Pet Fly owns them, but they're ignoring them. These guys deserve better than that. I myself am not making a penny here, nor is anyone else.
Many thanks to Mabin, beta extraordinaire, who really made this story happen. All errors are mine. Also thanks to the Slash Writers AAA Challenge, which inspired this piece. My challenge: Sculptor Jim, model Blair, a "Ghost"-style sex scene and the words stockings, toga and kimono.
Pretty bland, actually, unless art trips your trigger. I apologize for any misstatements about the ways sculptors work. BTW, a "bat" is a plaster sheet used as a base while working with clay.
EDIT 1/28/07: A beautiful cover page by sara_merry99 can be viewed here. Thanks Sara!

Sun slanted through the broad windows at the side of the room; in its path, motes of dust wobbled and wove like microbes seen through a powerful lens. On a platform out of the direct path of the beams, a woman reclined, the floor-reflected light bathing her soft skin in warm velvet highlights. Her weight rested on her right hip and forearm; her left hand lay against her angular left hip, left elbow draped behind in the curving small of her back. Her head was turned on her regal neck to look over her left shoulder as though she had been surprised by someone coming suddenly into the room.

She was not surprised at all. In fact, she'd been motionless in that same position for nearly an hour, and she was getting pissed. Scraping sounds and an odd toneless humming noise filled the room as they had since she'd come back from the previous break. There was no evidence that her existence as a breathing human being was actually registering at all. Finally, she made a little snorting sound and sat up.

"What do you think you're doing?" The sculptor's hands flew back from the block as though it had reached out to grab him. He spun in a half-circle, yanking off the dust mask and raising his tools over his head; the woman thought for a split second that he'd throw them at her, but he placed them carefully on the bench beside him. "I was just finding that curve in your neck. I would have given you a break in a minute." He strode over to loom above her where she sat at the edge of the platform, rubbing feeling back into her arm. "You don't just decide to break the pose whenever you feel like it. That's not what I pay you for."

"You don't pay me enough to abuse me, either, Ellison." Rising, the woman pulled her hair down from the pins that kept it off her neck and snatched a silk robe from a battered wooden chair at the foot of the dais. She tossed it on and belted it haphazardly at her waist, glaring up at him with focused anger. "You think you're just God's own gift. Jim Ellison, great painter, great sculptor, great lover." The bathroom door slammed on her diatribe and the sculptor leaned back against the bench, one hand rubbing his forehead, waiting in the momentary silence.

The opening of the bathroom door brought resumption of the mocking tirade. "'Oh, you're perfect, Judy. Look at your skin, Judy. Your proportions are amazing, Judy.'" She was fully dressed, stuffing her kimono into her backpack. She spat out the next sentence with enough venom to poison him even at ten paces. "Let's see how you look on your back, Judy. Well, when you went catatonic on me in mid-stroke, I should have seen the writing on the wall." Her hands-beautiful hands, long, slim fingers-yanked the doorknob so hard the door crashed into the coat hooks behind it. "You're unhinged, Ellison. Get someone else to fuck with." So, having diagnosed the problem and prescribed a cure, she hustled through the hall and down the stairs. The door hung open in her wake.

Jim Ellison closed his jaw with a snap. He was THE Jim Ellison, wasn't he? The Ellison who had cut such a dashing figure on the cover of North American Arts that its circulation had jumped by twenty-five percent for that issue; the Ellison whose paintings had been in so much demand that people were paying big money for what hadn't even been produced yet; the Ellison whose life story was such a study in drama that TV movie deals had been offered after his allergy to pigments had ended the painting phase of his career forever. He would find another Judy and his work would continue, because it had to. His addiction to texture and form had dogged him since he was a child and there was no way the defection of yet another model would stop it.

Judy really had been perfect. He could look at her for hours as she stretched out, all lean curves and long muscles like a young cat. It made him hard just to think about her, even now with her furious words still ringing in his ears. His art made him hard too, though, when everything was just right. The low buzz of the ultra-quiet exhaust fan, the light through the windows and the balcony doors, just enough smell of stone dust to keep him connected to his medium, the exultation of seeing his work into being, seeing with his hands and his fingers-he really did get half-hard when the work was going well. He'd taken to humming under his breath years ago; it seemed to help him reach that single-minded place where the sensual beauty of the female form just leapt out of the marble at him.

Sometimes, though, he got lost in it. That was kind of the opposite of the hard-on thing. When he'd try to see a difficult form very clearly, or the light would strike a curve on his subject a certain way, he'd just-get lost. He'd scared off two models like that; he'd come to with water being dumped on him by one terrified woman who thought he was having an seizure of some kind. The other one had just run away, leaving him there for hours until his legs cramped and he toppled to the floor of the dark studio. Then it started to happen in other situations, like in bed with Judy. One minute, he was reveling in the feeling of her skin on his, and the next she was leaning off the edge of the bed, looking down at him on the floor where she'd pushed him when he stopped responding to her. His sudden insensibility scared him, too, but doctors assured him he was fine and he just needed to eat better, get more rest and be more regular in his habits.

That was a crock, of course. Jim Ellison was nothing if not regular in his habits. He rose at eight, exercised from eight-thirty to ten, attended to brunch and business matters until noon. His models came in on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday from noon to five, and the other days he cleaned up what he had accomplished with the model or worked from sketches. Rest and a beer from five to six, cook dinner and eat from six to seven-thirty, reading or cleaning or professional meetings or more work until midnight, then up the next day to do it again. The only things that varied this schedule were trips to the quarry that drove him mad with noise and stink and blinding sun on white stone; and shows, which were ten days of misery in strange cities with fawning people and bad food. If he took any more control of his life, he was going to be an automaton. It was as far as he was willing to go to control these spells that overtook him, but it wasn't working any more.

The breeze from the bay stirred the shirt across his skin and Jim shivered. He retreated from his fruitless contemplation of the trouble no one could name and did what came easiest to him: he took action. The telephone number of Rainier University was in his day planner; experience told him that was the best place to find models, especially on short notice.

"ThreedimensionalartanddesignhowmayIhelpyou."

"I'd like to speak with Dr. Steslow, please."

"Um, okay." Silence followed the clunk the receiver being laid on the desk. Thank god this one was going into art; he was an utter failure as a receptionist. Jim heard the sounds of a chair squeaking and footsteps across carpet. He heard tapping on the glass of an office door and the voice of the work-study student asking where Steslow had gotten to. The reply was clear, too; another student voice announced that Steslow was in the crapper. The kid mooched back across the office to the phone and picked it up with another clatter.

"Um, sorry, he's, ah, in class right now."

Jim waited for an offer to take a message, but none seemed to be forthcoming. He was getting irritated; he needed to be working, and this little jerk was in the way. Into the silent line he snapped, "When he gets out of the crapper, ask him to call Jim Ellison. Didn't your mama ever teach you any manners, punk?"

"Asshole!" And the connection was cut.

It was really a beautiful day, as days in Cascade went. The young man stretched luxuriously on his blanket spread on the common green of Rainier University and contemplated turning over, but decided that his front side was not well-roasted enough yet. The sunshine poured its honey over him, warming his golden skin and teasing red and gold highlights from the curly dark hair that spread its length around his head. He had to soak this up while it lasted; the cold grey wet that was the norm at Rainier would return soon enough, and he'd need the memory of heat and light to get through the coming winter.

Teaching summer sessions was not really that bad; the classes were fewer and smaller, the campus was less crowded and he was still getting paid, if you could call a TA stipend getting paid. The slower pace was a pleasant antidote for the hectic winter months, so he made better progress on his dissertation. Of course, there were still papers to grade. Right this very minute, he should be doing that-shut in his dusty closet of an office, plugging away at the ramblings of students whose writing threw doubt on the effectiveness of freshman composition classes. Ugh. He blinked behind his sunglasses and flipped over, propping himself on his elbows as he listened to the faint call of duty sounding from that last pile of essays. He needed to get them done soon so he could get the grades in before break.

Break-two lovely weeks between the final summer session and the start of the fall semester. No classes, no whiny students trying to con him, no grades to produce. No paycheck, either. He'd have to find something to bring in a little cash; even though his rent was paid and the other bills were up-to-date, there were the small matters of gas and food.

He was sitting up to put on his shirt when someone hailed him from across the quad.

"Blair!"

Turning, he tucked his legs beneath him and squinted toward the running figure approaching. "Duane, what's up?"

"Listen, man, I have to get to class, but I heard that Steslow was looking for you. I think it's a paying gig. Better find him before he gets someone else to take it."

"No shit. Hey, thanks." Blair stood and gave the blanket a cursory shake before rolling it and sticking it under the top flap of his pack. It bobbed behind him as he jogged off to the arts building in search of Gene Steslow and income.

When Blair entered the faculty suite of three-dee-and-dee, he could hear the gravelly voice of the department head through the open door to his office. The man was clearly on the phone, so Blair dropped his backpack on a chair and stood looking over the jumble of advertisements and notices pinned to the bulletin board by the door. The front desk was empty; he wondered what had happened to the little snot who was supposed to be doing his work-study program there. Kid probably called in sick on a day like this.

