A gay story: Daphne Daphne
Daniel checks his phone. Fifteen minutes – he really should get out of here. Last time he was late Saul had been less than pleased, pursing those thin lips and thrusting black hair streaked with grey away from his forehead in irritation. The artist had a short fuse where time-keeping was concerned, not really surprising when you pay models by the hour. Daniel finishes his drink, waves to the barman, and saunters out of the air-con bliss of the bar into the banging heat of the summer. His t-shirt sticks to his back immediately, sweat prickles his scalp, and everyone looks ready to drop. He relishes the thought of taking his clothes off even though he knows the studio itself will be stifling, but Saul works with body paint all the time and is usually generous with the shower.
He rings the bell and the familiar voice, rough from god knows how many cigarettes a day, greets him and buzzes him in. Daniel treks up the thin staircase, feeling the season’s oppression getting worse the closer he gets to Saul’s fourth floor studio. When he enters, a brief, dry breeze hits him from the open windows and he sucks the air in gratefully even as it’s tinged with the smell of Marlboro Lights and turpentine. Saul raises a hand, already engrossed in flipping through a pad full of sketches. Daniel notes the button-down stained with splotches of paint, the ancient Levi’s that are more hole than blue, and the man’s tanned bare feet on the floorboards. The hair on his forearms seems particularly dark contrasted with the white cotton of his shirt, and Daniel finds himself staring at them.
‘I think…’ Saul says distractedly, ‘I would like to paint you as Apollo over the next week or so, you know who that is?’
Daniel tears his gaze away, running a hand through his own short, peroxide blond hair. It’s the heat, he tells himself. ‘Some old god?’
Saul snorts, half amused, half irritated. ‘Some old god! Only one of the greatest gods of the ancient world; master of art, healing, poetry and light.’
Daniel’s mouth curls in a wry smile as he pulls off his t-shirt. ‘I didn’t get a classical education.’
‘Oh I don’t know,’ now it’s Saul’s turn to smile as he finally turns around, and Daniel notices how it softens the hard sea-blue of his eyes. ‘I think all men of our persuasion have something of the classicist in them, you know.’ He flicks his eyes over Daniel’s slim frame with a practised, detached look.
‘Feel free to jump in the shower before we begin, what are they saying it is out there, high thirties?’
‘It’s enough,’ Daniel says, shucking off his jeans and heading to the basic studio bathroom, so small he can barely turn around in it. As he groans with relief under the cool water, he finds his thoughts drawn back to the man in the next room. Daniel knows he isn’t imagining the desire in Saul’s eyes when he paints him, the more than professional interest. Strange to be naked by the hour under those hungry looks…more than once he’s dreamed that Saul has laid down his brushes and come to him where he’s posed, put his tongue in his mouth and his hands on his body, smearing his arse and chest and cock with green, blue, and crimson. He always wakes flustered and dripping from those dreams. Saul really isn’t his type, but he has a certain…magnetism. Even dishevelled and chain-smoking, with his lined face and untidy hair. What is it Jack from the bar says? ‘A type is just a trauma response you heal with the fourth drink.’ If Saul appeared now and stepped into the shower, ran his wide, sun-browned hands over Daniel’s body and worked a thick finger inside him, would he resist? He really doubts it.
It’s so hot he doesn’t even need to towel off, and he simply slicks back his wet hair, grins at his own brown-eyed reflection in the mirror, and walks into the room naked. He’s immediately handed a long and surprisingly heavy bow. Saul grins, flashing his strong teeth. ‘It would have been a lyre but they’re quite hard to get hold of, I don’t have a quiver of arrows either but I can probably paint one in if I’m desperate.’
He guides Daniel into a standing pose and gives him an apologetic look. ‘I know, it’s unfair in this heat, but I promise we’ll take a lot of breaks,’ he says, wandering back to the easel, taking a swig of water from a bottle on the floor.
‘You have got to get that air-con unit repaired.’ Daniel grumbles, relaxing into the pose, feeling his hair already drying.
