The Muse

by Lauren Blakely

  Oh yes, I like this side of Clio.

  I like her exploratory nature very much. The way she wants to kiss every night.

  Her hands slide up my chest, then she ropes them around my neck and brings me closer as she deepens the kiss.

  She flicks her tongue across my lips, and my skin sizzles everywhere from this passionate side I’m learning she has.

  And it’s a side that works for me. Oh hell, does it ever work for me. I nip at the corner of her mouth, then crush her lips harder.

  Moaning in pleasure indeed.

  Both of us.

  Sighs and murmurs and soft groans fall from our lips, and for a few delirious seconds, I imagine sliding her under me, kissing her till her lips are bruised and bee-stung, till she’s arching against me and moaning in so much more pleasure. Asking for me to make love to her right here, in front of the Monet. And honestly, having this woman in a museum might very well be the ultimate fantasy—her and art.

  A shudder jolts my spine as I imagine bringing Clio to new heights here in front of priceless treasures.

  Perhaps I have an art kink.

  An art and Clio kink.

  Someone chuckles.

  I break the kiss, and both of us swing our gazes to the picnickers in the frame. Their smiles have turned into laughter.

  “I guess we’re putting on a show,” I whisper, smoothing my hands over my shirt, like that’ll knock the desire right out of me.

  With a wicked grin, she runs a hand over her hair. “Not a bad idea,” she murmurs.

  I clasp a hand to my chest. “My, my. Someone has a naughty side.”

  She simply wiggles her eyebrows. “Perhaps I do.”

  I can’t resist. I lean in to brush a kiss against her cheek, skating toward her ear. “And I love it.”

  “Good,” she answers. “Also, you were right.”

  “About the tart?”

  “Yes, it made me moan in pleasure.”

  I shoot her an appreciative stare. “Then we should have tarts every night.”

  A flash of sadness crosses her eyes, maybe remembering her sentence, but then it’s erased. Her blue irises glint with mischief now. “I like that plan.” She squares her shoulders, gesturing to the food. “Now, stop distracting me with your fantastic lips. You’re such a show-off when it comes to your kissing talents.”

  I laugh loudly. “Oh, shall I keep them to myself? Along with my other talents?”

  “You better not. I want to know those talents,” she says.

  And my God, if this woman was going to my head before, she’s carving out a permanent spot in it right now. Her directness and her confidence are so alluring.

  “But I want more food before you introduce me to all your other talents,” she says.

  “Fine, fine,” I say in mock annoyance as I shift my focus back to the spread. I show her the fruit crumble. “You know what the best part of a berry crumble is?”

  “No. What’s that?” she asks with an impish grin.

  “You’ve got your five-fruits-a-day requirement right there. Blackberries, raspberries, strawberries, and blueberries . . . Well, four fruits. But close enough.”

  She smiles and tries the crumble. “I feel so healthy right now.”

  I point to the macaron I picked up at Pierre Hermé. “Now, this guy is one of those rock-star pastry chefs.”

  She raises an eyebrow. “What does that mean? Rock-star chef?”

  True, there were likely no famous chefs and certainly no rock stars in her day. “He’s written books. His stores are a must-see for tourists from all over, and the lines go out the door. He mixes absurd flavors together, and people love it.” I pick up one of the macarons along with its napkin and slide it onto her palm. “I got you a grapefruit-wasabi macaron. I figured you had probably never tried that combo before.”

  She takes a bite, and maybe a second later, her eyes go wide and water. “My nose is on fire,” she says, with a laugh.

  “Maybe they skimped on the grapefruit and just put wasabi in.”

  “Oh, there’s definitely grapefruit flavor in there too,” she says, dabbing at her streaming eyes, but she’s grinning. “The tartness makes my tongue curl, and the burn makes my palate sting, but it was still delicious.”

  I grin at her description. “You should do food reviews.”

  She laughs. “What’s your favorite food?”

  “Me? I like everything. But you can never go wrong with pizza. Or fries. Or chicken. Or roasted potatoes. Or sandwiches. I can pretty much eat all day.”

