“Find something?” he asked.
She showed him her sketch of the stone angel. He remarked that she'd drawn it from near and below so that it was at once peaceful and looming.
“Even the most beautiful things terrify me,” she admitted.
“Why?” asked Mark.
“Fear of breaking them. Fear of losing them. Fear of them not loving me back.”
“Opening up does make people vulnerable.”
“Is it worth the pain?” Judy asked.
Mark opened his hand as if to show her something, but when she leaned forward he closed his hand into a fist suddenly.
“Can you go your whole life without knowing what might have been?”
Judy sidestepped the question. “What are you working on?”
“Similar assignment to you lot,” Mark said. “I found inspiration too.”
“Show me.”
He hesitated a moment and then turned the pad toward her.
She saw the face of a beautiful woman, similar to the angel she had attempted to draw. The woman's gaze was directed downwards, as if she was attempting to deflect attention from herself. She couldn't hide, however, the fact that she was beautiful. Those cheekbones. That slight smile; playful, given a chance.
Judy frowned.
“You've drawn me again?” she said.
“It's not right, but I'm getting closer,” he said.
“But I wasn't here,” Judy said.
“I did it from memory.”
She was stunned.
“There's one thing wrong with it,” she admitted.
“What?”
“You've only done my head. I do have a body, you know? Maybe you need a life model to work from, so you can complete your picture.”
“Are you offering to sit for me?” Mark said.
“Sit. Stand. Lie.” She pouted. “You tell me. Do you have anything planned for this evening? I mean, obviously not, you don't do planning, but do you think we might meet for a while?”
“I have no plans,” he said. “But are you sure?”
“I can't go my whole life without knowing what might have been,” she said.
“Don't start quoting me,” Mark said. “I make it all up as I go along.”
“And so shall we,” Judy said. “Be in your room at 10pm.”
“Judy,” he said, serious suddenly. “This is my work. I can't...we mustn't...you know ...”
“We won't,” she said and winked.
* * * *
At ten-twenty that evening, Judy sneaked down the stairs and knocked on Mark's door.
He seemed surprised that she made it.
“If I say that I'm going to sit, stand and lie for you,” she said, “I'll sit, stand and lie for you.”
She was in a new dressing gown. Silk. Black and blue. Chinese embroidery. A dragon. Lisa's. Another good luck gift.
“So,” she said, allowing the dressing gown to fall open as she entered. “Where do you want me?”
A radio was on in the background and she located its source to a large table covered in books. She saw where Mark had been sitting, surrounded by handwritten notes, coffee mugs and dirty plates.
“Sorry,” Mark said, rushing his fingers through his hair while gazing at her body. “Cleaner's day off.”
“I heard,” Judy said.
She hadn't seen Mark speechless before. Not only was he stunned by her arrival, but he couldn't keep his eyes off her.
She looked around the room and saw signs that he had been hard at work at something.
“Don't you ever get to sleep?” she said.
“I'll sleep when I'm dead,” he replied.
“If you're too tired to draw, you could just study me,” she suggested. “Where's the best light?”
He pointed to the tall lamp beside the far wall and she went towards it.
“Just so you know, I'm not going to throw myself at you. Tonight, this is a strictly, working relationship. Your career is safe with me.”
She stretched and the dressing gown shimmered. The sleeves slid down over her arms.
“Turning up in my room at night in a dressing gown isn't strictly business,” he said. “I like it, but it's not professional, even by my standards.”
“You had people in your room last night,” Judy said. “If they can be here, so can I.”
She pulled up a wicker chair covered in cushions.
“Here okay?” she asked.
He was smiling, amused.
As she bent to position the chair beside the light, he said: “You do recall that the name of our future exhibition is 'Naked', don't you?”
Judy turned and parted the gown so that the cool silk clung to her bare breasts, but revealed soft, pale skin, from her neck down to the thatch of hair beneath her belly button.
Mark gazed at her, open-mouthed.
She could see that she wasn't just a woman to him. He saw something in her that nobody else did. He neither wanted only her body nor only her mind. For him, she was the perfect package. He was looking at her as though she'd handed him a contract and he wanted to sign before she took it away.
While he weighed how best to respond, she let the dressing gown fall from her shoulders. It slipped from her in a way that was utterly natural, like the casing of a seed tumbling away. She felt as young and new as that seed. She felt as though the slightest breeze might carry her off her feet and send her spiralling over the mountain. She felt that light and yet was unable to move until he did.
He approached her, reaching for her, his dark eyes glistening as though committing this moment to memory.
She held up one hand to stop him and he waited, mid-step, eager to hear what she had to say that was so important she would attempt to halt him from having her now.
She felt her power in that gesture. She commanded him. But she was also aware that she mustn't take him for granted. He was not to be toyed with. Not any more. Not for any reason.
“I want you to finish my portrait,” she said.
