FLASH TOOK A last swallow of her stout and put the beer glass down on the table with a definitive thunk.
“I’m done,” she said.
“After two?” Ian shook his head in playful disgust.
“You want me to spread for you later, two is my limit. I need to be awake for that.”
He shrugged. “You don’t need to be awake for it. Technically.”
Flash laughed so hard she snorted, which made her laugh even harder. The way Ian had said “technically” had hit her funny bone. She would blame the beer. Yeah, probably the beer. He handed her a napkin since she was clearly in danger of something weird coming out of her nose and she muttered a nasal “Thank you” as she pulled herself together.
“That was a horrible thing to say, wasn’t it?” he said, grinning and clearly proud of himself for making her snort-laugh. “Please don’t tell HR I said that.”
“Never.”
“I had a girlfriend once tell me during sex, ‘If I fall asleep you can keep going. I don’t mind.’ We broke up shortly after that. You okay?”
“Fine. Sorry,” she said, putting the beer glass far away from her reach. “Had a little dork moment there.”
“Don’t be sorry,” Ian said, smiling. “It’s good to see you being a dork. I didn’t know you had it in you.”
“Of course I have it in me.”
“You’re so much cooler than I am, it’s depressing,” he said.
She rolled her eyes and sat back in their booth at the pub. They’d both eaten so much greasy pub food there was a very good chance that the next round of sex would need to be delayed an hour or two. Sex was like swimming, Ian had said. You have to wait at least twenty minutes after eating before you get back in the pool—or the pussy—as the case may be.
“How am I cool?” she demanded. “And in what way am I cooler than you? You have money, a ski chalet, and you’re, you know, acceptable looking.”
“Acceptable? Thank you. My cock has never been harder in its life.”
“You’re welcome. Now answer the question.”
Ian looked at her over the top of his pint glass. He was an IPA man, which she could respect, although she found IPAs too hoppy for her taste.
“You have tattoos of sexy women on your biceps like a fucking sailor. And you have the punk hair. And you drive the little punk truck. And you’re a welder. Not just an artist welder, but like an actual welder. That’s cool.”
“I think you’re confusing ‘cool’ with ‘poor.’ The truck was the only truck I could afford. I weld for a living—or did—because it was the only job I could find that paid better than minimum wage. I have short hair because it’s less likely to get caught in my helmet. As for the tattoos...well, okay, those are cool. You got me there.”
“They are. I used to want to get tattooed but Dad would have killed me. By the time I was old enough to do it without Dad flipping his shit, I’d grown out of the desire to have one.”
“Your body is perfect. It doesn’t need ink.”
“Your body is perfect. Why did you get ink?”
“I wanted it.” She shrugged. “No other reason. Love Bettie Page. Love Rosie the Riveter. They’re my wing-women. Rosie reminds me to work hard. Bettie reminds me to play hard. They were badass before women were allowed to be badass. And that’s badass.”
“Cute team—Bettie and Veronica.”
“That’s who I was named after.”
“Are you serious? You’re named for the girl in the Archie comics?”
She rolled her eyes and nodded. “Better Veronica than Betty, right? No offense,” she said to her Bettie Page bicep tattoo. “I’m talking about a different Betty. Who were you named after?”
“Ian Fleming.”
“The guy who wrote the James Bond books?”
“He’s Dad’s favorite author. It could have been worse. He almost did name me James Bond Asher. That would have been a lot to live up to.”
“Your dad doesn’t strike me as a James Bond kind of guy.”
“He’s not,” Ian said. “He’s the opposite of James Bond. No risks. No danger. No seducing beautiful women. He never even remarried after my mother died. He’s dated some, but not much. He’s more interested in my personal life than having one of his own. I let him set me up on three blind dates over the past six months. That was probably a mistake but I had a certain red-haired welder I was trying to get over. Didn’t work. One date each. No second date. Dad was more disappointed it didn’t work out than I was.”
“Who were these women?”
“Just women he knew. Daughters of friends.”
“Fancy daughters of rich friends?”
Ian shrugged.
“Ian?”
