White gauze curtains swayed in the cool, night breeze. She lay there watching them from her pile of pillows, bundled beneath a hand-sewn quilt, her mind turning with lust. “Where are you?” she asked the night, wondering if Val slept somewhere nearby. Some inner sense of what he was suggested to her that he lay curled in a pile of dried hay, his mouth ajar, his shirt tossed away. What would it feel like to touch the muscles that stretch across his chest? She closed her eyes and imagined crawling toward him, trying to unzip his fly with her teeth, slipping her tongue beneath his boxers, if he wore any underwear at all.
Sleep took hold of her with strong arms as the dream worked its way further. She crouched in the hay, naked before him and wrenched his jeans partway down. He slept; she looked up to confirm it. Those thick lashes held back his piercing, shifting eyes. His tempting mouth twitched as she licked the hot skin beneath his navel. She stared at him, hungry for more, anxious to seek out every soft taste of him. His cock came to life, questing for her lips. Abra giggled in her dream, a twittering, lecherous sound that echoed in her bedroom. Her lips sought his dick, slipping all around its engorged head. Tasting the dribble of precum there, she moaned with delight. She glanced up, unwilling to release him from her mouth.
Still asleep, his eyes moved beneath his eyelids as he dreamed.
With her right hand, she cupped his balls, rolling them between her fingers. His cock jumped, and she sucked the head into her mouth with more force.
A horn blared in the distance. Abra sucked harder. It sounded over and over until she opened her eyes, the taste of man lingering on her tongue. She growled at the bright sunlight shining through the motionless gauze curtains.
“What time is it?” She shifted onto her side and stared at the digital radio clock. 12:01 p.m. “Holy shit. Doesn’t feel like I slept more than an hour.”
The car horn beeped to the tune of Yankee Doodle.
“Who the hell is that?” She lumbered off the bed, poked her head out the window and frowned. “Oh. It’s him.”
Val hung his head out the side of an ancient pickup truck, his gaze searching, then settling right on her. He waved once, a decidedly masculine sweeping arc and called across the yard, “Got anymore lemonade?”
Abra licked her lips, hungry for him. “Yeah. Come on up to the porch!”
The truck’s rumbling engine died with a stuttering moan. Val opened his door, its hinges creaking, and he stepped out onto the grass. Abra studied him as he strode across the yard. He walked with purpose, his head high, his shoulders back and his arms swaying slightly. He wore black jeans today and another white t-shirt. He stepped around the corner of the porch, out of view. His boots thumped as he crossed the boards.
The taste of him lingered in her mouth. She wanted more, much more than just the dream. Abra pulled on a bra, found a tank top dress and hurried to pull it over her head. She glanced at the open drawer where her panties waited in neat, silken piles. “Don’t need those,” she whispered. “Not for what I have in mind.”
She left the bedroom, crossed the hall, and stopped in the studio. The angels looked wrong, as if the light had drained from their features. Their wings appeared to be missing feathers and their eyes, which she distinctly remembered painting gold and green, all looked gray, washed out and listless. In the center of the room, the obsidian demon she’d painted in the middle of the night watched her with his red pupils. His wings arced at both sides of his body in a proud way. His penis stood at attention, his balls hanging below, almost as low as a Brahma bull’s. Above his genitals, his abdomen rippled with muscles and his chest seemed made for a superhero, impossibly broad.
“Abra?”
She realized Val had let himself in. His boots clunked in the kitchen and the hall. Soon, she felt him standing just behind her. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up, and her forearms prickled with goose pimples. She caught her breath and turned to face him. He stood too close for someone who really didn’t know her. His jet-black hair lay feathered back, damp from bathing. The scent of Irish Spring soap drifted from his skin. She wanted to lean up and kiss him.
“You like to read a lot?” he asked.
“Huh?”
He nodded toward an open bedroom door, her parents’ old room. She’d turned it into her study soon after moving in. Stacks of books hid the top of the coffee table. More lay strewn on the floor where she’d tossed them after finishing. A pile of magazines reached to the top of the beige couch cushions. “Yeah, sometimes.”
