A/N: Written for freakingpotter on tumblr. :)
A stripe of white – not bright, harsh white, but soft, muted? Eggshell? French linen? No, purer.
Milk?
These might not be the accepted, technical names for the actual colors he uses, but Sebastian doesn't give two shits. He assigns special meaning – a certain sentimentality from his life, his childhood, his dreams – to each shade. He takes raw material and works it – bends it, breaks it, blends it - till he creates his own. They are personal and private to him, and he discusses them with no one.
He debates all these variants of white in his mind before he even thinks about picking up the colors on his brush and applying them to his canvas.
Sebastian steps back and considers his subject, on his knees, bent forward at the waist, head bowed, arms outstretched. Sebastian knows what he wants to paint, what he longs to create. Here in Central Park, his favorite place to work, the audience around him holds their breath, waiting for him to brand this muse as his own.
Sebastian squints his eyes and tilts his head, focusing on a point on the man's spine that seems to be off color – a spot of ruby amidst a blanket of pale, smooth skin. Sebastian takes a step closer to appreciate this imperfection – the fading remains of a stork's bite birthmark. It is a single flaw, a defining characteristic…and it begged to be licked.
Sebastian finally decides on a hue - fresh snow with a hint of rose to give it the faintest suggestion of a blush. He will start his masterpiece in the dead center of his canvas and work outward in all directions.
His brush touches down. He makes the first stroke with his brush and predictably the whole crowd gasps. Sebastian rolls his eyes. It's not as if he's even done anything yet.
He tunes his attentions to the single, shuddering gasp of the man at his feet.
His is the only reaction Sebastian cares about.
Sebastian doesn't normally pull random people out of the crowd and offer to paint them. He doesn't have to. It's not like he needs the free publicity. People travel from all over and pay anything to have Sebastian paint them. In fact, the crowd surrounding him as he works stands at least ten deep last time he looked. It could be more now, especially with this gorgeous man posed on his knees before him.
Sebastian saw the man join the gathering mass when he first arrived, took note of his casually stylish red jeans and the flower print shirt he paired with them – designer, but not ostentatious. Sebastian respected that. He spends a great deal of time with people who pretend to be something they aren't – observers trying to be critics, critics trying to be artists, artists trying to be legends. Sebastian tries not to fall into that trap. Besides, he's a legend already. He isn't one of those starving geniuses who dips pineapples in 24 karat gold to signify the tragedy of waste over want when the poor thing finally rots into a $250,000 mess, or layers trash on the floor, passing it off as an allegory for the human condition.
What Sebastian does is singular, unique, and pretty much aimed at accomplishing a single goal – getting him laid.
Sebastian paints people – and not in the traditional sense. He paints people – pigments on skin, living canvases, and customers pay out the ass to have it done, sometimes literally. His weapon of choice – not oils or acrylics. No, with those on his brush, his canvas wouldn't feel the smooth, silky edge of the bristles sweeping across the skin. Without his specialty blend of skin-safe mineral powders mixed with all-natural pigments that he grinds with a mortar and pestle by hand, his art wouldn't have the desired effect. The allure of his work goes beyond normal skin painting, otherwise people wouldn't gather in droves to have it done or watch him do it. His is a kind of performance art rooted in domination and erotica. His subjects don't sit in chairs - they kneel at his feet with their ankles bound and their wrists cuffed to posts at their sides. He's creating art and fulfilling a fantasy – soft core bondage and exhibitionism.
Most of his clients cum when he's through.
He hopes this man might be counted as one of them.
Sebastian had felt him staring, felt the man's eyes on his skin, felt his gaze follow his hand while he painted. Sebastian watched him from the corner of his eye while he worked on his previous portrait, studying the way the man nibbled his lower lip, the way his chest moved when he breathed – shallow and quick, becoming quicker as time went on. The signals he threw off with every blink of his cornflower-blue eyes nearly made Sebastian's hand slip. This man had an incredible aura of energy radiating off of him.
