Paint a New Scene

Copper City, New Mexico August 12 For the first time since the brutal shock of her husband’s sudden death, Keely Sandoval felt a faint flicker of hope. It was still hard to imagine going on without Mike, but it helped to be in a new house, a place not crammed with wall-to-wall memories of the ten amazing years they’d shared. True, it was just a rental. It was old-fashioned and a bit rundown, but she was here with all the things she couldn’t bear to part with. Armed with determination to reinvent her life, she’d moved and left her former home to someone else. A lot of her friends were amazed and shocked when she’d announced she was going to get rid of her home and move a couple hundred miles away to a small town she’d only passed through a few times before she selected it. Well, it’s done now. I’m here, for better or worse. Absently, she stroked the silky fur of her tortoiseshell cat, Sekmet, curled in her lap as she sat at her computer. The cat purred in a quiet hum and kneaded Keely’s jeans-clad thighs. She sighed as she attached a picture of her new home to the “Here I am” email she was sending out to all her correspondents. The place really didn’t look like much. The siding was rotten in spots and the peeling paint gave it a leprous look. Maybe her landlady would get some work done, now that a responsible tenant had moved in. She could hope. A sharp knock on the front door interrupted her work. She lifted Sekmet off her lap and crossed to the front door. It creaked when she opened it, almost without thinking. Ooopppps, Keel, not smart. You don’t even know who it might be! The two men who stood on the small porch beyond the old-fashioned wooden screen door were seriously scruffy looking. One wore paint-spattered shorts and a T-shirt almost more holes than fabric. The other had on well-worn military style camo pants that threatened to slide off his lean hips and a blue chambray work shirt with the sleeves cut out. Still, beyond the clothing, both of them were good-looking guys, with nice physiques and easy smiles on sun-weathered faces. “Mind if we look around? We’re scoping out the place to bid on the paint job. Miz Donaldson says she’s havin’ a hell of a time gettin’ somebody to take it on.” Shorts was the speaker. He had a nice deep voice, a hint of the South in his gentle drawl and the inflection of some words. Keely shrugged. “Sure. I guess so. Do you need to come inside?” “No, not now anyway. We’re just thinking about the outside job. She didn’t say anything about the indoor part.” Keely felt a minor twinge of disappointment, something that made no sense at all. She didn’t know these guys from Adam, so why in hell would she want them inside her new personal space? “Help yourselves,” she said. “The place could use some sprucing up. It looks pretty sick right now, but I guess that’s mostly just cosmetic. The property manager insists it’s sound.” Camo pants shrugged. “What do they know? Bunch of wusses. But that’s okay ‘cause, if we take the job, we’ll fix it up good as new.” They walked around the little bungalow, took measurements, poked and prodded at the holes in the siding and finally left. Keely noticed they were driving a beat-up import station wagon that had seen better days. She shook her head. “I could mistake them for down on their luck beach bums, but maybe they know what they’re doing.” Sekmet gave a plaintive meow and twined through Keely’s legs, the cat’s way of saying her dish was empty and Keely was late getting it filled. “Okay, okay. I get the message. Quit mooning and feed you, right?” * * * * Bright and early the next morning, the two men were back. They had a bunch of tools, a couple of ladders and wore what looked like the same clothes. It appeared they had taken the job. In spite of knowing she had boxes to unpack, shelf paper to install, and a zillion other chores she needed to work on, Keely found herself sneaking peeks out the windows. The guys were hard at work. She watched as they chipped off old paint, cut away bad sections of siding and slid new strips in to replace them. Tools growled, and male voices rumbled indistinct words, but the sounds gave her a secure, familiar feeling. She’d missed the homely comfort of hearing Mike and his friends working on his vintage Thunderbird in the garage, kidding each other while they tinkered with this and that as men were prone to do. Shorts had shed his T-shirt and pulled it over his head, wrapping part over his nose and mouth to repel the dust as he started sanding down the rough spots. Wow, did he have a bod—six-pack abs and sleek muscles under a deep tan gleaming with sweat as he worked in the midday sun. Camo pants seemed to be the carpenter of the pair. His sure, economical moves with hammer, jigsaw and a small pry bar gave Keely shocking images of such confident work-roughened hands on her skin. Sparkling energies danced along her nerves at the idea. In the fifteen months since Mike’s sudden death from a ruptured aneurism, she really had hardly thought of s*x. The aching gap in her life didn’t leave room for memories of pleasure, for longing or lust. Her other emotions and needs had been absorbed into a black hole of despair. Now her big change seemed to have blasted her free at last. I feel like the princess awakened from her long slumber. An imp of guilt nibbled at her, but she shoved it aside. Shoot, Mike’s gone, and I’m still here. Anyway, a few secret lusty notions won’t hurt anybody. It all feels good, though. So did the tingles of awareness that had her n*****s stiffening and moist heat itching between her legs. About one o’clock, they knocked off and got sack lunches out of the car, before sitting down cross-legged under a straggly tree in the back yard to eat. Acting on an impulse, Keely whipped up a big pitcher of lemonade, dumped a tray of ice cubes into it and grabbed a couple of plastic glasses. Then she walked out with as much studied