He said nothing, but he did allow me to nestle there and, in that delicious intimacy, to fall asleep. We woke together, and it seemed to me that in his smile and in the way he stroked my back, he was acknowledging something more than gratitude, a fondness that was not love but was a step, I prayed, in that direction.

"I must to exercise now," he announced as he rolled away from me and off the bed. "Would you like to watch again? Or," he grinned, "it would be good for you to do it with me."

"Not until I pee and brush my teeth and shave and wake up some more, thank you," I said a little stiffly. Didn't he like my body? I liked it. I'm fit, and fortunately I don't have to get all sweaty to stay that way. I left the bed and tried not to glance back at Mitya's nakedness as I went into the bathroom.

After I'd been in the shower a few minutes, I heard him come in and use the toilet. Then his head peeked around the shower curtain. "Good morning, Yves," he said. "I did not mean to tease you or make you angry. Are you angry?"

"No, not at all. Would you like me to prove it?"

"How?"

"Come in here with me. I'll wash you. It is what Canadians do the morning after they first make love."

"When in Rome…," he laughed and stepped in next to me. He was sweaty, and I couldn't resist. I bent down and licked his stomach, then made a long sweep of my tongue from just above his navel up to his clavicle. Somewhere on that path I must have touched a special place because when I finished, I saw that his head was thrown back and his eyes shut. I moved on to his throat and then his jawline and back to the lobe of his ear.

"Oh, Yves." It was almost a moan. "You must not to do this." But he let me go on. He even put a hand behind my head to guide me back down to his chest and from there to the other ear. I braced myself with my hands against his hips and then pressed into him until I felt his erection against my own stomach. He said nothing as I took it in one hand and nothing as I lowered myself to embrace his knees and, stretching mightily, to swallow the engorged head of his cock.

"That is so good." Both his hands clamped on my head. I put the palm of my free hand between his legs, brushing his testicles with my wrist as I lifted my middle finger into the cleft of his ass. Would he like being groped there? I didn't know, but I wanted to explore every part of him. And he didn't protest as my fingertip brushed his anus. He actually wiggled, adjusting himself so that his legs were wider apart and I could push deeper. As I did, though, he gave another moan, a loud one, and the organ that had been sliding through my fingers and between my lips suddenly turned from flesh to iron, a cannon barrel from which hot, liquid grapeshot poured into me and, as he withdrew, over me.

I turned my face up into the flow of the shower to let the water clean me, but Mitya blocked the spray. He lifted me to my feet and licked his seed from my forehead and cheek and then, with a deep, contented sigh, he kissed me. Not passionately, not urgently, but hard on my lips.

"You are wonderful, Yves. It is the truth," he said. "And it is wonderful that you love me so much that you will do such things on me. You are a very loving person, Yves, but you should not to waste your lovingness on me since it is so that I cannot to give love back. You understand that about me. Yes?"

"I understand that you are that way now. But you can love. You did. And you can again. It just takes time and having someone love you deeply, the way I do."

"I do not think the shower is where we should have such talk. The shower is for washing, and I am going to wash you. Without conversations."

He did wash me. Actually, he scrubbed me, as though he were cleaning a child. Even when he worked on my cock and balls, the touch was clinical, caring the way a nurse might be with a patient, not erotic, not the fondling of a lover. Still, having Mitya touch me would have been a treat any time. With both of us naked, the pleasure rose to another level and so did my penis. Mitya, though, pretended not to notice, not even when he was toweling me off and, bending down to dry my legs, was almost blinded by my erection.

Breakfast, he also announced, was not an occasion for talk about love. And as soon as it was over, Luc and Jean-Pierre were at the door eager to start another sitting. Mitya said he would go to an Internet café and check his mail and do some errands. "Don't worry," he said, "if I do not come back for lunch. I need to think and I think well when I walk much." With which, he was out the door and I was alone with my models. They were both wearing baggy shorts and gym shirts, the kind with huge armholes that created a peekaboo tunnel to their nipples. I found the sight distracting and asked if they couldn't go home and change into regular t-shirts.

