Slow Seduction (Struck by Lightning)

by Cecilia Tan

  I chuckled a little. “And here I thought he was high-strung.”

  “He’ll wind up again gradually over the next month, and then they’ll take him apart again. It works for all concerned.” She smiled dotingly. “But we were talking about you. I’m sorry to say that unless you have a very strong argument for staying on, we’re going to have to let you go, and it sounds to me unlikely we’ll see your Jules here again, so you’ve little motivation to stay.”

  “You’re right,” I said. “There’s no reason for me to be here.”

  “I’m sorry we couldn’t engineer a resolution for you and Jules, either,” she said. “Keep my number. If he eventually does reject you, or you decide to give up on him and you want to come back, I’d be open to speaking with you about it.”

  “You would?”

  “I like you, Karina. You’re bright and smart and your heart is in the right place. Not to mention, you’re a born masochist with an understanding of service. You’d be very valuable to us, if you wanted to be here. It’s good we both recognize that right now, though, you don’t.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’ll call you a taxi home.” She stood. “My last piece of advice is this. Do you know what excites Damon George?”

  “Blindfolds?” I guessed.

  “Pushing the boundaries,” she answered. “The thing that gets him the hardest is pushing against the rules and the strictures. Not breaking them, because that would get him thrown out of too many places, but on seeing how far he can go, how much he can get away with in the gray area before he crosses the line into too far. And this is a man who thinks with his cock.”

  “Are you saying don’t trust him?”

  “I’m saying understand what drives him.”

  “Thank you. That’s good advice.” It applied equally well to James, too. What drove James to be so secretive, so closed, so careful? I hoped I would have the opportunity to find out.

  Twelve

  Images of Broken Light

  The taxi let me off in front of the ArtiWorks. Despite the late hour, I could see the lights in the gallery were blazing through the paper that covered the front windows. Inside I found Michel with a roll of tape on his wrist like a bracelet, pacing back and forth on the raised section of floor that would serve as a “stage,” though it was only a few inches higher than the rest.

  “Ah, Karina, you can help me with this.” He held out one end of a tape measure, which I took between two fingers. “Hold that down on the piece of tape over there.” He pointed to the edge where I could see he had marked an X.

  He then measured a distance he had in his head and put down another taped X. He marked out two more spots and then stood back. “Perfect! It will fit. Thank heaven.”

  “What will fit?” I asked.

  “The rather large installation that your friend will be contributing to our opening, of course! This will leave plenty of room along here…” He gestured to the open area that would extend from the edge of the raised step to where the chairs and tables would be. “For the dance performance, which it looks like we will not have anyway, but I am hopeful, nonetheless.”

  “What happened to the dance performance?”

  “Oh. The leader of the troupe has a severely sprained ankle, and her husband, who also dances in the troupe, a broken elbow, I believe. Quite a coincidence, no?”

  “Were they in a car accident?”

  “Heh. That would be a convenient cover story. But no, I believe it was described as a sex swing accident.” He looked up at the ceiling where two large eyebolts had been installed. “They were rehearsing for this very performance and got carried away, I think. And then the attachment to their ceiling gave way. Alas. It will be dull without dance.”

  I had thought maybe he was going to say it would be dull without sex, but no. I looked up at the bolts. “I guess you’ll have to hang a sculpture or a lamp or something.”

  “Yes.” Then he looked at me for the first time since I had come in. “Mon chérie, are you all right? You look as though you have been crying.”

  “Oh, I’m fine. I’m fine.”

  “This man who took you on the weekend-long date. Is he a problem?” Michel took my hands in his.

  “It’s not him, Misha. I…I’ll be okay. So, this installation. When’s he coming to install it?”

  Michel cleared his throat. “Well, he is shipping most of it down with two assistants, who will do the initial construction. He won’t arrive until the day of, with the final segments. I can see from your face that you are disappointed about this.”

  I squeezed his fingers in mine. “I should probably tell you and Paulina something.”

  “Something serious?”

  “Very serious. Although first I should tell you…I used to do modern dance. I…I could put together a performance for the opening. In fact, I would really, really like to.”

  “Truly? All right, chérie, let’s finish up down here and then you can tell Paul and me all about your idea and whatever your other secret is.”

  “Okay.”

  We turned off the light and went out the front door. Michel locked it with the key and then unlocked the door to the flat. Upstairs, Paulina was emerging from her studio and putting on the kettle as we arrived on the landing.

  We settled ourselves in their art-filled sitting room again, with the latest in Paulina’s baked creations on the table in the middle, éclairs and cream puffs. “If I can get it right in time for the opening, I’ll cater it myself with these,” she said, holding up a mini-éclair. They tasted delicious, but some of them were oddly shaped.

  “Tsk, they are artisanal,” Michel scoffed. “I think you should make none in the traditional shape! Each one should be unique.”

  “That’s harder than making them uniform,” she said, licking chocolate from her fingers.

  “No one said art was always easy.” Michel looked up at me. “Karina has an idea for the opening, too.”

  “Um, yes. I heard about the dancers who got injured, and Michel was saying with less than two weeks to go it’s too late to find someone to replace them. But I thought I could do something.”

