Ink & Flowers (7 page)

*~*~*

Tuesday was Luke's favourite class of the week:  life-drawing. Not so much a class but an open studio for anyone who wanted to practice sketching the human form. There was always a live model, and although Luke had initially been put off by the nudity, it had soon become routine. The human figure was one of the most difficult subjects to master, and practising from photos and model figures just didn't cut it.

His instructor always chose interesting models—an obese man one day, and the next a stick-thin woman. Last week had been a very old man who stood hunched with his hands behind his back while the students observed him from every angle, while the scratch of charcoal against rough newsprint paper was the only sound in the echoing studio. Part of Luke admired the models, and part of him thought they must have been crazy.

He set up his easel as the instructor gave the standard lecture:  respect the model and refrain from leaving the room. Then she smiled. "I'm very pleased about our model today, because we haven't had someone like him before. Everyone, please meet Cooper."

Luke felt his mouth drop open as Cooper strode into the room, wearing nothing but a black bathrobe. He grinned and winked at Luke, who felt his blood run cold. Surely there was some sort of mistake. Cooper couldn't be a nude model, he—this just wasn't fair! Was this what he'd meant when he said he'd make it up to Luke?

His instructor was still talking. "Now, a word of warning, when drawing someone like Cooper, it can be very easy to get caught up in drawing the tattoos instead of paying attention to the overall shape and movement of the body, which is what we're trying to do in this class. This is also a great opportunity to study a muscular figure, so take advantage of that as well, okay?"

Luke didn't think he was going to be able to take advantage of anything. His hands were shaking. His hands never shook when he drew. He wanted to get up and leave, but the instructor was already closing the door and setting the "Nude Drawing in Progress" sign over the window. No leaving now.

"Right, so for those just joining us today, we'll be doing several five-second poses to warm up, followed by a few two-minute poses, then we'll move into longer poses, and the last pose will be an hour, so you'll get a chance to produce a more detailed work then. Okay, Cooper, ready?"

Cooper nodded and slid the robe off his shoulders. Luke could feel his face heating up. This wasn't fair. How was he supposed to distance himself from Cooper, see him as an art subject, when he knew him? Cooper had done this on purpose, too; Luke could tell by the slight smug expression on his face and the way he avoided looking at Luke.  He'd been trying so hard to keep from looking at Cooper too closely, and now Cooper was coming here and forcing him to stare at him for two hours. He should leave, ask to go home sick. But Cooper was already making his way up onto the pedestal in the middle of the room and striking his first pose. Immediately, the artists around him got to work.

Luke stared at the blank page in front of him, his ears burning. He couldn't look. He couldn't.

"And switch pose."

In unison, the artists around him flipped to a new page and began scratching away again. Luke chanced a glance at Cooper. He was standing with his arms clasped behind his neck, facing Luke. Everything was on full display.
Oh god.

He was completely hairless, Luke assumed so as not to detract from the tattoos, and he was ... big, bigger than most of the men they'd had as models before. Luke would have to draw
it
. And the tattoos. They swirled down both his legs, colourful and diverse. He was literally covered in them, hardly a bare spot on his body.

"And switch."

Damn it. Cooper turned a little and moved his arms, and Luke was once again distracted, this time by a large tattoo on his left thigh. The girl next to him giggled.

It was a man, drawn in a way that obviously harkened back to pin up paintings. The man was lounging, some scanty excuse for a sailor's uniform barely covering him, his privates erect and on full display. Cooper caught Luke's stare and gave a little grin before staring off into the distance again, his features blank.

"And switch."

Damn it.
Cooper turned so that he was facing away from Luke, and Luke was stuck staring at his muscular backside. At least he didn't have to stare at Cooper's smug face. He furiously made a few lines of Cooper's posture so that he didn't have to look like a petrified idiot when the pose switched again.

He could focus better when Cooper was facing away from him. As they moved into the longer poses, he found that his instructor had been right—it
was
hard not to focus on the tattoos. He'd never looked at them properly before, but some of them were gorgeous. Cooper's back was the most impressive. A huge red face—Luke thought it was a Japanese mask—took up most of it, surrounded by swirling waves and designs, an incredible amount of detail. It extended down over the generous curve of his back, onto his ass, nearly meeting up with the flames and myriad of little designs that covered his legs.

