As soon as I woke up this morning on the couch in the living room, I had to come to my studio and paint. I lost myself in my art for the first time in God knows how long and without a drink. I painted this fucking sober. Bright yellow lips stare back at me. The fact that I have used color in months other than, as Daniel would say, my demonic shit, is haunting me. No. Actually, what’s haunting me is whose lips I have painted. I can still feel them against my own. Her soft breath. Her warm body pressed against mine. I shouldn’t have done it. I know this, but in that moment when she was tending to my wounds, her soft fingers gently working over my broken skin, something broke inside of me.
I don’t remember the last time someone cared for me. This woman doesn’t even like me, and yet there she was trying to put my battered hands back together again. She whispered a question to me, not realizing that I wasn’t in a drunken stupor, and as soon as she touched me, it sobered me up. I closed my eyes because she was too close, and I didn’t trust myself with her.
Emily has no idea that it’s images of her that I see when I touch myself. The images of her are the only things that seem to help me over the edge. I was right when I said she was pure sunshine because she is. Prancing around my fucking house in her sundresses, looking all innocent and shit, it drives me crazy.
Her creamy white skin just begs for my lips to touch and my hands to caress it. That golden-spun hair I want to wrap around my hand and control her, especially as she’s choking on my dick. I close my eyes at that image and take a deep breath.
I’m glad she stopped things last night because I would have fucked her, and I think she’d have let me too if reality hadn’t hit her. I wouldn’t have respected her in the morning. I’d have been an asshole to her again. Hurt her. Dimmed her sunshine with my darkness.
I’m no good for someone as beautiful as her.
I’m a fucking mess.
A washed-up artist, she called me, and it’s the damn truth.
I look around at the bullshit of an excuse I call art, and then back to what I’ve just completed, and there’s no comparison. I stare at the sunshine lips that I’ve just painted, and that’s when it hits me.
No.
No fucking way.
No.
God-fucking-dammit, just no.
Not her.
Elisabeth’s words filter through the chaos that’s happening in my mind. “You, of all people, know that sometimes an artist’s muse isn’t always who you want them to be.”
I open the cupboard beside me and pull out the bottle of tequila.
Fuck this!
I let the darkness take me over again.
I wake up to someone nudging me.
“Louis, wake up,” the unfamiliar female voice states. “Gabriel’s made you breakfast.” I groan, my empty stomach is somersaulting. “I think you need it.”
Then I’m hit with bright light, it’s too intense, and it instantly gives me a headache.
“Fuck off,” I yell, pulling a pillow over my head.
Moments later, it’s been taken from me.
“Get. Up.” I feel the person tugging on my arm. “Oh, God, you stink.” The person makes gagging sounds as my covers are pulled off me.
“Who the fuck do you think you are?” I scream.
“I’m Emily, your assistant. I’m helping you to become a fully-fledged human being in the real world again.”
I let out a groan.
I was trying to forget about her.
“I’m your boss, and I say leave me the fuck alone.” There’s silence for a couple of moments, and maybe she’s listening to me, but I’m wrong.
“I have a job to do, and if you fire me over doing it, then you’re breaking a million and one laws.” I still. What the hell? “So, if you don’t want to lose the other half of your money to another woman, I suggest you get the hell out of this bed you have been wallowing in for the past couple of days and have a shower.”
I’m shocked. I thought she was a wallflower, not a ball buster. The covers are ripped off me.
“Louis,” she squeals.
I rub my head and kick my feet over the edge of the bed, the room is spinning, so it takes me a couple of moments to gain my bearings.
“What?” I grumble.
“You’re naked.”
I look down at my dick who decides he wants to salute the morning because he has a mind of his own. “Yeah, because I was asleep, remember?”
Her eyes are wide and her cheeks flushed, but she is still staring at my dick.
“It’s just a dick, Emily.” She’s flustered, but so far, she’s made no effect in a comeback. “Granted, you probably haven’t seen one this big before.”
Her mouth forms a perfect O, and I like that I have stunned her quiet. It helps my headache.
“Will you go have a shower?” she says the words with bite, but she’s still looking at my dick.
“Wanna join me?”
“Excuse me?” Her voice rises.
“The way you keep looking at my dick makes me think you wouldn’t mind, you know… helping me.”
“Gabriel has b-breakfast ready for y-you when you’re finished up h-here,” she splutters over her words, and now her neck is a nice shade of crimson.
“I might be awhile. You know… this is a lot to handle.” I grab my dick.
Emily huffs and turns on her heels.
For some reason, I feel lighter this morning, which is a first in a long time.
16
Emily
“It’s just a dick, Emily.” I play the images of Louis Marchant naked in all his glory over and over in my mind. I now know a dick is not a dick, seeing
