“And?”
Sette wouldn’t meet her gaze. “It’s not something I can put into words. As a woman of the visual arts, I prefer to explain it with my work. You’ll have to take a close look to get what Isee.” Now Sette looked at her, eyes sparkling with a new topic. “Speaking of, my agent is currently shopping around my current collection of your paintings to galleries all over the world. Who knows? You may be displayed in Tokyo soon.”
“Hate to burst your bubble, but I’ve been displayed in Tokyo. Or was that splayed?”
The dramatic sigh making its way over to her almost made June giggle.
Once she was pleased with her setup, Sette wandered over and helped June choose a good pose for them to work with. June sat on the fountain ledge with one leg drawn up and the other hanging loosely toward the ground. Her elbow rested against her knee, forehead against hand, and hair tumbling behind her. Sette asked her to keep a disconnected expression while she painted. Not hard to do, when she was already bored within ten minutes.Nice money, though, and I get to look at her.There was something about a former doctor in flannel painting her, looking at her with those hungry eyes. Sette wasn’t shy about carnally wanting her anymore. Those barriers had been torn down between them. She liked her, she wanted her, and in turn, June felt largely the same way.I don’t mind her coming over for whatever she wants.Sette was a bit aloof, but she was kind and thoughtful when June put herself in the foreground. Even when she got rough in bed, she made sure June was happy. Miquela was the same way, yet they accomplished the same ends so differently. For one woman, it was a point of pride. For the other, well… June was still trying to figure out what Sette got out of it.
“So you’re serious about this art thing, huh?” June had always known that about Sette, but hearing about what went on with these paintings in the outside world was new. “How many paintings have you made of me?”
Sette stopped sketching to count. “About eleven completed works right now.”
“Eleven! What the fuck!”
“Yup. Eleven. I’ve been prolific with you as my muse. I can’t help myself. I look at you and wonder how I can experience your image for the rest of my life… and how I can share it with the rest of the world.”
June blinked away some pollen from her eye. “I’ve never heard that from anyone before.”
“What? That you’re that beautiful?”
“No, no… that you want to share me with the rest of the world. Most want to hoard me for themselves.”
“That’s asinine. A total waste. A woman as great as you should be shared with as many people as possible.”
“Ah, yes, an artistic gang bang.”
“If you want to put it that way.”
“Sure! Wouldn’t be my first one. Gang bang, that is.”
Sette raised one eyebrow before going back to her sketch. “Do I even want to ask?”
“Why not? You’re talking to one of the stars of the kinky club scene. I used to get paid wads of cash to be a crazy party fantasy. Even with chicks! Up in New York, they tried it with a ladies’ night. Yours truly was center stage of what was a nine-woman lesbian gang-bang. Would’ve been an even ten, but the last one was too drunk and started crying while her besties rushed her out of the room.”
“That poor girl.”
“Poor girl? Poor me! I like round and even numbers. Nine is weird. It also means death in some cultures. What do we make of that?”
“That your poor body died that night.”
“Kinda, yeah.” Taking on nine people at once was no easy feat, even for someone as experienced as her. “It was worth it, though.”
“And some higher up paid for you to do this?”
“In a way. Back when I escorted, a gal from Brazil said she and her friends wanted a girl for a birthday party. I volunteered.” Hilariously, the other girls at the escort company turned their noses. Howboringof them. “Of course, I didn’t know how many people it was. I was thinking four or five. When I showed up at the hotel suite and saw short of a dozen women drinking and feeling each other up to get ready, I had to turn around and tell Lady Brasilia that my fee had doubled. Somehow, they had no problem with that.”
“That’s fascinating. Really.”
June rolled her eyes before forcing herself to convey that bored expression again. “Do you have an issue with me talking about my work, Sette? I had fun that night. I don’t regret it. ‘Course, not sure I’m young enough to do something like that again, but I’ll probably be thinking about it when I’m in the nursing home one day. Damn, can you imagine me sunsetting to that?”
“You will be the toast of the retirement home.” Sette picked up her palette and tested a color in the corner of the canvas. “And I don’t mind. It adds to my pictures of you. How can I convey who you are if you don’t tell me about yourself?”
“So it doesn’t bother you when I say I’ve probably been with about five-hundred people in my life?”
She almost dropped the palette. “I… that’s a lot.”
“Don’t know if you’re too old for this, but when I was in school, they used to say that you have sex with all of your partner’s previous partners, too. Of course, now I know that’s misogynistic bullshit intended to make women feel like cheated cattle, but people get weird about it. I’ve been with hundreds. Many more have touched me or watched me do things.”
