‘I’ve destroyed everything I’ve ever painted.’
I stare at him. ‘Why?’
‘Wasn’t good enough.’ His voice is light, but I feel the intensity behind his words. I can’t connect.
I spear a piece of chicken and put it into my mouth. ‘What is it you are aiming for?’
He puts down his fork. ‘I want to make art that means something.’
I look at him blankly.
‘Do you know anything about art?’
I shake my head. ‘My knowledge of art starts and ends with recognition of the Mona Lisa as one of the greatest paintings.’
‘The destruction of art began in 1917 when an ignorant Dadaist, Marcel Duchamp, re-orientated a urinal ninety degrees from its normal position and called it art. It was actually a challenge from an anti-art advocate. Art, he was saying, is meant to be pissed on, but the fools who act as gatekeepers in the art world turned around and embraced the urinal, saw beauty where there should have been none.’
My eyebrows rise. ‘Really? A urinal was considered art?’
‘With that one move he turned the experience of art away from a quest for beauty into a sense of distaste. The viewer is presented with something ugly, tasteless, depressing and empty of any technical skill, and asked to admire it. If he cannot then he must be an intellectual philistine. To make it in the new art world all the artist had to do was can his own excrement, submerge a crucifix in his own urine; saw a calf in half, pickle it in brine, and exhibit it in a glass case; stud a skull with diamonds, or liquidize goldfish in blenders. So modern art became a smirking, degenerate thing whose sole purpose seems to be to trivialize or destroy.
‘But the truth is real beauty is rare, and producing it even harder. Far from being an old-fashioned idea, beauty has the ability to tantalize and crush. Humans have an intense response to beauty. In all aspects of life we worship it: people, fashion, photography, homes, nature, films. We are even obsessed. My aim is simple. I want to create dangerous beauty.’
I stare at him, his passion. He seems beautiful beyond what I thought. At that moment I admire him. Am I like that with flowers? Maybe. No. Definitely not. I love flowers, but I could easily live without them. The search for the perfect arrangement does not consume me. I have quite happily sent out flower arrangements that were not the best that I could do. I have never destroyed even a mediocre arrangement. Ziporrah would kill me if I did. He, on the other hand, is committed to producing something great, and until he does he will not rest.
‘You really love your art, don’t you?’
‘Art is the only thing that has ever taken me away from the bullshit. They can take away all my possessions, but they can never take away my art.’
‘So how do you make money to live then?’
‘I had a small amount of money left to me. Blake manages it for me.’ And then he closes over, and I wish I had not asked him about money. He was beautiful when he was talking about art.
After dinner we put the dishes in the dishwasher and Vann feeds Smith. Afterwards he turns to me. ‘Ready to be ravished?’
I grin. ‘Since I walked through the door.’
He takes my hand and starts running to the bedroom with me following and laughing. In the bedroom he stops. ‘I want a striptease.’
I start unbuttoning my top and then I have to laugh. This is just not me.
‘When you take your clothes off, have a plan. Don’t fuck around.’
‘That’s easy for you to say, you’re not doing it.’
‘Do you want me to?’
I jump on the bed and lie with my hands linked behind my head. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, Vann Wolfe will be taking his clothes off now.’
Looking into my eyes he grasps the edges of his T-shirt and pulls it over his head, his head flowing back gracefully, challengingly. I whistle. Ignoring me he tugs his boots and tosses them behind him. I raise an eyebrow to distract him, but he smiles and nods as if to say, I know your game.
He rolls his socks, one at a time, down, and eases them off. Then he points his toes away from me, twists his torso and unbuckles his brown leather belt. Pulls it through the loops and lets it dangle from one finger. By now you’d think I’d be holding my belly, splitting my sides from laughing, but no. I am in thrall.
Already I can feel his pulse as he sinks his cock deep into me.
