Muse

By Clare London

Gavin McGrath’s art career is in ruins, his health is failing, his wife’s left him because of his promiscuity, and he’s alienated people in the industry with his aggressive and arrogant behaviour.
But when a full pot of red paint falls on his current canvas, apparently ruining it, it brings a change in his life he never expected. A strange, beautiful young man appears in his studio as his companion and Muse. Matteo is from another time but he understands artists all too well—and now his place is with Gavin.
Matteo brings devotion and inspiration across the centuries, forcing Gavin to take stock of his life and his behaviour in the months he has left to him. Eventually Gavin realizes he must reconsider the capacity for love he’s always scorned—before it’s too late for both him and Matteo.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Clare London
• Release date: May 6, 2016
• ISBN: 9781310768989

Clare London

Clare took the pen name London from the city where she lives, loves, and writes. A lone, brave female in a frenetic, testosterone-fuelled family home, she juggles her writing with the weekly wash, waiting for the far distant day when she can afford to give up her day job as an accountant. She’s written in many genres and across many settings, with novels and short stories published both online and in print. She says she likes variety in her writing while friends say she’s just fickle, but as long as both theories spawn good fiction, she’s happy. Most of her work features male/male romance and drama with a healthy serving of physical passion, as she enjoys both reading and writing about strong, sympathetic and sexy characters.Clare currently has several novels sulking at that tricky chapter 3 stage and plenty of other projects in mind . . . she just has to find out where she left them in that frenetic, testosterone-fuelled family home.All the details and free fiction are available at her website. Visit her today and say hello!Join up for her newsletter at http://bit.ly/2WpHlyK and receive a free short story!Clare also writes as Stella Shaw and launched her Love at the Haven series of rent boy romances in 2021.Website + blog: http://www.clarelondon.com / stellashawauthor.comFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/clarelondonTwitter: https://twitter.com/clare_londonGoodreads: http://bit.ly/2lNSfC2Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/author/clarelondonBookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/clare-londonInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/clarelondon11/Quids&Quills: http://www.quidsandquills.com (accountancy for UK authors)

Book preview

MUSE

Copyright ©2016 Clare London

First Edition

Smashwords Edition

Cover design by Lou Harper

Published by Jocular Press

All Rights Reserved

This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission. This book cannot be copied in any format, sold, or otherwise transferred from your computer to another through upload to a file sharing peer to peer program, for free or for a fee. Such action is illegal and in violation of Copyright Law.

All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Dedication

For art and romance lovers everywhere.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 1

The divorce papers from Ailsa cited my obsessive, erratic behavior, and my selfish inability to maintain an adult relationship. Oh, and almost as an aside, my preference for young men in bed. She called the whole marriage a sham—an abuse of her as a woman and a period of her life she deeply regretted.

Whether I agreed with her assessment or not, I didn’t bother responding in my defense, much to my lawyer’s frustration. I think I set fire to the papers. Maybe I used them as paint rags. It would have been fitting, because the art studio was my domain where Ailsa wasn’t welcome. I never wanted her there, and she never relished visiting. And yet, ironically, she was indirectly responsible for my most inspirational work. Madness, serendipity, or fate? I never knew. I imagined the future, when the canvas was hanging on a prestigious gallery wall and people came to admire it from around the world. Then I could tell the whole story in public.

But I wasn’t going to see that happen, was I?

*

My ex-wife and I put each other through mental torture during the fifteen years we were legally and unpleasantly together. She never understood art, let alone mine. It was always the third person in our marriage, and that was discounting the real bodies that both of us consoled ourselves with. When we met, her only interest had been in associating with a painter who was, then, fashionable. Apparently, I was only after her money to promote my career. She ignored the fact I had inherited my family’s modest though neglected estate in Scotland, and was successful enough at the time to finance the extension for my studio. In fact, it had been my money that supported her extravagant lifestyle for all those years. She protested—presumably with the cute pout that had momentarily distracted me when I was naïve and three-quarters drunk, just long enough to propose—that I misled her with charm which, after marriage, I maintained about as frequently as I got it up for her.

That day, she came to the studio unannounced. I don’t think I even knew if she was in the house. I’d not been back there for a few days, obsessed by my preparatory work on the study of a young nude. My model was an art student, or maybe something in media. I can’t remember exactly what. His gratitude for being immortalised in one of my paintings allowed me to seduce him at night on the couch at the back of the spacious room. He was also useful for periodically calling in some food for us both.

Ailsa burst in, angry as always, tearful as usual. I’m leaving, for good this time. Gavin, are you listening? I wondered how I was meant to avoid it. I’ve packed up and the car is coming to fetch me any minute. I’m not putting up with this shit any longer.

I glanced over at my young model, which was probably a mistake. He was posing against the wall, trying to give me attitude when all that came across was fidgeting boredom. At Ailsa’s entrance, he snatched up a rather grubby cloth from the chair beside him and clutched