Alex looks over the 'Adonis' that caught Anthony's eye.  The work was well done.  The composition pure in its simplicity.  Tasteful and yet inviting the mind to wander, should one choose to.  Alex slammed on his brakes there.  A bit too open for him yet.  He turned from it quickly shutting down the possibility of his mind wandering into the painting.  “Art is truly subjective.”  His eyes scan the room once space once again before returning to the two he was with.<br/><br/>He notices Victoria's smile on him and assumes her thoughts are similiar, if not in sync with his own.  A little alone time with her would definitely be welcomed, he thinks.  A way to reaffirm his masculine prowess and his heterosexual tastes.  Just what his shakey mind needed.  He grins back, a bit feral.  A bravado as he begins to wrestle with a growing attraction to Anthony, an attraction he can no longer simply ignore. An attraction that started unnoticabley in his own mind and was nurtured ever so gently by both Anthony and Victoria.  So that it grew to punch through to his conscious thoughts with Anthony's face forming the third partner in a trio scene with Victoria.  A little one on one time with Victoria would solve much panic in the man's mind.  Her smile and her offer eases him as he feels he still has that special something the ladies fall for every time.  His dimpled smile becomes more relaxed.<br/><br/>“I think perhaps you should find a piece that speaks to you Alex, my treat this time,” Victoria says and then excuses herself to go mingle.  Alex finds himself unsettled and alone with Anthony.  Still, it is a party, he is being offered a gift by a beautiful and powerful lady and there is much champagne – of which he takes another glass from a passing server.  He puts on his selling facade and takes Anthony's arm.  The man in control, he begins to lead Anthony around the room focusing on the art at hand.  Dimissing the landscapes as too common, the people as either uninteresting or too 'out' (homosexual), he turns to the abstracts.<br/><br/>One catches his eye.  Green for the upper background, white and yellow for the ground and foreground.  The subjects seem to be humans in orange blotches with a pink stripe through the middle.  The humans could be doing anything from dancing to kissing to fighting to watching a parade.    The title is “Pink Barricade 1” by Stephen Andews. (http://www.lolafest.com/bio/stephen-andrews)  The beauty of art is that the viewer does not need to see what the painter needed to say for the art to still be effective.  Alex leads Anthony to this one.  “The colors work for my hallway.  The picture that hung there this morning needs replacing.”  The smug, half-drunk satisfaction that Sabine took her art away too set his mind comfortably onto feelings he could control and was practiced at handling.  He was suddenly grateful for the thought of her, for the anger and hurt she brought to his mind.<br/><br/>He read the passage under the painting.  The painter had been making a statement of loss and confusion in war, specifically using the war in Iraq as a the medium.  The war being set in city streets as war is no longer fought safely away from civilians, but using civilians as shields and weapons.  This is not what he sees in the work.  He can see it, but it is not the impression it left with him.  He stands back and enjoys the colors, the vagueness of the statement and the way his mind can manipulate what the art says from one minute to another.  He takes delight in manipulating it in different directions.  “I think this is the one I want.”  He turns to look at Anthony a moment.<br/>