by Joey Hill
"It's a J. Martin," she breathed. "I've never seen one…life-sized. I bought a small one at an auction a couple years ago. A merman, bringing a human woman a conch shell with a pearl in it. The beach is done in sand, shards of diamonds, and topaz glass. It's amazing work. I paid a mint for it, but something about his work just…"
"It calls to you, doesn't it?" Marcus nodded, standing close to her elbow. "He gives them innocuous names, like 'The Power of Woman Over Man', so that the vanilla world buys them, calling it pop art, but it's their unconscious that opens their pocketbooks. Deep inside, they know his work is a direct sexual expression of the soul." He took another step up, until his legs were pressed against the fountain wall, so he could get a closer view of the sculpture.
"He's the client I value most. There's no artist I respect more, and to complicate the matter, he's a very dear friend. Though, I warn you, a pain in the ass. All great artists are. He did the dragon you saw out there as well. That's why he didn't want us lingering over it."
Lauren turned and stared at Marcus. Her throat did not respond immediately to the pressure of her vocal cords, and when it did, her voice came out as a whisper. "J. Martin is…Josh?"
"Joshua Martin. One and the same."
Lauren took a moment to digest that. She walked around the statue, examining it from every side. The light that shone through the windows touched all the important details, the expression, the curves, the tension of the bodies waiting, testing.
It made even more sense now. His wife, the tattoo artist. He was not the tattoo type, but he had allowed himself to become a living canvas for some of her more experimental work. Who but another artist would understand the need to marry art with love, to bind art to their other passions? Or bind him with that passion, rather, not only in the work she did with her hands, but by displaying what she had created of him by branding him with it.
"This is even more incredible when there's a full moon. You see things you can't see with the sun. It's almost like their expressions change."
"Marcus…" Lauren stopped before him again, her eyes filled with pain.
"It's the last complete work he's done since Winona," the art dealer said softly. "His home is littered with half finished work, things he started and then destroyed, mangling them in his rage. Artists are psychotic parents, turning on their children when they see only their failures in them, those things they've planted in them themselves, with every sculpting motion. After all, it was their clay to begin with, wasn't it? The artist's hands being the loins from which they sprung, the creations cannot help but reflect the parent's shortcomings, and so the sight of them is so beastly to the artist that he must destroy them. And yet, Josh leaves them there, broken, destroyed, not giving them a proper burial, simply leaving the half finished next to the demolished. His home, his studio, has become someplace he goes to punish himself, an embarrassment," his eyes met hers again, "that he is reluctant for anyone to see."
She put out her hand, touching his arm, her throat aching with the pain she heard in his voice. He touched the track of the tear running down her cheek and she closed her eyes.
"Did he ever bring her here?"
Marcus shook his head. "I think its part of its appeal to him. It's free of her taint."
"You didn't like her."
Marcus nodded. "Something was off about her, I never could put my finger on what, but I know Josh wasn't Josh when he was with her. There was some dynamic between them that had everything to do with sex, a mutual fascination. You called me an Iowa farmboy. Josh came from the city, but he's always had an innocence to him, and an innate goodness. It's one of the things that makes him so fucking irresistible."
He sighed. "I was holding back on you, somewhat, about he and Winona. I honestly don't know what happened, but I was there the night it ended. I know that he called me from a police station because he had been arrested for assault. He had nearly beaten a man to death. I made his bail. The man refused to press charges, indicating it was all a misunderstanding. The prosecutor felt without his testimony, the police did not have a case. Winona came to his apartment an hour or two after we got home that night. She followed him into his room, and they talked. I couldn't hear about what. Then I heard him tell her to get out in a voice I have never heard Josh use. It wasn't a shout, it was more an invocation. It vibrated through the apartment like the voice of God."
Lauren felt the tension in Marcus's voice communicate itself to her vitals. Her fingers curled into her palms.
