The Great Grey

Evangeline Brewster had lived in the large mansion neighbouring the grand expanse of Highgate Cemetery for nigh-on ten years by the time Felicité came to occupy a set of rooms for herself, in that time her older sister had left London in order to tie up loose ends with both business and property following the unfortunate passing (and/or disappearance) of her husband who had been in the Navy — a rest bite to save what was left of her nerves, leaving the younger daughter of the Findley lot to act the housekeeper in her stead. Having lived there since 1883, Felicité had dressed the rooms up to act as backdrops to colourful works verging on impressionism learned during her time in Paris, where she would paint her fiance in almost erotic compositions that would cause shock and scandal even among the modern New English Art Club — alongside self portraits she would create a vision of herself quite unlike the reality presented to the naked eye, with shocking bright eyes and blurred borders set in the same way the world looks when squinting with your eyes.

Still, with Evangeline’s return, Felicité leaves a few paintings for her sister’s halls — though she refused to forgo her portraits of her lover, she decorated the rooms with works of the cemetery and Gothic illuminations that she would have preferred due to her own tastes — and goes with her fiancé to a place picked to play an artistic gaggle of bohemians. After moving an easel, canvases and books, a trunk full of paint stained clothes packed to the brim, Felicité stands by the precipice of their new world and the exterior beyond, letting the cold wind in as if to invite the city into their strange, modern co-habitations.

After closing that heavy front door, Felicité went to hang the paintings she had made of Sila in a style reminiscent of the Academy, from floor to ceiling were hooks nailed in to present a canvas by every square inch — some were simply modern, colourful portraits with either his hair tucked back or long and questionably strange for the conservative London population… others were sparse of detail, and more to the kind of flirtations coloured in enticing poses. All were yet to be put to an exhibition, mostly because Felicité was not sure if the time had come to dare challenge the world before her. With her hands balled up into fists, she stared at the wall of paintings with a concerned expression, her brows furrowed together as she tried to make sense of which piece made the most sense. Mostly, she imagined the old critics sneering with dismay and then blacklisting her from a future at all.

For now, she thought, she’d keep to the portraits, to the teachings she had acquired in Paris, as she turned to find Sila himself, casting her arms around him as she often did, her hands finding themselves against this belly. “What do you think?” She asked, “...A little place of our own, hmm?”

What could Sila say that could not be mistaken for disinterest or a complete lack of care afforded to his Tatik’s efforts? It did not matter if they lived on the streets, convinced his uncles to dote on them like a pair of beggars, or if they had the finest home in town. The only thing that mattered to Sila was that they were together. A woman whose touch made his skin burn like fire, and not even the darkest gloom could survive when she smiled. Even her gloom was stunning. He never understood how other men could become annoyed with a woman for her melancholy. The greyest of her moments brought him purpose. Sila was never the self-important man who presumed he could cure whatever ails others with his presence alone or claimed to be a shaman or the resident healer. He spent much time among healers and could create remedies for most scrapes, bruises, and the common cold. The grey of Felicité was nothing to cure; it was part of her picture, and he refused to change anything about it. Her gods had carved perfection when they created her; he existed to provide company and patience when she needed it most. Sila did not need to fill the silence of her sadness with sound and attempts to cheer; he reveled in being close and present. That was enough for him.

“…it is perfect.”

Self-editing was a constant of his. There was more in what he did not say than his few words. Because Felicité was there with him… because it was theirs… it was perfect. Sila slid his strong arms around the little woman at his core and held her head to his chest as though the adoring thrum of his heart could express more than words. He toyed with her hair, curling and twisting the brown locks at the nape of her neck appreciatively until he slowly pulled her hair to tip her face up toward his.

“It is just as you desire?”

A whisper like that was akin to a purr in his deep voice. Purring that invited his lips to fall over hers, delaying her opportunity to answer with his opportunity to express his undying affection. Sila would never hesitate to find every possible moment to show Felicité he was hers beyond reasonable suspicion or doubt. He was completely hers, body, mind, and soul. Even the simple question returned about their living situation vowed his service to her claim. A single hint of discontent from her and the man would tear down offending walls, rip the place from its foundation, and place it somewhere new, whatever she wanted if only to satisfy her every wish.

