Chapter 35- Paintings

Lupe's tired, strained eyes checked her delicate wristwatch. The watch had been a gift from Richard. She had specifically told him not to spend too much on her – some was okay, but not too much – but he hadn't listened and bought her a gold wristwatch instead.

Nearly midnight. She blinked a few times, trying to shake off her growing fatigue. I'm almost done, just one more little painting, then I'm done. She put down her paintbrush and picked her thermos up from the counter. She poured out the last bit of coffee and took a sip while surveying the shop. She savored the rich taste of the coffee. I'd rather he keeps me in coffee than gold, gold never did anyone any real use.

There was no denying that Lupe was having some real fun getting Kitty's Purr-fect Pleasure Boutique ready for its grand opening. She had drawn fanciful labels for the bottles and jars of ointments Mimi had provided. She had arranged the chemises, camisoles, peignoirs, and other difficult to spell lacy and sheer undergarments on hangers that she had hand-sewn silk and lace onto. She had covered the windows with red curtains – her original plan of black paint was too much work – but left it open a few inches to pique interest. She had put dimmer lights in the ceiling lights to create a warm, intimate, candlelight-type of glow, but had installed several brighter desk lamps close to the displays of merchandise so customers could see them better.

But her pride and joy and source of eye strain were her little dirty pictures. She had hidden a dozen of them all over the shop and numbered them so customers could keep track. She hadn't colored them in, they were still just outlines, but hopefully, she could find some time to finish them. Number one was relatively tame and as such was painted right next to the register. It was just an image of a man fondling a woman's breast over her shirt, but they escalated. Number five, for example, showed the woman taking the man's (quite girthy) cock in her mouth and was hidden behind some lingerie. In the back of the shop, near the ropes, number seven showed the man with his face between the woman's legs while also holding his cock.

Hopefully, her little doodles would help spread some word of mouth. Who wouldn't want to see little dirty pictures? And while here, why not buy a fun little toy? She had also drawn instructions on how to use most of the implements Mimi had sent over. Her hands were cramped and achy, but the satisfaction of seeing her own vision come to life more than made up for it.

Lupe had nearly run out of ideas, however, for number twelves. She'd already done up close penetration. She'd already shown the animalistic coupling. Twice. Maybe against a wall? She contemplated it while sipping the coffee.

There was a tap at the door. I bet they came back for the soap. The previous tenants had left a crate of rose-scented soap behind. If they didn't return by the end of this week she was going to come up with some cock and bull about it being an aphrodisiac soap.

She put down the coffee and went to unlatch the door. To her pleasant surprise, Richard was there. "Sweetest, what are you doing here? You should be in bed, haven't you got work in the morning?"

He kissed her. "Haven't you? I came here to see why it's nearly the witching hour and you haven't come home. I made dinner. Well, I tried. That's what counts, right? It's um, it's not very pretty. Not like this shop. Or you, for that matter."

Lupe blushed and smiled. She had flecks of paint on her plain cotton green dress and her hair was messily tied back. "Do you like it? It's meant to be fun, more fun than a usual shop."

Richard turned his attention to the interior of the shop. "It's nice. Intimate"

"You haven't seen the best part," Lupe proudly informed him. She pointed to number one next to the counter.

"Oh, look at that," Richard said, clearly amused. "Is that what you've been doing all day?"

"Not all day, just for the past… six hours. Each one is different, they are all over the shop, find them!" Lupe grabbed his hand and pulled him to number two, in which the man had his hand up the woman's skirt and she was unbuttoning his shirt. It was located behind a display of almond oil.

"How many did you make?"

"Eleven. I am meaning to make twelve, but I am kinda stuck on the last one. I, erm, I need some inspiration," she coyly said. It had been twenty-six hours since she had gotten her last dosage of Richard and she was fiending for more. It'd clear my head, at least.

"Inspiration? Like what? A bubbling creek? A sunset? Whatever it is that you artists draw your muses from?" Richard joked, knowing full well what she meant.

The hour was too late to put on her usual dog and pony show. Lupe got down to business and down on her knees in front of Richard. While having Richard finish in the proper place did net her some of the chemical release that she had come to depend on, swallowing it was the most efficient way.

His cock was still mostly limp but was beginning to plump up as she gently kissed the soft tip of the head. "How about this?" Richard lazily suggested.