Sebastian could use that energy, work off it all day…and all night, too, if this man would let him.
Blue – a touch, maybe in a light shade, something reminiscent of the man's eyes. Not exactly cornflower – Sebastian doesn't want to invoke suggestions of earth in this tone – but sapphire?
No. Something more humble, for the shading - something that takes his picture from day to night.
Starry night – an indigo base with highlights of purple, borrowing from the master himself, Vincent Van Gogh.
Sebastian changes brushes for this color, needing something narrower, with finer bristles that come to a point. He finds what he's looking for and picks up the pigment. Carefully, steadying his hand for this intricate detail work, he adds shadows.
His canvas trembles more than any he has ever worked on before. It's sweet, and Sebastian doesn't normally do sweet.
But for this man, he'd make an exception.
"What's your name?" Sebastian asks, leaning forward and whispering into his ear.
"K-Kurt," the man stutters, taking a deep breath and trembling again from the touch of Sebastian's breath against his neck. "My name…is Kurt."
Sebastian adds another shadow to his piece, and smiles when Kurt shudders.
Yup. He can definitely make this man cum.
"Kurt," Sebastian says, this time running his nose through the man's hair, breathing in his scent, making several jealous men and women huff around him. Sebastian grins wider. "I'm going to need you to hold still unless you want this painting to go from Impressionist to Abstract."
Kurt chuckles, dropping his head lower, his outstretched arms quivering from exhaustion.
"I'll try," he says with a nod.
Sebastian could stand up and return to work, but he likes this – this close proximity that makes people in the crowd seethe with envy and this man in front of him pant with anticipation. Sebastian has already had Kurt like this for an hour. He's never worked on a painting that long in his life.
"Do you promise?" Sebastian asks, the smooth slide of his voice and his hot breath ruffling the short hairs on the back of his neck.
"I…I promise," Kurt says, his cheeks redder than he wants them.
"Good boy," Sebastian purrs experimentally, his cock bobbing in his tight jeans when Kurt shivers.
Sebastian has to find a way to get this man back to his studio. Kurt's a beautiful model. When Sebastian looks at Kurt's skin, he sees a meadow full of flowers, he sees a dozen sunrises and a dozen sunsets, he sees beaches beside oceans that stretch out to infinity.
But Sebastian also sees the outline of leather straps, the indents of metal chains, angry red welts, marks that bloom purple and spread in a dazzling array of colors from blue to black.
Kurt, with his sensitive skin, his composure, his responsiveness, his endurance, would also make an exceptional sub.
Even with Sebastian showing blatant disregard for his clientele waiting patiently for their chance (Sebastian usually limits his work to twenty a day), the crowd grows in number, stretching out into the grass. Sebastian peeks up at them, feeding off their want, their desire for him, their desire for Kurt.
"Do you want me to finish?" Sebastian whispers.
"Honestly?" Kurt asks, raising his head and chancing a glance into Sebastian's veiled green eyes. "No."
Sebastian's cock had only been half-hard; it becomes rock hard in an instant.
"But, it looks like you have a line," Kurt continues, "and I…my arms are getting tired."
Kurt laughs again, holding Sebastian's gaze, feeling powerful for being able to keep him there so long.
"Don't worry," Sebastian says with a wink. "We'll have you out of those cuffs in a minute."
Sebastian's heart speeds when he hears Kurt's discontented whine, but he returns to his work. Kurt is right. Sebastian does have a line, and in a second, he's going to have a riot.
His customers aren't always patient people, especially the women.
The main portion of the piece done, Sebastian only has the background to finish – a slash of watermelon here, a dusting of honey-gold there, and in the foreground, a collection of green swirls that act as Sebastian's signature. He overdoes the background a bit, using large headed brushes, fan brushes, anything else he knows tends to overstimulate the skin at this crucial point, following the way Kurt's chest heaves, the way he stammers, the way he drops his chin to his chest and moans low in his throat.
Kurt locks his knees following that moan, his hips stuttering once.
That's when Sebastian knows his work is done.
