After the Come-In (Part 1)

“You seemed to enjoy yourself though,” Lena said with a smirk as she squeezed a glob of indigo gouache onto the white palette.

“I did,” Margot admitted, laughing at her friend’s suggestive tone. “I suppose I just feel like I took things a bit far.”

“With Quinn?”

“Ah, no, not with Quinn. That was lovely.” Margot reclined nude atop a few pillows beneath the studio’s high skylight, feet pointed toward Lena at the easel. Quinn had enthusiastically gone down on her amid a crowd of hundreds on the sun-bathed lawn of the sculpture garden. A pleasant memory.

“It was lovely to watch,” Lena said as she made a first exploratory stroke across the textured paper. “But what then?”

“Well, I feel a little silly admitting it, Lena.” Margot bit her bottom lip, conscious of the rosy blush spreading across her chest.

Lena made a sound of acknowledgment. “Well I got off watching my husband get off with two other men. Does that help?”

“I watched Luc… ejaculate.”

“Ah, I see.”

“He was looking at my chest, and I encouraged him,” Margot said, half laughing, half wincing. She leaned forward and squeezed her large breasts together between her upper arms, swaying them from side to side. “Like this.”

“Uh huh.” Lena held the brush loosely as she watched her friend sway. A smile began to form.

“And that’s not all,” Margot continued, eyes dropping to her hands. “It made me come.”

Lena grinned from behind the easel. “Margot, that is not a bad thing.” She stepped closer and knelt to her friend’s level. “It’s hot.”

“Oh Lena, I know.”

It was a quiet morning at the Fria café. Janie was working solo, and most of the customers had taken their drinks outside to enjoy the sculpture garden. Luc sat alone at a table by the window, hunched over a notebook. Janie grabbed a chair from nearby and set it quietly next to Luc, who looked up from his scribbles.

“Mind?”

“Nah, just writing.”

“Inspired by anything?”

Luc smiled and closed the notebook, looking out at the statue of the sleeping nymph and her perky marble breasts. He tucked the pencil behind his ear. “Oh, you know, memories.”

Janie leaned in conspiratorially. “You won’t believe who Em & I ran into at the thing.”

He nodded, curious.

“Your very favorite ceramicist,” she said, placing her hand on the corner of his chair and lowering her voice further. “And Nora.” Nora was of course Luc’s coworker at the Celandine and close friend besides. The ceramicist was Asami, in whose studio Luc had sat for a modeling session, an experience he remembered vividly. At the time, he shared a few choice details with Janie, who had after all helped set the whole thing up, and who also sneaked a peek of the finished product at Asami’s recent studio sale. It was a beautiful object.

“Asami & Nora?” Luc asked, taking it in. “They were there together?”

Janie nodded, smiling. “Margot set them up. I guess Asami gave them both a wand at some point. Not your model, I assume.”

The boy’s mind wheeled. He thought back to the intimately familiar shape and size of the sage green model he had lent himself to.

“Anyway, I watched them scissor each other right over there.” She pointed casually toward the nymph statue.

More wheeling. “You watched them —”

“Scissor each other,” she whispered, making a gesture with her hands. “Em & I did it too, right in front of everyone. Things got very wet.”

“I —” he stuttered. “That’s actually really hot.”

“I heard you exploded all over someone with Juro.”

Images flashed through his mind: Margot’s bare chest, Asami’s smooth hands, Juro’s beautifully curved erection, Tati’s tan thighs, Nora’s conspiratorial smirk. “Pretty much.”

Janie playfully plucked the pencil from behind Luc’s ear and handed it to him. “Looks like you found your inspiration.”

(Continued in Part 2)