‘Right one for the girls, he is. Come on, Angus. Come on. Leave her alone.’
Angus licked Greta’s leg and the taste of her bare flesh drove both the dog and its owner into paroxysms of hysteria. Angus started frothing at the mouth and howling, chasing its tail in circles, and the old lady was suddenly whipping the animal’s flanks with the lead.
‘Bloody fing. Come here,’ she was screaming. ‘We know what you need...’
Finally she got hold of Angus by the throat, attached the lead and gave it a good few whacks on the backside with the leather strap. The dog howled and Greta watched in horror.
‘It’s all right. They like a bit of discipline,’ she said, and owner and dog wandered off completely satisfied.
Greta looked up at the building. It was an old factory with the words Allon & Goldman in ancient lettering fading on the brickwork. She climbed the iron stairs to the loft and was surprised at the contrast when she pushed through the door into a modern studio with a polished beamed ceiling and a long glass wall facing the Thames. The space was ringed with numerous canvases that recalled the abstracts on Gustav’s walls.
The name on the slip of paper she had been given was Vanlooch and she didn’t know if that was Mr Vanlooch or just plain Vanlooch, but it was the sort of thing painters go in for. He was speaking on a mobile and she was sure she heard him say, ‘She’s here,’ before closing the machine. He watched her approach, the dress jingling as she moved through the big squares of sunlight that patterned the paint-dappled floor. Even the floor was a work of art.
‘This way,’ he said, and led her to the far corner where there was a bathroom. ‘You can hang your clothes in there. I want to make a start while we’ve got the light.’
A nude portrait, she thought. What else? She started removing Tara’s silver dress.
‘Everything,’ he said.
Vanlooch had appeared timid in the shoe store but standing there in his new shoes he was on his own territory and occupied the space like the captain of a ship, the studio with the water outside having a vaguely nautical air. He watched her undress, scratching his cheek while he made an appraisal of her body. Greta was entirely confident being naked, especially after that day in Camden Market, and only blushed at her own wantonness.
They crossed the studio to the windows and Vanlooch studied her in the light, her breasts, her arms, the tilt of her chin. He turned her round and, as Greta watched the people across the river washing their houseboats, he slipped to his knees as if in prayer to the holy orifice. He squeezed the cheeks of her backside, moulding her flesh like he was making a sculpture, and she wondered why men were so obsessed by bottoms, with her bottom. They were fixated, spellbound, overcome. They wanted to touch it and smack it, lick it and beat it with whips and belts. It was a pretty bottom, she’d always thought so, and while he nursed it in his palms she felt so ashamed as an oily teardrop leaked into her pubes. He ran the side of his finger like a saw between her legs and the breath caught in her throat as she grew wetter. Greta adored being touched, being fondled and fingered and it was frustrating because she hadn’t had sex since first thing that morning and it was already getting on for seven.
‘We ought to make a start,’ he said, and stood with a sigh.
Immediately behind them, flat on the floor, was a framed canvas, about six feet by four feet. It was pale blue like the sky outside, and around one end on the stained floorboards were numerous bowls of paint in every conceivable hue.
‘It’s acrylic,’ he said. ‘Washes off in a jiff.’
Vanlooch wasn’t looking at her. He was gazing at the bowls of paint as if in all those bright colours was a clue to the meaning of life. His hands, she noticed, were well shaped, his long slender fingers that were knitted together uncoiling as he came to a decision. He took a plastic cup, scooped up some pink paint and poured it into an empty bowl. He added a dash of vermilion with the tip of a wide brush. The pink was shot through with spirals of red, the paint darkening a tone as he stirred them together with a wooden spatula.
‘Come here and bend over,’ he said sternly.
Greta thought for a moment he was going to slap her arse. In fact, he did, but gently, and it tickled as he coated her bottom in the dark pink mixture with a wide brush.
‘Ooo,’ she said.
‘Don’t wriggle about. This is vital.’
He painted her bottom with infinite care, over the two plump cheeks and into the crease. She then had to sit on the top left hand corner of the canvas.
