Chapter 19
19
I have been to Monet’s garden before. An hour west of Paris, it’s a popular destination for many visitors to France.
But this is like a high-definition version, somehow more vivid than reality, with orange dahlias that blaze like the sun and pink poppies the color of the inside of a seashell. All the flowers are in bloom. In front of me lies a blanket of pale-blue forget-me-nots. The hues here are more vibrant than any palette I’ve seen on the outside.
“We’re not in Giverny anymore,” I say in a daze, my eyes feasting as I take in the scene.
We are someplace else entirely. Someplace that doesn’t exist for anyone else, anywhere else. Someplace that exists only beyond a painting. The flowers, the pond, and the trees are fully alive, but also slightly gauzy, slightly surreal. The scent is too, like a perfect gardenia.
“Do you like it?” she asks, eager and hopeful.
“God, I love it,” I say, then whirl around, facing this brilliant beauty. I cup her cheeks, hold her face passionately, and meet her gaze. “This is a gift. You are a gift.”
A faint blush spreads over her cheeks. “Thank you. Come. Unwrap more of it,” she says, stepping away, beckoning me to follow.
I will follow her anywhere.
“Do you want to see the bridge that Monet painted over and over?” she asks.
“Hell yes.”
Clio points. Hovering over the glassy blue surface of the pond is the green bridge from Monet’s backyard. I take her hand, squeezing her fingers, as we walk over where purple tulips edge the water, past the water lilies, hazy and quivering. We duck under weeping willows that brush our backs, and when I stand up straight again, I step onto the Japanese bridge.
Everything is gorgeous.
Everything is perfect.
But it’s also all she has.
My chest tightens like a noose, thinking of her trapped by beauty.
“Do you love it or hate it here, Clio?” I ask, because even though it’s a strange and wondrous place, it’s also her cell.
A sad smile crosses her lips. “Sometimes both, yes. I used to pretend there was a door at the end of this bridge. A plain, simple wooden door with an old-fashioned ring handle. Dark metal. You’d pull it open”—she demonstrates opening an invisible door, pulling easily—“and there. The other side.” She stays frozen like that, looking at her imagined world. “Now I’ve finally been on the other side.” She takes a long, lingering beat, punctuated by a sigh. “ Free. ”
She turns back to me, and my heart aches for her for being stuck for so many years. More than a century. “And being with you, that’s an escape too from the life I’ve been trapped in.”
She lets her voice trail off as her lips zero in on mine. She leans in, pressing lightly at first, grazing my lips, and I let her lead, like she seems to want to. She could take me anywhere, and she has. I push my hands through her soft hair, letting the strands form a waterfall through my fingers. She leans into my touch like a cat, and kisses me back, slow and soft as if we could do this forever. This kind of long, unhurried, luxurious kiss. A kiss that turns you inside out with bliss.
But eventually we pull apart.
“Why don’t you leave the painting for good? Can you escape from the painting? Leave the museum?” I ask, but even if she left, what would she have? Where would—or could—she go? It’s as if she’s traveled through time.
She gives a sad, plaintive smile. “I can. And it’s simple. You don’t need a crazy car chase or knife fight to free me. Nothing violent, nothing dangerous. It’s simple because art is grace. Art is class. You can free me by holding open the door and letting me out.”
My heart soars at the prospect. But not for long.
Because her tone is heavy.
There will be no freeing her easily.
“But . . .?”
“But that won’t change the curse, and besides, I don’t want to go.”
I latch onto the last part of her answer. “Why?”
She strokes my cheek. “Do you want me to just keep saying it over and over? I told you last night. Because of you.”
I laugh. “It doesn’t really get old to hear.” My eyes drift to the green slats of the bridge, and I want to feel them, their realness. I lie down with her there. The overhead sun warms me. “But tell me, why me?”
“We speak each other’s language. We like the same things. We both love art. We love it to the wild depths of our souls.”
I grin. “Why, yes, I do believe you understand me perfectly.”
She touches my wrist as she talks, running a finger across my palm. “I think I do, and do you want to know why?” Her eyes twinkle with secrets about to come undone.
I prop myself up on one elbow, all eager and then some. “Yes. Tell me.”
She trails her fingers up my arm now. “You want to know who I am?”
My bones vibrate with need. “Yes. I’m dying to know.” This is all I want.
“Everything?”
“Yes!” I say desperately. “Tell me.”
“Like, about my family? And where I’m from?”
