Art in Vienna

From: Of Death and Shadow

Six years ago, I was absolutely ecstatic about going to my dream college.
Or, as it was called overseas, university. You see, I had always been
hugely talented in the domain of art, and hugely crippled in all others. I
got through high school somehow, taking art classes at every single time I
could, taking only the mandatory “other” ones. And then, acting on a
spur-of-the-moment decision, I decided to apply for an art university in
Vienna, Austria. Well, originally the intention was just to get to Europe,
but then the choice crystallized through extensive research, and possibly
the sheer spite I always displayed towards my father. He insisted I go to
Paris. I did not want to go to Paris. My father and I had always had a
very…weak…relationship. For the first ten years of my life, he was off
working clear across the States and my mom and uncle and aunt were the
people who raised me. They kept telling me how my father was a man very
dedicated to my well being and wanted to provide everything he could for
me, but I could not get over the fact that he was not there. For me,
materialistic things were not important, but emotions were always sacred.
Towards him, I had none but resentment. When he finally came, and lived
with us (because I still refuse to consider him as belonging in that house)
for seven years, my starting antagonism and his rather strict concept of
how a boy should be raised clashed, and the products were constant fights,
and many tears lost on my side. I never for a moment cared that he might
have lost some tears too. It was his own fault.

My application for the university of art had been an especially trying
time. At first, I filled the standard online application, and then they
wanted to see a sample of my art. So, I sent it. It needed to be sent in
the mail, so it cost me an arm and a leg, naturally. I received an email
from them stating that the artwork had been damaged in the transport, and
asking me to send another. I did. That one, apparently, never came.
Deciding it was futile to trust the post service to do anything properly, I
used the opportunity of my school’s yearly trip to Europe to pay a couple
hundred extra and extend the vacation for three more days, just enough to
deliver the art by myself. As soon as they saw it, they told me that I was
accepted.

After a month of hassling with getting a passport and all the paperwork
done, I was ready to head for Vienna. I loved foreign languages, and
considered myself fluent in French, Italian, and German. The day I came to
Vienna, about four weeks before the start of freshman year, I was acting
high and mighty, nothing could defeat me, I knew German quite well enough
to find my way around the place. What the people who taught me the
language forgot to mention was that the native speakers spoke at a speed
exponentially greater than anything one might get the chance to practice.
I was utterly lost. People laughed at my accent and the time it took me to
figure out how to get the grammar to work, and then even more so when I
stared at them with a bovine expression, trying to replay their words in
slow motion within the confines of my mind.

After the first week, however, I was starting to get the hang of it. At
the time, I was staying in a rather run-down hotel, and even that was
burning holes in my wallet. I realized that if I were to survive in this
place, I would either need to make colossal amounts of money, or find an
apartment and a roommate…or five. I placed an ad in the paper, stating
that I was a freshman in college and needed a roommate to share an
apartment with, and giving the rough outline of what areas of the city
suited me. I got a response, and I moved in with a girl named Gabi. We
lived in the same apartment throughout my freshman year, during which my
German had improved greatly, and so had my skills at painting, sculpting,
music, singing, and almost any other discipline available.

When the year was out, however, Gabi kicked me out, her boyfriend moving
in. This time, it was not as bad as when I first came. I could
communicate my way through daily life, and my artwork was quickly getting
the acclaim that it almost immediately had back in the States. I do not
intend to boast, but I really am good at what I do.

Second year in college was spent cruising between small studios and sharing
apartments with random people, on a few occasions really weird, disturbing
people. I sold my artwork here and there, and soon quite a number of
coffee shops had at least one of my drawings posted. I spent most of my
time in the beautiful parks, or just walking among those wonderful
buildings of the city. Naturally, Stephansplatz was the place I spent most
of my afternoons, drawing the passing tourists, and my addiction to coffee
and cozy places was more than quelled by the bountiful cafes sprawled all
over the city.

