Date: Thu, 05 Sep 2002 01:50:08 +0000 From: Java Biscuit Subject: Babying Reuben, chapter 16 This is a story involving male/male graphic sex and it's not intended for reading by minors. If you are underage, or this type of material is illegal where you live, please stop now, and go read something else! This is a fantasy meant only for the purpose of pleasurable reading. It is not intended to encourage sex with minors or unsafe sexual practices in the real world. Other stories of mine may now be found in the authors' index under Java Biscuit. Feedback, always appreciated: javabiscuit@hotmail.com Babying Reuben ~ chapter sixteen By Biscuit Reuben couldn't remember ever feeling as lonely in his life as he did his first week at DuPont. It didn't matter to him that his friends from school would have given their right arms to be where he was. He was on the bed in the studio/ living space assigned to him. It was a two story section of a long ramshackle building that was sheltered in a valley of scrub pines, a ten minute through the dunes to the ocean. The second floor of the space was his studio. The small downstairs where he was curled up on his bed, near tears, had a sitting area and a corner meant to function as a kitchen with a sink, a stove and refrigerator. Other residences were scattered over the ten acre spread of DuPont, including cottages and spaces like warehouses. It was a small but prestigious art school. The opportunity of a lifetime, everyone told him, including Jean. A full scholarship grant, a studio of his own. It wasn't a college, it was an art school and professional community where painters and sculptors of all ages vied for coveted spaces that were made available on a yearly basis. Reuben had been invited to come by the center's current selection committee; his was one of a handful of spaces offered to young students each year. Almost a guarantee of having his work looked at and taken seriously by gallery owners and collectors. The world at his feet, supposedly, and what he felt was trapped in exile from Jean. In a few months he'd be eighteen. For close to a year and a half he'd been with Jean, never separated, and then at the start of the summer, Reuben's father had died of a heart attack. He'd gone home to his mother. The month he he'd spent at home with her, helping in the store and keeping her company had been like a nightmare to him. He'd told her the truth about himself and Jean, desperate to get back to the city, to his lover. He felt he had to tell her that he couldn't stay any longer, that his life was in the city, with Jean. Jean had come to stay for a weekend near the end of that month, at one of the few motels on the edge of the small town. At first Reuben had begged Jean to stay away and the man had agreed, not wanting to make a difficult time harder for him. Reuben hadn't wanted Jean to see the dismal place he'd grown up in, or for him to be exposed to the kind of contempt he'd lived with himself for so many years. At the end, though, near breaking down, he'd begged him to come, in agony of needing to see him. That's when it happened, Reuben thought miserably. That's when Jean had changed toward him. He wasn't sure why but felt it must have something to do with seeing him in the town where he'd never been anything but an oddity. He'd been a kid that wasn't part of the pack of boys his own age. His best friend growing up was a girl who also liked to draw, a girl that everyone, including the girl herself, thought he would end up dating and marrying one day. Even she had grown distant from him when at the age of thirteen he didn't want to be her boyfriend. His teachers had been his friends after that as he'd shied further and further away from his peers. One of his teachers, an artist herself, had created a portfolio for him and arranged the meeting and interview for him at the Institute which had led to his escape. At fourteen he'd left his parent's home and had no desire to go back. Reuben wondered if seeing him in the context of the town where he'd been so unloved had made Jean stop loving him; like he'd seen him cast in a new light. He wondered too, if Jean was disappointed in him for deserting his mother. He'd seemed pained by Reuben's choice to leave her so soon. Reuben knew that Jean himself had been very close to his own mother after his father's death and Jean had gone to great lengths to assure Reuben that he should take all the time he needed to be with his mom. But Reuben had only wanted to escape from her. He doesn't understand that it's different for me, he thought. He thinks I'm selfish, that I deserted her. At home Jean seemed changed and he'd been adamant that Reuben accept the grant offer from DuPont. It meant that at best, they would see each other on weekends a couple of times a month. Like it was in the very beginning, he thought. How could Jean still love me and leave me here? It was a refrain that he'd tortured himself with throughout the entire week. He's tired of me, tired of living with me. The wind rattled at the windows, carrying the chill from the ocean and Reuben longed for the warmth of home. Not even winter yet, he thought, and