Naked by Megan Hart Page A

bucks at the local church’s resale shop and came with a set of ten chairs. Only two of them had been reupholstered, and the others were all stacked along the wall, waiting their turn. When it was finished the whole set would be fantastic and impressive, just the sort of thing I’d always dreamed of having in an office of my own.
    We settled the packages on the table’s scarred surface. Sarah regarded them critically. “I feel like there should be more.”
    I looked at all she’d brought in with her. “More than this?”
    She clicked a blue-painted fingernail against her teeth as she mused. “I guess we’ll see when they’re all open.”
    I rubbed my hands together. “Then let’s open them up!”
    Sarah laughed and grabbed a hair band from around her wrist, then used it to pile the mass of her blue-and-purple hair on top of her head. She pushed up the sleeves of her slim-fitting, silver spangled T-shirt and put her hands on the hips of her black skinny jeans, just over the black leather belt with its rhinestone-encrusted buckle. She was studying the array of goodies she’d brought while I was studying her, and when she caught me looking, she laughed.
    “Sweet, huh?”
    “What made you decide to go back to blue?”
    She grinned and ran a hand over the unruly strands of multihued hair. “I dunno. Orange and red was a little too harsh and green won’t stay in. I like the blue and purple.”
    I did, too. I’d tried dying my dark hair a few times, but without stripping the color from it first, nothing would show up. I’d given up on trying to bust out of that box. “I like it, too. I told you that before.”
    “I know, I know.” She waved a hand. “I just wanted to try something different.”
    I laughed. “Because everyone else has blue-and-purple hair.”
    Sarah made a face and gave me the finger. “Fuck you.”
    I blew her a kiss. “Not today. I have a headache.”
    She guffawed, the bold, bright laughter that turned heads, and slapped her thigh. “Do you want to see what I brought you or not?”
    Of course I did. My studio had been bare and gutted when I bought the old firehouse. Sarah, whose design work I’d have admired even if she wasn’t my friend, had agreed to help me turn it into the professional-looking space I desired. In return, I’d promised to do her brochures and Web site and othergraphic design-type stuff. Oh, and to take her picture whenever she wanted, which was usually every time she changed her hair. So that was pretty often.
    I didn’t care. She always let me put the best pictures up on my Connex page, the one I kept for the rest of the world and not just friends. She was always willing to pose for me, too, if I had an idea in mind for something special. Sarah loved to dress up and put on makeup, but didn’t have any hang-ups about how she looked, or at least not as many as a lot of the “models” I had access to did. And she was okay with doing crazy stuff and looking silly, which most models definitely were not.
    She pulled a length of material from the first bag. “Picked this up at a yard sale at a Mennonite place last summer. Isn’t it gorgeous?”
    She held out the end for me to feel. Soft, auburn velvet, delicately embossed with a faint pattern of trefoils. She caught my gaze.
    “For the side wall.” She pointed to the long, plain, windowless expanse. “I’m going to tack up some furring strips, top and bottom, and shirr this in between. I have some other stuff, too, some sheers. You’ll be able to hang your portraits and stuff over it.”
    She started opening other packages. Bolts and stray pieces of material spilled out onto the table.
    “Sarah, that’s too much. I can’t take your entire fabric supply. I was just going to paint the walls.”
    She sighed and turned to me. Sarah’s a good five inches shorter than me. Despite this, she has no problem staring me down. “Liv.”
    “Sarah.”
    “If I were craving chocolate, would you buy me