Steslow's voice floated out the door. "Yes, I think I have someone. Jim, I told you, Sarah flat refused to work with you, even at the rate you pay." There was a silence as the professor listened to his caller. "No, she wouldn't say why, exactly, but I had the impression that she, ah, feels uncomfortable with you." More silence as the other half of the conversation continued. "Well, if you want a model, you're going to have to take what you can get, and that's the end of it. I know you're in the middle of a hot streak, and I know what that's like, but I can't force these young women to take the job, you know." Creaking noise as the chair rolled back from the desk. "You're free to hire a professional model if you want; that's no threat to me, Jim, and you're under no obligation to this department. I'm here to teach these people, not act as their employment counselors." Deep breath. "Now, listen, we've been friends for years, and I don't want to be like this. Just settle down and I'll send someone over. You can do an interview or a preliminary and then make your decision. All right?" More silence, then a happier tone of voice. "OK, fine. You coming to the meeting on Wednesday? Good. Bowser's going to be there, and you're just the person to take her down a couple notches. See you then. Bye."

Blair counted to ten before he approached department head's door. He didn't want the old man to know he'd overheard all that. Maybe this wasn't going to be such a great opportunity after all. Still, he wanted the whole story before he made a decision. His rap on the doorframe was answered with a short, "Come."

"Hey, Dr. Steslow. How've you been?"

"Blair Sandburg! It's good to see you." The senior professor levered his bulk up from his seat and offered his hand. As they shook, he continued, "Where have you been? I haven't seen you around campus all summer."

"Oh, I've been here. Holed up in the basement of Hargrove, trying to make Anthro 101 less of a waste of time for students taking their compulsory electives. I don't get out much."

Steslow laughed as he sat back down. "You know, we're going to have to do that interdisciplinary course again soon. Maybe I'll float it for the Spring semester. I really enjoyed teaching art history in tandem with anthropology like that. There's some substance there." He looked over his glasses at Blair. "You know you could get a Ph.D. thesis out of it, don't you? Are you still trying to find one of those sentries or whatever they are?"

The grimace on the TA's face told the tale. "No, my advisor finally forced me to give the Sentinel thing up. I'm working on integration of non-traditional religious practices. It's convenient enough-I'm doing the field research here in Cascade in Little Korea and Southtown. I really like it, and it's fascinating stuff, but it's just not what I had my heart set on, you know?"

"Blair, once you get that last piece of paper you'll be able to work on anything you desire. Just keep at it, son."

The lull in their conversation gave Blair his opening. "I saw Duane out on the common a couple minutes ago. He said you might have a job for me."

Steslow studied him over the tops of his glasses. "Now, listen, Blair, I want you to hear all I have to tell you before you say you'll take it. There's a lot of, um, baggage that comes with this, all right?"

"Sounds tempting already." Blair sat in the scratched leather chair by the desk and waited to hear the story.

"You every heard of Jim Ellison?"

With a snort, Blair replied, "Who hasn't? Cascade's very own member of the artistic elite. I missed the mini-series, but I do read the papers and the news magazines. Are you saying he needs a model?"

The older professor chuckled and looked at the mild surprise written on Blair's face. "You'd think people would be lining up for the privilege, wouldn't you? Well, they're not. He has a reputation for being difficult."

"Difficult how, exactly?"

"Maybe I can put this tactfully by saying that I can't find any female models who will work with him any more."

"Nice to know I'm a second choice, there, Gene. You mean he comes on to all of them?"

"Well, that's part of it. He loves women, Blair. Loves their shape, loves their textures, loves everything about them, but in a rather abstract way. Jim never stays too long in one liaison-they don't last long enough to even call them relationships, usually. He takes a new model, they become lovers; God knows he's a good-looking man, and he can be charming when he wants. But then problems start." Steslow weighed his words in silence for a moment.

"Problems, as in what?"

Steslow blew out a deep sigh and focused on his cluttered desk. "OK. He can be extremely demanding of a model. Throws tantrums if they break the pose before he calls time, refuses to let them model for anyone else while he's working with them and so on." He shifted in his seat, still looking at the desktop. "And he has these spells, I guess you'd call them."

Blair shifted backward, half-laughing. "What's a 'spell'? You mean he falls on the floor and has a fit or what?"

Looking up out of the corner of his eye, the art professor shook his head. "No, just the opposite. Two women from Rainier had him freeze up on them. He just freezes in place, gets catatonic or something. One girl threw water on him and it still took a couple minutes for him to come around. He was pissed, too-she soaked all his chisels and rasps, his whole workbench. He spent the entire next day clearing the mess up and oiling all his tools again." He took a deep breath and locked his gaze with Blair's. "Look, what I am not trying to do is talk you out of this. I don't know that he'll even consent to work with a male model, but none of the women here at Rainier will even consider it any more. The money is astounding and it's an experience far beyond what you've done here for two-dee and three-dee classes. Something to tell your grandchildren about, you know? I just wanted you to have the entire story before you went to see him."

It was Blair's turn to study the piles of grade forms and slides that covered Steslow's workspace. He was silent for a few moments, thinking. "So the guy is not physically abusive, right? Verbally, sometimes, but not physically?"

"That's right."

"And he usually doesn't work with male models?"

"Not ever, that I've heard of."

"So if I go over there and sit for him as a trial, even if we get that far, the worst thing that's going to happen is that he'll yell at me and maybe do this catatonic zone-out thing."

"That's about the size of it."

"Give me his address and let him know I'm coming. It's only two weeks, if he hires me at all. And I can use the cash."

Jim paced the loft, waiting for the model Steslow was sending. Blair Sandburg. If she's tall and narrow in the hips, he'd do some Artemis poses. At this point, he'd be happy to work on anything. The thing that rode him, this need to put what he experienced into form so maybe someone else might experience it too, was gnawing at him. It was getting worse and worse, and the harder he tried to fight it the more he fell into the trances no one could explain. In short, if he wasn't working, or if he wasn't happy with his work, he was out of control, everything becoming brighter and louder and rougher and more pungent until he thought he'd go crazy with the overload. But instead of madness, what he wound up with was emptiness in the form of the frightening, inexplicable stupors that overtook him without warning. So he needed to work. Blair Sandburg had better be perfect.

The sound of someone at the door made Jim realize that he'd almost phased out just thinking about phasing out. His hearing was so sensitive that the knock sounded like cannon fire, and he yanked the door open with a snarl on his face. What he saw on the other side did nothing to improve his expression.

"What do you want?"

The young man standing on his doorstep shifted back a little from this welcome and then recovered his composure. Extending his hand, he said, "Hi. Dr. Steslow sent me. I'm Blair Sandburg."

The door slammed in his face.

Blair stood blinking at the flat surface of the door; it had missed his nose by inches. OK, so Steslow warned me about this guy. Seems like he's already in mid-tantrum. The system is in flux; now's the time to effect change, right?

He knocked again.

Ellison pulled the door open again. "Tell Steslow I'm not in a joking mood. He wants to send me a model, he knows what I want."

The door did not close immediately, and Blair stepped into the opening literally and figuratively. "Listen, Dr. Steslow asked me to come to you because I have a great deal of experience modeling for classes at Rainier. Nobody else was available, and you made it clear you wanted someone right away." His target did not move, so he continued. "I'm prepared to sit for an hour free of charge so you can evaluate my suitability. That's fair, right?"

Ellison bowed his head and passed his fingers across his eyebrow. He was getting twitchy; he knew he'd be deep in one of those empty places pretty soon if he didn't get working. It was already 3:30; he only had an hour and a half left in his work period. If he didn't let the kid in, the time would be lost. At least he could do something, even though the model would be only temporary. He turned his back on Blair and paced toward the workbench.

"All right. You can change in the bathroom. One hour. I'll pay you, and then you're out of here."

With no direction, not so much as a wave of the hand, Sandburg sidled into the main room of the loft and picked the most likely path to the bathroom. The place was astoundingly tidy. Like many people, the model had an image of a working artist's space as being crowded and messy, covered with marble dust or spattered with paint. Here, there was not a single thing out of place. The kitchen area was open to the rest of the loft, but the granite counter surface was unglazed with dust. It sparkled.

The bathroom was no different. Each article was not just in its place, but aligned like it was magnetized and true north was calling. Blair slipped out of his jeans and t-shirt and pulled on the loose overalls he preferred as a cover between sessions instead of the usual robe. It was pretty funny; wearing a robe left him feeling more exposed than posing nude in front of a room full of people who stared at his bare body with great deliberation.

He'd never worked one-on-one, though. Suddenly, a nervous chill came over him. This guy had a national, hell, an international reputation, made by his intimate and elegant portrayals of the female form. Blair suddenly felt very short, very hairy, and very male. He squared his shoulders and glared at himself in the mirror. It's only an hour, right? Go make the most of it.

Ellison was settling himself at a drafting table when Sandburg emerged from the bathroom. He had a large pad of newsprint propped up on the slanted surface and an open box of charcoal beside him. He glanced over his shoulder at Blair.

"I want to start with some standing poses. I have the timer set to go off every five minutes. Change when you hear the signal."

Skinning out of the overalls, Blair stepped up onto the platform. There wasn't time to feel bashful. Ellison's voice called out, "Stop right there." So Blair stopped.

