The wind rattled the studio windows, howling viciously outside as though pissed off with me for some reason. The shadows of the swaying trees were ominous. Curled up on my man-sized beanbag, a paint-stained sheet that we spread on the floor wrapped around my body, as I shivered beneath it. I never remembered the studio being this cold, though admittedly, I'd never spent a night there.
Where was Petr when I needed him? He'd offered me his couch more times than I could count, and I'd turned him down every time. Now, when I was ready to take him up on it, the jerk had decided to take an overnight trip with his new squeeze.
Still, at least I had the studio.
It was just so cold, so lonely. And why did every shadow outside and in look terrifying all of a sudden?
I pulled the sheet over my head and tried to fall asleep, tried to ignore the creaking of the old building, that I'd never noticed until tonight. Every sound became amplified. Couldn't it just be morning already?
The blood rushed to my head, my body froze when I heard rattling at the studio door. That definitely wasn't the wind; somebody was there.
Crap! I trembled under the sheet as the door slid open. I prayed it was Petr, though in my heart I knew it wasn't. He was probably fifty miles away by now, me far from his thoughts.
I peeked up over the sheet. A figure reached for the light switch. Seconds later, bright light flooded the space, and I let out a huge sigh of relief when I saw that it wasn't an intruder, at least not an unwelcome one.
I sat up as Jean rushed over to me.
“What are you doing here?” She knelt down in front of me, worry corrupting her beautiful face.
“I got kicked out.” All of a sudden I felt ashamed of her finding me here, like this, with a filthy sheet wrapped around me, sleeping on a beanbag. At my lowest. There was nothing attractive about that.
Now anger flickered past, making a frown line appear on her forehead. “She asked you to leave?”
“Can you blame her?” I tossed the sheet to the floor and sat up. “She found out I've been unfaithful to her.”
“But...” She frowned, completely lost. “But we haven't–”
“Not physically, emotionally,” I elaborated. “So here I am. Homeless, girlfriend-less, sleeping in my studio, nowhere else to go.”
She placed a tentative hand on my leg. “You always have somewhere to go.”
Something inside me blew up then. Rhymes and riddles, so far that was all she'd given me. Even now when I lay on a beanbag, my relationship over, in large part because of her, she continued to confuse the hell out of me.
“Where? To you? The woman who's been in my life for the past six years, who seems to know everything about me, down to where I'm going to be even before I know myself? The woman who stayed behind the shadows, treating me like charity, pity-buying my work and making me think I actually had talent? The woman who lets everyone else screw her, but when it comes to me, me, who she has this weird obsession with, she rejects me every time?” I'd raised my voice and didn't realize until I heard the echo in the sparsely furnished room. “Why would I have come to you when you don't want me?”
Her visible distress at my outburst showed itself in an expression of real pain, as though I'd abused her physically. Her hand moved to touch me, faltered several times before drawing back.
“You have never been charity to me, Lissa,” she said, her insistence steely and powerful. “I love every single one of the paintings I bought from you. I think you're an amazing artist. And don't you ever think that I never wanted you.”
It was such a weird thing to claim. Hello! Had she forgotten that she'd spent the last six weeks rejecting me?
“You want me, but in your own weird way. It's like the thought of touching me, of being close to me, repulses you.”
She shook her head over and over. “You could never repulse me. I just... I just wanted better for you.”
There was that line again. “Stop saying that! It's not your job to want better for me. You're not my mom or dad; you don't need to worry about what's good for me.”
The tears she'd been trying her hardest to keep at bay began to roll down her face in a stream of red. Just as she had done before, she quickly wiped them away, hiding her face from me.
“My world isn't a place for you.”
“Then you should have stayed away from me. You should have let me get raped and murdered by those boys, or let me drown. Or starve to death.” I stopped, glared at her, then said something I didn't realize I even knew. “Or before any of that, there was stuff that happened in my childhood that should have resulted in my death – like almost being hit by a truck when I ran away from the home at fifteen...”
Behind her eyes I saw recollection when I mentioned this incident, as the truth – or at least part of it – dawned on me. This woman had been in my life for a long time, saving it, making it easier. I wasn't an adult when she'd first known me...
“You've watched me grow up.” It all made sense. That was why she was conflicted. “You knew me as a child, and you watched me grow into a woman.”
