Текст книги "Painless"

Автор книги: Devon Hartford

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Текущая страница: 22 (всего у книги 32 страниц)

The other hobot was stunned into silence.

Tiffany huffed a wordless shriek. Slowly, she raised her hand and gingerly touched her cheek with her fingertips.

I narrowed my eyes at her. “Don’t call me Scumantha.”

I turned around and walked away, expecting her and her friends to jump me or throw knives in my back. Knowing Tiffany, her daddy probably gave her a fancy hand gun she would use to gun me down.

Instead, Tiffany shrieked, “I’m really looking forward to our hearing in front of the SDU tribunal!!! I can’t wait to tell them all about how you stole my credit card AND attacked me on campus!!! I’ll make sure you’re expelled, you sniveling cunt!!!!!!!”

That hadn’t gone quite the way I’d hoped.

Sigh.

* * *

A black Firebird Trans Am was parked in the driveway when I came home. It had a huge gold firebird decal on the hood and gold pin striping around the windows. The T tops were off. It was an old muscle car, but in perfect condition. I had no idea whose it was.

I hoped it wasn’t Tiffany’s. She drove a black Mercedes, but you never knew. Maybe she was trying to impress Christos and win him back by buying him a muscle car as a present. She could certainly afford it.

Stupid bitch.

She was making my life miserable without even trying. Yeah, I hated her.

I put my key in the lock of the double front door and discovered it was already open.

“Anybody home?” I called uncertainly.

“Samantha!” Nikolos smiled as he walked out of the kitchen. “I was waiting for someone to get here. I let myself in.”

“You have a key?”

“Yeah. I’ve had it forever.”

“How come you never use it?” I smiled.

He arched an eyebrow and shrugged his shoulders. “Oh, you know,” he said casually.

Boy, I was still putting my foot in my mouth from time to time. I guess growing up took longer than six or seven months. But I was doing my best. “Is that your car outside? It’s beautiful.”

“Yeah. Seventy-seven Firebird Trans Am, Special Edition. Same one they used in Smokey and the Bandit.”

“Smokey and the what?”

“You haven’t seen Smokey and the Bandit?” Nikolos gasped.

I shook my head.

“That movie is a classic. We’re going to have to have movie night at my place. Bring Christos over. We’ll put it on my big TV.”

“Sounds like fun!’ I grinned. “Do you want something to drink?”

“I already helped myself to some of Dad’s lemonade in the fridge. I can pour you a glass.”

“Oh, I’ll get it. You sit down.” I walked over to the cupboard and grabbed a glass from the shelf and poured some from the pitcher perspiring on the counter.

“Did you ever hear back from my maid service?”

I sat down at the kitchen table across from Nikolos. “I didn’t. Did they try to call me?”

“I told them to call the house since I didn’t have your cell phone number. Did you not get a message?”

“No,” I said.

“Do you still need a job?” he asked.

“Are you kidding?” I blurted. “I would kill for a job right now. I would clean skunk toilets if it paid.”

Confused, he asked,“Skunk toilets?”

“You know, the ones the skunks use? They probably smell awful. I hear that public skunk restrooms are the worst.”

Nikolos laughed. “Skunk toilets. You always have the strangest ideas.”

“Is that good or bad?” I asked uncertainly.

“Definitely good. It shows you have a creative mind.”

“You think so?”

“I do.”

I rolled my eyes, “My parents never did.” I felt like I was sinking back into my own self doubt as I talked to Nikolos. I so wanted to be over it, but all I had to do was close my eyes for a second and I could see fifty foot tall red neon numbers blinking in my mind’s eye:

–$5,000

–$5,000

–$5,000

I was never going to find that kind of money.

“So, when am I going to see some of your art, Samantha? My dad says you’ve really been coming along since he met you.”

“Yeah,” I smiled, suddenly in a better mood thinking about how nice Spiridon was to me all the time. At least I had him and Christos watching my back. But I would never dream of asking either one of them for $5,000.

I said, “I have my sketchbook, if you want to see that?”

“Sure,” Nikolos grinned.

I walked into the studio and grabbed my sketchbook off my drawing table and returned to the kitchen.