“Yeah, kind of,” he said. “One was a professor, one was a doctor, one was a lawyer.”
“Quite a triumvirate you had there.”
“They were nice,” Ian said noncommittally. “They were pretty, too, and fun. I couldn’t stop thinking about you the entire time I was with them. No second dates.”
“A professor, a doctor and a lawyer. And I didn’t even go to college.”
“I don’t care,” Ian said.
“Where did you go to college?” she asked.
“Flash, it doesn’t matter. I don’t care about where you or I went to school.”
“I know where you went to college,” Flash said. “Starts with an H and ends with an arvard.”
“So?”
“Your father is very proud of his Harvard-educated son.”
“He is.”
“He’s not going to like us going out, is he?”
“He won’t care. Now that you’re not an employee anymore, I mean.”
“You sure about that?”
“I’m thirty-six, Flash.”
“You’re also his only child and you’re going to inherit the whole Asher empire, right? You don’t think your father is going to have a problem with you and me?”
“Dad wants the best for me. If dating you is the best for me, then he’s going to be happy.”
“We’re dating now?”
“I’d like you to be my girlfriend. I wanted it six months ago. I want it now. You don’t have to tell me an answer now. I’m only asking you to think about it.”
“I’ll think about it.”
She squeezed his hand and smiled. It felt good to do this, to hold hands across a table in public where anyone could see them. Not that anyone was paying them any attention. At work Ian was money, suits, clean-cut—the boss-man—while she lived in her dirty work clothes, her welding helmet and made eighteen bucks an hour. Worlds apart...but not here, not now. He wore jeans and a T-shirt. She wore jeans and a T-shirt. His hair was all sexy and disheveled from his gray knit winter hat and hers was equally disheveled from being bounced around his bed. They looked like the sort of people who’d hang out in a pub on Mount Hood. They looked like a couple. She liked it. She liked him. She’d been in love with him for a long time. Nice to finally like him a little bit, too.
The waitress came by and cleared off their plates and refilled their water glasses. Ian ordered the Oregon blackberry cobbler for two, and told the waitress “thank you” and “no rush.” Flash had waitressed to pay for her art classes when she was eighteen and nineteen and ever since she’d judged people based on their behavior toward waitstaff. Ian passed that test.
“You ordered dessert?” she asked. “After all that food?”
“Haven’t eaten since breakfast. You’re going to help me, right?”
“I’ll try but no promises. Why did I eat all those fries?”
“Because they serve Portland ketchup here.”
She pointed at him. “That’s right. It was either eat the fries or drink that stuff straight from the bottle.”
“I knew you’d like this place. It’s the sole reason why I moved up here. The snow and forest and skiing and all that boring shit had nothing to do with it. Just the food.”
“You’re a wise man, Ian Asher.”
His eyes widened.
“What?” she asked.
“Sorry. Still can’t get used to you being nice to me. It’s jarring.”
She winced and sighed. “Yeah, I was pretty rough on you. You deserved it but still...maybe I overdid it a little.”
“It’s fine,” he said. He picked up his napkin and started shredding it. A nervous habit? She liked that she could make him a little nervous even after the snort-laughing incident. “But I have to ask...you’re really quitting because you want the new job, right? You aren’t quitting because of what happened between us?”
“I’m quitting because I want the new job,” Flash said. “Here’s the thing...that menorah I made for you—it’s the first time I’ve sculpted anything in months. I’ve been tired from work, distracted, depressed, discouraged, angry... I didn’t have the emotional or physical energy to do any sculpting. It’s a horrible feeling to be cut off from the one thing that makes me feel like a real human being.”
“I’m sorry you’ve been in such a bad place.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“It isn’t?”
“Well...not entirely your fault. I’d be lying if I said the breakup wasn’t part of why I’ve been in a bad place. But there’s a lot more to it. I’ve had an installation up at the Morrison Gallery in Portland for six months and I haven’t sold a single piece. Not one. It’s not like I do the sculpting for the money. That’s not the point. The point is that when someone buys your art, it’s validation. You draw a picture for your parents and they put it on the fridge because that’s what parents do. Doesn’t matter if it’s the drawing of your house and your trees looks like cat barf, Little Junior drew it so it goes on the fridge. But when a stranger, a total stranger, plunks down ten thousand dollars on a sculpture you made, it’s better than anything. It’s better than sex.”
