December 2014
The sun had risen, just- it was a new day, perhaps a new world. Jo was just as unfamiliar with it as a 16th century Spaniard in a jungle. She just didn't know how to navigate this and had no compass to help, not that she was even sure of what direction she wanted to go. The night had been a fever dream, but dreams unwound, and as undone as Jo had come with them, repeatedly, she was now in an even more complicated situation than before.

She was no longer lusting after a student, she had slept with one, her advisee to boot. The provider in her felt like she needed to immediately call this off. She didn't think Harry would go to the University if she did that, but she knew rejected men often acted in ways that could surprise you, hurt you.

It hadn't felt like he had any wish to hurt her. He'd been sweet and considerate and solicitous.

After they realized it was morning, he had located his phone. "It's 7:30. What time's Zoe get up?" He was still naked, and it was distracting. He was covered in more markings, from her hands and mouth, and he was splotched with gold, except his hand, which revealed him as the Midas who had turned her to gold. If he looked that messy....

"Soon." It was unpredictable when they had nothing going on for the day and as the Christmas holidays dawned schedules were loose. Shit! Ethan.

"Harry, where's Ethan?" Jo had asked as she stood up abruptly and tried to find her clothes. Her shirt she had taken off by where they, well where they were, but Harry had shucked her like a corn before they got into the paint. God, he was so distracting. Thinking about the night before doubly so. She was staring at him, because he was watching her intensely while she panicked.

"Harry?" She whisper shouted.

"Sorry, you look, really," And he was fumbling with the phone in his hand. "Can I take a picture of you?"

"Are you mental?" had been her immediate response. "You want evidence?"

"No, no," his voice went up a little then. "Course not, you just look like a piece of art? Like living and breathing creation." The wonder on his face made her ache. She wanted to go back to night with him. He still seemed to be existing there or had moved to basking in golden dawn where she was definitely standing in the cold of a December morning. She even had gooseflesh, from the cool air in her studio, her nudity, and mostly from reality. "I won't get your face. Just your torso. Want you to see yourself this way too. Please Jo?"

She surprised herself, again, with her response. It seemed to be her continual mood in his presence, "Yeah, go ahead Harry." And she let him stand her behind a painting stool so her lady bits were covered but her shape was revealed. She stood still and rather than curling into herself in embarrassment or shame she found her back straightening and her confidence growing through the lens of his camera, his eye

"Here, look. I'll delete anything that makes you nervous." He handed over his phone, but came to stand behind her and when he breathed she could feel his pebbled nipples on her shoulder blades. The sensation was pleasant and his heat sent the gooseflesh away and Jo forgot what they were doing other than being close for a moment until Harry started to scan through the photos. He had taken about 10 of them. And he hadn't gotten her face like he promised. But he had captured something else. Jo knew she was conventionally attractive, was reminded of it often enough, but she had never felt exquisite. In Harry's pictures, she was just that. In some, the turn of her body was soft and she looked like a nymph, in others, an Amazon. Always otherworldly, mythological. She was breathing heavy when he put the phone in her hand.

"Thank you, for trusting me. Scan through and make sure, so you feel safe." He put his hands on her shoulders and slowly ran them down to her elbows, and his nose came to smell her hair.

He was exquisite.

And he clearly trusted her too. Harry just handed her his phone, while it was open to the camera roll. She leaned back into him, her back resting on his chest. Last time Ethan was home he was showing her pictures and she went to swipe to see another and the yanked it away from her like she was a hot stove. People's phones were as personal an object as they got.

Shit, Ethan! And Zoe was going to be awake any moment.

"Harry, when is Ethan coming? Since he ditched me last night." While she asked, she pulled away and held her clothes to hide the front of her body.

Harry sighed, "I'm not sure, later today? He was hoping his date would go into break...um....sometime today, but he's not exactly an early riser!" He tried to joke.

"Are you?" Jo asked. But instead she winced when she tried to shift and felt the tight paint over her shoulders. Perhaps Harry's pictures lied and she wasn't the best canvas.

