Beneath her, Malcolm lifted his hips, pushing into her from below. She held perfectly still as he rocked his hips and pounded into her. It was heaven to take him, to spread her thighs and open herself to receive all of him. He reached under her dress again, found her clitoris and kneaded it. The pleasure was unbearable. She could hardly stay silent as he took her, fully in control of her body even as he lay on his back chained to the wall. His money had made her a whore, but his cock had made her his slave. She never wanted to taste freedom again. She only wanted to taste him.
"Come for me,” he said into her ear. He took her breast in his mouth again and sucked it while he stroked her under her skirts. A low soft moan emanated from the back of her throat and the contractions began. Her wet inner walls clenched and released before they were seized with a violent fluttering that dragged on and on. She felt it in her back, in her thighs, in the inmost parts of her. At last it passed and she collapsed onto him, her sore breasts pressed into his chest.
She kissed his mouth, his lovely mouth, and the kiss was lovely and loving. He took her by the waist and lifted her off of him.
"Now me,” he said. "Drink from me.”
It was her pleasure to do it. She slid down his body and took him into her mouth, tasting herself on his shaft. She wasted no time on the usual niceties but pulled the organ down her throat and sucked hard. He arched on the floor, his hips lifting, and he exploded into her mouth. As he came she pulled the semen out of him, sucking it down her throat, every drop, emptying his body as he’d emptied hers. After it was done she lay her head on his stomach and held his cock in her hand, cradling it between her naked breasts.
"How do I free you from this place?” she whispered. The guards would find them together like this any minute. She knew they would expel her and torture him for what they’d done together.
"Open your eyes,” he said.
She did as ordered and lifted her head. They were in the bed in the back room again. The iron chain on his ankle was gone. He looked like himself again, like her Malcolm, her lover, her owner, her god.
She glanced around the room, blinking, stupefied.
"How do you do it all?” she asked. "How do you make me see what I see?”
"You see what I see,” he said.
"Is it real?”
"It’s real enough.”
"Are you the devil?” she asked, knowing that the answer—yes or no—would change nothing between them.
"Do you believe in the devil?” Malcolm asked.
"No, but Mother did. Heaven and hell and anything fantastical, she believed in it all. Beauty over truth, always.”
"Not all that is beautiful is untrue, Mona.”
Malcolm took her by the waist and pulled her to him. He laid her on her back, lifted her skirts to her stomach and put his hand into her wet sex. It sank into her to his wrist. Her body stretched to accommodate him and once it had, it closed around his hand again, enveloping him, holding him within her where he belonged. She’d made Sebastian perform this very act on her and he had done so reluctantly and been horrified by it. Not Malcolm. He looked at her with near reverence as he worked his hand carefully in deeper.
"Why did you come to me?” she asked, resting her hand on the side of his face. "Why were you waiting for me? Why me? I’m not special. I’m not…anything.”
"Long ago I made a deathbed promise. I need you to help me keep it as I’m helping you to keep yours. I promise, you will understand in time, Mona. You’ll understand it all.”
She saw the truth in his eyes. Someday she would know who he was and when she knew who he was she would finally know herself. Tonight, it didn’t matter. She knew she was his and that was enough. Mona closed her eyes and rested her head back against the pillow. Malcolm filled her so entirely there was no space left inside her for doubts or fears. He kissed the tops of her still swollen breasts, and she smiled languidly. He had drained her and the emptiness was simply another aching void for him to fill.
"You’re tired, love,” he said. "Go to sleep. It’s almost dawn.”
"If I fall asleep, you’ll leave me again.”
"I’ve never left you when you slept.”
"But when I wake you’re not here.”
"When you wake you can’t see me. But I’m here. I’m always here.”
"Make me come again and I’ll sleep.”
"You’re terribly greedy.”
"For you,” she said. "Only greedy for you.”
He kissed her lips lightly and moved his head between her legs. With his hand inside her, he only lapped lightly at her clitoris to bring her to climax. Her sex quivered around his hand, squeezing it, holding it. It was ecstasy beyond words to be filled up so completely. She never wanted to be empty again and she told him that. When his hand slipped out of her at last, he replaced it with his cock. He rode her with long, slow strokes, seemingly endless. If only they were.
"I dreamed you were dead,” she said, half-asleep and falling fast as he rocked her with his deep and gentle thrusts. "I’m afraid I’ll dream that again.”
"You won’t dream that tonight, I promise.”
"Is this all a dream? That’s the only thing that makes any sense.”
"You aren’t dreaming,” he said, and she knew that was true. She was awake and had been every time they had met. "But if it were a dream, would you want to wake up?” he asked.
A good question. A fair question. A hard question, but one she answered easily.
"Never.”
The Luncheon on the Grass
It wasn’t a dream. Mona knew that for certain. Nor was she insane. Nor had Malcolm drugged her. She didn’t know the source of Malcolm’s magic and she could not begin to guess the purpose of his tricks or the prestige, but she knew what she’d seen and felt was real, as real as anything had ever been in her life and likely ever would be.
She woke alone in the bed at the gallery. Her insides were sore from Malcolm’s hand, but her breasts felt normal. Her sleep had been dreamless. There was a lightness to her step once again, as the dark cloud over her had lifted.
The happiness didn’t fade even as the long days and lonely nights passed. She was certain she would see Malcolm again and sure enough, the day came when she found a book of paintings on her desk and Malcolm waiting for her in the back room. A few weeks passed and he came to her again. Their nights together were passionate and fulfilling but no longer terrifying. He conjured no monsters, dragged her into no hells. She sensed he’d been testing her in some way and finally she had passed. Malcolm came to her in April and twice in May. The first of June arrived and she woke up fearful. The first time he’d come to her had been in late June of last year. It was almost over, whatever this game was.
He’d made her three promises when they’d made their deal: He promised to pay her enough in art to save the gallery. He promised to tell her the provenance of the paintings.
And he promised he would leave her.
She refused to think of the final promise. Surely the terms of the agreement had changed. She’d told him she loved him, told him she wanted to have his baby, and he’d told her that he would allow that someday. She held onto those words, treasuring them like a talisman. And she needed that talisman once the banks started calling again. She had nearly a dozen valuable and important sketches and etchings she could sell once she had provenance, she assured them. All she needed now was Malcolm’s name and the story he hadn’t yet told her.
By the middle of June, the city was sweating again. Even when it rained, the sidewalks steamed in the heat. Mona rarely left the shady coolness of her gallery for her apartment. She’d never lain with Malcolm there, so it felt like a foreign country to her, whereas The Red was her home.
On a Sunday morning she woke up to a city burning in the heat and she fled straight to the gallery hours before it opened. In her office she found a book lying on her desk, marked with the red velvet ribbon. Mona laughed, her heart bubbling, when she saw the painting he had marked in the book. Manet again. How fitting to return to Manet one year after their first night together. The painting was famous, more famous even than Olympia. Known as Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe—"The Luncheon on the Grass”—it was the painting her mother jokingly called "The Other Naked Lunch.”