Felicité had found happiness in Sila’s arms, laying her head against his broad chest as she did when they lay together naked and bare of all previous thought or complaint, the brunette burrowed her face directly into the musk of his shirt, her nose wrinkling as her hands cast themselves up and down his back, finding the dip of his delicate spine as she trailed her long fingers against him; her breasts pushed against him, every inch swallowing the space that had previously been between them. For so long she had been in dire need of her independence, to tread her own path and forge a direction previously never taken… And yet, there she was, clinging to a man who would marry her one day, who would make Felicité more like her older sisters than she had ever wanted to become.

Only when he pulled at her long dark hair did Felicité tilt her head up toward him, her sea-coloured eyes (blue on sad days, green on happier ones) trailing his features. First she looked at his lips, then his nose before following the line to his own dark eyes. It felt strange, but welcomed, to enjoy the peace of a house without the shadow of her sister lingering around a corner — easier, then, to be without the intrusion of maids, for though she had grown up accustomed to household servants to make a house clean and correct for purpose, Felicité had never warmed to the idea of staff at all, especially since she longed to make her own way in the world. Rather, she had arranged for a woman to come by and clean every other day, paid with honest money and intention, for Felicité was not her mother’s daughter who was ready to play hostess at the drop of a hat, in fact she was more like her father — charismatic but awful at thinking beyond the base need of selfishness.

“It is,” she answered, rising to the very tips of her toes in order to press a chase kiss to Sila’s mouth, lingering against the warmth of his soft skin before she pulled herself away, a smile crooked and scheming presenting itself before she turned to press her back against him so she may look at the display of her paintings instead, raising a single hand to point out the most erotic of her pictures. Pictured in oils, his hands a blur with his head tipped back in a moment of self-pleasure, the painting was quite spectacular, one of which Felicité was very proud of.

“I think I must wait till I can show this one off, what do you think?” She asked, leaning back against him as she tried to see her work from a critic’s point of view, her eyes narrowing in concentration.

The woman would never know what she did to that man, or perhaps she knew, and that was part of the fun. The seductive caress of her soft fingertips and breasts against any inch of his torso was enough to leave him longing to shed every layer he owned. He was dressed for some reason; they must have had something planned; otherwise, pants were the most he wore in their home. What day was it? Did he have work? Was the maid coming today? Sila tried to distract himself to fight off the urge to ravage the woman in his arms. The desire was constant. In a perfect world, their lives would be endless hours twined together until they forgot where one ended and the other began. One day, she would be a Nanuq like him; it was the carrot dangled before him, even if Sila would have been just as content to take her family name. He had already joined her family tribe as much as was possible.

Once he successfully avoided drowning in her gaze, Sila smirked with pride. A smirk cut short by the chaste greeting of her lips upon his. She tried to pull away, but there was a moment when his grip on her tensed, quarreling wordlessly against any separation. His grasp eased when he realized she was not leaving, merely turning. She hummed some words of appreciation for their work. Felicité was the painter among them; it was her creation, and he was her extremely willing subject. If anyone else wanted to paint and sell his visage, he would have fought the idea at every step, but being part of her artistic journey was an honor.

Of course, he could not simply enjoy Felicité’s closeness when her back was against him. One arm around her core, the other swept her hair to one side. He had to kiss her sweet alabaster neck, unable to handle so much closeness between them without stealing kisses of his own. However, once the hair was out of the way and kisses were given, he rested his head against hers and gave her creation its deserved attention. While he was certain Felicité would not begrudge him for folding her over the nearby table and getting lost in her skirts for a while, she had asked him a question, which demanded an answer. Sila was not the most talkative man, but Felicité always found his words. They were his gift to her.

“You could perhaps show it any time for the right venue—a private collector. If you find the right audience, they may want more. I know I do.”

Sila wanted to make more paintings with her. He loved the way she painted when he was panting for her, giving himself pleasure purely because she asked. Of course, he enjoyed the way she painted when he was between her thighs. The uneven strokes were so unlike her outside of unbridled passion. It was beautiful to him because it felt like Felicité unrestrained. Sometimes, her art felt forced by the perfect lines and depictions demanded by her formal education. Looking at himself through her eyes did nothing for him, but every subtle and not-so-subtle jitter in her art sent shivers down his spine. She left him, pulling her close in his arms, back flat against his chest, his arousal pressed against her, throbbing beneath the pants he instantly regretted wearing.

