by Jade West
He did nothing of the sort, just smiled and held up his keys. “I’ll drop you home.”
***
“How can you be grounded at eighteen years old?” I could hear the scorn in Lizzie’s voice down the line. I could hear Ray’s voice in the background, too. Shouting about something, shouting about someone. I heard Lizzie slam her bedroom door and let out a groan.
“I’m not grounded… Dad’s just… pissed. Says I need to knuckle down and study rather than treating life like one big party.”
“As if you ever party.”
“I just don’t want him to get arsy… it might make it awkward for me to go every day. And it’s my last time… and…”
“And I get it.” I could almost hear the eye roll. “So, that’s it? I’m banned am I?”
“No!” I said. “Of course not. It’s just… difficult this week. Just for a few days, while I’m painting the set. I need to be seen to be taking my exams seriously in the evenings.” I felt shit about it, but Dad had looked grumpy as hell when I’d rolled in late. Grumpy enough to relieve Brittainy’s mum of babysitting duties if I didn’t pull my arse back into line. “More time with Scottie, hey? Surely that’s a good thing…”
“Just as well, isn’t it?”
“Sorry, Lizzie.”
She tutted at me. “You’d better be. You’ll have to make it up, I’m thinking sleepovers galore over Christmas, just the two of us, hanging out like old times.”
“Wouldn’t miss that for the world.” I smiled. “You’re the best.”
“So, was it worth it? Did Rampant Roberts touch your tits again?”
I slumped onto my bed, keeping an ear out for movement outside. “No, he didn’t.”
“You wore the turquoise, right?”
“Yes, I wore the turquoise. And the stupid frilly undies.”
“Shit, maybe he is gay,” she laughed. “Maybe the grope really was a one-off.”
“You think so?” My stomach lurched.
“Of course not. There’s no way it was a one-off.” More voices sounded in the background. Her mum this time, yelling, and then more doors slamming. “What are you wearing tomorrow? You’ll have to up your game, I told you heels were the way.”
My throat turned dry, and I didn’t know why. It was just Lizzie, hardly a judging panel. “I’m, um… I’m just going to wear my normal clothes tomorrow.”
“Your normal clothes? Why would you do that?” she said. “Have you lost your mind?”
“No, I just…” I sighed. “I just want to be me.”
“You are you. Just you in hotter clothes.”
“But maybe I don’t want to be hotter. Maybe I want to be real, I want him to want me for me, not because I’m dressed up all fancy.”
“He will! They’re just props, Hels!”
“No, he won’t, you don’t understand.” I took a breath. “His wife died.”
I heard the bed springs creak under her. “Whoa… what?”
“He had a wife and he loved her and she died. And he’s so broken, Lizzie. It’s so tragic, and beautiful. A slutty skirt isn’t going to make any impression whatsoever… he’s… he’s deeper than that…”
“No wonder he didn’t grope your titties. What a passion killer…” she giggled, but it wasn’t funny. “But what’s all that got to do with your little thing? Was it an excuse? That’s the ultimate get out of jail card… ultimate heartbreak, I’m just not ready…”
“It wasn’t anything like that. It was real, and sad, and beautiful, and I touched his hand and he called me his friend…”
“But no titty touching? Not even a bit?”
I rolled my eyes, even though she couldn’t see me. “No.”
“You want titty touching you have to put them in their best light, that’s all I’m saying…”
“I’ll take the risk.”
“Fine, Hels, just don’t say I didn’t warn you.” She covered the handset while she yelled at someone, then came back on the line. “It’s like a pissing war zone in here tonight.”
“Sorry, I feel bad you’re not here.”
“I’ll survive,” she sighed. “Anyway, I’m all ears. I think it’s about time you told me all about the deceased Mrs Roberts, Helen Palmer. Don’t hold back on the detail, I want everything.”
