by Cybill Cain
I was a little confounded that she hadn’t thought this was a date, and more than a little amused at her attentions in the deli. She’d said she wanted to fawn over me, but hadn’t until that moment. I was surprised at how much I’d liked seeing stars in her eyes when she looked at me.
It had passed quickly, ending when she’d said she’d fallen head over heels in love with me. The way she’d pulled up short told me it was more than an offhanded comment. I wanted to hear more about it, more about how I had become her go to fantasy man, but it felt like prying would be inappropriate. I wanted so much for her to open up to me, and show me all the secrets of her heart, but she had to give them willingly, or their meaning would be diminished.
We were nearly finished with our desert when a guy stopped beside our table. “Annie?” She turned, pulling her spoon slowly from her mouth as she blinked at him.
“Jackson?” The name rang a bell. Something from our last conversation with the security man Meenan had sent.
“Long time, no see,” he said, taking her in from head to spoon, making me bristle. All I ever heard about was how big I was, so there’s no way he missed me sitting right here with her, on a fucking date.
“Yeah,” she lowered the spoon. “It has been. How’ve you been?”
“Pretty good. Who’s your friend?” he finally turned to me. Every alarm bell I had went off when I got a look in his eyes. This dude ate Crazy-O’s for breakfast. Couldn’t she see it?
“This is Max,” she told him, the blush on her cheeks telling him much more than her words. He glanced back at her, and something shifted in his stance as he read her feelings about me on her face.
“Did you hear about Todd?” he asked her, not bothering to pretend it was nice to meet me. She frowned.
“No, what about him.” He took a step closer to her, watching her face intently.
“They just found him dead on his boat. I heard the call go out on the scanner, and went over there to see for myself. They’re saying he set the boat on fire, and then shot himself in the head.”
“Oh, God,” she gasped. I reached for her hand, and noticed that Jackson took note of every gesture that passed between us. His face never changed, but the intensity of his interest was alarming in its own way. He left a few minutes later, excusing himself for an appointment.
“You all right?” I asked her when we were alone again.
“Yeah, just surprised is all. I wouldn’t have pegged him for the suicide type. Too…into himself, if you know what I mean?”
“Let’s go. When we get back to the car we can call Stacy, and see if he knows anything more.” By the time we got back to our car he was calling us. Quickly, he told us about the shooting and the fire.
“What a fucking shit show,” he growled into the phone. I’d put it on speaker as soon as we closed the doors. “These locals can’t find their ass with both hands, a map and flashlight.”
“What’s going on?” Annie asked, holding onto the door handle in white knuckled grip.
“I got a look at the note he left. Supposedly, he couldn’t take not being with you anymore, and ended his life over it.”
“WHAT?”
“They found pictures of you all over his cabin. Candid shots, some recent with both of you in them. I’m trying to keep this out of the press, but I can’t promise you won’t get dragged in, Max.” She looked at me, sorrow and regret deeply etched into her beautiful face.
“If it does get out, I’ll handle it,” I said to them both. Stacy sighed.
“Something about this doesn’t feel right. I have nothing but my gut, but something is off. I want you two to keep your guard up while I dig deeper into this thing. If it looks like the press is going to come after you, I’ll give you as much warning as I can.”
“Thanks, man. Listen, we were just out having lunch and ran into that Jackson guy you were asking us about this morning. He broke the news about Todd, and we were just going to call you.” He was silent as he let that sink in. I went on, “Just like yours, my gut tells me something is off with him.” Annie looked at me, but didn’t argue. Maybe on some level she did know that Jackson’s elevator didn’t go all the way to the top.
“Tell me everything.” We did, and then ended the call with Stacy promising to keep in touch, and stop by later with an update. I drove us home with my head spinning a little from everything that had happened today. It was more than just Todd, and I resented the space he was taking up between us, even now.
There was so much Annie and I still needed to sift through, not the least of which was the feelings that were growing between us. There’s time, I told myself again, reaching over to take her hand as we drove out of town. There’s time.
8- The Studio
Annie
Even with everything going on around us, I was aching to be with Max again. It wasn’t because I wanted to be distracted, it was because nothing had ever felt as good to me as he did. Being near him was good, being with him was incomparable. I didn’t want him to think I was using him, though, that would break my heart. I stopped him from getting out of the car with a hand on his arm.
“Still want to see my studio?”
“Absolutely,” his entire face lighting up. He took his trove of candy and bounced up the steps behind me, making sure to lock the door behind him before dropping off the candy in the kitchen, and following me up to the attic. I was about to open the door when he stopped me with a hand on my shoulder. “Wait.” Confused, I turned around. “Before we go in, I need to tell you something.”
“All right.” He leaned his back against the wall, and looked down at the floor for a few seconds before meeting my eyes.
“The night I got here, I heard the music playing, and followed it up here.” My eyes widened as I thought back to what he must have seen. “The door was open, and I saw you painting.” He stood up, moving closer to me, making me crane my neck to look up into his eyes. “It was an accident, but I couldn’t look away, even when my brain kept telling me that I was intruding. I was captivated.” His hand came up to cup my face, as he waited for my reaction.
