by Selena Kitt
“Not, it seems, when we are talking about pastels.”
“I told you, they are a pain in the ass. Stop trying to use them.”
“But the colors...”
“Color says shit. Work in black and white if you want to tell everyone life is meaningless.”
“Not life. My life. My life is meaningless.”
“Only if you use pastels.”
* * * *
I wore his clothes, mine having been left behind in our flight. The sun was warm and the boat was heated well, so I wore his underwear. Malcolm had literally fifty pairs of boxers on board, and they mostly fit me due to my ass being roughly twice as huge as my waist. At the very least they didn't immediately fall down. His shirts hung on me like smocks.
"You have a lot of underwear," I said as I modeled it for him. "What's the deal?"
"I used to have a lot of guests on this boat," he said. "Underwear was often misplaced."
I winced. "Misplaced?"
He smiled at me. In his hands he was slowly shaping a lump of clay into something that might have been my likeness, if my parents had been Ewoks. "When you are on a boat and get lost in the moment, sometimes the sea wind sweeps by and carries your fine silk boxers out to sea. Quite a few guests lost their unmentionables that way, even after I told them it took only a moment to weigh them down." He raised his brows. "Since we are going to be in short supply of everything, I expect you to remember that tidbit."
I cocked a hip and put my hand on it. "Seriously?" I said. "Thanks for the tip, mom."
He didn't smile at that. Instead his face went still as he pushed and pulled at the lump of clay, his brows drawing down into a frown. "My mother wouldn't have thought twice about throwing such expensive things away," he said at last. "She wanted the world to be disposable. I recommend you not be like her."
Touched a nerve. A deep one. "Don't worry," I said. "I once wore a pair of gym shorts as pajamas for five straight years and didn't throw them out until they literally fell apart in the wash.”
That coaxed a little smirk from him. "Oh?" he said.
"They were like Swiss cheese."
Putting the little lump of clay down, he leaned back on the couch and tilted his head, studying me. "I would have liked to see that," he said.
"It was the least sexy thing in the universe," I assured him.
"On you, anything is sexy," he said. I tried to ignore the blush that rampaged across my face at his words. "Come here, Sadie. I like to see you in my clothes."
I swallowed and walked toward him. My bare feet sank into the plush carpet, and when I reached him I crawled onto the couch and straddled his thighs. "Yeah?" I said. "We have the same size butt. That's totally sexy."
"It is sexy," he insisted. His hands found said butt and squeezed, massaging my ample ass cheeks, and suddenly I swear I thought my ass might actually be sexy too.
"Oh," I murmured.
Reaching up, Malcolm pulled me down into a kiss. His teeth nibbled at my lips, grazed over my jaw, teased my throat, and all the while his hands squeezed and kneaded, pulling me close until his cock, hard and straining, pressed into the soft hot space between my legs. He rubbed me over himself until I couldn't take it any more and pulled him off the couch. We landed on the floor with a teeth-jarring thud, and he tore his own boxers off me and fucked me as I lay beneath him in his white linen shirt, my hands holding his hips in place as he took his pleasure and gave back to me in return.
* * * *
“What are you painting?”
“The sea.”
“I hate to break it to you, but that's been done a million times before. I thought you wanted to say something totally new.”
“I'm working on it.”
“I can see that... hey, wait. That's me. That's the sea in the shape of me.”
“You can tell?”
“I'd recognize that pear shape anywhere.”
“You are as beautiful and strong as the sea.”
“Then you're hardly saying nothing with this painting.”
“...I might still have things left to say. Let me say them first, before I can no longer speak. I thought you weren't in a hurry to silence me.”
“I thought you were.”
“...As tumultuous as the sea, too. I cannot predict you.”
“Neither can I sometimes.”
“Kiss me, Sadie.”
“What will I get out of it?”
“This... and... this...”
“...Oh.”
* * * *
One day I tried to make waffles. It did not go well.
"I burned the waffles," I told Malcolm when he came to investigate the smoke.
"I see that." He stared at the blackened corpses of several failed waffles. "I could smell it, too."
"Sorry," I said. "I'm a really lousy housewife."
"Boatwife," he said. "You are a lousy boatwife."
"Yeah. That."
He ran his finger over my chin and raised a brow. "Even more of a lousy boatwife because you don't know I hate waffles."
I stared at him, incredulous. "Then why do you have a waffle iron?" I asked. "It's just sitting here, begging to be used."
"Every kitchen should have a waffle iron," he said.
"Even if you hate waffles?"
"Especially if you hate waffles. Every time I see it, it reminds me of how lucky I am to not be eating waffles right now."
I stared at the black waffle discs. "I suppose we could play Frisbee with them."
"Or just throw them into the sea."
"That was the eventual goal, yes." I put my hands on my hips and blew my hair out of my face. "Well, what do you want to eat instead?" We were well-provisioned with dry and canned goods, but pre-processed crap was getting awfully old. The waffles, at least, would have been fresh made.
Malcolm grabbed me by the hips. "I can think of one thing I'd like to eat," he said and lifted me onto the counter top before sliding the boxers down my legs and letting them pool on the floor.
