Menage a Trois Ch. 07

Sandy and Rachel were both up and running at 7:00 the next morning. By the time I dragged myself out to the kitchen in search of coffee, wondering why they were up given we had spent half the night screwing, they were dressed and downing a cup of coffee before they headed out.

"My god, don't you two sleep?" I asked, as Sandy handed me a cup of coffee.

"There's work to be done by us mere mortals," Sandy said.

"Right," Rachel joined in. "I need to get down to the bookstore."

"And I need to see what new problems my staff has uncovered while I was in London."

"And you need to paint," Rachel said. "We think you are an art god, but the rest of the world doesn't know about it yet."

"It's drawing. Pastels are more like crayons."

"Whatever. Here's the thing. Sandy and I have been up since 6:00, talking while you snoozed. We think you need to sell your drawings."

"Yes," Sandy joined in. "Hers and mine."

"Really," I asked. "Are you sure? What about your blue-nosed partners?"

"Fuck'em!" Sandy said. "They need me more than I need them. I've had conversations with three different head hunters in the last week."

"Right," Rachel said. "Jobs may be hard to come by for commercial artists, but not for tall leggy blondes who are expert accountants with extensive experience with the SEC or whoever it is she deals with."

"Did I get that right?" Rachel continued, looking to Sandy. "Is it the SEC? And what is the SEC?"

"Yes," Sandy said with a laugh. "You got it right and you don't need to know what they do."

"But really, Steven," she said looking at me now. "I want you to sell your art. I don't want us to have a relationship where I bring home all the bacon, and you are the house-husband. As for what people will think about my posing nude—like I said; fuck'em. The guys can lust after me, and their wives will just have to get used to it."

"Except for the wives that are lusting after you," Rachel said with a twinkle in her eye.

Sandy laughed, "That's okay, too, but now we have to get going," she said looking at her watch and then Rachel. They downed the last of their coffees and started for the door.

"But wait," I said. "What about us?"

"Us?" they said, more or less in unison as they stopped just short of the door and turned to look at me.

"Yes, us. I mean the three of us. How is that going to work?"

"Hopefully just like last night," Sandy responded. "It was marvelous."

"For how long?" I asked.

"Until it doesn't," she responded. "How else can a relationship work?"

"So we're a threesome?"

They both nodded at me. "You okay with that?" Sandy asked.

"Fuck yes! Can we go back to bed now?" I said, breaking into a broad smile.

"No!" they responded.

"We have to work," Sandy said.

"And you have to draw," Rachel said.

"There's more to life than sex," Sandy said.

Rachel gave her a confused look and asked, "Are you sure?"

Then they were gone, and I was sitting at the kitchen table with my coffee thinking about what I had gotten myself into. The words, ménage a trois were running through my head. It sounds exotic in French, but the reality was feeling a little scary just now.

"So," I asked myself, "what are the downsides to this arrangement?" I really couldn't find any beyond the risk that the relationship might blow up some day. But any relationship has that downside, so I couldn't see that as a problem. The only way to avoid that risk is to become a hermit. "So I guess it's all good," I told myself, but I still had this nagging feeling I didn't know what I was getting myself into.

I made myself some toast and jelly and another cup of coffee and then returned to my studio to pick up where I left off when the girls had walked in last night. There was a half-finished nude of Sandy in her tall, sexy heels and pearls that I wanted to finish this morning. Nothing else mattered right then.

I spent the next couple of weeks in my studio, more or less a hermit. I hadn't worked that hard in years. I didn't see much of Sandy and Rachel. Sandy was back in London much of the time. We had some great phone sex, but it wasn't near as good as the real thing. Rachel dropped by a couple of evenings with "chicken soup"; and the sex was really good. We worked at finding positions in which I could play with her luscious tits while we fucked. God, her tits are fun! But mostly I worked on producing pastels and sketches for a show.

Late one afternoon I took a break and dropped into Sherri's for a Scotch and a chat with Lisa. I mostly wanted to tell her to tell Howard I had solved my issues with my models, and I was working hard to produce enough finished product for a show. At Lisa's suggestion, I also agreed to have lunch with Howard and show him what I had produced to date. He came uptown, and we had a bite in Sherri's and then went to my studio.

