Sommer Marsden - Muse

Instead he curled his painted feathering line up her belly to meet the crimson and gold at her breast.

Dani thought they’d pushed her as far as she could go until Chris dropped his brush and squatted down in front of her. His torso facing her bare sex, his face close to her naked breasts, cloaked in nothing but thin cold layers of drying paint.

‘Your brush strokes are messy,’ he said to Kevin.

Kevin cocked his head, frowned, his samurai bun momentarily disturbed by the movement. Chris traced a large fingertip around the brush strokes that dotted Dani’s nipple. That already tight knot of flesh grew tighter still. Surely it would crack the paint, she thought wildly.

His fingertips ran along the seams of the blue that adorned her left breast. When he started to travel the trail of the screaming orange she saw white spots dance in her eyes. Inside her, everything clenched. Everything grew wetter. Everything screamed for that finger to travel all the way to its ultimate – most coveted – destination.

His fingertips licked the top of her thigh, stopping where the paint ended. His bright-blue gaze was on her again and he smiled. ‘You should paint her the way she deserves to be painted. Like the art she is.’ Then he dragged his finger down between her legs and slipped it over that swollen, hard part of her that needed his touch more than she needed air to breathe.

Dani woke tangled in her sheets, panting, her hand shoved firmly between her thighs. Her arousal, while she slept, had reached a feverish level. As the sun came up slowly, turning the light in her room from purple to periwinkle to smoky grey, she slid her trembling fingers over her clit. Abandoning that when it didn’t feel big enough, bold enough. She pushed two fingers inside herself, grinding her clit against her palm as she hooked and curled her fingers. Finally, on the brink of dying or coming, she found her clit with her other hand and with just a few gentle strokes (like the kiss of a paintbrush), she came.

‘Jesus,’ she said to the ceiling. ‘Fuck.’

* * *

‘What happened to you?’ Cheryl was leaning in her doorway, arms crossed, smirk on her face.

‘What?’ Dani finished her coffee, studying the liquid intently so as to avoid looking at her friend.

‘You look like you got slapped. Twice.’ She laughed and touched a fingertip to each of her cheeks to indicate where she meant.

Dani instantly pressed her palms to her cheeks. They were warm. Of course they were warm! She’d been sitting here trying to place a paper fucking towel order for the restrooms and instead reliving her vivid, lascivious sex dream that involved not one but two men. One of them her old friend who’d been more like a brother to her.

‘Oh.’

‘Oh? That’s it?’

‘That’s it.’

‘Did you get laid ?’ Cheryl stage-whispered as she stepped inside and closed the office door.

‘No!’

‘Hmm. You sure look like you got laid.’

‘Nope.’

Cheryl kept her blue-grey eyes trained on Dani until she started to squirm. She was like an inquisitor. It was unbearable. Finally, Dani waved a hand and blurted, ‘I had a sexy dream. That’s all. I had a sex dream. I’m a teenage boy, sue me!’

Cheryl leaned against the door. Her eyes were shining in that way that meant she smelled gossip. Dirt. The goods.

‘Tell me,’ she said, sitting down in one of Dani’s two visitor chairs.

Dani leaned back in her chair and sighed. ‘I’m supposed to be doing … this …’ She waved a hand at the mess of papers on her desk and her humming computer.

‘Take a break from that and tell me what prompted zis zex dream,’ she said, steepling her fingers. ‘How does it make you feel?’

‘Well, Dr Freud …’ Dani riposted. Then she shook her head. ‘It was nothing. Just mental junk floating through my head while I slept. Stress, worry, thrill, Kevin Buck. Whatever.’

Cheryl held up a hand, eyes comically wide. ‘Did you say … Kevin Buck ?’

Dani was unable to suppress a small giggle. ‘Yep.’

‘What on earth is a Kevin Buck and where did you get one?’

‘Kevin Buck is a student in the Monday-night class. He asked me out for a drink after tomorrow night’s class.’

‘Is he a …’ Cheryl looked at the ceiling as if steeling herself. ‘ Young buck?’

Then her head tipped back and she was laughing, trying to suck in air. Dani, sleep-deprived and still shellshocked from her dream, couldn’t help but join in, gave into her own laughter. ‘Actually, he is. I think he’s a few years younger than me.’

‘What’s he look like?’ Cheryl was leaning on her desk now, a stack of colourful sticky notes trapped beneath her crossed arms. ‘Spill. I’m old, I’m married and I need the mental fodder.’

‘First off, I call him man bun.’

‘Ooh, he has the man bun. This is good. Go on.’

‘Dark hair, dark eyes, dark stubble. Tall, lanky but muscled, well built, great smile, nice, funny. You know, typical guy who’d make your shoes melt if he asked you out.’

‘And he did. He did ask you out!’ Cheryl crowed.

‘He did. And I said no.’

Cheryl’s face fell.

‘At first. Then I said yes. We’re going out tomorrow after class.’

‘Good, this is excellent. Good for you, Dani!’

Dani glanced at the clock. ‘If we’re going to waste time, we might as well go eat. I’m not super productive as it is. I feel bad using work time to gossip.’

‘Let’s go. Early lunch, then. It’s slow today. Three cancellations and it was a light day to begin with.’

Together they rode the elevator down and headed to the cafeteria. ‘You know I have sex dreams,’ said Cheryl. ‘Usually about Paul, but sometimes not. Sometimes it’s that strapping, deep-voiced Idris Elba. Sometimes, it’s that guy who plays Sherlock. The one who looks like the human embodiment of a bored feline. Weird name. Anyway, in this one, he takes this ribbon and—’

‘Ah!’ Dani said. ‘TMI, Cheryl. TMI!’

Cheryl frowned. ‘Oh, come on.’

They entered the cafeteria, ordered their food and found a table. ‘Just let me learn to digest my own sex dreams before I have to digest yours.’

‘Fine, fine,’ Cheryl mumbled. ‘But you never told me what it was. What happened?’

Dani stirred her chicken noodle soup and stalled by crumbling crackers into it. Finally, Cheryl had had enough. She took the final pack, smashed it by squeezing it in her fist and dumped it in. ‘Tell.’

‘He painted me.’

Her friend shook her head. ‘He painted you? So? Isn’t he painting you in class?’

Dani shook her head. ‘No, he’s drawing me in class. And I meant, he painted me . He painted my body with paint using a paintbrush. And he … strayed dangerously close to highly sensitive areas.’ Her phone buzzed.

‘Oh … sexy painting. I get it. Cool. He painted you and?’

Dani’s phone buzzed again. She held up a finger and answered. ‘Hello?’

‘Hey, it’s Chris.’

Her face was suddenly on fire. Her pulse a wicked thump and bang in her veins. She could feel it in the very centre of her forehead, a thrumming rush.

‘Hi.’ God, her voice was breathy. Weak. Maidenly .

‘Hey,’ Chris said. ‘Just making sure you’re still coming tonight. That you didn’t get home and decide I was insane to suggest it and you were equally insane to accept.’

Momentarily speechless, Dani was focused on the thoughts running through her mind. The first being: You should paint her the way she deserves to be painted. Like the art she is … What he’d said about her in her filthy, filthy dream.

The other followed swiftly: He sat and watched you stand there nude last night. Utterly naked. Without a stitch of clothing …