Vanilla

  “I have him do landscapes for me,” she said, seeing what must’ve been a strange look pass over my face. “Have you seen the one he did with the woman in the field holding the red fabric up, blowing in the wind? I put that piece together with some really sweet red satin as a wall hanging in a client’s home office. That sort of thing. Probably not any of these sorts of things.”

  She gestured at the one hanging next to the one I’d been looking at. Two men, both clad in leather, one in a biker cap. Chains. A ball gag. It was a lot more hardcore and explicit than any of the pictures Jack and I had taken during our shoot. It was raw and fierce, and its beauty was harsh. It told a story, yes, with the looks on the models’ faces, but it didn’t seem to be one with a happy ending.

  “But yours,” she continued then sighed with a small, bemused smile. “It’s so...soft. I really love it. I loved all the ones you guys took together.”

  “People don’t think it can be soft,” I told her, not sure why I felt compelled to suddenly explain myself to her but spilling some truth tea anyway. “They don’t think about the tenderness, the responsibility, the give and take. How it feels to take care of someone and to be taken care of. Mostly, they want to see images like those, or the ones over there.”

  “Not everyone,” Sarah said. “Some people get it.”

  There was no good reason for my throat to close, or my eyes to prick with sudden tears. No need for emotion here or now. Yet something about Sarah’s nonchalant answer moved me.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Some people do.”

  I recognized the face of the man who appeared behind her, though the last time I’d seen him, he’d been wearing a lot less clothes. Jack’s grin, though, that was distinctive. He kissed Sarah on the cheek then reached for my hand.

  “Hey, you. How’s it going?”

  “Good. Have you been getting a lot of compliments?” I waved a hand in the general direction of the crowd.

  Jack laughed. “Oh, sure. Some people are even looking at my face.”

  Sarah bumped him with her hip. “Who’d want to look at that ugly thing when your dick’s so much prettier?”

  I spotted my brother from across the room and excused myself to greet him. He’d always known about my modeling, and though he preferred not to look at my more risqué pictures, he’d been to a number of shows featuring my photos and had always been supportive. Evan was looking over a triptych, three different women in lingerie, all the same pose, shot from above so that the viewer seemed to be looking down on them. None of them was me, which was why he was staring for so long. He had a glass of wine in one hand, a plate of cheese and crackers in the other, though how he expected to eat and drink at the same time, I didn’t know.

  We greeted each other, as always, not with a hug and kiss but a simple tip of the chin. My brother and I had shared a womb; hugging hadn’t seemed particularly necessary to either one of us after that. Without preamble, he nodded toward the guy with him.

  “This is Niall. He works with me. This is my sister, Elise. She’s the one in the dirty pictures.”

  Niall shook my hand and gave Evan an adorable, embarrassed look. I laughed and squeezed his hand then snagged my brother’s plate of cheese.

  “Don’t mind my brother. He thinks he’s funny because our parents believed boys should be comedians and girls ought to be princesses. But I am Elise,” I said. “And I am in some of these pictures. None of those three. Feel free to ogle without worry.”

  Niall’s hand in mine was warm, his grip stronger than I’d anticipated. He looked over his shoulder at the pictures Evan had been looking over. “Yeah...hi. When Evan invited me to an art show, I guess I wasn’t expecting this.”

  Evan, the turd, laughed. “I told you it was art, man. What’s the best kind of art? Naked people.”

  Niall and I shared a look. I didn’t know what it meant. I couldn’t read him. But it lingered, until both of us smiled at the same time. He let my hand go, but slowly, and I was intrigued to notice that I was reluctant for him to release me. We stared at each other until Evan snorted.

  “Dude. That’s my sister,” Evan said.

  Niall didn’t look away from me. “Yeah? What’re you gonna do, beat me up?”

  “No,” my dumbass brother said. “But apparently, she might, if you’re lucky.”

  “I’ve always been kind of lucky,” Niall said.

  Evan and I both looked at him. Niall smiled and shrugged. I punched my brother in the arm like we were still in the fourth grade. “Shut up.”

