Page 103 of On Your Knees

“We?”

“We.”

“In the cellar?” I try not to let discomfort color my tone. If that’s where he needs to go, I’ll go there with him.

But he says, “No. There’s another room that I originally wanted as a studio. I want to work there. With you.”

I smile. “I’d like that.”

Ethan adds, “Since it doesn’t look like we’ll have to run.”

I gaze up at the sky. “I almost wanted to, you know. I would love to see other places.”

“We can still do that.”

“Would you want to?” I ask. “Travel?”

“With you? Absolutely.”

“Where should we go?”

He nuzzles my hair. “Anywhere. You pick. I don’t care as long as it’s together.”

“Mmm,” I hum, relaxing against him and imagining all the possibilities.

THIRTY-FOUR

Ethan

I step back and look at Levi, naked, kneeling on the hardwood inside the ring of candlelight. His hands are on his thighs. His eyes are on me. His feathered wings are fanning out behind him.

Lots of darker possibilities flit through my mind. I want to play with those ideas. I will play with them. There will always be darkness in me. In him too. But there’s also this, and I want to paint it. I want to feel it. I want him to see it.

I’m outside the wide ring of candles in the darker space of what will be the studio. There isn’t much here yet, just the chair I’m sitting on in my sweatpants and the table with my sketchbook and pencils. Tonight, I’m only drawing to study him, to let the image deepen in my mind.

The candlelight plays gently over Levi’s lean, bare form. But light playing means that shadow is playing too, and I realize that the image is more complex than I first thought. There’s darkness here as well as light. Both are tugging at him, and his expression is soft. Receptive. He takes both in, gives both back.

I relax and sink into the work. This is the thing I love about art. It’s partly creating the image, but it’s also finding it.

I work for a long while, capturing the pose, then I rise from my chair and walk into the circle to reposition him. I want more. I’m greedy for it.

Levi lets me work in silence, moving easily with my hands as I tug him to rest his hip and one hand on the floor. I pull his legs a little to the other side, leaving his knees bent. I settle his free hand on his uppermost thigh.

I pet his hair and return to my place outside the light. I draw him again.

When I’m satisfied with the sketch, I go back into the circle. Levi’s eyes drop to where my cock is tenting my black sweats. Tonight, I’m not caged to draw him. I want to feel everything. I want his experience, and my own too.

Crouching before him, I take the hand resting on his thigh and guide it to the floor behind him so he’s leaning back slightly. Then I open his legs. I draw one up, bent with his foot on the floor. The other I pull out until it’s loosely bent and lying open.

Then I reach between his legs, cupping my hand under his balls. His cock is already half hard, so when I tug his balls, his eyelashes flutter and a shiver goes through his body.

I leave him again and go back to work. I work faster this time because Levi is starting to struggle. Tiny shudders keep going through his body, and his cock stiffens until it’s jutting up, lying hard against his belly.

My own hard cock is throbbing in my sweats, and my focus is being drawn from art to reality. Levi’s breathing gets louder, and so does mine. His stomach starts contracting.

I keep working as long as I can, until Levi whispers across the space, “I need you.”

The shudder that goes through my body has my hand jumping off the page.