myself – and truly own it just yet. That was why I had wanted Gerard to be the middle man before I was completely on my own. I knew I hated the idea of my parents owning me; they would never steer me in the right direction. But I knew I also hated the idea of myself owning me; I too, would never steer myself in the right direction, only crash on my way down. I was stuck, in power, with or without it. All of this power I had acquired so soon; too soon. I had only just started to grow up; there was no way I had already completed everything in this small weekend. I had lacked so many years prior to my meeting Gerard, I may have needed another lifetime to catch up. I wasn't ready, and I didn't think I ever would be. I began to feel all the hope I had mustered before, all of the confidence and security melt away, and I wanted to claw my way out of my skin.

My eyes darted away from Gerard, not answering anything.

"Do you want to take it, Frank?"

His voice called into my thoughts, rousing me from them. He was talking about the power to own, currently making me want to turn myself inside out. I let out a labored sigh and brought my eyes to meet his, ready to tell him I wasn't, when something else caught my attention. A small smile was on his face, his expression softened from the initial intensity it had held before. It was warm and inviting, the invitation extended further as he began to rub my arm up and down soothingly. And then I realized something else, something that was less scary than ownership.

I recalled the not so distant memory of Gerard's hands in mine and the dove's wings fluttering throughout the apartment. Not only was I this apparent artist, I was Frank the dove . Not only had Gerard named my artistry so I could take hold of it, but he had named me his dove so he could take hold of me. He was going to keep me, direct me and guide me so I wasn't completely alone in this task at hand. I had control over my art, but Gerard was going to be there to guide me until I got it right.

I looked back up to him and nodded to his question with a weak smile. Everything seemed far less scary than it had been only moments ago. I marveled at the sheer polarity of our relationship for a few minutes, as our mouths came together and our voice boxes dulled. Something was either good or bad, black or white, dangerous or safe. Our emotions seemed to teeter on the edge of despair, to the edge of euphoria with nothing (and everything) in between. It was a hard way to live, especially during those morose times. Art was like that though; the best in its extremes. There is no such thing as half a colour; just bright blinding red, to deep dark red. People don't want what's in between because it's dull, and all around us. Art is an escape; you don't paint daily life.

You paint dreams.

Or at least that's what Gerard had taught me. There was always going to be art around our relationship, and there was always going to be a little fear, I realized too, even when I felt so fucking safe in his arms. There was always fear and pain in life, and with the new added benefit of apparent freedom, everything was going to feel strange. It wasn't supposed to feel natural, he had told me. His arms were a smooth and even texture however, disputing that fact. He was comfortable; we were comfortable. And I clung onto him as I let my mind wander.

Though this freedom had been there in the first place, I had never decided to take it. Maybe that was why the dove had needed to fly over to me; I wasn't going to go to her. I could have named my artistry all along, I could have taken possession of it long before Gerard, but I hadn't. I didn't choose anything until it was all thrust upon me, in a mix of birdseed-covered flesh, off-white wings, and paint resin. And even when he had done it for me, I was still a little hesitant to everything. Freedom wasn't supposed to feel natural; shackles were in place for a reason. Rules were still meant to be broken however, and we were doing a damn good job at breaking all of them. I had freedom, at least a little of it, and I was going to try and grab it by being all that Gerard wanted me to be.

But what did I want? I questioned myself, Gerard's words popping into my mind again. I couldn't just forget about myself in this. Artists were selfish people, so I divulged my senses. I wanted to paint, but that was more so to please him. I wanted to be like Gerard, just as much as I wanted to be with him; be inside of him. He was my mentor, teacher, and now my lover, but that didn't change the fact that I wanted so much more out of him. I wanted to have his charismatic abilities and his phenomenal voice that broadcasted such lucrative beliefs. I thought I could only get that through painting, fully channeling his essence. It was not that I didn't wantto paint, or wasn't good at it, but it didn't really answer the question of what I really wanted, what I needed. I thought long and hard then, of what that answer would be, and only came up with one fairly universal conclusion.

I wanted to be myself.

It was just too bad I had no idea who that could be yet. There were so many roles, so many functions and traits being thrust upon me, good and bad, that I had too many to choose from. I was a high school student, but that was inconclusive. I was an artist, but that was daunting, and I still needed to find out what that meant entirely. In order to be myself, I needed to use art. That was how Gerard got to be the way he was.

