This is especially lovely because Hugh is my favourite character in the book, but for various reasons I never got round to make a sketch of him. And now I don't need to because Katerina absolutely nailed it (nailed him would sound ahem, wrong?)
Hugh had started out (I am an absolute pantser) as a secondary character, and if not quite a villain, at least as a bit of a dick... but then he began rewriting himself from the inside out, and he became this incredibly deep, multifaceted, wonderful person... he's my true voice in the story.
So here's a post all for him, a complete character portrait.
Hugh is a Dom, and has a rough, grumpy hide... he's also a musician, and a music teacher... and his favourite musicians are the great Neo-Romantics... that should be a hint that there is more to him than meets the eye, right?
"Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto no
2 was on, as loud as was admissible in a city flat, or maybe a little louder,
and Hugh was sprawled on the sofa like a large cat, soaking in the music. He
had already taken off his shirt, which lay abandoned on the back of the sofa, but
he must have gotten cold because he had snuggled under a plaid.
“Took your time,” he said, with a yawn,
without opening his eyes.
That was his typical style.
“Rachmaninov, really?” she asked, tossing
the shirt out of the way. “Bloody neo-romantic racket.”
He waved his hands like a cook wafting
some elusive smell to his nose. “At least, as classical music goes, it’s got some hair on its chest.” And that was
the highest compliment Hugh could pay to a musical composition.
The recording was terrible, crackly and
tinny. Horrid. Hugh seemed to divine her thought.
“It is himself,
on the piano. In 1929. Surprisingly fast, eh?”
Lucie shrugged, then bit her lower lip and
bowed her head. She could taste lipstick on her teeth, which was sexy as hell. Oh well. Rachmaninov would cover the noises,
at least. Mostly. Hopefully.
“Come here then,” said Hugh, throwing the
plaid aside, sitting up and patting his knee invitingly.
Hugh was a man of average height, with
short, fuzzy, dark hair thinning slightly around a widow’s peak and a semi-permanent
stubble (greying now) on his chin and jaw. He was neither especially good
looking nor in any way unpleasant, and dressed rather shabbily at almost all
times. He was in fact an entirely unremarkable man, except for a limited set of
small tics that betrayed a rather more active and nervous mind than most. Which
was why people would have been flabbergasted by the impressive set of tattoos
that adorned his chest, shoulders, and upper arms. They were somewhat faded and
partly obscured by the luxuriant growth of dark hair on his torso, but even so,
they gave him a distinctly wicked look, absolutely at odds with his sarcastic
but otherwise pretty harmless everyday manner....."
Hugh is a good cook (always a great asset in a man). He does quite a bit of cooking in the book, but since he's the Spice in the story, I will share his hot Puttanesca recipe.
““Fancy some dinner?” asked Hugh.
“Nah. Ate something on the way here.”
By the vagueness of the “something” and Raphael’s pale, pinched looks, Hugh doubted that very much, but sometimes he just didn’t have the energy to argue the point. He dished out his own meal and went to sit on the sofa close to Raphael, hoping that the smell of homemade puttanesca sauce would eventually entice him to take a bite or two. Sometimes, it was all that you could do for him.
Indeed, after a while Raphael relaxed enough to go poking around in the kitchen and pick at the pasta left in the pan with a wooden fork. He didn’t fill a dish, or sit down, mind, just ate a few mouthfuls standing by the hobs, like a long, thin, picky stork...”
Hugh’s Puttanesca (note that the word Puttanesca refers to a whore, or bitch. It’s a dish that should be *very* spicy )
-one large onion, chopped
-3 or four cloves of garlic, finely chopped
-one cup (approx.) of Greek black olives, destoned if you prefer
-one heaped table-spoon of salted capers
-one can of peeled tomatoes
-hot chili, fresh or dried, to taste (I like it *hot*! Hugh is the Spice!)
-a small bunch of fresh oregano, or a very generous pinch of dried one
-olive oil
-Parmesan cheese, grated
-300 g pasta (the tradional format would be spaghetti, but I like fusilli)
-Fresh basil (optional)
Feeds 4 city people, or 2 hard-working farmers ;)
Gently sauté the onion and garlic in a large pan (with bit of olive oil). When softened but still pale, add the chili, olives, and capers. Sautè until the onion is slightly colored at the edges. Add the tomatoes and simmer for ten minutes or so, until most of the liquid has evaporated but the sauce is still pretty loose. Add the oregano and set aside.