"Why do we have to wear shirts at all?" asked Luc, stripping his off. "It's really hot today, and it's a lot more comfortable without them."

Jean-Pierre looked at me for permission, and I just nodded. "Later, though," I said, "you'll have to wear shirts with sleeves at least for a few minutes. For now, you can strip to the skin for all I care."

They both blushed, whether because the idea turned them on or scared them I didn't know. The important thing was that I had kept the psychological upper hand, and for the next 90 minutes or so, I also kept them hard at work arm wrestling as I sketched. I was really pleased with what I'd been able to capture, their cheerful, animal vitality and the passion they put into competing, into winning and losing. The portrait was going to be good.

"Coffee break," I announced after a particularly fierce round. "Or do you want something cold?"

"Beer?" Luc grinned.

"Coke," I answered. "Or iced tea. I'm not going to contribute to the delinquency of minors, especially not before noon when they're my clients and their mother lives a few doors away and would come after me with a whip or a gun."

"Both, probably," Jean-Pierre laughed. "I'd like coffee, please."

Luc chose a Coke, but because he'd lost the last round, he was sent home to get the t-shirts. Jean-Pierre followed me to the stove.

"Yves," he said, his voice surprisingly husky, "could I ask you something?"

"Sure. What's on your mind?"

"Would you like to draw me some more?"

I thought for a moment. "By yourself? Without Luc?"

"Well, yes."

"Do you want another portrait for someone? For a girl?"

"No." Now he was almost whispering. "For me. And Yves, I wouldn't wear any clothes. Would you like me like that?"

I nearly dropped the coffee pot. This gorgeous boy, half of my wildest fantasy, was coming onto me. It couldn't be. He had to be teasing. But he wasn't.

"Yves, I've seen how you look at us. I don't mean now, for the picture. I mean, in the street. And I like looking at you. So, I thought…"

"Don't," I tried to stop him. "Don't think about things like that."

"I can't stop," he suddenly wailed. "I thought you would help me, show me things, so I could understand what I am, whether I am … you know…"

His eyes were dangerously moist. I put my hands on his pumped upper arms. "Jean-Pierre, I'll talk to you about it, about being gay, anytime you want, for as long as you want, but with all your clothes on and without either one of us touching the other. You're just 16…"

"I'll be 17 in December."

"And until you're 18, anything sexual with you could put me in prison. Worse, it would make your mother hate me. And Luc. He'd want to kill me."

"I'm not so sure. We're twins. He has feelings, too."

"Lots of boys do. For a while, when we're still not certain, when we're curious. It's natural. But it's also against the law for an adult, which is what I am, to make love with a child, which is what you are. Please, Jean-Pierre, we can talk all about it, and I want to help you if I can, but," I dropped my hands, "as a friend. That's all. You understand, don't you?"

"I suppose." His head drooped, a portrait of dejection, the lover spurned. If I had dared, I would have hugged him. Instead, I patted him on the shoulder.

"Come on, Jean-Pierre," I urged him. "You're right about the way I look at you and Luc. You two are fantastic hunks. I dream about you, but I never dreamed that you and I would be friends. And now we are. And for me, that's better than all the other stuff because I never imagined that you would want me…"

"I do want you." He started to put his arms around me. I pulled away.

"Would want me as a friend. I'm really flattered. And I'll try to be a real friend, if you let me."

He didn't say anything, but his eyes began to overflow. Just then Luc hammered at the door to be let back in. "Upstairs," I said sharply. "Wash your face. Cold water. And come back down grinning. We'll talk another time. I promise." I kissed his nose. "Go!"

He was a good actor. Once we'd had the coffee break and the boys had their shirts on, he threw himself into the work of posing with all the gusto he had shown earlier. In less than an hour, I was finished with them. "Come back around six o'clock," I said. "I should have something to show you by then, and, remember, if you don't like it, you don't have to take it."

