The Muse

by Anne Calhoun

  “I want to draw first,” she said. “Ease into it.”

  “Okay,” he said. “Where do you want me?”

  “Get your sketchpad,” she said with a quick smile. She was settling herself against the pillows mounded at the headboard, her knees tucked demurely to one side, tugging her skirt down to her knees. The black skirt and fitted turtleneck and her flushed cheeks stood out against the sheets the same color of cream as her skin.

  “You want to draw me drawing you?”

  “I want to draw you drawing. Whatever you draw is up to you.” She flipped to a clean page in the sketchpad, gathered the pencils, then glanced up at him. “If that’s all right with you.”

  He modeled for her all the time. They were about to make a sex tape. Suddenly refusing to let her draw him seemed ridiculous. He noted instead his body’s response to the suggestion. Sex tape: business as usual. Her drawing him while he drew: rapid heart rate, sweat breaking out at his hairline and under his arms, tightening in his gut. It was, he realized, more intimate to him than sex.

  That awareness hit him harder than a sucker punch, and left him just as breathless. Which was good. His hearing was definitely coming back, breath and heartbeat elevated, audible.

  “It’s fine,” he said, his voice coming from a distance. She’d come at him sideways, slipping under his defenses, and suddenly here he was, eating dinner, drinking wine, looking at art, and having sex. If that wasn’t a real relationship, he didn’t know what was.

  “Great,” she said, with another one of those quick smiles.

  His sketchbook was downstairs, in his messenger bag, along with his pens. He paused to look at the kitchen and dining room, their plates abandoned on the table, the roast pan on the counter. It looked like a home, the kind of home people made together, where one cooked and the other cleaned up, a task that could wait if something more important came along. Like sex. Or art.

  The bedroom was eerily quiet, a fact he noticed only because he couldn’t shake the feeling of déjà vu. On his way to the bed, he tapped the button to start the camera recording. When he sprawled on his side of the bed, flattened the sketchbook, and picked up a pen, placed the déjà vu. He was drawing with a friend. The close physical proximity, the steady silence that didn’t need to be filled, the sense that they were in something together.

  Oh, shit.

  Her brow creased into a frown; she made an impatient noise and erased a line, then brushed the eraser debris into the bed. Without thinking about it, he reached out and tucked her hair behind her ear, so the light from the bedside lamp felt soft and warm on her cheekbone and the shining fall of her hair. She was deft with the pencils now, her hand confident, turning the sketchpad to give her better access to a section without smearing the drawing. He idly captured the curve of her ear, the strands of hair flowing behind it, feeling the sinuous line in his fingers as well as seeing it on the page, not really in the drawing, not really in the room, waiting for her to make the move.

  Without thinking much, he flipped through the pages. His sketchbook was a record of his life, what he saw, what was on his mind, but the gap between the drawings he made before the IED went off and his recent sketches of Arden felt wrong, like a drawing missing a crucial element.

  Enough of this. Drawn to the textured tights, he set his hand on her knee and stroked it up to the hem of her dress. The fabrics were smooth and warm, retaining her body heat in the cool weather, and contrasted with the fitted cashmere turtleneck she wore tucked into the skirt. No easy access here, tights and sweater and skirt combining to cover her in multiple layers from her chin to her toes. He moved his hand back down to her thigh and brushed the back of his thumb against her mound. Her hand movements slowed, and a soft heat rose into her cheeks. He kept at it, not rushing, until she set the pencil and sketchpad to the side and turned to brush her thumb across his lips.

  He looked up at her, closing his eyes only when she bent to kiss him. Red wine, warm mouth, already plush from her nibbling on it as she worked. She pulled back, looked at him, her eyes studying him with intensity, and it took everything he had not to react, to be the blank page on which she drew this version of herself. She could be as bold or as shy as she wished.

  When she urged him to his back and straddled his hips, he knew not even this would dent her essential boldness. Her willingness to face her fears, to stare them in the face even when they sabotaged her again and again, blew him away. Her hair slid loose from its mooring behind her ear, curtaining their faces as she dropped tempting kisses on his cheek and jaw before licking into his mouth. Some level of his mind remembered the camera, pointed at their heads in the pose they held, but he wasn’t about to remind her of it.

