I once asked him why he doesn’t paint himself, and he laughed. “I’m a chameleon. If I don’t want you to see me, you won’t. Not like you, Robbie. All of you simply screams look at me!” From my long strawberry blonde curls to my big blue-green ocean water eyes, he says I must be looked at.
I drop to my knees and the sand says whump softly under me. Gus kneels to paint my face, with large swooping touches of his big gruff fingers, under my eyes, down the ridge of my nose, over my cheekbones. I feel like my eyes must be glowing—as if I’m some luminescent sea creature who creates her own lamplight at great depths. He smiles at me, his fly sagging open. I can see his erection pressed to his boxers. He knows where my head has gone.
“If you’re going to fly on that track like some bird of prey, some fast-moving underwater sea nymph, some force of nature, you should be camouflaged like one, yes?”
I nod and nearly purr as he paints the black paint along my shoulders and between my breasts, pinching my nipples so I shake. He runs a hand over my flanks, my back, my ass, smacking so my body zings with shock. Gus is not really painting me now, there is too little in that tiny pot. But he is speckling me like a jungle creature, and I tremble under his warm, calloused hands. Then he pushes his fingers deep into my pussy and I go still. I freeze, on hands and knees, heart escalated back to where it was when I was running, beating like some evil war drum that’s portent is death and blood and destruction.
“You did good,” he says, pushing one wet finger into my ass so that I bite my bottom lip. I bite too hard and I taste the coppery tang of my own blood on my tongue.
I don’t thank him. If I talk too much, he’ll add more the next time. I hang my head and am humble—the way he likes, the way I prefer.
“First you make a spectacle of yourself. Laps and sprints, long tangle of hair flying. God, your face gets so red, Rob. Like you’re going to go up in a ring of fire and smoke. Some fairy-tale witch burning on a pyre.” He’s taken himself in hand; I hear the hushed rustle of cotton and movement. His cock runs the length of my wet slit and he aligns himself to me, fingers sinking deep into the flesh of my hips. My muscles shake and quiver, already exhausted from being pushed. Now they are supporting me and he is sinking deep.
I gasp, bite my tongue, still tasting blood and the sour sweet flavor of a mouth dried and then rewet from running hard. I put my head down farther and my hair wallows in the sand.
“And now you’re all painted up. As black as night. As dark as that giant sky over us. No one can see you but you’re out here in the middle of this track. In the middle of this field.” He’s moving now, slow and sure—even, measured thrusts that make me want to scream and beg him to do me faster, deeper, harder. But I wait. “And all around us a magic ring of homes. Little family homes, grouped around this center. Warm yellow kitchen windows glowing around us like feral eyes.” His finger plunges back into my ass and he’s pushing it deep, fucking me harder. The head of his cock is nudging that secret bouquet of nerves deep in my wet, ready cunt. One of his hands still anchors me with a biting grip on my hip bone.
“Yes,” I say. These people have come to watch me run laps and sprint. I have run 5Ks and half marathons with some of them. They know me by sight, by name.
“Anyone could see. Not some heroine pounding the track with her tennis shoes. Not some runner pushing herself to achieve. But some painted, primal, fucked-up wild woman who’s getting banged in the sandpit. All dirty and raw and—”
“Yes,” I say. This is how you let go when your body and mind tell you that you have to be perfect. Good girl, pure girl, kind nice sweet girl next door girl… This is what you need. Right here. Smudged and dirty, sweaty and sandy, being fucked in a sandpit by a man who knows exactly how imperfect you want to be deep down.
“Breaking sticks and running from all the pressure.” He knocks me flat then. Full on in the sand on my belly, his one hand worming under me so he can press the hot pad of his finger to my clit while he thrusts. He bangs into me—forcing me down and forward, getting deep, invoking friction because my legs are pinned under him, not much wider than my normal stance. And Gus presses that fingertip to my clit like he’s tapping out Morse code.
dirty girl
bad girl
scared girl
my girl…
I hear that one outside my head because he says it. “My girl. My bad, dirty, struggling, running from everything, Robbie. My girl.”
And I come. Shaking under him, sand in my hair, rubbing my clit raw, him pounding into me. I inhale fine grains, sputter but keep coming, the spasms in my cunt as sure and true as a charley horse or a shin splint. I come and he’s pinning me, still moving until he bellows in my ear, his voice as rough as the sand, as black as the paint on my skin.