Bohemian

by Kathryn Nolan

  He looked up into the mirror, gaze meeting mine, and there it was: the shift. That look. Like he was a man dying of thirst in the desert.

  And I was the oasis.

  “Who made this dress, NASA scientists?” he asked, his eyes still on mine.

  Two days ago, I would have told him looking at it would help, except that would mean he’d break eye contact with me. And I was suddenly desperate to keep his gaze.

  He squeezed my hip gently and a riot of sensations spread forth from the touch—slide his hand forward and he could slip his fingers between my legs. Backwards and he could palm my ass.

  “Something like that,” I finally said, a distinct shake in my voice. “I mean honestly, about eight of these gauze layers are completely superfluous.”

  “I love that word,” he said, yanking on the zipper and smiling at me.

  I arched an eyebrow.

  “Superfluous,” he said, finally breaking eye contact to squat below me. “Sorry, it’s just…yeah, all these superfluous layers are fucking jammed in this zipper,” he said.

  And I could have just called for Josie, or had someone from wardrobe cut the damn dress from me, but I was glued to this spot. An earthquake could have cracked Big Sur wide open and Cal and I would still be standing here, suspended in time.

  “Me too,” I said, aware of his body crouched behind mine. His hand tightened on my hip, his breath ghosting over the small of my back. My eyes fluttered close for the briefest of seconds. The material tugged and pulled around me—evidence of his attempts at freeing me.

  “It’s not a word I see in poetry a lot,” I finally said, wishing he would lean forward and press his lips against my spine. “Or even literature. But I love saying it. Rolls off the tongue perfectly.”

  A hard yank, and then Cal said, “Victory is mine.”

  “And yeah, it’s the tongue work that makes that word so magnificent.” He was suddenly standing back up behind me, and was it my imagination or was it closer than before? And did he have to say the phrase tongue work?

  He pulled the zipper up slowly, cautious of getting snagged again. As he did, his thumb caressed up my spine, setting off a round of shivers.

  “Should I stop?” he asked softly, and there was a new scrape to his voice.

  “No,” I said, and there was no hiding the slight moan. I’d just spent the entire day being pet and touched and felt up by Taylor, a supermodel, and felt not a single thing.

  Two minutes with Cal and I was aching with lust. I felt it now, full-blown and cataclysmic.

  “I won’t, then,” he said, thumb continuing to stroke up and up and up. The zipper reached its destination but Cal’s fingers stayed on my back, feather-light. I shifted back—barely a centimeter—and met the hard resistance of his erection right where I needed it. I swallowed a gasp.

  “Were you okay earlier?” I asked. His fingers danced up to the nape of my neck, stroking.

  “Yes, I mean, I am now,” he said, fingers moving in small circles. I was tempted to move my hips like that, circling on his cock, but held off. Not yet. “Thank you for asking. The grief comes in waves.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I said.

  His fingers found my hair. He scratched lightly at the base of my scalp. This time I closed my eyes, not caring if he saw. Wanting him to see the effect he was having on my body. I couldn’t remember ever being so aroused. So aware.

  “If Mary Oliver wrote a poem about this moment, what would she say?” he asked. His breath stroked the back of my neck. I smiled, happy we were both finally acknowledging the poems we’d been leaving each other.

  “Oh, let’s see. Something about nature. Spring time, maybe?”

  “Why spring time?” We still hadn’t broken eye contact, conducting the conversation as if his hands weren’t on my body, his cock not pressing deliciously against my ass.

  “Bodies. Warm air. Exploration,” I said, a poem half-writing itself in my mind already. My fingers twitched against the bathroom sink.

  “Verdant. Flourish. Lush,” he said. He half-grinned, fingers still scratching the strands of my hair. They migrated downward, his thumb pressing massaging circles into my neck. I let out a small, breathy sigh and he gripped my hip so hard I knew it’d be bruised tomorrow.

  I loved it. Grew hot at the idea of bruising beneath Cal’s hand.