  She lifted her head and peered down at him. “Come back,” she whispered. “Come back to me.”

  Desperate to cloud her vision, he slid his hands under her flirty skirt to her hips, clasping them tightly as he rolled her to her back. He settled between her legs and matched her kiss for kiss. Her hands scudded up his back to grip his shoulders, then his upper arm, then set to tugging his shirt free from his khakis. Bracing his weight on one elbow, he reached under her skirt and started working her tights down. It took some maneuvering from both of them to get them down and off, but when he did, it was so worth it, he glided his cupped palm from her calf to her bottom, feeling the tights’ texture pressed into her skin.

  When he reached the curve of her bottom, warm, loose silk covered his hand. The smile that curved her lips, pleased and shy and challenging all at once, told him she was wearing something different underneath. Rather than investigating immediately, he closed his eyes and explored by touch. Firm curve under his fingers, the contrast of the jut of her hipbone and the soft curls covering her mound under his thumb, soft fabric gathering at his wrist.

  When he couldn’t wait a moment longer, he nudged her skirt to her waist. It caught under her opposite hip but lifted enough to reveal midnight blue silk in a form he couldn’t name. They were cut like shorts, elastic waist, and stopped just at the tops of her thighs.

  “Tap pants,” she said. “They’re very retro Fifties pinup girl.”

  He heard one word out of three. “Pretty,” he said. They made her pale skin glow like stars in the night sky.

  “Thanks. Another Irresistible purchase,” she said as her fingers went to the buttons of his shirt and unfastened them. She spread the fabric to either side, baring his chest for her fingers, now trailing over the bare spot in the tattoos covering his shoulders and torso. Solemnly she pressed the tips to his mouth. He kissed them, then she drew teasing, skimming fire down the blade of the sword on the left side of his torso, slid her hand into his pants to flatten it against his cock.

  He groaned and thrust into her hand. His skin was heating, the blood simmering just under the surface as he slipped backward in time to caveman. His body got a bit heavier, the better to feel her under him, and his hands gripped her hip and her hair, to hold her for demanding kisses broken only by her frantic efforts to get his shirt off. When that wasn’t enough, he pulled her turtleneck off over her head. Her hair crackled with static electricity and stayed in a wild halo around her head until he smoothed it down with his palms. Now that he could see the set, the bra matched the tap pants, the kind of styling he’d seen in old movie and pinup posters or Katy Perry performing for troops. He stroked both hands down to her shoulders and over her breasts to her waist.

  Right now he was the one who couldn’t breathe. Unable to resolve the emotions, he kissed his way down her body, then shouldered her thighs apart.

  He slid his arms under her thighs and stroked her abdomen through the silk, drew the inseam to the side, and delved into her folds with his tongue. She gave a shuddering, gasping breath, and twisted in his arms. He slid his hand up to cup her breast and stroke his thumb across the nipple, peaked under the silk. Her hand gripped his hair as he licked her, slow, steady strokes timed to the rhythm of her hips. But even with the cues, a tighter grip on his
hair, her thighs trembling on his shoulders, the quickening lift of her hips, he wasn’t ready for the shocked, disbelieving cry as she went rigid. He licked her through it, gentle touches, until she went slack in his arms.

  He slid his arms free, rose to his knees, and put his hands to his zipper, his awareness narrowed to her face, her hands, the searing heat between them. She scrambled upright, forgetting grace in their haste to get naked; she hurried out of her bra while he shoved his pants and underwear down. She got a condom from her nightstand, and he pulled her close as she smoothed it down his length.

  The sweat drying on her skin might be chilling her. “Cold?” he murmured.

  “A little,” she whispered back. Her eyes were dreamy yet full of a comprehension, like she’d seen through the veil to the other side. “You’ll warm me up.”

