by JA Low
“Louis, he’s destroying his studio.” Shit. I jump up and rush down to where I can hear crashing. I pull open the wooden door and there he is tearing into his canvases, paint up turned everywhere, he’s bare-chested in his ripped jeans. He is pulling everything apart.
“Nothing. I have fucking nothing,” he shouts as he pulls the dark canvases off their stands.
“Louis,” I call out to him, but he is lost in a haze of what looks to be tequila. I make my way through all the broken canvases, brushes, and paint tins. He’s staring at the now blank wall.
“I feel nothing when I am in here.”
“Maybe you could try and paint somewhere else.”
“No,” he yells as he turns. “You don’t understand.”
“Yes I do.” He ignores me and continues to kick shit. “I may not be some kind of art genius but I used to paint.” He huffs in self-righteousness. “But I haven’t painted in five years.” Those blue eyes widen and stop him in his tracks.
“Yes, but you don't have anyone missing your paintings, not like me,” he says coldly. “I have the weight of the art world on my shoulders, waiting with baited breath for my next masterpiece which will never come because that bitch took it when she left me.” A glass smashes against the wall. Then another one and then another. I let out a sigh. Louis doesn't want to be helped, he’s happy wallowing in his misery and he doesn’t deserve company. If he wants to waste his best years on self-destruction then he can go ahead, because when he finally wakes up, he’s going to have no one left around him. He’s going to wonder where everyone went. I walk out, pull the door shut as the sounds of crashing echo through the studio.
“I’m exhausted,” I tell Gabriel who is standing outside the studio looking worried. “Let him trash it all. If that’s what he needs to get whatever is going on with him out, then so be it. He needs to start making the right decisions but he doesn’t want to. He’s not ready. So until then, we put up with him acting like a damn toddler having a tantrum until he hits rock bottom. Gabriel nods sadly and we both make our way back to the house, the sound of crashing can be heard behind us.
I hear a crash inside the house which wakes me up, I look at the time it’s 1:23am.
“Motherfuckers.” I hear shouting from downstairs. I suck in a deep breath. Louis spent the day destroying everything and now he’s come up to the main house to continue on his rampage. “I made you,” he screams and then another crash. I turn the corner and find Louis stumbling around. “I made him.” He’s waving his phone in the air. “I found him. I made him. Me!” He throws his phone across the tiled floor, it smashes into bits. I watch in slow motion as Louis’ fist connects with the wall. Shit. That’s his livelihood.
“Louis,” I call his name as he does it again. I rush toward him. “Stop, Louis, please stop.” Tears well in my eyes. His hands are all bloodied. He looks down at them and seems confused, as if he isn’t sure how they got like that. “Let me get the first aid kit.” He stumbles and falls onto the leather sofa in the living room. I rush quickly to my office and grab the first aid kit. By the time I come out, Louis is asleep. I sit down beside him, slowly and carefully fix up his hands, he doesn’t stir, he doesn’t flinch at all as I clean his wounds. I feel for him because tonight I really saw his pain and how deep it runs.
“I wish I knew how to help you,” I whisper. Seeing someone who you looked up to become a shell of who they once were is hard. Louis is an asshole, but he’s a talented asshole. I wish I had one tenth as much talent as he does. I hate that he’s wasting it all over someone that doesn’t give a shit about him.
“You can’t.” He surprises me, making me jump, I thought he was a sleep. Those bloodshot blue eyes open and focus on me. I still have his hands in mine, his fingers curl around mine and squeezes tightly.
“I want to help, Louis.” I look down at him. The first time seeing him utterly vulnerable. He reaches out, his palm touches my cheek.
“You are so beautiful.” I swallow his compliment down, hating that his words have an effect on me. His thumb caresses the apple of my cheek, I lean into his touch. It’s been six weeks since Toby left me and I miss the touch of a man. The pads of his fingers are rough, coarse from years of holding a paintbrush. His hand moves and wraps around the base of my skull, his fingertips digging into my hair. “You are pure sunshine and I am nothing but darkness.” I frown at his words, he still sounds drunk. “I would destroy your sunshine with my darkness, Emily.”
