Pictures of Dorian Gray

IV: MUSE

ISAAC SITS AT the kitchen table, watching his mother glare down at the bills spread out before her. She taps her fingers against the side of her head in some sort of rhythm, and Isaac can see tears in her blue eyes.

"Ma."

Beatrice doesn't respond in any way, just continues staring blankly at the envelopes stamped with red letters. Isaac sighs, rubbing his eyes. "Ma--"

"Be quiet." Beatrice hisses, bringing one hand down harshly on the table. Isaac jumps, but does as she says, grabbing his sketchbook from the chair beside him. He flips through countless anatomy portraits, glancing nervously at his mother, hopeful that she didn't see. Once he gets to a clean page, he grabs his pen and starts sketching.

Immediately, the boy he met on the way to school comes to mind. The shape of his jawline comes first, bleeding out of the tip of Isaac's pen in the form of jet black ink. Next is the slope of his nose, gentle and strong at the same time, and then his eyes, and the curly hair that droops over his forehead, that bounces when he walks. Before he knows it, he's drawing the shape of the boy's lips and his ears and his neck.

Isaac finishes the drawing of the boy in about five minutes, and once he does, he's left staring down at it, feeling his cheeks heat up and his arms wash over with goosebumps.

He closes his sketchbook so abruptly that his mother jumps, looking at him with a frown. "What is the matter, love?" She sighs, but Isaac is already standing and gathering his things. "Nothing," he mumbles, shamefully, "goodnight, Ma."

He kisses Beatrice on the head and leaves the kitchen, heading up the stairs as quickly as he can.

»

"Hey, New Boy."

Dorian looks up and offers a smile as Roy, the boy who asked him out a few days ago, sits down next to him and rests his chin in his hand. "How are ya?" He asks cheekily, smiling. Dorian can't help but return it, shaking his head.

"Good, actually. I have a question."

Roy raises his eyebrows, taking out a pencil and grabbing a sheet of paper from the table in front of them. "Oh yeah?" He mutters, "what's that?" He looks back to Dorian, and the taller boy shrugs.

"The boy a few tables behind us. The one with the sketchbook."

Roy frowns, turning momentarily to look behind him. When he looks back at Dorian, he chuckles. "Isaac? What about him?"

"What do you know about him?" Dorian asks nonchalantly, shrugging one shoulder. "He's cute."

Roy laughs again, but this time, it doesn't seem as friendly. He tilts his head to the side, confused. "Isaac? He's not cute. A dork, maybe, but--"

"That's cool, but what do you know about him? What's he like?"

Roy backs down and starts writing whatever's on the board down on his paper. It's his turn to shrug, and he glances back at Isaac again. "He's kind of awkward. Really awkward. And he's always whining about how gay he isn't, but he's pretty gay. He draws naked boys, for fuck's sake. If you want to talk to him, ask him yourself. He has like, zero friends."

Dorian turns around, looking at Isaac as he sketches quickly.

"I will."

»

Mitchy manages to find Isaac in the hallway during free period. He clings to Isaac's shoulder, grinning crookedly. "Question, Solo Man." He starts, and Isaac rolls his eyes. "So, Roy is like, into the new kid?"

"He said it didn't work out." Isaac mutters, shrugging Mitchy off of him to take his backpack off. As he starts putting textbooks into his locker, Mitchy nods thoughtfully.

"Do you think he'd go out with me?"

Isaac freezes, and looks at Mitchy, who raises his eyebrows in question. He's overcome with curiosity suddenly, wants to know how Mitchy knew he liked boys and how he dealt with it. But Mitchy isn't the type to ask about things like that. So he shrugs instead, and closes his locker.

"I don't know. Ask him."

Isaac turns and walks away, and thankfully, Mitchy doesn't follow. He walks until he gets out to the courtyard, and finds an empty table. He takes out his sketchbook and a pen, trying to take deep breaths. He pushes the thoughts out of his mind, tries to focus on something that doesn't make him think about boys, he shouldn't be thinking about boys.

Just as Isaac manages to focus on a girl with bright green eyes and long dark hair, the new boy walks past her, stealing Isaac's attention in a second. His eyes follow the boy to his table with the office aide girl and her boyfriend, watching him as he sits down and hands the other boy a bottle of water. They start talking, and soon enough, the new boy is dying with laughter, his eyes darkened slits and his cheeks indented with dimples. Isaac feels his heart speed up at the sight, and he flips his sketchbook open.

Sometime while Isaac is staring and drawing, the new boy catches his eye. He's still smiling brightly, prefect teeth on display, eyes glittering in the sunlight. Isaac looks away as quickly as he can, staring down at his sketch, where the boy stares back up at him, smile and eyes made out of black ink that seems to glitter the same way that the boy's do in reality.

This is wrong, Isaac thinks. But he makes no effort to stop when he's in his bedroom, late at night, drawing what he could only imagine the boy's body looks like underneath that bulky army jacket and those tight jeans.

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