Rough Canvas (Nature of Desire 6)

Her hand flashed out, slapped his face. The sting and the shock of it reverberated between the two of him. During a long, frozen moment, something shuddered up from his gut, a primal, violent urge he hadn't unleashed in a long time. Apparently Elaine recognized it, because her voice went up an octave, becoming shrill.

"That's the last time you'll curse at me," she said.

"That's the last time you'll ever raise a hand to me, unless you want to be slapped right back. And I hit harder. "

He didn't bother to modulate the menace in his tone, even took some pleasure in the paling of her expression. As if suddenly realizing how isolated she was on this part of the road with him, Thomas' mother took another step back, her eyes widening.

"Don't believe everything Rory tells you about fags," Marcus said, low. "I can assure you that most of us are not pansies. You lie to yourself all you want, but you won't lie to me. The mother is almost always the first to know. You noticed it when he was young, maybe even three or four years old. You probably weren't experienced or worldly enough to put your finger on it, but you knew your son was different somehow. Something about his makeup that set him apart from Rory or Celeste.

"It isn't always the stereotypical things," he continued, "but very often it is. You saw it, you knew it as he got older and particularly as the world changed, enough that it touched even your closely sheltered life.

"Thomas is a gifted erotic artist who focuses with absolutely unparalleled passion on the male form. He's got more talent than anyone I've ever seen, with one exception, and I think he'll match that man in time. A man who, by the way, pulls in well over a million a year now from his art. "

"Money is Satan's tool. "

He nodded. "It's God's tool too. Otherwise, I expect churches wouldn't have collection plates. It can keep this place going as well. " Shaking her head, she backed away, this time he suspected from the threat of his words instead of his fists. Her jaw tightened, visible evidence of the wall she was between him and Thomas. Seeing the tears she was struggling not to shed in fr

ont of him, he knew she recognized everything he'd said, and didn't want to hear it. He shouldn't have taken it this far. He'd stepped hip deep into the well of blind, impotent fury goaded by her bigotry and his roused feelings about Thomas' situation.

Thomas would kill him for locking horns with his mother. But damn it, she'd tracked him down, and her timing was lousy. He was beyond rage, seeing the lost weight, the hopeless resignation in Thomas' eyes, the fucking cut on his hand from handling a fucking wood chipper, for God's sake.

Thomas lived in his right brain, where creation took place. He mislaid keys and credit cards regularly. He'd leave his car running on the street outside his pathetically small warehouse lease to go back in and get something. While he was there, he'd get an idea for a painting and start sketching it out, completely forgetting about the car or where he'd been going until Marcus stopped in and found the car had run out of gas.

And then he'd just shrug, smile that beautiful smile, his lashes sweeping down as he kept at what he was doing.

Marcus had concluded that Thomas' guardian angel had to be the one who guarded Eden with a hundred flashing swords, because while living in New York City, he'd never even had his wallet picked. His neighbors and total strangers actually took turns finding his keys, cards or other mislaid belongings and returning them.

Had the episode with the wood chipper been the same thing he'd just pointed out to Elaine? A subliminal suicide wish for his hands, so the loss of his art was no longer a choice which could eat at his soul? It made Marcus even more furious.

"Just go away and don't come back," she said, her voice breaking over the syllables.

"That's up to your son to decide. If he needs me, I'm here for him. It's between the two of us, not you. "

"You're just manipulating him for your own purposes. "

"Manipulating? That's a pretty big word for around here. You must be filling up your lonely evenings with extra courses at the community college. " Okay, that was petty and downright cruel. Thomas was going to kill him. It was past time to get out of here.

"You think you have us all figured out, don't you?" Elaine squared her shoulders, not even swiping at the tears that had fought past her restraint and spilled onto her cheeks. "Narrow-minded, ignorant backwoods country people who pound their Bibles.

Well, I've raised children long enough to recognize one with a chip on his shoulder I didn't put there. You think twice before you use this family as the whipping post for your past, and sacrifice my son on the altar of your demons. " Marcus stopped, his hand on the car door. He increased his grip, holding himself where he was instead of lashing out at her as he wished to do.

"Why is it so fucking difficult for you to love him as he is?"

"I do love my son. How dare you - "

"No, you don't. " He cut across her. "You love what you want him to be, something you want so much you've convinced yourself it is him. He senses it, knows it, and so he'll spend his entire life here, trying to be everything he thinks you want him to be and nothing that he is. "

"Aren't you doing the same thing?" she shot back. "Don't you love him only for what you want him to be?"

He inclined his head, flashed his teeth. "I want him to have it all, everything his talent deserves, every dream he's ever had. I want to see it happen for him. " All I ever wanted was. . . him.

To hell with it. He shouldn't be doing and saying things she had no way of comprehending, things that would just feed her revulsion and fear of who and what he was, but he was weary of anger. He stared down at his own reflection in the window, spoke to it instead of her.

"When he was living with me, there was one night. . . I couldn't sleep. I got some wine, came back and leaned against the bedroom door. There he was, asleep, the moonlight on every inch of him. " Every perfect naked inch.

When he turned his head, from the color in her face, he knew he'd made that clear enough, but he had no intention of stopping now.

"Those incredibly talented fingers were on my pillow. He did that whenever I got up at night, to know when I came back. I looked at him and I couldn't speak, couldn't swallow. Couldn't even move. "