I stormed across my studio and pulled out Aurore’s sketches I’d made from a drawer, a weird and unstoppable feeling devouring me from within. It hurt. It felt like a bomb had exploded into something messy, painful, and somehow blissful.
“Fuck it.” I tried to ignore it by balling my hand, my pencils falling on the floor. I didn’t even bother about the mess. It was alive.
A landscape of colors was tearing up the black void inside of me, and I stepped in front of Aurore’s sketches I had displayed on my board like some sort of serial killer mood board. She went back to her bedroom a couple of hours ago, but her scent and the memory of her were still very much vivid. She said she’d continue writing her novel all night long, and I said I’d do just about the same.
I grabbed the palette and threw various colors, from cobalt blue to dianthus pink to cadmium orange. The flow of colors almost hurt my sight; it was bright and uncommon. As a child, my therapist had advised me to paint to channel the unknown emotions that engulfed me, those I could not describe or understand.
In a way, it felt as if I was blinded by the dark night where ghosts haunted me through my journey. Weakness, my father called it. Real men didn’t paint. I lost the capacity to feel, the inability for emotions to pierce through my mask. The day my mother was diagnosed, I didn’t feel—it was a numbness. The ache in my vital organs disappeared in two seconds. The day I became homeless, I wasn’t angry. The times I’d had sex, it felt mediocre and boring. The words and punishments from my father didn’t hurt me.
I thought I couldn’t feel. That I was born with a malfunctioning heart.
And now with Aurore, it was years of holding emotions inside of me emerging to life in a rush. It was all too much like a tsunami you cannot control.
She awoke the dormant feelings in me I’d taught myself to ignore.
Contrary to popular belief, I wanted to feel. I wanted to be able to feel emotions, but having them was like hellions I couldn’t see attacking me. I did another stroke with my brush on Aurore’s dress, making a mental note to add one of the ribbons she wore because Aurore always had something in her hair. I always thought I was better left alone. I believed I couldn’t create a link with someone, or I’d hurt them just like I did with my family because I was unable to love, or care, or something another human needed and craved. But with her, it changed everything.
I was leaving. She was staying.
My hand fisted, and I painted my emotions away in every shade of color. I had a mantra: never paint what people did but what they thought instead, through each of their expressions. Spoken language wasn’t the only way to communicate with someone; the unique body language of a person spoke for itself even more, and in Aurore’s case, it was a language I would gladly lose myself in and translate a thousand ways, again and again.
For hours, I devoted myself to focusing on the task. I had everything I ever wanted, focusing on my personal success and finding security through routines, realistic thinking, and control. Yet Aurore had always been here, haunting me with her capacity to make me feel and want more than all of this.
I felt like I was ripping apart. I had to ignore what was happening to me from within and focus. Focus on each stroke and color, and ignore Aurore’s lips, the feel of her, the shape of her. Her true self created an intoxicating flux within me, growing like a tumor. And as the tumor grew stronger, my brows creased harder. My heart was like a ticking bomb about to explode at any moment.
And so I painted until the sun rose with a tight feeling in my chest that felt like a glass shard that I couldn’t pull away. I was barely looking at my canvas, the shades choosing the final destination for me. My hand was numb when I felt a movement in the back. I turned around to see Aurore wearing only my shirt, with a plate of food.
The tightness in my heart intensified like a knife planted in my chest, blood spreading.
“Good morning.” She took in my whole atelier with a laugh. “We really did make a mess here. I made a typical French breakfast, croissant and everything. By ‘made,’ I mean I bought it because I don’t want to poison you anymore.”
I swallowed, assessing her, a wave burning me.
That woman had resurrected me.
“Thank you, but I’m not hungry.” The idiot in me had to lie, incapable of being next to her again right now. My cock pulsed in warning of everything I still craved to do to her.
“Too bad for you. I’ll eat everything, then.” She dug her long fingers on the plate to bring a croissant to her sultry lips. I wish I could be that damn croissant. “Are you sure you don’t want one?”
I want you, my brain screamed. I want your lips wrapped around my soon-frustrated hardness. I want to bury myself deep in you. I want your moans and breaths.
“Yes.” And here I was, a cold bastard again.
She wiped her hands between them, swallowing the last piece. “Do you need me? Oh wait, I need to change unless you want to paint me naked or something.”
“Yes.” But what did I say yes to? The naked part. Obviously, the naked one.
She chuckled. “You’re strange this morning. If I didn’t know you, I would even say you’re embarrassed and shy, but I’m probably just disturbing your artistic mood.”
“No, you aren’t.” I sounded pitiful. “You never disturb me, Aurore.” At least, not the way she was intending.
“So you like having me in your private space?” She gestured dramatically with her hands before locking them together.
I didn’t like it. At least, I think I didn’t enjoy that feeling of tightness and vulnerability.
But I needed it. Needed her.