Cook the pasta, drain it and bring the sauce back on the fire. Mix in the pasta, and a spoon of olive oil. Adjust seasoning, take to the table in the same pan, and after dishing it out, scatter generously with Parmesan cheese and some basil if you like (do not, for the love of all that is holy on this good green earth, cook the Parmesan cheese and the basil in the pan).
Want to see Hugh in action in his Dom persona? Here's a little excerpt from the famous "metronome scene". This scene got more comments from readers than any other in the book. :)
Hugh watched him stroking away with great contentment. He was totally worn out after a crazy day at work, and it was not always easy to find the energy to satisfy such an enthusiastic masochist. There were days when he wished Raphael were a bit less fond of being spanked and whipped, but he always did his best to oblige him. The thought of his Raphael going out there looking for release from God-only-knows-whom, and getting hurt for real by some less scrupulous or talented Dom was just unbearable. Still, tonight he would lie back and relax. Mostly. I will have to help him eventually, he thought with a slightly evil grin, but I can take a breather first.
Raphael stroked in perfect tempo. He was one of the most technically exact musicians Hugh had ever played with, after all. Too exact, in fact.
It would do him so much good to let go a bit, to just go with the flow, be wild and imprecise and purely passionate. Then he would not need so much of this.
Tick—tock—tick—tock—tick—tock, went the metronome, and Raphael stroked and stroked. It was a good while before Hugh could tell, from a small furrow between those blond eyebrows, that the unchanging, slow rhythm was beginning to frustrate him. He smiled a bit wider and said nothing, devouring his beautiful quarry with his eyes. He watched, entranced the fluid play of flesh and skin as Raphael’s long pale cock, a nice ruddy purple by now, sank and reemerged into and from his fist, the velvet-like foreskin lapping beautifully over the shinier, silky glans, the testicles bouncing softly to the rhythm as the scrotum was pulled up and released. It was hard to resist the temptation to throw the whole scene to the devil and just take that cock in his mouth and suck it empty.
This is without exception the best use a metronome was ever put to.
Raphael’s body was developing a number of small, charming tics and twitches. He briefly lifted his left knee from the mattress then relaxed again. His right wrist was pulling on the strap from time to time, and his breath was coming in slightly ragged bursts.
Still it took a long time. Too much control, thought Hugh, smiling. Tsk-tsk.
Tick—tock—tick—tock.
He slowly unfolded his hands and moved to sit between Raphael’s legs. He spit on his middle finger and watched Raphael’s face, half hopeful, half anxious, as he slowly approached his anus. He didn’t hurry. He let Raphael wait for it. He would beg, in time, Hugh knew, but there was no need for that, not yet. He finally pressed his fingertip to the twitching, tight, live rose of flesh and felt it jolt and spasm. He massaged it in circles, with relish, and didn’t even try to penetrate it. Raphael was shaking all over, trying to press down on his finger, but there was just so far he could stretch, tied as he was. His belly muscles went taut. They were contracting in random, jerky convulsions. Hugh had never seen anything so beautiful.
Then Raphael missed a beat. His hand had picked up pace, ignoring all orders. Raphael whimpered, trying to compensate to get back in the right tempo. The double change of pace made him squirm all over. He swallowed twice and missed the beat again. This time Hugh slapped the inside of his thigh, very hard. Raphael could take a long regular series of well-spaced blows with relative ease, but a single hard slap coming down out of the blue like that drew a ragged cry from him.
“You do know what tempo means, I asked?” Hugh said, in a plain chatty voice. He had never had any taste whatsoever for histrionics. He was not, he had never been, a theatrical Dom. He wasn’t in it for setting up a show. He just got the job done.
“Yes. Yes!” said Raphael, a bit frantic. He managed to stick to the rhythm for a minute longer, until Hugh gently stuck his finger just within the ring of his anus. All of Raphael’s body twisted, and he lost all track of the cold, mechanical rhythm of the metronome.
And that is exactly what you need, my love . Too much playing by the rules, too much fucking control. You need to find your own tempo, and just let go.
Five or six fast hard strokes followed. Hugh slapped him twice, on his thigh, and, when he turned suddenly, on his butt. And then Raphael came, on the third slap, as he flopped flat on his back again, crying out in pleasure or pain, or both. It was hard to tell. Semen spurted out in beautiful, long, arched white streamers, splattering over Raphael’s belly, chest, and even his face.
It is difficult to aim while being spanked hard.
Hugh watched him coming, avidly.