“Or I could light up your darkness.” He smiles at me; the first genuine smile he has ever given me. His fingers dig into my hair harder.
“I wish that was true.” Butterflies do somersaults in my stomach. This moment seems intimate. Then before I have a chance, his hand tightens and he pulls my face to his and kisses me. Freezing me. His soft lips pressed against mine, thick fingers dig into my hair, his hard body presses against mine, a tiny whimper falls from my lips, which opens them to him. He takes his chance and hungrily takes me. Those once soft lips now hard with desire. His kiss is all consuming. He takes and takes, clouding my mind with lust, a lust that is so deep I feel it in my toes. I’ve never wanted someone as much as I want Louis Marchant in this moment. Then I still, tasting the alcohol on his breath. What the hell am I doing? I push myself away from him. His chest is heaving, those blue eyes are bright with desire, my lips are swollen from his hungry kisses. He’s drunk. He’s probably horny and I was just the closest convenient woman. I untangle myself from him and abruptly stand.
“It’s late. You should rest.” And with that I quickly make my way back to my room, regret hanging around me like a dark cloud.
12
Louis
I fucking destroyed my studio, but at this very moment I don’t care because amongst the rubble I created something, something I never thought I would do again. I put my brush down and stare at the image in front of me. I’ve been working on it all day. As soon as I woke up this morning from the couch in the living room I had to come to my studio and paint. I lost myself in my art for the first time in God knows how long without a drink. I painted this fucking sober. Bright yellow lips stare back at me. The fact that I have used colour in months other than, as Daniel would say, my demonic shit, is haunting me. No. Actually, what is haunting me is whose lips I have painted. I can still feel them against my own. Her soft breath. Her warm body pressed against mine. I shouldn’t have done it. I know this. But in that moment when she was tending to my wounds, her soft fingers, gently working over my broken skin, something broke inside of me. I don’t remember the last time someone cared for me. This girl doesn’t even like me and yet there she was trying to put my battered hands back together again. She whispered a question to me, not realising that I wasn’t blacked out drunk, and as soon as she touched me, it sobered me up. I closed my eyes because she was too close and I didn’t trust myself with her. She has no idea that it’s images of her that I see when I touch myself. The images of her are the only things that seem to help me over the edge. I was right when I said she was pure sunshine, because she is. Prancing around my fucking house in her sun dresses, looking all innocent and shit. It drives me crazy. Her creamy white skin that just begs for my lips to touch it, my hands to caress it. That golden spun hair, I just want to wrap around my hand and control her with it, especially as she is choking on my dick. I close my eyes at that image. I’m glad she stopped things last night because I would have fucked her, and I think she would have let me too if reality hadn’t hit her. I wouldn’t have respected her in the morning. I would have been an asshole to her again. Hurt her. Dimmed her sunshine with my darkness. I’m no good for her. I’m a fucking mess. A washed up artist, she called me, and it’s the truth. I look around at the bullshit of an excuse I call art and then back to what I’ve just completed and there is no comparison. I stare at the sunshine lips that I’ve just painted and that’s when it hits me. No. No fucking way. No. God fucking dammit, just no. Not her. Elisabeth’s words filter through the chaos that is
happening in my mind.
“You of all people know that sometimes an artist’s muse is not always who you want them to be.”
I open the cupboard beside me and pull out the bottle of tequila. Fuck this. I let the darkness take me over again.
I wake up to someone nudging me.
“Louis, wake up,” the unfamiliar female voice states. “Gabriel’s made you breakfast.” I groan, my empty stomach somersaulting. “I think you need it.” Then I am hit with bright light, it’s too intense, it instantly gives me a headache.
“Fuck off,” I yell, throwing my head under my pillow.
Moments later it’s been taken from me.
“Get up.” I feel the person tugging on my arm. “Oh God, you stink.” The person makes gagging sounds. My covers are pulled off me.
