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The Schuyler Fortune IV: Raspberry 2
Eric asked the Schuyler travel office to lease a large apartment in Paris near the Louvre in three months. He told them the lease should last six months with an extension, if he decided to extend, for the same length of time. He called a curator, one Georges Menton, at the Louvre that he had worked with in the past and mentioned that he wanted to inquire about a fellowship there beginning in three months or so. The curator had informed him that a fellowship was opening in four months and he was more than welcome to have it. The fellowship was for an initial six months and could be extended if both parties desired it.
"We will treat you right here in Paris, hein?" said Georges. "Do you have the apartment yet?"
"Oui et merci, Georges. It is arranged near the Louvre."
Eric told Loren about the fellowship plans that same day. "In four months, I'm going to take Sweet Pea over to Paris, probably Orly Airport in and out for six months. I need to complete that Louvre fellowship. Does that work for you?"
"Sure," Loren replied, "I can use Rainier if Grandma Carol will let it go."
On second thought, Eric called the Gulfstream Company and found that they had just had a cancellation from a customer who passed away before taking possession of the airplane. It was identical to Sweet Pea, except for the interior furnishings and somewhat decreased galley gadgets.
Eric asked the sales representative about immediate purchase arrangements. Could the company fit it out to match Sweet Pea in the next three months? He was assured they certainly could and would. He called Loren back and told him he had decided to buy a third Gulfstream from Schuyler trust money.
The Schuyler trust sent a wire to Gulfstream that afternoon for sixty-five million dollars and change. Eric named the third jet `Raspberry', his favorite fruit.
Recruitment of cabin crew and pilots followed, again requiring experience, a sterling pilot history, good health and great recommendations. Once again, an active pilot team was found in Dallas whose owners had just sold their Gulfstream.
They were offered the standard Schuyler pilot salary and benefit package, which they jumped to accept. Backup pilots from Sweet Pea and Rainier's pilot and cabin crew pool were tasked to pilot Raspberry as needed.
A few months later, Raspberry took Eric to Orly airport in Paris. Leaving New York was thrilling this time since he was going to get away from his cares for a while, kind of a geographical cure perhaps. A hangar had been leased at Orly airport.
The security team inspected the apartment. Apartments for them had been leased on the same floor, along with staff quarters. No limousines were used, just Humvees with paid Paris police backup. The only staff other than security was a cook, a footman/valet and his male secretary.
He slept for a couple of days getting over jet lag and adjusting to Paris time. In the evening he walked with his security team in the Tuileries and sometimes hiked further down toward the Eiffel Tower in the Champ des Mars.
He had this vague notion that he would enjoy some company, didn't know exactly where to find it, and it wasn't until one day at the Louvre, prior to beginning his fellowship, that he found himself looking at a very large painting depicting the Miracle at Cana with his back to the crowd studying the Mona Lisa.
A sudden bump in back of him surprised him and his security team. A handsome blue-eyed blonde guy had backed away from the Mona Lisa a bit to get a better perspective. He backed right up into Eric's bac.
He turned as Eric turned.
"Oh," he said, "please excuse me. I seem to be trying to occupy the same space as you." The man's deep voice was cultured London British.
A pair of laughing blue eyes looked into Eric's eyes for a moment then broke away, scanning Eric from head to toe.
The eyes lingered for a second at Eric's package; they belonged to a young guy about Eric's age.
His hair was honey blonde, cut and tapered short. His face was classically handsome. Eric smelled fresh breath.
He was proportioned very nicely. Eric noticed his developed chest and strong shoulders, tapering waistline, a big bulge with a large tube running down his left leg, tailored tan slacks, light yellow long-sleeved oxford cloth shirt, no ring, clean. Eric absorbed all of this in a couple of seconds.
Brent saw a slightly taller, slim, muscled, well-dressed handsome man, blonde with blue eyes smiling back. He quickly noticed Eric's large polished shoes.
