by P D Singer
“Are you okay? Were you out here all night?” The man knelt beside Ricky, who rolled to sitting, wondering how the night had turned to morning.
“I’m okay. I was looking at the sky and fell asleep.” Ricky did a double take at his would-be rescuer. Jon’s straight sandy-brown hair and blue eyes shouldn’t be here on the beach, but no, this man had a pointier chin and narrower shoulders. Ricky let the man help brush sand out of clothes and hair. Half the beach stuck to him.
The golden retriever came back for another snuffle, which Ricky fended off with ear scratching. It settled down on the sand and prepared to soak up the affection. “Your breath could strip paint, dog.”
“That’s what you said about Beau last time.” The man scratched his dog’s other ear, making it whuff out a huge sigh of contentment.
Too groggy to stifle the words, Ricky blurted out, “I did? Do I know you?”
The man rose to his feet and looked down, his eyes clouded and his mouth a thin line. “Apparently only in the biblical sense. Bye, Ricky.” He turned to continue his stroll down the beach. “Come, Beau.” The dog rose in a shower of sand, throwing it first from its forequarters and then from its hind end, stinging Ricky with the flying grit, and followed his master down the shore.
Completely wakened now by the sandblasting, Ricky recalled a night not a month ago with this man, how they had been rousted by a cold nose, hot panting, and a demand for a morning walk. They’d humored the beast, which incidentally had allowed Ricky a graceful exit, ending the encounter with an embrace by this very stair. He hadn’t given the man, whose name still hadn’t come to mind, a second glance. Now Ricky watched him wander down the beach, his shoulders hunched and his hands in his pockets, uncoiling only to reach for a bit of driftwood to toss for the dog’s pleasure. He’d seen such a sandy-brown head over a lean body leave the trading floor yesterday afternoon, and Jon, too, hadn’t looked backward.
Chapter Eighteen
RICKY washed the beach off and slipped into the double bed alone, thinking to catch a few more hours of sleep in comfort. After his early-morning encounter with the casual lay, whose name stubbornly refused to come to his conscious mind, he concluded that he might not ever have asked or, if he had, not bothered to memorize it. Why would he? There would be no second time.
Jon would know the names, birthdates, names of pets, and maybe even the pet’s birthdates of everyone he’d ever slept with. Jon had a methodical mind, but more than that, Jon didn’t do casual. Ricky thought, not for the first time, that he didn’t do anything but casual.
And yet they’d been together almost two years, as Haden, but not Ricky, had noticed. He’d come back to Jon between adventures, always, no matter who and what he’d done, for comfort, for solace, for—familiarity. He hadn’t wanted the same old same old, he wanted new and different, and yet, every time he’d had another share of the exotic or the merely novel, he’d returned.
And Jon had let him; Jon, who had been his safe haven, had welcomed him back. After an evening or a weekend, Jon had held him, kissed him, put a condom on him, and shagged him stupid. Then held him again. And sometimes reminded him that he didn’t have to go away, that he could have all that without leaving first. But Ricky had left again. And again.
And if he always had one foot halfway out the door, no one could ever throw him out—he’d always be the one to leave, he was—just going anyhow. But if he hadn’t, would Jon have ever said ‘go’? Ricky hated asking himself such questions—they only got worse.
What kind of bastard was he? What kind of fool? Did he have to be told he was loved to know it?
Now Jon had gone from saying, Please don’t leave, to Don’t come back. I can’t live with that kind of risk.
Part and parcel of a guy who did stop-loss orders and hedged his bets. Damn him.
There was no sleep for Ricky in the double bed, and, as became apparent while he tiptoed around the kitchen making coffee and getting some pastries out of a white bag he hadn’t purchased, no sleep for Christopher and Haden in the other bedroom. Ricky swore under his breath and went back out to the beach with his breakfast, carefully checking up and down the sand for golden retrievers attached to men he couldn’t manage conversations with.
Leaving the coffee cup on the deck and patting his pockets, Ricky opted to walk toward town rather than go back inside to deal with the lovebirds, who had abandoned the nest to the point of finding both the fresh coffee and the raided bag. One apparently did not make up for the other.
