Hesitant, yet somehow excited, Hannah rose and turned. Awkwardly, she straddled the seat, then lowered back down with caution so as not to tear her skirt. Her hem eased up, exposing her stockings where she had rolled them right above the knees. Her cheeks blazing hotter, she clutched the arc of the backrest.
“Good, good,” said Pavel, glancing at her absently as though it were nothing.
And indeed, it is nothing, she told herself. He was an artist, she was his model, this was the twentieth century, and she was mature enough to show a hint of flesh.
A good model was expected to hold a pose for half an hour at a time. Hannah attempted to find her space, as the girls called it. She stared out the window and watched a small flock of pigeons where they had roosted beneath an eave of the building across the street. Yet after ten minutes or so, her spine and shoulders ached mildly from holding the same position, one that her body was not accustomed to.
“You must relax,” said Pavel. “Your posture, it is too rigid.” Or ree-geed, as he pronounced it.
“My apologies,” Hannah murmured, embarrassed that he had noted her discomfort. She took a slow, steady breath, then eased her grip on the chair. One hand slipped down the curved wood. Quickly, she resumed her hold.
Pavel clucked his tongue. “No, that will not do. Stand up.”
Hannah rose, prepared to leave, believing she had just been dismissed from the session early. She smoothed her skirt back into place.
Pavel set his palette aside and gestured toward the squared dining table. “Come, have a cup of tea, and then we finish.”
Surprised, and grateful, Hannah took her seat at the table. Pavel placed a cup and saucer before her, then one at his place. The floor creaked as he strolled to the stove and retrieved the smaller teakettle.
She watched him pour only an inch of tea into her cup; the brew so dark, it was black. He did likewise with his own cup, and she sniffed at the strong aroma. Curious, she raised the cup to her lips for a tiny taste.
She jumped as Pavel softly gripped her wrist. He smiled down at her and shook his head with a low chuckle.
“No, you do not want to drink the zavarka. Your heart, it will beat so hard, you will think you are dying.” Releasing his grip, he lifted the lid and tilted the kettle to one side. He sloshed the liquid, revealing a thick sludge of compacted tea leaves which filled half the pot.
Hannah’s eyes widened at the strong tea. She laughed and shook her head, yet inside she trembled at the lingering warmth of his touch upon her wrist.
Pavel returned to the stove for the larger kettle. Slowly, he trickled clear, hot water into her cup, diluting the concentrated tea. “This is how we drink tea in Russia,” he explained. “I do not have the proper pots, but I make do.”
Hannah sweetened her cup with two sugar cubes, then added a third after the first sip made her wince. She did not understand how Pavel could drink his black. After they had finished, they resumed their stations. Less embarrassed, Hannah recreated her pose as closely as possible.
Several minutes passed. Her shoulders began to ache again, along with a new tension in the seat of her thighs.
“You are tired?” Pavel’s question shattered their mutual silence.
She nodded. “A little. My arms, and my back—”
Pavel held up one hand, indicating no further explanation was necessary. He set the brush and palette on the tray and walked to a cedar armoire. He rummaged inside.
He came toward her, a coil of shiny brown jute in his hands. “We will tie your hands in place,” he said casually.
For a moment, Hannah found his suggestion alarming. Yet artists tended to be eccentric—foreign artists more so. And really, his idea seemed practical.
As he secured her wrists to the narrow, whittled spindles of the backrest, Pavel talked with her, putting her more at ease.
“Why do you model?”
Hannah peered up at him through lowered lashes.
“My mother needs help with the rent and my sisters’ schooling,” she said. “She’s a music teacher, but she can only take on as many students as time allows.”
“You have lost your father?” he asked.
“Yes, he passed two years ago.”
“And he left no money?”
While Hannah’s family found her father’s lack of success embarrassing among their social circle, which included successful Broadway playwrights, she knew an artist who lived as modestly as Pavel would understand.
“He wrote and directed plays for one of the theatres here in the Village. He left—debts—and the royalties are modest at best.”