“Better than sex?”
She nodded. “A lot of people on this planet get laid. Not that many people on this planet can sell their works of art for ten thousand dollars or more.”
“That’s true. I just got laid and I can’t sculpt to save my life.”
“It’s my life’s work, being a sculptor,” she said. “Having your entire life’s work validated...it’s the single most important thing to me. Art is my religion.”
“I’m not an artist but I kind of understand wanting that. One of Dad’s good friends owns a huge construction company in Seattle. He tried to hire me out from under Dad. Offered me a big raise, big office, all that. I had to turn it down, otherwise Dad would have a heart attack, but it was one of those great moments when you realize you’re genuinely good at what you do. This guy wasn’t my father. I’m not his son. And he still looked at my work and said, ‘Yes, this is the guy we want and I’m willing to risk a thirty-year-old friendship to have Ian Asher come work for me because Ian Asher is that good.’ It was validating.”
“You get it.”
“I get it,” he said. “So... I guess you won’t let me buy one of your sculptures from the gallery?”
“If you did, I would never see you again,” she said, meaning every single word of it.
“What if instead of buying one of your sculptures, I broke in and stole one?”
She thought about that, rubbed her chin, narrowed her eyes and finally nodded.
“Not a bad idea. It would get my name in the papers. Art theft is a huge international crime. But I have a better idea. You tell me what to make and I’ll try to make it.”
“You don’t have to—”
“I want to. Making your menorah was the first time I’d felt real joy in months. Something about creating it for you, specifically for you, really got my juices flowing.”
He raised his eyebrow.
“My other juices,” she clarified. “I think you’re my muse. So a-muse me, muse. Give me an idea and I’ll give it a shot. Challenge me.”
Ian went silent for a moment. She’d put him on the spot but she didn’t feel bad about it. Inspiration often came in sudden flashes, sudden epiphanies. Of course those sudden epiphanies often resulted in weeks and months of grueling work turning those bolts from the blue into art, but it was worth it to her. The art was worth it.
He reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. They hadn’t brought the bill yet so she couldn’t imagine why he’d need his wallet. He dug through a stack of cards and small papers until he produced a photograph. He held it out to her and she took it from his hand.
The picture was of a woman smiling at the camera. It looked posed, like a yearbook photograph. She was a beautiful young lady with wavy hair with Ian’s mouth and eyes. While the picture was posed her smile was bright and natural. She was a happy woman.
“This is Ivy? This is your mother?” she asked.
Ian nodded. “It’s the only picture I have of her. It was from her and Dad’s college yearbook.”
“You cut it out of the yearbook?”
“No, Dad would have killed me. I waited until he was out of town one weekend, and I took the yearbook to a copy center and had them make a copy of it on photo paper. Pathetic, right? I was eighteen and too much of a coward to ask my father to give me a photograph of my own mother.”
“That’s not cowardly,” she said. “It’s very sweet. It must be hard for you not knowing her.”
“It’s hard. I keep trying to work up the guts to ask Dad to help me contact my mother’s parents but I haven’t yet. It’s a real tender spot for him.”
“I can imagine,” she said. She knew all about parental sore spots.
“Anyway... I love the menorah. It’s perfect. But you can’t keep that up all year. What I’d love to have is something around to remind me of her.” He pointed at the photograph. “Something to honor her, I guess? Something to keep her present? She’s nothing but an outline in my mind. It would be nice to have something more than the bare bones, more than an outline. That’s probably too much to ask. You don’t know any more about her than I do.”
Flash studied the picture a little longer. This was a big challenge—creating a metal sculpture to honor Ian’s mother. She didn’t sculpt the human form. Nature was her subject—she made aluminum roses and orchids, copper sunflowers, cherry trees in bloom made of pure steel. But a woman? She’d never sculpted a woman before. Could she? Should she? She didn’t even know this woman. Or did she? This woman, hardly more than a kid, had eloped with her lover over the extreme disapproval of both their families, and she’d done it at the age of eighteen and had a baby all without any family support. The very thought of trying something like that terrified Flash. Whoever Ivy was she had a backbone of steel to do something like that.
