Part One: Lin-Vayel
Chapter One: A Difference in Perspective
“And if you wanna leave, then leave! You know I don’t have the time, and you’re not a friend of mine!” Alanna bobbed her head as she sang, loudly and off key, to the music pumping through the overhead speakers in the studio. It was a struggle not to let her foot tap to the rhythm of the terribly catchy pop song on the radio, but she kept it steady, letting it power the pottery wheel she was currently seated behind.
By now, she could do this in her sleep. Her muscles and hands and feet knew the right speed and placement for making the elaborate vases and bowls she liked to do in her spare time to sell and make a bit of extra money.
That was what Saturdays were for. She came into the studio, earlier than most people liked to be awake, and she turned on some terrible music and got to work.
Already it was warm in the studio, and Alanna had her hair piled up onto the top of her head in a messy bun. A curl had escaped and was dangling in her face, but she wasn’t about to throw off her rhythm to push it away. The few times she had blown at it, hoping to move it, hadn’t gone very well, so for now, it was just there.
She was dressed casually, in clothes that she didn’t mind getting splattered with clay: leggings and an oversized tank top, a sports bra on underneath.
Shannon, her best friend, liked to say that this was Alanna at her most bare. No makeup, no fancy clothes, no pretty hair style. Just her and her clay and the naked pleasure she received from doing the work.
Those were Shannon’s words, not Alanna’s, but she couldn’t deny that her friend had a point. At her happiest, it was just her and her clay, the joy of creation, the pleasure of making something beautiful out of a lump of malleable material.
So she sang terrible pop songs and she worked, and when she had something she was proud of, she set it aside to be decorated and finished, and then went to wash her hands.
Pebbles was the kind of studio you thought about when someone brought up the words ‘artists’ studio’. It was a huge place, with space for everything from painting to sculpture to metal and wood working, and the rooms were rentable by the hour, day, month, or year.
Alanna had what she liked to call a lifetime membership, by virtue of the time she had spent helping to get the place up and running and the painting she had done and the decorations she’d donated. She still kicked in her fair share of cash to help keep things going, but she had a vastly discounted rate.
The space was rented by all sorts from the city, and she could hear the sound of metal being pounded outside, which meant that Alyssa was probably somewhere out there working in the blacksmithing area. She’d have to remember to go say hello.
The door to the pottery room swung open, and Keith came walking in, a large tote bag over his shoulder, headphones in his ears.
He was a bit younger than her, though not by much, tall and lanky, with a little bit of lean muscle. The rumor was that he’d done ballet for a number of years and could dead lift a woman over his head. None of them had tested that, of course, but it was interesting to talk about all the same.
He was a quiet man with shaggy dark hair, dark eyes, glasses, and a habit of wearing shirts that clung to his frame. He painted in extremes, that is to say he alternated between soft, pastel portraits and floral scenes and dark, vibrant, expressive abstract pieces that never really seemed to tell any kind of story but were visually compelling all the same.
The painting area shared space with pottery, and Keith was a regular for these Saturday mornings, so Alanna leaned against a table and waited.
He was bobbing his head to his own music, but the song playing on the radio in the room had switched from the whiny male singer crooning about how he couldn't sleep without his lover anymore that had been on while she was washing the clay from her hands to a loud and borderline offensive song sung by some screechy teenage girl about grinding in the club.
A smirk tugged at Alanna's mouth as Keith noticed the dissonance between whatever he was listening to and the loud music in the space, and he popped one earbud out and immediately made a face.
His eyes darted around until they found her, and he huffed. "Really, Alanna? Simone Carter?"
She snorted and shrugged. "It came on the radio. But you're the one who knew her name, so. I'm not sure what that says about you."
He made another face, this one more pained than the first. "It means that my older sister has two preteen daughters that I spend a lot of time looking after. They love Simone Carter."
They shared a look at that, both clearly lamenting the fact that younger and younger kids were learning about the pleasures of 'getting low and slow at the club', which honestly didn't even mean anything as far as Alanna knew.