  She laughs and leans closer to pinch my stomach. “But you hardly seem like you eat all day.”

  I laugh too, because I’m ticklish, then catch her wrist. Only, instead of pulling her away, I hold her hand against my side for just a moment. “I walk a lot,” I say when I let her go. I like her touch, like even better that she initiated it. I distract myself by telling her, “Walked a lot today, actually. All over the city. Crazy day,” I add, shaking my head.

  “Why? What happened?”

  “More like what didn’t happen. First, this guy showed up claiming he owns your painting.” Clio’s eyes widen, her brows climbing. “But the same guy is connected to a pair that have been acting suspicious in Le Marais, so my friends had been tailing them, and when we put our information together, we figured out they’ve been forging documents.”

  I notice her expression and realize she could use some reassurance. “We found the fake papers, though, so that’s not an issue anymore. But Sophie and Remy—my friends—think there’s a curse on your painting.”

  “A curse. Interesting.” The vulnerability in her rounded eyes fades, and she’s veiled and private again.

  I’ve learned that pushing her when she gets enigmatic like this does no good, and I haven’t gotten to the best part yet. “But wait, there’s more.” I allow myself a tiny dramatic pause. “I found out that I can draw things and they come to life.”

  With that, she’s lively again, eyes bright, voice rising with excitement. “Show me! Show me now.”

  “Really?” Her enthusiasm surprises me.

  “You think I don’t want to see that?”

  That’s just what I think. She’s seen much more impressive things. She is one of those things. But I don’t remind her of that when she’s looking so eager.

  I reach into my messenger bag for my notebook, pencils, and the pink polka-dotted calf. “Okay, what do you want me to draw for you?”

  “Hmm. Not flowers. I’ve seen plenty of those. And with all this deliciousness”—she sweeps her hand toward the food—“we don’t need chocolates.”

  I glance at her slender neck. “A necklace, maybe?”

  She looks sharply at her bracelets, one on each wrist. There’s barely any space between the metal and her skin, and I don’t see a clasp on them. “I detest jewelry.”

  “So that’s a no on flowers, jewelry, and chocolates for you.”

  Suddenly, she sits up straighter. “Wait! I’ve got it. Do you know what I desperately want?”

  I know I want to give it to her. “Tell me.”

  “A new pair of shoes.” She pulls up the hem of her long skirt, revealing a pair of formfitting beige slippers. “I want something fun. Something modern. But I have no idea what’s in style. Do you?”

  Shaking my head, I chuckle at the idea. “I don’t really follow shoe fashion. Or any fashion, actually.” Then I remember, vaguely, the shoe store window in the Marais earlier, and I take up a pencil. “What about some short boots?”

  Clio’s eyes twinkle with delight. “Yes, boots.” She taps her chin. “Can they be red? A cherry red?”

  “Like your lips?”

  “Julien,” she says playfully, but she’s not embarrassed so much as . . . enticed.

  “Well, that’s an accurate description of your kissable lips.”

  “Cherry red after you’ve kissed me senseless, maybe, like you do every night,” she says, in a feathery voice that makes me want to say screw the
drawing, and just screw . . .

  But I’ll take my time with her.

  I’ll be a gentleman. I sense she needs that. Time.

  And I want to give her more than just shivers, more than just bee-stung lips. I want to give her wonderful nights.

  And shoes.

  I want to give her shoes.

  I press a soft kiss to her lips, then focus on the artistic mission at hand.

  I start to draw. “I have to warn you though. They’ll only last for a few minutes. That’s how it went with the key and cat hair anyway,” I say, flashing back on the first night the cat hair appeared, then vanished. The same lifespan applied to the key. So I’ve got to imagine these shoes will be temporary too.

  Imagine.

  Seems so much of my life is imagined. But yet, it’s as real as the shoes are about to become.

  “Then I will enjoy them for all of those minutes,” she says with a grin.

  I sketch out a pair of shoes, with Clio giving me directions like I’m a police sketch artist. Redder, higher, and not such a pointy toe. “Like this?”

