WHO: Matthew Summerby and Melania Comstock WHAT: Artsy stuff????? lmao WHERE: Her studio! WHEN: Today? Sure!
Matt rapped on the door to Melania’s studio softly, poking his head in after the door popped open. He smiled at her as he entered, and his eyes scanned the room with honest intrigue and delight. It wasn’t a room that he spent much time in, though he supposed that there were still rooms on the Comstock Estate that he hadn’t had the pleasure of discovering. Even after months of spending most of his free time here, Matt still found himself surprised at the enormity, and while the thrill of it hadn’t left, there was...a layer of comfort?
He padded over to Melania, careful to not knock over any paint cans or trip on a properly positioned tarp. Matt had never been very artistic, actually, he was sure all he could manage were some stick figure doodles that would battle across his parchment in class over to Drystan’s.
“Practice ran late,” he said after greeting her with a kiss. Matt’s hair was still wet from the quick shower he’d taken, and his eyes drifted about the room again. His hand laid unconsciously on her arm in a gentle manner, and after a moment he turned back to her. He’d probably just interrupted a moment of inspiration.
“I can come back later if you want, or start dinner, or...”
Almost guiltily, she dropped the hem of her paint-splattered robes she'd been fiddling with and waved the tarp over the canvas that remained unchanged from when she'd begun three days ago. Explaining away the last month or so was simple—with Oliver and Jake, her focus had to be on them to ensure they were getting the care and recuperation needed after such a traumatising ordeal, which left very little time or energy to focus on her art. Before her brother had gotten sick, or whatever malady they were diagnosing as resulting in his addiction, Melania had just come off a series of showings for her latest collection, so she deserved a break to clear her mind for whatever wonderful project next awaited her.
But she was finding lying to herself harder now that she had spent days in her studio with naught to show for her time: nothing remained for Melania to create. Not paint, her primary medium, nor glass, nor clay, nor stone called out for the touch of her skilled hand. And for reasons she preferred not to think too deeply on, Melania felt she would be somehow shamed if Matt discovered her utter inability to create… anything.
Lifting her head from her perched seat on the stool to receive the kiss, she listened to him with half an ear, her face naturally crinkling into a slight frown when he mentioned beginning dinner. Even after Max had freed their house-elf, Melania continued to fail to understand why people would cook for themselves.
"You can stay; you're not interrupting anything,"she said, seizing the excuse to put her palette away. "Did you want something?"
“No, no,” Matt said honestly, his other hand moving to lightly take hold of her robes. His fingers never managed to avoid her touch for long, and he smiled at her. “Just saying hello.”
He’d decided in that instant that this was probably his favorite room on the estate. Surely, the bedroom was where his favorite activities took place (though there were other rooms that were slowly creeping toward the top…), but he felt an interesting delight in being where Melania created and thrived. Matt liked to think that this was her pitch, and it reminded him of how he enjoyed showing people the wonder that was quidditch and how he knew that he could never really describe it.
Matt went quiet for a moment, feeling tired from the day and glad to be out of the heat. A swirl of paint on her robes reminded him of a thought he’d had while floating about as the United’s beaters got an earful from Drystan. His finger traced the lines.
“I think I’ve decided,” he said, in a funny tone of faux-seriousness, “that I am indeed cool enough for a tattoo.”
She couldn't have told anyone what she had been expecting Matt to say, but it wasn't that. Surprised, Melania let out a laugh. "Oh, you have, have you?" she asked, amused. He'd expressed his joking concern that he might not be earlier, she recalled but had not realised he was seriously considering one.
While she did not have such adornments herself, Melania certainly appreciated the art form—particularly when displayed by the male body.
Walking two fingers up his chest, she smiled slyly up at him. "Have you decided where?" Her inquiry sounded terribly innocent. "Because I can think of a place or two that would be very well suited for one."
Waggling her eyebrows in spite of her equally serious tone, she added, "If you're interested, of course."
Matt was thinking it was a good thing that he’d shut the door behind him. A slow, wolfish grin slid onto his face, and pushed closer to spread Melania’s knees apart.
“I haven’t,” he said, his determinedly not-serious tone continuing as his hands reached around her to plant them securely on her lower back. Matt had thought there were only a few places where he wouldn’t mind a tattoo, and he was intrigued about Melania’s ideas, whether they were a tease or not.
The stool proved a perfect height, and Matt’s chin lifted in a smirk of triumph as he managed to pull even tighter to her.
“I’m very interested to hear your suggestions.”
"Oh," mused Melania, "I really think these are suggestions better shown."
The hand she had been resting on his chest snaked up around his neck so she could bend him closer towards her. "You know," she continued silkily into his ear, nibbling the lobe gently, "demonstrated."
