Painless (53 page)

Note her guilty question mark.

“Who is the fish?” Brandon asked innocently.

“An old boyfriend of hers!” I blurted. “From high school!” There were those guilty exclamation points again.

“Uh, yeah!” Kamiko nodded frantically.

Brandon chuckled, “That’s great. I’m sure he was a complete jerk.”

Kamiko and I gaped wide eyed at each other. In unison, we both said, “Yes!”

“Love it,” Brandon smiled, completely unaware. He set the painting down on the desk. “Kamiko, if you leave this with me, I’ll have it framed and hung for the show.”

“Okay,” she smiled.
 

Brandon stood up from his desk and clapped his hands together once. He smiled, “This means I’ve got all the slots for my show filled!”

“But what about…” Kamiko trailed off.

“What about what?” Brandon asked.

“Sam’s painting?” Kamiko sighed.

Brandon cocked his head toward me, “You brought a painting for the CA show as well?”

I nodded nervously. The last thing I wanted to do was for Brandon to have to decide between my painting and Kamiko’s. I was afraid of this turning into a replay of our last visit. If Brandon chose my painting over Kamiko’s, I would die. Then I would haunt Brandon from beyond the grave until he went mad. It wasn’t my preferred choice of outcomes. I was still into this being alive thing. But if it happened, I would faithfully haunt Brandon, out of respect for Kamiko.
 

“Uh,” I said, “that’s okay. Mine’s not very good. And you’ve got your show filled up anyway.”

“Come on,” Brandon smiled. “Let me see it.” He motioned with his hand.

“Go ahead, Sam,” Kamiko groaned.

Crap, she was worried too. I pulled my phoenix painting out of the black portfolio case I’d bought to carry it and handed it to Brandon.

He took it carefully with both hands. “Would you look at this?” he gawked. “This is amazing.”

Great.

“I need to see this under good lighting,” he said. “These oils are spectacular. Follow me.” Carrying my painting in both hands, he walked out of his office. We walked along the upstairs hallway and into a little room that had a couch against one wall and an empty easel standing opposite. Brandon set the painting on the easel and slid some light switches on the wall. Little spotlights came to life, shining on the painting. Then he turned off the fluorescents, darkening the room, except for the painting.

There was a fricking spot light on my painting.

Brandon slid his hands into the pockets of his slacks, pushing back his stylish sport coat.

“This is really nice,” Brandon nodded, enraptured by my painting.

I rolled my eyes. This was ridiculous.

Brandon sat down on the couch, on the edge of it, knotting his hands together.

“What is this room, anyway?” I asked.

Kamiko said flatly, sounding slightly annoyed, “It’s a viewing room for customers who need some convincing to buy a painting. The lighting is set up to really make a painting look its best.”

Brandon wasn’t paying attention because, oh my god, he was literally worshipping my painting. Holy shit, I felt like an ass and an idiot. All I could think about was what might be wandering through poor Kamiko’s mind at the moment.

Any second now, Brandon was going to turn to me and ask me if he could use my painting in the Contemporary Artists Show instead of Kamiko’s. Then I would feel like a total jerk and Kamiko would hate me. I wouldn’t blame her.

Brandon turned on the overhead fluorescents again and said. “This piece is phenomenal, Samantha, but it’s not right for the Contemporary show.”

I glanced at Kamiko. The frigid scowl that had etched its way into her face warmed thirty degrees.

Brandon turned to Kamiko, “I really like your piece, Kamiko. It’s staying in the C.A. show.” Then he turned back to me. “Samantha, you and I need to talk about you putting together some more paintings for me. For your own show.”

What the what?!?

“My own?” I stammered.

“Solo show,” Brandon grinned and nodded.

“Wow, Sam,” Kamiko smiled. “That’s awesome!”

I grinned sheepishly as Kamiko hugged me.

Phew! More than anything, Kamiko’s excitement meant she wasn’t bothered by all the attention Brandon was giving my painting.

That had been a really close call.

Maybe Brandon wasn’t so bad.

===

I was completely naked, standing in front of Christos. He was clothed, at his easel, working on the nude solo portrait of just me.

He paused from mixing a pile of paint and looked up from his palette. He grinned, “I’m really missing the Viking helmet.”

