Death's Muse

Chapter Six;

The following day, Mikey didn't leave his home or speak to a single person. His phone rang off and on the entire day, but he didn't bother answering. He checked his voice mail once to see if the art collector he knew had called him back yet, but all that was there were the pitiful cries of a broken and confused man. Armando had left an enduring fourteen voice mails, all echoing painful sobs and cries. Most of them weren't even real words.

So, Mikey spent the entire day in his bed, fading in and out of sleep, laying on his stomach when he was awake and staring at the wood on the side of the bedside table, twirling his finger over the grain, humming a song he had long since forgotten the name of. Mikey wrapped himself in the blanket, rolling from one end of the bed to the other, becoming a little burrito of loneliness until the sun went down, and he fell asleep for the night.

The next evening, Mikey finally woke and decided that something different needed to happen, that if he allowed himself to lay there any longer, he would more than likely kill himself the next time he awoke. That was a though that terrified Mikey, but every inch of his body knew it was true. After the sun went down, Mikey took a shower for the first time in several days. He sat at the bottom of the shower, hot water pouring down his back and burning slightly, steam rising above the shower. He rubbed at the scratch marks on his wrists and his hips and wondered how much of his skin cells were living under Armando's fingernails. After his long, hot shower, Mikey abandoned the shower, wrapping a white towel around his waist when he noticed how the mirror was fogged over. He couldn't even see his own face in the mist.

Mikey rolled his index finger over it and scrawled one sentence on the mirror.

"PLEASE GET ME OUT OF HERE!!"

He sighed, watching the sentence for a minute before he slid on his clothes, blow dried his hair, and decided it was time to paint. The bills were due very soon, and Mikey didn't have any money. So, much to his dissent, he called Frank. Frank was, to put it lightly, more than excited to come over. Mikey wasn't excited at all. He was nervous. All he kept thinking about was what Frank had said, how pressing he had been about Armando.

About an hour after that, the two were already in the basement, and Frank was already naked and the dog was already asleep in the corner. Frank was much more talkative as Mikey crouched in front of him, moving his arms above his head, running his hands ever so softly along Frank's pale and perfect arms. "I suppose I have never said this," Frank said in a low, yet playful tone, "But I absolutely love the gold chain from your ear to your nose."

Mikey's face turned pink, and every ounce of concentration he had was gone. The gold chain was something Armando always went out of his way to make fun of because Armando didn't like it, but whenever they were intimate, he made a big deal of pulling on it, which hurt Mikey more than anything. It wasn't a rope. Mikey moved his lips like he would say something, anything, but he didn't, and he only nodded his head, hands moving along Frank's arms delicately.

He repeatedly moved Frank's left arm back and forth, leaning over the man's naked body. He tried not to look at Frank's face because he knew what he would see. A small, wickedly attractive smirk that would absolutely eat him away. Mikey knew if he looked at Frank, he would sooner take his pants off just as Frank had done. He couldn't do that. No, he just couldn't do that. He had a boyfriend.

Mikey finally had to pull himself away, his hands slowly drawing off of Frank's pale and perfect skin. Frank had the most perfect skin of any human Mikey had ever seen. Mikey could feel his heart pounding as he pulled away and cleared his throat nervously, turning towards the easel and rolling up his sleeves. Just like the times before, Mikey mixed the paint again on his pallete, a ball of nervousness and anxiety settling in his chest.  This was quickly dispelled when he could move his brush away from the pallete and begin painting.