The Artist (5/7) By The Silver Fox

(1/7), (2/7), (3/7), (4/7), (5/7), (6/7), (7/7).

Immediately afterwards came some cursing that was in no way muted, but in fact seemed determined to make every room in the house fully aware that if some cocksucker had gone fucking first instead of charging around like a cunting bull and kicking the shit out of the backs of someone's legs with their filthy spastic boots, it wouldn't have fucking happened. The door to the living room swung open to reveal Kelp breathing heavily through his nose and carrying one end of a blanket-wrapped bundle.

"Where do you - Oi! Wait till I'm in before trying to turn around, you useless fuck-puddle! - where do you want it then, eh?" Wordlessly, the artist pointed to the couch. "Fine with me," Kelp grated with dangerous civility, "We'll just dump it on top of those piles of porn, shall we?" "They're art studies," the artist gabbled as he swept the offending mounds of magazines (or magazines of mounds) onto the floor. "Of course they are." Kelp moved into the room, bringing with him about four further feet of bundle and Tasker holding the other end. Together, the two men placed their burden, with surprising care, onto the sofa. "The human form can be a beautiful thing you know, Kelp," Tasker smiled at the artist, evidently wishing all unpleasantness regarding Belgian masters to be forgotten. "Not in my experience, it can't." Kelp replied in the same final tone he'd used earlier. Tasker shrugged and gestured towards the bundle with a hand that was the size of a shovel - and just as rough and caked in mud. "There you go, then; it's all yours."

Flanked by Tasker and Kelp, the artist eyed the bundle as though expecting it to rise up and bite him with electric teeth at any moment. For some time, he stared down at the clump of coarse material, before a feeling of self-consciousness stole over him. It is not - nor has it ever been - possible to hear a human eyebrow being raised. Nonetheless, the artist knew that right behind him, four brows were stretched to the utmost limits of human anatomy. It may have been his imagination, but the silence also seemed pregnant with eye-rolling. He turned around.

"This is alright, isn't it? I mean - there are worse things I could be doing, right? I'm not weird." Tasker made a gesture indicative of an over-acting am-drammer auditioning for the role of Pilate in a village hall version of The Last Temptation of Christ. "Who can say, really?" he asked, his smile frank and forthright. "I know I'd find the burden of being the last arbiter of right and wrong rather onerous, I can tell you that." "And as far as weird goes," Kelp continued, "it's all relative, ain't it? Some people might think that this is pretty fucked up, and some other people might think that it's weirder to put Shreddies, Weetabixes, and Shredded Wheat into a big bowl, pour hot milk on it, and mash it up into a truly repellent-looking brown paste before shovelling it into their fat mouths while watching the Hollyoaks omnibus on a Sunday morning." "But it's a matter of personal values," cut in Tasker a whit hastily. "In other words - you pays your money; you takes your choice." "Most importantly though - you pays your money." Kelp shot out a seamed and bony claw, palm upwards.

Continued...Next Page (6/7)

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