She wanted his eyes on her. She wanted to savour this moment, because over the last few weeks she had discovered that there were only two ways to exist. Under his gaze or out of his sight. To be naked before him filled her with pleasure. She could hear her heart beating hard and she was already wet for him. When she swallowed, her throat felt tight. Her breaths were tremulous. And he hadn't even touched her yet.
“Now,” she said. “How do you want me?”
He strode away from her then, his footsteps thumping on the floorboards, then muffled by a rug, then thumping on floorboards again until he entered the adjoining room.
Suddenly, she felt cold. While he was away, nakedness only meant 'without clothes'. She felt silly. Jesus, what was she thinking?
Perhaps, she thought, I’ve overdone it and he’s about to throw me out for a change.
She'd deserve it too for all the times she had bean unreasonable with him.
Footsteps on floorboards, rug, floorboards.
He was holding a large canvas under one arm and in the other hand he had an easel. He also carried a cloth bag over one shoulder. He set the easel up with a practised flourish, kicking the legs out and standing it like a tripod. His fingers loosened the nuts, he adjusted the height and angle, and then he tightened them up again. He set the canvas in place and then set the cloth bag on the table beside him before unrolling a bamboo paintbrush holder, much like the one in her emergency art kit, and pulled out some squarish pencils of varying weights.
“I'm going to do this very quickly,” Mark warned her.
“I bet,” Judy said.
“Sit,” he commanded her.
She did so, crossing one leg over the other and placing her hands on the arm rests, exuding confidence.
He began scratching at the canvas, setting out some kind of grid or frames of reference, she assumed.
She kept her eyes on his as he worked. She enjoyed this give and take of power. She fought to remain in her seat, because what she really
wanted to do was rush across the room, knock the easel over and pin him to the floor.
“Work faster,” Judy said after a few minutes.
Mark grunted and switched pencils. No more broad strokes. He filled in minute details, the room silent except for the sound of lead on cloth. She'd remember that sound forever. It would always make her bite her lip.
A few minutes later, Mark winced and then threw his pencil carelessly across the room. He stepped out from behind the canvas.
“Done?” Judy said.
“Done,” he said.
She met him somewhere between the chair and his easel. Their bodies collided and their mouths found each other quickly and easily. The taste of her. The taste of him. It was better than either of them had anticipated. His hands traced the contours of her waist, then gripped her hips. Unable to wait, she reached down between his legs and held him, feeling his cock in his jeans. She squeezed and he responded by kissing her hard.
“Take this off,” she whispered.
“It comes with the body,” he said.
“The shirt, silly.”
He unbuttoned his shirt and she ran her fingers over his chest hair, enjoying the feel of him, so soft and yet so strong. He was such a marvellous array of contradictions, so many opposing forces that seemed nonetheless to complement each other.
Like us, she thought.
She let her forehead rest against the hairs of his chest and breathed in the scent of him. He smelled of the studio, of oils and chalk, paper and charcoal.
She tasted him, enjoying the feel of his hairs against her tongue, knowing that every single one that was moved by her licking and kissing communicated pleasure to him.
He let the shirt drop to the floor while she worked on his belt and continued sucking on one nipple.
It was not easy and she decided to concentrate on the task in hand.
“Need some help?” Mark asked, but then Judy snapped the leather back and slipped it out of the buckle. She undid the button, lowered the zip and helped him step out of his trousers and shorts.
His cock was hard and taking the shaft in her left hand left plenty for her mouth to do. She closed her lips around his bulbous tip.
Slowly.
He shuddered.
She slapped her tongue with his cock, looking up into his eyes, willing him to come in her mouth.
She plunged him between her lips once more and sucked hard while pouting, accentuating her every movement and her every sound. She groaned as she took him steadily deeper and deeper into her mouth.
“Beautiful,” she murmured and she licked his penis from base to tip with one long stroke of her tongue.
“Sit,” she commanded him.
He sat in the wicker chair and now it was her turn to paint him, using her tongue as the brush. She began with his inner thighs and then tongued his balls before returning to plunge the shaft into her mouth again, sucking gently, but long and slow, so she could feel every ridge of him sliding over her wet lips and then rubbing against the surface of her tongue. She bobbed her head, but ever so slowly, agonising him with the pleasure of it. He sighed with each down stroke and groaned with each upstroke.
She paused long enough to ask:
“Who has the room above us?”
“I don't know,” he muttered, impatient for her to continue.
“Then we'd better be quiet,” she said and reached up to cover his mouth with one hand. The other she kept on the shaft of his penis, stroking him while she tongued and mouthed the tip.
His body was so hard. Not only his cock, but his thighs, his abs, his arms, his fingers plunged into her hair. He was so hard, so capable, so confident, so fearless, having let go of years of work and thrown away a tome that was larger and more respected than anything she would ever create, simply because he 'didn't want to be that guy', this young man who had swept an entire group of strangers up and along with such joy and kindness and a kind of beautiful anger in his heart, and here he was, wanting her, here he was, unable to resist her.
She stood over him now. They were equally naked. Equally vulnerable. Equally strong.
“Do you…?”
“Bedside table,” Mark said and started up.
