Barriers

She was running low on red, but still had plenty of blue.  Maybe that would be how she’d make this one different than the others – a hue that was just a touch unrealistic for the subject at hand.  Linda wet the brush and gently dabbed it in the red paint, wanting to bring the work out in a few more places before switching to blue to cool it down.  She looked back up and hesitated, brush sticking out in the air.

Something didn’t seem right about the way things were arranged on the canvas.  Even if she could get the right shade of purple, it would still seem kind of flat.  Linda studied the way the wicker basket came together, unconsciously shaking her head when she saw that wasn’t what was doing it.  The oil there did a good job of standing in for the real thing, if you didn’t look too hard.

Of course, no one would look at the basket, with the flowers above it.  Right now, they were just red outlines, with a hint of brown at the bottom to suggest the soil she might add later.  Linda stared and stared, trying to get out of her own head and see the work as others might, once the color was in place.

It clicked.  She hadn’t been thinking of some anonymous arrangement in a faceless windowsill, but of a gift she’d gotten once.  Linda smiled to herself and the canvas suddenly seemed very unimportant.

“You said you loved flowers, so…”  He trailed off but a trace of a grin stayed fixed on his sun-browed face.

“No, Luke… I like them, it’s just…”  She hated to leave him hanging like that, but she couldn’t quite put into words what she felt.  She tried anyway.  “When you said you had something for me, I thought…”

Luke seemed lost for a moment, then understanding crossed his features.  “You know it’s not final yet.  And even if it was, I just…”

“No, it’s okay.  Progress is progress, I guess.  I don’t want it if you’re not ready.”  She put her hand on his and tried to echo with her eyes what she was saying with her mouth.  Then her mouth wasn’t saying anything as his lips landed on hers and they were kissing, the flowers forgotten for now.

Luke edged his way around the barrier of the table and he was close enough to where she sat on the stool that they could kiss properly now.  Their passion usually had to hide, from the prying eyes of the neighbors or the unasked questions of the night motel clerk.  Now it came out of the shadows and into the few lines of sunlight that didn’t have the courtesy to stay on their side of the blinds.

A pair of breaths were drawn before hands were on belts and zippers and right there, in the studio, they moved down to the floor.  She gasped as he entered her, almost as hard as the floorboards that pressed into her back.  She had never decided if they were lucky or cursed that neither of them ever needed any preparation.  His heartbeat bounced through his body and she couldn’t tell if she was feeling it through their hands or mouths or somewhere else, but it didn’t matter because they were in sync and it was great.

She heard Luke murmur her name into her shoulder and he thrust deep one last time and came, hot inside her before he slumped down.  She moved her hands aimlessly on his back, bare fingers stroking the fabric of his shirt and still pulling him into her even now that it was done, because she just liked how he felt.  He raised his head to look at her.  This was one of those times his ice-blue eyes thawed and she felt like she could just dive into them, through them, to where he had some inner heat of his own waiting to welcome her.

There was a soft splat and Linda shook her head.  A drop of pinkish water had rolled off the tip of her brush and managed to land on the wood, beyond the tarp.  She sighed and moved to swirl the brush in the water, trying to get the red out.  That didn’t quite do it, so she ran the tip along a paper towel, getting the bulk of the water out along with the traces of oil that had managed to cling to the fine hairs.

Linda looked back at the canvas and her mind’s eye filled in the space inside the red outlines.  First she pictured the proper shade of purple – how it should look, and how it would if she’d remembered to pick up more paint when she was out earlier.  But then she pictured how subtly streaked blue, unmarred by any other pigments, could explode out from the dark center and stretch as far as it could, outlines struggling to contain that vibrant color from spilling into the white space beyond.

The red and blue would never mix – it would be purple in pieces, and hopefully the viewer would be able to bring those pieces together.  Linda set to work painting the violets blue, filling the red-rimmed petals with the same crystalline warmth she’d almost had once.