Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2006 15:33:12 +0200 From: Julian Obedient Subject: Grace The office phone and Kevin's cell phone rang at the same time that Anders was showing him Marianne's page layout and asking if he could help figure out why it wasn't working. Kevin made a big circle around the model pictured in the center of the text, and with an arrow indicated he should be moved to the left, scribbled a note to blow the type up by a point, and shaded in the empty upper section with a sienna crayon. Anders looked at it and knew immediately that it worked. Meanwhile Kevin had the office phone cradled between his left ear and his raised shoulder and spoke as he redid the page. No Marty, he said, we can't...can't wait that long. Tell him I'll guarantee it. Right. He'll agree. Make him agree. I have faith in you. It's for the common good. Same client. Ciao. He checked the cell phone. Sven had left a message. He'd be there. Their cafe across from Washington Square at eight-thirty. It was hard to tell from his voice how he was feeling. But at least he'd be there. Kevin felt a rush of excitement and of hope and of relief. It was nearly quarter to eight. That's it Marty. Call it a week. Everything is where it should be. And it was. Marty put his arm around Kevin. I don't know how you do it, man. Neither do I, Kevin said. I guess it's just grace. * * * Sven was at a table by the window in the cafe across from the arch reading Heart of Darkness. Kevin's heart lightened when he saw him. Something sweet in his face told him it was going to be ok. Sven rose from his chair and Kevin leaned over to him. Unselfconsciously, lightly on the lips they kissed and sat across from each other. It's good to see you, Sven said quietly. It's good to see you, Kevin repeated and took his boyfriend's hand. By that gesture Sven knew he still was his boyfriend. I have something for you, Kevin said, shyly, offering him a small package wrapped in matted burgundy paper and tied with a golden ribbon. Thank you, Sven said. I have a feeling I know what it is, he added, blushing. I hope so, Kevin said. Thanks. * * * Kevin knew he had fucked it up, his whole relationship with Sven, the best thing he'd ever known, and he wanted to unfuck it quick before everything got stuck and got lost. Sven was the right kind of guy with the right kind of body and the right kind of muscle definition and the right kind of good looks, and he had a heart of gold and brains, and a voice like honey, and he was self-sufficient, and he loved him. Kevin had let his awareness of all that get away from him when he got jealous after Sven told him he had accepted an offer to pose for a gay leather and underwear catalogue. If that wasn't bad enough, some of the shots would be one-on-one non-simulated sex with other guys. It'll be like Tom of Finland drawings only with real people, he said. But how can you do that? What about your colleagues in the physics department? And then it got bad. I like it when people look at me. Even when you're having sex? Yeah, Sven confessed. So when we're together, it's not enough. It's enough. It's enough! You put those words in my mouth, Kevin. You know what it's like. I know what it's like for me. How can I be sure I know what it's like for you? Christ, man, because you're there? You have to know how it is for me or it wouldn't be the way it is for you. But you want that intimacy put on display? You'd like it if people watched when we...? Sometimes, yeah, Sven answered reluctantly, but also defiantly. It was a fight. Well, I'm sorry I'm not enough for you. Don't be ridiculous. Who's ridiculous? He's a grown man, an assistant professor of physics at Columbia University, and he's going to pose in an underwear magazine like a stud getting it on with other studs so every looser fairy can jack off looking at him, Kevin said to nobody in particular. Sven remained silent. Besides, I thought you were so shy. I am shy. Don't look like it to me. Sven made a gesture with his head that looked like a shrug. What happened? What do you mean what happened? How'd you get over your shyness? I go into a trance. You go into a trance! I go into a trance. How do you go into a trance? Richard hypnotizes us before the shoot. Who's Richard? He directs the shoot. He hypnotizes you? Yeah. This gets better and better. Except it didn't get better and better. It got worse and worse until Kevin stormed out of the apartment, slamming the door at four a.m. Sven sat quietly, absorbing what had happened, and dazed. He gathered himself, taking long slow breaths and letting them out slowly and patiently. Rolling his eyes upward, he looked for the invisible spot in the center of his forehead. Dropping them downward, he found the corresponding spot beneath his chin. He continued to breathe slowly and to trace a vertical arc with the movement of his eyes. Soon his eyelids became heavy and fell shut. He slumped backwards on the couch and fell asleep. * * * The cerulean morning sky was fading in beneath night's receding cobalt dome, but Kevin's heart was locked in a cell of midnight black, and all he could see was red. He clenched his teeth. He shook his head. He took in hissing breaths through his nose and forcefully expelled them again through that organ. He had himself by the throat