nonchalance as she could summon. “Hey, guys, how does a cold drink sound?” “Like a piece of heaven,” Shorts said. “By the way, I guess we ought to introduce ourselves. We’ll be hanging around here for several days. This big galoot’s Tim Calhoun, and I’m Jerry Alioso.” Keely gave each man a smile before she set the pitcher down on the low cement wall and then proceeded to fill the two glasses. “I’m glad to meet you both. My name’s Keely Sandoval. I just moved in last week so I’m still trying to get settled. When I stopped unpacking to grab some lunch, I saw you guys looked awfully hot. It must be a hundred in the shade today. I’ve had the cooler running since about nine, but it doesn’t seem to be doing much good.” Jerry shrugged. “We’re used to the heat. I guess the LA basin is about as close to home for us as any place, but we’ve been working in this area all summer. Sure do thank you for thinking of us, though, don’t we, Tim?” “You betcha.” Tim nodded, grinning. He took one glass and drained it in about three swallows. Keely poured him a refill before he could ask. Although she felt like a silly teenager, hanging around to watch the guy she had a crush on as if she had nothing better to do, Keely could not make herself go back indoors. If she did anything, it would be to dig out her paints and a mid-sized canvas and try to capture a pair of brown male torsos in an appropriate setting. She tended to do more landscapes and still life than figures, but with inspiration like these two, normal themes did not appeal. They were both beautiful in the manner of a famous sculpture or similar classic pieces. Their faces might be rougher and they might both be far from the current boy toy models, but those work-honed bodies were totally appealing and utterly sexy! Not long after she finally forced herself to go back indoors, the two painters collected their equipment, stashed it in the open shed in the back yard and quit for the day. With a strong reluctance, Keely went back to the now-dull job of trying to put her new home in order. * * * * “One hot-looking babe, eh?” Tim made the observation as he slid into the passenger seat of the old Subaru when they loaded up to leave for the day. Jerry shrugged. “Yeah, for around here, I’d have to agree. I’ve seen better on the beaches back home in sunny Cal, but this is Podunk, New Mexico. Seems like all the gals here are either fat, dragging a passel of kids, about seventy-five, looking for a meal ticket or some combo of the above.” After flashing his partner a quick look, Tim guffawed. “Aw, come on, you’re just sour about the latest s**t your ex is trying to pull. She might’ve looked hot in a bikini at one time, but that’s not doing you any good now.” Jerry scowled at that comment, although he did agree. Ex-wives were bad news, almost always. “You can say that again. The hot looking ones are the worst in the long run. f**k a plain woman and she’ll be so grateful she’ll let ya spend the night and feed you the next morning. In the dark, all women are sisters anyway. Most of ‘em have the same standard equipment.” “This gal seems nice enough, anyway. That lemonade sure hit the spot.” Jamming on the brakes that he suspected were starting to fail, Jerry pulled in behind the rundown apartment complex where they had found temporary accommodations. He’d been an itinerant painter and handyman for some years now, ever since divorce had put him out of house and home. A guy could live pretty cheap if his tastes were simple, he’d found. He’d met Tim six months ago, a recently discharged veteran of the Middle East wars, dumped by his fiancée while he was overseas and trying to find his way through life again. They’d made a good team so far—Tim was not afraid of work and was apparently content to live simply, at least for now. And, in spite of a game leg where some shrapnel had cut him up pretty bad, Tim could hold his own and earn every cent of his pay. Most of it came in cash. Jerry preferred to do things that way, and it made life simpler. “If you want to put the hustle on her, feel free,” he said. “I’m out of the market. If I can pick up a one-night gal at that little cantina down in La Golondrina this weekend, that’s good enough for me. There’s enough left over from what Miz Donaldson fronted us for supplies to do a little partying come Saturday night.” * * * * The next couple of days, Keely accomplished very little. When the two men were there working, she watched them more than anything else. She watched surreptitiously most of the time, hoping they would not notice. A degree of shyness coupled with the guilty pleasure made her cautious. She had to admit neither of them was actually drop-dead gorgeous, but they were very masculine—active, muscular, and reeking of testosterone. In short, everything she missed so painfully since Mike was gone. Being single sucks. After almost a decade with a totally macho man at the center of her life, she missed so many things so much, and not just s*x, although goodness knows she’d started to feel horny all the time in recent days. One evening after the painters left, she dragged out a canvas and set it on her easel. Then she got out her sketchbook, feeling a need to start something, anything, to get back to painting again. It was either that or go look for a job because the insurance money would only go so far. Job-hunting had little appeal right now. With the slow economy, jobs in this remote corner of the state were probably few and far between. One fortunate thing about being an artist—you could ply your trade anywhere. The quiet and homey small town atmosphere, after living a number of years in the bustle of Tucson, felt good. She’d grown up in a small town, but had left that behind to go to college and never went back. Now her parents were both gone and there was no reason to return, but she had missed it more than she realized. Good thing she had a career of sorts. A gallery in Las Cruces