‘Stay there. And don’t move.’
He watched her like he was reading a foreign menu, waiting for the print to set. She began to get cramps sitting still for so long, but at that moment he reached for her with extended hands. ‘Easy now,’ he said, and pulled her slowly to her feet. He smiled for the first time.
She stood away and studied their handiwork.
‘Angel’s wings,’ Vanlooch said contentedly.
Dipping a fine brush into black paint, he skirted the outer edges of the print she’d made with narrow, fluttery chevrons. Greta was amazed as the picture emerged. The cheeks of her spread bottom had stamped two perfect wings, the contours from her flesh leaving a gauzy, diaphanous effect. Vanlooch’s swirling flicks with the brush created a feeling of movement, of flight. He was very clever.
Vanlooch took her hand and they stepped away. There was a bucket with a sponge and he used it to wash off the dried paint, over her cheeks, deep into the crack, the water running down her legs. She tilted forward as he swept the sponge between her thighs and worked it scrupulously into the runny cleft of her pussy. He wiped her dry and for some reason Greta remembered the girl in Gustav’s video towelling down the amber pony.
He started again, painting her bottom, squatting her down carefully beside the first set of angel’s wings and creating a matching pair, almost, but not quite identical. He produced the same feeling of movement with the black scribbles and washed her bottom and pussy, the sponge sliding over her distended clitoris and making her giggle.
They made 12 sets of angel’s wings, five along the top, with five making a mirror image facing them, and two more to fill in the gaps on each side. The outside edge of the canvas was now ringed by butterflies, with the heart of the painting empty. Greta wondered for a moment if they had finished and had no idea that they had only just begun.
Using pure vermilion, Vanlooch coated a brush and studied her nipples. ‘Good. Good, nice and hard,’ he said, and of course they were. Her bottom had been receiving so much interest, the darkened buds had sprung to attention. After painting her nipples with a generous layer of vermilion, he used another brush to coat the palms of her hands in pale green. Greta then had to do a sort of press up, supporting herself on her toes and lowering her breasts on to the top central half of the first set of wings. Her green hands with spread fingers made a pattern like the footprints of a bird as she repeated the exercise, the artist washing her hands and breasts between each print.
Her feet were next. He poured pale yellow into deep pink and blended a sort of amber colour. He pulled up a low stool for her and, as feet are so sensitive, she couldn’t stop giggling as he slapped the mixture on her soles. As Greta made her way across the canvas, just below the butterflies, he rushed round to meet her, the stool in hand. He washed her feet, it was awfully biblical, gave them a fresh coat, and she set off again, her light touch leaving a faint trail like a memory of something and you’re not sure what.
‘What do you think?’ he asked suddenly, staring at his work.
‘Mmm, it’s marvellous,’ she replied and he smiled broadly as he turned her around, holding her in profile and running his hands over her sides, his palms brushing against her taut nipples.
‘This is the important part,’ he now told her, and bent to pour gold paint into a fresh bowl.
Greta had to go down on her hands and knees to dip her hair into the bowl. She stood and while golden drips rained over her shoulders and breasts, he coated her ent
ire body in twisting swirls of pink in various shades and it was just so amazing, so weird, she thought, because that very morning she had awoken like a giant raspberry ripple with Tara warm and sticky at her side. Tara was so delicious, so creamy, the memory made her insides turn luxuriously moist.
She was enjoying herself. It was fun being an artist’s model and it seemed as if everything that had happened since she’d met Richard was connected; there was a pattern, however arbitrary, as free forming as Vanlooch’s canvas, a sort of surreal play with each scene an echo of something else. Except Bill Longman, perhaps. That was just a blip, the exception that proves the rule.
Once Vanlooch had completed his work with the brush, layering her entire body in shades of pink, Greta rolled across the canvas. He scrubbed her down while the acrylic was drying and painted her again, changing the depth of colour, the paint swirls like a misty veil that blurred without ever quite concealing the configuration of angel’s wings, the bright red stamps of her nipples, the pale green prints of her hands.
