GayErotica: I should have known something was up when I heard the siren off in the distance but, no, I was too busy playing at being the new Banksy by scrawling graffiti on a derelict factory wall, splashing it with enough colorful patterns the fumes from my spray cans were making me dizzy. That’s my excuse anyway. Anything to get high. High from paint fumes, high from making art.

Of course, it’s fuckin’ art. I don’t care if you call it vandalism. How fuckin’ ugly was that shitty factory and how much better does it look with my rainbow-colored improvements?

At least that’s what I told the judge. Seems the siren was for me. I was so involved in my artistic pursuits that when the cops pulled up I didn’t have enough time to run.

The other thing that threw me was that the cops were pretty hot. One of them, at least. Young, okay youngish, built, but even more interesting, obviously an art lover. Most cops I’d encountered considered themselves art critics. I’d received their critical acclaim with comments such as, “What do you call this shit?” “My three-year-old does better drawings than that.” Well fuckin’ give the brat a spray can and live off its earnings if the bugger’s so good.

Not that I’m living off my earnings. I’m living off my wits but they were worth bugger all the moment the cops pulled up. The younger of the two, I’d say mid-to-late twenties, sauntered toward me smiling. “You know, that’s not half bad,” pointing to my near-completed masterpiece. “What d’you think, Jack?” His partner, Jack, around mid-thirties, borderline Neanderthal, merely grunted, obviously wishing he was somewhere else, then added, “Come on, mate, let’s book him and get back to the station. I have a beer waiting with my name on it.”

“I want to know a bit more about this piece of art,” the young cop said. “Better than your usual tag or the latest political slogan. Besides,” he lowered his voice so I strained to hear him, “I see a pair of lips with my cock’s name on them.”

So that’s the way it was going to play out. I don’t mind a bit of police sex brutality. Not if it results in a Get-out-of-jail-free card. Local pollies – and I mean politicians not parrots although their screeching has a lot in common – were on an anti-graffiti drive because some stupid bugger had vandalized the local war memorial with puerile point scoring about how his grandfather hadn’t died to see his country over-run by foreigners. Now there was a savage crackdown on street artists as well as vandalism. If you have to ask the difference then you’ve never seen a Banksy or a wall mural.

In all modesty I include myself in the ranks of the true artists. All the same, a first arrest was now a jailable offence.

Jack spat. “You queers are all the same.”

His mate laughed. “Like you wouldn’t be up it like a rat up a drainpipe if it had a vagina.”

“That’s different.”

I knew I shouldn’t, but I couldn’t help myself. “I think your homophobia’s showing, Jack,” I offered.

For an ugly, overweight straight guy, Jack sure moved fast and I found myself pinned up against the very wall I’d just artistically enhanced, his large fleshy hand around my throat. Breath was a luxury at that moment but I managed to squeak, “Police brutality.” before the young cop pulled Jack’s arm away and I could gasp in a lungful of air.

“Thanks,” I coughed.

“Now,” the young cop said, taking out a notebook and pen. “Name?”

“Atom.”