Art for Art's Sake

Chapter 8

Chapter 8

His statement startled me. Again, the skin prickled all along my backside, and the hair on my arms and legs snapped to attention. Images of my Uncle Clarence, the one who resided in the upstate mental hospital fashioning animal figurines out of fudge-bar sticks, flashed through my head. Last weekend, while hunting the dingy hallway for the dark-clad man who’d seemingly vanished into thin air, I thought I’d swiftly be joining my dear old uncle in the booby hatch. But now I debated whether I should pack a suitcase for two and drag the artist along with me.

Hell, at least we’d be together. I wonder if they have a Honeymoon Rubber Room Suite…

Okay, okay, so maybe my new lover was crazy. As whacked out as I was last weekend. Maybe insanity ran in more families than just my own. And maybe I didn’t have a goddamned clue when it came to judging someone before I f****d them.

Good going, Ace. You picked a real loony-tunes to act as your instructor in the art of gay s*x.

But no, damn it, no. I couldn’t believe the man sitting beside me belonged in a straitjacket. I had meant what I’d said a moment earlier, that Skylar Novak seemed a mild-mannered and tender guy, and probably more astute and more rational than most of the men I’ve ever known. And certainly no crazier than myself. Within the black pits of his eyes, I noted various emotions—bewilderment, with no small amount of trepidation, yet a deep sincerity. So, I decided, although he might have a few screws loose, at least he actually believed the truth in what he’d confessed.

“Will you please say something, Matthew? Anything? You’re worrying me. I knew you’d think I was nuts, but I swear to God I—”

“You’re telling the truth.” I gave his knee a firm squeeze in reassurance. “But yeah, I also admit, this does seem a bit farfetched, even though you believe it’s true.”

“But it is true.” Grunting in frustration, he leapt off the mattress and started to pace beside the bed, his feet slapping the burnished floorboards. He chewed his lower lip and fisted his hands. “I don’t know how it happens or why, but sometimes when I work I…well, I can’t help wonder what inspires me to paint or draw something in particular.”

“It’s probably just your vivid imagination. Part of being a good artist, I’m sure.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ve thought about that also. Yet sometimes, it’s almost as if my hands are being…being…”

“What?”

“Being guided…being controlled by another force. As if some entity is using me to create specific images and I’m its conduit to the canvas.”

“Sky, come on, this is really starting to sound a bit like—”

“Twilight Zone territory. Or perhaps One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest might be more apt.”

“Well, yeah. It kinda does.”

“Don’t you think I know that? s**t! I’ve told no one else about this, Matthew. No one. For years I thought what happened to me was just the product of my vivid imagination, as you stated. I told myself that I should accept my talent for what it was, that I shouldn’t question how or why I received inspiration to create various paintings. And I remained quiet all this time. I had even convinced myself that how I worked was normal for any artist. But now I can’t do that anymore. Now I’m all confused again and…”

“I don’t understand. What’s changed to make you rethink the theory that what you paint comes from someplace outside of your own mind?”

He stopped pacing and looked directly at me. “You.”

Alarmed, I sat up straight and scooted to the edge of the mattress, dragging some of the bedclothes with me in my haste. My bare feet thumped on the floor to punctuate the only word that came to my lips—“Huh?”

“It’s you, Matthew. If I hadn’t met you, I probably would have gone on existing day to day thinking nothing unique or bizarre was happening to me. Or rather, has been happening to me for many years. But after meeting you in the flesh…well…I have to face the possibility that my original hypothesis, as cuckoo as it sounds, might be correct.”

“So you’re blaming me for whatever is happening to you?”

“‘Blame’ isn’t the right word. You’re just the—the catalyst to help me confirm my theory of what I’ve always known to be true but wanted so desperately to ignore. That sometimes I paint not of my own volition. And you, my sexy lover, were the missing piece I needed to prove I wasn’t going insane.”

“Okay, you’re really starting to scare the f**k out of me, Sky.” I was only half-kidding when I said those words, and he apparently sensed it.

