Anniversary Shenanigans: Author Visit + Giveaway - E.M. Hamill

Today we welcome up-and-coming author E.M. Hamill. A couple of unicorns have squee'd over her writes this year and she wrote a tantalizing flash fic that could make you squee too! 

PAINT

"It's over," he said.

A sharp palette knife scraped away a layer of Leo's heart, crimson and deep violet in rolls of bleeding acrylic. "No. Please. I don't want to be without you."

"I won't stay, Leo. I don't love you anymore. I've tried. It's best if I go."

The words were as emotionless as a blank, empty canvas. It always ended like this. Always.

"Please." Leo's voice caught in desperation. "You promised you'd let me paint you. Just give me this one night to capture you for all time in love, as I see you now. Then I can let you go."

The sigh was exasperated, indulgent. "Your work is one of the things that—" he stopped. Another harsh sigh. "All right."

Relieved, Leo unlocked the studio door and swung it wide. He snapped on the lights.

"You'll want me nude, I suppose." The question held an undertone of sadness, but mockery gilded the edges with a harsh glint.

"Yes. Please." Nudes were his medium, after all. The young man had modeled for him before. It was how they became lovers.

Soft, accusing eyes of the subjects on the wall, frozen in moments of ecstasy, followed him as he selected a special canvas from the stack he kept for occasions like this. Heartbreak. Mercy fucks. The end of a love affair.

He set the six-by-three foot canvas horizontally across two easels in front of the altar of art, where the lean dancer's body now lay in repose against cushions hidden beneath drifted material.

"How do you want me, Leo?" Did his voice have to sound so soft and seductive, knowingly infused with suggestive nuance now that he'd declared his love dead?

Leo could hate him now. But that might spoil the art.

He approached and arranged the beautiful form to his liking, the knee bent, the arm draped just so over the angle of the joint.

"Just like that. Lean your head back." He smoothed his hand deliberately over the long curls and snagged a few strands of hair.

"Ouch!" his subject complained.

"Sorry. My hands are rough. Yes. Perfect." Leo turned away and pocketed the strands of hair he'd pulled in the breast pocket of his shirt, next to his heart.  The excitement of new creation took over as Leo's hand sketched a quick outline on the canvas with soft ley lines of a human skeleton; the lacework of nerve endings hashed in hasty feathers of lead tracing.

He opened the small lacquered box: his own brand of magic carried in oils and pigments. Leo crushed a tube of red in his hands, scarlet against pale skin, and let his fingers glide upon the canvas to fill in with purposeful strokes the musculature that lay over the bones of neck and shoulder. On the dais, his subject squirmed.

"Are you all right? Do you need to take a break?"

"No, I. . . I'm fine." The reply held a note of uncertainty as his shoulders shifted. "I didn't realize how tense I was."

"Just relax and be comfortable. Try not to move too much." Leo worked in muscles of the thighs and calves, the soles of the feet. On the dais, his subject's foot twitched reflexively as Leo's index finger created the red instep.

He wiped the remainder of the red pigment from his hands, picked up a new tube and examined it critically. It wasn't far away from the golden tan of his model's skin, only a shade or two darker than the medium, but he'd had no time to properly prepare.

He crushed the tube in his left hand and laid the first line of the brow with two fingers, then the delicate zygomatic arches of the cheekbones. The ball of his thumb dabbed a full lower lip and the cupid's bow arch of the top, allowing the red foundation to show through. He ran his thumb across the silky lower lip on the canvas, keenly aware he would never again have that privilege in life. From the dais, a sharp intake of breath followed the motion.

He glanced up at his subject, whose breath came faster as Leo's hands traced down the canvas to swirl slow spirals of paint around the pectorals, ending in a sharp curl around the nipples. On the elevated platform, his subject's head lolled back with eyelids smooth and closed, lips open in a soft, inviting O, the delicate tension of arousal sharpening lines in forehead, shoulders and arms.

