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July 15, 1895
Chère June,
He is still here. It is inconceivable, but every morning I wake and he is here; every morning, it is an ever more exquisite experience.
That first night back in Paris, when he slept in my bed and I last wrote you, I thought it did not matter if he fled in the morning; at least I spent a night beside him, listening to his sleep. Instead, I have been gifted with so much more.
At some point before dawn, I must have fallen asleep in my chair. He rose, dressed, lit a fire and boiled the water before I even woke. He brought me tea with a shot of something deliciously warming in it, but it was not as warming as his smile (which is nothing short of spectacular.)
“What will my duties be, master?” he asked quietly, and fully suspecting, I am sure, to be told to strip naked on the spot.
It took me a frightfully long time to answer. I felt compelled to consider every last possibility. In the end, I could think of only one basic duty.
“You need only breathe,” I told him, “and that will give me more pleasure than most poor souls will ever experience in their entire wretched lives.”
He laughed, and if I wrote that it was a musical sound, I would be understating the case to a shameful degree.
And so it began. He is, as a far as anyone can see, my apprentice. He is unfailingly kind and thoughtful. He attempts to anticipate my every need. He must have had some amount of training at a manor somewhere, for he knows how to be so formal, so proper, it is astonishing. He learns quickly. There is an agile mind hiding behind those angelic looks. He is always watching and gathering knowledge, gaining skills.
My friends think him a charming pet. When we go out, he sits quietly, listening and watching, nursing the same drink for the entire night. I asked him why he denies himself; I can afford to give him more. He claims to want to understand everything that goes on around him. I suppose that in his former profession, drunkenness could lead to disaster. He can be easily startled. I think he fears the big dance halls, the crush of people, the wildness of the quatrain, the forwardness of the clientele.
Not his clients. I assured him from the start that his former profession is just that – former. He is not expected to respond favourably to any of their lewd advances. Indeed, it will wound me to my core if he does, although I cannot make such a claim on him. If he seeks physical pleasure with others, I shall have to endure it somehow. (Thank God for absinthe.)
Who can blame him for wanting to be sober and alert? He may suspect the danger I pose to him. If he were to pass out from drink, there is no telling what I might do, how I might infect him.
I would not. Could not.
I have tried to give him reason to trust me. I've been respectful and polite and chaste, but, really, I am in the position of power. He has never had any reason to trust me. Had no reason to trust me.
All that has changed since last night.
He has, since this strange arrangement began, taken on the role of my nurse with a charming earnestness. He will not give many details, but has alluded to a crippled uncle he used to care for. I suspect this ‘uncle’ – if he was really an uncle – provided for him until he was forced onto the street. Who knows how any unfortunate ends up the way they do? You, of all people, know how cruel the fates can be.
For whatever reason, he does not seem to mind caring for me, and does so, as he does all things, with uncommon grace. He makes sure I eat at more or less the proper times. He trims my hair and beard, rubs my feet when they are sore, puts me to bed, draws baths for me, runs errands, mixes up whatever potions the doctors recommend.
And then. Last night.
“You should drink less, paint more,” he said as we prepared to leave for the Moulin Rouge.
“My dear boy,” I said back to him, “I’ll have you know that there is absolutely no relation between the amount of alcohol I consume and the amount of paint I lay to canvas.”
“But there is a relation between the sleep you get and the quality of the paint you apply. Stay in tonight. Get some sleep, please, Henri.”
Everyone is a critic! Although he had a valid point, and it is a difficult charge to deny. I have been dreadfully short on sleep, as I have been rising shortly after retiring to watch him sleep every night. My work has not suffered greatly, but it is only a matter of time.
If only I did not fear each night will be the last. I want to preserve my memory of him the same way I print a lithograph. Alas, as much as I try to draw his likeness, it is never good enough. What is in my mind, what is before me in reality, is far, far more dazzling than anything my feeble talents can conjure.
His compliments of my work, of course, have an effect on me. He often speaks lovingly of my art and the need for me to produce more of it. He has developed an admiration for my painting. He knew mostly of my lithographs, and my reputation, when he executed his daring gambit during the channel crossing, but the days spent in my studio have given him a greater appreciation for painting in general and my work in particular. It is a wonder to experience art through his eyes.