Lupe rolled her eyes. "Already done it." She ran her tongue up the shaft to the base to kickstart his imagination.

"What about from the man's perspective?"

Lupe shook her head and lightly cupped his balls. "I don't want to change the perspective on the last one, it'd be out of place."

Richard leaned against the counter and sighed. "How about spanking?"

"No," she answered and snaked her tongue back down his now fully erect cock. "It's unusual, it might be a bit too much."

"Darling, you sell ropes, I can see them over there." Richard stroked her hair.

"That's different." She paused to suck on the squishy engorged head for a few moments before articulating as to the difference. "Firstly, you don't have to whip someone when you tie them up, not that you'd know that." She gave the shaft a kiss before continuing. "Secondly, it isn't explicitly laid out what the ropes are for. If a customer sees them and that's where her imagination goes, well, she already knows. If not, then it will be a mystery for her."

"You've really thought about this, haven't you?"

She nodded but didn't remove her mouth. She took him in about halfway and looked up at him, eager for some ideas and his satisfying seed.

Richard sighed slowly and worked another few inches into her mouth. "What if there are two men?"

Lupe was so surprised by this suggested she took his cock out of her mouth to comment on it. "It's not that kind of shop," she protested. "I wouldn't even know where to start drawing that."

"I mean with the woman," he clarified and rather forcibly pushed himself back into her mouth. "One of them is doing this, and the other one is at her business end."

Does he want to do that with me? Is that why he brought it up? Lupe thought about it while increasing the tempo of the fellatio. She'd never considered it before and didn't know what to make of it. Finally, her curiosity got the better of her. She disengaged with a wet pop. "Do you want to do that?"

"Oh, um, no, I don't think I'd care for that. I don't want to be around another man's pecker that closely," Richard explained slowly. "It was just an idea."

"It's too over the top for the average woman," Lupe decided. Even for me, that's a lot. She went back to work, slowly this time, while trying to come up with a solution so she could go home.

From the corner of her eye, she saw movement through the gap in her curtains. Oh goodness! She didn't stop, however, and her pulse increased. She turned her gaze ever so slightly, so little that Richard didn't notice, and glanced out the window, cock in mouth. At this late hour there wasn't much foot traffic, but a large shadowy cart was slowly being pushed past her shop.

They could see us! Even with the soft lighting, the interior of the shop was bright enough to see inside. The silhouette of a human form passed by but was clearly more focused on navigating the cart than peering into windows.

Lupe turned her attention fully back to Richard, somewhat disappointed that the person passing by hadn't noticed. Previously she had been mostly unaroused herself, viewing this as a welcome diversion from her task and a top-up on her ADAM, but the idea of being spotted warmed her private folds.

This sudden spring in her step triggered her to suck his cock with some real pep. She rolled her tongue around it while it was in her mouth, along the shaft and up onto the head, the whole time wondering what she must look like Mirrors, she thought as she bobbed up and down on his cock, I should sell mirrors.

Lupe was too preoccupied with the flurry of both erotic and business opportunities that she had lost track of Richard's situation and was caught off guard when he spurted into her mouth. She choked for a moment, then relaxed her gag reflex and let it all drip down her throat. Much like coffee or cigarettes, it was an acquired taste that once acquired, she could not get enough of.

She leaned back on her heels and wiped saliva off her lips with her sleeve. "I know what I'm going to paint," she announced, feeling much better.

Richard sighed dreamily. "What, my darling?"

Lupe sprang to her feet. "A window and someone is spying on them," she hastily explained as she rushed to the place on the back wall where it would be discreetly painted next to a bookcase. "A woman, that's who is spying on them," she thought out loud while sharpening her sketching pencil. "A woman spying is less intimidating. They are doing just a regular coupling on the bed and she's peeping at them."

"Glad to have been of service," Richard said, obviously pleased with himself. "How long will this take?"

"Less than an hour. You don't have to stay though." Lupe crouched down. Start with…the man, he's on top… she started to sketch out the drawing.

"I'll stay. Can I talk to you while you work or do you not like that?"

"It's fine. I may not pay close attention, but it doesn't distract me."

"Drives me up the wall when people talk to me while I'm working," he opined. "But then again I guess we draw very different things."