  “Perfect.”

  “Here goes.” I tap out a sprinkle of the Muses’ dust onto the drawing and trace the shoes with my fingertips. Seconds later, they become three-dimensional.

  Clio brings her palm to her mouth. “That’s amazing.” She takes off her slippers and pulls on the boots, then stands and twirls, holding up her skirt to show me the shoes.

  "They fit perfectly,” she says with wild delight. “I feel like Cinderella.”

  And I feel like a rock star. “You look stunning and ready for a night on the town as a modern, stylish, sexy Cinderella.”

  “Ooh, where would you take me?”

  I stand and pretend I’m appraising the ensemble, though I’m really just enjoying the view of her. “I’d draw you a pair of jeans, a tank, and I say you’re ready to go clubbing with me in Oberkampf.”

  “I love dancing.” She catches my hand and steps close, into a ballroom dancing pose, and pulls me into a few steps. She quickly stumbles, though, and catches herself with a giggle. “I never said I was any good at dancing though.”

  Smiling, she does a turn on her own, her skirt rippling out. I am sad not to have my hand on her waist anymore, but happy to see it looks like she feels the same way.

  “I’ve always been better at painting,” Clio says, spinning more slowly. “Or, at least, having an eye for paintings. Like that one.”

  She stops turning and points to a Monet, an image of a street celebration in Paris in the late 1870s. “I remember when this was first exhibited.”

  “What was it like? Seeing this for the first time? Before Monet became, well, Monet as we know him today.”

  “It was heaven.” Her lips part as if she’s about to say something more, but she stops. Her question, then, seems to change its course. “What did your friends tell you about this curse?”

  “Not much. They—Suzanne Valadon was their great-great-great-grandmother or something—only said that Renoir cursed your painting. There wasn’t time to ask more than that, so I don’t know how, or even if, artists can curse a painting.”

  I end with a shrug, as if it’s not a big concern of mine, but I’m watching her closely as she silently looks at the calf then back to her shoes. I give her the chance to say more, but she doesn’t.

  “Is there a curse on your painting, Clio?” I ask gently. “Is that why you’re trapped?”

  “My shoes are starting to disappear.”

  I take her elbow so she doesn’t trip again as the shoes dissolve into dust then vanish. Her feet are bare now.

  She wiggles her toes. “I miss my shoes. I’ll have to ask you for a new pair every night.”

  “I’ll happily draw you a pair every night, then.”

  She’s quiet again as she laces up her slippers. I care too much about her to be impatient but also too much not to try to understand her. “You’re different than the others. You were trapped until you came to a museum, but now that you’re alive again, can you just leave? Walk out the doors?”

  “I think I probably could.” She’s pensive about the idea. Me, I hate everything about the thought of her leaving here without me, but I’m trying to figure things out. “In fact,” she goes on, “I bet you could hold the door open for me, and I’d be on my way.” I hold my breath until she shakes her head. “But I don’t actually want to leave right now. I don’t want to go back.”

  I’m lightheaded with relief, but then I wonder what she means by “back.” I would think she’d walk out into the twenty-first century, that she’d stay in this time and place. Does she mean she’d be transported somehow to where she started, if not when?

  Instead of pursuing that down a hypothetical and possibly depressing avenue, I use it as a chance to ask more about her—what’s made her into the person she is now.

  “So, what’s ‘back’?” I ask as conversationally as I can. “Where are you from?”

  She waves a hand as if she’s dismissing the question.

  “Do you have a family?”

  “I was very close with all my sisters. But we worked all the time.”

  “What kind of work?”

  “This and that,” she says in that evasive way she sometimes has. She seems to want to be close to me, to flirt and talk and play and kiss, and to invite me to share all of that with her, no-holds-barred. But talk of her history, of her story, makes her dart and dodge. “That’s why I don’t want to go back just yet. I’d just have to work again. I got tired of working.”

  It seems too cruel to point out that wherever her home is, it likely doesn’t exist anymore, at least not as she remembers it. Her sisters aren’t waiting around for her to pick up the household chores.