  With his arm firmly around her waist, he tipped them onto the bed, then reached back for the sheet and pulled it up to his shoulders. “Better?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said. With a soft, slow touch she stroked his face, and again he couldn’t shake the sense that she saw something in him he didn’t want shown to anyone. He wanted to blur her awareness, get her head back where it needed to be, in her body. He aligned the tip of his cock with her hot, wet opening, braced his hands on either side of her head, and canted his hips forward, slowly gliding deep.

  Her eyelids fluttered closed, and her breath stuttered, halted, eased from her lungs. Better. Not thinking about him. Not feeling anything for him, definitely not with him. Make it about the body, the source of all their troubles. He pulled out, slid back in, again, again, then adding a bit of force to the strokes, watching her drop deeper and deeper into sensation. Great. Perfect.

  So why was he the one kissing her? Why was he the one stopping to check in with her when he could read the signs, hear the sirens of her sighs and gasps, the unmistakable way her legs tightened and drew up, the way her hands flattened at the base of his spine. The deep rose blush forming on her collarbone told him everything he needed to know about where she was in her body.

  So why did he stop and whisper, “Arden”?

  The look in her eyes when she opened them, dazed, vulnerable, so far gone in the pleasure they created, hit him in the empty spot in his chest. Without really thinking about it, he rolled her. The sheet got caught underneath them, barely covering her hips, but she seemed far less concerned with the cold room. She looked down at him and laughed with sheer delight, then started to move. Okay, this was better. She had her hands on his chest, grounding him as she rocked back and forth, her hair and breasts swaying with each move. He slid his palms up her damp spine, gripped her shoulders, urging her into each gliding stroke.

  But then her soft cries grew sharp and helpless. When she dropped to her elbows to capture his mouth, he was gone again, drawn into what he didn’t even know he needed. Her mouth on his, her body against his, her hands in his hair, her tight heat clenching around his cock as she came, and when had the edge of orgasm become the edge of falling apart? He fell, pushing up into the soft depths of her body, and the hoarse cry torn from his throat reminded him of the last time he’d felt this vulnerable, the last time he’d been this present in his body, to this kind of total silence. Then the silence was punctuated by his breath and heartbeat, only his, an unmistakable sign that the world was utterly changed.

  But now Arden’s heart raced with his, her breath mingling with his as they shuddered through the aftershocks. The sense of wrongness he’d been trying to draw for days clarified into crystal. He’d never felt more alive than that moment in Arden’s bed, her breath teasing his lips, her hand curled around his nape.

  He wasn’t alone anymore.

  – SEVENTEEN –

  Arden felt she really should get off Seth. Unable to hold herself up, much less walk, she’d collapsed onto him like someone had removed all her bones. Seth’s hand gave random, subtle twitches on her hip as his grip loosened. She smiled at the evidence that a man strong enough to bike around Manhattan all day was reduced to trembling by sex with her.

  Sex they’d just filmed.

  Suddenly motivated, she clambered off him, and the bed, leaving him the sheet as she scurried to the camera, picked it up, and tapped the button to stop the recording.

  “Did we just do that?” she asked, staring at the back of the camera. The controls were like partially understood hieroglyphics. A blue light was flashing, but stopped when she found the menu. The play symbol appeared on the screen, the video ready to be viewed. “I guess we did.”

  He kicked free of the sheet and headed for the bathroom, leaving her staring at her camera like it was a bomb. No fade to black like in the movies, just Seth in the bathroom, dealing with a condom, and her, naked, her sensitized nerve endings heated like they’d been rubbed with sandpaper. A little shiver ran through her. The air held a definite chill now that the sun had set.

  She’d actually forgotten about the camera. When had the awareness of being recorded disappeared? Before the sex heated up, which meant during the drawing. At least she’d accomplished that goal. Drawing was now second nature, something she could do to ground herself in the moment.

  Seth emerged from the bathroom. In the dim light the tattoos seemed alive on his skin as he stooped to pick up his underwear and pants. She left the camera on the bureau to snatch her robe from the hook on the back of the bathroom door and pulled it on. As she did she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror, and stopped half-in, half-out of the robe. Her hair wasn’t so wild she couldn’t run around the corner and pick up takeout from the Italian place. Her lips weren’t so swollen that it was obvious what she’d been doing. The flush on her skin could have come from a healthy workout. She looked like herself, but better.

