Her unexpected mate

His secret talent

*Aaron*

Within the attic of my club, surrounded by numerous lamps because the solitary window

provides insufficient light in the wee hours before dawn, amidst the chaos of clutter that soothes my soul, I study the face I have sketched onto the canvas. It isn’t much of a face, really. Her jaw, her chin, and that luscious, luscious mouth that haunts me still. The flavor of it, the desperation of it, the way she had explored mine with equal abandon, as though it was all new, a mystery to be solved. Not my particular mouth but kissing in general. Surely her husband had not denied her that pleasure.

I have lightly etched in her eyes, but the shape is wrong. I need to see them without the mask because, unlike my other renderings, I yearn for this one to be a perfect reflection of her.

I always sketch out what I see before painting the image in oils. Few know I have this talent because I never sign my artwork, but always hidden away faintly, obscured by brighter colors, is the word Mam. In honor of Mae Tempest, the woman who had taken me from my father’s arms and given me reason to believe I have value.

I am passionate about creating items of beauty, scandalous as they might be as I seldom cover my subjects in clothing, preferring instead the flow of lines that comprise the naked human form. But even those are often shadowed, faded, or blurred leaving much to the viewer’s imagination. I create illusions and allow others to determine the reality. A woman waiting for her lover. A man haunted by unrequited love. Couples kissing, embracing, fornicating. One sees what one needs to see, what one feels inside. That is my talent, not so much the stroke of a brush, but bringing secrets out of the shadows, desire out of the darkness, allowing them to exist and flourish in the light.

The rap on the door would have angered me had it come five minutes earlier, before I had put to canvas what my eyes had beheld and my fingers had caressed. If I cup my hands just so until they throw shade over the lines, I can almost feel her face nestled within my palms and experience the softness of her skin, cared for no doubt with expensive creams or lotions, protected from the sun with an assortment of bonnets. A woman named Senya is one who should be spoiled.

The rap comes again.

“Enter”. When the door opens, I do not turn my attention away from the etching because I can tell by the shift in the air that my brother Beast has walked in. For one so tall and broad, he is incredibly graceful, and it is as though space, the atmosphere, and everything around him bends to his will, accommodating his size and movements, without hesitation, the way one might quickly issue obedience to a king.

“That’s an unusual rendering”. Beast says, his voice deep but smooth, like fine whisky. “Or an odd way to etch someone. You are missing the middle portion of her face”.

Setting my charcoal aside, I cross my arms and give the sketch a critical appraisal. It isn’t yet what I want or need it to be. “She wore a mask”.

“One of the women who frequents here then”.

“Frequent is too generous a term. She has been here only once”. But I am hoping for more encounters, although after she have had her bedding, she might not return unless I give

her cause to want to, unless I ensure she find s*x with me an addiction she can’t live without.

I clap my hands in order to turn my attention away from her and focus on my brother and the purpose of his visit. Beast seldom stops by without a pressing reason.

“Care for something to drink ?” I walk over to a small table where a decanter of whisky sits at the ready.

“I wouldn’t object to two fingers”.

I pour the amber liquid into the tumblers and pass one off to my brother. “So what brings you here ?”

“Haven’t seen much of you lately”.

“I have been busy. I don’t know how Kai does it with all the irons he has in the fire”. The first of our group brought to Mae Tempest, Kai is considered the eldest. He is currently tearing down decrepit parts of the city and building them anew, with so many projects going it is impossible to keep track but my brother has become a wealthy man in the process, gaining the recognition and reputation he has always longed for.

“He thrives on keeping busy and has an unquenchable need to succeed”.

“I would say that describes all of us”.

Beast gives a nod to that, and sips his whisky. “Even Leah”.

Our baby sister, the only one of us born to our mum, is the result of an unscrupulous landlord taking payment in s****l favors when Mae Tempest had been short of funds for her weekly rent.

My brothers and I had been fourteen when Leah came into the world and we had discovered the price our mum was paying to keep a roof over our head. We might have been boys, but we had been big and strong and there were four of us. When we had finished giving the landlord a taste of our fists, breaking his jaw, he had never again darkened our mum’s door or taken anything other than coins from another woman. We had kept a close watch on him until he had finally sold his properties to Kai.

“We’re all gathering together this coming Thursday to help her get her shop ready for

business”. Beast continues. “We hoped you might make time in your schedule to join us”.

Leah will soon turn eighteen, and we all spoil her rotten, Kai worst of all. She wants to open a bookshop, so Kai has given her one of his recently built buildings for that purpose. “She could have asked me herself”.

“I’m not sure Mum is keen on her coming to your house of sin”.

“Better here where I can keep a watch over her than elsewhere. She is of an age where she is going to be curious. Mum can’t possibly think she is not going to engage in a bit of naughtiness somewhere”.

“Her shop will keep her too busy for that. Then next year, if Kai has his way, she will have a proper mating Season and marry some Alpha or Beta”.

“We all strive to keep Leah innocent”. I think of my secretive Luna. “But eventually she will rebel. The Goddess help us when she does. It’s the quiet ones you have got to watch”.

The quiet ones, the shy ones, the ones who hides beneath masks.