The Muse

by O'Brien, Meghan

  She turned to answer Erato but fell silent and stupid at the sight of her dressed only in a sheer white camisole and a pair of blue boy shorts. It took an embarrassingly long time to kick her brain back into gear, and even longer to tear her gaze away from Erato’s visibly erect nipples. She answered without taking any additional time to think. “Not stuck as much as drained. I’ve been going-going-going, and now that my characters are just as depressed as I am, I seem to have hit a wall.” As soon as she heard the words come out, she worried that Erato might use her confession as a reason to make her leave her post at the window—and maybe even spend the next few hours together. She hurried to add, “Well, not a wall, exactly, since I’m still moving.”

  “Maybe you should take a short break. We could go for a walk.”

  She doubted she could outrun Erato in a footrace, so even if the prospect of being outside was admittedly enticing, it would be foolish to accept the invitation. As long as she was with Erato, she couldn’t keep trying to make it to the farmers’ market in the next—she checked the time on her laptop as subtly as possible—two and a half hours. A walk would be a waste of precious time, as was every second she spent in Erato’s presence. Shaking her head, she said, “No, that’s okay. Honestly, I feel like I’m close to a breakthrough. Or something.” Trying not to cringe at her frantic backpedaling, which felt so transparent she was certain she’d just ruined everything, Kate managed a weak smile. She had to come up with a way to keep Erato busy, away from her, stat. “Maybe I’m just hungry?”

  She didn’t realize how brilliant a diversionary tactic she’d just unleashed until Erato lit up with excitement. “Of course! It is almost snack time, after all.” Clapping her hands together, Erato said, “Anything you want. Anything at all, I’ll prepare it for you.”

  After almost a week of celibacy, which once again felt foreign following their month of near-constant fucking, Kate couldn’t help but recognize the similarities between Erato’s food-related promise and the one she made at the beginning of their sexual relationship. As angry as Erato made her, and as much as she missed Olive, Kate would be lying if she claimed she didn’t miss sex with her muse. She did. It had been incredible: whatever she wanted, pretty much whenever she wanted it. And she knew—knew—that the wonders of Erato’s sexuality were all still available to her. She just had to ask.

  Kate realized two things simultaneously: despite her low mood, she was suddenly incredibly horny, and perhaps more startling, she was tempted to ask for the quickest of quickies. She didn’t know whether to blame biology or witchcraft, but either way, it was clear she’d allowed this interaction with Erato to go on for far too long. The thought sparked an idea.

  And it was good.

  Kate racked her brain for a meal request that would keep Erato in the kitchen for at least the next two hours. Erato usually cooked while listening to music through her headphones, and if she also had the distraction of a complex, fairly involved recipe to keep her busy, Kate might be able to devise a bolder escape plan. Not being much of a cook, she had a limited knowledge of foods requiring lengthy preparations. However, she did have a single, horrific memory of a childhood cooking class that involved a pile of flour, eggs, and the complete loss of her pride. “You know, I’m really craving lasagna. But with fresh, homemade pasta.”

  “No problem!” Erato gave her a sunny smile that made Kate think she should have thought bigger. Much bigger.

  “And could you make the pasta sauce from scratch, if you don’t mind? I hate the stuff from the jar.” When Erato’s expression failed to change, Kate added, “With fresh tomatoes? Not canned?”

  “Of course! How else would I do it?”

  Shit. She made it sound so easy, and it probably would be, for her. In a final effort to complicate the request, Kate asked, “Veggie lasagna? With little chunks of onion, three different colors of bell pepper—but mostly red—zucchini, and squash? Maybe even some mushrooms or spinach?”

  “Absolutely. Your wish is my command, darling.”

  Well, that was as complicated as she could make things without being totally obvious. But then another exciting thought occurred. “I hope I’m not forcing you into a trip to the grocery store. There’s a big game on TV today…it’ll probably be crowded.” At least she hoped it would be.

