“No, I’m hungry and horny. In that order. You are, too. If I went down on my knees right now, you’d be wet. And I’m sorry I’m not taking care of that, but you lost that time when you wanted to paint me. Now come on. How do you feel about sandwiches?”
“Hate them,” she growled.
“Pizza?”
“Not happening.” She flipped her hair, supposedly disinterested.
“Thai?”
“Fuck you. Let me go.”
I steered her to the door where our shoes were. I let her go long enough to put my shoes on and tossed her flip-flops in front of her. She was leaning against her tiny kitchen counter.
“I’m not going with you.”
“Yes, you are.”
Her eyes went from that chocolaty brownish gold to blazing with anger. “I said no.”
“What’s it going to take to get you to go have dinner with me?”
“Hell freezing over,” she grated.
I chuckled. “Aside from that. Name your price.”
She looked over my shoulder and then slowly an expression that mimicked a woman scorned filtered to the surface. Unfortunately, I knew that look well. Women who wanted more from me romantically regularly gave me that look when I blew them off for a gig, a last-minute open mic night, or some other reason.
“Let me paint you again. Naked.”
“Deal,” I agreed too quickly. My ass was still feeling the ache from the hard stool.
“That easy?” She slipped her small feet into her flip-flops and grabbed a cardigan that hung on the tree by the door.
“Yep.”
“I’ll bet that’s what all the girls say.” Her tone was matter-of-fact with a dose of snide bitch. I loved it.
“Ouch!” I clutched at my chest. “You wound me so,” I joked, opened the door, and then slapped her bubble butt hard enough to leave my imprint as she walked through.
“Dammit, curly! That hurt!” she yelled and rubbed at her sore cheek.
“Now that is what all the girlies say.” I winked and led her down the hall.
Chapter Six
Seated Forward Bend (Sanskrit: Paschimottanasana)
Keeping the front torso long and straight, lean forward from the hip joints, not the waist. Flex the feet and breathe as you lengthen the tailbone away from the back of the pelvis. If possible, take the sides of the feet with the hands, thumbs on the soles, elbows fully extended. If not, rest the hands on the calves, ankles or whatever you can reach besides the knees. You do not want to put unwanted pressure on the knees. Breathing rhythmically in and out will help you move further into the pose. Eventually you will be able to touch your heels and rest your entire body alongside your legs.
ATLAS
Turned out, Mila was not a picky eater. I’d never seen someone of her size put away so many slices of pizza. And this wasn’t the thin cut, no crust stuff. I had a friend who owned the local Fat Slice Pizza place bring a couple pies over on his way home. I owed him a song sung in honor of his girlfriend’s birthday this weekend, but that was a small price to pay to see Mila chowing down. The woman was a beast. Half a pizza gone, and she was picking up her fourth slice. And these slices were more like twofers.
“Hungry?”
She nodded while shoveling in a gargantuan bite. “Haven’t eaten since the banana I had for breakfast.” Mila chewed and shimmied from side to side while sitting on my apartment floor in front of the glass-top table. I sat on the couch across from her. I wanted to look at her gorgeous face while she ate, or in this case…binged.
After my third slice, I sat back with my hand to my gut and loafed on the couch.
“Tell me about you. What makes Mila tick?”
She glanced up and then blinked slowly while wiping her mouth with a napkin. “Aside from irritating, overconfident musician yogis with messy hair?”
I grinned. “You love my hair. I see you staring at it constantly.”
“No, I really want to chop off those pieces that fall into your eyes. Do you realize how often you run your hand through it? At first, I thought it was because you were trying to show off your bulging biceps, but now, after spending two hours looking at nothing but you, it’s annoying.” She took another huge bite, taking half of the veggies on the slice with it.
Ouch, that potshot burned. I glared at her, wanting to toss her a barb after that callous hair comment. A woman should never, ever, comment on a man’s hair like that. Before I knew it, I was nailing her on her eating. “Who eats like you do and stays fit?”
