How We Touch 5
Getting in Touch
"Chrissie."
Julian sat at Chrissie's makeup table, studying himself in the three-sided mirror, outlining his eyes in violet.
"Julian?" Chrissie answered, fastening the translucent jade green stocking he had just slid up his leg to the suspenders hanging from his cherry red garter belt.
"Does it make you nervous?"
"Does what make me nervous?" Chrissie said, smoothing the stocking on his shapely thigh and looking up, "going to New York?"
"Yes."
"A little, but I think it's a good nervous," Chrissie said, hugging himself. "Why, Julia, does it make you nervous?"
"Yes, but just nervous nervous – not good nervous. I mean, Chrissie, I'm only fifteen, and to be all alone in the big city."
"What do you mean `all alone'?" Chrissie said straddling the other chair by the vanity, looking at Julian's full face reflected in the glass, rather than at his profile.
"I don't mean that. I know we'll be together, but I'm afraid we'll still be together all alone."
"My silly, beautiful Julian," Chrissie said turning towards him and tilting his face upward and kissing his violet lips. "What are you thinking? "You'll give yourself wrinkles with worrying. She traced the arc of his eyebrows with her pinky. My father has arranged everything."
"I don't know why I'm crying," Julian said, crystal tears pooling in his chestnut eyes, and spilling over, forming violet streaks down his cheeks.
"Julia," Chrissie said, softly, touching his face, "sweet and delicate Julian." Chrissie stood, took Julian's hand; Julian rose, and Chrissie took him in his arms and kissed him gently, kissed his tears, kissed his eyes, kissed his lips, kissed his neck, kissed him delicately, sweetly. "My tender angel-girl."
Julian said through his tears, "I'm sorry. I'm such a silly girl. Sometimes I...I don't know what. O, Chrissie." And he sobbed softly in her arms.
"It's ok, sweetheart; I'm here," Chrissie comforted her and kissed her over and over again.
Julian held on to her tenderly, with devotion, kissed her, kissed her. "Sometimes, I think I love you so much I will dissolve," he whispered.
Chrissie, leading Julian by the hand, brought her to their bed, eased her down on her back onto the bed, stroked her thighs, her soft, smooth, arched, flat tummy, caressed her nipples – soft nipples, tender nipples, yielding sweet nipples. Julia responded, arching her back. Chrissie sucked on her nipples, swept her fingers under her ballsac; they feathered across her perineum; Chrissie's fingers entered her. Julia moaned and gave herself; Chrissie spread Julia's legs and lifted them, teased her cock over Julia's slit and plunged into her deeply, until she was all the way in. Julia clung to her. Chrissie rose inside her, Julia's body rose with her. They danced as one in one propulsive unity, and each dissolved like undifferentiated drops of water in the sea; became one flooding essential liquid entity.
Julian's countenance glowed with his smile.
Chrissie stroked his brow, swept the lock of peroxide hair that had fallen over Julian's eyes away from his forehead; kissed him tenderly on the lips, and flooded with a mother's love for him.
After this anxiety attack and (because of?) his renewed surrender to the love that bound him and Chris together, Julian was buoyant and felt gushingly femme.
They boarded the plane to New York -- as boy and girl, young lovers drunk on the first draughts of sexual love and freedom, teenagers posing at being grown up. Chris looked boyishly adorable in tight jeans, slim calf-hugging boots, a plain black t-shirt and a fringed buff chamois jacket. Julia looked like a luscious and lascivious schoolgirl in medium-heel shiny beige sandals, dark brown translucent knee socks, a short lavender skirt, a sleeveless beige top splashed with lavender sequins. Even on days as hot as this first of August was, it would be cold on the plane: she wore a forest green blazer over her shoulders. She had lavender lipstick on, jade eyeliner; and a hint of gold eye shadow dusted her eyelids.
Once outside at Kennedy, they were confronted by a sweltering New York August; the golden light of pastoral August blighted by the foul haze of New York pollution and the gloom cast by the automobile ramps and twisting overpasses. The air was fouled by the smell of rubber and automobile exhaust. They looked about dizzied by the whole thing, and disoriented.
"Nobody's here," Julia said, the beginnings of petulance and panic rising in her. Chris was familiar with it and usually treated it as her "entitled girl thing," which he could overcome with a gentle but authoritative chiding. He knew that when she got like this she actually liked it when he straightened her out and calmed her down. But it was hard for him right now because he was in totally unfamiliar territory. Nevertheless, he summoned a simulacrum of the masculinity he was pretending to, and taking her round the shoulder, said, "Don't go there, Julia," and blew gently on the side of her neck. She shivered, as she always did when he did that, and kissed him.
Just then, coming towards them, a lean, masculine guy in his early twenties, all in white: tennis shoes, socks, shorts, billowing transparent cotton shirt, and jaunty sailor hat, extended his hand to Chrissie and said, more like confirming what he knew than asking, "Chris."
"Todd," Chris said with renewed liveliness and hugged him. "This is Julia."
Todd took her hand and surveyed her, embraced her and kissed her. "I've heard so much about you, and I have been so looking forward to meeting you."
"I hope you will not be disappointed," Julian said with a laugh.
"I doubt it," he said taking her in.
"It's hot," Chrissie said.