When he turned to face Luke again, Luke found himself staring into the eyes of the roaring tiger head on Cooper's abdomen, and then at the Chinese dragons that curved around his collarbone and neck. It was difficult to separate the shadows of his body from the shading on the tattoos. A knife, a rose, a geisha head, koi fish ... it scrambled Luke's brain. He finally managed to force himself to ignore it, focus on Cooper's body, but of course that only made things worse.

He stroked the paper with the crumbling graphite, drawing broad sweeps for the chest muscles and subtly defining the rounded shadows. Next he concentrated on the small tight muscles over the ribs and flat abdominal muscles, cut in between by thin dark shadows. Then down, thick, heavy hips over strong thighs, the long sinuous muscles pronounced by more long dark shadows. Luke dug a nail into the corner of the graphite automatically, sharpening its edge to a point and leaning forward to sketch the details of Cooper's cock. It looked delicate somehow, even with its size, and Luke wanted to examine it closer, feel that soft skin under his hands, perhaps his mouth ...

A wave of guilt swept through him, but it did nothing to slow the rampant hardening of his cock. Luke wanted to touch Cooper, he wanted Cooper to touch him, and it was disgusting. He was disgusting.

He stood and packed up his things as quickly and quietly as possible. Holding the drawing paper in front of his pants, he breathed a quick apology to the instructor and fled from the room. He didn't let himself look at Cooper as he left.

The nearest washroom was in a different building and he practically ran there, his eyes burning.
Disgusting. I'm disgusting.

No, gross. Gross was the word that Brody had used.
You don't wanna be one of those gross faggots, do you, Luke? You gotta be careful; you seem like you could become one pretty easy.

Luke dropped his supplies on the washroom floor and locked himself in a stall. He leaned against the door, pressing his head to the cool metal, and unzipped his pants.
Gross,
said Brody's voice in his head as he reached down and began to stroke himself, the image of Cooper's cock burned into his mind. He opened his mouth, imagined sliding his tongue along Cooper, and wondered how Cooper's voice would sound amidst groans of pleasure.

By the time his guilt and lust had worked its way to their simultaneous peak, he was worn, both physically and mentally, with no drive to do anything besides slump in the cafeteria for a little while. He finally decided to store his supplies in one of the art lockers and walk home. The walk would give him more time to avoid Cooper.

*~*~*

Of course it was not to be. About half an hour into the long walk home, a large black truck skidded past Luke and drove up onto the curb in front of him. The window rolled down, and Cooper, once again fully dressed, grinned out at him. "Need a ride, tiger?"

A passing vehicle honked at the disruption. Luke attempted to dodge around the truck. "No, I'm fine." Cooper inched forward, halting Luke's path, and Luke felt his blood boil. "Fuck off, Cooper!"

"I wanna take you out to dinner, genius."

"I don't want to go."

"Really, have you eaten since breakfast?"

"No. And I don't want to talk to you." Luke managed to dodge around the truck and began to walk off.

"Luke!" The truck door opened, and Cooper jumped out and jogged after him. "Luke, I just, I'm sorry, all right? I didn't mean to upset you."

"Yeah, right, again."

Cooper sighed. "I know, I'm stupid, and I do stupid things sometimes without thinking. But I just wanna help. Really."

Luke closed his eyes, wishing he was gone, away from Cooper's stupid puppy-dog eyes and apologies. He was sensing a pattern, one that he was all too familiar with. "You think you can just keep doing stupid shit and then apologise and I'll be fine? You can't just control me. I can't stand it."

He felt a sob coming at the end of that announcement. He shoved past Cooper and continued to walk.

"Luke!" Cooper called after him once again. "I don't ... I don't want to control you, okay? I'm sorry, I promise I'll stop. There's just something I really want to show you. I promise I'll ... just give me one more chance!"

Luke let out a harsh breath, far too close to a sob. He turned. "I know what you're doing," he said. "You're trying to make me come out, right? So I'll fuck you."

"That's not why," said Cooper.

