of Dad’s good friends owns a huge construction company in Seattle. He tried to hire me out from under Dad. Offered me a big raise, big office, all that. I had to turn it down, otherwise Dad would have a heart attack, but it was one of those great moments when you realize you’re genuinely good at what you do. This guy wasn’t my father. I’m not his son. And he still looked at my work and said, ‘Yes, this is the guy we want and I’m willing to risk a thirty-year-old friendship to have Ian Asher come work for me because Ian Asher is that good.’ It was validating.”
“You get it.”
“I get it,” he said. “So... I guess you won’t let me buy one of your sculptures from the gallery?”
“If you did, I would never see you again,” she said, meaning every single word of it.
“What if instead of buying one of your sculptures, I broke in and stole one?”
She thought about that, rubbed her chin, narrowed her eyes and finally nodded.
“Not a bad idea. It would get my name in the papers. Art theft is a huge international crime. But I have a better idea. You tell me what to make and I’ll try to make it.”
“You don’t have to—”
“I want to. Making your menorah was the first time I’d felt real joy in months. Something about creating it for you, specifically for you, really got my juices flowing.”
He raised his eyebrow.
“My other juices,” she clarified. “I think you’re my muse. So a-muse me, muse. Give me an idea and I’ll give it a shot. Challenge me.”
Ian went silent for a moment. She’d put him on the spot but she didn’t feel bad about it. Inspiration often came in sudden flashes, sudden epiphanies. Of course those sudden epiphanies often resulted in weeks and months of grueling work turning those bolts from the blue into art, but it was worth it to her. The art was worth it.
He reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. They hadn’t brought the bill yet so she couldn’t imagine why he’d need his wallet. He dug through a stack of cards and small papers until he produced a photograph. He held it out to her and she took it from his hand.
The picture was of a woman smiling at the camera. It looked posed, like a yearbook photograph. She was a beautiful young lady with wavy hair with Ian’s mouth and eyes. While the picture was posed her smile was bright and natural. She was a happy woman.
“This is Ivy? This is your mother?” she asked.
Ian nodded. “It’s the only picture I have of her. It was from her and Dad’s college yearbook.”
“You cut it out of the yearbook?”
“No, Dad would have killed me. I waited until he was out of town one weekend, and I took the yearbook to a copy center and had them make a copy of it on photo paper. Pathetic, right? I was eighteen and too much of a coward to ask my father to give me a photograph of my own mother.”
“That’s not cowardly,” she said. “It’s very sweet. It must be hard for you not knowing her.”
“It’s hard. I keep trying to work up the guts to ask Dad to help me contact my mother’s parents but I haven’t yet. It’s a real tender spot for him.”
“I can imagine,” she said. She knew all about parental sore spots.
“Anyway... I love the menorah. It’s perfect. But you can’t keep that up all year. What I’d love to have is something around to remind me of her.” He pointed at the photograph. “Something to honor her, I guess? Something to keep her present? She’s nothing but an outline in my mind. It would be nice to have something more than the bare bones, more than an outline. That’s probably too much to ask. You don’t know any more about her than I do.”
Flash studied the picture a little longer. This was a big challenge—creating a metal sculpture to honor Ian’s mother. She didn’t sculpt the human form. Nature was her subject—she made aluminum roses and orchids, copper sunflowers, cherry trees in bloom made of pure steel. But a woman? She’d never sculpted a woman before. Could she? Should she? She didn’t even know this woman. Or did she? This woman, hardly more than a kid, had eloped with her lover over the extreme disapproval of both their families, and she’d done it at the age of eighteen and had a baby all without any family support. The very thought of trying something like that terrified Flash. Whoever Ivy was she had a backbone of steel to do something like that.
A backbone of steel?
Yes. That. A backbone of steel.
Her brain lit up and her fingers tingled...images floated through her mind—lines, turns, light glancing off metal, curves...beautiful metal curves... She felt a rush of adrenaline. She wanted to dash home right now and get to work, but she knew better than that. The idea had to percolate a little more, coalesce, take form, bring itself to life and introduce itself. And as soon as it did, then she’d get to work.
Flash returned the photograph to Ian.
“I have an idea,” she said, looking up at Ian and smiling. “But I’ll need your help with it.”
Ian winced and looked immediately uncomfortable.
“I...I’m not really very good at the welding stuff. I’ve done it a little and—”
“Don’t worry. I don’t need your help making it. I can do that.”
