by Lund, S. E.
"Have a good day. I love you."
"I love you," I said, waving at him, and then blowing him a kiss. "Have a good day at work."
He left me on the bed, still wrapped up in the sheets, already filled with a sense of longing for him.
Class was uneventful. We had the same model from Friday and spent the time working on the studies from the previous week. It was nice to have a full hour to work on one pose. Sefton kept his distance and made no move to approach me or speak with me, so I was happy.
Thursday went by quickly, and soon, Friday loomed. Claire had sent me a long email with instructions for what I'd need to bring on the safari and I'd spent the week packing to make sure I had everything. My shots were all up to date and I was still taking my Malarone, so I was protected from tropical diseases.
For his part, Drake was particularly attentive. He spent a very long time with me in a nice warm bubble bath, used a razor to shave me carefully, then used his rope to tie me up, blindfolded me and made me come several times before he found his own pleasure. Since Sefton appeared on the scene, Drake had not once been completely vanilla with me, as if trying to reinforce our D/s relationship.
I was a bit surprised, for our sexual experiences prior to Sefton's advances, with the exception of the dungeon party, had been almost totally vanilla. As I lay completely bound, the soft ropes confined my hands above my head, my thighs spread wide, my eyes covered with a blindfold, I wondered if Drake wasn't doing this now to remind me that I was still his submissive, that he was my Dominant, and that he was still able to control me, make me respond to him the way he wanted.
Whatever the case, I felt his intense focus on me when we were together, in scene or out of it, and it did make up, at least in part, for the time we spent apart. But we spent most of our time apart – him at the hospital or college, teaching or doing surgery and looking in on his patients and residents. Me alone at home, in my studio or at the Institute. The only time Drake and I were together and awake was when we had sex and now it was always a scene with me tied up and helpless.
Clair and I were leaving with the group on a bus after lunch on Friday, so I had to say goodbye to Drake early in the morning when he was getting ready for work.
I got up when he did, and we shared a shower, washing each other, arousing each other so much that we had sex then and there in the shower. Drake left me in the stream of water while he retrieved a tie. Before he could wrap it around my head, I stopped him.
"It'll be ruined. We don't need one."
"I'll buy another one."
I put my hand on his. "You don't have to do a scene," I said, my voice soft.
"Yes, I do." Then, he wrapped the tie around my eyes, making me a bit disoriented so that I had to rest my hand on his shoulders. "I can't tie you up in the shower, but I want you on your knees."
He helped me down onto my knees, guiding me with his hands under my arms, and I waited for his next order.
"Put your hands behind you, and clasp them. Imagine that they're bound."
I did, and waited, the spray of water warm on my back, my lips open. I felt the tip of his erection press against my lips, so I licked him and then took him into my mouth. I sucked the head, my tongue swirling around the rim, and he began to thrust softly, sliding in and out of my willing lips. He grasped my head with a hand and guided me while he thrust, giving me a bit more each time. I did my best not to gag, and succeeded, wondering if he was going to finish in my mouth, but he didn't.
He withdrew and then lifted me once more, kissing me deeply. I felt such need, I knew I'd come quickly. He turned me around and spread my thighs, pushing my upper body down so that I rested on my hands on the ledge that ran around the shower enclosure. Then, he took me from behind, his arm around me, his fingers on my clit as he thrust.
He kissed my shoulder as he stood over me and his mouth on my neck, his fingers on my clit, and his hardness inside of me, hitting me in the right spot all combined to make me come.
"Sir…" I managed, but he didn't say anything or stop and soon, my legs shook as I went over. He thrust harder, his mouth on my shoulder. When I began to shudder, he bit down on my shoulder as he came. It hurt, a lot more than I was used to, and I gasped.
"Oh, God," he said when he saw the mark, touching it with his fingers. "Oh, Kate, I'm sorry…"
He helped me up, kissing the spot, before removing the blindfold from my eyes. I turned to him and he kissed me deeply, brushing the wet hair from my forehead when he pulled back.
"I hurt you," he said, shaking his head.
"You did," I said quietly and stepped out of the shower to check the mark in the mirror. I could clearly see his teeth marks. It no longer hurt, but was a visible reminder of his loss of control. I wondered if he wasn't subconsciously marking me, and a small part of me felt a sense of glee that he lost a bit of that rigid control. I didn’t like or want pain but it was accidental.
"Marking your territory, Master D?" I said, catching his eye in the mirror.
"Kate, I didn't mean to bite that hard. I—"
"It's OK." I stopped him, my fingers against his lips. "Forget it."
"It was sloppy of me," he said, hitting his forehead lightly with a fist. "It won't happen again."
He then took a bottle of hydrogen peroxide out of the cabinet and cleaned off the bite.
"I hate to see you go away for the weekend," he said, his voice soft. "I'm so jealous right now that the bastard is going to be there instead of me."
I smiled. "I wish you were going to be there instead of him, too," I said and kissed him. "But you don't have to be jealous. I plan on studiously ignoring him all weekend."
"Still, this is something I don't share with you. I'm jealous that any man gets to see your work before I do, watch you draw and paint."
