STORY EXCERPT

“Now then, let’s work on her body today,” Paul said, a ring of authority in his voice. “Some of your lines are hesitant, especially here and here,” he added, reaching past her to point at the nude’s breasts and sex. “And the legs have very little definition. But most of all, there’s no heartbeat in this body. There’s no sense that you’ve captured anything living.”

“But I meant to paint her flat and lifeless,” Charlotte protested. “I wanted you to feel suffocated when you looked at her.”

“You must first have life in order to make it lifeless,” Paul said. “Here, pick up your brush. Let me show you.”

Obediently, Charlotte took up her brush. To her surprise, Paul wrapped his hand around hers and guided it to the easel. She heard him shift behind her, and looking down, she saw him stretch his long legs, encased in their dark pants, on either side of her. She felt his chest press against her back and his breath on her ear. His scent–warm, sharp, leather and paint–was almost drugging to her.

She tried to focus on what he was doing, to follow the movement of his hand as it guided hers. But she could only focus on how strong yet elegant the line of his hand was, and how utterly distracting the paint smudges on his skin were.

“Do you see what I mean, Charlotte?” Paul asked finally, releasing her hand, though not changing his position.

Starting out of her reverie, Charlotte studied the painting.

“How did you do that?” she exclaimed. “How did you know that just a few lines of darker pigment on a wider brush would make the curves look flat, almost concave? It’s like you’re mocking the fact that in life those are full and round limbs by over-exaggerating the lines. It’s incredible!”

Paul was silent for a moment, and Charlotte could feel the tension in the air.

“Put grey on your brush now,” he said quietly.

Her hand shook slightly, but she obeyed. Again, Paul leaned forward and took her hand in his, moving her hand over the canvas in flowing almost musical motions as if he was conducting a symphony.

“A little bit of grey,” he whispered into her ear. “It turns the pallor of the nude cold, as if her life was being pressed out of her by the pressures of her grey existence and grey hopes. In painting you must not just look, you must feel. Colors surround us. Everything we touch, everything we are, everything we experience–it is all the sum of colors and lines.”

His words, spoken low in her ear, were hypnotic. Charlotte could feel the rumbling of his voice in his chest as it pressed against hers. She could feel the enveloping heat of his body around her. Her eyes drifted closed as she couldn’t help but surrender to the sensation of his hand guiding hers in an eerie dance over the canvas.

“Lift up your hand,” he continued, taking her free hand with his other one and extending her arm out to the side. His grip shifted so that his hand cupped the back of it, his strong fingers loosely laced with hers. He gently moved her hand in a sweeping gesture back and forth through the air. “Feel substance and movement in the air. You cannot see it, or touch it for more than a heartbeat, but you can feel it. And that is what you must put into your painting.”

His voice was like a spell that was winding around her. Charlotte felt her head fall to the side against his shoulder, her lips slightly parted as he whispered his words now against her neck. Her chest rose and fell with deep breaths. Every inch of her felt alive and almost possessed of a strange new energy.

“Painting is not something you do,” Paul whispered, rubbing his rough, stubbly cheek along her neck. “Not if you’re a true artist. Painting is something you are. It is within you. You feel it here,” he added, releasing the hand he held in the air, drawing his own hand back along her arm and down her side until it was splayed across her abdomen.

“You feel it here,” he said, moving his hand slowly up her chest, gently brushing over her breasts until it rested over her heart.

“Oh, God, you feel it here, Charlotte,” Paul murmured, as if in agony, bringing in the hand that was holding her brush-hand, cupping her face, and gently turning it to him.

Charlotte dizzily half-opened her eyes, then closed them as she felt the nearness of his face to hers. Her body felt warm and liquid in his embrace, and her mind was incapable of doing anything but wanting to feel his lips paint a burning trail on her skin, to feel his hands learn the lines of her body, to have those green eyes soak up her colors. She felt the damp heat of his breath against her skin, and she moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue, wanting what she dared not put into words.

Before their lips could touch, there was a heavy footfall outside the door and the murmur of low voices, men’s voices. Paul didn’t seem to pay any mind to it, but Charlotte jumped up and out of Paul’s embrace, ripped from her reverie and blushing furiously. She looked down at Paul, feeling utterly confused and upset. But it was nothing to the pleading and torment in Paul’s eyes as he met her gaze and held out his hands as if to ask her back into his arms. The look only added to the terrifying tumult of her feelings.

The door opened and Master Lafonte walked into the studio, followed by Raoul.

ADULT EXCERPT

He put down the thick brush and picked up the small, fine brush, dipping it in a deep, burnt orange paint. She gazed at him, feeling drugged from unfulfilled pleasure, suffocated by newborn desire.

He took the brush and made a series of delicate strokes along her inner thigh, coaxing her through the torment of the brush’s whispery touch to spread her legs wider. Charlotte felt her hips roll hungrily with the movements of the brush. Her nipples felt cold and sensitive, covered in paint. She inadvertently brought her hands to her breasts, stopping short just before she touched them, blushingly realizing what she was about to do.

“It’s all right, Charlotte,” Paul whispered raggedly as he continued to paint cool, wet designs on her thighs, inching closer and closer to her sex. “Learn the canvas. Learn your own art.”

With a gasp, Charlotte lowered her fingers to her breasts, feeling the softness of the mounds and moaning as she touched her nipples. Her fingers slipped around the peaks, sliding on the paint and creating new patterns from her pleasure. Unable and unwilling to rein in her need for a release she had never known, Charlotte fell into a rhythm of stroking and thumbing her slippery nipples.

She felt a warm, viscous honey seep out between her legs. But before she could feel embarrassed about it, Paul took the fan brush and swept it between the lips of her sex.

“Oooh,” she moaned as the brush touched her clitoris, sending a throbbing pulse of pleasure radiating out through her body. Paul’s brushstrokes were now focused on her, painting her with her own desire. Abandoning all thought for sweet and wicked sensation, Charlotte feverishly tweaked and worried her slick nipples with her now-paint-stained fingers. She instinctively spread her legs wide so that he could paint whatever pleased him. She felt his brushstrokes go with treacherous softness over and over her clitoris.

“Oh, God!” she cried out as she felt her whole body explode with a starburst of pleasure. From her toes to the tips of her fingers, to her lips and eyelids, every nerve vibrated with a numbing ecstasy.

Dizzily, she tried to focus her eyes on Paul, the consequences of her actions slowly surfacing in her pleasure-drunk mind. She saw that his face was flushed and tight, that he stood above her now. His frame looked tense, and she could see his own desire tenting his trousers. In a moment of panic, she wondered if he was going to fall upon her, to ravish her. The thought both frightened and excited her, stirring her desire from its languor. She knew it would be wrong of him to do that, but she couldn’t get the image of their naked bodies entwined, the paint rubbing into their bodies as they slid together in lovemaking.