  “Do something?” Paulina asked.

  “Dance something,” I said. “It’s been a while, but I have an idea. If the piece that is being installed is the same one I saw in York, I even have a way to integrate it into the performance.”

  “Oh, that’s exciting,” Paulina said. “Misha, do you have the photos from the e-mail?”

  “I’ll get them.” He set down his teacup and hurried into the other room. I waited until he had come back. The photos were marked with dimensions, height and width, of each piece and the floor layout of the footprint of the sculptures.

  “This is exactly what I remember.” I looked at the images and passed them to Paulina. “Did he tell you what the art is meant to evoke?”

  “Not a word, but I can interpret abstraction with the best of them.” Michel cracked his knuckles. “All of the red? You cannot think it is anything but blood. Spilled blood is conflict. And the looming, jagged red maw above? Why, it is the piece of his heart that is left after being broken. No?”

  “The entire thing is a carnivorous flower,” Paulina said. “The petals turning to teeth, a warning that beauty does not mean passivity. And this protuberance in the center is of course the stamen. Or the pistil. I forget my botany. The sexual bit that protrudes.”

  “Go with Freud and call it the phallus,” Michel joked.

  “To me it also evokes the floating world of Japanese art.” I pointed to the shape of the overhanging red claw/maw. “This looks like the breaking wave, the Great Wave of Hokusai, only in red instead of blue.”

  “Ah, I see that!” Michel grew very excited then. “This cannot be an accident. It must be intentional. Right down to some of the shards having opaque white parts capping the red. But what do you think the piece means?”

  “I’ve been thinking about it a lot, and I think the association with the wave is say
ing something about the force of desire, about how once the tide of lust is unleashed, it cannot be stopped. This is a part of nature that mankind thinks can be controlled, but once the wave reaches its crest, it’s going to be unstoppable.”

  “Ah, and your phallic pistil then is truly the phallus,” Michel said. “What artist doesn’t dream of glorifying his own penis?”

  “Female ones, perhaps?” Paulina swatted him on the shoulder. “Listen to Karina.”

  I went on. “Well, it probably is the phallus in this case. I need to ask you guys, though. Misha said the other dancers were going to do a very…sexual show.”

  “Well, I think they intended to merely simulate sex, but possibly in such a way as to make the audience wonder whether it was real,” Michel said. “Why do you ask?”

  “I’d do that, too,” I said. “I would interact with the art as if it were a monster of male desire come to life. Some of it might be, um, quite racy.”

  “Racy is good,” Paulina said. “Racy is very good. But what about the artist himself?”

  “I would like to keep it a secret from him. And I promise I won’t damage any of the art. Here’s the other thing I’ve been meaning to tell you.”

  They were both silent, hanging on my words.

  “I did an art performance with J. B. Lester once before.” How could I come out and say this? What if I was wrong and they didn’t really know James? “That was before I knew…who he really was.”

  Paulina nodded. “We’ve suspected he was J. B. Lester for some time now, but we’ve never told anyone in the LL community.”

  I sighed in relief. “Then you understand.”

  “Yes. I believe one of the reasons he responded positively to the invitation to the ArtiWorks is he knows we’ll understand the need to keep his secrets,” Paulina said.

  Michel cackled a little. “And he’s owed us a favor for, oh, only about ten years.”

  Paulina poured fresh tea into my cup, then her own. “I’m sorry, you were saying?”

  “Yes. I was…in a relationship with him. I think I still am. But he’s been in hiding from everyone, including me.”

  Michel’s eyes were bright with mischief. “Oh, we must keep you a secret, too, then!”

  “Well, I wanted to talk with you about it, because I don’t want him to cut you off because you helped me. He can be sort of…irrational at times.”

  “And a diva, and self-absorbed, and miss the forest for the trees?” Michel said. “That is the nature of being an artist, perhaps. Do not fret, chérie. We can handle his tempers, should they flare. I wholly support your performance art idea. Will you wear a mask and reveal yourself at the end?”

  “You read my mind. I’ll need to choose music, of course, and rehearse, but I can be ready in two weeks. I might need some help with a costume…”

  “My sewing machine stands at the ready!” Michel said, standing up and saluting like a soldier. “Oh, this is going to be great fun. And how wonderful it will be to see James again.”

  Hearing his name spoken aloud sent a shock through my whole system, an electric thrill that ran from the top of my head to the tips of my toes. It was real. James was real. He would be coming here. I had a plan to confront him and I had real allies this time.

  Now I merely had to prepare to perform an art I hadn’t done in two years. Somehow being tied up and flogged sounded easier. But I was committed now. I would be dancing for high stakes.

  I started practicing. It took us and a crew of about six of Paul and Misha’s friends to paint the entire gallery before the floor could be finished. Add two full days for the varnish to dry, but once it did, the gorgeous hardwood was perfect. There were no chairs or tables yet, so I used the entire space as a dance studio, remembering my warm-up exercises bit by bit and stretching. Flexibility came back faster than I expected.

  So did Damon George. My phone rang one night while I was practicing in the front and Michel was working on refurbishing a gigantic secondhand espresso machine he had acquired.

