Long May They Rage

The gallery was that typical low-resolution hum of boring old bastards giving what they knew to be a critique of utmost importance. That their interpretation of any medium was the superior one and whoever was unlucky enough to have traipsed upon that banal semicircle was now forced to sup down tepid champagne and nod in a half-hearted agreement. You would never find Arthur Cranbrooke in any such semicircle.

He stood directly in front of this latest triumph that had been unearthed from some stone ruin in the Cantabrian mountains, safe guarded by some half-blind curator of lost relics. His fingers had gone numb against the frosted rocks glass of bourbon that he brought sporadically to his pondering lips. If it had been the two of them alone, he would have sighed in an apparent passion at the arrival of Ava Lockwood.

Her blonde hair was styled in an intricate up-do and the rest of her was a feminine visage of fine tailoring—a one shoulder number with an elegant plume of fabric down her back. She ran a pristine and familiar hand over his shoulder. “They say that the cost to acquire it will be studied in art history annals for ages. That he could have just as easily stollen it off the wall…who would do such a thing?” Her voice massaged over him like a favorite dream.

“I wouldn’t dare mention such an egregious number in public. It practically strangled me over the coffee table in private this morning. I thought my brother was lying…turns out there’s some truth in him after all. You look beautiful.” Ava blushed and made herself comfortable in front of the beast. “And for his married ex-wife? I don’t know…I don’t understand the logic…and I understand the sensationalizing of it even less now that I’ve seen it firsthand. But…who am I to question the greats?” Arthur ran a trembling hand over the crisp front of his tuxedo as he turned to truly take in the vision she was. She was, he concluded, a form of art worthy of adoration, not this latest piece that had sparked conversation all along Manhattan’s best trodden circuits of art.

“You used to always question the greats,” Ava whispered with a sensual flutter of her eyes that never left the canvas ahead. “It’s what I so adored about you.”

“I used to do a great many things I no longer do,” Arthur replied somberly, gunning a searing swallow of bourbon. Ava’s breath caught in her throat and he watched as her breast rose and fell rapidly. Her dark eyes flicked to him for just a moment before traipsing clumsily back to the prominent spans of wall occupied by the work.

It was as tall as three full grown men, at least, and as wide as one and a half in a frame that still smelled of its restorative polish and glinted in the erotic light of the dimly lit chandeliers. You could make out the garish texture of it even in the dim. The overall composition was a bull, kicking up dirt and snorting through his nostrils in a 19th Century pastoral landscape. What had sparked conversation wasn’t the scale or the crude animalistic nature of it. It was the fact that the form of the bull had been fashioned from the hairs of the creature that inspired it. Plucked individually from its dead hide, they were stuck deep into a swath of clay spread over the canvas. The landscape itself was a traditional oil, but the bull was made almost entirely of its original form.

Arthur and Ava fell into a bristling silene as a large gaggle of lesser youth, partaking too heavily in the complimentary refreshments, tittered above the respectable octave for such an occasion. Their phone cameras flashed at the canvas, and they giggled and pivoted at the waist to take selfies of themselves dripping in jewels in front of the old-world vestige. Ava rolled her eyes and smiled politely as she took one of the many chilled flutes of champagne being paraded around the room.

“The Bull of Rage…” she said it with a sigh as she sipped. “Unsigned…Why, do you wonder? Why wouldn’t you sign something so intricate and laborious? To have put so much effort into it to then go unpraised.”

“Not everyone views celebrity as a byproduct of craft. Perhaps they simply didn’t want to be goggled at. Say what they need to say through their media and vanish…” Arthur frowned and looked pained. Ava blushed and twisted her mouth in thought.

“No, of course. I suppose you’re right. You always are.” She sighed again and craned her neck to take in the gaud of it. “I think the artist would look at us now and laugh, don’t you? At the absurdity of us flocking around in finery and sipping champagne to look at such great works over our shoulders, only to flick them onto our socials or dating profiles to make us seem more interesting, more cultured.” She directed this at the uninterested youth in the corner and shook her head.

“They’re more bovine than our rageful friend here, for sure,” Arthur muttered and regarded his dwindling glass before tossing it back. Ava smiled and made to move closer to him when they both were grabbed at the neck and a great, fragrant wave of Tom Ford washed over them.

“What do we think, angels? Impressive, isn’t it? I think Pops scoured every ruin, every cranny of Spain for it. Leave it to Mamma to usher it into the public sector and charge an admission fee.” Nikolai Amato scrunched his handsome nose as he fell into a contemplative meditation of his father’s procurement. “My dear old stepfather wasn’t too thrilled when he presented it to her, but she would have been a fool to deny it. My god, if she sells it at auction, she’ll never have to work another day in her life.”