"Well," Eric replied steadily, more so than he felt, "we could discuss this over tea or juice this afternoon in some warm outdoor café on the Champs d'Elysee."
Brent paused for a moment, colored a bit, a little ruffled, "We haven't met. I'm Brent Smythe from London. Pleased to meet you."
"Eric Schuyler-Jones, New York. I'm glad we bumped, oh, never mind, would you eat something with me this afternoon. My treat. I'm here for six months on a Louvre Fellowship. How about you?"
"Willing to explain my presence here over tea or something. Are you finished with your study of this huge painting?" He smiled again, and something happened in Eric's stomach and groin somewhere and he felt just a little dizzy.
"I'm done here."
They walked out into the sunshine in the giant Napoleon courtyard of the Louvre Palace and strangely, were picked up in a Humvee and driven to the Champs d'Élysée. Brent was unaware that any Humvee taxis drove in Paris but said nothing. The vehicle waited for them and strangely, again, a Paris gendarme's car was parked ahead of the Humvee. He was puzzled a bit now but decided to enjoy the suspense. Eric's mind was in a whirl of thoughts and feelings, not usual for him. He was having a little difficulty thinking and noticed his heart was racing. Just being with male person his age didn't usually make him feel like...what? He felt like he had to work to breathe when he wasn't looking at Brent. Almost like when he was looking at Brent.
At a small café they found an outside table, just shaded under a vine. Brent asked for orange juice and Eric for tea. A small selection of crudités came too. Eric noted that Brent didn't take anything with meat. He was used to grandma Blossom's diet so didn't think too much about it.
"So, what brings you to Paris, Brent?"
"My dad teaches art at a small college named Newbold College in England and I thought it would be useful to know more than he did about something, so I took his art major and upped him one. I'm studying at the Louvre for a couple of months. Couldn't afford to stay long enough to complete a formal fellowship, though."
Eric thought about that for two seconds and decided Brent could probably borrow it from him, should it come to that.
He had already decided Brent's credit was good with him, no matter what it really was.
He told Brent he had also completed a college major in art and where. Eric decided not to tell Brent about his money, his art or anything else personal for now. "I'm just going to see if I can have a friend who likes me for me," he mused.
Brent had a mom and two little brothers at home, twelve and sixteen, both of whom he missed a little, but was `somehow' surviving without them. His mom, described as a rock, loved to knit and travel when she could. His mom grew English roses as a hobby. His dad was an art geek, didn't create art, but knew everything there was to know about European and British art history, paintings particularly.
Brent told him that he wasn't typical in some ways. For instance, he wasn't Anglican or Catholic. Knowing the answer somehow, Eric asked him what church he attended. When he told him `Adventist', Eric almost got up and walked away but couldn't. He couldn't go back to Loren with this. He just couldn't and didn't know why.
He decided that when he and Brent married, he was going to stay what he was, nothing particularly; he had already given his church-school years to those people...
What was he thinking!
He had already imagined they were married. `Slow down, Eric," he cautioned himself internally.
Brent asked him about his parents and Eric waffled a little, saying they were both dead.
Brent found out that he had two grandmothers, one in Oregon and one in New York. Eric told Brent about his twin brother, an expert in finance in New York. He said that the grandmother in Oregon was into growing hybrid tea roses and Brent brightened up. "Oh," he said, "my mother would be in seventh heaven to see her rose garden."
Eric thought his grandmother would be in seventh heaven to meet Brent and his mother's garden, all right. He, however, was bound and determined to do this at a deliberate pace.
They talked about a lot of things: Paris, the weather, the Royal family, art and more art. Eric thought Brent was up on his game when it came to the history of art. He had done a senior paper on Caravaggio and had visited Buckingham Palace to study those canvases with special permission.
"There are a few originals of his in New York, including one in the Schuyler Museum there," Brent said.
Brent's stream of consciousness jerked a second, but he continued to smile as his thoughts raced on.
That was the second time that day that name had resonated in Brent's head.
