nothing can come between us
by jemiah jefferson, © 1996
Disclaimer: Written in one or two sittings on a challenge. Full of unwholesome notions. Any similarities to persons living or dead is your problem.
"nothing can come between us,
nothing gets you down
nothing strikes your fancy
nothing turns you on
you don't have to wait for more instructions..."
They had come to the end of another session, and Brian closed his sketchbook, stretching back with a wide yawn. David followed suit more slowly, wiping the charcoal smears off his hands with a baby wipe. "I can barely see straight," Brian claimed. "Sun goes down so pathetically early."
"You're making great progress with your negative spaces," David said, opening Brian's sketchbook again, and glancing at the lighter touch, the straighter lines, the almost scientific precision. Brian rarely had to wipe his hands after working with charcoal or pastels, and his nails were free of David's permanent crescent of ground-in black. "But you're right, we better stop now. Eyestrain won't help."
Despite the failing light David stared at the sketch for a long time. They had drawn the cityscape out the window to the west, filling in the contours of the buildings, not with outlines, but impressions of the sky beyond the spires. David's drawings were less draftsmanlike, more passionate (he thought: sloppy), but more accurate; he had gazed out this same window countless days, watching how the sunlight or streetlight altered the forms.
He looked up to see Brian smiling at him, still leaning back with his arms crossed behind his head. Over the past two years, the two had begun to dress alike, coming from opposite poles -- Brian from the loose and colourful, long hair and jeweled rings, whereas when they had met, Brian had thought David was a Mormon. David had tried to explain that he simply felt more comfortable in a white shirt buttoned to the neck, a black tie, and slacks, but Brian had laughed him off with a "Darling, we'll simply have to loosen you up." By now Brian had cut his hair short and begun dressing in jeans and Paul Smith silk shirts, and David had slowly found himself doing the same, letting his hair grow down to his ears.
They looked at each other for a while without saying anything. Brian smiled on. His eyes were the color of the fading light outside. David thought that perhaps this was the fundamental difference between them, and the fundamental similarity -- Brian's eyes reflected an innate politeness, a reserve that came from being English, whereas David's eyes were the dark shiny brown of an animal's, a wild thing that peeked from under bushes and bit the hand that comforted it. Both spent their lives resisting their innate tendencies, and both had begun to display these same tendencies which they worked so hard to deny. David shook his head and gave a quick laugh. As usual, he was being too serious, and Brian would tease him.
"Well, teacher," Brian said impishly, closing his sketchbook again, "what shall we do tonight?"
David had opened his mouth to suggest Fellini Satyricon at the Amontillado, then maybe a bar crawl back through the Village streets to Brian's loft, giving David the necessary time and the necessary chemicals to unwind and become the self that Brian liked -- but the phone rang. In dismay he watched Brian's small sprightly form leap up and murmur, "I'll get it." Of course you will, David thought, it's your place, isn't it?
Brian retired in the bedroom with the phone. David didn't quite watch him as he answered briskly, then softened his voice to a buttery, "Hello to you, too," folding his legs and bare feet under him as he sank onto the bed. David grabbed another baby wipe and began to scrub his cuticles with it. Black particles crumbled off, but the crust of paint under his nails may as well have been a genetic defect.
"... Fine, I've been keeping busy.... I've been doing a lot of art with my art instructor, you remember, I told you about him. Yes, that same one. Brilliant fellow. He's teaching his way through a doctorate of fine arts.... yes, I agree, it's completely self indulgent, but you should see what the man can do with a soldering iron! ..."
David stood up and walked across the room two or three times before deciding on the kitchen. The taps spewed yellowish water in uneven spurts, like the burping of a toddler. He couldn't even bear to rinse his glass in it... he instead poured the straight glass full of white wine and stood there, with the fridge door open, drinking it. He had bought Brian that cheese a while ago -- only half of it was gone! And there were the leftovers from the Japanese meal from hell last Sunday, filling the fridge with a sweet smell of fermenting rice vinegar. Art instructor! Was that what he was? A hireling, a country schoolteacher with rustic dirty hands? I'm no yokel, I went to NYU! David sipped more wine, finally deciding on the pyrex plate of leftover eggplant. He ate it with his fingers. I am not a boor, he reassured himself, buttoning his top shirt button. You should see what I can do with a soldering iron.
The bedroom overflowed with Brian's laughter. "How could you suggest such a thing! You're the only girl for me, my sweet. Of course."
David went back into the living room and opened the sketchbooks side by side. The sun was quite down and the streetlights were on outside, but the idea of turning on a lamp repelled David. He stretched out on the couch and looked at the drawings. David's were tactile things, great smears of oil pastel so thick you could see light caught across their textures; Brian's versions of the same vision quite orderly, neat, architectural. David's goal had been to teach Brian passion, to let go of this ideal of accuracy; he was technically quite competent, a brilliant observer, but he might as well have been drawing the front page of a newspaper as a dying amyrillis, the petals drooping with mortality -- or a Harlem storefront brimming over with kids and music -- except for a young naked woman, sitting up in a wooden chair. In that drawing only, Brian's work excelled David's; Brian drew in seven colors of crayon, finding the rich curves of the hip and the shoulder and the hair, whereas David's black pastel was messy and lacking in depth.
