by Ava Lore
Maybe Felicia was right. Maybe I was stressed out. Maybe I should just try to enjoy my afternoon posing for a rich crazy guy, smiling and laughing and pretending I wasn't a surly failed artist spending her time organizing the lives of the rich and famous.
And maybe I should scoop my eyes out with a melon baller. I sucked my cigarette down as fast as I could and threw it on the ground before stomping off toward the subway station to go home and get ready. If I was going to keep up a facade, I might as well put some effort into it.
Chapter Three
At precisely four o'clock I arrived at Malcolm Ward's mansion as ready as I would ever be: primped, powdered, and wishing I were high. The house sat on a corner uptown where all the better people lived. It was a tall, red brick building with a polygonal tower and a peaked roof. The majority of the house stretched out behind the narrow facade, dotted with stained glass windows and iron railings and jutting gables, a classic example of the American Queen Anne style. It made me feel grubby and cheap, even though I'd put on a pair of expensive designer jeans and a thick sweater and taken an extra long bath at Felicia's behest.
Intellectually I knew my clothes were top-of-the-line, and Felicia and I had both had our hair done by one of the finer hairdressers in the city, but I'd been a starving artist for years, using cheap shampoo and getting all my clothes at real thrift stores, the ones that smell like mothballs, not the trendy ones in the cutesy artsy areas of Manhattan, and that sort of life is hard to shake off. I'd never, ever felt weird and out of place when I was poor. I wore my poverty like a badge of honor, flaunting it in front of the people in suits with “real” jobs who infested the city like roaches. There had been kind of an honor in it, even though most of the time it sucked. Now that I was expected to wear nice clothes and be polite, I felt poor and grubby without even having the nominal honor of actually being poor and grubby. Standing in front of Malcolm Ward's magnificent house, I felt it even more acutely than ever.
It put me in a foul mood.
I rang the doorbell. Once. Twice. Then I started compulsively pushing it, trying to force my bad mood out through my fingertip. I fell into sort of a trance. Push, push, push...
Abruptly the door opened, startling me, and I stepped back.
Malcolm Ward stood there, looking... well, magnificent. Also exhausted. Huge dark circles were smudged under his beautiful eyes, and his hair stuck out at odd angles, as though he had been running his hands through it. He also wore a plain white t-shirt and pajama bottoms. His feet were bare, and he held a huge black monster of a camera in his hand.
Now I felt overdressed.
“Uh,” I said. “Weren't you expecting me?” Had I steeled myself for nothing?
“Oh yes, of course, come in, come in.” He paused, letting his gaze sweep over me. I must have been getting used to it because this time I only felt a small, illicit shiver at the intimate touch of his gaze. “Good, good,” he murmured. “Come in.” And he stepped aside.
I slipped through the door and entered...
...a hoarder house.
Okay, maybe not that bad, but my god. I'd never seen so much stuff in one place that wasn't on television with a professional psychologist staring into the abyss as the owner of said stuff waxed rhapsodic about the cat-hair collection they were going to felt into dolls some day when they got around to it.
Every surface was crowded with curios and knick-knacks, some of them extremely valuable and some of them utterly worthless. Just the table in the foyer was a wealth of treasure and junk. Right next to what I recognized as an extremely valuable sculpture—probably done by a student of Rodin—was an antique tin Pepsi advertisement, proclaiming the drink to be refreshing and healthful, streaked with rust. Next to that was an old pocket watch, studded either with diamonds or rhinestones, though it was impossible to tell, and the chain holding it disappeared into a collection of moth-eaten Madame Alexander dolls.
My brain tried to shut down at the sheer volume of input. The walls were covered in framed photographs, prints, mirrors and paintings, organized seemingly only by their size and whether or not they would fit into current available space. Beneath the riot of color, the wall was white, and when I forced myself to look down, I saw the floor—between Persian-style rugs—was a simple blond wood. The house had a color scheme ideal for refinement and sophistication, but instead it was utterly buried under a ragtag collection of things.
He is crazy, I thought to myself. Only a crazy person would think this was acceptable. This was not the house of an artist, but the house of someone who grabbed everything they could think of that might have value and held onto it for some deep, psychological reason. No wonder he hadn't cared about the vase. He probably just grabbed it off a random table before running out the door in the morning.
“Um,” I said.
Malcolm Ward was oblivious to my sudden tension. “This way, this way.” He gestured to me to follow him. Taking a deep breath, I did so. He led me to the stairs, just down the short entryway, and we started climbing up to the upper floors. I caught a glimpse of the living room through a pair of french doors and it looked just as cluttered as the foyer. What had I gotten myself into?
The walls of the stairwell were also lined with photographs and paintings, but as we passed the second floor, they tapered off in intensity, until we finally reached the top floor. Here the walls were bare. Clean, white. Sane.
I licked my lips as he led me out of the claustrophobic stairwell and into the room beyond.
My mouth twisted as I took it in.
It was a huge room. Just enormous. It wasn't quite the length of the house, but it was close. And it had been set up as a photography studio.
Okay.