Wasn't it odd that here was this guy whose name was Schuyler, interested in art and eating right across the table from him. Brent knew about a picture in a New York museum bearing that same name, the same city Eric lived in and Eric was an art major...there were a lot of similar boxcars in that train of thought, Brent decided. The train was still traveling in his mind on parallel or maybe circular tracks, so the obvious conclusion still hadn't `clicked' yet.
He also thought it might be considered intrusive to ask so didn't ask and didn't push. He would call his dad this evening and run the name by him. Brent's dad knew a lot about the broader scene in the art world and sometimes came up with arcane things that only a teacher would know.
Brent's father was very fond of his son and protective.
When Brent called reporting a date with one Eric Schuyler-Jones, his dad told him he would look into it, asked him for his Facebook address again and said he would send him a private message when he could and to check a couple of times a day. Once off the phone, Brent's father called a former student who worked at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
"Hello, Richard, Bob Smythe at Newbold, how are you?"
"Doing well here. Delighted to hear from you, Robert. What can I do for you?"
"May I pick your brain about one Eric, um, Schuyler-Jones? Have you heard of him? Do you know him or know someone who does?
After a gasp and a chuckle, Richard told him that Eric was the beneficiary of the Schuyler trust fortune including art and gems of incalculable worth. The known value of the fortune wasn't published in Forbes. The family didn't advertise it.
They owned at least two Gulfstream 650ER jets that Richard knew about, a square block of Manhattan with a park, an art repository in Manhattan filled with European original art, and the Schuyler museum in the middle of the park where they lived on the top floor.
The family traveled in multiple helicopters, limousines, owned their own bank, and controlled several multi-billion-dollar funds including one that donated exclusively to a charity called ADRA for Zimbabwe catalog projects adding up to one hundred million dollars per year.
"Eric Schuyler-Jones might be the richest man in the world." Richard told him.
"On top of that he was raised by two decent men and has wonderful grandmothers, has one twin brother who supervises the investments of the trust and many very large funds. They both are honorable and generous men to boot."
"Does that answer your question?" Richard asked.
Robert Smythe thanked him for the information, wished him well and rang off.
Robert Smythe sat for a while in his chair and thought. He wondered if Brent was ready to make good decisions and decided at his son's age, parental influence might well be spent in the coin of advice when asked, rather than otherwise. He wondered about telling his wife and decided against it. His wife would only have the benefit of partial, second-hand information from him, after all.
Brent would best navigate this process without parental intervention by making decisions himself. He had been trained to make good decisions and it was time for an important journey to begin...or not.
The nexus between himself and Mr. Schuyler-Jones was fragile indeed even if one discounted the intrinsic fragility of initial contact between father and potential son-in-law. They might have Brent in common if things went that far, but the difference in wealth and religion could be a yawning gap to bridge.
He considered his younger sons. They had not shown any sign of same-sex attraction as had Brent. This wasn't an issue for his other boys to deal with now. The man who loved their older brother would have to deal with them at some point, but not now.
So, alone in his family with the information, he sent a message to Brent by email. It read: "1. He likes art. 2. He is genuine. 3. He is honorable. 4. He is wealthy. 5 He is a Christian as it happens." Love, Dad
A prompt email reply came back. "Thank you."
Several days later Eric saw Brent on the escalator under the large glass and metal pyramid in the Napoleon Courtyard. He had asked the Schuyler Trust to do a background check on the Smythe family and no important negatives popped up. They had a mortgage and no criminal record. One son, the oldest, studied art.
He had paid the head of security at the Louvre to ask his many team members to watch out for this man and to text his location to his security guards a few times every day.
They told each other later that both had planned to tell anyone who asked that they were fans of the architectural works of I.M. Pei, the Chinese-American who designed the pyramids in the courtyard.
Georges had solved the problem for Eric by suggesting that he check the escalators for the handsome English 'homme' that had travelled up and down them constantly for the last few days who in Georges words, 'looked around like a love-sick puppy searching for someone'.
