o

I Must Paint You

o

Dinner with the Kazekage was a hair-raising event. Naruto was prattling on as usual and fighting to be the center of attention, Sakura was trying to simultaneously ignore him and kick him under the table and make polite small talk with Kankurou and also ignore the fact that Kakashi had his book open on his lap, Yamato was eating in austere silence, and Sai was sitting at the end of the table, at the corner, with Temari. Since they all knew Temari to be the quiet type and Sakura was also simultaneously babysitting everything Sai said (she wasn't about to let his inept attempts to make friends cause an international incident), this corner was not the center of attention.

Oh, but Sakura had to reach to kick Naruto hard when he neglected to remember the food on his fork as he made enthusiastic hand gestures while he conveyed the story about their last mission to the Kazekage. She was gritting her teeth and raising her eyebrows at him and he was not getting the picture. ("What, Sakura? What is it? What do you want? I don't understand.")

And suddenly, before she realized what had happened, and before Yamato's sensitive ears went from amusing themselves with listening in on Sakura's silent lecture to monitoring Sai – no one had the time to stop him. Well, Kakashi did, but he was honestly curious to see how the Sand kunoichi would react. No one else even realized what had happened until the air in the room suddenly dropped twenty degrees.

"Is that an appropriate nickname?" Sai asked her as a follow-up, always checking the quality of his social endeavors.

Naruto's face went pale.

Sakura's hands went to her mouth in horror. He didn't!

The Kazekage raised his nonexistent eyebrows.

Yamato blanched. He did.

Kankurou bit back a grin.

"You see, I'm trying to learn how to fit in better with everyone, and I read this book that says that if you give someone a nickname…"

"What did you call me?" Temari asked in a very low voice.

"Fatty!"

Dead silence descended on the table. Kankurou was trying to make his rampant laughter look like a cough caused by a piece of food stuck in his windpipe. Naruto's face was stuck in a nervous grin. Sakura, in a panic, grabbed him by the sleeve and hissed in his ear, "Say something quick, you idiot!"

"Ha ha ha, that Sai! What a kidder!" Naruto yelled. "Ow! What, what did I do wrong?"

Sakura smiled and tried to shift attention back to the other end of the table. "So you were saying before, Kazekage-sama…" she said in an unnecessarily loud voice.

"I wasn't saying anything," Gaara deadpanned.

While Sakura desperately attempted to resuscitate conversation at that end of the table, Kakashi inconspicuously kept his ears open to Sai's interesting interaction. He wondered if Temari had developed any new wind-based techniques since the last time he'd seen her fight. He had a feeling they were all going to get a live demonstration. Life was so interesting when you were on the same team with Naruto and Sai: if one of them wasn't making a scene, the other one was unintentionally starting one.

Temari was in a kind of daze. "No man," she said, "has ever had the gall to call me fat."

"Ha ha, well it's interesting really. At first I tried calling people by characteristics, but I learned that women didn't like that, so what you do is pick a word that's the opposite of what they are…"

Temari's face twitched. "Indeed."

"Yes! In fact I would say you have quite a nice body. You're really only slightly fat."

Naruto and Sakura were making so much noise at the other end of the table by now that this comment went totally unnoticed by everyone except Kakashi, who had now been reading the same paragraph for five minutes. This was much more interesting than his book. Temari narrowed her eyes. "Just who are you, exactly?"

"I am called Sai."

o

"Sai, are you sure you don't want to come with us?" Sakura asked later that evening. "Kankurou's going to show us the catacombs below the theater. They're over two thousand years old, it's really interesting…"

"No thanks. I'll just be in here."

"This is the first time you've ever been in Suna and you just want to stay in your room?" Naruto asked, incredulous.

Sai didn't tell him about the many reconnaissance missions where he'd flown through the city at night. He knew many dark corners of Suna and didn't really need to see more, and anyway, there were far more interesting things to be doing.

"Yes, I had great inspiration for a drawing tonight," Sai said.

Naruto rolled his eyes, but Sakura said, "That's so cool! Well, see you tomorrow!"

"Good night."

"Naruto, Sakura, are you coming?" Yamato called out to them. Sai waved goodbye to his teammates as they darted through the doorframe.

A voice came from the bathroom: "Are they gone?"

"Yes," Sai said in his absolutely casual tone.

Temari stepped out. "All right, look here, are you serious about this?"

He flashed her that same bland smile that had been setting her on edge all evening. "Of course!"

She inhaled deeply, as if considering. "You had just better not get any funny ideas."

"I don't know what you could mean," Sai said innocently.

"You do realize that perfect strangers don't normally do this?"

"We're not strangers," said Sai. "You're Sabaku no Temari, and I'm Sai."

She scoffed. "Fine then. Where?"

"Right here would be best. That way we won't stand the chance of being interrupted… at least until Naruto and Yamato come back. I wouldn't want to disturb them while they're trying to sleep."

Temari raised her eyebrows. "As entertaining as that would be for everyone, how about we go to my room instead? Um… the light's better."