I looked over at him, the forty-seven-year old artist lying naked beside me. What did artist mean for him? I knew it meant he could paint, draw, and all that other stuff, but what about personality? He used his art to find himself. He was self-assured with a smidgen of arrogance, kind and tender, and one of the most philosophical people I had ever met. He challenged the way people thought, and he felt things more than he ever let on. He had become this person before me because of his art. He had used painting to find himself.

What could I use to find myself? I turned my attention back down to myself, wrapped up in his embrace, and thought longer and harder than I ever had before. I didn't have very many options, I realized, and I came to the most logical conclusion at the forefront of my mind.

I could make music. I could strum my fingers along the guitar and throw some words down to it perhaps. I could have people interpret what they heard rather than what they saw, like with Gerard's paintings. Seeing was well and good, but music could shake a person's inner core, literally shaking their surface as well. I could do that - in fact, I wanted to do that. I listened to music all the time; I always had my headphones on while I walked down the hallways at school and sometimes even during classes themselves if I could sneak them in. My bedroom wall was plastered with posters of bands I liked, not art. I admired musicians very much the same way Gerard admired artists. We were a lot alike, but with different vices.

The limited time I was at home, I would take the guitar out of its hibernated state inside my closet and play some notes. After Gerard had crushed and then feebly rebuilt my soul when I played for him, I was determined that the guitar would not see the light of day outside of my room again. I was still going to play it – in fact, I had that very night, muffling the strings so my parents didn't hear – but I was going to keep it tucked away from anyone else until I could play better, play right. Even if that took ages and it never saw the outside world for years, I was still getting some form of creativity out.

At least the instrument didn't look as sick as it had, the dull wood regaining some life anytime it was touched. The guitar really had looked sick before I had started to play it again; it was dull, lonely, and eating away at itself from being out of use. For something that creative to survive, it needed someone to help it along.

No one can do art alone, Gerard's teaching came into my head from one of our very first lessons. A person may be able to paint a picture, but the inspiration comes from other people, other things. If each person painted something from inside themselves, without help from anyone else, there would be nothing. Just black. Each aspect of yourself is built through an event, sparked by another person, triggered by an experience...it just went on and on. You have to be creative to survive, and no one can survive alone.

When I randomly played my guitar at three in the morning one night, I realized I was not alone, but it was in a peculiar way. I knew I had Gerard, that was obvious, but I also came to the conclusion that I was a lot like the once dull instrument I played. I had also been sick; sick of my life and friends and just everything in general. But now, the playing of the guitar was a reciprocal life saving action to both me, the guitarist and healer, and the guitar, the patient. We both had a metaphorical type of cancer, and together, we were seeking treatment, bringing ourselves back to life one note at a time.

During those nocturnal playing sessions, the door was closed and I hung my comforter over it to muffle any other noises. I'd stop periodically, my ears strained and listening to see if I could hear anyone coming. I had not been caught so far, and I thought I was getting pretty good at being inconspicuous. I was getting to be a good liar too, bluffing the places I had been when I stumbled into the house past ten every night. (Most artists are liars; they just don't always need to speak them - they can paint them). Even with my amount of lies (or art pieces?) piling up, my mother and father just somehow knew I was playing the damn instrument again. Maybe they had spotted the bleak wood suddenly coming to life when it was sprawled across my bed. My mother would occasionally 'clean' my room when I was at school, and no doubt she saw it and told my father. It was his guitar after all, he deserved to know.

My father didn't even like the fact that I was listening to music most of the time, always saying it was a waste of time. I could be studying. I could be getting a job. I could be doing a lot of things, according to him – none of them creative. He had been especially hard on me ever since I had asked to take the music course. We never brought the subject up again, but I could tell from the way his eyebrows raised slightly and his jaw locked when I got home late at night that he thought something was going on.

Art, in his mind at least, was even more of a waste than music. He had played an instrument in his youth and could comprehend its importance, to some degree. I was pretty sure that was why he had yelled the way he had at the dinner table. He had been angry, but it wasn't whole-heartedly at me – it was at himself. He was resentful and bitter for the fact that he had to give up music. He had given the guitar to me, passing down his dream, but at the same time, he never wanted to see it fulfilled. He wanted to see me fail. If his hopes of a guitar player were never matched, then why should my own? He passed down his dream, giving up on it – but he wanted me to do the exact same thing as him. And after I had, we would partake in some sick and twisted father-son bonding session because now we both had caught our fantasy, just to let it go. It was part of the ownership he had by naming me. He wanted to make me suffer like he had, so he forbid me to take the course. He hadn't insulted the ideology behind the music itself because he couldn't; he had done the same thing, in his youth.