“Who the fuck do you think you are?” I scream at them.
“I’m Emily, your assistant. I’m assisting you in becoming a full fledge human being in the real world again.” I let out a groan. I was trying to forget about her.
“I’m your boss and I say leave me the fuck alone.” There is silence for a couple of moments and maybe she’s listened to me, but I’m wrong.
“I have a job to do and if you fire me over doing it then you are breaking a million and one laws.” I still. What the hell? “So, if you don’t want to lose the other half of your money to another woman, I suggest you get the hell out of this bed you have been wallowing in for the past couple of days and have a shower.” I’m shocked. I thought she was a wallflower not a ball buster. The covers are ripped off me. “Louis,” she squeals. I rub my head and kick my feet over the edge of the bed, the room is spinning so it takes me a couple of moments to get myself together.
“What?” I grumble.
“You’re naked.” I look down at my dick who decides he wants to salute the morning.
“Yeah. Because I was asleep remember.” Her eyes are wide and her cheeks are flushed, but she is still staring at my dick. “It’s just a dick, Emily.” She’s flustered but she has no comeback. “Granted, you probably haven’t seen one this big before.” Her mouth forms an O and I like that I have stunned her quiet. It helps my headache.
“Would you go have a shower.” She says the words with bite but she’s still looking at my dick.
“Wanna join me?”
“Excuse me?” Her voice rises.
“The way you keep looking at it makes me think that you wouldn’t mind, you know, helping me.” She splutters over her words again and now her neck is a nice shade of crimson.
“Gabriel has breakfast ready for you when you’re finished up here.”
“I might be awhile, you know, this is a lot to handle.” I grab my dick. She huffs and turns on her heels. I feel lighter this morning, which is a first in a long time.
13
Emily
“It’s just a dick, Emily.” I play the images of Louis Marchant naked in all his glory over in my mind. I now know a dick is not a dick seeing his for the first time. Why on earth did his wife leave him? That man is glorious. What would you even do with something like that? That man has hit the genetic lottery; good looking, French, artistic, rich and well hung. He thinks I’m an English prude compared to his self-confident Francophile ways. I acted totally fine. I think.
“Morning.” His voice makes me jump, as I am still lost in deep thought about his gloriousness. I can’t hide the flush on my cheeks when I turn around and see him freshly showered, he looks different this morning and not because he has clothes on either, it’s like the dark cloud that has been hanging over him has shift slightly.
“You shaved.” I realise his scrappy beard is missing. His face is clean, he doesn’t look like the washed up artist with a drinking problem that I have seen for the past month and a bit. He looks like the man I remember seeing in the art magazines and on the Internet. Not like I stalked him or anything. He’s wearing faded jeans with fashionable holes in them and a bright white polo with bare feet. He smells clean and good, like sandalwood and earth.
“Eat.” Gabriel places his breakfast in front of him which is surprisingly English, bacon and eggs. Louis sits down on the chair beside me and starts wolfing into his breakfast, which shouldn’t surprise me as he’s hardly eaten anything in forty-eight hours. We think Louis hit rock-bottom these past couple of days, destroying his studio and most of his recent work in it. It probably hasn’t helped that while his life has spiralled out of control, his ex and her man are the toast of the town. As much as I think my boss is a dick, and he is, I do feel bad for him. A teeny tiny bit. He obviously loved his wife more than anything in the world and her betrayal has kind of ripped his core out. Maybe that’s what true love does to you. While Louis imploded over the last forty-eight hours, it got me thinking about Toby and why was I not destroying the house over losing him. It’s been nearly two months since Toby dropped his bomb. Except for a couple of nights, I haven’t really thought about him, and we were together for five years. Other than maybe a bruised ego, I don’t know if I am as heartbroken as I thought I was. Although I still check his stupid Instagram, and it still makes me want to puke with all the happy photos of him and his girlfriend. But the ache that I had in my chest seems to have gone, maybe it’s the French air or maybe I’m just too busy looking after my drunk boss that I haven’t had time to think about my feelings toward Toby. Was I really in love with him? This is what I have been asking myself. Or was it just convenience? Like we got into a routine and that was it. Maybe we were never really soulmates, I mean if we were he wouldn’t have cheated, right? Food for thought, Emily. Food for thought.
