Note: This story was dynamically reformatted for online reading convenience. Painting on an August Morning By Shon Richards It was a hot August morning, the kind where there was steam outside instead of fog. Inside, it was the cool constant temperature I needed for my paintings. Inside me, the temperature ranged from rage to surrender. Danielle was in bed, lying on her stomach, the sheets and pillows still a mess from last night. She was reading a magazine, topless except for her straight blonde hair hanging over a shoulder. I frowned as she bounced her ankle from the bed to her round buttock. It was something she always did when she was excited, and I knew where the source was coming from. "Stay just like that," I said as I sat on the bed beside her, my tools beside me. "I don't have time for posing today," Danielle said curtly. "I have lunch date with Karen in an hour." More like a lunch date with her lover Avery, but I held my peace. "I don't need you to pose, just lay still," I said as gently as I could. Danielle grumbled something but I ignored her. Dipping paintbrush to palette, I selected black as my instrument. My hand was steady for the first time since discovering her infidelity as I brushed the first stroke to her shoulder blade. "Jesus! That's cold!" Danielle complained, but her modeling instincts prevented her from moving. "I'll be careful," I said. Her tanned back had a deep even color that complimented the black paint. I sighed at the perfection of her shoulder blades, rising just slightly enough to guide my paintbrush as I drew the first curves. The black ribbed wing I drew joined her shoulder blade naturally. Danielle's back buttocks shifted under white panties as she fought against shivering. As I began the second wing on her other shoulder blade, I reflected on just last week I had wanted to draw white wings. I had wanted to draw the wings of angels to adorn my wife, maybe to proclaim her divinity and maybe to protect her by wrapping her in the decorations of the angelic. Now I was painting bat wings to serve another double purpose. I wanted to wrap her in infernal garments to accuse her of what I couldn't say out loud, and to damn her for the devilish succubus that she was. "What are you doing?" Danielle asked. "Painting," I told her. "I was inspired," I said truthfully. Shortly the wings were finished and were partially dry. "Sit up please, but slowly and hold your hair away from your back." Danielle did as I asked, and I wanted to scream at her. How could she follow my every wish, my every command, my every desire when it came to my work yet disobey every vow of love she had ever uttered? Obediently she sat on the edge of the bed, her lovely legs hanging over the edge. There was an impish smile on her face, the one she always gets when she is the center of my world. Did she smile like that for Avery? Wordlessly, I knelt before her and slipped my fingers under her panties. I pulled them off as carefully as possible, trying not to disturb her back and cause the paint to wrinkle before it dries. Just as silently, Danielle sat there and lifted her legs, letting me strip the last of her clothing away. She held her shimmering blonde hair over her shoulder in her hand, reminding me of Rapunzel. I filed the image away for a future painting. Even when she betrays me, she is still my most inspiring model. Danielle parted her dark thighs, revealing her tempting inner canvas. Desire well up in me, and I tore my attention away from where I had intended to go. Instead, I crawled between her thighs, resting my elbows on knees that had locked around my waist in the past. I dipped brush to palette and yellow was the guardian I employed. I breathed on her left nipple, watching it harden and flush to a darker brown. I wanted her breast to appear as it would when Avery was with her. I needed it to be the same texture, the same color it would be when she felt desire and for the nipple to be the same shape it would be when he leaned down to suck it. When I was satisfied that her nipple was aroused and Danielle's thighs clenched around me, I began to paint. I drew a spiked barb around her nipple, pointing inward at the hard nub. From here I painted a curling tail that circled around her nipple, expanding outward. Danielle gasped as the soft brush teased her breast, and I knew the inability to move only heightened her sensations. From between her legs I began to smell her arousal but I ignored it as I drew the Guardian. The inside of her round breast was where I drew the origin of the tail, a yellow scorpion. It wasn't easy to paint on the curving fruit of her breast, but then I had all the inspiration in the world sitting there with me. The tail was too long for the scorpion's body, but exaggeration is the privilege of an artist and the right of a husband. Yellow claws completed the vicious beast, pointed towards her cheating heart. I christened him Telemachus, after the defender of