Body Wisdom & Uncompromising Portraits

by Lizbeth Dusseau

  “I never lied to you about my sexual passions, Sydney.”

  “You’re right about that.”

  “So don’t start getting high minded and moral on me. You like the screwing as much as we did today. And if it creates the attitude I want in my models, we’ll do it every time.”

  Sydney shivered, hopefully not so Malcolm could see. It was on the inside where her body was quaking. Having sex like the morning’s wild ride met a dark need in her; even if she wasn’t completely satisfied. She didn’t want to admit it to Malcolm; it was too private for her to share with someone she really didn’t trust. Especially since she decided that he never had cared about her.

  “Well tomorrow then,” Sydney said, and she was swiftly out the door.

  Chapter Ten

  It was unusual that Sydney was home late in the afternoon. No modeling, no classes, she was painting in the dusky evening shadows that were coming through the window. She hadn’t turned on a lamp because she liked painting in the dark gray shades of light. She was pretending to paint a picture of the dying roses and their falling petals that were sitting on the table in front of her. She was really painting what was in her heart.

  At this moment, everything in her world was laced with sadness. The music playing in the background, the mystical mood of the fading day, and the heavy feeling in the pit of her stomach. One glad thing, her body seemed at peace. Despite her gross reservations about Malcolm and Tomas, she’d enjoyed her sexual interlude with them. The memory of her remarkable morning replayed in her mind as if it was a broken record on its never ending trip around the turntable.

  When the phone suddenly jangled noisily, Sydney dropped her paint brush. For an instant, she gazed down at the splash of dark blue paint on the floor, then hearing the grating ring again, she finally wiped her hands on a towel and reached over to answer the telephone.

  “Sydney?” The voice on the other end was distinct.

  “Gabe?

  “Yeah, how are you?” he asked. He almost sounded like he was surprised to find her home. “You want to go out for pizza?”

  “Pizza? Now?”

  “You’ve already eaten?” he asked.

  “No. I’m just surprised at the invitation.”

  “I need to talk,” Gabriel explained.

  “You could come over here, I was just going find something to throw together, you could join me?”

  “No. I don’t want to come to the apartment.” He was adamant about that.

  “Afraid you might stay?” she asked.

  “If I wanted to stay I would, but I don’t.” He sounded annoyed.

  “So where do you want to meet?” Sydney asked. “Guiseppe’s?”

  “Sure, in a half hour?”

  “That’s rushing it, but I’ll be there,” she replied.

  “You’re not modeling tonight?” he asked before he hung up.

  “No, we worked this morning.”

  “We?” Gabriel instantly questioned her.

  The choice of “we” was unfortunate, the implications something Gabe would easily jump on. “If I’m going to see you in a half hour,” Sydney explained, “I’ll have to run.” She skirted over his question, hoping he’d forget.

  “I’ll see you there,” he signed off.

  Sydney heard the click and put her own receiver in the cradle, a little anxious, and a little happier to think she’d see her husband, because he was instigating the meeting. It could also mean he’d given up on them and was going to tell her so. But “talk”, the word sounded intimate and refreshing, against the backdrop of hot but voiceless soulless sex that had characterized the earlier part of the day.

  Chapter Eleven

  They sat in silence for several minutes. Though the noise around them made up for lack of conversation, it didn’t make sitting across from each other, eye to eye, any easier. He was nervous, looking around as if he was afraid they were being watched, or he wasn’t sure of what he wanted to say to the woman who was in front of him.

  “You wanted to talk?” Sydney prompted him, after they’d been served their pizza.

  “Yeah,” he nodded his head.

  “I’m here,” she replied pleasantly. She wasn’t feeling patient, but it wasn’t going to do any good being anxious. Gabriel would take his time.

  “I need to understand you,” he finally said. He looked at her with his dark penetrating eyes, seeming even more intense than usual.

  “Oh? What about?”

