I have struggled to tell this story for a long time and still haven't been able to truly find the words to do it justice.  Was it the man?  The moment?  Me?  Upon reflection, I think maybe it's that I tend to think in pictures rather than words; never more so than on this particular occasion.  Bud wished for me to paint his portrait, a gift to the woman who holds his great soft heart in her gentle hands.  To be honest, I am not entirely sure he knew what he was asking... either of me or of himself.  There is an old saying about artists.  That to paint a picture, we must first dip our brush into our own soul.  Only then can you bring the image you see in your mind to life. 

More to the point, to paint a proper portrait, as I wished to do for him, he must reveal a portion of his true heart for me to capture his essence.  If he cannot, it will simply be a likeness rendered in pigment and paper rather than an image that tells you anything about the man inside.  It is an incredibly intimate thing to share... and to see, I think.  At least, I've always thought so.  A lot to ask of anyone, much less a man as private and guarded as Bud White.

For as much as I know our visit will include physical intimacy, that is an intimacy of another sort and there is more to sharing it than simply removing one's clothes and sitting before the artist.  I knew if I simply approached it bluntly, as he is want to do, the results would be... less than stellar, shall we say.  It makes me smile now to think of it.  He is not used to such open scrutiny.  He would be stiff.  Scowling.  Body language that is closed and wooden.  A man of granite.  It would show is his intractability but none of the tenderness underneath. 

How does one show the heart of a mountain?  

I came back to that question again and again in the weeks preceding his visit.  There had to be some way of easing into it.... if I could only figure out how.  Looking back, it now seems silly to have worried.  It happened in the way all great things have come to pass.  They start small and build.

CHALK

Chalk.  Waiting for his flight to land, that's what the pictures in my mind looked like.  Hazy.  Soft.  Blurred a bit at the edges and so fragile a puff of air could have scattered them into nothingness.  I felt that way too.  Hazy and soft, full of uncertainty and tentative excitement.  We were friends but not lovers.  Not yet.... but soon. 

Chalk.  I had the sense of it again as he greeted me for the first time.  A gentle embrace and a soft kiss that warmed me from the inside out.  He curled a lock of my hair around his thick finger as his hand dropped from where it had been resting on the nape of my neck.  There was a question in his eyes but he said nothing.  I'd said I would wear my hair up for him on this visit... but I didn't say when.  I hadn't worn it down to tease him, though.  Never for that.  I wouldn't play games like that with a man like Bud and I could see in his eyes that he approved of the fact I hadn't used the intimate things we'd talked about to wanting to share with each other to tart myself up for his arrival.  I would never cheapen those things in such a way. 

Such moments have their place and I would reserve them for when it would mean more to each of us than a bare neck and scraps of crimson silk that would have been little better than pretty window dressing on a cheap staged fuck.  Not that such games couldn't or wouldn't be a part of what we might find together... eventually.  But this was our first visit and I wanted no false fronts.  He gave me a small nod of approval but he was also a man.  There was a latent power flowing in him and a fiery promise in his eyes as his fingertips stroked my throat before they fell away.  It made me think of a tickle of chalk dust and it had just as much potential to be crafted into something exquisite with time and skill.  For as good as I might be with a brush, I had the sense that the talent in Bud's hands far outstripped mine.    

Just the thought made me swallow hard.  Like that elusive medium, this was a man to get all over you.  A man who would leave his mark on you after he was gone, much the way the vibrant colors of a stick of artist's chalk stain your fingers long after you have set it down. 

Red.

His touch.  His face.  The quiet aura of strength around him.  One look at him and I knew the first time I sketched him it would be in red.  Bud Red.  The thought brought a secret smile to my lips and I saw him watching me out of the corner of his eye as we walked, hand in hand, to the parking garage.  Red.  The color of anger.  Of blood.  Of passion.  Could there be any other color for this man of bold moves and doggedly unflinching determination?  I think not.

Though I realize it is custom with us, I will not write of the first time we lay together.  To be honest, while it was a moment that fostered intimacy between the two of us, it is not directly related to the story at hand; to the painting he wished from me.  To capture the mountain's heart and put it on paper.... that required an intimacy of a different sort and it is that journey I wish to share in these pages. 

INK

Stark contrast.  Cut and dry.  If there was ever a man for black and white, it's Bud.  We spoke of the painting process over dinner that first night.  It is important the artist knows exactly what vision the person commissioning the work has in mind and it was equally important for Bud to know what the process would involve for him.  He was attentive but relaxed, due in equal parts to the scotch in his hand and our recent lovemaking.  Ensconced deeply in the couch with his long legs stretched out before him, he listened to me talk, not really saying much, just sort of absorbing what I had to say and asking a few pertinent questions.

So, the process?  Basically it boiled down to a few simple things.  I would need to do a series of sketches of him first in various poses and moods and then when we were both comfortable with that, we would choose together the one he wished finalized in watercolor.  He had the idea that he must sit for interminable hours when the morning light was best and that he was going to be bored out of his skull.  It made me laugh but it warmed my heart too.  Obviously he thought he wasn't going to enjoy sitting for me but he was still willing to do it if it resulted in a painting he could give to his sweetheart, and that touched me deeply. 

With a smile, I asked him what he thought about portraits in general.... you know, like the kind you see hanging in museums or lining the halls of academic institutions.  He grimaced and said it was probably all that sitting around for hours in uncomfortable clothes that made them all have that same look on their face; like they had an iron bar shoved where the sun don't shine.  The distasteful look on his face made me laugh.  I brandished the fireplace poker at him and made him laugh.

I poured him another scotch and we settled in together, his hand absently stroking my calf as we talked (okay, as I talked) animatedly about the real nuts and bolts of what he wanted me to do.  His eyebrows rose when I let on that the whole morning light business and hours of sitting uncomfortably for an artist was something of a myth.  Sure, the morning light was good and all, but it all really boiled down to what sort of mood you wished to set.  You could accomplish the same thing painting by candlelight.   

