Better to Love

Better to Love
by Scriba Ecrivien

This story is meant to be free. If you have paid for this story, you have been cheated.
Better to Love is a story of love and sex between two men. If you did not realize this when you opened it, my feelings won't be hurt if you decide it's not your cup of tea. If it is not your cup of tea, I expect you to quietly go somewhere else without sending me any nasty e-mails. All nasty e-mails will be folded into paper shurikens and thrown into your forehead for an outerskull lobotomy.
This is a graphic story! It describes all sorts of naughty bits and sexual acts! If you are under 18, you should not be reading this story! There are many wonderful non sexual stories you can be reading instead that are just as fulfilling as this one. The chapter titles are taken from the titles of paintings done by Vincent Van Gogh and Pablo Picasso.
This story belongs to Scriba Ecrivien. The characters are mine and the world is mine. However, should you like to use these characters or world, simply write me an e-mail, and I will gladly give you permission. Now, let's get started, shall we?

Chapter One
Self Portrait

The first time we made love, it was more his choice than mine. He began to kiss me in that slow, melting way of his, and I lost track of what was happening. The next thing I knew, I was lying in his bed, naked and scared. As he continued on, kissing my neck and leaving little bruises there, I kept saying, “No. Don't.”, though even I knew that I didn't really want him to stop. His hands felt hot and wonderful on my bare skin, and his tongue kept flickering over my ear in a way that made the left side of my jaw go numb. I never knew anything could feel so good. It was a tragedy that I hated myself for it.
It was even more a tragedy that I hated him for it.

My name is Erikson Gartner, and, even though it's forbidden by the gods of Rowen, I'm what's called De'Brash – I like the 'company' of other men. Even now, after all that's happened, it's hard for me to say it out loud. After all, I was taught my entire life that being 'Dee' – short for De'Brash – is wrong and a sin against Tabc, my peoples' god of Creation. The worship of our gods is pretty strict, but then again, most traditions are pretty strict in Rowen.
Rowen is the Westernmost continent of our world, Aoidr, and it's considered one of the most conservative. The country I live in is called The Commonwealth of Rowen or 'COR' for short. It's a small country. We only have two big cities, Airenton and Tistram. Our culture runs on a caste system, and people like me simply don't live on Tistram except for in special circumstances. You see, Tistram is very special. It's a large, floating island that's about twenty miles up from Airenton. Only wealthy politicans are allowed to live there.
I was born into The Lowly, the second to the lowest caste in COR. There are five castes: The Touched, The Immaculate, The Medial, The Lowly and The Forgotten. Sometimes, I wish I'd been born into The Forgotten caste. No one expects anything of you there, and if you're lucky, you're born a slave. Then you're just taken care of by a rich family for the rest of your life.
But life is life, and you're born where you're born. I come from a long line of 'Lowlies', five generations, to be exact. My great, great, great grandfather was a doctor and a Medial, but he wasn't a very good one. He lost all of his money in several malpractice suits, and a judge finally condemned him and his offspring to The Lowly caste. My father was always very bitter about it. Then again, my father was bitter about most things.
I guess Dad was what you'd call an alcoholic. When I was little, he was usually okay, but as I got older, he seemed to be drinking more and more. When he drank, he got a temper. When I was six years old, he hit my mother for the first time. We'd been out all day sneaking around this apple orchard that some Medial lawyer owned. It had been a good day. My father kept putting me on his shoulders so that I could reach the apples, then we'd sit underneath the trees and eat them, laughing. He was capable of that sort of thing sometimes, but usually, I was a little afraid of him. When we got home to our small, two bedroom apartment, my dad went to the fridge and immediately began to drink beer. It was always beer. My mother had been busy all day, and so dinner wasn't ready. He seemed okay with it, but an hour later, after he put away a full six pack to find that dinner still wasn't ready, he just hit her. I was standing in the living room, just a few feet away from them. He hit her hard enough to knock her over.
Looking back on it, maybe that wasn't the first time my mother ever got hit. Maybe it was just the first time he did it in front of me. For a long time, I thought maybe she deserved it, just like I thought I deserved it when he turned his attention on me. Then, when I was ten, I realized that neither of us deserved it – my father was just a drunk with a bad temper. After that, I started doing things to keep him away from her. If he was yelling at her, I'd break a lamp or something, anything to get him to start hitting me instead. I suppose it should have been my mother doing that for me, but I guess she was just too weak.
Perhaps I shouldn't speak poorly about the dead. I suppose I'm just now starting to get angry about it. And after all, he's been dead for six years. When I was sixteen years old, psoriasis took him from us. I cried when he died, but I never really missed him. It was a relief to be rid of him. I would never say that to my mother, though. She fell apart when my father died. All her life, she'd been taking orders from people. She was a maid, you see, and I suppose she married Dad because he would order her around just like her employers did. When she no longer had my dad around to give her orders, she just stopped living.
Sure, she kept going to work, but I took charge of cooking and cleaning, and I never saw her smile or laugh after he died. She didn't date anyone, either, and I don't think she ever will. At that point, though, I think she hated me. She changed the way she acted toward me when I was twelve years old. It was the year I was caught.