  “Why you’re on this independent streak, why you’ve jeopardized a good marriage for this modeling job. I don’t understand.” Sydney could see he didn’t, his words were painfully sincere as was the tight expression on his face. “At first, I was just angry, and then, well now, I just wonder why? Why isn’t loving me enough? You say you’re still in love with me, and want me back. But now you’re having sex with another man, or is it two?”

  If he’d asked her the question the day before—the day before her ménage a trois—she could have given him a self-righteous response, vowing she’d never do anything so obscene.

  “. . . I don’t understand, Syd, but everything just fell away, without my ever realizing it. You’ve mixed up all the rules. I don’t understand you anymore. And it wasn’t until I screwed you at Miriam’s wedding that I realized that I still want you. I wanted you more than anything in world that day. I wanted to go home with you and start over. And I even thought for a minute I might. But then, I realized that I didn’t understand what had happened to us in the first place, so how the hell was I going to keep it from happening again?”

  Sydney looked at her husband thoughtfully. It was the first real conversation they’d had, one that hadn’t been laced with his judgment, her guilt and a terrific gnawing pain. “You know when you want to, you make great sense,” she smiled at him kindly.

  “Sydney, please, I’m struggling here.”

  “I wish I knew what to tell you. But I don’t know either, not really.” She rattled around inside her brain for a few minutes trying to figure out how to respond to him. “I guess the problem between us is judgment.”

  He didn’t understand. His beautifully handsome, still very tan face was offering nothing but a bewildered, almost childlike expression.

  “I’m not completely happy with everything that’s going on with me right now, Gabe. But I do know that I don’t want my sexuality judged. And though you never said a word, I could feel the judgment written in the way you looked at me, the way you’d let loose sexually, and then all of a sudden tighten up when it was over, as if I was some indecent strumpet who had tainted your precious virtue.”

  “You think that was what I was doing?”

  “I know that was what you were doing. It’s not something I ever thought about, but I sure as hell felt it. I play the harlot. You love it. Then you turn around and judge me. I walk away thinking I’m just not the woman you really want, even though I know you’re getting off on the sex.”

  She stopped and waited for him to say something, but he was silent.

  “I never know what you’re thinking. If you approve, or you want me to stop. You don’t want to talk about it and I’m left out in the cold. I don’t want to live like that.”

  “So I’m supposed to approve of your promiscuous behavior?” Gabriel said, reacting immediately to the tinge of hurt in Sydney’s expression.

  “See! That’s exactly what I mean. The words you choose, promiscuous, like I’m some sixteen year old sex starved brat.”

  “What the hell is wrong with calling it what it is? What you’re doing now with Malcolm and god knows who else is promiscuous.”

  “Maybe it is, but that word doesn’t explain what’s behind my behavior, it’s just meant to make you right, which makes me wrong.”

  “So if it isn’t promiscuity, Syd, what is it!”

  “Self-expression, free, untainted self-expression. I guess you could say there’s a wanton slut in me. And I would have been very happy being that with you, but you didn’
t like it.”

  “And Malcolm Eisley does?”

  “He doesn’t judge me,” she said.

  “You’re in love with him?”

  “No, I’m not in love him.”

  “You still love me?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know that anymore.”

  “Then how do you know you want me back?”

  “Gabe, if you could just accept the woman I am, the real woman under this skin, the one that’s really very naughty about sex. If you could just accept that, and enjoy what I bring to our marriage . . . . let it excite you. . . If you could just relax and give us both some space to be as lewd and indecent as we really feel . . .”

  His lips were pursed, his eyes had narrowed. He wasn’t getting it. He was only scowling more fiercely, looking as if he’d been trying to figure things out, but there was a roadblock that wasn’t moving.

  “So, are you going to keep screwing this guy?”

  “I’m not going to answer you, Gabe. You’re hurt and you’re judging me, and nothing I could say would explain this. I don’t think there’s much hope anymore. I’m not blaming you, but I just don’t think we’re going to make this relationship work. At least not now.”