"Am I what?" Harry's eyes popped up like popcorn from where he had been admiring her.

"An early riser?" She should be showering, who knew if the paint would come out of her hair with any ease. It might cling on like the memory of last night. She was sure she'd be smelling them and feeling their communion for days. She hoped.

"Um, Yeah, usually but I can sleep all day if I'm up all night, painting or..." And he gave her a cheeky smile.

Her own was timid, she could feel it. How would she act if her feelings weren't so ambiguous? If there was not reason to feel shame of fear, no taboos? Jo imagined she would be jolly, hopeful like Harry seemed to be. She wanted to join him in his time out from reality, she would even take 42 minutes if she had them, but she did not. Zoe and Ethan would be round soon. She hooked a finger toward the door, "I'm gonna shower."

"Can I join you?" She pretended not to hear him as she fled.

Jo was busy freaking the fuck out in the shower about what happened now. She needed to get Harry out of her house before Ethan turned up, and she turned on her monitor, that she was sheepish to admit she still used to check on Zoe, to make sure her little girl was still sleeping. By the grace of god she was, and Jo was gonna get this gold off her body and out of her veins before she woke up. She was also gonna get the 6 foot piece of evidence out of the house. She was gonna get herself together and figure out how to get over this.

The dull thud of a knock interrupted her planing then. "Jo, can I come in?" She heard Harry's voice through the door.

"Um, I'm naked." She asserted and she nearly rolled her eyes, but she most certainly heard his scoff.

"Well, I hope so. Do you need me to wash your back?" He volleyed. When the air was dead for a minute he spoke again, "to get the paint off you. Is it coming out ok?"

It had, but she couldn't see her back, but jo was pretty sure she could explain some paint away and Harry in the bathroom would lead to more than back washing she was fairly sure and all of her resolutions would go down the drain, mixed with paint and come. "Think I got it."

"Jo, can I please come in?" She felt like he had his face against the door, his voice sounded like it.

"I'll be out in a minute." And she would, she thought as she combed and picked the paint out of her hair.

"Can I make you something: tea, coffee, toast then?"

"You can go home if you want Harry." She responded. And lay her own head on the shower door and felt the overwhelming need to cry all of a sudden.

Harry didn't say anything to that and Jo finished up and put on her winter robe, a pregnancy Christmas gift from Ethan, to get her coffee. Her house felt brisk this morning.

She yelped in surprise when she got to her kitchen table and Harry was sitting there, clean, with curling hair like melting chocolate and two mugs of tea on the table.

"Tea one still?" He opened with.

"Um, Yeah," Jo went to the bread box.

"Your bread is in the toaster, I didn't put it on, didn't want it cold for you. I have a banana over here too." his voice was a silly flirt and she wanted to joke with him.

"Thank you." She popped the toast down, and left his innuendo where it lay next to the food on her table. Jo realised she could see her reflection in the microwave glass next to her red toaster. She thought she was alone, that he would have taken the escape from the awkward situation she had set up for them, she hadn't even brushed her teeth, definitely not her locks. Jo smoothed her hair using the blurry image of herself in the door while she waited, she jumped when she saw Harry's reflection. He was right behind her and definitely in her space.

"Jo," Harry said quietly, "I can feel you freaking out. Please, it's freaking me out."

"I'm not freaking out." She said to the microwave and the black box was maybe the only thing that would believe her. "I just need to get cleaned up before Zoe wakes up and I gotta get ready before Ethan gets home." Which means getting you out of my house.

"Which means me leaving." He waited for her to confirm, she wouldn't. It seemed cruel no matter how true is was. "Ok, Miss Jo, I'll leave." And when he put his hands on her shoulders she tensed up like she was about to take impact from a huge lorry. Harry dropped his grip. "May I please have a hug?"

Jo finished her revolution towards him, the one he had started before he read her body language so accurately and knew this move was going to erase her morning's work. The call in his voice, and the base note of hurt too meant she would answer, like the call from the doctor you don't want to get but have to take. She kept her eyes on his clavicle though, his eyes were too much of an eraser. Who knew what would happen if she connected to him there as well.

