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Canvas Blues, Fantasy, fantasy romance, Fiction, gay romance, LGBT, long-reads, Love, M/M, Mystery, Novel, prose, reading, Romance, Short Fiction, Writing
CANVAS BLUES
Vignettes Regarding the Artwork of Brendon Kotes
LVI: Present
An audience made work difficult. Brendon’s attention wavered, his hands lost steadiness, his mental vision turning muddied rather than crisp and clear. The fact that Orion looked incredibly content to sweep inexpert strokes across the small, cheap canvas Brendon had given him and did not bother casting glances sideways didn’t seem to matter.
They painted under a hot summer breeze and clouds the size and breadth of fingernails. A crescent frowned at them as it lowered in the west and found its way onto Brendon’s painting in multiples, the moon mirrored throughout the sky as if taunting the sun. He added impossible reflections to the water, a broken-edged crisscross of sunlight and moonlight. The wharf under his feet morphed into a mazed set of gnarled roots, like mangroves inching into the bay.
None of it made sense, yet he was careful to keep a place where human feet could stand stably. Conscious to thwart reality by picking a navy—so close to Orion’s shirt—to add shade. He found himself rippling the water more than normal that it might not be mistaken for glass, and then banking them so the wind would not be typhoon-strong.
Through Orion kept his promise, his questions about paint rather than stranger things, Brendon could feel eyes looking over his shoulder, judging the safety of his art. Asking, silently, whether he might claim a victim from this creation.
It was midday and sweat soaked his shirt when Orion finally spoke. “You work through lunch?” Continue reading