Blessed Be the Merciful
by Rafael Henry
Chapter 19
Leon survived his first year at medical school thank goodness. We all wondered how he would fare, given his somewhat introverted personality, but he's ok. There's a scheme for undergraduates which allows them a year off from their course of study at the end of the first year. VSO they call it……Voluntary Service Overseas. I know he wants to go back to Romania, but not this early in his career surely? I think it's an ill-advised decision but there's no stopping him it seems. I'm horribly afraid that once he gets his feet on 'home' soil, he'll be gone forever. I don't think that I could deal with that situation, but perhaps I'm misjudging his intentions. The visa for travel to Romania, issued by their General Inspectorate for Immigration, is a tricky process apparently, even for a person born in that country, albeit now nationalized British.
With a year under his belt at medical school, there's an aching in Leon's heart. Kindness has to be repaid somewhere, somehow. But if you have an essential skill to offer, even potentially, that as it turned out, was a distinct advantage. He 'phoned me, very excited, that his visa had finally come through. He was to leave for Romania in June. I think my congratulations must have sounded a little croaky, as my heart sank. Better to have loved and lost, than never loved at all.
In Chelsea, I feel like a rudderless boat drifting on an ocean with no land in sight. All the people I know and love are somewhere else, but I know that this road I'm on now is my route to some sort of career in the art world. I am actually employed now as one of the College technicians, at the beck and call of the students and lecturers which is absolutely fine with me. Being in the thick of all this creativity, my own artistic development has benefited. James was right. I need to kick out all my naivete and get far more realistic about where I'm going creatively. Two technical procedures, other than the usual casting plaster of paris, that I discovered here have got me going. One is how to use fibreglass, and the other is wax……..and the concept of super-realism.
Although still on the technical staff and not yet officially enrolled as a degree student, I am allowed to attend lectures given by established as well as up-and coming artists. Listening at the back of the Lecture Hall to the American artist Chuck Close was an inspiration.
And so the idea of making artworks that mimic the human form precisely, and in minute detail occurred to me. The human form? Oh yes, I had ideas which I needed to discuss with Henry on his next trip up to see me in Chelsea. Henry comes up to London at least once a month, ostensibly on business, but always finds the time to take me out to dinner and invite me to spend one night with him at his hotel. One other thing about my day-to-day life here is that I've abstained from pleasures of the flesh, which make Henry's visits all the more urgent and pleasurable. Within a week of seeing Henry, my semen storage is full to busting, and inevitably I have erotic dreams that result in involuntary emissions. It's the best orgasm you can imagine and well worth waiting for. It does make a mess, consequently when I feel that it's likely to happen, about a week after the last one, I place a towel in the right place, so I can shag the mattress to my heart's content, and not worry about it. I also have to limit my alcohol consumption. There are several homosexuals, quite attractive young and older men, at the local pub, The Radcliffe Arms opposite the Thames Embankment, and amongst the College student body, not to mention one or two of the lecturers. I've made no secret of my sexuality, so after a few pints, offers might be made! I am quite a strong-willed character and I'm not going bed hopping just for a few transitory pleasures, not to mention jeopardizing my health. When Henry comes, so to speak, that's quite enough for me thanks. He's not a big guy down there, which is convenient, so I can enjoy being done to as many times as he fancies. During our foreplay in the hotel he always repeats his familiar jokey mantra…..will you marry me Jamie? I always say, looking hard into his pleading face as his familiar winkle slips into my slippery underside …….yes Henry, I will. I think if he asks me a few more times, I'll have to go through with it.
Maybe one day, two guys might be allowed to marry one another, but I suspect that day is a long way off. I feel like the gentle and loving wife duty bound to give my 'husband' what he needs, and to give him the children he expects. If I was a woman, I would have had several children by now I'm sure, if henry's input is anything to go by. As I've mentioned he's not uncomfortable to accommodate, but that doesn't mean his tank is limited too. It's certainly not. In terms of volume chaps, he's got me into a cocked hat. In some ways, I wish I was a woman.