"She must have pushed it," Marcus murmured, "because next thing I know he brought her out of the room. Well, dragged her out of the room actually. She was trying not to go, but he had her by the arm and was hauling her to the door. She was screaming, crying. He opened the door, flung her out into the hall so hard she hit the wall and crumpled to the floor. She was crawling for the door when he slammed it. I heard it strike her in the head. There was a blood stain there the next day. She wept out there for awhile and then left."
Marcus turned his gaze to Lauren's stricken one. "You've seen him, Lauren. He would never, not in a million years, consider violence against a woman. And yet there it was. He went to the couch, turned on the television. To the cartoon channel of all things, and turned it on, maximum volume. It made the glass in the windows vibrate, but I could still hear her keening, just beneath the noise. Then it got quiet, and he muted it. He turned and looked at me and said he was going to the island. And he hasn't left here since. That was two years ago."
Lauren swallowed, looked back up at the sculpture with Marcus. In every line, she saw what she herself yearned to have, not just the intensity, but the unbreakable bond, the trust. More importantly, she saw it was what Josh yearned for. No wonder the pull between them had been so strong. She slept with his damn statue on a pedestal in her bedroom with a damn spotlight on it like it was her damn nightlight.
"It's time to lance this boil," she said out loud. "Let the wound bleed out and start it healing."
She looked up at Marcus, resolution in every angle of her body, and the expression of her face.
"I couldn't agree more," he said. He swept out his arm toward another elaborate wooden door embedded in the stone wall of the hallway and crowned with a trellis of ivy. "Let me introduce you to the perfect operating room."
Chapter 15
"They have a fortune in toys in here."
Lauren ran her hand over the finish of a spanking bench made out of satin smooth cherry wood and gazed around her, amazed at the array of equipment in the large room. Mirrors lined two walls and the ceiling, increasing the sense of size, though the deep woven carpets scattered on the flag stones, as well as the large potted plants and variety of heavy tapestries hung on the stone walls, made the space more intimate psychologically, if not physically. There were two costume rooms, complete with fully stocked makeup tables and wigs, to dress for play.
"Look at this," she paused by a carousel horse, molded with a thin faux fur that felt much like the animal it emulated. The bowed head, lifted forelegs and bunched hindquarters spoke of a stallion's desire to run free. Marcus joined her, slid his hand beneath the horse's chest. There was the soft hum of a mechanical reaction. Lauren's eyes widened as a seven-inch erect phallus emerged just below the pommel of the saddle. As she watched in fascination, Marcus demonstrated with a touch of another button the way the phallus would undulate in circles or thrust forward and back. Lauren reached out to it and jumped back with a startled yelp and a laugh as the horse began to rock back and forth in an easy simulation of a canter. The ribbed cock continued to thrust, so it was obvious every rock forward would pull the phallus out, and the rock back would thrust it home.
"Want to give it a try?" Marcus gave her a wicked grin.
"Wow." Lauren looked about her. "None of it looks -"
"Cheap? Embarrassing? The rewards of large amounts of money, dearest. You can have sophisticated sex toys that look like works of art, like Chinese netsuke's, instead of tacky little bare tit stat
ues bobbing on a dashboard. Climb on," he urged again.
Lauren flushed, but her gaze crept over the horse. Truth to tell, it was all to easy to imagine how it would feel sliding in and out of her tight passageway. The tissues dampened, just from the thought.
Marcus gave her a courtly bow. "It would be my pleasure to see your reaction, but even more, Josh would be overwhelmed by it. Don't you think?"
Oh, Marcus knew which button to push. She did, too. She ran a hand down the stallion's back haunch, made note of the velvet and rhinestone straps just above the fetlock joints of the horse's legs.
"Maybe you should try it, Marcus," she murmured, sliding around the backside of the horse to him. "Face down," she trailed her fingers up his bare arm, "cheek pressed against that broad rump, your wrists strapped to the hind quarters, ankles to his forelegs," she directed his attention there. "And then I can plunge that rubber cock into your ass until you scream and buck like one of your young men would."