“Maybe next time?” I rolled my eyes at him, but held the pose, which was a standing one. I also had to hold my arms out wide, which was really tiring. So whenever Christos wasn’t studying my pose, I rested my arms at my sides. It was really hard work. But I was determined to do a good job.
 

I was also high up on top of a chair, which stood atop a foot tall stage, putting my head over eight feet in the air. I looked down on the whole studio. Fortunately, the studio had a really high ceiling, so I didn’t have to worry about bumping my head. “Why am I up so high again?”

“It makes you look more majestic,” he smiled, back to mixing his paint. When his brush was loaded, he looked at me and said, “Ready?”

I nodded and assumed the pose, which was also on my tiptoes. I held my arms aloft and arched my back. Fortunately, Christos had made so many charcoal sketches of this pose, he could mostly work from them and from memory at this point. So I never had to hold the extreme pose for more than a minute or two at a time. If I’d had to hold it longer, my neck and shoulders would’ve cemented into place permanently, and no amount of massaging would ever be able to work out the kinks.

A minute later, Christos said, “Got it, you can relax.”

I lowered my arms and massaged my own shoulders. “You’re totally gonna owe me a hundred massages after this is done.”

“Let’s make it a thousand,” he smiled.

“Sounds good to me,” I gloated. “You’re sure?”

Sitting in his chair, he leaned his elbow on his knee, holding a brush in one hand and the elliptical palette in the other. With his thick dark tousled hair, his chiseled features, shoulders bulging beneath the material of his V neck tee, and his dimpled, cocky grin, he was the consummate sexy artist. “Of course I’m sure. Having any excuse to rub my hands over every inch of your body for hours at a time is hardly what I’d call work. I think you’ll be the one who gets the short end of the deal on the massages.”

I grinned at him. I wasn’t going to argue. “So, when do I get to see the painting?”

The canvas was huge, at least eight feet high and five feet wide. Christos would never let me look at it. I hadn’t even seen the final sketches he’d done, beyond the very first rough, which just gave me an idea of the pose so I knew I wasn’t flashing my lady junk at the world. My knees were close together in the pose, so it was fine.

“You’ll see it when it’s finished,” he smiled.

I pouted, “I don’t get a sneak preview?”

“Nope. No one does. Sometimes, the surprise is what makes it special.”

I gave him a grinning dirty look, “You’re such an ass hamster.”

He chuckled. “A hamster? I like to think of myself as more of an ass weasel, or maybe an ass ferret. Something with fangs.”

“Take your pick,” I said sarcastically. “Either way, you’re a small, sniveling, furry animal used to wipe people’s butts.”

He snickered. “Who in their right mind would wipe their butt with a rodent?”

“Primitive people who were tired of using leaves?”

“But hamsters?”

“Did you say butt hamsters?” I snickered.

He rolled his eyes, “You know what I mean.”

“Hey, I’m sure thousands of years before the invention of quilted toilet paper, people looked around for softer alternatives than birch bark.”

He grimaced, “Birch bark?”

“Scratchy as hell, I know,” I smiled. “A wiggling hamster is way better. Plus the wiggling action does half the work for you.”

He scoffed while smiling, “Maybe you need to go into advertising, because I’m willing to buy your line of bullshit.” He chuckled, “Don’t tell anyone, but your insanity is your most attractive feature.”

“Are you saying I’m not attractive?” I demanded from where I stood on the chair. “Because I’ll smite you if you say I’m not.”

He grinned up at me. “I merely referenced your intense beauty to give your incredible insanity some context. They could fill an entire asylum with your craziness.”

“Hand me a sword, because I’m about to go on a smiting spree,” I giggled.

My phone suddenly rang. It sat on a work table nearby. The ringtone was for an unknown caller.

“Do you want me to answer that for you?” Christos asked.

“Nah, I don’t know who it is. Let it go to voicemail.”

A minute later, the phone rang again.

Christos glanced at me, “Want me to get it?”

“I’m sure it’s a telemarketer,” I dismissed.

Christos went back to mixing some paint. “Can you take the pose again?”

“Sure.” I stood on my tiptoes and lifted my arms.

My phone rang a third time.

Christos sighed, “You sure you don’t want me to get it? Or I can turn the ringer off.”

