fic | Bohemia [viggo/dom]
frisbyg said, "Dom and Viggo are painting together," and the little slasher in me rejoiced. And this happened:
(Thank you, thank you, thank you to the lovely stephiepenguin for going above and beyond in her wonderful beta-ing. Some of the bits that are not altered I actually have a reason for and some because I do not know the answers to.
Also, the New York represented here is about one fourth my own experience, one fourth media creation, and one half pure imagination.)
Bohemia
viggodom, r
26 febuary 2004
*
New York winters are brutal after so much time spent soaking up the California heat. It reminds Dom of English winters and home.
But cities all have their own feel, and there is a steadfast independence here that cannot touch the casualness of L.A. or the familiarity of Manchester. New York is in a league of its own.
In his first week, he got lost six times walking out the wrong side of subway stops and forgetting the names of avenues that didn't have numbers. He's learned, though, to say things like "west side of the street" or "going uptown" or "Hoboken" (with the emphasis on the first syllable). He feels the city blocks across his skin, like grid work.
He forgets, now, to apologize to strangers that he bumps into and doesn't notice the old lady begging for spare change for a hot cup of coffee. Yesterday, a little girl spilled a bag of sweets across the dusty sidewalk. He didn't hesitate as he walked around her, hearing her shrill sobs fade with each footstep.
He doesn't have money anymore for the city's pretty trinkets, however cheaply offered.
He hasn't seen a vibrant shade of emerald or a bold dash of fuchsia in weeks. Sometimes, he thinks he's gone colour blind until Time Square lights up for the night.
New York City air is heavy with the scent of too many people and too much traffic all battling for a little corner of concrete. He feels the city seep into his lungs, into his blood, and he feels his heart beat in synch with the ticktick of the wristwatch that he had finally had to buy.
*
It was Viggo's idea to come.
They were in a gallery, perhaps for one of Viggo's shows, and Dom was complaining that Billy was mad at him again.
Billy had called and called and just caught him coming in the door at 2 am from a party or a club or a movie that he had fallen asleep to.
"Are you working on the script?" Billy had said, before hello.
Dom had fidgeted and stammered and promised again that he would have his part off to Billy before the end of the month. They had both known it was a lie.
"There's no need to rush, really," he had added, and, "L.A. has great parties. You should visit sometime."
"You're suppose to be working on the script."
"Well, really, I'm not a scriptwriter, Billy," Dom had whined, "I do have a life you know."
"You sound like a spoiled playboy," Billy had said before hanging up.
I'm just having a bit of fun, Dom had thought.
He told this to Viggo who nodded and said, "You should go to New York. It's very focused there, and you'll have plenty of things to do for fun on the side. I know a place where you could stay and not be interrupted."
It was a bit mean of Viggo to take Billy's side and walk away before Dom could point out that he didn't need to go to New York.
Three days later, after he had turned off his mobile phone to avoid the dread of Billy's questions, he had been claiming luggage and navigating suitcases at JFK.
*
He understands the spirit of ambitions and accomplishment on the plane ride over, and he writes a good five pages before he is interrupted by a stewardess in a too short dress.
The cabin is filled with Manhattan businessmen in Oxford shirts and Hollywood starlets in artificial smiles. They're all wearing uniforms in Dom's eyes.
There is a hum of activity that accompanies the journey of too much money and too much glamour gathering in one place.
He writes posh on the back of his hand and snickers. The girl across the aisle gives him a strange look and goes back to applying her lipstick.
He orders a Martini and opens the script again. He thinks of Billy's smile.
*
He figures he owes himself a few days to check out the city before getting down to business. He became an actor because life should, above all, be enjoyed, and he refuses to let the script become a chore.
It's too important for him to dread. Too personal.
He checks out the clubs he knows first and then the ones people have told him about before ducking around the corner to the dirty pub in the alley where people come for the alcohol and not much else. It's comfortable in its isolation, in its independence.
It is a New York creation, through and through.
He takes his time navigating the endless offerings of museums and shows and simple good entertainment. He never remembers feeling this cultured in L.A. even though Los Angeles is an art capital in its own right. But it's not like here, with priceless masterpieces and delicate originals and plain trash hyped to fashionable uniqueness, all carefully tucked away in a skeleton of protective concrete and steel.
But he likes to think he's retained some of his old life. He makes sure to check out one new restaurant every week, and he sees just about every film that makes it to the movie theatre down the street with its old fashioned marquees. His CD collection is getting quite impressive and his live concert memories even better.
His closet thanks him every day. His bank account says, Pretty is not everything.
And yet he can feel himself being remoulded, like in New Zealand but in the opposite direction, emerging industrial rather than the living collection of leaves and sea and sand.
He's growing up; he's growing old.
