Rough Canvas

Cathy and Walter Briggs sold their goat cheese to a select but highbrow clientele, including Zabar's in New York City and several of the gourmet shops in Stockbridge, where the Boston symphony spent its summers.

Thomas had mixed feelings about accepting the lunch invitation. He'd done so automatically, for that was simple courtesy, giving the farmer the chance to repay a kindness himself. Thomas just wasn't sure what Marcus thought of it, or if he'd have preferred to get away as fast as he could.

Given the state of Marcus' temper before they were interrupted by Phyllis the Goat's labor crisis, he was a little concerned that Marcus would make the farmer regret his offer.

Instead, Marcus helped Cathy fill glasses with ice from the basement freezer while Walter showed Thomas where he could wash up, loaning him a shirt and baggy pair of work pants. Cathy took his clothes to wash out and put on the line to dry. They'd apparently recently built the house to replace an older one which had been infested with rot and termites. Walter was still working on wiring for things like the washer and dryer.

Marcus was sincerely complimentary of the carpentry work, most of which had been done by Walter with the help of neighbors and other family members. He particularly remarked on the arched moldings over the windows and the architecture of the vaulted ceiling, making Thomas relax somewhat.

The house had a nice feel to it, a good space, and Thomas could almost imagine it as an artist's Berkshire hideaway, particularly when Walter took him upstairs and showed him the rolling hill view from the windows and described the layers of fall color that would become a vibrant mural as the seasons cycled.

"Your friend looks more comfortable than I'd imagine him to be." The farmer chuckled. He gestured down below, where Marcus had joined Cathy in a trip to the hen house, apparently to collect some eggs.

Thomas watched Marcus take the basket from her, kneel and reach into the first opening in the henhouse, a smile flashing across his face as she apparently instructed him on the proper way to do it. Like most women faced with that smile, Cathy blushed, even though Thomas was sure they were talking about something entirely innocuous.

Whatever Marcus said next made her laugh. She put a hand on his shoulder, motherly.

He was sure Marcus would have noticed her stiff knees from her gait, and, being Marcus, he'd volunteered to get down and learn how to pull eggs out.

Walter cleared his throat. "I stomped on you boys a little hard. You should have asked, but even so... We get a lot of them through here, city folk who think like your friend. Like they're better than us and want to change everything they think we should be and feel, without ever knowing who we really are."

"Marcus is a good man, with a generous heart," Thomas responded quietly, glad for the reminder of it right before his eyes, and a little ashamed at the necessity for the reminder. "On some things he just refuses to consider any option other than a confrontation. Like he thinks he always has to make it a fight, or always be ready for one, I guess."

"Sounds like a man who's been in enough of them to make him that way," Walter observed matter-of-factly. "Let's go get something to eat. My backbone's gnawing into my stomach."

Lunch included goat cheese spread on thick slices of homemade wheat bread, a bowl of blackberries and lemonade made just that morning, a fresh and simple meal that made Thomas think of home and his mother's table with a pang.

Cathy was a comfortable conversationalist, asking about Marcus' gallery, Thomas' art, his family in North Carolina. She'd positioned Marcus at Walter's right, her at his left, and Thomas next to Marcus. Thomas wondered if she'd had a momentary lapse of good sense, putting Walter and Marcus catty corner.

"Does your family live in the area, Mr...?"

"Just Marcus will do, ma'am." Marcus took the bread plate from her, passed it to Walter at her nod. "My family's in this room."

He didn't look up from his plate where he was applying goat cheese to the thick slab of wheat bread, but Thomas felt like he'd speared him through the gut with the butter knife. So matter-of-fact and easy.

Was he saying it just to deflect Cathy's questions about his background? He'd surely deflected them often enough when Thomas asked.

Cathy darted a glance at Walter, but he was just as studiously focused on his own meal. "Walter, those eggs should be ready in about five more minutes." He shrugged. "We're in no hurry. Thanks to Thomas, I shouldn't have to worry about any more birthings today. I just hate I didn't find her earlier. We haven't had a morning birthing all summer. They almost always happen late afternoon." Conversation turned to their interests in Stockbridge, the Boston symphony.

