gilded imprisonment

"Hey, you. Take the spare gauze to the medical staff."

The *why* of it all still eluded him. Prompted by his own volition, Aventurine moved, dropping his camera gear and glasses into the equipment box. He ignored his assistant’s frantic questions. He only stepped into the locker room when he was absolutely certain Ratio was alone.

Click.

With the door locked, he looked at Ratio from behind. The champion was hunched over his blood-stained fists, his bare torso mapped with a stark, undeniable web of scars.

"What do you want?"

"I came to bring you gauze," Aventurine explained.

"Playing doctor now, are we?"

"Just making sure you’re alright."

"I’m fine," Ratio snapped, his tone laced with acid.

He turned, and their eyes finally met. A shiver rippled down Aventurine's spine. Taking a breath, he walked around to face him, finally sitting down by his side.

"You’re going to be suspended for what you did," Aventurine stated. "Was it worth it?"

"I don't know. He was getting on my nerves," Ratio said, holding out his hands. "He kept spouting bullshit about me."

Aventurine looked up, freezing with the gauze suspended mid-air. "Like what?"

Ratio didn't answer. He simply stared at him. Then, down at the gauze. "Your hands are cold."

Small and delicate, Aventurine’s hands cradled those of the boxing champion. Gripping them tightly, Ratio hoisted them up until the back of the photographer's hand rested a mere two inches from his mouth. Even his lips were bleeding—chapped, and utterly beautiful. Aventurine thought back to Ratio's battered appearance, to the blood that had ended up on his own glasses and hair. And he smiled. Before Ratio could kiss his hand, Aventurine pulled it toward himself, mirroring the gesture.

Tilting his head to the side, he slipped his tongue out, brushing it against the tips of the bloody knuckles. He tucked a stray lock of hair behind his ear and raised his eyes, making sure not to miss the slightest flicker of a reaction. As the fighter's expression turned uncertain, a smirk carved itself onto Aventurine's face, and he began to lick.

A metallic tang flooded his mouth, sharp and laced with the bitter sting of sweat. It was clear Ratio couldn't bring himself to stop him. The champion's grip tightened around his hand, and the more Ratio pulled back—however involuntarily—the more Aventurine pressed forward, straddling his way along the bench.

A distinct erection was tracing itself against Ratio’s shorts. It was only then that he shoved Aventurine back. A soft whine escaped Aventurine, caught somewhere between pleasure and discontent.

"You’re... sick," Ratio muttered, touching his own hand as if to cover it. "Stay away from me."

But his breath was ragged. Aventurine's smirk widened, and he gripped the edge of the bench, grinding closer.

"You're no better," Aventurine murmured. "You thrashed that poor man because I fucked him, didn't you?"

"Welcome to my cave, bellissimo."

As soon as the door opened, Veritas looked around with a curious gaze. Aventurine left the lights off: there was no need to switch on the single bare bulb dangling from the ceiling, swaying with each heavy step on the worn parquet; the streetlamps outside already illuminated the darkness. Veritas flinched as the door closed on its own, and only afterwards did he notice that the room slanted ever so slightly. There were no drafts, despite the open window. A slanted room, a mattress on the floor. Aventurine slipped off his shoes without untying them, flicking them away with the tips of his toes. Then he turned, arms outstretched, and let himself fall in a perfect arc onto the mattress, a mischievous smile playing on his lips.

"Do you like it? Not bad, huh?"

Veritas remained lost in thought, staring at the corners of the walls, veiled in delicate mold, the boxes below, senseless objects, folded clothes fluttering outside the window. Again, there was Aventurine, lying with his vest open, fingers resting on the buttons of his shirt. Veritas approached. He hadn’t realized he was holding his breath. The room was humid in the summer, the warm breeze mingling with the scent of burnt cigarette ash in the ashtray. Rome was a hot city, yet Aventurine’s room—the hole in which the very man who had presented himself as a patron, in jacket and tie—the irritating man who insisted it was “cappucino” and not “cappuccino,” lived in a room whose warmth was defined by an entirely different factor. In that room, as in any home, a person—no matter how much he could be reduced to the mere epithet of gambler—had poured in all of his personality. The real one. Who knew what his real name was.

Vasha, he had signed on the restaurant bill. Vasha, Kakava…

Aventurine lit another cigarette. When Veritas finally managed to speak—"It has its charm, I admit."—he became distracted by the blue reflection of the night on his cheek. Everything about him was poetic. Even the way he undressed, kneeling on the rumpled sheets with a cigarette between his lips, was erotic. Some might have called it vulgar, mistakenly, in Veritas’ view. Nothing about Aventurine was vulgar. Even the tiniest detail hidden in his blonde hair whispered a secret. His glasses kept slipping down the bridge of his nose, and he adjusted them with methodical calm. A studied repetition, always the same. His shirt opened. Veritas traced the outline of his stiffened nipples as the atmosphere shifted.

