Twelve
Two days later the remaining story for ‘Graverobbers’ arrived. The post was early for once, and Sarah was up late, still wandering around the flat in her robe with a cup of coffee. She was already in a crisis of conscience, torn between the conflicting demands of how she felt she should behave towards Céleste and her contractual obligations. The contents of the envelope made it worse.
First was a letter from Giles, apologising for his behaviour and asking for a second chance. Her initial reaction was outrage that he should dare to ask, only for her to pause. Just as he was asking for forgiveness from her, so she would be asking forgiveness from Céleste, for more, and for more again if she completed the cartoon.
There were three episodes, and to judge by their quality Giles was genuinely upset over their split. Gone was the ever-rising perversity and high sex content, to be replaced by a tepid tailing off of the story with quite a lot of violence and nothing exceptional in the way of rude behaviour. Céleste was to lose her clothes in a dramatic shoot-out with the drug cartel so improbable it reminded Sarah of the worst of Holywood action movies, while the difficulties with Monsieur d’Orsay were side-stepped by having him shot as he was trying to blackmail Céleste.
Sarah knew she could not do it. Maybe, after plenty of absinthe and with the rest of her life spent as Céleste’s dog-slave, she could just about have continued to escalate the story, with increasingly dirty scenes and a perverted orgy as a climax, but she could under no circumstances draw Monsieur d’Orsay being killed, nor any other character. She was also sure that Hugh Bowle would be far from impressed, but that at least was a blessing. The story could be changed, and so long as Hugh liked her version, all would be well. Once it was done, she would go to Paris and offer herself to Céleste, who could do with her whatever was just.
Taking a pot of black coffee into her room, Sarah sat down to work. So far all the readers knew was that Céleste had somehow managed to find out that a large quantity of money was hidden in a coffin. She had bribed Monsieur d’Orsay to discover which coffin, and set up Raoul and his sons to do the dirty work and take the punishment, while she walked free. There didn’t have to be a drug cartel, guns or killing.
The next episode would show the arrest of Raoul, Marcel and Lamond. They would then be safely out of the way, which was just as well, and for which Sarah felt no remorse whatsoever. She had enjoyed what they’d done to her, but she knew full well that they would have done it anyway and enjoyed her protests and tears too; after all, she had created them. That left Monsieur d’Orsay to be disposed off, and as Sarah began to sketch, an idea struck her.
Having successfully stolen the money and escaped prosecution, Céleste would want to celebrate. There would be a party, a glittering occasion with Champagne flowing freely, a string quartet and a dozen or so of Paris’s most eligible bachelors all vying for Céleste’s attention. One, Antoine Saint-Coeur, the most handsome, the richest, a man brilliant in every way, would win the privilege of a night with Céleste, a night of romantic tender lovemaking, just rude enough to keep the readers happy.
The entire episode was already complete in Sarah’s mind, and taking shape on the page as fast as she could draw. Raoul, Marcel and Lamond were arrested and sentenced to long prison terms in doublequick time, their claims of Céleste’s involvement met with derision. The party got under way, with Céleste the centre of attention for as many handsome young men as Sarah could fit on the page, each and every one of them pathetically grateful for the slightest glance or remark from her and hurrying eagerly to do her bidding. When it came to the bedroom scene, Céleste went on top, her back and buttocks and breasts and belly all shown half lit, and as pure elegance. Finally, in the last frame, Monsieur d’Orsay’s face could be seen, also half lit beneath a street lamp as he looked up to Céleste’s window in which her naked torso was visible in silhouette as she rode her beau.
Sarah’s face was wreathed in smiles as she finished. It was good, and a fitting tribute to Céleste, although merely showing her naked would no doubt earn Sarah another well-deserved spanking, possibly in front of the handsome suitors. That was rather a nice thought, as was having to indulge all Céleste’s rejects, taking them to orgasm in her mouth as they fantasised over the true object of their desire, with Sarah as no more than a convenient receptacle for their spunk.