Eric just happened to use the escalator system within the next ten minutes after first grabbing Georges who squawked out a mock grumble upon being hugged in public, then running to the escalators, went half-way up, looked over and saw Brent going down the double escalators... their eyes met, held, and a charged spark passed between them. Eric pointed to himself, then to Brent and then to the bottom of Brent's escalator. Eric raised his eyebrows in a giant question mark. Brent grinned and nodded.
He waited, and Eric caught up. Brent thought it was about time they met. He was getting tired of going up and down those escalators a thousand times a day just in hopes of seeing Eric.
"Hey Brent," Eric panted, a little out of breath. "How's it going?" Are you up for tea again this afternoon, say four p.m., meeting here?"
"I'm ready when you are." Eric tried to parse that. The mental effort required to stay calm while doing so was too much for him. He had been screamingly ready, all his life, for this guy. This one. This man.
Brent smiled and nodded again. He was up for a meeting on any number of levels. Let's see, he thought, let me count the ways, er levels. Brent was interested in exploring with some equanimity, however and decided not to push himself where angels didn't lead. He had begun to wonder if he would see Eric again and the thought of wandering through the Louvre with a megaphone had already been discarded as possibly over the top.
That afternoon, they both tried to be nonchalant. Eric pushed a little with Where do you live?' and Brent pushed back with Where does your twin work?' The conversation wasn't exactly awkward. They both wanted to say and do the right thing. A peacock assessing a possible love interest would have taken similar careful steps and, come to think of it, would have been more gorgeous and scintillating about the whole process.
The weekend was near and Brent indicated he would be in church on the Left Bank on Saturday morning on the Boulevard de l'Hôpital at 10:00 a.m. and be busy for the day.
Brent sat looking out over the Champs d'Elysee with the corner of one eye cocked to notice any twitch of Eric's face. No twitch.
On Saturday morning, Eric, dressed in a charcoal Armani suit, a long-sleeved off-white shirt with a hint of lavender and a peach tie, arrived in the church foyer a full fifteen minutes before Brent arrived in an equally stunning well-fitted light tan suit, long-sleeved pure white shirt and an apricot tie. For a moment Eric wondered if they might have met years before had they but patronized the same tailor.
Eric took one short peek at Brent's prominent package and felt alive all over. He grabbed a hymnal and held it in front of himself down there, so the deacons wouldn't think he was advertising or something. He told himself it was a better look anyway, a nice man holding on to a hymnal in church. He tried not to giggle and almost succeeded.
Brent was surprised and pleased to see Eric and they were seated toward the front. Eric whispered to Brent that he had been in one of these churches before, lying with his brother in the aisle on the carpet and kicking the wooden pew, laughing at the preacher's robes in New York many years ago.
It had been his first church experience and his grandmother Blossom's intervention had been impressive.
Brent raised his eyebrows a little, they processed, er, were ushered up to about the fifth pew from the front and then Brent turned to the front to pay full attention to the goings on. He sang the hymns with a clear, pure tenor...on pitch no less, Eric noted.
Eric looked over at Brent from time to time, amazed that he still looked good enough to eat each time. Between the service, the sermon and Brent's body and face, he could not recall such an interesting and stimulating morning. Brent had glanced at Eric a couple of times, a quick, shy, affectionate glance at Eric's face in profile, a quick look downward to the hymnal, then, coloring a little and quickly resuming his concentration, listening to the sermon in French and stroking his chin.
Afterward, they turned down a hospitable offer of lunch from someone and strolled north and east toward the Seine.
"I have to tell you that a meal is waiting for me at my apartment. My staff is there. There is security person for me and a cook, a footman and my secretary. The point I am trying to make..."
"Sure, I'll have lunch with you."
Eric grinned and thought again how smart Brent was, how perspicacious. I'll just give that a test, he thought.
"I was thinking of flying up to London City airport this afternoon," said Eric, "Would you like to fly up across the Channel to see your parents today?"