Her body was pressed against his thigh now, and she felt his genitals swell and rise to her words. Marcus lifted a hand to her face, cradling it as she bit his Venus mound lightly, like a cat. "Ah, Lauren, I've forgotten how much fun it is to play with another Dom. Are you offering, my love?"
"No," she grinned. "Just teasing you. You wouldn't enjoy being tied up as much anyhow, and I'd rather make Josh hard as granite."
"I think you accomplish that just by breathing," he said. "But I agree. Shimmy out of those shorts and let's see if we can't give him a good show."
Taking her clothes off on the beach had somehow been less difficult than here in this quiet room, with just the two of them. She would say that being inside made things seem more civilized, but she could hardly call her surroundings civilized. Something unknown and primitive lived here, encouraging primal behavior.
As if sensing her difficulty, Marcus turned his attention to making some adjustments on the horse's controls so that she was not directly under his gaze. Courtesy from one Dom to another, a consideration neither would have given to a sub. In fact they would have enjoyed watching that sub squirm, self-conscious under their attention but obeying nevertheless, shedding clothes on command. A rueful smile tugged at her lips. No one in the dungeons of the Club had ever accused her of being democratic.
Lauren dropped the shorts to the floor, but left on the Brazilian bikini bottoms. She accepted Marcus's leg up on the horse, since her still tender ankle could not manage the task alone.
She was already moist and hot, but she closed her eyes, centering herself, shutting Marcus out for a moment to ease the tension out of her body being caused by her own ridiculous self consciousness. Gay or straight, any man or woman would get turned on by watching another pleasure herself. Marcus would be aroused, not just by watching her, but, as he said, by the thought of how Josh would react to her.
The idea fueled her confidence, and she found the phallus by touch, drawing aside the crotch of the bikini bottoms with one fingernail to allow her to lower herself onto the shaft. She drew in a breath at the sensation of the ribbed rubber sliding along the silken walls within. She slowed her descent, drawing her own pleasure out like a tightened bow string.
"Take me up slow," she said in a breathless voice. She gazed vaguely in his direction, but her focus was inward. "Then I leave it to your discretion. I don't want to go over, though."
Marcus nodded, reached out, and stroked a hand down her thigh. "I can smell you, dearest. It's perfume."
She smiled absently, dropping her head back and closing her eyes, her inner muscles contracting on the phallus even though it had not begun to move. Marcus picked up the remote to the device and backed away, giving the heat around her the space to expand. He went to one of the high backed carved chairs, obviously left there for the relaxation of the Lord or Mistress of the dungeon as they watched the pleasurable tormenting of their victim.
Lauren purred as the shaft began to slowly rotate inside of her. The horse quivered to life, bringing an easy rocking movement that gave the dildo a slight thrust with each rock back. The sleek, faux fur covering made her feel as if it were a horse's flanks in truth beneath her thighs. There was an increase to the humming, and now she felt a vibration beneath her legs, a rippling like the muscles of the beast, that added to the sensation.
Those ripples were being matched from her womb, and she had to clench her inside muscles to keep from helping it along. Instead, she ran her hands over her damp breasts in the bikini top, cupping them in her hands, squeezing, not touching the erect nipples.
She knew the moment Josh came in, looking for them. She heard his steps on the threshold; his voice, dying away on the question as to why Marcus had brought her in here. She opened her mouth on a ragged breath and could taste him. She felt as if she could even detect his own unique male scent, as if all her senses were tuned to whatever frequency he traveled. It made her hotter. It made her want him with an ache fiercer than any pain or pleasure she had ever experienced. She could have him or keep building her desire to have him, and both ideas appealed to her.
She slid her hands up, the friction of skin on cloth riding the bikini up from the bottom of her breasts, so the undercurves were bared. Her hands traveled from there to her neck, her hair, freeing it from its clip, letting it fall down her back. Her body continued to undulate with the horse, her hips moving in slow circles. The muscles of her thighs contracted as she turned her head to open her eyes and gaze upon him.