But art? There was no way he would support that, even if I told him I was getting free lessons. He could barely grasp the music he used to live for; there was no way on earth he could ever understand art, something he had never even bothered to study. Art was fruity, and my teacher even fruitier. My dad would have had a fit if he had known about my relationship with the artist when he was merely my unqualified art instructor. Now that we weren't just doing art, I knew my dad would kill me. Or Gerard. Or maybe both of us together in a bloody mess, stabbing us to death with paint brushes. I didn't want to think about what would happen if anyone – not just my father – found out about Gerard and me. The consequences would be way too harsh, painful, and I knew I couldn't take them. Gerard and I were just beginning; hopefully it wouldn't turn sour too fast.

I shook my head, wanting something else to focus on, something frivolous. I got my answer when I heard the seeds from my chest fall off around me and grip my skin in other places. They were fucking itchy, and I needed to get them off soon.

I slid out from under Gerard's arm, getting up gradually from the floor and starting to make my way over to the bathroom. He grunted as I stirred, his weight shifting to accommodate my leaving. His eyes were half-closed, and though it was night, he was not sleeping.

I could feel the seeds under my feet as I got up, and could hear them fall off my body, making minuscule sounds of pitter-patter as they hit the ground. I shivered, feeling the coolness of the rest of the floor under my toes, only accentuated by the tiles in the bathroom. I flicked on the light, sending a great flow of bright florescence into the room, causing me to squint.

Gerard's apartment had been pretty dim up to that point, the dark sky coming through the window and only one small lamp on. I put my hand up to block part of the demanding light, looking at my reflection in the mirror. The door was jarred open still, and I could see Gerard in the mirror image of the glass. The bathroom hadn't been too far away.

"Where are you going?" he asked me slyly, lying down and splaying his legs out so all of him was visible in the mirror. He wasn't hard, but I could tell that his mind was wandering around to sex in some form or another. I squinted back at him, still blinded from the light.

"Shower," I called to him, cocking my head to the side so I could see him more. I threw in a playful bit of spite to my next words. "After all, someone just covered me in birdseed."

"All for art," he smiled, leaning his head back and exposing his throat. His Adam's apple protruded and bobbed up and down as he swallowed. Even in the faint radiance I could see that his neck was littered with patches of purple hued skin. I smiled, knowing that I had been the one that made those marks. Looking into the bathroom mirror still, I shifted my gaze to my own body, seeing what I looked like for the first time in over a day.

I was shocked by what I saw. Not only was I still covered in the finite black and orange specks of seeds, but my whole body, not just my neck, had Gerard's markings all over it. There was a particularly dark shade of purple on my left side, right below the ear, close to the chin. I looked over and touched the spot, feeling my skin clench into goose bumps as I did. I could still feel Gerard's lips on me, his teeth nipping at my flesh and his hands roaming everywhere. That spot was probably Gerard's favourite on me; he was always sneaking up from behind and surprising me with a kiss to the area.

I closed my eyes tighter and savored the memory, remembering just how good it had felt. I cocked my head back like Gerard had done on the hardwood floor, exposing my neck and throat fully, Adam's apple out. I touched the skin with blind fingers, sensing out and feeling each memory over and over again, making it new. I didn't know how I was going to hide the hickeys when I left his place, but that was the farthest thought from my mind. When I opened my eyes again to look at what I thought were bite marks on my chest, Gerard was standing behind me, Cheshire cat grin planted on his face. He was standing in the door frame solidly, his arms folded over his chest, body leaned against the wall.

"Gerard, I have to shower," I said quickly, somewhat startled. I did not hear him come in.

I snapped my head back to its normal position, removing my hand from my neck and shifting my weight. Instead of listening to my request, the artist walked closer, his pace agonizingly slow. He placed his feet sturdily behind me, his hands slinking around my waist like a snake, as his lips relocated to his favourite spot, previously investigated by my hands. I cringed to the newly sensitive area as his tongue came out and began to undulate against the fair, yet darkened skin.

Though I didn't want to, I melted into the embrace, Gerard's hands flicking off seeds as he wrapped himself tighter around me. Giving up, I reached a hand behind me and placed it on the nape of his neck, trying to pull him down closer, but he ignored me, stopping the action. He was a fucking tease most of the time.

"I made a work of art on your body," he whispered, looking at the hickey. He touched the spot carefully with his free hand, the pads of his fingers just hovering as he screwed up his face, rethinking his statement. He looked at me in the mirror, nestling his head on my shoulder, and smiled. "But then again, you already were a work of art."

