MB Saucy Side: Abstract Art (Sally) (Patreon)

The paintbrush strokes down the length of your arm, and you shiver at the streak of blue left in its wake.  With a teasing smile at your reaction, Sally swirls the brush upon your open palm.

“That tickles!” you protest, but nonetheless resist the urge to instinctively clench your fist. Sally’s been using your skin as a canvas for over half an hour, practicing for the booth she’ll be running at Aeon’s “Give Back” Fair, aka the “Aeon-Students-Hand-Out-Free-Cotton-Candy-To-Build-Goodwill-Towards-Unity’s-Agenda” Fair. Sally’s been excited ever since Kim, in a shocking twist, approved her face painting booth. Although, given that she’ll primarily be painting whiskers on children, you’re not sure why she needed you naked to practice on.

You ask her as much, and she responds with a sultry look. Or at least, Sally's version of a sultry look, which consists of her pressing her lips together in an fishlike manner that you find too endearing to ever comment on.

“It was an opportunity.” She puts the paintbrush down on a prepared paper towel, then takes up a second brush, which she dips into one of the many pots of paint on the kitchen table. “My dads were gone for the weekend, and how many times do we get to be like this alone? Lift,” she instructs.

You dutifully raise your arm, and she swipes another cold streak onto its underside. Purple, this time.

“We need to move in together already,” she continues as you try not to squirm with each ticklish stroke. Once the lower half of your arm is completely purple, she pauses and admires you—all of you, not just her handiwork.

“I deserve to see this view everyday,” she smirks.

You scowl at her. Normally, you’d be flattered by her obvious appreciation, but right now wet paint means that you're unable to be demonstrative. She's hardly playing fair.

“And yet you’re still wearing clothes,” you point out.

Sally glances down at her smock. “Barely.”

She’s not wrong, but neither are you. Sally’s artist apron covers her with Catholic school modestly from neck to knee . . . in the front, and only in the front. She’s foregone clothing beneath, leaving her back completely bare but for the smock’s waist string, which is tied in a bow at the small of her back like a present waiting to be unwrapped. She rises from her chair and goes to the sink to rinse the brush, giving you a tantalizing view of her curves and light brown skin that’s a shade paler than elsewhere.

Your girlfriend has a spectacular posterior. 

You let out a disappointed sigh as Sally sits back down.

“The agent promised to get back to me as soon as he found an apartment that matched our specifications,” you say. “Apparently, ‘airy Parisian style lofts with oodles of sun’ aren’t all that common in Chicago. Something about skylights not being able to bear the weight of the snow in winter.”

“I want what I want,” Sally states unapologetically. She looks at you from beneath thick lashes, a slow smile curving her lips. “I usually get what I want.”

She selects a third brush, this one with a finer tip than the last two. Maybe after this third step, you’ll finally be able to identify what she’s painting.

“The skylight is unnegotiable, then?” You suck in a sharp breath as she paints tiny, feather-light strokes across your skin. They look like half circles. Scales, perhaps?

“The skylight is most definitely unnegotiable,” Sally confirms. “I’ve been fantasizing about us having a house together ever since we grew too big to fit in the backyard clubhouse. And that fantasy . . .”

“Features an art garrison,” you finish with a grin. You've been hearing Sally describe her perfect condo even before you two started dating, although at the time you didn't realize that you were a feature in her daydreams. “Yeah, that’s what I told the agent.”

“We’ll find the perfect place,” she says, “or my dads will help us build it.” She glances at you with a cheeky grin. “This is the part where you tell me that anyplace I’m at is already perfect.”

You grasp the back of her neck with your unpainted hand, and she lets out a startled squeal as you drag her close and into a kiss. She softens against you, paintbrush falling forgotten onto the table. Your kiss tastes like the strawberries she ate at lunch . . . and also a little like paint, but that’s probably only because of the smell permeating the kitchen.

"Anyplace you're at is already perfect," you whisper between gasps.

You meld together, until she reluctantly pulls away.

“I need to finish,” Sally says.

She runs the thin brush down the back of your hand, the black paint bleeding into the blue. Then she trails the brush along your collarbone, down the center of your chest, and lower still to paint a looping heart around your belly button. Then she tosses the brush onto the table.

“I was going to make you into a dragon,” she says, “but that would take too long.”

“Next time,” you promise, your lips already pressed against hers once more.

This time, neither of you care about the paint or mess. You reach for the curve of her back, untying that taunting bow. The smock falls away, and she's as naked as you. You hold her close, her warmth melting your colors onto her skin, the blues and purples like the night sky with her stars as freckles.

Much later, the kitchen’s tablecloth is no longer a pristine white. Sally holds it out like a tapestry, and both of you stare at it in a silence.

“We’ll need to buy your dads a new tablecloth,” you finally say.

Sally gives you a grin that’s in equal parts sheepish and proud. “It kind of looks like an abstract painting. We should hang it up at our new place . . . over the bed, perhaps.”

You laugh. “Agreed.”