A backbone of steel?
Yes. That. A backbone of steel.
Her brain lit up and her fingers tingled...images floated through her mind—lines, turns, light glancing off metal, curves...beautiful metal curves... She felt a rush of adrenaline. She wanted to dash home right now and get to work, but she knew better than that. The idea had to percolate a little more, coalesce, take form, bring itself to life and introduce itself. And as soon as it did, then she’d get to work.
Flash returned the photograph to Ian.
“I have an idea,” she said, looking up at Ian and smiling. “But I’ll need your help with it.”
Ian winced and looked immediately uncomfortable.
“I...I’m not really very good at the welding stuff. I’ve done it a little and—”
“Don’t worry. I don’t need your help making it. I can do that.”
“Then what do you need me to do?”
“I’ll need you to take some pictures of me—naked.”
Ian nodded. The waitress came to their table bearing their dessert. Ian smiled up at her.
“If you don’t mind, we’re going to need that to go.”
* * *
“YOU’RE ENJOYING THIS too much,” Flash said as Ian placed his hand on her left hip and shifted it to the right. He moved her chin two inches to the left and then back one inch again to the right. She and Ian were in his living room and he had her standing by the bare patch of wall by the large stone fireplace while he took pictures of her with her own cell phone to use in the creation of her next sculpture. After twenty pictures she’d declared they had more than enough to work with but Ian wasn’t quite finished posing her.
“You’re naked. I’m taking pictures of you. Can you please explain how the hell I’m supposed to enjoy it less?”
“This isn’t supposed to be sexual. It’s for art.”
“Of course it is. Art is what I named my cock.”
Flash reached behind her and cupped Ian between the legs.
“Hi, Art.”
“Art says hello,” Ian said. “He’s looking forward to spending more time with you.”
“What a nice guy. Let me see the last pics,” she said. Ian returned her phone to her and she flipped through the pictures while he peered over her shoulder.
“I like that one,” he said, pointing at one particular picture where Flash had her back to the camera and bore all her weight on one foot while she looked to the side.
“Venus de Milo pose,” she said. “Very classic.”
“Classics are classics for a reason.”
“We’re going to delete that one right there,” she said, pulling up one picture Ian had taken of nothing but her ass.
“Oh, no, that’s my favorite.”
“Fine, fine.” She texted him the picture and then deleted it. “Happy now?”
“Art and I are grateful. We done?” He sounded a little sad about that.
“I have plenty to work with here.”
“So do I.” Ian wrapped his arms around her from behind and cupped her breasts in his large hands.
“You’re fondling me again,” she said.
“I’m fond of fondling.”
“Did you want to do this at work?”
“Fondling you was the least of what I wanted to do to you every single day at work. But I behaved myself. It was horrible.”
“Behaving sucks,” she said.
“I suck,” he said, and started sucking on her earlobe. It tickled so much she laughed and Ian had to subdue her giggles with a sharp bite. “I like you hanging around my house completely naked. I might institute a dress code here.”
“An undressed code?”
“Excellent idea,” he said.
“You’re violating your own dress code, Mr. Asher. You have all your clothes on.”
“I’m barefoot.”
“Doesn’t count.”
“I’m the boss around here, remember? I decide what counts and what doesn’t count,” he said into her ear.
She closed her eyes and shivered in his arms. She loved when he talked like that to her, loved when he got tough with her, ordered her around, acted like the boss of her. He was so good at it, such a natural. His right hand slid from her breast down her stomach and cupped her between the legs. He lightly stroked her as he dropped soft kisses along her naked shoulder. It felt so good it was dizzying and she had to reach out and put her hand flat against the wall to hold herself steady. His left hand tugged at her nipples, lightly pinched and rolled them between his fingers, while his right hand rubbed her clitoris. He rocked his hips into her, making their bodies move together as he teased and fondled and caressed her most tender spots. He slid a finger inside her and she flinched with pleasure, moaned with it, dripped with it.