“Ah, I see. But why do you model? A nice, pretty girl like you could find work at one of the shops, no? Ride the new subway up the street to Macy’s?” He smiled down at her. “Do not tell me a starving artist pays more.”
Hannah laughed, her self-consciousness waning. “I watched the front counter for a milliner. La Doña came in to buy a hat.” And what a hat it had been, the wide horsehair brim decorated with the plumage of an entire pheasant! “She invited me to work for her.”
Pavel concentrated on the knot he was tying. “You found work as a salesgirl tedious. Her proposition intrigued you.”
“Yes,” Hannah nodded, surprised he understood. She also inexplicably found herself charmed with the way he drew the short i sound in to a long ee. Sensing a kinship, her comfort growing, she opened to him more. “I come from a family of artisans—writers, musicians, painters. I am the only one who does not bear a natural talent. I thought modeling might prove a way to contribute to the arts.”
Pavel grunted. “My father was a farmer, and his father before him. And yet I paint. For you, it is different. It is in your blood. In time, you will find your talent.”
The final knot cinched, Pavel knelt to inspect his handiwork. His face drew level with hers. His breath bore a hint of alcohol, while his hair smelled of macassar oil, and his shirt of light sweat. She caught herself inhaling and deep, savoring his masculine scent. Perhaps it was the lingering effects of the strong Russian tea, but her face grew hot once more, and her stomach quivered. She shifted her gaze, shy and timid all over again.
“I do not wish to staunch the flow of blood,” he explained. “Is the rope too tight?”
“No,” she answered. “It’s fine.”
Hannah loosed her grip, her forearms hanging limp. The coarse fibers of the jute cut slightly into her flesh, but did not prove uncomfortable. The strain on her shoulders lightened, which in turn alleviated the pressure on her spine.
She stared back out the window. The pigeons had taken leave. With her posture relaxed, and nothing to focus on, her eyes swam and her vision blurred. Instead, she focused inwardly, at the strange tickle of heat growing between her legs.
He is painting me, she thought. He is painting my thigh where my dress has ridden up, painting the strip of flesh between the hem of my skirt and the top of my stocking.
She thought of both his eyes and the brush following the path up her hip, over the curve of her buttocks, up the arch of her spine. A light throb began to pulse between her legs, and her cotton knickers dampened against the seat of the chair. She squirmed, attempting to quell the pleasant yet discomfiting sensation, which bordered on the need to urinate, yet she sensed her body sought some other form of release. To her dismay, her movements only served to exacerbate the strange palpitations.
“The first layer is finished,” he announced at long last. “Do you wish to see?”
“Yes,” she muttered, her throat gone dry while elsewhere she had grown quite moist. By the time he had finished unknotting the jute, she found herself badly in need of another drink. Legs trembling, she rose and followed Pavel to view his side of the easel.
While he had conveniently left out any signs of her ligatures, he had included more honest details than any artist she had posed for. Stunned, a tiny shock coursed through her as she viewed herself through the émigré’s eyes.
He had tinted her blonde h
air a rich shade of gold, depicting her fringe curls exactly as they fell into her eyes, the blue orbs brilliant as sapphires. The angle of her face emphasized the cut of her cheekbones, chiseled high beneath her cherubic cheeks. And where others had painted her lips in a puckered Cupid’s bow, Pavel had captured the natural shape of her wide, overly-generous mouth, and somehow made it flattering.
Her gaze drifted downward, and she saw he had indeed painted her lower torso as she had envisioned, lending her curves an elegant grace rather than grotesque exaggeration.
“I will add more color over the next few days,” he explained, almost apologetically.
Hannah nodded, familiar with the layering technique of oil painters. She wondered if Pavel’s work was this vivid and beautiful already, how the portrait might look once the final layer was set.
“Is that really me?” she asked before she could stop herself.
“It is what I see, yes,” he said. His tone was not flirtatious, but objective, and yet it was the kindest compliment a man had ever paid her.
She bade him goodbye with five wrinkled, paint-stained bills in hand—two for her employer, two for her mother, and one precious dollar to spend on herself as she saw fit. She promised that yes, should Pavel specifically request her, she would be most happy to pose for him the following week.