Billy once bought him a calendar that had a new word for each day of the year. He tastes coenobitic, feeling its artificiality. He doesn't writing it down, can't bear the thought of something so contrived touching his skin, and thinks, Nothing is organic in New York.
*
Billy calls him in the middle of painting his nails black.
The warmth of Billy's voice shocks him, and he realizes it's been days since he's heard a laugh that he could place. He wants to drown in its familiarity. He wants to hide from its intrusion.
"How are things?" Billy asks.
"Things are great. The food's great, the pubs are great, even the fans are well behaved. You either get a polite stare or a quick autograph and boom, they're off."
"I thought you liked it when the fans got friendly."
"Not when I'm trying to concentrate, when I have other things to do. That's what I like about this place, it lets you be."
"Yeah, about those other things -"
"Yeah, I know, Billy, the script, I'm working on it."
"No, that's not what I meant. It's just - Look, I want you to have fun, you know, I want you to be happy."
"I am, I was."
"Dom, I didn't mean to -"
"It's alright, Billy, my fault. I shouldn't have been so...abrupt." Truthful, he thinks, raw.
"Dom, Dommie, please..."
"I've got to go," he says and doesn't let Billy reply.
The click of plastic against plastic is loud in the empty apartment. He doesn't have any music on.
*
Finding sex is too easy.
It's simpler in New York where it is understood that pleasure means just that. Where a passing look means a blowjob in the bathroom stall but not names or numbers or even, "did you like that?"
People say "casual fuck" here, and it rolls of their tongues like good scotch. Like the second layer of paint across an unfinished masterpiece.
The girls are always a little too independent though, and the boys a little too distant. They all have something to prove, to him and to themselves. He thinks that if he touches them for too long, his hand will burn from the cold.
The sex is not unpleasant of course, but sex is sex. It does feel strange to be inside someone and yet remain so wholly himself. He used to think that the heat of skin and passion would melt away their barriers until they fused into one amorphous entity. He doesn't anymore; he hasn't been that romantic in a long time.
*
He smokes Camel menthols in the morning and quits by lunch. He'll start again before sunset and only feel slightly guilty when the tip burns warm against his fingers.
He wears rings on Mondays, Thursdays, and Saturdays and necklaces every other day. He doesn't wear them together anymore; he doesn't think his body can bear the weight.
He gets out of the shower and forgets to put clothes on. He walks around naked and jerks off lazily to bad porn.
He watches old sitcom reruns and laughs too late at jokes that he has memorized.
He lies in bed all night and watches the minutes change, seeing the red glowing numbers when he closes his eyes to blink. He gets up at dawn and makes coffee.
He collapses on the couch at 3 in the afternoon and lies there, open-eyed. He doesn't move but he won't sleep either. He gets up after sunset without remembering what he has seenheardfelt in the missing hours.
He buys bottles of expensive wine and spends the day toasting old friends to the empty air.
He unhooks the phone after the second week.
He hasn't written a word since he got off the plane.
*
It's Viggo who finds him in New York even though he thought it would be Billy.
He comes home to Viggo standing silhouetted against the windows, and the afternoon sun glows gold off of Viggo's hair. Burnt amber, Dom thinks.
There is a pile of unwashed dishes and empty pizza boxes on the kitchen table. There are dirty clothes sprawled across the floor of the flat. Dom can't remember the last time he did the washing, though in all fairness, he can't remember much of anything these days.
His nail polish has begun to chip. He will have to reapply later. Cobalt blue, he thinks.
He says, "How did you get in?"
Viggo turns, slowly. In the glare of sunlight, Dom cannot make out his features but the set of his shoulders is so earnestly casual that Dom wants to laugh. Viggo may be a great actor indeed but not when he doesn't believe in the character.
"I have a key," Viggo says.
Of course Dom has forgotten. He can't quite believe that he hasn't always inhabited this place.
He says, "Do you want some tea?"
He takes Viggo to Serendipity for lunch even though it's over priced and over crowded. They order the hot fudge.
Afterwards, they walk in Central Park and monopolize the swings.
They have dinner at St. Mark's, for the atmosphere.
Dom feels like a tourist.
*
They don't talk about anything substantial all day though Dom has been on edge ever since he first saw Viggo in the room, waiting for Viggo to speak.
They don't fuck either but he has expected that.
In California, they had always fallen into sex when the mood struck them.
They would be swimming or riding or painting, more often than not, and it would hit them. Red hot lust, almost never mutually felt to begin with, but one of them would crawl over and lick skin above a collar or curl a ready hand beneath cotton boxers and boom, they would suddenly both feel need, want. Desire so real that it was all they could do to lose clothes and skin to the muscle underneath.
In the studio, on the dining room table, at the beach, and even in a regular bed once, when they had collapsed from too much drinking and too little sleep.
