A stunning erotic tale of art and lust
"Michel’s Angel," an erotic story by Martha McKinley
As an artist, he wasn’t supposed to touch his nude model, but I didn’t exactly mind. Nor did I warn him against it in the future. It was much easier than trying to decipher a verbal description of where he wanted an extremity. Besides, his warm hand provided, albeit briefly, an infusion of heat as he repositioned my foot, which had been numbing in the ambient air.
Protocol was for models to be given a few moments of break for every twenty minutes of posing, but he seemed not to be the propriety type. I had to admit that enduring long gestures with my neck torqued, spine twisted, and legs splayed, thrilled me, if not only for the sake of art, then for whatever odd psychological reasons I didn’t care to re-explore. And it didn’t hurt that he filled me full of import, by grunting in his gravelly voice, every now and then, “Great gesture,” or “What stamina!” Plus, he paid me well—twenty-five dollars an hour, and often he included a tip.
The spotlight on my side was just beginning to get uncomfortably hot. I had been in this pose now for almost an hour and my buttocks were sore from the wooden stool, the arch of my left foot seemed permanently dented by its rung, and my right wrist was burning from my left hand’s grip. Just as I was about to request a brief reprieve, he stood back from his painting and said that would be enough for today. Awkwardly, I managed to slide off the stool and stiffly walk out my pains.
He looked from his work to me, and although I had been naked before him for almost two hours and felt lithe and loose, his gaze on me now made me tremble as he spoke, “I need you soon for a new painting. I’ve been commissioned to do a large piece by a very special client. He will pay me quite well, and because you have served me so perfectly for what it’s been—these last five weeks—I feel I know you well enough to ask you to model for this new work. I will pay you much more, for I will ask you for things that may test your resolve.”
He didn’t specify, nor did I inquire further. There was something very intriguing about the vagueness, almost naughtiness, it seemed to me; I knew that feeling. And I had promised myself not to engage in such things. But this was different. It was art, not…so I dismissed it.
The fact that he asked me, of the many models available in this city, must have meant he felt I was really good. “The best,” I thought, as I stepped into my panties and slid my jeans up my hairless legs to my waist and fastened them. I reached down for my bra, and I again caught his gaze upon my hanging fruit, his tongue wetting his lips, before he turned back to studying his canvas. Or so I thought.
“Think about my offer,” he rasped, as he handed me three twenties. “I’ll call with the times I need you,” he added as if I had already agreed. Well, in fact, by my silence, I probably had.
The studio had been transformed in the two weeks since I had last been there. Where there had been staging, with stools and ladder-backed chairs all around, now there was only a queen-sized futon covered in red satin, glinting in the single spotlight from above. All around this pliable platform were rich plum and grape colored velour floor-length draperies hung in an orderly, if not abstract way. Michel was not around. But his hand was.
On a solitary stool was a bottle and from the neck, dangling by a golden ribbon, was attached his penned note. It read: “Please shower with this soap, and when dry, don the robe hanging in the bathroom.” I picked up the bottle. It was a lavender rose body wash. Lavender rose. Did he know?
The garment in the bathroom was a Kimono. I inhaled, letting my breath out twice as slowly while I pressed my palm against my chest to stifle the skipped beats. “Don’t go there, don’t go there,” I told myself.
I could leave and never come back. He wasn’t here and would never know that I had been. I could call and tell him my aunt was in the hospital in Cincinnati, and I had had to leave unexpectedly.
I felt queasy. A dizziness forced me to sit down on the toilet seat, and I leaned forward with my head between my knees. Little droplets of sweat emerged like the morning dew on my upper lip and forehead.
Initially a blur, my feet came into focus, and I stared at my long, thin digits, arrayed as a pair of little fans in pleasing scalloped arcs. Beach sun had bronzed the tops and ankles. I ran my fingertips over their smoothness onto the tight denim around my legs. Nice lines. Graceful curves. That’s what artists had said about me.
