Page 36 of Lovers in Lockdown

When the food is cooked, I arrange it onto the plate in the shape of a smiley face, constructing a wide mouth out of bacon and eyes from chocolate buttons.

It makes me cringe, but Honey’s into this kind of shit and if it doesn’t win her over, then I don’t know what will.

But when I knock on her door to deliver the food, I’m greeted by complete silence. For a while I think Honey’s ignoring me, but after knocking with increasing intensity for a solid five minutes, I realise she must have crept out before I’d woken up this morning.

She’s turned into a seasoned pro at secret escapes in the last few weeks. On numerous occasions I’ve thought she was in the bedroom only to have her come bursting through the front door. But as of yet, there hasn’t been another incident of her falling asleep in the wilderness whilst out on a long walk.

That I know of, anyway.

I crack the door of the bedroom open, moving into the room slowly as I assess my surroundings. The bed is unmade, dishevelled and empty, just as I suspected. The sheets are twisted, the pillows crumpled and abandoned on the floor. In the corner, an easel stands by the window, pots of paint and half-washed brushes littering the floor around it, and on top of it, a canvas faces away from me.

I swallow down the desire to see what’s painted on it.

She’s never shown me her work, if anything she’s been protective of it. Secretive. Like she doesn’t trust me enough to share her art with me, or at the very least, she’s worried about what I’d think of it.

It makes the curiosity impossible to suppress.

The conversation we had on one of the first few days comes back to me. She paints portraits from memory. She doesn’t even use photographs as an aid.Jesus fuck,I want to know who Honey deems worthy enough to spend hours of her day painting.

Ineedto see it.

Shit.I’m going to look.

I hold my breath, stepping into the room with shallow breaths. Adrenaline sparks in my stomach and blasts through my body like an electric shock.

I know I shouldn’t be doing this. This is such a gross invasion of Honey’s privacy and she could be back any minute to catch me in the act, but for some reason unbeknownst to me, Ineedto see the person she’s painted on that canvas.

I set her breakfast down on top of the chest of draws, guilt settling in my gut and making me nauseous, but it’s not enough to turn me back.

Finally, I reach the easel, take a deep breath and -

Holy shit.

It’s me.

The person Honey has spent hours and days painting to perfection is none other than yours fucking truly.

My eyes bug out as I take in the sight before me. I may know absolutely bugger all about art, but I can say with steadfast conviction that this is the best painting I’ve ever seen in my life. Hands down. No contest.

And that’s not even due to the fact that it depicts me in all my naked glory, or even because Honey has painted me to look like a Greek God, the golden tones and ivory pillars making me look almost ethereal.

My ego grows bigger at an exponential rate as I appraise the painting. The further down I look, the wider the smile plastered on my face becomes. My stomach looks harder than my dick was the night I laid Honey out atop the kitchen island, and my abs have been painted with such generosity and precision that I look like one of Michelangelo’s marble statues.

Just without the tiny dick.

Actually... withoutanydick.

Hold the phone.

Where the goddamn fuck is my dick?

My ego immediately shrinks back down to normal size and I gawk at the empty space where my manhood should be.

There must be some reasonable explanation as to why Honey has painted every inch of my body in blinding, uncompromising detail, apart from the ten that are the most important. That’s right, baby.Ten inches.

Maybe there’s some kind of artistic meaning behind my dicklessness, some Freudian type shit, even.

But I don’t have time to dwell on it, because the sound of a key turning in the front door has my balls shooting up into my stomach.

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