"I’m not very good at drawing. I know the basics."

"I’m sure you’re contradicting yourself, as usual."

"What makes you say that?"

"You look at me differently. Distracted, like an artista."

"It’s a bit difficult to look at you the way I usually do. Weren’t you saying you knew very little Italian?"

"Lying is my profession."

He sent him a sly grin. He unfastened his trousers. Veritas remained dazed, almost petrified. He seated himself awkwardly on a wooden chair not too far from the mattress. He opened the case containing ink, pencils, and brushes, along with a sketchbook of paper impervious to oil paint. When he raised his gaze again, all that concealed him were a pair of lace panties, garters tightening his soft calves, the open shirt. Peacock feathers swayed from his left earlobe.

"Tell me more," Veritas said, inhaling once more. Pencil poised over the paper. "What else do you know?"

Aventurine arched his back with such natural ease that it stirred a disquieting warmth in Veritas. The line of his spine rose along his back, his shoulders, up to the nape of his hair. And then, those damned glasses…

To reach Aventurine’s apartment, he first had to skirt the perimeter of the complex. He knew the entrance did not sit directly in the bustling heart of Piazza di Spagna, even if Aventurine’s balcony looked straight out over the fleet of tourists he was currently intent on dodging. It was a veritable labyrinth of foreign voices, Italian and English—the only ones he could decipher. He could manage a smattering of Greek, owing to his father’s heritage, but he did not consider himself fluent; he preferred studying the ancient tongue to read the tragedies of Sophocles aloud, alone in his room.

This memory accompanied him all the way to the entrance, where a row of buzzer buttons, aligned in a perfect vertical column, sat beside handwritten nameplates. Ventura caught his eye immediately, penned in a cursive script that was not Aventurine’s—belonging, perhaps, to the family who had lived there before.

“Third floor,” a voice told him through the intercom.

The air smelled of bergamot. In the entryway, he caught sight of a small courtyard garden bordered by cypresses and geranium bushes. Instinctively, he felt a sudden urge to explore it and leaned over to look, noting how the wide, square perimeter rose into four facades adorned with open shutters and hanging lines of laundry. Though this was already his second time visiting the complex, he found himself ascending the condominium’s spiral staircase with a deliberate slowness, stopping now and then to gaze upward, where the shell-like spiral narrowed continuously until it dissolved into a single, indistinguishable line.

“How lovely to see you, artista,” Aventurine said, swinging the door open. He was wearing white Bermuda shorts and a teal shirt from which a pair of sunglasses dangled. The room, bare as always, was airy and smelled of renewal. Indeed, on the floor, tubs of paint rested against the walls, matched by the splatters on the bedsheet Aventurine must have laid down to protect the parquet during the work. A single bead of red paint smudged his chin.

Veritas checked the sudden urge to wipe it away. And how would he have even done it? Perhaps by resting his thumb there, cradling the rest of his fingers beneath the slightly upturned jaw. But the moment the thought formed, he felt small and insignificant.

“Forgive the hour. I am early.”

“I know. In fact, I was just about to head out to grab a bite to eat.” Aventurine looked at him, idly stroking the ends of his hair. “Do you want anything?”

“There is no need.”

“Oh, come now—a piece of fruit, an aperitif, you decide. You paint me and always leave without me offering anything in return.”

“I am not working on commission,” Veritas protested, but Aventurine had already brushed past him, wallet in hand. “…I would appreciate a coffee. If possible,” he finally murmured, conceding defeat.

“Well said. I’ll be right back then.”

He flashed a smile and vanished down the steps, though not before turning to look back at him with a parting grin from the banister. Veritas returned the gesture, then stepped inside and closed the door behind him. He set his tools and briefcase against the wall where the paint had begun to dry, slipped off his shoes, and walked over to the mattress. Aventurine’s clothes were all piled there, and for a moment he contemplated doing him a favor by tidying them away into the proper chest of drawers. Instead, he pulled up a chair and sat looking out the window, observing the lantana blossoms that had already grown since he last saw them.

This room possessed a lived-in soul. Outside, it felt like overstimulation; inside lay everything he had ever desired from Rome. A life dedicated to art in a sanctuary where the walls had neither eyes nor ears. Instinctively, he touched his crucifix necklace and caught his reflection in the mirror hanging on the wall. He sought himself out, but could not find him. He felt like an entirely different person—such was the effect of being in Aventurine’s room.

