TASTE ME

by Carrie Alexander

"Come along, Mrs. Snookums." The cat crawled across the stoop, her belly low to the ground. It was hairless and shivering, and looked remarkably like Argyle except that it wasn't plaid.

  The weather was cool for early September—sixty degrees. The cement steps of the row house were not particularly hospitable, even to one wearing real woolens instead of a faux-painted version. Either way, Julian thought Argyle and his cat were taking a chance lounging out here in almost no clothes. Mia's neighborhood in the West Thirties wasn't the safest.

  Argyle pressed the buzzer. The intercom crackled, breaking up as a male voice answered. "Let me in, honey," Argyle said.

  Julian caught the door at the answering buzz. "After you."

  "Going up to Mia's?"

  He nodded.

  "You're not a model." Argyle tucked Mrs. Snookums under his arm and gave Julian's suit a look. His eyes were a watery blue rimmed in pink. "You must be from the ad agency. She said someone might drop by for a look-see." Argyle started up the steps, entirely too trusting. "Well, come on, then."

  Julian climbed four flights, each becoming progressively narrower, steeper and more twisty. Argyle was a wiry fellow who jogged upward with his robe billowing. By the time Julian got to the top, he was angling his shoulders sideways. The last time an ascent had been as tight, he'd been in a deathtrap rock chimney in the Himalayas.

  He'd gone climbing three years ago, Julian remembered. His last lengthy, stress-free, solo vacation. He'd come back to disaster—Very had been arrested for DUI and his mother had become friendly with a dignified older couple who'd claimed to be cousins of the Vanderbilts and had persuaded her to invest fifty thousand in their emerald mine in Brazil. Julian had vowed never to be out of touch again.

  The door to Mia's place was open. Music blasted from it, preparing him for the explosion of light and jumble of color inside. The decor was surrealistic—giant poppies affixed to the ceiling, mad abstract paintings, peacock feathers, papier-mâché fruit as big as bowling balls on the floor, Roman columns, piles of pillows in every color and pattern. One area was filled with enough broken-down furniture to stock a rummage sale. Thankfully, the walls and ceilings were a blinding snowcap white. But there seemed to be too many of them for one small studio apartment—they jutted here and there and slanted in every direction. Julian had to duck beneath an overhanging lintel to enter.

  His next impression was movement—bodies swaying to the music. Some of them were stripped half-naked, their exposed skin painted in various plaids. Julian counted six of the plaid people, equally divided between men and women when he included Argyle. They danced, they strolled, they sprawled on a low double bed stacked with pillows and tucked into a gable end hung with sheer curtains.

  At the center of the mad plaid circus was Mia, dressed in only a loose smock that reached midthigh. Her bare legs were splotched with random streaks of paint. She was bent over a nude model reclining on a hard wooden chair set upon a dais, shaking her bootie to the music as she drew crisscrossing lines over the model's legs with an artist's brush, turning them into navy blue and yellow plaid.

  Julian's gaze went from the model's bare breasts to Mia's round butt. Every time she rocked to the beat, the hem of her smock flipped up, flashing an expanse of smooth thigh. When she bent way over, still bobbing, the tail of the loose shirt was pulled even higher. An especially vigorous wiggle momentarily revealed the twin globes of a perfect round ass. She straightened, one hand reaching behind to tug the smock back down over the provocative red thong that peeped out from the apex of her thighs.

  The flash had been involuntary and brief, but heat surged through Julian's veins. He tried to look away to take in the rest of the scene, but his eyes couldn't stay away from Mia's bouncing bottom. The second most amazing thing was that no one else seemed aroused. Or even to notice.

  "Brought you a visitor, Mia," Argyle announced, more concerned with pulling the cat's claws away from his kimono. He went to the CD player and turned it down a few notches. "From the ad agency."

  Mia whirled. "But you're too ear—" the pink drained from her cheeks "—ly."

  Julian gave a casual wave despite a body that had grown as stiff as a cigar store Indian.

  "Julian." She shifted the artist's palette to one hand and frowned down at her skimpy shirt and bare legs. One stocking-clad foot moved on top of the other. He saw that the paint splotches that decorated her skin weren't entirely random, but patches of plaid test patterns.