Her lips continued to travel downwards, stopping to rake her teeth across the delicate flesh of his neck as well. "I have to say, I do like neck tattoos." Gryffindor Tower's girls dormitory had certainly been abuzz when Elliot Alderton showed up to the first day of term after Easter sporting a dragon there.
"Then, there are the ones you don't have to show to everyone," she said in a considering tone, as if innocuously thinking aloud in the moment, whilst her hands reached around Matt and slid low to squeeze a body part matching her description.
"There's something very sexy about a secret," Melania confided to him.
Matt hummed, choosing to accept the pleasure of her roving hands and ignore the idea of a tattoo on his arse. There had been a moment when he was equally interested in her opinion of where the tattoo should go and her physical demonstration, but he was losing focus and determined it was more important to figure out if he should lift her off the stool and to the floor (there was a tarp) or to the wall.
“Where do you want it?” Matt asked, his tone shifting from playful to slightly more aggressive. His hold around her tightened while his hand slid down the side and then under her thigh.
It almost felt dangerous, how quickly Melania turned him on and into a mindset of doing what he pleased.
Why wasn't she bored?
A peculiar thought to have, almost straddling Matt as she was, running her hands all over him. That thought during her heightened state almost had her in a panic.
Melania loved falling in love. She did it constantly, after all, thrilled by the obsession she could incite in men. And while he might be as enthralled with her in the sixth month as he had been on the first day, she grew bored. When the newness wore off, when it was more tedious than it was titillating, she fell out of love just as quickly, often not even aware of the change in emotion.
Picking fights, growing jealous though it was she who openly flirted with other men. Sometimes they found someone else in her bed, and on one or two occasions, opened the paper to find they'd been replaced as pictures showed her wrapped up with the newest suitor. But the whirlwind that was Melania Comstock left them dazed and confused and not entirely sure what had happened, only confident that they would do it again so they might once more fly too close to the sun.
Perhaps it was because Matt had come to her when she was feeling unusually vulnerable and had walls around a then-tender and bruised heart. For once, she had kept the man in her life at arm's length, even refusing to pry into the details of his life when ordinarily she could never be nosy enough. Was that what kept the mystery, the intrigue, alive? Was that why she still found him new and exciting, even though this was the second go-round for them?
It was easier to not wonder how his constant presence in her house, how he'd spent endless hours with her rehabilitating brother, fit into this puzzle.
"That's a dangerous question to ask," she purred, smirking lazily up at him. This side of Matt was still so wholly unexpected to her that she could never resist goading him. "Would you even know what to do with me, I wonder."
He knew exactly what he wanted to do to her, and instead of continuing the verbal foreplay, Matt lifted his girlfriend off the stool and securely into his arms. The grin on his face was wicked, a look that was solely hers because he’d never been as easily intoxicated as he was when within arms length of Melania. Look at what had happened! Matt had come in with no intention of taking her on the floor, he had been tired, but a revived energy that seemed stored for the woman currently underneath him always roared to life when given the slightest of chances.
Matt enjoyed the craze. He felt simultaneously like himself and a completely other being when he was with Melania, and not only when her nails were scratching across his back. There was a confidence that had grown from being in her presence, one that had translated to life outside of the Comstock Estate, onto the pitch, into his what once had been mundane routines. Matt enjoyed himself, and he had the woman wrapped in his arms to thank.
See, he’d known the tarp would come in handy. Matt took his time in shifting off of Melania, rolling onto his side, though it only reminded him of the changing of places that had occurred only minutes before---He shook his head with a grin. With his elbow dug into the floor and his head in his hand, he used his free one to dance along her side before he pulled the fold in the tarp up to cover her.
“So,” Matt said, his tone returning to a playful one, “were you able to determine the proper location for my work of art?”
"Hmmm," she murmured, sated. Melania might have said she hadn't expected that to happen when Matt had walked through the door of her studio, but then she might be lying. As much as the state of their relationship bewildered her, confused her, or caused her vague suspicion, there was no confusion about what happened in the bedroom… and out of it, for that matter. Often out of it. She had had no complaints about their time together in school, but they had been young, and (even her) inexperienced. Whatever, whoever, Matt had done after her, she was quite thankful for.
Amused at the tarp tucked securely around her chest after they had just rolled about on the floor for the better part of an hour, she settled onto her stomach, laying her head on her outstretched arm as she tilted it towards him. "Oh, I still think my original idea is best," she said confidently, lifting her free hand to give the site in question an affectionate slap.
"What do you want it to be?" she asked, trailing her hand up the rest of his back, lazily swirling down his arm.
He bit back a laugh at the stinging her hand had left, and Matt dipped his chin. What did he want, exactly? He had an idea, but to put it into an actual design, something that felt like it had a meaning and purpose? How did a person pull ideas from their head and create something long-lasting and...