We spoke more about mood but his touch was.... distracting.  The scotch and his nearness; they were both getting to me, as was the simple sight of his large hand skimming up my leg.  I never did finish explaining about mood.  It's really just an arty word for emotional manipulation, anyway.  Something that seemed incredibly dangerous to attempt with this particular man.  I couldn't wait to get started..... just as soon as we finished exploring a mood of a different sort. 

COLORED PENCIL

The first time I sketched him was after breakfast the following morning.  He was sitting in Lach's favorite chair, leather and dark wood...mission style.... clean lines.  Simple.  Comfortable.  Bud's coffee cup was balanced on the flat wooden arm of the chair and though he had the paper open in his lap, his attention was caught by the view outside.  The resident otter was sunning itself on our dock, lolling about lazily in the early autumn sunshine.  Funny looking little thing, with its mischievous black eyes and long whiskers twitching as it rolled around playfully and eventually fell off the dock with an ignoble splash.

It was the perfect moment to catch; Bud with a hint of subtle amusement softening his stern features.  Abruptly leaving the dishes in the sink, I flipped open the sketchbook I'd brought down with me this morning and grabbed a colored pencil from the cup on the counter.  Red, naturally.  A few quick scratches of the pencil and the moment was gone, save for the ghost of it I'd captured on the rough paper. 

I heard the crinkle of newsprint as Bud's head turned my way.  He realized what I was doing immediately, of course.  Even knew I'd planned to do it today... but I could still tell it made him uncomfortable and even a little annoyed.  Man, we had such a long way to go and such a short time to do it in.  I exhaled, blowing my hair from my eyes and tucked a long strand behind my ear.  I felt a bit uncomfortable too, but excited in a way also... like I'd just gotten caught taking a picture of a stranger... and make no mistake, despite our recent physical intimacy and long talks on the phone and in email, we were still, in essence, strangers.   

He folded the paper with precise motions and came over, his lips pursed slightly in a small frown as he looked at my work.  Probably as Greek to him as reading a police report would have been to me.  I looked at it too, waiting for his pronouncement.  I knew it didn't look a damn thing like him.  That wasn't the point of the exercise.  It was the kind of sketch that captured the mood in a few quick scratches.  It wasn't meant to be a perfect likeness-or anything close.  The best portraits incorporate both those elements and the truth was I needed work on both, partly to get him comfortable with the process and partly to familiarize myself with his physical form and his moods.

He took a sip from the coffee mug that was dwarfed in his large hand.  Flash of amusement in his eyes... yes, amusement and confusion.  "Doesn't look a thing like me."  Clearly, he was wondering what he'd gotten himself into here.  Thinking he'd signed himself up for sitting for a portrait that would come out looking like a two year old had scribbled it out.  I choked down a laugh.  He was trying so hard to be honest but not hurt my feelings.  Again, a glimpse at the heart of the mountain.  It was gone again just as quickly. 

I smiled, blushing a little as I always do when someone scrutinizes my work.  "Watch," I whispered. 

I returned the tip of the pencil to the paper and heard his quiet gasp as with a few bold strokes and some artful shading, the picture jumped to life, like sand blown from the cracks to reveal a crisp image. 

"Jesus."  He looked from the page to my face and back again.  "Do it again."  I laughed quietly.  It wasn't exactly like picking up a revolver and pulling the trigger.  Again, there was that gulf between our worlds. 

I smiled inwardly, a little flustered by his compliment, profane as it was, and moved over to the stereo.  Mood music, hey?  Bud made a face at the first CD I put in and by the third, had his arms crossed over his chest and was scowling slightly.  He is not a patient man.  I hesitated just long enough until I saw that little tic in his jaw.  Perfect.  A few seconds later, I had it captured on paper.  His stiffness faded away as the few rough scratches I made bloomed into a familiar expression with a couple more deft strokes of the pencil. 

He chuffed quietly in amusement as it took shape.  Irritation.  His raspy chuckle blended with the soft music as he realized what I'd done.... and that I hadn't done it with any malicious intent.  In essence, it was the rest of the 'mood' conversation we'd left unfinished the night before.  It was also a double-edged sword.  It was a step forward, making him the slightest bit more comfortable with the notion of being watched and sketched... but it also handed him a great deal of power to know I could and would manipulate the mood.  He would not be unaware of it again.  Bud White isn't a man you can catch out twice.  

A few more sketches brought with them another important lesson.  The notion of sitting for hours while an artist painstakingly renders an image in perfect detail is archaic.  No formal posing was required.  It was actually a pretty fun lesson.  I spent the morning sketching and he spent the morning relaxed in post orgasm lethargy, doing whatever the spirit moved him to do.  I had sketches of him watching the osprey hunt the lake off our back deck, scowling in concentration as he refilled his coffee cup from an unfamiliar carafe, fussing with the remote, sleeping reclined in Lach's favorite chair with the newspaper on his chest, head cocked with his tongue on his lip as he watched me watch him..... and dozens of others.  Some to capture the mood, some to capture a particular feature, some just because I couldn't keep my eyes off him.  I could still taste him in my mouth and smell him on my skin.  Talk about inspiration.       

Little by little, I drew back into my own head, looking at him less and less as recreating his form became more familiar to my fingers.  Slowly, I began to sketch him as I saw him in my head and let my mind drift...... looking up only now and again when I needed a point of reference.  Eventually, the work absorbed me completely and I stopped looking at him altogether. 

He noticed.  

I was startled some time later when his big hand covered mine and pulled the pencil from my fingers, stopping me from shading in the rest of the picture I'd sketched.  I blushed to the roots of my hair when I realized what I'd done.  It was an image from the night we'd passed together, bodies naked and entwined.  No faces were visible.  No genitals either.... and yet it was clear exactly what we were doing.  Strange that most of the detail had been in the hands that had been wrapped around the slender cherry wood slats in the headboard. 