I grinned at the comment, meeting his eyes in the pane of glass before he bent down and started to kiss me again slowly. He spotted my shoulders with small kisses, tongue staying put in his mouth. His patterned motions reminded me of the disorganized mess that was still littering my torso.

"I have to shower," I repeated, my voice hitching in my throat.

Gerard's hands that had been placed along my waist were cupping my hipbones, slowly reaching down to my cock. He gripped me in his hand, touching and stroking, though I wasn't hard. It was still a little too soon for me to get it up again since our last action, but his hand still felt good. If he kept doing what he was doing though, I would probably have an easier time than usual getting an erection again so quickly. Gerard knew what to do with his hands and lips and just... everything. I somewhat felt bad, not being able to do all of the wonderful things he did to me – I just didn't know how. Gerard never seemed to mind.

"How do you know what to do?" I asked, pressing myself into his chest, my arms coming out and making sure he didn't leave from his position.

"Do what?" he inquired right back, accepting me into his body. There was no space separating us, and his lips hovered above my ear. He still stroked me, long and slow, setting up a constant pattern until it eventually became something so normal, so comfortable, it wasn't even about sex anymore.

"This..." I gasped, my eyes closed. "Touching, kissing..." I paused, bringing my eyes to meet his in the mirror. "Sex."

"Ah, it's easy to know what to do with sex," he stated in a quicker tone, his sensuality easing off a small fraction and lecturing tone coming through. He countered the serious nature and started to kiss down my neck, as if demonstrating his point. "You just do it."

"But where did you learn?"

He didn't answer me at first, too involved with my neck. He was sucking on that spot again, his breathing quickening and matching my pace. His hands moved away from my cock to my waist again, and I could feel him start a grinding rhythm against my backside. I pressed into him and let my head roll back onto his shoulder. He continued to kiss me and I opened my eyes for a brief moment, my sight centering on the bookshelves Gerard kept lining one of his walls.

"Did you learn from books?" I suddenly asked, no longer completely distracted.

"Hmmm?" he asked, then proceeded to kiss and press into me harder.

"Sex," I panted, pushing the word forward in my mouth quickly. "Did you learn about it in books?"

Maybe if I had coherent thoughts, and Gerard and I weren't in the middle of a passionate embrace, the question wouldn't have sounded so stupid. He laughed at first, his breath tickling my skin, but when he locked eyes with me in the mirror and saw that I was serious, he answered a declarative "No!"

"Then where?" I pressed, slightly affronted. Gerard met my gaze tenderly in the mirror once again, running one of his artistic fingers down the side of my face. Our grinding was officially put to an end, and now he was just up against me to converse, and probably teach me something else.

"Sex is something so natural, so pleasurable, so basic..." he went on, stroking my face more with each adjective added. "A human is born to know how to have sex. We are given hormones, passion, and then tempted with beautiful people." He paused, kissed the side of my face, temptation presenting itself. "I will not have books in my house that tell me how I should be a human. I know how to be a human, and being an artist is a special breed of the species. Artists have a better appreciation for the body than most people, and therefore, have a higher appreciation of when bodies come together to be one. Artists are born with sex in their blood. Everything I know about sex I've been born with, or is self-taught, as it should be."

"Really?" I gawked, the ideology behind everything unknown to me. "How can you self teach something like that?"

"Through practice," he hissed adroitly, and then proceeded to start another exercise in precision through kisses on my neck.

I nodded; practice made sense. I had been doing a lot by that point, but I still didn't feel like I was any better. I knew a lot more, a hell of a lot more, but I had no idea where I was going. I wanted a book, a guideline to tell me if I was at least embarking down the right path, and how much farther I had to go. I was used to an artificial environment that was high school and told me how to be that specific human being they churned out each and every year. I may have been an artist, but they had taught me for so long that even if sex was in my blood, that I had to deny it. I was used to denial and repression. It was hard to unlearn that, but as I did, I needed something else to guide me along. I needed to learn to unravel in the same way I had been put together. If they had to teach us everything about our bodies in sex-ed classes, why not have other classes, other books, and other lessons to teach people how to go beyond getting a condom on?

"Practice makes perfect," he added, just as his tongue began to surge against my skin.

"But how will I know if it's perfect? There's no book to tell me how..."

"Haven't you learned anything from being here?" Gerard stopped kissing and touching me abruptly. He placed his hands on my waist and stared into me from the bathroom mirror. His eyebrows were raised, questioning. "You never need a book to tell you you're right."

"Then what are those art ones for? And all the other ones you have?"