Matt turned his head slightly toward Melania, eyes watching her face carefully. “Something with the sun.”
His tongue twisted against the inside of his cheek, feeling a strange embarrassment for someone who was lying naked on the floor with his girlfriend. Matt did his best not to squirm, and focused on how he was enjoying the feel of her fingers dancing on his skin.
“I do a lot of thinking up in the sky, so I thought…” He rocked his head back and forth, trying to put his ideas into words. “I thought that could represent a lot of things for me?”
Eyes narrowed in consideration, her gaze traveled along his form as she studied him—not as the admittedly fine specimen of her boyfriend, but as a blank canvas, awaiting that first speculative stroke. "Well, since you won't play along," she pouted, disappointed that he'd remained firm (pun in no way intended) on the issue of his arse. Sitting up so she could peer over his side, her finger became a brush, stroking here and there thoughtfully. "There's always the back," she said, mostly to herself, outlining the pattern of its rays. "Nice, broad landscape…"
She could envision it on Matt perfectly, but the image wouldn't become one with him. It would be as though someone had pasted an oil painting on his back, his shoulder blades awkwardly cutting into the smooth line of the sky. Melania made a dismissive noise as her hand continued up over his shoulder, lingering around the neck. She did favour neck tattoos, but a sun just didn't seem right. It might work, for a simple design, primitive—perhaps black or dark blue, but Matt was all colour.
Head bent forward, hair long ago unraveled from its serviceable bun falling in disarray around her shoulders, her finger journeyed down, across his pectoral muscles, its lingering purely that of an artist's admiration for well-formed beauty, and rippling over the abdominals. Melania could see the rising sun (of course it would be rising) splayed across his chest, but it somehow didn't fit. All the space around the picture would dwarf it, make it seem unfinished. Her hand traced around to his side and lingered. The rib… it might do, curling around his torso. Would it not present the same problem as the front and back, though? A masterpiece, as this would be, had to be framed just so.
Brow creased in frustration, her gaze suddenly fell on his chin as it rested in his hand. From there, she followed down the long line of his forearm, and up the rippling of his shoulder, and wondered how it hadn't struck her before.
"Here." Businesslike, she tapped the muscles effortlessly flexed from supporting his head. "That's the place."
She was spectacular. Walking through her galleries of art marvelled him, the touches of her imagination covered every inch of this house, of her life. It was thrilling to watch someone do what they loved, and Matt felt a great bubbling of excitement in his chest as she brushed her hand across his body.
Matt held his breath as her finger, her eyes, scanned across him, feeling…exposed, but it wasn’t a the terrible sort like he’d experienced before. When secrets he hadn’t wanted unleashed were spread carelessly, that had been a painful exposure. His inner demons being pulled from him when he wasn’t ready to share, that had left him feeling as if every scrutinizing eye in the world was on him. But right now, as Melania literally traced her hands over him, examining, thinking, deciding, Matt felt...the anticipation was so great because he truly cared about what she had to say, it meant something that Melania was seemingly taking the decision so seriously, so professionally, like he was her next great masterpiece.
He sat up after she decided, sitting in front of her and looking down at his arm. Matt hadn’t known where, he hadn’t known what, but now it was seeming to all make sense and fall together. It seemed right, wearing his accomplishments on his sleeve in a way. Matt looked back at Melania, eyes bright with this new adventure. He had the thought…
“You should design it,” he said with a quick nod. Matt reached out for her hand and put it back to his arm. Her art was amazing, there was no doubt in his mind that she could come up with something that was perfect. And it made sense, didn’t it? She’d helped him rise from the ashes. “I trust you, it’ll be brilliant.”
"You want me to—?" she asked, surprised out of her reverie. Her gaze dropped to their hands, wrapped around his bicep. Melania had to admit that she'd lost herself for a moment whilst imagining the possibilities for his tattoo, but to design it…
It wasn't that she doubted her skill, of course, but until moments ago, she hadn't had a new picture, sculpture, anything, cross her mind for months. This might have been small in scope, but the significance of it—that Matt would even consider asking her to do it—well, it felt like an omen of some kind, if she was a superstitious kind of person. Perhaps… it might even mean she was meant to do it? A smile stole across her face as she lay her hands on either side of him and leaned close. "Well then, we ought to get started right away."
Though she teased, she truly did have an urge to start this second, to lay those bright and brilliant colours across his skin right before her very eyes. Of course, she was no tattoo artist, but surely she ought to practise this design, sketch it out? Really get a feel for her canvas and how the colours responded to it. Melania summoned her paintbrush, dipped in dark blue paint, and held it aloft, a sly quirk to her brow. "Is this what it takes to paint you in the nude, Matt Summerby?"