The Chinese Ivory Desk

Monday, Apr. 29, 2002 - 4:35 am
Ap�sl�min ida corbalanyrtne 'ls�o rohl'daathi�m v� nen�a iroyss�rd.

(You will have noticed that this entry is titled The Chinese Ivory Desk. You do want me to explain the Chinese ivory desk, yes? Good. Let's tell this story ab initio, shall we?)

It was during his viewing of an episode of Antiques Road Show on our local PBS station when the Fiend first saw the Chinese ivory desk. Which we will hereafter refer to as the Cid, despite the risk of confusion with El Cid (and subsequently, Charlton Heston) and Scotland Yard. I was not there when the Fiend first saw the Cid, but he later described it to me, with enthusiasm.

Furniture is the Fiend's enthusiasm. It is his art, his medium, and his canvas, although he doesn't actually make the furniture. He takes an existing piece of furniture, new or old, but never antique, and then decorates it. By the time he's finished with it, by the time he has painted, patinated, and textured it.... drilled, carved, and stressed it.... tacked, glued, and glazed a thousand thingamajigs and thingamabobs to it.... By that time, he has become the Maker, and the piece has become, entirely, uniquely, his Creation.

Happily for him, his Creations sell. In fact, at this point in his career, he has a waiting list of buyers. It's not an excessively long list, but it's long enough to give him gleeful pleasure, and a kind of giddy relief from doubts of his artistic worth. But the list also oppresses him, a little. He tries to forget about his not-always-patient clientele when he's working, but he has confessed to me that sometimes he feels a pressure to make hay while the sun shines. He is not a speedy artisan, in fact, he's a bit of a dawdler, but that's how his muse works best, with time for contemplation and idle thought. He has told me that he relies on randomness for a great part of his inspiration, and on coincidences that can't be manufactured or rushed, and he has to guard against the urge to work faster.

The Cid was one of those random coincidences. The Fiend was about to start work on a special request for a desk. He had already bought an old potting table for the project and had put some work into it, cutting it down to the size he wanted. His vision for the desk was of something weathered and woody, twined and twigged, and as ponderous as a rock half-buried in the tree litter on the floor of a rainforest. His mind was full of gray bark and green shadows and dappled sunlight. And moss and lichen. But when he saw the Cid on Antiques Roadshow, that all changed. All green thoughts were washed away by ivory dreams. Burned away, I should say, to avoid the mixed metaphor, for he was afire to go in a completely new direction. He disappeared for a day and came back with a new desk, inexpensive, unremarkable, unfinished. It was just the skeleton of the piece, waiting for the Fiend to give it flesh.

By the time the Fiend was finished with it.... How can I describe it? It was encrusted. It was barnacled, without barnacles. It was bejeweled, without jewels. It was embellished, embossed, embroidered.... It was beaded, bedecked and bedizened... It was arabesqued. It was crenulated. It was crinkled and contorted. It was rococo gone mad, rococo for surrealists.

And the Fiend wanted to paint it the color of my ass.

The color he finally achieved on Sunday, the color that satisfied him as a "synonymous metaphor" for my bum, was (no surprise) ivory-like. The Fiend calls it Antique Dream Cream. He painted a swatch and rushed off to Frazee Paints, to match and mix, pausing only to give my painted moon a quick kiss of appreciation. He didn't even take the time to wipe off the prototypical dabs. So I'm looking around for the paint rag, and Jer sez, "here it is" and picks it off the floor.

(Did I tell you that Jer had joined us? He had returned from lunch with his father. His dad had sneaked away from his homophobic suicidal wife to spend a few hours with his son. Katherine's sister has been visiting with them since Katherine was released from the hospital, and with the help of a few friends, they make sure that Katherine is never left alone. No one is confident that Katherine won't try again, although it sounds like, from Jer's father, that Katherine is reveling in the attention she's getting.)

Let me set the scene: The Fiend has exited, dashed out to Frazee for a pint of Dream Cream. Jer is sitting on my bed, rubbing my naked buttocks with a rag, wiping off bits of Not-So-Dreamy Cream. I'm lying on my stomach, lying on my hard-on, trying to think of something witty to say, along the lines of "Any excuse to feel me up, eh?" But I don't say anything. Jer finishes the job, and then replaces the rag with his bare hand. He doesn't stroke or squeeze or knead, he just rests his curved hand against my curved bum. He doesn't say anything.

(He has seen it before. He has seen it all, everything I got. After all, he's been living with me for four months. And while I'm not a particularly immodest guy, I will stroll to the laundry room in my altogether to fetch a clean jock when there are none in the drawer. Or patter into the kitchen, naked in the morning, to start the coffee.)

I'm not talking. He's not talking. I twist around a little, so I can see his face. He's not looking at me, he's not looking at my face. He's looking at his hand, and at what his hand holds. I don't know what he's thinking, maybe I could guess what he's thinking, but I'm too full of thoughts of my own. I'm calculating. I'm figuring if I turn over, and Jer does not move his hand, his hand will fall precisely onto my hard cock. I'm thinking about how nice that will feel. I'm thinking of his fingers curling around my cock, his grip tightening. I'm thinking about how I'll spread my legs a little, giving him better access to my balls. Giving him an invitation.

But mostly I'm thinking of Jer's father. I'm thinking of Jer's father trusting me with the care of his only son. My thoughts are not without exasperation, irritation, frustration, and even anger, but those are fleeting things. Mostly I'm thinking of friendship. And I'm thinking that I'm not ready yet, to turn over and give Jer access. And I'm thinking he's not ready. So I stay put, lying on my stomach, lying on my hot, aching dick, not talking, looking at Jer looking at my bare butt.

Jer looks at me. "You're beautiful," he sez.

I'm looking at a boy in love. His first love, his first crush. He's the one who's beautiful, and I have to tell him so.

And thereby occurs that familiar awkward moment that always takes place when two human males tell each other they are beautiful. It's much easier for us to tell each other we look like shit, or we look like something the dog puked. (As fags, we can almost get away with it, but even we feel more comfortable if we say it with as much camp as possible. "Ohh, daahrrrllleeennn! You are just too too dang gorgeous! You dazzle me, sweetheart. You burn me. You hurt me, baby, you really do!")

Well, the moment ends. Jer takes his hand off my butt, and mumbles something about eating and hunger, and last night's spaghetti, and were the leftovers still in the fridge? I feel this almost overpowering urge to say, no, I like mold on my food, and I think bacteria has been given an unfair rep, so I'm storing all our perishables in paper bags in the garage. And didn't your father just feed you lunch? But I overpower my almost overpowering urge and say, yeah, there's still some spaghetti in the fridge.

And then he's gone. And I'm lying on my bed, on my stomach, on my hard-on, with my bare ass getting cold. So I pull up my pants, turn on my side, give my dick a tug, scribble in my quad pad for twenty minutes, and then find my place in The Hours by Michael Cunningham.

This ain't gonna be no soap opera.

<~>
Ap�sl�min ida corbalan� 'lse nesgla ugar�-cham sa cru ogrulho bat�oltha al�mv�sde.

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