And if it were to disappear, I’d be nothing but void.
“I wouldn’t want you anywhere else,” I finally said, and she displayed a beaming smile I rarely saw on her features.
I rushed to hide the sketches of her in the desk drawer as she advanced toward me. It wasn’t finished.
“I just sent the first ten chapters of my manuscript and a query letter and all the boring things to your email address, by the way, and no peeking! It’s just a first draft, but I hope it’ll be enough for Ever After to be intrigued by my story and want to read more, and pick me out of thousands of talented writers.”
“I’ll hand it over to them as promised.” I cleaned up my hands with the towel. “Looks like our collaboration was fruitful.”
“Very.” She painted on a smile, one that was almost apologetic. Her hands rubbed together, and I read this as something someone did when they’re anxious. “I can’t wait to see your collaboration with Ever After.” She handed me a check. One I had given her. “I can’t accept the other fifty thousand. You can keep it.”
I pushed her hand away. “It’s yours. It’s part of our agreement.”
“I won’t accept it. I won’t touch it.” She made a face and put the check back inside her pocket. She knew arguing with me was a lost cause. “Well, my ride back home will be here soon.”
I should have been busy cleaning up my favorite brushes before the paint dried and clogged them, but instead, they met the trash can. I had no time for them, devoted to the woman in front of me.
“You could stay.” Here the words were. I could still make another contract. Relationships were all about contracts, after all. Marriage. Moving in together. Divorce. Death. Birth.
Her fiery eyes met mine, and I kept the new rush of emotions in check. They burnt me as if I was wood consumed by fire. My black-and-white movie became colorful. My stare roamed over her with a newfound desire, my hardness pulsing behind my trousers. She parted her lips, slowly wetting them with that tongue of hers. I missed her taste. The sun warmed up her skin in blooming, hopeful rays as one does after the battlefield that we had been through. The only sound breaching the void was our breathing.
The world was cold before her.
At that moment, the sleeve fell off her shoulder like a phantom touch, and my gaze instinctively snapped back to her. Neither of us moved; her breast was almost exposed to me, and the desire to suck, claim, take was stronger than anything. She readjusted my shirt to the greatest disappointment of my hardness.
“I want you to be my muse.” I stepped closer. “Full-time.”
“You’ll be leaving in a couple of days,” she pointed out that annoying fact. “And I’ll be back home.”
“Why don’t you come with me?” I felt a spasm tilting my lips, not thinking of the consequences this could have for both of us. “Your sister could come too.”
“You’re asking me to follow you to the other side of the world? But if I were to do this, it’d be only for you. I have nothing waiting for me where you’re going.”
I wanted to tell her she’d have me, but that somehow felt wrong. I was being selfish, wanting to have her for me. “I could inspire you. We’ll visit all the places you want. You’ll write stories, and I’ll listen to them.”
Her lips smiled, but her eyes glistened. Sadness. It was sadness. “That actually sounds lovely, but I can’t be selfish again. I can’t let my family down. What we have, it’s recent—we’re not even sure it can last. And it’s hard enough for Luna to fit in, and my mom, she’ll be alone and—” She furrowed her brows, that spark of hope leaving her features. “It’s not the right moment. Our lives are a construction site.”
“It never is.” I focused on each detail of her face, particularly on the feline color of her eyes.
All this time, did I choose wrong by not going after her?
“My sister needs me here. She’ll be back to school soon, and I’m maybe on the verge of having everything I want with Ever After. I can’t give up on my dreams or my family.” She swallowed. “Just like you can’t stay here with the phantoms of your past. You’re running away.”
The selfish idiot in me wanted to promise her I’d wait for her, as many months or years as she needed, because she was worth waiting for. But spasms crossed my brows for a reason I ignored. I couldn’t tell her that. Not because it wasn’t true—it was true. I’d wait a lifetime.
But what could I offer her?
I ruined the lives of all the people close to me. I made my father hate me, my mother forgot me, and I gave up on my brother. I didn’t love the way normal people do. I didn’t express my emotions nor experience them the same way. She deserved better. Someone who could give her that. A romance. Someone worth flying across the globe for. I wasn’t worthy of being cared for nor loved, and more importantly, could I make her happy? I didn’t even know what happiness was until recently.
“I hope you’ll find whatever you’re looking for. The world isn’t black or white; it’s messy and colorful, and I want you to experience every bit of it.”
“We still have some time left.” Knowing that I didn’t deserve her didn’t stop me from wanting to spend as much time as possible with her until the last minute before I left.
“I could squeeze you in during my busy writing schedule,” she joked.
We made a step toward each other when I heard the door slam. Damn it.
“Ajax?” The annoying voice of Eric echoed and couldn’t have come at a worse time.
“That’s my cue to go,” she said.
“I’ll be right back.”