There was this boy who went to the public schools with me. I don't really remember his name, but I think it started with a 'J'. I was curious like any other boy my age, and I was starting to realize that I was very different. Most of the guys in my class either had or wanted girlfriends. I wasn't that interested in girls. Instead, I found myself becoming attracted to other boys. 'J' confirmed that. He was sort of the 'bad seed' type, always acting out and always getting in trouble. Even though his parents were as poor as mine, they spoiled him to no end. I was always shy, and his attention flattered me, even though I was unsure of it. It didn't matter what I thought of it, though. 'J' always got his way, and I was a little afraid of him.
Maybe that's why I never said 'no' to him when we started to experiment together. It was nothing out of the ordinary – just ordinary childhood curiosity. All the same, I was old enough to know that this kind of relationship was forbidden, and my nights were filled with nightmares about the gods themselves striking me down. I refused to go outside in lightning storms, convinced that I would be hit by a bolt sent from a vengeful god. Saraid, the god of the Reborn, whom all of The Lowly are required to worship, hates anyone who's Dee. At least, that's what The Immaculate – the caste of priests and priestesses – say about him. My mother had always been a devout worshipper, and I was becoming just as devout as she was. Needless to say, it was a confusing time.
Anyway, he and I were hiding in my room and kissing when my mother just happened to walk in. She immediately called my father, and I knew I was in for it. 'J' was sent home, and I wished I had the luxury of leaving as well. I don't like to talk about it much, but suffice it to say that I had quite a few bruises to hide for the next several weeks after that.

Ever since then, my relationship with my mother changed. It was alright, though. We'd never been particularly close. I think she blamed me for the struggles they went through. After all, without a child to support, they would have had a lot more money on their hands. Maybe they could have even gone on vacations now and then. It's not that I hate myself, not anymore, it's just that it's the truth, and I can't blame them for disliking me when I look at things from their point of view.
Because I wanted them to be proud of me, and I wanted to show that I could pull my own weight, I always tried my best to make good grades. I don't mean to brag, but I usually made A's and B's. The only 'C' I ever got was in gym class. I was never very athletic. I'm built kind of scrawny, and I'm not very tall. Only 5'8. Some girls are taller than I am. Speaking of which, I've been told I look like a girl. I've even been mistaken for one more then once. Maybe if I wore my hair really short, but I like it the way it is. It reaches to a little past my ears, and I wear it messy. It's so dark brown that it looks black. I guess I sound pretty vain, but I've always sort of been proud of my looks. I have long eye lashes framing light green eyes with brown flecks in them and what he used to call a 'cherubic face' that most girls would kill for. My legs are long, too. He used to say that if I dressed up like a girl, no one would be able to guess there was really a man under the clothes. The thing he used to say he liked the most was my nose because it was just slightly upturned. He said it made me adorable.
This story is about him. Well, it's about us and what we were to each other for six wonderful months. I suppose now that you know a little about me, I should start from the beginning.

