Sweet Vixen

by Susan Napier

  'Good,' came the crisp reply. 'Then you can make a few comments.'

  'I . . . really haven't been involved in the new develop­ments. I was away—'

  'I know. But you must have formed an opinion. You have some very definite opinions, and you have been making copious notes. Enlighten us, please.'

  The voice was redolent with sarcasm and Sarah felt even more like a recalcitrant schoolgirl caught cribbing at an exam. Some of the faces around the table grinned expectantly as the prospect of some entertainment loomed.

  'I haven't had time to study the mock-up in any detail—'

  'Even better. Your regular readers won't get time to study it either, before they're presented with the fait accompli. What are your first impressions?'

  'Well . . .' she pretended to look down at her non­existent notes to give herself time to curb her wayward mind. 'I did think the changes a bit dramatic, especially, as you said, the typeface . . .'

  'I think I can guess that you would prefer to retain the status quo. But putting the preference aside for a moment, what about some constructive comment,' came the dry response.

  'That is constructive,' Sarah protested. 'Our circula­tion figures are holding steady, surely that's a vote in favour of the status quo.'

  'Holding steady is another way of saying remaining static. You're keeping your hard-core readers but not acquiring new ones.'

  'But we can only expect to hold a certain percentage of the market.'

  'A percentage you haven't quite reached yet. And there's the floating buyer, the one you have to grab at the magazine stand with an eye-catching cover and the prom­ise of good, readable, varied material within. Rags has been on the market long enough to be secure, familiar. Now is the time to stimulate the reader by adding a little unfamiliar spice.'

  'Why not herbs instead of spice? They have a more subtle flavour.' One part of Sarah's mind noted that he had stopped fiddling with his pen. Was that a good sign or bad?

  'Specify.' That singular challenge he was so fond of issuing: explain yourself, talk, convince me. Now she was started she would not retreat. She might be wary about caring for people, but she cared about them, about Rags and its readers and contributors.

  'I don't like Male of the Month,' she said baldly to a chorus of disapproval.

  'It's a great idea,' cried Chris. 'It'll be tremendous fun to do.'

  'Don't be such a stick-in-the-mud, Sarah,' said Julie. 'Everybody's loosened up these days. It's really just male fashion shots with a bit of personality thrown in.'

  Backed into a corner Sarah came out fighting.

  'It's not the idea that I don't like,' she told the room at large. 'It's the way it's presented. It's the worst kind of sexism.'

  'I might have known you were an ardent women's libber,' came from the head of the table.

  'If that means I have confidence in our women reader's intelligence and taste, yes I am,' Sarah shot back.

  'What is it precisely that a woman of intelligence and taste would object to?'

  The dry cynicism infuriated Sarah. He had asked for her opinion, hadn't he?

  'The whole tenor of the article. The captions are pure cheesecake. It may be fun to write, but I think it should be more than just a stereotyped joke.'

  'You mean . . . take it seriously?' asked Julie sceptically.

  'More or less. A sophisticated version. A mood inter­view piece. There are plenty of attractive men around—' she ignored the laughs and whistles, '—from entertainers, to politicians, to businessmen, to the stranger in the next car at the red light. Each month let's get a guest columnist to take out the man of her choice and do an impressionistic story about the evening. Team it with one big colour shot and a few black and white and you have . . .' she searched for the words as her enthusiasm for the idea outran itself.

  'The ultimate female fantasy,' Julie finished for her. 'Sometimes, Sarah, you really surprise me. I like it! I like it very much. It could be very sexy.'

  'Bags I go first,' laughed Chris. 'The perfect excuse to ask a man for a date, and on expenses too!'

  A light-hearted squabble broke out, relieving the strain of the past hour or more of vehement discussion. Even Max Wilde relaxed, as much as he was able, chin resting on his steepled fingers, looking every inch a candidate for Male of the Month. Maybe she should suggest it, thought Sarah with an inward giggle, knowing he would detest the very idea. But what a scoop it would be! She was very, very tempted, thinking of all the times he had been provocative, but bit hard on her tongue. Giving in to impulses like that to annoy him invariably got her in over her head, he merely took it as a sign that he was succeed­ing in getting under her skin. Which he was dammit! She already spent too much idle time thinking up crushing remarks with which to slam the stable door after the mocking devil had bolted.