Without so much as a single word, he pulled the sketchbook from my fingers and took my hands in his.  The sketchbook fell forgotten to the floor when he lowered his head, pressed his mouth to mine, pushed me back on the couch and covered my slender body with his larger one.  I arched under him, still aching pleasantly from our early morning lovemaking.... and also aching for him in a different way.  He mapped my body as surely as I mapped his, learning and relearning every inch with his fingers, just as I had done.

It was.... well, quite more than I could ever capture on paper... with a brush or with words.  We sweated.  He grunted.  I writhed.  One of us, God only knows who, knocked over the cup of colored pencils.  They rained down in a soft plink, plink, plink, rolling away in every direction.  Neither of us noticed. 

He dozed afterwards.  That was the first time I sketched him in the nude.  In blue.  Delirious burning blue.  Couldn't find the red pencil.  Didn't even care.       

GOUACHE      

Late that afternoon, I left him in privacy to shower while I tackled my next project, getting the paper prepared for painting.  Sounds silly, doesn't it?  But have you ever gotten a piece of paper wet?  What happens?  Yup, it gets all ripply as it absorbs water.  The only way around that is to submerge the paper in water, leave it there for half an hour or so until it's totally saturated.  Afterwards, you spread it out on a flat wooden board and secure it around the edges with tape and staples.  As it dries and contracts, it pulls tight like the surface of a drum and voila!  No more ripples no matter how wet you get it.  Pretty neat, huh?

Bud found me midway through the process, staple gun in hand with half a dozen boards and wet papers scattered around me.  I felt him more than heard him as he leaned against the doorjamb.  "Looks like postal tape," was his only comment as I wet the brown tape and sealed down the edges of the paper before I stapled it. 

"It is postal tape."  I smiled inwardly.  For all his silence, he's incredibly astute.  He doesn't miss much and I love how his mind is never at rest.  To me, it seemed like though he is often ill at ease or perhaps unfamiliar with what is happening, he is always watching and remembering... working it out and turning it over in his mind.  Even if he doesn't get the whole picture, it's like he has this intuitive sense of the heart of something and is able to note which elements are of import and which are dismissible.

He is a fascinating man.  Quiet.  So interior.  So ill at ease.  I think somewhere that notion had always been in the back of my mind, but I hadn't really been able to put my finger on it until I studied him today.  When his hands are on me, I can barely think.... but it hit me today as I was sketching him.  He seems very much like a man with a pebble in his shoe, like something is always niggling at him.  Collar too tight.  Hands in pockets.  Out of pockets.  Behind his back.  Legs apart.  Legs crossed at the ankle.  Arms crossed.  Frown.  Rubbing his hands together.  Shifting his body weight.  It is as if he is trying to find a way to stand to be at ease within himself despite the presence of the pebble.

I hardly know him well enough for him to tell me what it was... and I damn sure wouldn't ask, but if I had to hazard a guess... well, let's just say I think his past would probably qualify as one damn big pebble. 

He watched me for a while and as he did, I explained what I was doing.  He smirked a bit when I wielded the staple gun, but for the most part he simply studied me.  I hardly think he had any real interest in fine art and the process of 'stretching' paper, but Bud White is a man who likes to understand things from every angle.  He also asks very astute questions.  Wanted to know why I sped up the process at the end.

The answer was simple.  Leave the paper soaking too long and it can absorb too much water, so when it's mounted and pulls tight as it dries, it can actually have enough tensile strength to snap the wooden board in half.  Interesting lesson, isn't it?  Even the weakest things, like paper, can have the power to affect something a thousand times stronger than itself.  All it takes is pressure.  And patience.

PASTEL

After dinner that evening, I poured him a scotch and got a glass of merlot for myself before I set about creating the right mood.  Made a fire.  Lit some candles.  Put on some music.  Lachlan has quite a collection and as he and Bud are from the same era, I figured I couldn't go wrong there.  Little Billie Holiday.  Little Louis Armstrong.  Some Bing....  perfect.

Strangely enough, it seemed the more I tried to set a relaxing mood, the more uncomfortable he became.  Looking back, I think it is because Bud prefers a natural reaction to something staged.  He responds to sensuality over overt sexuality.  He has seen too much of one in his life and not enough of the other.  It is one thing when there is a deep emotional connection providing subtext to the encounter.... but with us?  It was casual touches that drove him.

I had the sense he would find an overt come-on rather lewd; that open sexuality with a stranger seemed rather coarse to him and yet sensuality drew him like a moth to a flame.  A blush, the sight of a hard nipple under cloth, the graceful fall of a woman's hair, the gentle swell of her breast-these things drew an immediate reaction from him.  He was such an odd mix of old-fashioned reserve and intense physicality.  Always touching.  Almost like he preferred to see with his fingers because they've had so few brushes with beautiful things.  There is a sense of awe in how he touches a woman.  Like a boy holding something up to the light with wonder in his eyes. 

He can get overt sexuality anywhere.  He sees it on the street every day and chooses to ignore it.  His life is full of ugliness.  Men like Bud, they have seen such awful things.  Twisted things.  Dark things.  Things they shoulder to keep from touching the rest of us.  I wondered again about that pebble in his shoe and his overt physicality.  We spoke intimately, but he shared little of his true self with me.  The mountain's heart was guarded fiercely in a shelter of stone, pillow talk or not.  He is not the sort to show his secret heart to a stranger, even if she is a Sister.   

We talked some, but it was through touch that he expressed feeling.  Sex was spontaneous and he backed off when it felt staged.  Like there was a sense it was disingenuous, that he was being played.  He likes a natural reaction, to know that desire and arousal are products of the spark between us not some artfully crafted illusion. 