Nikolos started flipping through it on the table top from the beginning so we could both look. He didn’t say much at first. “I can see the progress right away. I’m guessing this page marks the point you started getting instruction?”

“Yeah, that was stuff I drew right after I started taking Life Drawing with Professor Childress.”

“Walt Childress?”

“Yeah. I took his class in the fall. Now I’m taking Drawing The Costumed Figure from him. Do you know him?”

“Very well. I haven’t talked to him in a few years though.”

“What’s up with Walt and Spiridon, anyway?”

Nikolos cracked a wide grin that had the same dimples as Christos. “Ahh, Walt and my dad go way, way back.”

“Was there some kind of drama between them? Whenever Walt’s name comes up, Spiridon hints around the bush, but never says anything.”

Nikolos nodded. “They have, how should I say it? A history together.” He emphasized the word history like it hid buried treasure.

“Really?” I leaned forward on my elbows, all ears.

Nikolos arched his eyebrows.

And…he wasn’t going to say anything.

“Aren’t you going to tell me?” I asked. “I’m dying to know!”

He shook his head and smiled that stupid Manos dimpled grin. “Sorry, it’s not my story to tell. You’ll have to ask my dad some time.”

I groaned and smiled. “Fine.”

Nikolos turned back to my sketchbook and continued flipping. When he got to my pot smoking wombat sketches he stopped and laughed. “What is this?”

“It’s my ideas for a logo for The Wombat.”

“The what?”

“The comedy newspaper at SDU.”

“Oh, that Wombat. These are really funny, Samantha. How come you have so many?”

“The editor of the paper asked me to design some new ones.”

“Really?”

“Yeah,” I smiled.

“Which one did he pick?”

“Oh, they’re going to have a vote. Everyone on staff gets to vote. And other people are submitting ideas.”

“Well, yours should win. These are hilarious. And your design sense is beautiful. You draw very elegant shapes, yet they have humor and wit without being crude.”

“Wow, thanks!”

“Based on all this work in your sketchbook, I can see that you truly have talent. No wonder my dad has said so many nice things about you.”

I was blushing like a school girl, which was okay because I was still in school, even if it was college. It was okay to blush when someone was complimenting you this much, right? I was totally on cloud nine.

–$5,000

–$5,000

–$5,000

There went my good mood.

“Something bothering you?” Nikolos asked, concern on his face.

“Oh, uh, nothing.”

“Don’t kid a kidder, Samantha. You look like someone killed your kitten. What is it?”

Nikolos was so friendly and kind, I couldn’t help opening up to him. “I owe the university a bunch of money I don’t have.”

“What do you mean?”

“My tuition payment is late because I used up the little loan money I already had. I was supposed to pay in monthly installments but I ran out of cash.”

“Is that why you were asking about the maid job?”

“Yeah. Jobs are scarce right now. I can’t even find a math tutoring job, which I would be good at.”

He took a sip of his lemonade, “I thought you said you were working at a convenience store.”

“I was. I was also working at the campus art museum.”

He smiled, “You were working at the Eleanor M. Westbrook museum?”

“Yeah.”

“That must be fun.”

“It was,” I winced.

“Was?” His brows knit. “What happened?”

“It’s a long story,” I groaned.

“It sounds to me like you’re in dire straits.”

“That’s an understatement,” I rolled my eyes. It was all pouring out now and I couldn’t stop myself. I blamed it on Nikolos’ sympathetic ear. Stupid ears. I’d vowed to deal with this myself and not put it on someone else.

“Have you ever considered looking for work in an art studio?”

“Oh,” I sighed, “I’ve totally looked for art jobs. Besides the museum, which was just being a cashier, there are none. No one hires artists that I could find.”

“I would.”

I frowned. “Huh?”

“I could use an assistant in my studio. Mixing paint by hand takes forever. Same with stretching canvases and building frames. It’s all time consuming work. It would be nice to have someone do it for me while I oversaw the process. Someone I can train, and someone I can trust.”

I gave him a funny look. “Like who?”

“Like you,” he smiled.

I shook my head, “Oh, I couldn’t do that.”

“I thought you said you needed to find a job. I’m hiring.”

“I can’t take your money, Mr. Manos.”