Shoulders slumping in defeat, he buried his head in his hands. “This is not going well, damn it. Why can’t I find the right words to explain? Why?” He drew a long breath as if to calm himself, then revealed his face once again. Crimson dotted his cheeks, and his lips had curled downward in despair. He sank onto his haunches beside the bed and peered up at me. Tears shimmered in his eyes. “Matthew,” he said, his voice barely a whisper. “You feel this connection between us. You’ve said as much.”

“Yes, but what does that have to do with your art and—”

“I know patience isn’t one of your greatest virtues. Although I’m failing miserably, I’m nevertheless doing my best to explain this to you. So please, hear me out, okay?”

Sighing, biting back the many questions forming on my tongue, I nodded.

“Now, neither of us has been able to truly explain what we’ve felt for each other since last weekend. And this—” He gestured to indicate our nude bodies, then rested his hands on my thighs and gently stroked my flesh. “What we’ve experienced since first meeting, these s****l impulses outside the realm of our normal routines—me with an insatiable desire to seduce one of my models, which I had never done before, and you determined to finally come out of the closet—you have to admit, that’s odd. Plus, we’ve mutually developed an obsession for each other, an uncontrollable one. Also odd, yet correct, right?”

Again, I nodded.

“I feel something deep inside me”—he took one of my hands in his and pressed it against the center of his chest—“in my heart and soul. What has, and is, happening between us is no mere coincidence. That there’s something more powerful at work—call it ‘fate,’ call it ‘destiny,’ call it whatever—seems the only logical explanation. And all of what’s occurred between us is also connected in some unfathomable, magical, crazy way with my theory about how I paint.”

I tried to digest his words, but they made no sense. Or did they? Yes, I couldn’t deny that our shared attraction and our recent actions—how many times had I jerked off in the past week with my obsession growing by leaps and bounds?—did seem more than coincidental.

But fate? Predestination? As long as we’re at it, how about hocus-pocus f*****g-ocus?

I didn’t know if I could believe any of that. There had to be some sort of natural explanation for the powerful connection we’d felt since meeting.

Lust? Maybe. Love? Possibly.

But how the hell did our feelings for each other somehow tie in with how he painted?

No, it truly didn’t make any sense. Parts of it, sure—but all of it? No f*****g way in hell!

“Matthew, as I said before, from the moment I met you, I felt you were someone extremely special, someone who would somehow play an important role in my life. And then when you stripped for me, and I…I saw the…”

“Saw what?” I asked, but a part of me, probably the one that chilled me to the bone, already divined the answer.

“When I saw your unique birthmark hidden within the framework of that panther tattoo, I simply knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that you were my destiny.” He climbed to his feet and continued to hold my hand. “I need to show you something, Matthew, and the reason for my firm beliefs will hopefully become quite clear. And with any luck, maybe you will also believe my theory as well.”

Unable to imagine what in the world he could possibly show me that would sway me to believe his outlandish and ludicrous concept, I said nothing. Instead, I decided to humor him and got off the mattress. He led me to the other end of his bedroom, toward what I had assumed was a closet. When he opened the set of double doors, however, I realized my mistake.

Almost as vast as the bedroom itself, this windowless room appeared to be another studio. Easels abounded along one wall, holding works in various stages of completion, along with several tables laden with art supplies. The faint scent of oil and turpentine hung in the air, along with a trace of cinnamon, as if he’d recently burned incense. Unlike the other two studios, however, with their nearly bare hardwood floors and stark white-painted walls, this room boasted a beautiful handwoven floor tapestry in the center area, while what looked like silk brocade covered the walls in shades of burgundy and beige. At one side of the room, a tall polescreen with shield-shaped panels of embroidered art partially masked another black-marble fireplace, and several leather chairs and a sofa comprised a comfortable seating area.

As in the other studios, paintings lined the walls, but of a larger scale and with grander, more ornate frames that also featured directional lights to showcase the art they housed. With the room’s soft illumination and the elegance of the decor, I instantly sensed that Novak had deemed the works in this room somehow distinguished, worthy as keepsakes in this private gallery. It flattered me that he would allow me to view this sanctuary, yet I also wondered why.