Keith popped his other earbud out and crossed to his space, setting down his bag. He pulled his hoodie off, revealing that yep, he was wearing yet another skin tight shirt that showed off all that lean muscle to delicious effect. Honestly, Alanna liked her men a bit on the beefier side, but there was something about the combination of Keith's quiet nature and his skill at painting that made her overlook her usual preferences when it came to him.
Not that she was going to do anything. He wasn't hers to lust after, and as far as she knew, he had a girlfriend. Not that she was single herself, of course.
But it didn't hurt to look.
He moved around the space confidently, setting up an easel and laying out his paint: water colors this time, so he was clearly in a delicate sort of mood.
Their eyes met as he looked up and saw her looking, and he offered her a warm smile. "What're you working on today?" he asked.
"Just some stuff to sell online," she said, shrugging a shoulder. "Bowls, mugs, vases, you know. The usual Saturday routine."
He nodded. They'd shared this space on enough Saturdays that he knew what she usually did by now. She moved on to the next part of her process, not wanting to distract Keith from his own work, but they chatted as they worked, and morning turned to afternoon. It was only natural for them to step out of the building together at around one in the afternoon, both craving lunch.
"That burger place a couple blocks up is really good," Keith said. "You in?"
They'd never had lunch together in all the time that they'd been doing this, and Alanna blinked for a moment, surprised, and then nodded. "Sure. Sounds great."
When Alanna's mother had been alive, she'd believed in several things that she'd considered hard and fast truths. The biggest of those truths was that there was no better way to get to know someone than to share a meal with them. It was something her mother had taught her and then she'd passed it down to Alanna, who walked into Easy Sam's Burgers at one-fifteen on a Saturday afternoon, hungry for a burger and fries, but also for information about her companion.
The people who did their work at Pebbles were close knit by nature. Artists tended to stick together, encouraging and supporting each other, sometimes when no one else would.
Keith wasn't the talkative type, though, and he was one of the newer people renting space in the studio, so she didn't know as much about him as she knew about Alyssa who did blacksmithing or Thomas who was into pottery as well. Those were people she'd been working around for years, and Keith had been coming to Pebbles for only a couple of months.
So she wanted to know him. Not just because he was attractive.
Probably.
At any rate, they slid into a booth in the back of the little diner, and smiled at the waitress who put down water glasses and menus in front of them.
"Can I get you started with something more to drink?" she asked, a bored expression on her face.
"Coffee would be great," Alanna said. "Do you have cream?"
The waitress, who at further inspection wasn't a grown woman, but instead a heavily made up teenage girl, shrugged a shoulder. "We've got half and half and non dairy creamer," she said.
"So that would be a no," Alanna replied, arching an eyebrow. "I'll take the half and half."
"And you?" the waitress asked Keith, and Alanna was gratified to notice that her tone didn't get any less bored when talking to him. At least this cranky teenager was rude to customers equally. Or maybe they'd just caught her on a bad day.
"I'll have a coke, please," he said, flashing her a smile that would have made other teenage girls swoon right there.
She just rolled her eyes. "Sure. Be right back with that."
Alanna snorted as she walked away. "She clearly was not interested in you smiling at her," she teased.
Keith looked like he was going to protest, but then he gave it up and laughed. "Yeah, apparently not. It's not something I go around doing, mind you. Smiling at teenage girls. It's just, you know, apparently my nieces have friends who think I'm hot, so. I thought maybe it would make her day better."
"How altruistic of you," Alanna said, shaking her head.
He shrugged. "Can't win them all."
"Apparently not."
They studied their menus in companionable silence for a bit, and Alanna was in the middle of her perpetual internal 'fries vs onion rings' debate when she felt Keith looking at her. She glanced up to see him watching her with amusement.
"What?" she asked, suddenly self-conscious and hating it.
"Nothing," he replied. "Just. I don't know. You have this...reputation."
Alanna's eyebrows reached toward her hairline at the words. Of course, she knew she had a reputation. Everyone who worked at Pebbles had a reputation, really. Alyssa was the princess with the arms of steel, Thomas was the one you'd never know was gay until you saw him kissing his husband in the lobby, Christina was quiet as a mouse, but made the most beautiful wooden figurines and with her unimpressive height, everyone was convinced she was an actual fairy.
