mind.
* * *
Oh, my fucking back. It was just ridiculous. I looked up at Pietro toiling away at his canvas and I could tell he was in that zone, that place that he went to sometimes. There was no way I could stop him now, although my muscles ached for relief. What kind of art model would I be, to interrupt him in his moments of genius? A less sore art model, I thought dismally.
I’d sat for him all day Sunday, then on Monday for a few more hours. Now it was Friday night and he’d called me, his voice filled with urgency. “I’m so close to finished,” he’d begged. “Lucy, please, you must come!”
So here I lay at nearly midnight, aching and twitchy. I let my mind wander, a trick I’d learned from dance. When something was torturous and took excruciating effort, you just let your mind wander away from the pain. You can probably guess the place to which my mind wandered. It wandered to Matthew, who I planned to see the next night.
I was impatient, yes, but a little scared too. Would he be happy with me once he had me in his arms? Would he realize he’d made a big mistake and end things? I had no doubt he would end things abruptly if he wasn’t pleased with me. I would do everything I could to prevent that from happening, but there was only so much I could give, only myself as I was. If he decided I wasn’t good enough...
I daydreamed there on the cold hard floor of a painter’s studio and pictured Matthew sitting somewhere more comfortable thinking about me. Maybe his mind strayed to me during some important developer business meeting, or as he sat in the backseat of his car on the phone while his beefy driver drove him around. That driver, I wondered what was up with him. Maybe he procured drugs for Matthew. Or women. Hookers. I couldn’t imagine someone like him staying continent for long. If he’d broken up with his girlfriend, what had he been doing in the meantime? I would make him wear condoms, wouldn’t let him near me without them, that was certain. There was no way I’d give in on that. Everything else, well...how far would I go for him? How far would he try to make me go, and what would he do? How much time had he spent since he’d met me, thinking about how he was going to use me, as he’d said? Did he already know what would go on? Had he long ago planned exactly what would occur? Or would he make it up as he went along, based on my reactions?
My reactions. What might those be? I had no idea, because I still had no idea what he would do to me. I’d read books about BDSM. I had a general idea of what people did in the world of dominance and submission, but he’d scoffed and claimed that most of those things didn’t interest him. That all he cared about was using me, making me his own. His own thing . I smiled, remembering when he’d called me a thing of beauty. I’d told him peevishly that I wasn’t a thing. He was probably thinking even then that he would have the last laugh. He had probably thought to himself, well, Lucy, we’ll see .
Chapter Four: Guidelines
I drifted through the Saturday shows lost in a world of my own. Grégoire knew I was meeting our rich patron for coffee, but I told him nothing else. I had actually planned to tell Grégoire everything, reveal everything we’d talked about that strange night, but in the end, I kept it from him. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust Grégoire to keep a secret. If I had asked him to, he would have kept any secret of mine to the grave. Nor was I ashamed to tell him. I shared everything with him, every humiliation and every triumph. In fact, I shared so much with him, I couldn’t quite believe I was keeping something this big to myself. I guess I was afraid he might tell me not to go, that I shouldn’t let him use me, that it wasn’t safe. That something was wrong with me for wanting a relationship like this. All of the things I wouldn’t let myself think. All those things that were probably,
* * *
Oh, my fucking back. It was just ridiculous. I looked up at Pietro toiling away at his canvas and I could tell he was in that zone, that place that he went to sometimes. There was no way I could stop him now, although my muscles ached for relief. What kind of art model would I be, to interrupt him in his moments of genius? A less sore art model, I thought dismally.
I’d sat for him all day Sunday, then on Monday for a few more hours. Now it was Friday night and he’d called me, his voice filled with urgency. “I’m so close to finished,” he’d begged. “Lucy, please, you must come!”
So here I lay at nearly midnight, aching and twitchy. I let my mind wander, a trick I’d learned from dance. When something was torturous and took excruciating effort, you just let your mind wander away from the pain. You can probably guess the place to which my mind wandered. It wandered to Matthew, who I planned to see the next night.
I was impatient, yes, but a little scared too. Would he be happy with me once he had me in his arms? Would he realize he’d made a big mistake and end things? I had no doubt he would end things abruptly if he wasn’t pleased with me. I would do everything I could to prevent that from happening, but there was only so much I could give, only myself as I was. If he decided I wasn’t good enough...
I daydreamed there on the cold hard floor of a painter’s studio and pictured Matthew sitting somewhere more comfortable thinking about me. Maybe his mind strayed to me during some important developer business meeting, or as he sat in the backseat of his car on the phone while his beefy driver drove him around. That driver, I wondered what was up with him. Maybe he procured drugs for Matthew. Or women. Hookers. I couldn’t imagine someone like him staying continent for long. If he’d broken up with his girlfriend, what had he been doing in the meantime? I would make him wear condoms, wouldn’t let him near me without them, that was certain. There was no way I’d give in on that. Everything else, well...how far would I go for him? How far would he try to make me go, and what would he do? How much time had he spent since he’d met me, thinking about how he was going to use me, as he’d said? Did he already know what would go on? Had he long ago planned exactly what would occur? Or would he make it up as he went along, based on my reactions?
My reactions. What might those be? I had no idea, because I still had no idea what he would do to me. I’d read books about BDSM. I had a general idea of what people did in the world of dominance and submission, but he’d scoffed and claimed that most of those things didn’t interest him. That all he cared about was using me, making me his own. His own thing . I smiled, remembering when he’d called me a thing of beauty. I’d told him peevishly that I wasn’t a thing. He was probably thinking even then that he would have the last laugh. He had probably thought to himself, well, Lucy, we’ll see .
Chapter Four: Guidelines
I drifted through the Saturday shows lost in a world of my own. Grégoire knew I was meeting our rich patron for coffee, but I told him nothing else. I had actually planned to tell Grégoire everything, reveal everything we’d talked about that strange night, but in the end, I kept it from him. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust Grégoire to keep a secret. If I had asked him to, he would have kept any secret of mine to the grave. Nor was I ashamed to tell him. I shared everything with him, every humiliation and every triumph. In fact, I shared so much with him, I couldn’t quite believe I was keeping something this big to myself. I guess I was afraid he might tell me not to go, that I shouldn’t let him use me, that it wasn’t safe. That something was wrong with me for wanting a relationship like this. All of the things I wouldn’t let myself think. All those things that were probably,
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