They had never been conventional. Neither had thought to mention "relationship." They slept with other people and didn't try to hide it.
Dom had thought it made them unique.
When they fucked, Viggo's skin had kept the salt of the ocean waves, and Dom had thought of Viggo as the sea, steadily pounding. Forward, back.
He had thought of drowning. He had thought of breathing.
He had always left thirsty with the hollow sound of trickling water in his ears.
Now, in New York, the world is silent and there is no tight heat to engulf him. There is nothing to distract him but the slight warmth that Viggo's body radiated next to him. So far away. Only close enough to be felt because he had insisted.
It was silly to be shy when they had shared each other's come across open mouthed kisses.
He paces his breaths in tune with the risefall of Viggo's chest, steady like clockwork, like the base rhythm of a well written song. Like the sea that he had once pushed him into dreams.
"How did you sleep?" Viggo asks in the morning.
"Fine," Dom says, and looks away.
*
"Maybe you shouldn't have come here," Viggo suggests tentatively over wine.
"No, I like it here, I really do."
"Billy says -"
"Well Billy's wrong, he doesn't know anything. I haven't spoken to him in weeks."
"Yes, that's what he said."
"Oh. Hmm, well..."
There is a sheen of condensation that covers the frosted glass of his cup. He tries to draw nonsensical designs in the water but the canvas bleeds before he is ready.
The kitchen clock is three hours slow. He has never changed it over from Los Angeles time.
"Maybe," Viggo begins in a voice usually reserved for when Henry is ill. He coughs. "Maybe we can do a painting together, like we used to."
"Can you take my picture instead?"
"Sure, if that's what you want."
He's never known Viggo to accept requests, and the ready agreement confuses him. Beauty is fleeting, Viggo had said. Beauty is accidental.
But Viggo leads him readily by the hand, like a child, to the couch and jokingly tells him to "strike a pose."
He blows Viggo a kiss and watches Viggo laugh. He doesn't think the sound reaches his ears.
The flash burns his eyes, and he can see the millions of photons rushing towards him, merging with his skin until he thinks that he will be covered in a glittering white shell.
"Can you turn off the flash?" he asks. "It's a bit bright."
"It's too dark in here to do without."
"So? It'll be artistic."
"It'll be indistinguishable."
"It'll be beautiful."
"Are you questioning my aesthetic judgement?"
"Absolutely."
Viggo doesn't stop to laugh. He says, "What are you trying to hide?"
Dom lets the muddy haze of the table side lamp light catch his glace. "Just offering my opinion is all," he says. To make his point, he covers his eyes for the next shot.
He sees the flash anyway, penetrating skin and flesh and bone. He thinks that if he opens his eyes now, all he will see is white.
Afterwards, Dom is sitting in the near dark when Viggo taps him on the shoulder. He has not noticed that Viggo had finished and that the clickclick he heard was his own hand, drumming out a beat on the hardwood table.
"I've got a gift for you," Viggo says, handing him an undecorated cardboard box.
It's pleasantly heavy, and Dom cannot help but think that he should feel excited, happy. Viggo gives wonderful gifts.
If he felt, he'd feel numb.
Inside, beneath the layers of crumpled tissue paper, is an unopened tube of oil paint. Butterscotch, it reads.
"I saw it and thought of you," Viggo explains.
"Oh," Dom answers. He closes the box again. "I don't really paint anymore, but thanks for the gesture."
"Why don't you try?"
"I can't."
"Come on, just try. Just draw a shape or a word or anything."
"I can't."
"Dom..." Viggo says, and his voice breaks, just like that. Like there is no more room for compromise, like Viggo has been pushing and pushing and has just now realized it is a wall that he has been pushing against.
The tube is cool beneath his hand, smooth metal that hesitates before he can get a decent dab on his index finger.
He glides across the textured white walls, too artificial to be anything like the canvases that he is used to.
He draws a sun. It is childish and asymmetrical.
Viggo smiles at him.
The paint is slippery against his skin, and he feels the colour setting in, staining the layers beneath.
In the shower that night, he watches the water run gold.
*
It's too easy to crawl into bed and lick Viggo's lips when he finds Viggo with his shirt off, casually lounging on top of the covers. They are both expecting this. It is something to be expected.
He pushes back and they struggle, almost, but Dom makes sure to end up on top. Viggo lets him though neither of them bothers to be gentle, to be serious.
It is easy to get undressed. It is easy to continue.
Dom licks a strip up Viggo's cock before sucking it in. Feels the rush of blood and thinks, This is life.
Moving in and out, so tight, he watches the sweat trail, tear-like, across Viggo's temples. When he kisses Viggo, he tastes salt.
It makes him push harder, deeper if he could, until the slap of skin against skin is so loud, so wrong, because it is not covered by the sound of sobs. They are breathing of course, panting, but not gasping.