So tonight, he praised my talent and claimed it to be the reason I should rest. Then he stopped speaking of art.
He knelt at my feet and removed my shoes tenderly, and looked up at me with those heartbreaking eyes. “Henri, I fear for your health. Please let me take better care of you. You are a treasure to us all.”
How could anyone refuse that?
As irking as it is that he has been plotting, I am sure, with Bourges, and perhaps my cousin Gabriel (one can never trust doctors!) to subdue me, I agreed to stay home. I am sure that the patrons of the dancehall fear me dead, for I never miss a night, and last night promised to be a wild one. Bastille Day always brings out the best, and worst, in people.
But I agreed to stay because of the tenderness in his eyes.
I was certain he planned to tuck me into bed like a child. I supposed I would seem a child to him in many ways, even though I am a decade older than he is. Orlando towers over me and is so much stronger than I.
My steadfast refusal of his more intimate services must have made him question me, even think me mad. If I were not interested in the male of the species, then why had I attended that party so long ago?
To his credit, he never probed me about my refusal, and never pushed himself on me. He accepted his platonic apprenticeship with grace and humility. He has also proven to be an apt apprentice. Good with colour, and deft with a brush. He will be a fine painter some day.
Last night, he was not speaking as an apprentice or painter, though. He was not acting as a concerned employee, or mere friend. He knelt on the floor and implored me to take better care of myself. I found myself sorely tempted by him. I had to struggle to restrain my hand from reaching for those rich curls.
He grabbed my wrist and placed my hand on his head. “Henri, do not push me aside. I know you desire me.”
Anguish and the most exquisite ecstasy raged within me. For just a touch, a taste, was I willing to risk harming him?
“Henri,” he said so quietly I had to lean forward to hear, “I know. I know why you do not let me care for you properly.”
And I had been so determined to let him keep his wonderful opinion of me intact. It was horrified to think of him being privy to my shame. It is not as if I have kept my condition a dark secret, but I had hoped none would speak to him of it.
“Let me at least touch you. No harm will come to me; I swear it. M. Bourges assured me.”
Ah, I thought, so he had been talking to the good doctor about more than just my sleeping habits. Of course he would speak to Henri Bourges; he is the expert. Nevertheless, I felt betrayed, by both of them. How could they speak about me behind my back? It seemed cruel.
“Henri, look at me. Do not hide from me!” he beseeched.
I sat on the chair, breathlessly watching his face, from which nothing but truth and beauty shone like a blinding sun.
It had to be impossible. How could he desire me? I had gone to great lengths to assure him he was not obligated. Yet there he was, with my hand in his hair, fingers twining in the silken strands, with his hands unbuttoning my shirt. I allowed his fingers their freedom. I allowed him to bare my body to his perfect eyes.
I dreaded the inevitable disappointment in them. He has seen hints of it, glimpses, but this was his first time seeing all of me at once. I was sure he would be repulsed.
But he did not recoil. If there was shock, he hid it well. Instead, he touched me with reverence, led me to the bedroom and finished undressing me gently, lay me on the bed and touched me more.
His fingers have a wisdom all their own. They gave me joy at every turn. He ran his hands over my twisted, stunted legs, not missing a single deformation or surgical scar. He looked so sad, as I thought I would I too, for his future was revealed to him; if he stays with me, he can look forward to that pathetic sight every day.
“Does it hurt?” he whispered.
I nodded. I cannot lie in the face of his beauty. I cannot pretend what is not.
“I wish it were not so,” he said simply.
And for that instant, it was not. All pain and suffering fled when he bent to kiss my cheek.
“I want to make you feel better,” he said. “I want to make you forget everything bad and think only of the things that matter most to you.”
“Truth,” I answered him.
“Beauty,” he said.
“Freedom,” I replied easily, leaving it to him to finish the creed.
He kissed my lips tenderly. “Love,” he said.
My mind could still not quite believe it, but his eyes swore he was not lying.
He explored the rest of me with great tenderness. My chest is not beautiful either, after all my bouts of illness, yet he loved it with his mouth and hands. He was playful and attentive. He traced my hips and stomach with his fingers, but could not stay away from my cock for long.
“Your reputation is well-earned,” he said slyly.
