by Daryl Banner
“Hey, pretty,” he finally says.
I cross my arms. I hate that that’s the first thing I do. “Hi,” I offer back coolly.
Why can’t I be sweet and nice to him? He doesn’t deserve me standing here protecting my own steel-cased heart locket. Lighten up, Nell.
“Enjoying Renée’s show?”
I take a short breath, then put on a smile. “It’s very moving.”
He tilts his head. “What’s wrong?”
I flinch. “What do you mean?”
“You’re smiling.”
Seriously? You think something’s wrong because I’m smiling? “I’m fine,” I tell him, unfolding my arms and willing my nerves to chill out. After a moment’s thought, I lower my voice and add, “But if I’m totally honest, I’m … I’m not really a Renée Brigand fan.”
“Really? Maybe you’re just looking at the wrong stuff. Hey, I just saw something pretty cool in the other room. Did you—?”
“Already saw it. Not a fan of hand veins and bloodshot eyes.”
“One of the photos was a bodybuilder’s forearm, actually. But that’s not the one I’m talking about.” He takes a step toward me, his eyes alight. “There’s this other room …”
“Brant …”
“What?” he asks innocently, leaning against the pedestal.
I didn’t realize how close he’d gotten. I can smell his cologne.
I can’t escape it; every breath is now all full of him.
His spice. His shampoo.
His crispness. His minty freshness.
His heat.
His fucking everything.
“I just …” I take a deep breath, preparing myself for what I want to say, and then becoming utterly incapable of saying any of it. Stay away. I can’t do this. We can’t go through this.
All of that in my head suddenly becomes: Don’t go away. I need this. We have to go through every inch and second and stroke of this.
He steps even closer, his chest nearly against me as his intense blue eyes bore down into mine.
“You just … what?” he asks softly, encouraging me.
I lick my lips and stare at his chest, unable to meet the intensity of his gaze. “I think … I think it may be best if we …”
“If we …?”
“Just remain friends.”
I see his Adam’s apple gently dance with his swallow. “Friends?”
“Friends.”
His breaths fall on me in gentle waves against my hair. After too long a time, he says, “You sure about that?”
“I think it’s best for us,” I force myself to say.
I feel him staring down at me. Even without looking, I know his hard crystalline eyes that burn like sapphires are burrowing into me from above. It takes everything in me not to tackle him to the floor right now.
“Is this your way of saying … that you don’t want to have sex with me?”
“We went too far the other—” I swallow, perhaps also swallowing the memory that rushes forth of how his face felt between my legs and what else of his I’d like between them. “Too far the … the other night,” I finish.
“Look at me.”
“We went too far.”
“Nell. Look at me.”
I hold my breath. Then, with eyes as cold and hardened as the iron butt of a hammer that’s so fucking ready to fall, I lift my chin and allow his bright blue gaze to invade mine.
His eyes are twice as powerful as I was afraid of. They charge into me, tearing through all my carefully built walls and penetrating all my defenses.
There’s no security in my little heart locket; those eyes of his reach right in there and pull all of me out with just a single glimpse.
“You sure you want to just be friends?” he asks gently.
I don’t flinch. I’m paralyzed. My mouth is rendered as dumb and useless as every worthless lock in this room.
“Hmm?” he urges me, his face inching closer. “Just friends?”
The words find me at last. “Just friends.”
“No sexy-sexy?”
“Nope.”
“No kissing, either?”
“Definitely none of that,” I answer defiantly.
He nods slowly, then says, “Alright. I can respect your wishes.” He sighs softly. “But it ain’t gonna be easy.”
I straighten my back, which has the unintended effect of bringing my face even closer to his. “So,” I say, shifting the subject, “you said there was another room?”
“That, I did,” he mutters back smartly.
“Want to show me?”
“It’d be a bad idea now. What with our ‘just being friends’ and all.”
I squint quizzically at him, cocking my head to the side. “Why’s that?”
“Well, if you saw the room, you might understand.”
He gives me a smart smirk that pushes out his dimples. I could kiss him so hard right now. I feel sick to my stomach. I have never wanted anyone as bad as I want Brant Rudawski.
So why do I keep denying myself the pleasure? He’s right here. He wants me too. What’s the harm in having a little fun with him? I mean, other than turning my heart into a soup of agony seasoned by the pepper of my own doubts and crushing talent for self-deprecation.
“Alright,” I say, giving in. “Show me the room.”
Brant smiles, shrugs as if in apology for my impending fate, then leads the way.
I follow him through the maze of unsecured and broken doors to the main gallery room, which has become twice as crowded as it was an hour ago when the exhibit first opened. I follow Brant with little awareness of the people around me, all of my attention suddenly arrested by both his arrival and by my curiosity as to where he’s taking me. I’ve been here for over an hour; I’m pretty sure I’ve seen every piece Madam Renée has to show.
We pass the room of bloodshot eyes, bodybuilder forearms, and hand veins, the doorway of which holds a sign that says “This Is Where I Draw The Line: Down My Body.”