Recovering a bit, I stood and looked into the mirror. From a curl behind my ear on the left, my golden hair dipped in a wave across my forehead and swirled over my right temple. My gaze flowed from there down a gently sloping neck, with its prominent sternal notch to my softly squared shoulders. Buttons were slipped out of their holes, sleeves were freed of their limbs, and my blouse slid to the floor. Against the tan of my chest, the arcs of my bra displayed like fabric pedestals my alabaster breasts, each uniformly smooth and round. I unfastened the clip and let the two halves fall apart, then shook it off and stared. How could one not want to paint me? I removed my jeans and panties and showered.
“…to test your resolve…” he had said. Though it was odd to be asked to shower—again—as I always showered before coming over. And his request for me to wear a garment that had all sorts of connections with my earlier life was spooky, for sure. But…yes, I was resolved.
It was the “now” me who he wanted. So I would indulge him. After all, this was my calling. As a model.
I inhaled the rose and lavender mist as I slipped one arm, then the other into the ivory black kimono. I tied it inside and out. This one draped delicately over my shoulders and cooled, where it touched, my breasts, my forearms, and my thighs. Stunning. I was seductive and alluring and… I stopped myself, for I was getting a little too hot in the wrong places—for modeling.
"Kimono" by Ray Leaning
“Good morning, Ms. Lavornia Rosalba,” It was a raspy coo; a blend of rivulet over gravel. “All set to go to work?”
Suddenly feeling reserved, again, I simply nodded as I awaited his instructions.
I did as I was told, taking up positions, in my kimono, on a large cube that had appeared on the futon while I had been showering. Sitting first chest forward, then draped over one thigh, then arching back with one knee up and arms stretched out behind me, then twisting my head to the right and my hips to the left. As I relaxed into the role, I allowed the garment to gap and partially reveal my breasts, or the overlap to part, giving a glimpse of my gilded pubic hair. Michel was warming up and his strokes scritched more quickly across the paper as I re-positioned myself at each command, “New pose!”
We broke. Michel removed the cube and set up his easel. Out wheeled his table with his oil paints and, with them, the wonderful aroma that I had been introduced to four years ago when I began modeling. I had been desperate to change careers, but there were few skills I had to draw upon. My fashion merchandising degree was too ancient to be of any use. After a year at Wal-Mart and waiting tables, an old college roommate and my one and only best friend, Eleanora, had suggested it. Although comfortable with my body in intimate settings even with a stranger, the idea of displaying myself before a group of gazing strangers had frightened me. So for days before the first life-drawing class that I was to model for, I poured over classical art texts, studied postures, imitated poses, timed myself in positions that were easy to hold and then in ones more demanding. I wasn’t sure what would be asked of me, but I wanted to be prepared for something.
On that evening, as I nervously changed into a flannel robe in the classroom’s bathroom, before stepping out onto the platform, I ran fingers through my hair—on my head and in my groin—fluffing them both up. I sniffed my armpits to be assured that my deodorant was still working. Then I walked boldly out.
The space was nearly packed, with men and women, young and old, chatting, setting up their easels, laying out charcoal sticks, pencils, or pastels. The instructor intercepted me and briefed me on the protocol of warm-up gestures and longer poses. He called the group’s attention. In the silence, I disrobed, took a big step up, and with back delicately arched, tummy sucked in, chin up, upper limbs slightly toned at my side, one leg flexed ahead of the other, I faced the throng, heart a rat-a-tat-tatting. “Two minute gestures,” he called out, and I began.
It was during the initial break, one and a half hours into the three-hour session, that exhilaration hit. While I walked around, in my robe, from easel to easel, inspecting the sketches, I observed lithely rendered torsos, fluidly draped limbs, rounded breasts, perked nipples, soft bellies, and graceful thighs into calves. That was me? That was me! They were—I was—beautiful. Filled with new purpose, during the remaining session, I reached for the most dynamic of gestures and the most complex of poses. And I was asked back for the following week. Plus, the instructor promised to give my contact information to other drawing groups, if I should like.
