I Love My Secret (Nicole's Erotic Romance) (6 page)

I look over my shoulder and sure enough, his eyes
dart up quickly. Pretending I didn’t notice – regardless of the warmth I
now feel down there – I step onto the studio’s floor, and warn him, “I
don’t want you to get too excited. I’m learning. I’m getting to where I need to
be. It’s just...” I shut myself up and look away, and then back to him. Why did
I say that? Keep your insecurities to yourself!

He smiles. “We’re our own worst critics, aren’t
we?”

I give it a thought and agree, “I guess we are.”

He takes a look around, nods his approval, then
shoots a look my way and smiles that winning smile again. Michael has probably
not smiled in one year as much as this dude has smiled in three minutes.

I wiggle my shoulders and laugh, “Well, anyway,
you’ve got me nervous.”

Danny laughs and follows me over to where I’ve got
my work propped up against each other. He waits a comfortable distance away while
I pull out my canvases one at a time and lay them against the wall, spaced
inches from each other. My heart is beating so hard. I’m blinking too much, but
with my back to him like this, he can’t see. When I’m finished, only half the
wall’s floor space is filled and I become very aware that I haven’t done
enough. Michael would have filled up both walls, and here I am with only seven.
I have to work to swallow the golf ball that’s forming in my throat from
anxiety. We’re both facing them, and I can’t see him because he’s standing back.

I turn and walk to where Michael left a pack of
smokes on a table. I take one out and light it, inhale and stare at nothing,
waiting. There is only silence for what seems like a million years. Does he
hate my work? Oh God. I have no talent. I know it. It’s something my inner
demons have tried to convince me of for years. That’s the reason so many
paintings have been tossed away or painted over. Why didn’t I listen to the
fuckers? This is torture. It’s not too late. I can go wait tables and go back
to school. Study psychology. Or something having to do with people…

Then, “Wow.”

I blink and suck in room-air; I can’t turn around
yet.

“Nicole,” he says.

I take a long drag off the cigarette, hating how
it tastes but clinging to it anyway.

“Nicole?” he says, with more volume.

Shields up! Man the gates! All men on deck! I turn
around thinking I look cool as snow, having no idea that my shields have
abandoned me.

“Mmm?”

He walks to me and there’s something in his eyes I
can’t understand because the demons have me in their clutches with their snickers
of unworthiness, self-hatred, and aloneness.

“Your work is incredible.”

I don’t understand. “Sorry?”

“It’s really great. I feel something when I look
at it. I can’t always say that – and I always want to. It’s what art is
all about, right?” He smiles again. I nod. He walks back to my paintings and
looks again. “I think this one on the left – the first one – this
one is my favorite.”

My eyes dart around to nowhere in particular as I
shove my half-smoked cigarette into a near-empty wine bottle of Syrah.

“You like which one best?” I ask, coming to stand
beside him.

“This one on the left. She’s beautiful, but sad.
You can see a lifetime of worries in those eyes. She looks like you, but… I’m
sorry. Is this supposed to be you? I’m not good at these things.”

“It’s my mother,” I answer. “You see worry?”

“Yeah, don’t you?” He asks, looking to me for my
answer.

I inspect her face, from this new perspective, and
shake my head slightly. “I didn’t until you pointed it out. She held all that
in.” He looks back to her and is silent for awhile as we both stare at the
painting from our own worlds.

“Well…” he says quietly. “You let it out.”

Pain bursts inside me, filled with longing and
loss for the mother who is no longer here. Grief yanks a gasp from my lungs. A
tear jumps to the corner of my eye, sliding down before I even realize it’s
there. He looks and me and I wipe the tear away quickly… but I know he saw.

His voice is kind as he asks, “She passed, didn’t
she?”

My only answer is a brief nod. I don’t meet his
eyes. No more tears come out. I won’t let them. He takes the cue that I don’t
want to talk about it – but he has no idea how grateful I am at what he
pointed out.

