Drawing Lessons

by Julia Gabriel

  His eyes raked over her body as he quickly shed his jeans and tee shirt. “I like the silk against your skin. There’s just the tiniest difference in texture and color.”

  “You see everything as a picture.”

  He cupped her face in his hands, tilted it up. “I can’t help it. When I see beauty, I want to capture it, make it permanent.”

  “But some things are beautiful because they’re not permanent. If they were, we’d get tired of them.”

  “I could never be tired of you, Marie.”

  His lips touched hers, soft and gentle, and the most beautiful warmth wrapped around her body. Where was sexy Luc, arrogant Luc, bossy Luc? She was ready to shove him onto the bed and have her way with him, yet he was taking things slow. It was like he had morphed into ...

  The kiss wandered, roamed like an explorer over her jaw, her ear, her eyelids. When had her temple become an erogenous zone? He pulled her hips into his, and she gasped at how hard he was. His lips wandered back to hers. “Are you in love with me, Marie?”

  ... loving Luc.

  Of course, she was in love with him. You had me at bonjour.

  “Yes.”

  “Bon. Because I am in love with you.”

  Luc was in love with her! Marie’s heart soared, then plummeted back to earth. I can’t tell him about Richard now. Not tonight. She couldn’t ruin his wonderful mood.

  “So we agree on something, finally,” she said with a smile.

  He scooped her up in his arms and carried her over to the bed. She sighed as her body sunk into the fluffy eiderdown.

  “I thought we agreed on lots of things. We both like this, right?” His mouth closed over her nipple, his tongue circling it until it was a hard peak.

  She sucked in her breath. “You like that. But I love it. So no, we don’t agree there.”

  Luc lifted his head from her breast long enough to look her in the eye and pick up the gauntlet she’d just thrown down. He kissed his way down her stomach, then circled his tongue around her navel.

  “Hmm. You know, I think I prefer an outie and you’re an innie,” he said.

  “Afraid you’re out of luck there.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe I could reverse it.”

  He dipped his tongue into her navel, then covered it with his mouth and began to suck. Marie’s hips bucked off the bed and she tried to push Luc’s head away.

  “Stop ...” She twisted her hips in an attempt to escape his mouth.

  “Ah. You’re ticklish, Marie.”

  “Am ... not.”

  His hands skipped up her sides, tickling her waist, then beneath her arms. He chuckled at her protestations.

  “Well, this seems to be another thing we disagree on,” he said.

  He ran a finger down to her hip, where he traced unseen lines on her skin. “You would look good with a tattoo right about here.” He dropped a kiss on her hip.

  “You don’t mean that.”

  “Why not? I’m thinking a heart with my name inside would be lovely. I would have to be the one to draw it, of course.”

  Marie pushed herself up on her elbows to look down at Luc, whose head was now bouncing up and down with laughter.

  She hadn’t seen him this lighthearted, this carefree since ... well, since never. This was an entirely new side to Luc.

  “You’re always so serious,” she murmured.

  He slid up her body until they were face to face again. “I don’t want to be serious all the time. Not with you.” He kissed her. “I’m happy when I’m around you.”

  She felt her hips open with desire. She hooked an ankle around Luc’s calf. He reached between them and slipped a finger into her wetness, groaning.

  “Your body seems to agree with me on something. You want me.” He pushed in deeper.

  Yes, I want you. Wanted his skin covering hers, wanted his lips on every inch of her body, wanted him deep inside her. But she wanted more than that, even.

  She wanted him.

  She wanted serious Luc.

  Sexy Luc.

  Arrogant Luc.

  Angsty Luc.

  And now she wanted this new Luc, too—sweet and happy Luc.

  She wanted all of them.

  He was looking at her, one eyebrow lifted slightly in expectation. He was waiting for her. Waiting for the go ahead. He always waited for her permission when they made love, she realized with some surprise. As demanding and arrogant as he could be when he was trying to teach her to draw, he was never that way in bed.