"My car is over there," Todd said indicating the other end of the terminal.
He was a software engineer and a CGI wizard who put the final touches on Rod Ranger and Laura Rope games. He lived with a roommate on East Tenth Street, James Charles, across from the Church of St. Mark's in the Bowery, where James was the Director of Musical Events. Todd had told Laura and Rod when they phoned him that he'd be glad to have Chrissie and Julian living in his upstairs apartment: they could have their own place and at the same time not be entirely thrown to the wolves in the big city.
It was not difficult to find a parking spot in front of the house when Todd pulled up on East 10th Street. New York has a special feel in summer. Suddenly, there is room everywhere. The house was a tall, old brown brick town house with stone steps and balustrades leading up to a carved oak door with bay windows on either side of it.
Inside, it was cool. James had put the seldom-used air conditioning on low for their arrival and prepared lemonade with sprigs of fresh mint for them. He was in his twenties and the result of a beautiful interracial passion. Every feature was perfect. The texture of his skin was like velvet, and its color was a rich light chocolate that enhanced the colors of his clothes. Right now, they consisted of a fulvous yellow tank top, faded jean cutaways, a belt made out of twisted strands of leather, and nothing else.
"I bet you are beat after your flight," he said with a lovely lilt in his speech. His voice was rich and warmly textured and played up and down the scale. In his speech, you could not help hearing song. After they finished their lemonade, James took them upstairs. Todd had gone to change, for he had an appointment with a fashion magazine to design backdrops for a runway show to be held in SOHO in September. He stopped on his way out, dressed in a cream-colored ensemble, slacks and single-button jacket over a beige t-shirt, and dusty brown tooled suede and leather ankle boots without socks. He looked at his watch, smiled and blew kisses at everyone.
The fourth floor of the townhouse looked north beyond the church. In the distance you could see the empire state building from the front room parlor windows and from the kitchen. The bedroom looked south, as did the bathroom.
"I must leave, too," James said. "I have a rehearsal. There are keys to the place on the kitchen table. Make yourself at home. After all, it is." He puckered his lips and sent them air kisses, and went lightly tripping down the stairs.
Chrissie and Julian just looked at each other in awe and wonder, then burst out in happy laughter.
Of course, they were unable to fall asleep, they were so excited, although they needed a nap. Chrissie sat by the parlor window, sketching the skyline that went on forever until it got lost in the sky.
Julian went exploring and found there was a music room downstairs with an upright Bosendorfer. A book of Dowland's lute songs, arranged for piano, was open on it, and Julian, who knew instinctively how to play because of some innate faculty that he had been born with and that would have been prodigious had it been cultivated rather than too much neglected touched the keys hesitantly and then with more confidence. As the melody formed, he began to sing the words along with it. (Mr. Harris, the chorus master and sexton of The First Church of Charleston, who had him sing the Pie Jesu, had spotted his gift when he heard him as he sat by a gravestone in the churchyard idly singing to himself. He did all he could to nourish it, for he loved Julian at first sight of him, with a lust that made him dizzy, and sublimated his lust by nurturing him.)
James, when he got back home, stood in the hallway outside the music room listening, awestruck by what he heard and reluctant to enter the room for fear of scaring away whatever spirit had taken possession of it. He did not want to startle it, but he wanted to encounter it. He knocked upon the door and opened it. Julian stopped singing and lifted his fingers off the keys.
"Don't let me stop you," James said. "It's beautiful."
Julian blushed and said nothing.
"Have you had lessons?"
"No," Julian said. "I just...I don't know." He became confused and could say no more.
"Not for voice or piano?"
"No," Julian said.
"Will you sing some more if I accompany you?"
"Sure," Julian said.
"You can't attribute it to jet lag," Chrissie said, as the four of them sat in the living room as the dawn was just beginning to creep into night's territory, "because we did not change time zones."
"Maybe you could call it `culture lag,'" Todd said.
"Maybe it's the difference between having to prove you're some fucked-up idea of what it means to be a man and the tender erotic soul that gives depth to the experience of life that's called feminine -- with a supercilious sneer," James said, aware that he was getting angry.
Todd took hold of his hand and held it firmly.
"I know," James said. "I'm alright," he said, and he was, and he kissed Todd's hand.
"I never saw guys like you," Julian said.
"I never saw guys – if that's the right word – like you either," James said with a warm smile, "but I'm really glad that I do," and he took Julian's hand.
Without thinking, Julian kissed it.
"Did you hear this kid?" James said. "I have plans for you, baby. You are coming to rehearsal with me across the street on Tuesday. There are some people I want you to meet and who I want to meet you."
"May be we should call it a night – or a morning," Todd said, and get some sleep.
A great yawn escaped from Julian. He stood and stretched his adorable little body, covered now only by a pair of loose-fitting gold lame shorts. Chrissie rose and put his arm around Julian. They all wished each other good night and vowed not to get up too early, and Chrissie said he had to thank Todd and James one more time and how excited he was to live in their house and to get to know them better.
In bed their tiredness was an aphrodisiac. They lay beside each other and their cocks pulsed with hardness; their lips drew together like the opposite poles of a magnet and their breaths caressed. They surrendered to love and fell asleep inside the sweet cloud of each other's breathing.