And then I was joined, hand moving with eye, locked into a space where no one could touch me. Wordless, nothing but the light and the colour and the resinous smells of the studio, music washing straight into me, suffusing me with steel guitar and a voice singing songs I knew so well I didn’t even listen to the words. Painting an imagined room, losing myself in a place that didn’t exist.
The hand fell on my shoulder like a thunderclap. I jumped so high I knocked the edge of the turps tin with my hand and saw the splash of dirty blue water explode over the floor, the palette, my jeans. I looked up to meet the startled gaze of the guy who’d just touched me. In my ears, some old electro song was still playing, and I felt like I was still locked in the dream state with a stranger intruding rudely into my headspace. He had the grace to look upset – a pale face with blue eyes that were cracked with shock and concern. Delicate lips that were moving fast, forming words I couldn’t hear.
‘What?’ I said, pulling the earphone away. The cold sound of real life rushed against my ear, mixed with the sound of the guy’s apology.
‘… so sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.’ His voice was pleasantly rich, that warm woody tone that some Americans have. Sounded like a bass guitar, a good whisky, an autumn day. Sounded male.
‘Am I late? I had a bit of trouble finding the place,’ he continued, taking off his jacket and looking around for a chair to put it down. I was mildly confused by his actions, but still lost in that dizzy, detached space I get to when I’m painting, and mesmerised also by the sight of him. A tangle of tarry-black curls that was shockingly dark against his white skin. Those perfectly drawn lips, a full Cupid’s bow as red as carmine that gave his face a cruel, tender beauty. His cheekbones sat high and proud. And the lines of his body – I could see even under the loose-fit trousers and shirt that he had a sculpted body. The way he moved. The way he stood, jacket in hand, letting the clothes hang from his bones with a silent confidence that suggested that underneath he was hard and perfect.
‘Uh, are we working in here?’ he asked, looking a little confused by my silence. I stared back, trying to figure it out. His lovely blue eyes narrowed.
‘Jo?’
Then it clicked. ‘Joe’ worked next door. Big photo-realist charcoals. Young men, mostly. He hired models from time to time, had the poor bastards pose in the icy studio space for a tenner an hour. This guy was a stray. I opened my mouth, to laugh, to tell him his mistake. To point him in the direction of Joe’s space.
Instead, I surprised myself. Perhaps the fumes had overcome me.
‘Yeah.’ I nodded. ‘We’re working in here.’
And that little white lie, I realised afterwards, was where I crossed the line. I’d stolen Joe’s model. I was telling a stranger to strip for me. Strangely calm, but with a heart that was hammering like a drum, I watched as he moved across the space.
Remembering life-drawing etiquette, I shook myself pulled the curtain across the doorway, and ducked outside for a moment, It’s fine to stare at the model while you’re drawing them, but modesty forbids you watch them undress.
I left a chink. Enough to see my borrowed model unbutton his shirt and quickly, casually remove it. Skin like marble, firm and smooth. The form of him, the curves and the tense swell of his muscles. His low-slung trousers showed a pair of sharp hip bones, and I swallowed as he reached down to pop the button, unzip. He pulled down trousers and shorts in one movement, revealing the graceful legs of a dancer and the dark mess of his pubic hair. In the centre nested his long soft cock and the dusky-rose sac of his balls. I couldn’t take my eyes off him. Watched his cock swing gently as he piled his clothes on the floor and stood waiting. Hugging himself, rubbing his arms to try and warm himself.
The studio temperature usually hovered around ten degrees – a fucking icebox no matter how warm it was outside.
Clearing my throat, I walked back in and started ferreting around for a sketchbook, a stick of charcoal.
‘How do you want me?’
His question could have been entirely innocent, but as I looked at him standing there hugging himself, calmly displaying his full-frontal cock and balls, I thought I saw a faint spark in his expression. The slightest curl of his lip.
‘It only takes eye contact.’ I remembered Sandy’s lesson on how to tumble a man.
‘A little smile. That’s all. Then it’s just a matter of finding out how to cross the distance between you and touch them.’