It went on and on all the way to John and Amanda, the ones who owned the building. Alanna knew what her reputation was, too. She was the no nonsense one who tended to lash out when she was stressed. She knew that about herself, and honestly, she spent a good portion of her time apologizing to people who she had accidentally offended with her brusqueness.
"Do I?" she asked, leaning back in the booth and putting her menu down.
"Yeah, but I don't think it's a bad thing," Keith said quickly, eyes wide like he was worried he had offended. "You're serious about your work because it's what you want to do with your life, right? I can understand that."
That...wasn't a terrible way to put it, and she shrugged a shoulder. "Maybe."
"I'm not saying this right at all," he said with a sigh. "I only meant to say that...you're not really like what I was expecting. Some people warned me about sharing a space with you, you know. When they found out I was going to be coming on Saturdays, too. They said you were going to be all intense and weird about sharing the space and that you liked things a certain way."
"Well. That's mostly true," Alanna had to concede. There was a reason why she and Thomas couldn't be in the space at the same time.
"Not in my experience," Keith said, shrugging. "I haven't had any issues sharing the space with you. I look forward to it, actually. Every week."
Alanna was taken aback by that. "Even though I play terrible music and make you listen to it?"
Keith shrugged. "Is it weird to say that it's sort of helps me work? I sold a piece for twice what I was thinking about selling it for about a week ago, and I realized it was one of the ones I painted on that Saturday you were in your old school R&B mood, remember? And you kept singing in that silly voice?"
Looking back, it sounded sort of embarrassing, but she'd been in a good mood, making things that she'd felt proud to sell and working on some commissions. The music had just come on the first random radio station she'd selected, but it had ended up being perfect for what she wanted to make that day.
"That worked for you?" she asked, surprised.
"Yeah," he said, giving her a lopsided grin. "It really did. I don't know what it is about you, Alanna, but you're like..."
"Don't say it," she said, holding up one finger to stop him.
"Say what?"
"You know what. That same cheesy line every artist says to their partner or someone they're flirting with eventually. 'You're my muse'." She said it in a deep, faux seductive voice, and Keith held her eye contact for a moment before he dissolved into quiet laughter.
"Alright, fair," he said. "I was going to say that. But it's true, in a non cliché way. You inspire me."
And yes, it was cheesy. It was something that all of them had said to someone in college once or twice to get laid before, and it didn't really mean much when it was said like that. But with the way Keith was looking at her, Alanna felt like he actually meant it, and that was...beyond flattering.
She'd never heard anything like that before, honestly. Not when it came to art. Alex (her boyfriend, her subconscious decided to remind her just then) never said things like that to her, and even if he did, he wouldn't mean it in the same way that Keith meant it.
She was doomed.
This is such a bad idea, she told herself only once. Just to acknowledge it. Just to say that she knew it was a bad idea, so her internal record would show that she had actually thought about it and then decided to just keep going on that road to bad decisions.
But Keith was kissing her neck, and they were locking the door of the studio room, and he was pressing himself against her and rubbing his thigh between her legs as she gasped and moaned softly, feeling her body respond to him.
She liked to think that this was two and a half months in the making and not some spontaneous thing she was doing just because they were both there, but honestly, all she was really thinking was yes, yes, yes, yes please more of that as Keith nipped at her neck lightly and then soothed the sting with the flat of his tongue.
His hands were on her hips, and she could feel the heat of them through the thin material of her leggings. His skin was hot and soft, and she wanted to lick him, see what he tasted like. She wanted to break him down to his parts and then rebuild him with the knowledge she had gained from the activity.
Which was, she’d admit, a very weird thing to think, but it was better than thinking about the gravity of what she was doing.
That wasn't the last time it happened, either.
Alanna didn't know what she was thinking, honestly. Well, she did, and that was probably the worst part. She knew that this wasn't the right thing to do, that she was making it harder and harder to explain to Alex what was happening with each time she kissed Keith, but honestly, it was just so...good.
Sex with Alex had never been bad. It was perfectly fine sex. They usually both got off, and Alex had never been a selfish lover. One of his favorite things to do was to grin at her and then spread her legs, kissing his way down her body until he could put his mouth where they both knew she wanted it.
