Body Wisdom & Uncompromising Portraits

by Lizbeth Dusseau

  She tried not to remember Gabriel, though he was never far from her thoughts. At the very back of her mind, he stood with judgmental eyes, but a lusting heart, waiting to get inside her brain, where she believed he still belonged. Sydney wasn’t ready yet to think about him, first she had to have more of this revenge, and a little freedom. A lot of freedom perhaps. She needed not to think of anything but this little haven of pure sex.

  Why this was so important, she wasn’t certain. But this was the way the winds blew, and she was following their silent lead.

  Chapter Five

  “Hi!” Sydney said with a lush mellow voice, entering the studio with a delightful smile on her face. She put her things down and gave Malcolm a warm hug. Pressing her lips against his, she already felt a welcome surge of desire running through her.

  Malcolm looked at his model surprised by her unexpected exuberance, and her assertive sexual overture.

  “So happy?” he remarked. He hadn’t seen Sydney looking so cheerful in the ten days she’d been posing for him, though he didn’t quite trust the emotion.

  “I woke this morning and decided to stop being so morose. My life, except for one piece is going really well. I have a very attentive lover . . .” she was kissing him again softly on the lips, “and … she backed away her eyes sparkling, “I sold a painting!”

  “Ah, no wonder you’re so elated. Shall we celebrate now?” Malcolm asked her.

  “What did you have in mind?” she said, making sure he didn’t miss the seductive movement of her body.

  When Sydney was like this, she was a very enchanting lover; when she was obsessing on her impossible husband, she was too dull for Malcolm’s hedonistic sensibilities. That she mooned over Gabriel at all was more than Malcolm could tolerate; but like most women, she was going to moon over him until she’d finally freed herself from his confining grasp. He hated the way men like Gabriel squeezed the life out of the really spectacular females, turning them into shrill sounding bitches or whining brats. Sydney wasn’t that bad yet, but he suspected she would be before long.

  “How about I pour us a little champagne, relax you a little so we can work. While it’s having an effect, we’ll look at my sketches for a minute?”

  “Sounds good to me,” she said.

  “So what painting did you sell?” he asked, as he padded off to the kitchenette on the other side of the one room studio.

  “One I did of Gabriel,” she said, knowing right off that Malcolm wouldn’t really be interested in it, and just as she expected, he didn’t respond.

  Returning with two glasses, and a bottle of some very dry champagne, Malcolm pulled out the sketches that had been keeping the both of them busy for days now. Sydney had seen none of the work so far, Malcolm Eisley carefully hiding it all away, as if he was working on some top secret government project.

  He shuffled through several sketches of Sydney’s nude body, posed in a dozen different ways; then suddenly pulled one out, and put it on top of all the others. “This is my favorite,” he said proudly.

  Sydney jolted instantly seeing the image of herself jumping from the paper in such startling fashion, she was astonished. On the surface, the sketch seemed like the oddest choice for him to pursue with a bigger than life-size canvas; but its power superseded its initially restrained seductiveness. If it affected her so profoundly, certainly it would do the same for other people.

  What was remarkable at first was that it didn’t even seem to be of her at all; though she clearly recognized her body, her hair and her face, things very common to her. She remembered how awkward the pose had been. Malcolm had her lying on her stomach with her arms underneath her, one leg crooked just slightly, her face looking toward the artist with what turned out to be a bemused expression. In this position, she was closed in on herself, and looking very much like she was privately playing with her pussy.

  There was little compromising exposure of her private body. Her ass with the rear mounds slightly parted had a most erotic quality. But there was nothing else showing, not her breasts, or her pussy, not even a hint of a nipple. The position didn’t allow it. And still, the pose for what it didn’t say was as alluring as a full frontal nude in some cheesecake posture. Beyond the physical aspects of the sketch, it was the expression on her face that was most provocative. Sadness first, and a sly sexual tease that turned her into the kind of woman men run to, if only to use, before they destroy. And yet, there was a knowingness in her face, a wisdom that this woman’s tantalizing sexuality would triumph over everything, even the attempts of men to unmake her.