Well, I couldn’t just march up and grab him. No matter how strokable that gorgeous body looked, I had a charade to keep up.
‘Uh, standing, is that OK? One hand on your shoulder, your weight on the right foot. Yeah, that’s it.’
I couldn’t help it, the way he looked. I couldn’t resist recreating the pose of David, the classic stance. A tilt to the hips, the suggestion of vulnerability despite the strength of the body. I was playing with him. But he seemed willing to go along with it. He shifted and relaxed into the pose. He turned his face and showed the sweep of his neck. I could bite into that, I thought, imagining the smell of him – aftershave and soap and the sweet tang of male sweat.
I drew him slowly, pulling the charcoal over the paper like I was stroking the contours of his flesh. Smudging the lines with my finger, I had the sense of running my fingertip along his arm, across his abdomen, down his hipbone. His body hair was sparsely scattered – little tufts under his arms, a trail from his belly button spreading out over his groin. I worked deeper with the charcoal, enjoying the chance to ogle his cock. Keeping my face poker straight. Drinking in his beauty.
The Renaissance artists believed the study of the male form was the highest of arts. As I drew my model’s beautiful form, I felt inclined to agree.
I was so absorbed by the task, it was only after half an hour that I noticed the shake in his legs.
‘Oh Christ, sorry. Do you want a break?’ I said.
He relaxed immediately, shaking his limbs out and slapping at his leg. ‘Circulation’s gone,’ he said, rubbing vigorously.
The sound was like charcoal scribbling over paper, and it made me want to feel his hands on my body with the same friction.
‘Pins and needles,’ he said. ‘Fuckin’ cold in here, too.’
‘I don’t really notice it any more,’ I said.
‘No, you’re totally absorbed. Can I have a look?’
I blushed. I actually blushed. Showing someone how you see them naked is a tricky moment. Still, I couldn’t refuse. I stepped back, and let him walk round to see the sketches on the easel. Now we were close. The gap between us, as Sandy described it, was very small. I stood as still as I could. My hands were black with charcoal dust.
He nodded, and looked at me thoughtfully, like he was appraising me. ‘Beautiful drawing. You have a mark –’ He reached up to rub at my cheek. Let his thumb push down to my mouth. Held my chin and tilted my face up. Leant over, brought his face closer to mine, his eyes glittering and his mouth open, hot breath on my skin.
The distance reduced to zero and his mouth was on me, wet lips covering mine in a warm shock. All of a sudden the cold tension of the studio was flooded with sensation – the quiet northern light was eclipsed by the movement of this man against me, his hot human aliveness crashing into my world, encircling me, gripping me in those naked marble-smooth arms. Everything was dark, but dark in the way of flesh, with a heartbeat and a pulse and the vivid animal sounds filling my ears.
I didn’t pull away, and I didn’t miss the smell of love in the air. Instead, I felt the delicious surprise of an unfamiliar man kissing me, and the want and the need to feel him closer yet. Michelangelo always said the sculpture was already in the stone, and he just had to work out how to find it. When the model kissed me, it felt like he’d found a new image of me, of what I could be. Like he’d dug out the long-forgotten, reckless girl I used to be from where she was buried deep in the cold hard rock and brought me back to life.
His prick was stiffening, pressing against my
leg, while he slid his tongue into my mouth and we tasted each other.
‘A mouthful of fun,’ Sandy had said.
I’d never been so hungry in my life. I knelt.
The wood planks of the studio floor were hard under my knees as I took hold of the guy’s hips and pulled him towards me. I buried my face in his pubic hair, letting it scratch against my mouth. His cock bobbed against my cheek and I nuzzled at it, feeling the smoothness and the heat of what I’d been longing for for months. I’d spent a half-hour looking at his body, trying to recreate it on paper, but drawing his beauty was nowhere near close enough to this. Touching him, taking him in my mouth, sucking on him. Tasting the bittersweet honey of his pre-cum as his cock swelled and grew rock hard.
