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He’s seen the pictures of Vincent when he was younger. He was pretty, almost devastatingly so. Red plush mouth and undimmed naïve eyes standing out from the photographs. Jerome would’ve eaten him alive. He wonders if Vincent, clever, desperate Vincent, would even have struck a chord. In his more fanciful moments, aided by alcohol and the desire for something more piquant that he isn’t allowed, Eugene imagines meeting him.
On Vacation maybe. Madeira. Jerome had gone there after his first year at Cambridge with a few mates he’d met at Trinity. Vincent would be there with his boorish family. Embarrassed for them and by them, indisputably, at every turn and becoming ever more sure that he had to escape into space. It would recall outmoded discussions on the fusty notion of Nature Vs. Nurture, a concept Eugene found himself pondering frequently since Vincent had ran incautiously into his life.
They’d chosen to stay at Reid’s Palace overlooking the Funchal bay. He speculated briefly that Vincent’s family couldn’t afford it—but it was a fantasy, not to be ruined by such practicable concerns.
He pictures it, pulling himself out of the pool, his friends sipping at overpriced cocktails while they ranged themselves in the sun. Eyes catching unexpectedly on a lissome teen only a few years younger than himself. He was wearing a formidably atrocious pair of spectacles that branded him instantly for what he was.
Jerome accepted a towel with easy grace, but kept his eyes on the bloke. Were his parents proud of themselves for having such an attractive child—strong cheek bones, dark straight brows, wryly twisted lips. Probably not, from the way they glanced at him with unease as he made his way through a heavy looking book. The boy next to him, a brother maybe, was another model of aesthetic excellence. And yet, there was something cheap and flimsy about him. It was readily evident how carefully he was designed. Did people look at Jerome and see that? The alpha double-plus Aldous Huxley had prophesied made flesh?
He literally, physically, ran into him later, leaving the Briso Do Mar for a night on the town with his friends.
“Oy, watch it,” he said, rocking back from a surprisingly solid hit to the shoulder. He looked over and caught the eyes of the boy at the pool.
He apologized, stumbling over the words, his parents looking on in muted horror. Jerome smiled.
“It’s all right,” he said, barely keeping a chuckle out of his voice. He reached out, finger running under one earpiece and hooked the horrendous spectacles right off the boy’s face. “Must be difficult to see with these.”
The boy’s family looked horrified, already his mother was stepping forward to make excuses. Anything to stop the abuse she suspected was coming. Jerome ignored her, watching the boy as firm resignation stole over his face. His friends murmured and shifted around him. Something about it made him want to throw the odds, do the things their prescribed profiles said they never would. Maybe it was the three scotch rocks he’d had with his dinner. It didn’t matter.
“Would you like to join us?” he said, fingering the spectacles. “We’re going to the O Molhe, the pier.”
“I...”
“Say yes or I’ll break these,” Jerome told him, waving the glasses in front of his eyes. “Not that I shouldn’t anyway—these things offend my eyes.”
The boy laughed. He actually laughed. “Give them back and I’ll go.”
“Right then.” Jerome handed them over and gestured the way in front of him.
“But, Vincent...” his mother said, hand raised to stop them.
“It’ll be fine, mum,” Jerome said and gave her a jaunty wave, sweeping Vincent down the path. His friends laughed uproariously at the family’s overblown shock.
“You’re terrible, you are,” Joseph said, shoving at his shoulder. Joseph came from even better genetic stock than Jerome, albeit barely. He also came from a hypocritically liberal family who campaigned viciously against Genoism. He was going to have to make sure Joseph didn’t insultingly treat Vincent as an anthropological study to see how the “other half,” as it were, lived.
“I’m bored, is what I am.” He rolled his eyes and pulled out his cigarette case, offering one to Vincent, who demurred.
Jerome narrowed his eyes. “How long have you got?”
“Excuse me?”
“Oh, don’t be so bloody puerile, you know exactly what I mean.”
Vincent stopped. They were trailing behind now. “I’m puerile and you’re a predictably stereotypical asshole.”
“Mmm, it’s in my genetic profile.” Jerome told him, taking a long drag on the cigarette. It provoked an amused huff and Jerome hid a smile. “Well?” he asked, gesturing at his rapidly disappearing friends. Vincent shrugged and started walking again.