“Captivated?” He nodded, his gaze flicking back and forth between my lips and my eyes.
“Completely. You were so primal that night, covered in paint and lost in your deep personal passion. It was everything I could do not to walk right in, and join you.”
“That would have been a surprise.” My voice sounded dreamy and distant as I imagined turning around and finding Max Alexander in my studio. I would have thought I was dreaming. He chuckled.
“To say the least, I’m sure. The only reason I finally left is because I realized that if you met me that way, it would be an impediment to truly getting to know you.” I smiled.
“Kind of like me pretending I didn’t know who you were that night?”
“Yeah, just like that, only you came clean already.”
“Only because you made me. I’d still be pretending if you hadn’t asked me. Why are you confessing willingly?”
“When you let me into your world I don’t want there to be anything between us but the truth.” The way he said it made my knees weak. I couldn’t believe that I had ever doubted he would understand and appreciate the things I wanted to share with him. I took his hand and led him in slowly.
***
Max
When I crossed the threshold of her studio a sense of peace and rightness I’d rarely felt filled me from head to toe. It was the same incredible feeling I’d had this morning when I came inside her, feeling her holding me tightly inside and out.
You’re falling for her, my inner voice told me, making it sound like I was mentally deficient not to have figured that out already. I nearly stumbled when it clicked for me.
“You okay?” she asked, turning to face me. She looked so beautiful I felt the air seep out of me. I leaned in and kissed her, making it intense and sweet, to show her how I was feeling. When she wrapped herself around me I forgot I was standing on the threshold of
her Fortress of Solitude. Nothing mattered more than showing her what words would never manage.
This is the secret language of kissing, I thought to her as it deepened. I can make you feel how much I care. The feeling between us was a wild thing, with a life of its own. I kissed her deeply, only to recede and brush my lips over hers before going in again. I knew what I was doing to her, because my body felt it, too, but there was no rush.
This wasn’t a prelude to some other intimacy, this was intimacy itself, alive burning and twisting between us. She broke away, burying her head in my chest and shaking in my arms. I didn’t need to ask, I knew what had happened. I felt it, too, but I was ready to run into it. She needed some more time.
I held her, rocking gently until she calmed. It took a little while for her to compose herself again. I waited patiently until she was ready. “I don’t know where to start,” she said, looking up at me. She meant more than the tour, but out of respect for her needs I accepted the surface of her words.
“Show me your favorite piece. I want to begin with the things you love most.” The walls were lined with leaning canvases, stacked four and five deep in some places. She left me in the center of the room to retrieve one.
“I was commissioned to paint this for a book cover,” she said, holding it up for me to see. It was a painting of a bird flying in front of a distant setting sun. The colors were rich and vibrant like the sunset we’d watched together, and the bird was in darkness, because of the brightness of the sun, or so I thought. When she tilted the canvas and the light struck it at a different angle I could see the entire bird, almost gasping at the detail. It looked like it could fly off the canvas any second. She tilted it again, and as before the bird was only an outline against the sun.
“That’s amazing,” I told her, taking the canvas in my hands and tilting it again. “How did you get such detail in the dark color?” She smiled.
“That’s why it’s my favorite. I was seduced by the idea that even in the dark, we are still as complex and detailed as we are in the light.” Her words dropped like pennies into the wishing well of my soul. She had just summarized in perfect neatness the underlying theme of my screenplay.
“What book was this for?”
“They backed out at the last minute, so it was never published.”
“What a waste. The world should see this beauty.” While she was blushing from my compliment a light bulb went off over my head. “Can I buy it?”
“What?”
“What you said about the complex detail of us in the light and the dark made me think of my screenplay. I would like this to be the image that represents my story. I think I’d like to use that phrase, too, if you don’t mind.”
“You’re writing a screenplay?” It was my turn to blush. No one knew about that, except me, and now Annie.
“I am. It’s not going well, but I’ve been inspired already by your art to get back to it.”
“In that case, take it as a gift.” I was floored by her offer.
“I couldn’t,” she’d said this was her favorite piece.
“Yes, you can. I insist. I want you to have it, so you can share it with the world when you tell your story.” I could tell she meant it, and I was incredibly moved by her gesture.
“Thank you, Annie.” She smiled at me, her cheeks still a little rosy.
“You’re welcome, Max.” I set it down next to the door and turned back to her. “What do you want to see next?”
“I want to see it all,” I told her, never more serious in my life. “Show me everything.”
One by one she showed me her paintings, her tools, her music and talked nonstop the whole time. At times she had tears in her eyes, and her voice cracked when she got down deep into what she did in this little room, and how much it meant to her. I watched it all amazed, wishing I had a camera to record this telling of what made Annie, Annie, but settled for focusing my mind on remembering every detail, as if it were a story written just for me, told by the most mesmerizing woman I had ever known.
