The Canvas Thief

by P. Kirby

  “Should I, uh, get protection?” he asked, breathless.

  Maya nodded, glad one of them still had some good sense. Seconds later, she smiled through her own eagerness as she watched him fumble with the condom’s packaging with out-of-character inelegance.

  She gasped with relief when he buried himself inside her with one long stroke. Frozen for a moment, he lowered his face to hers. “I can’t believe we’re finally doing this.”

  Maya combed her fingers through his coppery mane, shoving it back off his face, only for it to fall back again. His hips, pressing against her thighs, burned scorching power into her skin. “If this isn’t real,” she said, “it’s the best wet dream I’ve ever had.”

  He opened his mouth as if to reply and then thought better of it and started to move inside her. The effect was to drive his power against her like waves buffeting a shore. With each thrust her body shivered with the ordinary pleasure of flesh meeting flesh, enhanced by the shimmering vibrations of his magic touching hers. Closing her eyes again, she tried to imagine the sound of paper crumbling. Her weakened magic gave off a little tremor and she opened her eyes in time to see Benjamin’s eyes lose focus again.

  “Wow,” he said, and she wished her newfound power was at full strength. He responded with a sly grin and picked up the tempo. Maya grabbed his shoulders, gasping for air, any higher mental functions liquefied by the throbbing electric pleasure. She felt as though she were opening up, filled with something more than physical, something that had been missing for years. How, she wondered, had she ever made love to a man without magical power? How could she ever do it again?

  Above her, Benjamin’s face had the funny concentration of any man in the act of lovemaking. Except not just any man could torment her with the almost searing power, the intoxicating beat of magic inside her core. “Come here,” she said, pulling him down over her. His sweat-damp chest pressed against hers, his chin rubbing the top of her head.

  Under him, it was quite apparent that even horizontal, their height difference hadn’t gone away, his shoulder at her eye level. He pounded deeper, molten energy and flesh hammering an intoxicating rhythm. Maya gasped and pressed her mouth against the shoulder, teeth nipping a patch of skin. In response, he bore down harder, pressing her hips into the bed, the force of his invasion so strong it bordered on pain.

  He pushed up away from her and groped for her breasts, with none of his earlier clever subtlety, not that she wanted subtle. His fingers pinching her nipple were enough. She bit her lip, trying to wait, but to no avail.

  She broke under him, climax shuddering through her, everything gone except that place where they were joined. He followed her, once again covering her, his breath in her ear, their sweat-slick skin pressed tight. His climax rippled through her in tiny quakes and Maya felt, for that moment, as much inside him as he was in her.

  A little touch of sadness wasn’t an unusual sensation for Maya right after sex. Maybe because the act itself was so intimate, the end had an inherent sense of tragedy. Before, however, the feeling evaporated fast. This time, it seemed to grow and she tightened her grip around Benjamin, his body above hers a protection against some strange trepidation.

  After a minute, he nuzzled her ear and kissed her neck, in the hollow above her pulse. “Maya, I have to…the condom.”

  She suppressed a groan and let him go. When the bathroom door clicked closed, she rolled onto her side, knees drawn to her chest, closing her eyes against the force of the melancholy wave that made her limbs heavy. Exhaustion clung to every muscle in her body, but her heart still hammered at a rapid rate, driven by the irrational fear that he would leave now.

  The faucet swooshed on, then off, and the bathroom door opened. A warm hand wrapped around her shoulder. “Hey. It’s kind of cold. How about we get under the covers?”

  She sat up, fingers reaching and tugging at the edge of the comforter and sheets. After a bit of awkward maneuvering to move from the top of the bedclothes to underneath, she slid her gaze up to him where he stood by the bed. “Under is usually warmer than out,” she said.

  His eyelashes fluttered as he blinked and he darted a glance at the door. Maya had the creeping suspicion he wanted to leave. “Something wrong?” she said, hearing an adolescent squeak in her voice.

  He glanced down, his face moving in a way that suggested he’d forgotten he was naked. The realization moved him into bed with her. He rolled on his back and pulled her onto him.

  “Nothing’s wrong. That’s what’s wrong.” His words rumbled in his chest.

  Because it made odd sense, she kissed his cheek and settled into the warm safety of his arms where she fell asleep instantly.

  She woke four hours later, propelled into wakefulness without the usual intermediary drowsy stage. The room was dark although she remembered that the light had been on when she had gone to sleep. Her brief panic that Benjamin had sneaked away evaporated when her leg touched his.

  Asleep, the magic in his body dulled to a quiet vibration that warmed the stretch on her lower leg where skin contacted skin. Even with the reassurance of his presence, Maya felt a tight emotion building in her stomach.

  “Adam won’t give up, Maya. He wants me to Fade and take his drawing to EverVerse.” With a few hours’ rest, the words took on an ominous significance. Not only would Adam try to get to the drawings again, but he’d send Benjamin to EverVerse whether he wanted to go or not.

  Did he?

  Moving slowly, she pushed herself up, propped on an elbow and studied the man who slept next to her. In the weak light from a streetlight filtered through curtains, his skin, which had warm golden undertones in good light, was whitely pale. His coppery hair was a dull gray that could be any shade of medium dark hair. Long, dark eyelashes sketched feathery half circles under his eyes.

  She knew without a doubt that she wanted to keep him. Maybe it was the darkness, which made the impossible possible, or maybe it was the slow warmth building between her legs, but she didn’t care if he was a thief. A thief wasn’t respectable, not like an ATF agent or a lawyer with political aspirations, but Benjamin was one of the most decent men she knew.

  Benjamin twitched in his sleep and the covers rose and fell with his breathing. Maya no longer had any doubt that he was who he claimed, but she saw him as someone distinct from the two-dimensional comic character. This man who was now her lover was as human as anyone else in her life. He looked like the Benjamin Black of her comics and drawings, but the resemblance was primarily physical. This Benjamin was an individual, with a personality and soul independent of anything Maya had imagined for her characters.

  The comforter had slid back from his right shoulder and the remains of the shotgun blast dappled the skin. Human except for his immortality. Had he ever been sick? Could he catch a cold? She thought of the condom. Immunity to AIDS and venereal diseases was probably a bonus side effect when you were immortal. Could an immortal even get someone like her pregnant, she wondered, brushing aside the voices of redheaded children that would never be. That’s it. He’d never get old, never get sick, perhaps never father children. That was why he wanted to go to EverVerse.

  Her thoughts struck a chord inside her, in a minor key, aching with longing. Maya had found love and she had to let it go. I don’t want to let him go, a childish voice whined. I won’t. There has to be a way around this.

  Benjamin made a small noise in his throat and his eyelids fluttered. He blinked, obsidian eyes filled with the startled confusion of someone waking in a strange place. “Hi,” he said, focusing on her. “You’re staring.”

  “Of course I’m staring. You’re—” she stopped before she said “beautiful” and instead said, “—ruggedly handsome.”

  White teeth caught the weak light. “Thanks. And you’re beautiful.”

  Pushing back the comforter and sheets, she laid her hand palm down on his chest, dark skin over light. She concentrated, imagining her skin tightening, compressing her magic. Still watery, it nevert
heless seemed a little stronger, though any improvement might have been wishful thinking.

  No paper handy, she clenched her other hand around a section of pillowcase, imagining the soft fibers were stiff like paper. Power quivered through her fingers as she slid them down his body, pausing to find a ticklish spot on his ribs. He squirmed and snatched for her hand but she evaded him easily.

  “None of that, Black. You’re mine to play with.” And he had to be the prettiest toy she’d ever had. Both hands on his chest, she used her weight to push him back. Eyes half closed, a hint of a smile on his face, he watched her.

  Palms down, she moved her hands to his abdomen and let her skin record the contours of the hard muscles there. Heat and magic radiated up into her palms. His chest rose with a quickened breath when she shifted toward his hips, stopping on the bony protrusions of his pelvis and curving her fingers down around his buttocks.

  Ignoring the part of him that begged for attention, she continued her exploration. The muscles of his thighs and calves, like all the other muscles on him, were made of long, sweeping lines, his knees the only sharp angles. Arousal coiled like hot smoke in her abdomen, but even now, the artist in her wanted to grab pencil and paper and sketch the form her hands were seeing.

  She would have liked to take her time, but the sense that her magic was weakening moved her back to more demanding matters. Teasing, she danced her fingertips over skin. The muscles in Benjamin’s thighs bunched tight and he groaned.

  “Bad or good?” she said, sure she knew the answer. Abandoning subtlety, she cupped her hand around soft, round flesh, palm emanating little waves of energy.

  “Good.” His voiced cracked. “Very good.”

  Maya worked with exacting slowness, watching and committing each response to memory, the way his eyelids fluttered with each touch, the way the muscles in his arms rippled when he clenched his fists.

  While Maya didn’t consider herself timid when it came to sex, she’d never been this bold so early in a relationship. With Benjamin, this careful exploration, her fingers tormenting hard flesh by massaging magical energy into soft skin, felt right, with none of the usual awkwardness.

  “Still good?” she said after a time.

  He made a noncommittal noise. “Perfect. Almost.” His reply was more pant than words.

  “Almost?” She was no mind reader, but he seemed to be enjoying himself.

  “Could be better,” he said with a crooked grin. With that he took hold of her and improved the situation. “See what I mean?” he asked.

  His hard length buried inside her, Maya looked down at him and returned his grin. “Much.”

  Chapter Twenty-one

  It was the end of the world, Armageddon, or a planet-sized asteroid was about to slam into Earth. Or so she hoped. There had better be a damned good reason for the alarm that was shrieking in her ear.

  One eye open, she lifted her head and glared at the clock radio, noting she wasn’t sleeping in easy snooze button reach. Reaching over Benjamin, who didn’t stir, she silenced the infernal racket. She climbed out of bed and pulled a bra and pair of panties from a drawer. Benjamin flailed a hand weakly and muttered something that sounded like “No sock monkeys.” Astonished that anyone could sleep through the alarm, she made for the bathroom and a shower.

  The spray covered her nose and mouth in a sheet of water, and she held her breath to distract herself from the flurry of unhappy things that hovered in the wings of her mind.

  Toweling off, she spotted a condom wrapper in the small trash can. Her heart skipped. If the man sleeping in her bed this morning and the soreness from their lovemaking wasn’t enough, the little plastic wrapper was final confirmation. She had had sex with Benjamin Black.

  The towel squeaked on mirror glass as she rubbed away fog. She was almost surprised to see the same Maya Stephenson, albeit a soggy version, staring back from the patch of cleared mirror. Now what?

  She dried her hair and then went into her room to get dressed. Benjamin wasn’t in bed, but sounds from the kitchen indicated he hadn’t left the building. She found him at her little kitchen table, along with a couple of cups of tea and the morning paper. He’d made an attempt to tame his morning hair with water, but that had only made more determined sections stick out like red spikes.

  “Where did that come from?” Maya asked. “I don’t get the newspaper.”

  He rubbed a hand over his lightly stubbled chin, looking sheepish. “Your next-door neighbor does.”

  “You stole Ms. Kalman’s paper?”

  “Gods, no. I reckon she’ll have an AK-47 this time.” He smiled, pushing a cup of tea at Maya. “Your other neighbor, Ed Carlson. He’s in Detroit this week visiting his grandkids.”

  Maya, who had opened the refrigerator, peered at him over the door. “How do you know that?”

  “He told me.” Mischief sparkled in his dark gray eyes. “He came by when you were in the shower. Said he was on his way down to Albuquerque for an early flight to Michigan.”

  Ed Carlson, a seventy-year-old widower, looked after her house when she was out of town and vice versa. Maya pushed aside a foam container containing old takeout that had probably grown fur, and wondered what Ed thought of the stranger who had answered her door.

  Benjamin answered her unspoken question. “I told him I was your boyfriend.” He lifted the Arts and Entertainment section, but not before Maya saw his face redden. “It made things less awkward.”