"Most of those art books are of collections. They're just pictures. The others merely display techniques, tell me about them, and then move on. They don't tell me if I'm right or wrong. They just tell me to paint."

I paused to think, while Gerard looked at me through the glass. I thought about our lessons and the techniques he would employ. He would open up his books every once in a while, where we would pour over them and absorb each and every art piece. But he was right – the words right or wrong never passed through our lips. I liked Andy Warhol's work, but Gerard didn't. He thought Warhol was too fake and simplistic, whereas I thought it was quite the opposite, and he was innovative. We discussed why each of us thought that way, gave examples and proof through pictures, and then we moved on. We didn't argue for ages over who was more valid in their opinion. It was just there and we accepted it. We just painted.

And here, I supposed, we were just going to have sex.

"I'm not here to tell you if you're right or wrong. I'm just here to let you practice on."

Gerard was still talking, and I found when his voice didn't bring me back into reality, his lips against my own did. He tipped my head back as he ran a stray hand along my jaw, and we engaged in another act that I had definitely had enough practice on. More couldn't hurt, though. You could never get enough art, Gerard had told me. I was starting to assume that it applied to this too.

Why should art be any different from this? I found myself asking, as Gerard slipped his tongue into my mouth. Art was all around us, and he used it in his lessons. He was teaching me about sex now, but I realized something. Though he couldn't be right or wrong, there still needed to be something giving him the backbone and the knowledge to be a teacher. You had to learn in order for that to take place, and I wanted to know where that came from. You couldn't just wake up one day and commit yourself to teaching without any kind of credentials before, I told myself, but then again, this was Gerard I was talking about. He may have fallen from the sky and obtained everything in one simple day.

"And what about you?" I asked when the kiss had ended.

"I'm still learning just as much as you are," he replied, though not entirely answering my question. I could tell this was about as much information as I was going to get out of him however, at least, for tonight. "You're never too old to stop learning, Frank. And you're never too young to start."

"I don't know if I'm doing anything right," I confessed, rolling my eyes at my own embarrassment.

"It's not about doing anything right. It's about doing what feels good."

Keeping his eyes on me in the mirror, his hands relocated to my hips, and slowly began to inch their way down my pubic bone. I bit my lip, feeling the warm pads of his fingers linger over my skin, and just knowing what was coming next. He was proving to be quite a distraction tonight.

"Does that feel good?" he whispered into my ear.

"Yes," I answered, just as hushed, and felt his hand go over myself again.

"Then this is all you need to follow," he stated with finality, and I was afraid he would stop his actions when he stopped talking. Luckily, none of them were paused.

"Some people have different interests. Some like pain, leather, chains, role-playing, feet, and many people at once. But they know what's right for them, and they've known it all along. It's an urge inside and it's imperative that people listen. Some people do, some people don't – and they don't have sex. Then again, there are some people who do listen and find out they just don't like sex at all." Gerard cocked his head to the side, making a disgusted face. "God, I don't know how they live."

"Me either."

My breathing was still hitched under his touch, and we brought our lips together to kiss. I could feel his growing erection against my thighs and butt, but he wasn't grinding into me. I pressed into him a little, only to have him continue the focus on our mouths working together. He took one hand away and positioned his hand on my neck to deepen our kiss. We still needed practice here, apparently.

"But Gerard," I paused for a second, breaking away. "What do you like? What are you into?" I clasped the hand that was on my neck and brought it down to my side so we couldn't get sidetracked again. I waited, and prayed his desire wouldn't be something weird.

"Whatever you're into." He went to kiss me, but I placed my other hand out and caught his lips, making him continue talking before distracting me again. He sighed, giving me a coy grin as he gave in.

"I like experimenting. Trying new things. Teaching you..." he went in to kiss me again, but I was not satisfied with his answer, and apparently he had a whole list of desires that he kept drawing from. "There are a lot of things I like about sex, and there are a lot that I haven't even experienced yet. But there is a bliss in inexperience that I haven't quite been able to find anywhere else. Sometimes the best part about sex is relearning how your body and someone else's works. And even better, how they work together." He gave me a look through the mirror, his eyebrows raised in a question before he even went for what he was after.

"All right," I said, nodding, finally satisfied. We both leaned in mutually and our lips connected again. I was about to turn around so we could be face to face to embrace and my neck would stop hurting, but then I remembered something.

The birdseed. I didn't know how Gerard could stand running his hands up and down my torso when I was still covered in the small black flecks.

"I have to have a shower, Gerard," I stated with more determination. Gerard only moved his lips to another locale.