They are almost controlled.
And yet, it does not last, not forever which Dom thinks (hopes) it would. He feels the tug, so close, and contracts muscles everywhere. Digs his nails into Viggo's thighs to feel Viggo grunt underneath him.
He feels himself coming.
He doesn't shout anyone's name.
Viggo's eyes are shut, head pressing deeply into the grey cotton pillows. His hands are clenched, white.
Dom strokes smooth fingers across straining skin of Viggo's cock, once, twice, and Viggo shudders.
Dom watches Viggo's jaw flex and he kisses there on instinct.
Afterwards, lying side by side but not touching, he feels Viggo watch him through wide-open eyes.
"I want to go home," Dom says, out loud and in his head. I want to go home. Iwant to gohome. Iwanttogohome.
He thinks he should be crying but when he blinks, his eyes are dry.
*
The first thing he sees upon landing is the palm trees, bowing ever so slightly outside the airport window. The second thing he sees is Elijah's smile, as permanent as the Hollywood sign, and it hurts almost as much as the damp, hot air that greets him.
He's forgotten people, but he's kept their geography in his heart.
Elijah's teeth are glaringly bright, more than those famous, crystal blue eyes. He presses a kiss, soft and wet, against Elijah's lips to have an excuse to look away.
Elijah says, "Billy wanted to come, but he had this play -"
Dom thinks, Billy does not have California in his soul. He says, "Do you know that you taste strawberry jam?"
Elijah laughs. "I missed you so much," he says.
"It's good to be back," Dom replies.
The first thing they do, before lunch or unpacking, is go catch some waves. Such a Billy thing to do, surfing now of all times when the water is unstable, and Dom falls as often as a beginner.
He loves it anyways, spends the day drinking salt and absorbing too much UV radiation.
It's strange to think that he's missed the Pacific when he hadn't even felt its waters until a few years ago, strange to think the waves are in his bloodstream when he's grown up without it.
The Pacific is cold and rough in a way that California could never be.
On the weekend, they drive down to San Diego in a rented convertible with the top down. The city is cool and green and reminds Dom of a forest without trees. He feels like he's underwater.
Elijah suggests a trip to Las Vegas later. Dom wonders why Elijah is trying to keep him so busy when all he wants to do is lie still for a bit (sleep).
During the nights, he climbs under familiar sheets, thin and airy. He's turned off the AC for a change and keeps the windows open to catch a passing breeze.
He lets his eyes close and sinks into the warmth. Familiarity stifling. It is not until almost dawn that he realizes he cannot hear the traffic.
*
He hasn't seen Viggo since the airport lost him in Elijah's embrace. He's gone months without remembering Viggo's name before but now it echoes in his mind.
He dials the first four digits of Viggo's number before hanging up, embarrassed.
He orders butterscotch ice cream though he hates that particular flavour. It slides, too sweet, too quickly, down his throat.
He goes horseback riding and thinks of New Zealand.
He hangs Viggo's pictures on his bedroom wall. His own eyes stare back, hollow. He takes them down after a week.
He still doesn't sleep. He doesn't think he remembers how.
The script is safely in Billy's hands, no changes made.
He doesn't answer Billy's calls.
*
When he knocks on Viggo's door, he is greeted with a hug and a smooth kiss. "I've been waiting for you to visit," Viggo says.
"Why didn't you invite me to come, then?"
"I didn't know I had to."
"Oh." He smiles. "You don't."
"Good."
They fall back into the old rhythm of companionship. Viggo reads him poetry and Chomsky and lets him play rock too loud. "I'm used to it," Viggo says, "with Henry."
They spend half of the day in the studio, smudging paint across canvas. They have no composition in mind, only colour and harmony. By lunch, Dom's hands are covered in shades of green and brown and blue. Not blank anymore, he thinks and adds a touch of red.
They laugh and cry and dance and kiss. They drink too much wine.
They go walking on the beach. Halfway through a joke, Dom breaks into a run to see the waves lap at the footprints he leaves behind.
Viggo watches him, silent, dark in the fading sun. Later, he says, "I would paint you gold if I could."
Of course Dom understands.
When Viggo takes off his shirt, Dom is already breathing hard, waiting for the night to begin.
When Viggo pushes in, Dom feels his stomach clench in protest (in remembrance). He lets his muscles give, lets the natural rhythm of life take over.
Thump, thump, thump, says his pulse. More, says his cock.
"Please," says his mouth.
His hair is wet from sweat and humidity. In and out, push, harder, god.
He feels Viggo leaning over, holding him tighter. Tongue against blood through a layer of transparent skin.
Viggo whispers, "It's good to have you back." Viggo's breath curls against the perspiration on his neck, warm and lazy.