He wrapped his spaghetti arms around her, he was floppy, like he needed her support to stay upright, and she held him. Jo wanted to hold him, feel him a little too.

"Can you look at me?" He asked to the air around her.

She shook her head against his chest and he nodded his understanding and pressed his mouth to her hair and kissed her there, breathed her ore in.

"Can you come see my new piece? Soon?" He asked, he seemed to be prolonging this hug as much as he could, and Jo clung on too, but opened her balled fists to press her palms to him as well and ran them down to disconnect them before she threw him a bone.

Jo finally looked up. "I'd love to, but, um, I think you'll need to bring it to me at my office, maybe after the new year. I'll be getting ready for my semester." Including checking her rosters to make sure he wasn't in any of her classes. Best to avoid minefields, or at least have a map for them.

"You can't come to my studio?" He was biting his lip before he spoke and she swore she saw wet emotion in his eyes.

She shook her head.

"Are you sure? I have a few things to show you I'm sure, and I think I found a new source of inspiration too." He bit his lip again, this time to try to evoke rather than hold back emotion she thought.

It did bring up something in her. He was successful, but he always was. It may have not had the effect he wanted. Jo's first response was tingly but it's companions came tripping on its heels, Fear, and longing. She had to say something. She knew she should not do this, knew before she kissed him, or fucked him.

"I can't go to your studio, Harry. I think we should not be alone together—"

"We're alone now."

"This should be the last time." They were so close, she was basically part of him still. And then she was kissing him. One last time. "This is the last time." She said against his mouth and promised them both.

"No it's not." He shook his mouth against her and she could feel his words and his grin.

"Has to be. You gotta go." They were still kissing and he was smiling and she was kissing his teeth. And she laughed when their teeth glanced against each other. She meant what she was saying, but she let him pick her up and put her on her kitchen counter and stand between her legs. She was just about to let Harry take her shirt off and maybe have her for breakfast when Zoe cried "Mummy."

Saved by the belle.

Harry was breathing heavily and she pushed him back against the cupboard to get herself back together. "You gotta go!" she said. This time it sounded like she meant it. and he grinned like a cat yellow because of all the canaries, like shrimp turn flamingos pink.  Harry kissed her one more time.

"Last one, right?" he smirked at her when he pulled back.

"Get out of here, you cheeky ass!" Jo pushed around him and couldn't help looking back. It made her grin. He was leaning back against her counter top with his eyes closed and first two fingers against his mouth.

Her grin didn't return when she got up and found that Zoe had wet herself while she was being a horrible mother downstairs.

"Oh sweet one!" She pulled her out and stripped her and the bed. Jo heard the door close when she was taking her to the bathroom to rinse her off.

Harry didn't understand, what did he have to lose?

The chance to fuck his professor, again? Whereas she, she looked at her weepy little girl, and later that day, her handsome lad. She had so much to lose.

Ethan, when he arrived,was a beacon. He looked bright with love. Before she could even tell him he turned her thoughts back on her, like missing the exit on a revolving door.

"Mum, I think you are even prettier today!" He said while she served him and she almost asked what he wanted. Instead, Jo decided to observe him. She decided to turn the magnification on the microscope up and crawl out from between the sandwiched pieces of glass. It was his turn to be the specimen.

He was grinning, there were no visible marks on his neck, but he had a collar and it was done up over his undershirt which was unusual. She watched him make faces at Zoe, and then pick up his phone to play the Moana song she was singing to her toys, then snap chat it. He was good with her. "Hmmm, thank you, love. How was your date?"

Ethan looked like a the bullfrog in his mouth accidentally had lodged in his throat, "um, it was really good! Not as good as yours though Mum!"He deflected back and she was concerned they were playing figurative ping pong.

"Why do you say that?" Jo tuned away with cheeks like a trash fire. She could feel it.

"You're glowing. Did he stay over?"

Jo looked back to admonish him about little ears and he was already covering Zoe's and smiling like a cartoon villain.