If he expected Vincent to ask why Jerome did it, he shouldn’t have. But the rest was easily forecasted. Vincent was unfamiliar with drink. The expensive whisky Jerome bought him made him cough, although he drank it without complaint. He didn’t know how to dance, or how to make himself heard over the music, certainly not to flirt. It wasn’t as if his sequence was a hindrance here, Madeira was full of In-Valids. He was shy and he hung back, and Jerome was really starting to wonder if he shouldn’t buy him a cab and send him off.
And then came a moment over pints of bitters in a pub. It was towards the end of the night. Jerome was pleasantly drunk. Vincent was silent, appearing to pay more attention to the live band than any of them. Joseph was in the middle of lambasting the “imperialist” Americans—a subject Jerome cared for very little. He had only one goal in life and that was to win the Olympics. And to get his rocks off as much as possible. But those two things were not entirely mutually exclusive.
“As Siegfried Sassoon said ‘The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false-face for the urge to rule it.’”
“Oh, stuff it, Joe,” Arthur said, barely looking up from hand-rolling a cigarette.
“Actually,” Vincent spoke up, clearing his throat unbecomingly. “H. L. Mencken, an American, said that.”
Everybody froze. Vincent made that same huff he’d given Jerome earlier. He got to his feet and threw down a couple of wadded bills. Joseph winced as the money hit the table. “Goodnight, boys,” Vincent said and walked right out.
They stared at each other and then Jerome bolted out of his chair and followed him out of the door. Vincent must have heard him coming, because when he caught up his shoulders stiffened up nearly to his ears.
“You know, I knew this whole thing was about pissing off my folks—”
“It wasn’t,” Jerome interrupted.
“What?” Vincent stopped, clearly thrown.
Jerome backed him up against the wall of a discotheque, using his superior height and weight to trap him. “I like interesting things.”
“What?” Vincent said again, tongue running over the gentle swell of his lower lip.
“There are so few ugly people left—only faith births.” He paused, ruminating, thumb grazing over Vincent’s lower lip.
“No I’m not calling you ugly,” he said, rolling his eyes at the impending question in Vincent’s eyes. He leaned in, lips grazing his ear. “Surely you know you are not.”
Vincent shuddered, pressed into the palm Jerome had at his cheek even as he squeezed his eyes shut tight. Lord, what had Jerome walked himself into: comforting the abused ego of an In-Valid. He had been designed to be an athlete, to excel in his academic pursuits, to create symmetrical genetically pure children, not for compassion. He wondered if anybody had ever touched this boy before. Either way it would have to be enough, because he wasn’t in mind to enact a bloody therapy session.
“Come back to my room with me.”
“You’re a dick,” Vincent bit out, turning his face into the wall.
Jerome laughed, pressing a thigh between Vincent’s legs. “Yes, I have one. I’m told it’s quite nice. One doesn’t like to think of one’s parents delineating his cock, but I suppose it’s better than the alternative.” He smiled at the beginning of an erection riding against his femoris.
Vincent didn’t protest a second time. The sumptuousness of Jerome’s suite rocked him when he keyed open the door. Jerome couldn’t help but take a vicious kind of delight in the way Vincent’s eyes ran over the leather-upholstered furniture, the king size bed, the balcony behind open double doors. Without the glasses, if he were to fuck Vincent out there, hold his hands to the rail and take him where everybody could see, nobody would ever know he was an In-Valid. It wasn’t readily apparent why his parents didn’t simply purchase him contacts, but he didn’t ask Vincent to take the glasses off.
“Well...well...” he said, peeling the zipper of Vincent’s fly down and getting the first eyeful of his cock. “That is just...”
Vincent shifted under his gaze and Jerome snickered, tugging him in for a kiss. Vincent came reluctantly, unsure of himself, but when Jerome curled strong fingers around his cock, he groaned into Jerome’s mouth, dignity quite lost.
Vincent’s mouth was soft, lips chapped, easily willing to take direction. It was clear he hadn’t had many kisses, clutching at Jerome’s biceps tightly, like he needed to hold himself up. Ridiculous really, Jerome would never drop anybody he took to bed.
He supposed if there was any physical flaw in Vincent it was that he couldn’t build muscle easily. But Jerome could feel first hand the lean wiry strength of his body--might not be easy, but it wasn’t for lack of trying. Jerome imagined Vincent desperately pushing himself through a workout with sharp-edged amusement.
Jerome shoved Vincent back on the bed, enjoying his quiet moan at the loss of Jerome's touch. The hooded desire in Vincent’s eyes was inebriating. He'd never had to temper his narcissistic impulses and really, why start here? He wondered how far he’d be able to push this before Vincent said no.