The reason quickly became apparent.

I recognized Novak’s unmistakably captivating visage and lean, well-developed physique in each of the paintings. He had captured to perfection the spark in his ebony eyes, his full lips and regal nose, along with exceptionally detailed replicas of his torso, buttocks and limbs. And I instantly identified his genitals—the darker foreskin and blood-engorged crown, the network of purple-red veins decorating the hard shaft, the plump and furry balls—seeing as how closely I had studied them in the flesh, memorized them, during our lovemaking sessions. The art nearest the door seemed to be all self-portraits, but the farther I ventured into the room, I noticed how the paintings began to depict other men along with the artist.

In one, Novak had a large erection buried in his mouth and c*m trickling from his lips. In another, he sat atop a giant d**k, his own shaft squirting semen across his lover’s heaving chest. In still another, he lay on his back, his arms spread at his side and his face wrenched in ecstasy, while his legs encircled the waist of a well-hung man obviously f*****g him into a state of bliss.

I couldn’t help but pop a gigantic boner, and it surprised me. Seeing my lover pleasuring and being pleasured by other men turned me on more than I could have ever guessed. Funny, I thought, considering the pangs of jealousy I had felt earlier that day when only imagining someone else bidding for the man’s attention. But now, viewing these outrageously lifelike images of Skylar Novak in the throes of passion sent blood to my groin in a heated rush.

Just behind me, Sky cleared his throat, snapping me out of my carnal revelry. He kissed my shoulders, then wrapped his arm around my waist and started stroking my shaft. Since entering the room, his c**k had also grown considerably, and I felt it press and throb against my buttocks. I rested back against his furry body, enjoying his ministrations while savoring the scenes of lewd gratification going on within the various highlighted frames.

Another painting featured Sky holding a sizeable and ejaculating p***s inches before his face and capturing jets of the creamy semen with his tongue. Another showed him rubbing his c**k against the center of a muscular torso and pumping streamers of his own ivory juice across his lover’s patch of chest hair. Yet another painting depicted the artist straddling his lover’s waist, m**********g both c***s in the same hand as they erupted twin geysers of jizz high into the air. As I continued to stare at the paintings, Sky’s hand squeezed me harder and stroked faster, and I could feel the pre-c*m oozing from me in a steady flow.

His hot breath invaded my ear canal in a gentle f**k of exhales. “You recognize the man in the paintings, of course. Remarkable, isn’t it?”

“Y-yes, your talent is absolutely phenomenal.”

“That’s not what I mean. Now after seeing the paintings in this room, you can probably understand why meeting you has thrown me off balance…why I believe my theory is correct.”

“I still don’t know what you mean. What does your art have to do with us? Or with the unusual and magnetic attachment we feel for one another?”

All at once, his hand left my c**k. He stepped around me and stared into my eyes, his mouth agape. “Do you still mean to tell me that our meeting, our becoming lovers, is no mere coincidence? How can you continue to suggest that some strange phenomena is not at work here, or somehow running through my hands to create these paintings?”

“I’m sorry, Sky, but that’s exactly what I’m saying. I’ll admit, seeing these impressive images has gotten me excited, as you can obviously tell. But I still don’t follow your logic. What exactly do you want me to comprehend by viewing images of you screwing other guys? I don’t get it—”

“Other guys? Look closely, Matthew. Stop concentrating on me in the paintings and look closely at the other man.”

“Huh?”

“Look again, damn it, look!”

Previously I had indeed focused my attention on his likeness, the object of my unquenchable s****l desires, instead of scrutinizing the other figure in each of the paintings. Now I did as he commanded, scanning them with a fresh eye.

And then I saw what had coerced Novak into thinking he was crazy, because renewed worries of insanity raced through my own head. And not regarding his mental state, but my own.

A blast of arctic air couldn’t have chilled me more. With my feet frozen in place, I shivered as my gaze leapt from one painting to another and I finally recognized the telltale marks of the other man’s body.