Luke rolled his eyes. "Right," he said, but he couldn't really blame Cooper. He at least thought that he was doing this in Luke's best interests. And Luke didn't know anymore. All he knew was that he wanted the stress to go away; he wanted the voices in his head to stop. "Alright," he said. "What do you want to show me?"

Cooper nodded a few times and gestured for Luke to come back. "Come on, get in."

*~*~*

"Why are you taking me to the middle of nowhere?" Luke demanded.

"Quit bellyaching, we're almost there."

"I thought we were having lunch."

"We are. Lunch outside. It's called a picnic."

"Well, we made it, we're outside, we can stop now."

"No, I'm taking you somewhere special."

Luke sighed and stared out the window, his stomach growling. "Well, can I eat the picnic now?"

"No," laughed Cooper, "we're almost there. Trust me, you'll like it."

They were far out of town, on a side road off the highway. Trees towered over them on either side of the road, and the foliage was dense. "Here we go," Cooper announced as they passed a sign indicating that the road ended ahead. He pulled to the side of the road and waved Luke out.

Luke opened the door and jumped to the ground. There was no use arguing with Cooper anymore; he was obviously on a mission. Besides, he had the food.

As they walked along the now narrow pathway through the forest, Luke realised that they were nearing a drop-off. It came quite suddenly, and Luke gasped at the sight. To their left was a dam, a great cement structure with water pouring out the side, down into the depths of the ravine. Luke guessed it must be miles down. A steep path led down to a metal-fenced precipice, and Luke followed Cooper down to it. He pulled a blanket from his bag and laid it on the ground before settling heavily onto it and opening the containers of food.

Luke sat, still a bit awed by the view.

"What do you think?" asked Cooper.

"It's really nice," admitted Luke. "Did you just find it?"

"No, I come here a lot. Like, to think and sketch and stuff. Did you bring your supplies?"

"No, I left them at the school."

"Oh. Well, here, eat."

He'd made sandwiches with cold cuts and cucumbers and some sort of delicious honey mustard. They ate in silence for a while, Cooper obviously felt awkward. Finally, Luke sighed, the hunger satiated and his feelings became more level. "I guess I must have looked pretty funny today, eh?"

Cooper gave a small smile. "Yeah, a little. Look Luke, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that. I was just trying to help, but ... it was shitty."

"You're just, you're ..." Luke couldn't sort out his feelings. He stared at Cooper, trying to put them into words. "You have so many tattoos," he announced, as if it were an accusation.

Cooper grinned and leaned back, hands behind his head. "Yes, I do. They're the product of a lot of time and money."

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why do you have so many? Like, what do they all mean?"

Cooper sat up on his elbows and squinted at Luke. "
Mean
?"

"Yeah, like," Luke grasped for his limited knowledge on the subject, "don't all tattoos have to mean something?"

Cooper grinned lopsidedly. "Yeah, right," he said. He pointed to the dragon on his neck. "This one means strength." He pulled up his shirt to reveal the roaring tiger head, "this one means I'm fierce. And this one," he pointed at the koi fish on his left bicep, "means I love fish."

Luke guffawed. "Shut up, it does not mean you love fish."

Cooper chuckled. "No, it means I really like the artist's work, and he does a lot of koi fish. And I don't love flaming skulls either," he added, holding up a forearm to display the faded designs there. "I was eighteen and thought that if I got them on my arm, everyone would know how badass and straight I was."

"You were straight?" asked Luke, surprised.

"It doesn't work that way, dude." Cooper leaned back again.

Luke slumped. "I know."

"You know that?"

"I do."

"So," Cooper sat up again, "what the fuck? Why are you so convinced you can avoid being gay if you try hard enough?"

"I don't know!" admitted Luke, "I just, I thought, if I tried really hard, I could ... not be."

"But why do you care? I mean, what's so bad about being gay?"

"I don't know!" said Luke, exasperated. "You used to want to be straight too, right? There must have been a reason!"

"Yeah," scoffed Cooper. "I was scared. Of what people would think, and say ..."

"Well, so am I!" cried Luke. "My family, they always say such horrible stuff. Brody—"