The greedy desire in his eyes scorched her, shuddered through her body, tightened her grip on the phallus and almost tore a moan from her throat that would have been an open invitation she would not have had the power to revoke.
"Go sit at Marcus's feet," she whispered. "And don't even think of touching yourself. Your hands… your mouth,” she punctuated each word with another circle of her hips, squeezing her breasts in her hands, gripping her nipples and tugging so that she saw saliva gather at the corners of his mouth like a starving wolf, "your cock… they're all mine."
Marcus guided him into a seated position at his feet, for Josh could not tear his eyes from her to watch where he was stepping.
Lauren moaned as the control increased the speed of the inserting phallus, which was now glistening with her wetness as it withdrew partway from her and plunged in again. She saw Josh's eyes on it, knew he wanted it to be his organ, and she reveled in his need, let it drive her even higher. The impact of the vibration pressing against her clit increased on each thrust, and she writhed on her mount. Her ass made a soft, slapping noise on the saddle as her movements became more focused, more intense, skillfully brushing the soft rubber against the place inside that sent an explosion of tiny metallic sparks through her thighs and lower belly, through her breasts. She heard the tender sucking noise that a drenched pussy made. Her attention turned back to Josh.
Marcus was stroking her lover's hair fondly, his gaze riveted on Josh's face, fascinated with his response. Josh sat rigidly against his knee, like a wild predator waiting to be released to the attack.
Her body was begging, calling, but she could be as tough on it as she was on any submissive in a dungeon. She knew the benefit of patience, of waiting. Instant gratification was just that - instant. There was no orgasm as intense as one that you had to work for, work for like a son of a bitch, endure being pleasurably teased and teased ever higher. That was not only her intent with herself, but with Josh. She reminded herself she wanted him to come on command, and he would, if she found that threshold, the teetering edge over which it would take no more than a murmured word to push him over. He looked as if he was close to it now.
The look in his eyes was as wild as the spirit of the stallion she rode. In her imagination, she saw herself release him from her thrall. He surged up from his seated position, plucked her off the horse as if she weighed no more than a doll. He would throw her down to the floor, part her thighs and thrust into her with the frenzy of a wild animal, exploding hot and wet inside her.
She sh
uddered at the thought, a soft cry like a dove coming from her lips. She gave Marcus a quick nod and he pressed the controls immediately, slowing the rotation of the phallus. It slid from her, retracting into the pommel.
"Josh," she said, her voice like thick cream, "Bring me one of those hand towels. And don't you even think about adjusting yourself."
She knew he was enormous, and derived tremendous pleasure from watching him rise awkwardly to go get the towel. He tried to bring it to her clutched in his hand so it fell in front of his groin.
She clucked. "You know better than that, Josh. I want to see you. Put your hand down, and bring me the towel."
He swallowed, that delightful red flush creeping over his neck, and he walked toward her, obviously having some difficulty. She licked her lips and teased a groan from him at the sight of her tongue.
She took the towel from his trembling hand. Under the heat of his intense scrutiny, she ran soft terry cloth over her wet labia, and then delicately pulled the crotch of the bikini back over herself, adjusting it over her swollen folds, smoothing the wrinkles with the pads of her fingers.
The sound he made was so much like a growl that Lauren lifted a startled glance to him. He was very close to her now; so close another step would bring the curve of her belly brushing against his straining cock beneath the denim.
"I have my limits, Lauren," he said, low.
She knew it, could feel the caged beast hurling against his bars, knew how close he was. But she knew just how hard to push, she always had. It was an art form. Jonathan had teased her with what he never intended to give her, and in hindsight she knew he had given her an unintended gift. He had taught her the difference between torture and teasing, sado-masochism and sexual dominance for pleasure. She wanted to tease Josh, arouse him, make him ache for her, but not deny him, or her, not ultimately.