  She was seeing him, really seeing him, for the first time. She reached up and traced her fingers over the planes of his cheekbones, along the ridge of his brow, down his fine straight nose. She heard him suck in his breath, as his hips ground gently—but insistently—into hers.

  “Is it terrible that I want to draw you right now?” she whispered.

  He let out a tiny groan. “A little terrible, yes.” He grimaced. “As a teacher, I appreciate the sentiment. But as a man ...”

  She shifted her body beneath him, pulling him into her. He closed his eyes as he sank into her soft heat.

  Not all seeing is done with the eyes.

  Their bodies rocked together, his strokes sure and steady inside her, until they both were panting and clutching at shoulders, at hips ... at release. His quiet moan—Marie— sent her into a spiraling free fall she wasn’t sure would ever end.

  He locked eyes with her as he came, shuddering into her, and she felt laid bare to him. Everything she was feeling at the moment—lust, happiness, love, trust—was drawn on her face. She had never wanted that before, to be completely exposed to another person. Hadn’t really understood why anyone would want it. But now she knew. And she wanted it with Luc. She wanted him to see every part of her, inside and out.

  He kissed her, his chest still heaving against hers, then he regarded her face. “Is it terrible that I want to paint you right now?”

  She gave his shoulder a light swat.

  “I will paint you like this some day. With your skin flushed.” He caressed her cheek with his palm. “Your lips open like this.” His thumb rubbed across her lower lip. “Your eyes ... wanting more.”

  She tried to imagine such a painting. Richard would be thoroughly humiliated.

  “Paint me now.”

  He grinned. “I’ve created a monster, I see.”

  No. But I’m married to one.

  Her face gave away her disappointment.

  “I promise you, ma chérie, I will make that painting one day.”

  “But not now?”

  He shook his head. “I wouldn’t want to rush it. I want to do it right.” He smoothed her hair back from her face, touched her cheek. “See? This look fades so quickly. I would have to stop painting every few minutes to recreate it.” His voice dropped a register, his eyes dark again. “We will need days just to ourselves to work on such a painting.” He kissed her. “But don’t worry. We will find the time. I promise you.”

  Chapter 17

  Marie’s business ethics class was sidetracked on some matter of social media business netiquette that she’d lost interest in five minutes ago. While she waited for the professor to end the detour, she doodled. Well, it had started out as doodling but now she was trying to draw Luc’s face as she had seen him the last time they made love.

  That was last week, and the separation was killing Marie. Speaking to him on the phone and getting his sexy texts throughout the day were nice, but not enough. He was painting like a madman to get everything finished in time for the show. Apparently, his just-in-time business philosophy was making Samantha Smith more nervous than a stage mom.

  Marie hadn’t had much spare time either, between papers due for class and her mother’s new interest in keeping her busy every minute of the day. Not that Marie’s sudden essentialness to Witherspoon & Associates had anything to do with her mother’s desire for her to reconcile with Richard. Of course not. But if it kept Marie too busy to see her new love, well that was
just a convenient unintended consequence.

  She scratched out her first attempt at his face and tried again. It would be much easier if he were modeling for her. She suppressed a little smile at that thought. She was so happy when she left Luc’s that next morning. She had floated on air into the office. Late because her commute had begun in Middleburg, not Ashburn, but who cared?

  Her mother had cared, unfortunately. But Marie just had to hang on until Luc’s show, and everything would be solved. No way would Richard want her back when he found out about the paintings. He would have to deal with his re-election campaign on his own, maybe by making his constituents happy enough with his work that they no longer cared about his marriage. Now there was an idea.

  She scratched out her second attempt, too. Maybe next time I’ll just take a photograph. That would suit her purposes. She just wanted something to look at—okay, to daydream over—when they were apart. She wanted to tape his picture inside her notebook, sleep with it under her pillow, pull it out occasionally and kiss his paper lips while imagining it was really him. It was like being a teenager again, and that thrilling feeling when you liked someone and they liked you back. When you walked around all day in a fog of hormones and with a silly smile plastered on your face. When you jumped every time the phone rang and got to class late because you had lingered at your locker for just one more kiss.

