She felt his warmth and it made her go cold. She could smell him. His scent had changed in the years they’d been together. His odor was more pronounced and possessive. It crawled into her pores and snuggled in the space between her legs and under her arms.
He groaned. She felt his penis on her back, growing. Her eyes widened and she wanted to shout. She had not felt him in so long, and now he touched her as an afterthought. His erection squished into her, its tip looking for the opening of the magic door, prodding like a hungry dog. He moved his hand to her belly. The heat going through her nightdress was too much. It had been too long. His touch seared her. She could imagine the mark his fingers would leave. He inched closer to her. She pushed the hand away and jumped out of bed.
Kate was ready if he complained about being awoken. She wanted to spit back at him. It was a moment before her mouth closed and she wrapped her arms around herself.
He had not stirred, clearly he didn’t feel her absence. At one time he would have noticed the empty bed beside him and begged her to come back. Now the warm body he had leaned into, which his cock had pressed hopefully against, was inconsequential. She saw it now as plain as day. The space on the bed was of no concern.
* * * *
When Colin woke, Kate was in the sitting room looking out the large window and cradling a large mug of coffee in her hands. He tapped her head before moving into the kitchen, and she heard the rattle of pots and pans.
She remembered other weekends when they’d made breakfast together and their brief graze of fingers would remind them of what they had done the night before. Those days, breakfast seemed to last for hours. They’d cook, eat, read the paper and constantly touch each other. Her foot would snuggle between his legs and she’d feel the comfort of his limpness before it rose, full of demands. She would walk to him with her dressing gown open, and saturated with their smell even before she sat on him and began to sway. He would fill her up those mornings again and again, cramming in so many promises. It was impossible to keep them all.
Now she wondered if they ever talked then. Did they ever bother to go deeper? She couldn’t remember. It was too hard.
Kate looked out at the swimming pool, the sun seats around it and the plants bordering the fence and couldn’t believe pleasure had been enough. When their touches stopped, there was nothing left, not even smiles or pretense, nothing but the clatter of distance.
She went to the kitchen. “What are we doing, Colin?”
He stopped pouring coffee and looked at her. She thought she saw worry and it melted her. She felt relief move down to her toes, which curled toward the floor with hope. “We’re living,” he answered.
“No, we’re not. Not properly, not really.”
He stared at her, as if he was at a loss for words or unable to say the ones forming in this head. “What do you want to do?”
“I want to understand what you’re feeling. I want to know what to do to make it better.”
“Feeling about what?”
“Me, Colin! For God’s sake, do you hate me?”
He sighed and finished pouring the coffee. Was he so smart? Did he know she would deflate with his inability to look at her before he answered the question?
Colin put down the pot. “I don’t hate you. I hate what happened to you.” He had taken too long. There was too much thought, like a bloody politician.
She watched as he brought the mug to his mouth. He hadn’t been able to look at her. She knew him well enough to know that his eyes would tell the truth about how he felt. Kate couldn’t believe him.
* * * *
Christian sat in his studio apartment and looked at her with his hands holding the flecks of her color. The golden-brown of her hair was on his palms, hazel touched his fingertips and the beige of her skin mixed with his own.
He hadn’t worked for a while. Paintings had been thrown against the walls as if punished for bad behavior. Wood held the canvas like a crucifix. His eyes fell on the pieces first thing in the morning but by evening, he would be good at ignoring his past work again.
He used to love drawing faces that took up entire canvases, old men and women with whole stories in their lines. His paintings were huge productions that hit the viewer in the stomach, paintings people tended to step back from in order to see everything.
Then there was Jade. She was naked and lying on his couch, more relaxed than when she had been with him previously. Her arms were behind her, holding her body up. She had her legs crossed. Her tilted head was almost inviting, but something in her expression and eyes kept the distance.
He remembered everything about her, the curls of her hair, the small beauty mark on her shoulder, her slender fingers. Sometimes he felt he had dreamed her, this perfect lady, who not only looked gorgeous but attained mystery even when naked.
That was one of the reasons he started to paint her. If she was a dream, she might disappear, like candlelight, gone with the faintest wisp of doubt. So, for the first time in many months, he took out his paints and laid them on the wooden floor. He felt the itch in his hand with the prospect of feeling his brushes and couldn’t believe it when, once the easel was out and he remembered the details of Jade’s face, he felt his penis twitch.
He stood with an erection and his brush in hand and laughed. He couldn’t help it. This woman had such an effect on him already. Two things which had lain stagnant for too long—his art and his sex—had finally sprouted back for him, though he realized the first time he’d ever held a paintbrush and felt the surge below his belly that the two go hand in hand. He couldn’t have one without the other. Forms would not flow freely if he was blocked anywhere.
How about her then? How much was blocked with her inability to let loose?
When he started to draw her, he realized Jade was a painter’s dream. There were layers to move under. She was whoever she wanted to be yet she was no one at all.
Christian spent the day painting her. It was the first time since Lisa that time had edged away from him and its passing was hardly noticed. After Lisa left, he had experienced the minutes as Chinese torture. Each tick of the clock moved inside his head, as if time started inside him and moved outward, taking whole parts of him as it did.
