Dated 04/09/2014

MIKE: In the whole wide world, there was no place I would rather be.

We'd probably seen this episode a hundred times before. And the one before it. I could already hear all the next lines in my head as the scene narrowed to a blurred slit of flickering shapes between my drooping eyelids. I would probably be asleep before the first commercial break.

It didn't matter. I wasn't watching the show. There was only one thing on my mind.

The warmth. The soft skin. The gentle, reassuring weight against my back, his legs tucked behind mine. It felt like he was all around me.

It was still early days. Such was the whirlwind of that first night where we had discovered our feelings for each other, Rexar and I had decided that we should take things slowly. Not to rush, not to intensify our relationship too soon. For now, we were simply beginning to embrace our newfound closeness, letting ourselves become more intimate with each other. Becoming partners.

To begin with, I had been nervous. I wouldn't say I had been having second thoughts. No. Much as I still felt some slight anxiety, even disbelief, that we were crossing this line together, I could think of no-one better to be experiencing it with. It was more the thought of being in a relationship for the first time. What to do, what to say, what was expected of me, where we would be going next...

But Rex knew how I felt. He knew this was a new experience for me. He hadn't pressured me. I think taking things slowly must have suited him too, after everything he had gone through with Carl. Amid my uncertainty, I sensed him guiding us, steering our romance through its infancy. And the more time I spent with him, the more I felt blessed by his patience, his understanding. It was exactly how I had always imagined he would be.

And so there we were, snuggled on the couch together, illuminated only by the shifting glow of the TV. It had been dark for hours, yet neither of us had thought to switch on a lamp. We didn't want to move. We didn't need to. We just stayed there, watching the hours drift by from our bubble on the couch, huddled together in the twilight of the living room.

Shifting slightly on the chair, I nestled my cheek into the crook of Rex's arm, feeling his thick muscles on either side. I wrapped my hands around his forearm, resting my head on it like a big red pillow as I squinted at the bright screen. As I lay there, I could feel Rex stroking my arm softly with his thumb. He continued for a while, perhaps not even realising he was doing it.

Enjoying the warmth of the moment, I heard myself let out a little squeak of contentment. As soon as I did, I felt him looking down as if to check on me.

"You okay, babes?" he whispered.

I nodded. Chuckling, he gave me a little kiss on the top of my head. It was so sweet, so tender, it sent a tingle quivering down my spine.

Wriggling deeper into his embrace, I felt him resting his other arm on my back. Then with the tip of one of his claws, he gently scritched the fur on the back of my neck. Another tingle rushed through my body. Such gentle, soothing affection - it was wonderful.

And just at that moment, it dawned on me. This was it. This was what I had always wanted.

I thought back to the times I had looked upon Rex from across the room, thinking about him. How I had watched him sitting with Carl on this couch. The times I had sat in solitude in the next room listening to them cuddling together, wondering, imagining what it would feel like to be that close and intimate with him. And now here we were, on the very same couch. Only this time, it was our moment. Our night.

Closing my eyes, I felt myself beginning to drift off to sleep. The sound of the TV became a haze of indistinct murmurs, the familiar lines floating in and out of my consciousness as my mind retreated into the quiet pocket of warmth and shadow in Rex's arms. As he rested his chin on my head, I could feel him surrounding me. Watching over me. Keeping me safe.

I knew it for sure now. At last. He was mine.


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Rexar & Mike: Snapshots - List of episodes in full:
M - mature rating | A - adult rating
(List last updated 30/12/2015)

Admiration (M)
Lost Opportunity
Out Of The Crowd
Moment Of Weakness
Revelations, Pt.I
Revelations, Pt.II
Couch
Exploration (M)
Reciprocation

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Snapshots is back!



It's been almost seven months since I posted the most recent instalment of this series. Since then I've been pleasantly surprised by the number of people who have been asking me about its continuation, wondering if there would be more to come, or if the series was finished. I had already tried to dispell the latter notion in my latest journal entry.

To further reiterate: As evidenced, the series has certainly not finished, nor is any such finishing point ever intended. The series is meant to be an open-ended collection of images, a story between my characters that I can keep progressing and developing for as long as I wish, with new themes and ideas explored throughout. So yes, you will be seeing plenty more of Rexar and Mike together - and as I've previously suggested, some of it will be naughty.



While much of the series has been somewhat laid out in my mind in advance, it was only recently that I came to the decision to use this idea as the next episode. I had been considering how best to progress the series and had originally been planning something rather more intense than this. But then I thought this scene would serve as a nice bridging point between Revelations and the later advancement of Rex and Mike's relationship, so I made this my next project.

This is a thought that I've had about Rex and Mike for years. Indeed, it's one of those concepts that I sometimes like to dwell upon in my imagination, thinking about what it would be like to have someone like Rex lying behind me and holding me in this way. In many respects, the scene of these two characters snuggling on the couch in front of the TV bears a great resemblence to the opening panel of my long-abandoned comic First Time, which was in essence the predecessor to Snapshots. As you'll hopefully agree however, this version is far, far better. (And more contemporary - found it rather amusing when I noticed I'd drawn a CRT TV in that comic. Was 2008 really that long ago?!)

In many ways, this episode is the perfect example of what Snapshots is meant to be about. There is not that much happening in this scene, but the moment serves to move the story forward. It is a glimpse into a point within a timeline - a snapshot.

From an artistic point of view, this was quite a strange one. In truth, this final image is hardly any different from the first quick concept sketch I did, and the drawing process went rather quicker than usual as a result. Despite what I dare say are considerable anatomical and positional errors, I just came to like the look of it so much that I ran with it anyway, something which I really need to learn to do more often. As such, I'm not going to pick this piece apart - it has its flaws, but its most important quality is emotion rather than accuracy, as indeed art should be in my view.

One of the amusing issues that I have run into with Snapshots is the element of continuity. Many of the instalments have taken place in Rex's living room, and as such, there has been a need to keep the shape, arrangement and appearance of that room consistent throughout. I also had to make a late change to each character's clothing, as I discovered I'd accidentally put them in colours almost identical to the last instalment, and I didn't want it to look like it was all happening on the same night! Indeed, I have been quite keen to keep the timeframe between these instalments fairly vague, and let the reader judge for themselves what they consider to be a suitable pace for the sequence of events.

As you might imagine, the colouring and shading aspect of this picture was also a challenge, yet one which I rather enjoyed. The couch seemed to become far more tangible once I started adding the lighting effects onto it, and I'm pleased with how the shadows and glow of the TV came out too. Unusually for me, I didn't use that many layers on this one either.

On a final note, it probably won't have escaped the attention of many folks that this is my first proper submission in nearly three months. As I explained in my aforementioned journal entry, I had been experiencing something of an art block this summer, one which I felt was largely the result of my mood suffering after my car broke down in June. Thankfully that is all behind me now having got a new car in July, and I have been getting back into more artwork in the last few weeks with quite a number of projects in production. So with any luck, this submission will be the first of many in the weeks to come.



RRRex