The Con Artist

by Kitty Thomas

  She could finally empathize with the women who’d been lured into his bed.

  She’d thought surely he must be a selfish lover from the way he’d denied her. But now, the careful attention he paid to each inch of her body unsettled everything she’d believed until this point. No truth ever stayed bolted down for long with Quill. There was always a new layer to pull away. Some of them made her hate him, and some of them only made her want him more.

  A desperate mewling sound left her mouth when he pulled away from her. Moments later, she heard buzzing. He pressed the vibrator against her nipples as if to give her a sense of it. It had a small rounded tip, meant to stimulate externally only. She found herself disappointed it wasn’t something larger—something meant for penetration. She needed a full thick cock so much she was practically salivating for it.

  With the blindfold covering her eyes, the only images she could see in her mental field of vision were dicks and phallic-shaped objects. It was like a sexual acid trip. She didn’t feel real. Nothing felt real except the need.

  He moved the vibrator between her legs, dragging the tip over her labia, circling back each time to her clit, then away, then back. Driving her insane. Which was probably his intent.

  She might need regular psychotropic medication just from her interactions with him.

  When he allowed her to come, the sounds emitting from her throat were nothing short of a primal scream.

  As soon as her orgasm ran its course, he went back to the box. She tensed when she heard the rumbling of the search, still not convinced pain wasn’t coming. Maybe he’d lulled her into a false sense of safety with plans to rip her out of it more violently later.

  First a gasp, then a deep moan left her as a hard glass dildo started moving in and out of her. She was so wet by now that it made an embarrassing sloshing sound.

  “Yes, you should blush,” Quill said. “Such a filthy sexual animal. You may as well be rutting in a cornfield somewhere.”

  And those words.

  Those fucking evil words just made her wetter and hotter for him. And he knew it. There was no mistake as the sound grew more intense. She lifted her hips trying to gain deeper penetration. It was smaller than the toy from his office, which only made her want his cock instead of this lesser substitution. And she was sure he knew that. She was convinced by now that he knew everything.

  Slowly in. Out. In. Out. Like yogic breathing or gentle waves beating the shore at low tide. He pulled another orgasm from her this way... a deeper one, one that erupted from inside and flowed outward. When he touched her clit, she wanted penetration. When he penetrated her, she wanted him to touch her clit. He alternated back and forth between the two forcing her body to accept orgasm over and over in whichever way he chose to deliver it.

  He never told her how many times he’d make her come. She never asked him to stop because he always switched the stimulation to a less sensitive area long enough for her to recover.

  Suddenly something hard and plastic prodded at her mouth.

  “It’s water. Drink. You’re going to fucking dehydrate at this rate.” As if this were her fault.

  Saskia gratefully drank down the water as he tipped the bottle back for her.

  When she was finished, he went back to the vibrator, focusing it in intense circles in exactly the right spot. She was on the edge again when he stopped, and the buzzing stopped.

  She squirmed, shamelessly humping the air. “Please...”

  He removed the blindfold. Was he done with her? What about his needs? She could now see the impressive erection straining against the fabric of his pants. She couldn’t believe how badly she wanted it inside her.

  “Please, Quill... please fuck me... I need...”

  He froze. “What did you just call me?”

  “I’m sorry, Master.” Saskia looked away, sure her face must be bright red. She couldn’t believe she’d called him that out loud.

  He chuckled, an amused sparkle in his eyes. “That’s fucking adorable, but it’s your last slip-up. You absolutely can never call me that in public.”

  “Y-yes, Master.”

  “So that’s the version of me you’ve settled on. That’s who you see me as in your head. I suspected it would be. It’s the only way any of this can be okay for you isn’t it?”

  “Yes, Master.”

  He nodded. “So tell me... Who do you belong to?”

  “You, Master. You. Please fuck me... please,” she whimpered. It was so pathetic that if she’d had any shame left she surely would have died of it.

  Quill crossed his arms over his chest and regarded her seriously. “No. Not yet. I told you. You haven’t begged enough yet. But I won’t leave you completely frustrated.”

  He turned the vibrator back on. “I want your eyes on mine this time. I want you with me while this happens, okay?”

  “Y-yes, Master.”

  It was more difficult than she imagined to hold his stern gaze as the vibrator caressed the bundle of nerves between her thighs. The blindfold had been a sort of mercy. Closing her eyes would have been equally kind.

  But he refused to let her hide from him. As if she weren’t already as open to him as she could possibly be—he wanted her with him mentally and emotionally. Simple eye contact was the most naked of all the things he’d demanded of her.

  The instinct to close her eyes to seek some private shelter in which to find her pleasure was strong, but she forced herself to hold his gaze as she came again.

  “Good girl,” he said as he turned off the vibrator.

  Saskia’s panting breath slowly resumed its normal cadence. She couldn’t stop the words that spilled out next. “I don’t understand why you won’t fuck me. Do you not want me? Don’t you find me attractive?”

