Naked (15 page)

Frances nodded without missing a beat and looked at the bag of ice at the end of my arm.  “Do you need an x-ray for that?” she asked, her expression like that of a mum.  What I envisioned a mother would look like at least.  I barely remember mine so I’m sure I am merely projecting with her.

“No.” 
I need my girl back, not a god damned mother-fucking x-ray.

I went through to my office and shut myself in.  I pulled out a bottle of Van Gogh from the bar fridge and cracked it.  I opened my desk drawer and fumbled for the pack of Djarum Blacks and the lighter I liked to keep in there.  I’d been plowing through the smokes at a record pace since meeting Brynne.  I’d have to remember to stock up.

Now all I needed was a glass for the vodka, or maybe not.  The bottle would do me just fine.  I took a swig with my busted hand and welcomed the pain.  Fuck my hand; it’s my heart that’s broken.

 I stared at her picture.  The one I took of her at work when she showed me the painting of Lady Percival with the book.  I’d used my phone to take the picture because I’d had to have it.  Didn’t matter it was only the camera in my phone—Brynne looked beautiful through any lens.  Especially the lenses of my eyes.  The picture had come out so nice I’d downloaded it and ordered a print for my office.

I recalled that morning with her.  I could just see her in my mind’s eye and how happy she was when I snapped the picture of her smiling down at that old painting…

~*~

I parked in the lot for the Rothvale Gallery and shut off the engine.  It was a dreary day, drizzling and chilly, but inside the car it was warm and perfect.  Having Brynne sitting next to me, dressed for work, looking beautiful, sexy, smiling at me, had me soaring, but knowing what we’d just shared together this morning was the topper.  And I wasn’t talking sex.  Remembering the shower and what we’d done there would hold me throughout my day—just barely, but knowing that I’d see her again tonight, that we’d be together, that she was mine, and that I could take her to bed and show her all over again.  It was the conversation we’d had too.  I felt like she’d finally let me in a little.  That she cared about me in the same way I felt about her. And it was time to start talking about our future.

“Did I ever tell you how much I like it when you smile at me, Ethan?”

“No,” I answered, dropping the smile, “tell me.”

She shook her head at my tactics and then looked out the window at the rain.  “I’ve always felt special when you do because I think you don’t smile much in public.  I would describe you as reserved.  So when you smile at me I’m kind of…swept away.”

“Look at me.”  I waited for her to respond, knowing it would come.  This was another thing we had yet to discuss but was crystal clear from the very beginning.  Brynne was naturally submissive to me.  She accepted what I wanted to give her—the dominance, and it was just one more reason we were perfect together.

She lifted her brown/green/grey eyes to me and waited.  My cock pounded in my slacks.  I could take her right here in the car and still want her minutes later.  She was my addiction.  “God, you’re beautiful when you do that.”

“Do what, Ethan?”

I tucked a strand of her silky hair behind her ear and smiled for her again.  “Never mind.  You just make me happy is all.  I love bringing you to your job after I’ve had you all night.”

She blushed at me and I wanted to fuck her again.  No, to make love to her is what I really wanted right now.  I wanted to take her slow, that gorgeous body stretched out naked for me to pleasure in every way I could manage it.  Mine.  She was for me and me alone.  Brynne made me feel everything—

“Would you like to come in and see what I’m working on?  Do you have time?”

I brought her hand to my lips and breathed the scent of her skin.  “I thought you’d never ask.  Lead on, Professor Bennett.”

She laughed.  “Someday maybe.  I’ll wear one of those black robes and give lectures on proper conserving techniques.  And you can sit in the back and distract me with inappropriate comments and leering.”

“Ahhh, and will you call me to your office for chastisement then?  Will you detain me, Professor Bennett?  I am sure we can negotiate a deal for me
working off
my disrespectful behavior.”  I put my head down toward her lap.

“You are insane,” she told me, giggling and pushing me back.  “Let’s go inside.”

We ran through the rain together, my umbrella shielding us, her slim shape tucked against me, smelling of flowers and sunshine and making me feel like the luckiest man on the planet.

She introduced me to the security guard who was clearly in love with her and led me back into a large studio like room.  Wide tables and easels were set up with good lighting and plenty of open space.  She led me to a large oil painting of a dark haired, solemn woman with startling blue eyes, holding a book.

“Ethan, please say hello to Lady Percival.  Lady Percival, my boyfriend, Ethan Blackstone.”  She smiled at the painting like they were best friends.

I offered a half bow to the painting and said, “My lady.”

“Isn’t she amazing?” Brynne asked.

I studied the image pragmatically.  “Well she is an arresting figure to be sure.  She looks like she has a story behind her blue eyes.”  I peered closer to look at the book she held with the front visible.  The words were hard to read but once I realized they were French it was somewhat easier.

“I’ve been working on the section with the book in particular.  She suffered some heat damage in a fire decades ago and it’s been a struggle getting the cooked on lacquer off that book.  It’s special, I just know it.”

