To Have and to Hate

by R.S. Grey

  His mouth is already moving down my body, over my collarbone, down across my chest and navel.

  Then he kisses lower, in the groove of my hip as he spreads my thighs apart.

  “Hold on to the counter,” he demands with a hot attitude.

  “I’m trying!”

  He’s too damn impatient to make sure I’m propped up right. I’m nearly tipping over the edge as his mouth descends between my parted thighs.

  My breath is stolen as he tugs my panties aside and tastes me with one long lick.

  I groan as one of my hands moves behind me to help support my weight on the counter. The other dives into his hair.

  My foot finds one of the counter stools and I’m only barely balancing—not that he cares!—as he continues.

  Pleas spill out of me with soft moans.

  I’m wholly unprepared for how to respond to having his mouth between my legs.

  He’s so good. Top notch, I tell him, and he chuckles before getting right back to it. He’s a man on a mission and I’m at his mercy.

  I move the hand that’s placed behind me and accidentally knock over my empty coffee cup. Walt doesn’t even flinch as his hand slides down my thigh, joining his mouth.

  I’m in pieces in a matter of minutes, shaking as Walt wrings every last drop of pleasure out of me. Then he stands and pushes down his boxer briefs, anxious and hot as he starts to pump his hand up and down his length.

  He tugs me toward the end of the counter, perfectly situated for him to press inside me. He nearly does before I pound on his shoulder.

  “Condom. Condom!” I tell him.

  He curses and runs from the kitchen.

  “Don’t fucking move!” he shouts back at me.

  “I’m not!” I assure him, laughing.

  He sprints down the hall and bumps into something, another curse spilling out of him, and then he’s back with the whole box of condoms, dumping them out onto the counter with impatience.

  “I’m going to put them everywhere. A box in every room,” he says, tearing one open and making me laugh.

  We have sex on the edge of his kitchen counter in a frenzy, like we don’t have the entire day together, like we’ll have to wait months after this.

  His mouth is in the crook of my neck. He has my body hauled up against his as he rolls his hips and thrusts into me. When he comes, I feel it in every part of me. His teeth sink into my shoulder. His hands dig into my hips. I’m so utterly spent. Exhausted. Wrung dry.

  We do manage to separate for a little while. He has work calls around 2:00, and I need to put some time in with my collection so I don’t fall behind.

  In the late evening, I’m still tucked away in the library, a little lost in my own world when he walks in carrying his laptop. I’m not surprised he’s wandered in. The room is cozy with the lights dimmed and the fire burning.

  “I have to focus for a little while longer, just to blend out this paint before it dries,” I tell him.

  “That’s fine. I won’t bother you.”

  He takes a seat in a comfy chair in the corner, crosses his ankle on top of his knee, and sets his laptop on his lap. “I need to work too,” he informs me with an arched brow.

  Right. I turn away from him and get back to focusing on my art. I lose track of time again as I blend, working carefully with paint, relieved when I start to see my vision come to life. At some point, my body takes notice of Walt’s attention as a shiver rolls down my spine.

  “You’re distracting me,” I tell him, not taking my eyes off my canvas.

  “I haven’t said a word.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  Another few minutes pass, and I’m no less distracted by him. I sigh and turn back to find his laptop closed and his arms crossed. He looks so perfectly content sitting there watching me, and it gives me an idea.

  “Have you ever posed for someone before?” I ask, setting my paintbrush back down on my palette.

  He makes a face like, You’re kidding me.

  “C’mon, you’re sitting there anyway,” I goad.

  “I wouldn’t make a good subject,” he argues.

  “Pfft.”

  How cute of him not to realize he’s basically been made for art. Every detail of his face begs to be celebrated with pencil and paper, and I’m happy to prove that to him if he needs me to.

  “Stay where you are,” I instruct, walking over to him. “But lose the laptop.”

  I reach for it before he can argue and set it down on the side table near his chair.