She shook herself, promising not to get carried away until she had finished all three episodes. The next had to be Monsieur d’Orsay’s blackmail attempt. He would accost her in the street, revealing what he knew as they leant on a railing overlooking the Seine, which gave Sarah a reason for a magnificent Parisian skyline drawn across the top of the page. Céleste, quite unruffled, would suggest that he might enjoy watching her have sex with another woman in return for a reduction in the amount she had to pay. Monsieur d’Orsay would accept with lewd enthusiasm, and Céleste would take him to a select brothel, which provided an excellent excuse for some gratuitous nudity. In the brothel they would select a girl, whom Céleste would spank and humiliate in various ways before making her suck Monsieur d’Orsay’s cock as she used dildoes on herself in both vagina and anus. That girl would be Sarah.
As she pencilled in the last frame her excitement was close to unbearable, imagining herself as a girl in a Parisian brothel, sold for sex to all comers, and specifically Céleste and Monsieur d’Orsay, spanked, her anus opened, made to masturbate with dildoes in front of them, then to go down on his cock with her penetrated bottom and cunt stuck out behind. It was a fitting punishment for her, and would please Céleste, she was sure, especially if she masturbated over her own degradation, but that would have to wait.
She took a third sheet of A2, the climax to the story already clear in her mind. Having bought the girl, Céleste would take her back to d’Orsay’s flat. There, she would bite down her disgust at him to perform with the girl as he watched, making her, Sarah, serve them naked, lick and kiss as ordered, sucking d’Orsay’s cock and applying her tongue to Céleste’s pussy.
The thought of being made to lick Céleste left Sarah feeling so weak and so aroused that she had to pause for a moment, her eyes shut tight as she struggled for control. She was telling herself she wasn’t a lesbian, but she knew that for Céleste she would do anything, and that mere labels for sexuality had no meaning. Yes, she would lick, and gratefully, achieving an ecstasy as much submissive as sexual, and maybe, just maybe, Céleste would demand that Sarah’s tongue be applied to her anus.
A violent spasm passed through Sarah, close to orgasm, and she was forced to take a swallow of coffee and count to a hundred before she could go on. The last episode could be almost pure sex, showing Céleste and d’Orsay putting her through her paces, including a good spanking, plenty of oral attention and, to make sure she was fully co-operative, the application of some unspecified drug. That would be done by Céleste, without Monsieur d’Orsay’s knowledge, shown clearly in a small frame near the beginning, with an elegant gloved hand squeezing an ampoule into a glass with two bottles visible in the background, one of absinthe, one tiny and dark.
The drug explained her total willingness to perform, including the spanking and oral sex, licking Céleste’s bottom, and being peed on. Another powerful shock of ecstasy passed through Sarah’s body at the thought of kneeling naked on the bathroom floor as Céleste urinated on her, and her hand had gone to the V of her crotch as she continued to draw. Yes, she could be peed on, then made to mop it up, crawling nude on her hands and knees as Monsieur d’Orsay readied his cock for her body.
He’d lose control. He’d fuck her as she knelt in a puddle of Céleste’s urine. He’d finger her bottom as his cock moved in her cunt, opening her anus. He’d bugger her and make her suck his dirty cock, only to stuff it back up her bottom and in her mouth a second time.
Sarah had lost control, wrenching her jeans open and stuffing her hand down her panties as she imagined the scene: her naked on all fours, wet with Céleste’s piddle; d’Orsay scrambling ape-like b
ack and forth as he alternately thrust his cock up her bottom hole and into her mouth, feeding her the juice from her own gaping anus; and at last his orgasm, which he’d do down her throat, forcing her to swallow his spunk.
She screamed out in ecstasy at the thought, coming under her fingers with the filthy image burning in her head. She subsided into her chair with her face set in a sleepy smile, but only for a moment. A few more pencil strokes were all that she needed to complete the cartoon, and she went back to work.
As Monsieur d’Orsay defiled her, Céleste would have slipped quietly away and, just as he came, the police would arrive to find him inflicting an act of unspeakable perversion on a girl he’d first purchased from a brothel as a sex slave, then drugged to make her compliant. The owner of the brothel, Madame Leboeuf, handsomely paid by Céleste, would support the story, while d’Orsay’s accusations of complicity would fall on deaf ears. He would join Raoul and the others in prison, while Céleste walked free with the money and Sarah became her grateful obedient maid.