“Call me Nikolos.”

“You’re my boyfriend’s dad,” I scoffed, “I can’t call you by your first name.”

“Sure you can. And if you work for me, it’ll be part of the job requirement.”

A spark of hope twinkled in my chest. I really did need a job. “Are you serious?”

“Yes, I’m serious.”

My mouth gaped open. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Thank you always works,” he grinned.

“Thank you, Mr. Manos!” I leaned over the table and hugged him, almost knocking over his lemonade glass.

He caught it and smiled, “Careful!”

“Thank you so much!” I sat back down. “You don’t know how much this means to me.”

He smiled. “Aren’t you going to ask what it pays?”

“Oh! Yeah, duh.”

“How much is your tuition payment?” he asked.

“What? No, I couldn’t.” I shook my head vigorously.

“How much?” he insisted.

I sighed. “It’s over five thousand.”

“How about I make your payment for you, and you can work it off.”

“I could never do that!”

“Why not?”

“I can’t take your money,” I pleaded.

“Who said anything about taking? You’re going to work it off. There’s always things to do around the studio, believe me. You’re going to become an expert at cleaning brushes.”

“I don’t know,” I said hesitantly.

“Look, Samantha. Artists have apprentices. Apprentices do all the grunt work while watching the artist work. Not only will you get paid, you’ll be learning something. It’s one of those work study jobs. Because seriously, how much were you learning about art by ringing up people at the cash register at the museum?”

He had a point.

“Let’s say I pay you twenty an hour. You can work off the five thousand that way. It won’t take too long, I’m sure.”

“How many hours do you want me to work a week?”

“As many as you want.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yes.”

I did the numbers in my head. If I worked part time, say twenty hours a week, it would only take about three months to cover my tuition bill. Oh wait. That only covered the one past due. I’d figure out the third one due a month from now later.

“Do we have a deal?” he asked, holding his hand across the table.

I shook it. “Yes!”

What a pleasant surprise!

Now all I had to worry about was getting expelled from SDU for attacking Tiffany and stealing her credit card.

Screw Tiffany!

I had a job!

Chapter 21

SAMANTHA

“I had a new idea for our comic strip,” Romeo said as we walked across campus toward the Student Center and The Wombat staff meeting at Toasted Roast. Although the weather had become quite warm for early spring, Romeo wore his elaborate burgundy steampunk coat with the black cuffs and collar, and his pointy, silver tipped black leather shoes. His monocle dangled in rhythm with his stride.

“What was your idea?” I asked.

“Tampon Tammy! She shoots giant tampons from her stinky skunk trunk while fighting the forces of evil.”

“You don’t mean Tammy Lemons, that bitchy girl at the last staff meeting? The one with the hipster glasses?”

“I totally mean her,” Romeo said conspiratorially.

“Oh, Romeo, we can’t do that. She’ll hate us more than she already does.”

“Maybe you’re right,” he sighed. “But if she’s a bitch today at the meeting, I’m totally going to propose the idea to everyone.”

“Please don’t,” I begged.

“Please don’t what?” Justin Tomlinson said, falling into step with us.

“Hey, Justin,” I smiled nervously. I hoped he hadn’t heard Romeo’s idea.

“I was just telling Sam—” Romeo blurted.

I cut him off, “How much fun we’ve been having working on ideas for The Wombat.”

Justin frowned, “How does that follow from ‘Please don’t’?”

“Uhhh…” I stammered.

“Please don’t tell Justin how awesome he is for letting us sit in with you guys,” Romeo said, saving me.

Justin smiled and nodded as we walked down the stairs running beside the stepped fountain that led down to the Student Center quad. “Thanks. You guys are both pretty awesome yourselves. Most everybody loves what you guys are coming up with.”

“Most everybody?” Romeo asked.

I shot Romeo a “shut the fuck up” glare. I knew he was thinking of Tammy.

“Well, I just meant that…” Justin sounded put on the spot.

“We know what you meant,” I smiled.

The three of us walked up to the two tables already occupied by Keith, Micah, Alyssa, and Tammy.

“Hey guys,” Justin said, lowering his book bag onto the table top as we all sat down.