  Back at her desk after the meeting had broken up, Sarah quickly searched out some documents, intending to slip along to Tom Forest's room at the end of the corridor and inveigle him out to a conveniently early lunch. She was not fast enough, however, because when she looked up Max was standing in front of her desk. He was only half a head taller than she was but he always seemed to loom. Come to that he loomed even when he was sitting at his desk which had been placed for his use several- paces away. It was most unnerving. Sarah was used to meeting men on her own level, often looking down on them. It was easy to be firmly off-putting to a man who was shorter than you. This one was not only tall, but tenacious, with a visible aura of masculinity that offended Sarah as much as his on-again off-again charm did.

  Simon had had charm; getting his own way was easy. Until Sarah discovered that he used it the way he used everything—temper, depression, jealousy—as therapy. He worked out his moods by manoeuvring people into responding in a certain way and then attacking them for it. It gave him a sense of power when his own self-respect was at its lowest ebb. Only when Sarah had refused to play the game, had been angry at his charm, laughed at his depression, shrugged at his jealousy had the real person begun to emerge. But by then it was too late, Sarah's emotions had been exhausted into apathy. Charm was merely one of the trappings of personality, no guaran­tee of inner warmth or depth.

  To Sarah's dismay Max Wilde leaned over until his face was only inches from hers. He spoke with a slow precision that was more alarming than his fiery spurts of temper.

  'Just once I would like to see you react to me naturally, and smile as though you mean it, not just out of politeness, or as a weapon. I don't like it when you're polite and silent. It makes me curious to know what is going through that oddly constructed brain of yours.'

  Sarah shied backwards, almost knocking over her chair in the process. His words were obscurely threatening but at least it was some consolation to know that he wasn't omnipotent. Her thoughts were still safely wrapped up inside her head.

  He sauntered over to his own desk and sank into the scoop-backed chair, legs outstretched, crossed at the ankle, acting as a pivot for the slight movement of the swivel. With his hands still in his pockets he looked a picture of indolence. Sarah, tense and wary, recognised the all-too-familiar signs. Eyes half closed, jaw muscles relaxed, mouth deceptively bland—he was about to in­dulge in some Sarah-baiting. Killing time until lunch.

  'What I can't quite reconcile,' he said lazily, 'are those two images, the outraged spinster of Tuesday and the rational, liberated Mrs. Carter of this morning who has sufficient worldly wisdom to recognise the subtle power of the intellect. The appeal of the sensuous over the merely sensual. . . that was the gist of your argument about the Male of the Month, wasn't it?'

  She hadn't thought of it in precisely those terms, but in essence that was exactly it. However, she had no intention of being drawn into agreement or anything else with him. He could tie her up in verbal knots, and who knew what she would end up admitting.

  'I really must go . . .' she said, gathering up the papers she had been looking for, and her handbag, but he wasn't listening. He suddenly seemed to find th
e gleaming black tip of his shoe interesting.

  'Two images,' he said softly, and his eyes narrowed even further, then closed altogether. In spite of his olive skin, the lids had an almost translucent quality and Sarah felt a strange disquiet on seeing the delicate blue tracery just under the bony ridge of the eye socket. She didn't want to think of him as flesh and bone and blood, a man. He was an adversary, someone—a person—she neither knew nor liked. She didn't ask herself why.

  She was almost out the door when he spoke again, his voice no longer soft.

  'One more thing, Sarah.'

  'Yes?' She half turned to show she wasn't coming back into the room.

  'My name is Max. Use it. You're the only one who doesn't. You don't call me anything, but you know very well who I am.'

  'Very well—' but it still wouldn't come. She wasn't even aware of giving him a name in her thoughts. Ridicu­lous when she called Tom, older and more deserving of the respectful 'Mr.', by his first name.

