Body Wisdom & Uncompromising Portraits

by Lizbeth Dusseau

  “I gotta go,” he said.

  “Should we talk?” she asked. His leaving was all too brisk for her, and it wasn’t easy to have a personal conversation in front of the other men.

  “No, later,” he said.

  “Don’t let me keep you two lovebirds,” Malcolm said sarcastically. “We’ll stop for the day, and you can go with him.”

  “That’s okay,” Gabriel said. “I’m going to work.”

  “Well, thank you for coming,” Malcolm said with a triumphant smirk. “Will you be enjoying us again, soon?”

  Gabriel bristled, what tenderness had been apparent earlier, vanished. “I really have to go, and I certainly don’t want to interrupt what’s next.”

  Sydney watched her husband exit without another word, and once the door clicked behind him, she whirled around, “You fucking ass!” she roared.

  “Pissed are we?” Malcolm said. “Did it ever occur to you that I’m not particularly interested in having an audience for my sessions? You could have let me know.”

  “And you’d only have refused to have him. This was important to me, Malcolm; though I don’t think you did much to help what’s hurting my marriage.”

  “You mean you haven’t given up on that?” he asked.

  “No, I haven’t.”

  “I hate to see you delude yourself.”

  “But it is my delusion! It probably doesn’t matter to you, but Gabriel offers me a whole lot more than you do.”

  “Really? I’d like to know what.” He was incredibly smug.

  “Good god, Malcolm, lay off of her,” the now dressed Tomas said. He gave Sydney an affectionate tousle of her ash blonde hair, and walked past the sparring duo and out the door.

  Sydney was getting dressed as fast as she could, grateful that she had only a two things to put on.

  “Oh no you don’t.” Malcolm suddenly rushed at her.

  “Don’t what?”

  “Run away.”

  “I’m going home, Malcolm, that’s not running away.”

  “No, you can stay, I want you for another hour.”

  “To fuck or to pose?”

  “Probably both,” he answered.

  “You think I’ll do whatever you want, you think I’ll be swept off my feet by you. Go ahead pose me. How do to you want it this time?” She angrily removed clothes she’d just put on. “Cunt spread? Ass in the air? Or shall I try something cutsy, a little old fashioned cheesecake?”

  “What are you trying to say?”

  “That you’re obsessive, a dirty old man with your pictures.”

  “Ah, now you’re sounding like that husband of yours.”

  “No. There’s a big difference. He’s a little confused, a lot old fashioned, but I’m not. You thinly disguise your lust Malcolm, you do this for lust and little else as far as I can see.”

  “And what about you?”

  “Yeah, I’m doing it for lust too, because I love it. Because it’s spice and fun and very naughty. But I know it’s not going to last, and I don’t try to make it. And behind it all, I’m really looking for more. I was certainly hoping there was more than just professional lust between us.”

  “Is that so, little bitch,” Malcolm said swaggering toward her.

  He took her hands in his and pulled them around behind her. He kissed her mouth, opening it wide with his, and moved his body against hers.

  “You don’t want this to end, darling, do you?”

  She listened to his question, though she heard him more through his body, listening to his desire, to the fine thrill that moved from him to her, catching her in its grasp again.

  “You can’t stop, can you?” he went on. “Even as much as you want to. Even if you think I’m a lecherous old man without a conscience. You love your cunt too much, and I know just how to make it very happy. His chest grazed against hers, teasing the nipples that were aroused into little buds.

  “You know Malcolm, I could easily hate you for the way you’re treating me. You offer me sex, and that’s good, but I want more and you’ve known that about me all along.”

  The artist backed off.

  “Oh, I see. So you don’t want me anymore?”

  “I didn’t say that,” Sydney said. “But if this is just lust, I wish you’d respect my feelings for Gabriel a little more. Respect me as a person. Or am I just a body for you to paint? In a few weeks, nothing but the woman in oils hanging on your wall?”

  “I’m sorry, I have hurt you, haven’t I?” Malcolm said.