He leads me behind the circle of easels which bear paintings of severed heads that seem to stare at one another—some happily, some suspiciously, some bored—and it’s behind that circle where we arrive at a line of four people who wait at a door that has a diamond-shaped sign with a man and a woman on it. As we approach, the door opens and two people leave, bewildered looks on their faces, and the next two enter.
“You sure you didn’t go in there already?” he asks.
I chuckle dryly. “Honestly, I thought this was a line for the bathroom and ignored it.”
“Glad you ignored it.” He grins stupidly. “Because now I get to expose you to it.”
“Should I be worried?” I cross my arms and lean tiredly against the wall, trying to feign disinterest while my heart betrays me, thumping in my chest like a toddler throwing a tantrum at what awaits us in that mysterious room.
“A little bit,” he admits with a wink.
The next couple leaves, then the couple ahead of us go in. We’re next in line.
“Doesn’t take very long,” I remark. “Did you know Renée Brigand doesn’t make art? She makes experiences,” I inform him mockingly.
“I believe it,” he says, and I’m not sure he caught my sarcasm or my obvious distaste for Renée’s work. “I mean, really. Whether someone’s work pisses you off or invokes some deep dark part of you … or just plain makes you happy, I’d say it’s successful. I wish I could do that to people instead of just … being disregarded all the time.” He smirks, staring off somewhere.
I study the side of his face. He’s blushing. “You have a camera,” I remind him, trying to be encouraging. “Keep taking pictures, Brant. Keep taking pictures until you’re sick of taking them.” He’s like another kid at the Westwood Light whose spirit I’m trying to rekindle. “Then take some more.”
He considers my words. “Well, I would, but my camera’s …” His face twists into a wince, then he seems to shake away a thought. “You’re right,” he decide
s, smiling proudly. “I should keep at it until I get something decent from my big ol’ complicated device.”
I bite my lip at that last comment of his. That last comment was about you, Nell. “Listen. I’m …” I don’t know why it’s so difficult for me to apologize. Maybe I spent the first half of my life apologizing so much that now I’m all out of them, and the thought of issuing just one more makes me feel weak again. “I’m sorry for … implying that you were dumb. Or didn’t know what to do with a camera. Or … whatever it is I may have insinuated about you or your lack of intelligence.”
Then the door opens and out stroll the couple who went in before, two girls who smirk at one another as they strut away.
Brant pulls open the door. “After you.”
He didn’t acknowledge my apology, but he’s acting downright cheery. The apology isn’t meant to make me feel better; I said it for his sake. He can take it or leave it. I nod, surrendering, then slip past him through the door. His scent follows me in as I go, gripping my senses and blinding me to what I’m seeing until he shuts the door behind us, cutting off the light from the main gallery.
“What is this?” I ask dumbly, staring at the image before me.
He’s at my side. “I know, right??”
The room is the size of a walk-in closet or deep elevator, like the one you might find at a hospital. The walls are flat and white, and the only light in the room comes from a video projected on the farthest wall in front of us, filling its entire width and height.
The video is of two attractive people who are slowly and sensuously making out. They face each other, so we observe their profiles as they caress one another’s face tenderly, pushing lip against lip and nose against cheek as they twist and quirk their heads toward one another.
It’s almost beautiful until I notice that between their locked mouths, drool has gathered and slowly spills down their chins. Drips of their saliva pock their clothing and the plain, tiled floor at their feet. Once I notice that, I realize they may have been kissing for an exorbitant amount of time. Neither of them pulls away even for a second. The drool continues to pool, becoming more grotesque with every gentle smack and pucker of their lips.
“Ew,” I mumble when a drip of saliva loosens from the man’s chin and finds a home on the woman’s chest.
“It’s almost too much, isn’t it?” remarks Brant at my side, watching the show with awe.
I glance at him, pulling my eyes from the lovers. “This crap is what you wanted to show me?”
“It looks gross,” he agrees lightly, “but do you read their bodies? It’s beautiful, really. Their love is, like, totally gross. But it’s theirs. They’re into it. They want each other and they don’t care what it looks like, what others say … Right …? I mean, they’re totally into each other.”
I find I can’t look back at the lovers, suddenly hypnotized by the side of Brant’s face as his eyes shine from the light of the projected video, glimmering against the movements of the man and woman on the wall. He looks like a child watching the stars.
Has Brant ever truly been to an art exhibit? I mean, other than the last time when he became my exhibit. I wonder if he’s ever let art into his life. Is he doing this just to impress me, or is there something inside him that is being enraptured by the artistry he’s experienced tonight? Somehow, I don’t even mind that it’s Renée’s work.
“They are into each other,” I agree, staring at him instead of the wall.
“Can’t even look away,” he murmurs thoughtfully.
“Hypnotized.”
“They don’t even care that all their … love … is running down their mouths like that, all slobbery and stuff. They’re wet in each other’s unapologetic affection. It’s gross to an outsider, but …”
“Totally gross,” I agree, my eyes trailing down his body.
“I wish I could feel something like they feel … with that much abandon.”