  He smiled unkindly. 'It'll come. Practise at home, in front of the mirror.' He looked at the dark green skirt and blouse she wore. 'If you have one, that is.'

  Even a leisurely lunch with Tom, talking about the points of interest he should see during his visit, couldn't completely banish the sting ofthat last remark.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The first few moments of consciousness, before she opened her eyes, were the most precious; her mind still adrift among the soft rags of dreams, her senses beginning to register the beckoning warmth of a new day. Summer Sunday mornings were sweet and ripe and made to be enjoyed with slow pleasure.

  Tossing back the feather duvet Sarah pulled on a cotton robe. She would breakfast outside.

  A few minutes later she carefully mounted the black wrought-iron staircase that spiralled from the dining area to the upper floor, a bowl of muesli and fruit in one hand, a cup of steaming black coffee in the other.

  She slid open the ranchslider and settled down on the sun-warmed canvas chair on the balcony, resting her coffee cup on the low wooden divide which separated the stretch of decking next door from her own.

  As she ate she surveyed her domain. The sun was well clear of the horizon but it was still quite early, the air fresh and unsullied by the racketings of the human race, except for the quiet purposefulness of the morning church-goers and the far-off meanderings of yachties out pursuing their salty pleasures in the aquamarine bowl of the harbour. A few clouds punctuated the sky but they were innocent flosses of cotton candy, weightless, seemingly unmoving, though the white sails below were plump with satisfying breezes.

  'Waiting for me, my love?'

  The muesli tilted dangerously as Sarah jumped, hear­ing echoes of another time, another place.

  'Quite the contrary, Roy. Go away and leave me in peace.'

  Roy Merrill's face, what could be seen of it under thick curling red hair and full matching beard, creased in a grin. He rested stocky, ginger-frosted forearms on the divide and took a sip from her cup, pulling a face at the bitter­ness.

  If one trusted apparel to proclaim the man then Roy, bare-chested and in faded, paint-encrusted cut-off jeans, was easy-going, good-natured and somewhat disreput­able. But he was also intelligent and talented; meticulous even—but only on canvas. To Sarah he was the brother she had never had, the one person who seemed to under­stand her feelings. He was certainly the only man she felt comfortable with, for he had never shown the slightest sign of being interested in her as a woman. That, she supposed, was the strength of their relationship, their complete physical indifference to each other, and their mutual respect. That was how they could live in such close proximity, wandering into each other's home at will, with an easy intimacy uncomplicated by tension.

  Considering that he had been such a friend of Simon's, the accord between them was surprising, but it had always been so. Roy, American-born and educated, had been a guest tutor during Simon's first year at art school and had been one of the few people to get really close to the young man, nurturing his talent and using his own well-known name to further his protégé’s career. They had even moved into the adjoining town houses when Simon had inherited several thousand dollars and been able to match Roy's investment, an arrangement which had suited them professionally as well as privately.

  From the first, Sarah had felt that Roy accepted her as a person in her own right, not just as his friend's wife, and after Simon died their affection for each other had not changed. Roy had been unstintingly kind and asked nothing in return, not even questions. She knew that he was concerned about her, especially since he had been the one to break the news about Simon that awful night, the one to whom she had sobbed out her fear and anger and grief. But he had conspicuously respected her silence since. Until a few months ago. Until now.

  'I can't go away, honey,' he said. 'We had an appoint­ment. Remember?'

  She did. Too well.

  'I haven't finished my coffee.'

  'I'll do that. I haven't had any breakfast.' Roy was incredibly cavalier about his eating habits. He wasn't above making midnight raids on Sarah's refrigerator, which was well-stocked for just such an eventuality, when working late and smitten by a hunger that wouldn't be satisfied with beer and cold baked beans. 'I'll just go and empty a packet of sugar into this while you climb over.'

  'I'm still in my nightie,' she called desperately as he disappeared inside his own sliding door.

  'You're wearing more than me then,' came the answer­ing call and Sarah sighed. He had finished the painting two weeks ago. She had to see it some time.