Henry says that I've become a good lover. The trick, I find, and Henry will back me up on this one, is to make your partner feel he's the best lover in the world, so when things get moving, you say the right things to him, flatter him, move your body in the ways that will excite him, make the right noises to encourage him, pull his buttocks hard into you plus a finger in the right place, and you shower him with kisses just as he floods you. If my own orgasm isn't really on, then I must forego if he has lost interest, post coital.
Casual sex is not my thing. Sex for me comes with loving. I have loved all the people I have engaged sexually with, apart from the hitch- hiking episode which I deeply regret. Bloody idiot. Before you say it, I know I have a weakness for someone younger, and curiously, someone older too. On the one hand I enjoy playing the innocent boy desperate to learn new tricks from the experienced lover. On the other, the sheer beauty of the young excites me in a quite different way, where tender nurturing is the order of the day, or night.
I always ask after Henry's son Peter. Naturally I still love the boy, being my first real boyfriend, and I always will despite his inconvenient 'turning' towards the opposite sex. Henry says he has a steady girlfriend now and I'm am genuinely pleased for him. So if things are panning out for Peter, she's getting a taste of what I did a couple of years ago. He'll be a bigger boy now too, no doubt climaxing all over the place which he wasn't with me. Oh well. Leon stepped into the breach for me, so I can't complain. Rather like me and Henry, who I accommodate as and when he wants me, Leon would always lie down for me when I asked him, or better still, gently settle 'in reverse' onto my lap in a chair. I think that approach suits me well as I can put my arms around his tummy and sing songs of praise around his neck and into his ears, and have the added advantage of perfect access to those nice bits at the front, and actually see the resulting fountain, as opposed to my unseen one. That's assuming that it has all worked perfectly.
'So how is the boy?' I ask Henry.
'Peter's fine thanks.'
'And the girlfriend?'
'Yes, she's definitely in the picture. You know, hand holding, arms around backs as they wander along. That sort of thing.'
'More than that……do you think?'
'No idea. I doubt it. She strikes me as a little prim and proper. I'm wondering if she ever lets him kiss her. Certainly not when I'm around.'
'They might sneak up to the bedroom for all you know Henry.'
'They might, but I've never found any evidence, like a used rubber.'
'Maybe he doesn't need one yet?'
'He would do.'
'Oh really.'
'He does it in his pants…….you know, with his pants still on. Does that ring any bells with you Jamie?'
It does. I would only ever get mine off as a last resort. I would never relinquish until the last moments. I suppose that a personal little fetishy thing.
I think there are two distinct directions for making art. You master a technique which presents you with the opportunity to make something using that method, or you have an idea and then search for an appropriate way of making the object you have in mind. With my experience of materials and their properties, my ambition of producing super-real images of the human body are very possible, inspired I should acknowledge by the two-dimensional work of Chuck Close. My idea will be controversial, undoubtedly, and could never be shown publicly. So what is my idea you may ask? Surely you can guess. Henry thought it interesting too.
'A body cast? That sounds very complicated Jamie?'
'Yes, tricky, but it's perfectly possible.'
'But Day Knight? Are you sure he could do it, or would even want to?'
'Why not? Can I come back to Cornwall next week? We finish at College for a couple of weeks. I need to see the folks for a few days anyway. I could ask Francesca if I could use Day. From my point of view he'd be a perfect subject.'
'What about the costs?'
'Hundreds.'
'Let me help with that. Materials?'
'Everything is available in St Ives. No problem. Initially it's a plaster mould, and then it gets more complicated. I would bring the mould of Day's body back to London and use the College facilities from there on.'