“Nikolai, there isn’t an Amato alive that has needed to work beyond the need for a routine long before your father found a bull of mud in the Spanish mountain ranges. Please…” Arthur smirked and bucked him from his shoulder

“Ava, have you pissed in his bourbon? The face is especially long this evening, Artie, even for you.” Nikolai ran a veined, tan hand along Arthur’s ivory jawline. Arthur took a measured breath, and his shocking blue eyes narrowed at the resplendent Niko. “Ohhhh, I see…I’ve interrupted something. Yes, understood.” He clapped Arthur on the shoulder and nodded vigorously. “Good, this is a good thing. Do us all a favor and make this right. Fix whatever it is that has become broken and ugly between the two of you. I can’t stand another brunch being desecrated by the discussing’s of your failures. Fix it…” He moved his finger between them as if he were attempting to thread them together with the motion. “Fix it. Look at the balls on that thing, Artie. Take a page from the great bull.” Nikolai massaged the tender muscle along Arthur’s collar bone and turned on his velvet loafer to trot off through the embellished crowd. Arthur licked his teeth beneath his lips and his gaze pierced the bull unblinkingly.

“Arthur, please don’t think you have to—”

“I made a mistake, Ava…” Arthur cut over her. “I’m not accustomed to the feeling; I am viscerally aware with such a thing occurs. I’ve made a mistake, and I don’t know how to fix it. I don’t know that I can. How do…How do I go back on my word now that I have tethered myself to her?” He pinched the bridge of his nose and looked to where the great cube of ice had broken apart and watered down the bourbon. Nikolai had taken note of this, and before he could say anything more there was a clearing of the throat.

“Mister Amato made mention that you were watered down, sir. Allow me?” The steward offered a fresh bourbon, and Arthur gushed his gratitude as they traded off.

“Ava, I don’t—”

“I don’t know why you did this to me,” she now cut through him. “Artie, you and I were predestined! It—we couldn’t have been more perfectly matched. In all my life of knowing you, you’ve only ever protected me. What is it about her that is more precious in your eye? What is it about her plight that you deemed more deserving of your affection?”

“She was my first love, Ava.” He watched as this did the opposite of what he intended, it split Ava in two. “I couldn’t let her continue down that path. I couldn’t let her die.”

“Then help her! Save her! Lock her up in a rehab or one of your family’s sprawling estates and nurse her back to health like a wounded dove, but dear god, why on earth would you throw everything we have away for her? You can save her and not marry her, Arthur.”

“There will never be a way to make you understand. I never wanted us to end…especially this way. I adore you. I want you, but…”

“But what? You want her more? This obligation of yours…is it that or do you feel for her what you felt for me? What do you want from me, Artie, if its adoration you feel for me? She gets the ring, and I get your spare hours? Do we morph into my parents, constantly ducking in and out of shadows, carried around on whispers of betrayal and the gossip of everyone else who hasn’t missed a beat about what we’re doing? Count me out. If that is what it means to be adored by you, then I want no part of it.” Tears glinted in her eyes as she turned back to the painting. “I won’t survive this,” she whispered.

“You don’t have to survive it alone, Ava. Darling, I’m right here with you.” He reached for her, and she recoiled in resentment.

“You’re right about one thing, Arthur…you used to practice a great many things. Chivalry and compassion, I suppose, are among those that you no longer participate in.” He was a man who knew when to bow out, and it was with a pain in his chest that he nodded his head and submitted to her disappointment. With a last searing look, she strode away from him, wiping her cheeks with the back of her hand.

There was a lump in his throat as he forced down another swallow of whiskey, this one he began to flush his cheeks. “Seems it isn’t only the bulls that are full of rage tonight,” Nikolai offered softly as he moved like velvet upon Arthur with a fresh martini cradled in his fittingly limp wrist. “You aren’t thinking rationally about this, darling boy. I’m stepping in before the female crows descend on you for belittling her to tears. Forget the crackhead childhood flame, Arthur, and go make amends with your proper match. That one will take you all the way.” He gave Arthur a soft nudge while Arthur’s eyes bore into the painting with perfectly masked aggression.

The band began to play softly an instrumental rendition of Snoh Aalegra’s “Fool For You,” and Arthur began to tremble so furiously the block of ice in his glass rattled.

“Well, you can’t slug me! I didn’t cue it, if that’s what you’re thinking, though you know my adoration for Snoh knows no bounds.” Nikola grinned maliciously as he buried his face and a stifled chuckle into his martini.

“Fuck off, Nikolai,” Arthur hissed as great tears ran down his marbled face.

“Rage,” Nikolai muttered softly as he moved around Arthur to look at the masterpiece. “The most common emotion one observes when a love is left unfinished. A lover’s rage is the most sanctimonious violence.” He placed a loving hand along Arthur’s back and massaged his arm as the two of them turned in almost perfect synchronization to the full splendor of the bull. Nikolai raised his martini in a salute. “And I say, long may they rage.”