"Don't stop," Dom says.
He thinks, It is morning in New York.
*
(Thank you, thank you, thank you to the lovely stephiepenguin for going above and beyond in her wonderful beta-ing. Some of the bits that are not altered I actually have a reason for and some because I do not know the answers to.
Also, the New York represented here is about one fourth my own experience, one fourth media creation, and one half pure imagination.)
Bohemia
viggodom, r
26 febuary 2004
*
New York winters are brutal after so much time spent soaking up the California heat. It reminds Dom of English winters and home.
But cities all have their own feel, and there is a steadfast independence here that cannot touch the casualness of L.A. or the familiarity of Manchester. New York is in a league of its own.
In his first week, he got lost six times walking out the wrong side of subway stops and forgetting the names of avenues that didn't have numbers. He's learned, though, to say things like "west side of the street" or "going uptown" or "Hoboken" (with the emphasis on the first syllable). He feels the city blocks across his skin, like grid work.
He forgets, now, to apologize to strangers that he bumps into and doesn't notice the old lady begging for spare change for a hot cup of coffee. Yesterday, a little girl spilled a bag of sweets across the dusty sidewalk. He didn't hesitate as he walked around her, hearing her shrill sobs fade with each footstep.
He doesn't have money anymore for the city's pretty trinkets, however cheaply offered.
He hasn't seen a vibrant shade of emerald or a bold dash of fuchsia in weeks. Sometimes, he thinks he's gone colour blind until Time Square lights up for the night.
New York City air is heavy with the scent of too many people and too much traffic all battling for a little corner of concrete. He feels the city seep into his lungs, into his blood, and he feels his heart beat in synch with the ticktick of the wristwatch that he had finally had to buy.
*
It was Viggo's idea to come.
They were in a gallery, perhaps for one of Viggo's shows, and Dom was complaining that Billy was mad at him again.
Billy had called and called and just caught him coming in the door at 2 am from a party or a club or a movie that he had fallen asleep to.
"Are you working on the script?" Billy had said, before hello.
Dom had fidgeted and stammered and promised again that he would have his part off to Billy before the end of the month. They had both known it was a lie.
"There's no need to rush, really," he had added, and, "L.A. has great parties. You should visit sometime."
"You're suppose to be working on the script."
"Well, really, I'm not a scriptwriter, Billy," Dom had whined, "I do have a life you know."
"You sound like a spoiled playboy," Billy had said before hanging up.
I'm just having a bit of fun, Dom had thought.
He told this to Viggo who nodded and said, "You should go to New York. It's very focused there, and you'll have plenty of things to do for fun on the side. I know a place where you could stay and not be interrupted."
It was a bit mean of Viggo to take Billy's side and walk away before Dom could point out that he didn't need to go to New York.
Three days later, after he had turned off his mobile phone to avoid the dread of Billy's questions, he had been claiming luggage and navigating suitcases at JFK.
*
He understands the spirit of ambitions and accomplishment on the plane ride over, and he writes a good five pages before he is interrupted by a stewardess in a too short dress.
The cabin is filled with Manhattan businessmen in Oxford shirts and Hollywood starlets in artificial smiles. They're all wearing uniforms in Dom's eyes.
There is a hum of activity that accompanies the journey of too much money and too much glamour gathering in one place.
He writes posh on the back of his hand and snickers. The girl across the aisle gives him a strange look and goes back to applying her lipstick.
He orders a Martini and opens the script again. He thinks of Billy's smile.
*
He figures he owes himself a few days to check out the city before getting down to business. He became an actor because life should, above all, be enjoyed, and he refuses to let the script become a chore.
It's too important for him to dread. Too personal.
He checks out the clubs he knows first and then the ones people have told him about before ducking around the corner to the dirty pub in the alley where people come for the alcohol and not much else. It's comfortable in its isolation, in its independence.
It is a New York creation, through and through.
He takes his time navigating the endless offerings of museums and shows and simple good entertainment. He never remembers feeling this cultured in L.A. even though Los Angeles is an art capital in its own right. But it's not like here, with priceless masterpieces and delicate originals and plain trash hyped to fashionable uniqueness, all carefully tucked away in a skeleton of protective concrete and steel.
But he likes to think he's retained some of his old life. He makes sure to check out one new restaurant every week, and he sees just about every film that makes it to the movie theatre down the street with its old fashioned marquees. His CD collection is getting quite impressive and his live concert memories even better.
His closet thanks him every day. His bank account says, Pretty is not everything.
And yet he can feel himself being remoulded, like in New Zealand but in the opposite direction, emerging industrial rather than the living collection of leaves and sea and sand.
He's growing up; he's growing old.
