Chapter 14
Sette
“Thank you for your bid in the interest of Miss June. We are writing to inform you…”
Sette lowered the letter as soon as she was done reading it. So, another person was interested in her muse? Somehow, that didn’t surprise her… yet she was annoyed all the same.
She had thought long and hard about it. Sometimes too long, and too hard.
Whenever Sette had her bearings again, she reminded herself that thirty grand a month wasn’t bad when she was already spending that once a week to be with her every time she visited.
The penny-pincher in her constantly reminded her conscience that she could save thousands by keeping things restrained and careful, but then her conscience retorted with, “Then what’s the point?
” She had gone too far. She knew what it was like to make love to June. There was no going back.
Still, bidding higher made Sette uneasy.
The letter stipulated that increased bids went in $5,000 intervals, so she had to bid at least $35,000 to be taken seriously.
Still cheaper than seeing her at the standard rate.
Sette hated thinking of June like that, but she had to be practical.
She was spending a shitton of money on June.
Money that she didn’t have to spend if she found love the old-fashioned way.
It’s not love, dumbass.
Yet when she looked at the paintings in her studio, she couldn’t help but think that there was something more than a mere relationship between professional and client.
Or maybe June really was that good. There was a reason why women like Sette were lining up to buy her, after all.
This is practical. If she was going to continue using June as a muse and get some extra benefits on the side, then it only made sense to become a patron.
It would save her money, and she could take her June from her fancy house.
That was important to an artist. She wouldn’t be happy with painting June on that estate for the rest of her life.
She would want to bring her to the studio.
Maybe the gallery opening, if there was one.
Fuck it. She wanted to take June to the coast, to the mountains, to Vancouver, and to Puerto Vallarta.
Her family had their own private jet she sometimes borrowed. Why couldn’t she have June there, too?
Yes, this was the practical thing to do. Better than the hundred grand she would soon owe the Manoir for bending her model over for a month. That didn’t include the modeling fees!
She picked up her phone and dialed Monique’s business number. All Sette could do was raise her bid and hope the other fool didn’t care about June as much as she did.
“Holy shit.” Zara gasped upon entering her friend’s studio on Wednesday morning. “You’ve done all these in two weeks?”
“Is that fast?” Sette was grinning.
“Is that… you bitch! Are you on speed or crack or what?” She didn’t wait for Sette to answer. “Worse. You’re high on this woman.”
Sette didn’t like the tone in her voice. She sat by the largest window in her studio, overlooking a green courtyard between her townhouse and the neighboring apartment building. “She is my muse. That tends to be how it works.”
“You’re playing with some serious fire,” Zara continued, as if Sette cared a single iota about her opinion on the matter. “She’s not any woman, Sette. She’s not even the usual warnings against model types.”
“You might as well stop right there.” She didn’t need to hear this.
“Why? I don’t think you’ve realized what you’re doing.”
“What am I doing?”
Zara looked her square in the eye, a serious demeanor that did not suit her crossing her face.
“You’re falling for an escort, to put it lightly.
Don’t you get it? She’s not your girlfriend.
She never will be your girlfriend, unless she quits her job, I guess.
Don’t count on it, though. I saw those girls there.
They’ve got a good thing going. Unless they want out anyway, they’re not likely to run off even with a rich doctor like you. ”
Sette turned away. “Didn’t realize I had asked for your unsolicited advice. Please. Give me the benefit of a doubt here. First of all, I’m not in love with her. I barely know her.”
“I’ll say.”
“Second, I know what relationship we have. I pay for her time and, yes, her services.”
“Expensive services. You won’t even buy a new car because you think it’s too expensive, and you could pay cash. Seriously, you’ve got more than one thing for this woman if you’re shelling out thousands of dollars to spend a few afternoons with her.”
“Hey, stay out of it, would you? If I want your advice, I will ask for it.”
Zara shook her head, but not before turning toward the finished portraits lining one wall. “This woman has done wonders for your work, that’s true.”
“But?” Might as well let her have it.
