8. Never Lie About Art
NEVER LIE ABOUT ART
ASHER
L ev bent before the man-sized hearth in the ballroom and added another log to the fire. The charred logs beneath cracked, sending sparks skittering up the chimney.
Asher dragged his eyes away from Lev’s muscular ass and returned his attention to his canvas. He shook his head and swirled his brush in the midnight blue he’d mixed, irritation growing.
Lusting over Lev was the last thing he should be doing. The other artists had already advanced to the next sin, and finished for the day, while Asher still toiled away at his painting of the Bolton Strid.
Lev brushed his hands on his pants and leaned against the stone wall, arms crossed over his chest. His gaze raked over Asher, and lingered, examining him like a modern art piece he didn’t understand.
What was he looking for?
Why couldn’t he leave Asher to paint in peace? Asher hated painting in front of other people, except for that time in Lucian’s studio, but Lev hadn’t invited him again. Which was probably for the best. Lev’s fickle favoritism had fucked with his head enough.
Asher knew better, but he’d still deluded himself into believing he was special up until Lev had shown off photos of Theo’s glass sculptures like they were baby pictures.
Aside from the occasional praise for his use of color and light, Lev had remained otherwise silent. Without further guidance, Asher was rudderless.
Anxiety had stolen his muse and stalled his paintbrush.
He’d overworked his painting to the point that he didn’t know if he was making it better or worse, or if he should throw it out the ballroom window.
He added more black to the midnight blue on his palette and took another stab at blending depth into the water’s surface.
“Alright there, Blakely?” Lev said from behind him.
Asher flinched so hard his neck cracked. The log Lev had added had nearly burned out. How long had he been painting?
“I’m fine, but you should wear a bell if you’re going to keep sneaking up on me.” Asher pressed his palm to his chin, and leveraged the angle to crack the other side of his neck.
Lev laughed, and joined Asher’s side. “No one’s ever complained about me being too quiet before. You’d have heard me if you weren’t so busy glaring at your canvas. Are you two having a row?”
“I don’t argue with inanimate objects.” Asher’s nose wrinkled.
“Really? You’ve never had an argument with a toaster that somehow manages to burn and undercook your bread at the same time?”
Asher rolled his lips inward. “Can’t say that I have.”
“Hm.” Lev inspected Asher’s painting, drawing closer before swiveling to face him. “I’d be in a foul mood too if I’d worked on a finished painting for as many days as you.”
“It’s not finished.”
Lev lifted the canvas before Asher’s paintbrush made contact and leaned it against the stone wall beneath the window.
“Hey. What are you?—”
“You finished two days ago, Blakely. It’s some of the finest art I’ve seen in some time, but it’s teetering on the edge of becoming an exhibit on self-flagellation.”
Asher discarded the compliment and clung to the critique. “You’re saying I ruined it?”
“God, no. Your Bolton Strid is a glutton for death. Hunger ripples beneath the surface of your babbling brook, and the man climbing into it fills me with dread, almost as if he’s been possessed and called into the depths so the monster beneath could be fed.”
“Wait. Really?”
“I never lie about art, Mr. Blakely. Surely a lad as clever as you must know that by now,” Lev said. “When I look at your art, I feel as if you’re speaking to me directly, as if you’re keeping me company. Remember that the next time you doubt yourself.”
Lev’s praise flooded his bloodstream like a drug, and the fact that he’d understood Asher’s message so clearly made his feedback even more meaningful.
Asher lowered his brush onto his palette, and tried to get a hold of himself before he popped another easel-adjacent boner in front of Lev.
Lev’s lips curled into a sphinx-like smile as if he knew how much his words had affected him. The sun hovered just above the ocean in the window behind him, highlighting the rare gold and silver strands in his hair.
“You missed a drop of paint, here.” The scars on Lev’s forearm shimmered as he swiped his thumb over Asher’s temple.
