Invitation to Ruin

by Ann Vremont

  So, instead of allowing Ambroise to throw me a coin or two for a proper artist, Gabrielle gives me Christophe’s name and studio address. I went to interview him, only to avoid insulting Ambroise!

  Yet something about his work captured my interest. And he was very attentive in seeing to my comforts as I posed for a few preliminary sketches that he might show me his vision. Such vision! Passionate even on charcoal and paper. How accurately he captured the essence of my spirit while preserving my beauty. That those rough materials he used should be made to reveal my sublime grace—surely he is as talented as any painter at court.

  So, it is done! The money for supplies went with the letter of commission this morning and I will see him this weekend when I return home for another week’s stay—Gabrielle having somehow convinced my parents that the city is safe.

  June 9, 1787

  He has drawn secret pictures of me! I know because I saw them today—having searched his drawing desk while he was busy setting up his supplies and staging the posing area. I could not help but do so, his manner at my arrival made me suspicious. He was in a great hurry to hide (not merely put away) the sketch books when I came. It seemed too facile a possibility that he was trying to protect my delicate nature by hiding common nudes. Since he could not think me so ill-educated a school girl, it stood to reason that he must be hiding his sketch books specifically from me.

  And I was right, though I had no idea how thoroughly impudent a beast he could be. The pictures start out innocently enough, such that I might consider them more refined exercises as he formulated his final vision. But, oh how the series progresses. It moves from a study of my face to one of me sitting on a chaise. From there, he has me reclining with a leisurely grace, my clothing much as I might wear to bed, only loosely fastened. And then he has me alone in my flesh—no covering of any fashion! Only my hair is down, falling in loose waves over my breasts.

  Even there, he did not stop and I marvel at where he found the time for so many sketches—have I possessed his thoughts that he has done nothing but draw me since our first meeting? For there were dozens more—all in an unclothed state. No mere studies of my form, either. He has drawn me at the height of my passion. Images of me touching myself, images of me on my hands and knees, lips sensuously parted. Pictures where my legs were thrown wide as if I were inviting the whole world to come and take a peek.

  How difficult it was to softly answer his summons to come and sit…to demurely pose before him while feeling as if he already knew me in a most intimate manner! Again and again he had to correct me as I sat there...for I could not sit still. I had to look at him, see him, try to figure out what had driven him to make those sketches.

  So, too, was I enchanted by his very presence, for he is a most handsome and virile looking young man. What response, I wondered, had these images of my body so wantonly exhibited produced in him?

  Now I sit here debating what I should do when I next pose for him. Do I tell him I have seen the pictures?

  June 11, 1787

  What a difficult man! When I confronted him about the pictures, he acted nonchalant and showed me sketch after sketch of nudes, male and female, some of them in the very act of copulating with one another. When I thanked him, with honeyed sarcasm, for not pairing me with one of his sick imaginings, he only gave me a sly smile! What depraved acts has he drawn me engaged in? And why do I want nothing more than to go back through those books and find myself down on my hands and knees with Christophe’s manhood impaling me from behind!

  June 12, 1787

  A letter today from Christophe—canceling the day’s session because something “more important” has arisen. Vile beast that he is, he sent me a picture of his phallus drawn, he says, to scale—though he must lie!

  June 13, 1787

  How accurate his pencil! I must confess, I could not throw away his degenerate token. I spent the evening in my room, studying it, learning its every detail until I could think of nothing but taking its living twin into my mouth before sheathing it deep inside me.

  The shaft is of a generous size. Not so frighteningly large as to scare me away, but far more than most women can hope for in a lover. Its greatest feature, however, is the network of thick veins that run near the surface. Oh, what a sensation to have felt their texture inside of me!

  The head, too, produced feelings I still cannot calm. It sits on top of the shaft in a most unusual manner from what I have seen and felt of other men. It is meaty and bulbous, too thick at the sides to form the arrow tip to which I am accustomed. Yet how it found its mark as he thrust into me this afternoon! I could hardly walk from his doorstep to the carriage that would return me home.

  It was evident from the moment I arrived that he intended to seduce me. A blank canvas was prepped and a flat table covered with a velvet throw and silk cushions had replaced the chaise.

  “You are not prepared for my sitting?” I asked.

  His gaze swept over me like a furnace blast and he arched one brow in actorly contemplation. “I am,” he answered after spending another long minute in pointed appreciation of my breasts and hips. “You, however, are not.”

  I bristled at the challenge, more with impatience than anything else. He was moving quickly in his seduction of me, but still too slow for the need that burned inside me. I had not yet decided whether I would acquiesce or shred him into the mere memory of a man, but I needed the game to progress more rapidly – such have been my frustrations these past weeks with Ambrose and his precious Gabrielle and their counseling of my parents.

  “Explain yourself,” I demanded.

  “If you are to sit for me today,” he answered flatly, “you need to strip.”

  He turned then and began mixing colors.

  I could not even pretend to misunderstand his meaning—the blatant monster!

  “Young ladies of my social standing do not pose nude.” I spat the words at him and moved as if I would leave. When he made no effort to block me or call me back, I stopped.