That was it, ‘Graverobbers’ complete, the final frame showing Céleste and Antoine Saint-Coeur standing on the balcony of the apartment, looking out over the moonlit Paris rooftops as they sipped Champagne. Sarah showed herself stood discreetly in the background, holding the tray with the ice bucket and bottle, the skirt of her maid’s uniform so short that the tuck of her bottom showed, revealing a delicate tracery of lines from a recent whipping. That, she felt, was her destiny.
* * *
Not wishing to have to redo all three episodes, Sarah asked if she could take her pencil sketches in to show Hugh Bowle. He was as accommodating as ever, suggesting they meet at the Wharfingers rather than his office, to which Sarah agreed.
As she walked across the plaza beneath the Ehrmann and Black building two days later, her emotions were strong. It was only a matter of months since she had first been there, and yet it seemed as if an era was coming to an end. Her determination to go to Paris had grown with time, and with the story complete there would be nothing to hold her back. Only if everything she had experienced proved to be an elaborate hoax would she return, and she was convinced it was not.
Hugh was already in the pub, and evidently had been for some time, occupying the best of the alcove tables with a paper spread out in front of him and a pint of beer at his side. As Sarah entered he smiled and beckoned to her. Sarah returned a polite but slightly stiff nod, her feelings still somewhat bruised after the way he had deserted her in the Rue Claude Magnien. He seemed oblivious, insisting on kissing her the moment she had set her portfolio down on the table and planting a gentle pat on her bottom as she made for the bar.
Sarah ignored the unwanted intimacy, telling herself that once she was gone it wouldn’t matter. At the bar she ordered a bottle of their best Chablis on Hugh’s tab, sure it was the least she deserved. He appeared not to notice, watching her pour herself a glass before he spoke.
‘So what’s up, doll?’
‘I wanted you to see my roughs,’ Sarah explained. ‘They don’t follow the story Giles outlined, you see, and I want your approval before I start inking them in.’
‘Fair enough,’ he answered. ‘So what, you still not made up with Giles?’
‘No, I don’t think so,’ Sarah told him. ‘He sent me a nice letter, but I really can’t handle people who won’t stick up for me when I need them.’
It was a pointed comment, aimed as much at Hugh as Giles, but as usual he failed to react.
‘Pity,’ he said. ‘You made a great team.’
Sarah bit down her automatic disappointment at what sounded like the sack, telling herself that it no longer mattered. He had taken her portfolio, opening it to look at her pencil sketches, and she waited for his verdict, sipping Chablis and hoping he would be impressed.
‘Looks good,’ he said after a while. ‘Looks great in fact. So what’s with the tart looking like you?’
‘I just thought …’ Sarah responded, blushing.
‘No, no,’ he cut in. ‘It’s great. I mean, she’s a looker, your Céleste, very catwalk, but our readers like a bit of T and A, and of course they’ve seen what you’ve got, so they’ll recognise you. Nice. Oh yeah.’
He reached down to the bench at his side, to pass across the new issue of Hot Gun. Sarah quickly flicked it open, not to the cartoon, but to the pages before. Her cheeks were already hot, and grew hotter as she looked over the pictures of her posing nude in the hotel, with no detail of her body left private, and of her walking proud and naked down the Rue Claude Magnien.
Several passers-by were visible in the pictures, and in the last shot the policeman could just be seen as he emerged from the café, his face just beginning to register surprise. She already knew it was the last photo Sid had taken but there was no sign of Céleste, nor Raoul and his sons, nor even the old man who had been reading his paper on the bench while she was spanked. Without question the street had been different just a few minutes later.
‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘May I keep this?’
‘Sure,’ he answered, ‘but there’s another one in the post. This is good stuff, as usual, but we’re going to have to lose the pissing. Too kinky. Have her pour a jug of water over you instead if you want to be wet.’
‘I’ll just take it out,’ Sarah promised. ‘This is what Giles wanted. I hope you don’t mind me making the changes?’