(And how would he know my ‘reputation’? He has been talking to you girls, hasn’t he? You, Jane, and your cronies – you are a naughty bunch!)
He grasped the aforementioned reputation firmly and squeezed his fingers around it. He lowered his mouth to me.
I tried to stop him. I cannot bear the idea of him becoming diseased. He took my hand in his and kissed my palm. “I love your hands, Henri. I want to feel them on me.” He was trying to distract me. That much was obvious. But why? Why take the risk?
“Do not fret,” he said. “You show no signs, there are no sores at this time. As long as I do not drink of you. It will be safe. The doctor told me.”
I doubted that. I still do. I do not entirely trust the medical community, not after the way they butchered my legs. After the way they allowed my dear Madeline perish while they let me live on in agony. No, I cannot trust doctors.
I have not known whom to trust for many years.
So I trusted him.
His tongue caressed me and, God help me, I chose to believe. I could not resist; he was so very careful not to drink of me. He kissed around my cock, flicked his tongue over my balls, licked the skin of my belly. It looked obscene, my gargantuan cock next to his delicate features. Obscene and so beautiful I wanted to cry.
His fingers are magical. They flitted and pressed and caressed in ways only one with experience could know, but with an air of discovery and wonder. His eyes never left me. They were trained either on what his hands touched or on my eyes at all times.
I was so drunk on his touch, so undone by him, I believed him when he spoke of love undying. He moved his mouth well out of the way at the moment of truth, and the truth flowed out of me like a river. He used a handkerchief to clean me, as tender and intimate as the most dazzling fuck.
Such pleasure, of course, I wished to return tenfold. I asked him to join me and he peeled off his clothing in a practiced manner. I ignored the professional quality of the performance and concentrated on my first glimpse of his naked flesh.
Oh, he is far more than perfect. I have never seen a more willowy torso, limbs more perfectly formed, hips more exquisitely shaped, or a cock more inviting. I tasted every inch of his golden skin, gliding my tongue over him endlessly, bathing him. He makes the most delightful noises once he decides to surrender to the sensations. I was meticulous in my examination and exploration of him.
“Yes,” he cried, and it was a dizzying thing to hear, “I love your hands, Henri. Put them on me; paint me.”
I did. Every glorious inch of him I painted with my love. I spent hours, it seemed, on his cock. And what a beautiful cock it is, long and sleek and as perfectly formed as the rest of him. I brought him to his climax three times in succession. With my hand, with my mouth, and then with... I can scarcely believe it happened.
After the second time, I was hard as a cudgel. He fetched some oil and slicked my cock, then brought his hand to his own legs. “Please, Henri, I need more. I want… and I have never wanted before. Never needed. But I need now.”
He put my cock between his lean, hard thighs. He squeezed hard and the sensation was so close to that of being inside his body it made my soul sing with desire.
“It is the best we can do,” he whispered. “And it is better than any other.”
“It is paradise,” I told him, and thrust back and forth experimentally. He stands well over a foot taller than I; I was able to slide down so his cock pressed into my belly as his nipple grazed my lips without me tumbling off the edge of the bed. I’ve never been so happy to be a dwarf in all my life. I teased the nipple with my tongue and teeth, knowing from my earlier experiments how partial he is to those particular sensations.
To hear the words from his lips brought me to the edge of my climax. “Fuck me, Henri. I am yours,” he said, gasping for air, as if I really were deep inside him.
And I fucked between his legs. As I have never fucked before. Reaching my climax in his arms is as close to heaven as a mere mortal will ever come.
I grasped his cock and brought him with me. He cried out again, and urgently pulled me up to kiss me. “I love you,” he sighed, “until the end of time.”
And so, I know how one feels when one could die happily.
If I write of him again, I hope it will be because my happiness is so complete I cannot contain it within my being.
Knowing my usual bad luck, I fear the opposite is more likely, and it will be anguish I set to paper. However, for tonight, in this moment, it still does not matter if he bolts in the morning. For I have truly been given more bliss in one night than I have felt in all my previous days.
I might even give up drink for him, if he so desired.
If he were to choose to stay with me.
If I were the luckiest man on earth, and he in love with me, as well.
Avec amour,
Henri
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Next: Five - Truth
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