That sense of wonder, of tenderness with women.... he expressed it physically because he only knows one kind of response.  Like an animal, although that sounds cruel.  I think he believes people see him like an animal.  In some ways, there is a reason for that and he knows it... and yet he also has some level of awareness that he has finer feelings, even if he can't understand them.  I also had the sense that the one who mistrusts him the most is himself. 

Bud White.  He is an ocean of red granite.  

He was surprised, I think, when instead of coming onto him in the quietly seductive mood I'd set, I got out my slim case of pastels and arranged myself at his feet.  He drank.  We talked.  I worked on the sketches.  The fire and the liquor worked on him.  Slowly, naturally, he began shedding his clothes.  Shoes off.  Tie open and hanging around his neck.  Shirt unbuttoned and removed.  Socks off.  Pants.  By the time he was sitting up to pull the wife beater over his head, I was fighting to keep my breathing and my hands steady. 

Another quarter hour ticked by.  It was the first time he'd undressed knowing my goal was sketching not lovemaking and yet it happened so naturally between the talking and the touching that he remained open and comfortable with me.  Bud White in repose.  Not something I think many people ever get to see.  He was beautiful, heavily built and all male from the thick muscles cording his arms and chest and thighs to the stubble shadowing his square jaw.  So many scars.  There was no part of him that didn't scream masculinity.  From the crisp hairs on his forearms and legs to the dark tangle at his groin that framed the heavy droop of his genitals.  God, I could even smell him... like some big warm male animal. 

My hands trembled slightly as I added color to the sketch, blending it with my fingers.... a bit here and there... touching the page as I wished to touch him.  The slope of his thick neck.  The curve of his shoulder.  The heavy flesh between his legs that was beginning to rise against his belly.  He touched me too, absently stroking his thumb over the tender flesh of my ankle, slowly drawing me closer and closer to him as the evening progressed.  Pushing his hand up under the edge of my skirt to stroke the back of my knee while I stroked the page, shading and blending.

It was like this downward spiral, falling together into two very different sorts of intimacy.  At one point, I leaned forward to get another color from the tin and he frowned at the mark I left behind on his flesh when I removed the steadying hand I had on his shoulder.  I looked at my hands.  Each fingertip a different color and I had smudges on the backs of my hands where I had been less than careful.  I probably had some on my face too from tucking my hair behind my ear or rubbing at the tickle I'd felt on my cheek earlier.

I felt a blush rise.  It had been so long since anyone but Lachlan had witnessed me lose myself so deeply in my work.  I felt desire rise, too, as he responded to my blush by growing even harder.  His body was so beautiful like this, flushed with desire, dusky and engorged with a rush of heated blood. 

More red.

I wanted to touch him, to stroke my fingertips along the length of his erection, but I thought better of it at the last moment and pulled my hand back, unsure of his reaction.  My hands were stained with color.  He was starting to sweat.  It would transfer.  Beautifully.  His eyes were on the pulse beating wildly at the base of my throat.  It was strange, but for all the wild things he'd ever done... handcuffs, leather pants, threesomes... I had the sense that for all its naive simplicity, this experience might be outside the bell curve of what a man like Bud considered acceptably kinky.  It would certainly be unfamiliar.  Maybe he wouldn't care to be marked so obviously.  He'd never even seen real artist's pastels before in his life, much less had their vivid color rubbed on his naked flesh.

I moved to rise so I could wash off the color staining my fingertips but his hand shot out and caught me before I'd moved more than a few inches.  I could feel the heat of his palm.  He wrapped his thick fingers around my slender wrist and spoke only two words.  "Touch me."

We pitched headlong into the abyss, falling on each other in a sensual tempest.  It was highly erotic but not wildly out of control.  I felt the heat of his mouth, felt the sweet stretch as he entered me, felt the blunt pressure of his teeth, but neither of us left any marks that couldn't be washed away after.  Sweaty-slick, we slid against each other, rolling from the couch to the floor... over the sketches that had been forgotten in our haste to touch and kiss and taste.  I clung to him, to his thick neck and wide shoulders as he drove me higher, to that place where I can see the colors that only exist in the kaleidoscope that plays against my eyelids when I come so hard the world threatens to go dark.

I don't know if his eyes were closed when he came.  He'd flipped me beneath him, pushing deep from behind while he entwined our fingers and panted out his coming against the smooth skin of my back.  He held me afterwards, his arms wrapped around me so tightly.  For a long time we lay there in silence, our breathing slowly returning to a normal, even rhythm.  The fire burned low.  Eventually, I turned over to look at him. 

Three steps forward.  Two steps back.  He was closed again, expression guarded and unreadable....  However, his body read like a road map of places I'd touched him.  Matched with the colors still staining my fingers, you could tell exactly what part of me had touched exactly what part of him.  There were fingerprints on his throat and upper arms, smears of purple on his left side and blue on his right.  Both colors blended at the base of his spine where I'd held on tight, urging him deeper.  Smears of vivid colors were everywhere, but concentrated in certain places.  Arms.  Hips.  Cock.   

With a start, I realized it was all over me too, transferred to my body from his by sweat and friction.  He kissed me then, slow and sweet and deep.  Opening back up a little but clearly still a little uncomfortable.  Not soon after, he left to shower alone while I slipped on his shirt and put the room to rights; cushions back on the couch, blanket refolded, righted the potted plant we'd overturned when we rolled into the legs of the coffee table.  I was kneeling on the floor, returning the pastels to the tin and gathering the scattered sketches when I heard the shower cut off.  I looked down and smiled.  In my fingers, I held images of the same man who was responsible for the sweet ache in my body.  I brushed my fingertips over the nude image I'd captured as I felt his semen seep from me in a warm trickle.  My smile got softer. 

It was a very sensual feeling.  Like stained fingers sliding over sweaty skin.  Like a lover's touch.  Like the way pastel kisses paper.  Like the way a man kisses a woman.