Hoping that daylight wouldn’t trick him into trying a second tryst with someone he’d only seen before at night, Ricky did keep an eye out for any potential partners on his ramble into the town of Cherry Grove.
Too taken, too oblivious, too old, too…. Ricky didn’t speak or make eye contact with anyone on the sand, barely checking out the charms of those who opted not to wear clothing on these “clothing optional” beaches, though he made a mental note to put sunscreen on all four of his cheeks later. Nor did he lure anyone closer on the narrow boardwalks that were the substitute for streets in this town of no motorized vehicles.
Once at Ocean Walk, he turned, looking for something he couldn’t name, something different or at least not too familiar. Ricky didn’t need real estate offices nor would he enter a bar this early, and the display of handcrafted jewelry in a window barely turned his head. A bright flag fluttered outside a door he’d never entered, catching his eye and implying novelty.
Part artists’ bazaar, part art-supply store, it was new and different enough that he spent a pleasant half hour browsing, mostly in the section somewhat shielded from the window. From the explicit to the merely suggestive, the works on display enticed him with promises of what he expected to find among the other vacationers on the island. One or two drew him enough to check the artist’s name and price tag, and one, an extreme close-up of a man’s face at orgasm, three times life size, brought him to an admiring halt and a near purchase.
Partly for the subject matter, partly for the artist’s skill in rendering that evanescent moment, Ricky contemplated the painting, wondering where he’d place it. Too small to hang alone on the currently blank wall in his living room, too large for any other space he could drive a nail, it was, Ricky decided, rather too red in the skin tones. Either the artist didn’t see people in the same ranges he did, or the model was sunburned. Even at climax, Jon didn’t flush that much.
It had been years since Ricky worked in color; his artwork these days was limited to the small, pointed caricatures he could scrawl out while supposedly paying attention to something else. Maybe it was time to try something with more realism—surely he could capture a likeness in another style. One table of small sculptures over from the eye candy, a display of brushes, charcoals, and paints suggested he should try.
Ricky selected a pad of Stratford paper, a blending stick, a sharpener, and a package of pencils. No yellow-coated number twos in this lot. They ranged from 4H to 6B and would give him a variety of grays to work with. He had all day to play with his new toys. The only question was where.
No reason he couldn’t park on the beach, with miles of space and endless models wandering by. Ricky headed back toward the Baywalk boardwalk, shaded from the sun by the arching trees, scented with the breeze coming off the water. Another scent attracted his attention, delectable and fudgy, coming from a storefront with a bakery sign.
“The brownies are fresh.” The young man guided a steel pan of chocolate bliss into the glass-fronted case.
“Sounds good. I’ll take one.” Ricky watched him slide the spatula under a generous square, disturbing the pristine rectangle of brown. “No, make that three.”
“A man of large appetites?” Saucy eyes matched the teasing, but Ricky had a small theft on his mind and didn’t respond. Scribbling “sorry” on the white bag with the bakery’s grease pencil wouldn’t exactly make up for the lovebirds’ plundered breakfast, but it was something. Ricky set off again, thinking of the smudges he�
��d make on his new sketchpad.
The white bag and the pencils dropped to the sand, followed quickly by Ricky. The bayside beach still had shade, which he’d use as long as it lasted. Squirming a nest into the sand with his butt, Ricky got comfortable and popped the seal on the pencils.
This was harder than he thought. Ricky sharpened the soft 4B pencil and tried sketching out a face, irritated that his hand could not translate the vision in his mind’s eye. Funny and savage were easy, a few deft strokes and exaggeration, but realistic was something else. He stuck to it, using the side of the lead now.
A whole face was too much: he narrowed his focus. Surely he could make lips look like lips. Ricky concentrated on a mental image and started to shade in the indent below the curve of bottom lip; shadows, not lines, would give him the effect he wanted.
