Frosting on the Cake Read online

  Annatto and burnt rose for her shoulders. They are strong enough for the hues and delicate enough for the fine tracing that leads from the hollow of her throat to the uppermost swell of her breast.

  She sighs and closes her eyes. Skin has changed texture again, her aureoles puckering from apricot to ripe peach. She was a work of art before I began and is soon to be Painted Woman as photographed by a friend for Vanity Fair. No photograph would capture the quickness of her breath as I brush each nipple with cadmium smeared in the last of the lilac. She sighs again and my mouth waters. Her swallow is as hard as mine.

  I examine her from every angle, brushes small and large modifying or adding color. Light hues for the grace of her curves, saturated colors for the points and edges of bone. Muted, deeper shades for the hollows of her, where I know shadows hide her real heat. Jaw yields to throat, hip to thigh shadowed by light and dusky topaz. From my angle at her back, her malachite and sapphire hand obscures the feminine swell of her pelvis. Her long, dark braid coils over her hip. In a photograph its plaited beauty will obscure the silk of her pubic hair. I straddle her to move the braid, wanting to see all of her. Her art and sex are fusing in my mind, mystery and passion.

  “Lee,” she breathes. I have smudged the paint on her ribs with my parted thighs. Retracing my work I can tell her breasts have tightened. Her hips have shifted forward and the prickle of gooseflesh has spread to her thighs and forearms. I dust the crook of her elbow with lapis and consider all I have done. Hours of labor to create the modulating swirl of hot and cold, dark and light that is Jackie.

  She is hungry and thirsty and so am I. I fast with her because it seems unfair to appease my own appetites when she will be on this chaise for another four hours. Her eyes are open and she gazes boldly at me, clearly desirous.

  One brush left, and only saffron to use. Ethereal lines from toe to forehead, balancing the yellows, browns and reds against the chromatic sharpness of the malachite and purple. I will paint her lips when my friend arrives, in another hour, but for now they are all that remains of the everyday Jackie, that and what lies shadowed by braid and thighs.

  “You’re beautiful,” I tell her, kissing her unpainted lips. Her mouth opens eagerly. Her arms move to hold me. “Don’t do that,” I tell her.“You have to be still or everything

  will smudge.” My throat is tight with wanting her. “When the paint is completely dry you can relax a little.” “Ann will be here by then,” she says softly. Her lips beckon and I want to paint this image on canvas, capturing the moment of her knowing she will have me soon, of her loving me.

  Her mouth and tongue torment mine, make me ache for her. I repay her with the lightest touches of my fmgertips at her jaw, her hips, tracing the long curve of her braid up from her hips, across her ribs, over her arm, along her shoulder. Hardly more than a whisper of touch at the sides of her breasts.

  She moans and for a moment I forget the present. The taste of paint in my mouth startles me. Lilac and cadmium smear my lips. The taut red point of her nipple is wet from my tongue.

  “The damage is done, Lee, please,” I tease the aching point with my teeth as she gasps. Her hand reaches for mine and I stop long enough to say, “Don’t move.”

  “God,” she breathes and then holds herself rigidly as my hand carefully slips into the shadow of her braid, between her thighs. She pants my name and paints herself on my fingers with a repressed cry that soon changes to a hiss of pleasure.

  “It’s not enough,” she whispers a few minutes later. I already know this. Her muscles have all tightened, while her hips seem like liquid. She is satisfied and hungry, both pleased and frustrated.

  Her gaze follows me as I wash my hands. I mix more lilac and choose a new brush.

  “Lee,” she pleads, and I want to give in. I want to stretch her out and feast on her, to paint myself with her. For now it’s my eyes that caress her body, my eyes and my brush, tinting her nipple lilac again.

  Ann’s arrival does nothing for my composure. The fans and lights she sets up make my workshop unfamiliar, but Jackie pulsates at the center of it, the swirl of color, the glint of her eyes. I know she is watching me as I am watching her. Ann is rhapsodic about her subject, darting in for close-ups, backing off with sighs of bliss. I want Jackie’s sighs. I want her open for me. I want her to paint my back with her breasts, my face with her thighs.