And so, with an air of careless disregard for a permanent residence, third
year rolled in. This time, I knew I needed to find a permanent solution.
The projects I had to do for school were no longer as easily moved as those
of the first two years. My ad was in the paper again, but this time no one
had been answering. For a while, I lived in the dorm, but that place was
way too loud and crowded to be able to actually concentrate on creation. A
man finally answered my ad, called me, and told me that I needed to pay for
half the rent on the apartment, and he would let me stay for as long as I
pleased. Jumping at the opportunity, I disregarded the perverse sum of
money that was required for the apartment and answered that I would be
delighted. My first and last month’s pay was barely gathered from the
money I had on me, and I quickly scuttled to find a job. I did, in one of
my favorite cafes very close to Stephansdom. The reason I got the job at
this exclusive place was that some of my art was hanging on their walls,
and I once painted a portrait of the owner’s eight year old daughter, free
of charge. The kid was such a sweet thing; there was no way I could have
made them pay for it. So, the owner decided to pay me back by hiring me
when he saw me cruising from café to café and coming out of each one more
crestfallen than the previous.

It worked out for several months, since the person I was sharing the
apartment with ended up being gone most of the time, and when he was
around, he strictly held to his half of the apartment. He himself had
arranged the place as almost two separate, completely independent
apartments, and apparently his major source of income was, in fact, the
rent. The rent equaled half the price for which he bought the place, so
over the months the money just piled. I knew always that the price was
very steep, but I had no alternative.

I must digress from the story now, for it is about time the reader received
a description of what I looked like at that time. My hair was thin and
silky, very soft, and fell to about halfway down my shoulder blades.
Indeed, I had not been immune to the stereotype of the artist. Its color,
before I started dying it at a later age, was pitch black, as dark as the
night, and I usually wore it in a loose pony tail. I had one of those
elongated, thin faces people often seemed to describe as having distinct
lupine features, and my smile, without false modesty, had always been
absolutely dazzling. It just lit my face up, some would say. When I
originally came to Vienna, I had been rather chubby, but the lack of money
emaciated me quite a bit, and when it rolled in, it was the loss of the
snacking habits that preserved the narrow hips and lack of fat. I started
working out, and soon began frequenting the college campus just to
participate in the sports, whether casual or competitive. From that, I got
a rock hard six pack and slightly pronounced pectorals, but my biceps were
threatening to rip most of the shirts I had. Somehow, I always ended up
helping people carry heavy objects this way and that. I had very long and
very muscular legs. The most striking feature I had, however, was my eyes.
One was green, and the other blue. Apparently, it was a misprint in my
DNA, but I never objected to its existence. It made people stare at me,
and the attention was most welcome. I always loved being given attention,
it’s just the kind of person I grew to be. Now, I return to the story.

One day I was waiting tables and wishing it would be over soon, since the
café was so full that there were strangers sitting at the same tables, just
to get a spot. It was mid-November, and everyone was trying to hide from
the sudden blizzard. It was falling down like heaven itself had started
crying upon Earth. There was a grand total of four of us that day, and
each got a room of his own. There were four rooms plus the bar in the
middle. I ended up pulling the short straw and having to tend the bar as
well. Remembering all the orders was hell enough, but trying to get them
all on time, to the right people, and at the same time avoiding tripping
over what seemed to be millions of school bags, purses, laptop cables, and
the like was nigh impossible. I was just waiting for the moment a scalding
Kleiner Brauner (single shot espresso with milk) would be spilt over an
innocent customer.

After a nightmarish three hours, the place started clearing out. Within
the following thirty minutes, the place was reduced to the usual
few-and-far-between customers of a tiring Tuesday afternoon. Upon counting
up the tips I got, the torture did not seem so bad. That day alone ended
up providing for about half my monthly rent, and that was not due until
December. The other three rooms (we called them rooms, but they were
basically just different quarters of the area surrounding the bar, since no
walls separated the tables) were practically empty, and this made two of
the four waiters obsolete. I asked a friend to cover for me at the bar and
my quarter while I went out for a smoke, and then had to walk to the coat
hanger to grab the pack and lighter. As I passed one of the taken tables,
the customer called out.

