Temptation Close

by Scarlett Rush

  She wanted to say something, to convey her willingness, to elicit promises of secrecy, to ask why he had chosen her at all, but the kiss didn’t stop. She knew it was to keep her silent. While no words were spoken it might forever seem like some kind of magical, unsurpassable dream rather than a guilty reality. Speak and that bubble would burst. He held her and stroked her and kept his lips to hers, his swell ever growing against her wetness to show his rising lust. After a while there was nothing that could be said and all the thoughts had been chased away. Her concentration was left solely on what he was doing to her. Almost as soon as she knew she had been rendered mute his lips slid from hers and he started to move slowly downwards.

  He was ever patient, even though her gasps and quickening heart were evidence that she would welcome a more rapid descent. But gradually, painstakingly, he made his way towards his goal, tracing lines with his tongue and lips to cover what seemed like every inch of her skin from neck to belly. Her breasts received light attention. Usually by now they would have been grasped and manhandled and slurped upon greedily, almost the sole focus of her husband’s lust. Now the nipples had been lightly licked and then gently blown upon, to ensure they had grown to their full extent, before being drawn into a warm mouth and given a firmer sucking, albeit a brief one. Usually she had to grin and bear the over-attention she received here. With him she was yearning for further contact.

  Below this the kisses made the muscles of her belly jump and the hairs rise in goose pimples. His nails would skim her surface, going over areas as yet to reach attention from his lips: down her arms and the outsides of her thighs, below this to her calves when her feet slid up the bed to meet his touch. He took ages, not that she was marking time. He had relaxed her completely, allowing her mind to clear and enjoy every second. She was able to bask in this pleasure, wanting more but knowing she would miss this slow tease as soon as things became more intense. Inhibition was now all gone. In the absolute darkness, with the luxury of his tender approach, it seemed almost surreal. She was very happily lying there, having all this done to her by someone she hadn’t - not with absolute certainty - actually even identified.

  It was the first time she had been made love to in as long as she could remember. The lack of clawing and groping made her body super-sensitive to the delicate touches. His patience told of a desire not just driven by animal urges at the sight of her cleavage. It was a desire to touch and taste and smell her everywhere, to know her more intricately than others would ever want to. It felt like she was being adored. Even when she could feel his breath on her inner thighs he still didn’t rush, turning his attentions to the delicate skin there. Her hands were on his head, her fingers going through the hair and grasping it whenever the thrills increased, but she held out and avoided steering him into her. When the first touch came it was a mini electric shock, just a tongue-tip flick that had her hips jerking upwards. He spent as long here as he had done on the rest of her body, mostly outside of her, over the lips and up to where the throb was greatest; little kisses and sucks, light flicks, and some hungrier upward laps at her opening.

  She knew the wetness was pooling beneath her. She had never had such prolonged or expert attention there. Usually she might get some cursory slurps if she was lucky, to add some extra slickness before being hurriedly entered, most commonly when she was on her hands and knees, so that greedy hands could reach around to grope and squeeze her boobs. Here she was almost screaming out for penetration greater than just the first inch of tongue, but at the same time she was so on the point of a hard release, just relentlessly hanging over the edge waiting for the right touch, that she did not want it to stop. One finger: that was all she would need, one slide inside and it would take her over the top. As wet as she was, she couldn’t believe he could resist doing it, but he did.

  He kept going beyond the point when the tears had started to slip down the sides of her face. He didn’t dally as he came back up her. No teasing this time. On he came, his chest and belly fractions from her goose-bumped skin. Her legs were wide apart and she could feel the hot itching flow between them. He entered her without guidance, just slipping in, opening her up easily because she was just so slick there. He filled her as his lips met hers and cut off her cry. She gripped him as she came, one hand clasping at his hair, the other at his behind. He stayed still and let her squeeze against him, her muscles contracting against his iron hardness. The climax was strong but not wrenching, and because of that it didn’t lay waste to her. She was able to enjoy it in its fullness and want even more.

  Still he was tender. Although her taste and scent was all around his mouth and nose he controlled his lust and gave her the same measured kisses as before, even as she shook against him. He didn’t take her climax as a sign to finish, even though he felt so swollen inside her he must have been fit to burst. He moved slowly, a side to side motion rather than in and out thrusts, movements to thrill her electrified insides rather than to hurry him towards his own release. She now knew for certain that this was indeed the first time anyone had ever made love to her. All the other times she had simply been fucked.

  The true wonder of it was the simplicity. There had been no kinkiness, no swinging from the chandeliers. It was just foreplay followed by the missionary position in total darkness, with him. No bells and whistles, just her as the focus, her needs the only importance. In her dreams she had wanted him in her mouth, him doing her in all manner of saucy ways. Now the closeness and the patience was enough: the heat and firmness of his body right next to her skin; the scent of him; the feel of him inside; the precision of his touch.