  “Yes.” It was nice for him to acknowledge her feelings, and once he named it, she realized how hurt she was.

  Malcolm looked less arrogant acknowledging the truth. “Maybe I was jealous this morning,” he conceded.

  “Jealous? You?”

  “It’s been known to happen.” His face was softening even more, his eyes looking more gentle, a warmth returning she hadn’t seen all day. “Did it ever occur to you that it might bother me the way I know you want this relationship with Gabriel to work. Perhaps I just want you for my own.”

  “You have no problem with me screwing Tomas.”

  “Tomas is my puppet. I control him. At least I did the other day. And I did that for art as much as anything, you were getting so weird posing with him. I told you, I thought a little fornication would do us all good. But I didn’t like it.”

  “If you do care about me, why do you go on like you don’t, like it’s only sex. You act like nothing more than a self-indulgent bastard.”

  “I’m a man. We are a closed and mysterious species. You think I’m that much different from Gabriel? I may be a little more open minded, but I still have my moments.”

  Sydney thought the self-depreciation charming. It was certainly unexpected. It worked on her sexual fires instantly, and made her wonder if there just might be something more between she and the artist, just as she’d always hoped there would be.

  When Malcolm’s eyes locked on hers, it didn’t take but seconds for Sydney to realize what he wanted. She could feel the desire moving through her too. Moving against her this time, she didn’t resist. He pushed her to the bed, down on the cool firm surface, his chest pressed to hers. He had her arms pinned in his hands, at the side of her head.

  Sydney struggled half-heartedly to free them, thinking that she wanted to touch him back. She didn’t want to remain pinned as she had the day before when some unspoken command kept her captive to both men. Breaking from his grasp, Sydney took Malcolm’s face in her hands and brought his lips down to kiss hers, as he was rapidly moving for the heart of the lovemaking, the hot center between her legs.

  Backing away from the kissing, Malcolm raised her legs above over his shoulders, so he could have maximum thrust, to the hilt of her cunt, right to the very bottom where it felt so good to cause a deep internal massage. He fucked her hard, making certain to add a well-practiced movement against her belly, that massaged her clit with each in and out jolt. It wasn’t long before the model was crying madly, tears and all, her cunt moving as rapidly as his raging cock.

  “Oh my god, Malcolm more!” She wiggled back and forth, the opposing movements doing exactly what they needed to do to bring her to her satisfaction. On the rise, she was tripping over an edge she loved, shimmying joyously under Malcolm’s body.

  She’d do it again and again for this feeling. How he knew her so well bothered her. She had to stop this madness, but with no idea how, she would keep getting taken in by Malcolm and his self-indulgent world. All she could do was hope that he was as sincere as his earlier speech.

  ***

  Sydney expected the phone to ring that evening. She expected Gabriel to call and talk. She even expected for him to make his decision about their relationship, to announce to her he was ready to end it completely. He’d seen the whole scenario. He’d seen the kiss from Tomas, the closeness the two felt that clearly rivaled the closeness he’d known in bed with her. He’d seen Malcolm’s jealous tiff. He’d be adding it all up, and making a dec
ision very soon. She counted on it.

  But he didn’t call that night. The phone was silent, Gabriel was silent, and Sydney was lost in endless speculation wondering what her husband was thinking. He’d had all day to think about the morning, but still, he was silent. If Gabriel wanted to punish her for adultery, there was no better way than to make her wait to hear the final judgment.

  That night, Sydney painted again; but unlike the morning, when she’d been flooded with a vast store of expectancy and lusty sensual energy, she returned to the morose drabness of gray shadows, the dour looking colors on the canvas reflecting the heaviness in her heart.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Not the day after Gabriel watched his wife in another man’s arms, but three days later he knocked on the apartment door early in the morning, knowing she was there since her car was still outside.

  “Can I get you some coffee?” she asked sleepily, because he’d awakened her.

  “It’s made?” he asked.

  “In a minute. I need some, or I’ll never open my eyes.”