I felt so much better the next day. Boring flat pumps sat so much more comfortably on my feet, and I’d opted for my art shirt; loose, soft, faded pink cotton with hippy-style thread work. I wore it with my faded jeans and a crocheted cream cardigan, and I looked like me. Weird, geeky Helen and her slightly eccentric clothes. I didn’t bother with makeup, and what would have been the point, anyway?
Mr Roberts wanted to talk to me, not grope me. We shared art, not sex. And although it pained to think there was a chance he would never touch me again, I’d have given anything just to sit with him some more and talk the hours away. Maybe that would be enough.
I was kidding myself and I knew it the moment I set foot in the hall.
He took my breath away.
His smile was warm, and his eyes were bright, and we painted and we talked and we laughed, and the kids laughed, too. And it was fun. It was loads of fun. I fluttered, and prickled, and had butterflies whenever he’d walk close to me. My face would burn, all the time, whenever I caught his eyes, and that would be often since I’d catch him looking all the time. Even more than me. Maybe even more than good friends looked at each other, but I didn’t want to hope too much.
It was good, and happy, and fun. So much fun my stomach fell through the floor when it was time to leave.
“Do you have somewhere to be?” he asked, and today it sounded like the most natural thing in the world.
“Unfortunately, yes.” I shrugged my shoulders. “Dad thinks I need to study. I’ve exceeded my fun quota already for this holiday.”
He smiled a little. “Already? That’s a real shame.”
I gathered up my bag. “Got exams, he says, got to get my head out of the clouds, he says.”
“I’m sure he just cares.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not a baby.”
“You’re his baby.” His tone was deep and calm and so mature. “He wants to see you do well, that’s only natural, Helen. It’s a big year for you.”
“It doesn’t mean he has to put me on an evening curfew just so I‘m allowed to paint some scenery in the holidays.”
He led the way out and got the lights as we passed. I waited while he locked up and tried the doors behind us.
“If you can’t paint, I understand. Don’t put yourself under pressure.”
“I’m not,” I said. “I want to be here…” I wrapped my scarf around my neck for the walk home, and suddenly he was right beside me, he pulled a tangle of hair free from my collar, and smoothed it flat with his fingertips. And I couldn’t breathe. He stole my air. Breathed me in until I was just a wisp on the wind. “…with you. I want to help…” I’d checked out the canvases before we’d left, and for all our best intentions we were way behind schedule. This was the job of ten people, not a handful of kids.
“I appreciate that.” He was standing so close to me, blocking my view of the way home, like a barricade, as though every part of his body wanted me to stay, even if his mind didn’t know it. He looked through me, like he could see the boring white bra through my clothes, and I felt self-conscious, like a little kid again.
“I… um… I have to go.”
He smiled and sidestepped. “Sorry, Helen, I was a million miles away. Of course.”
“Goodnight, Mr Roberts.”
“Yes, Helen, I hope so. Enjoy your studying.” He reached for my arm as I passed by, and it startled me enough that I gasped. “I enjoyed yesterday. I haven’t talked, not for a long time. It felt good.”
“That’s ok…” I said. “I enjoyed it, too…”
“I just wanted to say thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
I didn’t move and he didn’t let go, and if my phone hadn’t bleeped wi
th another Dad prompter we’d have probably stayed there forever.
But my phone did bleep, and I was already late again.
He let go of me, and I hurried away before I lost every tenuous scrap of willpower I had left in my body.
***
Mark
Her hair blew in the breeze — catching on the wind like a feather halo — and it was beautiful. I watched her leave, and she dithered at the gates, her dainty little feet dancing along the path in sweet black ballet pumps. My little Helen, so graceful and kind. A sweet soul in a sweet body, and I wanted to taste all of her. It was all I could do to let her walk away.
Her nerves were intoxicating, her wispy breath teasing my face whenever I passed too close. It would have been so easy to kiss her. I could have sent the kids home and pulled her close and touched my lips to hers, and loved her. I could have loved her.
I could have made love to Helen Palmer the way I’d made love to Anna.