  “Is this how I really look?” she asked.

  “What do you think of yourself?” Malcolm asked.

  “You know, I think I’ve felt that way, but it’s not something I thought would be so obvious that you could put in on canvas.”

  “I thought you’d like it,” Malcolm said.

  “I’m not sure I do,” she exclaimed. The picture made her unreasonably nervous, more exposed than she’d ever feel if it had been her breasts and cunt splayed for the world.

  “Why’s that?” Malcolm asked.

  “It’s so vulnerable.”

  “You’ve been vulnerable. And I’ve been painting what I see. Are you unhappy with it?” he asked.

  She wondered why he cared. “No. But I had no idea you had so much intention to arouse. Almost looks like I’m playing with myself,” she tried joking.

  “Were you?” Malcolm asked, a lewd twinkle in his blue eyes.

  She didn’t need to think back to that second day in the studio to remember. “A little,” she admitted.

  Malcolm put the sketch aside, then laid a hand on Sydney’s cotton covered crotch.

  “So tell me again about the painting you sold?” he said very softly, as he looked into her eyes, and began playing with her pubis mound. Her body responded; she wanted to go to bed with him. That was easy in the studio with three beds available, one a reclining couch; there was always ready opportunity. In ten days, she’d modeled for him six times, making love each time. The guarded eroticism of the first session, no longer existed, it was out in the open, all the lust swimming at the surface of every interaction, every touch, and talk, and every time their eyes met.

  Sometimes Sydney thought Malcolm could read her mind. He’d studied her body so thoroughly, that he’d gone beyond his knowledge of her breasts and nipples, and the smooth body curves, to the way everything about her changed depending on her mood. His intuition about her was acute. It was amazing and alarming at the same time. She was certain that the artist knew her better than her own husband did, and she was beginning to wonder if he knew her better than she knew herself. What he’d put into that odd sketch, what he’d read in her heart and body made her afraid of him, and his power over her.

  For all her thoughts Sydney didn’t answer Malcolm’s question about her sold painting right away, until she snapped to, realizing that Malcolm was waiting for her reply, even if the waiting was taken up with stroking the place between her legs that was growing damper each moment.

  “It was the study I did of Gabriel’s face,” she replied, nervously. Saying her husband’s name was awkward for her, if not for Malcolm.

  The artist dismissed Gabriel readily without even a small twinge, certainly he had no guilt feelings over quickly bedding another man’s wife. If Gabe wasn’t man enough to keep her faithful, it wasn’t his problem.

  “That is a fine work,” he acknowledged. “Captured your husband’s spirit and his frailty. I’m not surprised it sold, there’s a lot of depth there, a lot of that simmering stuff that your husband manages to do well. The painting is probably better out of your life.”

  Sydney wasn’t sure of that. This particular painting of Gabe was one of four she’d done of him. And it was clearly the best, or at the very least, her favorite.

  Malcolm’s gentle massage of her pubis continued until he pushed Sydney to her feet, and positioned her in front of him. His hands on either side of her waist
pushed down on the waistband of her pants until the garment was at her knees.

  “Just stay were you are, don’t move,” he told her. He looked at the center of her sexuality with a degree of admiration, before his face descended on her crotch flicking at the clitoris he revealed when he parted her labia.

  She was whimpering a soft, “oh god,” and a dozen plaintive “ahs”, moving against this mouth as eagerly as Malcolm was lapping at her musky purple-pink flesh. “Oh, Malcolm, no!” she exclaimed, a weary cry from her heart taking charge. Not a protest, the exclamation was a cry for mercy. She hadn’t realized how much she needed this. Too much rawness all at once, too much tension and personal pain on the verge of breaking her. She’d suppressed a lot in the last few days. And cumming, she exploded like lightening, the sudden orgasmic release like releasing a champagne cork, the over flowing liquid desire expelled so she could settle down inside herself for a little peace. She collapsed into her lover, the two falling back on the couch in each other’s arms.

