ForArtsSake (2 page)

It had been a hard day, and tired though she was, she still wished—more guilt—that someone would just come and fuck the living shit out of her.

It certainly couldn’t hurt, and it had been a while. Far too long, in fact.

She had to read Mrs. Dalloway, the shortest of the six novels her class had to read this quarter, by this time next week, along with writing a five-page analysis of Virginia Woolf’s stream-of-consciousness technique, and its influence on modern-day women’s literature.

Just thinking about it made her head hurt, but at least her teacher was easy on her eyes. Her lunch conversations with girlfriends from the same class confirmed that she wasn’t alone in stressing over the assignment, nor in daydreaming about their young, couldn’t-be-more-than-forty professor, who made Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings a bit more bearable.

God, she thought to herself as she lay naked in the darkness of her tiny studio apartment—the walls were so thin she could hear her neighbor’s television—she could only vaguely remember the last time she had been with someone, though she exercised and kept herself waxed in a state of ready smoothness as if someone—not Cyril, of course—were making her cum all her problems away each night. Yeah, Cyril could have her—in his dreams.

Let him have his dowdy, frumpy Janice.

Janice, Amelia scoffed silently to herself. Too tall, too awkward, too skinny. Janice, who probably only faked being nice to Cyril, just like she only faked not remembering the time the both of them had—I am a masochist…She caught herself and stopped, shame washing over her face. In the slight chill of her room her nipples stood erect on her breasts. She closed her eyes and licked her lips, wishing they were still roommates, so she wouldn’t be alone.

“Oh, Janice,” Amelia murmured guiltily, silently to herself in the pitch blackness as she realized she had been hurling the most vile insults against best friend, “I’m such a fucking bitch… you’re not dowdy or frumpy…you got me my job in the first place…I owe you so much, I wish I could…Maybe I’m just bitter because you’re actually prettier than me, or you fuck better than me, or that at least you’re actually getting fucked—probably, anyway—while I…While I…”

But Janice wasn’t in the room to hear Amelia’s silent apology, much less the bitterness that motivated her remorse.

She was a few miles away in a West Hollywood apartment living with a male roommate, a supposedly-gay architect who probably fucked her silly regardless, just for the fun of it, their constant invitations for Amelia to come over and watch TV a tactless though nonetheless tempting invitation to join them.

Next time you ask, Janice, I’ll come…I’ll come…

Amelia gasped a little, as though unprepared to feel her pussy opening, and steaming wetness beginning to flow against her labia. A relaxing though intense heat radiated from between her spreading legs and coursed unerringly up her spine and through her body, making her arms feel helpless and weak, and her thighs melt. The cool air in the room seemed to blow directly against her hardening clitoris, and she felt the back of her head press involuntarily against her pillow, arching her back as fantasies filled her head in the blackness.

As her hand slipped from her breasts and rigid nipples to her slender stomach and finally between her thighs, Amelia felt her petty bitterness melt away as she had her own dreams, which were a surreal, sometimes black and white, sometimes vividly hued blur, taking different shapes and different people, dancing around her, swimming through her in many dimensions, all fucking her…fucking her…

In one instant she saw glimpses of her gorgeous, four-years-younger-than-her photojournalism crush, kneeling between her thighs in his ragged artist’s apartment, throwing her helpless, quivering legs over his broad shoulders and tonguing her steaming wet pussy to orgasm and beyond while she moaned in surrender
…Oh God Ian, fuck me fuck me yes…In another instant she saw—felt—Janice expertly fingering her defenseless, vulnerable G-spot—you know you love this, you bitch, come on—while sucking mercilessly on her rock-hard clitoris… Janice’s huge, white dildo the entire time pressing farther and farther, thicker and thicker, into her ass, impaling her slowly…

Stop…no…oh…ouch…oh…my God…

While she cried out in pain, pleasure, capitulation…her beautiful-but-gay Korean hairdresser kissing her, swirling his sweet tongue against hers, stroking her rock hard nipples and simultaneously finger-fucking her and massaging her anguished clit while Professor Vorhis fucked her savagely in her ass hole, his serious intellectual cock slamming her up and down as she lay on her back on top of him, asking him to punish her, punish her…give me more…