  Evan danced away from me, rubbing his arm. “Hey! I’m supposed to look out for you!”

  “I can look out for myself.” I looked back at Niall. “You work with this idiot?”

  “Yeah, same office,” Niall said.

  “Poor you.”

  “Hey!” Evan frowned, while Niall and I grinned at each other. My brother’s phone buzzed from his pocket in the next moment, and he pulled it free with a small grimace I hated to see. He didn’t have to tell me it was his wife. He held up a finger as he took the call, walking away from us both to find a quiet place.

  Niall looked at me. “So. Elise.”

  “Niall.” I smiled. “My brother dragged you along for a night out, huh?”

  “He said I needed some culture.”

  “Do you?”

  The question made him laugh and shake his head. “I guess...so?”

  “My brother wouldn’t know culture if it had fangs and bit him in the ass,” I told him. “But it was cool that he brought you along to support the event. Did you get some raffle tickets? It’s for a good cause.”

  Niall dug into his pocket and pulled out a handful of red tickets. “Lady at the door got me, yep. I bought an arm’s worth for five bucks.”

  “That’s the way to do it. You want some cheese?” I held out my brother’s plate. “He’s going to be gone awhile.”

  Niall waved a hand to decline the cheese but glanced over his shoulder to where Evan had gone. “Yeah...she wasn’t happy about him coming out tonight, I think.”

  “Then she ought to have told him to stay home, or come along with him, instead of interrupting him while he’s out doing stuff,” I said shortly and pushed a piece of cheese into my mouth to keep myself from saying more than that.

  “Maybe she doesn’t like art,” Niall said so blandly that I knew he’d met my sister-in-law.

  I shook my head with a small laugh and swallowed the cheese. “No. She probably doesn’t.”

  I didn’t think Susan liked much of anything these days, to be honest, but there wasn’t much I could do about it. Niall turned to look at the portraits, and I followed him as he made his way along the wall. I finished the cheese and dumped the plate, along with my empty wineglass. I’d seen all of the pictures before, so I watched him look at them instead of looking at them myself.

  Scott had hung them in no obvious groupings—there were full-color graphic shots of naked people next to black-and-white pictures shot off-center or slightly out of focus to take away the emphasis of what the people in them were doing and let the viewer absorb the emotional impact, instead. Niall didn’t comment on any of them, though some caught his attention longer than others. Several times he shook his head and gave me a glance, though I couldn’t quite read his expression. Turned on? Turned off? It was hard to say, but I was having a good time trying to figure it out. We got to the final picture hung on this wall, and I paused, wondering if I should warn him.

  Unlike the one I’d been looking at earlier, this picture had nothing soft or hazy about it. Black-and-white, every edge of the image was clear and crisp. Sharp enough there could be no mistaking any of the action.

  I was in this one, too. Jack was not my partner. To be honest, I didn’t remember the name of the man in the photo with me. We’d been strangers before the session, and we remained strangers still, our moment captured forever in ink and paper, imprisoned behind glass.

  “Huh,” Niall said, staring.

  I laughed,
low at first, then a little louder and even more when he gave me a wry smile. He looked back at the picture and crossed an arm over his chest to rest the opposite elbow on it, his index finger stroking along his chin. He looked at that picture very hard.

  I leaned close to say into his ear, “Stop it, you’re making me blush.”

  “I find that hard to believe,” he said without turning toward me.

  I wasn’t blushing, that was true enough. But his intense study of the picture was sending heat all through me. Not embarrassment. Curiosity, maybe. Or anticipation. An electric crackle of it between us, unexpected and yet somehow no surprise.

  Niall stroked a line in the air just above the glass, following the curves of my figure in the picture. In it, I wore a vintage dress, seamed stockings, my hair in Victory rolls. I sat in a carved wooden chair upholstered in crimson velvet that matched my lipstick, though in the black-and-white portrait, both the chair and my lips looked black. The man with me wore nothing but a set of leather cuffs, his hands behind his back. Head bowed. Maybe part of the reason why I could barely remember him was because in the picture, his face was hidden while mine faced the camera. I remembered touching the top of his head gently, my fingertips so light on his hair I barely felt the tickle of it. I remembered the camera’s click and Scott’s murmured instructions to tip my head down, turn a little this way or that. I remembered the subtle thump of my heart as I concentrated on being still.