“But don’t let her ruin your personal life. There’s no point to having a great art career if a woman’s breaking your heart and wallet.”
“I can take care of myself, thanks.”
Sette had considered telling her about the bidding and possibly becoming June’s patron. She would’ve played along had Sette been accepted for the starting bid. Knowing that her friend was offering more money, though? Preposterous.
Now, she knew better. Best that Zara didn’t know about what went on at the Manoir, aside from June being her new model, anyway. Joy had yet to get back on any possible gallery shows, but they were hopeful. Until then… it should be Sette and June only.
How unfortunate. For the first time in a long while, Sette had a woman to brag about.
So what if she paid for her? That was a detail.
June may not have been her real girlfriend, but she was real.
A real conversationalist. A real intellectual when she was allowed to be.
A real hottie when Sette let lust overcome her.
Zara left, still shaking her head and mumbling about going down to the marina to play on her boat.
Sette turned back to a painting she was finishing up.
She was due to see June that afternoon for fresh sketches, but wanted to finish this up first. Yet the longer she stared at her own work, the more she thought of June, and how great it would be to exist as her #1 woman. A privilege worth paying for.
I wonder if she gets any say in it. Could June choose her over the other woman?
Or was she at her madam’s whim? Today, I can show her what I am.
After business, of course. Except Sette’s brain was already overrun with every naughty thing she wanted to do to June.
Everything she would tell June to do to herself.
The more she was around her, the more Sette wanted to assert herself – and June responded as she desired.
No wonder Sette was willing to throw tens of thousands of dollars at her a month.
The coffee shop was too bright to comfort Sette’s addled nerves.
If anything, it did the opposite. It threw light at her through floor-to-ceiling glass, bounced it off chrome espresso machines and white marble countertops, and dared her to pretend she was artistically mindful while people in pressed trousers and spotless sneakers hustled past, tethered to their lives by lanyards, watches, and glowing screens.
Sette chose a table by the window, anyway. Better to have natural light scream at her than ultraviolet hell.
Outside, the CBD moved like a machine. Suits strode in packs.
A woman in a long camel coat paused at the crosswalk, her hair as sleek as lacquer, while a man with a messenger bag spoke into his earbuds with the kind of fervor usually reserved for Thanksgiving squabbles.
Cyclists split lanes like cars didn’t exist. Everything and everyone looked like they were on their way to something that was the difference between life and death.
Sette sat with her coffee still untouched.
The cup was hot against her palms. The heat exuded through the paper sleeve while her pulse pushed through her thumbs and to the rigid texture. She should have been sketching. That was why she packed her travel-sized art book, right?
A month ago, she would have been sketching.
A week ago, even… maybe. She would have been drawing the curve of a stranger’s cheekbone, the slant of a shoulder beneath a jacket, or the way light illuminated such a mundane place like a coffee shop.
She would have filled a page because she couldn’t help herself, especially with caffeine involved.
Now the sketchbook lay closed in her bag.
Sette’s phone sat face-up on the table beside her coffee. It stayed stubbornly dark. No messages. No notifications. No ding of approval from the universe. Hmph.
She tapped the edge of the table until she forced herself to stop.
This is ridiculous. She had quit medicine.
She had walked away from a valuable routine, from the steady adoration and steady exhaustion, from her parents’ pride and her colleagues’ confusion.
She had started over with paint under her nails and investments that combined her former salary and the trust fund her parents had given her when she turned twenty-five.
She had chosen this life. Sette had known what she was getting into when she set her own schedule.
She exhaled slowly and lifted her cup, bringing it to her lips.
The coffee was way more bitter than usual. She swallowed, anyway.
Across the shop, a group of young professionals had claimed the long communal table and spread themselves out like they were the only ones there.
Laptops open, chargers tangled, voices pitched just high enough to be heard over the grinder.
One of them laughed loudly, and the sound spiked through the air, right into Sette’s ear.
Sette tried to let it slide past her. She tried to focus on the now.
Her mind yanked in the other direction the moment her eyes lay upon a curvy blond walking by the window.
Not June. Not her.