Page 71 of By Rude Strength

“But I like pleasure.” LA grinned, picking up a brush. “Sexually.”

Cass pointed at the TV. “There. Alan is on screen. There’s your pleasure, you little minx.”

LA snickered a bit as he spread the black paint over the canvas. “Yeah, yeah. But what I’m hearing is that there might be a chance of some pleasurable dessert.”

Cass poked LA with his tail. “A small chance.”

“But a chance.”

“Yes.”

“I’ll take it.”

LA split his attention between painting the canvas and the show, enjoying reciting lines along with Cass. He didn’t thinkhe’d ever painted with an audience before, and he was oddly at ease with Cass peeking over every few minutes to see his progress. LA didn’t mind, though it was tempting to poke at Cass with the brush when he peered particularly close.

Over top of the black paint, LA dropped big drops of various colors.

Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple.

A rainbow.

He smeared the colors around to create bright streaks, but they didn’t have the texture he had in mind. He ignored Cass’s fussing as he got up and headed into the kitchen, fumbling around in the trash until he found the paper wrappers from his egg rolls and the cling wrap that had been on the tub of Cass’s egg drop soup.

Back at the table, he tore the paper wrappers into tiny pieces to layer within the rainbow streaks like scales. It created motion and depth, and he used wadded up blobs of the cling wrap to cap off each wave of the rainbow paint until it looked like two giant tsunamis crashing into each other against a black sea.

The very center under the waves remained blank and LA stared at it for a long time, trying to translate what he was seeing in his brain to the canvas.

“Are you all right?” Cass asked quietly.

“Mmm?” LA glanced up at him. “What?”

“You haven’t blinked for several minutes.”

“Just thinking.” LA gestured to the canvas. “I can see what I want in my head, but I don’t know how to get it on there yet. It’s fine.” He smiled as he looked over the colorful waves. “I really like it so far. It feels good to paint again.”

“It’s very pretty.”

“Thank you.” LA nudged Cass.

“Aw, conjuring up acrylics is nothing.” Cass chuckled. “I was happy to—”

“No, for inspiring me.” LA pointed to the waves. “That’s you. You rushing into my life and flooding it with fuckin’ rainbows and sunshine and washing away all the darkness. And this?” He pointed to the blank part. “This is gonna be me.”

“Are you not going to draw one of your creepy faces?” Cass tilted his head curiously. “That’s what you usually do, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, but…” LA smiled a bit. “I don’t think that’s me anymore. I might be someone else. So, I gotta think about it. Inside my head, I see… gold. Something shiny? But small. New. I’m not sure yet.”

A tube of metallic gold paint appeared beside the canvas.

“Thanks. As soon as I know what to do with it, I’ll let you know.” LA chuckled. “Half of being an artist is just staring at your work and trying to figure out what to do next.”

“Well, whatever you do, I’m sure it will be lovely.” Cass rubbed LA’s cheek. “Here, you’ve got a bit…”

“What? Paint?” LA snorted. “Yeah, that happens.”

“It’s red and some purple.” Cass licked the pad of his thumb.

LA immediately recoiled. “Oh! Don’t you dare!”