Amber Eyes

I was very young when I moved to the city, and though I didn't know it at the time, quite naïve. I had dreams of being an artist, and the one-room studio apartment I secured, which I could barely afford, suited my vision of that lifestyle. I sold just enough to pay the rent, buy a bare minimum of groceries, and keep the lights on. Never mind furniture.

The space was bare, floored with worn hardwood, and filled with canvases. I worked big then, fresh out of art school and enamoured with the idea of myself as a collectors' artist; my canvases were stacked against the wall, five or more deep in places, sometimes taller than me. I worked on them on the floor, laid out atop stained cotton drop cloth, and in the height of summer I worked in an old paint-splotched tank top and underwear, crouching over my canvases, bare-legged.

Other than my paint, my canvases, and my drop cloth, I had a mattress on the floor, a small stack of books beside the bed, a pot, a pan, some chipped mugs I used alternately for paint water and wine — sometimes both, by accident — and the fire escape.

I was only on the second floor of the building, directly above a Chinese food restaurant that filled my apartment with the myriad scents of exotic cooking. I had one big window that unfolded out to a rickety iron fire escape, and on hot nights I'd take a break from my incessant work to perch there and smoke in the cool air.

It was one such night that I first encountered her.

It was late. I had a tendency to work until the wee hours of the morning or even until dawn, if inspiration took me, and it had this night. I was out on the fire escape enjoying a cheap red, warm in a scarred brown clay mug, and a cigarette, and the city was quiet around me. I leaned back against the brick exterior of the building and let my bare legs and feet hang off the edge as I dragged deeply on my cigarette, my small comfort, and let my mind take me — spiraling around colours, shapes, as I let my oil paints set.

That was when I heard her footsteps. The click of her boots on the sidewalk echoed in the empty street, and, hearing it, I had the impression of someone walking slowly, but with purpose; a confident swagger, languid but strong. Peering at passers-by is a hobby almost unavoidable when you live above a busy street such as mine was, and I frequently indulged, especially late when those moving about below are less likely to notice an observer perched above them.

The lilt of her voice came next; a melody that called to something inside of me, as though I'd heard it and loved it sometime long ago, but I couldn't place it. She hummed, letting out the occasional pure note, but there were no words. I found the sound of her voice mesmerizing, and closed my eyes to hear it better.

I don't know how long she was directly beneath me as I listened to her, in a trance, before she spoke.

"Hello up there," she said, and her speaking voice was just as lilting and melodic as her singing voice, but so unexpected that it gave me a start and I jumped. I must have gasped as well, because she said, "Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you."

I calmed my thudding heart with deep breaths for a moment before looking down. There she was, directly beneath me, almond-shaped eyes in a pale face, hair falling dark to her shoulders. She was beautiful. Her eyes glittered with intelligence and engagement — not drunk or high, I realized, unlike most who walk this late — and her lips, a deep pink against her light skin, were parted slightly to reveal pearly white teeth.

She smiled at me then, and I found it utterly disarming. "No problem," I replied. "Just a bit jumpy, I guess."

"What are you doing up so late?" She asked.

I gestured with my cigarette, and then found it had gone out. I shook my head. "I'm painting, actually, but I took a little break and came out here, and that's when I heard you."

She nods as if that explains everything. "Would you like some company?" She asks.

Before she had appeared beneath me, I would certainly not have wanted any company. I prefer to be alone when I work, and other than occasional meet-ups with friends, spend most of my time in solitude. But I realized suddenly that I very much did want her company.

"Yes, I'd like that," I said, and I swear I blushed.

She just looked at me, and I at her, until she said quietly, "Would you like to invite me up?"

"Oh," I stammered. "Yes, I'll be right down."

—

When I stepped back inside my hot apartment, it was like a spell had been broken. I looked down at myself and realized I'd just invited a strange woman up to my apartment while in nothing more than my panties and a shirt with no bra. My apartment, with its lazily spinning ceiling fan, no furniture, and nothing to offer but a chipped mug of wine.

I hastily dressed, throwing on one of my readily-available men's button up shirts that I wore to paint in and a pair of cut off denim shorts. It wasn't much, but it was more than my underwear. Then I padded out into the hall and down the stairs, still barefoot, to open the door to the street.

She stood on the other side of the glass door, a vision in black — tight black pants, black high heeled boots, a black camisole, all contrasting so stunningly with her pale skin. When I opened the door to her, I suddenly could smell her: cinnamon, clove, some dark musk. Intoxicating. Sheepishly I apologized, "Please, come in. I'm sorry to have kept you waiting, I just thought I'd get dressed."