And then I’d have taken her all over again, and this time it would have been different.
What I’d give to see the darkness inside her; those deep, dark urges that stir the muse and give it life.
I tried to rein it in, returning to my car only when she was long out of sight. I drove home quickly and stoked up the fire. Poking and prodding until it was crackling and hissing and spitting flames at me.
And then I painted. I painted long and hard, as though I could bleed Helen Palmer out of my veins through my paintbrush. My painting was dark and edgy, a dark blur of colour against the flicker of the flames in the grate. Her legs were spread in invitation, and her eyes were wide and innocent. Her skirt hitched up her thighs to reveal just the softest pair of plain white panties. And she was wet. Her tiny nipples poked through the thin fabric of her blouse, and around them I painted my fingers, gripping at her, teasing her, coaxing those sweet little breasts to life under my touch.
My mouth watered at the memory of her taste, and I was hard. My cock strained and thumped and it hurt.
It hurt to need a woman I should never have.
Anna’s face stared out at me from the mantelpiece and today, for the very first time — the only time since I’d met her a lifetime ago — I felt the urge to turn her away.
Mark
I could feel my grip on reality slipping away, bleeding out slowly through every hour I spent in the same room as Helen Palmer. The days danced by in a blur of paint and laughter, and on the third day we started up the radio, blaring out a cacophony of chart music that roused the youngsters to new heights of productivity. The set took on life, vibrant gold temple scenes, and a dusty market, and mock drapes in purples and ocean blues, and my beautiful student came alive too, right before my eyes. Responsibility suited her, she bloomed with the thrill of command, coaxing those who looked up to her for guidance with both grace and skill.
I watched her confidence blossom. Her shoulders rose higher, her chin up, her eyes sparkling as she toiled away the hours.
And she reminded me of the love I’d lost. Helen was unlike Anna in more ways than I could ever articulate, but in others she was a perfect match. Her talent, her dedication, her drive, her intuition.
Her compassion.
The look in her eyes had softened, and I saw less of her raging teenage hormones. They’d been replaced by something much more hypnotic. Call it maturity, or call it pure old-fashioned affection, I’m not quite sure. But I loved it. I loved her for it.
I found myself pondering the world in ways that I shouldn’t. Considering the practicalities of a life with Helen at my side, in some far distant future, when she was a woman with university behind her, and I was just a man, not her teacher. But she was so young, with her whole life stretching out in front of her, and I was reaching the middle of mine. I’d be growing old as she discovered life’s endless possibilities, hooking up with men much younger than me who’d steal her heart from under me, just so long as she’d let me go.
I did everything I could to believe that was ok.
She deserved the very best, and that best could never be here, in this town, with a man like me.
She touched her hand to my back and leaned in close. “Kids are wrapping up soon, we’ll never get the final scene set finished on time.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll cover it, we’ve achieved great things here.”
“I’ll help,” she said. “I don’t mind.”
I smiled. “I think your parents might have something to say about that, Helen. Don’t get yourself in trouble.”
She pulled a face. “It’s the last day, what are they going to do?” She dug around in her pocket. “I’ll text Mum, tell her I’m going to be late.”
“And that will be enough?”
She finished thumbing in the letters and pressed send with a smirk. “It’ll have to be,” she grinned, then pressed the off button. “I’m out of signal.”
I couldn’t help but smile back.
We stood and contemplated the final canvas; nothing but a vast expanse of white space, pregnant with potential. She looked at me and I looked back, and there was such excitement in her eyes at the prospect.
“Together?” she asked. “We could work on it in tandem, see where the muse takes us.”
I pondered it. “Without planning? Just ad-lib?”
“Free.” She smiled. “We’ll be free. Let’s see what happens.”
“I like that.”
“I’ll take the right side,” she said and grabbed up a paintbrush.
