The Art Guy (18+) COMPLETE, FREE to READ

The Myriad Uses of the Dulux Paint Chart

Glasgow, 1992

John had fought temptation and won. Despite Kippy's best efforts, John hadn't climbed into bed with him. He had allowed himself another kiss, this one not at all gentle before pushing him back.

"You're too young for me. I'd be cradle-snatching," he said, picking Kippy's jeans off his bedroom floor and dropping them onto the bed. "I've got to go. I'm meeting my personal trainer in the gym. Let yourself out. The door will lock behind you."

The brush-off hurt. It shouldn't have done. John had told him why he wouldn't hook up with him and it was a good enough reason, but it still felt painful. And Kippy was rock hard too, fired up with testosterone that thought it was finally going to get what he had wanted for years.

Having a wank on John's lovely clean bed wasnae polite. He used the technique he'd always employed as a teenager when he found himself in situations where he shouldn't have been hard, naming in his head all the varieties of paint on the Dulux colour chart.

Worked every time.

As soon as he got back to his halls, he looked out Lillian. She was in her room, still in bed. And last night's clothes by the look of it.

"Oh goodie, it's you! I was about to come looking for you. Well, what happened?"

She sat up, dislodging books and a good few crumbs. "I can't talk till you've made me a coffee, though."

Lillian was masculine looking, Kippy supposed. He'd drawn her a couple of times, and when he did, she had looked at the pictures and turned to him, incredulous.

"Oh dear! Do I really resemble a man that much?"

She believed the pictures, though. Kippy was the year's outstanding student. His figures and portraits were incredible, capturing in his subjects qualities they didn't know they possessed. Lillian was tall, and straight up and down. She had a square face and wore her hair short. Perhaps that was why he'd gravitated towards her. When he painted her, you saw order, bossiness and something hidden, a little part of Lillian she was yet to find out for herself.

He switched on the small kettle in her room and stretched over her to retrieve the coffee jar from the cupboard above her bed.

Lillian wrinkled her nose. "God, you stink. Have you had sex?"

He jumped back from her in alarm. "No!" He had, however, gone back to his room before coming to Lillian's and jerked himself off, the image of John's thighs and the memory of that kiss spurring him on.

He made her a coffee and sat down in the chair in the corner as far away from her nose as possible.

"Great party," he said.

"Can you remember it?" she said, taking a huge gulp of scalding hot coffee. She had an asbestos mouth and tongue. "You were caning it. When I left, you were dancing with Danny and John. And you never dance."

Kippy pounced. "John? Who's he?"

"He's an old family friend. My mum's first godson. Been gay for years, but broken-hearted because his last boyfriend cheated on him. Can you get me some biscuits? There are hob-nobs on the desk."

He sighed and reached for the packet. Lillian was a bit like Katrina. Bossy as fuck. Maybe because she was so posh. In her home, she probably had servants to do this for her.

Lillian took out a stack of the hob-nobs, littering yet more crumbs on her bed. "Mmm," she said dreamily. "Poor John! He was with that guy for five years, and then he found out that Martin spent a lot of time in Queen's Park if you know what I mean."

Kippy shook his head.

"It's where the gays of Glasgow go for casual sex," she explained, spraying out mouthfuls of biscuit. Honestly, if he weren't gay, her eating and living habits would have repelled him anyway.

"John's not one of those poofs—the ones that think it's okay to be in a relationship and shag everything that moves at the same time."

Kippy hadn't actually known that kind of man existed. He'd been too busy fantasising about having sex with a man—any man—that the thought of how a relationship might work had never crossed his mind.

The fired-up testosterone, though... Queen's Park sounded like the kind of place he should go. He imagined faceless, nameless male bodies, the sweat and the hardness of them, and found himself once more running through the Dulux paint chart.

"So, why do you want to know about John?" Lillian's face had taken on a sly look. "Where did you spend the night? I know you weren't here."

"I crashed at some guy's house," he said. "I dunno who he was."

"And, and? How is my mission going, the one to get you laid?"

Bit shaming to admit his virginity was still intact. He shrugged and hoped she'd stop questioning him. No such luck.

"Do tell! It's not good to keep everything buttoned up like people did in the olden days. I should know," she added darkly. "Did I ever tell you about my great-uncle?"

Frequently was the answer to that. Lillian's great uncle had been gay and imprisoned when he was caught with his trousers down in the public toilets in Hyde Park because in those days homosexuality was illegal. His family had disowned him, and he died some years later a lonely alcoholic. Lillian saw it as her mission to make sure gay men never felt as he did.

Years of not talking about it, though, made it hard to change the habit of a lifetime. He also didn't want to discuss what had happened, as the memory of the feel of John's mouth on his was something he wanted to keep to himself. And anyway, talking about it would make him hard again.

"Tell, tell!" Lillian was one insistent wee bitch. Kippy glared at her, but she only smiled at him, and he could see the 'tell, tell' message that stayed in her eyes. Some twenty years of poshness—that inbred sense of entitlement—was not going to be put off by someone only saying no.

"I kissed someone. A guy. Can you shut up now?"

Lillian's eyebrows shot up and her mouth rounded into a big o. "Goodie gumdrops! Next, we can get you a hand-job, or should we move straight to you taking it up the arse?"

Honestly. The crudity of the woman.

He stood up. "Shut up, Lillian. Nothing 'we' about it anyway."

She giggled. "Oh, don't sulk. I'll take you out for brunch, how about that?"

Again, Lillian's wealthy parents made sure their daughter could afford niceties, and she was generous with their money. Kippy had objected to her spending on him the once and then accepted that Lillian just loved buying things for people.

"Aye, alright then. I'm starving."

She got out of bed and began to strip. Another Lillian affectation, as she said modesty was pointless seeing as he was gay. And he'd seen it all before anyway, as Lillian had posed for him naked a few times.

Dressed in her usual art student attire—a black skirt embellished with embroidered flowers, a dark top and several floaty scarves—she took his arm.

"Let's go to Café Italia, shall we? I long for their spinach and ricotta cannelloni, and I'll order you the biggest pizza they have."