"Shame," I could have sworn she commented below her breath, and she followed me in and up the stairs, all scent, her boots tapping on the stairs as she climbed.

When we entered the sweltering closeness of my apartment, she let out a low breath and exclaimed, "Marvelous!" Her boots rang against the hardwood as she crossed the room to inspect the canvases leaned up against the wall. She made comments as she flipped through them: "Fantastic." "Oh, unique, so creative." "Exquisite piece."

I took that moment to pour her a glass of wine, and when I stepped over to hand it to her, she was inspecting a particular piece that I'd painted a couple of weeks before. I wasn't sure yet if I was finished with it. It was a portrait of a girl I'd known at school. She looked at it for a long while after accepting the mug from me, her eyes roving over the delicate lines of the neck, the slash of the lips, the pools of the eyes. I waited, endlessly patient as if paralyzed, as she considered the piece.

Then she looked up at me, and I turned back on like a wind-up doll, suddenly capable of movement and speech.

"Thank you," she said belatedly, gesturing to the wine. I nodded. "What's your name?" She asked.

"Olivia," I breathed out.

"Hello, Olivia," she said, and extended her free hand to clasp mine. "I'm Lucine."

Her hand was cool and dry against my warm, clammy palm. As soon as she touched me, I felt calm — and even more drawn to her. She looked at me, looking deep into me, and I remarked to myself on the colour of her eyes — I'd have to use yellows to render their honey-warmth, the pupils black pinpricks in a sea of sand, of ripe wheat. And for her lips, a cool red, a stroke of blue to mark her collarbone. And down further, the shadow of her breast —

"Olivia," Lucine said softly, and it didn't break my reverie so much as redirect it back to her mouth, from which she spoke. "Would you paint me?"

"Yes," I exhaled. I fell to my knees and cleared my half-finished canvas out of the way, its earlier allure forgotten completely in the wake of Lucine. I pulled in a new one, hand-stretched by me earlier in the week, and cleaned my brushes, while she disrobed behind me.

When I turned around, looking at her again, my mouth ran dry.

Apart from some classes in art school, I had never been a painter of nudes; I'd rarely even worked with a live model. And here was this woman, breathtaking and perfect, nearly carved out of marble, standing bare in my studio. Her skin was perfect, unmarked but for the crimson tips of her nipples and the shadow of hair on her mons pubis. Her breasts were full, the size of grapefruits — much larger than mine — sitting high on her chest over her ribs, her small waist, her delicately curving hips. And she'd kept her boots on; they rose to just above her ankles and closed with laces and straps, the heels high, with a platform under the ball of the foot.

When Lucine posed for me, she did so lewdly, revealing the pink folds of her sex between splayed legs. And I worked feverishly. I sketched her first with light strokes, and filled in colour in patches, blues, purples, reds, the gold of her eyes, her hair falling so alluringly over her porcelain shoulder.

It was almost dawn by the time I had most of her down on the canvas. The first few bird calls filtered through the open window, and it was as if someone had roused her from slumber. Lucine closed her thighs — I may have sighed when she did — and stood. I shook my head, suddenly aware of all the time that had passed, and looked up at her from where I crouched over my canvas on the floor.

"Olivia," she said, my name magical between her lips, "it's been absolutely wonderful, but I must go."

"No," I protested, but she was already dressing.

"I must," she said, but smiled at me. Already I missed her. Already I couldn't imagine how empty my apartment would feel without her. "But I will be back tomorrow night, if you'll have me?"

"Yes, please, I'd like that," I said in a rush. She extended her hands to grasp mine and pulled me up, and I was struck at how dark my fingers were, how paint-stained, against her perfectly smooth and light skin.

She leaned in then, and pressed her lips against mine. I fell into the kiss as into a fever, without control, and felt my body melt as her tongue touched mine, as her sharp teeth nipped at my lower lip. "Until then," she murmured into my mouth, and as she pulled away I closed my eyes to savour the feel of her mouth on mine.

When I opened my eyes, she was gone. On the floor in front of me was her mug of wine, untouched, and all I had left was her smell: spices and sex.

—

I finished the first painting during the day when she was gone, detailing the petal-like gradation of pink, the ink-dark blocks of her hair from my crystal-clear memory of her, before collapsing into a fitful sleep. I dreamed of her mouth, those pearl-white teeth. When I awoke, it was dusk, the crowds loud down on the street, the air hot and expectant.

I felt a deep longing inside of me. Lucine had awoken something in me: a desperate hunger, challenging me bone-deep. I stood and considered my portrait of her, the paint still tacky on the canvas, and realized she was my muse. I needed to paint her again.