CHARCOAL

Our days were slipping away faster and faster but we made time for us as well as making time for the painting.  Today we'd skipped out, played hooky.  Lach calls it chucking a sickie.  In this case, I'd packed a picnic lunch and brought along an old quilt.  I'd promised Bud a blackberry pie made from the berries that grew wild in the foothills above our home.  I'd intended to go up alone but Bud wouldn't hear of it.  He said there were too many freaks in the world today.  He wasn't the sort to spend an afternoon picking berries with me, but he'd make damn sure I was safe while I was doing it. 

Being a city man, Bud's wasn't too appreciative of the overgrown gravel logging road we took up into the foothills... but even he appreciated the view when we got there.  Early autumn.  My favorite season.  You could see the mountain in the distance and all around us was a riot of fall colors.  Though it was cold in the evenings, the late afternoon sun was warm and golden.  We ate a simple lunch on the old quilt and he dozed in the sun while I picked enough berries to make a pie for him and another for Lachlan when he returned from wherever Thorne and O'Leary had him flying to this week.           

Late August.  The berries were ripe and sweet.  It didn't take long to fill the large bowl I brought along.  Bud was dozing on the quilt.  He'd gotten hot, taken off his shirt to use as a pillow and had his arm slung over his eyes to ward off the sun.  Lord, he's a beautiful man.  Popping a berry into my mouth and licking at the stinging scratches the sharp thorns had left on my hands, I rooted around in the picnic basket for the sketchbook and the small case of charcoal pencils I'd tucked in there earlier.

Not long after, I was deeply engrossed, adding shading to my current sketch and blending the heavy black color with my fingers when I felt Bud shift and a moment later, he was snatching the sketchbook and charcoal pencils from my fingers.  They looked ridiculously fragile in his large hands. 

"Thought we said no working today."  He was flipping through the pages, chuffing a little when he ran across one he thought was particularly good, frowning at others.  It was the first time he'd ever really looked in it before.  I wondered what he thought of the images I'd captured.  Physical intimacy.  Emotional intimacy.  His eyes flicked to mine when he got to one of the more intimate series of sketches.  He stopped paging.  I didn't even have to look to know what had brought his leafing to an abrupt halt.  He grunted.  "When'd you do these?"

I blushed.  "This morning."

His eyebrows went up.  The tip of the charcoal pencil in his fingers beat a scratchy tattoo on the page as he appraised me with hooded eyes.  Tap.  Tap.  Tap.  "I don't want anyone seeing this stuff, Heather."  He made a move to tear the pages out.

"Bud.... wait!"  I stayed his hand with my own.  His eyes were immediately drawn to the bloody scratch on the back of my hand and he soothed it with the rough pad of his thumb.  "Please don't tear them up.  I won't let anyone see these, I swear."  They weren't lewd by any stretch of the imagination... but they were very, very private.  And very beautiful.  Not my work, but the essence of what had been caught in it.  I'd drawn them for me.  Only for me.  A long moment passed.  It felt like an eternity before he finally nodded at me, saying nothing as he turned the pages loose.  I released a breath I hadn't even been aware I'd been holding. 

Trust.  

What an incredibly precious gift to be granted from this most guarded man.  He was also a man of mercurial moods and he turned on a dime.  "Maybe I'll draw you then... see how you like it."  Amusement and challenge sparkled in his eyes.  He flipped to a blank page and poised the charcoal over it.  He gave me his best 'serious artist' look.  I smothered a giggle... until he reached out and gently tugged on the hem of my blouse.  "Unbutton this for me.  I wanna see you."  My mouth went dry and he fixed me with an impatient stare.  "I've done it often enough for you....  besides, there's nobody around for miles." 

He grinned that smirking little grin he does.  "Nobody here but you, me and the chipmunks... and they ain't gonna say shit."  My laughter rang out in the warm afternoon sunshine and he nodded absently in encouragement as my hands went to the first button of my blouse.  "That's right.... let me see you, Monet."

I smiled at his teasing endearment.  "Monet painted water lilies not breasts, Bud."  He grunted something that sounded an awful lot like 'fuckin' dumbass'.  "He was also nearly blind."

"Yeah?"  Bud raised his head but never took his eyes off my hands as they moved from button to button, undoing them as I went.  "Well, I can't fuckin' draw so I guess we're even then, aren't we?"  I dropped my hands after slipping the last button through its hole and felt Bud's warm hands slipping inside to skate over my stomach before he opened my top to bare my naked breasts to his gaze.  He caressed one gently, leaving a small smudge of charcoal behind before he settled back and frowned at the blank page.

Where he'd been cocky only moments before, he was now unsure.... hesitant to try something for the first time and fail before someone whose opinion mattered to him.  I'd feel the same way shooting a revolver at a target under his scrutiny. 

"Don't look."  His order was low and husky and I did as he asked, letting my gaze wander to the horizon and back to his face but never to the page open before him.  He was concentrating, tongue on his lip, brow furrowed.  A minute later he grunted and crumpled the page in his large fist.  Another little grunt from him as he tossed it aside.  A sigh.  I heard the familiar scratch, scratch of the charcoal and a little while later, he lifted his head and tossed the sketchbook back to me. 

I laughed aloud when I saw what he'd drawn.  A simple stick figure with a circle for a head, a single straight line for the arms and an upside down 'V' for the legs.  It was smudged, and there were fingerprints all over it.  Charcoal is a difficult and messy medium to master, but that wasn't what made me laugh.  It was the two circles he'd made for breasts just below the stick arms. 

To be honest, it looked amazingly like some cave drawings I'd seen.  Why is it that primitive man so often depicts women in this way?  Crudely drawn little figures with breasts as the defining feature.  Appropriate for Bud, which made me laugh, but it also made me think about men and what breasts mean to them.  Sexuality.  Fertility.  Comfort.  Eroticism.  Nurturing.