  “How long will this take?” he asks, watching me carefully as I back away from him.

  At first, I think he’s wondering because he’s impatient and doesn’t want to sit there for long, but then I catch his gaze down on my bare legs and realize he might actually have other plans in mind.

  “Not long,” I promise, walking back to get my sketchbook and charcoal pencils. “I prefer doing what’s called continuous line or contour drawing. It’s done pretty quick.”

  I set up a chair a few feet away from him and then sit down, opening my sketchbook to a fresh page.

  “You don’t pick your pencil up off your paper as you draw,” I explain, glancing up at him as I start to work. “So the drawing is essentially done with one long line.”

  “Why do it that way?”

  I shrug. “I appreciate the way it looks. Rather than a detailed drawing, you can sketch a silhouette quickly, concentrating on the most defining features of the subject.” My pencil drags across the paper. “You let your pencil travel just as your eyes move across your subject, moving slowly and allowing your pencil to feel all the details your eyes see.”

  “Should I stay perfectly still?” he asks.

  I smile and glance down at my sketchbook quickly before looking back up at him. “It doesn’t matter too much. As long as you stay in that chair. Will you look to the left just a bit?”

  “Like this?” he asks.

  I nod, catching a better view of his pronounced cheekbones.

  “And lift your chin a little.”

  My pencil draws, emphasizing the lines of his face. I scratch in his sooty black lashes and his defined eyebrows. Then my continuous line drags slowly down, mimicking the bridge of his nose and the soft curve of his upper lip.

  It doesn’t take me long to capture his quintessential features on the paper. There’s no shading work at all, no shadows or highlights, no minute details, and yet, I think anyone would look down at my sketchbook and immediately realize I’ve drawn Walt. That’s the beauty of this type of drawing.

  I push up off the chair and carry my sketchbook over to show him.

  I hold it out, and he chuckles with admiration. “Looks just like me.”

  I smile and he reaches out to grab my hips, tugging me down onto his lap. I let him, happy to fold my legs up against my chest and sit with him. He takes my sketchbook out of my hand and starts flipping through it. I moan and try to grab it back from him.

  “C’mon, you can’t! It’s like reading someone’s diary!”

  He doesn’t give it back to me though.

  He holds it out to the side so I can’t reach it and starts flipping through the pages.

  “These aren’t like my greatest hits or anything! It’s just stuff I do for fun! Like that, okay see, I was studying hands that day in the park and none of those sketches are particularly good.”

  “Elizabeth,” he says with a chiding tone.

  I finally give in, realizing my attempts to get my sketchbook away from him are going to be futile.

  “Fine. Get your fill. There are some of you in there, in the early pages.” I cover my eyes with my hand, rubbing my temples with my thumb and middle finger. “You’ll get to them eventually, so I might as well just tell you they’re there.”

  “Me?”

  “Don’t sound so surprised,” I groan, letting my head fall against his shoulder.

  “Show me,” he says, handing me back the sketchbook.

  I
do as he asks, flipping through different days until I find some sketches of him at the beginning. I don’t think they’re very impressive considering they were done from memory. Details are always lost when the subject isn’t directly in front of me. I explain that to Walt, but it’s almost like he doesn’t even hear me. He tilts the page and looks closer.

  Eventually, he asks, “Why’d you sketch me?”

  I shrug. “I don’t know…I’ve always found you compelling, ever since the day we got married.”

  “Compelling?”

  “Yes, even when you acted like an aloof jerk with all that ‘contact me only if there’s an emergency’ business.”

  I’m teasing, but he doesn’t laugh. He continues looking through the sketches, flipping between pages, almost as if he’s trying to read between the lines. I’m not sure what he’s hoping to find there. I didn’t imbue the paper with any secrets.

  He looks over at me as he closes my sketchbook and hands it back.

  “I admit this was an odd arrangement,” he points out. “Us getting married the way we did.”

  I nod. “Right.”