  She finished her muesli first . . . she might need the blood sugar. She was just as reluctant now as she had been five months ago when Roy first asked her to pose for him. Not out of embarrassment, for having moved in artistic circles for three years she had acquired a very practical approach to life studies and she had posed many times for Simon. It was a measure of the almost schizophrenic nature of her husband's mind that although he painted nudes of her as an innocent young girl—Eve before she tasted the apple—and quite happily sold them on the open market, if a man so much as smiled at the real, fully clothed Sarah he was immediately suspicious. What did he say to you? What did you say to him? Did you like him? I don't want you to see him again. He seemed to think that because she was young she was easily led, malleable. That she had never been.

  Embarrassment was the excuse she used on Roy, of course, but he knew her better than to believe it. His insistence and scoffing derision had at last worn her down. He had even gone as far as to reassure her that if she thought the finished portrait was too 'revealing' (a grin as he said it), he would arrange for a private sale through his brother, Anthony, who ran a New York art gallery and acted as his American agent.

  'We shall make sure you aren't flooded with proposi­tions from hordes of gumbooted philistines and smutty representatives of the gutter press,' Roy had boomed idiotically and won his case when Sarah had collapsed into helpless giggles. The posing had been easy, sand­wiched in between various commissions Roy was working on, and now it was over the hard part had arrived. Confronting herself.

  Slowly she clambered over the wall and walked diffi­dently into the twin of her own lounge, although this was still a working studio, strewn with canvases and paints, tins and bottles, stacks of junk and crates that doubled as furniture.

  'Over here.' A shaggy red head rose from the rubble, knocking back the hot coffee with the confidence of a cast-iron constitution.

  'The dramatic unveiling,' said Sarah nervously as she rounded on the covered easel. He hadn't even let her have a glimpse at the work in progress. 'Are you pleased with it?'

  'It's good.' That could mean anything.

  Prepared as she was, Sarah still experienced a shock of recognition, a split-second of envy eclipsed by mental rejection of the voluptuous creature in front of her. Then followed the awesome realisation that Roy was right. It was good. As good as she had feared it would be. A blending of technical skill and raw emotive
power so complete that it was impossible to view the painting objectively.

  The size was disconcerting to start with. Sarah felt an urge to step back to a safe distance, outside the circle of its compelling, magic spell. It was so lovely . . . the dramatic chiaroscuro and glowing colours creating an aura of seductiveness reminiscent of Renaissance paintings.

  The woman—not me, that's not who I see in the mirror every morning—was half sitting, half lying on a bed. The back­ground was dark and indistinct, mere glints hinting at objects concealed in the velvet blackness surrounding the shadowy frame of the brass bedstead. Warm golden flesh on the rumpled sheets in the foreground was lit by the soft yellow light from an unseen lamp.

  At first glance the nakedness was explicit, but it was an illusion. The glowing light stroked the subtle contours of the body, melting away into secret shadows in a subtle portrayal of the timeless allure of woman. There was allure, too, in her expression. Though the face was not classically beautiful it had a luminous warmth and vibrance that would outlive mere beauty. She was sensuous, provocative, passionate, and the curve of the full mouth showed unashamed awareness of the fact. But it was a natural, earthy sensuality that was not too far removed from innocence.

  The soft lines and curves evoked physical reality, the weight of breast and thigh, the play of muscle where the body stretched and turned, the texture of the downy skin. The hair was touched with fire as it tumbled in a dis­ordered mane over sloping shoulders, falling to a rippling pool on the sheets. Fire slumbered too, in the wide, darkened eyes . . . inviting eyes, proud and joyfully alive.

  Roy, who had been watching her face with some satis­faction, distracted her attention but not her eyes.

  'Well, what do you think?'

  'I don't know,' she said shakily. 'Who's it supposed to be?'

  'Don't you recognise her, at all?'

  'You have the likeness . . .' she had assimilated that immediately. 'But for the rest. . .'

  'Not bland, pretty-pretty chocolate-box enough for you?'