Piper and Alph

© 2007 by Anel Viz. All rights reserved.

 

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2.  Bed Rest

       Alph didn’t hear Piper leave for work the next morning.  He was exhausted from the trip and had stayed up God only knows how late.  He spent the day dropping in on old friends, most of them now retired.  Only one or two of them still lived in the same house.  He could have retired himself and had given it a lot of thought lately, but he’d done nothing about it.  What would he do with himself if he retired?  Move in with his younger lover and keep house for him while he worked?  Piper, though several months older, could not afford to retire.  He’d held a succession of temporary positions – skilled, not clerical, since he had a good education and was quick to pick things up – without ever managing to land permanent employment with any of the companies he’d worked for, and he had no pension to speak of.  He attributed his lack of success to having been open about his sexuality from the beginning, when anti-gay sentiment was rampant and a serious impediment to advancement in all fields, and now the openings went to younger people just beginning their careers.  That may have had something to do with it, but his lack of assertiveness was probably the more decisive factor.  Alph had had the good sense to stay closeted, not so much to get ahead as to get ahead, but because, given his fluctuating sexuality, for all he knew the next week he might be interested in a woman.

       Seeing his friends again after all these years made retirement look less attractive.  They struck Alph as old before their time and, yes, stodgy.  They had grown apart and didn’t have much to talk about, their conversation more polite than substantive.  That they’d been friends during one of the straight periods of his life had nothing to do with it.  They were an upwardly mobile lot, and he hit them up for restaurant recommendations, expensive places Piper had heard of but probably never gone.

       As for Piper, that day he found it close to impossible to concentrate on his project, with the same thoughts Alph imagined he must have racing through his head, and he just about despaired of completing it in time.  He phoned late in the afternoon.

       “Let’s order out tonight, OK?  I have no idea when I’ll be getting home.”

       “You’re too late.  I’ve already made goulash, but that can be reheated.  If I get hungry I’ll eat without you.”

       “You’ll get hungry.”

       Alph ate alone.  Piper didn’t get home till after nine-thirty, but at least he felt confident he could finish the project by Friday, maybe even sooner, and without having to stay late.  “Hope you weren’t too bored,” he asked.

       “Bored to tears.  I almost went out and bought you a TV.  Christ!  How did manage to forget?  I bought you a house gift.”

       “You didn’t have to do that.”

       “Since when do I do what I have to?  I bet I don’t do what I have to twice as often as I do what I shouldn’t.  I hope you like it.  It may not be the most appropriate thing to give someone you hardly know, but I took my chances.”

       “You know me about as well as anyone, and I’m sure I’ll love it.”

       They looked through it together.  The book was divided into two sections, art and photography.  The first gave a historical perspective of both painting and sculpture, mostly European, the full-page plates, all in color except for some of the sculptures, prefaced by a longish essay interspersed with smaller reproductions by way of illustration.  The sculptures were mostly nudes, while among the paintings clothed portraits of desirable men in an iconographic setting with blatantly sexual overtones outnumbered the naked bodies.  It also contained some depictions of men kissing, holding hands, etc., and a few men engaged in various sex acts, none of them particularly graphic or revealing.  There were no cartoons or drawings of the Tom of Finland type.  On the other hand, the photographs included only single portraits, every one of them a nude (some of the men were in underwear, always torn or of the see-through variety), just about all of them Western and, except for a handful of studies of tattooing from Africa and Micronesia, all in black and white.  Advertising and the cinema were not represented.  The photography section was also preceded by an essay, but briefer and without illustrations.  No commentary was provided for any of the plates, perhaps because the editor assumed that the people who looked at them would provide their own, which is what Alph and Piper did.

       They skimmed through the first section and concentrated on the photographs, which had a more obvious erotic appeal for the twenty-first century male eye.  Both felt a pleasant stirring in their groin that didn’t turn into a full-blown erection.

       “Any of them look like you?” Alph asked.

       “God no.  What would anyone like me be doing in a book of erotic art?”

       “Any of them remind you of me?”

       “Now how would I know that?”

       “Use your imagination.”

       “I’m no good at that.  Not that kind of imagining anyway.”

       “Which one would like me to look like?”

       “I want you to look like you.  If I chose one of these guys I’d just end up disappointed.”

       “Gee, thanks.”

       “You know what I mean.  Is there a single man in here who’s not under forty?”

       “Probably not.  Definitely none under forty-five.”

       They might easily have stripped down right then; the subject was on the table.  They deflected the question, however.  It was not a propitious time to make comparisons.