Fuck drawing, I thought. It doesn’t get to the heart of the matter. I realised just how flat a picture can be, as his hands tangled in my hair and I pulled at his ass, sticking a fingertip into his hole and feeling the corresponding spasm in his cock. This wasn’t static, everything was in motion, stimulating all my senses at once, and we were sinking inside each other, intertwining, pushing and pulling at each other. He was tumbling down to kneel in front of me and his hands were burrowing into my clothes, seeking out the pockets of heat, the dark and wet spots that connected straight to my brain. His fingers ran into my knickers, slid quickly between my thighs and into my pussy. A slight resistance, before he found the groove and the moisture of my pussy and dived into it. Two fingers, three, jammed inside me, opening me up, wriggling in there with a funny little shock before I felt the rhythm of it, the to and fro rocking that made me feel like my body was caught in a tide. Waves ebbing and flowing, he was imitating the beat of sex that would sink into me and pull me under.
I couldn’t even get my jeans off before he was pushing me over, holding his cock to guide it in and nudging at my slit.
‘Stop, stop, wait,’ I said, remembering one of Sandy’s rules. ‘We should use a condom.’
He nodded, breathless and beyond speaking now, then leapt up nimbly to find his jeans and check the pockets. He sprinted back to where I lay with a foil square in his hand.
‘You brought one to work?’ I couldn’t quite believe it. Was I the only person in Glasgow who didn’t anticipate a casual fuck at lunchtime?
My model grinned, biting at the foil to rip it open. He had a wicked smile. ‘Boy scout motto. Always “Be Prepared”. You never know who you’ll bump into.’
I wasn’t in any position to argue, so I gave in and just marvelled at the sight of him, cock in hand, unrolling the rubber down his length and checking to see it was on tight. I lay back.
But he wasn’t ready. The pause seemed to have given him an idea. ‘How about we even the score a little?’
‘How d’you mean?’
‘You’ve spent half an hour staring at every inch of my naked ass. But I haven’t even had a peek. I feel like I hardly know you.’
I laughed. It was a little one-sided – a fully clothed artist taking advantage of her new employee.
Even so, I felt strangely shy as I struggled out of my jeans and sweatshirt. Untying my shoelaces, I could feel his eyes on me, curious and searching. My skin seemed fragile, tender – as if it had never been exposed to daylight before. I was struck forcefully with the realisation of what I was doing – getting naked and amorous with a total stranger. I unhooked my bra and forced myself to resist the desire to cover my breasts. I slipped out of my panties and sat back while he looked at me.
The awareness of his gaze on my body had an unexpected effect. Even as my cheeks reddened with shame, I felt my spine arch, my hips rock a little. I was leaning back and enjoying this display, presenting my naked breasts to this man like a glamour model. My inner voice screamed ‘Crazy’, but my body was opening to his attention. Then it dawned on me. I was showing off.
Why the hell not? What did I have to lose? I didn’t even know this guy’s name, and he’d probably disappear into the anonymous city in an hour or so. We were just having a brief taste of each other. A little adventure.
Suddenly reckless, I spread my legs for him in invitation. I was acting lewd, shocking myself, and I hadn’t felt so damn alive in months. He swept down to join me, to kiss me again with those perfectly pretty lips and press the length of his body over mine. When his cock nudged at my slit and then entered me, it felt like I’d discovered the fast way to make a new friend. I don’t mean that glibly either – he was moving in me so softly and so intensely I felt I was suddenly close to him, not just interlocked physically, but discovering him in a way that hours of late-night conversations and shy dates just wouldn’t do. How else do you know a man, I thought, as his cock – long and thin and hard – filled me. I could feel him going deep and grinding against my pubic bone.
The quality of his love-making was as much part of him as his conversation – light and rapid, eager and somehow tender. He cradled my head with one hand to kiss me, lifting my mouth towards his. The kindness of strangers, I thought. He fucked me with easy strokes, and the rhythm I’d felt earlier – his hand inside me, darting against the inside of my cunt – was repeated with his hips. His kisses were playful and interspersed with little bites. As his hand roved down to stroke my body, he tweaked my nipples and gripped handfuls of flesh. He wormed his hand in between us, flicked at my clit, latched onto it and started frigging me in time with his fucking.
