‘Okay, you’ve got the job. The shoot will take place on 26 March, the studio is in Tribeca, 370 Spring; be there at nine. The costume fitting is next Tuesday at 3pm. The pay is a 150 dollars an hour and we will be booking you for six hours and will pay you for another three for the fitting. Who’s your agent?’
‘I haven’t got one.’
‘I understand. In that case, I’ll pay cash in hand. And you know about the confidentiality clause?’
‘What’s that?’
‘You will have to sign a contract that prevents you from talking to the media or any other interested party about the making of the photograph, the process, or any other aspect of the shoot – like for ever.’
‘Sounds reasonable. So I will see you on at three on Tuesday, 370 Spring.’ Latisha put the receiver down quickly before the polite young man (whom she suspected was of colour) had a chance to change his mind.
*
Susie moved the 20 photographs she’d finally selected into a file, then backed it up on an external drive; then she remembered her phone was still switched off. She picked the mobile up and switched it on: there were two missed calls, one from Felix and one from an unnamed source. There was also a text message from Felix, sent after he’d failed to get through.
My place at ten, lots to celebrate. Felix. P.S. no debate, no vacillation, no doubts.
Chapter Twelve
There is an exquisite discomfort when two people meet after making love for the first time: a blend of anticipation, a dread of disappointment and the intense desire to repeat or improve on the first experience, Susie reflected, staring across Felix’s reception room as he stood holding out two shot glasses of vodka, a vast expanse of a Grayson Perry rug between them like a sea. She glanced down, her gaze falling on a patch of woven fabric illustrating a group of stick figures laying siege to a castle with a bubble enclosing the words Incurable romantics looking for emotional confirmation. It was then that she belatedly decided it was a mistake to be at Felix’s apartment at all.
‘So did the shoot go well?’ he asked, handing her the drink. ‘The best Polish vodka in the world, laced with gold leaf: a present from a client of mine, wife of an oligarch. I’m assuming you need it after a day’s work like that.’ He grinned awkwardly.
‘What do you mean “like that”?’ She took a sip of the vodka, the clean taste burning the inside of her mouth nicely, but she remained where she was, her bag still over her shoulder, her coat still on.
‘Well, you know, all that dressing up, make-up, lights, screwing strangers… ’ He’d meant the last part to come out as a joke, but instead his voice sounded
strangled.
Now she slipped off her bag and then her coat, which she rather unceremoniously hooked over a section of the Louise Bourgeois sculpture.
‘Felix, it’s a simulacrum, it’s making art – emotions and actual fucking doesn’t come into it – at least not in the way you think. I mean, surely you of all people understand that.’ Being irreverent and a little aggressive was what she did when she wanted to hide her feelings and now she found herself acting out the indifferent ingénue. Changing the subject, she said ‘Nice pad… ’ and strolled around examining the furniture and the art, stopping at the Frida Kahlo painting. ‘It always amazes me how small her works are. Maybe it was in reaction to Diego Rivera, who, let’s face it, needed everything to be loud, gestural, epic, while dear little moustachioed Frida here was all internalised, all intimacy and pain. Yet whom do we remember? Always a bad idea for two artists to get together.’
Ignoring her last comment, Felix lifted the bright fuchsia coat off the sculpture and carefully hung it in a cupboard. ‘Was he big?’ he asked bluntly, his back to her.
‘Was who big?’
‘Oh, come on, Susie. You always have an erotic element in the work, and you’re always the protagonist so there has to be a guy, and I bet he had a huge cock, so… ’
She stared disbelievingly at him. ‘Jesus, Felix! That is such a typically male reaction, to be stressing about the size of a guy’s cock! Even if there was a male character and he was hung like a donkey, what’s that to do with you? Or us? If there is an “us”!’ She whirled around furiously, red hair flying, shoulders hunched defensively as if the world was suddenly on the attack. ‘Because I don’t know, because what happened the other day at the Frick… it’s not in my vocabulary and I suspect it’s not in yours either. So why am I here?’
He stared at her, then in three of his long strides was upon her.
‘No… ’ she protested, but he caught her wrists anyway and pinned her arms to her sides. Bending to kiss her, he bit down on her lower lip, his tongue penetrating her in an instinctive desperation, the need to mark her, possess her as his, and they both sank to the floor, clumsy as they tore each other’s clothes off as fast as possible. He got there first, hoisting her top over her arms and head so that she was trapped, bound up in it, her arms held above her, her face and eyes covered. He then pulled her panties and tights down to her knees and wound them around her legs so that they too were bound together. Then he took her bra off, leaving her entirely naked from her neck to her knees.
‘What are you doing?’ Her voice muffled by her top.
‘Wait and see – you’ll like it.’ Straddling her, he looked down at her body: her pert small breasts with their long erect nipples above the arching ribcage, the curve of her stomach leading down to the triangle of pubic hair. Cut off at the knees and arms, her pale torso resembled that of a classical Grecian marble statue. He pushed his hand between her thighs. She was already wet in anticipation. His index finger found her clitoris and he began to strum her expertly. Susie groaned beneath the binds of her clothes, her body pinned down by his weight, writhing in pleasure.
It was a delicious feeling; the bondage giving her permission to lose control, to be entirely at his mercy, submission she could truly surrender to. Playing her until he sensed she was close to coming, he paused to take his trousers off. With her body stretched out before him, still kneeling over her, he took his cock and rubbed the tip of it across her nipples and then down the centre of her midriff, resting it between her swollen labia. He plunged into her suddenly, making her cry out, then after thrusting a few times he pulled out entirely, leaving her gasping for more.
‘What do you want?’ he demanded.
‘You,’ she groaned.
Her sex swollen and wet against his palm, Susie struggled, but the more she tried to free her limbs, the more entangled she became.
‘What do you want?’