Marcus spoke primarily to Cathy, though he shifted his glance politely to Walter now and again, to all appearances relaxed in his surroundings. Marcus could handle almost any awkward social situation. But just like at the club, Thomas could feel there was something off, thrumming hard under the surface.

When he glanced down, he noticed Marcus' hand was resting on his knee in a tense half curl, his forefinger rubbing a half-inch track on the fabric. Back and forth. Back and forth. It was obvious, if only to him, that Marcus was finding this a very difficult situation.

But they weren't at the beach or sitting in a coffee shop where most of the people were of the same sexual preference, or expected them to be. Thomas couldn't reach out to offer the brief touch of comfort he was almost certain Marcus needed at the moment, some sense Thomas was in his corner.

Good Christ, he wasn't going to grope Marcus. What was the matter with him?

Lifting the glass of iced lemonade to his lips, Thomas reached over and laid his free hand on Marcus' beneath the table. If Walter glanced over at just the right angle, he'd see it, but if he saw it, he saw it. Closing his hand over the top of Marcus', Thomas let his thumb rub Marcus' palm. Gave him a slight squeeze.

At one time, he'd known Marcus' moods better than his own, but how Marcus reacted to certain things could be unpredictable, which was why Thomas tended to be cautious about public displays. In this case, however, Marcus' fingers shifted, coming up between Thomas' to overlap his fingertips, pressing down more tightly than he'd expected, as if drawing some elemental reassurance.

Then, just as quickly, Marcus released him and leaned back, stretching his arm over the back of Thomas' chair as he spoke to Cathy about the symphony. When he hooked his fingers in the slats, his thumb stroked a small spot in between Thomas' shoulder blades.

"How long you boys been together?"

This from Walter, a question that seemed to take even Cathy by surprise. A flash of alarm crossed her face before she apparently processed that he'd asked it in a neutral, not argumentative, tone.

"I met Thomas about four years ago," Marcus said, glancing over at him. "We were together for two and a half years after that. He's just visiting right now, working on some new projects. He wanted to go out today and paint in a natural setting."

"How did you meet?" Cathy asked, a tentative smile in her eyes.

"Thomas was sharing some of his work in a little co-op hole-in-the-wall I periodically checked out. The owner had an eye for good talent, but little money. There was terrible lighting in the place. It was a wonder anything ever sold. Of course, it probably helped some of the work get bought."

Thomas' unexpected touch had steadied Marcus more than he wanted to admit. He didn't want to feel this absurd squeezing sense of panic sitting at the table of a pleasant, average enough farmer and his wife. So now, to keep the boat of his emotions rocking on an even keel, he glanced at Thomas - scooping up blackberries with his spoon, his face in profile, his quick smile at Marcus' joke - and remembered that first meeting.

* * * * *

Thomas had brought in his own lighting. He'd run a drop cord and just finished duct taping it to the wall so it would be out of the way. He wore secondhand jeans and a T-shirt for some BBQ place Marcus had never heard of. As he straightened, he hitched up the jeans, giving Marcus a brief impression of a very nicely shaped ass, then he flicked on the mounted light and angled it over the painting.

Based on the way the man was dressed, Marcus would have assumed he was a maintenance guy, except for several things. One, Richard couldn't afford a maintenance guy. Two, there were flecks of paint on his fingers, as well as the ones he'd missed on the nape of his neck where the hair was shorn away with all the finesse of a sheep shearing. Finally, the dead giveaway - the careful way he arranged the light as if it mattered as much to him as the arrangement of a blanket did to a mother pulling the edge of it up around her baby's shoulder.

The painting had some rough elements. But Marcus knew he was looking at phenomenal talent that wouldn't be raw for long. Or whose rawness might even be a key element to how captivating it was. As he took a closer look, stepping forward, his sharp eye caught it. It was deliberate, that layering effect, and doing it deliberately took more control and ability than doing it by accident.