As she strode down the sidewalk, she rolled her hips, just a little. Men openly turned and watched as she walked past.
She waited at the curb, observing that the automobiles had begun to outnumber the carriages. For the past year now, a rumor had circulated that horses on the street would soon be outlawed under the premise of a health ordinance.
Up until a few weeks ago, Prohibition had been a rumor as well, with liquor merchants certain The Volstead Act would never be enforced by the Constitution itself. Overnight, the ban had become reality, with stores boarded up, saloon owners serving soft drinks, and delivery boys forced to empty their oak kegs into sewer holes. The streets had reeked of discarded alcohol for days.
The traffic guard blew his whistle and ushered Hannah and her fellow pedestrians across the cobblestone street.
“G’day, lass,” the Irish officer winked at her, tipping his hat with one white-gloved hand. Hannah smiled back and delicately sidestepped a pile of manure crossed with tire marks. Safely reaching the opposite curb, she rubbed her wrists, the flesh marked by the twine. The spot between her legs tingled in response, while she knew the Irishman’s eyes were on her backside.
***
When Hannah next returned to the studio, the roses had begun to open, the veins of the petals gone purple where they had absorbed the blue-tinted water.
In her new satin pumps, her feet ached.
“Let us try a similar experiment as before,” Pavel said.
Hannah complied as he tied her wrists behind the chair. Recalling her reaction from their previous session, the feel of the jute incited her arousal as it wrapped against her flesh. In an attempt to allay further stimulation, she relaxed the small of her back and slouched down, transferring the pressure of the maple seat against her sex to the cushion of her rump. Her shoulders curved against the spindles, lending her further comfort.
Her wrists secured, Pavel knelt to her side as he bound her left ankle to the baluster-turned chair leg.
“Your feet are swollen,” he observed. He loosed the ribbon that held her shoe in place and then slipped the shoe off her foot. As his fingers gently enclosed her ankle, a pleasant shiver ran up the back of her leg and thrilled through her spine. She wiggled her pinched toes in gratitude.
“The silk stockings, they are nicer than cotton,” he commented, “but I liked your boots better.” He followed suit with her right foot, the effect of his touch upon her no less scintillating.
Her feet relieved, she relaxed her calves, then her thighs, which in turn eased the weight on her buttocks, deepening the curve of her spine. Her breasts thrust forward, straining at the buttons of her dress.
Hannah had recently tried on her slimmer sister’s brassiere, but the undergarment had proved too binding and uncomfortable. She had resigned herself to a bust bodice, as her mother wore, the whalebone seams lifting and shaping her bosom rather than compressing it as her orchid dress had been cut for.
Pavel took note of her predicament. His eyebrows arched a moment, though he maintained his composure. “May I?” he asked, levelly. “Only one or two.” He wetted his lips with the tip of his tongue, then quickly added, “I will pay more, of course.”
“Yes,” she murmured, the heat growing between her parted thighs.
Pavel reached out toward her breasts, then drew back. He pulled the paintbrush from behind his ear.
“My one sable brush,” he explained. “I have never used it. I am saving it for my masterpiece.”
With the tapered end of the wooden handle, he popped the first two buttons of her dress free. The top of her breasts swelled forth.
Tied, unable to get away, she closed her eyes. She leaned her head back, resting the base of her skull against the arc of the chair.
“Yes, like that,” Pavel said excitedly. “You are a natural model.” He stepped around her.
The tension on her scalp dissipated as he removed the two tortoiseshell combs from her topknot. Lock by lock, her curls tumbled free of the tight coil. Languidly, Pavel raked them with his fingers. The scent of elderflower oil enveloped her.
That past Saturday, she had taken advantage of the warm weather and washed her hair. She had then reclined on the settee under her bedroom window and read Kipling’s The Years Between for two hours while her locks hung out the window to dry. With much of the collection influenced by the loss of the poet’s son to The Great War, she had paid particular note to his lamentation, “Russia to the Pacifists”. Afterward, she had used the fragrant elderflower oil to smooth her curls where the soap had left them parched like dry wool. Overwhelmed by Kipling’s imagery of the horrors of war, she had shifted her thoughts and considered perhaps it was time to brave the barbershop and request a Castle clip. Enough women did it now that the barbers no longer refused them service.
