Bad Decisions - Alex Turner

45. Monsters In Masks

  "Don't move. Stay right there," I ordered Alex as the early morning light shone through my thin curtains and fell over his bare body.

  "Okay?" Alex chuckled, freezing instantly and not yet knowing why.

  Without hesitation, I leapt out of bed and jogged to my studio room. "Don't touch your hair!" I called out as I sifted through all of my tools and sketchbooks. I could just imagine Alex quickly moving his hand from his hair as I said that.

  The creative block I'd been experiencing for a couple weeks now finally seemed to pop that morning solely at the sight of waking up to Alex and the way he looked in the morning light. I hadn't felt so inspired in so long that the second I got my hands on a large sheet of canvas paper and a pencil, I almost sprinted back to the bedroom like some excited puppy.

  "What am I staying still for?" Alex asked me with a confused laugh as I climbed back onto the bed and sat cross-legged in front of him as he stayed frozen in the same position on his side of the bed.

  "Because you look perfect right now," I said and sat a big wood board on my lap to rest my paper on. "And I wanna draw you."

  Alex chuckled, his eyes still heavy with sleep. We'd woken up not more than five minutes prior. "Like one of your 'French girls'?" Alex teased.

  "Precisely," I nodded and focused on the paper before me. Eyes flicking from my paper to Alex's bare body and back down again over and over. I hadn't drawn from a live reference in years but I just couldn't let the opportunity slip passed.

  "Am I staying still enough?" Alex asked, eyeing my sketch as it slowly came together.

  "Mhm," I nodded, my eyes tracing over his muscles in a way they never usually did: with concentration rather than lust and admiration. Instead of wanting to kiss him everywhere I could, all that was on my mind was focusing on getting every curve, every bone, every muscle, absolutely perfect on my page.

  "You have the perfect body for art," I commented as I sketched out the general shape of his torso and replaced the band of his sweatpants covering him from the hips down with a draped sheet.

  He had been talking to me before the idea had popped into my mind. About a dream. He was lying on his side, propped up on one elbow with the other arm resting on his hip. His hair in perfect messy waves around his head and his eyelids heavy as he looked down at me through his short, dark eyelashes. His entire figure — his arms, his collarbone, his toned stomach, his jaw — had been carved out by the soft yellow rays of sun that had crept into my apartment and it all just looked so ethereal that I couldn't help but sketch it out.

Alex was the perfect subject. He didn't move. He didn't say anything. He just let me concentrate and peacefully watched as I drew his perfect figure onto the page before me. Little did I know, he found watching me draw in my element as interesting as I found watching him make music.

  "Sorry, I'm almost done," I said to Alex, quickly sketching in his neck and Adam's apple, cutting off the sketch at his jaw to make his torso and position the main focus.

  "It's okay," Alex smiled, peering down at my page without moving, "take yer time."

  "I just wanna get you right," I said, shading in my sketch.

  "Make me muscles bigger," Alex joked.

  "Don't need to," I smiled, "your body is perfect as it is."

  "Stop it," Alex chuckled. His stomach jumped momentarily as he laughed.

He really was a work of art. My drawing could barely capture what I was seeing no matter how hard I tried. Once I'd gotten the majority of it down, I told Alex he could finally relax and he instantly crawled over to me to see the drawing right side up.