The subject matter was a man sleeping. There was a poignant loneliness to it, his hand hooked on the iron rail of the headboard, holding it as if holding onto someone, the other hand out of view, somehow managing to convey without crudity that perhaps in half sleep he was touching himself, wishing or dreaming it was the hand of a lover.

The tautness of the arm gripping the headboard was intriguing, the build toward release it conveyed.

Often Marcus didn't know what it was about a piece of art that told him it would sell, that it had something special that would make it irresistible to the specific buyers he would contact about it. But he had a gift for it that made him take risks on work his peers wouldn't touch. When his gaze shifted back to the artist, he lingered, studying him with the same intent scrutiny.

Thomas hadn't had any polish, no style whatsoever. Just a straightforward man with a shy smile and not an ounce of artifice to him. Surrounded by all the highbrow urbanity of New York City, he didn't try to fit in, nor did he try to be James Dean and pretend he didn't care or go out of his way to appear different. He was simply himself.

In time, Marcus would learn the city hadn't chewed Thomas up and spit him out, because he staked out his piece of ground and held it. He listened, he learned, he adapted, but he didn't lose who he was. And the restless demon in Marcus' soul was attracted to that. As much as Thomas thought otherwise, Marcus knew it wasn't Thomas who'd been the moth drawn to the flame, but him.

When his "maintenance man" at last noticed him, he'd done a double take. Marcus was so used to it he usually didn't even acknowledge the reaction, but suddenly he was glad he had something to capture his attention. He made a point of never getting involved with the artists he represented, but he wanted the man and his art fiercely, immediately. They wouldn't come as a separate package anyway. With true talent, it never did. He knew it because his own soul had been crafted out of the art created by others, after all.

"It's rough," Thomas had said self-consciously, an amateur's mistake, downplaying his own work. Marcus shook his head, stepped forward, close enough to smell soap and aftershave, and to hunger to taste. He cocked his head, appearing to study the painting, and part of him was.

"You can tell the artist became enthralled with the beauty of the model. He stopped, left his palette and touched him in his sleep, which would explain that smudge of paint on his shoulder there, and on his hip. Wouldn't it?" He gestured.

He could feel the young man's attention on him, and it was as if he could already feel the touch of his hands. "Yes," Thomas said at last. "Most people don't get that at first. But I think they sense it."

Marcus turned to face him fully then, only a few inches between them. Thomas' dark eyes coursed over his mouth, then he looked away, the lashes sweeping his cheeks.

* * * * *

"He begged me to take on his work. Embarrassing really, but I had a weak moment."

Thomas choked on his piece of toast, shot him a glance. "Not how I remember it."

"And how do you remember it?" Marcus gave him a curious, open expression, all innocence, while the hand on the back of his chair caressed, stroked the small spot between Thomas' shoulder blades, a gesture that spoke as clearly as words. Do you remember how I had you in my bed that very night, fucking your brains out?

A dull flush started creeping up Thomas' neck, but he covered it with a cough and glanced at Walter and Cathy. "Cathy, could you pass the lemonade, please?" Walter was studying them, and now his gaze touched on Marcus' hand, which had shifted to rest on the juncture between Thomas' shoulder and neck. For once, Thomas tried not to worry about what was going through the man's mind and focused instead on the way it felt to have Marcus treating him with such easy affection and intimacy.

Like Andrew and Ben.

Walter had touched Cathy as they moved around the kitchen together, a hand to her waist, a brush of thigh, almost unconsciously. Squeezing his arm, she'd gestured to him to show Thomas the upstairs. When he'd grunted, given her a surreptitious pat on her generous bottom before he complied, she'd swatted at him with a spoon.

"Well, if you've got more to do, you're welcome to use my property for it." Humor crinkled Walter's eyes. "And if another of my girls goes into labor and you can handle that between sketches, that would be appreciated."

"Can I see what you were doing?" Cathy asked, stealing a glance at the sketchbooks Thomas had stacked neatly on the side chair.

Thomas cleared his throat. "I'm an erotic artist, Mrs. Briggs."

