As I drank, I took in my surroundings, finding a very pleasant sight to rest my eyes on. Though the club had a breath and the dance floor a pulse, everything lacked the life Abraham’s Peach encompassed when he threw his head back to laugh at something the rosebud-lipped chorus moll had said. I don’t know what was more astounding, the idea that the melancholy little man had the capacity to be funny or the way the room froze as soon as the Peach smiled. The shiny, joyful people lost their luster, becoming shadows, just negative space to his freckled face, a frame to feature him.

When Abraham had told me months earlier that the Peach was his muse, I hadn’t understood what he meant. While I knew the club owner considered himself an artist, I hadn't understood why a hobby he loved would need any sort of inspiration until I saw how boundlessly the Peach provided it. I wondered if Abe had the talent to capture his inspiration’s charisma on canvas, if he saw him the same way I did. If everything quieted around him for Abraham the way it did for me. Though I didn’t want to let my meandering mind run away and theorize about Abraham’s connection with his muse, it rarely settled the way I wanted it to. They fucked. They had to fuck. It would be natural for two good-looking men who liked men to like each other, especially when they were in a mutually beneficial relationship. I let my eyes travel over his strong body, urging the ounce of creativity I possessed to paint him into memory.

As intrigued as I was by so much of him, I was equal parts confused. He was nothing more than an opportunistic belle, like the rest of the hungry harem who hung onto Abe, and that should have turned me off. I wasn’t attracted to someone who needed to be saved. If I’d wanted a damsel in distress, I would have been with a dame. Still, he didn’t seem damaged like the rest of the queens who hung out in Abe’s studio. The Peach looked as though he balanced the planet on his pinky and regarded the population with a sentient smirk. It was too much. I was too attracted to him, and he was too powerful, more terrifying than Al Capone for varying reasons, the most apparent being how weak he made my knees. It was impossible to stand up to a man when he hit you in the knees. It was fighting dirty as far as I was concerned.