“Well, if it isn’t Romiet and Julio,” Tammy Lemons sniveled.

Great. Maybe Romeo had been right. Was Tammy saying I was mannish by calling me Julio?

Romeo arched an eyebrow at me, then turned to Justin, “Justin, I have a great idea for a new comic strip. Want to hear about it?”

Gulp.

“Let’s hear it,” Keith smiled.

“Well,” Romeo smiled a Cheshire grin, “it’s about OW!!”

I had kicked Romeo’s shin under the table.

“Ow?” Micah asked. “What’s that?”

“Owl! I meant Owl!” Romeo said.

“An owl?” Alyssa asked doubtfully.

“Yes!” Romeo yelled. “It’s, uh, about Obie, the OB/GYN Owl! He’s a real hoot for the coot!”

“Hoot for the coot?” Micah snickered.

“And instead of figuring out how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop, he figures out how many licks it takes to make Tootsie, as played by Dustin Hoffman in the movie of the same name, get off! Get it? Tootsie Pop?”

“Dude, how high are you?” underbeard Keith asked with an amazed grin on his face.

“I want to smoke whatever he’s been smoking,” emo Micah smiled.

“I have to admit,” Justin grinned at Romeo, “it has potential.”

“Potential to suck,” Tammy sneered.

Wow, Tammy was sourballs.

“I have another idea,” Romeo said, glaring at Tammy.

“Let’s hear it,” Micah said.

“It’s called Tah—HEY!”

I had kicked him under the table again.

“Tah-HEY?” Keith asked. “I can’t wait to hear where he goes with this one.”

“Yeah, Romeo,” I growled, “I can’t wait either.” The last thing I wanted to do was make things with Tammy worse. I already had Tiffany on my case. I didn’t need Tammy too.

Romeo shook his head and glared at me, “I tah-hotally forgot.”

“All right,” Justin said, “maybe it will come back to you later. I wanted to tell everyone that I’ve finally got all the votes back for our new Wombat mascot artwork. It was a close race.” He pulled two pieces of paper out of his book bag and set them on the table side by side. One was a copy of one of my drawings of the Wombat. And the other, wow, the other was really good.

It showed a wombat holding a baseball bat over one shoulder. The bat was cracked in half and the big end dangled from the handle by a sliver. In the wombat’s other hand was a huge beer mug with foam frothing out the top of the glass. He had the SDU logo branded into his chest fur like on cattle. Next to him was a man lying on the ground, knocked out cold. He was obviously a professor because there was a chalkboard with chemistry equations on it behind him and a piece of chalk sticking out of one hand and an eraser in the other. A huge lump rose up from his forehead and cartoon birds circled it with musical notes coming out of their mouths like they were chirping.

It was fantastic, even if Tammy had drawn it.

“And the winner is—” Justin said.

Tammy? I was totally sure she had won. I would’ve picked hers over mine.

Micah drummed the table with his fingertips.

“—Samantha!” Justin finished.

What?

“Congratulations, Sam!” Romeo said.

Tammy folded her arms across her chest and scowled.

Romeo gave her a snooty look.

“Romeo,” I whispered, “don’t.”

Justin smiled, “We all loved your art, Tammy, but most of us agreed we’d never get it past administration. Violence to SDU professors is not their favorite subject matter.”

Tammy frowned, “Getting stoned while taking a dump is?” She was referring to my drawing.

Justin shrugged his shoulders, “The vote still went to Samantha.”

Tammy rolled her eyes, “Whatever.”

“Samantha,” Justin said, “your drawing will now be on the front cover of the next issue of The Wombat. It’ll also go at the top of our webpage. Everyone is going to see it.”

“What?” I smiled. I couldn’t believe it. I really hoped Justin hadn’t rigged the vote because he was into me, because Tammy’s art was truly incredible.

“We loved your art,” Alyssa said to me.

“Yeah, a bunch of the other staff were bonkers for your drawing of Potty,” Keith smiled.

“I think we should make T shirts that say ‘Potty for President’,” Micah grinned.

Tammy’s mouth sagged with disgust.

It was hard to enjoy my victory when it came at the expense of someone else. I wanted to tell Tammy I was sorry, but somehow that seemed inconsiderate. “Tammy, I really like your drawing. It’s really good.”

