AUTUMN SLIPPED OUT OF BED, careful not to disturb Steve, though he was actually awake. Naked, she padded into the bathroom to relieve herself. Washing her hands in the sink, she glanced up at her nude form and grinned at the dark spots on her neck. One of her pigtails was still banded, and she tugged it free, sweeping her black mane over her shoulders. Steve watched her with slitted eyes, enjoying the ruse.
“You animal,” she said in a whisper, fingering the hickeys. Not that she hadn’t left her own marks upon his skin, raking her nails down his back during their fit of passion the previous evening.
He heard her go into the cozy living room and pull the gray, paint-spotted tarp off of her easel. Curious, he walked silently after her, watching as she prepared to work on a painting. The wooden frame supported a flat canvas, upon which was scrawled a half-finished depiction of a volcano. Sticking her tongue out at what she apparently considered a bad rendering of its Hephaesten glory, she bent low to retrieve a fishing tackle box that had once belonged to her father. Opening its lid, she revealed that it had been repurposed into a receptacle for her painting supplies. Selecting a large tube of gesso, she used a wide brush to paint over the volcano.
Autumn stared at the blank canvas before her. He thought back to the time she had told him of her high school art class, one of the few she hadn’t ever cut. Her teacher, Gregory Isom, had been a strange sort. Urban legend had it that Isom had once been a shop teacher, but had accidentally inhaled lead fumes and gotten so addled the only thing he still had the capacity to teach was art.
Autumn shook her head, bangs threatening to get in her eyes. She pulled her hair back in a ponytail. Her brown eyes scanned the plastic palette held in her tattooed left hand, the little mounds of paint awaiting her whims. Autumn had once told him that the difference between coloring and painting was that when you were coloring, you were just performing a task. When you were painting, you were creating something that was alive, that took shape and formed before you almost of its own volition. She had asserted that, at times, she felt as if she were not truly an artist at all, but a conduit for something that yearned to make itself known but had no mouth or hands of its own.
The other students had not thought much of her paintings, favoring the more precise status quo landscapes and portraits. Autumn rarely strove for photo realism in her paintings as she often did when inking a tattoo. Rather, she was what she would have called abstract but what Steve had insisted was called Expressionist.
Autumn glanced down at a National Geographic that was sitting on the cup ring infested coffee table. It depicted a savannah lioness roaring, its white teeth bared and stained in spots with blood and visceral meat. The tag line said it was endangered.
She mixed a dark red paste on her palette, using scarlet and black pigments. This she applied to the canvas while it was not fully mixed, its texture marbled. She swirled it about on the canvas, creating a background that resembled stormy skies but for the color. It looked as if the sky were about to rain not clear raindrops, but sticky blood.
Autumn glanced back at the lion’s mouth and washed off her brush in a sawed off half-gallon milk carton filled with water. The clear water soon took on a dark brown sheen. Lightly beating the head against the easel, adding to a growing number of colored splotches, she got most of the moisture out of the bristles. She then mixed red, blue, and yellow together, along with a touch of white. Autumn had related to Steve that Isom told her that the secret to making flesh look convincing was to mix brown first, and then lighten it up. Otherwise, one’s mermaid would have lobster red nipples instead of creamy pink ones.
For some reason, she felt like painting the mouth first. The snarling maw began to take shape on the canvas as she added white teeth, mirroring the image on the magazine but reshaping it to fit her mood. The teeth became more wicked and savage, elongating to impossible lengths. The gaping cavern of its throat was more detailed, ringed with vicious barbs and segments of muscle. Below the maw, she sketched out a Manhattan skyline being sucked into the maw, now appearing gigantic and monstrous.
Autumn stood back, using the back of her hand to brush a rebel strand of hair that had escaped her rubber restraint. She left a swath of black paint along the top of her eyebrow, even leaving a dot on her golden hoop piercing. Her large, round breasts were similarly stained, though her chrome barbells still shone cleanly where they exited either side of her light brown nipples.
Taking a step back, she stared at her creation. The work was clearly not done yet, but it was, by his estimation, a hell of a start.
“That’s very good work,” Steve said, startling her. She turned to face his stubbled visage. He was nude, shoulder length dirty blonde hair coming to his broad shoulders. She had joked that his recent exertions had given him two hams on either side of his neck, but he found his toned chest and prominent abs were more flattering than his slightly pudgy old self. His thighs were sleek but very defined, a result of having pedaled all over the city in recent months. From the neck down, Steve was looking top notch. However, the eyes looking back at him in the mirror every morning were looking quite exhausted.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” she said, going to him and wrapping her arms around his body. Her skin felt cold against his. “You’re warm…”
“Your skin is like ice!” His hands wrapped around her shoulders. “Watching you paint, I don’t know, it’s almost scary.”
“Scary?” Autumn pushed away from him and pouting in mock indignation.
“Yeah, you scare the shit out of me. A lot. After all, you did get arrested last year for breaking some MMA fighter’s foot at a party…”
“Shut up. I was protecting your wimpy teacher ass. He would have beaten you senseless.”
“I wish you wouldn’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Underestimate me all the time. I’m tougher than you might think, you know.”
“Steve, that’s not what I meant at all. Train fights for a living, sugar. He’s constantly pushing his body to the limit against guys who are doing the same thing.”
“I’m in pretty good shape.” Steve flexed a bulging bicep.
“Yeah, you are, hon, but you’re a nice guy at heart. Train isn’t.”
“Nice guy, huh,” he said, his voice a low growl.
“Well…yeah, you are, but you screw like a bad boy. That’s the perfect combination.”
“Oh, ho, you flatter me, miss Autumn Winters, the future Mrs. Autumn Borgia.”