“I’ll never know if it is you or your art that does this to me, but I am not complaining.”

Sila growled low against her ear like a wolf threatening to take down a caribou at the first sign of weakness. By now, Felicité had to know he would not pounce or threaten her with the idea of a good time. He was waiting for any indication that she wanted such attention and was not constantly feeling pressured to deal with his insatiable appetite. At least she could rest comfortably, knowing his appetite was only for her. Even when he expressed a fear of someone being a threat to them, he never acted on it. Well, he did, but not in that way. Sila ceased communicating with the person he felt was trying to flirt with him. Sila only wanted his Tatik, his heart. And he wanted her on her terms. Perhaps that was why he reveled so much in her calling the shots. There was no question if he was doing what she wanted or not.

Felicité’s works on canvas were smaller than what she would have liked to create, small because they could be transported around the city with little work and so they could then be moved around the house as she worked on them. The quiver in the outlines were varied, as she had trained with the Parisians and had as such a French flair to her work, Felicité’s pieces were marvels of colour — rarely did she go monochrome outside of her drawings, of which were more often than not spotted with pastel or coloured pencils to hint to the way of the mood or some other factor that she didn’t think to explain away.

Some of the paintings that stood before them were based on Sila’s erotic poses, the shaken lines atoned to when he had been inside of her, or had ravaged her as she tried to complete the last few lines of an impression. Felicité liked them the most, but she was bias, for though she had always been furiously independent as an artist, the idea of creating work with him seemed no more scary than anything else. It was a joy to make them, especially now that they had an actual place of their own.

With her back against him, Felicité fell so engrossed in her own critique that she almost missed his erection that pressed against her back with little regard to her attention. Sila’s sex drive was insatiable, she had found out, but she was not entirely unsure of it — if anything she celebrated it with her work, though she wondered if seeing the images of himself had simply recalled their last passionate tryst, rather than her own presence against him. Still, she smiled and reached an arm back between them to stroke the groin of his trousers as she looked on at her display, finding his arousal beneath the fabric with the ease of someone who knew her way around a single body before she implied a greedy want of her own, rubbing the shape of him with the roll of her palm behind her back till she drew her gaze away from her work, turning her head to look at him from the side of her sea-blue eyes.

“Are you needy, Tatik?” Felicité asked sweetly as fondled him, releasing the fabric with a sigh before she turned back to her paintings, unhooking one canvas and then another in order to slip them back into their protective sleeves for the exhibition she hoped to enter them in (they were more modest paintings, a self-portrait of her and flowers, another of the house maid attending her duties… little things that could sell well if pushed in the right direction). “If you want me you must wait for me to put these away…”

Not today, but one of these days, Felicité may realize that while Sila could be inspired by their past, her presence always got him going. The feel of her closeness, a fluttered lash, the slow resistance of her parched lips refusing to separate as freely as the rest; anything and everything about her could stir his passion. It was all or nothing since before he dared to express such interest in Felicié, one might never have known he was interested in anything beyond the platonic. Sila had to wait for a woman to give him any hint she was interested before he would even consider it. Sometimes, he could still remember the pleasured moans she made while enjoying something as simple as a foot massage. That was where he felt invited to change everything. And now he could not get enough of her. It did not matter if he was massaging her tired feet or exhausting her to sate their desires, he just had to have her contact in any way possible.

“For you? Always.”

His lips remained parted after he spoke. Gazing into the dazzling water of the sea, the earth was often moved. She left him with ragged breath at just a glance. He was left throbbing for her as she slipped away. His hands, those large hands textured from years of manual labor, reached after her but dropped when she said he had to wait.

“But I want you now…”

With a hand smoothing over and squeezing her rump, Sila played at tempting her or begging her to change her mind. They could play first, and she could work later. Who was he kidding? If they got started, most of the evening was gone until they were too tired to do much else beyond curl together to the sweet sounds of thoroughly sated breath. Truth be told, he liked it when she made him wait. Whenever she called the shots, it sent him to a special level of nirvana. Sila did not like to take orders. He never wanted to be owned. The man was vehemently against being sold. And there he was, eager to do everything she told him she wanted, needing to be hers and hers alone to claim, and beyond willing to have his likeness sold but only for the joy of her art and the fun of making it. So, he obeyed when she told him to wait, removing his hand from her person if only to adjust and stroke the discomfort,t growing harder with anticipation.

