ANDREA SPEED
Keep fighting the good fight, Eric & TJ. I wish you both all the luck and good will in the world.
IT WAS the farthest they had ever traveled for a showing, and Roan was worried he’d get himself kicked out of the gallery before they realized he was the artist’s husband. Oh, and occasional model.
“You are not getting kicked out,” Dylan said, his firm tone informing him this was an order. “You’re going to be on your best behavior and keep the meanest thoughts about anyone to yourself. Until you and I can talk in privacy.”
“And then let it fly?”
“Oh, you better believe it,” Dylan said. “You’re the best gag writer not in the business.”
The Wilhelm Gallery was a new place opened up in the suburban hinterlands, which seemed a weird place for a gallery, but as Dylan rightfully pointed out, they wanted to be close to where their buyers were. Sure, the big-city buyers had their choice of galleries, but what could the suburban artsy-fartsy types do, especially if they didn’t want to drive? (Dylan gave him a very evil look when Roan replied, “Internet.”) So it was somebody’s cash grab, and if Dylan could make some money out of it, all the better.
Dylan was actually one of three artists being featured at the grand opening, with Misa Oyama and a guy named Mikael Anisimov. Dylan knew Misa, who was an abstract painter and mixed-media sculptor, but Anisimov was new to him. They had a standing bet that he had made up his name. (Roan also wanted to add/subtract an extra ten if his real name turned out to be something bland, like John Smith or Michael Jones.) While Roan felt acutely out of place in stuffy, classy settings like this, he did have endless fun poking and prodding the stuffed-shirt types, even if it was behind their backs to Dylan alone. And sometimes they had decent drinks and nibbles, although not nearly enough.
From the outside, the gallery was a stark white box, lit up with small pinlights so it seemed like the walls glowed. Although they found a parking space easily, there were a good number of cars in the parking lot, giving them hope of a decent crowd.
The interior of the gallery also seemed to glow white, presumably the better to show off all the colorful artwork, and while Misa’s bright abstracts initially greeted them—and Roan liked them, being a general fan of good abstract art—a walk around the corner revealed the snack table and the start of Dylan’s section.
There was already a man standing in front of one of Dylan’s photos—this of Roan’s back with fake wounds painted on, contrasting with his actual tattoos and drawn-on curse words—part of Dylan’s “war words” sequence (there were four of those in all). Roan grabbed an unknown nibble (meat in phyllo dough—smelled like a sausage of some variety), and a red drink that smelled of schnapps before standing beside the man. He made sure Dylan was out of earshot, greeting Misa, before he asked, “What do you think?”
“It’s a beautiful photo,” the man said, gesturing at the picture with his drink. “But I really wish we could see this guy’s face.”
“Why?” Roan wasn’t about to volunteer it was him. He never did. If Dylan mentioned it, fine, but he didn’t feel like talking about whether his tattoos were real or not. It was Dylan’s evening, and it was his time to shine.
“I mean, look at his body,” the man said, gesturing down toward the other photos. Although they were from different sequences, there were four photos of a body-painted Roan in the show. One showed his chest, one his back, one his right arm, and another his stomach. There were no photos in any sequence that showed his entire face, because that was the deal. Roan would be Dylan’s living canvas, but only if he was effectively anonymous. “I can’t believe a guy with a body this cut isn’t gorgeous.”
“It happens.”
“Yeah, but I don’t buy it.” The guy faced him, showing him his good eye. He did just have the one, as the other eye was glass. Not only was it frozen and unmoving, but glass eyes had a certain reflective quality that normal eyes didn’t have. “Rick.”
“Roan,” he offered.
As he expected, Rick’s eyebrow went up. “Really?”
“Really. Believe me, I wouldn’t have picked it myself.”
“Why not? It’s not bad.”
“Yeah, but if I had a nickel for every time someone called me Ron or RoAnne, I could pay for a new life with the change.”
Rick chuckled. “You know you’re talking to a guy named Rick, right? It rhymes with a lot of things, as kids on the playground would be happy to tell you.”
“You should stay away from the playgrounds. Kids are dicks anyways.”
That made Rick laugh really hard, and Roan took the moment to try the hors d’oeuvre. It was fairly tasty but way too small. It needed to be about the size of a baseball to make him happy.
A well-muscled man joined them, gazing at Roan with open curiosity. Rick put a casual hand on his brawny arm and said, “Jamie, this is Roan.”
Jamie sized him up with a glance and said, “Hey,” holding out his hand.
“Hey,” Roan replied, shaking his hand. He had a strong grip, but with those pecs, he’d better.
“So who are you here to see tonight?” Rick asked.
“I mostly like to people watch,” Roan admitted. “Although this Dylan Harlow guy is something else.”
