A video comes up on my screen and my thumb stops. I letmy toothbrush dangle from my lips as I use both hands to turn the volume up on my phone and zoom in on part of the video. It’s featuring a Muse Painting. But the focus of the video isn’t on just the art. A majority of the screen is taken up with a shot of a young woman with long, gleaming braids. She has chocolate brown eyes that are framed by sharp, winged eyeliner, heavily glossed lips and high cheekbones. She’s more than beautiful, I realize, she’s striking. My brows furrow as I drag the video back a few seconds and lean in with my toothbrush still hanging from my mouth.
“It was quite the experience,”the striking woman says as she runs her delicate fingers over the thick braid running down her collarbone and chest. Her posturing comes across as almost… feline. She’s graceful, unattainable, intimidating.
Just then, Mariah pops her head in the bathroom doorway. “Hey whatcha got goin on my littleartiste?” Once I’m in full view, she tilts her head and squints. Her eyes sweep over my unkempt hair I’d hastily pushed back with a terry cloth headband, and the toothpaste dripping down my chin. “Busy week? I didn’t see you yesterday.”
I pause the video, finish brushing my back molars and spit. I wipe my chin and spin back to face her. She’s now looking down at her own phone. “Yes, actually,” I say. “I did a photoshoot with Harper today and I worked a lot on a new painting!”
“A new painting!” she says without looking up from her phone. “That’s amazing! I know you’ve felt stuck for a while.”
“Yeah!” I turn back to the mirror and take off my mascara with a reusable cotton pad and make-up remover. “I’m kind of excited about it.” And that was the truth. I hadn’t felt inspired for far too long. Now I feel inspiration coming at me from multiple angles.
“Well, I’m proud of you!” Mariah beams up at me finally, phone down. I have a good four inches on her, although I always felt her stature commanded more respect.
I give her a genuine smile back. I feel so grateful to have a friend who always roots for me. Mariah is a blessing.
“Hey, what did mystery man’s note say?” She shimmies her shoulders and purses her lips. “You know, from Sunday night?”
“Ah, he said that he might come to Brooklyn one day,” I reply. Which isn’t technically a lie...
“Ooo!” she exclaims. “How exciting! We could use a little intrigue in our life!”
“We?”
“Well, obviously I’ll need to live vicariously through you once you meet your hot and sexy pen pal.” Now her whole body shimmies and she spins on her heel. “How fun would that be?” I can hear her say as she walks away toward her bedroom.
“Good night!” I yell after her. She waves over her shoulder. Mariah can just pop in and out like that, even in large social situations. But she always leaves an impression.
Alright, back to the video. I need something to distract myself from the rising guilt over the fact that I didn’t tell Mariah everything going on with Devo. I put my phone down and hit play while I continue to do my skin care. The video cuts to an older gentleman with a gray streak through his coifed hair.
“Will you finally be the one to tell us how these paintings are made?” the man asks in a voice made for radio, it was deep and smooth. The woman shrugs with a coy playfulness and sparkling eyes.
“What I can tell you, David—” She purses her lips and looks up and around for a moment, swaying her shoulders right and left.“Is that it was well worth the NDA I had to sign, if you know what I mean.”The video cuts back to David.
“I don’t believe Idoknow what you mean!”he counters. “An NDA is involved, huh?”A moment’s musing passes. “Are you supposed to reveal the involvement of an NDA?” He rubs the stubble on his chin. “I thought, you know, that’s something you’re not supposed to mention.”
Back to the woman—she shrugs and smiles. “All he told me was that I can’t reveal his methods. Besides”—she turns to lookdirectly into the camera—“I don’t know that it would be appropriate for all of your audience to hear about the process anyway.”She smirks with bravado.
“We’ll be right back after a message from our sponsor—”The video cuts out. It was a clip from a filmed internet talk show.
I spend the next hour in a digital rabbit hole looking up any additional Devo lore I can find. I go over every painting he stood next to and every interview he’d ever given (a total of two). I stare at the jagged black mask that runs across the lower half of his face in his more recent pictures. The images definitely give a more ominous impression than the one I received from the friendly and bold young man from McArthur’s.
I dive into the online forums discussing the likelihood that certain surfaced paintings could be his. Some of the paintings even I can tell are copycats… others, I’m not so sure. Not many “muses” have come forward, it turns out.
At about 1:00 AM, my eyes start to close. I try to keep reading with just one eye open to give my other one a rest, but soon that effort also concludes.
In the morning, I only remember snippets of the dreams I had, including one where I once again speak to a woman in a painting. Except this time, I talk to myself—or the version of myself I’d painted coming out of the mist. She told me to show up tomorrow.
I also dreamed of the hallway at McArthur’s, and a man in a black mask with light eyes pressing me gently against the wall. I was wearing lingerie I didn’t even own. The man put a finger to my lips as he pierced me with eyes the color of arctic ice. The hallway melted into a meadow and the wall behind me was suddenly a tree. He put two fingers inside of me and I writhed?—
My “last ditch” alarm goes off and I wake up in a literal sweat.Wait,I think as wakefulness mixes with remnants of the dream Iwas just torn out of. I quickly close my eyes again.I think I wanted to finish that dream.
My heartbeat ratchets up to a rate where I know I won’t fall back asleep. The dream is gone, and I know I’m going to the studio today. At exactly the time Devlin asked me to. I have hours to get there. I roll my eyes up to stare at my white ceiling and brush damp tendrils of my hair off my forehead. I shift my hips under the covers and allow my other hand to snake down between my legs.Wow.It’s rare I wake upturned on.Is this what men experience when they have a wet dream?
As I go to pull my hand back up from under the elastic of my pajama pants, my middle fingers skim along my swollen clit and my muscles twitch involuntarily. I gasp and lift my finger so that it’s hovering just over the sensitive bundle of nerves. My body’s so turned on. I clearly didn’t finish getting off in my dream… my brain is drenched with a lust that takes me by surprise. I press my finger back down and draw slow tight circles around my clit. My eyes roll back and my eyelids flutter. I stop thinking about being a responsible adult and allow the chemicals in my body to decide what I’m doing.
I move my other hand down my body, squeezing my breasts as I go, sliding down the side of my hip. I think back to Devlin running his hands down my waist and hips on the dance floor. It had felt so good to be appreciated for my curves, to be so wanted by someone that… I clearly wanted back.
I push two of my fingers into myself and arch my back at the idea that they’re Devlin’s fingers, like in my dream. I see the icy, silent version of him: Devo with the mask. And then I think back to the lively, warm version of him laughing with his head thrown back in the booth: Devlin—the one whose rosy lips had pressed themselves to mine, whose boyish charm is intoxicating. The combination of these two versions of him turns me onmore.Who is he? Do both versions of him want me? I hope so. I want both of him.