  “Besides,” she says, and her eyes are playful now, “the other reason I don’t want to leave is I rather like this handsome man who visits me in the museum.”

  That decides it. No more questions about where she would go if she walked out of the museum. I grin and let myself be buoyed by the effervescent humor in her eyes.

  “Is that so?” I step closer to her.

  “I do. I do like him. He brings me sweets, and he takes me to the ballet, and he makes me shoes.” She leans in and whispers like it’s the most scandalous thing, “And he kisses me. In ways that drive me wild. That make me want more than kissing.”

  A groan works its way up my chest.

  More.

  I want that too.

  “Say the word, and I’ll give you anything you want.”

  “The word,” she says, so deliciously that heat rushes over my skin, and I want to grab her hand, rush down the hall, and dart into that little alcove right behind Starry Night.

  A quiet tucked-away corner.

  No mystery is more interesting to me than the question of what it would be like to explore her body. How would she feel and taste? Would it be as life-changing as the first time we kissed?

  I hear footsteps before I can tug her away and find out, and Gustave pops into the gallery. Have I lost track of time, or is he changing up the path and timing of his patrol through the rooms?

  “Hey, Julien,” he says, coming farther in when he sees me, which makes for a third option—that he was looking for me. And maybe Clio? “Want to hear something crazy?”

  “Sure,” I say nervously, because I don’t have a clue how he’ll react when he sees I’m not alone. But he doesn’t acknowledge her, only me, even when she steps between us. So . . . Gustave can’t see her?

  She whispers, “This will be fun,” so close to my ear that I only resist pulling her against me because kissing the empty air would be hard to explain.

  Gustave fiddles with a bit of wire and some shiny red stones as he leans a shoulder against the wall, as if settling in for gossip. “I just talked to my buddy who runs the night shift at the Louvre. Says he saw a lemon fall out of a de Heem over in one of the galleries a few minutes ago. They were adjusting it for that Interiors exhibit or somethin
g.”

  Now he has my full attention. “Really?”

  “Can you believe that?” Gustave shakes his head. “What a loon. Used to play rugby. Think he may have taken too many hits to the head back then.”

  “Hmm, yeah. That does sound crazy,” I say. But what I really want to know is why lemons are dropping for this buddy of Gustave’s. Could he be another human muse?

  I try not to look at Clio’s fingers plucking playfully at my T-shirt, try not to flinch when she taps my ticklish stomach. Have to stay still in front of Gustave. “What did he do with the lemon?”

  “Threw it out,” Gustave says, and my heart lurches. “Said it was stinking the whole joint up.”

  So, not another muse, then. Maybe there is no instruction manual, but that’s just not what you do with art.

  “Bizarre,” I say absently. I’m thinking about my visit to the Louvre, the fire leaping into my hand, Bathsheba’s drooping belly—and now, a lemon gone rancid. It’s as if the art is throwing itself overboard, casting itself off the cliff of the canvases into the sea. But why is the art over there going full lemming while the Renoirs here are simply fading?

  “You’re telling me,” Gustave says.

  I can’t think about the Renoirs without a pang of worry over Clio’s painting. Worry over Clio. While Gustave’s attention is on the stuff in his hands, I look at her, but she’s watching whatever he’s doing, so now I have to look too.

  “Can I ask . . .?” I point at the smooth copper wire and what looks like a fake ruby he’s twisting it around.

  Gustave frowns and holds it up. “I just can’t figure out how to make this look right. I’d wanted to enter it in a subway art contest.”

  When I see the whole thing, I see the whole thing—where the wire should go, what twists and bends would make the piece look both edgy and clever.

  “Maybe if you bend the wire through the ruby so it’s like . . .” I demonstrate the angle I mean. Gustave looks at my hands, at the wire, at the rest of the miniature sculpture, and then something clicks for him—I can almost hear it. He does as I suggested, then lifts the piece and views it from different angles. “That does look good. Thanks, Julien.” He chuckles and straightens up. “I think I’m going to call it Crazy like a Lemon.” With a little wave, he turns to go back to his post near the front doors.