Solflare: The Painter's Secret-Chapter 87: Learn How to Please a Lady

Two days passed quickly.

The constant hum of the distant activity, the clean scents of earth and polished stone, and the disorienting scale of the estate all started to feel less like a dream and more like a gilded cage.

In the quiet hours of the third night, Leon lay on the large bed in the room allocated to him, staring at the carved ceiling when the door swung open without a knock.

Zoe slipped inside, already dressed in a soft, sleeveless nightgown of pale grey silk. Before Leon could sit up, she jumped onto the bed, making the mattress dip.

"Bored already?" she said before he could react. Her fingers traced a curious path down the center of Leon’s bare chest, then moved over the planes of his stomach.

"Whoa!" Leon yelped, his body tensing. He swung her hand away with a startled urgency and scrambled backward on the bed until his shoulders hit the headboard. "What are you doing?"

Zoe propped herself up on one elbow, resting her head in her palm. She stared at him, her silver-grey eyes glowing in the dim light.

"Why, are you now scared of me, too?" she asked in a voice mixed with curiosity and playful challenge.

"It’s not that," Leon said in a quiet voice that resounded in the room, then pulled the rumpled sheet higher over his waist. "We shouldn’t be doing this."

"Doing what?" she interrupted, a faint frown creasing her brow. "Touching?" She sighed, the playfulness draining from her face.

She swung her legs off the bed and stood, brushed her palms at the front of her nightgown, and folded her arms tightly across her chest.

"If that’s what your reaction is going to be, then..." She paused, tilted her gaze toward the window where the night sky was dotted with bright stars. "...then I won’t be showing you around anymore."

She rolled her eyes, exhaled deeply, and walked toward the slightly open door. Just before she crossed the threshold, she glanced back over her shoulder. "Learn how to please a lady."

The door clicked shut with a firm sound as she stepped out and pulled it along.

Leon stared at the closed door with a warm face. "Learn how to please a lady?" he repeated the words.

He blinked. "It’s been two days," he muttered to himself, and pushed himself off the bed. He padded to the window.

"Two days, and I haven’t been able to communicate with my mother or Lily. Not even a word from Mr. Lee, either." His knuckles whitened as he gripped the windowsill and stared at the vast sky.

Huge night birds circled slowly in the distance, their silhouettes stark against the moon’s pale light.

He inhaled the cool, clean air, yet it did nothing for the restless churn in his gut. "Whatever the case, I have to go back to Dusthollow. I have to see them."

Just as he was about to turn from the window, his mind spun with plans of sneaking out but stopped when footsteps echoed from the other side of the door.

"Zoe?" he called out, but no answer came. The footsteps retreated. "Is someone there?" he asked in a firm tone, then moved slowly toward the door.

His heart began to hum heavily in his chest as he stood behind the heavy wood and placed one ear on it.

He turned his mind to the sounds erupting from outside and into the room, then swallowed hard.

His hands closed around the cold metal handle as he took a steady breath and began to pull it open, inch by inch.

"Tadaaa!" Zoe sprang into the doorway, a wide smile shimmering on her face. She began clapping in a mocking applause. "I heard what you said," she said, her laughter bubbling in her throat.

She took a few dancing steps backward into the hallway. "All that talk about leaving."

Leon stood frozen in the doorway as fresh confusion warred inside him. ’Why do I kinda feel something whenever she gets this close?’

Thoughts reeled in his mind. At the same time, Zoe turned her head and looked directly at him. Her playful smile softened into something more knowing.

Leon managed a faint smile in return before she turned and walked away, her hips swaying gently like a sea tide.

He quickly retreated, shut the door, and leaned against it. "It shouldn’t be what I’m thinking," he whispered, but a disbelieving laugh escaped him.

"I can’t fall in love with her. Not in a few days. It’s impossible." He slid down and sat on the floor, his arms wrapped around his knees.

After a long while, he pushed himself up, walked to the bed, and fell onto it. He folded his arms behind his head and closed his eyes.

The soft brush of night air against his brow was the last thing he felt before sleep swallowed him whole.

He jolted up when the sunlight touched his thighs. The cheerful morning chime of birds, the rhythmic lowing of cattle, and the cries of insects filled his ears.

He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and scratched the stiff skin of his balls to soften. He blinked in surprise when he saw Zoe already there, standing beside the bed and holding a silver plate.

"Good morning, Leon," she greeted and placed the plate on the small bedside table. On it were two glass cups filled with a green liquid and a neat arrangement of thinly sliced, golden-brown bread.

Leon pushed himself up onto his elbow. ’Why is she treating me like a king? I’m just a nobody,’ he said low in his mind, but somewhere deep down, he liked the attention and care.

"Today," Zoe said, squeezed her eyes, and paused to watch him. She sat on the edge of the bed and leaned back on one hand.

The neckline of her simple dress gaped slightly, revealing a glimpse of smooth skin. She stretched her legs out, her feet brushing against where Leon’s were under the sheet.

"This is your first time being this close to a lady, right?" she asked, locking gazes with him. She lifted her left hand and brushed her hair behind her elf-like ear.

Leon nodded, his mouth full of bread. ’What is she trying to say or communicate that I still don’t get?’ He studied the charming eyes and the curve of her lips that seemed to be forming words she wasn’t speaking.

He quickly looked down at his plate when he noticed her smile deepening, as if she’d caught him staring.

"I’m done," he said, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

Zoe clicked her tongue softly, then rose from the bed. "Alright. Follow me to the no-trespass door."

Leon followed her out into the sunlit hallway. He tried to keep his gaze forward, but it kept drifting downward to the sway of her hips, the shape of her outline in the dress.

He was so preoccupied that when she stopped abruptly, he almost collided with her back. His heart skipped a beat as he caught himself just in time.

"Here we are," she said, turned to face him, and closed the distance between them.

’What is she doing?’ Leon’s eyes widened as he watched her slip her left hand into the space between her huge breasts.

She pulled out a single black key that had a finely carved symbol of a sun on its bow.

"This," she said in a voice that dropped to a whisper, "is what you will use to get out once you’re done for today."

She pressed the cold key into his palm, curled his fingers around it, before she let go. She stepped back to the left side of the door, then smiled.

"What’s behind this door holds everything about your dad, my dad, the world, and the universe at large." She gestured for him to approach the door.

"But," she added, her face tensing for a brief second, "make sure you exit before the blank books swallow you."

"Don’t look scared. Just... be mindful of your actions in there."

Leon stared at the key in his hand, then at the door. When he raised his gaze at the name etched upon the door, it seemed to pulse.

’Hmmm, what a weird place,’ he whispered in his thoughts as he glanced back at the hallway they had just exited, and back at Zoe.

He stepped forward, stretched his right arm, and fitted the key into the black lock, then turned it.

No clicking sound echoed, but a deep buzz vibrated up his arm. He could feel the ground beneath him shaking as the door swung inward.

An absolute darkness that seemed to devour every light was revealed when the door opened wide enough for him, alone.

He took a deep breath, closed his eyes for a short while, then cracked them open with a long-lasting sigh.

’Whatever happens, happens,’ he said in his thoughts as he tilted his gaze to Zoe and saw her standing there, smiling.

"Go, what are you waiting for?" she said, gesturing at him, then giggling in an eerie tone.

Leon moved his right leg and stepped into the other side of the door. A force swung him inward like a spring the moment the foot of his right leg touched what seemed not to be solid ground.