  “And to be frank, I’m still not sure what to make of it. Before this week, well…I could clearly define us in my head. Things made sense. We married for very specific reasons.”

  “Yes. Don’t worry—I haven’t forgotten the hefty contract I signed.”

  He takes my hand in his, lacing our fingers together.

  “But…things have obviously changed.”

  I watch him swallow, suddenly worried about what will happen to us.

  “Elizabeth! Walt!” A voice booms down the hall. “Do either of you ever answer your damn phones!?”

  Twenty-Five

  I nearly leap out of my skin when Matthew walks into the library, waving his phone in the air. Then he glances over, stops dead in his tracks, and slaps his free hand over his eyes.

  “Are y’all having sex?! Please, dear god, don’t tell me I just walked in on that.”

  “Relax,” Walt tells him.

  I try to scoot off Walt’s lap, but he tightens his hold on me.

  I shoot him a glare, and he relents, holding up his arms and letting me stand.

  Matthew’s fingers split over his eyes so he can peer through them. Once he sees me on my feet again, he drops his hand with a relieved sigh.

  “Phew.” He grins. “I would have needed a lot of therapy for that.”

  “What are you doing here?” Walt asks, not sounding all that pleased to see his brother.

  Matthew shrugs, unbothered by the cold greeting, and steps in to peruse the room and the changes Walt has made to it since I first moved in. “Just checking up on you guys. I haven’t heard from Elizabeth in a while, and I wanted to be sure you two were still alive.” Then he points at Walt. “And you, by the way, never respond to my texts.”

  “Because you’re nosy.”

  “Hey now, I was only asking questions on Elizabeth’s behalf. Be mad at her too.”

  Walt’s gaze shifts to me, and I smile innocently. Then, with a shrug, he casts off his brother’s demand.

  “Oh, I see,” Matthew says, pointing between us. “You two are a team now and I’m the one out on my own lonely island?”

  “I don’t know if I would call us a team,” I say.

  “We were just discussing that,” Walt adds, trying to get me to meet his eyes again. Instead, I take my sketchbook and walk over to tuck it back among all my supplies.

  Matthew laughs and strolls over to take a seat near Walt.

  “Any chance you’ll offer me a drink?” Matthew asks.

  “You have legs.”

  “Such hospitality. How do you do it?”

  I pipe up. “I’ll get you something. What do you want?”

  Matthew grins. “Whiskey. Neat, please.”

  “Walt?” I ask, on my way out of the room.

  He nods. “Sure. Thanks.”

  When I walk back into the library with their drinks in hand, they’re seemingly back to normal.

  “So what’s the deal? Are you two…?” Matthew tacks on a two-tone whistle as a euphemism for the question he wants to ask.

  Walt completely ignores him, opting to take a casual sip of his drink instead. Then Matthew looks to me and I try to affect the same unruffled appearance, but there’s no use. I fidget on my feet, look away, and blush like a ripe red tomato.

  Matthew laughs. “Right then. I guess that’s good considering you’re married and all. Wait.” His gaze flits between us. “How does that work? Dating while you’re already married must be super weird. How long do you guys have to keep up this charade anyway?”

  “Six months should be enough time to revoke the trust,” Walt responds casually.

  I flinch, completely taken aback.

  Six months? What is he talking about?

  In the legal documents his lawyers sent, there was no set timeline stipulated for our marriage. I took that to mean we would be married for life, or at least the life of the trust. Meaning, as long as there was money to be dispersed to the beneficiaries, Walt and I would be married. For better or worse as long as we both shall live.

  “Revoke it?” I ask, confused.

  “Yes,” Walt says with a firm nod. “I’ve been working with my lawyers and financial advisers, and we’ve come up with a solution that should work for everyone. The trust, as it stands, has strict parameters about when assets can be accessed—which is why you and I had to marry—but there is wiggle room in terms of revoking it now that I’ve been made the trustee. In normal circumstances, it would be impossible to revoke an irrevocable trust, as the name implies, but these are extraordinary circumstances, and it’s my belief that the trust no longer serves the purpose for which it was intended. Which is what we’ll argue in court.”