“Ah…” Autumn looked uncomfortable. “Look, about that…”
“I didn’t mean to bring it up. Just forget it.”
“Steve, this isn’t about that. It’s about my name. You see, dad isn’t likely to have any heirs, and he was an only child, so the Winters name is kind of going to die if it isn’t preserved…”
“You can’t get married because you don’t want to change your name?”
“No, dumbass, I still want to get married, I just want to keep my name.”
Steve felt his anger drain away.
“Oh. I see. Well, lots of women do that, very proto-feminist of you.”
“Steve…”
“No, I’m actually cool with this. Borgia is a terrible name anyway. Why do you think Pop called himself Deathslayer from Hell? It was a step up.”
They both laughed at that, though Steve stopped first, his face growing perplexed.
“I just thought of another reason you can’t be Autumn Borgia.”
“Why is that?” said Autumn, wiping away a tear.
“Because if you took my last name, I would just be Steve!”
“God.” Autumn slapped a hand across her eyes.
Steve laughed at the jibe, his mirth winding down as he stared at her nude, paint-streaked body.
“You have paint like literally all over you,” he said, his thumb rubbing over a blotch on her shoulder. “All over…”
His hand roamed lower, gripping her breasts gently as he inspected the numerous stains of pigment. He was thorough in his examination, leaving no inch of her skin unattended to. The hard, smooth edge of his nails briefly brushed against her nether lips, asking the question that his mouth did not. He felt her body respond, eager at his touch.
“We just changed the sheets,” Autumn said as he took her by the hand and led her to the bedroom.
“Then let’s get you cleaned up.” Steve tugged her into the bathroom instead.
“You’re so bad!” She took the lead, grinning ear to ear with half-lidded eyes. Her back, covered in colorful ink, rippled as she lifted her arms high over her head and stretched like a lioness on the savannah. Steve’s eyes roamed over her form as she did so, just as she intended.
“Hey,” she said as he pulled back the opaque curtain to reveal a modest but well scrubbed shower/bath combination. “I was thinking of getting a new piercing or two.”
“Oh?” His brow furrowed a bit. He finagled the faucets until he had a stream of water suitable to his taste. “Not a labron, I hope?”
“That’s labret…and no, I have enough on my face, even I realize this. I was thinking lower…”
She looked down at her love cradle, pulling apart the spongy flesh for his inspection.
“Maybe a ring on each side, what do you think?”
Steve stared at her labia, swallowing hard. He certainly didn’t dislike the idea.
“Are you blushing?” Autumn said, coming up to grab his cheeks. “You are, you’re actually blushing! Such a bashful little boy…”
“I’m not blushing! And it’s your body, you do what you want with it.”
“Really? I don’t want this to be a thing. If you don’t think you can deal with it, it won’t happen, okay?”
“Uh…Is this one of those tests where you’re just trying to see if I’ll support you or not, or does my opinion really have weight?”
“It has weight,” she said, stepping past him and getting into the shower. Her spine arched, and she thrust out her shapely round bottom more than the maneuver required. “I want you to find me sexy.”
“I do find you sexy.” Steve licked his lips as he stared at her rounded flanks.
“I want you to find me more sexy…more and more every day.”
“You’re not afraid there’s a limit? I mean, I already find you the most beautiful, sexy, magnificent woman on the planet. How much higher can you go than that?”
“Well,” Autumn said, stepping beneath the stream of hot water and gasping as it hit her skin, “there’s the galaxy, the universe, the multiverse quantum bullshit Sven’s always going on about…”
Steve’s laughter stopped when she suddenly wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him. Their tongues mingled together, long ago accustomed to one another. Autumn gently bit Steve’s lower lip and sucked on it gently just before they broke contact. Their eyes met, communicating on a level more comprehensive and subtle than speech.
Taking the soggy, fist sized sponge in his hand, Steve rubbed it gently over her body, making slow circles on her breasts. He had learned long ago to be mindful of snagging her piercings, so he avoided them. His large, powerful hand squeezed the sponge until only a tiny portion stuck out between his thumb and forefinger. Using it, he rubbed very gently along the tips of her nipples. Rougher than a tongue, but still softer than a finger, the touch made her swoon.
He turned his attention to her stomach. By the time he had finished swirling the soapy sponge around her tattooed belly, her skin was on fire. He felt the same way as his iron hard member found itself encircled by her wet fingers.
Steve leaned back against the corner of the shower and braced his long legs on the sides, using a sculpted section designed to hold bars of soap for traction. Autumn put one leg up on the edge of the tub, her toes thrusting beneath the curtain, and eased onto him. Her face was crossed first with an almost pained expression, before it vanished in a wide eyed stare. Steve stared into her shining brown eyes, her face almost impossibly beautiful in that moment. Moments of profound connection between them were what fueled their passion, wherever and in whatever context they occurred.
Steve gripped her under the knee, lifting her a bit in the air before allowing her to slide back down. Both of them gasped, and soon Autumn was working her hips rhythmically. His mobility was limited, as he had to support their combined weight, but the sensation of their wet, soapy bodies sliding all over each other was more than enough compensation. Autumn’s body lurched as she was wracked with spasms, and only Steve’s hand gripping her behind the lower back and holding her tight to his body kept her upright.
“Don’t set me down,” she said, gasping for breath, “my legs are like rubber…rubber, you beast!”
“Don’t blame me.” Steve shifted his grip to hold her more comfortably. “You did most of the work.”
Autumn gasped, eyes going wide as he slid deeper into her. She leaned her head against his shoulder, damp hair spreading over his skin.
“Mmm…I think you could almost let go of me with your arms and still hold me up.”
Their lips met once more, slowly exploring each other in the steamy air.