He was so naked. So vulnerable, so unguarded. Hugh, who felt, every day, that he might shatter like glass, on Raphael’s unearthly, impossibly graceful, self-possessed beauty, lived for these moments, to watch him released of all self-consciousness and all bonds. Strange, how it took a bunch of leather straps to get him to do that.
“Ah, oh, shit. That hurt,” Raphael whispered after a minute. “Not complaining, mind,” he added, with a small edgy laugh, wiping some drops of sperm from his lips and eyebrow.
“Good,” said Hugh, quite composed, despite the erection straining in his pants. Watching Raphael twitching and jolting while covered in glistening semen was not a sight to leave him unmoved. He reached out for the metronome, stopped it and lowered the weight a tad, then started it again.
This was a faster, business-like tempo.
“There you go, hot lips,” he said to Raphael, who was still breathing hard from his orgasm.
“What? Wh—but…”
Hugh gave him a small devilish smile. Raphael was perfectly capable of coming two or three times in one night, but, like most men, he needed a while to recuperate in between. Well, tonight, he wasn’t getting it.
“You didn’t think it would be that easy, did you?”
......
But there is more to Hugh that just being "capable". There is a whole world of passion and emotion under that rough and gruff mask...
"...He had never been able to talk about Raphael. Raphael was too much like
a sharp blade sitting dangerously close to a vital organ.
He sat in front of the glowing screen,
clasping his hands and stared and stared.
How do you say, please forgive me, don’t go away from me, don’t leave me, without
sounding like a complete and utter pillock?
How do you say, I am nothing, and nothing, and nothing, if I think that I could lose
you. If I think that I may have lost you already. How do you say, in an
email, I am but darkness, and you—the
light?
Hugh sat, clasping his hands, and rocked
and fought back tears.
“Raf, please, pick up the phone.”
He knew, he had always known, with cold, sickening
certainty, that he had failed to love Raphael the way he wanted to be loved.
Oh, he had given him all the kinky and twisted things he liked, but he had
never let him get too close. He had always held himself apart, at a distance,
too terrified to fully engage all of himself. He had used his sarcastic humor
and lofty Dom aura in a desperate attempt to keep some sort of balance in their
relationship, because in truth he had always suspected—no, he had always known, in the darkest, least
acknowledged corner of his mind—that he was not worthy of licking Raphael’s
boots.
Raphael was everything he could only
possibly dream to be, beautiful, smart, naturally impressive, socially easy.
He was art made flesh, and a talented artist. He had it all,
and he was even nice, on top of it.
Hugh had always been so much in awe of him, so sure that Raphael was bound to
bolt with some other stunning creature more like him, soon or late, that he had
had to armor himself in sarcasm and stay aloof, against the inevitable fact
that he was going to lose him. It was that, or falling at Raphael’s feet and surrendering
to him his heart, blood and life, like a bloke in a play. Pathetic.
I am
but darkness,
he thought again and again, sick with this desperate, terrified heartache he
had had for seventeen years, and you are
light and flame. You would burn me to cinders. If you could have me whole, you
would go through me like a lightning strike and leave me nothing.
I
can’t love you in a civilized way. I must keep you separate or devour you and
be devoured. And there is so little of me to devour. And then, if I lost you,
there would be nothing left at all.
How the fuck do you put this in an email?
It would be easier to say it in music. If
only I were good enough I would. I’d write a whole fucking symphony, for you,
my love. Oh, my love, my love, don’t leave me.
He clapped the laptop shut and tried his
hand at a letter, the old way. Pen and paper. The pen lay on the sheet
untouched while Hugh clasped his hands.
How do you write the absolute certainty that you will break yourself upon someone’s beauty? Shatter, like glass, like
water, scatter to nothing, like stardust. Hugh could see it clear as day in his
mind, but there are no words for it. He could almost physically feel his heart scattering, like a dandelion clock, one seed and then another and then another,
until nothing was left but something bald and naked, something finished. He clasped his hands tighter and tighter
under the table. To keep himself whole.
I
would be obliterated. I would be nothing, and nothing, and nothing, if I let
myself get that close to you. I would fall in you and be swallowed whole, like
a poor burning comet in a white flaming star. And you wouldn’t even notice. You
wouldn’t even notice.
You
have no—fucking—idea what it’s like to be someone like me, looking at someone
like you...."
And that kids, it's why an ancient poet wrote,
"Even coals can glow like stars, when they are burning."
You can find Hugh in Spice & Vanilla
With a million thanks to Katerina Ross for the wonderful art.
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