  Ann stops and looks at me, then Jackie. She reposes Jackie so she is on her stomach with her torso arched upward and supported by cadmium and topaz arms. Her long braid coils over her malachite and ocher shoulders and back.

  The arch of Jackie’s body is too elegant, too cool. Ann leans in and whispers, “Lee is looking at you.”

  Jackie’s arms visibly quiver. Her head tips down, her lips part and her gaze finds me among the lights.

  “God, yes,”Ann breathes. Her camera whirs and I am dizzy. She circles to Jackie’s front. I don’t care if the magazine doesn’t print these photographs of Jackie’s aching body, so obviously aroused, wanting me. I want to preserve the moment. I want to paint the memory, to evoke what it’s like between women. I am lost remembering her in my arms the first time.

  “Lee, please,” she says hoarsely. She is sweating in spite of the fans and the colors begin to run. The blue and silver of her mingles with lilac and goldenrod.

  Ann says softly, “I’m done,” and she begins snapping off lights while I go to Jackie.

  I take her face in my hands and I kiss her with the scent of paint mixing with the scent of her. I want her in my arms but I can’t let her paint be wasted on clothing. Naked, then, pulling her hard and close, my thigh between hers.

  A light, close and hot, is suddenly on our faces. Our lips part and we turn to face it. Ann’s camera clicks several times, then the light is off again. Jackie moves against me with a soft but piercing moan.

  From the darkness, Ann says, “I needed a picture of you, Lee. It will be perfect. Art and the artist, entwined.”

  Jackie gasps her desire, and I hear Ann take an unsteady breath. “Thank you. I’ll come back for my equipment tomorrow.”

  I am beyond answering, then we are alone. Jackie’s mouth makes me alive. Her hands make me real. Her voice begs out my name. Ocher smeared in alabaster, radiating upward and outward. I am smeared with her paint and become her work of art.

  Published: Characters:

  Setting:

  Wild Things

  1995

  Faith Fitzgerald, professor and historical biographer

  Sydney Van Allen, lawyer and politician Chicago, Illinois

  The sixth is serendipity

  Wild Things Are Free

  (5 years) Another awards dinner. I had been to a lot of them, more since Sydney won her bid to become a senator in the Illinois statehouse.

  I had a head cold and almost backed out at the last moment. If I had stayed home in Chicago, there was no telling how long I would have gone on innocently believing that nothing would ever change the way Sydney felt about me.

  Instead I was in a Springfield hotel ballroom, feigning attention and fighting sniffles. The speeches were mostly tedious but the recipient was one of Sydney’s political protégés, a young lesbian attorney who idolized Sydney and our relationship. The young woman delivered her thanks in a style distinctly reminiscent of Sydney’s and afterward there were hugs and congratulations all around.

  It was then that another senator, Alitza Malm, stepped up to greet Sydney.

  I had seen Alitza’s picture, of course, and Sydney had long been effusive about Alitza’s politics—though she was a Republican—and style. They had spent a lot of time together over the last few months, working tirelessly on a massive, politically charged, bipartisan conference committee bill to reform child welfare services.

  I had not given Sydney’s unvarnished admiration and respect for Alitza a second thought. But then I saw the way Sydney looked at her.

  It was enough. The following morning I had to leave Springfield for C
hicago, where I was committed to a two-week graduate seminar. Then I left for Boston to conduct another seminar. I was behind on my deadline on a new manuscript, so when I returned to Chicago I would be deep in my research books and computer until it was done. Our schedules being what they were—hers was simply horrendous with session recess coming up in seven weeks—I would probably not see her again for nearly two months. Senator Alitza Malm— competent, vivacious, charming, committed and intelligent— would see Sydney almost every day.

  Sydney’s brown eyes, velvet with affection, were what I loved most about her face. But she was not looking at me.