He grasps the button next. The zip peels away. A white bulge. The faded jeans slide down, down, down. My pussy starts to quietly sob. He turns to face me. Doesn’t pose or anything. Just stands there, panther-like, in his jockeys. I try to look for imperfections. Is he too broad? No. His hips too narrow? Nope. Hair too long? Possibly. But in the end any imperfections only make for his perfection and I am throbbing with excitement. Unsustainable psychedelic jolts are shooting through my body, paralyzing me. I know how this unfolds. It unfolds in a tangle of limbs with me being speared right between the legs. But it’s the waiting that’s the killer.
‘What are you waiting for? Take it off.’ My voice sounds like a sleep time purr.
He vaults onto the bed suddenly, startling me. I squeal inelegantly.
He leans back against the pillow, his hands behind his neck. ‘Some things have to be earned.’
A rush of pure lust floods me. The ripples keep on happening. ‘No kidding,’ I say and peel his underwear off.
His eyes flare with excitement. Like a parrot that is offered a peanut. I lick his cock like it is a melting ice cream, upwards. His cock is thick, salty, satin on my tongue. I like that. A calorie-free treat. That’s a mental tattoo. A voice in my head. Keep it light and sexy, Sugar. I wrap my lips over it and swirl my tongue around it.
‘I wish I could be your angel.’
That’s heavy stuff. ‘Why?’
‘Make you see.’
‘See what?’
‘Never mind. We’re not on the same page.’
That’s fine then. I don’t want to talk. There is a storm in my pussy trying to find its way home.
Then I go back to mindlessly sucking thick, salty satin. When he flips me over and does his thing, and the release comes, it is insanity in a bucket.
Ciao, everybody.
Twenty-two
I dream of painting and then I paint my dream.
—Vincent Van Gogh
When the urge hits you, it’s hard to resist. That afternoon on the way to Vann’s it hits me. I speed-walk to Tesco, grabbing two packets of crisps from the newsagents on the way, because I can’t wait that long to shove something down my gullet. I whizz around the supermarket almost in a panic, piling my basket with anything at all that takes my eye. I have everything I fancy. And I mean everything.
The woman at the checkout, an old dear, smiles. ‘Having a party?’
Grasping my plastic bag, I hurry as fast as I can to Vann’s flat. I get in and it is quiet. He is working upstairs. I know he will not come out for hours yet. I sit at the dining room table and, opening my stash, I begin to gorge. Quickly, as if I am in a race. Stuffing my mouth, hardly chewing, swallowing. Savoury followed by sweet, sweet followed by savoury, savoury followed by sweet. I race through the food. Racing. Racing. When I am almost full I relax. I eye the food left over on the table. There is still more space inside me. I indulge again. Until I am so stuffed I can hardly breathe. I relax. The panic has gone…
Instead I feel a sick smugness, a delicious comfort that I can actually get away with eating a whole pack of biscuits, half a chocolate fudge cake, an entire box of cream cakes, half a tub of ice cream, five packets of crisps, half a cold pizza and cheese macaroni. I can have the last laugh.
I go to the tap and drink as much water as I can. Then I go to the bathroom, hang my head over the toilet bowl and reverse all that damage. I am sitting on the floor, tears in my eyes, the disgusting smell of my own vomit rising around me, when the door opens and Vann is standing there. For a while he says nothing, simply looks at me.
In my head I hear a hiss, like the hiss of limestone caves.
For those moments I am terrified that I will see disgust and rejection in his face. I have excuses up my sleeves. I have had them for a long time. Only I haven’t ever had to use them before. I open my mouth. He comes forward, lightning quick, two strides. He crouches beside me and put his fingers on my lips.
‘I saw the packets. It’s all right.’
And I slump against the wall. Relieved that no lies are necessary. Relieved that another human being knows. Relieved that it is him and not Jack. With him it doesn’t matter. With him I can be myself. Show my true face. Even the ugly one. He accepts me just as I am. Everything that I am. There is no need to pretend or hide.
‘I was once very fat,’ I whisper.
‘The other kids were cruel?’
‘Vicious.’
‘Hmnnnn…’
‘I’m afraid the damage is invisible but extensive.’
‘Hmnnnn…’
‘I don’t do it all the time. I’m not bulimic or anything.’