“Waiter.”

“I’m sorry sir, I’m going on break right now, but Patrick will take care of
you,” I flashed one of those charming smiles and turned around, slanting my
head to the side to tell Patrick that he could handle this one.

I got out onto the cold air in the back of the café and lit the cigarette,
enjoying the moment of peace and quiet. My legs ached from running around
all day, and my left arm felt like one more full tray would end up
permanently detaching it from the rest of my body. I was wearing nothing
but the black tuxedo pants, white light cloth shirt, and black vest, but
the cold felt good after the stuffiness that the many people created in the
café. I had never been much of a person to slack off, so I quickly
finished the cigarette and went back in. In the span of those ten minutes,
about twenty more customers had come in, but they were seated in the other
guys’ rooms.

I came up to Patrick and told him he could go, and he filled me in on the
orders, telling me that the guy who stopped me would not order anything
until I came back. I first took the two minutes to deliver the orders
already pending, and then headed to the guy’s booth.

“I hear you made a special request for me?” I smiled. It didn’t matter who
the customer was, I always tried to be at the best of my charm.

“Yes, I wanted to order from you…I’ll have a plain Turkish and a
croissant.”

I nodded and told him I would be right back with his order. It was a
simple one, so it did not take long to be done. I brought it to him, and
he thanked me, and I flashed another smile, going back to the bar and
sitting down finally, getting some rest.

For a while, nothing happened, and then gradually the other few guests in
my room wanted to pay and filed out. Only the guy who wanted me especially
was left. Every now and then, I would see him glancing over at me, and a
few times even blatantly staring. I paid no mind to him and proceeded to
do what I always did with free time–draw. Time rolled buy, and the guy
remained. Finally, it was time to close, and I had to come up to him and
kick him out. That was never a pleasant experience to me, because it
always seemed to me like I was being rude.

“Excuse me, sir? We are about ready to close down for the day, and I must
ask you to pay your bill and leave…” I said, glad at least that my German
was now near perfect and I could actually put in the words that made it
much more sweet-sounding than it would have been two years earlier. He
nodded and smiled at me, and then he looked around, pointing to one of my
drawings.

“I couldn’t help but notice that your name tag said the same thing as the
signatures on a few of the drawings here. Is that your art, Alexander?”

“Call me Alex, please. Yes, it is. Originally, I sold a few of my
drawings to the café, back before I was working here.”

“I saw you working through all the mess that was here earlier today. Why
do you work so hard?”

I stopped talking to him for a moment to say good-bye to the other three
waiters, telling them I’ll close the place up, no problem.

He repeated the question.

I shrugged.

“I don’t know…I need the money, among other things, and it’s just
work…habit, I guess.”

“Ah… Would you sit down with me, please?”

I blinked a few times, but after a moment obliged and sat down across the
man, crossing my fingers and resting my head on them, elbows pressing on
the table’s surface.

“My name is Robert, I’m pleased to meet you, Alex,” he said with a smile,
extending a hand.

I accepted and shook, breaking off quickly and starting to stand up.

“I’m sorry sir, but I must go home and work on my project, and tomorrow I
have class in the morning.”

“Call me Robert. All right, here’s the money, and I’ll see you around,” he
said, standing up and heading for the door. I stopped him right in front
of it.

“This tip is too large, sir, it’s twenty euro.”

“Yes, I know.”

“I can’t accept this.”

“Please do. Consider it a last request of a satisfied customer,” he said,
and walked out before I could protest.

When I finally got to my room, I had no inspiration to work on the project
for school, so I just stripped to my boxers and lay in bed for a while,
absently sketching things on a sheet of blank notebook paper. When I
looked at the drawing, I was surprised to see Robert staring back at me. I
had him down to the tiniest details. There was the mop of golden blond
short hair, the two large almond shaped eyes, finely trimmed eyebrows,
straight nose, full lips, slender neck, and then the rest disappeared off
the page. I even had the small scar, no more than a centimeter in length,
which was on his right cheek. That night, I fell asleep thinking of him,
trying to figure out what the whole deal at the café was about.

