AllFreeNovel
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When I came out of the bathroom after an hour, a
towel over my head, the first thing I saw was his shirtless back. He sat on the balcony in the full sunlight in front of a canvas, sketching carefully, his hands covered in pencil markings. Like a bee to the first flower of spring, I gravitated over before I even realized I’d done it and glanced over his shoulder. I knew the flow and the style of the clothes well. “What myth or scene is this?”
“It is neither.” He wasn’t even a little bit disturbed by my closeness or my prying. He lifted his hand and sat back a bit, tilting his head to the side to look it over.
“It looks like the typical classic Greek painting. It’s a banquet, right?” I asked; so much of this period was weddings, banquets, or wars. I tilted my head to the side, looking at it again. Obviously, he wasn’t done, but something was interesting or odd. I wasn’t sure yet. I pointed to the man in the center. “This man sort of looks like your father.”
“Our father,” he corrected, sharpening the pencil. “And that is because it is him.”
I looked closer, and beside him, pouring wine—or blood—into his glass was Theseus’s mother. To her left was him and…
“Now that you are here, the entrance tablet must be redone.” He lifted his pencil, making the circles of the woman beside me. “Do you have a preference for your action? I am not sure what you’d be doing at this banquet.”
When I didn’t speak, he finally turned to face me. “Druella?”
I shook my head. “Sorry, I’m still stuck on the entrance tablet. Are you talking about the art on top of the rectangular temple raised on the high podium?”
“Yes.” He nodded.
“Are you serious?” I gaped. “What happens to the old one.”
“It gets destroyed, of course.”
“Theseus!” I wanted to stomp my feet. “You can’t destroy it.”
“Father does not allow the old ones to exist. With each new member of the family, it is replaced.”
“And you remake it each time? How? The one that I saw coming in looked more than a hundred years old.” But if he remade it each time, then it couldn’t have been older than that because Atarah had been added to the family since.
“I do not recall creating the one which hangs over the entrance now, but it could have only been me. It is one of my chores.”
“Chores?”
“We do not laze about all day, Druella. We each have duties and tasks to tend to in and around our home. The entrance tablet is merely one of mine.”
“So, that means I will have one as well?”
He stared at me. “You are part of this family now; are you not?”
“You will use every method possible to make me admit it,” I shot back.
“Of course, if only to see if you truly understand what it means.” He stretched out his hand for mine, and when I gave it, he took it and kissed the back before pulling me closer to him. “Do you truly understand?”
I stared down into his grey eyes and shook my head. “No, but I getting closer and closer with each passing moment.”
“I guess that is the best I can hope for right now.” He released me to look back at his art. “I did not mean to start this now. I know I promised to keep things at a steady pace, but I had to distract myself as you bathed.”
“How honest.” I giggled and looked back to his work, wondering how this went from his mind to canvas to stone.
His eyes drifted back to it, and I couldn’t help but watch as he pored over each and every corner, how gently he made each stroke, how happy he seemed to be while he made it. It was hard not to be moved when you watched someone continuously put you over one’s self, to watch someone care about you as much as I felt like he cared about me. It made me feel a little bad about how little effort I was making. I was just rolling along with it, accepting and denying him over and over again.
Why did women do this? Why was I doing this? It was silly. But I couldn’t help it even though I knew I was doing it. When I reached up, brushing the hair from my face, he glanced at me, like he remembered I was here.
“Forgive me, is this boring you?”
“Art is never boring to me.” I replied.
“Then what is the reason for your fixed gaze? You look as if you wish to steal me away from my work.” He grinned.