  She couldn’t believe the horrible timing. She must have looked terrible, but then, he was her husband, and they had lived together for several years, and he knew exactly what she looked like in the morning. Still, if she could have chosen the time, she would have picked another, when she was more awake and thinking more clearly, and at the very least, wearing a little make-up.

  Sitting at the kitchen table together, it almost seemed like old times, the same awkward distance after they’d fought, the same reticence of Gabriel to express his feelings, the same lovely, intriguing, perplexing face, with Sydney looking into it, longing to know what was behind all the mystery he so easily displayed. Just like old times.

  “You’ve kept me on pins and needles,” Sydney started the conversation.

  “Have I? That wasn’t my intention.”

  “No?”

  “You sound as if you expect some kind of decision from me.”

  “Well, I do,” she answered flatly.

  “Oh.”

  “You mean you haven’t made a decision . . . about us?”

  “I’m sorry to disappoint you,” Gabriel said. “I only wanted to see you model because I wanted to see how I’d react. I wanted to try and feel what you were feeling.”

  She nodded, hoping Gabriel would just keep talking. But after his initial statement, the air waves were suddenly and uncomfortably silent. A brooding Gabriel took one big gulp of coffee.

  “Did you fuck them after I left?” he finally asked.

  “Malcolm and Tomas?”

  “Was there someone else, I didn’t know about?” he asked.

  “No, no. It was just Malcolm,” she said, realizing how difficult it was to admit to this. “Malcolm and I had sex, Tomas left.”

  “Does he do something special for you?” Gabriel asked.

  “Sort of,” she answered truthfully.

  “So, you’re not screwing Tomas too?”

  “We did once, a menage a trois.”

  Gabriel nodded. He looked at her as if he was trying to imagine her in bed with two men.

  “Well, if it makes you feel any better, Sydney, you’re right?”

  “Right how?”

  “The posing . . . turns me on. I can see why you like it.” He looked a little brighter, this was a difficult admission to make, and he lightened; getting it off his chest was lifting a load.

  “Thank you for admitting it,” Sydney replied. “And do you get off on the thought of me screwing two men?” There was a naughty grin on her face, nothing too seductive

  “Yeah,” he smirked and nodded his head. “Hell, I don’t know why. It goes against everything I believe about marriage. But it does.” He was blushing.

  “I can understand that,” she said. “So is that all?”

  Gabriel thought for a moment before he answered. “You know, Syd, it was strange watching you, but kind of funny too.”

  “Why was that?”

  “The whole time, I kept thinking that you didn’t look very happy. Oh you looked hotter than shit lying next to Tomas, but you didn’t look happy. Is that the way it’s supposed to be?”

  Sydney shrugged, finding his comment curious, something she would have to really consider. Happiness? Had she given that up for her freedom too?

  There was another prickly silence, one almost too good to be true for Sydney. Gabriel was making admissions he never would have made before, but she knew better than to put too much into them. Gabriel was a master at changing moods, his mind and even his philosophy of life. If he admitted his lust, and began to understand her one minute, it might all change the next.

  “So, does this change things between us?” she asked timidly, after a long wait.

  “I don’t know, we’ll see,” he said. “I just decided that maybe being honest about this might help us both.”

  She smiled. “I’m glad you came, hon. You look pretty good sitting there.”

  “So do you.” He shoved himself away from the table, and they walked together toward the door.

  A step at a time, Sydney thought, as she watched him walk down the hall. She waved at him, wondering if perhaps they might still have a future.

  Chapter Fourteen

  There were just a few modeling sessions remaining. A couple alone with Malcolm, and a few with Tomas. These were pick-up sessions, as Malcolm needed them he said, to gel a few thoughts that hadn’t so far. The rest of the work he’d do from memory, the final shading was from his creative genius, he had no need for models then.