Over the course of the next few weeks, Robert kept coming in, and we were
quickly becoming friends. At one point, he walked me home, and then told
me that he used to be with that guy and that he was too expensive. That
was where it ended.

Spring crept into Vienna, and my life was in a routine–get up, go to
class, work at the café, work on projects, go to sleep. I liked it, and
more and more was I looking forward to the conversations I had with Robert.
That May, he offered to have me move in with him in his apartment, which
would be a much cheaper solution than staying with the other guy. I had
fallen into some pretty weird situations by carelessly accepting any offer
to share living space, but Robert was probably the one person I knew
longest before accepting. So, naturally, I did.

Last month’s rent paid, I moved all of my things to Robert’s place, which
was even closer to the center and more to my liking than any other place.
He had a two bedroom suite, and I got one of the bedrooms, and we shared
the bathroom, living room, and kitchen.

He would not hear a word of me paying my dues, and instead said that as
long as I cooked and occasionally fulfilled a wish or two for a drawing or
painting, it was fine. So I accepted, and we were getting ever closer.
That was the one summer I stayed at home throughout the whole time.

As my fourth year at uni came, Robert and I were inseparable friends. I
was very fond of him, and it seemed he was of me. He was a very outward
person, too. He didn’t care much about controlling his emotions, and what
he felt, he showed. Over the given time, I learned that he was a professor
at a different university, teaching physics and chemistry. He was
obviously the brain of our pair, and my one advantage over him was art. As
far as bodies went, he was shorter than I by about five centimeters, so not
much, but he was way better built. There was not a single small area of
his body that was not packed with muscle, and he was a show off. While I
was rather mindful of always being fully clothed around others, Robert had
no problems walking around in just his boxers. I was starting to catch
myself gazing at his ass as the beautiful muscles rippled while he walked
around.

It was the morning of December 31st, and I had to work until ten in the
evening–the café was doing a special prolonged work time for a
celebration, and my shift was the morning-to-evening one. I shared it with
Patrick, and the other two got the night shift. The morning and afternoon
were fairly droll, but then people piled in, and I was again as swamped as
when Robert first showed up. And, without fail, as I moved around dodging
the party people, something brushed my hand, and I spotted Robert, smiled,
and went on with my work. I took his order and brought it to him, but
could not stay to chat.

By the time ten o’clock came, I was ready to leave, but couldn’t, because
my replacement was late by half an hour. Robert waited, which was a first,
since he usually left early and went off to do whatever it was that he did
in the evenings. I didn’t pay much mind to it, and just waited, in both
meanings of the word, until the other guy came. I unloaded a hissy fit on
him, and then left at the sound of his apologies and some excuse about his
girlfriend not letting him leave.

I walked out of the building, and Robert followed me. We walked home
together, and I was surprised to see that he didn’t have a party to go to.
We got into the apartment and I collapsed on the sofa, getting a moment’s
rest. Apparently, I had dozed off, because when I opened my eyes, there
was a hot cup of coffee being set in front of me, along with a glass of
Bailey’s Irish Cream. I looked over as Robert sat down himself, next to me
on the sofa, with the same beverages.

I smiled and thanked him, and took a sip of the coffee. It felt divine. I
was done with the cup within five minutes, and so was he. As I unwound, we
talked, and the topics were somehow getting more and more private. We
started asking each other about girlfriends and such, but there was not
much to tell on my side–I had been gay since age fourteen, and it was not
a secret, but as luck would have I had not once had even so much as a
boyfriend, let alone any sex.

Robert, on the other hand, had had quite a list of girls under his belt.
Both literally and figuratively. The way he talked about them, though,
seemed like they didn’t mean much to him. On several occasions I
stretched, complaining about muscle problems, and each time he would touch
me and squeeze the area I complained about, stating that I was indeed very
tense.