“I don’t know how you can stand to stay here all alone.” He grinned his sideways grin. “You must be a strong woman.” He reached out, swept a thick bunch of hair from her face, and set it behind her ear. Without a word, he leaned close, his cheek running alongside hers for what seemed an eternity of a moment. He breathed deep, his chest touching her breasts. “You smell good.”
“Thanks.” She breathed out, then inhaled the intoxicating masculine flavor of his skin beneath the soap and contemplated reaching for his—
He stepped away.
She couldn’t catch her breath. A pulse of sexual arousal choked her, pressing every inch of her body into submission. Her face flushed with heat; her pussy moistened in anticipation and her nipples reached for him. They poked through the thin, blue cotton of her dress, and she knew he noticed.
Those mysterious eyes locked on her chest. His grin melted away. “Is something wrong?”
“No, no.” Abra swept a hand through her hair, glanced at the painting, and gathered her calm. “I just overslept is all. You…startled me.”
“It’s noon.” His eyebrows rose in apparent confusion.
“I know. You want some lemonade?”
“Sure.” He stepped aside so she could pass. As she did, Val grabbed her ass. Her heart skipped. When she looked over her shoulder though, he stood a step away from the painting of the demon.
He couldn’t have touched me and moved across the room so fast. Shaking her head, Abra went to the kitchen to poor their drinks, dismissing the sensation as a figment of her horny, overactive imagination. “You hungry?” she called.
“Yeah. Maybe. Depends on what you’re offering.”
The dream flashed through her mind, only in this instance, as she sucked him and glanced up, his eyes were wide, his lips pressed in an intense way as he studied her.
“Mm. This one’s real good.”
His voice startled her from her imaginings. “The demon?” She carried the green glasses to the study, ice clinking together within. He’d moved inches from the painting, leaning forward to stare into the demon’s eyes.
“Yeah. Excellent detail.” He straightened and glanced around the room at the other paintings as he turned. “These angels though, they’re…missing something.” Val nodded.
“Everyone’s a critic.” She held out a glass.
He snatched it in one hand and brought it to his lips. As he drank, his gaze shifted to her breasts again. The feel of fingers groping them made her jump. I’m imagining things. Didn’t sleep enough, that’s all it is. But she’d gone to bed at two at least. That was ten hours ago. Ten hours. Maybe I’m sick.
Half his drink remained when he lowered the glass. “I think you should paint over them. No sense wasting the canvas.”
Abra snorted. “Shows what you know. What are you, a migrant worker? Think you know about art?”
One black eyebrow rose over his curiously gold-green eye. He didn’t balk at her insult, only smirked.
“My angels sell for thousands.” She raised her glass at one, an Asian nude with purple wings. “He’s already promised to a man in Paris. And him.” She tipped her head at the angel with the afro, gold wings curled over his chocolate colored skin. “He’s been promised a place at the Whitney Museum in New York.”
Val seemed unimpressed. He drank his lemonade; he waited for her to say something more. It irked her. She wanted him to be awed with her talent, with her.
Abra studied his hips, imaging him naked and hammeri
ng against her ass. She liked to think she enjoyed sex as much as most independent art freaks, but something about this guy screamed at her eroticism. She wanted him, craved him. Every turn of his gaze, every hard muscle in his body begged for her attention. Abra felt an epiphany coming on, one she never thought to have. I need him.
She took a step back, then another, until her ass bumped into the wood that rimmed the entry. Drinking the lemonade nervously, she tried to turn that desperate need off. Ridiculous. I don’t need anyone. I never have, and I never will. A phantom touch crept along her inner thighs. She shivered.
Val gazed at her with a knowing stare. He sipped the last of his drink, the fingers on his left hand thrumming against his leg.
The ghostly touch sought the wetness of her womanhood, slipping, teasing, then in an unexpected rush, forcing their way inside. Abra looked down, unsure of what she expected to see. No one knelt before her. The skirt of her dress hugged her legs with soft cotton.
“Something wrong?”
She reached down and smoothed her skirt. The sensation vanished. She regretted questioning its presence. Those fingers felt damn good. “N—no.” She sipped at her lemonade. “How long will you be in town?”