She held me with her words and her art. She let me feel her love, and she showed me what passion meant in ways I had never dreamed. By the time she was done there was no doubt that I was in love with Annie Clemons. Before I could figure out what that meant, or how to tell her, Stacy called out from downstairs.
“Hello?” I grunted in frustration. I was tired of being interrupted.
“We’ll be right there,” Annie called, sounded a little tweaked herself. “Come on, let’s go get this over with.” Stacy was in the kitchen fixing himself a drink when we got downstairs. He looked tired and frustrated himself.
“For now they are still calling it a suicide,” he said, taking a long drink of his iced tea, before pulling out a chair. “I’m still not sure I buy that, but can’t find enough evidence to the contrary to make a case with the authorities, unless the coroner comes back with something different.” He took another drink of tea.
“I found Jackson at his house. Man, he’s a squirrely little son of a bitch.” He didn’t have to tell me that. “He says he hadn’t seen Todd in weeks, but that he knew about his unhealthy obsession with you,” his eyes clocked to Annie, who was leaning on the sink next to me. “He says it started before you quit at his place, and only got worse every time you turned him down after you quit.” She shifted a little closer to me, but didn’t say anything.
“That means this is over, right?” I asked, wanting her not to worry anymore.
“I’m going to keep an eye on Jackson for a few days, but it would seem to be over, yes.”
“You don’t sound sure,” I pressed him. He took a drink of tea, and leaned back crossing his arms over his chest before answering me.
“I still think we’re missing something.” I didn’t care for that at all.
“Like?”
“It doesn’t jive with me that Todd killed himself. Why after years of carrying a torch for her would he chuck it in, and off himself?”
“How do you measure the breaking point of an unstable mind?” Annie asked quietly, staring at the floor. “You said he had pictures of me and Max, maybe he thought I had someone in my life now, and there was no hope for him. Not that there had ever been, but seeing me with someone else finally got that through to him.”
“Hrmph,” Stacy said, uncrossing his arms, but adding nothing further. None of us had a ruler for crazy. He left soon after, promising to touch base if anything new came up.
“Let’s go back upstairs,” I told her, taking her hand. I stopped at my room, and got my laptop before going back up to the attic. “I’d like to work in here with you close by. Would that be all right?” She smiled at me, a devilish gleam in her eye. “I can sit over there,” I said gesturing the daybed, “And stay out of your way.”
“Do you want me to wear my headphones?”
“No, I want the full Annie experience, in living color and surround sound. Be my muse?” Her eyes widened briefly, and I sensed that there was something in my request that made it more than I’d realized. Finally, she shook her head, as if to clear it, and nodded her assent, before gesturing toward the bed. I wanted to know what she was thinking, but hoped she would tell me when she was ready. I took my seat and opened my laptop to pull up my screenplay.
She took her shirt off, and then her bra. I forgot to hit the power button.
She slid her jeans and underwear to the floor, stepping out of them and her shoes gracefully, before going to the stereo. I forgot how to type.
She bent over, browsing her music selection carefully. I forgot words, as my laptop slowly rose up in my lap balancing precariously against my throbbing erection. This was a good plan. I just wasn’t sure it was a good plan for writing.
She chose Blue October, History for Sale, and glided back across the room pulling her hair up, and tying it into a bun with no hair apparatus that I could see. I’d seen women do it before, and it always seemed like a magic trick. I made a note to ask her later.
The soun
d of Ugly Side filled the attic, making her hips sway as she stood before her canvas, and prepared her paints to resume the unfinished piece she had been working on the night I arrived. It was a gorgeous piece, like all her work, but I couldn’t appreciate it when the masterpiece that was Annie was dancing in front of it.
I set the laptop on the small table beside the daybed, and let myself just admire her. I lost track of time entirely as the image before me melded with the memory of this morning, forming newborn dreams of times to come.
Would the light in Venice make her skin more golden? Would the pink lights of Paris give her blush a deeper nuance? I wanted the lights of all the world to kiss her skin while she stood at my side.
Would she enjoy silk or satin sheets more as we fucked our way around the world, checking off countries and escapades as markers of a life well-loved and lived together? In the spotlight of my mind there was only her, and then us, together as one now and forever, everything else was black.
I didn’t know I’d moved until I was behind her. I’d said I would leave her alone when this had started, but thinking of the glint in her eye, maybe she’d known from the beginning how this was going to go. “Thank God,” she sighed, feeling me behind her. She leaned back, almost wallowing against me. “What the fuck took you so long?”
9-The Gravity of My Mind
Annie
He had no idea what he’d just said to me, when he’d asked me to be his muse. There was so much I wanted to tell him, but I didn’t know how. I loved the idea of being his muse, even more than I loved the way his laptop was raised up off his lap when I turned back from the stereo. Combined with the slackness of his jaw as his eyes followed me, it was hard to pretend that nothing unusual was going on. I could feel his eyes on me, and it gave me goosebumps.