  Niall looked at me. “What were you thinking when you were taking this picture?”

  “I...” The question stumped me. I shook my head a little and gave him a smile, playing it off. “Who knows?”

  “You look sad.”

  I meant to answer with something light, maybe flirty or sarcastic. What came out was the truth. “I was.”

  “Why?”

  I have an unconscious habit of pressing my right thumb to the inside of my left wrist, covering the tattoo there, when I am struck with emotion. Usually I don’t notice, but this time the press of my nail was sharp on my skin. I forced myself to drop both hands to my sides.

  “It was a long time ago,” I told him.

  “Whatever it was, does it still make you sad?”

  I kept myself from pressing my wrist by curling my fingers tight into my palm, but didn’t answer him. Niall nodded and looked back at the picture. Then at the one next to it on the wall, that one much smaller. I was in that one, too. Same clothes, same hair, but this time in the shot alone. Scott had captured me laughing at something off camera. My head turned, the background a little blurry. It was actually what I’d have considered an outtake, but leave it to Scott to turn an imperfect shot into something lovely.

  “I like this one better,” Niall said. “Even though you still look sad.”

  “I’m laughing,” I protested.

  Niall gave me a solemn look. “Not in your eyes, you’re not.”

  “You don’t even know me.” I frowned.

  He shrugged and looked like he might be about to say something else, when the music stopped and Scott’s assistant Laura tapped the mic to get everyone’s attention. It took a few seconds for the buzz of conversation to die down, but most of us turned expectantly. Niall ended up slightly behind me, and I imagined the caress of his breath on the back of my neck, my bared shoulder. Or maybe it wasn’t my imagination.

  “I’m gonna draw the first winner! Anyone who bought red tickets, get them out. You get to choose any picture on the wall to take home tonight!” Laura giggled and swirled her hand around inside a fishbowl filled with red tickets. She pulled one out, reading the numbers carefully aloud.

  There was a moment of silence before Niall said, “That’s me.”

  “We have a winner!” Laura called out, pointing at him from across the room. “Which picture do you want?”

  Everyone was looking at him, not just me, but it was my face he focused on briefly before pointing to the picture of me laughing. My heart skipped a beat, one, two. I could not stop myself from smiling.

  “That one,” he said. “I want to take that girl home.”

  14

  Niall was, indeed, taking me home. At least the picture of me, which had been carefully wrapped in paper secured with twine and loaded into the back of his car. Evan had left to get home, but Niall had stayed. Now the two of us were in the parking lot under a late-May sky sparkling with stars, and I was wondering what, exactly, was going to happen.

  “So,” he said, but nothing else.

  I smiled. “So?”

  “So...it’s early. You maybe want to go somewhere and get something to eat?” Niall put a hand on his belly. “Man cannot live on cheese cubes alone. Or woman, either.”

  “I have plans, actually.”

  He nodded. “Ah. Sure, right. Of course you do. It’s Friday night.”

  “You could...come with me. If you wanted to.” I thought about the munch. A bunch of kinky people standing around eating cocktail weenies and talking about True Blood. It was a simple social gathering; there wouldn’t be anyone strung up by the heels or anything like that. He might think it was boring. I didn’t even know if Niall watched True Blood. “It’s nothing fancy. It’s just a little meet up of some friends I haven’t seen in a while. There will be food there. Drinks, too.”

  “Oh, I don’t want to butt in if you already have plans with friends.” His words said no, but the look on his face was all yes.

  I laughed. “I told you, it’s casual. And I’m not really sure who will be there. I could end up not knowing anyone. You should come with me. It’ll be fun.”

  “If you’re sure you don’t mind?”

  I smiled. “I’m not really that sort of girl.”