He'd been in the act of flipping his hair back from his face, so one arm was raised to touch the top of his head. All his balance was forward on his right leg, with the left leg nearly lifted from the platform. His head was down a little, his left hand still stretched in front of him as he balanced his step up. And there he stopped, the light flowing through the window to paint his face, his arm, and his chest with the same honey it had dripped across him in the quad at Rainier. He struggled to maintain his balance without moving, and heard the sound of the timer with great relief.

Immediately, he moved his pose to something that rested the muscles stressed by the previous one. Weight on both his feet, he leaned back at the hips and braced his hands against the backs of his thighs. This was a good one; he knew he could hold it for much, much longer than five minutes. The timer sounded again, and he moved on to another posture.

Gradually, he became aware of a little humming noise, barely audible over the scratch of the charcoal and the turning of the newsprint pages. Ellison was humming. It wasn't a tune or anything, just a little distracted noise like someone constantly agreeing with themselves. When the artist called a break after the sixth five-minute pose, Blair hopped off the platform and slipped into his overalls, then dug in his pack for a bottle of water.

"Why do you hum like that?"

"Was I humming? Hunh. Don't usually do that unless I'm sculpting." Stepping across to the refrigerator, he pulled out a bottle of juice and poured a glass. "I just started doing that a little while ago, and it seems to help me, um..." Taking a deep drink, he let the thought peter out. "I want to go back to that one pose you did, maybe the second or third one back. Go look at the pad; it's the one marked with a star in the corner."

Blair slid around the workbench to take up the newsprint. Ellison sagged against the fridge door behind him and blew out a long breath. This was outrageous. He'd had male models before, of course, in school, but he'd concentrated on the female form for the entire length of his professional career. Now he was wondering why. His whole body was zinging, as though it had just woken up from a long slumber. The humming had started, and that was a sign of very good things indeed. Better (or worse) yet, he was hard. Not rock hard, not yet, but hard enough to be glad the model's back was toward him so he could adjust himself a little and take some of the pressure off. What the hell was going on here?

No matter what it was, he wanted to get back to work, try to get the amazing translucence of that beautiful face on paper. He only had twenty-five minutes.

The pose Jim had selected put Blair facing him, right leg stepped forward, foot flat on the surface of the platform. His arms were tucked in at his sides, but the elbows were bent to extend his forearms ahead of him, palms up. Once the model was in place, Ellison marked the position of his feet with masking tape and moved back to the drafting table. "Twenty-five minutes. Can you go that long?"

"Oh, no problem. Let me adjust just a little bit here and I'll be OK for longer than that."

Ellison set the timer and began to work. He completed a series of drawings taken from every side of the platform; some were close-up sketches of face or hands, some simply gesture drawings, lines meant to indicate the movement of weight and form within the pose. The timer went off while he was working on a close-up of Blair's feet and lower legs; Ellison glanced upward from his seat on the platform, expecting to see the pose disintegrate, but there was no movement. He smiled a little to himself and kept working until the study was done to his satisfaction. Finally, he stood and stretched.

"Take a break. Good work." He carried the sketch block over to the table and flipped backward through the last hour's product. From the corner of his eye, he saw Sandburg bend backward and shake his arms and hands around after climbing back into the overalls. "Come here a second, will you?"

"What do you need, Jim?" The model slipped around the workbench to stand behind him.

"Let me see your right hand a minute." Blair offered his hand in the position it had taken in the pose, palm up, fingers extended but not stiff. Ellison looked it over, comparing it to the drawing in front of him, finally taking it in both his own hands and poring back and forth between the hand he held and the drawing on the table.

Blair laughed a little to cover a sudden awkwardness. "I feel like you're going to tell me I have a long life-line or something." Another pause fell. "If you don't mind my asking, what are you looking for?"

"When I sculpt, I try to get as much detail as I can in my head, even if it doesn't show up in the final piece. The rise of the base of your thumb, here..." He began to run his fingers very lightly over the spot in question, barely touching at all. "Yes. Right here. This will affect how the light hits the rest of the palm." The gentle, persistent stroking on his palm was warming Blair in places he would rather not be warmed on such short acquaintance, so he looked up to ask Ellison to finish the thought, trying to break the moment. Ellison's eyes were closed, his fingers still wandering over the sensitive palm he held, and he had begun to hum to himself.

"Um, Jim, your eyes are shut." Blair leaned in a little, speaking very quietly. "Can you see what your fingers touch?"

Ellison turned his face away, dropping the model's hand to reach for the lid of the charcoal box. "No. Why would you say something like that? You know that's not possible."

"Well, no, I don't know that it's not possible. You must have a really strong tactile sense to be able to translate input from your fingers to spatial relationships." With a shrug, he moved over to his backpack and reached inside for water. "If you're done, I'll go change. We've already gone over the time limit you set."

Jim hesitated; he really, really didn't want this young man to leave. The sense of well-being he'd had since they started the session was still wrapped around him; it was like comfort, for crying out loud, like being with someone who knew him well and liked him anyway.

"You like chicken?"

Blair stopped with his shirt in his hand and looked up, frowning at the apparent non-sequitur. "What?"

"Do you like chicken? Simple question, Chief, requires a yes or no answer."

"Yeah, I like chicken. Why?"

"I was going to make myself something to eat. I'd like to discuss your availability over the next couple weeks, so maybe I could work on this pose, which is kind of Egyptian and different from the usual, and I thought if you liked chicken you could stay and talk over dinner. About your schedule." (Nice, Ellison. Smooth. You never babbled like this with any of the other models. Then again, you never made dinner for them, either.)

"No, geez, you don't have to do that. I can give you a call..."

"Really, Sandburg, I just want to get the schedule settled and this is convenient. You go change and I'll clean up here. Can you make salad?"

Wondering what else was on this odd man's mind besides chicken, Blair nodded. "OK. I can make salad. Be out in a minute."

Dinner was a little out of the ordinary. It wasn't because of the strangeness of having someone in the loft for other than work or dating purposes; in fact, it was just the opposite. Having Sandburg puttering around in his kitchen offering opinions on everything from modernism to marinade seemed alarmingly normal. The kid wanted to add some spice to the marinade for the chicken; Jim was a little embarrassed to admit that he only really ate bland food, so the weak Italian dressing was as much spice as he could stand. Sandburg never blinked; no smart-assed comments, no pushing to "just try it." He let it go. Jim didn't see the thoughtful look of interest directed at his back when he bent to put the chicken under the broiler.

They talked about the weather and about schools, about baseball and about basketball. There was no need push himself to be charming or fascinating, no need to play at being THE Jim Ellison. He was just a guy making dinner for himself and a friend. They were sitting on the balcony drinking an after-dinner beer (and there was a news flash-"Ellison sits around after dinner and does nothing-details at eleven") when Jim started to sniff the night air.

"Dammit. I keep telling that kid to knock that shit off."

Blair gave him a startled look. "What shit? What are you talking about?"

"Don't you smell that? Damn kid downstairs locks himself in the bathroom and smokes dope; thinks the exhaust fan gets rid of the smoke. I hate that smell. He's going to break his mother's heart one of these days."

"Jim? All I smell is the bay."

"Sandburg, you must have sinus trouble or something. It stinks!" And he stomped into the apartment and out the door, leaving his model sitting in the Cascade evening air, his brain working on overdrive.

The next day, Blair was walking from the parking lot to Hargrove when he heard Gene Steslow calling to him. They met in front of Cooper Hall. Without so much as a preliminary "good morning," the old professor asked, "Did Ellison pay you?"

"Yeah, he paid me." Blair grinned. "I won't make that much an hour when I've got my Ph.D."

"And did he ask you to come back?"

"Well, we were supposed to discuss it over dinner, but we got talking about other things and all we set up was one more session tomorrow."

The look of astonishment on Steslow's face tickled Blair. "What?" he laughed. "I'm happy to get one more session. I know it seems unlikely, but I think he was pretty pleased with me as a model."

"You had dinner? Where?"

"He was making dinner and he asked me to stay. I wasn't going to, but he seemed kind of...I don't know. Anyway, it wasn't like it was a bad session. I think we got good work done. He's got an Egyptian thing going, you know."

Steslow blew out one of those round-cheeked sighs and ran his hand back through his thinning hair. "No, I didn't know. Last I knew, as of day before yesterday, he had a Greek revival thing going." He focused a sharp look on the TA. "He didn't give you a hard time?"

"Well, he tried to at the beginning, but his work is just everything for him, man. He got me started on five-minute poses, I guess to get a look at me and see what I do, and that was all she wrote. We worked for almost two hours, then we ate, then we sat around and shot the breeze until he went down to the first floor rear apartment to complain about the smell."

"What smell? Well, it doesn't matter. Ah, this is unexpected. To be honest, I was afraid he'd throw you out on your ear."

Blair laid his hand on his friend's shoulder with a smile. "Listen, he was probably just in shock from having a male model turn up at his door. It could all come apart tomorrow." He glanced at his watch. "Hey, I've got to get to class or they'll all leave on me. I'll keep you posted on the Ellison thing, OK?" Sandburg strode off across the grass toward his building, thinking more about artists than anthropology.

"Dammit, Sandburg, stop twitching like that! What the hell are you doing?"

"Me? Oh, well, I thought I was modeling for an artist, but it appears that instead I'm in a study on goose-bump formation. That bay breeze is a bitch. I'm freezing here."

"It's not even September yet. It's still summer. How can you be cold?"

Blair's answer was a slow cruising look at Ellison's completely clothed body and a glance down at his own completely naked one. Rolling his eyes, the sculptor put his tools down. "OK, how about if I close the balcony doors? Will that do it for you?"

"Thanks, Jim." He adjusted his position a little bit to settle back into the pose; the side of him that was closest to the lights was fine, but the side toward the doors was getting numb. He tried to think warm thoughts. It was a little disconcerting to find that the thoughts that warmed him more and more frequently involved his employer. There was just such an air of intensity about the guy. Blair's mind strayed back to their first session nearly two weeks ago and the feeling of Jim's searching fingers stroking his palm. Such a delicate touch from such a big man. At first, he'd wondered if the bulge that formed in the crotch of the sculptor's jeans when they worked was a reaction to him personally, but as their association lengthened, he discovered that it was the art that got Ellison going, and not him. It was difficult to decide how to feel about that little revelation: happy, in that there was no danger of a sexual come-on, or disappointed for the very same reason?

Blair realized that they needed to talk about what was going to happen when the fall term started in a few days. They'd started doing two sessions a day after the first couple times, working into the night several days a week. The Egyptian pose was taking form in the marble block on the workbench. Jim was still standing by the window, one hand on the frame, gazing over the city lights below. Blair called out, "Hey, if you're done I'm going to get down, OK?"

Jim didn't answer, didn't even blink. Flashing back to his meeting with Gene Steslow, Blair jumped from the platform and grabbed his overalls, the word "catatonic" forming in his mind. He started to reach out to Jim, then paused. What if it was like a nightmare; would waking him too fast result in flying fists as he lashed out at the unknown? Better to talk first and see what happened.

"Jim. Hey, Jim." No response. A little louder, Blair asked, "Hey, can you hear me? You're scaring me here, buddy." Nothing. Jim's sky-blue eyes were open as though he was just looking at the horizon, but they remained unblinking. Not a muscle in his face twitched; even his breathing seemed shallow and insubstantial. "Come on, Jim, this isn't funny. If you're screwing around, it's time to stop."

The absolute stillness continued. It reminded Blair of the shamanic trance he'd observed the other week in a ceremony conducted in Southtown. The curandero, a man renowned for his healing techniques in the South American community, had taken a spirit journey on behalf of a teenager he had diagnosed as suffering from soul loss. The steady shuss-shuss of his assistant's rattle accompanied him to the parallel world of spirit. Don Mario had sat withdrawn and unseeing for more than half an hour before he returned to himself, having retrieved the lost soul part and carried it back with him to be replaced in his client's body.

Closing his own eyes, Blair shifted into observer mode. What had happened to bring Don Mario back? Nothing really; he seemed to begin to come back of his own accord. What had happened next? His assistant had spoken quietly to him, patting his back and arm until the old man seemed to be entirely in this world.

"OK, Jim." With deliberate care, he pitched his voice low and spoke in a direct and focused way as he'd seen the curandero's helper do. "I want you to listen to my voice. I'm going to touch you. I'm going to touch your arm now, and I want you to listen to my voice and feel the heat of my hand on your arm. Here we go. Just don't freak out on me, OK?"

Very gently, remembering how Don Mario said that intention and focus were everything in dealing with the unknown, Blair laid his hand on Jim's forearm where it rested against the window frame. When nothing untoward occurred, he began to run his hand slowly up and down over Jim's cool skin, still clearly speaking, asking the artist to hear him and come back from wherever he'd gone. He imagined his voice to be like runway lights and his touch to be like a beacon: Land here, all is safe.

Just when he was beginning to wonder if he should abandon the shamanic angle and call 911, Jim's nostrils flared a little. Blair increased the pressure of his touch a little. "Yeah, that's it. Bring it all the way back, big guy. You can smell something? Good. Can you hear me? Feel this? This is me rubbing all the hair off your arm. Come on back now." There was a hitch in the bigger man's breathing and then he sucked in a deep breath, blinking and shaking his head. When he swayed a little, Blair slid an arm around his waist and guided him to the couch.

"Sit. Let me get you some water." On the way to the kitchen, Blair thought about low blood sugar and poured juice in a glass instead. When he returned, Jim was sitting with his elbows on his knees, his face buried in his hands. Blair nudged him as he sat down and pushed the glass into his hands.

"Thanks." The juice must have been the right decision; Ellison drained the glass before handing it back. "What happened?"

Blair tried to chuckle a little, but it came out as more of a hiccup. "I was going to ask you the same thing. What's the last thing you remember?" He headed for the fridge to refill the glass.

Jim closed his eyes for a second and then looked down at the coffee table. "I walked over to close the window, and I looked out. There was a shooting star..." He sighed and shook his head. "I watched it as it moved toward the horizon, and then you were talking about the hair on my arms."

Oh my God. Blair grabbed all the self-control he could get his hands around and did not jump up and shout "Eureka!" Ultra-sensitive to taste and smell; touch so receptive he could see with his fingers; sight that followed the faint, flaring light of a shooting star to the horizon. What about hearing?

"Jim, can I ask you something?"

Ellison was studying his hands with great care. He seemed unable to look up at Blair. "Why not?"

"Can you, ah...Do you seem to be able to hear things that other people can't hear?"

"What, like dog whistles or something? What's this about?"

Blair came back to the couch and handed the apple juice over. "Listen, I think I might have an idea about these black-outs of yours."

Ellison grunted. "So you're a doctor now, too? Geez, Doctor Sandburg, what's your diagnosis?"

Ignoring the sarcasm, Blair pushed onward. "I think you're a Sentinel. You have five heightened senses, don't you? You can't eat spicy food, you can't stand strong scent, your eyesight is astonishing, your sense of touch is incredibly acute. You're the real deal."

"What are you babbling about? I just embarrassed the hell out of myself here and you want to talk about how far I can see? Knock it off." Jim backed into the corner of the couch away from Sandburg and narrowed his eyes.

"No, no, no. This could really be good. Don't shut it out, Jim. When I talked to Steslow about this job, he warned me that you had these spells." Seeing the outrage on the handsome face before him, he made a placating gesture. "Don't go ballistic. He wanted me to be aware so that if it happened while I was here I'd know what was going on. He didn't want me to dump water on you or something like that one woman did." Ellison looked away, but his fury seemed to ebb. "I wanted to do my dissertation on Sentinels, people in primitive cultures who had enhanced senses, using their genetic advantage to guard and protect their tribe. I gave it up because I couldn't find a real specimen."

The anger came back in a tidal wave. Jumping to his feet, the sculptor made for the door. "So I'm a specimen now, some kind of primitive throw-back? You think you might have found one of these Sentinels and I'm just going to roll over and let you use me for, for a guinea pig?" He yanked the door open. "Get your shit and get out of here. And if I hear the slightest breath of rumor that I'm some kind of freak, I'll know who to sue."

Blair sat on the couch with his mouth hanging open. Sue? Sue for what? Didn't he just say that he'd given up the Sentinel thesis? What the hell was going on?

Ellison stood by the door, eyes blazing, waiting for this so-called model to march out like all the others had. Better to just throw him out and start over. When the figure on the couch didn't move, he bent over and picked up the backpack from its place under the coat hooks and pitched it onto the cushions. "You heard me. I said get out."

It took another second to master his reactions, but Blair finally managed to choke out a response.

"No."

"NO?" A couple long strides carried the big man over to tower above his former model. "Don't make me throw you out. Don't make me call the cops. Just go."

"Think for a minute about what you're doing, Jim." Standing up on shaky legs, Sandburg steeled himself to face up to the threat. "I've done nothing to deserve this treatment. I know something about your sensory problems. You've spent years, hell, probably most of your life, trying to deny your situation, but it's there. And it's getting worse now, isn't it?" He took a deliberate step into Jim's personal space. "You've pared away stimuli, regimented your life, gotten rid of just about everything that you can stand to part with because it's all just too much for your senses to bear. It's not working, though, is it?"

Shaking his head, Ellison stepped back but the coffee table stopped him. He sat down abruptly on its smooth surface. "And now along comes this scruffy little grad student who wants to tell you all about what you're trying to pretend doesn't exist." Sliding past the knees that blocked his path between the couch and the table, he snatched his pack up. "I think we have something good, here, Jim. I can help you, maybe, with your Sentinel stuff. I think you're a good man, and we could work this out together." Tugging his flannel shirt from the backpack, he slipped into it and refastened the straps of the overalls. "You have my phone number. Call me if you need me to model or...or anything." He looked at Jim, sitting on the coffee table, and pulled the door closed behind him.

The steady, rapid drumming that had resounded in Ellison's head since he'd come back from that phase-out receded along with Blair's footsteps. 'My god,' he thought, 'it was his heartbeat.'

The hallways were crowded, the confusion typical of the first week of a semester as students tried to locate their classrooms. Professor Sandburg maneuvered around a clump of freshmen debating the location of their psych lab and squeezed into his office with a sigh. 'Be it ever so humble,' he smiled to himself as he dumped his backpack on the chair inside the door. It was a tiny room, remnants of its former life as a janitor's closet remaining in the pipes with their spigots that ran along the inside wall. He'd put new glass in the door, an etching by Ed Archie Noisecat*, and that had brightened the place up a lot, but it hadn't made it any bigger. Edging around behind the desk, he pushed the flashing button on his phone.

"You have eight new messages. First message..." He jotted down numbers, shaking his head at the panic already evident in some of his students' voices. Jesus, they'd scarcely begun. A noise at the door made him look up.

There stood James Ellison. He'd obviously had no trouble getting through the halls; the knot of kids outside Blair's office was utterly gone. There was a space like a demilitarized zone around the big man as he stood framed in the doorway.

They looked at each other for ten long seconds. Blair made a conscious effort not to blink. He wondered if the Sentinel could hear his heart rate as it went from zero to sixty in a millisecond. Finally, Ellison made a sound very much like a snort and stepped into the office.

"So this is your office, huh? Nice place." He prowled around, looking at artifacts and dust and stacks of old blue books, looking just about anywhere but at Blair Sandburg.

(OK, buddy, you came to me. You threw me out of your studio like I'd spit on your favorite chisel. You want something. I can afford to wait for you to tell me what it is.) Blair finished jotting down the final phone number from his messages; he returned the receiver to its cradle. "Thanks." He moved over to the guest chair and cleared a stack of old anthropology journals off of it. "Here, have a seat."

Ellison eased himself down onto the cracked vinyl and finally focused on the man he'd come to see. He opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again as if to speak, and closed it again. Finally, he shifted abruptly to lean toward Blair, who'd settled in his desk chair. "I've just about finished that piece you posed for. Do you want to see it?"

It was Blair's turn to lean forward. No matter what his feelings were regarding Ellison, he was determined not to be a pushover about this. They had clicked, and he knew it. He also knew there was much, much more than just worry over public persona behind the scene five days earlier at Jim's loft. (Not so fast, Jim. When you tell me what's really going on, we'll see what happens next.)

"Why?"

Ellison started that imitation of a fresh-caught trout again. Finally, he stood and went toward the door. "Look, I thought I was being a nice guy, here. You don't want to see it, that's fine with me."

"Why would you think you needed to be nice to me? It was pretty clear the last time we spoke that you could find plenty of other models you liked better."

"Is this some academic thing? 'Why, why, why?'" When he got no answer, the sculptor turned to regard Blair with a little less antagonism. "OK, I'm trying to say that I went off the deep end the other evening. It's a long story, stuff you probably don't want to know about, but I just don't want people to know about this..." he heaved a sigh and sketched a vague gesture in the air. "...this condition of mine."

Blair blinked then. He had been prepared for a much longer conversation to get to the heart of the issue. The senses were much too tender a topic to treat lightly now that they were on the table. What to say to keep Jim talking about it? He wouldn't respond to a lecture, but he needed information. With a sudden inspiration, Blair reached behind him and found the Burton book.

"Look, Jim, it's not a condition, like diabetes or something. It's a gift, and from what I can tell, it's a rare one. I've got hundreds, hell, thousands of examples of people with one or two heightened senses, but not one single person with all five. You're the real deal." He moved around the desk to put the book in Ellison's hands. "Sentinels were watchmen, protectors and an early warning system for game migrations, approaching enemies, environmental dangers. You're a throwback to primitive man!"

There was a sudden thud at the back of his head. When he opened his eyes from wincing at the pain, he realized it had been caused by impact against the wall of his office. Jim was holding him suspended by his own shirt collar, growling into his face.

"Listen, you neo-hippie witchdoctor punk. I am no Neanderthal. I don't need you to tell me what I am and what I'm not." Ellison dropped him, more or less, and Blair staggered a little to get his balance. "I don't even know why I bothered to come here."

It only took a step to get between the bristling man and the door. "Yeah, let's talk about that. How about the real reason? Not the finished sculpture, not to apologize, that's for damn sure. Why are you so angry at me? Why are you here, Ellison?" (No fear, Sandburg. You can show no fear or he'll bolt. It's all about posturing, right?)

"I'm not angry at you!"

"Oh, so this is the way you treat the people you're happy with, slamming them around?"

"No! What about you? Calling me a cave-man? What kind of a remark is that?"

"Not a remark I made, Ellison. I don't know what you heard, and I don't know why you heard it that way, but I said that you were a throw-back to a primitive being now referred to as a Sentinel." A light flicked on in Blair's mind, and he took a chance. "You've caught hell about these senses before, haven't you?"

"NO!" Blair regarded the bigger man steadily. Finally, Jim's shoulders slumped a little and he started again in a lower tone. "Listen, Sandburg, the first time they checked my vision in elementary school, the principal called my father because they thought I was lying to them, that I'd memorized the eye chart. When the nurse asked me to read the bottom line, I read the bottom line-the one that said 'Standard eye chart calibrated and printed by Spectrum Printing Company, copyright 1958.' She needed a magnifying glass to see it."

Sandburg whistled quietly. "So you figured out that it wasn't good to be better than everyone else."

"In spades. I even managed to shut the senses off for a while, I think. It wasn't until high school that it dawned on me what a wonderful weapon they were against my father. He wanted his big, burly boy to be the star quarterback and win, win, win for the Ellison name." Jim had a trace of a smug smile on his face. "I fixed him. I took every art class I could find, used sight and touch to translate what I saw onto paper. That was all at first, but then I discovered that I might be able to show people who I was without them thinking I was a freak, by producing art that depicted what the senses showed me." He shrugged. "So I won, won, won all right-arts awards right and left. My father was disgusted, called me a pansy when I refused to try out for football because I was afraid I'd really damage my hands. When I was offered college art scholarships, he gave me an ultimatum-art or the family. You can see what I chose." They had moved back into the office, Blair leaning back against the front of his desk, Jim seated on the chair. The big man looked toward the window. "You won't ever read that stuff in my official bio."

"But you found your niche, right?"

Ellison's face darkened. "Everyone else produces masterpieces with their own five regular ordinary senses, but not me. I started drawing to get back at my father, kept at it because it rewarded me in any number of ways, including personal satisfaction, but I have no talent, not like other people. I don't really do art, Sandburg. I cheat with the senses. I'm a fraud."

Shocked that an artist with Jim's abilities could possibly think that way, Blair reached out to grab the hand that Ellison had laid on the desk. He held it up in front of him. "These hands don't lie, man. You can't really believe that you're a fraud. If anything, you understand more of the truth than anyone else. You weren't lying about the eye chart, and you're not lying now, don't you get that?"

His words were waved away and there was an awkward silence. Realizing that he still held the big warm callused hand, he laid it on the desk and stepped back. Jim rose and headed for the door, not looking at him again as he had when he came in. "So you wanted to know why I came-I guess that's why. If you tell anyone about this Sentinel thing or whatever it is, my future evaporates. I'm done." He shook his head. "If you're going to blackmail me, you have my address. The Egyptian piece should do pretty well, so there will be some money around for a while."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence, Jim." Ellison looked up at the hard tone of voice, puzzlement on his face. "You really think I'd do that? I don't know who you hang around with or what you think of humanity in general, but your secret is safe with me. I'm two-thirds of the way done with my current dissertation, so I don't have the time or the inclination to write the Sentinel thing. I told you before, I think we work well together. If you need a model, I'd be pleased to work with you again. I'd like to see the sculpture you finished. Hell, I'd like to just hang out with you one way or the other. There might be things that would help you in my old research notes."

Ellison gave him a speculative stare. If the kid was being honest with him, and he wanted to believe that he was, it was almost too good to be true-someone who really knew him, who might be able to help him, who was also a damn good model and a real treat for his tired vision. If the kid was lying-well, who was it that said, "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer?" He nodded to Blair and said, "Come over tonight, then, and have a look at the piece. We'll decide where to go from there."

"I'll bring some Thai food."

"I'll stock the beer."

It was a humid night in Cascade. Some trick of weather patterns had reversed the flow of salt-scented air from the west so a thick breathlessness hung over the city. Ellison had fans in the windows, one set blowing in, one set blowing out, but it was still sticky in the loft. He'd cleaned the kitchen and the dining area and set the marble pharaoh on the base of its shipping crate, ready to be packed off to San Francisco in the morning. He leaned on the tool bench and looked at it; a good piece, yes, very pleasing to his senses of touch and sight and to his sense of intention, of how he wanted the thing to look when he got done pulling it out of its stone prison.

He was eager to see it gone, though. He realized just how bored he was with white. No more marble for a while. He'd bought some clay to work with transitionally until some other medium suggested itself; maybe it was time to move on to bronze. Turning his back on the white Pharaoh, he squished the plastic bag of clay between his fingers. Yielding, elastic, sticky; it was everything that stone was not. Jim was really looking forward to feeling it beneath his hands once more after so long.

A plume of pungent food scent heralded Blair's arrival. Feeling a sudden impulse to-what? Show off? Startle Blair? Play around?-Jim went to the door and waited until the man's hand must be raised to knock before opening it with a flourish. He grinned at the gape of amazement that appeared on his threshold.

"Welcome to Chez Ellison. I'll be your beer steward tonight."

"Jesus, Jim. Don't do that. Scared the hell out of me." Blair headed for the kitchen counter and deposited the bags he was carrying. "Pad thai, garlic shrimp, kow neow-nothing spicy, though." He began pulling cartons out. Jim leaned over his shoulder in the small kitchen to sniff at the luscious steam rising from the opened packages. Below the coconut milk and lemon grass, there was the scent of Blair. Jim drew back quickly and reached for the plates; since when did he know exactly what this man smelled like?

Sandburg chattered on, telling him about a woman he'd seen resting on her heels outside the little market next to the restaurant. A flashback, he was saying, to his time in Vietnam.

"Vietnam?" asked Jim. Turned out that Blair had taken part in an expedition to study the shamanic practices of one of the tribal subcultures there. He'd seen some old Buddha statues. Jim put in a comment about the different techniques ancient sculptors used.

Dinner went on like that, conversation drifting easily between them. They ate with chopsticks right from the cartons; the plates remained pristine on the counter while the two of them picked their food from common containers and drank beer from the bottle. Blair hadn't even gone over to the sculpture, though it was sitting in plain sight, and Jim felt a little relief at that. It was good to imagine that this was not really a professional arrangement, and having to talk over the sculpture would have destroyed his illusion.

They drank some more, picking the last bits of shrimp out of the boxes and fiddling with their chopsticks as they talked. Somehow they started telling stories, the way friends do when they're relaxed and comfortable. Laughter gave way to serious tones and then laughter came back again to banish the little shadows. Jim was telling Blair about the first time he'd encountered clay in high school and how he'd nearly been expelled after he and three of his classmates got done slinging it at each other-and all over the art room.

"Oh, you laugh now, Sandburg, but I was fuckin' terrified. It was a blast while it was happening, but once the teacher walked in, the fun and games were completely over."

With a long pull on his beer, Sandburg regarded his companion. "What made you start using marble?"

"I don't know. It seemed more, well, more manageable, I guess. The whole thing with the paint allergy snuck up on me real fast, and I was pretty spooked. Natural materials seemed like a good idea, so I worked with clay for a little while. Then it dawned on me that if I worked in marble I didn't have to worry about firing. With marble, there's just one finished product, too. One and done. No castings, no multiple copies. More control."

He looked at the younger man across from him with a speculative eye. "I've got some clay in now, though. Feel like doing a couple short sittings?"

"I didn't bring my overalls." As soon as he said it, Blair knew it was a little strange; he couldn't pose because he didn't have his overalls? "But I can make do, I guess. You're, ah, not shooting for the masterpiece of your lifetime, are you? 'Cause I don't know about you, but I'm getting a little buzzed here."

Jim rose and started gathering the empty take-out boxes. "Hey, not everything's a masterpiece, Blair. Sometimes you got to work out the kinks a little and just do art instead of making sculpture." There was something rising in Jim's chest as he said it, something stretching itself after a long sleep. He rubbed there, over his breastbone, wondering if it was indigestion.

Blair picked up the beer bottles-geez, when had they drunk all these?-and put them back in the case by the fridge. Then he went over to turn on the spotlights. How was he going to do this? Somehow, climbing in and out of his boxers was not the same as having the overalls for cover. He pulled off his t-shirt and debated, then saw his solution. Reaching over, he took the soft creamy fleece throw from the back of the couch and wrapped it around his middle, then slid his jeans and boxers off. He turned a little to look at Jim as he came into the studio area.

"Stop."

"What? You don't mind, do you? I just grabbed..."

Jim was walking toward him like a stalking panther. "Don't move a muscle." Blair stilled and tried to find his center while Jim circled him, looking, God, smelling, reaching out and touching his knee, his upper arm, his shoulder. He was holding the thin blanket against him like a toga, gathered in one hand at his shoulder and supported by the other hand at his waist. Jim had the masking tape in his hands now, taping off the pose, even the drape of the blanket on the floor. He stepped up on the platform and arranged the folds over Blair's shoulder, standing close behind him, so close that Blair could feel the heat and smell Jim's body scent the way he imagined that Jim did his. He thanked all the heavens for the fleece throw, but even that wasn't going to cover the evidence of his arousal if Jim didn't back off, settle down, turn down the intensity meter a little.

"Can you hold it?" Jim's voice was deep and warm, tropical ocean water that lapped at the edges of Blair's self-control. The tone made the question almost obscene. Blair just nodded. Jim pulled out the sketch pad and charcoal and worked feverishly over several pages, moving around Blair with such tight concentration Blair felt physically held by the artist's eyes. The humming sound that accompanied Jim's work rumbled in the air, and he reached out again and again to touch, something he had not done since the first day they worked together. Blair could not always see where the feather-light fingers would be next, and it was hard to hold the pose, not to jump at the questing strokes. Each contact sent a trail of fire right to his belly; it was torment to stay still, not lean into the touches that teased his sensitized skin. When he felt a warm hand cup his thigh where it met his buttock, the quiet moan that escaped him surprised them both.

Jim leapt back, horrified. What had he been doing? Grabbing the man's ass? What kind of behavior was that? Slapping the sketchbook onto the drafting table, he retreated without a word to the kitchen and filled a glass with water. Blair was still standing there, posture unchanged, though his chest was rising and falling with rapid breath and the background drumbeat of his heart was clicking along like a trip-hammer.

"I didn't mean to do that." Jim forced himself to look up. He knew this was not going to be good; he'd screwed up again. "Relax, Blair. It was out of line. I won't do it any more."

Blair's head dropped forward and he eased himself down on the edge of the platform.

"What's it like, Jim?"

"What?" Whether the word was looking for clarification or whether it was an exclamation of surprise was unclear.

"What's it like? God, I'd give anything just to feel what you feel, just for a minute." When he turned his face to Jim, his sapphire eyes were unreadable, full of something Jim had never seen before. "That was amazing. My skin's like some kind of artistic Braille. You read me with your fingers and touch me with your sight. Can't you just please try to tell me how it feels to do that?"

"I can't tell you that. You know I can't tell you that. That's the whole reason I do what I do-because I have to show you. I can't tell you." Jim crossed his arms over his chest, his body tingling with the rush of coming close to fully integrating his two best senses. He looked at Blair, sitting with the blanket over his lap. They were both hard; it didn't take Sentinel senses to figure out what was singing between them in the air. Before he could stop himself, Jim moved forward to the dishpan full of clay; he untangled the tie at the mouth of the plastic bag and pried loose a lump the size of a basketball. It splatted against the bat that waited on the workbench. Holding out a muddy hand to Sandburg, he said, "Come here."

Blair hesitated for a second, just long enough to push away his doubts. Without further thought, he dropped the blanket and walked around to stand next to Ellison and look down at the clay before them. A tug on his wrist brought him to stand between long legs as Jim rested against the tall stool he used when he worked. Scooting the stool up closer so his chest was against the smaller man's back, Jim brought his hands around and fitted them against the backs of Blair's hands, finger-to-finger.

"You say stop, we stop." His voice dropped to a low growl, lifting the hairs on the back of Blair's neck. "You want to know how it feels? Don't say stop."

He plunged their hands into the mass of clay.

"Shut your eyes. That's it. Feel how hot your skin is, all tingling and alive. Where does your skin stop and the clay start?" Jim's fingers flexed, and Blair's fingers moved through the clay. Smooth. Cool. Smoothness ending at a place where the heat in his hands started. Messages came in from many sources, and he could feel them all at once. Jim's warm, yeasty breath at his neck, the sultry fan-blown air, a strand of hair sticking to his forehead and the slippery stiff clay reported in all at the same time. A voice, Jim's voice.

"What do you see in your head, Blair?" The fingers continued to knead clay, Blair's fingers, Jim's fingers, all one set of digits now. "See what you see on the insides of your eyes and put it in your hands." Control passed over a little, from being Jim-and-Blair to being Blair-and-Jim molding the clay. Warm arms around him, little snuffling noises in his ear as he began to pull at the clay. Jim was all around him, inside his head, behind him, leading him, letting him lead. Blair leaned his head back against the muscled shoulder and sighed. When he felt warm, firm lips against his neck, he just sighed again and pushed toward the kiss, his hands squeezing the clay, smearing it up Jim's arms.

"What do you see in your head?" That low, hot voice was a little more demanding, but all his resources seemed to be taken up by the nerve endings in his skin. Jim wanted to know, though, so Blair made the effort to form some words.

"You. I see you. All the time. Beautiful." He turned to nuzzle Jim's strong neck, breathing in, trying to get the scent of the man. He kept his eyes tightly closed so the dark warm place that embraced the two of them would remain. With tentative kisses he explored the sweet soft skin beneath his lips.

There was a sharp intake of breath and a shifting of the big body that held him. (No, oh, no, don't run from this, please) flashed through Blair's mind just before he felt the pressure of a muscular chest against his and the pressure of wet, sticky hands against his back. He searched upward and plunged into a kiss he felt with every square inch of his body.

Jim's lips were luscious, strong, slick. Blair loved kissing men, strength to strength over the whole range of feelings a kiss could express. There was wonder between them now; big hands were exploring his back and his sides, moving down a little toward his ass and then skittering up to the nape of his neck. His own hands were on the strong jaw with the raspy feel of a little stubble to delight his fingers. Blair teased the Sentinel's lips apart, stroking the tender flesh inside them with his tongue. Almost shyly, Jim's mouth opened beneath his so Blair's tongue could touch the silky cheeks, the rough roof of the mouth. He felt a shift between them and realized that Jim was breathing hard, so he left the warm, wet place he was exploring and pulled back with a final brush of his lips.

Jim clung to him. "Stay here. God, I just have to catch my breath."

"Breathing is good." For the first time in what seemed like hours, Blair opened his eyes. With a quiet smile, he brushed some dried clay from the sculptor's cheek. "Do you think they'll expel us? We've made quite a mess."

A little chuckle crept out between Jim's deep breaths. "Shit, I am a mess." His tone made it plain he was not talking about a little mud. Resting his head on Blair's shoulder, he sighed. It tickled something in the back of the model's mind, and he stroked the broad back gently for a minute before he spoke.

"Hey," Blair began in a very gentle tone. "Have you ever, ah, been with a man before?"

When Jim started to pull away, he tightened his arms to hold the big man still. "No judgment, man. None. I just want to know. You're leading here, and I need to know how to follow."

In a very small voice, Jim answered, "No." He still wouldn't look up, so Blair lifted his chin until they were blue-to-blue.

"Do you want to do this? Anything?"

To his surprise, Jim smiled a shaky smile. Blair cocked his head, trying to interpret that, but Jim explained. "You should see yourself." He looked down at his own clay-smeared shirt and reached up to pluck a little ball of dirt from his model's hair. "I think what I want is to put the clay away and take a shower."

With a deep puff of a sigh, Blair raised his hand to his head and felt what appeared to be a half-applied mud pack. It was hard to keep his disappointment from showing when he said, "Yeah, I bet it's a bitch to get this stuff out once it's dry. Mind if I shower first? I mean, I'm already naked."

Jim had reached around him to scrape the clay from the bench. He focused on getting it back in the bag. "Well, you've got clay all over your back. How you going to get it off?"

"I don't know. You have more experience with the stuff than I do. Any suggestions?"

"I, ah, if you don't mind, you know, I could..." The sculptor was suddenly engrossed in scraping the remaining mud from the bat where it had rested.

"Jim, look at me." With his hands resting on the workbench, he raised his eyes to meet Blair's.

"I'd be delighted if you'd help me wash my back, or any other parts of me that might require cleaning. And that's all we'll do unless you want something more." He'd have Jim's broad chest beneath his hands, Jim's face tilted up in pleasure, Jim's sure touches free to go anywhere on his body-he'd show this man, this virgin man, how sweet it was to really be loved.

(I haven't felt this bashful since I was fifteen!) Jim tried to settle his elevated heart rate with a couple deep breaths, but it wasn't working. Blair was already in the bathroom, leaning over the wastebasket with an old dry towel scrubbing the worst of the clay from his hair. Jim walked in behind him and laid an armful of clean towels on the counter.

"I think I've got most of it. Man, remind me never to mud wrestle, OK?" Jim grunted and, grabbing the broom from the corner, began to sweep up the dust and crumbs of clay that hadn't made it to the basket. His hunger for the smaller man had been swallowed up by the mundane task of dealing with the mess they'd made. He didn't know what to do. With a woman, he'd know. Familiar territory-slipping off their stockings, nuzzling at the lacey things they wore over the places they really wanted to be touched, kissing the skin revealed when fastenings were released, holding back, holding in, analyzing, experiencing. They were living sculptures, warm and inviting. He knew how to handle things to keep the women simultaneously within reach and at arm's length.

None of that worked with Blair Sandburg. The intensity Jim barricaded inside himself just wouldn't stay bottled up around this man. Sandburg wanted him, that much was clear, and Jim wanted Sandburg, too. It was as if his senses were taking on a life of their own; every time they were together, he felt an almost giddy rush that let the senses out to play without fear and without danger. His senses wanted Sandburg, this Sentinel inside him wanted Sandburg, and Jim was just along for the ride, bobbing with the current, the waterfall sound getting louder and louder.

"Is there anything else we should do before we get in the shower?" Blair stepped back to let Jim dump the dustpan into the trash.

"No. Just rinse yourself well before you use the soap."

Blair looked up from turning on the taps. "You're not going to join me?" He tried for an uncomplicated smile, though he felt anything but uncomplicated. "Come on, you offered to wash my back, remember?" Still seeing hesitation on the sculptor's handsome face, Blair spoke quietly. "You're leading and I'm following. That's the truth." He stepped back. "Here, you get in first and get started. If you want me to join you, just say the word."

Jim skinned out of his trousers and boxers. Not looking at Blair, he stuck his hand under the water and made a slight adjustment to the temperature before he stepped in. Eyes closed, he lifted his face to the spray and tried to think. THE Jim Ellison seemed to be missing in action; he was getting no help from that brittle public persona. In his place was a man Jim hardly recognized, someone who was known by someone else, a tired man with no more secrets who wanted desperately to give up the fight, to give in to the complex of instincts within in him. Mingled with the sound of the pouring water, the heartbeat that anchored him thumped in his ears, waiting patiently to be invited in. It was the Sentinel that reached a hand out toward Sandburg and pulled him into the shower.

"You're all rinsed off already." Blair started ruffling his hair under the spray; red-brown water ran down the drain. Jim just stood there, watching. He'd seen this body many times, but it felt to him like he'd never seen Blair Sandburg. The man looked so different in motion than in stillness. With a tentative hand, Jim reached out to touch the soft hair on Blair's chest, matted into patterns by the rivulets that rinsed through it. The waviness and the silkiness were mesmerizing. He jumped a little when Blair's voice came through to him.

"You can touch me any way you want, but don't do that zone-out thing, OK?"

Jim looked up to see his model's-his lover's?-face, that beautiful, exotic, sweet face, lit with an affectionate smile. "OK. I'll try to remember that. No zone-outs." He just stood there, smiling back, feeling big and goofy next to the perfectly-proportioned compact body in front of him.

"Go on. Take your time."

Blair went about the business of washing up. He inspected the labels of the shower gel and shampoo, lamented the lack of conditioner ("But what would you need with conditioner, eh, Jim?"). He pressed the soap into the Sentinel's hands. Jim ran sensitive bubble-slicked fingers along the length of his model's arms and rested them at the crest of the hips where they fit so naturally, stroked the long line of Blair's thighs and tentatively, tenderly slid his palms over the luscious curves of his ass, watching in fascination as both their cocks hardened. He was grateful for the distraction of rinsing the shampoo from thick, heavy auburn curls. Nuzzling for scent revealed that Blair was ticklish in the armpits. Then there was silliness, and THE Jim Ellison must have really left the building, because with him around silliness would not be tolerated. Jim was happily engaged in cleaning the last of the clay from the muscled form in front of him when Blair shivered a little.

"We're running out of hot water."

"Shit. Here, turn around and rinse."

For the first time since they'd gotten under the water, Blair reached out to touch. He drew one capable hand along Jim's face and down onto his chest. "Thanks for washing my back. I couldn't have done it without you." The Sentinel just closed his eyes and leaned into the warm hand. Blair smiled.

They were dry and Blair was tugging a comb through his hair. It was clear he wasn't going to be done any time soon, but Jim had run out of reasons to hang around in the bathroom. He was hovering, fiddling with the shower curtain, when Blair caught his eye in the mirror.

"What's up, Jim?" Turning from the mirror, Blair laid a hand on his arm. The big man sighed and turned away brusquely. "Look, Sandburg, I don't know what should happen next, OK? I don't know what you want to do, so I don't know what to do."

"How about this-you're still leading. I'll be done here in a couple minutes, and then you can tell me what you'd like us to do together." With his hands on Jim's shoulders, he pulled a little. Jim bent his head and they kissed, a gentle meeting of lips with no demand behind it. Jim pulled back to look at the upturned face and the heavy-lidded blue eyes and then returned to the kiss with a little more ardor.

"Hurry."

"I am."

(All right,) Jim thought as he ascended to his bedroom. (He says I'm leading, so I'm leading him upstairs. He can always stay at the bottom of the steps if this wasn't what he had in mind.) He pulled back the covers and set out some unscented candles. (Nothing to cover up the way he smells. God, I love that smell.) The fan in his window made a low humming noise that served to cover up the street sounds. He was turning back toward the room when he heard Sandburg's step on the stairs.

"Wow. This is nice." Jim had put his boxers back on, but Blair was still nude, utterly unselfconscious as he looked around the room. His eyes fastened on Jim; heat rose in them. "God, you're fine. Look at you." He reached out to touch. Jim held himself still with a little effort. "Is this OK?"

Nodding, the big man took a step that closed the distance between them. "I like it when you touch me. You don't have to ask."

Blair let out a breath and brought his other hand up to circle behind Jim's neck. Jim leaned in, suddenly consumed with the need to map out every nuance of those incredible lips. The contact sent a thousand-watt jolt between them that vaporized all restraint. Blair groaned and the sound went straight down Jim's spine to his hardening cock. He pressed his pelvis forward, seeking heat and pressure. Blair was trying to climb inside him through his mouth, thrusting with his tongue, holding his head still with strong hands. When their cocks collided, Jim sucked in a huge breath and pulled away from the kiss to rest his head against Blair's. He was breathing hard.

Blair's voice was just a whisper in his ear. "I want you so bad. You have to tell me if you're not comfortable." But his hands continued to stroke through Jim's short hair, and Jim leaned into the touch, wanting to encourage it.

"No, it's fine, you're fine-more than fine." He chuckled a little bit. "It's just not fair. You're naked, and I'm not."