‘Seeing as you’re feeling woefully uneducated today, I’ll tell you a famous tale of Apollo,’ the artist drawls with a gently mocking smile as he begins to mix his colours. ‘Seeing Eros – the young god of love – stringing his bow, Apollo laughed at him, saying “What are you doing with a man’s weapons?” Eros, understandably stirred to anger, let loose two rather special arrows in revenge…One was golden and caused irrepressible love and desire in the heart of whoever it struck, the other was of lead, and caused the repulsion of that same desire.’
Saul begins to quickly sketch an outline, eyes darting between Daniel and the canvas. ‘Naturally, Eros guided the arrow of love into the heart of the god who had mocked him, and the other landed in a beautiful nymph and follower of the wild goddess Artemis – that’s Apollo’s sister and an infamous feral lesbian – called Daphne.’
Daniel feels sweat already beginning to trickle down his sides as he holds the position, the bow in his hand feeling heavier by the second as Saul keeps talking, drawing the lines of his body with deft familiarity.
‘Now, Daphne had sworn never to marry although her father, a river god, had warned her that her exquisite beauty would make it hard to remain chaste. When Apollo – who was a lover of both men and women by the way – saw her, he was struck with his dart of love, instantly obsessed and vowing to make her his.’
Saul stops suddenly, pulling the shirt sticking to his body away for an instant. ‘Do you mind horribly if I take this off? I think I’m dying in here.’
‘Sure,’ Daniel says, voice already cracking in the dry air, and he watches as Saul tosses the shirt into a corner. The older man’s chest is broad and covered with the same dark hair as his forearms. He’s not toned by any stretch of the imagination, but there is an uncompromising solidity to him that is impressive. He remembers his dreams and imagines the firm bulk of that body crushing his own, forcing him against the wall with its flaking paint or onto the desk covered in sketches. He imagines Saul leaving big charcoal thumbprints on his pale skin, smears of dusty black on his mouth and thighs and between the firm cheeks of his arse. He feels his cock stiffen and twitch, and a blush roars in his cheeks. Daniel closes his eyes against the sensation, trying to concentrate on the burn growing in the muscles of his arms where he holds the bow. When he dares open them again, he finds his stare being returned with one raised brow.
The artist grins. ‘Don’t worry, it’s quite appropriate for virile Apollo.’
Daniel swallows his embarrassment down hard, parched throat almost painful. It makes him cough, and Saul twists open his bottle of water and walks over slowly.
‘Daphne, naturally horrified at the god’s attentions, fled into the forest…No, don’t break the pose,’ he says, and gently tips the bottle to Daniel’s lips. He sips it gratefully, watching the other man watch the supple movement of his throat, and when Saul brushes a drop of water from Daniel’s lip with his thumb, he fights to urge to suck it, even turns his head a little before he can stop himself. A delicious, tight heat builds in his balls even as the man’s sudden proximity makes him a little uneasy. His lungs feel too small. Saul smiles as though he can read his mind.
‘Too vulnerable for a young god, somehow more pursued than pursuer,’ he says, his voice suddenly rough with want. ‘Perhaps that makes me Apollo today.’
‘I don’t think it makes me Daphne,’ Daniel says, glancing down as his cock swells eagerly and Saul moves behind him. The back of his neck feels suddenly electrified.
‘Just as well where I’m concerned’ Saul murmurs, sounding very close. ‘But none of Apollo’s young men have quite such a wonderful story, so, if I may return to our poor nymph…’
Daniel’s breath stutters as the artist presses himself against his back. The hair on his forearms stands up, he wants to curl his toes. The weave of Saul’s jeans against his own naked thighs feels stupidly intense, as though he could feel every thread against him. He hears his own breathing coming hard in the still studio air. How much does he want this? This cool-eyed man who stares at his body with that disturbing mix of desire and detachment? Saul runs his hands down Daniel’s arms where they grip the bow hard, creating a tight shiver across his shoulder blades. Drawing them back up, he explores the younger man’s body, brushing over his nipples, the ticklish skin of his stomach, the firm curve of his arse. He digs his short nails briefly into Daniel’s hips as he continues the story, and Daniel gasps as his dick hardens painfully fast.