“I'll go,” she said.
She went into the adjoining room and, after a moment of confusion, followed by a moment of disbelief, discovered that there was no bed. It took her a while to realise this, because the room was in the same state of disarray as the other, only worse, as if the chaos of the entire building had been tumbled into this one apartment. He appeared to have made some effort at organisation and then decided to forget that and build a private studio around it instead, so that there was antique furniture draped with paper and rolls of lino and dust sheets splattered with paint and ink.
“Confused,” Judy announced.
“When I said 'bedside',” Mark said, joining her in the room. “I meant 'technically'.”
“Really, where do you sleep?” Judy said.
“Really,” said Mark. “I'll sleep when I'm dead.”
He uncovered an unassuming 'bedside' table that she would never have spotted alone.
“You need to look after yourself,” Judy said. “We need you.”
He broke open the condom's wallet and tossed it away before stretching the rubber over his cock, still hard.
“I need you,” Judy said. “How many more of those do you have?”
“Two,” Mark said, glancing at the table.
“Then we'd better pace ourselves,” Judy said.
Since there was no bed, she sat astride him while he sat in the wicker chair. It creaked with their combined weight and the sides rubbed against her bare legs, leaving white scratches on her pale thighs.
“You okay?” Mark said.
Judy writhed against him, taking his breath away. She pulled back soon after so she could see his face, curled and contorted, torturing him with how good this felt.
He kissed her breasts gently and she relaxed into the feel of him, allowing her head to loll back and her hair to fall deliciously over her back, giving him full access to her breasts, which he held firmly with those wonderful, masterful hands, and she felt like a lump of clay that he was moulding into a beautiful shape. She felt confident enough to let go. She trusted him to hold her. She trusted him to know what she wanted.
He slid from the chair, still inside her, and lay her on her back on the floor amid discarded papers, books and a shirt in which he had been painting. She grabbed his shoulders when he put his full weight on her and pushed his cock deeper inside her. Now it was her turn to groan, an animal sound that she wouldn't have believed was coming from her except that when Mark put his hand over her mouth it stopped.
“Shhh,” he said and they both laughed, shhhing each other for giggling.
His hips began moving quickly, his balls slapping against her. She reached down and spread her lips while he arched his back and used his full weight in every thrust, knocking the wind out of her. Her hands were so wet. Her mouth twisted with longing.
“You feel so good,” she said and she shut her eyes and let herself succumb to the sensation unfurling within her, spinning like potters’ wheels, taking her higher and higher while he moved faster and faster.
A crashing orgasm brought her back to the room. She opened her eyes, startled by the force of it. She could feel her body gripping Mark's cock and bringing him closer to orgasm too.
She grabbed his ass and encouraged him to fuck her harder, as if that was possible. His skin was flushed and slick and her hands slipped from him, sought him, grabbed his strong forearms, which he had set either side of her head.
Her orgasm continued, so intense that it frightened her.
“Look at me,” she gasped.
He stared into her hazel eyes and came, long and hard, the muscles of his arms taut, sweat glistening on his shoulders and chest, no sound emerging from his mouth, his eyes now squeezed shut, his body trembling, as hers had been for a long, long time.
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His body kept thudding against hers as he came. He shuddered, emptying himself.
“Yes,” she said.
And then his arms folded and he lowered himself onto her, kissing her neck.
“You’re so beautiful,” he said. “I wanted you so much.”
As Judy’s heart rate returned to normal, she stroked Mark’s hair and trailed her fingernails up and down his spine.
His body was solid and sleek. It was at its best when it was against hers like this.
Ten minutes later, Judy was still on the floor as if her limbs had turned to rubber. He was up and making them both a drink, but she was bathing in the memory of their lovemaking.
When that wasn’t enough, she passed her hand over her breasts, over the ridges of her abs, which had become so much more defined than usual in the last few weeks, over the neat mound of pubic hair. She sought her clitoris and wasted no time.
Mark poured milk over the carpet.
“Watch what you’re doing,” Judy breathed.
“Easy for you to say,” Mark replied.
Her pussy was slick again and she spread her knees as far as she could, partly so Mark could see her clearly, but also because she loved this feeling of being open and exposed. Mentally and physically, her default position had always been to cross her arms and her legs and her ankles, her fingers, her heart.
Now she used the fingers of one hand to spread her lips and the other hand to tease the nub of her clitoris.
Mark was slack-jawed, forgetting to stir their coffee, holding the spoon as if it was merely a decoration for his fingers.
His cock was hard again.
”I’ve got something hot and wet for you,” Judy said. “And I guarantee that it will keep you up for hours.”
The coffee cup hit the ground.
“I don't need anything, but you,” said Judy.
“You’ve got me,” Mark said.
For now, Judy thought. Tomorrow was another matter.
Chapter Nine: Wednesday—Found Art
Maurice Denis: “Remember that a picture—before being a battle horse, a nude woman or some anecdote—is essentially a flat surface covered with colours arranged in a certain order.”
SEVEN DAYS Page 18