"Ethan! Are you really asking your mum this"?"  Because yes, she had had sex, all night, for the first time ever and it was all she could do to not but her hand in the flames while she made breakfast because she wanted to approximate the feeling again. That was not information to share with your son, even if he was grown, and even if your partner was not his mate.

"I'm just dragging you, mum! Can tell it was good because you have paint under your nails.  Inspiring?"

She turned back abruptly and knew the blush had migrated to her whole body.

Before she she could help herself, "maybe." Slipped out.

"What's his name? When do I meet him?" Ethan asked and Jo had a moments freak out. No way, no how. That was a scenario that could ever happen. Because Ethan knew the man, very well, and that made him wholly unsuitable. So, like any good parent, she pinged back his pong.

"Why are you so interested in my love life then?" She put some food before Ethan and on the tray Zoe was still using. Hmmm it was about time to transition her outta that.

"You have had bad goes Mum, you deserve somebody who is good to you and who you want." His brown eyes made her soft inside. They looked like her own. "You just look like you might have found it."

No, that was inconceivable, she wasn't gonna entertain that thought. She kissed the top of his head, "so do you!" And left it at that.

But, she did think about it. Jo thought about Harry and the night before and Ethan's attention to the color on her cheeks every time her mind wandered. Later when she was alone because Zoe was taking a nap that may very well be her last and Ethan was getting ready to meet mates at the pub, she got to thinking about it again, it was like the bad penny that kept turning up. Jo even had to stop herself asking if Harry would be at the pub. She needed to focus on the consequences, so she snuck into her studio, returned to the scene of the crime.

She had had time to get herself together this am, but had not been able to clean up the wreckage there. Usually this would be no problem, Ethan rarely came in here and Zoe couldn't do the doorknob she had on it yet. Today it felt like a stolen dress with the sensor still on, incriminating evidence, and she needed to see to it. When she stepped in her fears about the evidence were confirmed, the things made in this room last night weren't just on the canvases, and the proof was everywhere. Jo blushed at the print of her body inside of the thicker gold outline. Where Harry turned her over to press her down, the details were blurry, like she was a golden hummingbird, only hovering and impossible to capture. The halo he'd created when he poured the paint over her was much more defined. The edges of her were clear, like a holy halo.

It made her ache, because it was beautiful and because she had to hide it, and put it away. Him away. That was not a painting she could ever explain. Jo picked up the heavy canvas and hoisted it behind others, blocking the golden image, the memory with it. Jo felt like she needed to get rid of it. She also knew that she would not. Jo felt the imprints of last night within her body and without and would never be able to bear throwing out what she and Harry had made. Not even the memory. The point of coming in here had been to cover her tracks and remind herself the consequences, but instead she was reminiscing, or mourning, she wasn't sure which or what either meant.

A knock sounded on her studio door and she heard it open and she nearly barked at Ethan for intruding. It wasn't nice to be caught with your hands covered in crimson, or gilded here she supposed. She kept her cool but barely, "come in, love." 

"I'm gonna head out, everybody but Harry's already there , but he runs late anyways."

She winced at the name. Jo certainly didn't need reminders of him. He surrounded her like the hoodie she had on. It also was a curious fact about him. Jo ran over her own interactions with him backwards. He'd never been late to her class or Zoe's lessons, or babysitting jobs, or her office. "Ok, can you...." she started to ask before she bit her tongue.

"I'll call if I'm gonna be late and no body will drive. Pinky promise." He'd come over to her and extended his pinky to her.

They kept promises, did Smiths, at least the Smiths she made. Jo promised herself she'd try to keep away from Harry as well while she hooked her tiny finger through his. "Thank you!" Jo exhaled and folded him into her arms like Ethan was smaller than her. Like when he was small.

"What were you working on after your hot date?" Ethan asked after she released him.

And then she lied to him, bold faced and intentional, "oh," she snapped the lid on her can of gold paint, which was way lighter than it had been since Harry's golden sunset 6 years ago. "I was so worked up I spilled paint over it. I think I'll have to trash it." She walked over to her bin and put the rest of the gold paint in there.

"That's to bad, mum! I wanted to see what this bloke brought up, besides your blushes!"