"Oh, Leonora. You say the loveliest things sometimes. Why did we ever quarrel?"
David closed the sketchbooks and lay on his back, staring at the unfinished ceiling. Sometimes he hated being American.
The first time it had happened between them David could have sworn that it was an accident; they had just been to a gallery opening of David's work in mixed media, and they had been drinking an awful lot of gin gimlets all day, and they had come finally laughing back to Brian's loft, then still cluttered with baby toys and fashion magazines and blueprints. They had their arms around each other, steadying themselves, and quite spontaneously David had given Brian a quick kiss on the mouth. Before David had even had a chance to be surprised at himself -- he had never kissed a man before -- Brian had him on his back on the couch, undressing him and stroking his hands over and over the tight sinews of David's naked hips. When David had sat up to perhaps protest, to beg askance, to explain that he had never meant to kiss him in the first place, Brian simply pushed David's head down to envelop Brian's cock. It was horrible and perfect and David didn't know what he was doing but Brian seemed to approve of it and David rapidly stopped imagining that he could end this before it went out of control. Afterward David wonderingly brushed the beads of sweat from Brian's forehead, and Brian said in a soft praying voice, "Oh, God, I've wanted you for so long, but I had given up, I thought you were too shy, too...", followed by many sweet and grateful kisses. David had thought to himself that he had never been so confused in his life, but terribly glad he had made his little blunder.
When Brian finally hung up the phone it was dark. He leaned up and switched on the lamp beside his bed, and looked up to see David skulking just inside the door. "Do you still want to go out?" David mumbled.
"Oh, Christ."
"I mean if you're busy."
"Nonsense. Why would I be busy? Where do you want to go?" Brian stood up and ran a brush over his thinning hair, smoothing it behind his ears.
"Aren't you two divorced?" David mumbled.
Brian raised one eyebrow, Spock fashion. He was an expert. "Oh, I see," he said. He came up to David and put one arm around his neck, the other around his waist. "Yes, we're divorced. We're staying divorced. I just like staying friends with her, that's all -- I don't like to have a Busby Berkeley production number when I feel like seeing my daughter. Can you fault me for that?" When David's expression didn't lighten, Brian slipped his hand down the loose back of David's jeans, unsupported by anything like an ass. He touched chilly skin. "Good Lord, you're like ice."
"I am, aren't I?"
Brian looked surprised. "Are we having a lover's quarrel?"
"No quarrel here."
"Then kiss me," Brian said defiantly.
David broke away and went back into the living room. He stretched out on the couch again, this time on his face. He let his arm hang over the side. Brian came and lay on top of him, squeezing David's breath out slowly -- four inches shorter, Brian had ten pounds advantage. "I swear, men are difficult," he said, rubbing his hand abrasively across David's behind on the pretext of warming it. The friction of the jeans seam against his skin, combined with the sense memory of Brian's weight diminishing his breath, gave him a terrible hard-on, which he didn't want, or wasn't conscious of wanting, and anyway would compromise him. Getting angry just made him more aroused. "Now tell me honestly, David, am I the first man you ever liked, or am I the first man who liked you back?"
"We're not talking about me," came David's muffled voice.
"I am," Brian said. "Need we go out at all? Mightn't we just stay here? I see you've already begun drinking wine."
"You have a one-track mind."
"False. Completely false. I think about art sometimes too. Do you?"
"I must, I'm just an art instructor, right, sir? I'll never be the only girl in your life, right, sir?"
"Jealous of girls? How undergrad." Brian nudged David's legs open. "Come on. Just tell me you want me to fuck you. How hard can that be? Just say 'fuck me hard, Brian', and all this nonsense will be over."
Silence from David. He didn't lift his face from the sofa. Brian got up, brushing down the front of his jean legs and blowing out his breath in a frustrated sigh. "Jesus Christ, she's three thousand miles away, and any time I even look at a woman you freak out. You'd better get it together. I love you and you're cute, but I'm not a fucking saint, got it?"
David smiled a little bit to himself. "I was thinking we'd go see a film."
"As long as it's got good looking people in it, fine. By the way, I owe you money, don't I?" Brian looked out the window. In the reflection David saw him smile.
"Don't worry about it," David said.
It was quite dark in the loft now; dark enough so that David felt safe in reaching up for Brian and pulling Brian down beside him. Brian didn't say anything else; he seemed to understand this non-verbal exchange, these moments when David sought to erase the differences between them. They lay still beside one another in the dark for a long time before finally going out into the Village.