She spat, “So why don’t you withdraw yours and we’ll use mine?”

I opened my mouth, wanting to say something supportive, but couldn’t think of anything. I closed it in frustration.

“Maybe we should open the vote up to the readers?” Alyssa suggested tentatively.

Keith and Micah gave noncommittal shrugs.

Justin nodded thoughtfully, “If we can get administration to approve Tammy’s art, I don’t see why not?”

A smug smile curled across Tammy’s lips.

Wow, way for her to steal my thunder. Maybe me and Romeo needed to write the Tampon Tammy comic strip after all. I would make the character look exactly like her so no one would wonder who it was supposed to be about. She totally had the face of a vajay-jay.

Groanballs.

* * *

“Do I get to have a closed set,” I asked Christos, “like they do in the movies when they’re shooting a sex scene?” I stood in my bathrobe in our painting studio. Which I thought of as ours all the time now, even though Spiridon owned the house.

“We’re not shooting a sex scene,” Christos smirked, “unless you want to. I can record video on my phone…” he said suggestively.

“No! Posing nude is about all I can manage. By the way, do we have to have the curtains open?” Not that I’d ever seen any curtains in the studio. The tall windows along both walls faced the backyard. Yeah, they needed curtains.

“I need the natural light coming in. It’s more flattering than using studio lights.”

“Speaking of,” I said, “can you Photoshop me with your painting?”

“You mean hide all your imperfections?”

“Yeah,” I said hopefully.

“No,” he said with finality.

“Why not?” I frowned.

“Because you don’t have any,” he flashed his dimpled grin.

“Oh,” I smiled. “Well, can you at least give me more of a crotch notch?”

“A what?”

“You know that gap between a woman’s legs that’s all the rage right now?”

“You mean a thigh gap?”

“Yeah!”

He shook his head, “You have a crotch notch.”

“No I don’t!”

He arched an eyebrow. “Have you looked in a mirror lately?”

I frowned, “Well, can you make it bigger? I really want to sell it.”

“Are you listening to yourself?” he asked, irritated.

“What? I want a huge crotch notch.”

He arched his other eyebrow. “You’re sure?”

“Yes! I hate how my thighs touch together.

“Every woman’s thighs touch together to some degree.”

“But mine touch more than normal.”

“No they don’t,” he argued patiently.

Why was I being so picky and neurotic? Oh yeah, because Christos was going to paint me nude for the world to see. Can you blame a girl for wanting to look her best?

“Fine. I can make you look like you have sticks for legs, if that’s your preference.”

“Huh?”

“Your crotch notch is fine. I love it. No one is going to criticize my painting for having an underwhelming crotch notch. Besides, the way I’m going to pose you, no one is going to be able to tell what kind of crotch notch you have. They won’t even be able to see your crotch.”

“What? Why not?” I demanded.

“Because I’m going to make you hold a horned Viking helmet over it,” he smirked.

“What? That sounds horrid!”

“Hey, the helmet was your idea.”

“But not over my crotch notch!”

He rolled his eyes and smiled his dimpled grin. “Are you trying to make me insane?”

“No, I, uh. I don’t know,” I sighed.

“You told me to figure out a way to make the Viking helmet work. That’s my solution,” he smirked. “Be careful what you wish for.”

“I don’t want a helmet over my lady bits, that’s for sure,” I chuckled. I sighed, “Gosh, what is it with the thigh gap, anyway? It’s like it didn’t exist a few years ago.”

“Blame it on stretch pants, booty shorts, and crotch selfies. It was bound to happen sooner or later. Once that pussy cat was out of the bag, it was never going back,” he grinned.

“I wonder if women who wore Poodle skirts back in the day had to worry about having a crotch notch?” I asked thoughtfully.

“Nope. All they had to worry about was whether or not their poodle was as big as the next girl’s.”

“Are you saying it used to be the woman with the biggest poodle won? And now it’s the notchiest crotch?”

“Sad, isn’t it?” Christos said ironically. “So, are we going to paint your portrait, or do you want to obsess about your non-existent imperfections for awhile longer?”

I wrinkled my nose at him sarcastically.