"That's no fun."

"Yeah, but I still have to have one," I countered, referring to the seed yet again. He laughed, but didn't say anything for a while. He just continued to kiss my neck, tongue coming out of his mouth and tracing along my shoulder blades, trying to provide a distraction.

Fuck, I let myself be distracted.

"It's those mundane everyday activities that drag the fun out of life," Gerard suddenly stated, notable tone to his voice. My eyes had been closed, breathing sharp and shallow, and I almost hadn't heard him. He removed his hands from my pubic area, moving them up my chest and locking them in the centre. We both breathed in hard as he brought my body closer to his, folding me into his skin.

"We do those mundane tasks because we have to, not because we want to." When he emphasized those two words, he brought his lips and body into me, closer than I thought possible. "And we waste time on these things, day in and day out. I timed myself once," he paused, for once not adding a sexual edge to his words. He opened his eyes, glancing at the mirror and checking to see if I was actually listening. My eyelids fluttered as he kissed and touched my sensitive spots, making me look like I was in a completely other zone. He stopped his actions then, hands now just resting solidly against my heaving chest, assuring that I would pay full attention.

We were not practicing right now. I was learning. He still gave me some kind of contact, his hot breath on my neck and his fingers on my chest providing some kind of physical stimulation while his words worked on my mind. It was times like these where I was sure that Gerard never shut up, and where I never wanted him to.

"I was in college when I did this experiment. I don't like that word though – experiment. Too sciencey. I prefer to use the term experience, because that's all life is: a big jumbled mess of experiences overlapping each other and mixing together to form different situations, different colours. It's an abstract painting. Even modern art, if you will. We all know that life most days is bullshit."

He chuckled, his hot breath hitting my throat with a light edge. He looked at me from the mirror, smiling. I remembered the day we broke the beer bottles, the amber liquid spilling away, its stench filling the room and my childhood disappearing as we made modern art. I smiled back, though it hurt a little. I thought I was growing up so much when we had done that – too much even, in that one day. Now it was weeks later and I had advanced years, lifetimes even. Or at least it felt that way.

After our brief reminiscing, Gerard continued his story, placing a kiss on my neck before his lips twisted with words. "I timed how long it took me to walk to each of my classes, to do my dishes, cleaning, piss around in the cafeteria with some acquaintances. Little things like that. And do you know what I realized?"

He barely paused, shooting me a quick glance and not giving me a chance to answer as he leaped on to his next point. "I came to the conclusion that I was wasting my life. I realized that by the end of the week, I had spent almost a day doing menial tasks. Twenty four hours, Frank!" He waved one of his arms on my chest, causing us both to bounce and bound with his comical outrage. He sighed and chuckled at my sudden shock, drawing the hand back down to a calming stroke against my skin.

"I could have been painting during that time, writing, drawing, reading - anything creative, really. But instead I was caught in a repetitive vortex. What's the point of doing something, if you'll just have to do it again?" He sighed and gave a mock shrug, but I could sense the serious state behind the question.

I thought for a moment about his words. He made a point, though I was pretty sure he was over exaggerating his numbers. His reasoning started to make sense in my mind about why he always made me do the dishes at his place, and why he never cleaned his paint brushes. He didn't want to waste time – and essentially his life – doing small tasks. So he just got me to waste my own. I chortled, realizing his selfishness with that matter, until I discovered that something had changed. He didn't make me clean his brushes or his dishes anymore. Ever since we had started our art lessons, he had been relying on my maid-like qualities less and less. He didn't want me to clean; he didn't want me to waste my life anymore. I was an artist, or at least becoming one then. Their lives were too important to waste. It had just taken him awhile to realize that, and even me a little while to accept the offer of actual life, instead of just being alive.

I glanced to his green eyes through the looking glass, both of ours lighting up. He was trying to save me, in a way, and was still doing it right then. But there was something I was missing.

"What does this have to do with me wanting to take a shower?" I cut in, screwing up my brows.

"Ah," he breathed, glad to see that I was paying attention, even as his hands were massaging my chest again. "That's the tricky thing. Though we want to be clean, the society also tells us that we need to be. And bathing is one of those mundane things. It's boring. It's dull. It's repetitive. And we have to do it every day."

He sighed, blinking slowly, then looking down at me mischievously. He raised his bushy eyebrows and leaned down into my neck for a quick kiss, his teeth coming into contact against my skin. I could see the real reason of why he followed me in here coming through and I smiled, knowing where it was going.