Billy once bought him a calendar that had a new word for each day of the year. He tastes coenobitic, feeling its artificiality. He doesn't writing it down, can't bear the thought of something so contrived touching his skin, and thinks, Nothing is organic in New York.
*
Billy calls him in the middle of painting his nails black.
The warmth of Billy's voice shocks him, and he realizes it's been days since he's heard a laugh that he could place. He wants to drown in its familiarity. He wants to hide from its intrusion.
"How are things?" Billy asks.
"Things are great. The food's great, the pubs are great, even the fans are well behaved. You either get a polite stare or a quick autograph and boom, they're off."
"I thought you liked it when the fans got friendly."
"Not when I'm trying to concentrate, when I have other things to do. That's what I like about this place, it lets you be."
"Yeah, about those other things -"
"Yeah, I know, Billy, the script, I'm working on it."
"No, that's not what I meant. It's just - Look, I want you to have fun, you know, I want you to be happy."
"I am, I was."
"Dom, I didn't mean to -"
"It's alright, Billy, my fault. I shouldn't have been so...abrupt." Truthful, he thinks, raw.
"Dom, Dommie, please..."
"I've got to go," he says and doesn't let Billy reply.
The click of plastic against plastic is loud in the empty apartment. He doesn't have any music on.
*
Finding sex is too easy.
It's simpler in New York where it is understood that pleasure means just that. Where a passing look means a blowjob in the bathroom stall but not names or numbers or even, "did you like that?"
People say "casual fuck" here, and it rolls of their tongues like good scotch. Like the second layer of paint across an unfinished masterpiece.
The girls are always a little too independent though, and the boys a little too distant. They all have something to prove, to him and to themselves. He thinks that if he touches them for too long, his hand will burn from the cold.
The sex is not unpleasant of course, but sex is sex. It does feel strange to be inside someone and yet remain so wholly himself. He used to think that the heat of skin and passion would melt away their barriers until they fused into one amorphous entity. He doesn't anymore; he hasn't been that romantic in a long time.
*
He smokes Camel menthols in the morning and quits by lunch. He'll start again before sunset and only feel slightly guilty when the tip burns warm against his fingers.
He wears rings on Mondays, Thursdays, and Saturdays and necklaces every other day. He doesn't wear them together anymore; he doesn't think his body can bear the weight.
He gets out of the shower and forgets to put clothes on. He walks around naked and jerks off lazily to bad porn.
He watches old sitcom reruns and laughs too late at jokes that he has memorized.
He lies in bed all night and watches the minutes change, seeing the red glowing numbers when he closes his eyes to blink. He gets up at dawn and makes coffee.
He collapses on the couch at 3 in the afternoon and lies there, open-eyed. He doesn't move but he won't sleep either. He gets up after sunset without remembering what he has seenheardfelt in the missing hours.
He buys bottles of expensive wine and spends the day toasting old friends to the empty air.
He unhooks the phone after the second week.
He hasn't written a word since he got off the plane.
*
It's Viggo who finds him in New York even though he thought it would be Billy.
He comes home to Viggo standing silhouetted against the windows, and the afternoon sun glows gold off of Viggo's hair. Burnt amber, Dom thinks.
There is a pile of unwashed dishes and empty pizza boxes on the kitchen table. There are dirty clothes sprawled across the floor of the flat. Dom can't remember the last time he did the washing, though in all fairness, he can't remember much of anything these days.
His nail polish has begun to chip. He will have to reapply later. Cobalt blue, he thinks.
He says, "How did you get in?"
Viggo turns, slowly. In the glare of sunlight, Dom cannot make out his features but the set of his shoulders is so earnestly casual that Dom wants to laugh. Viggo may be a great actor indeed but not when he doesn't believe in the character.
"I have a key," Viggo says.
Of course Dom has forgotten. He can't quite believe that he hasn't always inhabited this place.
He says, "Do you want some tea?"
He takes Viggo to Serendipity for lunch even though it's over priced and over crowded. They order the hot fudge.
Afterwards, they walk in Central Park and monopolize the swings.
They have dinner at St. Mark's, for the atmosphere.
Dom feels like a tourist.
*
They don't talk about anything substantial all day though Dom has been on edge ever since he first saw Viggo in the room, waiting for Viggo to speak.
They don't fuck either but he has expected that.
In California, they had always fallen into sex when the mood struck them.
They would be swimming or riding or painting, more often than not, and it would hit them. Red hot lust, almost never mutually felt to begin with, but one of them would crawl over and lick skin above a collar or curl a ready hand beneath cotton boxers and boom, they would suddenly both feel need, want. Desire so real that it was all they could do to lose clothes and skin to the muscle underneath.
In the studio, on the dining room table, at the beach, and even in a regular bed once, when they had collapsed from too much drinking and too little sleep.
They had never been conventional. Neither had thought to mention "relationship." They slept with other people and didn't try to hide it.