“We don’t have to do this,” he said, “I can always paint you with clothes on. It’s up to you.”

“Really?”

He nodded, “But I think you’d be making a big mistake. I’d hate to think you missed the chance at being the world’s most famous nude portrait. Because that’s what I’m aiming for.”

“Oh.” I definitely liked the sound of that.

“Imagine,” he grinned, “a work crew of guys wheeling your painting into The Louvre, taking down the Mona Lisa, and hanging your portrait up in its place.”

I smiled, “That could work.”

He chuckled, “Yes it could. Then The Louvre would finally have an impressive painting instead of that tiny little Mona Lisa.”

“You sure are cocky,” I said.

“Is that a problem?”

“No. Jerk,” I swatted his arm.

“Okay, strip.”

“Mmmm. I like it when you tell me what to do.”

“Good,” he smirked his sexy grin.

I dropped my robe to the ground. “Do with me what you will…” I purred.

Of course, we had sex in the studio.

Spiridon had left for the afternoon so I could feel like I had some privacy while I posed nude.

Christos and I had sex on the dais all the other models had sat on before me. I didn’t ask Christos if he’d had sex on it, because it was possible he had, with Perfect Paisley or someone else from his past. All I knew was I was queen of this domain now, bitches! Oh, and I made him put down clean blankets first. Just in case.

Christos fucked me on my throne while I held sway over my domain. Christos came inside me like an art rockstar.

Then I gave him a blow job while he sat in front of his easel. I paused to make a joke about his cock being a tube of flesh colored paint.

“But it isn’t flesh colored,” he said.

“Yes it is,” I argued. “I’ve inspected it carefully many times.”

“I meant the paint. The paint inside my paint tube is pearlescent white.”

“Is that even a color?” I asked doubtfully.

“It is. Look it up. You can find it online. It’s a common craft paint.”

“Yeah,” I purred, “But are any of those paints edible?”

“Wow,” he chuckled, “you get dirtier and dirtier the more I get to know you, agápi mou.”

“And you—” I pressed my finger against his muscled abs, “—love it.” Then I teased the tip of his cock with my tongue before going back to work on him.

He slouched against the back of his chair and moaned. I tickled his testicles with my fingers as I brought him to another studio shaking orgasm. I slowed my head movements as his spasms diminished. I milked every last precious pearlescent drop from his cock.

When Christos finally recovered, he said, “Are we going to do any painting today, or just the fucking?”

“I vote for fucking,” I grinned, before kissing his cock again.

Christos stood up from his chair, squatted in front of me, and lifted me by my ass until my wet folds were in his face. He started licking hungrily.

“Christos! Put me down!”

He didn’t. He just kept licking. I don’t know how he held me up so high for so long. But I glanced down several times at his rock hard shoulders. He was stronger than an ox. After awhile, I stopped worrying about whether or not he might drop me because the intense pleasure between my legs stole away every concern I’d ever had.

After I don’t know how many orgasms, we eventually did start on the painting.

Christos didn’t bother to put his clothes on after we’d made love.

“Are you going to stay nude while you paint me?” I asked.

“Sounds fair to me?”

“I don’t know if I’ll be able to keep my hands off you,” I bit my lower lip.

“Do your best,” he smirked.

Christos set me up in a standing pose on the dais. “I’m going to do a charcoal rough of you first, on paper. Just to see what I think of the pose and the lighting.”

“Okay.”

“Do your best to hold still,” he said.

“I will,” I smiled.

Little did I know that standing still for so long was really, really hard. “I think I’m getting a cramp,” I said after what seemed like four days, but in reality was probably twenty minutes.

“Let’s take a break,” he smiled.

“Break? Can’t we be done for the day?” I pleaded.

“Not if we want to get the portrait done. I’ll make you a deal. You tell me what’s cramping, and I’ll massage it out.”

“I have a feeling everything’s going to be cramping by the time we’re finished.”

He smiled, “Okay, then I’ll massage everything.”

“Deal.” I walked around to look at his charcoal sketch. “Holy shit! You did all that in just twenty minutes?” It looked like a rough black and white photo of me. Some of it was still unfinished, like the hands and feet, but the face was totally me. “How’d you get my face finished so quick? It looks just like me!”