  Maddeningly slow in the process, he finished mixing a soft peach color that matched my skin before replying. “Young ladies,” he started, drawing the second word out with a disdainful sarcasm, “of your social standing do whatever the fuck they please—as you well know, my lady.” He finished with a deep, mocking bow and returned to ignoring me.

  “The actions of a few sluttish peers cannot be attributed to me,” I said and then a delicious possibility occurred to me. “Just because Gabrielle disrobed and spread her legs for you is no indication I would ever do the same!”

  That seemed to give him a moment’s pause, but then I realized he was choking back laughter.

  “Marquessa L’Aigle did not pose for me…her parents did. And do not mistake your desires for mine.”

  Some confusion must have shown on my features, however vigilant I was in keeping my expression schooled, because he smirked in a most unbecoming manner and offered me his explanation. “I never said I wanted to fuck you.”

  Oh! I was seething by this point, although few would have known. And, yet, he is an artist, long accustomed to making careful studies of people’s emotions—could I hope to keep my feelings veiled? I stepped toward him, still confident he would be begging me for my favors before our little meeting had concluded.

  “Gabrielle recommended you,” I turned with my hand outstretched to mock his pictures as if only his cock could have earned her praise.

  Ah, the beast! He had replaced the tame pictures of the previous days’ sittings with pure pornography!

  Christophe moved closer to me and grabbed me lightly by the elbow. “And I am quite grateful that she did,” he murmured. “Now, disrobe so that we can begin the day’s work.”

  “I did not pay for that type of portrait,” I protested hotly, trying to remind him—and myself, I daresay—who was servant and who was master.

  “Yes, money.” He withdrew with a sneer and returned a few seconds later with the advance I had given him. Without paying m
e any more attention, he started cleaning and putting away his brushes.

  “What is the meaning of this?” I threw the money at him. I wanted to strike his face, but something in his tightly coiled muscles told me that a mistake could be lethal.

  “You are wasting my time, Veronique. There are other women to paint.”

  The supplies were all but put away! He was about to remove the canvas from the easel when he tilted his head and saw how I trembled so. (With anger! I wanted to smother the life out of him with my cunt.)

  “Why do you refuse? Are you afraid?”

  It mattered not that I knew how calculated his question. I would let him think it had done its trick. We would see how his skills abandoned him when he beheld my undressed body!

  My fingers flew to my bodice, racing from there to the strings at my back. In a short time, I was before him, utterly naked—making no attempt to cover my breasts or the dark blonde triangle of fur between my legs.

  Grabbing me by the elbow, he led me to the table, his hands touching me almost everywhere as he helped me up onto the cushions. Unceremoniously, his hands pinched my nipples.

  “Do not think to touch me,” I snapped, disconcerted that, while I grew wetter with each moment, he seemed to have no more interest in me than if I were a bowl of fruit.

  Christophe smiled briefly, his eyes still unreadable, and gave my cheeks light but stinging slaps. “What would you have me do, Veronique?” he asked before I could lodge another complaint. “Paint some cold marble bitch?”

  I started to rise, but he placed his palm in the center of my chest and pushed me onto my back, his other hand shoving its way into the pocket between my thighs.

  “I thought you would have some passion for me to capture on canvas,” he accused. His fingers smeared the cream of my arousal across my thighs. “You are wet enough inside—why the arid exterior?”

  “You have no intention of trying to paint me. You are only interested in seduction!”

  “Really?” He backed far enough away that I could see his cock as he tugged his pants down over his hips. “Do you still think so?”

  Damn him! He was flaccid, that thick, magnificent cock as limp as a dead fish. Yet he had seen me naked, had brushed his fingertips across the entrance to my slick cunt.

  Christophe pulled his pants back up and returned to the table. I was too shocked, too humiliated to protest as he rearranged my limbs to his liking. He shook his head sadly, as if I still would not do.

  “Spread your legs,” he ordered. I did and he parted my lower lips, thrusting a triangle of his fingers into me.

  “What makes you hot, Veronique?” he asked as he stroked hard against the spongy knot of tissue just inside my pussy.

  I did not even stop to consider my answers. “Power…money.” I was panting now, my body flushing a warm rose in response to his vigorous rubbing.

  With his free hand, he slapped more color onto my tits, my body convulsing in orgasm from the rude treatment of breasts and cunt.

  “What else?” .

  “You.” My admission was punctuated with a moan and an arch of my body.

  “Good.” He slapped my face again, a little harder than the first time and then he began to sharply tap at my cunt lips with the flat of his fingertips.

  “Tell me you are hard now, Christophe.” Any pretense of pride had fled my manner.

  He grabbed my hand and pressed it against his still relaxed manhood. The humiliation of his disinterest knotted its fist in my gut and I pulled my hand back.

  “I am ready to start” He pulled his supplies back out.

  “Christophe!” I was sitting up now, tears streaking down my face.

  “You must stay as I placed you!”

  His shouting should have frightened me by this point, but I could only rejoice that I had forced some more passionate emotion from him than mere artistic interest.

