“What are you saying, Christos? Are you saying I’m more awesome than you?” I grinned.

“Yup.”

I gasped. “No way! Can your ego allow such an admission?”

“It can, when it’s the truth. You’re even more awesome than I am.”

“Does that mean you’ll stare at me more than you stare at yourself from now on?”

He frowned while smiling. “I don’t stare at myself.”

“You are such a liar! I’ve seen you in my bathroom. You’re so in love with yourself, I’m surprised you don’t jerk off every time you see yourself in the mirror!” I giggled.

“If I was gay, I’d do me in a second,” he smirked.

I squeezed one of his cheeks, and in mocking baby-talk said, “There’s that ego I so wuv.” I gave him a twinkling smile.

“I don’t know about you,” he smiled back, “but I’m getting pretty hungry.”

“Is it time for dinner?”

“Yeah, I need to clean you up first,” he said. “Would you like the shower or my tongue?”

“I’m pretty sure if you use your tongue, we’ll never get out of your bedroom.”

“Shower it is.” He stood and picked me up and carried me into the bathroom attached to his bedroom.

Nope, getting carried never got old. “If you keep carrying me everywhere, my muscles are going to atrophy and I won’t be able to walk,” I joked.

“Then you’ll be stuck in bed and I’ll be forced to ravish you all day long.”

“Do I get time off for sleeping?”

“No, but I will fuck you until you’re unconscious.”

I blurted a laugh. Because I believed he could.

Christos set me down on the bathroom floor while he filled the round jacuzzi bathtub and added bubble-bath soap. When it was full, he picked me up, stepped into the tub, then set me on my feet in the water. He gently washed me from top to bottom while I stood in foamy suds up to my waist. He caressed my body with a sopping natural sponge then rinsed me with the ceramic pitcher kept on the edge of the tub.

I felt like Cleopatra or some other high queen who was bathed by handmaidens, except Christos was much better than a handmaiden. I had a moment to wonder what sort of funny business Cleopatra must have gotten up to with her hot handmaidens. It seemed a likely outcome. I imagined most empresses did whatever the hell they wanted.

When Christos slid his soapy fingers between this empress’s legs, I quivered and moaned. “Bathtub sex, my king?”

He chuckled mischievously and kissed me on the cheek. “Dinner first.”

He finished bathing me and toweled me dry.

“So, was that my present?” I asked.

“What, the hot sex or the bathing?”

“Yeah,” I smiled.

“Nope. I’ve got a couple more downstairs. One is dinner.”

“Awesome!” I couldn’t wait to eat.

While getting dressed in the bedroom, I finally noticed the decor.

Not the man-cave I’d expected.

I had imagined Christos either lived in an actual subterranean cave surround by the bones and antlers of the animals he’d hunted and killed with his bare hands, or maybe some kind of mechanic’s race garage with motorcycles and muscle cars surrounding a red satin bed with a chromed tread-plate bedframe.

Instead, the room was stylish in an art-deco sort of way. Lines and abstract shapes in the form of inset bookcases and earth tones led the eye to a massive abstract painting over the straight-edged king-sized bed stand. A bizarrely delicate light fixture with dozens of tiny white bulbs that resembled a starburst hung from the recessed ceiling.

“I was beginning to wonder if you actually lived here with your grandfather,” I said as I took in the decor.

“Yeah, he likes having me around. He says it keeps the energy in the house young.”

“I’ll say,” I smiled and winked at Christos.

My eyes were drawn to the huge abstract painting hanging over Christos’ bed.

“Tell me about this beautiful painting,” I said. “It doesn’t look like one of Spiridon’s.”

“It’s my dad’s. Well, mostly. I helped him paint it.”

“Really? When?”

“When I was like seven or eight.”

“Wow, Christos, it’s really nice. And that’s so cool that you did a painting with your dad!” I envied that he had, or used to have, such a close relationship with his father.

All I could imagine doing with my own dad was drawing up a balance sheet. Even then, he’d be controlling everything, correcting me and telling me how I was doing everything wrong.

“Yeah,” Christos continued, “my parents were still together at the time. I used to love hanging around in my dad’s studio. I’d be in the corner drawing or painting on an easel he’d bought for me. He’d set up fruit or stacks of books or whatever for me to practice still lifes. He’d always be checking in to see what I was doing. Looking back, I think he was getting bored with his abstract work and loved having me as a distraction. It was only another couple years before my mom took off.

“Anyway, the day me and my dad did this painting,” he motioned at the big painting on the wall, “he came over to watch me work for awhile. I remember I was working on a still life of a vase of flowers and a little tin box and a tea kettle. It’s still hanging in my grandpa’s bedroom, by the way. My dad told me to give it to Grandpa for a birthday present.

“Anyway, my dad’s watching me work, and he says, ‘Agoráki mou, help me fix my painting. It’s no good. Yours is so much better.’ I told him I couldn’t fix it, I didn’t know how.”

Christos paused from his memory to look at me directly. “You gotta remember, I’d seen all of my dad’s paintings at this point. Not just the abstract stuff he sold for crazy money, but also his realistic work. He was and is so amazingly talented, it would blow you away if you saw his realistic work in person. So, when he tells me to fix his painting? I’m ready to crap my pants. In my eyes, my dad was the greatest painter on the planet, and all I would do was fuck it up. I mean, I’m working on my own little still life, sweating bullets, trying to get it right—”

I interrupted him. “I’m sure your painting turned out awesome, Christos.”

He grinned dimples and nodded. “Yeah, it was pretty damn good for an eight-year-old.”

“Cocky bastard,” I swatted his arm.

“You love me for it.”

I did. I kissed him on his cheek. “But I want to hear the rest of your story.”

“Okay, so I walk over to my dad’s canvas and look at it. At that age, I was never sure what to make of abstract art. I was so focused on trying to do realistic stuff, like my dad.”

“So what did you do?” I was totally curious.

“Well, my dad said, ‘Look at it for awhile. Take your time to soak it in. When you’re ready, grab a brush and some paint and add something. You’ll know what to do.’ So I stared at it, like he’d said. After awhile, I grabbed a big brush, loaded it with cadmium orange, and carefully made those shapes right there.”

Christos pointed at the complex orange pattern of slashes curving across the right side of the painting.

I was in awe of the connection he’d shared with his dad. “Wow, that was like fifteen years ago, and you remember all of that?”

“Hey, getting to paint on my dad’s painting was a big deal. It was like getting the keys to the kingdom.”

“So, how come your dad didn’t sell it, like his other paintings?”

“Funny you ask. The next time my dad had a show, this was the featured piece. Everyone was talking about it. When my dad told them that I had helped, they creamed all over themselves. Started calling me a prodigy right there on the spot. People offered exorbitant amounts of cash for the painting. They wanted me to sign my name to it too. But at the end of the night, my dad refused to sell it. He wanted to keep it for himself. It’s been hanging in my grandfather’s house ever since, right here in this room.”

I was in awe of Christos’ story. Nothing remotely this grand or romantic or exciting, or this loving ever happened in my family. All I could picture was my mom or dad shouting at me that I was going to ruin something whenever I’d tried to help them out on some project or other around the house.