“I’m gonna fucking come,” my male muse, Matteo, groaned as he thrust sharply into my best friend. “Sicily, don’t be a little bitch this time and let me come.”
My laughter almost smudged the canvas.
Matteo Bonafede had been a part of my art since I caught him and Elena Ferrari in the act in the backroom of a gala five years ago. They were deeply, newly in love and hadbeggedme not to tell their families.
How love could be forbidden, even if it was between two teenagers from opposing sides of the New York five, was beyond me. Maybe because I had never loved like that before.
I’d had no desire to tell on them; that felt petty and destructive. Instead, I’d asked if I could paint them one day, not sexual, not yet, just their faces, their emotions, and they’d agreed.
It wasn’t until later that she asked if I would ever paint them naked.
Together.
It went against what we were expected to do. Women in our society weren’t supposed tolikesex; it was what happened painfully and roughly on a wedding night, to create heirs, to satisfy husbands, and there was an empty space in the world that had been created in the place of wants and desires. Even at the very start of girlhood, girls, even from the small age of four or five, were homeschooled or put through private school so their fathers could shape them into the perfect woman to be a wife oneday while their brothers were taught to defend and fight to get their tattoo and status.
It had always been obvious to me that women could no longer access what they truly needed from life because of what men expected of us, and I was desperate to close that void.
After I’d painted them for the first time, Elena and I had become close, close enough to agree that we needed a place to feel strong, empowered, and a little rebellious. With that in mind, the art studio had been born, just a small, red brick building hidden on the edge of a strip of stores. Matteo had bought it for us on the condition that this was a safe place for him and Elena’s forbidden relationship.
“Two seconds, Matt,” I called, adding the finishing touches to Elena’s angelic painted face, but there wasn’t two seconds, not even one, before Matteo stilled and groaned loudly, climaxing as a wide smile spread over Elena’s lips.
Sometimes, I thought I needed to complete the painting as it was, with the action and movement, but often the very perspective I needed was to disrupt its focus.
“He’s a bad subject,” Elena said to me, laughing quietly as she raked her fingers through his blonde curls.
“No,” I replied, turning the canvas to show them. “You were both perfect, as usual. I’ll let it dry, and it’ll be next on the wall.” I turned my head up to the high, florally wallpapered walls. Paintings of Elena and Matteo from the very beginning hung there, covering the full length of the wall. Each one was a different act, but they were each a clear study of commitment, all a lesson in female power in its rawest form.
The stinging, all-encompassing sensation of pride over these masterpieces was dulled by the knowledge that they could only ever exist here. My art wasn’t free because women weren’t free.Being in theCosa Nostrawas limiting, oppressive, andruled by patriarchy and tradition that would forever put men on top.
I wouldn’t rest until I could somehow give women the same respect and freedom as men.
“You’re thinking again, Sicily.”
I jumped at Elena’s appearance by my side. She tied a silk blue robe around her body as she joined me at the wall, her face sparkling with everything that was happy and fulfilled as she stared at these paintings.
One day, somebody would love my chaotically optimistic, powerful heart like Matteo loved Elena’s. I’d asked the universe for it on more than one occasion, but I still remained one of the eldest unmarried children of the five Dons. I liked to believe it was meant to happen, that the world wanted to keep me hidden until the right person could discover me, but belief didn’t always sound logical, and logic was unfortunately favored by our brains.
I pulled Elena into my body, swaddling her in a tight embrace. “How can you be okay with loving someone you shouldn’t?”
“I’m not,” she whispered, squeezing me tight. “But love doesn’t have rules or boundaries. It breaks and ruins, but it also fixes and rebuilds. Matteo isn’t safe, of course, he isn’t, but my heart has never felt safer. You’ll know when your love sneaks up on you.”
“My love isn’t moving at all, let alone sneaking.” I scoffed, smoothing my hands against my jeans after noticing the dots of pink and yellow paint I’d left on Elena’s robe.
Thatwas me; I wasn’t elegant like she was, I didn’t exude gentle femininity, and I wasn’t quiet and reserved. I was short where Elena was tall, I was paint-splattered chaos in jeans and a fading pink shirt, while she was always dressed in fine silks and pearls. My blonde curls were permanently knotted in paint while her dark, waist-length locks shone enough to hold my reflection.
I’d been told my entire life that I was too much, too loud, too forward, just toome,and that wasn’t okay for our society.
That wasn’t what men wanted.
Matteo yawned as he sauntered toward us, no shirt, no care in the world, and mumbled, “I still think we should all just run away, cross the border, and live in a shack in Canada.”
Elena rolled her eyes. “We’d be dead in five minutes.”
“Are you saying I can’t be sneaky,mia cara?”
Her laugh was infectious, but I couldn’t copy it; hers was full, brimming even, with a soul-deep kind of affection, and I had never felt that.
“Yes.” She laughed. “Yourgiganticbody would be seen crossing the border from China.”
