Talker's Graduation

as lovers and
    students, Talker knew that he was more than ready to simply be
    living with his lover and ditch the whole „student‟ part of that lifestyle
    choice.
    And now, school was almost out and Tate was slipping into
    the darkened gallery. He liked it when it was dark and empty—
    some nights he and Brian would kiss, soft and hot, in the back far
    corner where no one could see them, surrounded by shelves upon
    shelves of delicate, grotesque, or stunning artwork. He‟d told Brian
    one night that it made their touches seem like poetry, and he‟d
    been so enraptured by the glowing lights in their little alcoves and
    the graceful, flying lines of the sculptures that he didn‟t even feel
    silly saying it.
    Brian must have liked those words because he sank down to
    his knees, right there in the gallery, and took Talker‟s body into his
    mouth. It was the most daring, public thing they‟d ever done, and it
    didn‟t feel profane or risky or even voyeuristic. It felt… beautiful.
    With Brian, those sculptures were like extensions of his
    beautiful, simple soul, and when Talker drove their beat-to-shit
    Toyota to the gallery from Gatsby‟s Nick, the nightclub where he
    worked, he always entered the gallery like it was a shrine.
    Talker’s Graduation | Amy Lane
    27

    This night, he heard two voices and winced. The gallery was
    closed, which meant that the side with the sculptures and the cash
    register stand was dark and the other side, the side with the pottery
    wheel and the kiln and all of the clay and glazes, was still well lit.
    The voices were coming from that way, and through the entry
    between the two sides of the shop, Talker could see Brian‟s face.
    He looked extremely uncomfortable.
    Skeezy perv Olenbacher was there, and he was being extra
    persuasive.
    “Come on, Brian, you‟ve rubbed that shoulder about six times
    already. Just let me—”
    “Talker will rub it when he comes to pick me up,” Brian said
    shortly, and then Tate watched him jerk away. Skeezy was right
    next to him, following him with that insinuation into his personal
    space that made Talker want to gag.
    “Brian, come on. I mean… I mean, look at the guy. I know you
    want to be faithful and loyal and everything, but seriously—he‟s just
    holding you back!”
    Tate cringed. Oh God. It was true. Brian with his steady, solid
    perseverance was going to graduate from college and Tate, with
    his mercurial flashes of brilliance, was not. Brian had the job of his
    dreams and Tate was still a bar back for a nightclub, a job that
    didn‟t hold nearly the allure it had three years before when he
    started. What the hell was Brian doing with him anyway, when he
    had this older, wiser, richer man, trying to rub his shoulder and give
    him art shows and—
    “Shut up!” Brian snapped, and Talker flinched, because he
    wasn‟t sure he‟d ever heard Brian that angry before. He‟d known it
    could happen—Brian had been attacked because his buried temper
    had surfaced like an iceberg and savaged the person who had hurt
    Talker—but he‟d never actually seen his lover in a black fury.
    Talker’s Graduation | Amy Lane
    28

    He couldn‟t have given himself away if someone stepped on
    his toe. He had to see what Brian did next.
    “Brian, nothing against the guy—”
    Talker‟s breath turned to a brick in his lungs as he heard the
    thump and rattle of a slight man being shoved against an empty
    pottery rack. “You say one more word about him,” Brian said softly,
    “and you can forget the show, you can forget my pieces, you can
    forget the whole damned thing. I‟ll go back to the Olive Garden and
    go back to sculpting on my kitchen table, do you hear me?”
    “Okay,” Orenbacher said, making an admirable attempt at
    dignity. “Fine. I get it. Throw yourself away on a skinny punk with a
    tattoo fetish and enough metal to—”
    “Fuck off, Mark,” Brian said coldly. Talker watched Brian
    appear in the doorway again and then disappear. He was going
    back to where pieces were stacked after their first trip through the
    kiln. He couldn‟t see what Brian was doing there, but he heard a
    rustle, like a tarp being pulled back, and he watched his gentle, kind
    lover give a glare over his shoulder that would have sent Talker
    screaming into the next year.
    “You want to see who he is to me? You keep being shitty
    about him, and you won‟t listen to my words. I suck at words. The
    only one I can ever talk to is him. But I‟m