CHAPTER SIX #2
“Very nice,” Jago breathed, gently wetting his lips as he extended a hand.
It was an unapologetically lustful gesture, and it hadn’t been forced. What this man saw in him, Alex couldn’t say, but if he didn’t stop searching for it, it would deny him the moment he’d craved with Jago since their first conversation outside the cinema.
“Thanks,” he said, lowering to his knees.
Jago reached out and stroked his cheek. “Now, lie down on your stomach.”
“Sorry?”
“Did you think the massage was just a pretext?” Jago reached for a small pot of creamy ointment on a low shelf just beyond where they sat.
Alex did his best to dismiss the faint stirring this set off in his—lack of pants—and there he was, standing at attention for all to see. But if Jago noticed, he didn’t draw attention to it. Alex quickly rolled over, doing his best to smother the fleshy traitor and get comfortable.
“Just lie in whatever position makes you comfortable. Don’t try and anticipate me, just enjoy it.”
Anticipation? That was one word for it. He’d expected the ointment to be cooler for some reason, but as Jago’s hand wrapped around the middle of his left leg, working the stuff in with smooth, upwards gliding motions that teased the crease of his butt before being repeated, Alex found it impossible to do anything but comply.
Each stroke was methodical, as if Jago had spent impossible years studying the craft.
“Remember to breathe,” he purred, hands reaching the curve of Alex’s shoulder blade.
“Where did you learn this?” He heard a light, playful sigh, as if Jago had started to laugh but had not wanted to make him feel foolish.
He gasped as he felt Jago’s knee slide into the gap between his thighs, just as he pushed his hands along Alex’s back once more, making sure to cover every inch of skin.
“You’re so jumpy,” Jago said. It didn’t bother Alex so much that Jago had avoided his question, not when he swooped down and kissed the back of Alex’s ear. “You have a lovely body, Alex. It’s earthy, natural, and human.”
Alex couldn’t help but tense again, which earned him a playful slap on the rear.
“I won’t harp on it if it makes you uncomfortable, but I do think you need to be told, now and again.” Jago rested his hands on the small of Alex’s back for a second. “You seriously never thought someone would?”
The question caught Alex by such complete surprise, he barely noticed the massage continue, or Jago pressing harder, slipping his hands down both flanks. “I don’t know that I never thought that.”
“There’s nothing wrong with having fears. Some would say it’s crucial. The fear of never being loved? Never being desired? Feeling like your creativity and vision isn’t wanted, even in a city that seems open to everything? Rejection is a universal fear.”
Alex winced as Jago pressed into the soles of his feet. At least the pain took away any tickling sensation. “How do you know that?”
“Because I’ve never known a creative who doesn’t feel it.
Then, along come the cackling cynics and sycophants.
Like flies they attach themselves to whoever they think is the hippest big thing, but they buzz away again just as soon as they get bored or feel threatened, since they may be the only creatures on earth less secure than the artists they haunt.
Don’t change your flavour for them. The last thing you need to become is another Si-Man. Turn over.”
“Already?”
“I want to see your eyes.”
Alex did as he was told, silently trying to read what Jago was thinking inside that enviably curious brain.
Alex wrinkled his face in confusion as Jago eased himself forward, lifting Alex’s leg and placing it over his shoulder while he applied more of the ointment to the front of Alex’s thighs.
It seemed so absurdly intimate, yet it felt good, having Jago pressing into him, sliding his hands toward where their cocks now warmed one another.
He might have been at least semi-erect if Jago weren’t pressing so damn hard into the muscles of his leg.
Alex groaned, breathing through the pain.
“Not big on hamstring stretches, are we?” Jago teased, pausing to let Alex catch his breath before he continued.
“Hey, not all of us were raised by athletes as some are raised by wolves.”
Jago laughed at that. “Flatterer. Good genes and sit-ups.”
“Sit-ups? I thought it was—”
“You do realise I’m feeling just a touch objectified right now?”
“Sor—Ow!” Alex started as Jago squeezed a point high on the inside of his leg.
“Sorry,” they said together, before laughing again.
“I just haven’t known many artsy folk who are so…” Alex searched for a word that wouldn’t make his host feel objectified. “You know, other than dancers.”
“Yes, well, your Joanna and I share some interests. But it’s as I told you. I am the person I am. Where possible, I’ve put time and energy into becoming the person I wish to be. I don’t know what else to tell you.”