"Of course, if you like."

Ten minutes later, she stood in front of him in her room with the knot of her yukata firmly tied at her waist. He was sitting on a chair in the middle of her room with a sketchpad in his lap. "Why did you want to do this again?" she blurted out.

"Well, you see, your body has a unique line, the curve of your shoulder is rather abrupt, your hips are too wide, and your posture is entirely strange for a kunoichi."

"Ten years of lugging around a steel fan will do that," Temari muttered.

"Also, your hair is awful. I've never tried to draw hair that was so coarse and uneven. I thought it would be a challenge."

Temari grit her teeth. "So you want to draw me because I'm fat and ugly?"

Sai laughed his calculated, fake laugh, which grated on her nerves. "I never said ugly, just fat. You're actually rather beautiful, for some reason."

And there it was again. She could not figure this guy out. Was he trying to seduce her or what? The desert was a lonely place, especially when you were the sister of the Kazekage and most males with any sense whatsoever were terrified of you, and frankly Temari was ready and willing to be seduced. But it seemed like this odd, dark-haired ninja was either completely clueless or so subtle in his manipulation that she couldn't tell what he was up to. He just didn't seem to be playing the game. The only viable alternative seemed to be to take his word for it. So far he wasn't the lying type.

What a weirdo.

Oh well… maybe a nice nude picture would make her life less boring.

"All right," she said, hands firmly on her hips, "how do you want to do this?"

Sai held his chin in his hand for a moment. "Open your yukata and kneel on the bed. No, wait. Pull out the sheets and crumple them under you first."

Temari was not used to being ordered around by anyone other than Gaara. Once again this boy's forwardness caught her completely off guard. She breathed once through her nose, then decided that the only way to counter him at his own game was to play it her way. She flung open the yukata in one quick move, not showing the slightest shyness as she pulled herself onto the bed and submitted to his direction. "Like this?" she asked. Her yukata hung wide open, the obi cast aside, and her breasts hung out in plain sight.

"No, actually I've changed my mind. Lie on your back. No, prop yourself up on your elbows. Yes, that's it exactly. Bend one leg. Good. Can you take your hair down?"

She shifted, and with one hand she pulled out all four hair ties in about three seconds. She then ruffled her coarse and uneven hair so that it was even moreso, figuring she might as well give the freak what he was after. She could feel that her messy blonde hair was going everywhere, probably forming a halo around her head. Hopefully it had that especially messy after-sex look, since she'd been sweating in the heat earlier today. Her grin was the nonverbal equivalent of a low-throated purr. This would be an interesting picture.

"That expression. Keep that smile and those eyes – just like that."

She was more than happy to comply. She studied him carefully as he scratched away at his paper with various crayons and pencils. Come to think of it, he was just her type: dark-haired, dark-eyed, mysterious. She wouldn't have added completely air-headed to that list before, but she was starting to reconsider. This weirdo was just odd enough to really get her attention. What was most interesting was that he apparently had absolutely no reaction to what he was looking at. Here she was on full display, her body increasingly and ever-more-obviously aroused, and he was just sitting there, happily sketching.

"Just who are you, exactly?" she asked him as he drew. "I never saw you in Konoha before."

"I was with ANBU," he said.

She nodded. That explained a lot. The ANBU in Suna tended to be head cases, too.

Fifteen minutes later he put the final touches on his sketch and blew the dust away. "Can I see?" she asked.

"I'll send a copy of the finished painting. I want to try another position."

That phrase carried some rather enticing connotations in Temari's mind, but Sai apparently had no idea that it would suggest anything unrelated to the work at hand.

Next it was Temari curled around herself on the bed, then Temari naked holding the sheets up to cover her chest, then Temari looking back at him over her shoulder with the yukata slipping down her arms, then slouched against the headboard with her arms behind it, her legs crossed, in a pointedly impatient full frontal. By this time her cheeks were rather rosy – in fact, the flush had crawled across her chest and up her neck, and blood had made its way to some less obvious corners of her body as well. She wondered how he could possibly miss the fact that her nipples were a lot taller and rather more rigid than when he had started.

"This is really quite interesting," he said. "I usually just do abstracts."

"Is that so?" Temari said. A normal person would have heard the annoyance in her voice.

"Yes. In fact, I could do this all night. …Please don't breathe so heavily. It helps if you stay as still as possible."

She shifted ever so slightly against the headboard and glared at him. "Sai, do you ever find it difficult to be a homosexual man in your profession?"

His brow creased momentarily as he sketched. "I'm afraid I don't know what you mean."

"A gay man, as in a man that prefers other men's penises as opposed to female bodies."

"I don't follow you."

"As in one who sucks cock."

"Excuse me?"

"As in one who has sex with men instead of women," she said. Good god, was he completely brainless?

Sai gave her his fake, good-natured smile. "I don't have sex with anyone."

Temari stared, baffled. "Are you serious?"

"In my division of ANBU, we were taught early on to shut off all emotional and bodily reactions to other people. I never really gave it much thought, actually. Sex was just for the specialized kunoichi."