  God, was she really doing this? Was this his plan? Play on her insecurities? If so, it was working. Perhaps too well. She’d been so busy being half afraid he’d rape her that she hadn’t been prepared for this utter rejection. She’d thought she’d have to steel herself against the idea of him fucking her because there still existed a hollow echo of the way she’d seen him when he was just a too-rich business man who always got his way.

  Instead, she was begging for it. Just like he’d promised she would. Yet somehow she’d believed he was all talk, that she might have to beg in some token way, and then he’d fuck her. She hadn’t even believed she’d be safe from his cock if she chose not to beg. She thought he just had that much ego.

  He did have that much ego, but she kept falling into it and rolling around in it like a wanton whore.

  “Yes, Saskia, I find you very attractive. But despite all other evidence, I’m not an animal. And I said I would own you. I didn’t mean I would just control you physically and restrain and imprison you. I meant I would own you. I said you would beg and worship my cock. And I’ve decided it’s not time to fuck you yet. When I decide it’s time, you’ll be the first to know.”

  “But... I don’t understand why you don’t just take it...how can you...?”

  “How can I resist you? My, what a high opinion we have of ourselves. I get all of my needs met. Don’t worry.”

  Somehow it hadn’t occurred to her that he was fucking other women. Of course he could hold out indefinitely with her if that were the case. He could torture and tease her forever and never give her the filling penetration she so urgently needed now.

  She wasn’t his only source of pussy.

  But hadn’t she seen that was the situation with her own eyes at the club? He hadn’t been fucking those two girls, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t planned to. He’d just been interrupted.

  And with her sleeping in the cage in the gallery, anyone might be warming his bed at night.

  She felt suddenly more exposed lying as she was, spread open before him, evidence of her pleasure sliding down her thighs. While he rejected her.

  “Jealous?” he asked.

  She looked away.

  Quill moved closer until he stood just ove
r her. The fabric of his pants brushed the insides of her thighs. Her gaze slid involuntarily to the bulge in those pants.

  He took her chin in his hand and raised her gaze to his. “It is not your concern who I fuck. You belong to me, not the other way around. Is that understood?”

  “Yes, Master.”

  “Good girl.”

  She glanced back to his erection. “But don’t you at least want...?”

  He smiled that dark smile. “Don’t I at least want what?”

  Saskia licked her lips. “Can I? Um... please can I... help you out there?”

  He smirked. “Not right now. We have a lot to accomplish today, and we’ve wasted far too much time already. Contrary to what young men may have told you to get inside your panties, we really won’t die if we don’t fuck something.”

  Quill removed the butt plug. Saskia had somehow forgotten it was there. She’d been too distracted by the endless pleasure to be concerned about a little mild anal penetration.

  He unlocked the cuffs around her wrists and ankles and pocketed the key. “Now, pull yourself together, get dressed, and come back to the studio. We have a lot of work ahead of us.”

  He left her and shut himself in the bathroom. From this end of the gallery, she could hear the shower water running. Saskia was sure he was jerking off in there and found herself strangely jealous of his hand.

  Chapter Eleven

  Saskia’s hand was cramping by the time they’d finished painting for the day. She lay back on the chaise while Quill straightened the space. It didn’t matter how much they’d worked; he wasn’t willing to let the studio turn into her own personal hurricane.

  “Stay here,” he said when all the tubes of paint were closed and put away and the brushes had been cleaned.

  She was only too happy to comply. They’d taken a brief break for lunch and another for dinner, but both had been hurried. No words had passed between them in the dining room as they’d eaten. There had been no time for anything fancy for lunch. Just sandwiches. One of the servants had somehow gotten him to sit still long enough for roasted chicken when dinnertime came but only because it was done and ready to put on the table when he reached the dining room.

  There was an intensity about Quill while he was in this art zone. Saskia had never seen anything like it. Once they’d started sketching and painting, sex wasn’t a thing that existed for him.

  There was no innuendo, no inappropriate touches. It was as if everything that had happened before in the gallery had been a mere mirage. She was sure if she asked him about it, he’d tell her she was crazy, that it had never happened.

  How could he flip a switch and compartmentalize all of that? As much as he liked his kink, art came first. If she wanted to be jealous of something, it should be the art. The art was his first love, and Saskia would never unseat her.

  When Saskia stood behind a canvas with a brush in hand, she was just his student. All he cared about were the colors, the brush strokes, and bleeding her soul out with carefully mixed pigments for the consumption of the masses. Or that was the hope, anyway—that the masses would consume.

  Nothing could sway his focus from trying to teach her to somehow translate all the things pent up inside her onto canvas.

  She’d had no idea what she would paint until she started. Saskia closed her eyes, remembering what Quill had said in the studio.

  “You don’t decide what to paint. The subject picks you. What’s inside you? What are you consumed with?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You know. Put it on the canvas.”

  She hesitated.

  “I need to sketch it first.”

  “I don’t care what you need to do. Do it. Stop holding back. You have so much promise. It’s all there in your portfolio, you have to stop painting what you think the world wants to see and start painting what you actually have to say. No one in this world gives a shit about your hollow fakery. Least of all, me.”