“Have you ever seen this?” he growled, holding up a plate from a large volume of twentieth century art.
I nodded. I t was Picasso’s Demoiselles d’Avignon.
“You know then what these women are?”
“Prostitutes.” I whispered.
“That’s right. I need you to play those roles? Can you do it?”
I hesitated. Was this all a twisted coincidence? Or…I fought to keep any paranoia at bay.
“I’ll try,” I said unflinchingly, or tried to, with the faintest crack to my voice.
“Good girl.”
I turned and walked back toward the futon.
“One other thing.”
I held my breath.
“I need you to glisten in the light. Like a polished apple.”
I turned around. Michel was holding a bottle of oil with those same words on it. Lavender rose. He had done it again, and now, it seemed, it was not without guile. What all did he know about me?
“You can apply this to your front, and ….with your permission, I will apply it to your back.”
Everything was new today, and yet it was old. . Surprises, but really, familiarities. And boundaries being tested. Retested. Crossed and re-crossed.
My resolve was being tested too with every request—a little odder than the previous. Still, he was an artist. And I was necessary for his work. I untied the bows on my Kimono, and let it slip limply to the studio floor.
I cupped my hands to accept the warmed, silky fluid, rubbed my palms together, and smoothed it onto my forearms and then my shoulders. He poured another pool for me, and I began massaging it into my chest and breasts, then abdomen. Meanwhile he started on my back. My reflex to tense up gave way to his firm pressure over my shoulders and shoulder blades. Thumbs dug into the spaces between my spine, and inadvertently I moaned. As I bent over to work the fragrant oil into my thighs and knees, I drank in the aroma that I feared would eventually undo me. His hands moved slowly down my flanks, pressing into the muscles where they attached to the iliac bones, then returned to my spine. Down my backbone into my crevice trailed his fingers, gently brushing against the anus on their way to my fourth-floor walk-up glutes.
I listed. He steadied me. One hand on my shoulder; the other on my buttock with that pinkie subtly resting against my anus. Old ashes were smoldering. I stood up, and waved him off. I was ready to start. I would need to put my mind into another mode or succumb to the old inferno.
His canvass was huge—twelve by eight feet. Roomy enough for an entire brothel. I stood on the crimson futon, one hand on hip, the other behind my head, in the classic “I’m available” pose, as he worked on the under-painting with this figure.
“Now I need you over there,” he gestured with his brush. He set it down, picked up a large pillow covered in mauve sateen, and carried it toward me. “Lie on your side against this,” he instructed, “with your arms like so.” Taking my upper limbs, he placed one along my thigh and the other for my head to rest upon. He stepped back to appraise the pose.
“With your permission…” he stated, and then without hesitating for my agreement, he poured some of the oil onto my chest and began working it into my clavicles and ribcage and then breasts, initially avoiding the nipples. I couldn’t summon a protest. Finally, each nipple he worked into a hardness, which not surprisingly resulted in a corresponding hardness in my clitoris. I squeezed my thighs together, which he must have noticed, for a trace of a smile appeared on his face.
“That’s perfect!” he proclaimed, and resumed his brushwork. He was composing his painting in a frenzy, placing the figures—my figures—all over the canvas. The only break I got was the time in between poses.
“Lie over this stool on your abdomen. Grab the rungs. Spread your thighs. Wider. Like this” and his thumbs were up high in my inner thighs, against my vulva, then the webbings of his hands brushed down my skin to behind my legs as he pushed my knees into a slightly bent position. “Now hold that pose,” he added and his voice trailed off.
"Waiting For" by Igor Amelkovich
“With your permission…” he returned, and I braced for the next provocative application, which came seconds later as a pool of warmth grew on my lower back and ran tickling down my crack. His remarkably sensitive hands rubbed the liquid over my sacrum, onto my buttocks, outer thighs and calves, then up the inner aspects of each to my gluteal folds, not missing the anus. As I arched in response—I couldn’t help myself—the anointing continued, until I was blowing out repeatedly through pursed lips.