Skills unused in fifteen years started to surface. He could have been good at this, really good at this, but after that last fight with his father, he’d switched to business. Making far more money than the old man ever had would show him who was the worthless…. Ricky ripped the page out of the notebook and crumpled it. He had to think only of what he was trying to draw.
Eight unsatisfactory mouths later, Ricky was relatively certain that his latest effort on the well-used page could be recognized as a particular human. When he got really tired of mouths, he could try eyes. He reached into the bakery bag for some chocolate reward and nibbled the edge, brushing the flat lead of the light 4H pencil on the lower lip of his latest effort, trying to showcase a highlight.
Okay, this was starting to work. Ricky finished the brownie, flipped to a fresh page, and went to work again. Hey, that set looked like lips! He started again, trying to get a three-quarter profile with the now blunted tip of the dark 4B.
“If you blend down first and then up, your light source will appear higher.” Soft commentary from behind made Ricky jump.
“Oh, right.” Ricky glanced back briefly, intrigued at the instruction from the blue, and rubbing the blending stick against the paper, much more interested in whether the advice worked than in who offered it.
“Maybe a harder pencil, too, unless you want something dark enough to pass for lipstick.”
“No.” The thought of his image wearing lipstick brought a snort. “I’m having trouble getting the asymmetry right.” He found the 2H pencil—yes, that was going to work better.
The speaker went from an impression of bright blue jams and hairy calves to an entire man sitting cross-legged in the sand next to Ricky. “Yeah, it’s a different way of thinking, to put in the things that are farther away, leave the near parts alone because they are already there, so to speak.”
“Damn.” Ricky scrutinized what he’d done—it still didn’t look right.
“May I?” The stranger took the pad and a medium pencil to sweep a few strokes on the paper. “Part of it is knowing how much to put on and how much of it to move around on the page.” A few gentle rubs of the blending stick wiped gray from the original pencil stroke onto places that now moved backward visually, creating roundness that hadn’t existed a moment ago. “Try it.”
“Hmmm.” Rick plied pencil and blending stick, getting more definition from less graphite than before. “I think I see….” He focused on the man’s mouth, then turned back to the paper. “Okay.” He sketched out another mouth, shading and blending. “That’s looking mouth-ier.”
“I can be very mouthy.” The stranger smiled, an expression Ricky tried to catch on the paper, though the result wasn’t entirely happy. “Do you need me to model a bit?”
“Stay like that.” Ricky eyed skin tones, trying to gauge how far from the corner of the mouth he should start the deepest shadow.
Armed with a handy subject, who obligingly sat while Ricky glanced between the sketch and the reality, he started to see some real progress. Three more sets of lips grew under his pencils before Ricky decided he’d try expanding to the entire lower face. With a better idea of how to achieve dimension, he got the stranger’s chin and jawline onto the paper.
“Not bad.” The “art teacher” took the pad and put Ricky’s face on the sheet in a mere handful of strokes. “You can suggest a lot with what you don’t put in and a few small shadows, or—” He chose a darker pencil and did a much more detailed portrayal of only Ricky’s mouth. “You can put in every small variation. You haven’t found your style yet, have you?”
“I’m looking for a second style.” Stung, Ricky drew a few sharp lines, portraying the face that he finally had to look at in its entirety. He exaggerated a seductive smile into a leer, slightly close-set eyes into beadiness, giving it all an extra flair to impress. “My usual.” He displayed the caricature.
“That’s a bit—harsh.” The stranger was taken aback by the picture, his face folding into a surprised double take.
“Not really.” Ricky started another sketch. “I could make it worse—I don’t know what I don’t like about you yet.” He glanced up again, considering, and added another few brisk lines.
“No real need to find out.” The man rose from the sand. “Keep trying.”
“Hey, what about—” Ricky was going to say “eyes,” but his erstwhile coach was yards away and leaving fast. Oh well, he could figure it out. Working with a model helped; he needed a mirror or another person. Munching a second brownie, Ricky flipped to the next sheet in his sketchpad, considering body parts he could see unaided. Hands were too hard for right now, but knees, there was a part that wouldn’t leave abruptly and didn’t present with a lot of odd crevices. Ricky took another look at his folded leg and started to draw. The third brownie stayed in the bag for another hour and four well-filled sheets on the sketchpad—Ricky didn’t realize he’d eaten it until his thumb left a chocolate smear across a pretty decent knee.