She sniffed, turned away so I couldn't see even more tears fall.
“I'm not a child anymore, Jean. I'm all grown up.” Couldn't she see that? I was a few months away from my twenty-fourth birthday – I hadn't been a child in a long time. But maybe I had to start acting like the adult I claimed to be. Hilarie was right, I needed to grow up and stop relying on my girlfriends to take care of me. I couldn't make the same mistake with Jean.
“Do you want me to leave?” she asked in a tiny voice.
I took her chin in my hand and twisted her to face me. “You still don't get it. I want you to make love to me, to make me climax the way you would any other lover. I'm not the kid you once knew.”
She couldn't have stopped me if she'd tried. I smashed my lips to hers, literally stealing the breath from her. Whatever happened afterward was the business of the gods; but for that moment, I knew that she was mine, and there was no one powerful enough to intervene.
There was a reckless, breathless fumble to get our clothes off, as we reluctantly separated our lips from each other. Her pale flesh was cold and blemish-free as I held her close. My green eyes met her dark brown ones, mine full of determination, hers filled with trepidation. I pushed a strand of black hair from her face, before peppering it with light kisses, and gradually laying her down on the crumbled sheet.
She looked up at me, stroking a hand across my abdomen. “You're perfect,” she whispered.
“No, you are.” And she was. There wasn't a scar or unwanted piece of fat anywhere on her body. Everything, from the shape of her thighs to her breasts – just the right size, full and rounded, lacking most of the gravity of old age – seemed airbrushed. If I hadn't been so ravenous, and my need to have her so intense, her perfection would have been too daunting.
I unfastened her bra, freeing her breasts from one snare only to fall captive to another captor – my hands. Cupping her firm breasts appreciatively, I smoothed the thumb and index fingers of both hands over them, making the nipples hard, before taking each mound into my mouth in turn. My tongue kept her nipples rocky, and forced several low moans from her lips.
Temporarily done with her breasts, but vowing to return to them later, I left a wet trail of my kisses as I made my way down her stomach, taking my sweet time, and treating every kiss, every touch, as though it was the last. And when I came to her panties – white and silk – peeled them off impatiently. Six weeks of agony, dreaming about this moment, didn't allow for patience now that I was so close to the honeypot.
I took her soft thighs in my hands, spread her wide, dropping little wet kisses on her inner thighs. Her breathing was heavy, frantic as I edged ever closer to her sex, teasing my way along, licking and kissing her flesh.
When my tongue finally reached its destination, I wasted no time unleashing it on her sex, lapping her up hungrily, taking it all, every last mouthful of her. It truly was a honeypot; delicious, moreish, a taste so sweet it could have been bottled and sold! She writhed beneath me, her moans echoing through the hollow studio. What an amazing sound, hearing her posh murmurs increase in volume, frequency and force, and knowing that I was causing this.
It was almost impossible to separate myself from her; her taste, scent and texture was like an addiction. Could I have remained between her legs, my tongue inside her forever? I sure wanted to try. But after several long minutes, my jaw slightly sore, she relieved me of my duty, taking my head in her hands and guiding me back up to face her again. Her eyes were half-lidded, drowsy with passion, as her lips sought out mine, which were glistening with her juices. Her kisses were fierce and eager, as though some force had taken over within her.
Before I knew it she had flipped me onto the sheet, with so much ease it looked as though I weighed nothing. No care was exercised in removing my bra and panties; both pieces of material were torn from my body; destroyed and unsalvageable. I was so glad they weren't my favorites.
When she opened my legs and inserted herself between them, I noticed that her body had warmed up as she pressed herself down. Breasts met breasts, stomach met stomach, sex met sex. She looked at me lovingly, and when we kissed again it was the sweetest kiss anyone had ever given me. A sweet kiss before action. She was still kissing me as she began to grind against me, taking me completely by surprise.
We held eye contact as she glided, the friction more intense than anything I'd ever experienced. It was as though the slightest connection with her sex gave me multiple little orgasms that left me in a euphoric daze. I lost all track of time and place, and we moved in perfect harmony together. She'd taken over, taken control of my body with the promise of ecstasy.
Every now and then she caught my moan in her mouth, and I caught hers. It seemed the more I moaned, and the louder I got, the more powerful her grinding became.