We had a small toast at midnight and drank up about a fourth glass of the
liquor each, and I knew I should not have done that, because alcohol
affected me very easily. Robert, sometimes it seemed, could down a whole
barrel of whine and still not feel any consequences. I was already feeling
the slight dizziness come upon me.

“Hey, Alex, why don’t I give you a small massage? It would help ease the
tension.”

“Sure,” I said, and he had me get up and sit on a kitchen chair, chest
leaning against the back of the chair. His hands moved to my shoulders,
and whatever it was that he was doing felt just divine. After that, we
both went to bed, congratulating each other the new year once more.

I woke up in the morning, took a nice long shower, and got dressed into my
work clothes, about ready for another day of waiting. I rarely took
breaks.

I got out of the room and into the living room, and Robert was already
there, splayed across the armchair in nothing but his black boxers. I
found myself taking a moment to gaze at the perfect display of muscles he
had going on, and then finally said good morning.

“Oh, hey, you’re awake finally,” he laughed and got up, looking at me. For
a moment, there was a pained expression on his face.

“Work again?”

“Yeah…”

“You need to take a break.”

“Nah, I’m fine,” I said. We had long since concluded that I was a
workaholic, but I never gave up.

He walked closer to me, and I found myself slowly going backwards, against
the wall. I still don’t know why I did that.

“Fuck, Alex, haven’t you figured it out yet?” the same pained expression on
his face.

“Huh? Figured what out?”

He just looked at me.

“Wha–” I was cut off as he grabbed my hands and pinned me to the wall,
kissing me passionately. The sheer intensity of the kiss caused me to
whimper and give in, and I kissed back, until he finally pulled away, a
small bridge of saliva still connecting our two mouths.

“I love you, Alex. I was in love with your body the moment I saw you in
the café, and as we became friends I was even more in love with your mind.
I want you…I want you to be my lover…” he whispered in my ear, and I
just melted away. Finally, it all made sense, but that was unimportant. I
realized that those sneaked glances at his sculpted body had been my
affection towards him. He gazed at my eyes and then kissed me again, and
our tongues intertwined, his hands moving mine up along the wall and
holding them both in one of his.

His left hand trailed down and started unbuttoning my shirt, but got bored
after about half of them and just ripped down the clothing, leaving my
torso exposed to the air and his own. I had no objections.

He pressed his hand against my stomach and rubbed lightly. Finally, he
broke off again, and let go of my hands. He gazed into my eyes and I saw
all the love that had been concealed until that time.

“I love you…” he whispered to me, and I smiled lightly, and looked back
at those beautiful eyes, moving in towards his ear and nibbling on it
lightly, causing him to moan.

“I love you too” I replied, and we both went wild with lust. I do not
remember how we got on the floor, but we were, and Robert was straddling my
bare chest, the shirt discarded somewhere to the side, nothing more than a
rag now. He kissed me, licked my neck, my collarbone, and I almost
screamed in the ecstasy the feel of his tongue on my skin caused. He moved
down, got off me, and ripped my pants as well, his biceps straining a bit
in the process. We were both in our boxers now, and both were tenting with
the hardest boners of our lives.

He rubbed my crotch with his hand and then moved up so that he was sitting
on my chest. He looked down at me, but didn’t have to. I wanted it as
much as he did.

My hands reached up and lowered the band of his boxers, but I got impatient
and ripped those, adding them to the rag piles in the room. I was
confronted with a hard fifteen centimeter cock with a thick bulging head.
I was in love with it too. I raised my head and engulfed it with my lips,
and did not hesitate to bob along it, lapping with my tongue at the head
inside my mouth. He moaned and thrust back and forth, and I timed it so
that we were in opposing movements, which caused his cock to go into my
mouth very deep, but not fully quite yet. After a while, I stopped, and
told him to stand up. He did, and I knelt before him, and then continued
to suck him, this time getting the full length down my throat, feeling it
fill me so wonderfully, as if my mouth had been molded in its shape, and I
reveled in the smell of his pubic hairs that tickled my nose. I moved of
the stiff member and lapped at his balls for a while, sucking each one in
my mouth for a while, and then moving back to the cock, finally ramming my
mouth on it, all in one smooth action. My hands had grabbed his beautiful
ass cheeks, and he screamed and grabbed a hold of my hair and tried going
dipper as his dickhead swelled up and shot layer after layer of sperm down
my throat and into my mouth as I slowly pulled away. I sucked him dry,
causing him to twitch a few more times, sweat dripping down his sculpted
chest.