  All the fancy words don’t seem to make me any less worried.

  “Wouldn’t it take the unanimous consent of the beneficiaries to revoke the trust?” Matthew asks.

  Walt chuckles under his breath, looking down at his drink. “Not when the beneficiaries have proven to be of unsound mind.”

  “My parents?”

  His hard gaze meets mine, and I fight the urge to step back. “They’re addicts, Elizabeth, whether or not you choose to see it. They have an addiction to spending money they don’t have.”

  “So you’re cutting them off?”

  “No, I never said that. I’m creating a new trust, in essence. One I’ll have more control over.”

  “That way you two can divorce and go back to living a normal life,” Matthew adds.

  “Precisely,” Walt says.

  It’s that word—precisely—that seems to vibrate inside of me like a living thing I’ve just accidentally ingested. It fills my stomach, making it cramp with worry.

  “When the trust is revoked and dissolved, I’d also like to give you a lump sum, Elizabeth. An amount large enough that you would be able to purchase an apartment in the city outright rather than have to rent.”

  A divorce and a lump sum—the answer to all of his problems.

  I have no idea why I’m blinking back tears. All I know is I’m grateful I’m standing far enough away from him in the dimly lit library that he can’t tell how much this news is rocking my world.

  It seems these are revelations to me and nothing but idle chitchat for Walt, like he only bothered to say it now because Matthew asked about it. There’s no sense of urgency in his voice, no understanding of how intensely each of these statements could change my life.

  Matthew laughs and holds out his glass of whiskey to cheers with Walt. “I should have known you’d figure out a way to get yourself out of this mess sooner rather than later. Now, drink up, because I have another reason for why I stopped by.” He turns toward me. “I’ve been trying to get in touch with you guys because Nadiya wanted me to invite you to a show opening for an artist she represents. It’s tonight. Started maybe thirty minutes ago.”

  He’s looking at me, expecting a reply.r />
  I’m in a dense fog, too preoccupied with everything Walt just said, and I can barely muster a nod in response. Of course I want to go to the opening. It’s just the sort of thing I like to do normally.

  Matthew tips back the rest of his drink. “Good. Then let’s go.”

  I cringe down at my loungewear. “Give me ten minutes to throw on some decent clothes.”

  “I think you look fine,” Walt adds with a private smile.

  I can’t seem to return it before I hurry to my bedroom, already mentally running through my closet of clothes, gripping hold of that task and hoping it’ll tug me away from the conversation we just had in the library.

  Stein Gallery is located in Chelsea, right beside the High Line. I haven’t been to the gallery in ages, not since my first year at RISD when I came up to New York to see a collection as a class assignment.

  The space is two stories with black grid windows that span from sidewalk to roofline. The oversized industrial front door opens on an axis so that on nights like this, when the weather in New York is playing nice, it can remain open, mixing the indoors and outdoors. The place is packed, invited guests and press spilling out onto the street in front of the modern space.

  Walt, Matthew, and I stroll toward the entrance to find Nadiya talking in a group.

  Just like the first time I met her, I love her style. Tonight, she’s wearing a cerulean blue headscarf and matching lightweight shirt-dress that has a flattering empire waist. I’ve opted for a slim-fitting cashmere dress that falls mid-thigh. Normally, I wear it with tights, but since it’s warm out, my legs are bare between the hem of my dress and my boots.

  Nadiya sees us approaching and extracts herself from her group to greet us.

  “I’m so glad you guys could make it,” she says, leaning in and giving us each a hug and kiss on the cheek. “Go in and look around. There are drinks and food, if you all are hungry.” She reaches out to squeeze my hand. “I’ll bring Anya by in a few minutes so I can introduce you two. I think she’d be a good person for you to know.”