My body was opening up to him, hungry for the thump and bang of his hips against mine and eager to absorb his cock as deep as I could. We rolled on the floor, collecting broken bits of charcoal on our flesh and slipping on a pool of turpentine or oil or something, and the two of us kept sucking at each other, licking and thrusting and not giving a fuck how dirty and cold and uncomfortable our situation was. I had his hand hard against my clit now, and he was fucking me less playfully, driving into me with more emphatic pushes, pulling back as if he was taking a big in-breath, running his cock back into me with the urgency of approaching orgasm. I was jarred against the floor, hit hard by his body every time he pushed into me, feeling the magical tingling buzz in my cunt that meant I was going to come too, all over his hand and with him stuck deep and hard inside me all the way to the hilt. The whole of my body, inside and out, was alive and screaming for release, every part of me fucking back and forth, rubbing up against him, feeling him in and on and around me as he thrust with big heavy hip-jerks. It hit, hard.
He jolted against me one last time.
And cried out, and spilt himself inside me, and finally made my orgasm explode like a black starburst. Deep in my brain the inverse of colour swept through me, blanked out my mind, swallowed colour and transmuted it into pure burning, animal sensation.
Our bodies dissolved together and shook, hands slipping over each other, clutching hard, grunts and moans falling from our mouths involuntarily.
Perhaps I had lost my mind. I rolled around on the floor, feeling the last sweet stings of orgasm shoot through me, making me shiver as I held onto the guy.
I felt the sweat cool on my body almost instantly, the hard floor and the scratches on my ass and back from whatever the hell mess we’d just been lying on. The sudden emptiness as he pulled out of me, leaving my pussy tender, free-falling. The cold air rushing at my body, reality hardening the edges of the moment. Him sitting back and the unfamiliarity of his face reasserting itself. Looking shockingly strange. I didn’t know him.
The distance between us was suddenly as great as it was when he’d first entered the studio – two strangers in daylight, trying to breathe normally.
There was an awkward moment when it came to paying him – and when I had to admit I’d nicked him from Joe’s life-drawing session. But we laughed it off and, as he took his leave with a curiously chaste little kiss, I felt a sudden pang of affection for him. Not that we’d be repeating the encounter – that was pretty clear. After you’ve fucked someone on your studio floor without asking their name first, you’d be hard put to go through the whole rigmarole of dating and
flirtation.
It was a short and sweet encounter, nothing more. But my heart felt somehow lighter that evening as I walked home with the rolled-up sketches under my arm and an aching body. I would pin up the pictures of my ‘David’ on my bedroom wall to remind me of my studio adventure. To show myself that beauty can turn up in unexpected places and that life tastes sweeter when you take the odd risk. I walked across town and for the first time in a year felt like I was plugged in to life. Part of the whole colourful, terrifying, electric game; like the switch my heart had been flicked to ‘on’ again.
In the swarming, messy crowds of rush hour I saw the young guys and the rough-at-the-edges guys, dark and light and moving fast around me. A thousand possibilities for a little buzz, a little smile, a little warmth. A thousand gaps that weren’t that hard to cross if you took the chance.
As Sandy says: ‘There are a hundred kinds of love out there.’
Now I intend to taste as many as I can – one mouthful at a time.
Lust for Glory
Mathilde Madden
TUESDAY NIGHTS MEAN only one thing to Gracie, William, Mark and me: Lust.
Oops. Actually, that’s a bit of a Freudian one – not Lust, Lost.
Lost, the TV show, that is. Every Tuesday Gracie, Mark and William pile round my place and we all watch the show. And even though we don’t always follow the plot all that closely, it always, always seems to hold our attention. Mark, Gracie and William are all super hot for Doctor Jack, whereas I, not being one to follow the herd, am torn between Sawyer and Sayid. Although, I say I’m torn, but really, why choose?
Sex with Strangers Page 3