  “Wantonness,” I said, my mind searching for my favorite words. Words that described lust. Because this was a poem about two bodies seeking primal release. Nature at its most lascivious.

  “Salacious,” I said, his green eyes darkening. I wanted darker. Deeper.

  “Hunger,” I sighed and rolled my hips ever so slightly and Calvin let out a low growl.

  “Fuck, Lucia—” he started to say, and then we heard the loud clomp of Ray’s boots and his voice, calling out.

  “And where the hell is Lucia? She was supposed to be back ten minutes—oh,” he said, stumbling into the bathroom. We’d sprung apart at the sound of his boots. Cal was red-faced and I knew I was breathing heavily. Ray looked between the two of us, arching an eyebrow at me. I shook my head quickly. “My zipper was broken and Cal here was helping me with it,” I said, fluttering my hand his way.

  Cal nodded in agreement. “Yeah, I, um…have always had a penchant for zippers. Good with my hands,” he said, laughing nervously. “So, I’m going to get back to my paperwork. Lucia, happy to be of service,” he said, moving quickly around Ray and leaving the room.

  I let out a long breath.

  “You needed me?” I asked, ignoring the questioning look on Ray’s face.

  “I mean, we are in the middle of a work day so—”

  “Bossy,” I said, swatting Ray playfully. “Can’t a girl take a 5-minute bathroom break? We have a union, you know,” I said, laughing to cover up the fact I was still trembling.

  I walked back out to the Big Room and plopped myself into the makeup chair. Josie gave me one look. “Tengo preguntas…” she said beneath her breath.

  “Luego,” I said, glancing at Cal. His head bent over dozens of documents, like he’d been all morning. Me in the makeup chair, like I’d been all morning.

  Both of us, as if those minutes in the bathroom had never even happened.

  ◊

  CALVIN

  I knew the poem I’d leave her. It’d been swirling around my lust-addled brain since Lucia obliterated my entire world in the space of five fraught minutes.

  I like my body when it is with your body. It is so quite new a thing. Muscles better and nerves more.

  I left it outside her cabin door but didn’t stay. I knew, deep down, that I’d be tempted to knock softly. Wait for her to open the door, sleepy-eyed and warm. And then proceed to do any number of filthy things I’d been thinking about for days.

  I felt like I’d taken drugs, some potent mixture of LSD and cocaine. Never, ever, ever did I think there was a world that existed where I, Calvin Ellis, would stroke the nape of Lucia Bell’s neck. Feel the soft strands of her hair between my fingers.

  It was like dreaming. Are these my hands on her hip? And since when was I that guy? Since when did I make the first move…on a fucking supermodel?

  Compelled couldn’t even begin to describe it. It was something hungrier and more primal than a mere compulsion. It was a need as basic as breathing, my need to touch her, to feel the muscles of her back flexing under the tips of my fingers.

  Muscles better and nerves more.

  And there wasn’t a word in the English language to describe the image of Lucia, bent slightly over at the waist, eyes closed in pleasure as she ever-so-subtly rolled her ass against my cock.

  Not a damn word.

  So I left her a love poem, starry-eyed and grinning and with absolutely no plan in place.

  And then went back to the increasingly tedious and dreary task of preparing to sell a bookstore.

  ◊

  LUCIA

  I’d fallen asleep without realizing it—exhausted from my early morning an
d intense day of shooting—and woke to dark, angry-looking clouds sweeping over the cliffs, turning the ocean a dreary color.

  I’d wrapped a blanket around myself and stood, watching, feeling very much like so many women throughout history, waiting for the ships to come home.

  When I opened my eyes that morning, I didn’t reach for my phone, even though for the past few days I still clutched it, willing the internet to appear. I thought about social media constantly—a big world at my fingertips. I was desperate to receive people’s judgments of me: the good and the bad. I craved it.

  Now I craved something different.

  Calvin.

  Against my door he’d left me another book of poetry. ee cummings. 100 Selected Poems. I’d had this anthology when I was in high school. Read it to death; the pages so dogeared the corners eventually crumbled and tore away.