“I have your face burned into my brain. I see it in my mind every time I close my eyes.”

“You can remember it that well?”

“Beauty like yours is impossible to forget,” he cocked his dimpled grin.

When my break was over, he asked, “Do you want to try the pose with a Viking helmet now? I’ll do another sketch and we can compare them.”

“We don’t have a Viking helmet,” I said.

“Yeah we do, up on that top shelf over there.”

I loved how we were using the word “we” to refer to things in our studio. I followed Christos’ gaze and noticed a Viking helmet sitting between a gladiator’s helmet and a knight’s helmet, the shining armor kind. “Where’d you get those?” I asked.

“My grandad bought them forever ago. It’s always good to have props around. Now we can finally use one.” He walked over to the shelf and pulled the horned helmet down. “Here, put this on.”

We walked over to a six foot tall full length mirror in the corner that was built into a frame on wheels.

“Why do you have this?” I asked.

“It’s for painting full length self portraits. Lots of painters use them. You can also use it to look at your painting in a mirror image, which makes it easy to see flaws.”

“I didn’t know that,” I said thoughtfully. “Have you ever used the mirror for your own self portrait?”

“I haven’t.”

“You totally should! Hey, what if you painted yourself into my portrait?!”

His eyes lit up. “That’s not a bad idea. But do I have to wear a Viking helmet too?”

“It depends how it looks on me,” I snickered. “Can I try it on?”

He handed me the helmet and I set it on my head. It was way too big. It completely covered my eyes. I tilted my head back to look under the helmet’s brim at my reflection in the mirror. I was nude from head to toe. In a Viking helmet. Maybe not.

Christos snickered. “It’s perfect. A total winner.”

“Shut up!” I took the helmet off.

“Put that back on! We’re totally painting you with the Viking helmet. Nude.”

I rolled my eyes. “Fine, it was a terrible idea. But what about you and me together? We could call the painting The Lovers.”

He grinned and started nodding, “That’s actually awesome.”

“Don’t we make a great team?”

“We do, agâpi mou,” he smiled and kissed me on the lips.

I wrapped my arms around his naked waist and leaned my head against his chest.

I gazed at the two of us in all our naked glory standing together in front of the full length mirror. “I like how this looks,” I whispered.

“Maybe instead of calling it The Lovers,” he smiled, “which sort of sounds temporary, we just call the painting LOVE, which is eternal?”

“I like the way you think, agápi mou,” I sighed.

I had the best boyfriend ever.

* * *

Despite all my problems with money and Tiffany, I was managing to balance my entire schedule: classes, homework, my new job helping out Nikolos in his studio, and posing nude for Christos.

Working for Christos’ dad turned out to be awesome. He was totally flexible about my hours. He worked all the time, so he didn’t really care when I decided to come in, as long as I got everything done. And there was a lot to do.

Nikolos was always starting new paintings or running out of one color paint or another. So I was either mixing fresh paint, stretching new canvases, or cleaning hundreds of brushes. He went through brushes like water.

As promised, Nikolos had written me a check for my tuition payment. I was set until the next payment was due. But that wasn’t until after mid terms, so I wasn’t going to worry about it until I had to. With any luck, I’d figure something out.

At the moment, I was in the gardner’s shed behind Nikolos’ house. It was more like a gardner’s house or three car garage, because of its size. It had several rooms, tons of windows (most of which were open to let in a steady breeze), two big outdoor sinks, running water, gardening tools, a riding lawn mower for the giant backyard lawn, sacks of fertilizer and plant food, and everything else the gardner, who I’d met several times, used to maintain the grounds three days a week. Everything in the room was neatly arranged and created a pleasant atmosphere.

I stood at a big work table against the open windows, busily mixing paint. Cadmium red medium, to be exact. Because you weren’t supposed to inhale the dry pigments, I wore goggles, a face mask, and gloves. Despite the safety precautions, I enjoyed myself. From what I understood, the paint pigments were far less toxic than Tiffany Kingdumb-Cuntmouse, who had managed to find me at my previous jobs and give me grief. I was pretty sure she’d never find me way out in Rancho Santa Fe at Nikolos’ place.