He turns to me now, and when he finds my eyes glued to him, he appears genuinely startled. He lifts his eyebrows, observing me cautiously. Then, with the care of someone handling the most fragile piece of glass, he reaches and slowly draws a strand of my hair behind my ear.
“You do somethin’ with your hair?” he asks.
“Not really.”
Half a crooked smile appears on his face. “You look pretty tonight, Penelope.”
A part of me cringes inside at hearing my full name uttered by his soft voice. Another part of me melts. I think it’s my panties.
“I like your shirt,” I return.
“I feel a bit underdressed.”
“I’ve seen you even more underdressed.”
His crooked smile grows. “More like, undressed.”
The couple on the wall keep kissing each other at our sides. Their lips suck and twist and gently consume one another. Their love spills in steady streams from between their mouths.
He takes a step toward me. “Do ‘just friends’ get undressed in front of each other?”
“Brant …” I warn him.
“Because if I’m being totally honest here, I really want to kiss you right now.”
My heart jumps. “It would be a terrible idea.”
“I’m really happy to see you again.”
His hands slip around the small of my back. My fingers clutch the base of his shirt at the hips instinctively. Judging from the firmness I feel in his swelling pants as our bodies press together, I can tell just how “happy” he is to see me, indeed.
“Still a terrible idea,” I whisper.
“The worst,” he agrees.
His lips rush toward mine, hesitating only for a moment before our mouths collide.
Our lips battle with one another, wrestling for dominance as our hands grip each other’s clothes tightly. His cock flexes firmly through his jeans. He groans eagerly as I pull him against me, as if we can somehow get our bodies any closer than they already are.
My heart races so fast, I feel out of breath. My hands learn every contour of his lower back and quickly discover how perfect his ass really is as my fingers trace his firm cheeks, then grab hold of them, pulling him into me.
Oh my god, I’ve needed this.
He groans into me as he gently bites my lip, and I feel every inch of his cock pushing against my leg. He lets go of my lip just to say, “Fuck, what you’re doing to me, Nell …”
What I’m doing to him? I haven’t even begun.
I slide my hand down his body, my fingers hopping on every bump of muscle, down his firm, cascading abs, until they arrive at his jeans. My fingers cup around his quickly swelling cock through the material.
“P-Penel …” he moans into my mouth.
“Got you,” I whisper back.
My hand massages him down below, leaving his jaw in a helpless, hanging state and his eyes closed with dreams of what I’m about to do to him. I give him one stroke up and down the outside of his jeans. Then another.
He holds his breath, his forehead wrinkling in agony.
Right where I want him.
I bring both hands to the waist of his jeans and give them one swift tug, and with as loose and low-hanging as they are, they drop without him even having to undo them.
He’s hard in his boxer briefs, his cock pushing against the material and grazing my thigh. I touch the tent he’s made of his underwear, which seems to stiffen him even more as his cock flexes and throbs. Pulling the waistband down, his cock pops out of his boxers, and when my hand wraps around the flesh, I earn myself a sigh of delight from Brant Rudawski.
“P-Penel … Pen … N-Nell …” he tries to say.
And then I stroke, slowly yet firmly, and all the words he might’ve said turn into a melody of grunts and elongated vowels.
It isn’t long before I feel his cock flexing with the impending threat of an orgasm. Jerking him with vigor, I aim his cock at the screen, my animal eyes leveling up with his. He gapes at me, eyes flashing open as he gasps in beautiful agony, reaching the
edge in an instant.
When his jagged breaths turn vocal, his cock dances, and streams of his white cum shoot across the space, dressing the wall where the couple in the video continue to slobber over one another, only now, somehow, they’ve acquired handcuffs and are cuffed to each other, much like how my hand is cuffed to Brant’s wet and slippery cock, figuratively speaking.
“Oh … my … god,” he sighs, all his muscles relaxing in my clutch.
As my hand comes to a stop and we turn into two statues standing here in this room, we breathe slowly and observe our contribution to the room, which rests in squiggly ropes and coils of Brant’s seed on the video wall.
“A fine work of art,” I murmur quietly, bringing my chin to his shoulder and leaning into him.
“You’re very … very skilled with your hand,” he notes, out of breath.
“You’re skilled with your eyes.”
Chains have appeared around the couple, binding them and pulling them even closer to one another. Then cuffs appear at their ankles, locking them together even more. Soon, the lovers seem to kiss so deeply that their faces literally crush into one another in slow motion. Their display of love has quickly grown into some creepy avant-garde horror show.
Renée, you’re one sick duck.
“I should probably clean off the wall,” says Brant.
I scoff at that. “Your jizz is an improvement to this crap show,” I assure him, then give his sleeve a tug. “Pull up your pants. I’ve had enough of this insufferable woman’s work.”
The next instant, we’re out of the doors and another excited couple of people enter behind us. Brant and I share a look, then burst into laughter on our way out of the gallery.
Chapter 14
Brant
Her lips are so sexy, I imagine them consuming mine and kissing me without reprieve until I’m completely deprived of air.
What a beautiful way to suffocate.
“So … I don’t know if this is too soon, but—”