"Sorry, I'm on a budget. I can't afford to travel again for four weeks," Brent replied.
Eric prodded, "If I provided the transportation, would you like to see your parents and your brothers today?"
"Yes, I would. But I don't have reservations or a boarding pass or..."
Eric asked, "Do you have your passport with you?"
"Yes, right here in my pocket," said Brent
"Good." Right after lunch, no...let's go now." Eric spoke to a man walking behind them. "Ralph, call Raspberry for London City airport for the two of us and you guys ASAP. We'll need lunch soon, one veggie?" Brent nodded.
"Yes sir. Two with lunch for London City right now."
A large Humvee with an `S' painted on it pulled up to the curb behind them. Three very large uniformed security guards came with it. A gendarme's vehicle pulled in front of that, lights flashing. Eric and Brent stepped in, buckled up, and off they went through Paris streets with lights flashing and the French siren with its usual waxing and waning sound, moving rapidly south and west through the streets toward Orly Airport.
Brent decided to take this in perfect stride and asked no questions. Eric wondered what it would take to impress this guy. At Orly, Brent was made to believe that the large private jet in front of him belonged to Eric. Brent dispensed with a comment at that point.
They boarded Raspberry and Brent acted as if he travelled these Gulfstreams on a regular basis. It was Brent's first flight on an aircraft like the present jet. He tried to listen and have a normal conversation with Eric. The flight was short. The jet drifted down rapidly to London City airport after a short lunch. No alcohol was served in deference to what Eric assumed Brent's preference to be.
A limousine was waiting in London and they rode to Brent's address in the West End.
They knocked on the door; his sixteen-year-old brother peered out behind his wire frames, frowned and yelled to his mother that Brent and some man were at the door.
"Let them in, dear."
Shedding her apron, Linda Smythe walked into the living room and hugged Brent and looked at Eric with a question in her eyes.
"Welcome to our home, um..."
"Mother meet Eric Schuyler-Jones. We are studying together at the Louvre (I bumped into him there) and he brought me up this afternoon, so I could spend the day with you. Eric, this is my mother, Linda Smythe. I would like to introduce you to Daniel, my middle brother, and this is Frank, my youngest brother."
"Have you had lunch yet?" Brent assured his mother that they had eaten on the trip up from Paris.
"We're just having dessert. Do you like ice cream?" Eric said he did indeed. "We're having Brent's favorite, peppermint."
A wonderfully savage emotional surge hit Eric and his vision was temporarily affected by small drops of water that under any other circumstance he would have identified as tears. "My favorite flavor also, Mrs. Smythe."
"Oh, good," she replied. "This is one of two four-liter containers that I bought at Fortnum & Mason on Piccadilly so we'd have some to celebrate when Brent finally got home...cost a fortune, it has been in the freezer, the sign says its imported from New York, apparently from a small local market near Central Park." She was on a roll now.
In fairness, Eric was able to turn his heaving sob into a sort of cough and made a fuss about wiping his eyes with his suit sleeve.
Daniel asked Eric if the jet was really his. With his serious and kind face Eric told Daniel that it was, but he didn't know how to fly it.
"Why don't you just fly on British Airways or United or something?" Frank asked, "Don't you like to fly on big planes?"
"You know, Frank, those big airplanes are really nice. Some of them are so big they need more runway length to land safely. My smaller jet can land at airports that have long runways and those with short runways as well."
Linda thought the trip a little odd somehow but managed to ask Eric how he liked this side of the pond. He replied that he was very comfortable on the Continent after many trips and enjoyed many cultures there.
He was about to say how much he enjoyed Brent, but just then his dad walked in from the library, smiled, was introduced, and shook Eric's hand warmly.
"It is a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Schuyler-Jones. Please call me Robert."
"Please call me Eric, uh, Robert."
They all sat wondering what to say. Linda Smythe could contain herself no longer and wanted to know what airline they flew on.
"We flew on Eric's Gulfstream jet from Orly airport to London City after church this morning."