And now—the man behind the mysterious voice that promised her two hundred dollars tomorrow coming into the picture, just for doing something that wasn’t some bizarre sex thing…sucking him, his black silhouette faceless, swallowing him, biting him, his voice smoothly, unobtrusively coming inside her mind and staying there and convincing her, needlessly, that she was to orgasm now, Amelia…Climax now, you beautiful, defenseless obj—

When Amelia came, it was almost as if she was in a trance. She nearly screamed in stupefying, numbing pleasure, gasping as the shards of ecstasy slammed through her arching spine and shot directly into the base of her mind. When she came to, she realized that she had crammed three fingers into her soaking wet pussy, the quivering labia constricting intermittently as the last spasms of the powerful orgasm subsided slowly, her thumb brushing dexterously against her exhausted clit.

The sound of the television next door had stopped. All around her was silence, and she was alone again. A minute passed, then two.

Finally the television turned on again.

Oh God—Amelia! She scolded herself, feeling stupid, but unwilling to give back the climax.

You can never show your face around this apartment building again…

Exhausted first from her day and now from her otherworldly climax, she drifted off to sleep, naked, quivering, yet warm and satisfied.

All traffic jams end, eventually. All dreams end, too.

And then new ones begin, except they’re real.

Amelia reiterated the same arguments with which she had beaten herself ad nauseum against coming to the stranger’s house when she was in the shower the next morning, and again when she was already on her way there, but in the warm reassurance of daylight the motherish arguments fell away, and the pragmatism of earning nearly as much in one day as she would normally earn in an entire week kept her foot on the accelerator and her heart racing faster still.

Amelia pulled her modest silver ‘06 Accord into an open metered spot at the curb of one twenty five Robertson Boulevard, in front of an antique furniture store that wasn’t even open until noon, counting herself lucky that she only had to walk a block or so. A quick check of the time—nine-fifty-two—fuck!

She quickly locked and left her car, tossing her keys into the brown hobo bag that she slung across her shoulder. She stretched her muscles, sore from her short but traffic-congested drive,

Most of the businesses in the area had only just opened for the day or were about to, and a short walk past some trendy fashion stores, with salesgirls that eyed her enviously from behind their doorways, soon found Amelia in front of a pretty, white, single-story commercial building with an ivy trellis climbing up its sides.

It wasn’t the biggest building in the neighborhood, nor was it the newest, but it spoke silently of the immense cost to build, buy, and rent to secure its position in its particular neighborhood, and in this way it was every bit as imposing as its neighbors, which in all directions were either expensive restaurants, salons, or boutiques. There was no storefront sign to indicate what kind of a business it was, and in fact it looked for all the world like a 1920s house stuck in the middle of a lot of shops.

Amelia wavered for a moment about proceeding, but the feeling of inexplicable cowardice passed, and, seeing the numerals one twenty five next to the front door, she decided she must have found the right place. The small East-West Gallery lettering on the front window, together with the by appointment only sign confirmed this. Amelia’s conservative heels clicked cheerily against the cobblestone walkway as she made her way to the front door, though she was very nervous. Surrounding the walkway on both sides were rose bushes in full bloom, with the flowers seeming to smile at her in pinks and reds and yellows, as if they had forgotten it was nearly winter. The sound of West Los Angeles at midmorning—the cars, the people, the hum of human existence—provided a calming musical accompaniment that reassured her she wasn’t about to do something foolish.

A few moments after she rang the bell, the door was answered by a very tall, young-looking man in expensive jeans and plain white V-neck undershirt, both considerably stained with different colored paint. His long, black hair, nearly coming to his shoulders, and his slenderness gave him an almost androgynous look, but he was extremely attractive, with large brown eyes and full, doll-like lips. He looked Asian—Japanese, it seemed—but Amelia couldn’t tell for sure. His skin was beautifully clear and even lighter than her own, though speckled slightly with dried paint. He would have been absolutely beautiful as a girl were it not for his height and broad shoulders. Amelia herself was very tall at five feet, ten inches. Her black heels made her even taller, but the young man before her was taller still, with defined muscles in his slim arms, and high cheekbones that gave his youthful face a sculpted, exotic countenance. Even his shoes, well-worn, black Converse sneakers, were stained with paint, so obviously this young, beautiful man was the rare artist who rose and got to work early. He seemed a little surprised to see her, but the look of minor bewilderment quickly left his face as he stepped aside and beckoned her to come in. Amelia hesitated for a moment—why, she didn’t know—but eventually followed him.