Vanlooch was getting excited, the paint going everywhere, over his face and hair, the floor, his white shoes, and Greta, being practical, couldn’t work out why he hadn’t worn an old pair. He went down on his knees and deftly applied a generous coating of nut-brown to her sticky pubes. The imprint she left on the canvas he assisted with flicks of a thin brush, making shadows, adding depth and contrast. She did it again and again, the browns and pinks and yellows building up in patterns that kept changing like the glass chips in a kaleidoscope.
‘It’s coming,’ he said, as they stood back to wait for the paint to dry.
The sun was slipping over the rooftops across the river. It was warm behind the glass walls. The light was orange, the sky clear and cloudless. Greta studied the canvas and was surprised to find that within the storm of colour, the angel’s wings, the brown triangles, the brilliant red dots from her nipples, the footprints and handprints, that from the pattern of swirls and abstract shapes the figure of a slender girl was emerging, shadowy and unformed, the mollusc from which the angels had flown, and if you half-closed your eyes they seemed to lift from the painting and hover in the still air.
Vanlooch mixed a bowl of white paint with a touch of brown and yellow, stirring the mixture with a spatula until it turned ivory, the colour of her skin. Greta then had to lay on her side, head up, back bowed, bottom pert, her arms stretched out, her legs behind her, bent slightly at the knees, her hair flying, her weight supported on her right thigh and shoulder.
‘Hold it. You mustn’t move,’ Vanlooch instructed as he reached for the bowl of ivory.
He ran paint about her profile, the flicking movements with the brush giving an effect of movement, and when he was done she had to remain immobile, a marble statue carved in full flight. She was getting cramp by the time Vanlooch was ready to release her. He lifted her legs to one side, balanced her feet on the floor and pulled her up in one movement.
He spent a long time adding fine lines of ivory paint in what to Greta at first seemed pure whimsy, although a new shape, new life, was evolving from the figure of the girl, another incarnation. She couldn’t yet make out what it was but it was exciting like being at a funfair and seeing yourself in the mirror maze, tall and short, fat and funny, as skinny as a thread, a child, an old woman, seeing yourself not as others see you but as you see yourself in your wildest fantasy.
Vanlooch was breathing faster, growing impatient.
‘Now, lay down, lay down,’ he instructed and Greta did as she was told, stretching out beside the canvas, resting on her elbows so that she could see what he was doing. This was art and important.
He took a clean brush, sucked the tip and slid it into her pussy. It came out slicked and silvery, so thick in juice she was embarrassed as she watched him applying her oils to the canvas, embarrassed and frustrated because she couldn’t see the picture transforming, just his hand as he added highlights. He was an old-fashioned clerk keeping a ledger, her pussy an inkwell, dipping the brush in, teasing her fluids over the canvas and coming back for more. It tickled and she giggled. She lifted her bottom and opened herself wider. She was trying to draw the paintbrush up inside her, but the artist knew what he wanted and that was the milky sap that welled over her lips.
‘Good, good,’ he said. ‘Nice and wet.’
Vanlooch was serious about his work. He teased the sticky stuff from her vulva and applied it pointillism style, stabbing the canvas with tiny dots, coming back for more. Greta became wetter, more animated. A long sigh escaped from her throat and, as she started to climax, Vanlooch loomed over her, eyes sparkling. He abandoned the brush and dipped his head between her legs. She trembled as she went into orgasm and he lapped at her pussy like a man finding water in the desert.
When the spasm ended, he grabbed a plastic cup and spat out her juices. ‘Delicious. Delicious,’ he said, rubbing his tongue over his teeth. He held the cup for her to see. ‘Now this is very important: spit, don’t swallow.’
She wasn’t sure what he meant, but it all became clear as he lowered his trousers and she found his little soldier standing rigidly to attention.
Spit, don’t swallow!
That’s a first, she thought. She took him into her mouth and he tasted faintly of talcum powder. He rocked back on his size 7 white shoes, his knees were shaking and she had to grip his thighs to make sure he didn’t fall over.