it's freezing in here. The air smelled foreign, salty and sharp; everything in the place felt damp and smelled musty to him. Was it possible that it had only been a week since Jean left him here with his things? Reuben burrowed deeper under the bedcovers in his clothes. Across the room the bank of high windows were black with night sky. He shut off the bedside lamp. It was only eight o'clock, too early for bed but there was nothing he wanted to do except get warm and hide. So fucking primitive here, he thought. No phone. A dead zone for cell phones. If he could at least talk to Jean, he thought he might feel better. "Rustic," Jean had said, looking around the space where Reuben would live. God, so horrible to see Jean here and know he'd be gone in a matter of hours. Reuben had wanted to beg him not to go. Beg him to take him back home with him. He'd clung to Jean as the time drew near for him to go. It was time for Reuben to be meeting with the committee and the other new residents for lunch and an orientation tour. Jean was quietly preparing to go. Reuben had kissed him with a passion fueled by panic, pleading between kisses for Jean to fuck him. And Jean had broken down. Reuben savored the memory of his lover suddenly being alive to him, the painful shroud that seemed to hang between them for so long, gone. Jean had picked him up and carried him to the bed. He'd quickly gotten far enough out of his own jeans and pushed Reuben's out of his way to get his spit moistened cock inside of him. And still, he'd left him there afterwards. ---------------------- Jean took a last look around the shop and at Benny perched behind the counter. "Just go," Benny said. "You know I can take care of things." "I swore I wouldn't do this," Jean said, but he knew he was going to. He'd called Benny an hour before to ask him to take care of the shop for the weekend. The boy had been working on and off for him part time for almost a year but he'd never left him on his own there for days at a time. "Well, you were a fool," Benny said. He looked very much at home behind the counter, polishing the glass top. He'd be keeping it open for another hour or so that evening and then opening it in the morning. Jean had given him the key to the apartment as well, so he could stay there if he wanted to. "I told you at dinner the other night," Benny said, "that David is the last person in the world you should listen to. I meant it." "It's not David," said Jean, though his friend had warned him that the beginning would be a difficult but necessary period of adjustment. David had shown up almost every night since Jean had come back from taking Reuben to the school. He'd shown up for dinner, or for drinks, or just to hang out and talk. Jean was appreciative of David's effort to help him through what was proving to be a much more difficult time than he'd ever anticipated. It was worse for him than when Reuben had gone home to his father's funeral; the month he'd spent with his mother. The tenor of emotion had distracted Jean from his loneliness then. But it was during that separation that he'd come to recognize how dependent he'd become on Reuben and how dependent he'd made Reuben on him. David was right, he thought, that in a way he'd selfishly spoiled his young lover, to his detriment, making it hard for Reuben to be on his own. It could only lead to heartache, Jean thought. The boy would resent him eventually. He needed his own life, to develop himself as an artist. That he'd even considered turning down the grant from DuPont was a signal to Jean that he was crippling the boy. "I know for myself that it's wrong to hold on to him too tightly. I'll lose him if I don't give him some breathing room." Hearing himself voice this argument aloud, he questioned what he was doing again, the impulsiveness of it. He'd hardly given Reuben a week alone to try to get oriented at DuPont. And now, here he was, dashing off there, unable to control his own need to see him. "I've got to let him grow up," he said. Benny rolled his eyes at him. "Now you do sound like David," Benny said. "There's more than one way to grow up, you know. I never saw anybody as miserable as Reuben was leaving here. He's not a just a little kid that can't face the first day of school." Jean thought he was, though. And that it was his responsibility, like a parent, to let go of his youngster's hand. "Just go, Jean. I'll sell a ton of stuff while you're gone. You'll see for yourself how he's doing. If it turns out he's out having a grand old time for himself, you'll come home." "Right," Jean said. He was far from convinced but his feet were set on this path and the urge to see his young lover too overwhelming to resist. If only he could call him, he thought, and know how he was doing. The call from Reuben mid week, from the office at school had been strained and painful; the boy had sounded distant, unhappy. He'd recounted rounds of activities, names of instructors, all of it lifelessly. They'd confirmed between them that Jean would come up the following weekend, giving Reuben two solid weeks on his own to get used to the school. So I couldn't wait, Jean admitted