“You’re late,” he said, shutting the door behind them and giving Amelia a quick once-over that might have offended her had he not smiled and nodded with friendly approval. “And you’re not Asian.”

“Was I supposed to be?” Amelia replied, not quite sure how to respond to such a comment. His voice was as smooth and moderate as it had been over the telephone.

“I was expecting an Asian girl, you know, that’s why I put the flyer up in Korea Town. Otherwise I could have advertised on Craigslist and gotten anyone.”

“I was expecting an older white guy,” Amelia countered, “since we’re in Beverly Hills. Looks like we were both wrong. And advertising in Korea Town could have gotten you a Hispanic girl just as easily.”

“Touché,” he smiled, and held out his hand. “Daniel Sakura.”

“Amelia Fontaine,” she replied, taking it.

Daniel Sakura was one of those Asian men who, in Amelia’s view, somehow seemed completely Americanized, having almost no accent and carrying himself like any other native-born youth, yet still retaining an unmistakable aura of enticing otherness, chiefly, she decided, because of his mesmerizing eyes, porcelain complexion, and off-kilter, Tokyo-meets-Los-Angeles fashion sense.

Stereotypical, she knew, and she almost hated herself for it, and yet there it was. Most Asian men she came across where she lived—and even at school—weren’t always so Westernized, but those that were captivated her. She had a particular fetish for long, black Asian hair, styled in the way only hair salons east of Vine Street seemed able to.

“You know, you could have easily specified you wanted an Asian girl as a model in your ad.”

“I could have,” Daniel Sakura considered, “but would you have still called?”

“Probably not,” Amelia smiled.

Daniel Sakura’s studio was very sparsely furnished, with white silk curtains pulled over the front windows. It wasn’t large, either, Amelia observed, perhaps the same size as a big Starbucks, minus the tables, coffee smell, and hipsters that couldn’t find a chair at Intelligentsia. The walls were filled, however, with dozens of different-sized oil and watercolor paintings of various people, all young adults, some men, some women, all very well done. The smooth hardwood floor was flecked in places with old paint. About a third of the paintings had small signs taped to the frames, marked sold, with the buyers’ addresses and delivery schedules written beneath.

“Did you do all these?” she said somewhat breathlessly, turning around the room slowly, taking it all in like a child in a cathedral seeing stained glass windows for the first time.

“Of course,” Daniel replied modestly. He smiled broadly. “I’m sorry, can I get you anything to drink? I know it’s hot outside. Have you eaten breakfast yet? There’s a cafe two doors down. We can—”

“Oh, I’m fine thank you,” Amelia murmured, admiring a painting hanging over a doorway leading to a back room.

She walked toward it. It depicted a beautiful, light-skinned black girl lying naked on a couch, in front of a crystal flower vase that just barely concealed the area between her slender thighs. Looking closer Amelia could recognize the couch at the other end of the studio, beneath a skylight that bathed the room in brilliant morning sun.

“She’s beautiful…”

“I know,” Daniel replied, nodding with his hands on his sides. His tight white undershirt rose slightly to reveal his hips and a hint of muscular abdomen, and Amelia looked away, embarrassed. “Her name is Veronica. I’ve done her many times, as you can see.”

Amelia’s gaze followed Daniel’s arm to several other paintings featuring this same mesmerizing black girl. One watercolor depicted her alone, standing next to a window, her shapely buttocks indicating youth and exercise as she stared out from the canvas with welcoming eyes. Another showed her from above embracing a tall, statuesque blonde man as they lay together in bed, her perfect breasts pressed against his muscular, tanned body. Yet another showed her passionately kissing an equally stunning ivory skinned red-haired girl whose long legs were wrapped around her slim, dark torso.