“Magnificent” he exclaimed, leaving me to hold the position, with another liquid pooling beneath me. My past was blending dangerously with my present. Stoically (stupidly?) I kept my resolve. He kept with his painting.
“New pose….How are you doing? Are you OK?”
“Yes, I’m fine,” I answered. What else could I say? I shouldn’t really be allowing this. It was flouting ethics. It was too close to what I had done before. But …modeling had been good for me, in many ways. Even financially. Not as good as what I was doing before, but with a roommate and small place, I was getting by. From that first life-drawing class, two women artists had asked me to model privately, and they kept me busy for months. Another woman artist asked me soon after, and I was in demand for years. Sometimes, I posed with clothes on—quite fancy ones from Victorian times, or the nineteen hundreds in this country. Mostly, though, I was naked.
I hadn’t been asked by a male artist to pose until a year ago. It had had its potential awkwardness, but it turned out not to be any problem. Artists seemed to have a code of ethics. Or else they feared a lascivious reputation would prevent them from securing future models.
We had big drawing marathons twice a year, and talking with other models, we could find out about artists and what they did, what they were like, what they paid. That helped us decide who was reputable. Michel’s name had come up. They referred to him as “Angel Mike.” He was good, they said. Very successful. Had a funny voice, and we all speculated on its origin. A couple models did say he was demanding, not very voluble, but he paid well. However, everyone who had done a stint with him had only done one. No one had been asked back. He had asked me back. That meant something.
Now, I wasn’t sure just what.
“Over here. On your back. Legs up, next to your head,” he commanded in an ever-excited tone. “This will be the last pose for the day. All my figures of you will be roughed in after this. It’s going surprisingly well. I really like it, with you arrayed all across my canvass.”
"Legs Apart 03" by Igor Amelkovich
Succumbing, I couldn’t wait to see it.
“Grab your ankles. Good. Hold that “
He headed for the oil, turned, and stepped with it onto the futon.
“With my permission…”
He smiled.
“With your permission…”
He worked like a mad man.
“The hues of arousal. I have to see them,” he said as he hurriedly scratched the thinned pigments onto the canvass.
I lay with my ankles in my hands, my head swirling around like a girl on the tilt-a-whirl for the tenth straight time. I panted. I endeavored to stay in the moment, but all I could do was to dwell on the minutes just past—his lubricated hands down my inner thighs, sliding along the crease of my groin, his thumbs around my anus, then grazing my nearly hairless vulva, the top of my mound, then down again, over my hood with a light flick of my clit, between my inner folds to my anus, and back up my outer thighs. Over and over again. I had twitched, I had gasped. Groaned. But I did not come. I held myself back. As absurd as it seemed, I had to maintain some semblance of professionalism.
My legs were quivering when he announced that we were finished. I couldn’t move. He sensed my petrification and came over to loosen my fingers from around my ankles and gently lowered my feet. He placed my arms around his neck and hoisted me up. I clung tightly to him until my lower limbs regained circulation and their feeling. I inhaled his manly smell, with fresh perspiration; he was oak-solid in his support.
“Take a look,” he invited and led me to the canvass, his arm around my bare shoulders. There, arrayed on the outside of the ninety-six square feet of linen were five women, all similar in physique, but each with a different skin color, coiffure and pubic hair. I gazed intently from one figure to the next. Yes, they were I, and it was beautiful.
In the center was an amorphous white, unpainted shape.
“What’s going there?” I inquired.
“Tomorrow, you’ll find out,” was his amorphous explanation. He handed me six fifties for six hours work.
“Tomorrow at nine.” And he left the studio.
I stood naked before the enormous painting. He was making it hard not to return. Just the same, I would call Eleanora. There was so much I was in conflict about.