  Happier. That’s how she looked. Vibrant and alive and happy, but a sustainable happy. The kind of happy that came along routinely, say two or three times a week after amazing sex. She’d paid hundreds of dollars for facials that didn’t leave her with this inside-out glow.

  But there was a chill in the room. She belted the robe at her waist, then went back into the bedroom.

  “Do you want to watch it?” she asked. “I can get the rest of the wine.”

  He didn’t. She knew that expression, even if it only lasted a millisecond on his face, of coming face-to-face with something terrifying. Seth Malone, who confronted armed jihadists, roadside bombs, death and its aftermath, Manhattan traffic, was afraid to watch this video.

  Then it was gone, smoothed back into his habitually blank expression. “Sure,” he said.

  “We don’t have to,” she started.

  “Afraid to be on the other side of things?”

  Ninety percent teasing, ten percent edge. “No,” she said truthfully. “I thought you might be.”

  He pulled up his pants and zipped them, but left the button undone. “No big deal,” he said with a smile, and the edge was gone. “I model for art students and I spent twelve years in the Marine Corps. I’ve got nothing left to hide. Let’s do this.”

  Seth had arranged the pillows against the headboard. He hadn’t bothered to put on his shirt, perhaps because he was always dressing and undressing for her, enough wardrobe changes for a model or an actor. Always naked, never seen popped into her head. Arden sat cross-legged beside him, held the camera in both hands, and tapped the play button with her thumb.

  The opening was a bit self-conscious as they got comfortable on the bed without engaging each other immediately. Her nerves were obvious to her, although Seth didn’t seem to track her glances at the camera that stopped when she realized he wasn’t going to pull some caveman stunt and immediately go after her. The way he’d stretched out on his side with his head toward the camera and his legs crossed at the ankle was totally natural. Watching people draw was really boring, only slightly more interesting than watching paint dry. If she hadn’t known what was coming, she would have shut off the video. Her heart gave a funny little skip as she watched herself draw, the f
ierce concentration, the furrow in her brow, so worried. A wave of tenderness for herself rippled through her, eddying along her nerves, into her awareness.

  But then something happened, like it happened while she looked at the Rothko. Without either of them moving, the boundaries between them blurred, shimmered, disappeared. Seth didn’t move, but the line of his body changed, relaxed, and became something that made her fingers itch to draw, because that . . . that was the thing that was missing from her main piece for the show. And she changed, self-consciousness dropping away, every line in her body subtly different. She’d forgotten the camera, and everything was different. She no longer looked like a woman carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders.

  Is that what she could look like? Be?

  Her awareness shifted to Seth. Did he see it, too? In her peripheral vision, his expression hadn’t really changed, and more to the point, his body was no more or less tense than before. Maybe he didn’t see it. Why would he see it?

  “Is it difficult to draw in that position?” she asked. With his head braced on one hand, he used the edge of the other to keep the sketchbook immobilized and drew with it at the same time.

  He shrugged, a movement she felt against her back rather than saw. “I can draw anywhere,” he said.

  On the screen he reached out to tuck her hair behind her ear, and she realized why he’d seen it. Seth saw everything, taking in the world the way she was trying to learn to do. She looked at the sketchbook, the cover black and pristine, no dust, no dirt, and something clicked into place for her, tiny disparate pieces of information suddenly coalescing into understanding. The cover was so clean because he wasn’t drawing. Seth could eat anywhere, sleep anywhere, draw anywhere, but right now, he was at home nowhere. Because for Seth, home was people, not places, and his friends were gone.

  She felt as if she’d taken an arrow to the chest, spearing deep. It had been right in front of her all this time, and she hadn’t seen it, because he was so bloody naked all the time, so accommodating, needing nothing, asking for nothing, always at someone else’s side, playing the role of brother, husband, father, model, art teacher, the man in her bed.