Uh, whoops, he’d just eaten everything in the bag; he must be really distracted. Um, yeah—he checked the caricature and realized he and his art teacher could have been strolling back to the house, exchanging preferences about top or bottom. Oh well, someone would be along again any time now, and Ricky had a blank sheet of paper waiting.
Chapter Nineteen
“THE market could go up, or it could go down; it’s random. I’m really not trying to evade the question.” Jon wished for a polite reason to extract himself from the conversation with the woman in silver sequins and upswept hair. She’d cornered him by the bar, and Davis was nowhere in sight.
“Really? How do you make any money?” She laid a well-manicured and be-diamonded hand on his forearm. “People certainly do.”
“Individual stocks with good prospects in the fundamentals, or sometimes bad prospects, and you diversify. And know that even if you’re right on fundamentals, it’s still random and can surprise you.” He’d given this talk before. Jon switched his glass to his other hand and dropped his arm out of reach. “We take some losses, but we’ve been making money.”
“Really? How much?” She stepped closer to Jon like he was so much cougar chow. This Friend of the Opera was entirely too friendly.
“We’re up close to 65 percent for the year.” Knowing he’d be asked at least once, Jon had calculated it. Not every week had been as lucrative as the last few, but the returns were stellar all the same.
“And it’s only September,” she breathed. “Who exactly is ‘we’?” The unwelcome interest in her eyes turned to dollar signs.
“Wolfe Gorman Equities.” He kept his pleasant expression, like he’d said “Araucaria” or “Merrill Lynch.”
“Hmmm, that would be Geoff Gorman?” Everyone knew everyone in certain circles, and Jon braced himself. This could go one of two ways. He nodded an agreement and took a nibble of his canapé, working on not influencing her next remark. “Then ‘Wolfe’ is Edgar Wolfe, isn’t it?” Her voice was full of iron filings.
“Yes.” Jon had been afraid of this.
If she’d been wearing wider skirts, she might have drawn them back physically. “How… interesting. Oh, dear, ther
e’s Jessica, I need a word….” Jon was suddenly having a conversation with thin air.
Not the first time, either. He’d woo investors if he could, but since he’d been with the fund, Geoff Gorman had only been invited to a prospect’s penthouse for tea and explanations two or three times, and Edgar never. Jessica Hogenboom’s friends apparently didn’t consider returns alone.
Davis chatted with another couple in formal wear about three tables over; Jon snagged two glasses of wine from a passing waiter’s tray and joined him.
“Hello, Mr. Riesner, Mrs. Riesner.” He handed the second glass to Davis. “How are you?” Jon didn’t think he’d mistaken Davis’s air of relief at hearing names for his companions.
“Good, Jon, good. All’s well at the fund?” Julian Riesner raised his glass, and the small talk continued. The banker always had something interesting to note about the world, but Jon was quite sure he hadn’t meant to let on quite so much about the state of an industry when he said, “Care to join our table? Teitur Bragason and his wife had to cancel and head home rather abruptly. Emergency.”
“Home is Iceland for them,” Jon explained to Davis; he’d explain more privately that Bragason was a managing director for one of Iceland’s major banks, dealing with US investments. “I hope everyone’s all right.”
“No blood or broken bones—the stock market there dropped 6 percent yesterday, based on liquidity problems. I’m surprised you didn’t know.” Riesner raised an eyebrow.
“I was busy causing carnage in Orewatt,” Jon jested. “I’ll have to finish reading the newspaper tomorrow.” Dwight’s notes on the movement of money through the housing lenders and investment banks would get read first—Jon was quite sure he’d seen Iceland as a major buyer of the mortgage-backed securities they’d been studying. If that market dried up…. He’d keep his ears open for more tidbits.