He pulled his hand back to reveal the steely blue paint Asher had used to highlight the subtle turbulence simmering beneath the water’s surface.
“This color reminds me of something,” Lev mused, rubbing the paint between his thumb and index finger.
The color was probably familiar because it resembled Lev’s irises.
When Asher crafted a color palette, his subconscious often pulled inspiration from the colors around him.
Lev’s eye color paired perfectly with the way Asher felt about the man, and the painting’s theme of destruction hidden behind charm.
Sometimes art was magic.
Lev’s eyes darkened to the ocean at night the longer Asher stared, lost in his irises. Lev inhaled, shoulders lifting as his chest expanded, pressing his pecs against his dress shirt. Had Lev made the connection? Was he as affected as Asher?
Lev cleared his throat, severing the silence. At least one of them was strong enough to stop their sexually charged staring contest.
“In any case, Blakely, it’s time to put your canvas out of its misery, and move on to the next sin. I’m desperate to see what you’ll do for lust. Erm. I mean to say because lust is your specialty.” Lev winced. “As in you often paint more erotic pieces.”
Was the Leviathan Marks blushing and stumbling over his words? Adorable.
No. Not adorable, especially when Lev had let him struggle with that painting for days.
“If this painting is finished, I’m done for the night.” He carried his palette and brushes to the sink. Lev followed.
“Allow me.” Lev took Asher’s palette plate and scrubbed it with large hands that Asher wasn’t at all thinking about wrapping around his…
Asher cleaned his brush with more aggression than necessary. “If you thought I finished days ago, why didn’ t you say something?”
“It was a teachable moment.”
Asher scowled.
“I’m serious. Don’t try to please me when you already have. Focus on pleasing yourself, hm?”
Asher quirked an eyebrow. “Pleasing myself?”
Lev laughed, and elbowed him gently. “Freud would have enjoyed dissecting that.”
They fell into a comfortable silence as Asher cleaned his remaining brushes and Lev rinsed them.
“You’ve done very well, Blakely. Trust your instincts.” Lev turned off the tap. “The best art you make is the art you make for yourself.”
But Asher had always painted for Lev, even when he painted for himself.
OCTOBER 8
Lev watched Asher over the rim of his teacup from his place at the head of the table.
“What?” Asher bit into his third cinnamon bun. Luna had baked them that morning and sprinkled them with orange zest.
“I envy your ability to consume that much sugar,” Lev said between bites of bacon he ate with a fork like he was an alien pretending to be human.
Asher shrugged. “They taste like Christmas.” He washed down the dusted sugar with coffee.
Lev’s eyes lingered on Asher’s face for a few seconds before he returned to his tea without further comment.
Julian, a married gay man with big dad energy leaned over and whispered, “Did you see the way he eats his bacon?”
Asher rolled his eyes .
Theo leaned over Asher’s plate, covering his mouth in the least subtle way possible, and hissed, “What are you two talking about?”
“Bacon,” Asher said at full volume. “Do you want to sit next to each other?”
After leaving art school, Asher had sworn off friendships with other artists. Betrayal hurt more than loneliness did, but Julian and Theo had adopted him like an aloof dog at an animal shelter.
The therapist he’d seen for a few months after he and Ben broke up said he wasn’t a solitary creature. He was afraid of getting hurt. Well, yeah. Obviously.
He should have saved the money he’d spent on therapy for paint. Art was the only therapy that had ever helped him—that and horses.
Lev wiped his mouth with a cloth napkin. “Now that we’ve wrapped up Lust, I thought we could start the day with a discussion on seduction in art.”
For Lust, Asher had painted a woodland scene of malevolent fairies with black eyes hidden behind masks, luring unsuspecting humans to their secret garden of poisonous plants with the promise of sex.
Armed with Lev’s blessing to paint for himself, Asher had switched from oil paint back to watercolors, his preferred medium, and challenged himself with a richly pigmented, concentrated watercolor palette and liberal use of black.