Vincent licked the cracked skin of his lower lip, watching Jerome warily, unmoving. This was Jerome’s show, and for now, Vincent was uncertain and just insecure enough to let it stay that way. The buttons of Jerome's expensive lawn shirt were an unforeseen difficulty, refusing to part under his hands. Gaining some of his own momentum, Vincent raised himself to his knees, undoing the stubborn fastenings. Jerome raised a delicate eyebrow.
The look Vincent gave him was fierce. “I can figure this much out, thank you,” he said acidly, fingers pulling rents in Jerome’s shirt.
“Alright, Love,” Jerome replied quellingly, mockingly condescending. He stroked a thumb lightly over the knobs of Vincent’s clenched knuckles, prying his fingers free. Jerome had no apparent penchant for tenderness, but he found himself taking care as he undressed Vincent, stroking the pale planes of newly revealed muscle with unhurried hands. A flush came to the surface under his touch. He smiled.
“You look far too pleased with yourself,” Vincent told the ceiling, lips bitten raw. Jerome kissed him again to shut him up. Vincent’s cock dragged a wet trail down Jerome’s thigh and he palmed it again. He started a slow metronomic rhythm, ignoring his own arousal to revel in Vincent’s hitching gasps and surprised groans. The cock disappearing in the circle of his fist was thick and well-proportioned, fluid pearling at the tip. Jerome wondered aloud if he’d ever touched himself. From Vincent’s sudden high color he had his answer. “Did they tell you it was unclean? Wrong? A waste?”
Vincent didn’t answer.
“How often?” He asked. When Vincent still didn’t reply, his grip stilled on Vincent’s prick. “How. Often. Do. You. Touch. Yourself?” he said slowly and evenly, like Vincent was a particularly ill-behaved child.
Vincent tongued his teeth and arched his neck back with a mewl, like Jerome’s motionlessness was more palpable than any touch. “A lot,” he stuttered.
“I bet you do,” Jerome replied, “with a pretty cock like this.”
He brought Vincent off with his hands and then again with his mouth. Vincent had twisted in his grip, uncomfortable and awkward and yet so turned on, he could never quite bring himself to say stop. By the time Jerome was done with him, his cheeks were wet and eyes unfocused. Jerome had dispensed with his spectacles after they'd become too arduous to navigate and he could tell by the sluggish myopic way Vincent tracked his movements that he was significantly handicapped without them.
Vincent juddered, shocked when Jerome trailed slicked fingers back down behind his balls.
“Steady,” he said, seizing Vincent’s thigh, squeezing briefly with one spread-fingered palm.
“I don’t—I’m not—do you—”
“You didn’t think I was done with you, did I?” Jerome asked, circling the point of his index finger over the tight rim of his ass. “I’m not that altruistic, darling.”
He was hard to the point of aching, only a ferric restraint developed over years of pushing his body past it’s limits kept him from giving up and taking himself in hand.
“You’re not altruistic at all,” Vincent shot back, but the bitter words held humor. There was a smile budding at the corner of his mouth.
Jerome leaned forward, hand still working between them to nip at Vincent’s lip. It was hard enough that he licked the coppery tang of blood off his own mouth when he pulled back. Dazed, Vincent searched out Jerome’s gaze, landing unerringly and unnervingly on the right spot. Jerome paused, inordinately startled, and pushed his finger inside harder than any virgin deserved. Vincent moaned, breaths coming in fast humid puffs. He twisted his hand, pushing, gratified when Vincent’s hips rose off the bed. He kept it up until his patience finally ran out. Maybe it was too early, maybe it was unfair and iniquitous, but Jerome had pushed him through two orgasms. What more could he possibly ask for?
When Vincent brought his wrist to his mouth, biting at the spur of bone to keep himself quiet, Jerome judged him ready. He fitted himself against Vincent’s opening and Vincent responded with a short, sharp, “Jerome,” that didn’t even make him pause. He pushed the head of his cock inside and Vincent’s hands tightened almost painfully on his arms. He wondered idly if he’d bruise tomorrow as he drove inexorably further inside his body.
Vincent’s body hung brittle underneath him, locked up with tension. But he was tight and hot, clenching reflexively around him. Jerome closed his eyes, dropping his forehead to Vincent’s shoulder before starting up a rhythm just on the other side of punishing. There was good sex and there was good sex, and then there was this.
