Free Every Second Counts by D. Jackson Leigh

a single thing I can sell since you moved there.”
    “I’ve found peace here, Lydia.”
    “You’ve lost passion. It shows in your art. That’s why I can’t sell it. Pretty pictures only sell at street fairs. My patrons know the difference.”
    Her laugh was bitter. “Ouch. Tell me what you really think.”
    “Send me the crate in your studio. You haven’t even opened it, have you?”
    She didn’t answer.
    “It’s your best work and you know it.”
    Silence.
    Lydia’s voice softened. “Stephan wouldn’t want this. He wouldn’t want you to hide and bottle up your talent. He loved you too much.”
    “Stephan only loved himself and the next thrill he could find.”
    “You know that’s not fair.”
    She closed her eyes against the pain that threatened to split her chest. She wouldn’t cry. “I can’t,” she whispered. “I can’t open that crate and I can’t sell what’s in it either. It still hurts too much.”
    “Oh, honey. Come up for a visit. We’ll go out, see a show, do something fun.”
    She took a deep breath. “Okay. Maybe I will. But not until after the auction. I won’t have time before then.”
    “I’m going to hold you to that. In the meantime, find something hot to fuck. That is, if they have any hot bootie down there in the boonies.”
    “Oh, trust me, we don’t have a shortage of hot women here. Maybe you should come down for the auction and see for yourself.”
    “Maybe I will, darling. I’ll be in touch. Ciao.”
    “Bye, Lydia.”
    She ended the call, surprised that a tingling in her belly had replaced the pain in her chest. New York lesbians had nothing on the local talent in Cherokee Falls. It had been two days and she still was a tad sore from the all-night marathon of screaming orgasms with Ryder. Two days since she’d awakened to find a note tented on the pillow next to hers.
     
    Early morning physical therapy appointment. You were so beautiful and sleeping so soundly, I didn’t want to wake you. You are amazing. See you in art class. Ryder
     
    She wasn’t sure Ryder would really show up because she hadn’t even told her when and where. But spending that one night with Ryder had her mixing paint for the first time in months. She picked up her palette and stood in front of the blank, white canvas. The images flashing through her mind definitely would have to be sold in New York, not locally. She turned the canvas to a horizontal position and began to paint.
    Several hours later, the outline of two women on a bed was taking shape, bathed in the warm, muted light of a bedside lamp, their legs entwined. One figure lay with her back arched and breasts offered up to the second, who was propped on one elbow as she hovered over the reclining woman. Her mouth was on the first woman’s breast, her hand delving between her lover’s legs.
    She painted quickly. It was good. She knew it was good because of the dampness of her panties. The scene was crystal clear in her head and flowing freely onto the canvas. She paused her work on the figures to fill in the satin sheets that draped the bed.
    After she squeezed small amounts of blue, green, and burnt umber on a clean corner of her palette, she frowned. She must have used up her tube of cadmium red. She put her brush down and retrieved a fresh one from her supply cabinet. Her gaze returned to the figures as she squirted out a generous amount from the fresh tube, the thoughts jumping forward to the flesh colors she would mix next. She closed her eyes and became the figure lying on her back with Ryder hovering over her—tanned face, flushed chest, and dark nipples.
    First, the sheets.
    She looked down to mix the colors and her heart stuttered.
    Red, crimson red. She was suddenly on that balcony in Pamplona, Spain.
     
    Men in white clothing are wearing vivid red sashes tied around their waists. Running. The street is filled with running men. Onlookers are hanging out of open windows and cheering from balconies that look down on