I looked again and made out the word
Chrétien
.  “It’s in French.  That is the name Christian right there.”  I pointed.

Her eyes got big and her voice excited.  “It is?”

“Yes.  And I’m sure this says,
Le Conte du Graal. 
The Story of the Grail?”  I looked at Brynne and shrugged.  “The woman in the painting is called Lady Percival right?  Isn’t Percival the one who found the Holy Grail in the King Arthur legends?”

“Oh my God, Ethan!”  She grabbed my arm in excitement.  “Of course!  Percival is her story.  You figured it out!  Lady Percival is holding a
very
rare book indeed, Ethan.  I knew she was!  One of the very first King Arthur stories ever written; all the way back in the twelfth century.  That is a copy of Chrétien de Troyes, The Story of Perceval and the Grail.”  She gazed at the painting, her face glowing with happiness and pure joy.  I took out my phone and snapped a picture of her.  It was a profile shot of Brynne smiling down at Lady Percival.

“Well I’m glad I could help you, baby.”

She leapt at me and kissed me on the lips, her arms wrapped tightly around me.  It was the most amazing feeling in the world.

“You did!  You helped me so much.  I’m going to call the Mallerton Society today and tell them what you discovered.  They will be interested I’m sure.  There is his birthday exhibit coming in a few weeks…I wonder if they’ll want to include this…”

Brynne rambled, excitedly telling me everything I could ever have wanted to know about rare books, paintings of rare books, and the conserving of paintings of rare books.  Her face flushed with the thrill of solving a mystery but that smile and kiss was worth its weight in gold to me.

~*~

…I opened my eyes and tried to get my bearings.  My head felt like I’d been smashed with a board.  The bottle of Van Gogh was about half gone and the Djarum butts sprinkled atop my desk where my cheek was stuck down filled my nose with stale cloves and tobacco.  I peeled my face off the desk top and propped my head up on top of two hands and firmly planted elbows.

The same desk top where I’d laid her out and fucked her hours before.  Yes, fucked.  That session had been pure, unapologetic fucking, and so good my eyes stung at the remembrance.  The light on my phone blinked madly.  I flipped it over so I didn’t have to look.  I knew none of the calls were from her anyway.

Brynne wouldn’t call me.  Certainly not.  The only question was how long before I tried calling her?

It was night now.  Dark outside.  Where was she?  Was she horribly hurt and upset?  Crying?  Being comforted by her friends?  Hating me?  Yeah, probably all of those, and I couldn’t go to her and make it better either. 
She doesn’t want you.

So this is what it feels like.  Being in love.  I needed to face some truths about Brynne and what I’d done to her.  So I stayed in my office and faced it.  I couldn’t go home.  There was too much of her there already, and seeing her things would only make me insane.  I’d stay here tonight.  Maybe forever.

I heaved my ass out off the chair and stood up.  I saw the scrap of pink fabric on the floor at my feet and knew what it was.  Her lacey panties.   It was agonizing to pick them up.  I put them in my pants pocket and went through the back door to the attached suite.

The suite set-up has a bed and a shower, a TV and small kitchen—everything top of the line.  The perfect bachelor crash pad for the busy professional man who works so late there’s no point in driving home.

Or more like a fuck pad.  This is where I brought women if I wanted to fuck them.  Always after hours of course and they never stayed the whole night.  I got my “dates” the hell out long before dawn.

All before I found Brynne.  I never wanted to bring her here.  She was different from the beginning.  Special. 
My beautiful American girl.

Brynne didn’t even know about this suite.  She would have figured it out in two seconds flat and hated me for bringing her into it.  I rubbed my chest and tried to still the ache that burned.  I turned on the shower and got undressed. 

As the hot water poured over me I leaned against the tile and faced exactly where I was.  And where I wasn’t. 
You fucked up again, and she doesn’t want you now.

  It was time to accept the fact that my beautiful American girl had left me for the second time.  The first time she did it in stealth in the middle of the night because she was terrorized by a bad dream.  This time she just turned and walked away from me without looking back.  I could see it in her face and it wasn’t fear that made her leave.  It was utter devastation at the betrayal to find I had kept the truth from her.  I had broken her trust.  I’d wagered too high and lost.

The urge to pull her back and make her stay was so great I punched the wall and likely fractured something to keep from grabbing her.  She told me never to contact her again.

I turned off the shower and stepped out, the desolate sounds of dripping water draining away making my chest hurt worse from the hollowness.  I pulled down a plush towel and shoved my head in it.  I stared at my image in the mirror as my face was revealed.

Naked, wet, and miserable.  Alone.   I realized another truth as I stared at my mother-fucking asshole self.

Never is a very long time.  I might be able to give her a day or two, but never was so out of the question.  There was also the fact that she still needed protection from a threat which could prove dangerous.  I couldn’t allow anything to happen to the woman I love.  Never.  I smiled into the mirror, my cleverness amusing even me in my sorry state; for I had just found a perfect example of the proper usage for the word
never
.

~*~