       “What about you?” Piper said.  “Do any of them remind you of anyone you know?”

       The one they were looking at at the moment reminded Alph of his boyfriend, which was what prompted him to ask the question in the first place, but he didn’t answer.  Instead he asked if Piper had any favorites among those they’d seen, curious if he’d single out the man on the page open in front of them.  Instead he turned back to a furry-chested body-builder type with a buzz cut and a moustache.  At least the expression on his face was neutral and unaffected, and he was standing in a natural pose, not flexing.  The light fell on him to emphasize his thick, dark bush at the center of the photograph, and he turned to his right with his left knee slightly bent so that his muscular thigh hid his dick from view.

       “What do you like about him?” Alph asked.

       “His dick.”

       “But you can’t see his dick.”

       “I know.  That’s what I like about it.  I want to imagine what it looks like, but I can’t.  I like the tease.  Now you point out your favorite.”

       “Hoping it will be like you?”

       “None of them look like me, not even vaguely.”

       Choosing a favorite photo was no easy matter.  The one that looked like his boyfriend was not even in the running.  He found the man very attractive, to be sure, but it was not one of the better photos.  He flipped the pages back and forth, trying to decide.  He’d look at one, go on to another, turn back to compare the two, weigh them both against a third, and so on, with Piper looking on to see which were under consideration.

       “It’s going to be a butt shot, whichever one you decide on, isn’t it?  Now why doesn’t that surprise me?”

       “Are they all butts?  I hadn’t noticed.  I was concentrating on the photography.”

       Piper looked archly at him, as if he knew better and was thinking, “Yeah, tell me about it.”

       Alph answered his stare: “Really I was.”

       “I believe you, but unconsciously you’re looking at butts.  You may not be looking for them, but you’re sure as hell looking at them.”

       “That’s fair enough.  OK, let’s say I like this one best.”

       He selected a portrait of a kneeling man, seen from the rear, legs close together, his feet pointed to the left, knees to the right.  He held his arms stretched up and pulled slightly back from his head and to the right, his face turned away from them in half-profile.  He had his arms crossed at the wrist and his hands clasped.  His fingers nearly touched the top of the frame and his toes touched the bottom, so the effect was a white body dividing the dark gray background of the photo into two halves, with the body bisected by the double S-curve of the dark space between his arms, the snaking shadow of his spine, the crescent of his crack, and at its base the backwards Z formed by the sharp angles of his bent knees and heels, softened by the slope of the thighs and rounded calves.

       “Doesn’t do much for me,” Piper said.  “It’s all lines and shadow, more of an abstract than a man.”

       “Then let’s see if we can find one we both like.”

       “No chance of that if you insist of rear views.  But I like them all.  This is a splendid book, really.”

       “I bet we can if we choose one of those three of a naked man in front of a mirror.”

       That was too easy; they agreed immediately.  So they spent their evening in vicarious flirtation, the book of photos standing in for an impersonal Internet, and went to bed early.

       Alph woke up in the middle of the night with a headache and a scratchy throat, and was unable to get back to sleep.  He didn’t hear Piper get up – his friend must have been extra quiet so as not to wake him – but he did hear the shower and saw him for a split second as a dim white figure crossing back to his room to dress.  Piper was surprised to find him awake when he went to make coffee.

       “Up already?”

       “Have been for hours.”

       “What’s the matter?  Not comfy?”

       “The sofa’s great, but it feels like I’m coming down with something.  It’s probably the jet lag that hit me.”

       Piper came closer and peered at him.  “No, you don’t look all that good.”  He felt his head.  “I think you have a bit of a fever.”

       “Want to take my temperature?” he teased.

       “As a matter of fact, yes.”  He went and got a thermometer from the medicine cabinet and came back shaking it vigorously to lower the mercury.  “Open wide and put this under your tongue,” he said, popping it in.

       Alph’s temperature was slightly elevated.  Nothing to worry about, but Piper was still concerned.  “This could turn into something more.  Your resistance is low when you’re traveling.  You’d better stay home and take it easy today.”

       “I’d intended to.  I don’t feel up to much more than that.”

       “Exactly what are your symptoms?”

       “Touch of a sore throat.  Splitting headache.”

       “I’ll get you some Tylenol.  Try to get some sleep.  Take my bed.  I have to run to work now, so I’ve no time to change the sheets, but I’ll show you where I keep them.”

       “I’m not afraid of catching anything from your sheets, but I’ll probably leave my germs all over your pillow cases.”