‘I know. Afternoons and evenings are the hardest, huh?’
‘Yeah.’
‘It’s when your blood sugar dips lowest.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘You’ve nothing to be sorry for, Sugar.’ He stands up, flushes the toilet, takes a face towel from the rail, and goes to the sink. I watch him open the mixed tap, and wait with his finger in the water stream, and only when it is warm does he wet the edge of the towel. He comes towards me, gets on his haunches and gently wipes my face.
I feel so confused. Someone once told me, it is in the little things that people reveal their true nature. Anyone can make the grand gesture, light up the sky once with a banner that says, ‘I love you,’ but it is the man who gives you the ripest cherry in the bowl that you want. That thing he had done with the water, waiting for it to warm up, that was beautiful.
A little voice in my head: he’ll make a great husband to some lucky girl. Another thought comes after that, but that thought I don’t allow to sprout. I love Jack. Jack is my dream. I’ve loved Jack all my life and I will marry Jack. Not for anything in the world will I give my Jack up.
He brushes the hair from my face. ‘Is there something else you need to do to end this…ritual?’
‘Yeah, I need to clean my teeth. Stomach acid wreaks havoc with your teeth.’
He stands and holds his hands out to me. I take them and he hoists me up. I move towards the sink and he sits on the edge of the bath while I clean my teeth. I spit and meet his eyes in the mirror.
‘You’re beautiful, Sugar. Every inch of you. Don’t let anybody tell you differently. I came down to ask you to come up. I want to paint you.’
‘You want me to come up into your studio?’
He smiles. ‘But you can’t look at any of the canvasses. That’s the deal.’
‘I won’t look. But one day you’ll show me, right?’
‘Maybe. I’m working on something that’s looking good.’ And his eyes shine.
He makes me drink a large glass of water first, then we go up the stairs together. He opens the door and we are standing in a room that is mostly made of glass. Even half the ceiling is glass. Natural light is pouring in. I turn to look at him.
‘It is the most perfect studio.’
He nods, but he is different here.
‘Take off your clothes.’
‘What, in this bright light?’
‘You were born to be naked, Sugar. There is nothing more beautiful than the naked human body.’ His voice is low, compelling. Totally irresistible. I stare into his eyes. ‘Especially yours.’
I want to ask why especially mine, but I can’t. I feel hypnotized by his gaze. He takes me over to a couch that has had a red sheet thrown over it and strategically placed red cushions.
‘You will be desired, cherished and possessed for the very things you are ashamed of,’ he tells me.
He sucks my bottom lip until it is gorged with blood and swollen. He stands back to see what he has done and nods with satisfaction. Then he starts to undress me. Slowly, deliberately. As my top comes off, he kisses my neck. ‘Beautiful,’ he murmurs into the hollow of my throat. My bra falls on the floor and he gazes at the pink tips, then back to my eyes. His eyes are alive. His hands work on my jeans. He crouches on the ground and pulls them off.
I look down on his head and have such a strong desire to push his face into my crotch that I have to flex my hands. The knickers come off easily, next the shoes, the little pink pop socks.
Naked as a flower I stand over him.
‘Legs apart,’ he says and I spread them. He buries his face between my legs and licks at the wet slit. My mouth opens.
The artist looks up at my face, his mouth glistening with the oils from my sex. ‘There, that expression, that’s what I want.’
He lays me on the couch. Arms flung out on the cushions, legs open and bent at the knee. It is the most sexually arousing thing to lie there with my legs open, and have him stand over me and avidly watch my wet, open pussy. My arousal did not come from any expectation of what could take place, but from the act of exposing myself.
‘Keep that expression,’ he says and moves away to paint.
I don’t need to ask if the picture will be pornographic. I know it won’t. I know his art is the most important thing to him. For an hour neither of us speaks. Then he does his brushes in turpentine, cleans them on a rag, puts cling film over his palette and comes to me.
He covers my throbbing pussy with his whole hand. ‘I am going to eat you until you scream.’ Then puts his mouth where his hand has been and sucks me so hard I gasp.
