I. Meilyn Woods
Warm vanilla and Queen Helene. Silky, yet rough, gliding against him with profound ease as long painted fingernails scraped his back. They weren’t like the ones he usually saw on women, with intricate designs and beads. These were long, imperfect nails with red varnish that commanded him to surrender. And he did every time, becoming a pool of postcoital profanities. It was the same each and every time, except she ordered Chinese instead of Thai.
II. Meilyn Woods
Sienna didn’t know what to expect when she walked into House 125. Definitely not a live sex tape, or at least not on the first day of the job. She got the notification on Craigslist that there was an emerging artist in need of a new muse, and she was in desperate need of money and a place to stay. She had just gotten off the bus, only to be greeted by some blonde bitch lying in her bed. Turns out “going on tour” wasn’t the best excuse for not paying rent for six months, despite the fact that Gerald and The Prowlers rocked the Oblivion Access Festival. She made enough money to pay the landlord back and then some, but he had boxed her shit up. So, one could only imagine the shock she had walking in on granny and the boy next door on the couch.
“Ms. Dorothy?” she asked.
“Yes ma’am,” the woman said, rising from the couch, her caftan draping elegantly over her body. “You the girl from Craigslist?”
“Yeah, I found the spare key.”
The boy rose as well, face flushed. He refused to meet her eyes, quickly throwing on his shirt and hat, uttering a hushed apology on his way out.
“Don’t just stand around letting my good air out,” she said, taking Sienna’s bag. “I’ll show you your room.”
Sienna did as she was told and followed Ms. Dorothy upstairs to a cozy bedroom. The walls were pink with white florals. It smelled like sawdust and hadn’t been inhabited for several years, but it was way better than using Gerald’s amp as a pillow on the tour bus. At least now she had a real bed and a bathroom that didn’t give her motion sickness.
III. Meilyn Woods
Do you remember that episode of that sitcom where the guy sleeps with a cougar, and he ends up in the hospital? Eli did the first time he delivered to House 125. It was in the beginning of the summer. He had only been Dashing for a couple of months while getting a degree in Psychology. It was either that or flip burgers, and the flexible hours appealed to him even though he had no friends to share the extra hours with. He knocked on the door and she answered dressed in chiffon and lace. He handed over her Drunken Noodles, driving away with an obvious hard on. He and Ms. Dorothy recount that moment often, and he admits that he can’t remember much before her.
IV.
All Sienna was ever told was that she was beautiful. Never smart, not even funny.
“The kind of face that would make Botticelli weep,” her ex once said.
He was her high school sweetheart and a wannabe painter who did nothing but spend his parents’ money, slap a few colors on a canvas, and call himself God. So, when he made up his mind that he wanted to be an artist, she followed him to an institute in the Valley. And she had made it up in her mind that she liked doing nothing and everything.
V.
He delivered to the same neighborhoods and had regulars who mumbled halfhearted hellos and goodbyes. But when he found himself back at Dorothy’s house, he knew his shift was over by the way she opened the door. That night they swam naked in her pool, diving headfirst. The moon danced across their skin, melding them into one, young and old, naive, and experienced. They made love underwater, and he thought he might drown.
VI.
When her parents ask, she tells them she’s a freelancer, and they’re proud of their daughter who can work from home and jet set all over the world. It’s better that way. They’d think she was a prostitute, and there were times when she questioned if what she did was legal. If she was somehow evading the capitalist agenda. She didn’t know, and she didn’t care. A job was a job, and she loved hers. One guy paid to observe her for a month. He was writing a screenplay and wanted to see how women moved. Of course there were eccentrics: Gerald would sing while she slept, and quiz her the next morning because “real music would transcend the unconscious.” Painters were her favorite. She once lived with an impressionist who only wanted to see her in fur and nothing else. She stayed with him for a while in a villa. She almost married him, but she knew she bored easily.