She blushed and pushed Ethan playfully out the door. "On with you!"

When he was gone, she sat on the stool Harry had used to protect her and put her head in her hands. "Five Minutes Jo!" She told herself and indulged her thoughts, the ones that kept brimming to the surface, about how he had touched her, treated her soft, but touched her cruel, and brought out desire and actions she had never thought of let alone acted on. She kept her reverie cerebral, she promised herself she was done touching herself to thoughts of him.

When her five minutes were up, she used the rest of Zoe's nap to paint. Her strokes were furious and fast. It was another woman, a voluptuous one, walking another beat, but this one went away from the viewer and Jo figured she had somewhere to be, maybe over a rainbow, or over the cliff. She switched on the monitor an hour in, and was trying to finish the beginnings when Zoe stated to stir. Something was missing and Jo couldn't figure it out.

The cries had reached the can't be ignored stage quickly, and with a mother load of guilt, Jo hustled up the stairs to get her girl.

But the missing piece niggled the back of her mind, all night, through the shop she ran to with Zoe to pick up a special gift for Ethan's stocking and through the easy dinner she threw on, she and Zoe made pizza's, and through bath and bed time.

Jo lay in her own bed, and could not close her eyes, or touch herself, or forget. She wanted to scream, but that was definitely an overreaction.

The ruffle of the bedclothes sounded in her ears before she even made the conscious decision to go to her studio. She threw on her thick robe and grabbed a bottle of wine and the key. She was pulling out the cork and closing the door, as she tossed the refuse, she missed the bin and reversed her steps to fix it. The gold paint can wound up in her hand before she even thought about it.

The Bordeaux was thick on her tongue and dried her mouth out like desire. She popped the top on the metallic pigment and didn't even bother with the paint brush. She dipped the ends of her fingers into it. She stared at the gild on her fingers and swallowed another sip before painting gold smudges for footsteps behind her woman. And the cliff, she was about to smear the gold into the distance. Over that colorful cliff, there was more than a pot of gold, maybe a valley of it instead.

A familiar chuckle hit her ears. Harry's when he was bemused and just that touch annoyed. Then she heard her son's mumbled tones. She was surprised she wasn't relieved. Ethan had made it home, but he had brought a problematic plus one.

"Mum!" Ethan happily smiled at her. "You know by now you don't have to wait up!" He only was mildly slurring, but he was hung on Harry's shoulder like he was much drunker than he appeared to be.

She quirked a brow in Harry's direction for confirmation, but he was avoiding her eyeline.

"Are you alright?" she directed at Ethan and returned Harry's icy shoulder, moving her body between the two of them, physically taking his place. She ignored the race of menthol burn across her skin when her clothed body glanced across his.

"I'm fine, I twisted my ankle trying to do a stupid dance. I could have made it home, but Harry insisted he help me." The ridiculousness of this was plain in Ethan's tone.

"You were limping, nearly fell again at the curb. You needed a hand." Harry kept a careful gaze on Ethan.

"Yeah, yeah! Mum, were you painting? You've gone gold again!"

Harry's head snapped up at that and she tried to hide her ombre hand behind her leg.

They stared at each other and Jo shivered and pulled her robe a bit tighter. "I got carried away." She explained.

It looked like Harry wanted to be pleased, a smile crept around his mouth, but it wasn't so much suppressed as blocked.

"Should have seen her this morning, Harry! Not sure what her date was like, becuase she wouldn't fess up at all. But she had gold speckles on her neck, and her hand. Even under her fingernails. And it wasn't even the gold paint that had her glowing. Must have been some goodnight kiss, at least that better be all it was, to inspire such crazy artistic fits. Can't wait to see this one. Are you recreating the one you spilled paint on?"

Jo and Harry were still staring while Ethan monologued.

"Mum, were you able to do it again?"

She blinked, "Um, something like it, let's get you off this leg poppet." Jo tried to get him moving, but he resisted.

"Make Harry help me, mum. I don't want that gold on me! Might make me all glowy too, ewww!"