Strictly speaking, I don't get the same 'holiday' time that the students have, but after a word with James at Goldsmiths, he said it was fine. I gave him a not too detailed outline of the plan and he liked the idea. The trouble is with these boys I've been associated with, to put it formally, is that a certain critical stage in their development, and their beauty as far as I see it, is transitory. That's fine of course because they will grow up. Day is a natural model, confident and completely relaxed in front of others. My envisaged sculpture, if it works, will not only be super-real but hyper-real. It will record in three dimensions all the tiniest details of Day's lovely body with nothing excluded. The pose as I imagine it now, will suggest the boy's amusement and engagement with the mysteries of his burgeoning sexuality as he looks down at the 'thing' with a mind of its own.
'You could always put some clothes on the wax figure couldn't you?'
'Absolutely. He could be dressed or undressed according to where he's to be shown.'
'How about my drawing room Jamie?'
'Why? Are you going to buy one of them?'
'One of them? How many will there be?'
'Two. One I will get away with, but the second one I won't.'
'Why not? Nudes are perfectly acceptable are they not?'
'It's his age Henry. A boy that age, naked, just out of the bath with just a towel over his shoulders looking down at his erect penis?'
'Wondering what it is?'
'Precisely. He's just marvelling at his new plaything. It's supposed to have a funny side.'
I tried to explain to Henry, in the car heading down to Cornwall, the technical processes involved with making a full body cast of Day. It would involve two different materials, both capable of picking up the tiniest of details. I will use a relatively new compound used by dentists to take moulds of teeth and gums, chromatic alginate, which will pick up the tiniest details of the boy's penis, between his legs, and between the buttocks, and for his face and hands and feet. I've made sure that it's all practically possible by doing some trial runs on my own body. You have plenty of time to get the alginate around the part in question before it hardens. The compound is completely non-toxic too, so it's perfectly safe to use on one's skin. When the mould is removed, it can be filled with whatever material you want, rigid, albeit breakable like plaster of paris, or flexible and relatively unbreakable such as silicone. The mind boggles!
'So you can cast anything……..including…..?'
'Yes. I've done it.'
'That bit?'
'Yes, that bit!'
'Up or down?'
'Definitely …..up.'
'Do you have with you?'
'I do.'
I retrieved the said object from my rucksack that was wedged between my legs on the floor of the car. I had cast it with clear flexible silicone, plus my 'tentacles' my code name for testes. At the risk of distracting the driver, I waved said object in front of Henry…..
'Bloody hell Jamie. Is that you?'
'It certainly is Henry. It is precisely ……me.'
We laughed as I waved 'me' around the confined space of Henry's old Mercedes S L.
We were about ten minutes from the Jamaica Inn on the A30 between Launceston and Bodmin, about fifty miles into Cornwall. The car park of the pub was the scene of my indiscretion with the guy who gave me a lift to St Ives that day some time ago now, but unforgotten.
'Shall we stop at the Inn Henry?'
'Can do. Are you feeling hungry?' He says, looking down at the silicone penis.
'Yes, quite hungry. Rough Tor is over there by the way.'
I'm referring to a 'tor', which is, to put it simply, a hill with some rocks on top.
'And Brown Willy is over there.' Henry adds, pointing south at the dark ominous peak, the highest point on Bodmin Moor.
After that diversion, I feel Henry's hand on my bare thigh. The car is an auto so he has one hand free if need be, very temporarily of course, but that gesture tells me everything. He wants me.
I told Henry the story, in detail, of my hitch-hiking exploit and the consequences in the back seat of the car at the back of the carpark at the Jamaica Inn, all in the ten minutes it took us to get there. Never mind any breakfast. With me, back to front in the passenger seat, knees on the carpet, Henry wriggles himself into a viable position. I know what he's like when the mood really takes him and you do what you're told. He can be quite rough. With my hands behind me and his trousers undone, I began to grope him hard. That was the signal for him. We had played this game before. I tell him I don't want it, that it's hurting, to get off me, and that I know what he'll do to me…….what will happen if he doesn't stop. This way he will want me more than ever, harder than ever, and come quicker. Neither of us had ever attempted sex in the front seat of a car before, and it wasn't a success. Henry got very frustrated. It was my fault for recounting my back seat experience which got Henry going. Never mind, there are other ways to resolve this situation. We got ourselves into the back seat, unobserved hopefully, and I relieved him there. By the way, I had not lost my pants. Henry loves me to put up a fight.