The final scene was a mountain range under the stars, with the golds of the desert rich but murky in the foreground. We ignored the faint pencil lines, discarding the brainstorm from earlier in the week altogether. This would be our work, the culmination of our week in perfect brilliance, embodied in paint for the year to come. I went to the radio and switched it to CD, firing up a soundtrack that changed the mood in the hall completely. Brooding instrumentals, with a woman’s soulful wail, void of words capable of interpretation but that didn’t matter. The music was alive.
Helen’s body moved to it, her brush strokes matching both tempo and emotion. Her brush marks became ragged and raw, and so did mine, and the work consumed me, consumed both of us, until we were moving as one joined visionary. It had been a long time since I’d worked in sync with another, but Helen made it easy. I could sense her movements before she made them, feel the natural flow of her brush, of her colours, of her body. I’d paint over her strokes and she’d paint over mine, but we never clashed, not once.
The canvas was alive, the scenery blurred and fluid in its brilliance. The sky was twinkling with stars, yet it was heavy with the promise of the new dawn, and the world outside our real life windows darkened to orange and red and finally to dull twilight blue, but it made no difference, we were in that timeless space, where everything loses meaning, just she and I.
We finished the final strokes with a flourish and Helen was out of breath.
“Phew,” she said. “That was intense… like really intense…”
I took a step back, and the result was spectacular. “We make a good team.”
She beamed from ear to ear. “Yes. We really, really do. That was amazing.”
My jeans were splattered with paint, a smear of violet streaking down my thigh from the explosive brushwork, but it mattered not. I was smiling. Happy.
I felt so alive.
“I love it,” she said. “I really love it.”
She turned to me and she was a beautiful mess. Her hair was wild and flyaway, and her cheeks were flushed. Her old pink t-shirt was stippled with gold and red, and there was a smear of green across her top lip. I smiled at her.
“What?” she said, then patted her face. “Am I dirty?”
“Just a little.”
She wiped her face on her sleeve but it did nothing. “Better?”
I shook my head. “No.”
She looked me up and down, gave me a little giggle. “You’re not looking so pristine yourself, Mr Roberts.”
/>
“A small price to pay for art.” I took a step towards her and saw her breath hitch. She was close, and her eyes widened as I tilted her face up to mine. “Here,” I said, “Let me.”
There was a flash of surprise across her face as I dipped my thumb in my mouth, and her lips parted as I ran it across the dry paint. She closed her eyes, and my thumb brushed her mouth, and there was no paint left to clean, but I kept cleaning it anyway, kept moving my thumb back and forth across her soft lips. My stomach tightened and knotted, and I felt heady.
Helen opened her eyes slowly, and blinked at me, and her eyes were hooded and heavy, her lashes fluttering. She moved her head, just a fraction, her eyes on me as she opened her mouth to meet my thumb. She gasped, and I felt her breath before she sucked my thumb between her lips.
I swallowed and it was dry. And I was spinning. Buckling.
“Helen…”
She kept her eyes on mine as her tongue fluttered around my thumb, and it was so delicate, so soft.
“Helen… I…”
Her fingers gripped my wrist, held my hand in position, and her teeth tightened, nipped me gently.
I pushed my thumb in deeper and she gave a delicious little shudder, and I felt her, pressed my thumb against her tongue. I wrapped a hand around her neck and held her there. Her mouth was so warm, so soft, and she made sweet little suckling noises that set me on fire. The Helen I’d known as a girl fell away from me, and there was another creature in her stead. A creature from the waters, who called me and coaxed me and demanded my soul.
She moaned as I pulled my thumb away, and was still moaning as I pressed my mouth to hers. She was ready this time, opening herself up for me and chasing my tongue with hers. I ran my hands down her body, gripped at her breasts with needy hands, and there was no wad of fabric under her shirt this time, just her, just flesh, and the hard little nubs of her nipples. She reached out for me and her fingers tangled in my hair, and she breathed and moaned for more. My hands slipped under her t-shirt, sought out her skin, and my fingers found the dainty curves of her, squeezed her until she gasped against my lips.