Of course, Eleanora was not at home. Her voice mail reminded me that she had gone to one of those Buddhist retreats where she wouldn’t be checking her messages for the next five days. I lay awake much of the night, the massage oil fragrance lingering on my skin, arousing me to the point of temptation, but I refused to indulge myself. I tried to rationalize my responses to his improprieties. Somewhat delirious, I fell asleep and awoke hard, to my roommate shaking my shoulder and the alarm clock buzzing horribly from across the room.
On my arrival at the studio, the futon hadn’t changed, nor had the draperies. The lone stool stood in the middle of the floor again, with another bottle of lavender rose on it and another note. “I liked you in what you wore yesterday, but today is a new day. Please shower again in this brand of scented wash and put on the new wrap in the bathroom.”
The scent was predictable.
But, not the robe. I viscerally remembered this one—or one like it. My knees buckled and I sat down hard on the toilet seat. Damn him. Why was he doing this to me?
I showered, toweled off, and, righteously indignant, put on the gossamer negligee, set my jaw and stormed from the bathroom—and into a vacant studio. No Michel.
I waited. Annoyed, I sauntered over and looked again at the painting, forgetting its charm. My eyes roamed over sculptured thighs and legs, softly rounded shoulders, full breasts, tapered waists, and widened hips. All women. All me. He was really good. And the faintest of buzzes began tickling my crotch.
“Still like it?”
I jumped. I hadn’t heard him enter. How long had he been staring at me in this skimpy…and when I hadn’t given him permission to stare?
“ Yes, I mean, of course.” I blubbered, “…but what’s the meaning of this negligee?”
“You mean how is it that it becomes you so perfectly or how does a simple painter like me pick out a perfect garment for a perfect model?”
Of course he would deny any other reason for choosing this. But it was too much of a coincidence. The lavender rose, the kimono yesterday and this lingerie today. But what was I to say without incriminating myself in the process. Still, I wasn’t starting out very comfortably with Michel this morning.
He touched me lightly on the arm and gestured toward the futon. “Let’s start with some warm up poses. Then we’ll go back to work on the painting.”
Warm-ups went on for quite a while. And with all the “Ooh, nice lines!” and “Great one!” and “Super pose!” I was distracted enough to forget my ire. Confident, even cocky, I struck poses that showed defiance and seduction. Michel’s pace, as measured by the scratching sounds bounding off his newsprint, convinced me that I had his full attention and interest.
“Wow. Wonderful session. Thank you Ms Lavornia Rosalba.”
He put away his sketch materials and wheeled over the oil painting cart.
“Today will be a bit different…” he began in his low-pitched hoarseness.
So what’s new? Annoyance mixed with a little titillation, in the vicinity of my groin. How come I couldn’t ever lose that reflex arousal whenever a man’s plans interested me?
“I am having another model join us today. A man. As he prefers that his identity remain unknown to you, I would like you to wear this blindfold.”
What? Who? Another model doing what? Me blindfolded? Why did I agree to this in the first place? And why did I come back today?
“I assure you that you may stop at any time if you feel at all uncomfortable.” He seemed to read the bewilderment in my face. “This painting, as you have seen, is proceeding exceedingly well. And it will be well compensated. You will be justly paid for your time as well. I would surely hope that you will find it in your heart to continue…”
My eyes cast downward, I could barely exhale the words, “I will.”
“Good girl. Thank you.”
And he slipped the black felted blindfold over my eyes and fastened it in back. My senses were diminished by one. Make that two. This brand of lavender rose was so potent; it was all that I could now smell.
“It should only be a moment more and we can get…”
The studio door opened, and Michel voiced a welcome. “Good morning…Uh, Nicholas. Thank you for coming in so promptly at ten. The light will not last forever, so let’s get started.”
No response.
“Will you be so kind as to remove your clothes? I trust you have showered, yes?… Good.”
Again no response, verbally at least. Perhaps he was not at liberty to talk or I may have gotten a clue to his identity?
“Now, while I mix my colors, will you remove the lady’s gossamer for her? She has many demanding poses today, and I wish that she not expend any unnecessary energy.”