  When class ended, she buttoned up her coat and slung her bookbag over her shoulder for the short walk to Metro. Her stomach rumbled, but she’d eat at home. She leaned her shoulder into the wind and began walking.

  “Marie.”

  Richard. Shit.

  “How was class?”

  “Fine.”

  She kept walking, determined to make it to the subway before he said whatever it was he was here to say. It wasn’t a complete surprise to find Richard waiting for her. He’d been lurking around lately, calling her at the office, taking her and her mother out to lunch at see-and-be-seen restaurants.

  “Can you slow down a minute? Please.”

  Saying “please” and “thank you” wasn’t going to change her mind.

  “It’s late,” she replied without slowing. “I want to get home.”

  “I’ll drive you home. I want us to grab some dinner.”

  Oh who gives a fuck what you want.

  “My car’s at Metro.”

  “I’ll drive you to the station, then.” He sighed, quickly tiring of the conversation evidently.

  “I’m too tired for this tonight, Richard. I’m too tired to go out and have my picture taken and talk to people—”

  “We’ll go somewhere quiet.”

  He grabbed her arm and hailed a cab at the same time. Before she knew it, she was in the back seat of a taxi and they were headed over the Key Bridge and onto route 50. He had given the driver the name of a shopping center in Falls Church. Wherever they were going, it would be hole-in-the-wall quiet. At least he hadn’t been lying about that.

  The cab pulled right up to the curb and a small storefront with a neon sign that blinked OPEN in the window. Café Saigon.

  Inside, Richard draped an arm around the young, impossibly petite hostess, whispered something to her and nodded toward the back of the restaurant. The hostess—all dark hair and big eyes, bright pink blouse—returned his nod and picked up two menus.

  “Right this way, sir. Ma’am.” She nodded at Marie, too.

  Marie trudged along behind them, unhappy at the way he had completely hijacked her evening. She truly was tired. She wasn’t making that up. She slid into the booth opposite Richard and shrugged out of her coat.

  “So? Quiet enough?”

  He looked around at the dimly-lit restaurant, nearly empty on a weeknight. A young girl and boy, the owner’s children probably, were seated in a booth near the front. Their dark heads bowed, they pored over schoolwork.

  Richard ordered hot tea for her and a beer for himself. She quelled the anger she felt at not being asked what she’d like to drink. It wasn’t the right battle. Not tonight. She would have ordered hot tea anyway. Part of the anger was directed at that knowledge. He knew exactly what she was going to order.

  She no longer wanted him to know her. She no longer wanted to know him. They had no children. There was no logical reason why the two of them couldn’t simply be excised from each other’s life. Neatly, surgically. She looked across the booth and noticed, for the first time, that he wasn’t wearing a suit like usual. Instead, he was wearing jeans and a shetland sweater. It was no secret where he must have changed after work. Maya’s apartment was on Capitol Hill.

  When the waitress came for their orders, Marie blurted out hers—a summer roll and lemongrass chicken—before Richard could speak. He looked a little pissed at her outburst, but calmly ordered his own summer roll and ginger shrimp.

  “So how is Maya these days?” She wanted to go ahead and provoke whatever reason Richard had for this dinner, this night.

  “Don’t know. I’m not seeing her anymore.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “Your mother asked me to stop seeing her, so I have.”

  “So that’s all it took? My mother asking nicely?”

  He shrugged. “I respect your mother.”

  You’ve never respected me.

  “So if you’re not seeing Maya anymore, why is she still talking trash about me on her blog?”

  “She’s upset. You won, Marie. She lost.”

  “Funny, I don’t feel like some big winner here.”

  “Plenty of people think you are.” He leaned back to make room for the summer rolls the waitress was setting down in the middle of the table. “In any case, we’re not here to talk about Maya. We’re here to talk about your boyfriend. Specifically, about whether you’ve dumped him yet.”

  “No, and I have no plans to.” Marie nonchalantly—more nonchalantly than she felt inside—cut her summer roll in two and proceeded to swirl one half in the dipping sauce.