He looks at me. ‘Want me to stop?’
I don’t speak. I grab him by the hair with both hands and pull him towards my cunt. He licks and sucks every inch, lapping it all up like a cat. He comes up and, with the taste of me still on his tongue, bites my mouth. Devouring me like a mad man or a crazed animal. There is none of the control of our ‘lessons’.
The sex is violent. He slams into me. It is almost as if this is a punishment or his inability to control a reckless desire for me. I burn bright as lava moves through my bloodstream. It feels as if every orifice and pore on my body is open and breathing him in.
He goes back to my sex and sucks and bites me there until I am raw and still I have the sensation that he is not able to get enough. Minutes that feel like hours pass. I come in a rush and as soon as I have, he withdraws out of me and comes on my stomach. His seed is like thick hot drops of rain. Unlike the slide of cold gunk on my belly when I had let that boy humiliate me with his emissions.
He leans on his elbow and watches his handiwork. The tousled hair, the swollen red lips between my open legs, the thoroughly fucked look in my half-hooded glazed eyes and my slack mouth. He trails his fingers up my cheek.
‘I’m sleeping with my muse,’ he says gently.
Still floating, I smile mistily.
It is dark when we go downstairs. He goes to have his shower and I stand in the living room in a robe looking out of the glass walls. It is a clear night and all the stars are out.
‘What are you doing?’ he whispers in my hair.
‘Watching the stars.’
‘You are the only woman I have known who appreciates the stars.’
‘It always surprises me that stars are enormous suns. They look so cold,’ I say softly. ‘Often I open my curtains and look out at them. I know that thousands of miles away these are the same stars that are looking down on Jack, and that makes me feel closer to him. Through them we are connected. And I go to sleep peaceful in my heart.’
‘Have you read The Little Prince?’
It embarrasses me that I know so little compared to him. ‘No.’
‘And at night you will look up at the stars…and in one of the stars I shall be living. I have to go to the stars. And one day, when you look at the stars, you will remember me.’
‘What does it mean?’ I breathe. I know it is profound, but my brain is unable to process it.
His shallow breathing is in my ear, his scent, the warmth of his hard body pressed against mine…all mingled together to send a warm glow of arousal to spread in the pit of my belly. But I do, I really do want to know what he means about the stars. He takes a lock of my hair and winds it slowly in his finger.
And kisses me.
The desire for the secret knowledge about the stars recedes, but does not go away. I know it is important. It contains a hidden message. A clue.
A voice louder than all the others says: ‘You are here to learn how to seduce Jack.’
Jack! Of course, Jack. My true love.
Twenty-three
When I enter the apartment the studio door is shut and Smith is nowhere to be seen, so I assume Vann is working. I go straight into the shower and wash off the smells of the Underground, the sweat and the despair of the people in it.
Vann has left a note taped to a CD for me.
I first heard this played in an open-air
restaurant in Thailand. It reminds me of you.
I put the CD in the music system and hit play. The room fills with the pretty sounds of a guitar, a hi-hat and a tambourine.
Sugar, ahhh, honey, honey you are my candy girl…
It is the original 1969 Archies version of ‘Sugar, Sugar’. It makes me smile and lifts my heart. I replay it, and nodding my head, dance around goofily. Funny, I have never been this happy in my life.
I decide that I, too, should send him something. I know his favorite poet is William Butler Yeats. So I Google him and come across the poem ‘He wishes for the Cloths of Heaven’ I learn the last three lines by heart. I smile to myself. Later when we are lying in bed together I will recite them to him. I will surprise him.
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams
It’s still too early to start cooking—yes, I have learnt to cook, and rather well too—so I go into the master bedroom and, sitting on the bed in a fluffy bathrobe, open my magazine. I love celebrity magazines. When they are about to come out on their due dates, I literally can’t wait. My heart starts beating with anticipation. But recently magazines have ceased to hold their magical allure—a peek into the lives of the rich and famous. I flick through the pages listlessly. I know I am listening out for the sound of the studio door opening. I look at the clock: 5.30.
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