to himself, tossing his pack into the back of his van. I'll get better at it, this is just the beginning. And maybe, he thought, he'd find Reuben adjusting better than at first. After all, there was an entire community of artists, people who shared his interests there. Surely he'd make friends among them. Reuben's misery, added to the weight of Jean's missing him, made it impossible to hold out for two weeks. If he saw that the boy was happy, it would be easier for him to tolerate missing him. The thought that Reuben might meet someone who'd become much more than a friend ate away at him underneath. That was something he didn't want to think about, but couldn't escape. It was at the base of everything for him. It had been for a while. It wasn't a matter of trusting Reuben. He'd never asked Reuben to be faithful to him. Jean didn't believe it was right to ask that of someone so young and inexperienced. The thought of Reuben meeting and falling in love with some painter or sculptor was devastating to Jean and yet he'd come to believe it was almost inevitable. He tried not to think about it; not to think about the many reasons that this impulsive trip seemed wrong. The drive itself absorbed much of his attention. Four hours to the coast. In summer this drive would be hellish on a Friday afternoon. Even now at the start of autumn there was a fair a lot of traffic. It would be better if he found himself a place there, he thought and briefly considered what that would entail in terms of his business. Hire Benny as a manager? Maybe it would work. The youngster was really very good at selling. If I only have to take care of the buying, he thought, I could commute once a week or once every two weeks, to the city. Then he shook off those thoughts as the worst possible thing he could do. It would be a total defeat of Reuben's independence. Letting go of all thoughts about what should or should not be done, Jean let his mind fill with the memory of fucking Reuben on the creaky bed in that studio. The memory of his half bared thighs and naked smooth skinned ass under him. ---------------------- Hearing the knock at the door Reuben froze in place in the dark, his hard dick in his hand. He'd been steeped in the bliss of recalling the comfort and security of being made love to in the nursery at home, his body in Jean's hands. Maybe they'll go away, he thought, if I don't answer. He thought it might be Gerard D'ambrosio, the water color instructor who'd asked him to dinner. It was the second time the man had asked him out to his cottage in the dunes. Reuben had gone the first time, under the impression that the artist had invited all five of the young student residents. As soon as he'd walked into the cottage and seen the intimate setting for two at the table he knew he'd made a mistake by accepting. The man was insufferable; vain about himself and his painting. Reuben was unimpressed by both. To be polite he'd stayed to dinner, ducking advances as gently as he could until forced to more or less push the guy away from him and take off on the path through the dunes in the dark. But would Gerard really come here, he wondered. It could be Willy, he thought, from next door, who'd said Reuben should come over for a couple of beers and go out with him and his girlfriend Marcia. Then he heard Jean's voice. "Reuben, are you there? It's Jean." ------------------------ I was right to come, Jean thought. At first he thought Reuben wasn't there. The place was dark, but he'd knocked. Then, not eager to drive back to the room he'd booked at the inn in town, he'd called out softly to be sure. "Jean!" he heard Reuben yell from inside and the light had come on. The boy came to the door in his stockinged feet. His clothes were a wrinkled mess, his jeans undone, and half his curls had escaped from his ponytail. Jean felt like a tension that had gripped him since the last time he'd laid his eyes on Reuben, broke. He hugged him tight and ran his hands from the boy's slim waist up his ribs to the broadening shoulders. Reuben had shot up like crazy in the past year and gotten thin as a string bean. Jean adored the coltishness of him and the developing beauty of his face. Not much left on this kid that's round he thought, his hands roaming back down to the curves of his ass. Just this, Jean thought, wanting inside him. "I was jerking off, dreaming about you," Reuben said. "I can't believe you're really here. You still love me." "Of course I do," he said, holding him still in his arm and reaching into his open jeans to feel him through the damp underwear. Then he slid his hand inside the warm cloth. It was electrifying to feel Reuben's naked hard-on, slick and pulsing, the boy's hips restless with his need to come. Jean loved this, to feel Reuben needing and wanting him so badly, to hear him gasp and feel his face pressed against his neck. "I want you to come in my hand," Jean told him, rubbing him harder. Reuben's groans were muffled in Jean's collar as he thrust into his hand. "That's it, baby," Jean whispered. "Come for me." Reuben was panting and his cock jerked as Jean felt the first warm spurt through his fingers.