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“When were you going to tell me about this, Benjamin?”
“Sometime when you’re not — unh — not inside me! Oh fuck, Assane.”
“Yes?”
Assane continued to stroke Ben’s aching cock. Continued pressing into him from behind, his torso draped over Ben’s back, his arm around Ben’s thighs so he could bury himself as deep as he could. So deep...it always surprised him when Assane bottomed out, it always felt like the first time he’d been fucked that way, he could never get used to it, how amazing it felt. Ben hoped he would never get used to it.
“Mon Dieu, Assane, you’re such a fucking tease.”
“I’m a fucking tease? Moi, Benjamin? You’re the one who wails in pain like I’m going to split you open when I enter you. You’re the one who makes me go in so slowly, when all I want to do is Fuck. You. Hard.” He demonstrated, and Ben wailed, but not in pain.
“It’s not pain and you know it,” Ben protested. “Aah! If you keep jacking me off, I’m going to…”
“You’re going to what? Come, Ben? You’re going to come for me? Oh yes, you are. Come for me, Ben, come into my hand while I fuck you. Right now.”
Ben had no choice but to obey. His body reacted to Assane’s commands as if it had no other purpose.
He knew his cries of pleasure excited Assane beyond endurance. His friend and lover began fucking him harder. Faster.
Unlike Ben, Assane was almost entirely silent as he came. The only sounds were the squelch of his cock as he thrust it in again and again, and the slap of his thighs against Ben’s ass.
Assane brought it up again a while later, when they were lying sprawled on each other in Ben’s narrow bed, in the little room over his antiques shop. Their legs intertwined like pretzels, their hands lazily stroking whatever parts of each other’s bodies they could reach.
“Seriously, Benjamin. It bothers me when you won’t tell me about your troubles.”
“But you have so many troubles of your own. Your job…your ex…your son…”
“You’ve helped me with them many times. Please, let me return the favor. Now who’s hassling you and how?”
“It’s one of my clients. He commissioned me to copy a painting for him. I thought it was all aboveboard. But when he sold it, he told the buyer it was the original. Well of course the old goat found out. My client pretended to him that he didn’t know, so now I’m the one in trouble.”
“So, produce the sales documents that show he did know.”
“That’s the thing, Assane, he told me he wanted to do it on the down low because it was to be a present for his mistress…I’m careful what I claim about a work if it’s going to be sold, but as a gift to someone who knows little about art?”
“So there are no documents?”
“There are, but he didn’t sign them. If I produce them, he’ll claim they’re forgeries. And it would be hard for me to argue otherwise…I am a forger after all.”
Assane got that pondering look on his face, then the smirk he wore when he’d come up with an idea that pleased him.
The first time Ben remembered seeing that look was when they were all back in school. Assane decided to “borrow” an expensive violin from the music shop, give it to Claire for her audition, and then put it back, all without the shop owner’s knowledge.
That hadn’t worked out so well. But over the years, Assane’s craftiness had blossomed and his schemes almost always came off these days.
He had curtailed his activities drastically when his ex had threatened to cut him off from their son. Now he only supplemented his income with cons and thievery, rather than treating them as a career. But he often complained to Ben that it very tempting to fall back into a life of crime.
“You need to remember Lupin, Assane,” Ben had reminded him many times. “Crime as a gentlemanly sport, crime that harms no one, that’s the only worthy kind.”
Or crime in the service of justice.
“Benjamin, kiss me,” Assane said. His smile was wider now.
“Why?”
“Because you like to. But also, because I have an idea. I think it will meet with even your approval.”
“What is it?”
“Kisses first. Schemes later.”
~~~
Ben studied the photo Assane had sent him. The card underneath the drawing identified it as The Emperor Rudolf II on Horseback by Adrian de Vries. “You want me to make a copy of this? Why?”
“You’ll find out,” Assane told him.
“No deal. Tell me what you’re going to use it for.”
“I’m going to replace the original with it. Temporarily.”
“Assane…surely, given what happened the last time you broke into The Louvre, they’ve beefed up security. You’re taking too much of a risk.”
“No, I’ll have no trouble with security.”
“How do you know?”
“The guy who designed and installed the beefed up system owed me a favor.”
“Assane, are you saying you have a backdoor into The Louvre’s security system?”
Assane only smiled smugly.
~~~
“Don’t take me for a fool,” Lucien Chéron said to the tall Black man with the thick-rimmed spectacles and unfashionable sideburns.
He claimed he was the agent of an artist who sometimes — but only when he was in need of cash — sought to sell his work as an original.
“Asking for a friend…” Heh. Surely this man was the artist himself. How many forgers can afford either the money or the risk of employing an agent?
Furthermore, the man had given his name as André Brawford, an alias if he’d ever heard one.
“Your client chose poorly. I couldn’t possibly suggest to anyone that this is an original. The drawing is on display at the Louvre right now. It would be trivially easy to prove the claim false. It’s right there in plain sight!”
“It is now,” said the man calling himself Brawford. “But the drawings never get exhibited for more than a couple of months at a time, due to their fragility. This one is going to be retired back into the archive again soon.”
“True.” Lucien ran his eye over the drawing. He could smell the cash it would bring him. (He always insisted on cash for such sales.) “It’s certainly an excellent copy.”
“Practically indistinguishable from the original.” Brawford pulled out his phone and showed the art dealer a photo of the drawing in situ in the Rotonde Sully.