"Really?" A mischievous grin crossed her face, dropping twenty years from it.

"Well then, I definitely want to see it. If something in these fields can inspire those kinds of thoughts, then maybe I'll join Walter on his morning walk more often."

"Cathy." Walter chuckled, waved at Thomas. "Bring them to the table, let's see them. I'm sure it's the closest we'll ever to get to them, what with the prices they charge at those New York galleries."

Thomas hesitated. Marcus squeezed his neck. "You've nothing to be concerned about, pet. They're brilliant, even in pencil."

"Cathy did some painting in college. She even turned her hand to it again these past couple years, since we've hired summer help."

"Walter, I'm sure he doesn't want to hear about that. It's nothing like what he's doing."

Walter snorted at her, rose and disappeared into their bedroom. He brought back a small framed picture, a detail of a purple wildflower Thomas was sure proliferated here in the spring.

"Walter, put that away. That's like a crayon drawing next to what this boy does, if his work is shown in New York."

"Pfft." He arched a brow at Marcus. "She painted it for me when I was sick with pneumonia in the hospital and couldn't be here to see 'em. So it's not available to your fancy gallery at any price."

Thomas laid his sketchbooks facedown on the table to reach across Marcus and carefully balance the small piece in his palms. "This is silk painting," he said, impressed. "You used batik wax on the resist lines. Vibrant color. Cathy, this is really good."

As she flushed with pleasure, Thomas added, "And you created it out of love.

That's all that matters." He handed it back to Walter. "I don't blame you for not wanting to sell it. You can't set a price on that. My mother got magnolia blooms and floated them in a bowl of water for my brother when he was recovering from his accident. Not sure he cared much about it, but just knowing she did it for him when he was scared was enough."

Marcus rose. "I'm going out for a cigarette."

Thomas gave him a quizzical look. When his head was turned, Cathy reached for the sketch pad and drew it over to her place before he could stop her, though Thomas reached out in automatic reaction. She gave his knuckles a light smack and winked.

Marcus stopped at the door and turned, eyes narrowing as she and her husband bent over the sketchbook silently. Thomas waited, tension in his shoulders. It was the one of the embracing bodies, etched into the waving pattern of the grasses. He'd done it in graphite, since the charcoal was a more difficult medium to do on-the-go renderings without smudging, but Thomas had tremendous talent with the pencil and Marcus knew where he was going with the ultimate work would be clear.

Cathy tilted it up to the light from the window. "I bet you do these as easy as I breathe. I never could do people. But look at them, Walter. It's like you can feel the wind on your skin, and this is just a sketch. You'll have to drop us a postcard when you have a showing, Thomas. I'd love to see what it all looks like finished. Walter can take me to see the Rockettes like he's been promising." It was a homey picture. The three of them together, sunlight making Cathy's tidy brown hair gleam. Thomas was watching her, and Marcus could tell he was just dumbfounded. He'd told Marcus he'd never shown his work to his own mother or father. Never been invited to do so. Not since they'd found out his preferred subject material.

Marcus stepped out, closing the door.

Thomas looked over his shoulder at the soft click, watched Marcus move past the windows and disappear around the corner of the house.

"He doesn't smoke, does he?" The question came from Walter.

Thomas shook his head, took the sketchbook back from Cathy when it was offered.

"No. I think..."

He wasn't sure what made him say it to the two sitting before him, but the words seemed to tumble free without thought. "I think this reminds him too much of what I'll be going back to at the end of the week. My family. North Carolina. A fiancee, of sorts."

"A fiancee?" Cathy's brow furrowed. "But..."

"My family needs me. She needs someone...undemanding, to take care of her." He said it quietly, zipping the sketches into the portfolio. "We're friends, she and I. If I can't be with Marcus, it doesn't really matter. And I can't be. My mother's Catholic and where we live..."

He put the portfolio down on the floor carefully as if it were glass, because suddenly he had to control the overwhelming urge to pick it up and throw it. The raging frustration rose like bile in his throat, fast and dizzying. "Daralyn. She needs someone. She doesn't know...but she knows I don't love her like that. She's delicate, just needs someone to..." He shook his head. "I shouldn't be telling you this."

