Chapter 4: The Artist's Invitation
The scent of turpentine and linseed oil hit Melanie Malachite the moment Ruby Rose swung open the garage door, a grin splitting her freckled face.“You made it! Come in, come in, mind the giant canvas of Sun Wukong by the door—he’s still a little tacky.”
The studio was a beautiful chaos. Canvases leaned in stacks against corrugated metal walls, some finished, many half-born in swirls of abstract color or detailed portraiture. A battered espresso machine hissed in one corner, next to a sink stained with every hue. Overhead, bare bulbs dangling from extension cords cast a stark, honest light.
“Wow,” Melanie said, her voice echoing in the spacious garage as she stepped inside, her eyes wide with performative delight.“This is legit. Smells like… creativity.”
Militia entered behind her sister, quieter, her sharp eyes cataloging the space. A large, central painting caught her attention: a portrait of Emerald, their neighbor, rendered with such affectionate energy she almost looked like a different person.Kinder.Softer. Ruby’s filter, Militia thought.The girl saw the best in everyone.It was a weakness dressed as a virtue.
“That’s one of my favorites,” Ruby said, noticing Militia’s gaze. She bounced on the balls of her feet, a coil of restless energy. “I caught her smiling while she was pruning her rose bushes last spring. It’s hard to get her to sit still.”
“I bet,” Militia murmured, her lips curving into that familiar, subtle smirk.
“So, what’s the tour, boss?” Melanie asked, draping an arm casually around Ruby’s narrow shoulders.Ruby flushed, a splash of pink across her cheeks, but didn’t pull away. She was used to tactile people, she told herself.Artists.
“Well, the front is mostly bigger commissions and experiments,” Ruby said, gesturing with a paint-stained hand. “But the really personal stuff, the ones I do just for me, are in the back. It’s… a little more intimate.”
“Intimate,” Melanie repeated, the word a purr. “Lead the way.”
They weaved through a labyrinth of easels and taborets to a curtained-off alcove at the rear of the garage. Ruby pulled aside a heavy, indigo-dyed fabric, revealing a smaller, warmer space. Here, the light came from a single, low-wattage lamp on a small table, and a string of fairy lights twinkled above a worn velvet sofa. The paintings here were smaller, more detailed: a dew-covered spiderweb, a close-up of a pair of work-worn hands, a self-portrait where Ruby’s silver eyes looked out with startling vulnerability.Melanie whistled, low and appreciative. “You’ve got range, girl.” She drifted to the self-portrait, studying it. “You see yourself pretty clearly, huh?”
Ruby laughed, a nervous, fluttering sound. “Sometimes too clearly.”
Militia lingered near the entrance to the alcove, one hand holding the curtain aside. Her gaze wasn’t on the art.It was on the dynamic between her sister and the young artist. Melanie was a force of nature, overwhelming Ruby’s defenses with sheer, unabashed attention. Ruby was responding like a flower turning toward the sun, eager, if a bit overwhelmed.
“This one’s new,” Ruby said, moving to a canvas on a small easel. It was a night scene of their cul-de-sac, the houses dark except for one window lit a soft, buttery gold. The execution was dreamier, less precise than her other work.
“It’s peaceful,” Militia said, finally speaking up.Her voice was a low contrast to Melanie’s vibrancy. “Lonely, but peaceful. Is that your window?”
Ruby shook her head, the red tips of her hair catching the fairy lights.“No.I don’t know whose it is, actually. I just liked the idea of one light on while everyone else sleeps. Someone awake with their own thoughts, you know?”
“I do,” Militia said, and for a fleeting second, an image of Jaune Arc kneeling in his moonlit garden flashed behind her eyes.A secret light in the dark.
Melanie, bored with the philosophical turn, closed the distance between herself and Ruby. She stood so close Ruby could smell her perfume—spicy and expensive, utterly out of place in the turpentine-scented studio. “I like your hands,” Melanie said, reaching out and taking one of Ruby’s paint-stained hands in her own. She turned it over, tracing a line of cerulean blue that stained the lifeline.“They tell stories.”
Ruby’s breath hitched. “Mostly just tell of bad cleanup habits.”
“I doubt that.” Melanie’s thumb stroked the inside of Ruby’s wrist, where the skin was soft and the pulse beat a rapid rhythm. Ruby’s eyes flicked from their joined hands to Melanie’s face, then to Militia, who watched with the calm focus of a predator assessing a hunt.
“You two are…” Ruby swallowed, searching for the word. “Very intense.”