Still, he didn’t take the clock off the wall and throw it on the floor. He did not watch it scatter into little pieces so the future hid under lazy chairs and a futon. He kept it there as a distraction from the memory of her body.
It hadn’t worked.
* * * *
When Christian saw Lisa in still-life class, her breasts were the first things he noticed. She wore a white t-shirt and her nipples pushed their way out, erect and wonderful. They made him want her straight away, even before he looked at the silky strands of black hair falling over her face and the large brown eyes. She was beautiful. Her mouth was small and her lips full, like a pixie. She wore a nose ring. When she leaned forward, he saw the curve of her breasts under the light fabric of her top, and his penis rose. She was small and slim, and he imagined her legs wrapped around him and her lightness as he placed his penis inside her.
He went to her after class. “Hi,” he said shyly.
She looked him over. He wondered if she could see his bulge through his jeans. “Hello.”
“Can I draw you?”
She laughed and brushed his crotch lightly. His breath caught. She leaned toward him and spoke into his chest. “Is that all you want to do?” He thought he could feel her words go through his shirt and mark his skin. When she looked up at him, her eyes glinted. Her smile made him shake his head. “Good. Then you can draw me.”
“Now?”
“Why wait?”
They went back to his studio. A canvas stood half-painted on its easel. On it, he had depicted gluttony, one of the seven deadly sins. The glistening bald man, wearing cloth around his mid-section, sat back with a red face as if his weight suffocated him. Food spilled of the edges of the canvas. Lisa studied it and turned to him. “That’s great de
tail, even down to the withering apple. I’m impressed.”
“Thanks.”
She moved to the futon. “So do you want to sketch or paint?”
“Sketch. I need practice.”
And he would get it. In the next year, Christian drew her so many times, he could do it from memory. When their relationship was over, he found her face everywhere—on piles of paper under their bed, by the futon and on the kitchen table. In all the drawings, there was a faint trace of a smile, a constant lift of her lips. He hadn’t noticed before how her expression was always the same: slightly mocking and cunning. Now it made sense. He meant nothing to her, was only something to entertain her during college, a way to spend time.
Lisa slipped off her sandals, sat on the futon and crossed her legs. He picked his sketchbook and charcoal from the floor and sat at the other end of the couch. Her head fell back and turned sideways. She watched him. His hand shook slightly. He couldn’t get her voice out of his mind. Is that all you want to do? It was so hard to concentrate. She looked so smooth and soft, so touchable. He imagined his hands beneath her t-shirt and then opening the buttons of her jeans. He took a deep breath.
She brought her t-shirt over her head in one swift motion. “Maybe this is better.” Her voice was low and teasing. Her skin was a lovely honey brown, her breasts small and those nipples… His eyes stayed on them before moving to her face. She moved her arm across her breasts in a shy, provocative pose. It made him want to touch her more. His penis tightened with the tease and the desire to tear her arm away.
Christian brushed the paper with the charcoal. He saw her form rising from the paper. Her neatness was easily contained on the page. He would always love drawing her for the way her body could move around in the small space, turning and twisting in loveliness.
“Oh, silly me.”
Her voice made his hand stop in midair. It was the same tone as Is that all you want to do?
She wasn’t smiling when he looked at her and the pouting mouth added to her mischievousness. She moved her hand to her jean-clad crotch. “I can’t work like this.”
Christian leaned back. The sketchbook fell onto his lap as Lisa stood. She opened the buttons of her jeans slowly and slipped both her hands inside, down to the curve on her crotch and back again. A small sound came from her.
He couldn’t take his eyes off her midsection. She moved so slowly, hypnotizing him with her movement. He saw her panties—dark green, so lovely against the smooth, darkness of her skin. Her jeans slid down as if her legs were silk. She lifted one petite foot, then another. The denim lay on the floor like old skin. He noticed only then her toenails were painted red and knew she was dangerous, not for the varnish but because in the last half hour he had been so overwhelmed by her, he, a painter, had not noticed.
Lisa stood in her green g-string. His eyes fixed on the patch of material. She started to turn slowly and stopped with her back toward him. Her ass was wonderfully rounded, and his penis answered to it. He imagined it between her buttocks. He would slide in and out as effortlessly as her jeans had moved down her legs.
She turned and faced him, placing her hands on either side of her g-string and pulling it down. She was magnificent, from her breasts to her small triangle of pubic hair and down to her toes.
Lisa sat on the futon with her back against its edge so she faced him with an arm across her breasts and over her crotch. She pulled her legs up and her knees parted. He saw the redness of her wonderful center, even with her pretense at hiding it. It took all his effort to stay still. He tried to draw but he wanted her so much the lines became hard and rigid. He couldn’t re-discover the softness, not with desire bursting through him. The charcoal came out on the paper in a blackness that was too deep.
His frown made his frustration obvious. He was relieved when she leaned forward, reaching for him. “Your turn.”
He handed her the sketchpad without thinking. Usually he would be shy about imperfection.
Lisa glanced at it. “Good, but it needs more confidence.” She looked at him and her face told him to undress.
He pulled his t-shirt off, then his jeans. His penis reached towards her.