Though it was early, and I'd found her late, I wandered out to my fire escape, the iron bars pressing into the bare soles of my feet. I gazed out at the horizon, challenging the street to bring her to me, watching the golden sun dip below the horizon; and then I smelled it. Cinnamon, burnt and pungent, with a hint of dry wood. I looked directly down and there she was, that heart-shaped face gazing up at me, eyes golden as syrup, her lips parted open like a cat's when it's smelled something to eat.

"Lucine," I breathed out, far too quiet for her to hear, but she responded anyway.

"Olivia." My name in her mouth felt sacrilegious. Her lips were too pure, too good to enunciate my unworthy syllables.

I bounded down the stairs to let her up, and when she brushed by me I immediately felt a shiver spread through my body. My pores stood up in goosebumps, my nipples hardened, I felt my hair lift off my neck.

This time, when she took her clothes off, she took her shoes off as well. There she lay, on her side, the pink of her nipples and the darkness of her pubic hair the only marks on her perfect, white body. I sketched her like that, lines of paint on paper. Then she moved, sat with her back to me, and I sketched the fluid line of her spine, the curve of her buttocks, the muscle of her thigh. For her final pose she looked back at me over her shoulder, those amber eyes captivating me, and I rendered her in full colour: pink, white, blue to accent the light on her flesh. She left as the sky lightened, the cup of water I'd poured her full still on the hardwood near the cushion I'd placed under her tender hip.

I slept fitfully again, and woke up desperate for her.

—

On the third night we made love. The moment she kissed me I realized she'd been playing a game til then. I was wet immediately, and wanted nothing more than to worship at her altar.

She arrived shortly after dusk; a moment earlier and I'd have been able to commit to canvas the golden light of the sun lining her cheekbone. I was in my painting clothes, but the moment my door clicked behind her, her hands were in my shirt, cupping my bare breasts. Her mouth was on mine, her lips cool against my heat, and I'd never wanted anything so badly. When she pushed me backward and then down onto my mattress, I wanted her; when her tongue met my nipple, erect and ready, I wanted her.

She kissed her way down my body, and then peeled off my panties, the only barrier between her and my sex, and in the heat of my small apartment I relished the coolness of her skin on mine. She delved then deep into my warmth, and the only thing hot about her was her tongue on my clit, flicking at that centre of pleasure. I moaned then, I'm sure, loud enough to disturb my neighbours in this old wooden apartment building, and she continued to flick at me, sucking me in between her lips, heightening my pleasure at each movement.

I had never been with a woman before, but I knew there was no-one but Lucine for me. When she pressed her fingers into me I felt my body shudder in response, but it wasn't until she'd made contact with the deepest part of me that I climaxed, my thighs tight against her as my body quaked out its pleasure.

When I came to, gasping, she'd undressed. I'd painted her naked body and had observed it with an artist's eye, but looking at her as a lover was something new. I kneeled and pressed my mouth to her as she stood in front of me. I was sloppy and new at this, but she guided me, moaning when I hit a good spot, gripping my chin when I concentrated in the wrong place. She let me lick her until she was panting, and then she pushed me back down on the bed and climbed on top of me.

"Olivia," she growled into my ear, and I was surprised to find something deep and bestial in her tone. "Do you want to please me?"

"Yes," I gasped out, as her thigh made contact with my over-sensitive clit, still throbbing from my orgasm.

"Good," she hissed. "Then let me —" she pushed her thigh into my pussy, "kiss you —" another push, "like this." Her lips sunk into my neck and I felt the barest pinprick of pain, not unlike getting a needle at the clinic. The smallest pinch, and then a deep sensation of oneness.

As she pushed her thigh between my legs, rocking me with pleasure, I started to feel lightheaded, and then dizzy. I sunk into it, allowing the euphoria to take me, her lips hard against my neck.

I felt her come, her thighs shaking against me, her moans hard and loud against my skin.

At some point, I must have passed out.

—

When I came to, I was laying in bed, woozy and incredibly thirsty. When I stood I nearly couldn't hold my weight up; I made my staggering way to the kitchen and filled a cup while holding myself up against the sink. I drank water like Jesus must have had to, after fourty days and fourty nights in the desert: desperate and insatiable.

Lucine was gone, but I knew she'd be back. When I looked at myself in the mirror, I looked pale, and a pair of little wounds marked my neck; I looked at them in the morning sunlight streaming through my only window, and felt satisfaction deep inside my body.

She'd be back tonight, I was sure. And when she returned, I'd capture her in the only way I knew how: brush, canvas, oil paints. And she'd capture me, and I couldn't imagine ever wanting anything more.