Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 75195 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 376(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75195 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 376(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
“I’m done.”
“Good. It is a hard job, but I wear these things for your enjoyment as well as mine.”
I snorted.
Dominic carried the gift inside. “I’m surprised that you are painting right now.”
“Why?”
“You have your big art showing tonight. Or did you forget?”
I groaned in annoyance. “I didn’t. I have another hour before it’s time to get ready, and go to the dreadful thing.”
“I would think that for an artist, showing the work to greedy, rich buyers would be the best part of the process.”
“It’s not. The business side of art always makes me fucking violent.” I pointed to the present. “Who is that for?”
“Oh. This.” Dominic glanced at the box. “It is for my successful artist friend.”
“Oh. I didn’t know you had one of those.”
“I do.” Dominic nodded. “In fact, he’s considered the Bad Boy of art.”
“Oh no. Why would they call him that?”
“I think it is because of his tattoos.” He gestured to my chest and arms.
While he had kept his skin untouched, I had made my body a personal homage to my favorite artist, Salvador Dali.
Beginning from the tips of my fingers and snaking up my arms, my tattoos were a surreal journey through Dali’s artistic universe. One could trace the melted clocks from The Persistence of Memory slithering around my forearms, distorting time in their fluid path.
On my left bicep, the haunting eyes from The Face of War stared back with an unnerving intensity.
My chest served as a canvas for one of Dali’s most enigmatic pieces, The Elephants. The spectral creatures with their impossibly long, spindle-like legs stretched up towards my collarbone.
Then on my right arm, the disintegrating figure from The Anthropomorphic Cabinet decorated every inch.
I held in my laughter. “Just because a man has tattoos doesn’t mean he is bad.”
“Correct. I guess my friend is also a bad boy due to punching a few critics here and there at his art showings.”
“Aww. Now that makes more since, but I’m sure they deserved it.”
“Probably, but his artwork is pretty controversial also.”
I shook my head. “How has that worked for him?”
“He’s filthy rich.”
“Yet, he sounds pretentious.”
“He is, but I would never tell him that.” Dominic handed me the gift. “Congratulations on your tenth showing.”
I gritted my teeth, always unable to deal with too much showing of love and affection. “Hmmm.”
“I’m sorry that I unable to attend your showing tonight.”
“You never have to come, and you damn sure didn’t have to do this.”
“You don’t celebrate yourself, so someone must do it for you.”
“Is that how it works?” I grabbed the box, slipped the gold bow off the top, and placed it near my table of paints.
“On another topic.” Dominic dove his hands into his pockets. “Have you found a woman yet for the masquerade?”
I tore through the shiny black paper. “I’m not really interested in going this year, Dom.”
“What the fuck?!”
I snapped my view to him.
With his shocked expression, one would have thought I was confessing to murder.
Here we go.
I sighed.
His eyebrows shot up. “Please, tell me that you are not serious?”
Billionaire Blake Meade only invited the world’s elite to his yearly masquerade party. The tickets started at twenty thousand dollars each, while the VIP packages reached well beyond a hundred thousand dollars. And the party wasn’t a night event. It was a week of high-end, luxurious, out-of-this-world, erotic debauchery.
Dominic and I started going five years ago, but now. . .I just didn’t know anymore. There was just this expanding emptiness in my soul—my core, that had made me. . .less excited for things like this anymore.
How could I get him to understand, when I don’t even know what’s going on with me?
Dominic frowned. “Tristan, what the fuck? You have to go. It’s the bloody Masquerade!”
“I don’t know.” Sighing, I returned to opening the present. “What’s the point? It’s just sex games, orgies, lavish surroundings, and expensive food.”
“Hell fucking yes!” Dominic bobbed his head. “Those are the reasons why we go to the Masquerade.”
“Yes, but I’m tired of figuring out the right woman to go with me.” A hollow sensation crept within my heart. “The woman is always fun on the first day. Then after my cock has had its fill, I’m stuck with her and absolutely bored.”
Even more, my female guests never made it past the party. Once done, I didn’t call them anymore. They were fleeting, transient moments that never truly lasted. Always, I was a hunter in an endless pursuit for something, or someone, who could provoke more than a temporary fascination. Yet, never did I capture exactly what I yearned for.
Because she does not exist. I give up. Now, only my art will soothe me.
“Listen, man.” Dominic pointed at me. “You are going, if I have to pick the woman for you myself.”
“You pick? Your taste in women is horrific.”
“It is not.”
“You like big boobs with no brains.”