  Her first climax never really subsided and he seemed to know this. Before she had to beg for it he was at last moving in and out of her, still slowly at first but with depth, to bump his crotch to hers. His pace increased and he gripped her bottom to control the tempo. She held his in turn to urge him on. Once he began this final drive he didn’t let up, going deep each time, quickening his pace gradually. She came maybe half a minute before him but she was still whimpering and clawing at the bed sheets as he finished inside her. It had felt like a hard release but he had uttered only soft gasps, as if still desperate not to break his silence and give his identity away. She held him as his weight came down, delighting in the tautness of his body, something she had not felt for a good few years now.

  She thought the guilt would be instant but it didn’t come at all. She was still smiling when he slipped from her back into the darkness. At first she thought he must come back, even when she heard the soft click of the bedroom door. There was no sound out on the landing or on the stairs. She didn’t know what was going on. She thought that when she flicked on her bedside light and finished squinting and blinking, she would see him there in the doorway. But he wasn’t. When she got up and went out to investigate there was no evidence of him. By the time she had thought to go back to her bedroom and peek through the blinds out into the street all she could see was night’s solid blackness. For one tiny moment she thought it must have been a dream, but then dreams do not take so long or give you such a beautifully intense inwards glow. Dreams simply weren’t as good as him.

  Power of Persuasion

  It had to be Alicia, Hunter had told her, because of her body. When his original model had unceremoniously upped sticks and gone to Goa for months he had been left with a number of preliminary sketches on canvas, a few with the first layers of background already painted in. They would be wasted unless he could find someone with an almost exactly similar build to sit for him instead. Alicia was that one. She reminded him so much of the hippy-type model that he felt he could continue these works seamlessly. Only one problem remained: the original model’s obvious lack of compunction for stripping off in Hunter’s presence was inversely proportional to Alicia’s own.

  She had thought she could defeat the reticence but at the last moment she had frozen. What had seemed possible was overturned by a last minute pani
c. Perhaps it was from seeing the wonderful sketches he had already made of the model, seeing how well-proportioned and soft and normal that body looked in comparison to the bony, angular and yet saggy frame she would need to unveil. Why he thought there would be any similarity between the two bodies was a mystery. Fortunately, wonderfully, that first time she had gone to sit for him he had made absolutely no mention of her parting with her clothes. Maybe he sensed she was close to running away. He merely had her pose upon a chaise longue in his studio for an hour whilst he did work on the head and hands.

  He didn’t once berate her for moving, even though she only realised how fidgety she could be once she was required to sit still. He spoke to her throughout, sometimes idle pleasantries that had her laughing, sometimes of the technicalities of his work, or of art in general. He assured her that he would not show any portrait of her to others without her permission. Any put up for sale would be through galleries he had connections with in the Western Isles - a long, long way from where anyone would recognize her. She hadn’t even thought of this aspect, of being viewable to a wider public. She had only focussed upon the enormity of being nude in front of him.

  Still she had felt safe. He was a calming influence and so was the mural opposite - a scene of absolute tranquillity done in yellows and creams and browns to capture one’s imagination. She had felt privileged to be there, proud of being the Chosen One of the street. The panic fell away quickly and she wondered again if she could take that huge step if asked. He didn’t. When he was done he thanked her with a quick, light kiss to her cheek and two bottles of fine-looking wine, despite her insistence at the start that she wanted to do him this favour for free. She had thought that taking money put her under added pressure to perform. On leaving him she felt a bit of a fraud. They arranged another sitting and she told herself that next time she would bite the bullet. She told herself it was totally unfair of her to make him put more effort into his works if she wasn’t going to go through with her part of the bargain and allow him to finish them.

  Unfortunately, the next time the nerves were there again in force. Even though she had coached herself for a whole week into believing she could do it, once there, despite all the delight she felt at being in his company, it was just a step she dreaded having to take. It was even worse than before, because in sharing the time with him, in enjoying his company so much, she now couldn’t bear the thought of his look of disappointment and disgust when she came to strip off. In private it had seemed like a comfortably delicious idea to cast aside all inhibitions and get free and naked for a man such as him, but once in the brightness of his sun-streamed studio, with nothing to hide her imperfections, the reality had a starkness that shrunk her.

  Alcohol might have helped, so she was glad of the glass of wine he offered her. It wouldn’t be enough though, not this one glass, maybe not even four or five. Her stomach was so tight she could do little more than sip ineffectually at it anyway. She pictured her terrible, pitiful flight when he eventually came to ask her to slip out of the robe she had brought along and changed into behind his locked bathroom door. Her efforts to calm down only made her fidget more. Her chest tightened so much when he asked her to pull up her sleeves and reveal more of her bony arms that she thought for one instant that she might expire from lack of oxygen right there on his couch.

  It was surely only a matter of time before he made his request and she lost it and ran. But he didn’t. For that second sitting he did as before, sensing her tenseness and doing his best not to heighten it. He kept up the affable chat, he explained what he was trying to capture. He gave her breaks to get the blood flowing back into frozen limbs. Something told her that, once more, he was going to spare her and not ask her to bare all. They both knew it was hampering his progress, but still he did not ask. Two and a half hours she sat for him that second time, him using his oils to work within the limits her coyness imposed, and by the end of it she was almost sleepy from the combination of streaming sunlight, alcohol, and relaxation. Two more bottles of wine were given by way of thanks and she guiltily insisted he take at least one of them back.