  “Karina, how are you?” Damon said.

  “I’m fine. Do you need something?”

  “No need to be snippy, Karina. I know your two weeks aren’t up yet. I need your help with a project.”

  “What kind of a project?”

  “An art project.”

  “Really. I’m very busy, Damon—”

  “I need a model and you’re the only one who will do.”

  “I don’t have time to sit for a painting.”

  “Not the painting. The photographs that will be used as a reference. It’ll be two or three hours at most, I promise.”

  “Damon—”

  “And I keep my promises. You know that.”

  “Two hours, no more, and you promise not to try anything.”

  “Define anything.”

  “You promise not to stick your cock in me, okay?” I shouted. “Are we clear on that?”

  “Yes, yes, of course! God, Karina, did you think I’d forget that?”

  “Did you think I’d forget you tried to talk me into it last time?”

  “I said two weeks and I meant it. Really. I promise. I won’t penetrate you with anything, cock or no. Okay? How about tomorrow?”

  “Fine. What time?”

  “I’ll pick you up at the museum after your last tour. How’s that? And I’ll have you back home before sunset.”

  “Sunset isn’t until like nine o’clock,” I said. “It’s summer.”

  “Nonetheless.”

  “All right. Will I need to bring any clothes?”

  “No.”

  “Why am I not surprised?”

  “I’ll see you tomorrow afternoon, Karina.” He hung up.

  God, he was infuriating. I couldn’t imagine James ever jerking me around like that. If James said he was giving me two weeks, I would bet my phone wouldn’t ring even one minute early. And if I told him I didn’t have time for something, he wouldn’t wheedle me into doing it anyway. James respected limits and knew how to take no for an answer. Damon…well, Vanette had told me, he would try to get away with whatever he could without outright breaking the rules.

  Michel poked his head out from behind the machine. “Everything all right, Karina?”

  “Oh, fine. An artist wants me to pose in the nude.”

  “Ah, hence your emphatic statement of your boundaries. Good girl.” He grinned. “Did I ever tell you that Paul and I met in art school?”

  “No, but I kind of assumed it had to be something like that.”

  “She was in painting, I was in sculpture, and we each ended up needing to pose for the other when either models or references didn’t pan out. Amusingly, I needed a male model, she needed a female model, so that was the first time we changed for each other.”

  I’d been wanting to ask about that but hadn’t known how to. I sat down at the marble bar, where there was one creaky stool. “Is that how the portrait of you wearing each other’s clothes came to be?”

  “Exactly. She makes for a handsome man. I, unfortunately, make a very frumpy woman, but she loves me anyway.” He shrugged with a smile. “James, when he first learned to work with glass, was part of a coterie of students who would come to hang around our studio.”

  “How old was he then?” It was still thrilling to have someone to talk with about him.

  “Oh, still in university, maybe twenty or twenty-one. He was the quietest of all of them, if you can believe that.”

  “Oh, definitely.”

  “Always let someone else take the spotlight. He stayed in the background. Of course, he was such a good-looking chap he had no shortage of the others throwing themselves at him. Oh, but you don’t want to hear about that.”

  I shrugged. “I assume as a famous rock star he has people throwing themselves at him all day every day.”

  “Which is perhaps one reason he is so secretive. He can walk down the street to buy a newspaper without hordes of fans trampling him. Many at his level of fame cannot do so. They ar
e literally captives of their own fame.”

  “Is that why he retired from performing? Was it becoming too hard to maintain the secret?”

  “I don’t know. Perhaps you’ll get a chance to ask him.”

  The next day, as promised, Damon picked me up at the museum. He drove a very cute, very small Italian sports car. I think I was supposed to be impressed by it. He was all business as he took the car along the Thames and then across it. He told me he had been painting for years but had been throwing away every canvas as “unworthy.”

  This was a side of him I hadn’t seen before. I was used to him being a rich playboy, a tycoon, confident and smooth. Seeing him as a neurotic artist was new.

  His hands shook as he tried to get the keys into the lock on his studio. He took me up to a loft where the wide windows bathed the entire space in natural light.

  In the center of the room stood something seven or eight feet tall and draped with black cloth so large that it covered the floor for three or four feet in all directions surrounding it. Cameras were stationed on tripods and stands all around the covered thing, whatever it was.

  “Go on and get your clothes off,” he said, “and I’ll get mine on.” He went into another room.

  I took off my clothes and folded them in a pile on the workbench against one wall. Here I got an inkling of what painting he was working on. Color laser prints of the three Burne-Jones paintings about Perseus and Andromeda were sitting there. I remember him saying they should be read backward from the traditional myth. Instead of rescuing Andromeda, Perseus chains her to the pillar of rock and then, in what would be the next frame of the story, has his way with her.

  “You never give up, do you?” I said to myself, shaking my head. Well, he had promised.

  Damon emerged from the next room wearing head-to-toe leather armor, his hair artfully tousled. He was sexy—I admit it—but I shut down all feelings I might have had. There was no way I was going to be tempted by him, when James, the real James, was so close to being in my grasp.