There was a long silence. After a longer pause in the conversation, Linda tried again. She asked Eric if he knew anything about art.
"Thank you for asking. I can't draw a stick figure, much less paint. There may be extant one sculpture I undertook in high school, possible my junior year, an abstract in the plaster of paris and vermiculite teaching medium of the day. It was not a subject of critical acclaim unless one counts the parents of the girls modeling for my twin and me. They criticized and actually objected, as I recall, to the selection of the particular bits sculpted, not the quality of the work apparently." Brent choked and began to giggle. Robert allowed himself a tiny smile. Linda looked puzzled while Daniel and Frank just didn't follow.
"I understand your husband is a professor of art at Newbold College. I took a major in art at Grinnell College in Iowa in the United States. My mother took an art major at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania. Mom had ties with museums..."
He stopped before he said more. Brent's father suspected there was a lot more to say but didn't push it.
"This has been a great Sabbath seeing you Brent and meeting you Eric. We have time to play our family strings and have family worship time at sundown. Brent plays cello, Daniel, Linda and I play the violin and Frank is learning bass viol."
"Our plan was to take in some Royal fireworks on the Thames about nine p.m."
That afternoon Eric watched Brent's hand on the cello strings as they flew from position to position, had a variety of thoughts about his manual dexterity, banished those from his conscious mind and just enjoyed the music.
"Are you staying locally," asked Linda, "We have a couch and it is clean, but old and the springs aren't very comfortable."
Eric thought about his comfortable bed on Raspberry and the beautiful permanent suite at Claridge's Hotel but somehow didn't want those now, vastly preferring to stay right here. This felt like a family, like home.
"If it won't put you out, I would love that couch. We must fly back to Paris tomorrow around noon."
Brent's hand inexplicably found Eric's during the Royal fireworks that evening in the dark. Eric thought that anybody who would hold his hand that also liked him for just him, not to mention sharing his love of peppermint ice cream, might be the guy.
Brent felt Eric's hand, holding his, touch his thigh and nudge his tube, said tube waking hot for more, growing to Eric's touch. They were sitting right behind the rest of the family. Brent leaned over a bit and sensed, rather than saw, Eric's face close to his.
After sharing a thrilling, quiet kiss, they rested their heads together, ostensibly looking at fireworks.
Frank ignored them, Brent's parents diplomatically ignored them, but Daniel looked back a few times to keep tabs on the activity. He had hormones flowing himself and wondered why his idol liked guys instead of girls. He decided that Eric was a guy his brother was thirsty for and hoped he would find someone that made him feel the same way someday.
Eric slept that night in a dodgy neighborhood on a couch best described as "not on the floor" and slept as soundly as he ever had. He awoke suddenly at 7:00 a.m. with a temporary groin condition from an erotic dream starring Brent. Fortunately, he was turned on his stomach upon awakening.
Brent's teenage brothers sat at the dining room table wolfing down tomatoes, mushrooms, beans, scrambled eggs and a rack of toast between them with butter and jelly.
It smelled delicious, but he had to think of some other things for a while to subdue whatever dream had impressed him so much before getting off the couch and pulling on his pants. The teens didn't turn away from their breakfast then Daniel, grinning, did turn around.
"You looked like you were giving that couch some love. It must have been a dream about Brent." Daniel looked down. "Looks like you're still packing some heat there, Eric."
There was nothing to do but laugh a little, adjust his under-gear and defocus while getting his pants on. Thirty seconds later his trousers were up. Brent and his mom came into the room with more food. Just in the nick of time too. For some crazy reason, he colored, thinking he would have died of mortification had Brent even seen his boxer shorts or anything. As it was, Brent turned his gaze on his morning stubble and mussed up hair, glanced at Eric's still excited self and just laughed a little. His eyes laughed too.
Eric though Brent looked like he might have defined Adonis. Preppy, handsome, sexy, fresh, happy, graceful and other adjectives he would have to invent. Breakfast was great.
