Read Drawn Together for Free Online

he began to plan what he would say. His assumption that the kiss had been some sort of joke was his story and he was sticking to it.
    He wasn’t unaware that his fascination with the strange artist overrode his common sense. It galled him that even after spending time with Yamane, Rory felt like he knew less about him than he did before they met.
    Rory entered the elevator and pressed the button for the third floor. He looked at himself in the mirrored walls and ceiling. He was, in truth, too tired and buzzed to think clearly.
    After only one fumble, the key card Rory inserted into the slot of room number 324, when removed quickly, caused the light to turn green. He turned the handle and entered the room, then removed his shoes and tentatively stepped forward. None of the lights were on.
    Rory sighed with relief when he discovered the room was empty. He switched on the light and found things were still just as he’d left them and sat down at the small table to think.
    Something propped on his pilot case caught his eye. Yamane’s sketchbook, and a note, addressed to him. Coloring faintly, Rory remembered writing his name on Yamane’s arm. In retrospect, he feared, perhaps that had been a little suggestive. He picked up the note.
    “Rory,” it said. “I’ll be watching the anime films at the Terrace Theater. If you choose to leave, I understand. However, please take the sketchbook as a gift and a thank-you. Ran Yamane.”
    Rory held the sketchbook in his hands for a time. The artist’s name was handwritten on its outside in both English and kanji. It was such a treasure Rory was afraid to look inside it. While they were dining and Yamane sketched, Rory had experienced an agony of curiosity. Now, holding the book itself, it seemed private somehow, even sacred. He forced himself to turn the cover back. The image on the page showed him with an old man and woman, water swirling around their knees, using an indistinguishable object to break through the roof as the rain poured in from a hole onto their terrified faces. If Yamane had been there, he could not have captured the emotion of the scene better. In the lower right-hand corner, the artist had titled the sketch “Heroic Rescue,” and signed his name in English and kanji.
    Rory expelled the breath he held and turned the page. The next image was Rory’s own face. He shook his head. Was this how Yamane saw him? In it, he had a wholesome quality, innocent eyes, and a charming smile.
    Turning another page, Rory froze. Yamane must have worked on this after he had gotten back to the room. It was titled, “Quest’s End, a Kiss From the Maiden Yamane” and was also signed and dated. It showed the circular stairway with its lights and shadows 24 Z. A. Maxfield
    playing over two people who stood on the steps. Rory’s blushing face was more visible, beautifully rendered, the eyes closed. His hand on Yamane’s arm was tentative; an argument could be made that it was pulling Yamane toward him but also that it was keeping him back.
    Rory was on a lower stair, forced to strain upward for the kiss.
    As for Yamane, drawn as he was with his face the one more shadowed, it was impossible to tell whether he was a man or a woman. His braid hung over his shoulder, and his beautiful silk robe played in an imaginary breeze. He had drawn his own lovely hand caressing the skin just under Rory’s ear, and looking at it now, Rory could almost feel it stroke him there.
    Rory held the sketchbook tightly. He’d received written permission from the artist to see himself out if he chose and to take the sketchbook with him. An inexplicable sadness came over him just thinking about it.
    Rory cursed the intense and powerful attraction he felt for Ran Yamane’s work, and he cursed the man himself. He placed the sketchbook in his pilot case carefully and left it in the room, wondering what movies the Expo would be showing that night.

    * * * * *
    Rory entered the Terrace Theater after showing his