She pursed her lips, licked each finger on the hand that had held the slice, and leaned her elbows on the table. “I teach no less than ten ninety-minute classes a week. I stay up for hours painting and I work every weekend. This”—she gestured to her seated form—“is constantly in a calorie deficit. I’m lucky if I catch lunch. Why do you care?”
I chuckled and leaned forward. “Honey, I don’t. I like a woman who can eat, so eat up.”
“I will!” she declared before taking a big bite of her now fifth slice, her perfect teeth sinking into the doughy crust and breaking off with a gorilla-sized gash left in its wake.
“You’re something else, you know that?”
She nodded. “Yeah, probably why I don’t have a lot of friends.” She grabbed the cold beer I’d served and sucked back a few swallows. “That’s not what I mean. Obviously, I have friends.”
I narrowed my gaze. “You live alone, work all the time, and have two pictures up in your home. There’s not much in the way of girlie shit at your place, basically implying that you don’t have a lot of people buying you presents or giving you worthless totems that just clutter up your home. So my money is on you having very few friends. Why is that?”
She licked her lips and leaned back so that her elbows rested on the carpet. Her nipples were visible through the thin cotton of her dress since she’d taken off the cardigan earlier. Such perfect brown tips. I could easily recall the taste of her on my tongue even hours later.
I watched as she inhaled and tilted her head to the side. “I don’t have time to build relationships. As you said, I have a crazy work schedule. Monet, one of the people in the pictures, is my best friend. I see her when I have a break or need to commune with a female.”
“And your dad? Does he live close?”
Instantly Mila’s expression tightened, and the fingers of both hands dug into the carpet until her knuckles turned white. “You could say that.” Her words were flat and cold all of a sudden.
“I asked that. Where does he live?”
“San Quentin,” she mumbled.
I sat up straight. “Wait. San Quentin as in the state penitentiary?”
She peered at the beer bottle sitting on the table as if it held all the answers to the universe. “Yeah.”
“When?”
“Ten years now. I was sixteen.”
Not wanting to grill her, but still wanting to know, I had to ask. “What’d he do?”
She turned her body around and lay sideways on the ground, resting her elbow on the carpet and placing her head into her hand. “Embezzlement.”
I cringed. “Ouch. Isn’t that kind of small potatoes, though?”
She ran her hand along the carpet. “It would have been if he’d taken thousands. He embezzled millions from his own company and was caught for insider trading.”
“Damn, how long?”
“Twenty years.” She sighed as if admitting her father’s sins added a heaping dose of weight onto her very small shoulders. In that moment, I wanted to take some of that weight and carry it for her, at least for a little while. Give her what I’d bet would have been a much-needed break.
It all didn’t make sense. That was such a long sentence. “That long for stealing his own money?”
Mila groaned and shook her head. “It’s more than that. The charges were doubled because of the two offenses, but since he had three investors, it was considered stealing from three different people. In California, you get five years for ever
y person that you steal over a hundred grand from. Add the trading and boom.” She snapped her fingers. “My dad, in the clink, three sentences to serve consecutively, so twenty years. His whole life over.”
“Shit, Mila. I’m sorry. That had to rock your world.”
“Yeah, at the time, it did. Still does.”
“Where’s your mom in all this?” I wanted to keep her talking. She was opening up to me, and for the first time in the long line of women before Mila, I actually cared. No, more than that. I wanted to know about her. This woman was feisty, sassy, had a body that could make men weep, and a talent so raw and untamed I found I wanted to know more about her. It wouldn’t be enough until I knew everything.
Fuck. That thought hit me like a herd of wild stallions plowing into me at every direction.
Mila let out a long, strained breath while a lock of her hair fell into her face. She lifted it and twirled it with one finger before lying back completely flat on the floor to stare at the ceiling.
“She met a guy right away. Got married. Except he already had a family, too. In New Jersey. She wanted me to uproot my life and move with them.”