Penelope's fidelity. "It feels weird, but pleasant," Danielle whispered, perhaps afraid to disturb the creature on her chest. "Good," I lied. I cursed my cowardice. I examined the firm slenderness of her waist, searching for the next device I needed to summon. It was hard for me to look at the belly that was the center of so many of my paintings and know that someone else's mouth had kissed that navel. The answer became clear to me, and I dipped from Gold to make my next sigil. I painted two circles of intersecting gold so that her lovely navel was shared by both. The symbolism would be clear to Avery when he dips his head down here. Symbolism isn't nearly as mysterious as some creative types would want people to believe. A symbol is worthless if no one understands it, so by definition, a symbol has to be something that can be recognized even by the uneducated. When Avery kissed her down here, I want him to be reminded of the vows she had sworn and broken to me. "This is nice," Danielle said softly. "What gave you this idea?" She parted her legs even farther as I brought my attention to her sex. "The thought of you sucking Avery," I wanted to scream. "Finding his phone number on your cellphone!" I wanted to accuse. Instead, I simply said, "You." Danielle's curly hair covered her sex but couldn't cover her arousal. The lips of her basin were thick and her pearl was shiny with desire. I hated Danielle. I hated her for getting turned on when I was trying to punish her. I hated myself more for wanting to dip my tongue into her. My paintbrush dipped into her cup, and I stroked the outside of her thighs with her own inner juice. Wasn't the first paint the product of crushed juices? The consistency was awful, but the thin clear color was translucent on her tanned skin. "Yes," Danielle purred. I selected another paintbrush and dipped into Red. The thought of stroking her fruit reminded me of another fruit and of another Guardian. While I continued to stroke her garden with my first brush, I used the other brush to draw the outline of a fiery sword on her right thigh. I'm not one for Biblical references, but the idea of Gabriel's sword protecting Danielle's Eden comforted me. It wasn't easy to paint her thigh and stroke her sex at the same time, but then Art never is easy. "Are, are, you almost done?" Danielle stuttered. Her eyes were closed and her lips were an open bow of submission. "Almost," I said. I breathed softly on her thigh, causing the paint to dry. My other brush was useless, sticky and saturated with Danielle's paint but I kept dipping back into her. I had an irrational impulse to paint her clit, to somehow seal it with paint and prevent it from being used again. No, from ever being used by Avery. "Please," Danielle begged in a whisper as I continued to blow on her thigh. "Turn around, and watch the paint," I said, inspiration striking again. I rose and unbuttoned my pants. Danielle smiled at me, and I almost forgave her for everything right there. She turned her body around, carefully avoiding letting her thighs rub together. On her knees, my wife presented her round buttocks to me, the vines of her garden peeking from between her thighs. She kept her head down so that her blonde hair wouldn't obscure the bat wings I had drawn. My cock, uncaring of minor issues like fidelity and trust, was eager for Danielle. Sliding into her was tainted bliss; the pleasure of her gripping me eclipsed by the thought of other cocks that may have been gripped before me. Danielle gasped as I filled her, heedless of her own sins. My hands went down to her hips, pulling her back into me. I toyed with the idea of painting thorns around her ass; to prickle Avery when his stomach meets her buttocks like mine was now. I admired the curve of her back, wondering if I should mar it with paint. As I my cock ploughed her garden, I wondered if a flaming sword would be enough. When Danielle's neck undulated in pleasure, I considered a collar of silver and blue to keep her passions leashed. Danielle's wings fluttered on her back, Telemachus curled his stinger around her nipple and the sword burned her thigh as she reached her triumph. She wanted to collapse and enjoy herself but my wife refused to let her body go for fear of distorting the drying paint. The beautiful woman held her pose in spite of her orgasm, or perhaps the pose aided in her pleasure. Danielle was more faithful as a model than she was a lover. With an aggressive grunt, my cock gave her the final coating. White was the color of my claim, spraying and filling her from the inside. It wasn't enough. It couldn't be enough. I could climax in her a thousand times and there would still be a spot somewhere in her untouched by me. As my last brush wilted inside her, I realized how futile this whole morning had been. "We have to do this more often," Danielle said, wiggling her hips against me playfully. "Why are you sleeping with Avery?" I asked. The end.