I giggled and tossed his words back at him.  "Doesn't look a thing like me."  He laughed at himself and scribbled in two nipples and the smudge he'd left on my breast earlier.  He also succeeded in smearing the original image further and getting the rich black color all over his hands in the process.

"There you go."  He smirked.  "Better than some of that crazy shit they got hanging in those ritzy art galleries these days.....  Jackson fucking Pollock."  He shook his head in bemusement, cursing again when he saw the state of his hands.  We sat there a moment, laughing together in the warm autumn sunshine and then we were suddenly sinking down together on the sun-warmed quilt with its old frayed edges, kissing and touching.  This time, neither of us hesitated.  Black fingerprints everywhere.  His throat.  My breasts.  Smudges along his arms and my sides.... we made slow sweet love in the sunshine, and this time, when we got home, we shared the shower and the pleasant chore of washing off the lingering marks that showed where we'd touched and how we'd loved.         

WATERCOLOR 

2:26 a.m.  He was leaving today.  It happens this way sometimes.  I'd been struggling to get his portrait started for two days now and had been unsuccessful.  Every start just didn't have that 'it'- that certain something that made it sparkle.  It just wasn't right.  None of them had been.  Not even the one that had seemed promising when I'd started it last night.  We'd gone to bed late, both of us tired and frustrated.  Our lovemaking had been little more than taking out our frustrations on each other.  Lasted barely a handful of minutes.  More a release that would bring the ease of sleep than anything else.

Only where I'd been dead exhausted an hour ago, I was charged now.  Every person who has a creative spirit knows that feeling, that fire when the muse descends... that feeling like if you don't purge yourself through a brush or a pen or out the tips if your fingers into a keyboard that you're going to lose it somehow.  So elusive.  I knew... it had to be now.

"Bud, wake up....."  He jerked awake with a small grunt, alert for danger and then sinking back into the pillows in the way men do when they realize they haven't been summoned from sleep's clutches to protect what's theirs.  "C'mon, Bud...."  I nudged him again, stroking his arm softly and pressing an affectionately apologetic kiss to his shoulder.  Sleeping with an artist has its drawbacks.  "The painting... I can't explain it... but I just know it will work if we do it right now...." 

"Fuck.  Now?"  He felt the bed shift and sighed heavily as I got up.  "Jesus."  He rubbed at his bleary eyes and stubbly face as he pushed himself into a sitting position and swung his legs over the side of the bed.  He was tired and grumpy but I knew how badly he wanted this... which was probably the only reason he heaved himself from the bed with a minimum of grumbling. 

His breath hissed through his teeth when his naked form settled into the wooden chair I'd set up by the easel.  "Suffering artist, my ass....  suffering subject is more like it," he grumped.  He grimaced as he shifted in the chair.   

Poor Bud.  The wood must be uncomfortably cold after the cozy warmth of the bed but whatever curse he uttered after that was eclipsed by the sulfury hiss of the match I'd just struck.  I lit a few candles, only enough to light his frame and my easel.  Winding up the heavy fall of my hair, I absently poked a pencil through the knot to hold it in place and keep it out of my way while I worked.  I pulled on a satiny little robe without even thinking about it while I got out the last of the papers I'd stretched.  Out of the corner of my eye I saw Bud yawn, stretch and absently scratch at some errant tickle of pubic hair before he adjusted himself and then bent forward a little to grind the heels of his hands into his eyes. 

He was tired.  Mentally tired.  Physically tired.  Tired of sitting in that chair for a portrait I couldn't make come through my brush to the paper.  God, it was coming now, though... I couldn't get the paints in my palette wet fast enough to keep up with the picture before my eyes and in my head.  His head was bowed and his eyes were closed, like he was feeling the weight of the world.  Feeling like he'd somehow failed in this endeavor.  Like he couldn't open up enough for me to paint what he wanted to make his gift as meangingful as he was hoping it would be.

He was so strong and yet so vulnerable, too.  

I had a sense of the heart of the mountain, even if he'd never showed it to me.  And even if I had seen it, I would never put it on display in such a fashion, where just anyone could walk by and see it... but I also knew I had enough of a sense of it now to paint something close to what I saw in my mind's eye.  It wouldn't be perfect, but art is rarely that.  It would be good, though.  That much I knew before I'd even made the first stroke with the brush.

God, the candlelight flickered over him like a lover's touch.  Despite the modern lines of the chair, looking at him like this was almost like seeing an old sepia snapshot.  The ginger tones of his skin and sparse body hair.  Darker coffee tones of the hair on his head and between his legs.  Deeper chocolate tones in the shadows.... Flash of glittering green when his eyes opened as I moved to adjust one of the candles to throw his face and his genitals completely into the shadows.

"Heather-"  I knew there were parts of him that he didn't want on display for all the world to see... and I'm not just talking about what hangs between his legs.  But he couldn't see what I could see.  He felt naked.  Exposed.  Vulnerable.  I saw that... but so much more, too.  The need to paint was choking me. 

I touched his shoulder softly.  "Trust me."  He nodded once and met my gaze.  "Close your eyes, Bud....." 

I flicked on the stereo as I passed and whispered for him to just hold as still as he could for a little while.  Just a little while..... I didn't even notice when the CD's track ended.  Nor did I notice the sash of my robe fluttering to the ground or the passing of the time until the watery gray light of dawn began to compete with the candles that had burned low and were now flickering and beginning to sputter. 

It was a very sensual experience.  The sepia tones cast by the golden glow of the candles.  The erotic stroke of the brush against the paper.  Our breathing.  The soft brush of the satiny robe against my bare skin.  The residue of our earlier lovemaking between my legs.  Bud's masculine scent filling my senses.  The weight of his eyes on me.  I had long since stopped having to look at him, much like that afternoon I'd gotten lost in the sketch.... saw him more in my mind's eye than anything else, now.  Saw where this painting needed to go to be good, and I struggled to make that happen.  I could feel it welling up inside me but I just couldn't make it come out.  I knew the painting needed something.... I just didn't know what.