already displayed a few of her landscapes and the owners had indicated they’d be happy to have more. One had sold recently, which probably piqued their interest. She hadn’t put a dab of paint on canvas since Mike’s sudden death, so it was high time she tried. The only problem was her mind seemed blank for ideas. All she could visualize were brown male torsos, sweaty bodies with ragged, paint-splattered work clothes covering only the minimal necessary parts. Taking up her sketchbook, she started drawing and laid out several pictures of men at work. Hmmm, wonder if they’d sell? From what she’d seen on the news and read in some magazines lately, women were becoming much more honest and open in their sexuality and not abashed about ogling some hunky males. Male dance reviews did well many places and calendars of half-nude fire fighters, military men, cowboys and the like were very popular. A bit of artistic beefcake might appeal to some of the young women in the work force with a bit of extra cash to spend. It was worth a try. She started a painting on that note, but it wasn’t quite coming to life. What did she need to make it work? Live models! This was not going to be easy, but she decided to ask Tim and Jerry to pose for her, at least while she took some photographs and made sketches to work from. She’d studied anatomy in college to get her art degree, but that wasn’t enough. She wanted to smell the sweat and see just how muscles moved when a man was swinging a hammer, holding a power tool or climbing a ladder. The next morning when Jerry and Tim arrived, Keely was ready with a big pot of fresh coffee. She had overheard them griping about the crummy coffee they got at a convenience store nearby and decided maybe some quality caffeine would put them in a good mood before she asked her risky question. As they dragged an extension ladder off its precarious perch atop the battered old wagon, she set two big mugs and the thermal pot on the little table on her open patio. “Here’s some fresh coffee, guys. I know the kind they sell at the Fast Mart is pretty putrid. This is genuine Columbian.” Tim beamed. “Aw, man, lady, my taste buds will think they died and went to heaven. I gotta have my caffeine, but that swill we’ve been getting is almost too lousy to choke down. You’re an angel.” Jerry was not as effusive, but he did grin, a sparkle he could not quite subdue in his hazel eyes. “Hey, that’s real nice of you. So what’s the catch?” Damn, is he reading my mind? She barely controlled a guilty start. “There isn’t one, not really. Oh, I have a small favor to ask, but it won’t be hard for you to do. You see, I’m a painter, too, only I put my colors on canvas and sometimes they make pretty pictures. Watching you guys work the last few days, I got the idea to do a few paintings of working men, just see if some ladies might like to hang a hunk on their walls. I’d like to take a few photos and do some sketches today if it won’t bother you too much.” The two men exchanged a can-you-believe-this-stuff look. Then Jerry’s gaze slid around to meet hers. “Are you kidding? Who’d want to see a portrait of some sweaty bum trying to scratch out a living?” Keely shook her head. “No, I’m dead serious, honestly. It was just an idea I had. I’d need you both to sign model releases, although I doubt I’ll show your faces, at least not recognizable faces.” Jerry shrugged with studied nonchalance. “Hey, it’s your dime. I guess we can work and ignore you. Most of the time anyway. Just keep the coffee, and later the lemonade, coming and we’ll be your slaves for life, at least till this job is done. Not that we’re cheap or anything.” Tim just grinned. “But we are, at least, economical.” Jerry rolled his eyes. “I like economical,” Keely replied. “That’s about all I can manage these days unless I get really lucky and sell a bunch of my work.” After they went to work, painting the well-sanded and patched siding with primer, Keely got her digital camera and sketchpad. She settled herself out of the way, but close enough to watch every move they made. She snapped a lot of pictures, some for her project and almost as many for herself. In a few days, they’d be gone, but at least she’d have a few good likenesses to flash across her computer screen. Gosh, I’m really pathetic. I guess I should check out some of those dating sites on the internet and see if I can find some male companionship. But with two warm, hard-bodied men right here, the idea wasn’t very urgent. That night she worked well past her normal bedtime, painting as fast as she could. The first picture she had envisioned began to take shape. Maybe she made the two men slightly better looking than they were in real life, but she didn’t have to stretch reality very far to make them both look delicious. She portrayed Jerry on the ladder, holding the electric sander and scrubbing down a ragged patch along the edge of the eaves. Below him and to one side, Tim squatted, hammer in hand, as he tacked a patch of siding into place. She had them both bare to the waist and wearing cut-off jeans instead of the baggy camouflage pants, cargo shorts and ragged T-shirts they actually wore. Artistic license, she told herself. It’s never wrong to improve on reality a bit for the sake of art. Jerry did have a great ass, and she made sure the cut-offs did it justice. When she finally quit working, her arms ached and her eyes felt gritty, but the result was worth the effort. Surely, an office-bound young woman who had to look at skinny or pudgy office-bound men in chinos and white shirts every day would enjoy this view! She eyed the painting, a catch in her breath. Oh, my, I’d love to get my hands on those cheeks! Dream on. Not going to happen, I know, but I can dream. And dream she did, all night long, awake and asleep. She woke the next morning hot, horny and frustrated. “Damn it,” she grumbled to Sekmet as she started the coffee, “I need to get laid!”