Odalisque
Three
I PARTED HER LIPS with my tongue and was flooded with the spicy flavor. She moaned as I dipped again, drawing the flavors with me as I swirled my tongue around her clit. Each touch, each breath was answered by her gasps and the ripples in her toned muscles.
I don’t make love to Lissa; I worship her. She is my goddess. Anything I can do to bring her pleasure, to make her life better, to show my love, I will do. I worship her on the coarse canvas. I worship her on the Egyptian cotton. I worship her beneath the shower and even on the hardwood. My reward and satisfaction are her smile and the sudden gasp and flood of juices on my tongue as she comes.
“Oh, my love!” she said. “You make me feel so wonderful. I want you beside me. Come to me, darling.”
She held out her arms to me and I found deep passionate kisses.
“Oh, I love you, Tony.” She started shivering and I pulled the blanket up around us, but I realized it was not shivers. Lissa was crying.
“Lissa, darling,” I cooed as I rocked her in my arms. “My goddess. Come back to me.”
“Oh, Tony. I felt so… I don’t even have a word! I was overflowing with love. You take me places I never dreamed of. How is it possible? How do we fill each other completely and still have as much for our lovers?”
“You, my love, are Aphrodite,” I breathed in her ear. “Wherever you go, your beauty inspires love; your love inspires beauty.”
“Oh, but I’m not, darling. I’m no goddess. I’m a middle-aged mom with three unbelievable lovers and a couple of others who want in my panties. What kind of woman am I?” she complained.
“You? Middle aged? May the heavens hasten old-age.”
“I see it in the mirror,” she continued. “I was trained to look for these things. I see circles under my eyes, crow’s feet, smile lines. They come slowly. One day you’ll open your eyes and I’ll be old and you’ll wonder where the beauty went. Look at Melody and Kate. They could be misshapen and still be young and beautiful. Perfect skin. High firm tits. Mine are starting to sag. And Kate has never worn a bra!”
“Lissa,” I said and silenced her with a kiss, which she hungrily drank from my lips. “You never need to compare yourself with any of our lovers. We’re seven years apart, darling. I’ll be bald and potbellied before anyone can tell you’ve aged. They’ll be accusing me of having a bunch of trophy wives who are eternally young while I get old.”
“I want so much to believe you.”
“Lissa, look at me,” I said, turning her face toward me. “Some men could look at nothing but your tits unless you showed them your cunt.” I used harsh words that I seldom used. I was serious. “Even if you did, that’s all they’d see. In fifty years, they’d look at you and think how sad that your tits were sagging. They’re idiots. I’m not. Your beauty comes from inside you. Maybe that’s a cliché, but your beauty is in how you treat your sons and how they love you. It’s in how you care for me and for Melody and for Kate. It’s in your strength on the racquetball court competing, or teaching, or facing down an opponent. Your beauty is in the way you love us and manage so many things that we don’t have either the time or skill to do.”
I had her attention. Her eyes were fixed on mine and were wide open. A tiny tear escaped and ran down her cheek to her ear. I chuckled as I dried it with my finger.
“You are beautiful, Lissa. There’s no doubt about that. Point to any part of your body at all and I’ll worship it in any way you like. And I promise that will be true next year, in ten years, in fifty years. Because it’s you that’s beautiful, Lissa; not just your body. And I love you.”
The kiss we shared was tender and long. I kissed away all the tears from her face. I kissed down her chin. I kissed her nose and her forehead. I stroked her hair. I felt her hands on my arms and my back. I held her and rocked her and whispered, “I love you,” to her over and over again. And finally, we fell asleep in each other’s arms.
I woke up flat on my back and Lissa was just sliding onto my hard cock. She was watching for the first sign that I’d gone from dreaming to realizing it was real. Lissa seemed to want to do all the work, but I couldn’t help little twitches from my hips rising to meet her. She varied her strokes for depth, sometimes pausing to shift side to side or to rotate her hips. She kept up a long, agonizingly slow rhythm.
She arched her back, thrusting her breasts forward and by lifting my head slightly I was able to capture her nipple between my lips. It was long and hard and, judging from the noises she was making, very sensitive. I stroked her perfect breast with my palm. I caressed her hip and waist. It was a long build. Lissa was powerfully aroused, but seemed intent on my fulfillment, holding my eyes with hers even as her breathing became shallower and shorter.
“Lissa, I’m…” I tried to get the words out but she just nodded her head and caught the left edge of her lower lip between her teeth.
The first blast from my cock seemed to almost shock her as her body jolted upright. She sank fully down on me as I continued to shoot into her and her abs contracted with every spurt. The whispered, “Ohh,” that issued from her was drawn out as long as I continued my orgasm. It took so much out of me that I felt my body sinking into the bed, exhausted. Lissa slowly collapsed on top of me. We lay there drifting and hugging until I had to struggle up to go to class.
“Shower, darling,” Lissa said. “I’ll make coffee.”
It was the second morning in a row that a beautiful naked woman kissed me at my car door and then scampered back inside as the garage door began to rise. Only Lissa stayed in the open door of the house until I backed out of the garage and the door came down again.
I didn’t go home Wednesday night. I kissed Lissa at the gym after our practice and headed for the studio. I knew what I needed to paint. In fact, the image came at me so fast that I had to stay at the canvas. I sketched in two portraits in a smaller size than the big canvases I’d been working on lately. These were only sixteen by twenty inches. I worked hard to make sure they were identical. The flow started the same—in fact there was only one difference. From the fingers to the glass to the lamp, across the eyes to the book casting its shadow next to the navel that drew the eye along the long line to the stack of unopened mail beneath her foot. But with one change in the second drawing, the whole painting took on a different meaning and impact. From the fingers to the glass to the lamp, down to the eyes. At that point the eye was arrested. Everything else was secondary. Instead of continuing to follow down to the book, the eyes looked out at the artist.