And he'd go to town down there for a while, licking and sucking and making sure that she got off before he came up for air.
It wasn't even about doing it so she'd return the favor, either. Sometimes that was all they did. Alanna knew she couldn't complain about that aspect of their relationship.
It was just...everything else that she was having a problem with.
And with Keith, all the other stuff was there. He cared about the same things she cared about. When she asked him about his work, he spoke with passion and enthusiasm about the same things she talked about with her work. He understood what it felt like to be inspired at four in the morning. To wake from a dream with an image in your head and the unignorable need to get it out and make it real.
Saturdays were theirs. They arrived at separate times to Pebbles, did their work for a while, and then called it a day. Sometimes they got lunch, sometimes they made out against the wall. One especially memorable time, Keith had bent her over one of the drafting tables and made her sob his name.
Usually they ended up back at Keith's place. He lived alone, had a memory foam mattress, and could make fajitas that were now Alanna's favorite after sex meal.
They stayed there until they were sated in all the ways a person could be, and then inevitably, it would be time for Alanna to leave.
The part that made her feel the worst was that things with Alex were going really well now. Since she had Keith to talk to, she didn't have to get Alex to pretend like he understood what she was talking about when she talked about the creation of her work, and it was clear that he appreciated the reprieve. He still asked her how things were going, but was content to accept "good" and "being productive" as answers instead of the usual near lectures she'd given before.
So it settled into a routine, and Alanna was beginning to wonder if this was just how things were going to be now.
Until Alex called.
She was still in Keith's bed, wearing one of his shirts and nothing else. He was in the bathroom, and she was lounging against his pile of pillows, feeling satisfied from the three orgasms she'd had in the last two hours. Her phone was in the pocket of her jeans on the floor, but she could hear it buzzing, so she fished it out.
Alex. Her heart kicked up into overdrive when she saw his name on the screen, and she spent a good few seconds debating with herself whether it was better to pick up or let it go to voicemail.
But Alex never called her on Saturdays unless it was important, and she swore under her breath and answered it right before it was about to stop ringing.
"Hey," she said, going for a natural tone. "What's up?"
"Where are you?" Alex asked. "I wanted to see if you wanted to do dinner tonight."
Dinner. Okay. She could handle that. "Sure, yeah," Alanna said. "I'm still at the studio. That big commission is due soon, you know. But I'll be done in time for dinner. Do you want me to meet you somewhere?" He was quiet for a moment, and she frowned. "Alex?"
"Yeah. I'm here. Uh. Let's do dinner at your place? I'll cook if you want."
"Sure," she said. "That sounds great. Around seven?"
"Yeah. Seven's good."
Alanna was good at a lot of things. She was an excellent potter and sculptor, and her drawing wasn't terrible either. She was a good driver, she could ski, and when she was in high school and college, she'd been excellent at volleyball.
She had a plethora of talents, spread out across different areas, but overthinking was probably one of her best skills. If you could call it a skill.
Alex's car was in the driveway when she arrived, and she looked at the clock in her car and saw that it was just a quarter after six. Maybe he was already cooking. That was probably it.
Keith had watched in amusement while she'd brushed her teeth vigorously and made sure that her hair didn't look like she'd been writhing around in a bed.
"Paranoid?" he'd asked her.
"Thorough," she'd replied.
It didn't seem to bother Keith that she had a boyfriend, and Alanna didn't know how she felt about that, but she supposed it didn't really matter. Eventually, she was going to break things off with him. It was the right thing to do.
She was as evidence free as she could be, honestly, and she got out of her car and went into the house.
Where there wasn't anything cooking. Alanna frowned. "Alex?"
"Living room," he called back.
She followed his voice into the living room and saw him sitting on the couch, looking nervous. Suddenly, she wondered if she had been worried about the wrong thing.
"What's up?" she asked.
"I wanted to surprise you," he said.
And no. Oh, no. It was beginning to feel like she was in one of those cheesy romance movies where the boyfriend said he wanted to surprise the girl and then pulled out a ring and there was kissing and crying and all kinds of promises.
Promises Alanna wasn't ready for and probably didn't want to make to someone she was currently cheating on.
"Alex," she said. "You shouldn't...you..."