  She’d been so intimidated by his technique. She knew even beginning painters could learn to paint wet-on-wet, and she could do it if someone held her hand step-by-step and gave her something specific to paint and walked her through it. But she just couldn’t see a painting that way. She couldn’t think that fast. Quill had confirmed that the thinking has to happen first, because when the paint is out, it’s too late to think. The luxury of slow-drying paint is necessary in wet-on-wet. But even that can only go so far.

  The Italian word for the technique was alla prima, which means: at first attempt. The idea of painting something right the first time in a single session or a couple of them stretched over two days at most—and that only if the paint dried slowly enough—intimidated the hell out of her. And it didn’t help with the artist she worshiped hovering over her. She was sure he would be more impressed with her if he’d let her paint the traditional way she was used to. Many layers... letting each dry in between. Then she could take days, weeks, months, a year or more if she wanted on a single painting. It was so much less pressure.

  “No, you’re overworking the brush. The colors are going all muddy,” he said.

  “I can’t do it this way!”

  “Of course you can. This is a single afternoon. Do you think I learned to paint like I paint in a single afternoon?”

  “No, but... I’ve been to art school. I’ve been painting for years.”

  “Not the right way. As far as I’m concerned you’re starting from scratch.”

  “Are you implying alla prima is the only right way to paint?”

  “Of course not, but if you have to let every layer dry, you’re stretching out the learning curve. You have to paint a lot to become great. You have to practice. The only way to do that with your technique and to actually progress at a reasonable rate is to have ten or more paintings going at once. And you’ll see uneven progress that way. If you will just try it my way, in a few weeks it will feel natural. And you’ll be able to produce far more work. I’ll walk you through it.”

  Saskia’s gaze drifted to her new work drying on the easel. It was a scene from the club they’d been at the previous night—everything she could call forth from memory of the rows of bird cages with women inside.

  Yes, he’d held her hand and walked her through each step of blocking things out and what to paint on top of what and when. The hardest part was not muddying the colors because she was used to not having to worry about that much at all. She disagreed with him that they were starting at square one. After all, she’d learned to draw in art school. She’d learned color mixing and canvas prepping and brush strokes. She’d been briefly taught wet-on-wet, but admittedly her instructor in that technique hadn’t been very good at teaching it. Not like Quill was. He seemed to anticipate her every question and frustration moments before she reached it.

  She hadn’t been able to remember the women clearly enough to paint them right because she’d had a hard time looking at them. The faces she painted instead were generic, invented in her mind. But even then... she’d been away from her own work for too long. Outside of forgeries, she was out of the practice of calling a vision forth from absolutely nothing and turning it into something worth looking at.

  “It’s a start,” Quill said, as he studied the finished piece hours after she’d blocked in the first bird cage. “We have a long road ahead of us, but it’s something. No promises, but I think I can work with this.”

  At least he got to paint a live person in front of him. Creating someone from imagination or re-creating them from a snapshot in one’s mind was a whole other skill set. He expected too much from her. He was the one with the track record—proof the world cared about his work. Saskia had no such encouragement beyond his word that it was inside her. But how could he possibly know what was inside her when she wasn’t sure herself?

  Quill returned with a cloth-covered first-aid wrap with a clay pack inside. He wound the cold pack around her hand. “I realize that was more than you expected to do today. I’ll try not to go so ha
rd on you in the future. I know it’s been a long time for you.” He bent to stroke the side of her face. “It’s been a long time for me, too.”

  He could fuck or play with a hundred women, but painting together was an intimacy he couldn’t and wouldn’t replace with another. It didn’t come close to forgiving the stalking, but a part of her understood the longing he’d felt to connect with someone on that level. To find someone to create with. In a way it was what everyone else did. Only others created babies, while she and Quill made art.

  She still couldn’t believe the first thing he’d painted after such a long hiatus, had been her. It was right out of her silly daydreams.

  “Rest your hand. Marcus is on his way to take care of you for the night.”

  Quill paused in the door on his way out. “For what it’s worth, I think you’re on to the right subject matter. I just don’t think you’re giving me everything. You’re playing too safe. You’re not saying anything. I don’t feel anything from you. You’re just documenting. Learning a new technique aside, what you gave me today is not the kind of thing that can make your name. You have to be willing to give more. I guess the real question is, how badly do you want it, Saskia?”

  He didn’t wait for an answer. If someone had asked her five years ago what she wanted, the answer would have been easy: To meet Joseph Quill. To paint like him. To become an artist who could live off her work while she was actually still living.

  Like him.

  Even if it turned out that most of his money came from running a tech company, it was still clear from the extraordinarily high prices his work fetched that he could have lived easily on just his painting if he’d wanted to. Though perhaps not to the same degree of comfort he enjoyed now as a dead artist. Or a living tech tycoon.

  He certainly wasn’t the only artist who hadn’t had to become a pretty corpse before making it, but he was the one whose work excited her the most—who most closely echoed what she wanted to be. With all her still lifes and innocent portraits and landscapes, she’d been dancing around the things she really wanted to paint. She wanted to paint the darkness, not the light... the shadows under the surface of a civilized world barely contained by rule of law.