“Why don’t you answer it and say something menacing,” I grinned.

He arched an eyebrow, “Menacing?”

“I don’t know, you’re the tough guy. Be tough. You’re totally sexy when you’re tough.”

He set his brush down, walked over to the table, and answered the phone. “Hello?”

“That’s tough?” I scoffed.

He nodded his head, “Yeah.” Nodded again, “Uh huh.” Nodded a third time. He turned to me and held out the phone, “It’s your mom.”

“What?” I climbed down from the chair and took the phone from Christos. If my mom could only see me now, standing naked in Christos X-rated painting brothel. It gave me exquisite satisfaction.
 

“Hello, Mom,” I said sarcastically. I put it on speaker phone so Christos could hear everything. I didn’t want to have to repeat whatever horrid words my mom had to offer. I was pretty sure I was going to be doing a lot of crying to Christos as soon as I hung up. But I was determined to do my best not to shed a tear while my stupid mom was on the line. Stupid bitch.

“Sam,” she said, “Who answered your phone?” I noticed that her words were slurry. Had she been drinking? I don’t think I’d ever seen my mom drink.

“Christos.”

“I might have known,” she chuckled.

“Then why did you ask?” I sneered. I was already on the defensive, which wasn’t a surprise considering my mom had turned out to be the real harlot in our family.

Mom poured out another syrupy, drunken chuckle.

“Why did you call, Mom?” I grunted.

“I wanted to find out what stories your father has been telling you.”

“Stories? He told me you left him and are living with some guy with a motorcycle.” I glanced over at Christos, who watched me intently.

He winked and whispered quietly, “Guys with motorcycles are
always
trouble.”

I could tell he was trying to be supportive by being funny. I wasn’t really in the mood for a laugh anymore. Funny how my mom could ruin my good mood like a neutron bomb. But I flashed a flat smile at Christos and rubbed his arm affectionately.

“Did your father tell you anything else?” Mom asked in a friendly voice.

“No, that’s pretty much all Dad said.”
 

Oddly, my mom was being vaguely polite. A first for her. Was she being careful because she knew she was in the wrong? Maybe. I didn’t really know. It was possible my Dad had given me a doctored version of events. His side of the story. But that didn’t seem like him. No, my dad prided himself on telling the truth, even when it hurt people’s feelings. He said a white lie was still a lie. Honesty was more important to him than social graces. Or my feelings when I was a little girl. And a teenager. And a young adult. But at least in this case, it meant I knew what was going on between them. If my mom was about to make up a bunch of stories that pointed all the blame at my dad, I would know she was lying.
 

My mom inhaled deeply over the phone, “Sam, I’m asking your father for a divorce.”

CRACK!

My mom managed to slap me from three thousand miles away. She had demon powers, I had no doubt.

“Have you told Dad?” I growled, suddenly angry. I don’t know why, but I felt very protective of him all of a sudden. Maybe his honesty, however harsh it may have been to deal with growing up, was worth more than I’d given him credit for all these years. My dad would never do all the sneaking around my mom had been up to lately.

Mom said, “Not yet. I wanted to tell you first.”

Somehow, I felt like she was betraying Dad a second time, like she should’ve had the courtesy to tell him before anybody else. Maybe she was too chicken to do it. Maybe she was already trying to get me to take her side in the divorce. It was the only rational explanation for her politeness.

“Sam, do you have anything to say?” Mom asked.

“What, other than you’re a bitch?”

I expected my mom to lash out at me. It was her standard strategy when I got defiant.

“I deserved that,” she said calmly.

“You deserve a whole lot more than that!” I shouted. “Why did you do it, Mom? Wasn’t Dad enough for you?” I couldn’t stop myself. It just came rolling out.

“These things are complicated, Sam. I love your father, but…”

“But what, Mom?” I demanded. I was shaking, my heart was pounding, and I was as hot as an oven.

“But things weren’t…working out,” she sighed. “They haven’t been working out for a long time.”

“What do you mean? Things looked fine to me! You guys were fine at Christmas! How could they have gotten so bad in only a few months?”

Why the hell was I trying to hold my parents’ marriage together? I’d always had nothing but disdain for them. What the hell was happening to me? I hated the way this situation was making me feel.

Christos slid his arm around my shoulders and I leaned against him.