  “Actually, you’re in luck. I went to the grocery store last night after you fell asleep—the twenty-four-hour one, downtown—so I could restock your kitchen. I bought a whole bunch of fresh fruits and vegetables, replenished all the staples—sugar, flour, eggs, milk—and pretty much picked up whatever else I could think of to satisfy your every potential need.” Erato bounced a little, clearly pleased with her own foresight. “As it happens, I managed to get everything I need to make you the best lasagna you’ve ever had!”

  Kate covered her disappointment with an over-wide grin. “Wonderful.”

  Erato tiptoed closer to plant a quick kiss on top of her head, then practically skipped out of the room, closing the door behind her. Glad to finally be alone, Kate sighed. All she could do now was sit back, wait for Erato to get busy, and hope she’d bought herself an opportunity for escape. She wanted to wait at least fifteen minutes before she attempted to step away from her desk, just in case Erato suspected the ulterior motive behind her very specific culinary cravings and was currently waiting outside the door. She turned back to her laptop, but her eyes refused to take in the half-written paragraph in front of her.

  How could she possibly pay attention to her stupid book at a time like this? She had less than two and a half hours to formulate and execute an escape plan, find Olive at the farmers’ market, and beg for her understanding and forgiveness. And then what? She had no clue. Sneak back here like nothing had ever happened? Or return with Olive so they could confront Erato together?

  Glancing out the window, Kate groaned at the sight of the still-desolate sidewalk. She tried not to dwell on the twisting sensation in her stomach as she considered the possibility that Olive might not even be at the farmers’ market today, or if she was, that she might be unwilling to hear any apologies. Instead she fantasized about how it would feel to hold Olive again. If she’d known last weekend that their parting embrace might also be their final one, she would have tried harder to memorize every detail. As it was, she’d already lost her visceral hold on the intoxicating sweetness of Olive’s natural scent, the smoothness of her skin, and the absolute perfection of every line and curve of her miraculous body. Momentarily distracted from her mission of watchfulness, Kate closed her eyes to reminisce.

  Their hushed, hurried morning sex had been altogether transcendent in a way that Kate hadn’t fully appreciated at the time. Now that she’d had a week to examine her feelings for Olive, and to feel the pain of hurting her and the fear of losing her forever, she realized that last weekend was the first time the physical and emotional aspects of intimacy had truly come together for her the way it always did for her characters. She’d had amazing sex in the past, even genuinely tender sex with one ex-girlfriend, but last weekend was the first time she’d made love and actually felt it, as corny as that sounded.

  Kate opened her eyes to briefly check the window—nothing—and the time—only five minutes gone, not long enough to start sneaking around—then closed them again, defiantly plunging herself into a fantasy of being naked with Olive. Holding her. Caressing her breast, then sliding her hand down between those inviting thighs to find the wetness that always seemed to be waiting for her. Without really thinking about it, Kate traced a similar path down her own body, only catching herself when her fingertips brushed against her clit and she unleashed an involuntary whimper.

  It wasn’t just that she hadn’t been fucked in a week. She hadn’t even given herself an orgasm. Frankly, she hadn’t been in the mood. Given the current situation, she didn’t understand how she could be now, but between Erato’s sex magic and her thoughts of Olive, it was apparently possible. And since she had a few more minutes to pass…

/>   Only slightly sheepish about her ability to be aroused while rapidly running out of time to escape, Kate bit her lower lip and forced herself to come up with a fantasy that would get her off quickly. As a general rule, the dirtier and more deliciously depraved the scenario was, the faster she would come. Sad, but true. So she settled almost instinctively into a storyline that involved Olive reacting to her apology with a burst of furious passion. Rather than forgive her, she would lead Kate by the hand to somewhere out of sight but still close to the bustle of the farmers’ market, then “punish” her by pinning her against a tree and taking her roughly, all while whispering the most vile, depraved, shame-inducing words into her ear. A rush of wetness assured her that she was on the right track, so she added a spectator into the background—a man, for an extra dose of kink and depravity—who watched brazenly as Olive reduced her to a quivering mess. Then when she was done, she would drive Kate home so she could do it again, but this time she would force Erato to watch, and disciplinary spanking would be involved.