  “If I work a few more days, I’ll be done,” I promised. I was lying. I had never lied to Sydney before.

  “Take the time you need, of course. The reading public has high expectations of Faith Fitzgerald.” There was disappointment in her voice. Was there also a note of relief? “I’m missing you, that’s all.”

  “I miss you, too,” I assured her, and we went on to discuss the more banal topics of our lives for a few minutes. Then the conversation turned to the subject that had lately seemed inevitable.

  “If the bill comes out of conference committee before August recess I’ll be able to relax a little. It’s been a wonderful experience. A true bipartisan meeting of the minds.” Alitza’s was among the minds Sydney admired, of course.

  “I’m glad that one of your efforts is finally bearing fruit.” It had been a difficult four years in the statehouse for a woman not used to being stymied at every turn.

  “Alitza has really made things happen on the other side of the aisle. She’s as determined as I am to get this bill onto the floor before the recess.”

  “It will be quite an accomplishment,” I agreed.

  “So, do you think you’ll be able to drive down by next week?” Her voice grew huskier. “I really do miss you.”

  “Yes,” I said, hating my lie. “Tuesday, if not sooner.” My latest historical biography was done. There was no reason for me to linger in Chicago. Sydney was working almost around the clock in Springfield and I knew that she was giving up sleep just to talk to me. I wanted to be next to her tonight, even if all we did was sleep. I wanted to watch her eyelids flutter as she dreamed.

  “Okay. Please work fast. I can hardly wait for the recess. I want to sleep for twenty-four hours and then go on a picnic where there are no cell phones or pagers.”

  “I’ll pack the hamper,” I said lightly, even though during these last two months on my own I had almost accepted that Sydney’s heart might want someone else on that picnic, even if she didn’t yet know it. Rationally, I knew I was probably reading too much into that one, unguarded glance. It was foolish to doubt Sydney’s love for me.

  Sydney yawned and I told her to get some rest. She promised and was probably asleep before the phone was back in the cradle.

  Loving her had remade me. I loved Sydney with a depth that I felt I had never conveyed to her. I knew that she loved me.

  What I could not escape was the way she talked about Alitza, the way she had been laughing with Alitza at that awards dinner. I had heard the lighthearted tone in her voice and seen the unguarded smile she usually reserved for her closest family. And for me.

  Until now, I had thought her happiness and mine were the same thing. I have always believed that all I have ever wanted, loving her, is for her to be happy. She has always been a wildly dangerous woman to me, brutally honest about herself and her past, and fiercely passionate about her dreams. I love all of her and want her to see her dreams become reality. But what if I am not in that dream? Is my love so shallow that I would ruin her dreams and stymie her desires because they have diverged from mine?

  With deliberate awareness, I had decided to put off joining her in Springfield now that my primary task of the summer was done. And so I had lied about not being yet finished. If she was falling in love with Alitza then that was going to happen without my attempting possessive ploys. They were together every day and would be until the coming recess. If she was going to realize and act on an attraction that was so obvious to me then it would be perhaps this weekend when the legislative session recessed for five weeks. I didn’t want to be there to weigh the scales of her actions one way or the other. To try to short-circuit something her nature drove her toward would be a betrayal. She is a wild thing and free. I am not made of the same stuff.

  My intention to leave her to her own devices, without my interference, lasted a mere three days. I didn’t think I could stand watching her fall in love with someone else, but not knowing if it was really happening was unbearable. So I chose the hard place that at least let me be near her. So much for my lofty notions of selfless love.

  Chicago to Springfield is a three-hour drive. I was used to long stretches of free time after the harried schedule of teaching and writing deadlines. As I measured time, three hours was nothing. To Sydney, devoting three hours to anything was a schedule-breaker.

  I stopped in Bloomington along the way to have lunch with my sister, Meg. She had new pictures of her family to share. I was glad to see her so happy—she deserved it after being widowed at twenty with an infant to raise on her own. She also had pictures of their trip to Hawaii where she and her new husband had visited with our brother, Michael. He’d finally recovered from burns sustained in an engine room fire, and returned to active duty in the Navy. Neither of us mentioned our parents. As an unrepentant lesbian, I was dead to them and their conservative Catholic diocese. Their narrow-minded viewpoints had ultimately driven Meg and Michael away as well.