The scrambled eggs, plus a squeeze of tomato ketchup from one of those absurd tomato shaped plastic dispensers, cleared my palette nicely. Back on the A30, Henry has his hand gently stroking my thigh again. I know what he wants me to perform for him as he lifts up my grey tee shirt to reveal my sunken tummy. With my shorts pulled far enough down to grant him access, he fiddles outside my last layer of protection for a while and then I do the rest, with my own hand still outside. We were just overtaking a truck when I came, as the darker shade of white spread, both of Henry's hands on the wheel. The driver of the truck would have had a perfect view through his window as we edged past the driver's side window. As we returned to the inside lane again with the lorry behind us now, headlights flashed several times. We laughed as Henry wondered…… 'Do you think there's a law against it Jamie?' 'Probably. In fact I'm sure there is.' I answered, regretting I had performed partially clothed. Such is life when you're having fun.
I had spoken on the 'phone to Francesca Knight, Day's mum, about the possibility of making a body cast from her lovely boy, green eyed, light brown haired with those cute natural paler streaky bits, lithe and apart from that fluffy stuff on his arms and legs, completely free of unsightly fuzz. The hair on his head would be protected by a swimmer's skull cap, thus protecting that part of him from any of the moulding material. I knew she would take more persuading than Day himself. Day is one of those youngsters who enthuse about anything and everything, bless him.
By the time I had explained my idea to Francesca, and how it might be the start of something quite new and innovative, she had bought into it. Great. I had also spoken to Alex, now based in London and no longer in his studio in St Ives. He said he would speak to the artist, a sculptor and film maker called Lucio, who had taken over his studio. A half hour later we had Lucio's agreement.
'Anytime you like Jamie. Will it be just you and the subject? Who is it by the way?'
'Francesca's Knight's son Day. She'll be there too.'
'Oh, a good name for him……quite funny. How old is he?'
'Umm, just a boy.'
'Right. Will he be nude?'
'Probably.'
'Well will he?'
'Yes Lucio. Would that offend you?'
'Not at all. Can I be of any assistance?'
All agreed then. The materials paid for by Henry will be delivered to Lucio's studio premises next week, and there will quite a lot of it.
During the day I took Day down to Porthmeor beach for a stroll along the sands to tell him what I had planned for him and just to make him aware of what he was letting himself in for if he agreed to be the subject of a life body cast. No problem there. He loves the idea of immortalizing himself. I know one detail will be tricky. I want two casts of his genital area, one with the penis in a flaccid state, and the other fully erect. We sat on a rock at the western end of the beach while I explained this particular point, with my arm around his back. If there's one boy who loves a cuddle, it's young Day. As the scenario gradually dawns on him, I notice his interest growing.
'Do you think you could manage that Day?'
'Can we practice it beforehand……just to make sure it will work?'
Typical boy. He's looking at me with those eyes of his…….compelling and full of questions. I have a shrewd idea what one of those questions might be. Looking around, there's no one in sight. I doubt that the dozen or so surfers we can see will be distracted.
'Practice?'
'Yes. Can we…….now? I'm not sure I can.'
Really? I have much more confidence in Day's abilities in that department.
I have already noticed that he's wearing the usual standard boys' brief pants under his sporty shorts. It's the first thing I look for when I notice any boy in the street, park, or anywhere. I imagine that hettero people do exactly the same when they check out girls. You see something interesting so after the face, you look at his or her bottom. Day's rear end makes for compulsive viewing. Although his shorts are quite loose, it's still all there to notice as his bottom cheeks work in unison as he walks. No finer sight in my opinion. What's nestling inside his pants is no surprise either as he and I have shared a bed several times during my stay at Francesca's place in the interestingly named Salubrious Terrace, which in fact is less than salubrious. There's not much you don't know about someone, physically speaking, that you have shared your bed with.