We walk, looking at my other pieces. He’s talking,
but I can’t hear him because I’m thinking about her. The missing her surprises and
attacks me at the oddest of times: when I’m doing the dishes, when I’m waiting
for the train, when I see an old woman, the thing she never got to be. This painting
of her that I wrung out from my heart over a year ago hasn’t made me cry since I
finished it. I think he’s right. I saw the fear in her, though I was never
aware I saw it. In life, all she wanted to do was be a statue of control. It
was probably the direct result of being passionately in love with a man who was
never in control of himself. She did it for balance. But now I see that I have
always known… she was scared.
We aren’t
meant to be statues, Momma. We’re meant to be human.

As Danny talks about my latest piece, ‘Uplifted,’
one thought spins round my head: I wish I’d seen she was scared while she was
still alive. Maybe I could have helped her to feel, to get it out. My head is
leaned to the side, and Danny’s mouth is moving, but I hear nothing from this
world. I’m living in the past, in a time when my mom could look at my paintings
and tell me she saw me the way I see me, as only she could. I don’t hear the
sound of the door below, as it opens. I don’t hear the steps on the stairs as
someone walks up. I don’t hear the creak of the top floorboard as he walks into
the studio.

 
“Well,
what do we have here?”

As my head whips toward him, Danny turns his whole
body around in surprise. He scans Michael and instantly his body shifts in posture.
It’s not only that Michael is better looking, with his dark, Spanish mystery
infusing everything about him; it’s the way he holds himself, as well. His
confident eyes could level most men. Danny doesn’t stand a chance in a man-off.
Problem is, he knows it.

Confused, I hear myself speak. “Michael. I didn’t
think you’d be here until later.”

He shifts his stare to me. “Would you like me to
leave?” I’m confused by his expression, the fiery look behind his eyes. Is he
jealous? It looks like something else…

Danny holds his hand out. “I’m Danny. Here to look
at Nicole’s paintings.”

Michael walks to him and shakes his hand. When he
lets go, he graces him with an answer. I want to hit and fuck him at the same
time as he says only, “Michael.” It’s not what he said. It’s the way that he
said it;
if you think she’s yours… you
are so very, very wrong.

I feel the need to fill in the blanks for Danny.
“This is Michael’s studio…”

“Our studio,” Michael interrupts.

I glance at him, then back to Danny and add, “I rent
it with him, but it’s definitely more his than mine.” I look from one to the
other.

Danny’s hackles are definitely up. “I see,” he
says, and he does. He sees everything.

Looking from one to the other, I stammer,
“Michael, we were just leaving.”

“You came to see Nic’s work?” I stare at him,
because he sounds like he doesn’t believe it.

“Yes,” Danny answers, frowning.

Michael smiles one of his rare mesmerizing smiles,
and crosses to me. He takes my chin in hand and plants a sensual kiss on my
lips, one I can’t help but return. As his lips leave mine, I look at Danny,
unsure of what to do. Danny has clearly registered that Michael just marked his
territory.

I shoot a look to Michael and step away toward my
guest. “Um… Are you ready to go, then?”

Danny’s jaw tightens, the smile gone from it. He
nods and starts for the stairs. My stomach twists and I shoot another look to
Michael over my shoulder, but his face remains firm and unapologetic. He says
nothing as we leave down the stairs. Grabbing our coats, and locking the door
behind me, I wait until we’re on the street to look Danny in the eye and
apologize for my studio-mate’s unprofessionalism. I’m hoping against hope that
this doesn’t sour him to buying one of my paintings.

He speaks first. “I’m sorry. I thought when I
asked Grant how things were going – and he said
they aren’t
– well, I thought you were single. Stupid
assumption, considering how drop-dead beautiful you are.” He shakes his head
and I can see him mentally kicking himself, his expression that of a high-school
boy who realizes he can’t get the prom queen to go out with him.