I make a rolling gesture with my hands, letting her know I’m eager and ready. “Tell me.” I lace my fingers through hers. She squeezes back.
She props herself up on her elbow, mirroring me. “Here’s a hint. I have eight sisters,” she says, like she delights in delivering that detail. “Eight.”
She says the number as if it’s the answer to a riddle, and I have to figure out the question. I picture the digit as a swirling figure, two intertwined circles.
“Eight,” I repeat.
“I’m like you,” she continues, all flirty and sexy. “Only eternal.”
It’s as if there were a few notes playing in my head and then someone turned up the radio and the song is now blasting at full volume, and I know all the lyrics. “Do you have a sister named Calliope?” I ask in a hushed breath.
She nods happily, like she enjoys revealing this secret.
How did I miss this? Of course I know a Clio is one of the nine Muses, but then it never occurred to me that my Clio might be an actual Muse.
That’s how I missed it.
I simply thought she was like any other woman with that name. Cognitive dissonance perhaps. The notion she might be Clio the Muse seemed too preposterous that I never considered it. I always assumed she was simply a woman from many years ago with that name.
“And do you have another sister named Thalia?” I ask.
A grin spreads across her face. “Yes. Though Thalia is more like a mom to me.”
“You’re a Muse. One of the nine Muses. You’re one of the nine actual Muses?”
“One of the nine indeed,” she says, pleased, like she’s just given me a fantastic birthday present, and holy hell, this is another gift. This knowledge. This insight into her. Clio isn’t just a young woman from Montmartre. She’s so much more.
“Erato, Euterpe, Melpomene, Polyhymnia, Terpsichore, and . . .” I say, rattling off the names of the other Muses from myth, but I blank on the last one.
“Urania,” she says with a wild grin. “Impressive that you know them. My family.”
I shake my head in astonishment. “You’re a Muse? Like, a real Muse? Not just, like, a human muse? But the Muses from forever and ever?”
She holds up her hand like she’s swearing in court. “As I live and breathe, I’m a Muse. An eternal Muse. Thalia made me. She made all of us.”
“Made you?”
“Well, we weren’t just born from human mothers. We were made to be Muses.”
The sky could fall, the earth could split open, this garden could tear in two, and I wouldn’t notice. I am inside a painting with a Muse, and I know this moment must be a mirage, or maybe it is hazier than that—a reflection of a mirage, a dream within a hallucination. If I was amazed at paintings coming to life, if I was astonished to learn why I can see them, that’s nothing compared to learning this. That the woman I’ve grown so fond of is a Muse.
She flicks her fingers, and a spray of silver dust lands on me. “There you go,” she says, showing off with delight.
I catch her hand and touch her bracelets. They should be wispy, since they’re hairbreadth thin, but they are as solid as a bank vault. “Is this where you keep the silver dust?”
She laughs and shakes her head. “No. Our bracelets are our marks. They mark us as Muses. And I’m the Muse of painting.”
“I thought Clio was traditionally the Muse of history?”
“I was, but when painting became big during the Renaissance, I switched.”
“‘Switched,’” I say, then laugh. “Like a midlife career change.”
“Exactly.”
“What do you do with that silver dust?”
“It’s used for inspiration.”
“Oh, sure. No biggie.” I pretend to flick my fingers. “Hey, want to be inspired? Here’s my silver dust.”
She pushes my shoulder and laughs. “You’re the one who drew shoes with it.”
I sit up and drag a hand through my hair, questions bubbling inside me. “How on earth has one of the nine Muses been inside a painting since 1885?”
Her expression shifts to one of resignation, but there’s a touch of anger there too. “Renoir trapped me,” she says, her voice containing a hard edge. “That’s why I didn’t tell you right away who I am. The last person—the last human I saw—essentially put me in a cage. I have a tiny bit of a trust issue,” she says, and holds her thumb and forefinger together to make light of the statement, but it’s a heavy one nevertheless. Of course she’d have trust issues. “But I felt that you were different from the first time I met you. I wanted to make sure. I wanted to tell you when I knew I could trust you.”
I reach for her hands, thread our fingers together, and squeeze. “You can trust me, Clio. I would never do anything to hurt you. I only want to help you. But why did he trap you?”
“We used to talk, Renoir and Monet and Valadon and I. I was the Muse for all of them, and we had many discussions about the nature of art. Renoir had firm beliefs that only great artists like himself should make art, be revered and admired. That we Muses should save our inspiration for the worthy—which, of course, included him. And I didn’t agree.”