  Both relieved and disappointed to already be at the brink, Kate cracked an eyelid to check the time and nearly fell over backward in shock. The only neighbor with whom she was on a first-name basis—Chad, the flirtatious, admittedly attractive firefighter—strolled by on the sidewalk not far from her window, headed for the parking lot. Thankfully his back was to her, but Kate snatched her hand from her pants anyway, feeling caught. Then her brain engaged. This was it. Her chance. It didn’t matter that she was still wearing the camisole and pajama pants she’d slept in—stupid, she realized now—nor that she was poised on the verge of orgasm. Her only objective was to get to Olive.

  Even as she launched herself out of her chair and toward the office door, she realized that she’d managed yet another spectacular failure in the planning department. Last night, she’d tried to come up with a couple of reasons to explain why she needed to get to the farmers’ market quickly and quietly, without using her own truck that was clearly sitting in the parking lot, but she hadn’t settled on anything specific and definitely hadn’t rehearsed a story. There was an extremely high likelihood that she was about to thoroughly embarrass herself in front of a man with whom she’d only traded occasional pleasantries. Not exactly her preferred way to spend a Saturday, but…

  “Shit.” The muttered curse slipped out when she tried to open the closed office door and found it stuck. Or locked. Or blocked. Or something, except she wasn’t sure what, since she knew of no way to actually secure the door from the outside. But somehow, naturally, Erato had managed to seal her in. Why was she even surprised?

  Yet she was. Surprised, and wholly unprepared to improvise. Now she had no shoes—only her slippers—and no purse, which meant no money for the taxi she’d planned to ask Chad to call. Still, she had only about two hours before Olive would be lost to her for another week, so this was no time to worry about trivialities. Right now her most important problem was how to get out of the apartment. She could come up with only one possible answer. She dashed over to unlock the window, grunting as she wrenched the bottom half open with considerable effort.

  Now only the window screen stood between her and the outside world. The stupid, flimsy, bafflingly impassable screen.

  Kate stood and stared for what felt like five minutes, horrified that she wasn’t exactly sure how to pop the screen free from the window so she could climb out. Meanwhile, Chad’s broad figure had just disappeared from view, presumably into the parking lot. “Wait!” Kate shouted after him, then immediately cringed. He couldn’t hear her now, but Erato sure as hell might.

  Even if she’d lost her chance to flag him down, she still needed to figure out how to remove the screen. A parade of one hundred people could pass by and do her no good at all if she couldn’t leave the room. Unless one of them could tell her how to take out the screen, that was. That brilliant thought triggered a flash of hope when she realized the answer to her problem was only a web search away. Then she remembered her lack of Internet access. The fate of this entire endeavor rested on her own ingenuity.

  Fantastic.

  “Okay.” She forced herself to calm down and focus. It didn’t take long to locate two metal tabs on the bottom of the screen, which she assumed must be important. She pushed them in, then yanked up on both tabs. A jolt of excitement ran through her when the screen nearly dislodged, signaling that she was on the right track. She jiggled the frame back and forth as she continued to push up on the tabs, until suddenly, thrillingly, the screen came free and tipped precariously forward. Afraid of making a commotion, she held her breath as she fought to keep her grip on the tilting screen, then eased the awkward object inside the room as quietly as possible with her shaking hands and racing heart.

  Once she had the screen tucked safely between her desk and the wall, she considered how to climb out of the window without injuring herself. Her desk partially blocked the opening, which meant she had to either shove aside the heavy piece of wooden furniture or move her laptop so she could crawl over her work surface instead. All too aware of the seconds ticking by, she decided to take the faster, easier route. She moved her laptop onto her printer, then scrambled onto the desk to perch at the edge of the open window. Despite the need to hurry, she paused to survey the relatively short distance to the ground, experiencing a healthy dose of trepidation.