  Part of me knew which one he wanted me to read. And when I opened to the post-it note, I was right. This was a bold move for Calvin, leaving me an erotic poem. He’d circled his favorite part:

  I like my body when it is with your body. It is so quite new a thing. Muscles better and nerves more.

  I flushed. Next to the lines he’d written “I love the simplicity in his words. The quiet yearning.” - Cal

  P.S. Not as good as the poem we wrote today.

  No one had ever left me a love poem before. Suddenly, I felt the deep chasm of what I’d been missing my entire life: standing on this cliff, overlooking a stormy sky. My hair whipped by the wind. My skin still trembling from Calvin’s fingers.

  And a poem, left on my doorstep.

  For the first time in my life I was left without a sarcastic reply or a pithy remark. Because I was genuinely in this moment, genuinely in this experience.

  I wanted Cal to kiss me.

  Now I was sitting in Big Sur’s quirky little Internet café, which was also a video store (emphasis on the word videos), a quasi-coffee shop, and one half of the post-office. Sabine would be calling in a matter of moments, and I was staring at the computer screen. Staring at my phone.

  Surprised at how suddenly I did not want to be here.

  I opened up the browser on the computer, logging into my email. Just then, my phone connected and a symphony of alerts sounded: three days worth of texts, Instagram tags, Snapchat stories and Facebook notifications. My neglected Pinterest boards and Tumblr accounts. I looked at it, looked back at my emails. That familiar flurry of excitement started up in my stomach.

  Another symphony, my phone vibrating so much it almost fell off the table. I bit my fingernail, watched as emails tumbled into my inbox. One from Sabine, with the subject First ideas. I clicked before I could stop myself.

  Just wanted to send you a mock up of what we were thinking, the email said. And nothing’s set in stone, these are just ideas. We’d taken them when I’d visited a couple of weeks ago, trying out different looks, seeing if I worked for what they had in mind.

  I clicked, pulling up a selection of images: a full magazine spread, billboards in Europe and the US. A commercial, something light and airy, where I was wearing all white and laughing with other women. My face, literally everywhere, for two years.

  The mock-ups were pretty and sweet. The shots I’d seen from this week were darker: more sexual, tons of skin, slick with rain. It would be my most diverse set of work yet and I felt a spark of excitement, imagined being at premieres and answering questions: “Why thank you. They are very different, but you know, I’m just really very versatile.”

  I watched as the notifications lit up the screen of my phone. So many people talking about me. Talking to me. This was what it was all about—the adrenaline rush. That fame wave.

  I opened Instagram. That morning of chasing down my lost followers felt like a decade ago.

  1,682 new followers. I swallowed. The last thing I’d posted had been liked more than a million times. Thousands of comments. Questions—where had I been? People had missed me, thought about me, worried about me. Wanted to see what was going on with my life.

  My heart rate picked up, a side effect of the rush. I opened my camera and took a selfie—so practiced I could do it in ten seconds. Posted it everywhere, a silly caption about being stuck in Big Sur without internet. That I had missed everyone and appreciated their support and concern.

  The reaction was instant, my phone lighting up with notifications within moments. I smiled, delighted, and watched the affirmation roll in. More comments, more messages.

  I looked up suddenly and realized half an hour had gone by. My phone lit up again: Sabine was calling.

  “Bonjour, Sabine,” I said and she squealed.

  “I thought you were dead,” she said. “But finally, I got in touch with your agent who told me that Big Sur had limited connection.”

  “It’s pretty primitive up here,” I said, dryly. “How are you?”

  I took the phone away from my ear, putting her on speaker. Opened Instagram and watched the wave of comments keep coming in. There were so many.

  One negative. Why do your eyes look fucking weird?

  I glanced into the reflective surface of the computer screen. Were they weird? I mean, I wasn’t wearing makeup—hadn’t been most of this trip. They just looked like my eyes, except usually they were caked with eyeliner and fake eyelashes.

  Did I have weird eyes? Oh god, here it went.