Temari blinked. He had to be trying to seduce her, there was no way this guy was for real… "People have sex for fun too, you know. It isn't just about business."

"Is that so?" he asked, curious.

"You do do things for fun, don't you? You're an artist. That isn't part of the shinobi job description."

"Well actually, in my case…"

Temari rolled her eyes. "Oh forget it." She rolled onto her side. "Are we just about through here? I'm getting a little tired."

"Just one more," Sai said. "Stay just like that."

She tried not to tap her fingers while he finished. This guy was unbelievable. She was going to go nuts tonight. She was so horny she'd need both hands. Didn't it just figure that the one guy she'd get naked for all year would be a nut job like this?

Sai blended the graphite with his thumb just slightly in one spot near her areola. He was well satisfied – this had been a most productive evening, but he had the distinct feeling that his model was getting a trifle impatient. When he looked up, to his immense displeasure, the body part he had been working on before looked completely different. His brow creased while he wondered how to fix this.

Temari was too stunned to say anything when he suddenly reached over and tweaked her left nipple between his thumb and forefinger. Her mouth flew open with a startled gasp. She was even more stunned when he sat back just as complacently and went back to drawing without a word as she tried to catch her breath.

"Your yukata is in the way," he said.

"Wha…?"

"I said your yukata is in the way. It's falling back over your shoulders. Please move it."

She glared at him stonily.

There were only two possibilities. Number one, he was a world-class mindfucker, and this was leading up to some end that she could not foresee but that would benefit him somehow. Or number two, he really was completely and utterly innocent.

If it were the first, two could play at that game. If it were the second, she could fix that in short order.

"Please move your yukata," he said again.

She leaned back ever so slightly and lifted an eyebrow. "You do it."

He tried not to betray his annoyance. Was she really that tired? He set his sketch board down and reached over the bed. She was lying on her side this time. He tugged the sleeve of the yukata down her arm ever so slightly. Why was she grabbing the front of his shirt? Why was she licking her lips like that? Wh – hmmph.

Temari glued her mouth onto his and created enough suction that there was no way he was escaping now. She flopped onto her back and pulled him down on top of her without letting go of his mouth. He wasn't exactly encouraging her, but he wasn't pulling away either. How convenient that his shirt was only half-there to begin with. With her face secured to his, her hands could crawl over his abs with no obstruction whatsoever. She was exceedingly pleased with herself when she scratched his tightly-muscled sides and elicited a gasp. Her fingers quickly traveled up underneath the black half-ass shirt that he wore. Honestly, if he was going to show off his six-pack like that, what was the point of even wearing clothing?

Sai was having revelations. Of course he knew all about sex in an abstract kind of way, it had just never occurred to him that he might get to experience it firsthand. This woman underneath him was odd in a lot of ways. He still marveled at the shape of her face and the absolute random nature of her hair. It fanned out around her head now as her lips glistened and her eyes darkened in a way that was not at all displeasing.

Her fingers finally caught the nipples underneath his shirt. "It's only fair," she said as she twisted them mercilessly. "What goes around, comes around."

"This is… interesting," he commented.

"Interesting? I'll show you interesting."

Before he could react, she flipped him over on the bed and pinned his shoulders to the mattress. She then ripped open his shirt. Her hot and hungry mouth fell on one of the nipples that she'd previously caught between fingers. "Hey," Sai interjected.

A sharp bite from her and a glance of her teal eyes silenced all complaints.

Her arms found his elbows and pinned him to the bed more firmly. He watched, incredulous, as her mouth crept down his torso, burning a trail from his right nipple to the bottom of his ribs to his belly button, where her tongue paused to venture in a few times, down further and further, and suddenly his pants were open and he didn't know how they had gotten that way.

"Temari-san – do I still need to call you Temari-san? Is it all right if I just call you Temari? I agaghghg…"

o

"This is really lovely, Sai," Sakura said, her fingers ghosting over the sketch of a tree that she recognized as the one just outside the Hokage's tower. "You should do something with this. Are all the ones in this sketchbook trees?" She flipped the page and suddenly found herself at a loss for words. "Oh… my…"

Naruto was instantly curious. "What's that? Oh!" As he stared in shock at the Kazekage's sister splayed out on a bedspread in a position that definitely encouraged a nosebleed. "Er."

"Those are some interesting sketches, aren't they?" Sai said conversationally.

"Um…" Sakura said.

"Does Gaara know you drew this?" Naruto demanded, his cheeks bright red – while he tried to get a better view.

"Of course! I had to send a copy of the finished painting to Temari."

Many miles away, the Kazekage opened his mail, and his nonexistent eyebrows flew up to his hairline.

o

FIN

o

Author's Note. I was playing with filters and saw there were no Temari/Sai fics, and I decided someone needed to correct this gross oversight immediately. One thing led to another, and as a result there is a rather… expanded version of this at adultfanfiction (dot) net, so if that's your kind of dish, have at it. My penname there is Dirty Martini.