He grabbed my chin and started pulling, making me stand up. He took my
hand, and I felt all the love and gentility he had in that simple grip. He
lead me to one of the bedrooms, and lay on the bed, spreading his legs.

“I want you to enter me, Alex…” he said, and I was now without
thought–all the blood was in my dick. I moved closer, and I asked him
about lubricant, but he said he didn’t have any. Instead, he moved up and
sucked my cock for a while, coating it in saliva. I never had anyone else
so much as touch my cock before, so this was a wonderful experience.

He pulled off and moved back to his position, and I aimed the head at his
hole. I pushed lightly in, and he gasped as it caused the sphincter to
stretch, and then I was in. I moved slowly at first, but it was a
herculean task to withhold any further, and I suddenly pushed all of my
twenty centimeters into him, burying my entire shaft into him, my balls
lightly slapping against his ass. He yelped at the sudden pain, but then
relaxed and started moaning from the pleasure. I could feel how tight he
was, and I thought that he was a virgin, just as well as I. Suddenly, he
started squeezing around me, and I just went wild. I pulled almost all the
way out and rammed in, and repeated this and built up a steady pace. We
were moaning, sweating, and staring at each other’s eyes, sending unspoken
vows of love to each other.

My cock head was hitting his prostate, and he would scream in ecstasy each
time this happened. My hands were holding a death grip on his beautiful
muscular thighs, and I could not take it anymore. Shoving all the way in,
I came, splashing his insides with my sperm, over and over and over again,
until I felt dizzy and almost passed out.

I collapsed over him, pulling out with a sloppy sound, my head falling onto
his chest. I moved my head up and looked at him, and he moved a strand of
hair from my eyes. I moved up and kissed him, and then grabbed his hand
and pulled him off the bed. His other hand was holding his asshole
plugged, to prevent any of my sperm from escaping. We went to the bathroom
and got into the shower, and started lathering each other up. Our hands
lovingly caressed the other’s body, and we both explored every crevice,
kissing multiple times. I was amazed at his muscles, and loved them, and
he seemed to be particularly attracted to my waist and legs.

As we washed off and got out, we went to the bedroom and lay down, falling
asleep tightly in each other’s arms. His hands were around my waist, my
back against his stomach, and my hands were on his. We woke at the same
time, and I could feel Robert rigid again, rubbing against my ass cheeks.
I didn’t move, but I knew he was awake. “Go ahead…” I whispered, and
then felt him move around and reposition.

He entered me lightly, and then built up a steady rhythm. At first, the
pain was large, but then it subsided, and nothing but pleasure remained.
We did this slow movement for a while, and then finally I felt him twitch
and explode inside of me, and I came as well, feeling the sperm inside me
making the apex of the erotic moment. We looked at each other and
chuckled. The sheets were properly ruined with all of the sperm that got
onto them that day.

We showered again, and decided to actually go fully to sleep. We went to
the clean bedroom, and fell asleep facing each other, his hand resting
lightly on my waist, my hand lightly caressing his face before I fell
asleep.

When we woke up the next day, we smiled and kissed deeply, uttering words
of love and devotion in a whisper. I knew then that everything in my life
was finally going to be settled and all right.

I was correct.

Today, two years later, Robert and I are still together, but we moved into
a house. We live in Geneva now, and our love is no less than it was that
New Years day. Our orgasms are as passionate as they were then, and our
devotion to each other only makes it all the better.