  “Lucia, are you there? You saw the mock-ups? Tell me you saw them. And tell me you love them.” She was so intensely excited. My stomach began tying itself in complicated knots, but I wasn’t sure why.

  “I did,” I said, glancing back at them. The billboard was so extravagant-looking. That, paired with the billboards Shay wanted up from the Boho shoot, and you wouldn’t be able to drive down any highway and not see my face.

  “And those are just the beginning, Lu,” she said. “I am telling you, the world is going to freak.”

  “Yeah?” I asked. “Are people really that excited?”

  “Your agent and I have been in touch, talking about the release. It’s going to be huge. And, you know you don’t have to live here, in Paris. But I figured, unless you had something keeping you in the States, you’d want to.”

  “Mhmmm,” I said, noncommittal. A thought floated up, unbidden: Cal was in the States.

  Wait, what?

  “But your schedule would be crazy. We are going to need you shooting most of the week, so not sure how many trans-Atlantic flights you’re going to want to take, week after week.”

  “Right,” I said, finding my way back to solid ground. “That makes sense. I should probably stay in Paris. Sabine can I, uh, ask you a question?” Josie’s words had stuck with me, lodged in some part of my brain I’d rather forget about.

  “Shoot,” she said.

  “This is a good career move for me, right? I know that’s kind of an odd question, but we’ve been up in Big Sur without any contact with the real world and I guess I’m getting a little…anxious,” I finished lamely, as if “anxious” could encompass the myriad of thoughts, feelings and regrets I’d experienced since arriving.

  As if “nervous” could explain Calvin.

  “Anxious? You?” Sabine asked, breathing into the phone. “I would not have thought it.”

  “Yeah, well…this place is pretty isolating. Gets in your head, you know?”

  “No.”

  “Oh…okay, so I’m guessing you think this is good for my career?” I asked. Maybe Sabine had never had secret desires to be anything but a ball-busting, powerful CEO. Maybe that’s what Sabine dreamed of as a little girl.

  Maybe.

  “This is the best fucking thing in the world, Lu,” Sabine laughed, as if I was an idiot.

  A burst of chimes and I gained another thirty followers. Ray must have snuck up to the internet cafe and tagged a few photos of Taylor and I during shooting—there we were, miniature on my phone’s screen, but we looked amazing. I looked like a bohemian, flower-child goddess, alight in daisies and body pa
int.

  I smiled. I couldn’t help it.

  “Your schedule will be punishing at times, but tons of models in your position would kill for this opportunity. Guaranteed work for two years, more money than you’ll know what to do with. And afterward, you’ll have your pick of jobs.”

  “Even though I’ll be close to 30?”

  A pause, longer than I expected. “30 isn’t ideal. You know that. But, who knows, you take the right jobs and you’ll be modeling until you’re—”

  “32?” I joked grimly. For years, I’d told myself I needed a plan for when modeling was no longer an option. And yet I put it off and put it off and now I had no idea what the fuck I was going to do.

  But Sabine was right—for two years I wouldn’t have to worry. To stress. I could take the easy way out and be set, at least for the time being.

  “Lucia, you’re gorgeous and have a great reputation. Keep it that way and you’ll work for as long as you want.” I heard the concealed doubt in her voice. I bet she said that to all her aging models.

  “Is there a reason you’re asking me all these questions?” she asked, and there it was: the opening I was looking for. To take Josie’s advice and just…do something different. Be brave.

  “No,” I said firmly. Safe. Comfortable. Where I belonged. “I’m looking forward to the opportunity. Immensely. Just…making sure I have all the details.”

  “Good,” Sabine said, laughing at something someone was saying in the background. “You were making me nervous there for a moment.”

  I laughed weakly. “Nothing to worry about. You’ll want me there soon, right? I think my tickets are already booked.”

  “We’ll see you in a week,” she said, before clicking off abruptly.

  A week. I let out a long sigh. Big Sur was a distraction, nothing more. My phone chimed again—more comments. More followers.