Page 133 of Wicked Pickle

I started my art degree for real in January and reduced my hours at the Leaky Skull. It’s been fine. The renovations attracted a higher-paying clientele, just like Uncle Sherman said it would. The man is a fucking genius.

We have a secret menu now, one full of cocktails with racy names like “Fuck Me Standing” and “Flash the Room.” Sometimes even the bikers order them, particularly when cute young things come through.

They like the look of shock on a lady’s face when Jake or Merrick drops the drink onto the bar and says, “Here’s a ‘Fuck Me Standing’ from the gentleman at the corner table.”

The mix of the old crowd and the new has worked well enough so far. Receipts are up, and we’ve taken on a couple of new hires. Vicki likes to boss them around.

The bike arrives at the right spot, and I kill the engine.

Symphony swings off the seat. “I have sand all up in my helmet!” She whips it off and shakes her hair.

Her red bikini top shimmies perilously, and I’m already at half mast by the time I get the bike securely standing in the dune.

She looks around. “This is pretty private! Are we going to skinny dip?”

“We could.”

I don’t have to say that twice. She’s already kicking off her shoes.

“You’re going to fry in all that black,” she says, reaching for the bottom of my Leaky Skull bar shirt.

She wiggles it up until I lift my arms. I don’t deny her much of what she wants these days.

“Let’s get burned where the sun don’t shine!” she says, this time making that gorgeous chest wiggle on purpose.

I glance at the digital display of my phone mounted on my handlebars. We’ve got time.

I reach for the tie of the bikini top and jerk it loose. She squeals again as it falls. “Here we go!”

I kick off my tennis shoes, a concession since my biker boots don’t go with swim trunks. By the time they’re gone, her shorts and red bikini bottoms have joined the top on the sand, and Symphony is running down the beach stark naked.

Full mast. I don’t bother shucking my shorts yet as I take off after her.

I follow her footprints to a funny rock in an outcropping of the cliff, surrounded by scrub brush.

“Get in here, art boy,” she says. “This wise and experienced woman wants to show you a few things.”

I shake my head at her. We never get tired of playing a role.

“On your knees, boy,” she says with a laugh. “I’ve got sand for you to lick in a very special place.” She perches on a smooth curve in the rock and spreads her knees. “Right here.”

I kneel in front of her like I’m praying to a goddess because I am.

This will never get old.

We emerge from our hiding spot a while later, Symphony dashing ahead to dive into the water. I follow her in, eyeballing the sun. It’s probably coming up on time.

A flutter of nerves trickles through me. It’s not something I’ve felt often, not in the last decade, although I got it a couple of months ago when I had my first oil painting critiqued.

It was a piece depicting Symphony, of course, still my obsessive subject. She likes being my muse, even if it’s always her body on display. I channel her confidence in the work.

I tried to tone down my lust for her in it, but I failed. The students in the class spoke of its eroticism, the imagery evoking the Greek mythology of Helios and his chariot carrying the sun.

It was all her, her body, her openness, her outstretched arms. And the white-hot sky, radiant, blinding, blending into her glowing skin. It wasn’t clear if she was the source of light, or if all the power was flowing into her. Maybe she and the brightness were one and the same.

But I got an A.

Today is different, though. It’s a day I didn’t see coming, an urge I never thought would come over me.