After they left, I put the sketches up on my cork board and blocked out the outlines of the composition with a very fine pencil. It would work. But I needed a break. I made a sandwich and a small salad and put on the Penderecki CD I had thought of playing for Tommy. "The Seven Gates of Jerusalem." Weird and moving but also soporific. I napped, but not for more than ten minutes, and when I woke, the picture was complete in my mind. It was just a matter of putting the image on paper. I used charcoal and crayons and pen and ink for most of the details and gouache for the shirts so that those two strong blocks of color anchored the design while the boys' heads, necks and arms flowed out of them. The result wasn't perfect. I hadn't realized how hard it would be to get their fine, golden heads of hair to look natural. Still, I was pleased with what I had accomplished, and I thought that Luc and Jean-Pierre and their mother would be pleased, too. I had caught two, handsome, playful young men in a moment of mixed joy and anguish, a moment from their everyday lives that would be preserved long after their youth was gone.

"It's a miracle, Yves. You are a genius." The voice was Mitya's. I had been so absorbed in making final touches that I had blocked out my surroundings. I swiveled around, arms wide open, to embrace him, but as soon as I saw him, I stepped back. He was filthy.

"You're filthy," I said. "You look as if a building fell on you. Are you all right? Where have you been? What happened to you?"

"I am wonderful," he grinned through a mottled coating of sweat, dirt and plaster dust. "I have been knocking a house down. Not such a big house, but old. It was already falling apart, and I just helped. And got money."

"Which you will have to spend on new clothes. Those are ruined." I eyed the sweat-streaked shirt and grimy jeans that had looked so nice when I bought them for him. At least, his shoes were those horrible gray boats he had brought from Montenegro. I'd never have to wince at the sight of them again.

"They have only to be cleaned somewhat," Mitya insisted. "They are to be my work clothes, and I am to be a worker."

It turned out that on his morning walk, he had overheard loud, fluent cursing in Serbian and discovered a wrecking crew of his more-or-less countrymen. They were short-handed. He was hired on the spot with the promise of more work for the rest of the month. "And Yves," he beamed, "it was a feeling of being in home, a really good feeling. I ache in many places because it was hard work, but my heart is very, very happy."

"Then I am happy for you, and if you will go upstairs and take three long showers, one right after the other, I will come and rub your aches away." I looked at my watch. "The twins should come soon to see their portrait, and as soon as they go, I'll put on my massage clothes and find you."

"What do you wear to give a massage?"

"Nothing," I giggled. "And you should be in the same costume."

"I will have to look in my wardrobe… The closet, I am sorry, to see do I have such non-clothing. I think I do." He was laughing. Relaxed. Happy. The grief in his eyes had shrunk out of sight.

I pulled his dirty face down to mine and kissed him. "Go right now. You are shedding like a mongrel dog. If you stay here any longer, Madame Dubois will never get the place clean."

Halfway up the stairs, though, he stopped and turned back. "Yves, my work today has made me happy, but your work, it should make you famous. You must have fallen into love with those boys to make them so alive and … I do not know the word … so charmful."

I blushed. I like being praised, but I never know how to respond. "Thank you, Mitya," I stammered. "They were fun to work with, but I have enough love already to keep me busy. If you would pose for me …"

"In massage costume?" He was laughing.

"That might be too distracting. Go clean up while I think about what you should wear."

As he climbed the rest of the stairs, the boys knocked at the front door. I let them in, pointed them to the easel and went to the kitchen. Suddenly, I was very nervous. They might not like my idea or the way I'd done it. I kept my back to them, waiting to hear their disappointment, their anger, anything. But there was only silence. After a while, I couldn't stand the suspense. I turned to look. One boy had his arm around the other's shoulder. The other's hand was in the small of his brother's back. They were frozen in front of the picture, their heads touching at the temples. When I walked to their side, I saw something astonishing. Each had tears in his eyes.

