His Canvas

His Canvas: The Billionaire's Muse

Ava Lore

Part II

Chapter Four

"So did you fuck him?" Felicia asked me the next
morning when I showed up at the door of her studio, an unlighted cigarette
dangling from my lips and a six pack of Pabst swinging from my fingers. I
pinched the cigarette out of my mouth and glared at her.

"Depends on what you mean by fuck," I said.

"Sounds like you have a story to tell." She opened the
door wide and I followed her inside.

The place was familiar to me. It had been Felicia's apartment
before she had married Anton, but now she kept it purely for her sculpture. A
huge wad of clay sat in the middle of the floor on a large tarp, ringed by
tables covered in tools large and small of her own devising. The only other
piece of furniture in the apartment was an old mattress sitting on the floor,
the bed she used to sleep on before she found a better one with the world's
most eligible billionaire.

Felicia returned to her project. She wore jeans and a sweatshirt,
but padded around the studio barefoot, even though it was freezing cold. Gray
clay coated her feet and arms in patches, evidence that she had been working on
something real. Creating.

God, I envied her.

"So tell me everything," she said, resuming her
sculpting. I watched her for a moment as she picked up a table leg and began to
pound on the wad of clay. Wet smacks echoed against the walls. I lit my
cigarette and inhaled the smoke into my lungs. One of my many vices. I just
can't seem to give them up.

"Well," I said, "I showed up. His house is a
mess. Like, a real mess. It's kind of like a hoarder house. It's full of
stuff."

Felicia frowned. "What kind of stuff?"

I thought for a moment. "Like if you crossed Sotheby's with
a flea market."

She stopped whacking at her clay. "Seriously?"

"Would I shit you?"

"Yes."

Okay. That was true. But still. "Well, I'm not shitting
you. And then he took me up to the top floor of his house where he had a
photography studio installed
that morning,
and then he asked me to take
my clothes off and wrap myself up in white satin so he could take pictures of
me."

"You look good in white," Felicia said, which was a
very artist thing to say.

"Yeah, I know. But then he kind of fingered me and then
went down on me and when I was done he freaked out and left!"

Felicia's eyes narrowed at me. "It went from pictures to
finger fucking just like that?" she asked. She was clearly not buying it.
My best friend, disbelieving my innocence.

I sucked my cigarette down and blew a stream of smoke at her.
"You know how things just happen," I said. Granted, I had sort of
decided
that those things would happen and then done my level best to ensure that
they did, but come on. Finger fucking
just happens
all the time.
Sometimes it just needs a little nudge.

She studied me for a moment. "Uh-huh," she said at
last, then shook her head and sighed. "You always go for the crazy ones,
don't you?"

I scowled. "Malcolm Ward is
not
crazy. Weird and
probably damaged, maybe, but crazy, no. And I don't always go for the crazy
ones, thanks."

"You don't remember Simon?" she asked me. "Simon
who thought you were cheating on him with his brother who lived in Tokyo and
burned all your underwear in revenge?"

I shrugged. "Fine. Maybe Simon."

"And Jorge? The one who refused to look at mirrors and
wouldn't enter through front doors?"

"That was just a quirk of character," I said.
"That wasn't really crazy."

She crossed her arms. "And what was Misha?"

"A drunk."

Felicia rolled her eyes at me. "You have a thing for
damaged guys, you nutbar. And you just said yourself that he's damaged."

"I said
probably
damaged." I couldn't help but
feel stung, insulted, and a bit annoyed. Before Anton, Felicia's previous
boyfriends had all been dumb as rocks. The last one she'd had before she got married
had called himself Steele.
Steele,
for Christ's sake. Where did she get
off judging
me?

"Yeah, but you're so good at picking out the damaged ones
that that probability is awfully high. Besides, he acts crazy in public,
right?"

I shrugged. "I don't know, you're the one who knows
him."

"I don't know him, I know
of
him. And yes, he does
act crazy in public. If he's
not
actually crazy, then it's an act."
She pursed her lips. "Which, ironically, would be totally crazy."

I barely suppressed an epic eye roll. "Trust me, he's not
crazy, and if he's damaged at least he's really hot." I sucked the last of
my cigarette down and stubbed it out in the ceramic ashtray by the bed. Felicia
doesn't smoke, so it's mostly there for my benefit. I saw that the stubs I'd left
in there the last time I'd come over to her studio were still languishing at
the bottom. What a sad existence. I sighed. "And he gives really good
head, and that's not the sort of thing you want to just fling to the wind at
the first sign of trouble."

Her mouth pursed again, and I could see she was struggling to
formulate a counterargument, but I knew she probably didn't have one. Her own
husband was pretty fucked up, too, but, from what I could tell, he was amazing
in the sack. You can't just throw that shit away lightly. Of course he was also
madly in love with her and the feelings were reciprocated, so I suppose he had
that going for him, too. All I had from Malcolm Ward was a bunch of weird
interactions and one great orgasm.

It had been a really, really
good
orgasm, though.

Why is life so hard?
I thought to myself.

"You're into him," Felicia said at last.

I wasn't quite prepared to admit that, so I made a joke.
"Yeah, I was in his mouth yesterday afternoon," I said.

