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“—but look at your arms. It’s unclear as to where they are… are they restrained or are you restraining yourself by not touching him? And your head is resting on his shoulder making the moment more intimate. And look!” She points to his neck, “this flush in his neck, he’s clearly fighting off his orgasm so you come first.” Madi steps back, shaking her head again. “I didn’t know you could get that much out of a painting. It’s… It’s beautiful. They’re not just fucking, they’re making love. They’rein love.”
I lower my hands, studying my painting. She’s describing exactly the image in my head when I started painting it. I’ve been so distracted by… well, Dante, that I haven’t had the chance to really look at it. Though I’m glad that someone else clarified that I had captured the exact image I had in my head.
“Who’s the guy?” Madi asks.
“Just someone I dreamt about.”
Madi whistles. “I wish I had your dreams.”
Looking at it more objectively, it is good. Damn good. I’d managed to capture not only the bodies I’d wanted but the emotion and movement within those bodies. It might be the best work I’ve ever done.
“Why don’t you do more of this sort of thing?” Madi asks. “Don’t get me wrong, I love your abstracts, but this is…wow.”
I sigh. “The truth is that I did a lot of portraits in college. Until a professor who I didn’t even like eviscerated my work at the student show in front of everyone. He said that my work was redundant, forgettable, and lacked any intellectual humanism.”
Madi wrinkles her nose. “He sounds like a fucking ass.”
“Yeah. He was.” I rub the back of my neck.And I let him prevent me from doing forms and portraits ever since.Why am I still giving him so much power over me?
I like painting people. To capture them in another light that shows who they truly are. Their every flaw and internal desire. Even the emotions that so many people often try to hide, I’m able to portray in my paintings of them and bring it to life. I should start again, even if just for myself.
“Hey, can you give me a dream guy?” Madi asks, quirking a brow at me.
I laugh, but before I can answer my phone rings. I fish it from my pocket. “Sorry, this is my gallerist. I should see what he needs.”
Madi nods. “Don’t mind me. I’ll just be here, drooling.”
I roll my eyes at her as I head outside. “Hey, Max.”
“Kylie! Thank God! It’s awful. You have to—” His voice is muffled as he babbles.
I stick a finger in my free ear, trying to hear him better.
“Say that again,” I tell him.
He takes a noisy breath. “I need you to get back here. It’s awful! Stella’s not coming out of her room, and everything is a cluster fuck. She’s inconsolable. She needs you.”
Cold rushes through my veins. “What happened? Is someone hurt?”
“What? No. Well. Not yet. Once I get my hands on him, he’s dead!”
“Max!” I have to shout into the phone. “Slow down and tell me what is happening.”
Madi turns toward me with confusion on her face the moment she steps outside to join me. I’m too focused on what Max is trying to tell me, so instead of easing her confusion I hold up a finger.
“The realtor called. The space that the two of you have been working to get was sold to another developer.”
“But, they can’t do that! We had the paperwork started. The bank agreed to the loans,” I protest, gripping the edge of the door. My heart races. Another developer? Who?
“They said that it was a big business deal, the whole area or nothing at all. They couldn’t pass it up. Stella’s a mess.” Max lets out a heavy breath that rushes like static into the phone. “We need you back, Kylie. She won’t talk to me.”
Tears spring to my eyes. Stella has been so excited about this property, and for someone to do this to her—hell to me—it was unbelievable. For the life of me, I can’t understand why, after everything we had already gotten done for this deal, they would do that and not tell us anything beforehand. Though now it makes sense that they weren’t calling with updates.
“So, she’s locked in her room?” I ask, trying to figure out what my next steps are going to be.
“Yeah, she locked herself in. I don’t know if she’s drinking or binge-eating ice cream. She won’t talk to me and I’m officially worried,” Max says.
Madi pulls her phone out of her pocket and mouths, “I’m going to call Knox” to me as she steps back into the house.