  "I'm sorry if I've come at a bad time." He regretted that his presence had made her uncomfortable. She'd seemed so free and natural. So happy.

  She shrugged. "It's always a madhouse around here."

  He raised his brows.

  She waited a questioning beat but he wasn't sure what to say to explain his arrival. After Nikki had turned in the background info on Mia, including her address and phone number, curiosity had gotten the better of him. He'd come with an excuse—an offer, perhaps even genuine. But the scene in Mia's studio had knocked him out of his nonargyle socks. The glib words that usually flowed without conscious thought were lodged somewhere in his throat.

  "Well," she said, setting her palette on the crowded table. "Let me introduce you. This is the garret where I live and work, and these are my friends."

  She pointed. "Stefan, on the bed with Leslie." A reclining bearded man, fully clothed, chatted to a slim blonde perched on the edge wearing a bikini top and a schoolgirl-plaid skirt. Every inch of exposed skin was painted to match the skirt, even her face. The white of her eyes and pink of her lips grew when she glanced at Julian and mouthed hello.

  He returned the smile. The bearded man frowned.

  Mia continued. "This is Fred—" Argyle man "—and Maurizio." Maurizio was a ponytailed dude noshing in a minuscule open kitchen area. He waved a cheese sheer and a packet of crackers. Although he was stripped down to his boxers, only his chest was plaid, airbrushed a pale jaundice yellow and sketched in with a herringbone pattern that turned his bulging pecs into a piece of Escher artwork.

  "This is Sue," Mia said, indicating an older woman with buzz-cut silver hair and tartan skin from the neck down. Julian thought she wore a thong, but he didn't want to stare.

  "And Cherie." The brunette in the chair, unabashedly nude even though she only wore paint on her legs. Her breasts were small and rather unobtrusive, considering that the nipples stood out like pencil erasers. When Julian nodded at her, she flicked her tongue across her lips and winked.

  "Everyone," Mia said, "this is Julian Silk."

  "Oh!" Fred, aka Argyle, put his hands on his hips. "Naughty boy. I thought he was from the ad agency."

  "Do we know him?" Stefan asked, rising up to one elbow.

  Julian couldn't remember many of the names. His head was ready to explode. He'd been to wild photo shoots before, including the Hard Candy bikini calendar shoot with naked, oiled babes, tropical heat, rum punch on demand and a much more sultry air than could be found in a fifth-floor walk-up attic. Maybe that was the difference. Mia's friends seemed quite casual about it all, as if the body-painting extravaganza was an everyday occurrence.

  "Ooh, the big boss from Hard Candy," Cherie said. She moved in the chair, hooking an arm over the backrest and tilting one breast higher. She studied Julian with a tight little smile. "Mia was just telling us about you, Mr. Silk."

  "Julian," he said.

  "Julian," she purred.

  Another Petra. Lovely, but potentially lethal. He crossed her off his list, despite the honed body and the champagne-glass tits. After a moment's thought, he realized that his recent reluctance wasn't only from caution. Mia made other women seem calculating and almost bland. Juiceless.

  She'd seen him looking. With an irritated nose twitch, she tossed Cherie a scarf. "We have a visitor, Lady Godiva. Keep the naughty bits under wraps."

  Cherie shook out the scarf, seductively lowered it across her front like a veil and then tied it around her hips. "There, I'm decent."

  Mia rolled her eyes. "
No modesty. This is what I get for hiring a nudist."

  She retrieved the palette and approached Cherie again, squinting at the pattern of the plaid. "Don't know if I'm happy with these colors…"

  "I can only stay another half hour," Cherie said. "I booked a job downtown. What a trek!"

  "Someone grab the Polaroid for me," Mia said. "We'll try some test shots. Maurizio? Want to bring your chest over here? I need to see the contrast."

  Julian found the camera on the table and put it into her extended hand. She glanced up with a distracted thank-you. "Oh, Julian. I forgot. Was there something I can do for you?"

  Either she was very good at playing it cool, or his renowned charisma truly had no effect on her. He was tending to go with the latter until he remembered their kiss. A woman didn't kiss a man she could take or leave like that.

  "I'd hoped to speak to you in private."