"I wanted to surprise you," he said again, voice firmer this time. "So I went down to the studio today. I thought, hey, it's been awhile since I've seen any of your work, and you haven't really been talking about it much lately, so. I figured I'd pop in, see what you'd made and then maybe take you out for dinner. Do something nice, you know?"
Ah. "You went to the studio?" she asked, hoping against hope that she could still salvage this. "When?"
"When you told me you were there," Alex said. "I was standing in the pottery room when I called you. The empty pottery room."
And so this was it. Alanna knew it all had to come out sooner or later. There were two ways to play this, of course. She could make something up, tell him that she'd been out having a meal with a friend and meant that she planned to go back to the studio and that any time when she was planning to work there qualified as being 'at the studio'. Or, she could tell the truth.
"Alex—”
"I know you don't think I pay attention when you talk," he continued, not letting her interrupt more. "And yeah, maybe I'm not always the most interested, but I'm listening. I've noticed things've been different lately, and I thought, so what? Maybe she's tired. She's been working a lot. Which, by the way, is why I wanted to do something nice for you today. But you weren't there, and it makes me wonder if you're ever there when you say you are."
"Of course I'm there," Alanna snapped, irritated. "How else do you think all my pieces get made?"
"Well, what am I supposed to think when you lie to me, Alanna?" Alex retorted. “And yeah, I’m sure there’s some perfectly believable alternative to what I think was going on, so why don’t you tell me? Where were you?”
There was something like desperation in his voice as he asked the question, and all at once Alanna was tired. She didn’t want to have some circular argument about it, and she didn’t want to lie.
So she told him the truth. She told him about Keith and how they had been meeting at Pebbles on Saturdays, having lunch and talking about art. She told him how they had kissed and how Keith had touched her, made her feel good. She told him how for the longest time, she’d had so much trouble with the fact that Alex didn’t even seem interested in her work or what she had to say about it and how Keith had come along and changed all of that.
“So you cheated on me because I’m not an artist?” Alex demanded, voice ringing with incredulity.
“No,” Alanna said. “That part wasn’t supposed to happen, it just...did.”
“It just did?” Alex asked, and now she could hear the anger there, too. He was upset, and she supposed he had every right to be. “Like you just were talking about art and all of a sudden he whipped his dick out and you were helpless to resist?”
Alanna gave him a look. “You’re being dramatic.”
“I’m being dramatic?” he demanded. “How am I being dramatic? I just wanted to do something nice for you, make an effort, and I find out you’ve been sleeping with some other guy for weeks now! I think this is the right amount of reaction to that.”
“Maybe it was too late to make an effort, Alex.”
Her words fell like heavy stones, marking the end of this thing. She knew how it would go from here. They could argue and yell and try to place blame, but it was obvious what was going to happen now. They were going to break up. It was the only thing that could happen now. Alanna had cheated, Alex was outraged, and while she felt bad for betraying his trust like that, she didn’t want to beg him to forgive her. She didn’t want to work hard for something she didn’t believe in.
He gave her a hard look, eyes cold. It was probably the angriest she had ever seen him before. “Fine,” he said. “Fine. It was too late to make an effort. So we’re just going to pretend like this didn’t work because of me?”
“No,” she said. “I readily admit that I’m the one who messed up here. After all, you didn’t cheat.”
“I’m not talking about the cheating, Alanna!” he exploded. “I’m talking about everything else! All the times you pushed me away because I didn’t do things the way you wanted them done or because I didn’t comfort you the way you wanted to be comforted. You don’t know the first thing about compromise! It’s your way or it’s nothing.”
“I’ve never tried to force you to do things my way!” she snapped. Because she hadn’t. She knew she was particular about things, and instead of trying to make people conform to that, she just did things on her own.
“No, you just ignored me. You wouldn’t even let me hold you before that gallery showing because you didn’t think I was going to do it right, and instead of just meeting me halfway or letting me do what I could. And you’re like that about everything! It has to be the way you want it or you don’t want it. And I can’t handle that anymore.”
“Fine,” Alanna said, crossing her arms. “Then go.”
Alex looked at her, like he couldn’t believe this was what was happening, and then, with the slamming of the door, he left.