I threaded my arms around his neck. "You have no reason to be jealous. He's just one of the instructors."
We kissed long and deep at the door when he was ready to leave for work and I felt sad that I was going away for the weekend without him.
"I'll miss you," he said, kissing me over and over again as if unwilling to let me go. "I love you."
"I'll miss you," I replied, my eyes filled with tears at the thought we'd be sleeping apart and I wouldn't see him for three days. "I love you."
"Oh, Ms. Bennet," he said and squeezed me, lifting me up off the floor. "What would I do without you?"
As he set me back down, he brushed his thumb over my bottom lip and gave me a little smile. Then he was gone.
I cancelled my class on Friday because of the safari. A sleek Humvee bus picked me up at my door, the other seven people from Nairobi going on the safari already on board. I hauled my carryon bag to the bus driver, who put it in a compartment. Claire got off the bus to greet me, taking my hand and leading me to the back, where Sefton and two other students I recognized from his class were seated. He smiled at me in greeting but said nothing, however the look in his eye said everything, as if he'd won some kind of victory.
Claire introduced me to the small group, including the two students from Sefton's class. How Claire knew everyone, I'll never know but she seemed to be that kind of person. One student was from Sefton's home town in South Africa while the other was a native of Kenya, but who spent most of her childhood in England with her parents. She moved back to Nairobi to live with her grandmother and study art at the Institute. I said hello and we discussed the safari, what we expected and what we would likely encounter.
The bus took us to an airport where a small passenger plane waited, the pilot and copilot dressed in crisp white uniforms, making them look as if they were straight out of British Imperial Kenya. We boarded the plane, and I sat at a window seat and watched as our baggage was loaded, butterflies in my stomach at the prospect of seeing the savannah. Claire sat beside me on the inside seat and Sefton took the aisle seat on the other side of her. The two seemed really friendly with each other and I wondered if Sefton knew Claire from home.
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sp; "Did you two know each other in South Africa?" I asked, keeping my focus on Claire rather than Sefton.
Of course, he leaned over the aisle, smiling at me. "Not personally, but our families go a long way back and Claire is active in the arts community here and there. She was the one to encourage the Institute to appoint me as the artist in residence. I owe it all to her." He leaned closer at that and kissed Claire on the cheek. I swear Claire blushed hard and almost giggled, which I thought was so out of character for her, but I had to admit that Sefton was extremely good looking – intimidatingly so. Put him in a set of camo and he could be an actor in a big budget action film, whether a warrior or pirate or outlaw. His muscles almost strained at the khaki shirt he wore.
I turned away, trying to push him and his grin out of my mind, focusing instead on the land surrounding the small airport. It was lush, the trees green against a clear blue sky. What I had come to expect for weather in Nairobi.
Finally, after about twenty minutes of waiting, the plane started to taxi down the runway and we took off, the roar of the twin propellers momentarily deafening during the ascent. We leveled off and I looked out the window at the scenery below. Thin wispy white clouds wafted by and the sun glinted off the wingtip. I took out the brochure and examined it, barely listening as Sefton and Claire talked about their former lives in Johannesburg.
Our camp was in the Masai Mara National Reserve on the banks of the Mara River. On the first day, we would be taken to watch wildlife from a distance, take photographs or sketch. We would do this all Friday, Saturday and then most of the day Sunday, when we would return to Nairobi. The camp was made up of permanent facilities, with huge tents accommodating two to four people, a shared bathroom in each tent with hot and cold running water, and a common tent where we would eat. The food would be first-rate, there would be activities once we were done for the day, including games and music. Late in the evening, there would be an outing to watch the stars, and people could take astrophotography, if they desired, at a site specially designed for it.
The site was well-established and had been in business for nearly forty years, so I relaxed and let the very expert guides take care of us. I felt I was in good hands. The only irritant, besides the mosquitoes, would be Sefton with his grin. Like the mosquitoes, there was nothing to do about him but ignore as best you could, although I read that the mosquitoes were worse at dawn and dusk. I wasn’t so sure that there would be any relief from Sefton…
We landed at a small regional airport and then took buses the rest of the way down well-worn roads, finally arriving at our camp about two hours later. After we set our bags in the tent that Claire and I shared, which looked out over the Mara River, we had a light lunch in the dining tent. Even for lunch, we sat at tables dressed with white linen tablecloths, crystal and china, flowers and candles.
The landscape was lush, green, and the weather was perfect – cool in the morning according to our guides, but warmer in the afternoon, so we were advised to wear layers that could be added or removed depending on the temperature. After lunch, Claire and I put on our safari clothes, our DEET to ward off the mosquitoes, and then we were off in small Jeeps with our guide, who helped us load our art supplies.
Claire was an amateur photographer so she would go with the group of people there to take photographs. It would mean we would be separated for the afternoon, and that I would be spending my time with Sefton and his two students, but there was nothing to be done about it.
What I most longed to see – and draw – were the elephants. Ever since I was a child, I had a love of African elephants and had wanted to see them up close and draw them. Now was my chance and I didn't want to miss it. Excitement built in me that we would soon arrive at the location where we would set up for the afternoon.