Leo traced those next. Muscular red vanished as sand-colored skin spread smoothly beneath his hands. He stroked the hard, symmetrical planes of stomach with loving fingertips.

The thighs. Leo knew the solid strength of those muscles, the feel of skin on skin and the memory of those legs locked around his waist. He dug in hard with his thumbs. The stiff, jessoed material bowed to the pressure. A strangled exclamation of breath followed from his subject. The calves next. The sensitive feet.

The pressure of his thumbs against the canvas traced back up the thighs and delineated the softer angle running up the inside to the groin.

A moan; with the gentle coaxing of pigment into the triangular nexus of pelvis, his subject's erection rose to full tumescence.

"Oh god. Leo? What are you doing to me?"

"Sshh," he whispered. His own erection strained against the front of his jeans. "Almost done."

He fished the strands of hair from his pocket and crushed a final vial of pigment in his hand, a deep mahogany brown. Leo scrabbled quick outlines of the thick, wavy mane and dragged the stolen hair through it, tamping it down with a thumb.

"Please," his subject whispered. He still lay in repose against the drift of fabric.

"Yes, my love." Leo moved his attentions back to the groin and added a mahogany shadow. His fingertips peppered the canvas with tiny swirls leading up to the base of the erect penis.

"Ah!" The young man on the dais convulsed with his climax, fear and rapture mingled in the cry that rang back from the walls.

"Yes…" Leo's eyes never left his canvas. His cock detonated against the inside of his jeans. Beneath his hands, the canvas surged and bucked, paint against heated skin and sweat.

Sudden quiet reigned, the only sound his own panting and the thump of his heart in his ears. Leo caught his breath, his hand clutched for purchase on the tripod of the easel. He straightened when he could and examined his work.     

A drip of white pigment splattered the canvas, an opalescent trail against the mahogany delta at the groin. He left it there.

Leo wiped his hands on the towel and removed the medium left on his skin, vermilion, mahogany and umber caught in the cuticles of his nails and the love lines across his palms.

On the empty dais, he carefully cleaned away the small amount of ejaculate so it wouldn't stain the drape.

He hung the heavy painting on the wall with the others and reflected on his newest creation. Beautiful. Captured forever in love on the canvas, just as he'd intended. The heavy-lidded eyes of his subject opened to fix on him with a wide-eyed stare of terror before softly closing once more. One of the paintings beside the new work reached up to comfort the latest arrival, fingers splayed against the frame around its own canvas.

With a sorrowful smile, Leo turned away and shut off the lights.

About the author

E.M. (Elisabeth) Hamill writes adult science fiction and fantasy somewhere in the wilds of eastern suburban Kansas. A nurse by day, wordsmith by night, she is happy to give her geeky imagination free reign and has sworn never to grow up and get boring.

Frequently under the influence of caffeinated beverages, she also writes as Elisabeth Hamill for young adult readers in fantasy with the award-winning Songmaker series.

Other upcoming works as E.M. Hamill include NECTAR AND AMBROSIA, an adult urban mythic fantasy coming early 2018.

She lives in eastern Kansas with her family, where they fend off flying monkey attacks and prep for the zombie apocalypse.

Her short story, "Burnout" was featured in Empyreome Magazine's Flash Fiction in March 2017.

Follow her @songmagick
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EMHamill/
Website: http://www.elisabethhamill.com

ICYMI E.M. released Dalí in August to rave reviews, including ours which you can see HERE.

Stay tuned for her forthcoming Urban Fantasy novel coming in 2018!

We Unicorns thank E.M. for joining in our shenanigans!

Enter to win a $10 DSP Gift Card! Giveaway ends 11/26 @ Midnight EST. Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Don't miss entering in our month long unicorn giveaway HERE! It ends 12/1/17!

Trivia Question: What does Quinn replace for Mark in the Spy vs. Spook Series? 10 pts

Random winner will be chosen on (or about) Noon EST 11/20.