How kind. I didn’t protest, but I was a little miffed at being undressed.
“Like yesterday, it is important that you shine like a pomegranate. Nicholas, will you apply some oil to Ms. Rosalba’s skin? Yes, everywhere.”
He must have replied to “Nicholas’” puzzled look. I felt trembling hands fumbling with my shoulders, then my back. I was trembling too, but willed it immediately away. Poor guy, so inexperienced. I turned around to face him, felt for his hands, and did what I always used to do in this situation. I took hold of one of them, put mine on top, and maneuvered it along my shoulder, across the top of my chest, and up my neck. The finger tension lessened. The tremulousness ceased.
A “thank you,” was barely audible.
I guided him toward my cleavage, and then let go. Training wheels off, little one. Ride! And as he wobbled forward toward my nipples, I faded into the distance—and the past.
That’s it. Firmer pressure. Oh, yes, yes.
God that smell. It has always loosened any tension between my hips and disconnected my head from my body. Lavender and rose oil. For me, a dangerously intoxicating olfactory cocktail.
“Now Ms. Rosalba, will you please reciprocate the gentleman? He needs to glisten, too.”
Just waiting for your permission, Sir. Get ready to paint our arousal, Angel Mike.
“Pour some into my hand, will you Nick. Is that O.K. to call you that?”
“Uh huh.” It was a husky whisper. I took it for a yes.
A warmth flooded my hand and overflowed it. I laughed. I reached forward hitting him in the neck. “Oops,” I laughed again. Nick managed a throat clearing. As best as I could, I rubbed the oil over the tops of his shoulders, down his arms, onto his chest and abdominals, spun him around, and worked it into his back. I knelt and did his buttocks avoiding their deep crevasse, and then ran my oily fingers over his legs, both front and back. When I stood, our artist, who is trained to see, critiqued the application of my medium.
“You missed a big area in the front.”
I scowled. It’s not in my job description, you know!
“Lavornia…”
ITALICISE On a first name basis are we now? Very well. Aye aye, Captain. I thought, as I reached for where an erection should be, if hoisted at full mast, but got only the aromatic atmosphere. Groping left and right then knocking into his pubic bone, I went the only other way to go and found his penis. It was only slightly tumescent and definitely down. I gripped it and coated it twice. There was no response. So I stood up and said, “Done.”
“Very well. Ms. Rosalba, I need you in that first pose, with your right hand on your hip and the left behind your head. Nicholas, place your right arm around the model’s waist and play your left over her front. Be spontaneous. Let it go wherever you want it to.”
As Michel set to work, Nicholas moved his hand hesitantly in circles around my belly button. “Uhmm,” I whispered to encourage him, but he didn’t venture very far a field.
.
“Remember the next one, Ms. Rosalba, on your side over..?”
“Here, like so?”
“You are the best model I have ever had. And I mean that!”
I’m sure he did—and that I was. Who else would have returned after a yesterday like we had? Who would have stayed after reading the first note? Receiving the first touch?
“Nicholas, you are leaning over her like so, and you put your mouth on her nipple and suck on it. Again, let yourself improvise. Tease that little nubbin, nip at it, draw it in hard, lick it. I can even paint you in motion, if I have to.”
The weight of his body was only slightly uncomfortable, as the warmth of his skin next to mine lit me up inside. Did I know this man? Something told me that I might!
“Ooh!” came out of me involuntarily. He had lightly bitten my nipple. It was more of the unexpected than of any pain.
“I liked that,” I whispered. “Do it again.”
My clit twitched with the next nibble and was accompanied by that buzzing in my labia.
“Yes,” I mouthed, moving imperceptibly closer into him, as I maintained my pose.
What did he smell like? I could sense him through the fields of flowers. His underarms leaked a little of the scent of fear, though, not arousal. Not good. Especially because I predicted that Angel Mike was going to want an erection before we were done today.