He took the storyline from Sarah, quickly read it through, then passed it back as he spoke.
‘Not bad, and we did maybe need a bit of shoot-’em-up, but I prefer yours, more sex. You’re not going to be a pain about the money, are you?’
‘No, no,’ Sarah assured him.
‘Good girl,’ he answered. ‘You’re a pleasure to work with, you know that, not to mention easy on the eye. So that’s done with, what’s next?’
‘Do you still want me?’ she asked, a little surprised.
‘Sure,’ he responded, ‘course I do. Good artists are rare, and most of them are so fucking precious … pardon my French. Yeah, we want you, and if you don’t want to work with Giles you can do the story yourself, full rate and all. How’s that?’
‘Very generous, thank you,’ she replied, immediately feeling guilty for cutting Giles out, ‘but I … I was actually thinking of going to live in Paris.’
He shrugged.
‘No problem. We’ll miss you around the place, but you can work from Timbuktu if you want, just so long as you get the copy in on time.’
‘That shouldn’t be a problem,’ Sarah said cautiously, wondering what Céleste would say, ‘but I may have to introduce a new character.’
‘You do as you like, Sarah doll,’ Hugh answered, ‘only give this one a bit more up top, and a better arse. Slim, but with plenty of T and A, that’s what the boys like. It’s only poofs who’re into the gardenrake look.’
‘What about Giles?’ Sarah asked.
‘I think we’ll put him on readers’ letters,’ Hugh said vaguely, ‘not that it’s my choice, but there’s always room for a dirty bugger like him.’
‘He won’t lose out then?’
‘Nah, not so’s you’d notice, I wouldn’t think.’ Sarah made a face, now feeling intensely guilty. At the very least Giles deserved an explanation and, as Hugh went on expounding the virtues of busty girls, she had already decided to pay a visit. Inevitably it would be awkward, and the wine was definitely going to help, so she swallowed her glass of Chablis and poured another.
Hugh had begun to talk about how popular she was following her appearances in Boobie Babes and Hotties at Home, how many letters she’d received from fans, most of who were apparently obsessed with her breasts, and how many hits they’d had on her page on the firm’s adult website. She listened politely, feeling detached from it all, as if none of it really concerned her, and growing gradually drunk as the level in the bottle fell.
By the time the bottle was finished she felt ready to face Giles, or Céleste, or anybody else for that matter. She said her goodby
es to Hugh, promised to have a new story for him within a month or so, and went home to drop off her portfolio. Travelling west on the tube, she wondered how she should approach Giles, still feeling guilty, yet bold with drink and more than a little horny as she remembered how good their sex together had been.
He had taught her so much, and made her appreciate her body in a way she never had before, in particular the full enjoyment of her bottom. It seemed a shame to lose his attention, and his love if he really was in love with her, but it was hard to reconcile that with her desire to give herself to Céleste. Possibly she could compromise because after all, Céleste had no right to full control, only when it suited Sarah.
She knew it was the alcohol making her brave, but it still seemed the right decision. Giles would be her lover, visiting her in her Paris flat for sessions of rude lovemaking, often involving the penetration of her bottom hole. While he was with her there would be no Céleste, but when he was gone Sarah would indulge herself in being made her heroine’s plaything, punished and used for the pleasure of her tongue, made to perform for men or even sold on the streets.
When she reached South Kensington she knew what she would do, depending on whether Giles was there or not. She still had the keys, so she would let herself in anyway, as quietly as possible. If he was there she would simply step into his bedroom without a word and begin to undress, allowing him to join her. If he was out she would strip off and climb into his bed. Either way, she would soon be in his arms again or, knowing him, on her knees with his cock up her bottom.
She was smiling as she climbed up to street level, feeling both mischievous and naughty. His curtains were still shut, suggesting that he was in, and she opened the front door as quietly as she could manage, keen to surprise him. The stair was thickly carpeted, allowing her to ascend without a noise, up to the door at the very top. A faint noise from within assured her that he was there, and she slid the key into the lock with extreme care, turning it and easing the door wide.
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