       “Use your pillow.  I’ll put mine on the sofa.”

       “I don’t want to chase you out of your own bed.”

       “Who says you’re chasing me out?”

       “I won’t let you sleep with me if I’m sick.”  He felt safe to start flirting again now that illness had replaced distance as check against going too far too quickly.

       “Maybe you’ll be better tonight.”  So Piper felt it too.  Either that or he had just been waiting for Alph to take the initiative.  “Besides, the sofa’s plenty comfy. You said so yourself.  Did you bring any warm clothing?”

       “Here?  At this time of year?”

       “People bundle up when they’re sick here too.  You’ll find some sweaters in the bottom drawer if you feel cold.  I better run now or I’ll miss my bus.”

       “You can take the car.  I won’t be using it.”

       “And fight the traffic and have to pay for parking?  No thanks.”

       Since early adolescence, Alph’s most frequent activity when stuck in bed with some kind of bug had been masturbation.  Alone in an empty house and feeling run-down and unambitious, he couldn’t think of much else to do.  It was not the most considerate use to make of someone else’s bed, but Piper had left a large box of Kleenex on the bedside table just in case a runny nose came to join his other symptoms.  Thoughtful of him.  He could take a large handful of them to cum in.  He played with himself half-heartedly for a bit, then spit on his hand and slowly worked it up using a variety of gentle, twisting strokes.  Unlike most men, he did not subscribe to the frenzied up and down school of onanism.  He knew better.  Pleasuring oneself is an art, something to savor, and best not done in haste.  He was in no rush, and took his own sweet time bringing it up to full majesty.  It appreciated the attention, perked up and took shape.  He pulled it, pinched it, bent it, wet it, tickled it, fondled it for the sake of the delightful sensations on its surface, knowing that the sensations within would follow in due course.  But he wasn’t concentrating properly; his mind wandered and forgot what he was doing, the meat went flabby in his hand, and he had to start all over again.  That happened three or four times.  He decided he wasn’t getting anywhere and wouldn’t, so he quit.

       A couple of hours later the sun was high and shining down into the garden, so Alph went to sit outside, taking the book he had given Piper with him to have a closer look at the photos.  He compared the butt shots he had had trouble making his mind up about and decided he liked another one better, one he had overlooked when the two friends discussed their favorites the evening before.

       It showed a man who looked to be in his mid-thirties.  He lay on his stomach on a double bed covered with a bare sheet that had been shoved into a corner, the walls a light gray, the bedding only a shade or two darker.  There were two pillows, the one on the right the same shade of gray as the sheet and lying lengthwise at the head of the bed a foot or two in from the edge.  The pillow on the left was sheathed in a black pillowcase, its striped ticking peeking out the end.  It was positioned at an angle, so that one corner covered the other pillow, and lay under the man’s chest and head, his right arm folded around it, his head turned toward the camera just above his arm.  His dark hair and thick eyebrows echoed the blackness of the pillow he clutched, framing the whiteness of his face and torso, while his right knee bent at a ninety degree angle off to the side, his thigh parallel to the lighter pillow suggesting an empty frame.  The left leg stretched straight out so his foot hung over the edge of the bed, and next to the calf a patchwork quilt bunched up next to the wall in disarray.  His scrotum, hanging by a flap of skin that continued the curving cleavage between his buttocks, as perfect as if it had been drawn with a compass, lay flattened on the mattress between his splayed legs, the roundness of each testicle pushed to the side to reflect the splaying of the legs and clearly outlined in their sack.  Except for a small scar on his left calf, his skin was flawless, and a light tracery of fine hairs sprinkled his lower legs.

       The photographer must have knelt at the foot of the bed to take the picture, for the length and thickness of the legs were exaggerated and the upper body foreshortened.  The resulting distortion did not make the man any less beautiful.  His only imperfection, the suggestion of a paunch, a mere rounding of the belly, gave the entire composition a rare candor and made it appear unposed, as perhaps it was, and served to accentuate the Caravaggio-like effect of the chiaroscuro.  At first glance he seemed in perfect repose, but his eyes were wide open and his lips slightly parted, an expression of exhausted wonderment on his face that said he had just been fucked, marvelously fucked.  Alph had not noticed such a clear suggestion of sexual activity in any of the others.  He’d have to go back and look more carefully at them.  He now thought this photo the most beautiful in the collection, and made up his mind to show it to Piper and comment on it when he got home.