“Yeah, these pictures are great,” Jamie said, looking at the photo in front of them. “But I’d really love to know what this guy looks like.”
“Could it be the artist?” Rick wondered.
Jamie snorted. “You think these are a bunch of selfies?”
“You never know,” Roan said, taking a sip of his drink. It was a designer cocktail of some stripe, overly fussy and overly sweet, and while it wasn’t the worst thing he’d ever had, Roan figured he’d abandon the glass first chance he got.
Rick glanced around. “The artists are all here, right?”
Roan held up his glass to hide his smile as Jamie and Rick looked around this part of the gallery at the other works of Dylan’s hanging up in the area. Dylan had included one of his “bleeding hardware” series, which was one of Roan’s favorites and was just what it sounded like: inanimate objects inexplicably bleeding, like the aftermath of violence with the actual violence removed. It should have been pretentious and campy, but Dylan’s photo-realistic art made it all look so creepy.
“What’s this Anisimov’s art like?” Roan asked, as he was genuinely curious.
Jamie made a sour face that pretty much said it all. “One step above velvet Elvis.”
Roan allowed himself a chuckle. “That bad, huh?”
“I hope you’re not talking about my work,” Dylan said, joining them. He put an arm around Roan’s shoulders, meaning that his cover was blown. Oh well.
Rick and Jamie both looked at Roan with varying degrees of surprise. Rick seemed more amused than annoyed, which was a good sign. “Dylan, meet Rick and Jamie.”
“Wow,” Rick said. “You’re Dylan Harlow? For some reason, I thought you’d be older.”
“Really?” he replied, glancing at his work. “Is there something here that screams ‘old man’?”
“Besides the half-naked hottie you’re painting on? Nothing,” Jamie said. Rick tried to give him a subtle elbow, but Roan saw it.
Dylan dipped his head and smiled. “Fair enough.” Roan gave him the drink he had, and Dylan sniffed it warily. “How bad is it?”
“Too sweet and yet still kind of bitter.”
“Smells a bit like a Cactus Cooler, which would fit that description.” One of the caterer’s waiters was passing by with a half-empty tray, and Dylan deftly put the drink on it as the man moved on. Rick and Jamie were giving Dylan a look of curiosity, and when Dylan realized it, he said, “My day job is bartender.”
Jamie raised his eyebrows. “So, you’re a starving artist, and yet you’re still getting this guy’s okay to paint on him? My hat’s off to you.”
“I’ve heard he’s a slut,” Roan said.
“Aww, don’t talk that way about my muse,” Dylan said, giving him a quick kiss on the forehead. That meant Roan was lucky he’d escaped getting a noogie in public.
Jamie put it together. Although Roan’s outfit wasn’t formfitting, he looked from the photos to Roan’s body and back again. “Holy shit, you’re the model.”
Rick looked him up and down slowly and gasped. “You are! Dude, you could have said something.”
“He enjoys being a sneaky bastard too much,” Dylan said. Roan thought it was unfair he was just revealing his trade secret like that.
“Were you in the military?” Jamie wondered. At Roan’s quizzical glance, he pointed at the photo of his back on the wall. “That scar looks like a bullet wound.”
That revealed Jamie as an Army vet, and Roan could see his gaze settling on the scar that bisected Roan’s eyebrow and the ghostly one near his upper lip. He was probably sizing him up as a much rougher individual than he first thought, and he was correct. “No, I used to be a cop.”
“You?” Rick blurted in disbelief and instantly slapped a hand over his own mouth, the horror blooming in his eye.
Roan snickered. “Don’t worry, I get that a lot.”
Jamie studied him with a new respect, or something quite like it. “From cop to artist’s model? There has to be quite a story there.”
Roan shrugged and realized there was no better time than now to escape. “Not really. Well, it’s been nice meeting you guys, but—”
“Not so fast,” Dylan interrupted. He locked his arm with Roan’s and faced Rick and Jamie. “Since Roan here decided to do his comedy act and play dumb, why don’t we make it up to you by walking through my installation? I’ll answer any questions you have about my art, and Roan will answer any questions you have about him.”
Roan looked at Dylan. “I will?”
Dylan’s brown eyes fixed on him in a rather intense way. “Yes, or you’re sleeping on the couch for the rest of your life.”
Roan sighed, because he knew when he’d been bested. “You can be so mean sometimes. Some Buddhist you are.”
Dylan ignored that, giving Rick and Jamie a friendly smile. “Shall we?”
The men exchanged a questioning glance, and then Rick shrugged. “Sure, why not?”
They started walking, and Rick asked, “So how many of those tattoos are real?”
In retrospect, Roan realized he shouldn’t have been such a smartass. Too little, too late.