"You probably haven't been able to tell anyone else, have you?" Cathy said softly.

"It's in your face. You've got enough misery in those brown eyes to break a mother's heart. Sometimes it's easier to tell a caring stranger than the people who are too close."

"What kind of girl wants a man who doesn't love her?" Walter asked, brows drawing down.

"A girl that's been abused by the people she should have trusted most," Thomas said flatly. "Her dad and her uncle. They shared her, since she was six."

"Oh my God." Cathy put her hand to her mouth.

"The father's dead, the uncle took off a few years back, so she's got no one but my family. My mother took her under her wing at fifteen. She thinks it's divine destiny.

Daralyn worked in the store one summer and I'm the only man she trusts. She doesn't want...a normal relationship. Ever. She wants a friend to keep her company, protect her. And I do love her, like that. I can do that.

"My brother's in a wheelchair. I know he could do more, he's milking it, but if I'd been there... And my father, his heart attack. My mother feels... And I'd..." He couldn't go on, was appalled he'd just blurted this all out. The sensation of being unable to breathe was closing in, but he had to say the last words because they were the ones erupting into flame in a line from his gut to esophagus, the ones he'd also been unable to say to anyone.

"And I'd rather cut out my own heart than hurt Marcus, but he's the only one I think will be okay. I mean, look at him. He'll never lack for someone to love him. He's got money, power, everything he does turns to gold. How can I give myself that when my mother is still crying herself to sleep, and the bills are coming in?"

"So is the issue your family needing you, or you not being able to believe someone like Marcus can need you as much?" Cathy asked quietly.

"Maybe he needs you more."

Thomas turned, surprised at both comments. Sometime during his diatribe, Walter had risen, gone to the sink. Now he leaned on it, chewing on a toothpick, studying Thomas. He'd given the sketches a cursory look, obviously uncomfortable with the male/male subject material, turning them quickly over to Cathy, but now there was nothing evasive in his expression. Wryly, Thomas was starting to get the feeling that still waters ran deep in Walter, that his slow talking and watchful demeanor masked a man who did a lot of thinking.

"Your family trusts you enough to show they need you. That tells me they know they can count on you, that they're pretty solid about your love for them. Yeah, that one outside is pretty and put together like one of those fancy ads, but did you notice how my Cathy has a spot of juice on her dress? Her hair's a little messed up today too."

"Walter Briggs." She began to push at her hair, but he straightened and caught one of her hands, stilling her. All the while keeping his gaze pinned on Thomas. "When you know you're worth loving, you can be a little imperfect. Hell, look at me - a lot imperfect. It makes all the difference in the world when you believe someone loves you enough that they don't overlook the spot and the messed up hair. They just add it to the things about you that make them love you all the more.

"He's too damn perfect. You were thinking he left this room because it reminds him you're going home and what you're going home to. Maybe." Walter shrugged. "But maybe it's also that he's looking at something he thinks he's never going to have. He said his family is in this room. That's you and only you. And you're not staying. So he's got nothing but those perfect looks that can't in a million years make him believe he deserves a good-hearted man like you."

"But I can't abandon - "

"Young people don't listen. They think it's all about the grandiose gesture." Walter made an impatient gesture of his hand even as Cathy made a soothing noise in her throat to calm him down. "That's all about ego. You don't have to abandon anything.

It's about doing what's really hard, day to day. Someone willing to put up with tantrums on both sides and say, 'you're both my family, and we're going to make this work'.

"You don't think he'll stick with you if it gets that messy. From where I'm sitting, it appears you have your heads up your butts. You're as afraid to bring him into your world because it means he might really decide you are some hick, as he is to ask to be invited, for fear of being rejected."

He settled back against the sink, pointed at Thomas with his toothpick as if it were the finger of God.

"Get over it, the both of you. If you do, maybe you'll be sitting at a breakfast table together like me and Cathy forty years from now, thinking you're the luckiest people ever been born."