Page 5 of A Virgo's Muse
I reached forward and dipped my hands in the water bowl, letting the cool slide over my fingers. Then I reached for her hands and wrapped mine around them.
She stiffened just a little. I said nothing, just moved with her.
“This is how it starts,” I murmured, guiding her fingers to the clay. “You don’t force it. You don’t rush it. You feel it.”
Her breathing became rigid underneath me. My hands moved with hers, molding the wet clay as the wheel spun slowly beneath us. I pressed her palms downward, anchoring her fingers around the shape we were forming.
“You don’t try to control it. You let it speak.”
Her head dipped forward slightly. Her shoulders were no longer tense. She was letting me in, even if she was still trying to pretend she was not.
“It’s messy,” I said. “It sticks to places you don’t expect. But if you let yourself sink into it, you might make something worth remembering.”
The clay began to take shape, soft ridges, a faint curve. Not perfect, but raw… real.
I leaned in closer. My breath grazed the shell of her ear. “That’s what I see in you.”
She turned her head slightly, not enough to look at me, just enough for me to see the flicker of surprise in her lashes.
“I see a fight in you,” I said, my voice low. “A fire that ain’t learned how to rest yet.”
Her fingers slowed down, but I guided them again, dipping them into the water, smoothing a rough edge in the clay.
“You ever look at your own work?” I asked. “Not just to admire it. To understand it?”
She didn’t answer, but I kept going.
“Some of your brushstrokes, they’re angry… jagged. Like you were mad at the canvas for not being able to carry what you felt. But others…” I let my lips hover just over her shoulder. “They trail off. Soft, like you got tired in the middle of a memory and didn’t want to finish it.”
Her body stilled underneath me. I pulled back just a little, giving her space to breathe again.
“I ain’t trying to fix you,” I said. “I’m just saying… there’s a whole lot of truth in the way you create. And I wanna see more of it.”
The clay between our hands now looked like something alive, twisted but delicate. A curve taking shape like the start of a spine. I didn’t even know what we were making, but I knew it mattered.
She finally spoke, her voice quiet. “You always talk like this when you show up in women’s lives uninvited?”
“No.” I glanced down at our hands, still sculpting. “Only when I think they need reminding that they’re still artists, not just women trying to survive.”
She didn’t pull away. And neither did I.
The wheel slowed to a stop, but our hands didn’t. They stayed there, wet, caked with clay and something else, something electric. I didn’t move. Neither did she. Her breathing was unsteady, and mine wasn’t much better. The silence in the room was loud, the kind that pressed against your ribs and demanded your full attention.
Eventually, she pulled back, slow and cautious, like getting too close to me might undo something inside her. She grabbed a towel and wiped her palms then tossed another my way. I caught it without blinking. My eyes were still trained on her.
We didn’t say much while we cleaned. It was quiet but not uncomfortable. There was a rhythm to how we moved around each other. I rinsed the water bowls, and she realigned the jars of brushes. She wiped the counter, and I rolled up the tarp on the floor. We moved in sync. I liked that. I liked her space too. It smelled like linseed oil, incense, and a hint of vanilla. It felt like her—warm but guarded.
When everything was back in place, I leaned against the counter, pulling my hoodie back on. She watched me like she was trying to read something I hadn’t said yet.
“Why’d you really come here tonight?” she asked, her voice soft but direct. A Virgo’s question measured, intentional.
I looked her dead in the eyes. “Felt like you needed reminding.”
“Of what?”
“That you’re still alive.”
Her arms folded across her chest, but her expression softened just slightly. She didn’t answer me with words, but I could feel her thinking. That was the thing about Desire. She didn’t just hear; she absorbed. She dissected every syllable.