  “Maybe you’re right, Syd. Maybe this is one of those things I’ll never understand.”

  Sydney rose from the table, gave him a kiss on the forehead, and walked out. It was a whole lot easier leaving first, than having him walk out on her, which would certainly have taken place a few seconds later.

  ***

  Sydney was ready to sleep, pulling back the sheets of her lonely bed. She’d thought of nothing all night long, except her conversation with Gabriel. The impasse between them was only getting worse.

  The phone rang, disturbing her thoughts as much as they had earlier in the evening. And it was Gabriel again. This time his voice was only annoying.

  “You modeling tomorrow?” he asked her.

  “Yes,” she replied.

  “When?”

  “In the morning.”

  “I’d like to be there.”

  “What . . . you would, really? You’re sure?” She said it all in one breath, her heart jumping to her throat.

  “Malcolm’s studio?” he asked.

  “Yes. You took me there once,” Sydney reminded him.

  “I remember.”

  “Eleven o’clock,” she said.

  “I’ll see you then,” he said, and he hung up the phone.

  Chapter Twelve

  The next morning, Sydney met Gabriel in the parking lot outside the studio. She smiled weakly seeing him smile the same.

  Sydney had been up since five that morning, painting when she couldn’t sleep. She’d felt sexual from the moment Gabriel announced his intentions at nearly midnight the night before. And when she finally settled down in bed, she could think of nothing but Gabriel watching her pose naked with Tomas, being painted by Malcolm. Right there center stage. The thought of it made her body hurt, her clitoris ache, her cunt burn and juice, until her hands were between her legs pleasing herself. She was rocking against the invading hand and fast rubbing fingers, getting off to the idea of her husband’s dark sexy Italian eyes focusing all their intensity on her being sexual with another man.

  She slept sexy all night long, dreaming of three men descending on her, dreaming of cocks at her mouth’s door, and some man’s tongue at her ass. She jerked from sleep several times, to fondle herself and fall back asleep before she could raise another orgasm. At five, there was no more sleep in her, just sexual energy brewing. Needing to put the excess desire into something, she poured it into her painting, blending pigments into new colors so that her dead roses were coming to life again.

  She worked straight through until ten o’clock, being reminded of the time of day when she heard the school bells ring across the street. Though it was the wrong time to stop her work, she was just really getting into the life of the painting she was working on, she had no choice but to leave.

  Malcolm would be pissed if she was late. Gabriel, probably even more pissed. The thought of the three men together in the studio shooting the breeze, their various versions of masculine bravado jockeying for position over the woman who wasn’t there . . . . . it was almost laughable, except that two of the men would be furious, and Tomas would just take off when it was clear she wasn’t going to show up.

  “You want to see the whole session?” she asked, as she and Gabriel walked up the stairs to Malcolm’s studio.

  “I’ll see,” he replied.

  “You don’t have to work today?” she asked.

  “It’s handled,” Gabriel replied. He was hardly being friendly, but at least something was going on inside his obtuse brain to have decided on this drastic move. Sydney didn’t know whether to be heartened or scared to death. She had thousands of questions on the tip of her tongue that wouldn’t be asked, and certainly not answered. She’d just have to wait and see. Her life had been on hold for weeks, perhaps this was a positive move. She could only hope.

  When Sydney walked into the studio followed by Gabriel, Tomas was already naked, Malcolm was mixing color.

  While her fellow model hardly noticed the intruder, Malcolm did a double take, his eyes widening in horror, only to retreat as fast to a curious puzzlement.

  “Gabe’s going to watch,” Sydney announced.

  “Watch?” Malcolm said.

  The three eyed each other awkwardly, until Malcolm broke out into an amused grin. “How about Gabriel stripping too, and I’ll paint all three of you?” he said.

  Sydney looked for an expression on Gabe’s face, but it was poker straight. He didn’t look unhappy, just reflective.