"There," Sebastian says, putting his pallet down on a nearby folding chair and grabbing his digital SLR. "If we had time, I'd do your chest, too."
Kurt balls his hands into fists tightly at that and Sebastian's entire body aches. His cock is still hard in the confines of his tight jeans, and Kurt's hands look so soft... Sebastian fights to ignore it, focusing the camera lens down at the painting on Kurt's back – phalaenopsis, a white winter orchid twined into a vine growing around the trunk of an oak tree in spring, exuding power and strength.
Just like Kurt.
Sebastian takes a close-up shot, then pans back to get a picture of Kurt on his knees, bent forward, wrists cuffed.
Sebastian plans to print that one out, frame it, and put it next to his bed.
"Thank you," Kurt says, his breath coming quicker than he'd planned on. Of course, he hadn't exactly planned on orgasm-ing either, something he hopes he had been able to keep subtly to himself. Of course, with everyone staring at Sebastian's work, he isn't sure anyone in the crowd would have noticed. But would Sebastian notice? "You have been more than generous."
Sebastian unlocks the cuffs from the gate pillars one at a time, massaging Kurt's wrists, rubbing up and down his arms to start the circulation back in his shaking limbs. He helps Kurt off the ground, steadying him on wobbly legs and numb feet, holding him upright a little longer than necessary to capture the last few shudders racing through his body.
"How do I look?" Kurt asks, turning his head, straining to look over his shoulders at his back.
"You look amazing," Sebastian says, letting Kurt go to pull up the photograph and show him the orchid on his spine. "The painting, however, doesn't even come close."
Kurt turns away when he feels his cheeks go hot, looking over the heads of the people in the crowd who have all pulled out their cell phones and cameras to take a picture of the newest Sebastian Smythe original before it walks away. They call out to Kurt, begging him to move this way, rotate that way, so they can get the image from all sides.
"Can you…uh…email me that picture?" Kurt asks, retrieving his shirt from the back of Sebastian's chair and holding it draped over his arm.
"I'll do you one better. Here," Sebastian says, handing Kurt his business card from his back pocket. "That's my private cell phone number, by the way," Sebastian makes a point of telling him. "Text me your email address and I'll send you a copy." He moves closer and Kurt inches in as well, longing to have Sebastian whisper in his ear again. "I also do full body portraits if you're interested. I can finish that orchid a little better for you. Maybe run some vines down the back of your thighs, make them twist around your legs…paint a matching orchid up front…"
Kurt's eyelids drift closed as those words from Sebastian's lips weave into his brain, conjuring images of Sebastian's paintbrush worshipping his skin, laying down tracks of paint in intricate colors and patterns, their delicate strokes all over his body, mimicking the touch of fingers and tongue...
"Yes," Kurt says, forcing his eyelids back open, not wanting that image to fade too quickly. "I think…that sounds like a great idea."
Kurt's eyes flick down to Sebastian's lips – so inviting, so close – but the sound of someone yelling, "Hey!" catches Kurt's attention, and he's suddenly, startlingly aware of hundreds of eyes staring, as well as an uncomfortably cold, wet spot spreading along the front of his Calvin Kleins.
"Uh, I'm going to let you get back to work," Kurt says with a whimper of regret, taking a step back from the man with the magic paintbrushes, "but I'll text you."
"You promise?" Sebastian asks, his voice dropping low, playful but unmistakably seductive. Sebastian doesn't need an answer. Kurt's flushed cheeks and his bitten lower lip gives him away.
"I promise," Kurt says, turning with a parting wave and walking into the crowd, people moving aside for him, taking his picture as he passes.
Sebastian takes a breath, knowing he has at least fifteen more paintings to go before he ends out his day – though he's really tempted to just call it quits and race after Kurt.
He's itching to finish his painting.
"Okay," Sebastian calls in a raised voice, addressing the insane mass of people blocking his view of the park around, his eyes glued solely to the path through the crowd as Kurt leaves, "who's ready to be my next masterpiece?"