"Some things are worth doing again and again, though. Like sex," he added, pausing and leaving me to draw my own conclusion. He bobbed his head down and began to kiss my shoulder this time, biting slightly. It made my eyes roll back into my head as a groan escaped from my throat. That, apparently, was all the answer Gerard needed.

He removed his arms from my waist and his mouth from my skin at a leisurely pace, going over to the shower stall and turning it on. I nearly fell backwards when he moved, my barrier I had been melting into now removed. He had been standing there and talking for so long that when the time came to actually have a shower, I had almost forgotten one was in the room. Everything around us when we were together just didn't seem to exist as much as we did in that very moment.

The water dripping on the tiles inside the small stall made me jump back into reality. The sound whirred and trickled into my ears, seeming so mundane (like Gerard had said), but so exciting as I drew my eyes over to him.

He was standing casually by the door and sticking his hand inside the jet stream, letting the clear liquid fall around his dancing fingers as he made sure the water was a good enough temperature. All of a sudden, he extended his arm back to his side, drawing his whole body into the small, already steam-filled booth. Clouds of mist filtered outside, making my skin feel clammy as I watched his naked body become coated by small water rivulets. Gerard had been right; what he was suggesting was no longer a banal occurrence. It was fucking exhilarating.

I had never taken a bath or shower with anyone else before. Even as a little child, I was always alone in the gigantic white tub, having no siblings or no cousins in my direct age group to share the sudsy water with. I had heard of some parents joining their kid in the water, but I was so relieved my parents had never done that. As far as I was concerned, their clothing was a permanent feature of their body. It was weird even thinking about it, honestly. I was always alone when I bathed, just like when I was naked. I had liked and preferred it that way, but now Gerard was challenging my previously conceived ideas.

I didn't really mind.

I bit my lip as I saw him inside the stall, the water rushing down over his body. His stomach was round and hung over his waist a bit, the constant water current from the nozzle causing the flesh to ripple where it made first contact. The water had attacked the top of his head first, his smooth, feathery, dark hair becoming chunked and separated into extremely wet and still-dry patches. Once his hair was fully damp, it was so jet black and shiny it looked like motor oil on top of his head, contrasting with the white skin that was blinding in the areas that never saw the sun. The hair clung to his face, falling down in front of his eyes and looking like obscure spider webs, constantly moving against the rushing stream.

He ran his hands over his chest, dotted with fine curled hair, but relatively bare, and through his top mane, instinctively flipping it back. He placed his head under the shower spout, closed his eyes, and opened his mouth, letting the water pool and fall off to the side of his chin, never swallowing any of it. He appeared to be off in his own little world, the shower consuming him whole as I watched, not doing much of anything else.

Finally, he cracked open his eyes, and gave a sly smile as he gazed over at me, still standing awkwardly in awe. The inept feelings of being naked I had first possessed were coming back to me, but they were easily hushed away by Gerard's devious grin, and the size of my erection in front of me. Gerard's sultry and husky tone as he uttered a low, "I'm waiting," also helped significantly.

I gingerly stepped forward onto the tiles, shaking off my worries as I rolled my shoulders back. He knocked the door open for me as I stepped inside the shower with him, trying to make sure too much water didn't pool in the bathroom. Gerard didn't seem to care about the state of his floors or his neighbors down below however, grabbing my shoulder and pulling me to his wet mouth to meet with a kiss.

Our lips slid all over the place more than usual because of the jet stream above us adding a slippery quality to our skin. Gerard's hands glided like the water down my body, over the small of my back, before gripping my ass lightly as he pressed our hips together. My hands reached around his thick middle and went to the back of his wet hairline, the strands feeling like octopus tentacles. I could feel the layers of dirt, sweat, and birdseed start to fall off of my body, only to be replaced by Gerard.

We kissed under the falling water for the longest time, saliva and water blending into one entity, before Gerard pulled our bodies apart. He looked me up and down, smile visible through the steam of gushing current in between us. I struggled to keep my eyes open for very long as my own bangs fell before them, steam and liquid blurring my vision, but I could feel everything that was going on. I knew we were going to have sex again.

His hands were around my waist, moving up my chest and removing any other form of dirt and grime from my physique with his fingers before he dropped to his knees in the shower. He was right over the drain, causing the water to form thinly at the bottom. His hands explored in between my thighs, pushing my legs apart a bit so he could fit himself in between. I obliged, feeling his warmer than the water mouth wrap around me. I tried to find something to grab onto, my knees feeling weak as the hot steam around us extracted the strength from my nerves. Gerard's head was being pummeled by the water rush, his hair pushed apart and scalp forming where the water concentrated. He didn't let it stop him however, his hand gripping my ass and thighs for support as he licked, sucked, and tongued me in his mouth. He had only given me a blowjob an hour earlier and I couldn't believe he was doing it again.