       The sun was warm, but he wasn’t.  He put on one of Piper’s sweaters from the bottom drawer and settled back in the garden chair.  This time he studied the picture of the man who looked a little like his partner.  On second thought, it wasn’t all that bad.  He rather liked it.  He concentrated on comparing it with the mental image he had of his boyfriend.  The resemblance between the two was faint at best.  Their dicks weren’t much alike, as was to be expected.  No two are (not even on identical twins, for some odd reason), and if the guy hadn’t had an endowment noticeably larger than average he wouldn’t have made it into the album in first place.  Their faces differed even more, but the haircuts were similar, and the way they held their head.  He could also imagine his boyfriend standing that way, just not with his clothes off.  He looked more natural when he was naked; this was too obviously posed.  They had more or less the same amount of body hair, but the guy in the photo was fairer.  What reminded him most of his lover was the build – slight, but wiry.

       Even with a sweater on he felt cold, so he came back into the house.  He made himself some hot tea, got back in bed, and returned to the photograph.  Then his cellphone rang.  It was his boyfriend.

       “So, are you having a great time?”

       “Not very.”

       “That’s surprising.  I thought it was a no-brainer that you two would hit it off great together.”

       “We have.  I just don’t see all that much of him.”  The thought crossed his mind that he hadn’t seen any of him, which wasn’t strictly speaking true.  He just hadn’t seen him with his clothes off.  “He’s been working late so we can have a long weekend together.  Remember?  My idea that we could take a little trip?”

       “What about your old friends?”

       “Dullsville.”

       “So, where are you now?”

       “Home alone at Piper’s.  In bed.”

       “His bed?  I thought you were going to sleep on the sofa.”

       “He’s sleeping on the sofa.  I came down with some kind of bug.”

       “I guess that explains why you’re not having much fun.”

       “I’m keeping my fingers crossed that I’ll be better by the weekend.”

       “You don’t have much time.”

       “No.”

       “So, are you busy?”

       “Need you ask?  Is anyone ever busy when they have the crud?”

       “Up for a little phone sex?”

       “Are you kidding?  I feel like shit.  I couldn’t get it up if my life depended on it.”

       “Well, I’m up.  Couldn’t you pretend and talk me through it?”

       “Cough you through it is more like it.  Don’t you think that would kill the illusion?  How’s your mom?”

       “Hanging in there.”

       “No change?”

       “No change.”

       “You’ll call me right away if anything happens?  You know I’ll fly right back if she dies or something.”

       “Yeah, I know.  But she won’t.  Not unless there’s a sudden change.”

       “The other phone is ringing.  It’s probably Piper.”

       “Then I’ll say goodbye.  Take care of yourself.”

       “You too.”

       “Were you asleep?” Piper asked.  “I was about to hang up.”

       “I was on the phone with my boyfriend.”

       “What did you say to him?”

       “That I was in your bed.”

       “You’re awful.  How are you feeling?”

       “As you said, awful.”

       “A lot worse?”

       “No, just a little, but still worse.”

       “Do you have any favorite home remedies I should pick up on the way home?”

       “Tea with raspberry juice.”

       “I’ve never heard of that one.  I hope I can find raspberry juice.  The supermarket near the bus stop isn’t all that upscale.”

       “Raspberry juice won’t do.  You need real raspberries.  You crush them in the cup and pour the tea over them.  It doesn’t work without the seeds.”

       “Real raspberries they’ll have.  Anything else?”

       “Honey, lemon and scotch for a toddy.”

       “I’ll remember to stop at the liquor store.  But if you ask me, booze as a cure for anything sounds like an old wives’ tale.”

       “I’m sure it is, but so are the raspberries.”

       “Well, if they give you a homey feeling I suppose it’ll make you feel better.”

       “The toddy makes you sweat too, so it’s probably more effective.  Just don’t buy cheap scotch.  I’ll pay you back for the it.”

       Alph turned his attention back to the book and decided, having just spoken with his lover: “No, not like him at all,” and returned to stare at the man on the bed.

       Piper could have brought his project near to completion that day, but he left work early to check up on Alph and bring him his home remedies.  “I don’t know the first thing about whisky,” he said.  “I hope this will do.”

       “Dewar’s.  It’s perfect.  Just what I would have gotten.”

       Alph felt more and more miserable as the evening wore on and would not eat supper.  He made himself a hot toddy, and  Piper made him take a handful of vitamin C and echinacea.  He left the pill bottles on the night table by the bed and over his friend’s objections insisted on bedding down on the sofa himself.  Alph was no better the next morning, but they agreed that it was nothing worse than a bad cold.

 

 

Posted: 02/29/08