“You’re going to come for me, aren’t you?” he asked into her ear again.
“Yes,” she said, hissing the word between clenched teeth. Her lower back was so tight with delicious tension it ached.
“Spread your legs a little more. More...perfect,” he said as she shifted her feet apart until her stance met with his approval.
He pulled his wet finger out of her and used it to rub her clitoris again. She was already swollen, already aching, already ready. Her breasts felt full and heavy from his attention and her skin wore a hot flush of red. Ian’s lips caressed the back of her neck and she relished the feel of his hot breath on her flesh.
“You have any idea how hard you make me?” he asked into her ear. “You have any idea how hard it was to see you every day at work and know I couldn’t have you?”
“Probably as hard for you as it was for me.”
“So you had to jack off in the shower when you got home from work, too?”
“You think guys are the only people who masturbate?”
“You got off thinking about me?”
“Ian... I call my vibrator ‘The Boss.’”
“Don’t take this the wrong way, Flash, but...I’m so fucking happy you quit your job.”
When she started to laugh he pushed two fingers into her again and her laugh died in her throat and was reborn a moan.
With both Ian’s hands between her legs, penetrating her and stroking her at the same time, it was a miracle she could still stand. She put both hands on the wall to hold herself upright as he worked her clitoris and fucked her with his fingers. Her body felt so open, so wet and tender and alive. He made her feel alive like no man she’d been with before. Past lovers had played at being boss, but Ian really was the boss. He had real power in this world, real authority, and something in her responded to that like she was born to be his. Her upbringing had been chaotic, always running, always moving. But Ian was so steady, so strong, so manly and solid, she wanted to put herself entirely in his hands—her body, her trust, her heart. But especially her body.
Ian slipped a third finger inside of her and her pussy contracted around his probing hand. He chuckled and she wanted to step on his foot for laughing at her.
“I love playing with your body,” he said. “You’re my favorite toy. And my favorite toy needs to come. Doesn’t she?”
“She does...” Flash breathed.
“Come for me, then,” he said, still rubbing and stroking her. The fingers inside her moved in a circle, hitting every nerve ending, sending spikes of pleasure shooting through her stomach to her hard tight nipples.
“Anything you say, boss.”
She pushed her hips forward and against his hand. She pushed again and Ian curled his fingers inside her to make her moan again. He fucked her faster now with his fingers, rubbed her harder while her hips pumped with a desperate rhythm. Ian whispered dirty words of encouragement while he pushed her closer to that delicious edge. Her stomach knotted up and her fingers on the wall curled into fists. When she couldn’t take it anymore, it finally happened. She cried out as her pleasure peaked. She felt a shattering inside her as the tension released all at once. Her inner muscles fluttered wildly around Ian’s fingers, muscles pulsed against his touch. It was pure ecstasy and all Ian’s doing.
When her orgasm finally faded, Flash hung limp and spent in Ian’s arms while he kissed and bit her neck and shoulders.
“Stay,” he ordered, and she had neither the will nor the energy to disobey. She pressed her palms against the wall again to stay vertical as Ian undressed behind her and put on a condom. With one thrust he entered her from behind, splitting her open and driving into the core of her. He pumped his cock into her hard and fast, harder and faster than he ever had before. It was rough and wild, hungry and desperate. She loved it. She loved it as much as she loved him, and the only thing she hated was that she was too scared to tell him that. He made her feel too much. Her love was equal to her fear so she stayed silent as he fucked her, silent as he fondled her, silent as he came in her.
They stood by the wall, their bodies still joined as Ian rested his forehead on her shoulder.
“Did that hurt?” he asked.
“Only in the good way.”
“I’m never like this with anyone but you,” he said as he caught his breath. She loved hearing him out of breath from fucking her. “You bring out the worst in me. Or the best. Can’t tell sometimes.”
“I bring out the you in you.”
“You like me like this, don’t you?”
She loved him like this. But she couldn’t say that. Not yet anyway.
“More than you know, Ian.”
“Try that again.”
Flash laughed tiredly.
“More than you know...boss.”