‘And now, of course, the chase was on, and the god pursued her relentlessly through the woods, inexhaustible, fixated….No, Daniel, don’t break the pose….He chased her for days until she was at the end of her endurance, like a hound with its teeth bared…’
Saul parts his lips over the tender skin of Daniel’s neck, nips at it sharply, and the sensation combined with the ceaseless movement of those hands over his body makes his head reel. He ruts his hips forward into nothing, moaning as Saul reaches around to tease him with firm, slow strokes. The heat of the room feels like a hand over his mouth.
‘Realising she was about to be overcome, Daphne cried out to her father, that his waters with their divine power might take away the beauty that had damned her, and her feet became rooted to the ground, the skin of a laurel tree racing across her own, leaves sprouting from her hair and tongue…’
Daniel gasps as Saul runs paint-stained fingernails across his lips, still working his cock with those languid movements, fingertips circling the underside of the head, slicking him with his own excitement until Daniel thinks he’ll go mad if he doesn’t come right now. He tries to suck the man’s fingers into his mouth but Saul resists, dragging his nails back and forth until Daniel bites at his own lips to relieve the stimulation. He feels the hard heat of the other man’s cock against him as it strains at those fraying jeans, and he pushes his hips eagerly into the tease of Saul’s fist, making him laugh. The artist’s hand slides from Daniel’s mouth down his chest, he can feel his heart hammering against the palm as Saul goes on in that hypnotic voice:
‘…But still Apollo loved her, even in this state, he grasped her and felt her heart beating furiously underneath the bark, he embraced her even as the branches pushed themselves out of her skin, even as she struggled against the transformation, he kissed the wood as it shrank away from him, he touched her all over as she could not escape…’
Daniel is so transported by the story, by the resonant rhythm of Saul’s voice, that he imagines tendrils pushing forcefully through his own skin. He imagines the rigid bark covering him in a state of fear and arousal, trapping his cock in an ache that could never be relieved. He imagines himself being filled by that same hardness, writhing forever on a root thrusting insistently up into his body. He hears himself moan helplessly, arching his back, thighs trembling, desperate for it. He would take the thick pulse of Saul’s cock now as it rubs against his arse, if the other man wanted to fuck him, he’d take it anywhere he wanted.
‘Please…please…’ he begs, and Saul curls his lips in a smile against the back of his neck.
‘Accepting that the nymph would now never be his, Apollo tells her he will keep her with him always, he will use her leaves to adorn his lyre, her branches for the crowns of victorious kings, he says: “We kiss before we burn, we kiss before we burn”, and the new laurel tree shakes in submission…’
Apollo’s bow finally hits the floor as Daniel reaches up behind him to tangle his hands in Saul’s damp black hair. He hears the humiliating whine in his own throat, his eyes stinging with salt sweat, body slick with it as he strains for release. He can’t breathe properly, he thinks the heat will suffocate him. Saul quickens his pace as Daniel’s heartbeat crashes against his palm, murmuring in his ear again and again:
‘We kiss before we burn…We kiss before we burn…’
Surrendering like Daphne, Daniel’s body tightens unbearably and he squirms and shudders and comes, ecstasy shooting through him, spurting hard over the hot boards of the studio floor. He watches himself as he keeps coming, spilling over Saul’s hand, moaning weakly with pleasure and exhaustion. He falls back against the other man’s chest, who holds him firmly as he swoons; legs shaking, hair plastered to his face.
‘I think…’ Saul says deliberately after a while, as their breathing begins to slow. ‘That we might not get much more done in this session.’
Daniel reaches back for the tortured hardness of Saul’s cock but is gracefully intercepted, and he hears the uncertainty in the artist’s voice as he continues. ‘Frankly, I need a shower myself, but I’d like to continue this piece…if you’ll still sit for me?’
Daniel turns to face him, dazed and laughing. ‘Do you have more stories like that one?’
‘Oh, of course,’ Saul’s eyes are an almost unreal blue now in their intensity, and his breath hitches as Daniel tugs him closer by the waistband of his jeans. ‘You know, all those old gods had very poor impulse control.’
Daniel playfully takes Saul’s lower lip between his teeth, then kisses him with all the passion he can muster with his head still spinning and adrenalin washing out of his body. You never know, he might fall in love with the smell of turpentine, he might even grow to like the taste of cigarettes on the other man’s tongue. One thing’s for certain, it looks like he will get that classical education after all.