The sun walked away from the sky. From the sight of the world, the orange gleam was now stars hidden in plain sight. Andrei sat at the edge of his chair and faced the window. Andrei's studio was quiet. A still silence calm over the wave of the night. The urge to paint was few and far now. Not when the sky looked like a galaxy ready to take him and pull him into a hole. His bare chest itched with clay and mud. The abs he carved out of himself after spending months in a gym, forgetting to eat, and drinking mountains of water, were plastered and rough. Hard from porcelain. A few strikes of red and white on his tanned skin.
His abdomen ached. The pain was still life, like him. Still and cold.
He sighed into the cigarette. It's a bad habit, but it tasted like candy. Smoke inhaled into his broken lungs. The scent of it, of chemicals and weeds. His heart clenched at every breath. The way it felt when it stopped at his bloodstream. Andrei couldn't live without it.
His diamond eyes shifted sights. From the Chinese restaurant to his star again. The table beside him. A brand new idol resides. His eyes. That pink-haired boy's eyes sculpted into roses. He was a doll and he deserved a canvas. Those orbs held onto colors better than any other piece of terra cotta Andrei owned. Made from salvaged porcelain and coated in acrylic. You could still see the faint lines of scars from the materials. Spotted the way those scars turned into veins, bursting pulps behind the pupils, Andrei huffed.
His fingers dug into his thigh. One hand clasped over the end of the cigarette before he ripped it out. A sharp exhale left him. He butted it out on the edge of the table. Smoke flowed into the air while his body turned the other way. A batch of clay sat on the desk. His arms ran to it. He hummed heavily and bit into his lip. The eyes are the key to the soul. He'd done three versions, three different people, of eyes. Yet, nothing felt as secure as that boy's eyes wrapped in petals.
Beauty enthralled it. Andrei sniffled again, wiping the edge of his nose. Usually, he'd play some music and continue on. Today didn't feel like one of those days.
His mind was trapped on that boy. Unable to unlatch.
He wasn't obsessed. Maybe a little bit.
The pink-haired was kind. The poses he made were beautiful. Everything about him shimmered and glowed; Andrei had to replicate it.
Andrei would add some piercings here and there to the sculptures to differentiate them from the boy. He didn't want to seem insane. But maybe he was. Maybe he was crazy and maybe he was obsessed. The boy, who is likely a student at the same university Andrei goes to judging by how many times he visits the campus library, seemed to notice him just as much, though. Andrei wanted to be a part of the tortured artist club too. But his muse knew. Or alluded to it in vague ways.
Small waves, tiny smiles, random stars on the mirror with dry erase markers on the spot that Anddrei would sit at. The one where the artist would bite his lip and sketch each position. Voyeuristically. Each curve and each tip was to be stroked on a jaded paper by a ballpoint pen. At the top of the pen, it was so raw from how it'd been taken off each time. It was better sculpture of Andrei's veneers than his actual dentist's atempt.
The blonde grunted into his palm before pushing off of his thighs. They felt like bricks from how many substances have touched them, trembling at every twitch. The muscles he mimicked through stone didnt work as well for him. They were always ice-hard and hefty. The squats in his routine didn't fix of add anything to the fact. His hands were covered in sludge and muck. They burned. Andrei licked his chapped lips and tugged the bigger one so roughly in his mouth, a nerve ruptured.
His throat quickly filled with blood. But Andrei isn't the type of man to care about bodily moisture.
He stumbled his way through the crowded studio. Passed the failed attempts, passed the halls of marble clay carved into diamond pieces and tables. He moved faster when he spotted the items he did at fifteen. His chest felt tight from the cigarette. Not the fact that eight years ago, his idea of a sculpture was interpretive. He's grown now. Realized people only want aesthetics and he was poison at them.
The bathroom was a door hidden behind one of those childish posters. It was maroon and blue with a golden handle and a name tag that said 'rest room.' Andrei's father designed it.
The young man pressed a shaking hand over the bulbous handle, fingers red. He twisted lightly as every groove beneath his skin ached. Targeting areas like his palms and hips. A sigh left him. Again.
Ghe small sounds are his home and pleasure. He tugged at one of his abs covered in pastel pink acrylic. His lip stung. His eyes narrowed, dark and slim already. "Fuck me," he whined. The dirty rag on the sherbert sink and the body wash screeched for his name. He grabbed it with slinky fingers and lathered it all on his body. Suds fondled his hardened body, hugging the skin and kissing it clean. Even as certain parts cleared; like the ones over his nipple or over his brand new tattoo, the clay didn't rub off with one swipe. A menial, messy job all over him. A mixture of Dior body wash and miscellar water soaked him again. He spritzed it over himself and rubbed gently, scrubbing till the pain felt still.
He grunted once more. The clay would have to wait until he got home. Too hard and too annoying to stand and scrub himself; he'd rather just take a bath.
His eyes rolled. He placed everything where it beglonged and turned his back, emphasizing his exhaustion through force that stomped quietly. He grabbed his book bag and cell phone.
"Really done for today," he told himself for the hundredth time. The lights clacked off and so did work for today.
He'd come back the next day to do the exact same thing with a different clay. He'd clean it tomorrow.