I allow him a single, lingering kiss, humming my appreciation into his mouth before backing away. “As lovely as sneaking off sounds, this is my first art show and everyone here is helping out as a favour to me. I should probably stay put.”
Ned’s sigh is dramatic. “I suppose you have a point.”
The gallery I’ve hired for my inaugural art show is housed inside an old colonial style home in the suburb of Paddington. The small gardens surrounding the house are bursting with flowers now spring has arrived, making it the perfect setting for my personal unveiling. The walls of the three main gallery rooms are quickly filling with prints of my favourite pieces, thanks to the mini-army who have taken Friday afternoon off work to help me bump in: Ned, Rodney, Leif, Patrick, Logan, and my brothers, Joel and Owen.
It took forever to pore through all the work I’ve created over the years. Rodney helped me decide which pictures to include and what sizes to have printed. Thank goodness for cheap frames or this whole exercise would have bankrupted me. We mapped out the available space and designed a placement for every single piece, which has made today’s effort much easier to accomplish.
A fourth room in the gallery also contains some prints, but it’s set up mainly as a sales area. Assuming I sell anything. Despite several years now successfully working as a freelance graphic designer, I’ve never in my life sold a single piece of art. I’ve never even shown my art to anyone since before I graduated high school. The idea of someone buying my creative art is a world away from them paying for a website design or a brand logo. This is intimate. These prints are little pieces of me.
“Speaking of helping…” Ned picks up another framed print. It’s an abstract piece I created one night a couple of years ago after coming home from a party. The guy I’d been making out with that night reacted poorly to the news I’m a top. He’d basically told me someone who looked like me had no business expecting men who looked like him to play bottom for my tiny, ineffective dick. I’d informed him that if he relied on size alone to get his bottoms over the line, he must be leaving a lot of unsatisfied partners in his wake, and perhaps he should send them my way so they could discover how inventive a dedicated top can be.
We’d growled at each other and parted ways at that point. I’d arrived home horny, lonely, and with steam coming out of my ears. The two hours I’d spent expelling my anger through slashes of colour and gritty black lines helped. So did the hook-up app I’d used the next night to find a bottom who was eager to invite me over to play. I’d stormed into the man’s house and taken him apart piece by piece. By the time dawn lit the sky, he’d come so hard and so many times that, even as I got dressed, he’d lain naked on the bed making jokes about proposing marriage to keep me around. I’d thanked him for the compliment, kissed him goodbye, and walked out—but in my head I was all, ‘Take that Mr Big Dick man’. The satisfaction didn’t last, it’s not like the arsehole who insulted me had a clue of the lengths I’d gone to in order to prove him wrong, but it made me feel better at the time.
Now, seeing the print in Ned’s hands, seeing my anger and hurt framed and ready to hang, I’m swamped with a fresh wave of terror. “Maybe I should leave that one out.”
Ned frowns, examining the print more closely. “Why?”
He doesn’t know the story behind the piece. Its subject matter isn’t as clear as some of the others. Even so, seeing it here in this room makes me feel naked. Emotionally naked. Which is way worse than being physically naked because, hello, I have a hot bod. My psyche on the other hand? That shit’s a freaking mess.
I look at Ned, who’s still waiting for me to answer his question. “What if nobody likes that one?” My gaze darts around the room, from one picture to the next. Holy fuck, it’s like I’ve cut myself open and bled all over the walls, then sent out invitations to everyone I know, inviting them to witness the carnage. My chest squeezes and I struggle to take a breath. “What if nobody likes any of them?”
Ned puts thetotally inappropriate for display because what the hell was I thinkingpicture back down and places his hands lightly on my shoulders. “Toni, sweetheart, tonight isn’t about whether people like or dislike a particular piece of your art. This is about you. It’s about showing the world who you are, unfiltered, in every mood from fabulous to furious and back again. The people who love you, will love you all the more for having seen your work. They’ll love getting to know you better. That’s what matters. And if they don’t like something,” his brows lower into a thunderous frown, “I’ll be more than happy to show them to the door. Because you are brilliant, and anyone who disagrees doesn’t deserve to be here.”
My chest is bursting by the time he’s done. “You are the sweetest man in existence,” I say, cupping his cheek. “And you’re right. Who cares what any naysayers think? You’ve seen all of me, and you love me.”
Ned grins, his hands leaving my shoulders to slide around my waist and hug me close. “I do love you,” he confirms, because he knows how much I enjoy hearing him say it. “Every delectable inch of you.”
Releasing a deep breath, I smile. “And everyone else here loves me too,” I add, before dropping to a whisper. “Except maybe Leif.”
Ned snickers, pressing his forehead to mine. “He may still be a work in progress.”
“Yeah, but that’s okay.” I shrug. “He’s Rodney’s true love. We’ll make do.”
Leaning sideways, Ned nabs theperfectly appropriate for my showpicture from its spot on the floor. “Can we hang this now?”
Swallowing my nerves, I nod. “Yes, we can.”
* * *
At seven o’clock, we open the doors to let in the handful of people who are already waiting. Extra guests continue to trickle in over the next half hour, until every room is bursting. Friends from my favourite club pour through the door. A few of my past clients arrive, having been alerted to the show by Logan. Even some old friends from high school show up to cheer me on after seeing the announcements I made on social media.
Soon I find myself inundated with questions about my art. How long have I been doing it? Why is this the first anyone has seen of it? What do each of the pictures mean? I try to answer as truthfully as I can, but without going into too much detail. Some things will always be private. Figuring out what I want to share and what I want to keep to myself will take some time.
My brothers and Kiera wander around with platters of finger food and glasses of wine and champagne. Ned is kept busy behind the sales desk as people start to make actual purchases. Some order prints in different sizes to fit their space. Others ask about commissions. Rodney swans about keeping the evening running smoothly and skiting about being the artist’s best friend.
Mum and Dad arrive at the end of the first hour. Mum hugs the crap out of me before flitting from room to room, appearing unable to decide whether to pay more attention to the art or the guests. Dad, on the other hand, is silent as he moves slowly from one piece to the next. Mum’s enthusiasm is to be expected, but it’s Dad’s reaction that has me on edge. What will he think of me? Will he even tell me? Or will he give me the usual tight smile and nod, as if there’s something he wants to say but he knows he should keep his mouth shut.
I’m still staring at Dad and trying not to squirm too noticeably when Rodney sidles up next to me. “I can’t believe you called your showThe Sealed Section,” he gushes for the millionth time, raising his voice so everyone in this room, and the next, can hear. “I came up with it, after all.”
I smirk at how proud he is of himself. “You absolutely did. So, of course, I had to use it. Although,” I gesture to the crowded room, “I never expected this many people to show up.”
“I did.” Rodney pulls aduhface. “Toni, you’ve been there for all these people at one time or another. You’ve listened to their woes and put the wind back in their sails. You haven’t been much for sharing, and you haven’t always shown up when you were supposed to,” he gives me a minor stink eye, “but you’re like the world’s best listener. Of course, they’re going to jump at the chance to get a glimpse inside your brain. Knowing your life isn’t quite so fabulous all the time makes the rest of us poor wretches feel so much better.”
“Ah, is that what it is?” I say with a laugh.
“Definitely.” Rodney nods, before shrugging. “Well, that and you’re, like, super talented and shit.”
Laughing again, I throw my arms around him in a tight hug. “Thank you for being here. For helping me with all this. For putting up with me all these years.”