“Since you live in Oakland, I’m assuming that didn’t happen, unless it was short-term and you came back,” I pushed.
“No. I didn’t go. I couldn’t leave him, you know?” She glanced at me quickly and then looked away.
“I do know. Too well, I’m afraid. It sucks when one parent up and leaves no matter what the circumstances.”
Her head turned my direction, and her voice lowered to one of curiosity and concern. “Sounds like you know from experience.”
I half laughed, half groaned. “Yeah. I do. My father left when I was eight. I came home from school one day, and he’d rushed into the house from one of his many escapades. He was really excited. Too excited. Mom admitted he was probably high on meth or LSD. My father was the ultimate hippie artist. Painted, whittled wood, sculpted, created art from nothing. Truly amazing pieces, too, all of them. I used to be so proud of what he’d been able to make with his own hands.”
“And that day he left?” she asked, bringing me right back to the very day.
* * *
“Atlas my boy! I’m off on a big adventure. Big. Huge. Life-changing.” My father was a whirlwind as he jumped around, tossing clothes and cassette tapes into a large, tattered green duffle bag.
“Where are you going?” I followed him around like I always did. Mom had joked that I was Kenneth Powers’s shadow.
Dad whizzed by me and grabbed the foot-tall plastic pipe thing. It was rainbow-colored and had a spot where Dad sucked through the top and another spot where he placed a lit lighter. He’d use it to make smoke. He said it helped him think. Helped him create his art. When he wasn’t home, I looked at the plastic thing. Sniffed it and gagged. It smelled like sour gunk that I couldn’t imagine breathing into, but one day I vowed to have Dad teach me about how it helped him make art, because I, too, was going to create. I just didn’t know what.
“Dad, where are you going?” I asked again.
His movements were jerky and his breathing fast. “Doesn’t matter. But I’ll be back. Eventually. It’s going to be a long trip.”
I started to cry. “Take me with you,” I pleaded and tugged on his shirt from behind.
Dad whirled around and got down on his knees. He took off a key he’d carried around his neck for as long as I could remember. He put the key around my neck and placed his hand over it. “This will change your life. More than I ever could or will.”
“But I want to be with you.”
He kissed my forehead and pressed his hand over the key. “And you always will be. I love you, son. Be good to your mama. She’s going to need you.”
“When will you come back?” I screamed and followed him out our tiny shoebox-sized duplex. I hated the neighbors because they had four kids, and they were always mean and dirty. Also, they kept their house filthy, which made us get those nasty roaches in our house. Mom spent so much time battling those big black bugs, all because the neighbors didn’t clean up their house.
My father opened the door of a powder blue VW Bus with a white top. A bunch of his friends were piled in there; one of the women hooked an arm around his neck and kissed him there.
“I don’t know, my boy. Maybe never, probably someday.”
* * *
“You and your mom were abandoned?” Mila sat up quickly, her tone horrified.
I rubbed a hand over my face. “Yeah. That was the last time I saw him. Still don’t know where he is.”
“Did you ever try to look for him?” she asked.
I shrugged. “A bit. When I was old enough and smart about the Internet. I typed in his name, did some searching but never found anything concrete. It’s hard to find a man who’s been gone twenty years. The odds are he’s probably dead.”
Even the words sent a knife to my heart and a tightness so fierce to my gut, the desire to hurl the pizza I’d just eaten was strong. Imagining my father dead…brutal. I shook my head trying to dispel the vile image.
Mila sighed. “Well, aren’t we a pair?”
I laughed. “You know what? I think we just might be.”
MILA
Even though Atlas and I had enough desire zipping through our systems to light up a football stadium, we’d ended last evening thoughtful and far more melancholy than a raucous night in the sack could have conjured. After pizza, we drank one more beer, talked a bit more about our families, or lack thereof, and just hung out. As much as I hated to admit it, the evening overall was nice. Comfortable. The man was still one of the most infuriatingly annoying people I’d ever known, and I knew for a fact that he felt the same about me. Then again, maybe that was the way these things worked. Maybe we were just meant to be friends.