  “I didn’t trust that happy facade of yours, Sydney,” Malcolm informed her. “It was a little false. You work better when you’re not so pent-up.” He held her in his arms for a few minutes while she caught her breath. The tone of his voice was clearly parental and condescending, though Sydney wasn’t offended. She should be glad that he recognized her need, when recently she’d been having a difficult time doing so herself.

  “You’re not going to have a little fun?” she asked, as she played with his crotch. She was fully prepared to go down on him, and was about to make the quick journey.

  “I’ll wait,” he interrupted her. “We have a lot to do tonight. Take off your clothes so I can see you.” He pulled away from her, off of the couch, and stood over her, waiting.

  Sydney smiled. She had lightened a little, and yes it was a fake kind of happiness in her voice when she arrived; though now, there was a genuine contentment, even if she couldn’t describe it as ebullient happiness.

  “I’d think you’d know every square inch of me by now,” she suggested.

  “Ah! But every time I see you, I see so much more.” He was suddenly authoritative and business-like and not at all patient with her. He watched as she finished disrobing, which meant pulling off the half-mast stretch pants, and removing her white T-shirt.

  He inspected her reclining body for a few minutes. Sydney had no idea what he was thinking in his self-absorbed musing, he’d detached himself from her. At least that’s how it felt, the intimacy they’d shared disappearing. To have him wholly dispassionate without the sexual intimacy would make the sessions unbearable. He made her human when they made love, she was just a used body otherwise. It was a trick that he’d played on her. Perhaps he didn’t know it would be that way, but she suspected that he did. She was hardly his first nude model.

  “You’re going to love the sessions with Tomas,” Malcolm said, turning to his easel.

  “When’s he joining us?” she asked.

  “Probably next week.”

  “Can I sneak a peek at your thoughts?” she asked.

  “About what?”

  “We’re posing together?”

  “Of course. Love scenes.”

  “You mean we’ll be touching?”

  The absentmindedness of his replies were abruptly ended. He peered around the easel at her, while he was mixing color. “Yes. You’ll be touching intimately.” Malcolm informed her. “Tasteful, but intended to be provocative.” Sydney got the feeling that he said this to shock her.

  Funny how she’d thought of this as innocent modeling when the project began; she’d assured Gabriel that it was. But no, there was nothing innocent about it, except her childlike naiveté, believing Malcolm. If Gabriel knew about Tomas, she’d have divorce papers in her hands in hours.

  As Sydney prepared herself to pose, she pondered the odd circumstances that had changed her life so much over the past weeks. She was beginning to wonder if she was compromising everything in her life to make this statement of personal freedom. Did she have any morals left at all? Then again, maybe the whole thing with Tomas would end up perfectly innocuous. She almost laughed aloud at that thought, except that Malcolm was in the midst of a serious task, and he might be pissed if she broke out in giggles. Tomas . . . even his name sounded erotic. He would have to be handsome. His body would undoubtedly conform to masculine perfection, at least the perfection in Malcolm’s eye. Which could mean he was not classically beautiful, just stunning to an artistic eye.

  “I want you to position yourself in the same pose of that sketch we reviewed,” Malcolm told her. “Don’t worry about being exact, I’ll take care of that. And stay relaxed as you are now. Another gulp of champagne if you like. I want you tranquil, you think you can handle that?”

  “You’re terribly demanding, Malcolm,” she joked. He didn’t joke much, especially when he was working, but she was trying it anyway, just to break the tension.

  “That I am,” he agreed. “Now be a love and get ready for me.”

  If he only knew how her brain was rampant with thoughts, even when her body was placid and immobile. Recreating the position he wanted took some effort, not physically as much as psychologically. With all the feelings about that pose having surfaced, being conscious of them made them more apparent. Closing in on herself with her hands under her body . . . thinking of her ass prominently exposed as the erotic centerpiece . . . the secret wondering . . . guessing what those hands were doing, so obviously arranged at her cunt . . . and the facial expression, humble, vulnerable, enduring and triumphant, all in the same turn of the lip and gaze of the eye. Maybe today, she’d be a completely different person on the sketch pad, and all that something she exuded a week ago would be gone.