I took a step back, feeling lightheaded.  I often hold my breath when I paint.  Even a slow exhale can make a hand tremble when you need it to be perfectly steady.  I had a vague memory of Bud telling me to breathe and I wondered now what he'd thought when he first realized I could go more than two minutes without taking a breath.  I drew in a deep breath that smelled of Bud and pigment and felt the solid warmth of his big body come up against mine as we both looked at the painting together. 

I knew it by heart already and let my gaze swing to him to appraise his reaction to the moment I'd captured.  It was almost as good as I'd hoped for... almost.  As close as I could come, never having touched the heart of the mountain for myself.  A low curse spilled from Bud's lips as he traced the painting with his eyes before the glittering green of his gaze moved to my face.  In that moment, I knew why I'd never seen the mountain's heart, why I'd been unable to infuse any of it into the painting.  I'd never once looked at it for myself.  For us.  It had always been about the painting.

This time, it wasn't.  I felt the change between us immediately.  His hands went to my throat and his fingers teased up and down my bare neck while he made love to my mouth.  I felt the silky soft tip of his erection brush against my naked belly.  He was hard and weeping.  When he lifted his head, his eyes were on fire but he moved with a deliberate slowness as his fingers traveled up my neck and he slowly pulled the pencil holding up the heavy knot of hair, watching it fall with a masculine satisfaction.  He pushed his long blunt fingers into it and spread the silky mass around my shoulders.

"I've wanted to do that for a long time."  A husky admission given up to the night before his mouth came down over mine.  He moved, leaving a wet trail across my cheek as he kissed his way to that shivery spot under my ear.  His hands slipped inside my robe and he pushed it from my shoulders, watching it fall in a crimson flutter to pool at our feet. 

He lifted me as if I weighed nothing and then we were on the bed, touching each other all over and groaning into each wet open-mouthed kiss.  He whispered to me then; told me how hard watching me had made him.  That he'd been watching my breasts move.  That he'd gritted his teeth when I'd lost my sash because then he'd been able to see the rest of my body too. 

He told me how his body had dripped with want.  Put my hand between his legs and let me feel it against my palm, warm and slippery.  Asked me if I had any idea that I'd been touching myself lightly now and again as I painted him.  How he'd fought to keep from rocking his hips in the chair.  And later, how he'd fought to keep from kicking it aside in his haste to get my body under his.

We were free with each other in a way we hadn't been before.  Free with our thoughts.  Our words.  Our responses.  It was in that moment I found my way to the heart of the mountain.  It was as sensual an experience as painting him had been, yet infused with an unbridled sexuality that left me weak and dizzy, drowning in the sensory experience of Bud White in full rut.

An ocean of red granite.  And his blood was up.

It was crude and tender.  Wild and soft.  Demonstrative and selfish and a hundred other contradictory things that all somehow made sense when he put his hands and mouth on my body.  And it was a hundred times more intimate than something either of us could have done to the other simply because we did everything together.  He didn't just spread me before his gaze, he asked me to spread myself.  To touch myself for him.  I fed him from my fingers.  I fed myself.  Scent.  Taste.  Touch.  The sight of his dark head bent between my open thighs.  The feel of his fingers inside me and his mouth on my flesh.  The sound of his voice telling me not to stop.  Telling me to come for him.  To give him what he wanted.  To hear the sounds that broke from both of us when I gave myself up to him.

Lost in a swirl of sepia fire.  Ginger colored light and chocolate shadows throwing him into vivid relief as he crawled up my body and told me to lick his face.  I felt the drag of his stubble under my tongue.  Felt the wet remains of my passion.  Felt the way his big body shuddered as the carnal sensuality of a lick became the softest kiss.  My lips.  My neck.  My shoulders.  My breasts. 

He was not afraid to use his teeth.  And more than skilled enough not leave a mark.  So forceful and yet so gentle too.  "Touch me."  It wasn't an order.  It was a plea, torn from him as he strained and shook above me, rocking into my touch and making a low whine in the back of his throat as the pleasure became too much to bear.  "I'm dying...."  A harshly whispered admission against the sweaty skin of my neck as we moved in tandem to get us where we both needed to be. 

My eyes fluttered shut as he slipped inside.  Slow.  Easy.  Like we both weren't already dancing at the edge of the flames.  I heard a low sound and realized it was me.  A throaty purr of pleasure I was unable to hold back as he fit us together and pulled my leg up over his hip.  "Bud..."  My voice caught. 

"Hold me."  Such gentle words, spoken from the true heart of the mountain even as he began to move with strong steady strokes.  Erotic sighs and grunts issued from salty lips.  Words of encouragement.  Sounds when words wouldn't come.  Tender passion gave way to raw need.  "More.... fuck me back!"  Growled low and dirty as we both lost ground to this wild swell of feeling, suspended somewhere between ecstasy and agony.

He pushed my leg higher.  I squeezed him harder.  Our bodies shook with the effort of our joining as we moved, locked together in agonizing flight.  His fingers slid under my back and curled around my shoulder to pull me into him.  His head dropped.  He was working hard, pounding into me with a brutal rhythm.  Fucking me so hard.  Thrusting.  Driving.  Grunting.

"I'm dying...."  So close.  I couldn't even breathe.  My body was on fire.  

"Jesus... Can't hold it...."  His thrusts became erratic.  "Come with me!"

We flew.  Touched the sun.  The moon.  The stars.  Crashed back to earth in a swirl of colors that have no names.  He cursed profanely, still pumping into me as the blackness receded from the edges of my consciousness.  He shuddered into me and slowed, his breathing as raspy as mine as he gave one last hitch and collapsed against me in a sweaty heap. 

