The Prince and the Painter (Part 1): Aaron and Jason would gladly spend all their time in bed together, but they're haunted by their pasts. A rapist and a serial killer are stalking Aaron, and Jason's growing love may not be enough to protect either of them.

The Prince and the Painter (Part 2): Aaron and Jason must face their demons. But those demons never counted on the love between them growing from a single flame to a raging inferno. Now, just maybe their demons will have trouble with them.

Painter's Pride (Part 3): Jason and Aaron have been together since Aaron was a freshman. Now he's a senior and getting ready to pursue his art career in NYC. Jason believes in Aaron, but his boyfriend's refusal to let Jason help is pulling them apart. Will the season of hope bring them together or will it destroy their love forever?

Warning: The Prince and the Painter deals with issues of PTSD, M/M rape, hate crimes, stalking, kidnapping, and torture. Jason and Aaron's stories may be triggers for some readers.

Get the Paperback at Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09FSCF3TV

EXCERPT

Copyright ©2021 Emily Carrington
Excerpt from The Prince and the Painter (Part 1)

Jason stared helplessly at a blank piece of paper after the teacher was done explaining their first lesson in androgyny. This class is too advanced for me. He could draw stick people. Hell, he could draw graphs full of figures and parabolas. He could even draw the mathematically correct plans for a simple architectural structure. But this… Forms and lines, shading and curves… He was lost.

Thank God it was only the first week of classes and he could quit this one and find another.

In the meantime, he was caught by the androgynous wo/man reclining on the block in the center of the room. Aaron -- or Erin -- wouldn't be his first crush on a not-quite-male-or-female person, and surely s/he wouldn't be the last. There was something beautiful, artful about an androgynous human being. In a way that had nothing to do with the androgyny of buildings and animals, people who could be either male or female, or maybe some alternative to these two opposites, were simply nature's gift to the world.

Jason concentrated on one of the model's eyes and drew that. The shape wasn't exactly circular, but starting from a geometrically perfect arc helped him keep the basic curve. He made the pupil and iris before drawing the outside. It was far from perfect, but he thought he'd caught the slight upturn at the corner that seemed to reflect the model's smile.

When Jason sat back, he realized he was sweating. Shaking his hair out of his eyes, he looked at his picture. It didn't look exactly like the eye before him, but it did at least look like someone's eye. Then he glanced at the clock and saw thirty minutes had passed. How was he possibly going to finish the rest of the drawing?

He cursed under his breath. That single eye took up most of the top half of the page.

On the platform, the model adjusted position, leaning on elbows that looked near as pointy as a protractor's needle. In fact, all of the model's features -- face, arms, legs, chest -- were narrow. They had a chin like a triangle and cheekbones like two half circles. That doesn't sound flattering at all, but damn if s/he doesn't look hot with those features.

Giving up on squeezing the rest of a face onto the first sheet, Jason put this one at the bottom of his stack. Then he tried drawing the angle of the elbow on the block and the shadow under it.

This drawing failed miserably. Too bad they're aren't as easy on the pencil as they are on the eyes. Jason smirked in spite of his failure and shuffled this drawing also to the bottom of the pile.

The model's eyes sparkled as if s/he knew what Jason was thinking.

By the time the class was over, Jason had six failed drawings and no progress.

"If you check the class website on Poster --" the SUNY Besker website "-- you can choose one of Aaron's poses to draw. Your first drafts are due Wednesday." And the teacher began packing up.

Jason got up and approached her. "I wanted to let you know I'll be dropping this class." He realized he'd brought two of his drawings with him and showed her, feeling shamefaced.

She took the pictures, studied them for a moment, and then said, "I think this class is too advanced for you."

Everyone else was leaving. Jason nodded.

"Don't give up on it, if art is what you really want to do," she told him. "But learning to swim by falling into the deep end is really not the best way to go."

Jason winced. He returned to his desk to collect his failures. What was I thinking, working with live models?

"You didn't draw anything?" the model asked from behind him.

Jason groaned and covered his face. "Yeah," he told the unknown voice because he couldn't keep his mouth shut, "but it all looks like shit."

"Let me see." A delicate hand with long fingers took Jason's stack of paper and shuffled through. "I like this one."

Jason looked up into the guy's face, knowing the model was male because of his voice. His narrow face held a pair of hypnotic, dark brown eyes. "Which one? They're all pretty terrible." That was an understatement.

Aaron retreated to the raised platform in the middle of the room and hiked one skinny hip up onto it. "I like this one," he repeated, and then showed Jason the drawing of his eye.

Jason shook his head. "That one's okay, but it's not small enough. If I could even fit your nose in there it would be a miracle."

"You just need a bigger piece of paper." He slid off the edge and returned the drawing. "You haven't taken an art class before?"

"Is it that obvious?"

"Not from your work, from your face." Aaron grinned. "Let me see that page again."

He bent over Jason's eye drawing, flipped the paper over, and wrote something on the back with one of Jason's pencils. "Here. Try this book. It'll make your life easier, especially if this isn't your passion."

Jason read the underlined title and frowned. "It sounds like a biology book."

Aaron laughed. "It's an art book. I promise. But it's more enjoyable and less technical than most." He headed for the door. "I'll see you later, Jason."

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Emily Carrington is a multipublished author of male/male and transgender erotica. Seeking a world made of equality, she created SearchLight to live out her dreams. But even SearchLight has its problems, and Emily is looking forward to working all of these out with a host of characters from dragons and genies to psychic vampires.

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