"You're tired, love," he said. "Go to sleep. It's almost dawn."
"If I fall asleep, you'll leave me again."
"I've never left you when you slept."
"But when I wake you're not here."
"When you wake you can't see me. But I'm here. I'm always here."
"Make me come again and I'll sleep."
"You're terribly greedy."
"For you," she said. "Only greedy for you."
He kissed her lips lightly and moved his head between her legs. With his hand inside her, he only lapped lightly at her clitoris to bring her to climax. Her sex quivered around his hand, squeezing it, holding it. It was ecstasy beyond words to be filled up so completely. She never wanted to be empty again and she told him that. When his hand slipped out of her at last, he replaced it with his cock. He rode her with long, slow strokes, seemingly endless. If only they were.
"I dreamed you were dead," she said, half-asleep and falling fast as he rocked her with his deep and gentle thrusts. "I'm afraid I'll dream that again."
"You won't dream that tonight, I promise."
"Is this all a dream? That's the only thing that makes any sense."
"You aren't dreaming," he said, and she knew that was true. She was awake and had been every time they had met. "But if it were a dream, would you want to wake up?" he asked.
A good question. A fair question. A hard question, but one she answered easily.
"Never."
The Luncheon on the Grass
It wasn't a dream. Mona knew that for certain. Nor was she insane. Nor had Malcolm drugged her. She didn't know the source of Malcolm's magic and she could not begin to guess the purpose of his tricks or the prestige, but she knew what she'd seen and felt was real, as real as anything had ever been in her life and likely ever would be.
She woke alone in the bed at the gallery. Her insides were sore from Malcolm's hand, but her breasts felt normal. Her sleep had been dreamless. There was a lightness to her step once again, as the dark cloud over her had lifted.
The happiness didn't fade even as the long days and lonely nights passed. She was certain she would see Malcolm again and sure enough, the day came when she found a book of paintings on her desk and Malcolm waiting for her in the back room. A few weeks passed and he came to her again. Their nights together were passionate and fulfilling but no longer terrifying. He conjured no monsters, dragged her into no hells. She sensed he'd been testing her in some way and finally she had passed. Malcolm came to her in April and twice in May. The first of June arrived and she woke up fearful. The first time he'd come to her had been in late June of last year. It was almost over, whatever this game was.
He'd made her three promises when they'd made their deal: He promised to pay her enough in art to save the gallery. He promised to tell her the provenance of the paintings.
And he promised he would leave her.
She refused to think of the final promise. Surely the terms of the agreement had changed. She'd told him she loved him, told him she wanted to have his baby, and he'd told her that he would allow that someday. She held onto those words, treasuring them like a talisman. And she needed that talisman once the banks started calling again. She had nearly a dozen valuable and important sketches and etchings she could sell once she had provenance, she assured them. All she needed now was Malcolm's name and the story he hadn't yet told her.
By the middle of June, the city was sweating again. Even when it rained, the sidewalks steamed in the heat. Mona rarely left the shady coolness of her gallery for her apartment. She'd never lain with Malcolm there, so it felt like a foreign country to her, whereas The Red was her home.
On a Sunday morning she woke up to a city burning in the heat and she fled straight to the gallery hours before it opened. In her office she found a book lying on her desk, marked with the red velvet ribbon. Mona laughed, her heart bubbling, when she saw the painting he had marked in the book. Manet again. How fitting to return to Manet one year after their first night together. The painting was famous, more famous even than Olympia. Known as Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe-"The Luncheon on the Grass"-it was the painting her mother jokingly called "The Other Naked Lunch."
Two men, fully dressed, reclined on the grass, having what seemed to be an intense conversation. Sitting next to the men and staring directly at the viewer was a woman, entirely naked. The men paid no attention to her nor to the woman behind them bathing in a stream. Mona wondered if the painting was Manet's commentary on the art establishment, more interested in talk than the world around them. The woman was nature in the raw and the men wanted nothing to do with her. It didn't surprise her in the least that Malcolm would want to recreate such a painting and rectify what he undoubtedly considered a moral failing on the part of the men.