Excerpt from
Frosting on the Cake

© Karin Kallmaker, 2001

No portion of this work may be reproduced by any means
without express written consent of the publisher.

From "Smudges"

Ocher smeared in alabaster. Broad strokes across her stomach radiate upward and outward. A new brush, smaller, to blend azure with phosphine for her ribs.

"That tickles," Jackie says.

I already know this. Her skin has changed texture, showing more apricot with the goosebumps that prickle after my brush has passed. I outline the swell of her fourth rib with goldenrod and let the line trail over her hip to the small of her back. Goldenrod with ocher here, where the cool of her side yields to the heat I so often feel against my belly when we settle to sleep.

She is the canvas today, and must stay still, so I crouch, huddle and stretch around her as she lounges on her side across a sheet-covered chaise. Colors on her skin are glorious. Malachite swirled with amethyst on her legs, torso, arms. My application of the base coat had settled her nerves as she took on the unfamiliar task of posing, but my ardor to paint her only grows. A different brush for smoke at her ankles. I discover new colors as her skin adds to the bodypaint pigments I have chosen. The ocher of Jackie, the smoke of her, the blue and silver of her neck, all new to me.

Annatto and burnt rose for her shoulders. They are strong enough for the hues and delicate enough for the fine tracing that leads from the hollow of her throat to the uppermost swell of her breast.

She sighs and closes her eyes. Skin has changed texture again, her aureoles puckering from apricot to ripe peach. She was a work of art before I began and soon to be Painted Woman as photographed by a friend for Vanity Fair. No photograph would capture the quickness of her breath as I brush each nipple with cadmium smeared in the last of the lilac. She sighs again and my mouth waters. Her swallow is as hard as mine.

I examine her from every angle, brushes small and large modifying or adding color. Light hues for the grace of her curves, saturated colors for the points and edges of bone. Muted, deeper shades for the hollows of her, where I know shadows hide her real heat. Jaw yields to throat, hip to thigh shadowed by light and dusky topaz. From my angle at her back, her malachite and sapphire hand obscures the feminine swell of her pelvis. Her long, dark braid coils over her hip. In a photograph its plaited beauty will obscure the silk of her pubic hair. I straddle her to move the braid, wanting to see all of her. Her art and sex are fusing in my mind, mystery and passion.

"Lee," she breathes.

I have smudged the paint on her ribs with my parted thighs. Retracing my work I can tell her breasts have tightened. Her hips have shifted forward and the prickle of gooseflesh has spread to her thighs and forearms. I dust the crook of her elbow with lapis and consider all I have done. Hours of labor to create the modulating swirl of hot and cold, dark and light that is Jackie.

She is hungry and thirsty and so am I. I fast with her because it seems unfair to appease my own appetites when she will be on this chaise for another four hours. Her eyes are open and she gazes boldly at me, clearly desirous.

One brush left, and only saffron to use. Ethereal lines from toe to forehead, balancing the yellows, browns and reds against the chromatic sharpness of the malachite and purple. I will paint her lips when my friend arrives, in another hour, but for now they are all that remains of the everyday Jackie, that and what lies shadowed by braid and thighs.

"You're beautiful," I tell her, kissing her unpainted lips.

Her mouth opens eagerly. Her arms move to hold me.

"Don't do that," I tell her. "You have to be still or everything will smudge." My throat is tight with wanting her. "When the paint is completely dry you can relax a little."

"Ann will be here by then," she says softly. Her lips beckon and I want to paint this image on canvas, capturing the moment of her knowing she will have me soon, of her loving me.

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Frosting on the Cake is a collection of lesbian romance short stories by Karin Kallmaker. Every story is based on characters from previously published novels. Available from: