A Favor by Fiona Murphy

the specialty pictures needed would cost more than I have in savings and I had thought I would need. I bought a website but have no technical skills and no idea what I’m doing.
    When I came to that realization a few months ago I got into contact with a gallery in Fredericksburg but one weekend he’s too busy, the next I am and one weekend Gertrude was acting spastic so I got scared to take the drive out there.
    Also there is nothing worse for an artist than contentment, apparently, because when I was at my last job and hated it, I was out on the weekend and selling them like a pimp. Now that I’m working in a job I like and enjoy, I don’t know, it just hasn’t seemed like a big deal. Not everyone gets to do what they want to do, sometimes you’re the responsible adult and you do what pays the bills. Now that it’s not such hard work to get through the day I’ve been content to paint when I can.
    There’s a coffee shop that let’s me put paintings up and they’ll go pretty quickly there which is nice but they do rotations and I’m only up once a year or so. None of the small galleries here in Austin want anything to do with me. You reminded me though, I’ll call that gallery owner again.”
    A buzzer rings from inside the house and Sam walks toward me, “Dinner’s ready, go get cleaned up and please change. You look so fucking cute in that I’ve wanted to bend you over that table and fuck you since I walked in here.” A rough kiss on my open mouth and he’s gone.
    I look at the work table I keep my paints and brushes in and know it would hold up to what he wanted. My face is hot at the thought of him, and my fingers are clumsy as I store what I had finished using. I don’t see him when I go back inside to change and clean up but I can smell something good cooking. A quick shower and I hope I no longer smell of turpentine. Dressing, I slip into a long black peasant skirt and long loose black tee shirt. The smallest devil inside me has me leaving both panties and a bra off again. It’s how I usually lounge around the house when I get home, after all. Pulling my hair out of the bun with a sigh I allow it to hang free.
    Walking into the kitchen, I’m in time to see him placing a plate on the table for me. There is a small salad waiting with a few different bottles of dressing, I pick a balsamic vinegar I like and I know the leaves are from a bagged salad mix but he had added some fresh tomatoes, cucumbers and black olives and it doesn’t taste bagged.
    “I can’t believe you did all this? Stuffed shells, they are so creamy and this sauce is good. Breakfast and now dinner, I could get used to this. Thank you. If I remember dinner it’s usually a frozen dinner or something from work, this is much better.”
    He easily opens the bottle of wine, without flair, and pours the both of us a glass. “You’re welcome. You mentioned you don’t cook and I like to cook, but I’m all for easy dishes. When we had breaks in leave I usually stayed with a buddy who had a condo in Virginia and he was bad about cooking. I had to learn to cook so we wouldn’t come off leave slow and sluggish from the crap food we were eating.”
    I remember now telling him that, almost as a warning I had listed my faults and not cooking was one of them. “Why weren’t you cooking for yourself when you were home?”
    “It was just me and it didn’t feel like it mattered much. Do you still want to do your website or have you decided not to?”
    “Well, like I mentioned, I’m kind of inept when it comes to all of that. I thought it would be much easier than it turned out to be. I keep paying for the host site but it just sits there, empty. I need the pictures first and the best photographer I could find in the area is in San Antonio and charges five hundred per photograph. Don’t make that face, there are photographers out there that want one thousand and higher. Photographing a painting isn’t something just anyone can do, for a