She pushed the chair back and stood up, gathering her clothes and dressing. I wanted to rip the clothes right off again. Her shirt went on last, and when her head poked through the collar, she finally noticed my stare.

She blushed. I swallowed a sudden growl of hunger and turned to look at her painting.

My blood ran cold. I didn’t notice when she stood next to me.

“Smudge,” she said, pointing. “Kinda looks like a face.”

Like the one I now saw all the time in the corner of my eye. I couldn’t look at it. I turned away.

“You okay?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Just hungry.”

Some of the tease came back into her voice. “But you just ate.”

I laughed. It sounded natural. “I’m always hungry.”

She grinned. “Well, maybe after I finish painting we can work on that again. Or I can return the favor.”

It is a testament to the resiliency of the male libido that, even after the scare of that…thing…finding its way onto the canvas, my pants began to feel tight.

“That would be just swell.”