"You've never done dirty little people?" Lupe was genuinely surprised. "I thought all artists did."

"I'm not an artist, I'm a technical draftsman. I can't actually draw, at least not in the way you do."

"Mmm," Lupe vaguely replied as she considered exactly how big the woman's breasts should be.

"You don't mind? You're not just saying that?" Richard asked again.

"It's fine, I promise."

"Alright. I came to a decision today. I'm going to sell my stock in Stone and Sons." He sounded a bit trepidatious as if he was looking for her permission.

Lupe turned from the wall to look at him, mildly shocked. "Really? I thought you liked working there."

"I don't want to design guns. Do you understand why?"

She nodded. "Yes, I can imagine you don't want to."

"Thank you. Well, my father cannot understand that, and I'm sick and tired of saying no. So I'm out."

She nodded and went back to her work. "Probably for the best. Let's be honest, it pains me to be honest, but we must. Being honest? You could die at any moment. Why spend that time being unhappy if you can avoid it." She knew she was rambling, but she was more than a little tired.

Richard was quiet, but Lupe didn't press him for a reply. She was focused on getting the perspective of the bed reasonable if not one-hundred percent correct. Dang perspective, I should have gotten into abstract art.

"Do you think it's a good idea? It's a big change," he asked after a few minutes of silence.

"It's not up to me, it's up to you. You know more about it than I do. The only thing I'd be worried about is making it hard on my family. Isn't it going to make things difficult with them?" Lupe wished that she could see her family again, but… she pushed that wish away.

Richard sighed. "It's a problem I'll deal with, I suppose. Rollie won't care though."

"Would he go with you?"

"I don't know. Honestly, I don't know where I'm going. But I'll have a lot of money, that's a start. Maybe I will start my own company," he speculated. "I haven't thought about it too much."

"You don't have to yet, you'll have a lot of money from the sale of your stock, right? And even if you somehow manage to fritter that away, we'll have my shop." Lupe didn't pretend to understand the high volumes of money that Richard was used to dealing with, but she couldn't imagine that selling his stock would leave him a lurch.

"I'd have to be an utter fool to fritter away a few million, now wouldn't I?"

That much? "Yes, you'd have to be, but you'd also have to be an utter fool to take someone up on their invitation to move to the bottom of the ding-dang ocean too, now wouldn't you?"

Richard laughed and she heard the flick of his lighter being ignited. "Yes, that as well." He smoked in silence for a moment, and then approached her workspace and took a book off the shelf. "What are these? There's nothing on the cover."

"A handbook for working girls. All sorts of tips and tricks and helpful hints, everything from covertly inspecting a man for mumps on his pipes to figuring out the most profitable times and areas to work in for your situation. Mimi wrote it, it's quite interesting, but I need to rebind and edit it so it's not explicitly for making money. I need stock, and that's what she had. Publishing my own edition of it is on the long, long list of things I am going to do once I start making some money."

Lupe turned around to hunt up her round paintbrush. Richard had opened one of the books and was leafing through it with one hand and held his cigarette in the other. "My but these are explicit," he commented after catching sight of a few of the rather rudimentary illustrations Mimi had drawn.

"They're instructions, they have to be."

He was fascinated by the illustrations, and aside from the occasional amused snort, he let her work in peace. "You're going to sell a lot of these I reckon," he said as he closed the book and put it back. "You're going to sell a lot in general. I wasn't lying because I love you, I really do think you've done a real bang-up job here. We could probably live off your creative ingenuity if I did something idiotic like losing it all on at the roulette table."

Lupe laughed softly. "No more casinos, ever." His compliment pleased her greatly, however, and she inwardly squirmed with gratification.

"Agreed. And I picked up an idea or two from the book, so once you're done painting there why don't we go home and do some research, hm? I owe you, after all," he playfully suggested and kissed her on the side of her face.

"I'll take a rain check, I'm afraid." Even with her excitement and creative energy she was just this site of sawing logs. "I'll probably nod off in the bathysphere at this rate. But you can make it up to me…well not tomorrow, I'll be very busy. And probably for the next week, at least. But at some point, I'll let you make it up to me."

Lupe smiled to herself, despite looking down the barrel of a very busy schedule. It felt good to have something, even if it was small and there was no guarantee. But it was the first ray of sunshine she had felt in a long time.