We found our spot at the edge of a forest where a small family of elephants stood. They seemed quite unconcerned about our presence – perhaps used to the many safari groups who came to the area. We set up our easels and I began sketching on my pad of paper, wishing I could get closer so I could see them in detail.
"Is this as close as we can get?" I asked our guide. He nodded, and pointed to several guards who had rifles in hand, standing as sentries.
I wanted to do a closer study, but instead, would have to settle for more of a landscape with the small group of elephants located off center to create a pleasing composition.
Sefton came over to me and handed me a pair of binoculars. I had my own smaller pair, which I'd purchased before we left, but Sefton's were superior.
"Here," he said. "Take these. You can see the detail better with them. This is as close as we can get without putting ourselves in danger. You could cheat and take a photograph of them, zoomed so you can see them more clearly and use it to draw from."
"That's a good idea," I said. I used my cell phone camera to capture a pleasing composition of a mother elephant and her offspring, which looked to be several years old or more due to its size. I knew from the brochure that African elephants gave birth every four or five years, so this one was a few years old. I thanked Sefton for the binoculars, and set about to sketch the background onto which I would transpose the elephants. I planned to draw the elephants larger and in more detail.
For his part, Sefton spent most of his time talking with his students, who both spent their time drawing the larger landscape rather than focusing on the actual wildlife. One student used watercolors, capturing the pale blue sky with thin high clouds against the wide savannah of the Masai Mara. The other student focused on a tree nearby, capturing the branches and leaves in exquisite detail using pencil.
Sefton, himself, went off to the side of the clearing where we were located and spent his time drawing on a canvas I couldn't see from where I sat. He seemed to glance in the opposite direction to the rest of us while he drew, and I wondered what was his focus. He took some photographs and then spent his time sketching something, his head very close to his canvas.
Despite my unease with him, I was curious about what he was drawing because of course, he was a very accomplished artist. I had been impressed with his work before I knew who he was, and it was only his behavior towards me that made me despise him as a person. I didn't want any man to pursue me. I had Drake. The fact that Sefton knew about our lifestyle and continued to mention it bothered me.
After about an hour of drawing, I stood up and stretched and took a short walk around the perimeter of the clearing where our group had stopped. I was pleased with what I had accomplished so far and hoped to use the photographs when I got back to Nairobi to do a large canvas using acrylics so I could capture the colors of the elephants and the landscape itself. The pencil drawing would serve as a study so I could work out the details of composition, texture and shade.
I went over to check out Sefton's canvas and was surprised. Of course, he didn't draw the wildlife. He drew people. His drawing was of one of the guards with the rifle slung over his shoulder, a wide-brimmed hat on his head, a cigarette hanging off his lip.
"You're not interested in the animals?" I said, unable to keep myself from asking.
He said nothing for a moment while he worked on the guard's face. Finally, he cleared his throat.
"I'm more interested in the human animal."
I nodded and said nothing else, not wanting to prolong the conversation.
I returned to my own canvas and continued sketching, working out the proportions of the baby to the mother. In a few minutes, Sefton left his place and went around to check on the work of his students, stopping to speak to each one in a quiet voice. He was completely professional with them, not making any comments or behaving in any way that would be seen as improper.
He came over to where I sat drawing and I felt his eyes on me from behind.
"Technically, you're very skilled," he said, his voice low. "The composition is nice, pleasing to the eye in terms of where you've located your subject on the page. You've captured the texture of the elephant's skin very skillfull
y. But what are you trying to accomplish with your drawing?"
I frowned, and stopped drawing, looking at the composition. It wasn't that I was trying to accomplish anything except to capture the elephants.
"I don’t know," I said, hesitating. "I like them and want to draw them as best I can."
"You could take a photograph if you want to merely capture the image. What are you trying to say with your art?"
I shrugged. "I'm not trying to say anything. I have a desire to draw them, that's all."
"A child has a desire to draw an elephant. The only difference between you and the child is that you're far more technically skilled. Art should be more than replicating nature because an imbecile with a camera can do as much. Art should be an expression of who you are as an artist. Who are you, Kate? What sets your work apart from everyone else who has technical skill?"
I shook my head. "I don't know…" I felt insulted and insecure at his comments. I considered my drawing. Yes, it was technically skilled. I already knew that. But he was right – beyond the technical skill, there was nothing different about my drawing than a photograph of the same scene.
"Art should be transcendent," he said, his voice soft. "It should take the viewer somewhere that a photograph alone can't take them – into your soul as an artist. Otherwise it's mimicry and that's not art."
"So you’re saying I'm not a good artist?"
"No," he said and knelt down beside me, his eyes on the level with mine, his expression serious. "I'm saying that you haven't found your voice yet. Until you do, your art will be sterile and not fit for anything more than your own closet. To be put on display anywhere outside of your own home, it has to express something about your vision of the world, of the subject matter."
"You mean it has to be political – like your art."
"My art isn’t political. If it were political, it would be trying to get people to take action. I merely paint scenes that express my vision."
"I've seen your work. You always paint scenes of poverty or inequality or war. That's political."
