WHO: JM & Nicky WHAT: Plying their wares WHEN: Friday night WHERE: Outside JM's modest art gallery RATING: TBD - mentions of drug use/prostitution STATUS: Closed | In Progress
Nicky loved the little art gallery in town, whether or not he liked the art within it. Sure some of the clientele were just your run of the mill general public who appreciated the artwork the place had to offer - and it was good too, even he could see that - but some of those attending were what Nicky thought of as stuck-up art-dicks, more interested in being looked at than looking and talking about the art as though anyone else with a different opinion and a more limited vocabulary was wrong. They rubbed him up the wrong way, but they had money and sometimes, depending on what kind of arty type they fancied themselves as, he could make quite a lot out of them.
He was stood around wearing dark shades and stark shapes that made his body look angular and feminine at the same time, more model than hooker. He'd kohl'd up his eyes until they were lined almost goth heavy and he'd stained his mouth pale with lipgloss, making him look pallid and ill under his consideration, but 'pale and wan' by the artfolk's definitions. He'd tried trial and error and he knew what drew these punters; they loved what they saw as the romance of it all, the fallen youth languishing under the greedy hands of lustful old men, forced to sell his body to answer the siren-call of heroin which would no doubt claim him while he was still in the 'petal of youth' - someone had actually said that to him once and he'd had to stifle his laughter with mock sobbing.
They spent money for his time, often just asking him about his life and rarely getting a true answer; no one wanted to hear the ugly, unromantic, economically bound truth of run-of-the-mill neglect and a low-income resort to the only thing that felt good, an uneducated fallback for the only thing he could do. They wanted meek victim of fate Oliver Twist, not the gobby shite that yelled obscenities at people because they were wasted at four in the afternoon. Sometimes they wanted to share substances with him, or get him to walk them through the various highs on E and smack and LSD and sometimes he obliged, other times faking them out with placebos and wondering at what they thought they were feeling and hearing. Of course, most of the time they wanted to buy his actual services, and if he felt like risking the poetic lamenting and other assorted rubbish while they had his legs up over his head or lay across him kissing like they thought they could save him with love or something then he'd happily take advantage, hiking up his prices and putting aside his pride.
So, he wasn't a true supporter of the arts but he was happy to let the arts support him. He'd been unsuccessful tonight with the art-goers though and had ended up picking up, or being picked up by, someone more like his usual cilentele who had taken him down the alley at the side of the gallery and had proceeded to fuck his throat until he thought he'd suffocate. The guy actually seemed to like it when he'd pulled back to throw up, but what did he care as long as he was paid. The guy left the alley and Nicky heard him leaving, his footfalls seeming loud in the street while he struggled to catch his breath and spit the taste of vomit out of his mouth.
It was twenty minutes later when he'd fixed his running make up, popped some codeines and tidied himself down before stepping out to lean up against the side of the gallery door - it was late enough that it should have been closing shop - and settling down to have a smoke.