  “Please, Christophe,” I went on my hands and knees in front of him, tugging at his pants.

  He grimaced, then grabbed my wrist and dragged me toward the next room. “If I must bear your mouth, at least I can get something out of it!”

  He flung himself down on the couch, me on my knees, naked in front of him. Beside us, the window’s curtains were pulled wide, letting in the afternoon sun. He lifted his hips and stripped his pants away and then picked up a sketchpad and charcoal.

  Vaguely, he gestured at his cock.

  I looked at the window positioned so close to the street. “Someone will see us…”

  “The hedge is too high for them to see you on the floor and I need the light,” he responded with a flat take-it-or-leave-it tone.

  And I took it.

  In its unexcited state, I could just fit my mouth around the fist-like head. I released him, running my tongue over the tip and shaft before taking him between my lips again. But he was growing so hard I found the lubrication too little to allow me to work his girth and length.

  “You have cream enough elsewhere, Veronique.”

  I blinked once at the suggestion, ready to reprimand him. But he was right. I was dripping with my excitement and I reached between my legs, my hand coming away slick with my juices. I spread the liquid around the shaft and head, stroking him to a new firmness with my hands. His body’s response produced a fresh fount of arousal in my cunt. I coated him with more of my juices and then took the head in my mouth. I bobbed up and down, one hand squeezing his shaft while I played with my clit.

  “I did not say you could improvise, Veronique.”

  He was still sketching but his breathing had started to break into harsh pants and the veins on his cock stood out in thick ridges. Dutifully, I took my hand from between my legs, bringing more moisture up and clasping both hands around his rod. My whole body was absorbed in sucking his thick shaft. My tits bounced from the long strokes, my ass followed up and down. And when, at long last, he wound his hands through my hair and forced me down until my lips touched its base, I came in time with the hot rush of his cum down my throat.

  Keeping his hands in my hair, he stood and dragged me up until I was straddling the arm of the couch—one leg on the floor, the other, bent at the knee, resting on one cushion. Now anyone walking by might see my face—surely they would see my body.

  “Do you want me inside you, Veronique?”

  “Not here,” I moaned, both desperate and terrified. My cunt was so eager to take what my mouth had struggled to contain!

  “All that work and you would put aside your reward?”

  The hand that did not hold me in place by my hair worked the depths of my pussy, the hard thrusts causing my clit to rub against the arm of the divan. Once again I was shaking in orgasm. And then, sweet heaven, he withdrew his fingers and wedged the heavy cock head tight into the opening of my hole.

  “I want it, Christophe,” I pleaded.

  How he battered into me with his cock. He used hard short thrusts that kept him from entering and made my entrance swell tighter with the abuse. Two dozen such thrusts he must have made before he stopped and wedged himself again at the opening. Then he began slowly gyrating his hips, entering my wet slit inch by inch, butting up against one wall and then the other until his full length was buried inside me.

  While he worked his cock deeper into my pussy, he forced my head to turn so that I was looking out the window. Ladies with parasols passed by and tradesmen with satchels rushed to wherever it is tradesmen rush. My mind raced between two prayers—that Christophe would fuck me ever harder and that none of the passers-by would absently turn their heads and see me splayed on the couch like a whore, clawing and groaning and loving every second his cock filled me.

  At last, our bodies surrendered to their climax, my noisy excitement only heightening the chance of discovery as he slammed into me again and again. My cries of ecstasy and pain pierced the apartment as my torso jerked along the couch with the vigor of his thrusts.

  Finished with me, he pulled his pants back on and sat down at a drafting ta
ble. He pulled out a new piece of paper and began sketching. His gaze focused on the work in front of him, he called my name as I turned to gather my clothes and some shred of dignity.

  “Veronique, I would see you next week.”

  I stopped in the doorway and watched him work for a few seconds before I answered. “I must return to the convent next week.”

  He nodded and pulled out another new sheet of the same size. “I have a commission nearby and have been given use of a guesthouse,” he explained. “I will send a carriage for you.”

  “The sisters are loath to let us out of their sights absent a parent in attendance,” I said and stepped into my dress. “They are afraid we will wind up in one of those ‘Diary’ stories.”

  “Are they true?” he asked, turning at last to look at me.

  I bit down on my lip to keep from blurting out the truth—what would he think if he knew that Gabrielle was the hapless twit and I Ambroise’s co-conspirator? He already seemed to think so little of me…it seemed impossible that he could think less.

  “How should I know,” I answered. “I only know that the sisters have become miserably restrictive. One would think we had been sent there to take our vows!”

  His attention drifted back to the table and sketch. “I will arrange something, you just must be careful not to give it away or inquire too much as to the reason behind the unexpected liberty.”

  “Very well,” I answered. I would have a week to prepare for our next meeting then. He would not find me as pliant and docile as I had been today. Finished dressing, I joined him at the drafting table.

  “You bastard!” I hissed and grabbed at one of the sheets that showed me with my mouth pulling back from his enormous cock, cum beading at the corners of my lips.