I painted them side by side. Every stroke was duplicated from one canvas to the other. The only difference was the position of the eyes. They were a pair. But something still bugged me about them.
By the time Friday came around, I was exhausted. I studied anatomy with Bree, Amanda, and Justin for an hour every day after class. Coach Fredericks started me on more PK conditioning. He was right—the more of it I did, the more I wanted to do. I studied lit with Rio before practice on Wednesday and before dinner on Thursday. I was hyper focused on Doc’s 2D class as we continued the exploration of eye movement and focal points. And I played racquetball with the team Thursday night—complete with Whitney’s outrageous flirting—and with Lissa on Friday afternoon.
At night I painted. I couldn’t pull an all-nighter every night, but I was getting by on less sleep than I could ever remember having.
Clarice was thrilled with the progress I’d made. She loved the pair and was already coming up with ideas on how to frame or display them. She also liked both of the paintings I did of the Singhs. She puzzled a long time about the last painting I showed her.
“I told you not to show me paintings you wouldn’t sell,” she said.
“You don’t like it?”
“I love it. I can’t imagine you would part with it.” I looked at the image on my screen. Yes. It was lovely. Maybe my best work ever. I’d done it with no sketch or rendering and no model. But it was obvious. Lissa as an old woman. And even more beautiful than she is today. It was the piece I wanted to show the world.
When Bree told me to stretch out on the massage table, I was out cold. I finally woke up to her prodding me gently.
“Hey. Tony. You need to wake up now. They’re closing the facility. You need to get dressed.”
“Oh god, Bree,” I groaned. “What did you do to me?”
“It’s what I couldn’t do to you. I couldn’t wake you up. Not even to roll over. I just kept working on your back and then when it was obvious you weren’t going to wake up as soon as it was over, I just let you sleep,” she said nudging me off the table.
“Wait! Closing the facility? What time is it?”
“It’s almost seven.”
“The family!”
“Don’t panic, baby. I called them. I told them I’d bring you home as soon as you woke up. Go get a shower and get dressed. I’m hungry.”
“Thanks for inviting me in to eat. I wasn’t looking forward to a TV dinner again tonight and I was starving. This was really good,” Bree said as we finished our late dinner. The boys had arrived and were sad that I wasn’t there when they got home, but I read them a story and they went off to bed before I sat down with Bree to eat. Melody, Kate, and Lissa were sitting with us, but they’d eaten with the boys.
“This is one of Melody’s specials,” I said, savoring the tuna noodle casserole. “And one of my favorites.”
“Too bad you weren’t here to eat it when it came out of the oven,” Melody said.
“That’s one of the great things about this meal,” I plunged on, not heeding the warning tone. “It’s just as good when you reheat it.”
“It is good,” Bree sighed. “Thank you, Melody.”
“Asleep, huh? Are you sure you two weren’t just fooling around someplace?” Melody asked. I was stunned. Where did that come from? Lissa had thanked Bree for calling and warning them I was asleep.
Bree stood up and headed for the back door.
“Mel, could I talk to you alone, please?” She stormed out the door. Melody followed and it looked like she was ready for a fight.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Melody just can’t forgive Bree, or completely trust her,” Kate sighed. “It will just take time.”
“I hope it doesn’t eat at her,” Lissa said. “I interact with Bree quite a bit now and she is always respectful of our relationship.”
I looked out the French doors and could see the two girls facing off. Neither one was happy.
“Since this concerns me, I think I’d better go out there,” I said.
“I wouldn’t if I were you,” Lissa said. “You’re likely to get your head handed to you on a platter.”
“Ah yes, Salome. Anything you desire up to half my kingdom,” I said melodramatically. “Really. I’m stupid, but I’m not a coward.” Okay. I lied about that. I steeled myself and went forward to open the door.
“I learned my lesson,” Bree almost shouted. “I will never make a move on Tony without your approval and participation.”
“How can I trust you?” Melody shot back.
There was no answer. Bree took one step forward, grabbed Melody on either side of the head and kissed her.
I saw Melody reach back and thought she was going to punch Bree, but instead her hands came forward and pulled Bree into a tight embrace. The kiss deepened. I stepped back and closed the door quietly.
“I have reading to do for lit class,” I said to Kate and Lissa as I passed by. “I’ll be in my chair if I’m needed. For anything.”
I woke up sometime in the middle of the night. I don’t think I’d read a whole page before I went to sleep in my recliner. There was a pleasant, soft, and comfortable weight in my lap. I pushed myself back a little and wrapped my arms around Melody.
“Love you,” she said through her sleep.
“I love you, Meddy,” I whispered. I pulled the light blanket she’d brought with her up around us.
“I’m sorry, Tony,” she said into my neck.
“No need to be. Looks like you worked it out.”
“But I’m sorry to you, not just to Bree. I made it sound like I don’t trust you. I do. I’m sorry I let my jealousy take control. I do trust you, Tony. I do and I love you.”
“I know, precious,” I said. “It’s okay. Snuggle up. Let’s spend the rest of the night out here together, shall we?”
She kissed my neck and hugged herself to me tightly.
Comments
Please feel free to send comments to the author at devon@devonlayne.com.