A silence stretched between them for almost a full minute. Finally, Lucien made his mind up. “All right. I’ll sell it for your client. I’ll take a fifty percent commission…”
“Oh no,” the so-called agent said. “My client will insist on receiving seventy-five percent.”
“Sacre bleu! Outrageous! I’m taking a big risk!”
“So is my client. What if your buyer finds out it’s a forgery after all? You could claim my client led you on.”
There was suddenly a sour taste in Lucien’s mouth, as if he’d just bitten into a lemon. He’d had to do that recently, and he was still angry about it. It had cost him his relationship with Benjamin Ferel, one of the best copyists he knew. Did this man know about that? Naturally it was only an occasional practice. And only to protect himself. Never for additional profit.
Brawford didn’t press him. He simply waited. That was another clue he wasn’t really an agent — or at least not a good one. A good agent would do some of the work of trying to convince him the deal was worth his while.
Enough. He had better things to do than dicker all day.
“Split the difference. He can have sixty percent,” he said.
Lucien was surprised at how quickly Brawford accepted the offer. He had been expecting to be haggled into giving the artist sixty-five percent. Another clue he wasn’t an experienced agent. They were better negotiators.
“Done, provided I can talk him into accepting such a low commission. But I tell you what. I’m pretty sure he’ll accept. So you can keep the artwork. But don’t sell it until I give you the all-clear.”
Then Brawford was gone. Lucien stowed the drawing in his safe, then relaxed behind his desk and allowed himself the indulgence of a cigar. If he could find a good buyer for the de Vries, he’d be in funds to buy plenty more.
~~~
Assane waited until Ben’s shop was empty before coming in. He tossed a scroll of thick paper to Ben and unwrapped his scarf.
“What’s this?” Ben asked. He scarcely had time to set it down before his long-time friend and lover grasped his slender shoulders and began kissing him silly.
“Your copy of Emperor Rudolf II. I hate to say so, but you should probably burn it. My scheme depends on there not being a forgery.”
“I figured it wouldn’t be long for this world,” Ben said. He felt a bit sad about it, putting all that work in, and having it seen by so few, for such a brief time.
But some people needed to be taught a lesson. The code among the gentlemen thieves was that you scam the rich, not your fellow scammers.
“Now, where was I…” Assane pondered. He didn’t remark on Ben’s sadness. “Ah yes, I was turning your mouth that beautifully rosy shade…”
It was one of his favorite things about Assane. How he could make the normally cool and collected man lose all composure, merely by nipping his lip just so…
“Ben!” Assane growled. “You know you’re in for a railing if you bite me like that.” He gripped Ben’s ass and kneaded it as his tongue found its way to the spot under his earlobe.
Ben kneaded his ass right back.
But just when he thought Assane would toss him over his shoulder and head upstairs, he broke away. He picked up his scarf and wrapped it around his neck again.
“Leaving so soon?” Ben said.
“I wish I didn’t have to, but the timing is delicate. I have to give the police an anonymous tip about the stolen drawing and its likely whereabouts, before the press reports it stolen. I need to pick up a burner phone for that. I’ll be back soon.”
~~~
“The police foiled an art thief today,” the news anchor reported. “Thanks to an anonymous tip, Lucien Chèron, art dealer, was found in possession of this drawing by the sculptor Adrian de Vries, The Emperor Rudolf II on Horseback. The work is in the collection of The Louvre. Only about ten drawings by the sculptor are known, making this an important acquisition. We go now to Youssef Guédira of the Prefecture of Police. Monsieur Guédira heads the art crimes department.”
Outside the Louvre, Guédira spoke into the reporter’s microphone. “Monsieur Chèron claimed that the drawing in his possession was an inexpensive copy intended as a gift for his mistress. But proprietary tests developed by the museum showed it was the original. He claimed that the seller had told him it was a copy. But when asked to name the seller, he gave a clearly false name — that of a character in an Arsene Lupin story.”
Guédira looked directly into the camera. “Clearly we have a scam going on. But is it a stupid scam or a clever one? These are the types of questions that come up frequently in the Art Crimes department.”
“Assane!” Ben cried, his voice drowning out the broadcast. “Did that cop just wink into the camera?”
Assane ignored his question. He turned off the TV, and a few seconds later, Ben found himself pinned under his lover’s powerful body.
“Regardless of whether Chèron is prosecuted, his name in the art world is going to be tarred for a long time.”
“Yes it is, Assane. I’m in your debt again for solving my problem.”
“We solved it together.” Assane gazed at him, his expression as tender as a basket of newborn kittens. “I love you, you talented, sexy man of dubious morality.”
“And you love making me blush,” Ben said.
Assane bent to kiss him, but Ben put two fingers across his lips.
“Explain to me one thing. How did you make Chèron fall for your scam? You all but told him outright that you knew the trick he’d pulled on me.
“It wouldn’t have been sportsmanlike to do it any other way. And I knew he’d fall for it.”
“You were so sure, you didn’t even try to convince him.”
Assane smiled wryly. “Most con artists make the mistake of talking too much, trying too hard. One needn’t speak to persuade. One need only wait for greed to do its work.”
He was propped on his knees and elbows, caging Ben’s body but scarcely touching him, almost motionless except for a slow undulation of his hips that made his groin brush against Ben’s aching cock.
Five minutes later, Ben began to whimper and paw at him.
“Please!”
“Just like that,” he said, and pulled his lover’s arms over his head. His weight settled hard against Ben’s chest and hips, and he kissed him, thoroughly, and slowly…until Ben nipped his lip just so.