“What did you say?”
“I told him—I stood there in the garden, and I said, ‘I believe it’s my destiny to guide art and artists to a more open age where anyone can make art and anyone can show it.’ Things were different then, Julien. During his time, art was very closed off.”
I nod. “I know. It’s different now, with so many ways to experiment and exhibit it. There’s public art and graffiti art and videos and cartoons and experimental music . . .”
“And that’s what I always believed would happen. That anyone could create art, that anyone could consume it. And I told Renoir about human muses. That they would exist, and that they would do more of the work of inspiration. He did not like that idea whatsoever. And so, he trapped me.”
She says it clinically, but perhaps that’s so she can make it through the horror of the tale.
“How?” I ask, cringing. “Did he stuff you into his canvas?”
“He took my powers of inspiration and twisted them. Muse dust is very limited but very powerful, and binding. He had been painting the gardens, and said he wanted to show me what he’d done so far, but when I looked at his canvas, he took me by the wrists and flicked my fingertips onto the painting. And I went into it. It’s like a reversal, the way he used the dust on me. The last words I heard were ‘Let’s see if a human muse can free you someday.’”
Every part of me aches for her. For the bitterness, for the pain. For having everything she loved, everything she believed, turned against her.
“I’m so sorry that happened to you, Clio,” I say, but how do you even begin to comfort someone who’s been caged for so long, even if the bars are beautiful?
She holds out her hands as if to say c’est la vie . “I’ve gotten used to it, I suppose.”
“So he did curse your painting. He cursed it with your own powers.”
“It’s ironic because every idea he rejected—human muses, art for everyone—his arrogance put all of that into motion.”
“But here’s the thing. He’s still after the painting,” I say. I hate telling her that Renoir is back, but I can’t keep it from her. I tell her about the haunting of Max, and then what I learned today—that someone had swapped in a fake and taken her actual painting to the house in Montmartre, which would become Remy’s. Where we would eventually meet. There’s no point in hiding it. Whatever we’re in, we’re in it together.
“It’s like he’s trying to get you back. I mean, you’re safe here at the museum. But why now? What is he so worried about?”
“I don’t know. I was cut off from everything when he trapped me.”
“Besides, if he was crazed enough to trap you, you’d think he’d have—” I stop talking, but she can add two and two.
“Destroyed the painting?”
I nod, wincing at that horrible idea. “Well, yeah.”
“He wasn’t violent. He was, oddly enough, a gentleman. And he would never do that to one of his creations. He loved his art more than anything in the world.”
“Art can be a stupid, jealous thing.”
“In a way, I kind of know how he felt. I used to love art more than anything. But then I started thinking more about the process, and it never made sense to me why it was only the nine of us Muses who could bring about true and great inspiration. It didn’t feel right to me. And my beliefs started changing about making art, but also about what I wanted. The only problem is you can’t really want as an eternal Muse. You just do . You just do the work.”
“So let me free you, then.” It’s the least I can do for her. “I mean, that’s what this curse or prophecy or whatever is about, right? A human muse will free you from your painting. You said all I had to do was open the doors of the museum and let you out.”
She looks at me and lays a soft hand on my cheek. “If you did, I’d just have to go back. I’d have to work. The painting is what binds me to the museum, and the museum is what lets me come out at night. Once I leave the museum, I’ll be bound again. Bound to be a Muse all the time.” The weight of that burden darkens her voice. It’s such cruel beauty, the way these traps contain her. “I used to love working all the time. But being in that painting for so many years, I’m not the same. I don’t know what I want anymore.” There is so much sadness in her voice.
I latch onto what she said about family before. “But your sisters—do you want to see them? Do they need you back?”
She shrugs, shooting me a little smile. “I’d like to see them at some point, but I’m rather enjoying where I am this second. Besides, my sisters have obviously filled in for me all those years. I didn’t inspire Toulouse-Lautrec or Seurat. The later Cézannes aren’t mine, and the later Monets aren’t either, not the Water Lilies , not the Rouen Cathedral . Even your favorite Van Gogh was made without me. So my sisters must have taken over for me.”
“Muse sick day,” I joke.
“Extended leave of absence,” she corrects.
“So, you’re going to take a few more days off?” I ask, and I love this idea. I want as much of her as I can get.
“They got by this long without me. So I think I’ll play hooky a little longer,” she says, her lips curving up in a grin. “That is, if you’ll keep having me?”