"Is it all right?" I asked. "Is it what you wanted?"

At first, they didn't look at me. Then, together, they nodded. And finally Luc spoke. "I… I mean we … have never seen ourselves like this, as different guys who are the same. Yves," he reached for my hand, "you have made us understand ourselves. Hasn't he, Jean-Pierre?"

"Oh, yes." Jean-Pierre's cheeks were wet. "Plusque mon frere, tu es mon âme. (More than my brother, you're my soul.) I'm sorry," he hugged Luc to him, "that I hit you with that stick. I love you, Luc," he was weeping. "I love you so much. I'll never hurt you again. I promise."

"It's okay, Mou-Mou. It's okay." Luc wrapped his brother in his arms. I might as well have been invisible. They were completely in their own world. "I'm sure we'll fight again. It's what we do. But we'll do it for fun from now on. Like in the picture."

"Yes," Jean-Pierre breathed. "Oh, yes. Like in the picture." He suddenly lifted his head and stared straight at me. "Yves, how did you know to see us like that? You didn't have anything to do with us, really, till yesterday. Which was our fault. All our fault." He separated himself from Luc and put his hands on my shoulders. "We were so wrong about you." His hands went around my neck and his lips grazed my cheek. "We can never pay you what we owe you."

From behind me, Luc leaned in and kissed my other cheek. "We can pay you the money, don't worry," he said, "but Jean-Pierre means we can never make up for being so stupid about you and not understanding how terrific and totally sympa you are. If Mitya hadn't come along, we would have just gone on being stupid."

"So, will you thank him for us?" Jean-Pierre chimed in. "And, Yves, will you let us be your friends, for always?"

I promised. I was so moved and frankly surprised by the effect of my work on them that I started to shake their hands. Instead, I kissed both of them on the cheeks. Then I got a little teary myself, and that broke the tension. We all laughed. They high-fived me. It was over. No, they didn't want anything to drink. No, I didn't mind if they just hung around for a while and looked at their portrait some more. And it was okay if I went and took a shower. They would let themselves out. Tomorrow, after I'd been to the frame shop, they'd come get the receipt and pay me my fee.

It was all so cordial and easy, and it was all Mitya's doing. I hurried upstairs to reward him with a massage, for starters, but even though he was sprawled naked and face down on my bed, he was not waiting for a back rub. He was sound asleep. I took a long look and then a long shower, but when I came out, he was still lost to the world. I quietly collected some clean clothes, dressed in the other bedroom and went back to my studio to call Tommy and tell him about everything that had happened. Almost everything. I decided to keep Jean-Pierre's confused affection to myself.

Tommy wasn't in, or wasn't answering his 'phone. I hung up without leaving a message. I didn't want him to call back and wake Mitya. I thought of doing that myself. I thought of sneaking back to the bedroom with my sketch pad. And to stop the thoughts that came as I recalled that perfect, supine body on my bed, I took a hunk of modeling clay and started to shape shoulders, a torso, a pair of magnificent buttocks rising from strong, long legs. As my fingers worked, though, my eyes closed, and all the strain of the day caught up with me. I lowered my head to the work bench -- just for a little nap, I told myself -- and was instantly, deeply unconscious.

"Yves, Yves." The voice was gentle. So was the touch on my arm. Slowly, confused, I came awake to find Mitya bending over me, smiling. I tried to turn to him, but my neck was terribly stiff, and I groaned loudly. "Are you hurt, Yves?" he asked.

"Just my neck," I said, rubbing it.

"Let me." He put my hands at my sides and slowly helped me sit up straight. Then he began kneading my shoulders and neck, diffidently at first and then with measured pressure. It was agony, wonderful, blissful agony, and I moaned my pleasure. "I am hurting you?"

"Yes," I said. "No, it feels great. Don't stop yet, please."