“I can help if you want.”

Sila could roll the pieces with as careful consideration as she might herself. He had such great appreciation for her art.

“Do you still have that dress you wore to that ball?”

It was an exhibition from long ago when their relationship was new, and he was too stubborn to admit he needed more help from his uncles than a mere pittance. He had been too ill to represent his art properly, let alone appreciate his company as much as he wished he could.

“I’d say I want to see you in it again. It was so different from your usual beauty. I still cannot decide if I liked the look or not.”

If he liked it, the dress was going to end up ruined if he could not get it off her fast enough, and if he disliked it, then it was still going to end up peeled from her body and crumpled on the floor about her. But then that was his favorite thing, freeing her of the cage of layers. If it were up to Sila, they would always run around in their birthday suits. Maybe not. Half the fun of seeing her in different things was getting her out of them. She was his favorite gift to unwrap and enjoy.

Felicité slid each painting into their protective paper casings, an arm extending to fetch the small ball of twine in order to tie a knot around each one to keep it from slipping back into the fine interior of the new house. Over the last month or two she had lost the monetary support of a patron, a Frenchman who had seen her work in Paris and had as such thought to put some belief into her every piece with the heavy weight of a coin purse. But, over the holidays, he had left the continent to attend to business and had as such left her in the lurch of what was to come next. Felicité needed a patron in order to sell her work on its own merit, that or she would have to come up with some dazzling ploy of publicity to make herself known among the many who strived to make a name for themselves as fine artists. She knew she had talent, and she knew that the paintings could speak for themselves, but Felicité was also keenly aware that all could disappear in moments; for even if she had Sila and his own treasures, Felicité did not yearn to lay on him for support, and wished to do all in her own name as a man would do.

But the worries of her career seemed to melt into the background as Sila followed, his hands quickly finding the curve of her arse through the layers of her skirts, turning her head over her shoulder to see him touch himself as she often commanded he did when she was working in the atelier. His question, however, caught her off guard — and it took a moment to remember that exhibition turned high society ball that they had attended as good friends and nothing else.

That night she had come face to face with an onlooker who had proclaimed her work superficial and quite needless, and she had fought him despite herself, earning the attention of many a critic who intertwined her name with ‘reckless’ in the papers. She remembered looking on as Sila made his own circles, with her own body dressed up to resemble the dreams of her mother when she had been a treasured member of the Paulet household. Dressed in rich blues, with her hair done up against the nape of her neck, Felicité had looked quite unlike herself, and as soon as she was able she had stripped herself of its adornment and replaced it with her paint stained clothes matched with a pair of a man’s working trousers. So, yes, it surprised her that Sila mentioned it, and with wide eyes she looked at him, a small laugh splitting her mouth open before she set the covered paintings aside.

“It’s upstairs somewhere, tucked away behind everything… Do you really wish to see it? It might not fit anymore,” Felicité reminded Sila, walking toward him to undo his trousers with skillful hands, sliding the warmth of her palm inside of its latches to stroke his hardness, to play the doting fiancé she was as she tilted her head to look up at him with the greatest of adoration. “Very well, but we must take care to not rip it, it cost a fortune!” She instructed, an eyebrow raised as she slowly removed her hand from his trousers, leaving him behind in order to ascend the stairs toward the wardrobe she kept with her clothes hanging away from the likes of moths and other such internal elements.

She did not wait for Sila to follow or to catch up as she went to retrieve the dress, holding it at arm's length in order to spy it for markings or faults. It was a pretty dress, but the whole image was created in her mother’s eye, and far from her own. Undressing to her undergarments before stepping into the cage of the skirt, Felicité held the fabric to her breast without thinking of applying a corset — for she knew as well as he did that the item would be discarded as soon as she gave him the means to do so, and at any rate she hated the adornment that kept her from breathing with ease.

“Well!?” She called, her long brown hair cast down her back to hide the latchings left undone, tilting her head to catch a glimpse of herself in the looking glass.