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“And however you want. ”
Jonah doesn’t say yes. Instead he leans forward and kisses me, a deep, searching kiss that tells me I’ve turned him on all over again.
Our mouths part. He whispers, “Good night, Vivienne. ”
I would tell him good night too, but he’s already halfway out the door. It slams shut, sealing me back into my supposedly normal life.
But I don’t feel lonely or rejected. I’m beginning to learn the rules. Besides, I can’t stop smiling from both satisfaction and anticipation.
When he finds me next time, it’s going to be so fucking good.
Fifteen
Even though I slept no more than five hours, when I wake up I feel refreshed. Energized. Ready for anything. Faint bruises on my hips remind me of how Jonah held me down, but they don’t hurt. I run my hand over them and smile.
As I walk to the car, I remember the deal Jonah and I made. He could come after me at any hour—any moment—
But let’s get real. It won’t be this morning. Hopefully he’s still sound asleep with a smile on his face. Me, I’m going to use this energy to work.
I indulge myself with a quick spin through Sorrento’s drive-through for a café au lait, then head straight to the nearby studio where I create most of my artwork. Even though I’m studying to be a curator and historian of art, that doesn’t mean I don’t love doing my own work. It’s been too long since I allowed myself to get lost in the flow of it. (Don’t ask me how art school gets in the way of actually creating art, but sometimes it does. )
Normally I share this space with several other student artists, including my fellow TAs in the department. However, lots of creative types tend to prefer evenings to mornings, and today, at this hour, the studio is all mine. My faded thrift-shop chambray shirt hangs on a nearby hook; I slip it on over my clothes and get to work.
I create etchings. Although there are several different techniques, and I’ve experimented with most of them, every method of etching has the same fundamental process. You always start with a metal plate; you coat that plate with a waxy, acid-resistant material; you carve the design or picture you want to make into the wax, all the way down to the metal; and then you pour the acid. The acid bites into the metal, cutting your lines into it permanently. Then, when you ink the plate, you reveal a pattern you can print over and over—each piece of art identical and yet genuine, never faded by repetition.
Today, I’m making prints. Although I’ve done several etchings as part of my graduate work, this one in particular is special to me—that image of a man’s hands cradling a dove. Every line actually looks precisely the way I envisioned it while I carved the wax—which you’d hope for every time, but that result is rarer than you think. The image also captures a theme I like to explore in my work: the juxtaposition of strength and fragility.
I remember Jonah gently brushing my hair back from my face before forcing me to deep-throat his cock. My fragility, his strength.
And yet there’s that hunted, haunted quality to him too—and strength within me, which Jonah must sense. He wouldn’t trust me to handle this fantasy otherwise.
His phone call last night tells me that my being okay with this is important to Jonah . . .
I pause. Inking while you’re distracted is a bad idea.
And Jonah Marks is one hell of a distraction.
Since I don’t have a class to teach today, I don’t go into the office until afternoon, and I don’t bother changing into one of my professional outfits. Instead I just ditch the chambray work shirt and head to campus wearing dark jeans and an apple-green wrap top. When I walk through the door, Kip is deep in phone conversation with someone at FedEx about a professor’s package gone astray, but he raises his eyebrows at me. This is Kip-speak for We have to talk.
I wonder what gossip he’s dug up this time? Maybe Keiko’s boyfriend finally proposed. He’s been hinting around about it long enough. Whatever it is, Kip will have all the juicy details.
No memos are waiting for me in my department box, so I plop down in my rickety desk chair and check my work e-mail. Amid the flurry of essays turned in at the last minute by undergrads and the usual campus announcements, one line jumps out immediately—because this note is from Jonah. I sit upright and click.
Vivienne—
I loved your suggestion last night. For hours I couldn’t think of anything else. Picturing it in every detail kept me awake half the night.
My toes curl inside my loafers, and I breathe out, hard. I think about Jonah lying in his bed, hand around his cock, already on fire to have me again, and the image makes me go warm all over.