Smaller boys in my experience are curious when it comes to bigger boys. I certainly was. Any excuse to wander into the showers naked when older boys are in there, and show your youthfulness whilst observing the attributes of teenagers at various stages of their development. I remember one boy in particular. I was eleven at the time and not long at 'big' school. This boy always smiled at me when I passed him. It was completely by accident that our paths met in the showers after games one afternoon. I think my shock at the sight of his hairy dick greatly amused him, which seemed to me to be at least a foot long, not to mention his pendulous pair of testicles that looked like they belonged to a bull.
'You can come closer if you want to…..have a closer look.' The boy says, amused by my obvious curiosity.
I did. I stepped forward to within a couple of feet of his towering body, spellbound.
'You can touch it you want. Go on.'
I did that too. It felt heavy in my hand, like an enormous sausage with a gaping hole in the end. Gradually, very gradually, it grew firmer in my hand and more upright, but curiously not much longer. Finally, with the skin around the head stretched back, the purple pink end was revealed in all its majesty with its open eye, a much deeper red inside. He finished towelling himself off, with the 'thing' stuck out like the branch of a tree. Ever since those wistful moments of enlightenment, I knew that 'dicks are us'! My own had lengthened to its usual three inches as he told me……
'And you can go and stick that thing in the nearest keyhole young man.'
Cheeky sod! Actually the 'big' boy with a broad smile on his face was in fact a very nice guy.
You hear the rumours about older boys and their preferences circulating in the dormitory so you might give it a go from time to time. Very often the bigger boys of one's choice are happy to play games with you. When Day pleads with those eyes, I'm not going to say he shouldn't or can't have some innocent playtime.
At bedtime during my stay at Francesca's, Day would put his arms up above his head which was the signal that he needed my arms around him. He was hard to resist so if I nodded from my bed, he would whip off his tee shirt and jump in with me, his small but perfectly formed penis bouncing up and down as he did so. Seconds later, cuddled up close, he grabs my hand and there's no misunderstanding his requirements. He would ask but wouldn't get, despite his protestations and lingering 'tingles'. When I wake in the morning, always before he does, I feel for him. No surprise here, as my fingers brush against the two hard little forms inside the soft pliable textured skin, and four inches of waking joy. Not a bad way to start the day, both for this lovely little creature and for me too. Some things you can do and some things are definitely off-limits. I know that my own won't be far so away with Henry around. Enthusiastic cums for Day, daily and dry, are a physical necessity it seems for him, as I lie close beside him, not involved, bar the occasional glance. That I think I really should be allowed. We are just unlikely friends.
But sex and friendship for Leon were, as opposed to are, one and the same thing. Satisfaction for him was definitely an internal matter, and satisfaction for me was providing the means. Nothing of that sort has ever entered Day's sweet head I'm sure, and quite possibly never will. Quite right too.
On Porthmeor beach, with my hand slipped between Day's tee shirt and his bare back, I'm gently massaging the moderately tanned skin that's seen the Cornish sun for most of the past very unmemorable summer, weather wise. His legs, with that fine covering of golden down, hang limply over the flat rock we are sitting on that looks along the wide sandy beach across to the 'Island' at the opposite end. The trainers he wears on his feet look far too big for his body. Day is leaning back resting on his extended arms that support his body. There's a nice little bump developing in his shorts. Looking down, Day pulls out the waistband of both his pants and his shorts together to reveal the complete deal in all its prettiness. It's further proof, if it were ever needed, that Day will not disappoint when we take the second alginate mould from those most private of parts.
I take him in my arms for the hundredth time and hold him tight, tighter than tight, warm breath into his ear, affection deeply felt, until normality resumes.
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