He thanked Linda and Robert for their hospitality and the limousine picked them up at 11 a.m. The teens glanced out the window but had seen pictures of those before and were not terribly impressed. Outwardly.
Robert asked Linda to step into his study for a second. When the door was closed, he said he had some information to tell her about Eric.
He told her he had called his former student at the Metropolitan Museum in New York after Brent had mentioned Eric's name and had learned information with which he didn't know what to do. He had temporarily said and done nothing. Eric Schuyler was vastly wealthy and the beneficiary of the Schuyler trust with an art and gem collection that probably qualified him as the richest man on the planet.
He had billions of dollars to spend as he liked and was reputed to be a generous, decent man.
Linda didn't blink an eye. "Is he a Christian?"
"I think so. He was raised from the age of five in the Adventist church and went through church schools through their grade twelve. He was then chose Grinnell College where he studied art as a major."
Linda looked at her husband, "I don't think I want to influence Brent one way or another."
"He has the issues of gender preference with which to deal. Our advice or interference in his decisions about whom to love isn't necessary and wouldn't be welcome at his stage in life. I love him no matter who he loves, and he'll always be my son."
"I feel the same way," said Robert, relieved somehow.
Eric invited Brent over for breakfast a few mornings later back in Paris and the staff ushered him in right at seven a.m. Forewarned, the cook had purchased something call Weetabix in a specialty store. It was a crunchy biscuit, and dry before any milk was poured over it. Eric might have never tasted it had he not asked Brent what he liked for breakfast. It went well with honey and fresh berries or other fruit on top. The cook had three varieties of milk, half and half, and cream ready in case. The cook sensed from Eric's general interest in the breakfast that he might have a more than a general interest in Brent himself. After Weetabix with whole milk and bananas and fresh-squeezed orange juice, Spanish oranges no less, Eric and Brent sat in the living room on a love seat and kissed and talked for a while. They reached the Louvre a little late that morning.
That afternoon Brent ran into Eric who was in the process of studying a Tintoretto and making notes. Brent noted that Tintoretto had painted many canvases including some attributed to the artist that had disappeared including Cavalry Fight.
Eric coughed and said he hoped not. Brent frowned, thinking back carefully to Titian's rejected pupil, his history in the 1500's, his poverty, his various pieces, and was sure that he hadn't seen Cavalry Fight or heard of anyone who had. There was no image of Cavalry Fight in Brent's art textbooks nor did Brent recall viewing an on-line image.
Then Brent heard a stunning off-hand comment from Eric sotto voce, "I'm pretty sure that's in our basement."
Brent let the remark pass for a few minutes. "Did I hear you say you had that Renaissance painting in your basement?"
"I'm pretty sure it's still there," replied Eric.
"All right, big boy. Prove it."
Eric whispered in his ear, "Brent, I can't prove it here."
"Why not?"
"The painting is in New York."
Of course, Brent thought. Eric wouldn't be able to show it to me in the Louvre. Was this his brand of humor? A missing old European masterpiece would have to be located in his basement. But of course, it would be in his basement; why wouldn't it be in his basement or someplace like that?
Eric turned to Brent gently, invaded his personal space just a little, put his hand on Brent's chest, looked him in the eye and then he said, "Do you want to see it, stud? You know you do. If it were yours, I'd want to see it."
Brent's eyes opened wide and a hot sensation descended directly downward to his cock. He decided that he did indeed want to see anything Eric had to show.
The next Friday at noon, Raspberry took off from Orly and in a large global arc reached Teterboro the same day a little later in the day. On the jet the two ate, talked, napped and got acquainted further.
They headed for the Schuyler museum in a limousine from the Manhattan Heliport after a Schuyler helicopter trip from Teterboro airport. This was Brent's first trip to New York City. The view of the city in the late afternoon was certainly astonishing.
