Veronique liked to pout and she was very good at it. She'd turned pouting into an art form, I believe, and art is everything. Some people will say life imitates art, most will tell you that art imitates life. I have studied the subject since the beginning and I say that there is no difference; life is art. It's the reason I could tolerate something as beautiful as Veronique's pout.
"Why do you want that one?" she asked, pursing red lips beneath her verdant gaze.
"Champagne," I said, taking a glass from the waiter's tray and offering it to the girl.
Veronique accepted it, of course, with the idea of tossing the wine into my face. Her thoughts were so easy to read, like clouds moving across a summer sky; anyone who cared to look would see them. Her tantrums often pleased me, those brief moments of passion when Veronique's piquant art demanded attention, but appreciation requires more than mere observation.
"Thank you." She lowered her eyes and perhaps we were both disappointed. Veronique punished me that way, but her efforts were poisoned by the pleasure of her company.
"I want that one for you," I answered her question. "I've given you too many useless things, Veronique. I wish to give you something else."
"And what would that be?" she wondered, laughing lightly and drawing the admiring gaze of several nearby men.
"Appreciation," I told her. "You're a work of art, but you do not love art."
"I love myself," she replied. "Isn't that what you want?"
"In the beginning," I said, "but no longer."
"Have I displeased you?" She blinked rapidly and her cheeks lost some of their natural color. "Forgive me."
"Perhaps you're too young for the Gallery," I ventured. "I've been impatient; more than you deserve."
"I'm almost seventeen," Veronique reminded me with a hint of umbrage at my suggestion. "You expect too little of me, I think."
"Only because I wish to be surprised," I told her, smiling at the ease with which she could dispel my poor mood.
"I should take that as an insult," she said, searching my face as she poured champagne over her upturned breasts.
"Veronique…" I sighed, watching the pale nectar flow across her flawless skin, down her taut belly to find the spring of her plump sex.
"Does this surprise you?" she asked. "I'm wet now; are you not surprised?"
I glanced at a nearby waiter and with a tilt of my head he retrieved Veronique's empty glass from her fingers. The champagne had spilled down the insides of her thighs and she glistened. A precious drop clung to her exposed clitoris and then fell to the floor as I watched. That moment, like so many others, filled me with a great sense of joy and my determination to reward the girl was complete.
"This one," I told the servant. "Inform your master."
"I can't change your mind, can I?" Veronique stroked her nipples with her fingertips; the rouge had melted into long, red stains. She brought them to stiff attention for me and I shook my head.
"No more than you can change yours," I said. "Come. Take one last look at something you don't possess."
I gave her leash the smallest tug imaginable and she stepped forward. The silk collar matched her lustrous green eyes and Veronique turned them upward obediently. Her insolence had never taken physical form. She was too intelligent, too imaginative and subtle for that; the girl intuitively rejected vulgar defiance. Rebellion too is art by my definition and another reason I'd become so enamored of her.
"I don't understand your attraction," she said. "There's nothing there."
"The canvas is incomplete, that's all. You don't see the possibilities?"
"No," Veronique decided, being petulant.
"Many great works of art were unfinished."
"And many lesser works ended up in the fireplace, I'm sure."
"Appreciation requires participation."
"Does it?" she affected a bored tone, but her eyes gave her away.
"The empty canvas lends itself to the imagination," I told her. "It makes artists of us all."
"Is that what you want?" Veronique's laughter teased me. "You wish me to be an artist now?"
"You're unfinished," I reminded her with a smile. "Incomplete. Is it so terrible?"
"And this…this…canvas, as you call it," she sighed, "is how you intend to punish me?"
"Your jealousy is your punishment, Veronique."
"Only because I love you," she said, turning to face me. "I don't want this. Please."
"Sir…" An assistant steward had arrived, offering me a leather-bound folder with the necessary invoice. I took his pen and initialed the document quickly while Veronique watched with sullen detachment.
"Thank you," I said, returning the folder and pen. "It's done. Look upon your gift now; perhaps you'll find some small appreciation."
"Of course." She closed her eyes. "Thank you. It's beautiful."
"May I enquire as to delivery, sir?" the servant prompted gently and I nodded.
"Tomorrow will be fine," I said and looked to Veronique. "Her personal items?"
"Burn them," she replied, opening her eyes and looking upon the girl I'd just purchased for her. "Everything. If she's to be mine…"
"She is," I assured her.
"…then she needs nothing else," Veronique said and the assistant steward took that answer with a curt bow.
"I'll have to build you a studio now," I said lightly, enjoying the way she studied the child. Her reluctant acceptance wouldn't be taken for surrender, I knew her too well for that.
"So that I can finish her?" she asked, musing aloud. "Not in the cellars; the gardens, I believe. Sunlight and rain. She needs a lot of work."
"It will take you a lifetime," I agreed, stroking Veronique's warm flesh along the curve of her spine.
"Hers?" Veronica pursed her lips. "Or mine, do you think?"
"Who can know such things?" I replied with a shrug.
"The original artist…" She looked at me. "What did you call him?"
"God."
"Hmmm…" The girl shook her head.
"You don't think much of him?"
"He leaves too much undone," Veronique decided.
"As you say," I said, "but how better to appreciate His art than to continue it?"
"Not finish it?"
"Only at the very end," I whispered. "All of us are finished eventually."
"One way or another?" She pursed her lips in annoyance. "You really are the Prince of Lies."
"I'm only an artist, my dear," I suggested, offering her an apologetic smile.
"And fortunate enough to be appreciated in your own time?" Veronique teased and I did love her entirely, but that's the point.