She nodded. “Go on.”
Christian pulled his boxers down and the air was like a kiss.
She turned the page of the sketchbook and studied him from head to toe. “Nice. Sit down” She began to draw and he knew she was making a play of it.
He sat naked and heard the swish of charcoal on paper. He became less conscious of his erection and, with his head back, he closed his eyes until she was done.
“Finished.”
Curiosity made him stay as he was, without answering. He felt her slight body move off the couch. In front of him, she lifted his hand to bring it between her legs. Opening his eyes, he sat forward and moved his other hand to her breasts. He stroked her nipple while moving through her pubic hair and below. He felt her moistness and wanted more.
Christian was about to kiss her but she pushed him back with narrowing eyes and a shake of her head. He knew she wanted to be in control, and he would let her. She stroked his penis and he wanted to pull her toward him. He slipped his arm around her back but she stood and, with a strength belying her size, forced it back on the futon and did the same with his other hand. He groaned with the desire to touch her skin. His penis stretched with this wonderful tease. He could easily throw her back and take her, but he didn’t because the wait, though excruciating, was breathtaking.
His eyes were level with her center. Christian could see her wonderful pussy as Lisa lifted one leg to throw over him. Without taking her hands off his arms, she lifted herself up and positioned his penis exactly, so when she sat, slowly, and with a moan filling his ears, he was inside her. She swayed on him with her nipples leaning toward his mouth. He brought his head forward and flicked out his tongue, but her grip on him was strong, keeping him back. Later she would kiss the marks left on his arms from her fingers.
She rocked on his penis with her head down and her eyes closed. She was so light. Her body fit so easily onto him, it was as if she had become a warm, wet extension to his cock. He moaned with his need to pull her in tighter, but with her still holding his arms, he grasped empty air instead of the round ass gliding on his legs. He was unable to touch her skin, and her softness that surrounded his penis felt unbearably good. Her nipples grazed his chest and she dug her fingers into his arm as she slid quicker. When her back straightened, he felt her tremors and couldn’t hold back anymore. With a groan moving from his chest, he came inside her, though he wasn’t sure who had filled who up. He felt for the first time he had been the one taken.
It kept him fastened to her, this idea she could get inside him, move within his body and touch every part. It was also the control she had over him—Lisa never let him take charge when they made love. She was always the one who moved the most, who worked the orgasm out of him. Her lovemaking was ferocious but could also be soft. She liked to kiss him all over until he quivered on the bed. He was often teased as she ordered him to stay still and touched herself, until his hands clenched and his jaw tightened. Then she would climb on him or position herself whichever way she wanted to make love.
Once, she sucked and licked his penis until he quaked under her. She slid away to the other end of the bed and touched her pussy. Within seconds, he sprang up to take her, only to have her slither from his grasp and stand with narrowing eyes and a mouth spitting anger. “I told you to stay still.” She left the room and did not return until everything except remorse had died within him.
Christian did what he was told the next time. It never bothered him. He came away from the bouts of lovemaking exhausted and trembling like a woman. Afterward, he would cradle her in his arms, his little pixie, who, in all other areas of their life, was light-footed and easy, though she had a way of looking at him that made him stop speaking in mid-sentence or bring pause to his actions.
After the first day together, Lisa lived in his ap
artment. That night he ordered Chinese takeout. They lay on the futon and ate, kissed and touched in intervals between conversations. The next morning he cooked breakfast and gave her a t-shirt to wear. It was long and kept dropping off her shoulder. Even in that, he thought her too sexy. He couldn’t concentrate on his paintings. He knew this was where he went wrong. He let her take over everything—his art, his apartment and his life—so by the weekend he couldn’t imagine what he would do without her beside him. He pleaded with her to stay. She agreed. She wanted to be the center of his world and she was.
Christian rarely saw Josh and his other friends and painted rarely until the end of his last year. The Morrison Gallery, in an effort to help up-and-coming artists, picked a student from every senior year to have an exhibition of his or her work. He was chosen for the Morrison prize and had to have fourteen pieces completed in three months.
Lisa tried to pull him away from his work. In her scanty g-string, she would rub against his overalls and try to bring his hand to her, but he was focused. This was a chance of a lifetime, and he was irritated at her lack of support and the tense heavy silences he had to work in. He had to force his brush through her angry gaze. He knew she was being difficult for no reason, so when she looked at him during breakfast with her criticizing look, he didn’t smile and ask meekly, “What’s wrong?” He ignored her. He would not let her take his ambition from him. He would disregard her presence until his exhibition was done because he was sure it would be better then. They would talk about her jealousies and his love for her, which was stronger despite the way she was acting.
That never happened. Christian didn’t want to think about the moment when he realized he never knew Lisa at all. He had become possessed by her, but he had hardly reached her. Otherwise, she would not have been able to do what she did.
* * * *
A year ago, Christian had pushed Lisa to the door and told her to get out. In the lapsing time, he had to live with himself for trusting her and letting himself believe in something that wasn’t real. It wasn’t his yearning for her that kept him celibate—it was the ease in which he had given himself to her.
The Masseuse Page 9