Vincent cried out every time he shoved back in, nearly hiccuping on his moans. He relaxed under the assault, bearing it out, even reveling in it, Jerome thought, keeping a weather eye on the glazed cast of his face. Somehow without Jerome's meaning to it became tenderer than his original intent, thrusts slowing to a indolent steady roll of his hips. Vincent’s mouth hung open on a gasp and Jerome kissed him, sliding their tongues together like they had all the time in the world to lie here, languid and sweet, bodies sliding together. Jerome ran a hand down his ribs, a light drag over vulnerable skin that made Vincent's muscles constrict involuntarily around him. It forced his cockhead against Vincent’s prostate and he chuckled when Vincent shook around him. Gradually he felt Vincent’s prick grow stiff and swollen against his belly, sliding up the groove that defined the center of his abdomen.
Vincent clutched him close, trembling with strain, and unconsciously tightening his grip on Jerome’s waist every time he struck his prostate.
“Don’t stop,” he said on a ragged exhale, tautening his thighs around Jerome's middle. It was an effectuation further cemented when Vincent sobbed it a second time.
“I won’t,” he exhaled, more unsteadily than he’d been aiming for.
Vincent scored blunt nails down Jerome’s back, practically tugging Jerome into him. If he could've drummed up the effort, he might've held out to make Vincent beg. Although he sensed that was not a game that Vincent would play for long. A capricious thought occurred to him, merely moments before his orgasm sped down his spine. It was a thought you never spared on indifferent partners: Vincent would measure everybody who followed up after this to Jerome, the first. Would they ever be as good as the 9.3 between his thighs? The one making him come after he swore he couldn’t.
He watched Vincent’s face, the way his eyes rolled back up into his head as he whispered, “Jerome…”
Vincent came unanticipated, instinctively clamping down around Jerome until the pressure forced an overwhelmed gasp from his lips. A few more uncoordinated thrusts and he couldn’t hold it back any longer. He came quietly, muffled into Vincent's shoulder, just conscious of the subtle circles Vincent was tracing, almost aimlessly, over the small of his back. It took him a while to get his breath back.
“Is it always like that?” Vincent asked, genuinely curious, when Jerome finally summoned the will to roll off of him.
Jerome briefly considered various lies as he stretched his hand toward the nightstand and the packet of cigarettes therein. His fingertips fell just short of the cardboard and cellophane packet. “Depends, doesn’t it,” he said finally, giving up, body too full of languor to try harder.
“Mmm,” Vincent replied, as if he did really know.
A sudden breeze through the window, stirring the curtains and drifting over their skin reminded him of how hot it was in the room. Yet, he had no desire to close the doors and turn on the air-conditioner. He looked over at Vincent, who’d recovered his glasses at some point. Vincent scrutinized his face, eyes darting over him like he was a puzzle whose pieces wouldn’t fit together properly. His lips quirked at the corner, the beginning of a smile.
“Your eyes are like the ocean...”
“Hmm?” Eugene jerks in his chair, prodded out of his reverie. He finds Vincent standing over him, straightening his cuffs and collar, getting ready for work.
“I was just thinking the sun shining through your eyes…” he shrugs, pausing, “They look like the ocean.”
Eugene snorts at this flight of fancy and shakes himself. “Have a good day, dear,” he calls mockingly, wheeling himself back to his room. Vincent’s snort is the only answer he gets.
The dig at Vincent’s gaze was a poorly spoken truth. Prettier, he’d said of his own eyes. They were modified that way--the single nucleotide-polymorphisms arranged in his OCA2 gene for just the right combination of aqua and sky. Enhanced, his mother would say, perfected. Before, light-pigmented epitheliums were very steadily achromatizing out of the human population for the evolutionary advantage of brown eyes. Eugene’s mesmeric irises are entirely frivolous and inutile, destructive almost. Already he’s at increased risk of age-related macular degeneration and uveal melanoma all stemming from the superficial conception that blue was—is, he stops himself, more beautiful. He wonders if he would make the same decision—form over function, to use a choice phrase. Maybe he would’ve left that bit up to chance.
It hits him when he watches Vincent exhale a swirling cloud of smoke into the bell of his wine glass. It’s one of the most sensual things Eugene has ever seen. He’s in love with him. He’s in love with the imperfections that have forced him to be flawless. The way he smokes his cigarette just like Eugene taught him. How he has his dream all wrapped up neat for him and he’s still worried about what he’s leaving behind. He’s in love, for maybe the first time, and it hurts.
Vincent will never be Jerome. He couldn’t. When he mentioned this to Vincent, he heard it as the imprecation it wasn’t ever meant to be.