“Your hair brushes the floor,” Pavel said, his tone one of admiration. “It is good you do not cut it like many of the girls do now.”
Hannah stifled a gasp. It was as if Pavel had seen into her very thoughts!
His touch lingered against her scalp, and she felt his gaze upon her, knew he stared down her bodice where he had unbuttoned her dress.
“Perfect,” he murmured. “We will make beautiful work today.”
As he painted, she began talking, no longer lending credence to the rules set forth by her employer. Her speech drifted, slow and languid, reflecting her mellowed state as her repose deepened.
Inadvertently, she mimicked his speech pattern. “The other girls, they say you are a Marxist.”
“Yes,” he answered. “Does this bother you?”
“No.” She meant to lie, so as not to offend him; but as she answered, she realized no, Pavel’s political leanings were truly of no consequence. “I have wondered, why have so many Marxists left Russia and gone on to Europe or America?”
He did not answer right away. As the sunlight danced behind on her closed eyes, she heard him dabbing and mixing the paint, followed by quick strokes against the cloth of the canvas.
“We do not agree with the Bolsheviks,” he finally said. “We were to declare rule by the people. Instead, the Bolsheviks declared a new order. They are nothing more than little tsars in disguise.”
“So you are an anarchist?” she asked.
“You ask many questions today.”
“I’m sorry,” she mumbled.
He chuckled softly. “I do not mind, Hannah. No, I am not an anarchist. I am an artist first, a Marxist second. We were told we must devote our work to the new State. I wish to create of my own…how do you say in English, to act of one’s own will…”
“Volition?” she offered.
“Yes. Of my own v
olition.” He pronounced the short i with his usual ee. His tone grew tense. “I have a friend back home, a poet. I do not even receive half of her letters now. When I do receive her letters, she speaks of how difficult it is for painters and writers in the Motherland. They are no longer granted exit permits because of the émigrés who denounce the Bolsheviks from abroad.”
“And you are free here in America to paint as you wish?” she asked.
He waited a while to answer again. “No. I paint now to survive.” She sensed the discord in his voice, heard the brush tap impatiently against the palette. “Though I enjoy my work with you. It is true to my vision.”
Her scalp suddenly warmed, and the light brightened. Infused by the solar onslaught, the scent of elderflower cloyed around her.
Pavel gasped. “The Muse smiles upon us today, Hannah. Wait a moment longer, I must add a new layer of pigment to your hair.”
Eventually, her face cooled, the sunlight having passed over, though bright spots still danced in front of her eyes. She heard Pavel’s footsteps approach, detected his shadow where it passed her. Opening her eyes, she stared up at him a moment. He stood above her, tall and lofty, as she sat in a position of vulnerability. A brief vision played through her mind, of Pavel stroking her hair once more, then leaning down to kiss her.
With a surge of alarm at such wayward musings, she tilted her head forward. Her curls, still warmed, caressed her flushed face like a curious lover.
She waited patiently while Pavel unknotted her wrists. He came to kneel between her knees. As he unbound her ankles, he seemed to focus deliberately on her feet, ignoring the way her legs parted and her skirt rose. His breath tickled against one calf, sending a thrill through her, heating her further.
Mutely, one tortoiseshell comb pursed between her lips, she twisted her hair back into place and then she followed him to view their work for the day.
She stared at the image in awe. The sun had rendered her curls a lustrous shade of titian, and lent the visible flesh of her scant profile a radiant peach. Pavel had detailed the taut sinews of her arched throat, her skin pale and smooth where the deft stroke of his brush dipped down to the ripe swell of her breasts. She flushed at the hint of pink where the rounded edge of her nipple lay exposed. Her blush deepened at the peak of her nipple outlined between the whalebone and against the sheer fabric of her bodice. The slight inclination of her face rendered the subject unidentifiable, lending the image a mysterious, secretive feel.
A Rose of Any Color: MaleDom: A BDSM Anthology Page 20