  ‘Next time I promise I will be ready,’ she said, knowing he understood very well what she meant, but doubting he believed her.

  ‘I can’t do it from imagination, I’m afraid,’ he said, looking apologetic. ‘I’m just not that good an artist.’

  They swapped mobile phone numbers, so he could text her to arrange another sitting. This warmed her insides. She wasn’t sure that even Nesta had his number on her phone. She wanted to do it for him, she really did. She knew if she could take the step it might well cure her of the crippling anxieties. It was all in the name of art and she was sure she was secretly drawn to the eroticism of being naked for the eyes of this handsome man, without feeling pressured by sexual undertones. The problem remained that, whatever he saw as an artist, whatever arguments he could raise about aesthetics, she couldn’t see him being anything other than repulsed by the sight of her naked body. If she thought it even remotely possible that he could admire it she might be cured. If, inevitably, he only showed revulsion, her anxieties would be a hundred times worse. And he would be there on a daily basis to remind her that her physical self-loathing was not misplaced.

  Despite her trepidation, she waited impatiently for each next day that she would be available to sit for him. On each of these, when he sent no text, it left her wanting. He was waiting for sunshine, to get the light he needed, and dullness had taken over the last days of winter and the start of spring. One day she would feel ready to take on the world, the next day she would be so glad the brightness was hidden behind clouds. As time pushed on, the sun seemingly dodging her days off, she thought he would lose patience with it all. She found herself clinging to the hope that he would not. As honest a person as she was, she enjoyed this little secrecy; this naughtiness with no actual cheating; this thrill of what she might have to do for him in the name of art. She didn’t want to lose it.

  She even cracked first, during a day of despondency, texting him to say she might not have the courage to go through with it after all, perhaps hoping to force him into giving up on her and finding a new model to take her place. Really though, she knew it was just to have contact with him, to determine that he was still simply waiting for the right day and hadn’t already found someone else. His reply sent the current rushing through her body. He told her he knew of a way to cure her anxieties. It would need a perfect day, but he would show her.

  She had to wait three more weeks, until spring was a month old. The weather turned from rain to unseasonal heat in the space of a day - a day she was not to work. Such bright, warm mornings fill you with optimism and energy. To waste them is a sin. It was, in fact, way too lovely a day for him to be contemplating work or her at all, no matter how much she sat staring at her phone and nervously chewing her fingernails or drumming them upon the breakfast table. So when her phone chimed its text alert she nearly catapulted herself off her chair, such was her surprise.

  His message didn’t give much scope for refusals: Today is the day: a cure for your confidence, or lack of it. Further instructions to follow. Then came details of a rendezvous - a place she recognised as one she had told him about during her first sitting, where she cycled with her husband on near-deserted back roads. Not only had he been listening to her that day, he had obviously taken enough detail on board to go and check this place out for himself, just as she has suggested. Intrigue blended with anxiety. Why was he meeting her outdoors? Certainly warm sunshine seemed to instil greater instincts to strip off - ask any free spirit - but the thought of greater potential public exhibitionism made her stomach knot. Surely he didn’t intend to paint her there? No, it must be some other test, one learnt by soldiers to buoy self-esteem. He would make her climb a tree, or something.

  As she prepared for the off a final message came through from him: Bring your robe. The spill of internal butterflies immediate
ly intensified. This changed things. The bathrobe in question was a very unfetching garment in black and white striped towelling material that she had commandeered from her husband and worn to Hunter’s, despite the embarrassment of it fitting her as well as it fitted her other half. It was thick and masked her frame, rather betraying her reluctance to expose herself at all. A negligee it was not. It said “sexy” rather less than it said “Hamburglar”. Still, it was either that or her pink fleece bunny onesie, complete with bobtail and hood with rabbit ears. That didn’t seem at all like the type of thing one slipped out of to be painted naked. For him to request she bring the robe meant that the tree-climbing theory was out. He was indeed going to have her sit for him.

  It took courage to get into the car and drive, more to bring the robe as instructed - although to her mind refusing him never particularly seemed like an option. The rendezvous point was a good half-hour away, past the next town along the coast. It was a secret place known only to some, mainly because the roads lead to nowhere except around a disused refinery. The flat, smooth tarmac was laid amongst woods, heather and gorse, meant once for the use of tankers. They were a joy to cycle upon when she got the chance. You could pedal around them, and on the interlinking gravel tracks, and not meet a soul in hours.

  Hunter was easier to find. As Alicia trundled around the bend past the old exit to the refinery she saw him ahead, leant against his motorbike with arms folded. The bike was side-on across the road, barring anyone’s passage. He was in full black leathers, the jacket still done up despite the warmth of the morning sun. His helmet was off and resting upon the petrol tank, but he had a thin silk neck-scarf still pulled up over his nose and mouth. He looked like a modern-day highwayman. As she slowed down and pulled onto the grass to park she noticed him check his watch. She was ten minutes late. Would he understand that this was actually as punctual as she could ever be? The other thing she noticed was that there was no easel set up, nor could he have bought any canvas, unless he had somehow magicked all this equipment into the black rucksack sat on the road by the bike’s back wheel. Perhaps he would just want to sketch her.