When I came back to earth from the place I’d gone to, I saw him watching me, his lips curved in a satisfied smile. Then slowly, with his free hand, he undid first one clip and then the other, lowering his mouth to each nipple afterward, sucking away the sting. Then, only after that was accomplished, did he withdraw his fingers from inside me, and then held them to my lips and whispered, “Lick, until they’re clean.”
I savored his powerful, thick fingers, marveled at how big they felt in my mouth. I licked my scent, my juices from him with earnest appreciation. I licked eagerly and thoroughly and delicately until he was satisfied, and then I waited to be told what he wanted from me next.
But finally, for the first time all night, he had no words. All the guidelines had been laid down and he’d given me my tests. Now all he did for many long minutes was look down at me, stroking my thigh.
“Little Lucy,” he said finally. “Beautiful girl. What do you think about this? Did you find it too difficult? Too scary?”
“It was difficult and scary,” I answered. “But I liked it very much.”
“So did I,” he said with a frown. And the frown, I wasn’t sure where that came from, but I didn’t care a second later, because he lowered his lips to mine and kissed me long and hard. His fingers, still damp from my lips and tongue, buried themselves in the hair at my nape and pressed into my scalp. I felt his chest against mine, his rock hard stomach against the arm at my side. I hadn’t been sure if he would kiss me, non-girlfriend that I was, but he kissed me as if he treasured and loved me, and for those long moments he kissed me, I let myself pretend he did.
He kissed and nuzzled me for what seemed like ages, and then pressed his cheek against mine.
Rough stubble across my jaw, soft breath against my ear.
“Beautiful, beautiful Lucy,” he murmured, and I thought, here then, here is the joy.
Chapter Five: Hands
Finally he helped me up, and I gathered my clothes near the door. “Don’t bother to put them on,” he said. “You’ll sleep in the nude when you’re here.” He left his own clothes lying on the floor. I followed him up the two flights of stairs to his bedroom, both of us silent. What was there to say? I just stared the entire time at his awe-inspiring ass and thought that something like that was probably a punishable offense.
He guided me into his bedroom. It contained a huge wrought iron bed and two nightstands and not much else. It was stark white and gunmetal grey, modern and formal and fastidiously clean. The bed was just as massive as I’d imagined it, and I looked at that bed for a long lascivious moment, pictured him fucking me on it. Then I turned and I froze stark still.
On his wall were two large canvases. In the first, a girl stood casually, one hip turned out, her eyes downcast. In the second, she looked backwards over her shoulder, her hair falling down her curved back and heart shaped bottom. You could barely see her face, but I didn’t need to.
Because the girl was me.
It frightened me to death. I suppose it was the knowledge of what he’d paid to have them.
The fact that they were in his bedroom where he slept. The fact that he had bought these paintings nearly a year ago. Everything, every word and action between us suddenly took on a twisted, stalkerish slant.
He stood still and let me look, although he seemed less at ease. He stood between me and the door as if he feared I might bolt. He watched my face closely but didn’t say a word in explanation, as much as I suddenly felt I deserved an explanation of some kind.
“So it was you who bought them.”
“Yes, it was me.”
“Did you...did you know they were me? All along?” I asked stupidly. As if this was all some great coincidence.
He tilted his head, a patient smile. “Of course I did. You don’t pay that much for paintings and not get a tip about the model.”
“Pietro told you who I was?” I asked incredulously.
“And where to find you.”
“So you...so you donated to the company...”
“Because of you? I suppose. In a way. Does that bother you?”
“It creeps me out a little bit, yes. He sold these paintings to you months ago. Last year.”
“Yes, I know. I thought about taking them down so you wouldn’t know I had them. But I didn’t. Do you know why?”
My voice trembled. “Because it wouldn’t have been truthful.”
“Yes, Lucy, it wouldn’t have been the truth. The truth is that first I procured the paintings, and then, I decided to procure you. I’m a collector of beautiful things, and I find you so beautiful that I have to have you. I need you to be mine. I thought it might be enough to own paintings of you, but it wasn’t. And so here we are.”
Yes, here we were, indeed. He watched me while I tried to still my beating heart, quiet the adrenaline roaring through my veins. Fight or flight? Why do either? He had already hurt me, and I’d liked it, and I knew he would do it again. So he had Pietro’s paintings...it was actually kind of flattering.
“I’ve never seen them up close. The finished ones.”
“Look all you like,” he said, nodding towards them. “Beautiful art is for looking at.” I sidled closer, looked up at the curves and lines of my body.
“I wish I had a camera,” he said.
I laughed softly. I was standing exactly as I was in the first painting, looking up at myself on canvas as if into a mirror. But then my eyes moved to the second painting, and I thought to myself, I don’t look like that anymore. Because in the painting my ass was white and unmarked, and now it had three vivid stripes across it that I could feel whenever I moved.
“I’m glad they went to someone who appreciated them. Who wanted them,” I said when I finally looked away.
His eyes flicked from the paintings back to me. “They’re certainly worth what I paid. And I’m grateful for what they resulted in.”
“You mean...me?”
He laughed, but the way he spoke kept me always off kilter. His compliments were delivered in the same cool, impersonal tone as his threats.
“Yes, you, Lucy Merritt with two t’s. I’m grateful you’re finally here with me, and that you’re as submissive in real life as you are in those works.” My eyes flew back to the paintings. Submissive?
“Don’t you see it?” he murmured. “Ah, well. I did. And I was right. Things went well for us the first time. You still feel they went well?”
He wanted truth from me. He was checking one more time. My answer hadn’t changed.
“Yes, sir.”
“And what about you, Lucy?” he asked. “What exactly do you get out of all this?”
“Good sex,” I lied to him, even though he’d cautioned me so many times already to never, ever lie.
His eyes roved over me, silent and appraising, looked at me standing naked in front of his naked paintings of me. All his valuable acquisitions in one place.
“You know, they’re beautiful, Lucy, but nowhere near as beautiful as you. I wouldn’t have thought it possible, that you’d be so much more beautiful in real life. The first time I saw you by the stage door, I was too shocked to speak. Do you remember?”
“You demand truth, but you’re feeding me lines.”
“Not lines, believe me. You’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever known.” I looked at him then, looked at him watching me, and I remembered how he’d run his fingers over me downstairs when I’d first undressed.
“So that’s what matters most to you? Truth, and owning beautiful things?”
“Yes, I suppose.”
I suddenly had a ghost of a memory, a high school lit class, a Greek picture on the cover of a report. “I think there’s some kind of poem about that. Beauty is truth, truth beauty, and that is all you need to know. Something like that. I studied it once.” I tried to remember the exact words of the poem, remember more about it, but he was staring at me with a look I didn’t understand.
“Keats,” he said after a moment. “Lucy, it’s time fo
r bed.”
* * *
I followed him into his bathroom, which was just as grey and stark as his chamber of a room. The surfaces and fixtures were all spotless, and the towels hung from the towel racks folded perfectly as sculptures. I felt like I was in a museum, and I might have been. He certainly looked like a Greek god of a statue standing there beside me, and I stared at his reflection in the mirror as we brushed our teeth. He went through all the motions of a normal human, tooth brushing, flossing, taking a noisy piss with the door open wide. Then he pulled me into the shower with him, holding me by the arm and washing me perfunctorily, like I was a dirty window or a dish in the sink.