By this time I had finished pastels that covered much of the walls, and there were sketches everywhere else including a good deal of the floor.

Howard walked back and forth in silence studying the walls and the floors. Finally he sat down in the armchair and spoke, "You've been busy. We better sell some of these. You're running out of room."

"Do you like what you see?"

"Yes, but there is one thing missing for a really good first-time show."

"What's missing?"

"A centerpiece."

"A centerpiece?" I asked.

"Yes. We need a large pastel of both women making love in a pose allowing the viewer to see the emotion each is experiencing. You've done it well for each of them in separate drawings, but I want it in one large drawing that I can center in the gallery. I want everyone who walks into the gallery to know immediately what this show is about."

"Which is?"

"The love affair between your wife and her cousin, of course. The viewers don't have to know who the models are or their relationship to you—at least not now. Later on, when you're famous, it will make great fodder for the gossip columnists. But right now my goal is to make sure their passion for each other is the first thing the customers see when they walk into the gallery. We will put some ridiculous price on that lead-in picture. It doesn't have to sell, but it will sell the rest of the remaining works."

"Can you do that for me?" he asked.

I sat thinking about the lead-in piece, trying to ignore what he said about gossip columnists. "How big is big?" I asked.

Howard quoted some dimensions that would be larger than life.

"Yeah . . . I think I can do that. But it will take me a couple of weeks. I may need another sitting with the models. Maybe not. We'll see." I was thinking out loud. "First I'll do a small sketch, and then if I like it, a small pastel, maybe 16 inches on the diagonal. That way I will know where I'm going. If you like the small version, I can then do the full-size one you want."

"Great. I don't want to start the publicity until you have the big one finished, so we are still a month or two out. The whole show is going to build around that piece of art. Meanwhile we need to decide what the rest of the show will include. You have more here than I can put up in a single show. Especially the sketches, and I definitely want to include some of the sketches. I will need to send Lisa and Sarah over here to pick the specific items for the show and arrange for framing. They are much better at that than I am."

"What about your commission? How is that going to work?"

"Oh, I'll have Lisa get our standard agreement to you. She handles all that detail for me."

"Okay, but she will have to deal with Sandy on it."

Howard gave me a confused look. "Your model?"

"She's also my accountant—and my wife."

"Oh yeah. I forgot about that. My new artists don't usually come equipped with an accountant. I s'pose you'll be telling me you have an agent next."

Howard jumped out of the armchair and started for the door. "Well, I'm off. Got a major customer to see. Not sure he works for your stuff, but maybe. I'm not gonna give him an advance-of-show shot though. He's too cheap to pay up for that. Besides, I want the art community's first look at your work to include everything—not just what's left after a few high rollers pick things over. Reputation first. Then sales. Remember that."

The big piece turned out to be more challenging than I expected. I made nearly a dozen sketches before I got one I was satisfied with. I abandoned the idea of drawing the girls in simultaneous climax. It was just too difficult to come up with a posture that was erotic and still loving when I had to catch the moment of climax. It may be that romantic love is suspended for a moment or two at the instant of sexual climax. Maybe it's just lust for that instant. Don't know about that. In any case, I changed the concept a bit.

Instead, I drew the girls naked and coiled around each other in post-coital bliss. Sandy was slouched on the couch, her legs spread and her drenched pussy glistening. Her head was back, her eyes closed, and she was smiling, just a little smile, with some ambiguity. Was it satisfaction, contentment, love for Rachel, or pride at how she had just satisfied Rachel or made Rachel satisfy her? I didn't know, and I didn't want the viewer to know either—not for sure. This wasn't a Mona Lisa smile. It was something else. More erotic, but with the same ambiguity.

Rachel was tucked under Sandy's arm, her head resting on her chest. Like Sandy, Rachel was smiling and her eyes were closed. Rachel's smile was pure love and satisfaction, or at least that is how I envisioned it.

One of Rachel's hands lay on Sandy's leg, palm up, as though it had just dropped from caressing a breast. The girls' hips were pressed firmly together. Rachel's leg, the one away from Sandy, was pulled up and bent at the knee, opening her gleaming sex to the viewer. Sandy had a hand near, but no longer on, Rachel's sex. Her fingers glistened with Rachel's juices.