  Niall smiled, too. “What sort of girl would that be?”

  “The sort who does things just to be polite. I don’t ask for what I don’t want.”

  “A woman who knows what she wants,” Niall said. “Why am I not surprised.”

  I tipped my chin toward my car. “You can follow me. It’s at The Slaughtered Lamb, downtown.”

  This gave him pause. “Uh-oh. Should I be worried I’ll end up in a bathtub full of ice or something?”

  “Why...?”

  “It’s a kidney harvesting thing,” he said.

  I frowned. “Should I be sort of insulted that you’d assume I have any desire to harvest your kidneys?”

  Niall looked apologetic. “I’m sorry, I was making a bad joke.”

  “I’m sure they’re great kidneys and all,” I continued. “But I have two of my own.”

  We stared at each other, me deadpan. Him still a little embarrassed. Then slowly, slowly, I smiled. After a few seconds, so did he.

  “C’mon,” I said. “Follow me.”

  * * *

  It did occur to me as we walked up to the back door of The Slaughtered Lamb that I should’ve warned Niall that the munch was for dominant women and submissive men. I didn’t expect anything outrageous to be going on—the meet up was in a public space, after all, and there was an etiquette about stuff like that. After the art show, anything that happened at the munch would be totally tame. I hadn’t been able to get a read on him about what he thought about all the stuff my brother sometimes referred to as “chips, dips and whips,” but I was getting a definite interested vibe from him, and he obviously knew which way I bent. Still, it didn’t seem fair to toss Niall into something without letting him know what, exactly, we were doing.

  “So, listen,” I began, but before I could finish, I’d been descended on by Cubby. Enveloped in his enormous embrace, I couldn’t get out anything more than a muffled yeep.

  “Elise! Baby doll! My God, it’s been ages and ages. Where have you been hiding yourself? Come in, bring your...friend...?” Cubby paused for an introduction.

  Niall stuck out a hand. “Niall Black.”

  Cubby, who stood six-five and weighed at least three hundred and fifty pounds, had been a former professional wrestler of the theatrical variety. He and his wife, Sony
a, had been organizing meet ups for years, and had been one of the first couples I’d met once I started reaching out online. I adored him, even when he was squeezing me too hard.

  “Niall, great to meet you. Cubby.” Cubby pumped Niall’s hand. “C’mon in, guys, we have a cash bar set up back here, and there are appetizers. Just dump a fiver in the bucket on the buffet table, if you can. If you want to order something off the menu, I think there are some on the tables.”

  Then he was off to greet some other new arrivals I didn’t recognize. I let Niall lead the way to the bar, where he ordered us both whiskey sours, and then to a table where he dove on the menu. I looked around, hoping to see familiar faces, but other than Sonya at the other end of the room, I didn’t see any.

  “I’m starving,” Niall said. “Are you going to have something?”

  I peeked at the menu. “Yeah...I’m going to have the fish and chips. It’s really good here.”

  “Shepherd’s pie for me,” he told the server when she came over. “Fish and chips for the lady.”

  I can’t say I like it when a man presumes to order for me, but somehow the way Niall did it gave me a warm, dangerous tickle down low. He’d listened to me and remembered what I wanted. He’d paid attention. Some might’ve found that overbearing, but it flipped my switch.

  Shit.

  “So, how long have you been modeling?”

  I shrugged. “A few years. It’s not my job or anything like that. I do it for fun. For charity, or for friends. I...like it.”

  Niall gave me a look. First curious. Then assessing. He nodded after a moment, as though I’d explained something I wasn’t sure I understood myself.

  “Evan said you work for a private company? Financial planning, something like that?”

  I paused, wondering what else my brother had seen fit to tell this stranger about me. “Yeah. Estate planning, financial planning, college planning. That sort of thing. My partner used to do a lot of financial stuff, trading, stuff like that, internationally. He started his own company to help people grow their money and plan for the future. I do most of the marketing and outreach, handle client concerns. I balance the books and make sure the lights stay on. Kind of whatever else needs doing aside from the actual investment recommendations.”