“We just appreciate beauty,” Melanie said, her eyes locked on Ruby’s. “In all its forms.” She leaned in, her lips now close to Ruby’s ear.“You’re spending so much time looking at everyone else. Who’s looking at you, Ruby?”
The question hung in the intimate, dimly lit space. Ruby felt a shiver that had nothing to do with the cool garage air. It was a cocktail of flattery, unease, and a thrilling, dangerous curiosity. She’d invited them in as fellow artists, as interesting new neighbors, but the atmosphere had shifted, charged with something she didn’t have a name for.
Militia let the curtain fall shut, sealing the three of them in the alcove’s soft glow.The action was quiet, definitive. The distant sounds from the street faded away.
“We’re looking,” Militia said simply, answering her sister’s question.She took a slow step forward, joining them. Her presence was different from Melanie’s—cooler, more deliberate.Where Melanie was a flame, Militia was the shadow it cast. “Your work is passionate.Uninhibited.” She gestured vaguely at the paintings surrounding them. “We wonder if the artist shares those qualities.”
Ruby’s heart was a trapped bird against her ribs. She felt cornered, but not in a way that made her want to flee. It was the corner of a spotlight, hot and exposing. “I… I try to be authentic in my work,” she managed.
“Authenticity is a good start,” Melanie whispered, her lips now brushing the very edge of Ruby’s jaw. “But it’s just a start.”
Ruby’s eyes, wide and silver, found Militia’s across the short distance. In them, she saw not the friendly neighbor from the block party, nor the polite dinner guest, but something ancient and knowing.A promise, and a threat, intertwined. Militia gave her a slow, almost imperceptible nod, as if granting permission for a fear Ruby hadn’t even fully acknowledged yet.
The momentum was no longer Ruby’s.The tour was over. The game, one she never agreed to play, had begun. She stood, her hand still in Melanie’s, suspended in the fragrant, charged darkness between the twins.
The air in the alcove grew thick, saturated with the smell of drying paint and Melanie’s clove perfume. Ruby’s pulse thrummed where Melanie’s thumb still stroked her wrist. A part of her, the part that wrote grocery lists and worried about rent, screamed that this was a very bad idea. But a louder, hungrier part was mesmerized by the twin focuses of their attention, a spotlight she’d secretly craved without knowing how to ask for it.
“You’re shaking,” Militia observed, her voice a soft scrape in the quiet. She didn’t move closer, her power was in her stillness.
“Am I?” Ruby’s laugh was a brittle thing. She felt transparent, her every flutter seen and catalogued. “It’s cold in here.”
“It’s not,” Melanie murmured, her breath warm against Ruby’s skin. She finally released Ruby’s hand, only to trail her fingers up the artist’s arm, over the sleeve of her worn flannel shirt. The touch was proprietary, a claim being staked. “You’re just not used to being the canvas.”
Militia’s gaze held Ruby’s. “Everyone wants to be seen, Ruby. Truly seen. It’s why you paint, isn’t it? To make people feel visible.” She took one final, slow step, now within arm’s reach. “The question is, can you handle it when the gaze is turned back on you?”
The words unspooled something tight in Ruby’s chest. They saw her. They saw the lonely light in the window, the yearning in her portraits, the quiet hunger she buried under bright smiles and rapid talk. They saw it and, impossibly, they were drawing it to the surface. Not to judge it, but to… feed it. The danger was the allure. It was the sharp, clean edge of a razor after a lifetime of blunt scissors.
“I don’t know what you want from me,” Ruby whispered, the confession leaving her deflated.
“Yes, you do,” Melanie countered, her fingers now tracing the line of Ruby’s jaw. “You just don’t have the words for it yet. We do.”
Melanie closed the last inch and kissed her. It wasn’t a question. It was an announcement. Ruby stiffened for a half-second, a final, fading instinct, then melted. Melanie’s mouth was demanding and clever, and Ruby responded with a clumsy, eager hunger that made Melanie hum in approval. When they broke apart, Ruby was gasping, her silver eyes wide and dazed.
Militia watched, that predatory smirk finally fully manifested. She reached out and caught a lock of Ruby’s black-and-red hair, rubbing the strands between her fingers. “There she is,” Militia said, almost to herself. “The passion behind the portraits.”
Ruby turned her head, looking at Militia, her lips still tingling from Melanie’s kiss. The silent invitation was as clear as a shout. Militia’s kiss was different. Slower. Deliberate. Where Melanie was a wildfire, Militia was a calculated burn, methodical and all-consuming. Ruby moaned into it, her hands coming up to clutch at Militia’s shirt, anchoring herself in the dizzying crosscurrent.