One wrong move or hurried misstep would ruin everything, just like the Bolton Strid he planned his series of sins to revolve around.
Melody raised her hand, jingling the rainbow of bangles on her wrist.
“Melody, what did I say about raising hands?”
“I think you said it made you feel old,” Asher said. The urge to brat was automatic.
Lev’s eyes narrowed. Asher bit into his bottom lip, and when Lev’s gaze fell to his mouth, butterflies fluttered behind his sternum.
“Can I go first?” Melody’s blonde waves swished as she stroked her hair like a rope.
“Please do.” Lev sipped his tea, eyes still on Asher.
“My art doesn’t feel like art until other people see it.
I’m not making a statement. I’m pointing a finger.
I want to pull people across a gallery, and through cell phone screens to spread my message.
” Melody’s bright eyes dimmed. “I’ve found that sex sells, but sex paired with na?veté sells even more. ”
Asher’s stomach twisted. Melody’s candied color choices and ethereal textures were the na?veté to the sharp edge of sensuality and darkness in her paintings.
“Mel…” Daria’s dark eyes turned tender.
Asher traded glances with Theo. Daria was scary in a probably-bit-the-head-off-a-raven sort of way, but apparently she had a soft spot.
“Well, you’ve navigated that line between seduction and accusation excellently,” Lev said. “Anyone else?”
“I just make pretty things and hope for the best.” Theo laughed.
“It seems to work for you,” Lev said.
Jealousy burned inside Asher’s chest.
“I don’t care about seduction.” Daria eyed the curtain of hair blocking the side of Melody’s face. “But all good art is inherently seductive.”
Asher lost interest a few minutes into Chuck’s long and pedantic response. Lev cut his answer short not long after.
“Lars?”
“Huh?” Lars lifted his head from his sketchbook, flashing sun-bleached hair, and tucked his ballpoint pen behind his ear.
“Seduction,” Chuck said.
“I don’t go out of my way to add sex appeal. When I draw with a ballpoint pen, my goal is to amaze with my skills. It’s like a fuck you to all the teachers and critics who called them doodles.”
Julian snapped a piece of bacon in half, and shook his head. “Seduction doesn’t cross my mind at all. I’m focused on the visuals.”
“I’m surprised we haven’t heard from you, Blakely,” Lev said. “Many of your paintings are sexual, though still quite nuanced.”
Asher’s cheeks heated. “I just find sex interesting.”
His more erotic pieces had gathered a lot of attention on social media, and in the art community, but he hated talking about his art, or having it discussed within earshot.
“That’s it? You find sex interesting?” Lev said.
“Yeah. The French call an orgasm la petit morte for a reason. There’s so much conflict to explore, power granted and surrendered.”
Lev said nothing, eyes still on Asher, but disconnected and distant. Asher had that uncanny feeling again that there was someone behind him, but when he looked, he only saw fuzzy shadows of fog-filtered trees through the window.
“But I will admit,” Asher continued slowly, waiting for Lev’s attention to return to him. “I prefer my art to be viewed, and seduction leads to that. I require that external validation, as pathetic as it is.”
“I don’t think it’s pathetic,” Melody said. “I think it’s human.”
Asher smiled. “Maybe. But it’s a dangerous thing. If I give people the power to pass judgment on my work, and let myself think my art defines my worth, it hurts when a piece flops.”
“You want to be perfect?” Lev asked.
“No. I want to please everyone.”
“But you can’t,” Julian said.
“I know that objectively. But it’s hard for me to apply.”
“When people hate my art, it feels like a win,” Daria said. “ They can hate it all they want, but that means it worked. Whether good or bad, my art influenced their emotions.”
“I used to feel that way too, Blakely.” Lev held Asher’s gaze. “It took a long time for me to shake it, and even now, I struggle with it on occasion.”
The revelation transformed his hero into man.