Felicia made a face, but my crude attempt at changing the
subject was nevertheless effective. "So that's it?" she said.
"Did he take any pictures?"

I blinked. "Oh! Yeah, he did. A ton of them, in fact."
Some of which I was feeling quite embarrassed by at this point, but I couldn't
do anything about that now. "He's never done anything artistic as far as I
can tell, but yesterday he said he wanted to become a... a brilliant madman,
connecting to the pulse of the universe through his art and that I was his
'inspiration.'"

She arched an eyebrow at that. "Oh, really? He just decided
he wanted to be a brilliant artist?"

"That's what I said."

She returned to her clay, giving it a few good whacks with the
table leg before pausing. "I guess that's one way to go about it. I mean,
don't we all decide we want to be brilliant artists at some point?"

"Yeah. After
making
art, not before."

Whack. Whack.
"So? Maybe he's got a talent for it.
Have you seen the pictures yet?"

I shook my head. "Nope. He said he'd call me today."

"Before or after he gave you head?"

"After."

"Well, he still wants to see you after giving head. At
least you didn't scare him away by smelling bad or something."

I lit another cigarette. "Watch out," I told her.
"I've decided to be an arsonist and I'm going to burn down your
studio."

"You've already tried that a couple times," Felicia
said. "You don't have the knack for it."

Dammit. She was right. I cracked a beer and sipped it while she
tried to beat her clay to death. I was just contemplating drinking the whole
six pack by myself to erase my memories of the past twenty-four hours when my
phone rang. I jumped and nearly dropped my beer.

Felicia clicked her tongue. "You're
really
into
him."

I rolled my eyes and checked the number. Yup, that would be
Malcolm. Said so right there on the screen.

I hesitated.

"Maybe you'll get anal this time," Felicia said.

"Shut
up,"
I told her, and hit
answer
.

"Yeah?" I said. Totally nonchalant. I'm hardcore like
that.

"I was wondering if you would like to come over and assist
me in going over these photographs," Malcolm said without any preamble.
His voice was distracted and distant, and it rankled me.

"I don't know," I told him. "Are you going to
stick your tongue in my twat and then run away again?"

"Sadie!"
Felicia hissed, scandalized.

What?
I mouthed back at her. He deserved to be called
out. You can't just go around treating people like things. You gotta maybe buy
them dinner first or something, or at the very least don't literally
run
away
afterward. It was part of the social contract. That sort of thing
could give a girl a complex.

On the other end of the line, Malcolm was silent, clearly
impressed by my big brass ovaries. I was willing to bet no woman had ever
spoken to him that way. I'd left him speechless with my wit.

"I'm not sure," he said at last. "Did you enjoy
it?"

...Great. Now I was the one who was speechless. I tried hard not
to look at Felicia. "Yes," I said. "I did, thanks."

A gust of air as he let out a sigh. "Good," he said.
"I was worried. Please, come over and we can look at these photos. You can
give me the critique of a professional."

And I had nothing to say to that, either, except,
"Okay."

"See you soon." And he hung up without saying goodbye,
like people on television do. I stared at my phone for a long moment before
stuffing it back into my purse.

"Well?" Felicia was leaning on her lump of clay,
staring at me as though she knew something I didn't. A little smile played on
her lips.

"I'm going to his house to go over the photos he
took," I told her. "He wants my professional opinion."

"And is he going to stick his tongue in your twat
again?"

I'm so proud I didn't blush at that. "We left that
open-ended," I said. I gulped a few more mouthfuls of beer and got up.
"See you on the flip side, ladies."

"Don't trip and fall on his cock by accident!" she
shouted after me as I closed the door.

Don't worry,
I thought.
It won't be by accident.

*

I rang Malcolm Ward's doorbell about ten times before trying the
knob and finding the house open. Reasoning that I'd been invited over, I let
myself inside and shut the door behind me.

Immediately the claustrophobic atmosphere descended on me again.
So much stuff, everywhere. There weren't actually piles of shit on the floor,
but there were so many end tables and foyer tables from the beginning of the
last century piled high with junk that there might as well have been. I allowed
myself to stop and inspect the incredibly valuable sculpture he had just
sitting
inside his unlocked door where anyone could waltz in and take it, but the
press of
things
on all sides and the musty smell of antiques soon drove
me to the stairs.

I took them two at a time. "Mr. Ward?" I called at
each landing until, faintly, I heard him from the fourth floor.

"Come up!" he yelled down.

I sprinted up the steps to the fourth floor and breathed a sigh
of relief when I walked out into another large room like the one at the top of
the house. This one was completely empty save for a luxurious bed at the back
end and a desk at the front, looking out onto the street. Large windows let
light stream in from the cloudy day outside, and Malcolm Ward was sitting at
the desk, staring intently at the computer he had set up there.

My God. I was in his bedroom.

It's cool,
I thought. I'd been in plenty of bedrooms
before, most of them not even attached to either me or my partner. I'd just
play it like I was totally fine. Because I was.

Totally fine.

Straightening my spine, I strode across the floor toward
Malcolm, the low heels of my boots clacking on the wood. I couldn't quite make
out what was on the computer screen since it was backlit against the windows. I
squinted at it as I drew closer. Blurry lines slowly resolved until I was
halfway to him, and then I suddenly realized what they were.