“Then what do you need me to do?”
“I’ll need you to take some pictures of me—naked.”
Ian nodded. The waitress came to their table bearing their dessert. Ian smiled up at her.
“If you don’t mind, we’re going to need that to go.”
* * *
“YOU’RE ENJOYING THIS too much,” Flash said as Ian placed his hand on her left hip and shifted it to the right. He moved her chin two inches to the left and then back one inch again to the right. She and Ian were in his living room and he had her standing by the bare patch of wall by the large stone fireplace while he took pictures of her with her own cell phone to use in the creation of her next sculpture. After twenty pictures she’d declared they had more than enough to work with but Ian wasn’t quite finished posing her.
“You’re naked. I’m taking pictures of you. Can you please explain how the hell I’m supposed to enjoy it less?”
“This isn’t supposed to be sexual. It’s for art.”
“Of course it is. Art is what I named my cock.”
Flash reached behind her and cupped Ian between the legs.
“Hi, Art.”
“Art says hello,” Ian said. “He’s looking forward to spending more time with you.”
“What a nice guy. Let me see the last pics,” she said. Ian returned her phone to her and she flipped through the pictures while he peered over her shoulder.
“I like that one,” he said, pointing at one particular picture where Flash had her back to the camera and bore all her weight on one foot while she looked to the side.
“Venus de Milo pose,” she said. “Very classic.”
“Classics are classics for a reason.”
“We’re going to delete that one right there,” she said, pulling up one picture Ian had taken of nothing but her ass.
“Oh, no, that’s my favorite.”
“Fine, fine.” She texted him the picture and then deleted it. “Happy now?”
“Art and I are grateful. We done?” He sounded a little sad about that.
“I have plenty to work with here.”
“So do I.” Ian wrapped his arms around her from behind and cupped her breasts in his large hands.
“You’re fondling me again,” she said.
“I’m fond of fondling.”
“Did you want to do this at work?”
“Fondling you was the least of what I wanted to do to you every single day at work. But I behaved myself. It was horrible.”
“Behaving sucks,” she said.
“I suck,” he said, and started sucking on her earlobe. It tickled so much she laughed and Ian had to subdue her giggles with a sharp bite. “I like you hanging around my house completely naked. I might institute a dress code here.”
“An undressed code?”
“Excellent idea,” he said.
“You’re violating your own dress code, Mr. Asher. You have all your clothes on.”
“I’m barefoot.”
“Doesn’t count.”
“I’m the boss around here, remember? I decide what counts and what doesn’t count,” he said into her ear.
She closed her eyes and shivered in his arms. She loved when he talked like that to her, loved when he got tough with her, ordered her around, acted like the boss of her. He was so good at it, such a natural. His right hand slid from her breast down her stomach and cupped her between the legs. He lightly stroked her as he dropped soft kisses along her naked shoulder. It felt so good it was dizzying and she had to reach out and put her hand flat against the wall to hold herself steady. His left hand tugged at her nipples, lightly pinched and rolled them between his fingers, while his right hand rubbed her clitoris. He rocked his hips into her, making their bodies move together as he teased and fondled and caressed her most tender spots. He slid a finger inside her and she flinched with pleasure, moaned with it, dripped with it.
“You’re going to come for me, aren’t you?” he asked into her ear again.
“Yes,” she said, hissing the word between clenched teeth. Her lower back was so tight with delicious tension it ached.
“Spread your legs a little more. More...perfect,” he said as she shifted her feet apart until her stance met with his approval.
He pulled his wet finger out of her and used it to rub her clitoris again. She was already swollen, already aching, already ready. Her breasts felt full and heavy from his attention and her skin wore a hot flush of red. Ian’s lips caressed the back of her neck and she relished the feel of his hot breath on her flesh.
“You have any idea how hard you make me?” he asked into her ear. “You have any idea how hard it was to see you every day at work and know I couldn’t have you?”
“Probably as hard for you as it was for me.”
“So you had to jack off in the shower when you got home from work, too?”
“You think guys are the only people who masturbate?”
“You got off thinking about me?”
“Ian... I call my vibrator ‘The Boss.’”
“Don’t take this the wrong way, Flash, but...I’m so fucking happy you quit your job.”
When she started to laugh he pushed two fingers into her again and her laugh died in her throat and was reborn a moan.
