Page 72 of Double or Nothing

Should have guessed it. He opts for pillar box red. So, I choose purple. Deep, dark purple.

He holds up his palette knife. “Do I have to use a brush? I want to use this to get the paint down thick. Something abstract and original.”

I sigh. “You mean impasto. Original, yes. Only been around since the sixteen hundreds.”

Alice giggles. “Titian, yes. Tintoretto. Rembrandt a little later…”

“Van Gogh,” I say to Jack. “Ever heard of him?”

Jack holds his palette up. “Yes, indeed. But I’m sure the grand masters used one of these for their efforts, and screw that.”

He casts his palette aside like a frisbee, and grabs the pillar box red, dumping the whole tube onto his canvas in one long squirt. Then he does the same with an Allzarin crimson, and a tube of California poppy.

He gets to work like a plasterer, smearing his red cacophony all over the place. It looks like something from American Psycho.

I’m not going for glooping merriment. I’m careful as I load up my palette and get to work in different corners. I have a vision. All colours bursting forth like the universe out of the Big Bang. Because that is what this crazy position between the three of us calls out to me. The Big Bang. Happening deep in my guts.

I let the unfolding colours control my hands on autopilot, a mere conduit for the creative flow as my brushes take on a life of their own. Maybe Alice was right after all. Maybe I should have given this a go a lot earlier, just for the fun of it.

I’m well into the third corner of my canvas when a wet hand lands on my cheek and yanks my face to the left. Jack’s lips press onto mine with a mwah, and when he pulls away, the absolute tosser lands some globs of his paint right onto the middle of my canvas. Pillar box red trashing my green starburst.

“Sorry,” he says. “Didn’t mean to ruin your masterpiece.”

I look at the wreckage. The splotch has no place there, the blending will be nothing but a blatant fuck up. I’ll never be able to hide it.

I’m surprised at how the rage rises in my ribcage. Careless bastard and his shitty red paint.

I clench my fist around my paintbrush. This rage of mine has something else stirring behind it. The grip on my paintbrush is squeezing hard, laced with lust. Filthy, dirty lust.

The Big Bang I was working on moves away from the canvas, focused on the gorgeous, piss-taking asshole beside me.

I squirt a huge sliver of neon green straight into my palm before I return the favour with his paint smearing tomfoolery. There is no mwah from me as I slap the paint onto his playboy cheek and smother him like he’s a luminous coloured character from Shrek.

Oh, the look on his face.

I take advantage of his shock when I wrestle him onto his back in a rugby tackle, tearing his shirt loose and sending the buttons flying.

Take this, bastard.

I smear paint from the mountains on his canvas all over his bare chest, and the Big Bang consumes me. The essence of my picture eats me the fuck up. Because he was the Big fucking Bang that started this whole saga. He was the force that exploded from the void.

He doesn’t fight me when I grab his arm and wrench it behind his back. He’s laughing as I roll him over, slamming him down so his bare chest hits my canvas.

Alice jumps back in horror with her paintbrush in her hand. Her pretty mouth is open, eyes wide, and it only fuels the flames.

“I’m not your prissy butler,” I tell Jack, reaching underneath him to loosen his belt. “I’m not anyone’s prissy little butler, taking the piss out of me. I’m done with it.”

Jack raises his hips, letting me pull his pants down his thighs.

“Now you’re talking, BT. Get that fire into you. Fuck the purple, it’s all about the reds, baby. Filthy hot reds.”

I don’t need force to keep him in position. He bucks his ass up at me in invitation, his smirk full of horniness as he shoots me a glance over his shoulder.

My paint covered hand slides between his legs and squeezes his cock as hard as I was squeezing my paintbrush. He’s already steely, and he shifts himself up onto all fours, slapping his hands on my canvas with more splotches.

The red paint from my cheek smears against his ass cheeks as I spread them wide and dive in with my tongue.

“Nice,” he says. “Get right in there.”