His body moved of its own accord. One moment he was sitting in the chair, waiting; the next, he was rummaging through his muse’s clothes, convincing himself he was searching for something for him to wear for today's painting. A low-cut t-shirt—he had worn it the other day at the café while reading a newspaper. A pair of flared trousers, like the ones from that night wandering through Rome. Shirts. Bermudas. Tank tops. Lace underwear.

It was the latter that, despite himself, caught his attention. He stared at them for a long time without questioning why, merely reflecting briefly on how they must feel. Small, narrow at the hips, yet perfect for a frame as slender as Aventurine’s. Perhaps the air in the room had shifted, for he felt a flush of heat course through the nape of his neck—or perhaps it was he who had shifted, along with his foolish intentions. Veritas caressed them with his fingertips, lifting them with trembling hands until they reached the tip of his nose. In that instant, he was struck by the scent of the fabric and pressed it to his face to understand what it recalled—whether it was the day he had tried to feel him against his own skin, pulling him close to shield him from a speeding car along the avenue, or that time Aventurine had taken his hand on the bar counter and stroked the wedding band on his ring finger, asking, “Who’s the lucky lady?”

With a sharp jerk, he dropped the underwear to the floor and felt wretched. A raw, sinful impulse had taken dominion over his thoughts, and the rest of his body had fallen prey to the deception. His trousers felt suffocatingly tight. He tried to loosen them, to ease the tension somehow, but it was entirely futile. He rushed out onto the balcony and looked down, searching for Aventurine. He saw no one but the usual swarming mass of people drifting toward the Spanish Steps, snapping polaroids.

God, what am I doing?

It was as though the rules he had imposed upon himself by way of a deity had vanished, yielding to the most impure of hungers. Impetuously, he locked the door and paced around the mattress, biting his knuckles. Aventurine soon flooded his thoughts again, and it proved impossible to banish the image of him stretched out on the mattress, spine arched and legs parted, his sex craving attention, the tip—since the lace must be tight on him—of his penis peeking out, eager and slick with arousal.

How could he think of him this way? Aventurine, who was meant to remain pure so that he might render him upon the canvas with delight and precision. The artist is the pervert. He had read it in a book by Freud—perverse, yet inherently brilliant, possessing access to pleasures not always deemed proper, and thus to a broader spectrum of knowledge.

He approached the underwear after lying down. He inhaled its scent again, this time banishing all reason. His reason told him that perhaps it was better this way: to masturbate thinking of him naked and wanting, and thereby rid himself of the unyielding erection at the root of his distress. In his fantasy, Veritas was a devourer. He closed the distance and bent Aventurine’s legs until he cried out in protest, yet all the while keeping his gaze locked upward and his hand clamped over his erection. Veritas, however, imagined that no manual stimulation was necessary. No, in no fantasy did foreplay serve a purpose; rather, Aventurine had ensured he was already open for him. And so, his cock entered effortlessly, catching them both in a shared groan.

In reality, he wrapped the underwear around his member and began to stroke. With his free hand, he pulled a pillow close, catching the scent of Aventurine’s cherry-flavored hair conditioner. Oh, how exquisite it would be to drench him in red juice and see him all slick and undone, his face flushed with embarrassment. Veritas wanted to possess him, to fuck him with a surge of fury sufficient to sate the demon that had entered him; to feel him tight around the veins of his cock until it became grotesque and disheartening—and yet, he could think of nothing but the pleasure currently corrupting him. He began to grunt against the pillow, gasping with his mouth wide open.

In his mind, there were only images of Aventurine begging him to continue, breath hot against his ear: Faster, more, please… fuck me, Veritas, you’re so hard inside me. And nails dragging down his back, imperceptible scratches, pleasure conquering pain. I’m yours, please, make me come. He imagined pinning his wrists above his head, his other hand gripping his hip tightly, until the thrusts grew increasingly blurred, frantic, and short. The hand on his member became a moving blur.

And then, the climax.

Aventurine waits beneath the threshold of the waiting room when Ratio grabs him by the hips and lifts him off the floor. The door slams against its hinges, rebounding with an exaggerated bang. He can’t take it anymore. Their lips collide, his back hits the wall, and a moan of pleasure escapes him. Aventurine buries his nails in Ratio’s hair as their tongues clash with overwhelming force. He doesn’t even know what to tell him, except that he’s aching with want and wants him everywhere.

Above, inside. It doesn’t matter.

Ratio drives him mad, nipping at his neck, but Aventurine lifts his head with both hands because he can’t bear even a second away from his breath. So he steals it, inhaling the same air with greedy desperation, and the kiss turns rough, just as Ratio’s hands clamp down on his hips and Aventurine presses his pelvis against him in return.