  There had been almost no sex in the final two weeks. Sydney’s reluctance, coupled with Malcolm’s preoccupation led only once into a flurried lovemaking, that happened quite by accident when Sydney kindly massaged the artist’s sore shoulders. There had been days of tension for her, loveless days, husbandless days as her fate with Gabriel hung in a balance of factors that Sydney had no control over. She wondered if she was becoming sexually conservative, all of a sudden wracked by a new morality that certainly hadn’t been intact in all the long weeks of this modeling job.

  It wasn’t morality exactly, but more due to Gabriel, and Sydney’s hopes for their relationship. The last time they were together he’d been so open, and willing to see things from her point of view.

  But she was impatient for the answers. Leaving the modeling meant leaving Malcolm Eisley’s relative safety, and the convenience of Tomas, and their wicked trio of lust. It meant moving on with some kind of life beyond the small studio and these men. It meant a wider world that Sydney didn’t really want.

  Approaching the end of the job, Sydney could feel the tension mount and so too her anger at Gabriel. Every day that he remained silently tucked away in his own world, “working things out”, she became more frustrated with him.

  “You ready for a little fun?” Malcolm asked Sydney, when Tomas had left, and his female model was buttoning her blouse.

  “Fun, when don’t I have fun with you?” she asked.

  Malcolm was at her side, fondling her cheek, making her look up into his eyes.

  “Something a little more “out there”?

  “That sounds interesting.”

  “Real blow out party, you’ll love it. Could probably use it too,” Malcolm said. “You’ve been looking too damned serious lately.”

  “I have? Where the party?”

  “Loft apartment few miles from here. Marco Santori.”

  “Oh my!” she exclaimed. She recognized the sculptor’s name; she knew his work, and his reputation. “So when, and what do I wear?”

  “Well that little dress you wore a few months back would be perfectly appropriate, something like that, very slutty. You wouldn’t want to be wearing too much for this kind of affair. There’s likely to be all kinds of strange costumes at this ball.”

  “Like what?”

  “Oh, fetish stuff, leather, spike heels, collars, nothing too tawdry, but that doesn’t mean it won’t get tawdry before it’s all over.”
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  This was the best offer Sydney had had in weeks. A blow out? It wouldn’t hurt to go round the bend for one night. Malcolm looked so thrilled, the whole thing was making her juicy between her legs.

  “Tonight?”

  “No, Saturday. You do something really fabulous with this body of yours, okay?”

  “You’re going to show me off again?”

  “This is art as life, nothing on the walls, and no models, just your sensuous body, and lots of other sensuous bodies doing sensuous things.” He pulled her up and ran his hands along her waist, feeling the beautiful curve of her form all the way to her breasts. Cupping them, while a reluctant Sydney looked down at his graceful hands, he made them tingle, raising a heat she hadn’t felt for some days. It was nearly orgasmic, but she didn’t want an orgasm at Malcolm’s hands right now. She was saving herself for Gabriel. Damn him anyway for taking so long. But . . . it was easy to imagine breaking her vows once more on Saturday night, if her missing husband hadn’t appeared by then.

  “I’ll find something really lewd to wear, as long as you promise I won’t stand out like a reject from the topless bar down the street,” Sydney said.

  “I promise you, nothing you’d come up with would be as naughty as the costumes you’ll see. You’re much too much a good girl to be that raunchy.”

  “Humph. I just may surprise you,” she said. “You picking me up?” She wrenched away from his roving hands and continued to get dressed.

  “I’ll pick you up at eight, this will be a late one. I don’t imagine that things will really get started until after midnight.”

  “And what do we do until midnight?”

  “Get high and horny.”

  There was a mischievous bad girl grin on Sydney’s face. With her head cocked just right, her soft ash blonde curls bobbing, she looked like a nymph, a very sultry wanton woman of loose morals kind of nymph. It was the side of Sydney that Malcolm liked best. It almost made him want to keep her around, though he was pretty sure she’d never stay after the commitment she’d made to his project was complete. He could only imagine a heady reconciliation with her bratty young husband, all the careful sexual training lost completely—except what the poor boy might take for himself if he was smart enough to take it.