October Prompt: Painting

Once upon a time, a painter painted a dragon that flew out from paper.

Once upon a time, a sculptor carved a living lover out of marble.

+++

Tom put down his paintbrush and stepped back to examine his painting.

What stared back from the massive canvas was another man. A broad-shouldered male nude, sprawled in a daybed with dark blue sheets, his hairy belly soft with stretch marks, his big thighs spread like just-risen dough. Unashamed in his masculinity. His arms were mottled with fingerprint-sized bruises; his kiss-swollen lips curved in a satisfied smirk; his sandy curls mussed and hopelessly frizzy.

This man didn’t exist anywhere in the world.

The smell of linseed oil was thick in the studio. Tom exhaled and went to open a window and turn on a fan. His faded graphic tee was beyond rescue; it used to feature Mystique on the front, but the many years of thoughtless paint daubs and various oils and rough handling had taken their toll. But its drab shapelessness meant comfort, like the old blue bathrobe hanging from the hook by the sink.

He didn’t want to think about his painting. He usually worked on commission for large pieces, and this one was life-sized. It was all well and good to paint little canvases for fun; large canvases were expensive, paint was expensive, bills were expensive. He needed to save up.

But he had painted this man, this brazen, blatant display of a man who had just fucked someone and liked it.

Tom couldn’t picture himself ever looking that way. He scraped his blunt fingers over his chest, down his belly, towards the knot of his sweatpants. And then he jerked his hand away and took a deep breath.

He had to clean up the studio. The oil paints would take at least three days to be dry to the touch and six weeks to cure fully, so he had plenty of time to touch up any part that he disliked, but when he took another glance at it, he knew he would not add a single brush stroke.

+++

That night, Tom dreamed of the man in the painting. He had laughed often, his gaze bright as summer, and his hands reverently playful where he had touched Tom. Face, neck, chest, groin.

When he woke up, Tom pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes. There was no one in the apartment. He could do whatever he wanted – danced; cried; masturbated – and no one would know. Taking a shuddering breath, he swallowed the lump in his throat, got up, and started his day.

+++

“This is so… so raw and authentic,” Tom’s agent crowed in delight when she saw the piece in his studio. “I love it. It’s gonna get all the tongues wagging when we put it in your next exhibition.”

Tom’s own tongue felt stuck to the roof of his mouth. He shook his head. “Not gonna be showing this one.”

Angela turned to stare at him. In disapproval, or perhaps disappointment. “Tom. You haven’t painted anything like this in ages.”

“I have other portraits.”

“Remember what the rags were saying? You have exceptional skill but your work lacks sizzle.” Angela pointed to the painting of the male nude. “That isn’t just sizzle. That’s a whole blaze. A wildfire. It’ll make every other portrait seem—"

“No!” Tom clutched his palette knife in his left hand so tightly, he thought he might break the handle. “I said I’m not showing it!”

Startled, Angela held up her hands placatingly. “Okay, okay. Take it easy. We won’t show it.” Her voice softened. “When’s the next appointment?”

“…they cancelled it. Said they couldn’t do it.”

Tom might be imagining the chagrin in Angela’s tone when she said, “Aw man. I’m sorry.”

As she nattered on, Tom’s eyes sought out the eyes of the man in the painting. He wished he could borrow that gaze. It was utterly confident of its place in the world.

But that was just oil applied to canvas, nothing special. Titanium white, yellow ochre, king’s blue, ivory black, Payne’s grey, cadmium red light, ultramarine blue.

“…get another appointment?”

“Hmm?”

“Did you ask for a different appointment? I need to update your schedule,” Angela prompted.

Tom fumbled his phone out of his pocket and handed it to her to do whatever needed doing. The male nude’s smile seemed different in the late afternoon light; Tom didn’t recall painting dimples.

+++

“Given the current political climate, you should reconsider. Maybe postpone it.”

Tom folded his hands in his lap. On the tip of his tongue were the words “I understand”; they were restrained by his tightly clenched jaw. Only when he was certain that the words would not escape him did he open his mouth.

“I have thought about nothing else since I was four,” he repeated.

“I’m sorry,” said Dr Chan. “My hands are tied.”

Tom nodded, once, and left the consultation. His fingers tingled. The scars on his wrists itched.

+++

He brought a week’s worth of clothes and groceries to the studio. The tiny fridge in the corner hummed as he loaded it up with bottles of oolong tea. The windows were shut. Only the skylight was open.

Tossing his sweatpants and graphic tee into the basket in the corner, Tom pulled on his old bathrobe. He didn’t bother with the belt. Then he turned on the fan, bending over and letting the wind mess up his curls.

The moving air did little to alleviate the heat, but it was enough to have some ventilation. Dragging his chair behind him, he walked up to the painting of the male nude that was leaned against the far wall to let it dry.

There was a twinkle in the bright, unabashed gaze, a challenging arch to the brow.

Tom sat down in the chair and mimicked the pose. Legs spread, hands resting on the tops of the thighs, staring straight out of the canvas and into the viewer’s soul, that infuriatingly confident curl on his lips, like he was fully aware of who was looking at him, and that he was looking back.

Tom thought about his dream.

He ran his knuckles over his hairless jaw. He trailed his work-roughened fingers along the smooth column of his neck. He cupped the swell of his breasts, still hot from wearing a binder all day. He put his hands between his legs and did not flinch.

Then he stood and touched the same places on the painting.

“I know your name,” he told the painting. “I know who you are.” His fingers skimmed the lips he had painted, traced the jaw he had carefully sculpted with the edge of his palette knife, skated over the bumps and dips of that heavy, hairy belly, over the lumpy thighs. “I know who I am.”

Closing his eyes, Tom pressed himself against the canvas. His fingertips dug into the still-soft oil paints. He pulled.

+++

The pièce de resistance was the life-sized portrait. A person of indeterminate gender, painted in a ratty blue bathrobe, seated upright on a chair, ankles hooked behind the chair’s legs. Short dark curls, small hands in their lap, where they held a palette and a brush. The secretive, victorious stare out of a plain, doughy face.

“Tom, this is an astounding piece,” said Egan Hanford, stepping back to admire the portrait again. “Who is this person?”

“I don’t really know.” Tom shrugged his broad shoulders. His eyes twinkled when he noticed Angela’s camera, his dimples flashing in a quick smile. “Maybe it’s my inner self.”