  “If it’s okay, I’ll sit on the sidelines,” Gabriel said. He’d already found a convenient chair near the door, even if it wasn’t the most comfortable place to observe the session. Then again, it wouldn’t have surprised Sydney, if he just ran out when the eroticism got too sizzling for him to handle.

  Sydney retreated to the wall beside centerstage, that she’d decided was “her” corner for her things. She dropped her bag and tugged at the sweatshirt she’d thrown on earlier. Pulling the fleecy garment over her head, her breasts swung free, and all three pairs of men’s’ eyes watched, when none of them had bothered gazing at this ritual disrobing before. Was it some kind of male thing? She found it fascinating.

  Sydney flashed them a deliberate smile, and Malcolm went back to his easel, and Tomas turned toward the kitchen, his two well-rounded buns moving seductively. He didn’t have to try being sexy, it just always happened. But then, his eroticism was no different than her husband’s, when he was in the right mood. With the other men preoccupied, only Gabriel’s eyes remained focused on his wife, completely interested in every move she made.

  Sydney continued disrobing staring at the couch, she was far more nervous than she’d been since she started the nude modeling. Gabriel’s presence made a big difference in the room. The nudity had become commonplace with the other two men, but it wasn’t now. With a few brief tugs, she pushed down her stretch pants, where there was nothing but skin underneath, exposing every part of her voluptuous body.

  “Get busy you two, I need you in the middle, something simple you’ve done before,” Malcolm announced. “I want Tomas sitting, Sydney on his lap.”

  The two models struck the familiar pose sitting, Sydney’s back to Tomas’s front.

  “No, no no no no,” Malcolm objected. “I want you turned around, Syd.”

  “Climb on his lap?”

  “Didn’t I make it clear?” Malcolm asked.

  Sydney was trying to make this session the same as any session, though there was no way it could be. Not when she could feel Gabriel’s eyes so intently focused on her skin, that her stood on end. It felt like there were two heated spots where his gaze was burning right through her.

  Jumping off Tomas’s lap, Sydney turned around and straddled his legs, scooting forward, legs wide, her feet having now
here to go as her legs wrapped around his body.

  “Won’t work, Mal,” she called to the artist.

  “You can’t hold them there?” he asked, with a little smirk of amusement, seeing her try to keep her legs around the naked man. With a sly smirk on his face, Malcolm pulled a bench in behind the chair where she could rest her legs. Once settled, the two models embraced, their foreheads touched, all as instructed; and they remained so fixed for nearly a half an hour.

  The air was hotter with the third man there, from tension, her own anxiety and Malcolm’s too, and from the sexual heat that was hard to dismiss. Sydney felt it, did anyone else, she wondered?

  After nearly forty five minutes of holding the pose, Malcolm announced a break. Though before Tomas let Sydney rise, he kissed her, without giving her a choice. “Relax luv,” he whispered, “you have nothing to prove, except how beautiful you are.” He gave her an affectionate smile.

  She kissed him back briskly and hopped off his lap.

  “You enjoying this?” she asked her husband. She had to say something, even if it sounded trite. His moody expression was too much to bear in complete silence.

  “Seems I got the whole picture,” Gabriel said.

  “What does that mean?” she asked.

  “I mean it’s clear to me what you do here, why it turns you on, why it’s so likely that you have to fuck these men.”

  “Is that all?” she asked.

  “It’s pretty damned titillating, but then, your body has always turned me on.”

  “And now?”

  “Why would it be any different?” He reached out to her and ran his hands though her hair, tenderly.

  Was there too much closeness for Malcolm? Had he heard their private conversation, and decided to interrupt? Sydney speculated about it, since Malcolm chose that moment to call them back to work. For the next full hour, Sydney and Tomas reclined on the couch like the most intimate of lovers, their intertwining limbs bringing them so close that their bodies couldn’t help but respond, even if they were hidden responses.

  An hour later, and another break, Gabriel rose from his chair.