“No showering,” he repeated. “And if you do it anyway, I’ll turn off your water.”
I knew exactly what he meant. He knew I was trying to wash him off me because I despised him. Of course, it was a blow to his ego, and he couldn’t swallow the attack on his pride.
“You’re going to work outside all day with my come inside you. That’s my fantasy—and you will fulfill it.”
8
Conway
I’d been in a bad mood lately.
Every time I sat down to make a new sketch, nothing left my fingertips and appeared on the page.
I’d flat-lined.
The last pieces I made were exceptional. My ideas were flowing on to the page at an exponential rate. I was producing more work than ever before in a fraction of the time it normally took me.
I’d never felt so inspired.
But now, I’d crashed into a brick wall. My thoughts were muddled, and I couldn’t picture anything. I couldn’t even decide what kind of fabric would suit the new line. All I had were a few ideas I made weeks ago, but my creativity had dried up like a grape in the sun.
Fuck.
I was in the studio in Milan when Nicole walked inside. “Conway, the distributors are manufacturing The Queen on time. It should be ready to hit stores before you release your next line. If we want to keep on schedule, I need the next three pieces for the show.”
What set me apart from other designers was my productivity. I always had something new for people to look forward to. Other designers reinvented the same idea over and over. They milked their products until the last drop fell. But that wasn’t me. Creating something new was the best marketing strategy that could be implemented.
“Do you have them?”
“Just a few sketches.”
Nicole hid her surprise, but she knew it was out of character for me to be unprepared. “Can I see?”
I opened my notebook to the first page.
She looked down at it, studying it through her thick glasses. She tilted it slightly, as if she were trying to study it at a better angle. Then she turned the page and examined the next drawing.
Her silence already told me everything.
She turned the page again and surveyed the last one.
I didn’t care about anyone’s opinion but my own. But right now, I knew I’d lost my touch.
She shut the book without saying anything. “If you need more time, we can postpone the next show. The date hasn’t been made public, so no one would know otherwise.”
She didn’t like my sketches either. “Give me a few more days.”
“The first two pieces are wonderful,” she said. “I know those will get a lot of attention.”
“Yeah…”
Nicole didn’t linger much longer. She knew when she wasn’t welcome. That was what I liked about her so much. She wasn’t chatty, and she wasn’t uncomfortable with my silence. “Let me know if you need anything.” She walked out and left me alone with my thoughts.
My thoughts of self-loathing.
I knew this had something to do with Muse.
She’d stopped kissing me, and the second that connection was broken, it seemed like I’d lost her. She despised me because of the way I hurt her. She probably thought I was screwing some other woman right at that moment.
But I wasn’t.
I didn’t even want to.
Should I just tell her that? Come clean? Or would that lead me down a worse path?
Never in my life had I been with just a single woman. I vowed I never would be. My life was too good, my work was too important.
But now my work was suffering.
It wasn’t because Muse stopped being my fantasy. It wasn’t because the sex had turned stale. It was because I could feel her disgust for me. Her disappointment weighed me down like a ton of bricks. She didn’t look at me the same way, with admiration and respect. Now she preferred to be on her hands and knees when we screwed so she wouldn’t have to look at me.
And she wouldn’t kiss me.
Not because she wouldn’t allow it. She simply didn’t want to.
Now she was just using me for sex, using me for casual passion. It was exactly what I wanted in the beginning.
But so much had changed.
Regardless of the decision I made, I lost. I would either make an exception for this woman and open a door to a path I’d never trod, or I would continue to let my work suffer. My fantasies and desires had changed. It went from casual passion with multiple women to the worship of one single queen.
My queen.
It was because of her that I’d released my best work. It was because of her that my career soared to new heights.
But the second she knew what she meant to me, the relationship would change. She would have power over me—a lot of power. Would she abuse it? Or would she accept that power responsibly?