“That was simply great! Next pose will be the one we did at the end of yesterday’s session, Ms. Rosalba. The contorted one with…”
But I was already positioning myself for it.
“God, I swear, I’ve never…” but he didn’t finish. He didn’t have to.
“Nicholas, I am very pleased with how this is coming and I am sure, so will you be.”
Is Nick the one who commissioned this work? He must have loads of money. I Googled Michel last night to look at more of his art. He loved the figure. That’s all he ever did—or almost all. He did paint some fruits, but they were held by nudes, mostly men. There was a torso of a man with a bunch of bananas over his back, like Michelangelo’s David. In fact the face was the David. And another with a hand holding two plums next to a man’s cropped buttocks. There were women with fruit, too. I liked them very much. But the price! Those were much smaller than his present painting and were sold for thousands. This piece would probably go for hundreds of thousands.
Nick was being instructed to get onto all fours and bring his lips down to my vulva. Yesterday’s pose nearly catapulted me into an orgasm. I wasn’t sure that today would pose the same risk. Michel scratched away at the canvass as Nicholas tickled me with his breath on my pubic hairs. If I’d been hotter, his cool exhalations would have sent shivers into my vault and up my spinal cord to Endorphin Central. But today, that wasn’t likely.
“Umm. Umm.” Oh yes it was. I rocked just a trifle, pelvic tilting and arching, trying to tell my model-man to continue what he was doing. Lick me, oh, lick me. I wanted to spread my thighs wider for him to welcome him inside, but had to maintain my pose. Oh, fuck! Yes, I could! The great artist said he could even paint us in motion. Just the same, no orgasm, no orgasm.
By the time we broke from this pose, I was thoroughly wet. Wet for what, I wasn’t sure, but it was like an energy recharge. Which we needed, for Michel was in a hurry, with the afternoon light disappearing, to finish the last pose, and he categorically decided there was to be no lunch.
Nick went to use the bathroom. I asked to go, too, but I was told not to remove the blindfold.
“Nicholas, escort Ms. Rosalba to the ladies’ room, will you?”
I returned on Nick’s elbow, impressed. He had left the seat down. Most men I had known didn’t think about things like that. I had a gentleman here.
“The last pose, everyone,” he said to the only two of us.
“Ms. Rosalba, you are leaning over this pillow atop the stool, hands on these rungs,” he said as he placed me in position. “Nicholas, the more I work on this, the more I am convinced that I need you with an erection.”
Marked my words? Yes?
“The energy of the piece demands it. See here.” And I heard footsteps retreating to view the nearly finished canvas. “You will be standing here over her, a muscular man, powerful, arm upraised to the heavens, to touch the hand of God—He who will infuse you with the creative impulse, symbolized by raw sexuality. I need you virile.”
His whisper of protest was followed my Michel’s entreaty.
“I know what I told you, Nigil. But the work has evolved in such a way that I could never have imagined—what, with you and Ms. Rosalba. She has been my real inspiration here.”
What did he call him? Nigel? Oh, no. No. Not Nigel Babatunde? Yes! Yes, it must be! A gentleman with manners. An art collector who could certainly afford to pay for this. That soft, silky skin. And wait…. yes, that little mole he has…. that I felt earlier on the shaft of his penis!
I stood up, turned toward the voices and ripped off my blinders.
“Babs! Michel! What on earth is going on?!”
Both men stood with mouths agape.
In the sun’s waning hours we exchanged the gaps in our personal histories, me in the escort service, he a wealthy New York City gallery owner from Africa; the night that he was arrested, and how he let me escape through the adjoining hotel room door; how he had paid me $5000 dollars for the weekend, but I had not completely finished fulfilling my part before the FBI’s violent knocking interrupted us, and I left my gossamer negligee behind in his room; the terror it had put into me forcing me to change professions from one that I was really good at and really loved; how he insisted that I should never contact him again; his time in the federal prison with most of his sentence later commuted; how he had performance anxiety ever since and why he could not comply with Michel’s wishes, try as he might this afternoon, even for a painting of us that he desperately wanted.