‘Don’t swallow,’ she heard him groan and she thought he must have been saving it for a long time because after just a few moments her mouth filled with hot sperm. He pumped away like he was filling a car and when he had shed the last little drop she dribbled it out into the cup that held her pussy juice.
‘We have created art, and art is life,’ he said breathlessly, and they gazed down at their pale milky fluids.
The painter returned to his work. He took a new brush, made a small puddle with their essence and added a touch of emerald green paint. He looked back at her and after adding a speck of yellow to the pool what Greta saw on the canvas was a mirror image, a single shiny eye, her eye with long brown lashes, a look of surprise but contentment, a look of trust and wonder. He added glossy highlights from the cup of sperm, instilled energy, life, a universe exploding, transforming, being reborn.
The light outside was fading. Vanlooch lifted the canvas and together they carried it to the windows. He stood the work in landscape on two easels and as Greta studied the painting she was speechless. She had been surprised to discover the figure of a girl among the swirls of paint. Now she was impressed.
The human figure was still there in shades of pink, as were the butterflies on angel wings, a reference to change, to evolution, the palm prints and footprints fading as if left behind on the sand as another figure takes flight amorphously across the canvas, a mythical creature at full gallop: a unicorn, she thought for a moment, but there was no horn on its brow.
Then she realised: it was a flying horse. That’s what Gustav had called her: Pegasus. And that’s how Vanlooch must have seen her: that was her potential, not to be earthbound, but to take wing and fly with the stars. Greta was totally in awe, as were the people who stood at the Royal Academy years later, moved by the work, unsure what it was exactly, what it meant exactly, but knowing deep down on some primitive level that the painting was iconic, spiritual, eternal and deeply mysterious.
‘It’s a masterpiece,’ she whispered.
‘It’s a start,’ he said. ‘Masterpieces take time.’
As Greta moved to one side to study the painting from a different angle, the glossy green eye followed her.
As she turned to Vanlooch, his mobile rang and he gave the machine straight to her.
‘It’s for you.’
‘Me?’
‘Hi, Greta.’ It was Tara.
‘How did you know I was here?’ she asked. ‘How did you get this number?’
‘Guess who’s waiting for you at the club?’
‘For me?’
‘Rich
ard and Gustav,’ she said breathlessly, and lowered her voice. ‘They’re absolutely gorgeous.’
‘Richard and Gustav, there?’
Tara didn’t answer. Richard came on the line and told her there was a car waiting outside and she had to come immediately.
‘But I’m covered in paint...’
‘What colour?’
‘What... pink and white and brown and yellow, oh and red and gold...’
‘A rainbow girl. Come as you are, Greta May.’
And at that he hung up.
That was the game. The rules. The pact. It was such joy to hear his voice. His commands.
She was sticky, spermy, sweaty and with paint all over her body she looked like a fragment taken from the canvas. She dressed, Vanlooch waved without taking his eyes from the painting, and a mini-cab zoomed back over the Albert Bridge taking her to Hades in Mayfair where the two-metre tall doorman took a step back as if he was about to be attacked by a wild Valkyrie.
Greta understood why when she was ushered through to the dressing room where Tara was waiting for her.
‘It suits you,’ said Tara as she ran the zip down the back of her dress and hung it on a hanger.
Greta stood motionless, staring at her reflection in the mirror. Her hair was golden and stuck out in points like the Statue of Liberty and every inch of her body was covered in pink graffiti. She was a message from another dimension. Actually, she was a mess.
‘You look like you’ve been having fun.’
‘I’ve been painted.’
‘So I can see,’ said Tara.
Tara then explained that two girls were off sick and they had a party of very important businessmen in from the EU. Tara unhooked Greta’s silver bra.
‘This is your chance, Greta.’
And the penny dropped. She was expected to dance, and she had never done it before.
‘No way,’ she said.
‘Richard suggested it.’
At that, Richard poked his head around the door and she was so pleased to see him.
‘Break a leg,’ he said, and left again.
A Girl's Adventure - full length erotic novel Page 10