Sinning by Default

[Author's note: Yes. I feel incredibly stupid updating this after more than three years]


It was later that same evening but Alex already craved Jack’s touch again. It seemed like he could never get enough. He felt sick yet elated, more alive than he had felt since… since a long time ago, refusing to ruin his almost pleasant mood. He actually felt better than ever, maybe not happier but his body was tingling with anticipation of what might come. He had not even minded the not too veiled taunts from Joshua during dinner; in fact he had barely acknowledged them. Well, at least Nancy seemed pleased with that. He was considering sneaking out, thinking he might get away with it once again. Would Jack think him desperate? Pathetic? No, probably not. He remembered the coarse voice of desire from the afternoon and could not think of a reason that would make Jack refuse him. That was an entirely new high, knowing that someone really wanted you, craved you. It was not something he had experienced before. He had been in the beds, in the arms of many strange men but they had never once cared after gaining that final release from his body. Jack seemed to always want more. He wondered how long it would last, knowing that it wouldn’t be forever. He had learned early in his life that there really was no such thing as love.

But today not even his own musings could depress him and he waited anxiously for night to fall, for the house to fall asleep. It didn’t take to long and soon enough he was breathing refreshing night air, marveling over how easy it all seemed to be.

Jack sat in his coach slowly nursing a bottle of quite fine whisky, and ignoring his own erection as he thought of Alex. It was nice just to contemplate what he would do the next time they were alone together, to only think of pleasures that could come and completely ignoring all thoughts of complications. Right now, everything felt simple enough. They wanted each other and the only obstacle was the fact that Alex had to sneak out to visit him. The rest was just other people’s problems, and he would not let the view of the world get in his way. Jack had always considered the laws of mankind somewhat too restricting and the morals even more so. As an artist it was simply his job to ignore them. Yet of course he would never be stupid enough to flaunt his relationship with a sixteen-year-old boy, who also was his student. He laughed at himself. He was such a hypocrite. He took another swig of the whisky, washing away yet another confusing thought.

At first he thought the knock on his door was an illusion, a hallucination of his liquor soaked mind. But then it repeated itself, more insistently this time and he got up from the couch and headed for the door. His slowly fading erection had once again come to life, hearing the knock as Alex’s. And it was.


Another night of passion, of mismatched limbed interconnecting. They did not exchange many words and Jack had a vague thought that maybe they should but the surprisingly strong legs pulling him closer soon made that thought irrelevant.

When they lay panting and sated next to each other Jack suddenly looked Alex straight in the eyes and said

“Wait here” He scrambled out of bed, stumbling the few first steps.

Alex closed his eyes, drifting of comfortably amongst the soft linens on the bed. But a few minutes later he snapped them open again squinting against the sudden light. He looked at Jack, standing next to the bed, naked with a sketchbook and a few pencils in his hand. Alex smiled and closed his eyes.


Hours later, Jack sat on a chair next to the bed, sketches scattered across the floor, and one, almost perfect drawing in his hand, intimately detailed of Alex’s sleeping face. The boy had slept, seemingly undisturbed, lulled by the rasping of pencils on paper. Jack tongue felt stuck to the roof of his mouth and he felt the beginning of a whiskey headache at the corners of his mind. Putting the suddenly precious piece of paper carefully on the side of the bedside table he lay down carefully next to the sleeping body, putting an arm carefully over a slim waist, feeling velvety skin, tiny soft hairs.


Alex miraculously managed to wake up in time to sneak home. Before leaving he studied the half-passed out man on the bed, twisted in the sheets and his on penciled face repeated on the floor. One of the sketches were carefully placed on a chair next to the bed and he thought that the sleeping face on it looked so much younger than he had ever felt.

The pale light of dawn followed him through the streets, his limbs felt heavy an his heart pounded with a force not necessary for the slow movement of his feet. The day ahead of him seem like an empty desert, void of any meaning. He felt like he had left behind an important part of himself. One of the few good part he still possessed.

The black book beckoned today.

Climbing in unheard felt ridiculously easy and he wondered why this particular route of escape had not occurred to him before. Lack of motivation probably. He considered Jack’s faint stubble scraping against his thigh and almost smiled despite the thickness in his throat and the iron grip his hand had on the pen labeled cadmium red.

The sides of the black book felt slightly rough underneath the tip of his fingers, the red spilling like blood from his pen. The shape of an all too familiar body took shape amongst the red, torn and posed in an impossible angle. Before his own tears could ruin this grotesque image he closed the black book and put it back were it belonged. Hidden amongst the dust like all the other memories he was not supposed to have.


Jack woke with a headache he guessed he deserved, the taste of semen and alcohol mixing unpleasantly on his tongue and traces of graphite covering his hands. He gathered all the sketches with the perfect one on top, already planning its composition in oil. He wished Alex would have woken him before leaving, although he had not expected him to. However, he was sure that he would see the boy soon again. There was simply no other acceptable possibility.

After washing down several pain killers with too strong coffee he headed into his studio feeling exhilaration course through his veins like a drug. He needed no drugs to make him feel like this. All he needed was the beauty of pale skin, of seemingly innocent emerald eyes, the beauty of a young body as it folded beneath his own. He knew that his paintings of Alex would be better than anything he had done before.