and was holding back tears of rage. Hypnosis! Some bastard puts him in a trance! And then watches while he poses like a zombie and takes his picture when his cock goes boom! His throat grew tighter, his hands turned into fists. He felt like battering down the entire world. He had walked all the way from St. Luke's Place to Seventy-Eighth and Columbus. The sun was shining in through the slats of the old-fashioned Venetian blinds that hung over his bedroom window, and there was no way he was going to sleep. He made a cup of coffee, got under the shower, and then jogged over to the park and circled around the reservoir till noon. * * * It didn't take me long to realize that I'd acted like an ass, and I knew I wanted you, and that if I couldn't accept how you were, it wasn't you who was betraying me. It was me betraying you. Sven gazed into his eyes as Kevin made this confession and then took his hand and brought it to his lips palm upward and kissed it. Come home with me, Kevin asked. Yes, of course, Sven smiled his broad smile, and his eyes glistened like moonlight on water stirred by a gentle breeze. * * * Open it, Kevin said eagerly, pointing to the gift he'd handed Sven when they met. Sven tore it open, took them out and put his arms around Kevin and kissed him. Put them on, and then I have another surprise for you. Sven stood and pulled his black tee over his head revealing his slim and well-muscled but not overdeveloped chest. Wait, Kevin said, standing and doing the same, showing his own chest, equally well-sculpted. You've shaved, Sven said running his fingers across the smooth hard skin, rubbing one finger back and forth over a stiff, nubby nipple, and giving it a gentle pinch and twist with his thumb and index finger. Keven gasped with delight. I thought you'd like it, he said, grinning, pleased and shy. I do, Sven said. It makes me look more like you. Sven brought his lips near to Kevin's and kissed him delicately. There's more, Kevin said, smiling. First let me raise the blinds. I want the whole world to see us. The moon shone in like a spotlight through the penthouse windows. To the southeast was the Natural History/ Planetarium complex. Sven pulled off his loafers and then his jeans. He had nothing else on, and he put on the square cut skin tight silky, stretchy, black microfiber boxer briefs Kevin had given him. When Kevin stripped he was wearing an identical pair. With a magnetic force greater than will they pressed their bodies together and as their mouths joined they rubbed their bare torsos together and felt their straining erections slide over one another underneath the smooth black fabric that was holding them in. Breathing hard, Kevin broke their kiss. I want you to hypnotize me. Now? Put me in a trance, please. I want to experience everything you experience. I want to feel you from inside. I want you to exist inside of me and I want to exist inside of you. I want to become you. I want to be your mirror. * * * The candles cast an amber glow on everything inside the room. Kevin sat naked in his boxers, comfortable in the plush red chair. Sven, only in his boxers, too, hard already in his boxers, began: Take deep breaths; slowly fill your lungs, roll your eyes up and see the highest point you can in the center of your forehead; now look down and find the lowest point beneath your chin; slowly trace the arc between those points; up and down, up and down; slowly fill your lungs, and slowly, patiently let the air go out; notice how heavy your eyelids begin to feel; up and down; soon you will not be able to keep them open; now they are falling shut. * * * The room was full of men like them, each entranced and bound together by their dreams, naked but for the physiques they had sculpted and the costumes they had worked-out for, in order to look right in them. Each became the statue of his desire, a model of eroticism. Living fantasies they took each other's breaths away. All their gestures were poses. Every attitude was struck to capture someone's gaze. Sven and Kevin were dressed alike: knee high vinyl boots, shiny black with Cuban heels; skin-tight, skimpy, black, kidskin leather shorts, hung low, cut short enough to show their iron glutes; their golden thighs, inviting flesh, knotted with athletic muscle; the contours of their rippling abs shining with definition above the exposed half inch of the tight black elastic band of the boxer briefs they wore beneath their leather shorts; titanium pins pierced the nipples of their hard male breasts; their sleek necks circled with bands of delicately worked iron filigree; leather cuffs around each wrist; rings on their fingers; a bronze band around the muscle of the left arm. Their eyes revealed surrender, wide and vacant with desire and submission. Their hair was dyed platinum, gelled and spiky. Sven, legs apart, pushed Kevin against a mirrored column. It sent their image back into the room. Their mouths pressed hungrily together. They devoured each other, muscles flowing, rippling, glowing. They ground themselves into each other through their leather hot pants. They writhed in each other's grip among the red shadows, cast by the light of crystal chandeliers, alive in the gazes of all who saw them. [When you write, please enter the name of the story in the subject slot. Thanks.]