Gabriel places two glasses of freshly squeezed orange juice in front of me pulling me from my thoughts and disappears from the kitchen. Louis has been vicious with his words the last couple of days with him.
“You owe Gabriel an apology. Actually, you owe all the staff a massive one. Maybe a nice bonus would make up for all the shit you have pulled these last couple of days.”
“Excuse me?” Louis looks at me as if I have lost my mind.
“You may be looking all…” I wave my hand in front of him.
“All what?” He glares at me.
“Normal,” I say. “But that doesn’t make up for how you have acted over the past forty-eight hours.”
“I don’t remember.”
“Shall I play you the footage?” Louis looks at me stunned.
“You recorded me?” Anger laces his words.
“Yeah, I’m going to use it to blackmail you.”
“What?” he roars.
“Oh calm down will you. Jesus, you don’t have a sense of humour. No. I took the footage because I knew you wouldn’t remember and I knew you wouldn’t believe how much of a dick you have been, so I wanted to have proof to show you.” Louis takes a gulp of his orange juice.
“Do I really want to see this?” He looks a little sheepish now.
“I think you should.” He takes one last sip and nods. I pull out my phone, bring up the footage and show him. He stares at it in stunned silence and when the mini clip is over, he clears his throat.
“Um, can you excuse me for a moment.” Louis hands back my phone and walks away from the kitchen.
I give him a couple of moments and then I hear his footsteps, he walks back into the kitchen and goes to the fridge and pulls out the vodka. Our eyes meet and he hesitates. He then puts the vodka back into the fridge and rests his elbows on the island bench top, his head falls into his hands. I’m proud of him in this moment, because forty-eight hours ago he would have taken that bottle and disappeared for the day.
“I’m an embarrassment.” I’m not going to sugar-coat it for him.
“Not so great seeing yourself like that, is it?” Those blue eyes look up at me.
“I don’t want to be like that anymore.” This makes me smile.
“Okay.”
“Okay? That’s all you’ve got to say.”
“Okay, that’s good,” I add, which makes him s
mile.
“I was waiting for the tirade of words from you. So I’m a little taken aback that you’ve given me an okay.” I place my elbows on the island bench top too.
“I don’t think I can make you feel any worse than you do right now.” He just stares at me. “But I have a plan.” He raises his eyebrow at me. “I thought we could go for a bike ride today.” He just stares at me, those long lashes blinking slowly.
“You want me…” He points from himself to me, “…to go for a bike ride with you?” I plaster on my best customer service smile and nod my head enthusiastically. “No.”
“No?”
“Don’t give me those eyes, Emily.” I’m not sure what eyes he is talking about. I don’t think I am giving him anything.
“You’re fluttering those eyelashes at me. I can see what you’re doing.” This makes me smile because I totally was doing that to him.
“Why not?” I ask him.
“Why not let you flutter your eyelashes at me?” He looks at me confused.
“No. I mean why won’t you come on a bike ride with me?”
“Because I’m an artist,” He says rather snobbishly, as if that is a reason.
“Exactly. You should be out with nature getting inspired.” He scowls at me.
“I’m a busy man,” he adds quickly. Then moves away from the kitchen, heading back through the house and outside.
“No you're not.” His strides are so much longer than mine, I am almost jogging trying to catch up to him. He stops abruptly in the middle of the yard and I walk straight into him. “Sorry,” I mumble. He turns around and looks down at me, fire burning behind those blue eyes.
“Excuse me? What did you say?” I don’t think Louis Marchant is used to people challenging him.
“I said sorry, because you stopped abruptly and I ran into you.”
“Before that?” He waves his hand angrily at me.