“You don’t have to tell me anything. Sorry, I don’t mean to… just drop it.”
“I will, after I thank you for the compliment.” Jago shifted his weight, lowered Alex’s leg and picked up the other one, assuming the same position on the other side.
“What brought you to the movie the other night?” Alex asked, eager to switch the subject as easily as they’d switched legs.
“Didn’t I tell you? I’ve seen the director’s band, and his drag. I liked both. Why should I not see his movie?”
“It was pretty great, huh?”
“No.”
“Hmm?”
“It was good, but not great. He’ll make much greater, I promise you.”
“You seem very sure of that.” Alex winced with pain, prompting Jago to pause again.
“He is that rarest of people who despite all their fears of rejection, somehow catch lightning in a bottle. Lorca had that. Cervantes had it. Goya and Velazquez had it.” A sneer cross Jago’s face. “Bunuel and Dali had it, though what they’ve done with it since… Christ!”
“You’re not a Dali fan, I take it?”
“I was once. Of Bunuel too, but Bunuel is a pompous arse and a subtle bigot beneath all his noble bluster, while Salvad…” Jago trailed off, setting Alex’s leg down again and applying more of the ointment to Alex’s lower legs and feet before repositioning himself to work Alex’s shoulders.
“It doesn’t matter. The world loves them now. ”
“If you’re about to tell me that you and Dali are on a first-name basis, I’ll believe it.”
Jago suppressed a laugh, slipping his hands across the curves of Alex’s collarbone until he began working the muscle of his outer chest. “Did you know they made a film about Lorca? The two of them, I mean, Bunuel and Dali.”
“You mean a documentary?”
“No. A short horror film. Experimental, I suppose you’d call it. It was not very flattering.”
“No? I thought they were friends.”
“You don’t name a work Un Chien Andalou in honour of a man you call a friend.”
Alex’s French was rusty, but it was close enough to the Spanish that he understood. “An Andalusian Dog?”
Jago nodded solemnly as he finished up his steady sweeps on Alex’s chest and turned his attention to his arms. “Can you imagine calling him a dog? A provincial poser, fresh off the farm? They denied it, of course; dismissed it as a silly joke, but the title has nothing to do with the film, so there’s little one can say to defend them. You’ve noticed it, I’m sure.”
“Noticed what?”
“The way some of them talk to you… or don’t.
How nice it is that you, a farm boy, want to be creative while the hipper-than-thou continually ignore you or treat your work as something to suffer through or worse, ignore?
The gatekeeping by these self-appointed taste-makers?
” Jago made a retching sound. “Thankfully, they’re a minority.
Most people want to see you succeed for no other reason than they like good shows.
You just need some of your people to notice you.
The others will follow. That’s why you should have said hello to him the other night. ”
“To the director? I wouldn’t know what to say.”
“Tell him you liked the film. My god, it’s praise. It doesn’t have to be original, just genuine. The second you start posing, then you become a poser.”
“I suppose so.” Alex moaned with satisfaction as Jago took hold of his hand and worked the ointment into the spaces between his fingers. “But what’s that got to do with Lorca? An Andalusian Dog?”
“Because it can take hundreds and hundreds of compliments to build us up and one shitty act of spite to destroy us. Just one nasty bitch, eagerly awaiting a failure. Or one who wants to make a movie mocking you.”
“You’re sure that wasn’t just spite from a bitter ex? You said Dali and Lorca—”
“I suppose that’s possible. All this to say, I understand your anxiety. How it’s paralysed your show. But it will get better, I promise you. Joanna doesn’t suffer the same fears. Strange, in that way, among others. It’s like she’s an older soul.”
“Umm… thanks, I think?”
“Would I be here now, with you, if I was lying? Listen, my little bundle of high tension and insecurity, you belong here. You’ve every right to do this work and have it seen, and don’t let anyone tell you differently.
” Jago smeared a little more of the ointment onto Alex’s face.
Alex sighed with pleasure as Jago slid his hands down the length of his body one last time, slipping them between Alex’s thighs and smearing his now unapologetically attentive genitals with the ointment.
“In the words of the cunning Shylock, ‘since I am a dog, beware my fangs.’”
Alex opened his eyes to see the Jago grinning in all toothy glory as his dark, handsome features hovered above him. “To the dogs of Andalusia.”
“To all of us Andalusia dogs.” Jago gave him a quick, wet lick on the nose. “Woof.”
“Woof,” Alex replied, now grinning too. “Woof, woof.”