Val strode across the distance that separated them. He stopped before her, bending to take in a ravenous breath. Abra leaned into his heat. Beyond his soapy fragrance, she could taste him, the sweet, salty musk of a man, just as it tasted in her dream. “I’ll be here as long as it takes,” he replied.
“Takes for what?”
“To get the job done.”
She nodded.
He ran his lips across her cheek, sliding them to her earlobe, then he vanished.
Abra’s scream caught in her throat. Soon after, his glass hit the linoleum, shooting green shards and ice cubes in every direction.
The clock chimed once.
Afraid to move, she stood there for a long while. “I should have put shoes on.” That seemed logical, but her thoughts did not. He disappeared. He was here one second and the next he was gone. Poof! What is this? Some kind of black magic? Gathering her courage, she knelt and collected the larger pieces of broken glass into a pile. Abra half jumped into the study, setting her glass on the floor. The corn broom and purple plastic dustpan stood near her table of pastels. She often used them to sweep up the dust from the chalks and those annoying beads of crayon-like bumps the oil pastels made. She snatched the broom up and swept the remainder into the jagged mess.
“Shoes,” she reminded herself. It wouldn’t do to step on one of those sharp edges.
Her sandals were in the study. Abra rushed into that room and stopped, staring down with a dizzy feeling. He vanished. How can that be? She changed her mind about cleaning. “There’s no one here but me. Who really cares?” The thought felt forced. She’d always minded before, always kept the house clean.
A few unpacked boxes were pushed to the side of the couch and one she recognized. The thought of crushing her dildo between her legs appealed to her. She glanced at the couch, frowned, and opted to sit down to reason out what had happened.
The beige cushions warmed up after what seemed only a few minutes. Abra stared at the grandfather clock by the bookshelf and did a double take. “It’s two?” She leaned to one side and let her head fall against the armrest. Curling her legs up, she kicked the magazines onto the floor in short bursts.
From the easels, four of her angels watched. They looked washed out, like bad watercolor renderings by a first time student of the craft. “Must be the light,” she muttered as she studied them. Abra felt tired, drained.
“Maybe I imagined him,” she told the angels from their easel perches. A triangle of glass on the floor caught the ray of sunlight beaming through the window in the studio and glittered at her. No. He was real. I wasn’t holding that glass. I didn’t drop it.
She turned her gaze on her box of sex toys, the packing tape still sealing them off from use. It’d be nice to have a real man. More than six months had passed since that skinny Italian guy at the last show. “And he was too fast. Men are so impatient, only care about getting themselves off.” Determined, but feeling lazy, she hiked up her skirt and stared at the curls of hair that mounded over her pussy.
The clock chimed four times. Lacking enthusiasm, she spread her legs wide, closed her eyes, and threaded her fingers together behind the back of her head. Heat spread across her feet, reaching around her ankles. Invisible lips pressed against the soft flesh behind her left knee. She sighed at the caress. A wet, questing tongue tickled its way from there, along the tender skin of her inner thigh. With its hot tip, the tongue parted her labia. Abra fought the desire to squirm. The unseen intruder lapped at her moistness in excruciating, long draws. Her legs trembled each time. Teeth pinched her clit, tugging it for a startling instant. The unexpected shock of tender pain felt good, something she’d not experienced before.
“Harder,” she begged. “Do it harder.”
The incubus halted.
Her body shuddering for climax, she opened her eyes and looked down. “Why did you leave?” she cried out, frustrated.
No one answered. The clock chimed five times and she realized she’d missed breakfast and lunch. Her stomach grumbled, and her clit shouted for attention.
Abra rolled off the couch, shot the seven painted angels an acid-filled stare and stepped around the pile of broken glass to the small kitchen. The basket of bananas on the counter appealed to her in a way they never had before. “Damn, I need a man.” As soon as the words slipped out, she shook her head, countering the statement.
She opened the fridge and gaped at its contents. “I don’t need anyone but me.”
“Yes. You like being alone, don’t you?”
It was Val’s voice in her thoughts, deep, alluring and simmering with sordid secrets, the promise of fulfillment, of companionship. “I don’t need you,” she whispered. “I need a turkey on rye with extra mayo. Maybe a pickle too.”