Aurore
Arriving in the living room, I came face-to-face with Eric, who was admiring Spectre’s newest painting in the middle of the empty living room. A painting we had painted the night before with our bodies. It was contemporary, with hard paint strokes of each color crossing the canvas.
Eric turned and greeted me. “I didn’t know that Spectre was getting into contemporary art.”
Oh no. I gave him a strained smile, like a teenager caught in the act as I stood by his side.
Eric observed the painting, squinting his eyes. “I’m not sure what he wanted to convey. It’s not really his style, but it’s still… something.”
I cleared my throat, playing the innocent, trying to ignore the marks of my hands or the one of my butt right in the fucking middle of the painting.
“Who knows.” I shrugged.
I turned my head so I could see the painting from another angle and, more accurately, the shapes of our hands locking.
Eric continued to squint his eyes, and then they doubled in size. No. Don’t tell me he—
“Is it?” He pointed a finger at what should be one of my butt cheeks.
I pinched my lips. “You don’t want to know.”
Eric did something I’d never have expected. He burst into laughter. “If I had expected this turn of events…”
“Not even the fates could have predicted it,” I snorted. Me and Spectre—it was unforeseen.
“Thank you for what you did.”
Was he thanking me for sleeping with Ajax?
“I meant, to inspire him,” he corrected. “The project he’s working on is huge for him. He had asked me to pack his schedule full for the next six months. He’d have no free time—it’s a big sacrifice for him, but he knows it’s what you have to do if you want to be legendary.”
He did? A little voice in my head screamed, What about me? He had asked me to come with him, and I’d thought about it. I did. I had started making a one-year plan. I could stay with Luna and visit him, and maybe later we could be together? Maybe it was possible to have it all. But a knot formed in my heart.
He asked me as his muse, not his girlfriend.
“So I guess I won’t be able to visit you guys, huh?” My smile was frigid. Fake. Tense.
Eric chuckled, not having the slightest idea of the heartbreak happening in my head. “I guess you could, even though from now on, he’ll have to focus. I have to admit, you have been the parenthesis he needed, the breath of fresh air for him to find his inspiration again. You saved his career. I think we owe you a lot. Now he can focus on what really matters.”
On what really matters.
I’d never expected words to hurt me that much.
I was a parenthesis. A breath of fresh air. Temporary. A means to an end. His life was all mapped out, and there was no room for me in the future.
I couldn’t blame him—he was Spectre, after all, and he had sacrificed his life to be who he was. The artist who didn’t want to reveal his identity, therefore, he couldn’t have a relationship with someone like me. I was his muse, The Sad Girl, and if we were together, showing ourselves, the art world might recognize me as such.
“Right.” I swallowed the bitter words, stuck in my throat like a wave of acid. “You didn’t set up a relationship for him in his plans, right?”
“I’m only his agent, Aurore. I do what’s best for him—businesslike, not personally.” His forehead creased. “You inspired him as his muse. But you need to understand that if he were to have a relationship with you, you’d have to hide. It’d be risky. You wouldn’t accompany him to any events, and he couldn’t paint you again without people being able to trace his identity back to you. He’ll be traveling, painting, and maybe someday… maybe someday, he could reveal who he is, but I…”
“But?” I continued, my voice breaking. “You can be honest with me, Eric.”
“But I think having a relationship will distract him. You helped him get back on track, but right now, he needs to move on. And you need to, too.” He tried to care, but Eric was a businessman, like he said. He was protecting Spectre’s interests, not his heart. “You really think he could give you what you want?”
“I think you know the answer.” Yes. A hundred times yes. “If Spectre’s identity was revealed, what would happen?”
“Well, we can’t be sure, but we can expect the worst. His artwork will lose its price consequently. Since he signed up with Ever After, he’s been offered many big projects in the US and offers for huge collaborations. His international career will be like no artist ever had. I believe he’d lose all of that if his identity was revealed out of nowhere.”
“Yeah, I get it. If you kill the myth, you kill the story.” My voice quivered.
“In a way. He created a story around himself. We can’t take risks at this stage of his career; we have too much to lose.”
“You don’t have to worry. Your secret is safe with me,” I said at the same time Ajax arrived at the bottom of the stairs.
I knew Eric couldn’t know how Ajax felt and what he felt for me. If I listened to my heart, I wouldn’t even care as I knew he couldn’t know him as I did. And yet, I couldn’t be selfish here. I’d learned to care for Ajax and understand his soul and what drove him.
“Ajax,” Eric exclaimed. “We have business to talk about.”
“Eric,” Ajax greeted in his usual coldness. “Don’t go inside my atelier, or you’ll freak out. I’ll be right back with you.” He seized my hand and slammed his mouth on mine before he said, “I’ll accompany you to the car. You text me when you arrive, okay?”
“Of course.” I displayed another smile.
The one I’d perfected for so many years.
The one where I pretended everything was perfect while my heart was already breaking.