I took him by the hand and led him to the blushing futon. The bleeding futon. I put my hands up to his black, black cheeks and pulled his head down to mine. I kissed him ever so lightly on those big lips, and trailed my fingers along his neck, down his muscular and hairless chest. I rimmed his little nipples, pinched them just a trifle, and continued on down his slightly protuberant belly. Around his flanks and up his thick back muscles until I could comfortably encircle him, then I pulled myself close into his sturdy frame with as strong a hug as I could give.
I felt his hands move down my back, forearms crossing themselves so that his palms came to rest on my waist as he drew me in tighter. His lips engulfed mine, and he sucked them into his mouth, nibbling the upper lip before sliding his tongue between my incisors. My lower lips drooled down my thighs.
I slid my hands down his back and around his tight glutes, circling and circling. And as if God were right on cue Nigel’s manhood throbbed against my lower abdomen. I adjusted my pelvis to let it spring up. Then we compressed his penis between our two bellies. He had my breasts now, in his powerful grip, and he twisted my nipples, first one then the other. I brought my hipbone up against his large sack as I moaned, and pulled myself into him.
Michel scratched away in the background, the sound retreating more and more into the distance.
I extracted myself from Nigel’s mammary grip and licked my way down to his procreator. Still fragranced like a flower, his manly scent clawed its way to my nose. I engulfed his solid scepter-head, drawing my teeth from rim to tip as I slowly extricated him from my mouth. A guttural grunt followed. I took him deeper and raked him again as I withdrew. He pumped inside me. I increased the pressure.
He took himself out from my mouth, stood me, and looked squarely in my face. “Lavender Rose, I love you.”
Then I was bent over the stool. His feet urged mine apart. My knees weakened. I felt his hand on my flank. Twisting to look over my shoulder, I saw the pose of the masterpiece. Arm raised to Heaven. Head defiant. And the most magnificent erection I have ever witnessed.
“Bravo! Brava!” rasped Michel.
Then Nigel was upon me and in me. Fucking me like a stallion.
His hands gripped my hips, as he, again and again, impaled me to the hilt. The stool rocked violently beneath us. I let go the rungs and reached back for my steed’s thighs and dug my nails deeply into his flesh.
"Time" by Mick Payton
It built from my sex and grew, bigger than I’ve ever felt it. Surging up my belly into my chest, throat, forehead, and crown. A cosmic big bang was coming.
“Yes! Yes! Yes!” I shouted, the room echoing my shrieking voice. A masterpiece of love. A creation of a lifetime. A…a….
“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” I shrilled.
And above and all around me boomed djembes of the grandest timbres. Quaking the earth. Bringing down walls and freeing all peoples.
I gasped. I heaved. Nigel’s big arms surrounded my hips and lower chest, and he raised me, too, toward Heaven. And I looked into the face of God. And heard the voice of angels.
My life’s stories hadn’t always turned out so well, but this one certainly did. I was able to exorcize a frightful memory and then assuage my nagging conscience by providing to Nigel what he had paid me for in advance on that night we were intruded upon. Nigel became a new man, transcending his traumatic experience and then discovering, like me, the thrill of being painted into a painting—which was a delightful state of affairs, for it took Michel another six weeks to finally complete the huge piece and for Nigel and me, it was a pleasure, each morning, getting up and coming to work.
Michel received five hundred thousand dollars for the painting, from which he gave me ten per cent, and Nigel promptly displayed it at the Musee d’Erotica in Paris. Not only did the art world rave about it, but the showing resulted in a number of willing patrons who wanted Michel to paint them into such a work, providing him with a string of commissions that kept both of us securely employed. Michel, I learned, was gay, but he certainly had no trouble bringing out the arousal in me. And with the long line of lovers to pose with, I was able to blend the best of both professions, past and present.
Yes, I would call that a “happy unending.”
Originally published January 2010