Eric gave an address to the limousine driver. It wasn't the museum's address. It turned out to be a small local market just north of Central Park. The limousine stopped, and Eric asked the driver to wait a few minutes for them. Brent and Eric stepped out and joined the line to enter the little building. Brent, a little puzzled, progressed through the line and when it was their turn to order, Eric asked the Ecuadorean owner for three peppermint ice cream cones.
Brent understood. Ice cream mecca. "When you live here, Brent, you can walk over here to the source."
The exterior of the museum was impressive enough. The interior was fabulous. Brent just took it all in and tried to remember who and where he was. They took one cone, dripping a bit, for the limo driver.
Brent loved the suite. The Housekeeper had greeted Eric and Brent warmly at the front door along with the dozens of household staff lined up in their formal uniforms.
Brent had the distinct impression the staff had been asked to organize the front door greeting lineup just for himself, but then again, he told himself he didn't know how they greeted Eric when he got home every day.
There were two Monet paintings on the wall of the suite which he had never seen before. Aubusson carpets on hardwood floors, a silver tray of fresh fruit, chocolate truffles, nuts, pretzels, comfortable furniture, a great view of the park, a Kuhn Bosendorfer grand piano, an old cello with music stand and a rack of classical cello scores, a tray of both plain and flavored waters, Evian, Fiji Water, limoncello without alcohol, Martinelli grape juice chilled in ice, some mineral water and tonic water, limes and lemons in the refrigerator, crystal stemware, a set of German knives, and a king-size bed with mountains of pillows... Brent wondered that someone had thoughtfully prepared this suite for his visit and gone way over the top, which surprised him a little.
As it turned out, the Housekeeper had formed the correct impression that Eric thought a good deal of us as a unit and had instructed the entire staff to be on their toes. Eric introduced me to Blossom and John and Carol and Loren and Selene and the twins, the names starting to blur a little, then to Darren and Tom and Andrew. On the jet, Eric told me of their relationship to each other and to his dads. I hadn't heard about arrangements like that and it shocked me a little; at the same time, it sounded like a solution for some situations. I didn't think I wanted to share Eric, though, if we got that far.
That afternoon after freshening up, Eric and I descended with security down an elevator to the third underground level.
The space was enormous and filled with what looked like labeled guitar cases, only rectangular in different sizes and up to a foot thick in some cases. They were locked and to my untrained eyes, they looked waterproof. Most were connected to tubes leading to tanks of various gases. I recognized the nitrogen and argon tanks.
"Now where did I put that Tintoretto...Cavalry something, did you say?" Now he was having fun with me. An aide took us to the correct aisle and numbered space and the case was opened.
As the lights were turned on and the case was opened carefully, I beheld a painting that few in the world knew existed and only four or five now living had seen. I held my breath for a moment, took in the color, the action, the shapes, the brush strokes, the general condition of the painting, the Renaissance personified, and breathed out again. I looked at Eric who was looking intently at me.
"Very nice," was all I could say as a collision of thoughts and feelings jumbled up my brain and speech center. I remember tingling all over, feeling short of breath and thinking if he liked me, I could easily love him back.
Eric stared at me in amazement.
I apparently had him turned inside out and upside down.
"Very nice?" Eric spoke the words out loud apparently. "You're very nice!"
Actually, Brent was spectacular, I thought. I asked the others present to leave us for a few minutes. When the staff elevator doors closed, I took Brent in my arms and kissed him like I was afraid he might leave me. Which fervor Brent returned.
"I was hoping something would impress you, Brent."
"You impress me, Eric. You. I don't care about what you own or don't own. You are an extraordinarily kind man; my brothers took to you immediately."
"I like your mind, Eric, I love your body, your hair in the morning, that you hump the couch in the morning. Yes, I saw that and got hot thinking I should be so lucky as to be that couch."
"Eric, are we starting something here? I need to tell you that I'm not a temporary guy. I don't think I'm a group guy, not now anyway. I'm not into hookups; I'm a one-man guy. I'm pretty sure that my love is the 'all in, forever' kind. Is my heart safe with you?"