With both Ian’s hands between her legs, penetrating her and stroking her at the same time, it was a miracle she could still stand. She put both hands on the wall to hold herself upright as he worked her clitoris and fucked her with his fingers. Her body felt so open, so wet and tender and alive. He made her feel alive like no man she’d been with before. Past lovers had played at being boss, but Ian really was the boss. He had real power in this world, real authority, and something in her responded to that like she was born to be his. Her upbringing had been chaotic, always running, always moving. But Ian was so steady, so strong, so manly and solid, she wanted to put herself entirely in his hands—her body, her trust, her heart. But especially her body.
Ian slipped a third finger inside of her and her pussy contracted around his probing hand. He chuckled and she wanted to step on his foot for laughing at her.
“I love playing with your body,” he said. “You’re my favorite toy. And my favorite toy needs to come. Doesn’t she?”
“She does...” Flash breathed.
“Come for me, then,” he said, still rubbing and stroking her. The fingers inside her moved in a circle, hitting every nerve ending, sending spikes of pleasure shooting through her stomach to her hard tight nipples.
“Anything you say, boss.”
She pushed her hips forward and against his hand. She pushed again and Ian curled his fingers inside her to make her moan again. He fucked her faster now with his fingers, rubbed her harder while her hips pumped with a desperate rhythm. Ian whispered dirty words of encouragement while he pushed her closer to that delicious edge. Her stomach knotted up and her fingers on the wall curled into fists. When she couldn’t take it anymore, it finally happened. She cried out as her pleasure peaked. She felt a shattering inside her as the tension released all at once. Her inner muscles fluttered wildly around Ian’s fingers, muscles pulsed against his touch. It was pure ecstasy and all Ian’s doing.
When her orgasm finally faded, Flash hung limp and spent in Ian’s arms while he kissed and bit her neck and shoulders.
“Stay,” he ordered, and she had neither the will nor the energy to disobey. She pressed her palms against the wall again to stay vertical as Ian undressed behind her and put on a condom. With one thrust he entered her from behind, splitting her open and driving into the core of her. He pumped his cock into her hard and fast, harder and faster than he ever had before. It was rough and wild, hungry and desperate. She loved it. She loved it as much as she loved him, and the only thing she hated was that she was too scared to tell him that. He made her feel too much. Her love was equal to her fear so she stayed silent as he fucked her, silent as he fondled her, silent as he came in her.
They stood by the wall, their bodies still joined as Ian rested his forehead on her shoulder.
“Did that hurt?” he asked.
“Only in the good way.”
“I’m never like this with anyone but you,” he said as he caught his breath. She loved hearing him out of breath from fucking her. “You bring out the worst in me. Or the best. Can’t tell sometimes.”
“I bring out the you in you.”
“You like me like this, don’t you?”
She loved him like this. But she couldn’t say that. Not yet anyway.
“More than you know, Ian.”
“Try that again.”
Flash laughed tiredly.
“More than you know...boss.”
7
FLASH FINALLY MADE it home around midnight. Ian had tried to talk her into staying, but she wasn’t quite ready for that yet. Better to leave him wanting more than wear out her welcome. She parked in her usual space across from Mrs. Scheinberg’s front door and saw the living room light shining through the curtains. Curious, Flash knocked softly on the front door.
Only a few seconds later Mrs. Scheinberg opened the door.
“Yes, dear?” Mrs. Scheinberg asked. She wore her favorite blue silk pajamas, the ones with the mandarin collar, and her matching blue bathrobe.
“I just saw your light was on. What are you doing still up?”
“Couldn’t sleep.”
“Something wrong?”
“I’m an old woman. That’s what’s wrong. You want to come in?”
Flash followed her inside and locked up behind them.
“You’re home late,” Mrs. Scheinberg said as she went into the kitchen and put her teakettle on the stove.
“I was with Ian.”
“With him or with him?”
“Both.”
“Oh, my...” Mrs. Scheinberg turned around and gave her a smile. “I take it your gift went over well.”
“That might be an understatement.”
“So why are you here? Shouldn’t you be there?” She nodded her head toward the kitchen window that faced east to Mount Hood.
Flash shrugged as she took her usual seat at Mrs. Scheinberg’s pale blue Formica kitchen table.
“He asked me to stay the night. He wanted me to. I thought it would be better if I didn’t push my luck.”
“Playing hard to get. The oldest trick in the book.” Mrs. Scheinberg nodded her approval. “I’ve done it myself. Works every time.”
“I don’t know if that’s it. I just don’t want to get too