I was what my art teacher in high school called 'promising'. I loved to draw, paint, sculpt and even work with pottery. I always had a hard time seeing if what I did was any good, but Mr. Dovins was always honest. He'd tell me what he thought of it without rose-colored glasses. Sometimes, I didn't like what he had to say, but I took it to heart, anyway, and I took his advice. He was sure I'd go to one of the greatest art colleges in COR.
When I graduated high school, I wanted more than anything to go to one of those colleges. Even though I knew it was impossible, I started looking into scholarships and asking my mother about it. I thought that if I had enough information on the scholarships I could get, my mother would have to say she'd help me. She couldn't. Well, that's not true. I'm sure if she really wanted to, she could make ends meet. If we were both working, we could have afforded it with enough scholarships. She just didn't like the idea of me leading a better life than she did. But that's alright. Everyone's a little selfish.
All the same, I couldn't give up on the idea of college. There was a great art school on the floating city, Tistram, called Tistram University of the Arts. My grades were good enough to get in, and being Lowly wouldn't get me turned away. By law, all public universities had to accept members of all castes except The Forgotten. I would later find out that being accepted by the univserity and being accepted by your teachers and fellow students are two totally different things.
At any rate, halfway through the summer, I was beginning to give up on the idea of college when I got this strange letter in the mail. Inside was a letter of acceptance from Tistram College saying that my tuition and housing fees were taken care of. I would have a place to stay, access to every part of the campus except places off limits to students and a meal plan that would feed me three times a day. I couldn't believe it. It was too good to be true. In fact, it had to be a mistake. That afternoon, I called the University admissions office and spoke with a representative.
The woman on the phone was nice, and I guessed from her accent that she was from a Lowly family in Airenton as well. It turned out, we'd known each other in elementary school, though not very well. She informed me that it was no mistake that I'd been accepted, and that an anonymous patron who was interested in my art had paid my way. They had his information, but they were forbidden to give that kind of information out to protect the patron's finances. It was too much for me, especially when I found out I didn't even need my mother's permission to go. I made up my mind then and there. I was going to make a better life for myself and my mother.
The only thing left to do was to tell her. Orientation was only a week away, and so she had to know immediately. When she got home from work that night, I was sitting in the kitchen waiting for her. Dinner was ready, as always, and I waited until she had fixed a plate and gotten halfway through the meal. I meant to broach the subject subtly, to catch her off-guard. Instead, I just blurted out, “I found a way into college. You won't have to pay a thing, and I'm going no matter what.”
She'd been in the middle of a bite of food, and she began to choke on it. I started to help her, but she finally managed to get it down and take a few breaths. When she was ready, she said, in a dangerously calm voice. “You're not going.”
I wasn't going to be deterred. In the past, her word was law, but not anymore. “Mom... I'm eighteen years old now. I can make my own decisions, and this is the one I want to make. It's Tistram University, and it's all taken care of.”
“How?” She gave me a patronizing smile.
“A patron. Someone who likes my art. You know I was in a couple of art shows in highschool, and apparently someone with money saw a few of my pieces at one.” I was speaking too quickly, so I slowed down and began to speak purposefully. “I want to make my life better. I want to make your life better even more. Give me your blessing in this.”
She was quiet for a long time, and she looked torn between anger and sadness. I realized then why she didn't want me to go to college. We'd never been apart before, even for a day. Even if she didn't like me, I was the only connection to my father she had. “Mom.” I said, in as soft and understanding a voice as I could muster. “I'll come home every weekend. It's not very far away. The college has its own airship system and everything. It'll be easy to get home. Besides... When I'm a rich and famous painter, I'll give you jewelry and nice clothes... Maybe even buy a car. Everything we could never afford before. I'll buy you a big house with servants, and maybe I'll even be able to afford a slave for you.”
Tears filled her eyes, but at last, she nodded. “You want this so badly? Fine, you go and do it. But just know this, you little ingrate. If you leave this house, I don't want to ever see you again.”
She got up and left the room after that, leaving me to clean up after dinner. Her words hurt me, but I was sure she'd change her mind as soon as I started making money. I didn't care if she didn't want my affection. I'd give her the world.
The next week, I was on an airship headed to orientation.