  Before she could respond, he redirected. “Sorry I didn’t make you a real breakfast. My idea of cooking is a peanut butter sandwich.”

  “That’s okay. I like my cereal.” She pulled out a box of granola cereal and a carton of skim milk. “I’m a great cook. Maybe sometime I can make you dinner.”

  “That would be great!” He lowered the newspaper, eyes eager, the remains of the blush still in his cheeks. They stared at each other, and Maya saw her emotions mirrored on his face, bright optimism that dimmed, sobered by an unspoken reality named Adam Sayres.

  Neither spoke for a while. Though the quiet was charged with things they weren’t prepared to deal with at six-thirty in the morning, Maya found silence easy with Benjamin. She ate her cereal, splitting attention between the sounds of Santa Fe waking up and the man at her kitchen table. Folding the paper back, he gave it a snap in a manner that reminded her of her father.

  Where and how does a person with no real childhood pick up all their mannerisms, all the little tics that most get from their parents? As she watched surreptitiously, he tilted his head slightly to the left, right eyebrow quirked, at something he read. Maya rubbed her eyes, still sleep deprived, and the answer came to her—an image of a tall silhouette standing at her front door. Breas Montrose. She smiled and shook her head, wondering if there could be a more unlikely father figure.

  After breakfast, Maya went into her bedroom to get her purse, car keys and jacket. “She loves her new forest—The Black Forest,” she said with a wink, finding Benjamin in the living room, feeding Delilah.

  “Black Forest, eh?” Benjamin’s smile turned mocking. Though much gentler, the expression echoed Maya’s memory of Breas. “As in the color of your thumb?” His smirk confirmed her hunch. She was in love with a man who’d been raised by a vampire.

  Answering his jibe with a halfhearted scowl, she made for the door and he followed. Morning was just a hint of light on the horizon, but Ms. Kalman was already up, her presence announced by the grinding racket of a heavy garbage bin scraping over a gravel driveway.

  “Today’s trash day.” Maya hoped this week’s batch didn’t contain anything too putrid, since she didn’t feel up to dragging the heavy bin to the curb. Benjamin scanned the neighborhood, the action like that of his mentor, but lacking the predatory undertones of a vampire.

  “I can get it if you’d like,” he offered. Without waiting for her answer, he trotted off toward the back of her house, returning soon after, the ugly brown bin rattling on its awkward wheels behind him. Maya met hi
m at the curb.

  Behind her something crashed, followed by a string of curses in Hungarian. She and Benjamin turned and saw that Ms. Kalman’s garbage bin had fallen over, threatening to spill on the narrow sidewalk. Benjamin bent and whispered in Maya’s ear, “You think she’s armed?” He straightened and then walked to the woman, shoulders hunched and hands in his jacket pockets.

  “Can I help?”

  She stopped struggling with the bin and studied him, suspicion in her eyes. She seemed about to say no, but then grudgingly nodded. “Careful of the garbage, it will spill on sidewalk.”

  “Okay,” Benjamin said. Maya could see the twitch of a repressed grin. Sanitation disaster prevented, Benjamin returned to Maya and walked her to her vehicle. “Lookie, no bullet holes,” he whispered, and Maya giggled.

  Feeling a touch nervous, she stopped at her SUV and gave his jacket a tug. “You’re a big sweetie, you know that?”

  Hands still in his pockets, he looked down at her. “I know you don’t want to talk about Adam, but could you promise me something? Promise me you’ll stay away from him.”

  A little spear of anger pierced her. She didn’t want to be told ever again who she could and couldn’t see. Reason warred with stubborn pride until she saw the flicker of hurt in his eyes, and she realized he misinterpreted her reaction. “If I never see Adam again, it will be too soon.”

  Relief washed over him, relaxing his tense features. For a moment, they each stood unmoving, uncertain. His gaze slid off her face for an instant and toward the street. And then with the impulsiveness of a teenager, he grabbed her face and kissed her, hard.

  The kiss lasted just long enough for Maya to consider blowing off her job and taking him back into the house. It was Benjamin who broke the kiss.