He put it on my left ring finger, my engagement finger, with a deeply speaking gaze. Wow. Yes. My answer would be yes, of course, when he asked, although I didn’t really need anything better or more permanent.
His rough, pure, achingly sincere love would always be enough.
Chapter Seventeen: Poetry and Love
Price and I stayed at the Gramercy for almost a month. It was an extravagance, sure, but also necessary. As Price pointed out, the hotel was a neutral place for us to relearn how to be together without the emotional dramas of the past. Plus, I wasn’t eager to leave the lipstick painting on the bathroom mirror. It wasn’t something we could take with us when we checked out.
We continued to go to work during the week days, walking together to the bustling office building on Park Avenue. It felt good to return to my studio, to my quiet, peaceful place of creation. While we were apart, Price concentrated on his Vancouver bridge design, and I dreamed up new adornments for the Pan-Asia retail market.
Then we came together again, and we knew as soon as we embraced that what we had was worth every ounce of effort we were putting into fixing our shit. We spent our nights and weekends having sex, yes, and playing plenty of power exchange games, but we also spent time getting to know each other as people, rather than hooker and john, or Master and slave.
We hammered out the rough spots in our relationship and hashed over our insecurities and flaws. Price learned to be patient when I took calls and meetings with male clients, and accepted that I would meet with Andrew whenever and wherever I pleased during my free time. As for me, I learned not to lose faith when his insecurities caused tension between us. I beat the fears back and confronted him, we talked, we moved on.
As for the cameras at my studio and the apartment, they stayed in place, because he had a serious spying fetish, and I had nothing to hide. Not anymore.
After two weeks of this reconnecting bliss, Vinod returned from India bearing spices for Price, and dozens of half-melted candy bars. He brought me a blue and brown pashmina shawl with colors strikingly similar to mine and Price’s eyes.
“I knew your separation wouldn’t last,” he scoffed as I draped the shawl around my shoulders. “You belong together, you two.”
Jino’s frown communicated silent agreement. He muttered a string of foreign syllables to Vinod, who laughed and nodded.
“What did he say?” I asked Vinod.
“He said we were idiots,” replied Price.
“Idiots to believe you could be apart.” Vinod held up a hand in explanation. “The word in Hindi is not precisely as rude as—”
“Whatever,” I said, glaring at Jino.
Vinod laughed again at Jino’s impassive expression. “Please, don’t take offense at his plain way of speaking. I keep him on for his bodyguarding talents, not his charm.”
“Bodyguarding talents. Right,” Price said, rolling his eyes. One of the things we had talked about between frenzied bouts of sex was the way love came in all forms, whether societally accepted or not. Even if Vinod and Jino couldn’t openly share their love within the strictures of Indian society, it was still there, and it had every right to exist.
In addition to saffron and chocolate, early February brought a letter from Simon’s lawyers. Price handed it to me one evening and hovered over my shoulder as I opened it. I scanned the cordial greeting and paragraphs full of legal words about Simon’s last will and testament. They mentioned a codicil, and the legal parameters of artistic value, and taxes and titles, and unsold works, specifically Heart-Lust. Even though I had no legal or marital ties to Simon, I started to panic.
“Are they asking me for money?”
“No,” said Price. “They’re giving you a painting, although there’ll be tax repercussions. All Simon’s unsold and unfinished works were left to a family trust except for one, which he bequeathed to you.”
I stared at the letter. “Heart-Lust? I thought that belonged to the Louvre.”
“They never bought it, they only displayed it. It still legally belongs to Simon. Well, now it belongs to you.” Price took the papers from my hands and looked at them more closely. “It’s worth a lot of money, starshine.”
When Price said something was worth a lot of money in a hushed and shocked voice, that meant it was really worth a lot of fucking money.
“I guess you’ll want me to sell it,” I said.
He shrugged. “We can deal with the taxes.”
“No, because it’s Simon’s, and you hate Simon.”
He folded the letter and gave it back to me. “As long as it stays in Paris, it’s fine. I don’t want his painting hanging in our apartment, but he did create it for you. I hate him, but I respect that he found you art worthy. Heart-Lust was one of the few decent things he ever did for you.” He nodded at the letter. “And it was generous of him to leave it to you in his will. Once you pay the taxes, you’re going to own a piece of art history that’s going to continue to go up in value. His work will bring Warhol prices one day, and his early stuff will probably bring more.”