  Meg invited me to stay over, and I almost agreed. She wasn’t all that serious about the offer, however, believing that I was in a hurry to see Sydney after a separation of nearly two months. Truthfully, I was in a hurry. But I dreaded what her eyes would tell me when I steeled myself to look into them.

  I let myself into the house Sydney had bought in a gated enclave on the outskirts of Springfield. It was our house, in fact, with my name on the deed as well. On a professor’s salary and with steady royalties I could certainly afford to own a modestly priced home, but never one like this. She had selected it for its amenities, security and location—the heartstopping price had never factored into it for her. Van Allen money was legendary, and she had more of it than I could fathom, even after becoming somewhat used to the ease it brought to daily life.

  As I crossed the floor the nearest intercom went live with Jacob’s voice. General factotum, light duty chef and caretaker, he had released the driveway gate when I buzzed from the street.

  “Welcome back, Professor. Would you like anything?”

  “No, but thank you, Jacob,” I answered, without breaking my stride. I had finally stopped asking Jacob to call me by my first name. “I had lunch with my sister.”

  “As you wish, madam. You have only to ask. The Senator has meetings until midnight, but she phoned to say she would try to visit at home briefly.”

  “Thank you for letting me know. Perhaps I could have a salad or some such around seven?” The contents of the icebox in the upstairs sanctum would take care of any munchies until then.

  “Certainly. Just ring me when you would like it served upstairs.”

  “Thank you. Oh, Jacob?” He answered and I went on, “I heard a kind of clanking bump from the brakes as I came in the driveway.” It hadn’t sounded serious, but I knew as much about how cars worked as I knew about superstring theory, which was nothing. I had only learned to drive after Sydney had presented me with both a stolid, safe Mercedes and an instructor as a birthday gift.

  “I’ll have a mechanic examine your car right away, Professor. Don’t give it another thought.”

  From the top of the curved staircase, I looked down at the main rooms of the split-level structure. They were large and airy, designed for entertaining and flawlessly decorated. We’d provided some general color schemes and ideas on textures to a professional. They were a stage for Senator Van Allen, ready to gather groups of people from time to time,
designed for parties and conferences and the ease of caterers. I passed through the hallway that led to several similarly sterile guest rooms. Even the master bedroom, at the end of the hallway, was part of the public space in the house, though here there were finally signs of her. I was moved by the sight of her hairbrush on the vanity. I had missed her.

  I didn’t linger in our bedroom. I needed the solace of the place where we were alone together. The master bedroom was the only way into our inner sanctum, a huge room along the north side of the house, which was where we really lived. Its very distance from the rest of the building made it an intimate room in spite of its size. It was a place where only family was allowed, and the closest of friends. Meetings at home were conducted in the formally decorated downstairs office. Even John and Mary, longtime employees of both Sydney’s law practice and now her political staff, met with her downstairs. This room was private.

  A few weeks ago, Sydney had mentioned in passing that Alitza and she had worked out the final language of their bill in our sanctum. Alitza had been allowed into the warmth of the room and into the closest circle of Sydney’s affection.

  I could not help but remember that I had first realized my fatal attraction to Sydney when she had invited her brother, whom I had been dating, and me to dinner. The flawless chill of Sydney’s Chicago apartment initially intimidated me, but then we went into her study. I glimpsed the real woman behind the ambition and the money. Her warmth and spirit had at that moment begun to lure me to her side.

  Alitza had been allowed into our inner sanctum here in Springfield. I gazed at the oversized chairs we’d picked out together, the intimate table for two where we would eat breakfast sometimes, the desk where she worked until all hours, a match to the one on the other side of the fireplace that I used when I was here. Every piece of art, including the original Cassat, had been chosen together as we crafted the room for just the two of us.