Free Sea God's Pleasure by Alice Gaines

 
     
     
    Chapter One
     
    The painting had grown a phallus. DeLande’s The Sea God’s Pleasure sported a hard-on that hadn’t been there the day before. A really big one. In all her years running the Hollowel Museum of Art, Gloria VanSant had never seen anything like it. Damage from shipping, forgeries, even intentional destruction by delusional art “lovers,” yes. Paintings growing body parts, never. After earning a bachelor’s degree in art history, an MFA, and almost a decade at the Hollowel, Gloria could spot a fake. If she was any judge -- and she sure as hell was -- DeLande had painted this huge cock with loving strokes of his brush over one hundred years before. So, why hadn’t it been there yesterday?
    “Gloria?” said a female voice. Tiffany, the latest upstart the agency had sent over with glowing recommendations.
    With a huge show coming up and one of the most important pieces still missing, she didn’t have time for crap today. “What?”
    Tiff gave her the usual didn’t-you-hear-me ? look. “I talked to Overnight Express. They’re bogged down at O’Hare and can’t get Samuel’s Orpheus to us today.”
    “Oh, for Christ’s sake. I’m surrounded by morons. Call them back and tell them to get it here, or I’ll sue their asses.”
    “There’s a blizzard covering half of the Midwest. No one’s flying in or out of Chicago.”
    “I didn’t ask for a weather report. I want my damned painting.”
    Tiff crossed her arms over her chest. “When did you get to sleep last night?”
    Great. Tiff had gone from upstart to nosey upstart. “I don’t report to you.”
    “You didn’t get to sleep, did you? When did you last eat?”
    “Eating’s over-rated.”
    “Gloria, you’re going to kill yourself.”
    “Is that any of your damned business?”
    Tiff held her hands up in surrender. “Sorry for breathing.”
    “Find a messenger service and have them send a truck for Orpheus .”
    “To Chicago in the middle of a blizzard? That’d take a week.”
    Add snippy to nosey and upstart. “Get a military plane to go for it.”
    “Really, Gloria, listen to yourself.”
    Gloria glowered at her. That glower had been known to send employees scurrying under their desks. Tiff just stared back at her. “All right,” Tiff said finally. “Who should I call? The Department of Defense or the Air Force?”
    “I don’t care. Just call someone.”
    “Right. I’ll come back when you’re feeling a bit more rational.”
    Tiff turned to go, but Gloria yanked her back. “Look at this painting.”
    Tiff pointed at the Sea God . “This one?”
    Of all the… “Yes, this one.”
    Tiff stared at it for a while and then shrugged. “It’s a good example of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, if you like that style.”
    “Do you see anything odd about it?”
    Shrugging, Tiff gave it a closer look for several seconds. “Nope. Do you?”
    “You saw it when it got here yesterday. Did it have a phallus?”
    “It’s a nude. The guy would look pretty deformed without one.”
    “But was it that… um… big yesterday?”
    Tiff gave her an odd look before staring so hard at the god in the painting her nose almost pressed against his erection. “You call that big?”
    “You don’t?”
    Tiff shrugged again. “It’s bigger than when most guys come out of the water, I guess.”
    “You have to be kidding. It’s enormous.”
    Tiff snorted. “If you think that’s enormous, you need to get laid more often.”
    “Gee, thanks.”
    “You’re the one who brought up erections.”
    “You really don’t see a huge cock?”
    “Gloria, do yourself a favor and reacquaint yourself with a real penis.”
    “Smart ass.”
    Tiff turned and walked away. Gloria really ought to fire the little twerp, but she’d been through six administrative assistants in four months, and the hiring process wreaked havoc with everyone’s schedule. Instead, she’d file that away in the “needs improvement” section of Tiffany’s next