When Militia pulled back, Ruby was adrift, anchored only by their dual presence. She looked from one identical, sharp-featured face to the other, her world reduced to the dark fabric of the alcove and their focused eyes. The studio, her sanctuary, had been transformed into a different kind of space. Her paints and canvases were now silent witnesses to her unraveling.
“See?” Melanie whispered, her hand sliding to the small of Ruby’s back. “No thinking required. Just feeling.”
RUBY SURRENDERS.
It wasn’t a collapse, but a conscious release. A exhale of the person who hosted dinner parties and made small talk over hedges. The tension bled from her shoulders, the anxious light in her eyes softening into something darker, more receptive. She leaned into Melanie’s touch and turned her body toward Militia, a wordless offering. Her will, a bright and chattering thing, went quiet. In its place was a hollow, aching readiness to be filled with their intention.
“Good,” Militia said, the single word a benediction.
Melanie’s smirk was a flash of white in the low light. “Now the real tour begins.”
“Now the real tour begins.”
Melanie’s words weren’t an invitation. They were a fact, cool and irrevocable. Her hands, which had been tracing patterns on Ruby’s back, found the hem of the artist’s paint-stained flannel shirt. The buttons were old mother-of-pearl, smooth under her fingers. Ruby stood motionless, her breath held, watching Militia’s impassive face for a cue that wouldn’t come. This was her decision, her surrender, and they were waiting for her to live in it.
A button popped free, rolling with a faint click-clack across the concrete floor. The sound was absurdly loud.
“That was my favorite shirt,” Ruby whispered, but there was no protest in it. It was an observation, detached, as if from a distance.
“You’ll have others,” Militia said. Her voice was a grounding wire in the swirling static filling Ruby’s head. Militia’s own hands came up, not to undress Ruby, but to frame her face. Her thumbs stroked the high bones of Ruby’s cheeks. “Look at me. Just here.”
It was an anchor. Ruby locked onto Militia’s dark eyes, falling into that calculated calm as Melanie worked the remaining buttons. The flannel was peeled back, pushed from her shoulders. It whispered a protest as it slid down her arms, a rustle of fabric and surrender. The garage air, always cool, touched the thin cotton of her tank top beneath, raising goosebumps.
Melanie let the flannel drop. It pooled at Ruby’s feet, a forgotten shell.
“See? Easy,” Melanie breathed against the side of Ruby’s neck, her teeth grazing the skin there. Ruby jolted, a spark shooting down her spine. Her hands, helpless, came to rest on Militia’s hips, feeling the sharp bone beneath sleek fabric.
Militia held her gaze, a silent conductor. “She’s thinking again,” Militia said to her sister, though her eyes never left Ruby’s.
“We can fix that.”
Melanie’s hands slid around Ruby’s waist, under the edge of the tank top. Her palms were warm, calloused in a way that spoke of physical confidence, not labor. They splayed across Ruby’s stomach, pulling her back flush against Melanie’s body. Ruby gasped, her head tilting back onto Melanie’s shoulder. The twin sensations—Militia’s cool, assessing presence before her, Melanie’s incendiary heat behind—shattered her last coherent thought.
“The girl who paints light in dark windows,” Militia murmured, her gaze dropping to Ruby’s lips, then lower. “What do you think happens to the person in that room?”
Before Ruby could attempt an answer, Militia kissed her again. It was deeper now, proprietary, a languid exploration that demanded participation. Ruby gave it, her fingers tightening on Militia’s hips. Behind her, Melanie was busy, her mouth working at Ruby’s neck while her hands inched the soft cotton tank top upward. Ruby broke the kiss with a shallow gasp, needing air, needing to process the simultaneous assault.
“Too much?” Melanie’s question was a taunt, her lips curved against Ruby’s skin.
“No,” Ruby breathed out, the word sounding foreign. “It’s just… a lot.”
“It’s supposed to be,” Militia said. Her hands finally moved from Ruby’s face, sliding down her shoulders, following the path her sister’s hands had taken under the tank top. Their fingers met over Ruby’s ribcage, a brief, silent communication in the dark. Then, in one fluid motion, they pulled.
The tank top went up and over Ruby’s head, catching for a moment on her chin before disappearing. The air was a shock. Ruby instinctively crossed her arms over her chest, her skin blooming with a flush that had nothing to do with cold. She stood in the center of her sacred space, in her bra, exposed.
Melanie laughed, a low, rich sound of genuine amusement. “Shy? After those portraits?” She unhooked Ruby’s arms with insistent gentleness, forcing them to her sides. “We’re all artists here. The body is just another subject.”