Dom had thought it made them unique.
When they fucked, Viggo's skin had kept the salt of the ocean waves, and Dom had thought of Viggo as the sea, steadily pounding. Forward, back.
He had thought of drowning. He had thought of breathing.
He had always left thirsty with the hollow sound of trickling water in his ears.
Now, in New York, the world is silent and there is no tight heat to engulf him. There is nothing to distract him but the slight warmth that Viggo's body radiated next to him. So far away. Only close enough to be felt because he had insisted.
It was silly to be shy when they had shared each other's come across open mouthed kisses.
He paces his breaths in tune with the risefall of Viggo's chest, steady like clockwork, like the base rhythm of a well written song. Like the sea that he had once pushed him into dreams.
"How did you sleep?" Viggo asks in the morning.
"Fine," Dom says, and looks away.
*
"Maybe you shouldn't have come here," Viggo suggests tentatively over wine.
"No, I like it here, I really do."
"Billy says -"
"Well Billy's wrong, he doesn't know anything. I haven't spoken to him in weeks."
"Yes, that's what he said."
"Oh. Hmm, well..."
There is a sheen of condensation that covers the frosted glass of his cup. He tries to draw nonsensical designs in the water but the canvas bleeds before he is ready.
The kitchen clock is three hours slow. He has never changed it over from Los Angeles time.
"Maybe," Viggo begins in a voice usually reserved for when Henry is ill. He coughs. "Maybe we can do a painting together, like we used to."
"Can you take my picture instead?"
"Sure, if that's what you want."
He's never known Viggo to accept requests, and the ready agreement confuses him. Beauty is fleeting, Viggo had said. Beauty is accidental.
But Viggo leads him readily by the hand, like a child, to the couch and jokingly tells him to "strike a pose."
He blows Viggo a kiss and watches Viggo laugh. He doesn't think the sound reaches his ears.
The flash burns his eyes, and he can see the millions of photons rushing towards him, merging with his skin until he thinks that he will be covered in a glittering white shell.
"Can you turn off the flash?" he asks. "It's a bit bright."
"It's too dark in here to do without."
"So? It'll be artistic."
"It'll be indistinguishable."
"It'll be beautiful."
"Are you questioning my aesthetic judgement?"
"Absolutely."
Viggo doesn't stop to laugh. He says, "What are you trying to hide?"
Dom lets the muddy haze of the table side lamp light catch his glace. "Just offering my opinion is all," he says. To make his point, he covers his eyes for the next shot.
He sees the flash anyway, penetrating skin and flesh and bone. He thinks that if he opens his eyes now, all he will see is white.
Afterwards, Dom is sitting in the near dark when Viggo taps him on the shoulder. He has not noticed that Viggo had finished and that the clickclick he heard was his own hand, drumming out a beat on the hardwood table.
"I've got a gift for you," Viggo says, handing him an undecorated cardboard box.
It's pleasantly heavy, and Dom cannot help but think that he should feel excited, happy. Viggo gives wonderful gifts.
If he felt, he'd feel numb.
Inside, beneath the layers of crumpled tissue paper, is an unopened tube of oil paint. Butterscotch, it reads.
"I saw it and thought of you," Viggo explains.
"Oh," Dom answers. He closes the box again. "I don't really paint anymore, but thanks for the gesture."
"Why don't you try?"
"I can't."
"Come on, just try. Just draw a shape or a word or anything."
"I can't."
"Dom..." Viggo says, and his voice breaks, just like that. Like there is no more room for compromise, like Viggo has been pushing and pushing and has just now realized it is a wall that he has been pushing against.
The tube is cool beneath his hand, smooth metal that hesitates before he can get a decent dab on his index finger.
He glides across the textured white walls, too artificial to be anything like the canvases that he is used to.
He draws a sun. It is childish and asymmetrical.
Viggo smiles at him.
The paint is slippery against his skin, and he feels the colour setting in, staining the layers beneath.
In the shower that night, he watches the water run gold.
*
It's too easy to crawl into bed and lick Viggo's lips when he finds Viggo with his shirt off, casually lounging on top of the covers. They are both expecting this. It is something to be expected.
He pushes back and they struggle, almost, but Dom makes sure to end up on top. Viggo lets him though neither of them bothers to be gentle, to be serious.
It is easy to get undressed. It is easy to continue.
Dom licks a strip up Viggo's cock before sucking it in. Feels the rush of blood and thinks, This is life.
Moving in and out, so tight, he watches the sweat trail, tear-like, across Viggo's temples. When he kisses Viggo, he tastes salt.
It makes him push harder, deeper if he could, until the slap of skin against skin is so loud, so wrong, because it is not covered by the sound of sobs. They are breathing of course, panting, but not gasping.