  "Should have called for an appointment then." Mia framed a shot of Cherie's extended legs and snapped a photo. She bent at the waist to get a close-up, her own legs straight, knees glued together. The tail of the smock lifted across the back of her thighs, dangerously close to revealing her thong again.

  The view was so enticing Julian felt as though he'd been granted a ringside seat at a strip club. But instead of tucking a bill into a convenient crevice, he battled the urge to tug the shirt down to keep her rear end decently covered. Maurizio, crossing to the dais, had finally noticed.

  "No modesty," the muscle man said, reaching out to pat Mia's behind as he slid into place between Cherie's legs.

  "Whoops." Mia felt for the back of her shirt. Julian caught her eye. She colored slightly. "Maybe you should come back another time? This is only a test shoot, but it's going to take a while yet. We tend to get a little goofy. Even, uh, wild."

  "I can wait. And I'm an expert at getting wild."

  A sexy laugh came from the dais as Cherie folded her legs around the male model in a suggestive pose. Mia glanced from them to Julian, in his suit and tie. "In the middle of the workday? Be honest, now. This isn't really your scene."

  "No, but I'm always up for new experiences. If you don't mind an observer, that is."

  "All right." Mia waved him to a chair. "As long as you keep out of my way. I'll forget you're here, so if you get thirsty or hungry, go to the kitchen and help yourself." Her ripe little mouth puckered. "Enjoy yourself."

  "Oh, I will."

  He settled down to watch, seated in the one space of sanity in the kooky studio—a lime-green easy chair positioned against the wall with a reading lamp and a side table stacked with worn paperbacks. Romance novels. He picked one up, found the used bookstore stamp on the inside cover. The well-thumbed book sprang open to a love scene.

  He skimmed a few paragraphs. Mia had a telling taste in literature. But, of course, he already knew how sensually alive she was. The proof was in the flush of her skin, the brightness of her eyes, the shape of her mouth opening to his.

  He returned his attention to the work in progress. Mia shot dozens of Polaroids, rearranging the poses and pairings, then took even more test shots. Eventually, she released Cherie to make her appointment. The other models scattered, taking a break while Mia worked on Maurizio's herringbone chest, managing to laugh and talk with him while never losing her focus. Her hand was skilled; the paintbrush was always in motion.

  No one approached Julian, though they sneaked frequent looks at him. All except Mia. She spared no glance at all. In fact, she seemed to have forgotten his presence.

  Julian realized that he was as out of place here as Mia would be in a Park Avenue drawing room. He sank deeper into the cushions, trying to get comfortable. To prove to himself that he still could. He wasn't, as his sisters accused, a stick-in-the-mud whose only interest was work.

  Mia continued to ignore him. Which only succeeded in keeping his interest aroused.

  After a while, he let his mind drift into fantasy. Mia was naked on the curtained bed, rounded in all the right places. She was looking at him, seeing all of him. And licking her lips. He beckoned her with a curled finger, and she crawled forward on hands and knees, her breasts swaying. Oh, yeah, she wanted him. She really did. Eagerly, she pounced and stripped him. Within seconds, he was in her hands, her deft artist's fingers teasing him as she opened those decadent lips of hers and slid them over the head of his penis.

  A couple of the models broke out into loud laughter. Julian blinked, coming out of the fantasy. Not the right time to continue the imaginary scenario, but there was no doubt in his mind. With Mia's skills at handiwork, she'd be an attentive and inventive lover.

  Cherie emerged from a glass door that led to what must be the bath. No longer plaid, she was dressed in jeans and a tight top, with wet hair. She grabbed a portfolio, blew air kisses all around and then flicked a card at Julian on her way to the door. He let it fall. His hands were loosely linked over a fully engorged boner.

  Mia's lashes flickered in his direction.

  The door shut behind Cherie. He gulped. Plucked the card off his shirt front and made a show of examining the content before tucking it into his pocket. "On my way to the sixteenth spot," he said, under his breath but loud enough for Mia to hear.

  She flounced off to another area of the studio and with a whoosh pulled down a sheet of heavy paper from a roller hung near the ceiling. "Let's move, gang. I need some real photos before we lose the natural light."

  The door buzzed in the middle of the setup. Mia was involved with arranging a tangled knot of plaid limbs. Twister gone Celtic.