"Hold me."  His quiet request brought tears to my eyes and I held him close and wrapped him up so tight.  I could feel his heart slamming against his ribs, free of its shelter of stone and shared with me in this one vulnerable moment.  The amber light from the last sputtering candles gave way to the golden light of dawn and cast a warm glow over our sweaty bodies.  The large palm spread across the small of my back felt like a brand.  Our hands touched and our fingers entwined, lacing tight while we recovered, breathing in great gulps of air that tasted of sex and smelled of warm vanilla candles and the musk of spent desire.

He was asleep within minutes, although it was several more minutes beyond that before I felt his grip go slack.  He was exhausted and though I was lightheaded with it myself, I was also charged with this energy, part endorphins and part giddy euphoria.  I kissed Bud's fingers and gently tugged my hand free of his.  He made a sleepy attempt to hold me to him but he belonged to Morpheus... and I belonged in front of the easel.  I knew what to do now.

How does one show the heart of a mountain?  

Having touched it now, I knew what I'd seen was far too precious and private to ever be captured, let alone revealed.... and yet some unnamed force almost seemed to be guiding my brush, bringing the painting before me to life the same way that first sketch had appeared before Bud's eyes, like sand blown from the cracks to reveal the image laying dormant beneath. 

Dawn broke.  The candles sputtered and finally went out.  Bud snored softly in a tangle of bedsheets.  The room smelled of sex and smoke and peace.  And when I finally stepped from the easel, I still hadn't captured the heart of the mountain... but something of its spirit burned brightly from within the image.  It seemed strange that I could see it so clearly now.  Our lovemaking had been for us.  All thoughts of the painting had been driven from my mind the moment I felt his touch.  No, we hadn't loved so I could finish this.  Instead, I'd been inspired to greatness after seeing the depth of his heart.  And looking at the painting now, I knew it was great.

In the golden moment we'd just shared, I'd seen so much but I chose to reveal what I'd learned only in his hands, leaving his face as it had been before, still hidden in shadow.  Touching that would have revealed too much.  No, all I added was detail in his hands.  Capable of such brutal violence.  Capable of such exquisite tenderness.  Bud White is a man of contradictions and though the biggest of those might be inside his heart along with that pebble, the only ones I will ever reveal to anyone are the ones I saw in his hands. 

Why his hands?  I can't say, really.  Maybe it's that I tasted both their strength and their tenderness.  Maybe it is that I was thinking how much a part of him they are.  Maybe it was simply that as I stood there at the easel, I couldn't stop thinking about the way they felt laced with mine.... and about how they felt touching me.  Soft and strong.  Who knows, maybe in that place of nameless colors, Morpheus flirts with the ear of the Muse.

Giddy with exhaustion, I set the alarm and crawled into bed with him.  Tender or not, he'd be pissed if he overslept and missed his flight because I'd kept him up most of the night catering to the muse.  But hopefully when he sees the painting he'll understand why I did.  Just as I hope he understands the changes that were wrought after we loved. 

It wasn't the alarm that woke me.  It was that sixth sense of someone in the room not sleeping or simply passing through.  I woke abruptly to find that Bud had dragged the chair around to the front of the easel and was sitting in it, staring at the painting.  He had showered and dressed and his bag was packed and at his feet.  His eyes were glittering wetly and I saw so much in them when they finally met mine. 

His voice was rough.  "You painted after...."  It wasn't a question.  Of course he'd note the changes.  In the wee hours of the morning, I'd finally blown the sand from the cracks and the image that had resulted was startling.  He rubbed his face and gestured at the easel.  "You really see me.... like that?"  Clearly uncomfortable, he swallowed hard when I nodded again.  He said nothing.  He didn't even curse.  I think my vision shocked him a little.  To be honest, when I'd stepped back from the easel, what I saw there had shocked me a little too.   

But as suddenly as the deeply moving moment had arisen, it was swept away in a sickening rush as my eyes drifted to the clock.  "Your flight!"  There wasn't even time to shower, barely enough to throw some clothes on and drive him to the airport.

He smiled softly as I sat up and moved to flick the covers back, already trying to remember where I'd tossed my purse and my keys.  I was so tired, my brain and body felt thick and sluggish like cold honey.  A sex-soaked languor of exhaustion and quiet contentment.   

"I called a cab."  The simple words took all the wind out of my mental sails.  He looked at his watch.  "It'll be here in a few minutes."  He gave the painting one last long look and joined me on the bed, smelling of crisp aftershave and warm male.  He touched my cheek gently.  "I knew you'd be tired."  He smiled softly.  "And I wanted to remember you like this..." his fingers touched my hair lightly, "...all soft and....."  His words trailed off but I knew what he meant.  A private goodbye. 

He handed me my satiny robe and smiled.  "You go on down, okay?  I just want a minute.... you know."  He shrugged and gestured to the painting.

I slipped from the room and let him have his moment.  The honk of the cab came a few minutes later.  There was no deep passionate kiss at the door.  Just a look.  A smile.  We'd said our goodbyes already.  He simply squeezed my hand with his.  I brought it to my lips, kissed his knuckles gently and then he was gone. 

I didn't stay to watch his cab disappear.  I dragged myself back upstairs to the guest room, intent on sleeping the day away, surrounded in sheets that still carried the warm musky scent of our lovemaking when something drew me up short.  He'd left a gift in center of the mussed bed.  No note.  No card.  Just a simply wrapped gift.  I tore away the scarlet paper and his book fell into my hands.  A dog-eared copy.  His copy, I realized when I saw that it had been inscribed by his creator. 

What a beautiful gesture.  The mountain had made a gift of a piece of his heart in return for the pieces of my soul I'd given up to put his image on paper.  Like chalk, I thought again as I set the precious gift aside and closed my eyes.  Bud White was a man to get all over you.  A man who would leave his mark on you long after he was gone... and a color I had known that wouldn't be named and couldn't be washed off.