They are almost controlled.
And yet, it does not last, not forever which Dom thinks (hopes) it would. He feels the tug, so close, and contracts muscles everywhere. Digs his nails into Viggo's thighs to feel Viggo grunt underneath him.
He feels himself coming.
He doesn't shout anyone's name.
Viggo's eyes are shut, head pressing deeply into the grey cotton pillows. His hands are clenched, white.
Dom strokes smooth fingers across straining skin of Viggo's cock, once, twice, and Viggo shudders.
Dom watches Viggo's jaw flex and he kisses there on instinct.
Afterwards, lying side by side but not touching, he feels Viggo watch him through wide-open eyes.
"I want to go home," Dom says, out loud and in his head. I want to go home. Iwant to gohome. Iwanttogohome.
He thinks he should be crying but when he blinks, his eyes are dry.
*
The first thing he sees upon landing is the palm trees, bowing ever so slightly outside the airport window. The second thing he sees is Elijah's smile, as permanent as the Hollywood sign, and it hurts almost as much as the damp, hot air that greets him.
He's forgotten people, but he's kept their geography in his heart.
Elijah's teeth are glaringly bright, more than those famous, crystal blue eyes. He presses a kiss, soft and wet, against Elijah's lips to have an excuse to look away.
Elijah says, "Billy wanted to come, but he had this play -"
Dom thinks, Billy does not have California in his soul. He says, "Do you know that you taste strawberry jam?"
Elijah laughs. "I missed you so much," he says.
"It's good to be back," Dom replies.
The first thing they do, before lunch or unpacking, is go catch some waves. Such a Billy thing to do, surfing now of all times when the water is unstable, and Dom falls as often as a beginner.
He loves it anyways, spends the day drinking salt and absorbing too much UV radiation.
It's strange to think that he's missed the Pacific when he hadn't even felt its waters until a few years ago, strange to think the waves are in his bloodstream when he's grown up without it.
The Pacific is cold and rough in a way that California could never be.
On the weekend, they drive down to San Diego in a rented convertible with the top down. The city is cool and green and reminds Dom of a forest without trees. He feels like he's underwater.
Elijah suggests a trip to Las Vegas later. Dom wonders why Elijah is trying to keep him so busy when all he wants to do is lie still for a bit (sleep).
During the nights, he climbs under familiar sheets, thin and airy. He's turned off the AC for a change and keeps the windows open to catch a passing breeze.
He lets his eyes close and sinks into the warmth. Familiarity stifling. It is not until almost dawn that he realizes he cannot hear the traffic.
*
He hasn't seen Viggo since the airport lost him in Elijah's embrace. He's gone months without remembering Viggo's name before but now it echoes in his mind.
He dials the first four digits of Viggo's number before hanging up, embarrassed.
He orders butterscotch ice cream though he hates that particular flavour. It slides, too sweet, too quickly, down his throat.
He goes horseback riding and thinks of New Zealand.
He hangs Viggo's pictures on his bedroom wall. His own eyes stare back, hollow. He takes them down after a week.
He still doesn't sleep. He doesn't think he remembers how.
The script is safely in Billy's hands, no changes made.
He doesn't answer Billy's calls.
*
When he knocks on Viggo's door, he is greeted with a hug and a smooth kiss. "I've been waiting for you to visit," Viggo says.
"Why didn't you invite me to come, then?"
"I didn't know I had to."
"Oh." He smiles. "You don't."
"Good."
They fall back into the old rhythm of companionship. Viggo reads him poetry and Chomsky and lets him play rock too loud. "I'm used to it," Viggo says, "with Henry."
They spend half of the day in the studio, smudging paint across canvas. They have no composition in mind, only colour and harmony. By lunch, Dom's hands are covered in shades of green and brown and blue. Not blank anymore, he thinks and adds a touch of red.
They laugh and cry and dance and kiss. They drink too much wine.
They go walking on the beach. Halfway through a joke, Dom breaks into a run to see the waves lap at the footprints he leaves behind.
Viggo watches him, silent, dark in the fading sun. Later, he says, "I would paint you gold if I could."
Of course Dom understands.
When Viggo takes off his shirt, Dom is already breathing hard, waiting for the night to begin.
When Viggo pushes in, Dom feels his stomach clench in protest (in remembrance). He lets his muscles give, lets the natural rhythm of life take over.
Thump, thump, thump, says his pulse. More, says his cock.
"Please," says his mouth.
His hair is wet from sweat and humidity. In and out, push, harder, god.
He feels Viggo leaning over, holding him tighter. Tongue against blood through a layer of transparent skin.
Viggo whispers, "It's good to have you back." Viggo's breath curls against the perspiration on his neck, warm and lazy.
"Don't stop," Dom says.
He thinks, It is morning in New York.
*