To my surprise, I found I relaxed a bit now that I was in a studio. I've never really had one of my own, but a creative space is powerful, and I was reassured simply by the trappings of someone sincere and interested in his work. With a sigh, I shed my coat and purse and moved aside while Malcolm strode to his lights and began to fiddle with them.
After about five minutes, I realized he had no idea what the hell he was doing.
What was going on here?
“Do you need some help?” I asked him without thinking. It came out sharp and kind of snide, and immediately I remembered Felicia's admonition to be less of a surly jackass. Oh well, already screwed the pooch on that one, I guess.
“Oh yes, if you could. I've never worked with these before.”
I sighed and walked toward him. “Then what are you doing with them? I thought you were an amateur photographer.”
“Amateur artist,” he said. “And I figured that if I was going to do photography I might as well have a studio.”
“A studio you've never used?”
He shrugged at me as I arrived by his side. He smelled the same as he did last night, but it was a riper scent now, as though he had been sweating slightly. The smell, rather than repulsing me, did weird things to my thoughts. I couldn't help but wonder what his sweat would taste like, if it would bead on his brow and run down his face as he strained and worked, doing... something.
Swallowing hard, I reached up to adjust the light for him. “This isn't that hard,” I said after a moment. “Are you just pretending to never have used this to get me to come over here?”
“No, of course not. It was installed just this morning.”
I paused, processing this. “Excuse me?” I said at last. “You had this studio installed... this morning?”
“Yes. I did.”
Taking a deep breath, I tried to control my irritation. “So you aren't an amateur photographer?”
He laughed, a rich, deep sound, as he leaned around me to see what I was doing with the various knobs on the back of the light. The heat of his body rolled into mine. “Of course I am. I'm a very new amateur.”
Don't think about how close he is, I commanded myself. “So you draw, then?”
“Not yet.”
“Paint? Sculpt?”
> “Nope. Not yet.”
“So last night, when you told me you were an amateur artist, you were lying.” My voice was flat and angry. I hate being lied to.
I heard him breathe in sharply, and he moved back slightly. “No, I didn't lie,” he said. “The moment I saw you from across the room, I decided I wanted to be an artist so I could capture you in whatever way I could. I have decided to become a brilliant and tortured artist, inspired by you.”
I am not falling for this. I am not.
“Really,” I said flatly. “You just decided to be brilliant and tortured?”
“Yes. I am going to be a madman in touch with the pulse of the universe through my art, and you are my inspiration.”
My lips thinned down into a line. “Yeah, well, I guess it's easy to be a starving artist when you have billions of dollars.”
“Only one point four billion,” he said. “There are far more cells in the human body than I have dollars. It's all relative if you think about it.”
Only a rich shithead would say something like that. Anger rose in me, and I whirled around, meaning to confront him. But the sight of him stopped me in my tracks.
He was looking down at me, his expression open and curious, as if he really didn't understand why what he had just said had infuriated me. In the bright light of the studio, his beauty shone, probably far better than my paltry looks ever would. His clear skin, tinged with the hint of a tan, glowed with health and vigor, and the sandy locks of his hair spilled over his forehead in golden waves. The brown of his eyes startled me, deep and intense, with hidden depths, like well-polished cherrywood, and his mouth, full and soft, quirked at my dumb, wide-eyed staring.
I couldn't help the sudden picking up of the pace of my heart in my chest. He was near, too near to me, but even though this room had to be over a thousand square feet, I couldn't move an inch. I wouldn't give an inch. I absolutely could not let this guy know how much he affected me.
The shadow of his beard, now almost two-day's growth, stubbled his cheeks, and I found myself aching to run my own face over his skin, to feel the rough evidence of his masculinity on my smooth, feminine jaw. It was an impulse I was almost entirely unaccustomed to. Deep, raw. Primal. An animal attraction I hadn't felt since the heady days of doing E at raves in college. And I was one hundred percent sober right now, feeling everything, feeling it all, and it was entirely in response to Malcolm Ward's proximity.
It scared me.
That alone gave me the strength to step away. Otherwise I might have leaned in and kissed him right then and there.
God, what a tragedy that would have been.
Ward seemed to realize that I was uncomfortable, and he stepped back as well. The lights were warm lights rather than traditional hot lights, but I was still feeling too heated. The brightness gave me a headache, and I retreated, stepping away from the set up.
“That's a really lame line,” I told him. “Wanting to become an artist for me, I mean.”
He tilted his head. “It is the truth,” he said simply.
I didn't know what to say to that. I crossed my arms in front of me and cast about for something to talk about other than my inspiring beauty, which was a lie. Clearly a lie. I had a mirror. I knew quite well it was a lie. Why then couldn't I get my heart to stop racing?
“You saw me do it?” I asked him finally, my breath light and fast. “Set up the lights, I mean?”
He nodded at me, and the spell of him began to fade. “I think I can handle the rest of it.” He waved a distracted hand at an old-fashioned dressing screen about twenty feet across the room. “I know we said no nudity unless discussed first, but would you remove your clothes? You'll find a length of cloth to wrap yourself in over there.”
I opened my mouth to protest, but something stopped me. I knew just as well as anyone that the nude form is superior to the clothed form. I hadn't spent a bazillion years in art school sculpting and drawing and painting naked people just to protest my own nudity.