  “It’s not negotiable.”

  “Everything is negotiable. Isn’t that what they say?” She bit into the roll. At least the food was delicious so far, even if that couldn’t be said for the company. “And honestly? I don’t believe you’ve stopped seeing Maya.”

  The smirk on his face disappeared in less than an instant, but she saw it. He was playing her mother. Her father needed Richard on the Armed Services Committee. In the end, her mother was not going to jeopardize that—and Richard knew it. He held most of the cards here.

  Oh but there are some cards you don’t know about yet.

  “I’m not doing this, Richard. Sorry. Just not happening. A mistress wasn’t a sticking point for your constituents the first time around.”

  “Things have changed since then.”

  “Yup. They sure have. I’ve met someone else. So you’re on your own now.”

  He leaned in over the table, pushed aside the white rectangular appetizer dish. “You. Have. No. Choice.” He punctuated each syllable with a sharp rap of his finger on the laminate table. “What. Part. Don’t. You. Under. Stand.”

  “The part where you think you can just order me around. What are you going to do? Kidnap me every time you have a campaign event? Stick a wig on Maya and pretend she’s me.”

  He was about to slam his fist on the table when the waitress showed up with their entrees.

  “Can we get these to go?” he asked her. “And the check, please.”

  When the waitress left, he resumed glaring at her. As scary as his stare could be, it felt good to push back at him. And she wasn’t scared this time anyway. What part of your wife is fucking an artist and he is painting her don’t you understand?

  Chapter 18

  The lettering in the window read “Luc Marchand. Déesse: New Work.”

  “Déesse?” Nishi said in perfectly accented French. “Is that referring to you? Goddess? Tell Richard to take that and stuff it where the sun don’t shine. You don’t get to be a goddess married to a Congressman.”


  Marie stared at the clean white letters, trying to tamp down the stew of nerves bubbling in her chest. It had been a hectic month, with Luc frantically (and sometimes crankily) painting to get everything done in time. And now the day was here. Luc’s show was opening at Samantha Smith’s new Dupont Circle gallery. She was nervous. Hopeful. Terrified. She’d brought Nishi as moral support and also, she had to admit, as someone to hide behind. It was one thing to pose nude for an artist, quite another to stand around while strangers eyeballed the paintings. She was nervous for Luc, too. If the show got panned or sales were dismal, she would feel responsible. Flattered as she was—and even though she needed Richard to be embarrassed by the show—she already worried that Luc should have spent the past two months painting more worthy subjects.

  Nishi was peering through the window. “Good crowd.”

  The toxic brew in her stomach was at full boil now.

  “Come on.” Nishi took her arm. “Let’s get a drink and then you can show me what I’ve been paying for all these months.” She smiled warmly at her friend. “Drawing lessons, my ass. You were the one who was supposed to be drawing.”

  Marie had tried to prepare Nishi for the content of the show but, in the end, embarrassment won out. For all Nishi’s bluster and bravado, she led a pretty straitlaced life. She lived with Imran in a perfectly ordinary suburban neighborhood, not even as nice a neighborhood as the two of them could afford. Nishi would never pose nude, she was certain of that.

  Inside, the gallery buzzed with conversation and occasional bursts of polite laughter. The paintings were framed and artfully arranged on the walls, but it was too much for Marie to take in all at once. Her eyes skittered from one to the next, and then at the people milling about, cocktails and beers in hand. It was a well-dressed crowd, in tailored suits and dresses in shades of black and grey and navy, a mix of ages. Some looked far too young to buy art.

  Ahead of her, Nishi casually took in the paintings, saying nothing. Marie was dying to know what her friend was thinking.

  Nishi tugged at her arm, leading her toward the bar in the farthest room. Marie hadn’t even spotted the bar through the clusters of people milling about, but Nishi always knew where to go and how to get there. It was one of the qualities Marie most envied in her. It was impossible to imagine Nishi lost or tongue-tied. No one pushed her around.