  "I'll get it," Julian said, even though she wasn't paying attention. He went over to the intercom and pressed the button. "Who is it?"

  "Cress. I've got the stash."

  "The stash?" Julian wondered if the photo shoot concluded with a good old-fashioned bong party. These people seemed the type.

  "Let me up." Cress sounded cranky. "I'm being chased by a clan of dekilted Scotsmen."

  Julian buzzed him in, left the door open and returned to his chair. In seconds, the young black man from the cover shoot appeared, his arms filled with plaid fabrics, dangling shopping bags and a bulging tote. He zipped straight through the studio and tossed the "stash" on the bed, beside Stefan, who hadn't moved except to take off his shoes and prop his dirty feet on the pillows. Something of a fantasy-killer, that was.

  Cress dusted off his hands. "Mia, my pet. This stuff is god-awful tacky. It's Braveheart regurgitated."

  On the makeshift set, Mia's head poked out from behind a plaid thigh. "Yeah, but it's also a paying job."

  "A mere pittance compared to the Hard Candy shoot. Why be this painstaking with a measly little print ad that'll soon be lining bird cages?"

  "I can use it in my portfolio," she murmured. "I'm creating art, remember?"

  "She's creating art," Cress said to the air, pushing his sunglasses up to his head. He blinked at the variety of the models' intertwined plaids. "Ugh. Clash art." But he got to work positioning the lights.

  "We need a stand-in for Cherie," said Mia, once she'd finished arranging the first pose and was standing off to the side, considering the composition.

  "Stefan?" Cress called.

  A loud snore came from the bed. Clearly fake. Julian snorted.

  Mia and Cress looked at him. Air whistled between the photo stylist's teeth. "So … we meet again. Or don't meet." He walked up to Julian with an open hand. "Cressley Godwin."

  "Julian Silk." They shook hands.

  "Mine's worse than yours."

  "Pardon?"

  "The moniker."

  "Oh, I don't know. It's no fun being called Silk Shorts all through school."

  "Unless you wear them," Mia said. "And I bet you do."

  Julian let his gaze slide slowly across her, putting a little heat into it—just enough to get her warmed up and aware of him. "A tempting proposition, but I'll have to decline that wager." He did a James Dean one-corner lip quirk. Gave her a flick of his chin. "You just want to get my clothes
off."

  Mia's mouth dropped open.

  "Yes, but only so she can slap paint on you," Cress said.

  "No thanks. I'm here as an observer."

  "So you're one of those." Cress nodded sadly, turning to Mia with a glum expression. "He likes to watch."

  Self-consciously, she put both hands over her bottom, tugging down on the shirt hem in back, which only made it rise in front, tenting over her breasts and flirting with her upper thighs. Julian wondered why she didn't put on pants.

  Maybe she liked to be watched…?

  "Come on, Julian, be a sport," she said, bright and jittery. "Pose for me. This is only a test shot for my own use. You'll never be seen outside this room, I promise."

  "Why can't Cress do it?"

  "I need his eye. Plus, he'll be arranging the fabrics and the other crap we have to sell in this ad."

  "For God's sake, will you take the picture already?" said the blonde positioned on the paper scroll. She was twined around Maurizio, the Latino hunk. "My thigh is cramping."

  The others nodded, adding their complaints. "I need to get to yoga class."

  "I'm cold."

  "Someone's been eating cheese."

  "Please," Mia said, half pleading, half pushing Julian toward the set. "Just take off your pants and get down on the floor and stick your legs up there, near Leslie's—" She waved at the contorted couples.

  "Hold on," he said. "I'm not taking off my pants."

  "It'll be difficult to paint you with them on."

  "Paint me? I don't remember agreeing to that either."

  "But that's the point! I'm doing a color test. Don't argue with me." She grabbed his belt and started unbuckling. For a moment, Julian was too stunned to react—particularly when she ducked a little to slide down his pants, briefly aligning her mouth with his groin and making the previous fantasy pop into his head. He closed his eyes and summoned up thoughts of board meetings, computer manuals, anything to keep body parts from popping, too.

  Something wet tickled his thighs. He squinted at Mia, on her hands and knees, all right, but not even remotely interested in giving him a hummer. She was hurriedly slapping green paint onto his legs. Thwap, thwap.