It was mine!

My head started to swim in an eddy of frantic thoughts, and I heard myself babbling gibberish until my throat closed in panic. To keep from collapsing, I clutched Sky’s broad shoulders. He wrapped his arms around my waist and kept me propped up. The warmth of his bare flesh did nothing to halt the brutal shivers that stampeded along every inch of my body.

I swallowed several times and drew deep, cleansing breaths until I found my voice. “Th-this can’t be,” I whispered, yet seeing evidence to the contrary wherever I directed my gaze. “It’s some kind…some kind of trick. It has to be.”

“No, Matthew, this is no trick. But I can certainly empathize with your initial reaction, because it’s the same one I had last weekend after seeing your nude body for the first time. Now you know why I didn’t show you my private art collection before attempting to explain. I tried my best to prepare you for this, hoping to lessen the impact, but I can see I’ve failed miserably. I’m so sorry…so sorry…”

I pointed to a painting only inches away from me, the one in which Novak, being pummeled by a thick c**k, had his legs encircling his lover’s waist. There, just above the juncture of the man’s clenching buttocks, a mark in the shape of a five-pointed star marred the white flesh. “It’s…it’s…”

“Your birthmark. Yes, Matthew. Now you know what had me so damned captivated when you told me the story of the birthmark, how it runs in your family. And now you know why it fascinated me to the point of astonishment.”

I looked back at the first painting, the one with the kneeling artist devouring a spewing c**k, and sure enough, I clearly viewed the small five-pointed star, the same as I now saw in every painting where I could study the man’s backside.

Novak moved around me, yet continued to hold me against him. One of his hands left my waist and settled directly in the center of my chest. “I’m sure you also recognize the muscular torso with the patch of brown hair between the breastbone.” As he spoke, he buried his fingers in my chest hair, calmly stroking the fur. “And by now you probably note the lengthy p***s with the cowl of foreskin draped over the hood, the sinewy arms and legs, the large yet graceful hands and feet—”

“All mine!”

“Exactly. But the face…I could never quite capture your features.”

I saw what he meant. In most of the paintings, the man’s face had been turned away, although he did possess my thick brown head of hair. And in the few profiles, the features seemed cloudy, nebulous, unlike the rest of the highly detailed painting.

“I’d tried, believe me, Matthew, I’d tried to ‘see’ the face in my mind when creating these works of art, but I couldn’t quite depict it to my satisfaction. That’s why I didn’t recognize you when I met you. Only when I saw your birthmark, however, then acknowledged the elegant lines and curves and bulges of your musculature, the chest hair pattern…well, then it all came together. For the past week, I’ve compared your photographs to these paintings, and I must admit, I had eerily managed to capture every inch of your manly physique.”

“How is this possible, Sky? How?”

“I have no idea, Matthew. But hopefully now you can understand what I was talking about earlier, how somehow, someway, I was able to envision your body to the point of perfection. Or rather, down to the five points of that star birthmark. I’ll admit, your panther tattoo threw me. I had never once imagined that. But the birthmark remains on your body nevertheless, which means I actually captured the image of your physique in its natural state. So I repeat, it’s as if some greater power used my hands to depict you in all of these paintings and, for whatever the reason, wants us together as lovers.”

Holy f**k! Although his theory now started to actually make sense, I just couldn’t believe it. f**k, I didn’t want to believe it, because that could mean I was indeed off my rocker. My rational mind still clung to the notion that some elaborate hoax had been perpetrated. When the chills abandoned me and my body returned to its normal temperature, I pulled out of my lover’s arms and examined several nearby paintings, frantically searching for signs of a ruse.

In each canvas, in the bottom right-hand corner just below Novak’s distinctive flowing signature, I noticed a date. They went back as many as seven years. Seven! Long before my chest hair had sprouted up, long before the years of playing sports and visiting the gym had developed the muscles I had today.

“A-ha!” I exclaimed, glancing over my shoulder. “How do I know you didn’t add these dates earlier this week?”