  Luckily, her office was located on the first floor, so this type of exit was totally doable, although she was facing a nearly six-foot drop. But she had no good place to land. Just below her window lurked a scarily overgrown bush full of sharp branches—probably bugs and itchy stuff, too. Despite her fear, she was totally committed, particularly because she wasn’t certain she could get that screen back into place without a real struggle. If she was going to get into trouble, she might as well go all out. Besides, this was important. This was for Olive.

  She intended to lower herself from the window slippered feet first, holding the sill with both hands until she felt confident enough to let go. Maybe she could even swing herself out and avoid the bush altogether. But like so many of her plans, this one fell apart almost as soon as she attempted to put it into action.

  As she shifted her weight to lower her second leg out over the edge, her slipper caught on something just long enough to disrupt her center of gravity. Her upper body pitched forward wildly, leaving her helpless to prevent her subsequent face-first tumble out of the window. Time slowed so she seemed to fall forever. The blue sky disappeared in a rush, replaced by the green of the fast-approaching bush that waited to swallow her up.

  And then her forward momentum stopped, leaving her suspended upside-down.

  Dangling precariously by one foot—which was still slippered, and still inexplicably stuck on her desk—Kate tried to figure out her next move. She really didn’t want to lose that slipper to the office, as she couldn’t exactly go to the farmers’ market in pajamas and only one slipper, because…that would be too much? She would have laughed if her chest wasn’t starting to hurt and if the flow of blood to her head wasn’t making her so dizzy. Unsure what she would do even if she reached it, Kate swung one hand up wildly, scrabbling to grip the windowsill effectively feet away and obscured behind her hip. She definitely wasn’t able to pull off such a dexterous move.

  Then her stubborn slipper came loose, falling uselessly off her foot to send her crashing down into a very uncomfortable piece of foliage. Kate was grateful she’d covered her face with her arms and closed her eyes as she landed, so her only serious injury was to her already-flagging pride. As she lay there stunned and unable to move, legs sticking out haphazardly from the shrubbery, she sent a silent thank-you to the universe that her kitchen window was on the opposite side of the building. Hopefully Erato hadn’t heard her.

  “Jesus, Kate, are you all right?”

  The genuine concern in the deep, masculine voice—which came from somewhere above her—unleashed a wave of embarrassment that instantly heated her face. Great. Now she was bright red as
well as disheveled. Too humiliated to move, she silently cataloged the visible damage: her camisole had ridden up to expose her stomach (and maybe more), and her hair was caught in the dense, tangled brush, no doubt completely disarrayed. One of her feet was bare. Worst of all, she could feel the wet spot she’d created on the crotch of her panties, shameful evidence of her decision to masturbate instead of staying alert. She couldn’t tell if her arousal had soaked through her pajama pants to create a visible stain, but wouldn’t that just be her luck?

  Mortified didn’t even begin to describe her state of mind. Still, she managed to respond. “I’m fine!”

  Strong hands grabbed her by the upper arms and lifted her out of the bush, causing her perspective to shift wildly once again, until finally Chad set her back on her feet and all she could see were his piercing blue eyes staring at her in confusion.

  “What’s going on?” His gaze flicked to the office window behind her. A hero by trade, it was unsurprising that he’d be all business. “Is there a fire?”

  “No!” Kate said a little too loudly. She lowered her voice and straightened her clothing. “Nothing like that.” She paused, not yet sure what alternative explanation to offer. “Thanks for the assist.”

  “Of course.” Chad’s eyes narrowed as he took in her disordered state. “Not an intruder, I hope. Are you hurt?”

  Only her ego. She managed to smile as she plucked a clump of leaves out of her hair. “Just embarrassed. I know I must look pretty crazy right now…”