Friends.
Could I be friends with Atlas? Was it normal to want to have dirty, sweaty sex with your friend? I didn’t think so, and unfortunately, I didn’t have enough of those to ask.
My thoughts were all over the place as I made my way through the hallway of Lotus House to prep for my first Vinyasa class of the day. When I got to my room, fellow yoga instructor Dash Alexander was leaning against the wall.
“Hey, Dash. How goes it?”
He casually leaned one hand against the wall, putting his weight into it. “You tell me.” He grinned.
I stopped at the door and used my key to unlock it, since I was the first to arrive for the day. Dash followed me in, his mat curled under his arm.
“I’m not sure I’m following.”
Dash unrolled his mat not far from the front of the stage. He was in incredible shape, and had he been interested in the past, I would have taken him six ways from Sunday. Besides the kissing on the mouth that he did with everyone, he’d never so much as hinted that he was interested. No long, lusty glances, no checking out my assets. Nada. Zip. Zilch. I just figured he wasn’t into Latinas.
“Saw you leave Atlas’s apartment last night. At midnight.” He lifted his eyebrows, putting his amber-colored gaze on full display.
“That’s right. You live in that warehouse across the street from him.” I nodded and ignored his subtle dig for info and laid out my mat.
He snickered. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Whatever. So you’re assuming I was banging your friend?” I let out a tired, frustrated breath. I had not had enough sleep last night to start a conversation like this. I’d spent the entire night dreaming about screwing the man in question, which had led to a lot of tossing, turning, and finally a round with my vibrator.
He walked closer to the riser where I was taking off my hoodie and shimmying out of my track pants. I wore a black sports bra and tight Lycra shorts for heated Vin Flow; that’s what I was teaching this morning.
“Are you saying you didn’t?” His tone was playfully accusatory.
“We didn’t,” I said, not all together a lie. Technically, we didn’t have sex, and aside from a long kiss at the door an
d the fun we’d had earlier in the evening at my pad, there was nothing more to tell.
He lifted a hand and scrubbed at his jaw. “But when I crossed over to have a few words with Atlas, he was so relaxed and…”
“And?” I blinked, waiting for him to hit me with another bogus attempt at calling me out.
“…happy,” he finished.
I laughed. “Okay. I admit we had an interesting evening, but mostly we hung out.”
“Was that before or after you painted him…naked?” His eyes were ablaze with excitement.
I pursed my lips and put a hand on one hip. “He told you that, huh? You know I’m an artist. I’m doing a show soon, and I need more subjects. I’d love to paint you, if you’re interested.” I threw out the request; I’d have been damned honored to paint Dash. His body, his essence, exuded confidence but not in a skeezy way. People flocked to Dash because, at the heart of him, he was a good guy, a solid, caring human being.
He chuckled and stretched out one arm across his chest and then repeated the move with the other. “I would, but my wife would probably not be too pleased.”
Wife. Male and female. Together.
I sucked in a huge breath and lifted my hands to my chest in a prayer gesture. “Would you and your wife ever consider posing together?” The nervous twitch I got in my hands when I was feeling the need to paint tingled at my knuckles.
Dash curled his hand around his neck. “I don’t know if I could get Amber to agree to that. Maybe. Would people know who the subjects were?”
I waved my hands in front of us. “No, no. We could keep it totally anonymous. And…I can do you one better. If you both would agree to pose together, nude, I’ll gift you the painting after the show.”
He sighed. “Doesn’t that defeat the purpose of selling your art?”
Without realizing it, I shifted my weight from foot to foot, getting more excited about the concept with every second that passed. “Yes and no. I need a full show with many facets of my art and canvases on display, but not all of them have to be available for sale.”
Divine Desire: A Lotus House Novel: Book Three Page 7