“Even if I had, where would I have found the time to create all of these finished works?”

That bit of reasoning swiftly knocked the wind out of my sails. So much for your detective skills, Columbo. Yes, with the simple stroke of a brush, Novak could have added the dates, but he made a valid point. Had it been one, maybe two paintings, I might have thought it a trick, yet compositions done in such skillful detail would have been impossible to rush. Although I had painted nothing in my lifetime, I still knew that much. With the dozens upon dozens of pictures lining the walls, this collection had taken many months, even years, to complete.

“And even if I had altered the paintings,” continued Novak, “to revise the body of my lover to match yours, it would have taken me days or weeks for each one. Sure, I could have easily plopped a small star on every ass, but the remainder of the physique…? With the work I’m completing for other clients, not to mention all the hours I’ve spent this week with c**k in hand and memories of you on the brain, I would have never found the hours to alter a single painting, let alone all of them.”

He didn’t sound defensive, or confrontational, just stating the facts. I turned around, again seeing the light of sincerity in his dark eyes. I nodded. Perhaps I needed to accept the fact that what I viewed around me was nothing short of unexplainable phenomena. That my lover had a gift of unknown origin, one provided to him by an unknown source for an unknown purpose.

“Okay, Sky, now I get it…now I finally believe you.”

His breath came out in a relieved exhale. He wrapped his arms around my waist and gave me a heartfelt embrace.

“But what does this all mean? What do you think is happening here?”

“I don’t know, Matthew. I truly don’t. All these many years, painting the same physique of my ‘fantasy lover,’ I thought I was simply creating the man I subconsciously craved, although a part of me had always hoped that I might one day find him. My mother had been a firm believer in fate and destiny, and some of that rubbed off on me, so a large part of me supposed you would one day come into my life if only I waited long enough. And looked close enough.” His moist lips trailed over my right shoulder, the fresh whiskers tickling, and he kissed me on the back of the neck. “That’s the reason why I never got too serious with any other man. But after all these years, I had just about given up hope of ever finding my fantasy lover. And then you stepped into my life.”

“And you started painting my image—my current image—seven years ago?”

“That’s right. Just after I came to Huntsville and moved into this building. Indeed, just hours after I’d settled into the penthouse, I woke up in the middle of the night, inspiration goading me into this very room and doing the preliminary work on the first painting of you and I together.” He pointed to the picture of him on his knees, sucking a c**k. My c**k! “That’s the painting that started it all. As the painting progressed, I remember wondering why I added the star symbol just above the butt cheeks. After all, it is actually quite small, so it hardly made a difference in the overall presentation. Yet, it somehow mattered.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, clutching his arms and sinking into his embrace.

“I had actually removed the birthmark on several occasions, but each time I did, a nagging sensation kept running through me. One night, I couldn’t even get to sleep until I returned to this room and added the damned thing yet again. The painting just didn’t feel ‘right’ without it, and the thought of not having it pestered me to the point of distraction. So since that night, I’ve never again questioned my gut instinct—that driving force that impels me to paint a certain image.”

“I certainly don’t know what’s happening here, but the idea that you actually painted my adult image when I was only a teenager is beyond comprehensible. It’s like you were able to see into the future. I think we’re back to Twilight Zone territory again. Do you have a crystal ball hidden around here or something?”

His gruff chuckle vibrated through me and stirred my c**k. “Nope, just the overpowering compulsion to paint what I see in my head.”

“Well, although I don’t think I’ve ever been so damned spooked, I’m glad you did paint these pictures.”

“Why is that?”

“Because with so many on display, that must mean we’ll be together—hot and hungry lovers, by the looks of it—for a very long time to come.”

“I hope so. Yet…”

“Oh, s**t! I now know you well enough that I recognize that hook in your voice. What else are you afraid to tell me?”

He released me, then turned me to face him. “You haven’t looked at the full collection of art in this room, only a small fraction.”

“You mean there’s something more I need to see?”

“Much more…and I’m not quite certain how you will react.”