"I can help you with that. Back up a little, big guy." A step backward brought Jim to the edge of the bed. Blair slipped down to his knees, taking the boxers down with him. He tapped the hard-muscled calf, and Jim took the cue to step out of the restricting fabric. "Why don't you sit down?" Pressure from Blair's thumbs where they rested above his hips escorted Jim to a seated position. He looked down. Blair, on his knees between Jim's thighs, looked up.

"Is this OK?" he asked, then leaned in to place a tender kiss on the head of Jim's cock.

"Oh God. Oh, yes, yes, that's OK." The smile that lit Blair's face was a wicked combination of sweetness and lust; all by itself, it could have sent Jim into orbit, but the sensation of wet sucking heat around his aching shaft was a trip beyond the moon. He gasped and wailed, scrabbling for balance with his hands behind him on the bed. There was no mercy in this pleasure; it was hot, deep, relentless. The rough tongue and the little sharp teeth laid layer after layer of sensation until Jim was struggling beneath them, panting and writhing, trying desperately to maintain some kind of control. He came close to explosion twice, only to have the demon at his feet pull back and begin to blow cooling air over his superheated sex. The third time, the heavenly torment stopped altogether and Jim heaved himself upright to reach for Blair and pull him back to finish it.

Blair caught his hands. "No, no, just relax. You'll come, of course you will. There's just more if you want it." Climbing up onto the bed, he wrapped himself around Jim and soothed him with little kisses and stroking hands. When their breathing had calmed a bit, he pushed himself up on his elbow and looked down at Jim, whose pleasure-glazed eyes were focused on his face. "What do you want? What can you imagine?"

"You above me." The words were out before his internal censor had the chance to stop them. Blair shifted over to rest one knee on either side of Jim's hips, propped on his hands, looking down. Their cocks brushed together and they both twitched a little.

"Now what?" Blair glanced up before trailing his hair across the broad chest beneath him and planting a kiss. Jim closed his eyes. Skin sensations-heat and texture and pressure-and the heady aroma of the man above him were pushing his senses to the edge; sight was too much. He literally could not bear to watch.

"I don't know." Kisses peppered his chest, interspersed with little teasing licks to his nipples. Any hope of coherent thought vanished and Jim arched up into the knowing mouth.

"Can I make a suggestion?"

Jim nodded.

"Do you have any lube?" Jim gestured toward the bedside table; in the drawer Blair found a tube. Warming a puddle of gel in his palm, he reached down to gently stroke Jim's pulsing cock. Jim pushed up with a little humming sound, wondering at the feeling of another man's fist around him. With a wriggle, Blair brought his own erection alongside and took both in his hand; his eyes squeezed shut in a shiver of delight. Jim gasped a quick breath at the contact between them, the heat and silk and slide of Blair's heavy sex.

"I fantasized about this." Blair looked down at his partner. Jim's mouth was open, his hands fisting the sheets, his eyes closed in bliss. "I'd lie in my bed at night and think about having sex with you. You're so beautiful, did you know that? I'd think about your handsome face and how you'd look when I took your cock and mine together in my hand." He stroked slowly, letting Jim's thrusting motion do part of the work. "You're so hot against me. Do you feel it? Let go, lover. Just sink into it. I've got you. You'll have nothing but pleasure, I swear it. Let me give it to you. Take it from me."

Blair brought one of Jim's hands up to join in their stroking. The sight of the sculptor's smooth body shuddering in bliss beneath him was a wet dream come true. He bent over and took a taste of the sweat that sheened Jim's broad chest, moving his lips from one nipple to the other, rubbing his stubbly cheek against the hard-muscled belly before sitting upright again. He had to back off and regain some control; he was determined to stay present so Jim could fly.

Reaching behind him, Blair ran a lube-slicked finger along his own perineum, settling in at his tight hole. Jim's eyes flashed open at the movement; he reached up with his unoccupied hand to pinch one tight brown nipple in its thick nest of hair. With a groan, Blair arched his back and eased his finger inside.

A light of comprehension showed in Jim's pleasure-fogged eyes. "Oh, God. You're, you're..."

"Yes I am." Adding another finger, Blair worked them as best he could, stretching and slicking. "Do you want me? Want to fuck me?" He sucked in a breath as he pulled his fingers away. "I want it, Jim, so, so bad."

The vision of Blair preparing himself to be entered sent waves of heat crashing into Jim's groin. He imagined how it might feel to slip inside; just the idea was enough to set his senses reeling. Still, he hesitated. "I don't know how to do it. What if I hurt you? There's no way I'd ever hurt you, not even for this."

In answer, Blair shifted himself up to hover above Jim's leaking erection. "Let me, lover. I can do this for both of us. It won't hurt me. You don't have to do a thing but look beautiful and feel good." With a lingering kiss, he steadied himself with one hand on Jim's shoulder and began to ease down. The initial burn was even sweet. A sense of completion built inside him along with the powerful pleasure of being filled; it was as though he had been waiting to do this very thing for years. Struggling to keep his eyes open so he could see Jim's face, he pulled up a little and then slid further down the rock-hard shaft, up and then further down, until he had it all.

"Ohgodohgodohgod..." Jim was babbling, rolling his head back and forth against the pillow. "So tight, God yes, so tight."

"Look down a little, Jim." Blair rose up on muscular thighs and then subsided, rose and subsided, while Jim watched himself disappear into the body that knelt above him. A powerful feeling rose in Jim's chest as he watched; something broke in him, something got free. Hearing, sight, smell, touch-he tongued at Blair's hand to taste his sweat and was swept away.

"It's happening. It's you. God, Blair, I have to move..."

Blair nodded. "Yes, baby, yes. Just take it easy."

Then they were in it. Blair's hair stroked across Jim's chest as he took the man's cock deep into himself; Jim's hips rolled like waves, keeping the motion steady and sure. He reached up; with his hands in the long curls above him, he pulled Blair down to a kiss, possessive and demanding. In response, Blair gripped Jim's shoulders hard, never missing a stroke along the thick heat that impaled him. When he moved his mouth down to Jim's neck and began to suckle there, Jim cried out. The steady strokes became erratic, the passion no longer contained. Blair removed his lips from the love bite in time to watch Jim's face spasm in ecstasy. The abandon, the writhing body beneath him, drove him higher and higher until there was nowhere else to go but his own oblivion, and he surrendered to it. Jim's arms came around him and fastened tight; he was shaking and whispering over and over, "yes, yes," rubbing Blair's back and nuzzling against him.

Some minutes later, Blair shifted himself to one side; Jim's softening cock slipped from his body. Pulling his prone partner toward him, he kissed the top of his head and held him close. Jim snuffled drowsily against his chest, then snorted a little.

"Everything OK there?"

"I, ah, never had to deal with chest hair on a partner before."

"Do you want to shift positions?"

"No, no, no. I like it. Hell, I love it. It was just tickling my nose a little."

They rested a while, Blair drawing circles against Jim's smooth shoulder with one finger. His deep sigh brought Jim back to reality. "What was that for?"

"Hmmm?" Blair smiled a little over Jim's head. "I don't know, really." He wriggled a little bit, snuggling down further on the bed. "I feel so fucking good. How about you?"

Jim twisted around to look up. There was a tone of doubt in the question, and he couldn't believe he'd heard it. "Beyond good. That was one of the highlights of my life so far. I felt like..." He searched for the right words. "I felt like all my senses woke up at the same time, but nothing bad happened." His voice felt rough; suddenly, it was hard to speak above a whisper. "Nothing bad, just good, beautiful and good." He pressed a kiss into Blair's chest and laid his head back down where he had kissed.

In a moment, Jim spoke again. "I read that book you gave me, that Burton book." Blair's steady breathing paused for a second, but he didn't speak, so Jim continued. "So many of the things he talks about have happened to me. The spikes, the zone-outs, the sensitivities. There was one thing I couldn't identify with, at least maybe not until now." Taking a deep breath, he plunged in. "I was thinking as I read how amazing it would be to have a Guide, to have someone who understood all of me and wanted me anyway, someone who knew how to help me and who I could watch over. I never even considered it, it was so far out of my reality. But I'm thinking now, maybe there is someone like that." He rolled to his side so he could see Blair's face. It was important to watch his reaction. "Do you think there's something going on here? Maybe it's me, but I, ah, think you're my Guide."

A smile rose like the sun across Blair's face. "Oh, yeah. Your Guide and more, Jim, if you want me."

The mirror of his smile lit Jim's features. Their fingers twined together and they kissed a long sweet time.

"Sandburg!"

"What?"

"Will you get your shit off the table? Dinner's almost done!"

Curls flying behind him, Blair scooted out of the office they'd made beneath the stairs. "Hold on to your horses, Jim. Jesus." He scooped up the remainder of the papers from the table and carried them back to add to the heap on his desk. The most recent copy of North American Arts fell out of the stack. On the cover was a photograph of THE Jim Ellison, smiling at the camera. Next to him was a small marble sculpture of a pharaoh. Over all ran the banner, "Artist Reborn-Jim Ellison's Renaissance." Sandburg picked the magazine up and tossed it onto the couch, then went to help his Sentinel with the salad.

• Ed Archie Noisecat is a Native American artist. Ever since I saw Blair's door glass in SenToo, I've been sure it was Noisecat's work. Go to www.noisecat.com to see if you agree.

End Renaissance by EE: elmyraemilie@yahoo.com
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