  The two spent the remainder of the evening artist and model, and nothing more. After having relinquished to him sexually every other time they’d worked together, Sydney was surprised when he didn’t want to make love when they were finished.

  She pulled up on the couch after he announced the session was over, and waited for him to come to her. Her body was tuned to the possibility. The earlier orgasm was long gone in her mind, another fresh arousal was waiting for some relief. She watched him wipe his hands, and move toward her with a grace that was classic Malcolm. His smile was delightful.

  “How about a short session tomorrow morning? I want to catch you in the early light. Then later, we’ll go out to dinner.”

  She looked at him startled.

  “You need a break,” he explained.

  “Sure,” Sydney replied. As she reached for her clothes.

  “And if you’re up for a longer night, the Springsong Gallery is having a reception. I have a few pieces hanging there, I’d like to see. We’ll take in a little art talk?”

  “Okay. Sure,” Sydney cautiously agreed. “But . . . “ she eyed him with sensuous teasing eyes, expecting he’d want to make love before she left.

  “Not now, Syd, we’ll do something really inventive tomorrow.”

  “Oh?”

  Malcolm didn’t explain further.

  For Sydney, going out on a date with Malcolm turned a casual affair into an official one, making a major statement about her sexual and marital status—though nothing was really written in stone, and everything could change in a hairsbreadth.

  Chapter Six

  They were in the middle of the small elegant gallery; Springsong was the best in the area. Sydney would die for one of her works to be hanging on its walls. Malcolm had a wall all his own, which was impressive; and in Sydney’s mind his were the only pieces that mattered.

  “Yes, she’s my model for the project,” Malcolm told the several people chatting in their group.

  Sydney was blushing at the remark, and she never blushed.

  “You really made a coup getting that grant money for your scandalous art.” It was an effervescent man speaking, his eyes shifting from Malcolm to Sydney’s body and back to Malcolm again.

  “It’s art,” Malc
olm said simply.

  There were six pairs of eyes disrobing her, six mouths watering at the sight of her in tight fitting lycra.

  She felt manipulated. Malcolm had walked into her apartment that evening, nixed her choice of clothes immediately, and pulled the purple dress from the closet, insisting she wear it. She’d only worn it for Gabriel once, and she felt it a little crass for a semi-formal reception. She recoiled, especially because she sensed the set up right away, even though at first, acting the part of a vamp wasn’t necessarily unappealing. Her reasoning for agreeing to the dress: if she was going to be a single woman, there was no reason not to act like one. After all, she hadn’t heard a blessed thing from Gabriel in nearly three weeks. If he was cooling off, he’d be cold as an iceberg by now.

  But, standing beside Malcolm in the bright lights of this fancy reception, her presence in the purple dress was altogether different than she anticipated.

  “So, when do you unveil your monument to carnal ecstasy?” another interested patron questioned Malcolm.

  “Three months, maybe four,” he told the group. “I’m only half way through preliminary sketches. I still have the male figure to introduce into the work.”

  “Well, you’ve picked the perfect female model.” It was a woman talking this time, gushing actually, as the brunette stared right at Sydney’s breasts, and the distinct nipples poking through the fabric of her dress.

  ***

  “Like a piece of meat!” Sydney blared out, when Malcolm sat down in the driver’s seat of his Mercedes, next to her. He was parked just outside the Springsong gallery, about ready to start the car, when she roared.

  “What?” He was surprised by an obvious attack.

  Her eyes were flashing, unlike Malcolm had ever seen.

  “You heard me,” she retorted.

  “You felt like a piece of meat?” he repeated back.

  “You arranged it that way, picking out this dress, showing up at the gallery with me on your arm, like some Playboy bunny.”

  “Feminist inclinations, all of a sudden?” Malcolm asked. Settling himself down, he was a little perturbed by the outburst, but also amused.