I knew that teenage boys were always horny and I really agreed with that assumption. We really did think about sex every eight seconds. But God, I didn't think we were supposed to actually follow up on those thoughts every time. It felt like all Gerard and I were doing was having sex (albeit handjobs, blowjobs, or actual sex), with brief interludes of conversation. We were going at it like bunnies; bunnies that had been injected with an extra dose of hormones, and in his case, maybe Viagra too. Though it was strange and something I was not used to (or had even heard about), I wasn't complaining. My body was complying, my cock at full attention inside his mouth, and I was moaning right along with it.

The thin layer of water at the bottom had begun to grow rapidly, and each time Gerard shifted his weight on his knees, loud sucking noises echoed in the stall, other than the ones he was making with his mouth.

It was somewhat awkward giving a blowjob in the shower. Gerard's hair was in his face now, the water was pooling around him at the bottom and falling down from his thick bangs, constantly making it a tad harder to breathe (since he couldn't use his mouth, after all) and I was taking a while to come. I had just climaxed an hour earlier; I really didn't have that much in me this time, and though I was now completely hard, it was going to take a little more than a few sucks to get me off.

Eventually Gerard replaced his mouth with his hand and proceeded to kiss his way up to my face. He leaned me away from the shower nozzle, against one of the tile walls, our tongues mingling together, both of us panting from exertion and harder breathing capabilities. His hand didn't stay on my cock for long as he traced it down to my balls and then my hole, easing his fingers into me with surprising relaxation. I was getting better at this action too, though both Gerard and I agreed that I still needed practice.

He positioned himself at my opening, his hands on my waist and creeping around my backside to hold me up with surprising strength as he entered. I wrapped my legs around him once he was all the way inside, no longer touching the tile floor and giving my trust to him completely. He held onto me tightly, his nails making small crescent patterns in my skin that the water could not wash away as easily as the dirt covering our bodies. I pushed my head over his shoulder and breathed the hot mist of the shower in deeply, both of us cringing from the awkward positioning.

It was getting easier and easier for him to enter me without being in as much discomfort, but we had never done this standing up before. It was a hard thing to do, let alone when there weren't buckets of water being poured on top of both of us. I could feel my fingers and toes getting pruney, and they weren't even touching the water that much anymore. Though we were both in slightly more pain than usual, or than was needed, it didn't seem to matter. The setting of the shower, with its warm mist and water flooding both of us as pleasure managed to seep its way in, made up for it.

Gerard held me up against the wall as he thrust into me faster than usual. The slow, intimate pace was harder to maintain when both his arms and legs were ready to give out. I leaned into his body, my face buried into his neck, biting his shoulder periodically in lieu of the finger he used to have inside my mouth. We both gasped and choked as he hit my prostate, taking some water into our lungs. Gerard managed to keep hitting the same spot over and over again, almost dropping me at one point. He apologized profusely as he leaned us both against the shower wall, the tile grating my back as we moved in unison. I held on tight as he continued to thrust up, my orgasm mounting inside of me.

I was brave enough to let go of his shoulder as we progressed, pumping my own cock this time because his arms were too busy supporting me as he worked on pleasure for himself. I came first in between our wet bodies, my breathing short and fast. Feeling me clench around him sent Gerard over the edge a few minutes later, moaning into my shoulder louder than the rippling water around us. He was now completely weak from his orgasm and his exertion of holding me up, and he let both of our bodies slink down to the shower floor slowly. He spread us out and blocked the drain, starting another thin layer of water to form on the bottom. He switched our positioning so he was against the wall, and I was cradled in his lap, his cock no longer inside of me. I was a bit sore and achy when I sat on his thighs, but I was doing okay. He reached up and shut the water off completely as I got comfortable, and the cacophony of the emptying drain echoed in the stall. Coming back down, he drew our damp foreheads together, kissing me hard between pants. We sat in the wet mess for a long time, just catching our breaths.

"See," he panted hard, tossing his wet hair back. I was still on his lap, but our foreheads were no longer drawn together, my head resting on his shoulder instead. I looked up at him as he began to talk, watching as a single droplet of water ran down and fell off his pointy nose, onto his chest. I leaned forward and licked the spot instinctively, earning a smile from him.

"All for art."






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