As she took me, pressed herself against my sex, bringing me closer and closer to the end, I knew then that my body belonged to her, and it always had. She'd just now, at long last, come to claim it. The way she made love to me, her will, her passion – in her eyes and strokes – was like someone who had full dominion over my body. And I let her take me, take me the way no one ever had, and ever could. Our love-making was perfect; our bodies were so in tune with each other. They fit together like jigsaw pieces. We were made for each other in a way far beyond the physical. I felt like I was home.
I reached climax before she did, and wasn't quiet about it. The jolts ripped through my body, every inch of me tingled and became sensitive. And when she expired moments later, it was almost as though I climaxed all over again.
She hadn't been looking at me when she peaked. She'd looked away pretty much as soon as I reached mine. I found that weird. Throughout the whole act we'd kept eye contact, so I didn't understand why, as it came to a head, she chose that moment to look away.
I wanted her to kiss me, so I lifted her head from the side to look at me. What I saw in her eyes startled me. Hatred, or something akin to it.
I opened my mouth to speak, but she shook her head violently. She looked like she was about to throw up. Then she tore herself away from me.
“Jean, what's wrong?” I asked, perplexed by this unexpected change in her. She was now several feet away from me, covering her breasts with her hands, as though hiding them from me. She looked like a wounded animal.
“This wasn't supposed to happen. It's disgusting!”
“How could you say that? It was beautiful. It felt right,” I pleaded, trying to console her. Nothing about what we did was disgusting. I felt reborn.
“Why did you have to push me? I never should have come here.”
“Jean, I wanted you, and you wanted me. There's nothing wrong with that.” I tried to reach out to her.
“Stay away from me!” she snapped, turning to me and baring her fangs.
I let out a cry and edged back.
But when I did that, all the anger and pain vanished immediately from her face. Her eyes were wide, shocked, as though she had startled herself.
“Oh, baby, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.” Her tears came thick and fast, watery-red. She crawled back to me.
I was hesitant to let her near me, but knew in my heart she wouldn't harm me.
She took me in her arms, held me to her chest, kissing my head. “Please don't be afraid of me. I would never hurt you. I would turn the platinum dagger on myself long before I let that happen.”
I believed her. Maybe I shouldn't have, but I did. Why would she have protected me all this time if only to kill me later?
I let her hold me and kiss me over and over. She kept whispering that she was sorry. Sorry for everything. I got the feeling she was apologizing for more than just baring her fangs.
It felt good to be in her arms, and we lay together on the paint-spattered sheet, which would forever hold sentimental value as the place on which we first made love. I lay with my face on her stomach as she stroked my head.
“I'm in love with you,” I said, after we'd been silent for awhile. Never before had I been so frank with another person, not even with myself. But I needed her to know, and it felt like the perfect time to say it. “I think I've been in love with you since the first day I saw you.” I sat up to look at her. “And do you know what else I think? I think you love me, too.”
“More than you will ever know.”
That wasn't the answer I was expecting.
“I've loved you for a long time, Lissa Rowan. Up until recently it was a different kind of love...” Her eyes took on a melancholy glow. “I want you to know I never planned any of this, and that the way I love you now wasn't the way I loved you back then. I'm not some kind of pervert.”
I couldn't help but laugh and kiss her. “I know. I know.”
“I just wanted to protect you. To keep you safe, take care of you. I will just have to learn to do that as your lover.”
“You don't need to do that.” Her cheek was cold again when I held her face in my hand. “I need to learn to take care of myself now. And I want, finally, for my lover to be my equal. So no more playing guardian angel.”
“I don't think I can stop. I don't think I want to.” She kissed me, and the kiss lasted so long I thought it would never end; I didn't want it to end. But she drew her lips away eventually. “I'm taking you home with me, whether you like it or not.”
I wasn't about to argue with her. My options were a cold, lonely studio, or a warm mansion. There wasn't much of a choice.
We lay together a little while longer, not really talking about anything, just enjoying each other's company. I asked her how she was able to get into the studio without being invited, and she told me that she only had to be invited in to places of abode, not commercial buildings. What I didn't ask her were any of the pertinent questions. There were things she was keeping from me, I knew that. And I also knew that when she finally did spill, everything would change. I just wanted to enjoy this piece of happiness for as long as I could before that happened.