But it wasn’t. Not like this. Militia’s eyes performed a slow, thorough study, as if memorizing the slope of Ruby’s shoulders, the constellation of freckles across her collarbone, the rapid rise and fall of her chest. It was more intimate than any touch. It was dissection. It was worship. It was terrifying.
“Beautiful,” Militia stated, no flourish in the word. It was a clinical assessment, which made it feel more real than any compliment Ruby had ever received.
Melanie’s hands were at the button of Ruby’s jeans. The denim was stiff, the metal cool. Ruby’s hips twitched forward, a tiny, involuntary movement of concession. The button slid free. The zipper’s rasp was obscene in the quiet.
“Remember Jaune’s garden?” Militia asked suddenly, her voice conversational.
The non-sequitur jolted Ruby. “Wh-what?”
“Last week. The hidden one.” Militia’s hand came out, not to touch Ruby, but to catch a strand of her sister’s long hair, idly twisting it. “Things grow in secret places, Ruby. They become sweeter, more potent, for being unseen. Until someone finds them.”
The analogy dripped into Ruby’s mind, understanding and dread intertwining. She was the secret garden. They were the finders. The jeans, pushed down over her hips by Melanie’s impatient hands, fell heavy to her ankles, a denim puddle joining the flannel.
CLOTHES HIT FLOOR.
The sound was different from the flannel—a denser, final thump against the concrete. Ruby stood in the center of the alcove, wearing only her simple cotton underwear, the garage air a live wire against her skin. She felt the vibration of the washing machine through the floor, an absurd domestic rhythm at odds with the surreal peeling away of her self.
Melanie whistled, a sharp, appreciative sound. “Freckles everywhere.” Her finger traced a line from Ruby’s shoulder, down her spine, making her twitch. “Like someone spilled starlight.”
“Look at us,” Militia instructed, her voice a low command. She hadn’t undressed. She remained perfectly composed, a dark silhouette against the twinkling fairy lights. Ruby’s eyes, wide and silvered with confusion and want, flicked between them. She was the exposed center of a silent, hungry gravity.
“I… I don’t know what to do,” Ruby admitted. The confession was ripped from her, raw and honest.
“You don’t have to do anything,” Melanie said, her breath hot on Ruby’s ear. She pressed closer, the hard lines of her body a stark contrast to Ruby’s softness. “That’s the point. We do.”
Militia finally moved. She stepped into Ruby’s space, her hands cool as they settled on Ruby’s bare hips. Her touch was a brand of ownership. “You painted Emerald with such tenderness,” Militia mused, her thumbs stroking the crest of Ruby’s hip bones. “Does she touch you like this?”
Ruby shook her head, a tiny, frantic motion. “No. It’s different. We’re…”
“Open,” Melanie finished for her, her lips brushing Ruby’s shoulder. “We know. We asked.” Her hands slid around Ruby’s front, fingertips skating just below the waistband of her underwear. Ruby inhaled sharply, her back arching against Melanie. “She likes rules, your Emerald. Boundaries. Schedules.”
“We don’t,” Militia stated. Her dark eyes held Ruby captive. “We like discoveries. Like Jaune’s herbs. Like your secret light in the window.” One of Militia’s hands left Ruby’s hip and came up to touch her own lower lip, thoughtful. “You give everyone else such pretty colors. What color are you when you come apart?”
The question wasn’t poetic. It was a query, awaiting data. Before Ruby could form a thought, Melanie’s fingers dipped beneath the cotton, finding her wet and wanting. Ruby cried out, a short, sharp sound that echoed off the canvases.
“Quiet,” Militia whispered, though a smirk played on her lips. “The neighbors.”
Melanie worked her with a ruthless, knowing precision, her other arm a tight band around Ruby’s torso, holding her up. Ruby’s knees buckled. Sensation, a brilliant and terrifying noise, obliterated every other sense. She couldn’t see the paintings anymore. She could only see the focused intensity on Militia’s face as she watched her sister break the artist open.
“See?” Melanie hissed into Ruby’s hair, her rhythm relentless. “No thinking. Just this.”
It was too much, too fast, a cliff approached at a sprint. Ruby choked on a sob, hurtling toward a peak she hadn’t consented to scale. Just as the world tightened to a single, screaming point, Melanie stopped. She withdrew her hand completely.
The sudden absence was a physical agony. Ruby whimpered, a raw animal sound of loss, her body trembling violently on the edge.
“Patience,” Militia chided softly, though it was unclear to whom. She glanced at her sister, a silent communication passing between them. Melanie’s grip loosened, and she guided Ruby backward, toward the worn velvet sofa.
