“I think you deserve a reward. How about a house tour once we’re done eating?”
Chapter 6
Victor
Thehouseisenormous,and quite dark, both in color and the amount of natural light illuminating most of the rooms. But despite looking like a billionaire’s bunker-slash-art-gallery, there’s a serenity in all the empty spaces I’ve seen throughout. Considering I could barely afford a single room with a leaking ceiling and moldy windows while working two jobs, maybe this minimalist design is the epitome of luxury? Maybe all Sevastyan really needs to flaunt his success is expensive art displayed inside a home as big as some apartment buildings.
I’ve so far seen everything from a large pantry, a bedroom with actual windows and a bed standing on a podium of sorts, a home gym, and a living room with a balcony stretching over the crashing waves below. Sevastyan decided I needed the thrill of feeling the breeze on my bare skin, which ended with me pathetically clinging to his arm as soon as I got to peek down from the massive balcony.
I can be clumsy on the best of days. I’m not about to trust myself with a wound in my leg.
“And we’re the only ones in this house?” I ask to confirm what I’m pretty sure I already know. Otherwise we wouldn’t be walking around naked, me on a leash and with zip-tied hands. Unless he has more prisoners here, and I’m just another addition to his collection.
“Other than the occasional assassin,” Sevastyan says, putting his arm around me as we step ever closer to the clear glass railing surrounding the balcony. The wind alone is giving me goosebumps, but as we get closer and I take a peek at the ocean and rocks below, vertigo spins my senses.
At least it takes my focus off being butt-ass naked next to a man whose toes I sucked not long ago. And I liked it. Something is very wrong with me.
Before I can ask why the fuck there areassassinsafter him, Sevastyan goes on.
“That’s why the house is filled with traps. I won’t tell you where all of them are, since I need to keep you on your toes, so don’t think of venturing out on your own. It will end badly for you.”
He plants a patronizing kiss on the top of my head. For a second, I consider what he’d do if I tried jumping into the waves below, but I don’t actually have a death wish, so instead I press my shoulder against his torso.
“That was most of the house,” he concludes, leading me back to the blessed warmth of the interior. “I left the best part ‘til last.”
I don’t need to ask what he means. He’s going to now lead me to his atelier and show me how inferior I am when compared to him. I guess that’s still better than another visit to the torture room where I’d just lose my mind from terror.
“So… about those ‘assassins’? This is a real thing? Not a figment of your imagination?” I ask, but he waves it off, as if we’re discussing theorems, not real-life danger to his life.
“Nothing you need to be concerned about. Let’s talk about the one thing that really matters. Art,” he chirps, leading the way up a flight of stairs tucked into the wall of the living room. I’m not sure how to answer, but when we emerge in a large space flooded by natural light coming in through a two-storey windows, I lose the plot entirely.
The walls here are unexpectedly white, though that is a generous description considering the amount of paint splashed over their surface. Huge canvases create layers around us, and I’m certain that if the shelves with paint pots collapsed, I’d die in the most colorful avalanche in history.
This studio doesn’t even feel like a part of the same house. It’s like a pocket dimension containing everything that doesn’t belong in the pristine world of the man I’ve so far gotten to know.
I look around with my mouth open, too curious to feel embarrassed about my nakedness. I must have ventured off, because he tugs on my collar, pulling me back.
“I’m sorry, I just… want to see it all. You never give studio tours, and there haven’t been any photographs of this place. And then, it contrasts so much with the rest of the house. Why?”
Sevastyan doesn’t seem displeased by the questioning and smiles at me. “When I leave the studio, I don’t want to clutter my mind. The minimalist design eases my senses, leaving a lot of space for new ideas.”
Despite my situation being so perilous, I eat up every morsel of information. I’m getting to know things about him others can only dream of. I don’t even need to ask to know he’s working on several pieces at a time, all of them grand self-portraits taller than me. I can hardly take my eyes off the one currently facing the huge window. It’smostly complete, Sevastyan’s naked body presented in a relaxed position, with a dreamy smudging effect that’s one of the hallmarks of his style. But the face remains an empty space occupied solely by a cool blue underpainting. A body not yet occupied by its intended soul.
This time, when I pull on the leash, he walks me toward the canvas.
My nose is nearly touching a raised bit of paint as I take in the scent of linseed oil and analyse every detail he must have painstakingly rendered, just to then smudge it. The sharp, nearly photorealistic elements of the composition underline his technical skill and let everyone know that the blurred-out bits have a purpose. Even the scale of this painting tells you how seriously he takes himself. The body in the canvas must be twice his size, and yet the figure is harmonious, without a single muscle looking out of proportion.
It’s crushing in its perfection, even in this unfinished state.
I bite my lips, because I’m standing in front of the truth. I came here to expose him to the world as a fraud, but all I’m seeing is that he really is this talented. The art world might not know about his torture room, but if they did, it would have only made him more interesting, and therefore more valuable.
He had every right to crush my pathetic dreams, because this kind of talent doesn’t emerge every day. My own paintings have nothing on the utter perfection of each brush stroke I’m seeing around me.
My chest feels tight, and my knees weaken, as if I’m about to collapse. Next to me, Sevastyan sighs and gently brushes his hand over the line of his back, which is so perfectly rendered in oil. “I suppose I am a bit vain, considering my subject of choice.”
By the time I try to speak, tears well up in my eyes, and my voice trembles. “Why wouldn’t you be? If you saw the face of God, wouldn’t you paint it?”
I thought I felt small on the night they called off my solo show. I’m happy about it now, because what would be the point of wasting gallery space on drawings like mine when Sevastyan’s art exists?