The voice chuckled.
“Not that kind of pickle. I don’t need a man. I have fingers, a rubber dick and a lot of sick thoughts.” She took out the mayo, snatched the package of roast turkey breast and the cheddar. Abra toted it all to the table, set it there, and went for a butter knife. She didn’t bother with a plate. The bag of rye was almost gone. She returned to the table and sat in the chair Val had occupied the day before.
Searing heat spread through her. It felt as if she’d sat on his lap and her hungry channel swallowed up his hard, thick cock. Abra knew she was alone, as deserted as ever. The appealing thought of a man inside her, thrusting, driving his body deeper, it overwhelmed her reason for some time. She closed her eyes, leaned back and felt the pull of curled fingers urging her down. Abra moaned. She wriggled in the chair, forcing that bulky shaft to fill her.
The butter knife slipped from her grasp, clattering on the tabletop. Her eyes shot wide, the mysterious phallus retreating as unexpectedly as it had invaded her. She glanced around the kitchen, sweat cooling on her skin. Reaching up, she pinched her nipple, twisting it between her thumb and forefinger. Her pussy pleaded for more. She stopped pleasuring herself and shook her head.
Abra unscrewed the cap from the mayo jar and retrieved the knife. She slathered the white cream over each slice of bread. Her mouth watered. She put two slices of turkey, bit her lip and dropped a third on. Then two slices of cheddar. “Mm. That’s what I need. Not some migrant man that vanishes like a magician’s bunny.” She bit into her sandwich, chewing thoughtfully. The mention of a bunny made her remember an old lover. He used to turn her on with the stupidest phrases.
“Let’s fuck like rabbits.”
Abra giggled. It was Val’s voice swimming in her mind, tempting as hot chocolate on a cold night. She wanted him to touch her, to take her any way he could think of and make her beg for more. She ate half her sandwich, stared at the bananas too long and decided, when the clock—which needed recalibrating because time couldn’t possibly be moving that
fast—clanged out seven times.
“Time to paint,” she said, and got up to do just that.
Chapter Three
The tribal angel’s dick was the first thing to go. She crossed it out in angry painted swoops with her index finger. She smeared the mix of silvery gray across his innocent features and felt the others watching, waiting like lambs in line for the slaughter. Then came the old one, his gray hair blending in with the paint she globbed over his face. Abra moved on, saving the two she’d discussed with Val for last. They remained stoic as she buried them beneath the paint, their colors muted from whatever spell they’d fallen prey to.
It felt utterly mad to cover her creations. She stood there when finished, in the midst of them all, and studied the demon painting. Paint dribbled from her tingling fingers. It spattered onto the wood floor, tiny echoing droplets landing on her bare feet. Naked, as was her way, she wiped the remaining paint across her abdomen and strutted to the bathroom to look at herself in the mirror.
Someone else’s face stared at her from the looking glass, his black eyebrows slanting at odds with her light brown ones. Abra leaned closer until her nose touched the cold glass. Val’s ghostly image faded. “That’s right,” she told her image. “Run away. You know I don’t need you.”
Pacing to the study, she tore at the cardboard box, leaving swipes of melded color across its surface. Her fingers slipped on the packing tape, but determined, she picked it free and tore it off, revealing the many toys within. Grinning, she grasped the object of her desire and clutched it to her chest as she returned to the bathroom.
She traipsed to the tub, stepped over her clothes from the previous day and climbed inside, setting the prize aside. The water came on, slapping her skin with its icy touch. She held still, quivering in the cold as it eased into the blistering temperature she preferred. Abra washed her hands, her arms, worked the bar of soap over her upper chest and then crossed her breasts with slick, massaging strokes. She glanced down at her pubic hair, remembering that she’d forgotten to shave. “Not that it matters. It’s only me and…” She turned in a graceful half spin, picked up her purple dildo and gave it a squeeze. “My jell friend, complete with suction cup for hands free relief.” She laughed at herself, moistened the gargantuan toy in the shower jet, then fitted its cup to the fiberglass wall at just the right height.
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