Besides, the thought of being naked around him, but not truly nude... it thrilled me, in small, shivery, secret ways. Yeah, we're all naked under our clothes, but sometimes you want to make that really explicit.
My mouth dry, I moved to the screen and slipped behind it.
On the floor, neatly folded, was a square of satiny fabric in a shade of white so bright it hurt my eyes. I wondered if he had chosen white as an afterthought, or because he thought it would look good on me. Lots of people looked washed-out in white. I wasn't one of them. I just hoped he knew something about lighting and color, or I was going to end up looking like a ghoul anyway.
Nervously, I began to shed my clothes. First came the high, dark brown leather boots—low heels—the swish of the zipper loud in the quiet of the penthouse studio. Then came my socks. Yes, I wear socks under my boots. Homemade wool-knit socks. My feet are narrow, and it was cold outside. Don't judge me. My manicured toes met the chill of the floorboards with a shiver. Now came the hard part.
Crossing my arms in front of me, I lifted my sweater over my torso. The buttery-soft alpaca slipped over my bare skin in an intimate caress, and when I dragged it over my head my hair crackled with static electricity. Smoothing my hair down with my hands, I lowered my fingers to the front-closing clasp on my bra. Clumsily I undid it, and my breasts—such as they were—bounced free. Pert and tiny. My nipples hardened automatically at the change in temperature, and knowing that only a thin partition of wood separated my naked tits from Malcolm Ward's gaze just made them tighter. Between my legs I felt a tiny rush of heat, a sweet little gush of warmth and wetness.
Was I... was I actually getting turned on by this?
I was. I was getting turned on. I must be a secret exhibitionist!
Now I can no longer tease Felicia about her public sexcapades in good conscience, I thought to myself. Good thing I don't have a conscience.
Bowing my head, I put my hands on the waistband of my jeans. My hair slid over my shoulders, sending a shudder through me, and when I unbuttoned my jeans my fingers were trembling. With a shove, I pushed the denim down over my hips, letting it fall past my thighs to my knees, and I stepped out of my pants, the cool air pebbling the skin of my body. Now only my underwear remained, cheap, practical black cotton panties I'd bought on sale. Old habits die hard. I hooked my thumbs into the waistband and prepared to pull them down.
My hands wouldn't budge.
I bit my lip.
“Can I, uh, keep my underwear on?” I asked through the screen, cursing my cowardice as I did so. Couldn't even take it off for a photo shoot? What kind of artist am I?
“Sure.” Ward's voice floated around the screen, deep and rich. “Whatever you're comfortable with.”
Hating myself, I picked up the white satin and wrapped it around my body.
The fabric was long—very long, and wide, like a bridal train. I wondered where he'd managed to get it, but then I pushed the thought out of my mind. What did it matter? He was rich. He could get anything he damn well wanted. Taking a deep breath to brace myself, I slipped out from behind the screen, the fabric trailing over the floor behind me.
Ward was peering at his camera, adjusting some setting or other, and didn't notice me for a moment. I would have been content to watch him frown for an hour, but my reactions were starting to severely unsettle me, so I cleared my throat instead. He looked up. His cherrywood eyes widened.
“Wow,” he said.
I gave him my best bitch, please eye roll. I may have been susceptible to his charms, but I liked to think I wasn't that susceptible.
His mouth turned up. “I meant that you look different in white,” he said.
“Different from what?” I asked him. “We've known each other less than twenty-four hours. You haven't seen me in anything.”
“Black,” he said immediately. “And if I had to guess, you really like to wear black.”
“Of course I like to wear black. It goes with everything.”
He s
miled, as if he knew something about me that I didn't, and I scowled back at him. “Let's just get started,” I snapped.
“Sure,” he said, and gestured for me to step onto the black backdrop, in front of the blinding lights.
Tossing my head back, I did so, dragging the stupid satin cloth behind me, keeping it wrapped around my chest so that it would cover the important bits. When I reached the center of the dark rectangle on the floor, I turned and flung my hair over my shoulder, giving him my dirtiest look.
Ward snapped a picture.
My mouth dropped open. “What the hell?” I demanded. “Aren't you going to warn me when you take a picture?”
“Well, you'll be on your guard now,” he said affably, inspecting the photo he'd just taken on his camera. “That was my only chance to capture the most raw you.”
For some reason, that made me even angrier. “Who said you could take pictures of the raw me?” I said. “That's personal!”
He blinked. “Isn't that what art is?” he asked. “Personal?”
“Personal for you.”
“You are personal for me. I find you fascinating.”
The fists clenching the satin around my body tightened, and as it did so his sharp cherrywood eyes honed in on it, and he lifted the camera again.
“Wait!” I said.
He halted and tilted his head at me. “Yes?”
“Just why do you find me fascinating? I know it's not because of my looks or whatever.” I mean, I hoped it was for my looks. I wouldn't mind being Felicia. I wouldn't mind being beautiful to someone.
He lowered the camera and appeared to think about this for a long moment, and the longer it stretched out the more nervous I got.
“I suppose because you are alive,” he said at last.