Ms. Dorothy had her own quirks; she believed in circadian rhythm, so they rose with the sun. She sketched Sienna at sunrise, by the kitchen window because it had the best light. She insisted they eat their meals together, grits and eggs for breakfast, fried spam sandwiches for lunch. Sunset was for painting. Sienna felt alive when she posed. She was the subject, the vessel that birthed art for others. It was intoxicating and she loved it.
VII.
The crushed velvet canopy enveloped their lovemaking, coupled with the secondhand smoke from Dorothy’s Virginia Slims. She used him as an ashtray, his chest collecting tiny islands of soot, but she rode him so good he didn’t think about the pain, he almost liked it. She played Gladys Knight and the Pips.
VIII.
The DoorDash guy comes over often, and Sienna is forced to listen to them fuck. Their evening sexcapades fill the house to the brim, headboard banging and all. It’s kind of nice when she thinks about it, that a woman like Dorothy could achieve such ecstasy. Most women Sienna’s age have only faked orgasms. She can’t help herself but listen sometimes.
IX.
It was seldom that Eli spent the night. He thought if he did, he would never make it outside again, but when the morning came, he found himself buried under the weight of sketchbooks and watercolors. Dorothy sat at the foot of her bed, smoking, and doodling. He loved to see her this way. When they first met, she was a poet. She said that he freed her from prose by reminding her what it felt like to fall apart. She would sometimes recite Andrew Marvell when she dominated him, and he became a Romantic. Now she fancies herself a painter, obsessed with depicting the human form.
“Who’s that girl?” he asked.
“My muse,” she said, without lifting her head.
“And you pay her for this?”
He picked up a charcoal sketch. It was a fairly accurate representation of the woman he saw weeks ago. That wasn’t one of his proudest moments. To Eli’s surprise, she wasn’t fazed at all. She looked at their bodies like subjects of Renaissance Art. Dasher and the Dame. He could see why Dorothy liked her. She was all limbs and hair, and each sketch provided a different variation of both.
“Pretty, isn’t she?”
“Not my type.”
“I lived long enough to know men have no types.”
X.
Sienna could taste stardust when she took Molly. It used to get her ex energized to paint, and she grated the glitter in her teeth as she watched him work. That was the first time she posed nude, and they made love on the canvas, fucking the painting to be. His studio was all white, with floor to ceiling windows. That night Sienna watched the palm trees mix with the sky.
XI.
The Muse also thinks she’s an artist and Eli notices that she and Dorothy talk a lot. The muse has been places, seen and done things with many people, and she isn’t afraid to share. She and Dorthy share stories, talk crudely, and it sickens him. He doesn’t recognize Dorothy around The Muse and when they work, Dorothy is taken by her. At night the three of them go skinny dipping and watch the stars. Dorothy paints them both, while they drink warm wine.
XII.
Sienna wakes to the DoorDash guy yelling at her. He’s fuming and obviously drunk. She had fallen asleep in their bed, and Sienna remembers leaving the pool early to shower. Dorothy’s bathroom is exquisite. Every product exists there with fancy French names and rose scents. She gave Sienna open access to the house, and she scrubbed herself from head to toe. By the time she was out of the shower, the wine had made its way to her head.
XIII.
Dorothy hadn’t picked up his calls, and Eli found himself circling the neighborhood during his Dashes. He had asked her to choose, and she told him he was crazy. Then he found The Muse in their bed. He knew better than to yell at women, so Dorothy put him out. On the fifth day of no contact, he decided to beg for forgiveness, but found only The Muse holding her suitcase.
“You’re leaving?”
“I think it’s for the best.”
“Sorry about the other day.”
She shrugged. “For what it’s worth you two have something special. But it’s temporary and you should know.”
“What about Dorothy’s art?”
“She’ll fine something new.”
XIV.
On her last day at House 125, Sienna found an envelope of cash and a watercolor. She held the relic to her chest before checking for the nearest bus stop. She had made enough to be nomadic for a while. Maybe she’d go back to the Valley and find another rising star. On the bus she thought about Eli and how he’d soon realize that Dorothy would never make him the center of her world. She had tried once and failed.