Ruby fell onto it, limbs useless, the rough velvet scraping her back. She felt hollowed out and hypersensitive, every nerve ending screaming. The twins stood over her, two variations of the same devastating theme. Melanie was pulling her own shirt off now, a flash of taut stomach and black lace. Militia, more deliberate, began unbuttoning her blouse with methodical slowness, her eyes never leaving Ruby’s wrecked face.
“You can still say stop,” Militia said, though her tone suggested it was a formality, a ritual spoken without expectation.
Ruby’s tongue felt thick. She wanted to say it, to reclaim some shred of the person she was an hour ago. The word wouldn’t form. Instead, she shook her head again, a slow, dazed negation. She was past stop. She was in the freefall.
Melanie joined her on the sofa first, a furnace of skin and intent. She kissed Ruby deeply, tasting of coffee and conquest, her hands everywhere at once. Ruby clutched at her, fingers digging into the hard muscles of Melanie’s back, trying to anchor herself in the storm.
Then Militia was there, her cool skin a shock against Ruby’s other side. She didn’t rush. She took Ruby’s chin, turning her face from Melanie’s kiss. “Look at me,” she repeated, her voice the only stable thing in the universe.
Ruby obeyed, drowning in those dark eyes. Militia kissed her then, a slow, deep possession that was somehow more invasive than anything her sister had done. It was a claim on the part of Ruby that was still trying to think, to rationalize. Melanie’s mouth traveled down Ruby’s neck, to her chest, her touch alternately rough and devastatingly soft.
THE TWINS SHARE.
It was not a gentle act of giving. It was a partition. A consumption. Melanie took Ruby’s mouth again, swallowing her moans, while Militia’s meticulous attention mapped the rest of her trembling body. They traded places with a seamless, practiced rhythm, a silent dialogue of glances and touches that orchestrated Ruby’s unraveling. One would pull a sigh from her lips, the other would coax a gasp from her skin. There was no single point of focus, only the overwhelming totality of their dual attention.
Ruby lost all sense of where she ended and they began. It was a sensory overload, a beautiful, crushing weight. She was not making love. She was being unmade. The careful identity she’d painted for herself—the cheerful artist, the good girlfriend, the friendly neighbor—sloughed away under their hands and mouths, leaving only a raw, pulsing need.
When the climax finally tore through her, it was without warning or mercy. It was a seizure of pleasure so profound it felt like annihilation. She arched off the velvet, a silent scream locked in her throat, her vision whiting out into pure, sensation. It seemed to last forever, a wave that broke and broke and never receded.
She collapsed back, boneless, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes into her hairline. The world seeped back in slowly: the twinkle of fairy lights, the smell of their mingled sweat over turpentine, the heavy sound of their breathing.
Melanie leaned over her, grinning wildly, her own skin glistening. “What color was it?”
Ruby couldn’t speak. She could only stare up at the twin faces, both wearing variations of the same satisfied smirk. Militia reached out and caught a tear on her fingertip, examining it.
“Clear,” Militia answered for her, her voice flat. “For now.” She stood, retrieving her blouse from the floor. She didn’t rush to put it on. “Get dressed, Ruby. Emerald will be home soon.”
The name was a bucket of ice water. Reality, with all its mundane complications and consequences, came crashing back into the alcove. The paintings on the walls were just paintings again. The sofa was just a stained piece of furniture. She was naked, used, and utterly known.
She sat up, her body feeling foreign and sore. Her clothes were handed to her, not with tenderness, but with a disturbing efficiency. As she fumbled with her jeans, her hands shaking too badly to button them, she watched the twins dress. They moved with the easy synchronicity of predators after a successful hunt, a quiet, wordless communion.
“We’ll see ourselves out,” Melanie said, already at the curtain. She winked. “Great studio. Seriously.”
Militia paused, fully dressed again, perfectly composed. She looked at Ruby, who was sitting small on the sofa, clutching her shirt to her chest. “That light in the window,” Militia said. “It’s out now. You’re in the dark with everyone else.”
They left, the curtain swaying in their wake. Ruby listened to their footsteps recede across the garage floor, the creak of the main door, the final, soft click of it closing.
Silence rushed in, vast and accusing. She was alone with the smell of them on her skin and the crushing weight of what had just happened. She looked at her hands, the paint stains suddenly looking like bruises. The momentum was gone, leaving only a terrible, hollow velocity inside her chest. She had wanted to be seen. Now, she wondered if she could ever look at herself again.