He didn't, but he gradually reduced the probing of his thumbs and after tenderly moving my head back and forth, he pronounced me cured. "I, too, can give massage," he chuckled. "I waited for you after my shower but you did not come and I fell to sleep."

"I saw. I decided to let you rest. You had a hard day."

"But I got money enough for a nice supper. You will decide where we should to eat, please, and I will pay for it."

I didn't argue. There was no point. But I remembered a cheap, halfway decent Greek restaurant across town, where we could sit in a sort of garden. I also remembered that Montenegro was almost next door to Greece. I had looked it up on a map. Mitya loved the souvlaki, and the moussaka was all right, but the Greek beer was unspeakable and the Greek (meaning Turkish) coffee was too sweet. Still, it was fun just to be with Mitya. I told him what the boys had said about the picture and about him, and he seemed pleased. "What would be wonderful, though," he said, "would be if you had known Rifat so you could to make a picture of him. Sometimes, I have the fear that I will not remember his face."

"I could try, I guess, but it wouldn't be a feeling portrait. When the police are trying to catch a criminal, they sometimes have witnesses help them to make a sketch. If you can describe his looks, I can draw and you can correct as I go along."

Mitya got very excited by the idea. As soon as we got home, he made me get out pencil and paper and hovered over me as I tried to sketch a boyish face with deep-set eyes, a mane of curly brownish hair and slightly prominent ears. We settled temporarily on a neutral shade of gray for the eyes. Mitya said they could go from silver to storm-cloud, but I suggested we leave the coloring till later. That was the easy part. "His chin?" I asked.

"It was like yours," Mitya thought a while. "Or maybe it was not." He put a finger at the back of my jaw and gently traced it forward. "This bone," he said, "in Rifat it was not so long, so elegant as yours, I do not think."

I fudged the chin for the time being but got the eyebrows right - straight and thick - and, with a lot of guidance, managed to set down a nose that was both aquiline and pert and couldn't possibly be both. "He had spots on both sides," Mitya gestured.

"Pimples?" I asked. "Lots of teenagers have that problem."

"No. Specks of color. A little bit red. A little bit brown. Not very much to be noticed at first."

"Freckles, then. Like Huck Finn."

"Yes. Just so. They were adorable."

When I asked for help with the mouth though, Mitya lost it. "I am full of shame," he groaned, "I do not properly remember. We kissed so much, and I still have in memory the scratchy little hairs under his lip, but except to see in my mind how he laughed, I cannot to tell you of his mouth. We cannot to make a good picture." His eyes were very wet.

I stood up and hugged him. "It's all right, Mitya. We can make a picture. Let me try to draw Rifat in profile and you can help fix it, and that will bring back the memories. But would you mind if we do it at the lake? I thought we would drive up tomorrow evening and have a long weekend. You can work tomorrow, and I'll get you back Monday morning early."

"I have made you to be tired, Yves, is that not right? I was not thoughtful of you. Yes, of course, we will do more drawing when the times are good for you. And maybe my rememberings will be stronger."

We put out the lights, and as we went upstairs, Mitya took my hand. "Yves," he asked, "would you let me to hold you in the bed tonight? Only to sleep, but I would be very happy to be close to you when I try to remember my love and how he looked."

"There is nothing I want more, Mitya, than to be close to you. Awake, asleep, all the time."

"But maybe not when I am to be working." He chuckled. "When I am dirty."

"When you become a doctor, you will have to be super clean all the time, and, if you let me, I'll be there all the time."

He looked embarrassed. "That is to be much time from now, Yves. Let us just to be together now."

I knew when to leave well enough alone. After using the bathroom, we climbed into my bed, I in my briefs and Mitya in his droopy boxers. Mitya kissed me goodnight on the cheek, drew my body into his and with one arm around my waist went almost immediately to sleep. I was tired enough to follow, but I was hopeful enough to dream that we were at the lake and I had him completely undressed and he was pulling me between his legs, letting me mount him. And he was smiling encouragement at me.