“I’ll have you any way I can. I’ll give you whatever you want, Clio,” I say, even though my heart is heavy inside because whatever we are will inevitably unwind. It will never be more than an escape into a garden that isn’t real.
She brushes her lips against mine, and I melt into her.
* * *
We kiss with the sun warming us, lying on the green slats of Monet’s surreal bridge. As I kiss her neck, I tell her all the places I want to kiss her more, the visits I’d make on the treasure map of her body. X marks this spot on her shoulder, then this delicious one on her wrist, then this divine location at the hollow of her throat, as she shudders and pulls me closer with each touch. I’m an intrepid explorer uncovering a new land and claiming it with kisses. Even if time is ticking on the other side of the painting.
But on this side, the moment feels endless.
The moment feels like everything.
And then it truly feels like another world when she wraps her arms around my neck and whispers in my ear, “I know what I want.”
The words glide out, all sensual and sure.
I meet her gaze, my body stilling, a wild hope racing through me. “Tell me what that is.”
She doesn’t tell me. She shows me. She slides her hand down my chest, along my pecs, over my abs.
To the waistband of my jeans.
I swallow roughly, my throat going dry, my body buzzing from the delicious contact.
And then from her eager hand sliding lower. I catch her hand, capture it in mine, and bring it to my lips, kissing her palm. “Are you sure? Now?”
She shoots me a sharp stare. “I’m positive. Do you not want to?”
“I want to. More than anything. I just don’t want to . . .”
“Break me?” she asks with an eyebrow arch.
“Well, you are magical. I’ve never . . . been with anyone like you.”
“I should hope not,” she says with a laugh.
I laugh too, loving that we can do that in this moment.
“Also, shouldn’t you be worried I’ll break you?” she teases.
I grab her head, tug her close, and bring my lips to her ear. “No. Just don’t break my heart,” I say softly.
She sets her palm on my chest. “I won’t.”
It feels like an unbreakable promise.
I pat the back of my jeans, take out my wallet to locate a condom, and she laughs.
“Eternal Muses can’t conceive.”
“Oh,” I say, filing away that tidbit. “I’m clean. Safe.”
“Good. Then put that away.”
“With pleasure,” I say, returning the protection to my wallet.
I shuck off my shirt as she fiddles with the buttons on her dress, and soon she tugs it over her head.
My heart stops.
Breath flees my body.
She’s gorgeous. More beautiful than I imagined, and I have definitely imagined this.
A lot.
We reach for each other at the same time, all hands and lips and hunger. Exploring each other’s bodies, mapping skin, traveling along curves and planes.
She’s eager, so eager, judging from the way she kisses me, from the frenzied way her palms journey over my chest to my jeans.
I push them off, and here we are.
Two muses.
One human. One eternal.
About to make love in Monet’s garden.
Inside a painting.
My life is so surreal.
She climbs over me.
Well now.
This view is even better.
It is incontrovertibly the best view ever as she slides on top of me. I loop my hands into her hair. “Come closer.”
She bends down to me, her lips brushing mine so gently, so sweetly, I am sure I’m dreaming again, or I’m really flying. I don’t know, and it doesn’t matter, but she kisses me like a song, like moonlight, like a sonnet.
Then, I guide myself into her.
And we both gasp.
And moan.
And wrap ourselves tighter around each other.
The ends of her hair brush across my chest, and a groan escapes my lips as she moves on me, rocking and arching, and holy art .
Holy muse.
This is the most surreal experience of my life.
A Muse is riding me in a painting.
Only it’s so much more than that.
She is full of yearning and fire and heat, and all I can think is if I were to die right now, if I were to be struck down for being with a Muse inside a painting, then really, all things considered, this wouldn’t be a bad way to go.
Because nothing is better than this. Nothing could be better than this.
Especially when I shift us, move her under me, gaze down at the woman I adore.
Yes, this is so much more.
Because as I thrust into her, as she curls her legs around me, as we kiss and pant and move, this is more than an art kink.
This is making love, and falling in love, and falling into each other.
We are racing and frenzied, as bodies collide, and my muse, my woman, arches her back, parts her lips, and comes apart beneath me.
I follow her there, losing myself to bliss, to pleasure, and I’m sure to pain.
Because I just don’t see a way for us to be together.
For her to ever be free.
I’m spent, and she is too, so we lie like that, in our oasis that can’t last, that’s about to be pierced by responsibilities and rules.
By all the things that bind us.
But I let the moment wash over me, breathing in this last bit of secret hideout-ness, breathing in Clio .