It took me a few days to finish even the small pastel. When it was finished, I put it in my portfolio case and took it down to Sherri's Place to show Lisa. She was stunned by it.

She had pored my usual Scotch even before I sat down. I took a sip and then put the portfolio case up on the bar. "Here's my small study for the big drawing Howard wants," I said. "It turned out to be more difficult than I anticipated, but I think this works." I took a long sip on my drink. I was really nervous about showing this drawing to anyone.

"Can I see it?" she asked.

"Sure. That's why I'm here. That and the single malt."

"Wait. Let me clean the bar," she said. She grabbed a dry bar towel and rubbed down a space between us adequate to lay out the drawing. I pushed my drink down the bar. Just for safety I thought. I didn't know why I was so nervous. This was just a study, not the finished work.

I opened the case and laid the drawing out on the bar between us.

"Oh god, yes. That's exactly what we want," she said, as I laid it on the bar for her to look at. "Exactly! Howard will love it."

She stared at the drawing for a while. "I have a question, though. What is the smile on Sandy's face about? Where is she?"

"Ah!" I said with satisfaction. "You got it. The smile is love, but it's some other things too, because love is never simple, especially for someone as complex as Sandy. The smile leaves a question about what she is thinking—satisfaction, contentment, love, pride? What is it? We don't know, so we all have to speculate."

Lisa stared at the drawing for a long time. Finally she said, "Stunning. It's just stunning. Do you want me to take it down to the gallery or do you want to go down there?"

"I thought I would take it down," I said. It was only a study, but I was loathe to let go of it. There was a lot of work in it.

"Sure. Fine. I understand. Howard'll be in the gallery tomorrow morning. I'll tell him you'll be coming in."

"Okay. About 10:00?"

"Sure. I'll tell him."

Lisa focused on the drawing again. "Oh, this is just great. Let's have another Scotch to celebrate."

"Down girl," I said. "It's only a study. I still have to do the full size drawing. . . . And I haven't finished the drink I've got."

Lisa laughed. "Okay. You're right. I just got excited. But I can't wait to see the big version," she continued.

"That will take me at least another week after I let Howard take a look at this study, and I want Sandy and Rachel to see it, too, before I get started."

"They're all going to love it," she said. Then she leaned across the bar and kissed me on the lips. It wasn't a long kiss, but it seemed like it, and her scent was delicious.

When she pulled back she was blushing a bit. "Oops," she said. "I got carried away."

I smiled. "I've got some more art work I could show you, but maybe I shouldn't."

Lisa chuckled. "I agree. You've got all the women you can handle now. How's that going by the way?"

"Fine," I said. "We've been talking about Sandy and me moving in with Rachel. She owns a big brownstone on 69^th Street, just beyond Madison."

"But then I wouldn't see you anymore," she said in a pout. "You're not going to trek across the park just for your one or two Scotches a week."

"Not to worry girl. If we do this, we'll keep our apartment on this side of the Park to use as a studio. Anyway all that assumes my show is a success."

"Don't worry. It will be."

I put the drawing back in the case and tossed down the rest of my drink. "Got to run. Sandy's due home from London tonight, and I need to clean up the house."

As I walked towards the door, Lisa stepped out from the bar and caught me before I stepped out. She threw her arms around me in a big hug, smashing her breasts against my chest. "Trust me, Steve. Your show is going to be a huge success." Then she kissed me again—an even longer kiss. I knew I shouldn't, but I responded, wrapping my arms around her, the portfolio case hanging from one hand and resting against her ass, while our tongues dueled. It was delicious.

Once she let go of me, I turned to get out the door before I got in any more trouble with her. As I stepped away from her, I felt her hand softly stroke my ass.

I looked back at her. "Sorry. I'm a bad girl. But you have a really cute buns and . . . well, what can I say?"

I winked at her and then got through the door and out onto Columbus Street. As I walked quickly away, I was saying to myself, "Oh no you don't, Steve. You don't need her. Two women is plenty. No more . . . but . . . tempting."

I had lied to Lisa. Sandy was not coming home. She had been scheduled to get back from London tonight, but the powers that be had rescheduled her. Instead of coming straight home, she was flying to San Francisco for a few days of meetings. Rachel had gone to visit a friend in Minneapolis, so I was on my own tonight. By now it was getting late and starting to get dark. I was hungry and didn't want to cook for myself, so I stopped at my favorite Italian place and got a meal to go.