My head spins. This is new information. I thought
he wanted to see me because he was interested in my work. I’m stunned, waiting
for him to go on and add that he loves my work and meant every word. He says
instead, “Yeah, so, dumb me, I guess.”

I blink. He’s waiting for me to say something but
all I want to say is,
what you said up
there about my paintings being incredible, was bullshit. You were trying to get
in my pants. You didn’t mean a damn word of it.
I feel the softness I’d
begun to feel for him, turn hard and break apart until only ashes float away.
My eyes turn cold as ice and only two words come out: “Goodnight Danny.”

“Right. Goodnight, Nicole.” He frowns, shoves both
hands in his trench-coat pockets and walks away. I watch him, silently urging
him to turn around.
Say you meant what
you said about my work!
But he doesn’t turn. He never turns.

When he’s gone, I look up at the tops of the
buildings around me, my Grandma’s warning sounding in my ears:
“Nicole, women like you and me. We gotta be
careful.”

“Why
Mema?”

“Because
we too pretty and too black for people to treat us with any kind of respect
unless we make them respect us. No one’s gonna love you for you unless you show
them you stronger. And believe me. You are stronger than all of them. You got
that?”

My mother
had laughed and said, “She said that same thing to me when I was your age.
Momma, you’re too funny. The girl’s only ten years old.”

“Is it
true Momma?” I’d asked, wide-eyed.

Her eyes
had steeled then and she shared a long glance with Mema before she looked at me
and said, “It sure is, baby. It sure is.”

I open the door and, walking back up the stairs, I
drop my jacket on them.

“Glad you’re back.” Michael says from above. When
I get to the top, he turns and sizes me up. “He’s not man enough for you, Nic.”

I walk to the cigarettes and light one as I shoot
back, tired, “Not like you, you mean.”

He says nothing. I sit on the couch and watch him
work. Michael may be waiting to make love to me, but at least he doesn’t lie to
me. I believe he has a reason for making me wait, and that the reason is for my
own good. How many men can I say that of? None. Most would fuck me and then try
to hold me as a possession. I am no man’s trophy. I’m a whole person with a
heart that can be hurt.

I spend hours watching Michael paint, losing
myself in learning from him one minute, day dreaming the next. When it gets to
be around 1:00 a.m. after we’ve devoured Chinese take-out and talked for hours about
nothing in particular, I call it a night and take a cab home. I don’t even mind
that he didn’t kiss me tonight. The one kiss was all I needed to show me he
truly cares about me. I know now that he did that to protect me from Danny, not
to show his status. He saw motives my blinded ego couldn’t see, and he didn’t
mark his territory so much as say,
you
will not harm this one.

When I get home, opening the door to my apartment,
a small New York style one-bedroom with exposed brick and white walls, I think,
I don’t have it half bad. Who says making love to someone is the way to show
you love them? There are other ways, too.

 
The
smell of Eucalyptus from my bath earlier meets me, infused with the air I
breathe. Its soothing aroma whisks me away to dreamland as soon as my head
lands on the pillow, my clothes still on, even my jacket. A voice from my past
whispers for me to wash my face, brush my teeth, take off my socks –
feet need to breathe when you’re sleeping,
child
– but I pretend like I don’t hear. I just don’t have the
energy, Momma. Sorry…

The Night Amber Meets Josh

“I can’t believe how busy this place is…” I say,
looking around The Crosby Bar in Soho. You can barely see the stripes of the
long booth for all the asses that fill it. Every chair opposite is filled and I
can see through the window next to the bar, that the patio is packed, too. And
not only at the tables, it’s standing-room-only out there with people milling
about, enjoying drinks and conversation.

“Nico. You’re dodging the question,” Amber says,
unconsciously flicking her hair over her shoulder, smiling. “Don’t think you
can pull a ‘Jess.’”

Jessica looks offended. “Hey! Why do you call it a
‘Jess’?”