He knelt down and began to lick my pussy, quick and sharp. I gasped, my head lolling. “I... I think this violates some sort of health regulation...”
He paused. "Good thing we're in international waters, then." His smile was wicked, and I didn't object when he returned to his task.
*
“So how did you become so fucking rich? This boat is still blowing my mind.”
“My father made me get rich.”
“Haha! Oh, you're serious.”
“I am. Hold still, you are going to mess up the exposure.”
“But my nose itches!”
“Suffer for art.”
“You. You are the one who's supposed to suffer, not your model.”
“Is that so? You see, my father taught me that in business it doesn't matter who is hurt. We all enter with the same expectations. Kill or be killed. If you get killed you might as well lie down and die in the street.”
“Jesus Christ. That's fucked up.”
“Is it? It's held true for most of my time in business, and it's made me quite a lot of money. Hold still.”
“The itch has moved to my boobs now!”
“I will lavish them with attention when we are done if only you will hold still for one more minute.”
“That attention had better be good.”
“I promise it will be.”
“I am entering into this agreement with the expectation to get screwed over now.”
“I wouldn't blame you. I have crushed many an enemy under my heel and heard the lamentations of their interns. But for you, I think I must make an exception. Though we are at war, with two disparate goals, I believe I may fraternize with the enemy as long as I don't let my guard down. You will not convince me to change my course, Sadie. I see what you are doing.”
“I'm not doing anything. And shit. I'm really depressed now. Do you really think of every encounter as a war?”
“Of course. What else could it be?”
“Crea
tive. Collaboration. Lo—Sex isn't a competition.”
“...It is if you do it right. And shit, this isn't it either.”
“The photograph?”
“What a mess.”
“Forget it. Come her and lavish attention on me.”
* * * *
"Where did you go?" he asked me one day, and I realized I had been staring at the waves. I couldn't have said how long I had been watching them, and when I turned to look at Malcolm, their patterns and swirls continued to spiral across my vision.
"I don't know," I said. "I just stopped thinking for a while." I smiled while I said it. "Feels good."
"I wouldn't know," he said, walking up behind me and slipping his arms around my waist, snugging me in close. I felt the swell of his erection against my ass. "My mind has started to run away with me, too, and I have never been able to meditate."
"Mm," I said. I rubbed my ass cheeks over his cock, and he sighed, grinding into me. "It's not all it’s cracked up to be," I told him. "You start thinking about nothing and the next thing you know your ramen is boiling over or someone's cat just threw themselves under the wheels of your car."
"Perhaps you shouldn't meditate while driving." His hands were slipping under the waistband of the boxers I wore, smoothing over my thighs, dipping into my pussy.
"It's just too easy when your head is empty," I joked.
His hands stilled. "Why do you always do that?" he asked me.
I frowned. "Do what?"
"Put yourself down."
I ground against his hands, trying to encourage him to continue, but he was steadfast. "I mean it, Sadie. You have a low opinion of yourself."
My lips thinned. "It makes it easier," I said finally.
"Easier to do what?"
I shrugged. "Deal with the disappointment I feel when I look in the mirror."
Behind me I felt him shake his head. "How am I going to convince you you're amazing?" he sighed.
I could think of one way, but I didn't want to say it out loud. I was trying not to push the issue of the fact that we were living on borrowed time, whether he decided to end it all or not. "I don't know," I said. "Pay me to think I'm amazing? I can do a lot for the right incentive."
His chest rumbled in a laugh. "You and most of the rest of the world. But I think even if I did, that you would just tell me you thought you were amazing, rather than actually change."
I shrugged. "How would you tell the difference?"
His lips brushed against my ear, and I shivered down to my toes. "I would be able to tell."
He took me from behind, there on the deck, plundering my core first until I came around him, then withdrawing and placing his cock against the tight hole of my ass. I stiffened, but when I didn't tell him no, he pressed inside, filling me up unbearably, and as he thrust into my ass I closed my eyes and thought of nothing.
* * * *
“I never see the captain. What does he do all day, jack off?”
“He tells me he's writing a book.”
“About what?”
“I'm not sure. Maybe about jacking off?”
“That's gross. Don't be gross. You're rich, you should be classy.”
“You were the one who introduced the subject.”
“Yeah, but you should be classier than me. I'm just a working girl in a rich man's world.”
“I'm just a rich man on a boat with a beautiful woman who makes him think of soft, dirty things. How else should I behave?”
“Mysterious. Enigmatic.”
“I am that, too. Mysteriously and enigmatically aroused by your perfect ass. No, inspired by your perfect ass.”
“Maybe you should do a piece of art on my ass instead of my whole body.”
“It's certainly something to think about. Perhaps I should write a sonnet on it instead. Sixteen perfect lines, eight for one cheek and eight for the other, and yet only a pale shadow of the real thing.”
“My ass is too big for only sixteen lines. Maybe you should write an epic on it instead.”
“I could. Perhaps I should write it on the skin, as I did on the plane. But I fear it might take too long and you would get bored.”
“Why, because it's so big?”
“Because I'd be writing one-handed.”
“See? Gross.”
“Come here and see how gross it is.”