When I opened the apartment door it was dark. I walked around flipping on the lights throughout the apartment. I hate dark and alone. In the studio, I remembered the drawing in my portfolio case. I got it out and taped it up on the wall. Then I went to the kitchen where I put the takeout dinner in the oven to stay warm. I opened a bottle of wine, poured myself a glass, and walked back to the studio, where I sat in the armchair sipping the wine and looking at the drawing. I was particularly interested in comparing the facial features of the two girls to all the other drawings I had made of them.

"Do they really look like they are lovers?" I asked myself. "I mean," I continued out loud. "I know they are lovers and have been for many years. But have I captured that? That's the question."

I took along pull on my wine glass and stared at the drawing. Finally, continuing to think out loud, I said, "No, that's not really the question, and if it is, you will never fully capture it. It's too ephemeral. I see it in how they look at each other and how they touch each other, and it's there for an instant and then it's gone. There's a dynamic there that can't be captured in a static image."

"But the real question is, will the drawing convince people who don't know them that they are lovers?"

"Yes. That's it. That's what the drawing has to do."

I walked back to the kitchen, refilled my wine glass, and returned to the studio where I sat in the chair continuing to study the drawing. Eventually I decided that it would work. It didn't capture Sandy and Rachel the way I knew them, but that didn't matter. It would get the message across to most people that these two women were lovers.

"But what about Sandy's smile?" I asked myself. "Am I introducing too much complexity?"

I also asked myself if I had made Sandy's expression to complex. Would it be misinterpreted? "No," I finally told myself. "The painting has to reveal Sandy for the, complex person she is. I think it works."

I downed the glass of wine and returned to the kitchen for dinner.

I was just finishing up dinner, standing at the sink, washing the few dishes I had dirtied, when the phone rang. It was Sandy.

"Hi lover," she said.

"Hi . . . where are you?"

"San Francisco. I'm exhausted. The flight from London was twelve hours."

"Direct?"

"Yes."

"Too bad."

"Why? God, it would have been even longer if I had to do a plane change someplace."

"But, if you had had a layover at JFK, I would have cabbed out there and waved at you across Security."

"Oh dear," she said. "Is this what our relationship has come to? Lovers separated by the security glass of an airport?"

"A modern Pyramus and Thisbe," I said.

"Who's that?"

"It's Shakespeare. Well, the original story was Greek. Shakespeare just borrowed it, like most of his plots."

"My aren't you getting intellectual. That's pretty deep for a guy who paints Huggies."

"I got the story from Rachel, . . . and I paint other things now."

"Yes, I've noticed," she said as a bit of playful sarcasm crept into her voice. "Actually, I like your new work. Any progress on getting your show put up at Wendover's?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact," I said. "I finished the small version of the big drawing Howard wants for the centerpiece today. I went around the corner to Sherri's and showed it to Lisa. She likes it and wants me to show it to Howard tomorrow." She likes more than just the painting I thought to myself as I remembered her kisses.

"Is this the one where Rachel and I are cumming at the same time?"

"Well, that's what Howard suggested, but I couldn't make that work so I did something a little different. You and Rachel have both just climaxed and you are wrapped up in each other. It's still pretty X-rated though. When I finish it you two will be larger than life." I went on to describe the drawing in more detail.

"I can't wait to see it, but right now I need to sleep. I have to be at the financial printer's first thing tomorrow and I'm wiped out. AIM is trying to raise some equity and we are working on the offering documents." I heard her yawn. Then as an after thought, "Oh yeah, that's secret, so don't tell anyone and don't trade in their stock. And for god's sake don't tell Rachel. She will blab to everyone and anyone."

"How long are you going to be in San Francisco?"

"Depends on how much of a pain in the ass underwriters' counsel decides to be. At least three or four more days."

"You know," she said, her mind wandering from her work. "I really wish you were here. It seems like forever since we had real face-to-face sex. Not tonight, but tomorrow night. Tonight I've got to sleep."

"I can't fly out, because I have to stay here to meet with Howard and then get the centerpiece drawing done for the show. But I've got an idea."