"You are ridiculous!" Jo tried to remain unruffled, but if Harry's looking had disrobed her, Ethan babbling about her shine made her feel totally stripped. "Harry?" she asked without making contact of any kind with him.

"I got him."

Jo didn't stick around and fled to her studio. She figured she'd be safe there.

Wrong, she was wrong. Apparently Harry saw no impediments.

Or any boundaries. "Harry?" She was startled, but before her hand had even come off her galloping heart, he was off to the races. His mouth covered hers and he swallowed her startled sound, and its follow up moan. His fingers clasped around her own and her heart rate beneath them never slowed down.

He tasted like wine and bread, like a sacrament, and wholly foreign to the morning, like the hours between were centuries.

Her mouth opened, so she could swallow his flavor whole and she took him down and laced her fingers with his before her brain could catch up. His free hand opened her robe and they had to move their hands and uncouple to get it off.

It was her colored hand, the one he held. He stared at it before he took it again. Then he kissed her again, sweet and low down, with slick tongue and wiggle. She followed him close, her bore her weight in their tangled tango and backed up until his back hit the wall.

"I want it!" Harry swallowed the words with his oxygen.

"What?" She tried to keep up with kissing him, if they talked, it gave her time to think.

"The gold, I want it all over me." He groaned out while he tried to her her shirt over her head without stopping their kiss again.

What was he saying? Gold? And then it dawned on her, Ethan had said he didn't want her to get the gold paint on him. Ethan, who was upstairs and Zoe too. And she had just promised herself this morning this was over.

Jo yanked her body away like when she had to yank a distracted Ethan back from walking into oncoming traffic.

"No, Har-H! We can't! I promised!"

"Who?" His mouth gaped open. "You told Ethan?"

"No, course, not!" She said.

"Good" And he rushed back onto her and pressed himself, desire and all from mouth to metatarsals.

Jo felt her shirt coming off her naked torso before she was able to slow again.

"No, no, I promised myself. My job Harry! My kids!" She pushed him againat the wall and stumbled back until she was sat on the stool, it wobbled and fell. Jo didn't turn to check the wreckage, she kept her eyes on Harry, who was the picture of sexual frustration, his plaid was pushed off her shoulders and and his undershirt was stuck at nipple level. His hair was disheveled, she guessed from her clawing at it, and his mouth was red. His eyes, where any green was visible glowed against the blacked out pebbles.

He panted and then threw his head back and shoved both hands into his pants. She could see him give his cock an almighty squeeze and she winced in sympathy. For all three of them.

"Ok, ok, I'll go."  He said after taking minutes to collect and calm himself. Watching him unhand himself and catch his breath had Jo panting again, but she couldn't say that, they'd start all over again.
She turned her back to get her eyes off the spectacle she'd created and noticed her gold paint had been spilled.

"Jo," she heard behind her. "I know, I get it. But-"
He seemed at a loss. "I'll try. I just don't know if I could go back."

Was her lady walking backward, away from the gold, if not, how did she get the golden footporints. If she wanted to leave, why was she backing away not running.

She nodded and heard the door close.

And she stayed out of her studio, after she cleaned up her hand and the spill. She walked backwards, stayed off campus, gave short worded critiques to Harry's texted pictures of his paintings.

He was increasingly frustrated. His lady was back to hide and seek.

His other texts she deleted. And she stayed away from the golden valley until she picked up the mail one afternoon just before the semester started while Audrey had Zoe so she could get prepared.

There was no return address, but it was a card, not soliciting mail. She ripped it open trying to think if she was expecting anything.

She wasn't expecting this.

"Dearest Joanne,
            I think about you every morning and wish I could greet the sun with you once again. In my paintings, my woman, who I wish was you, because then you would be with me and I could paint us together, is hiding from me as well. I would love to see her face, as I long for yours. My morning tea tastes different. I suspect it's because after having drank is with the taste of you on my tongue, I want to mix in your lemon and honey. I'd dip it in on my spoon if I could. Please, let the dawn break again.
        Craving you, sincerely and discretely,
                 Harry"