“I... Oh.”
“Turn over. I will write my ode to your body with mine.”
“...oh.”
* * * *
One day, in frustration, he broke all his pencils. Deliberately, methodically, I watched him snap each one in half and throw them into the sea. The rage on his face was shocking, overwhelming. For the first time I was actually nervous of his temper, of the temper of the billionaire, the ruthless businessman who had carried the person inside of him to such a hopeless, terrible place in life.
“It's not right,” he growled to the ocean. “It's never right. I can't get it right!” With one last heave, he tossed the box into the water. Made of cardboard, it floated for a moment before floating away, slowly sinking, until it had whirled and eddied beneath the surface in the wake of the boat. He stood at the railing, gripping it in white knuckled hands, and breathed deeply, struggling to get his fury under control.
I'd been posing for him. When he'd abruptly screamed with frustration and thrown the sketchbook in a rage it had skidded across the deck to my feet. I would not look at someone else's work without permission, but now I could not help it. The salty sea wind caught the pages and flipped and fluttered them, back and forth.
Stunning sketches flashed before me, each one shocking in the life it exuded. Slowly I knelt down and watched the images fly by. Me as a butterfly. Me as a mermaid, swimming in the sea, my hair floating around me. Me as Ophelia. Me lying on the couch in the sitting room, snoozing in the sun like a cat. Me arching, twisting in the throes of ecstasy. Me, me, me, and every one almost technically perfect.
But he was right. Something was missing. I couldn't put my finger on it.
“Have you taken classes before?” I said.
My voice jerked him out of his enraged stupor and he glanced at me, his eyes cold. “No,” he said. “I told you, I am good at everything.” A hand ran through his hair, fingers tangling. “Except this!”
He turned and stalked toward me, and I saw immediately that he meant to toss the sketchbook into the sea as well. I did what I rarely did now and defied him. Wrapping my arms around it, I curled over, protecting it with my body. His bare feet came to rest beneath my eyes as he loomed over me.
“Give me the book, Sadie.”
“Don't throw it away.”
“I can't get it right. Sketching isn't it.”
“Isn't what?”
“My masterpiece. I will never make a masterpiece with... with pencils and paper!” Anger burst out of him, raw and humiliated. “Perfection is impossible with imperfect materials!” He knelt down in front of me and put his hand on the sketchbook as he tried to tug it from my grasp.
I was too interested in what he had said to protest, and he took it from me. “Perfection?” I said, sitting up as he took the book and coldly, precisely put it in order before closing it. “Why does it need to be perfect?”
His cherry wood eyes met mine, and I shivered, they were so hard and cold. “What is the point if it isn't perfect? I must leave behind perfection. I lived my life perfectly, and my masterpiece must reflect that.”
If you lived your life perfectly, I wanted to say, then why are you so miserable?
But I didn't. Instead I just said, “Perfection isn't the goal of art. You'll drive yourself crazy if that's what you want.”
“I should be the first,” he said. “The first to reach that goal. I'll live forever if I could just—get it—right!”
And as he spoke he stood and flung the sketchbook overboard.
Like a dying bird it flew through the air, its pages struggling to catch the wind like broken wings. Then it fell to the
sea and sank beneath the waves.
* * * *
“You're really drunk, Malcolm.”
“I certainly hope so.”
“No, I'm serious. I'm worried about you. You haven't been eating and now you're downing the scotch like water. You're half way to dead.”
“I've been worse.”
“Yeah, I have, too. Coming back isn't fun at all.”
“Your throat.”
“...Yes. My throat.”
“Someone slit your throat.”
“Yes, they did.”
“Then why am I the one who's drunk instead of you?”
“Because you are acting like a child. Get up. I'm putting some food in you.”
“Not waffles. Anything but waffles.”
“No, not waffles.”
“Good, I love waffles.”
“You told me you hated waffles!”
“I told you that so you would feel better about murdering perfectly good waffles. What you do to waffles is a crime against humanity.”
“You know what? Now you're getting waffles.”
“No... no, don't...”
“Yeah. Bet you wish you weren't too drunk to resist my magnetic wiles now.”
“I never can, anyway.”
* * * *
I made him waffles. They were atrocious.
He ate them anyway, to make me happy.
* * * *
“Sorry about those waffles.”
“They are with God now.”
“If by God you mean the fish, then yeah, that's where they are.”
“Even the fish, I think, will not eat bile- and Scotch-soaked burned waffle bits. Only the Lord will have pity on them.”
“Yeah? You think he'll have pity on you when you kill yourself?”
“...A shot across the bow. And no. I don't deserve it.”
“So to Hell, then?”
“The devil knows I'll take over. I will wander the world as a hungry ghost. Perhaps I will haunt you.”
“I'll leave some waffles out for you.”
* * * *
“Tell me about your parents,” he said one day as I stretched on the deck in the sun, assuming various yoga positions I'd seen once or twice. I don't have time to do yoga back home, and apparently it's harder than it looks. My hamstrings screeched in protest. Malcolm sat by, watching me intently as he attempted to capture my dynamic poses on his canvas in strokes of broad, abstract color before I switched to something new.