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“Yes. You’ll be young and beautiful—”
“Get out!” He’s kidding, isn’t he?
“—but you can never fall in love.”
No chance of that happening. Not after David.
I ask, “What happens if I do fall in love?”
“You change back to the way you were.”
In other words, middle-aged and overweight. Thinking, I run my fingers over the statue’s, um, dick. The statue is for sale, according to the old artist. It’s tempting. No more vanity sizing? A flat stomach? Perky breasts? What a fascinating idea, a tantalizing, sexual black magic. FX to the max. But is it worth braving an airport security search? I shake my head. I still have not-so-fond memories of smirks and pat-downs when my ex-assistant—yes, she and David are now a twosome—sneaked a lipstick vibrator into my carry-on bag when I flew up to San Francisco last month. I don’t want to go through that again.
Smiling, I tell the old artist I’ll think about it. He shrugs, then disappears to get another pack of cigarettes. I look around to see what other goodies I can find. Nothing here. Cracked vases, old books, a Tiffany lamp and a charcoal-tinged red pot emitting a weird odor. Not unpleasant, just weird. I take a sniff. Coriander, wine…and is that ginger I smell?
Within seconds dizziness muddles my mind as if the wine gremlins have invaded my head and are using my brain for a grape mosh pit. Is it the bottle of Pinot Noir I washed down those fries with? Or the smelly stuff in the pot? The bile in my stomach crosses paths with frying grease and adds fruity alcohol to the mix, flipping out my equilibrium. Whatever, my knees go weak, as if I’m moving in slo-mo. I try to focus, but everything looks blurry. What if I pass out? Go into a coma? Without a prince to wake me up with a French kiss? No frickin’ way! I sink to my knees, but I refuse to succumb to the sleepytime trolls dancing in my head. I grab on to the black velvet drape to steady myself when—
Swwooosh!
My hands fly up as a heavy thump of velvet comes down on top of my head, suffocating me. Gasping, I struggle to wipe the soft darkness from my eyes, free myself from the giant bat cape covering me from head to toe. Loud breaths, husky, panicky, invade my ears, making the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I hold my breath and listen. Who is it?
I let out my breath. Damn, it’s me. Panting like a porn star having a fake orgasm in cyberspace.
Okay, so now I can relax. I’m not trapped in here with some spine-tingling apparition chatting me up with nocturnal moans, but I can’t get this velvet drape off my head. Every time I pull one way, the drape goes the other, making me queasy. I gotta shake this nausea. Breathe in then out. Two, three times. I’ll never dip greasy French fries into red wine again. What was I thinking? Then…
…over my rapid breathing comes another sound. Laughter. Laughter? Is the old artist back? I have the odd feeling he’s choking on his ciggie sans filtre, enjoying this. I’ll give him something to laugh about when I unravel this velvet mess and—
—ooohhh, wait. That’s not him. The laughter is low and sexy and so close to my ear a chill slithers up and down my vertebrae knocking together like Lego pieces that don’t fit. Something creepy is going on here. Drops of perspiration form between my breasts, wiggle down my ribcage, then drip down my thighs as I pull and tug on the black velvet drape. I can’t thrash loose. My breath becomes sharper. The back of my neck is damp. Finally, I rip the heavy fabric off my face and—
—I see him. Staring at me with his eyes. Dark blue eyes that intrigue me.
A life-size painting of a man over six feet tall.
I grin, relaxing the tenseness in my face. So that’s what the drape was hiding. A superstud. Arms crossed, feet spread apart, and wearing tighter-than-tight pants that outline his impressive cock and he’s—
Laughing?
Creepy bumps pop up on my bare arms. The more I think about what I heard, the more I believe I must have imagined it. Hearing the man’s sexy laughter stirred carnal desire so dormant in my female psyche that I can’t tell what’s real or in my head. Well, look at him, will ya. He’s a painting, dammit! Touch him, no, not there. There. On his hand. Cold. See? He’s not human, so get off this goth kick and get the hell outta here. Oh, I forgot. I can’t. I’m naked.
So, girlfriend? He can’t see you.
I smile. Yeah.
So why not have a little fun and flirt with him?
With my eyes still on the man in the painting, I trace the fullness of my breasts with my fingers, cupping them in my hands. Playfully, I rub my nipples, hard and brown and pointy, licking my lips again, then as I become more comfortable with my teasing game, I move my fingers down to my belly, then between my legs. I sway my body gracefully, in a classy manner. This is art.
Art? C’mon, a lifetime of Cosmo signals to me loud and clear this is sex, pure and simple. My juices flow and the fullness in my groin swells as I hear the old artist scuffling out front.
He’s back.
I hear him strike a wooden match. He’s lighting another stubby Gauloise cigarette. A wavy swirl of smoke snakes over the screen. Smoke has no effect on the man in the painting. He’s still smiling. Me? I cough.
Not taking my eyes off this macho pin-up, I call out from behind the screen in what I hope is an I’m-just-curious voice, “I found a painting I like.”
“Mademoiselle?”
“The good-looking guy in tight pants under the black velvet drape.” I wet my lips. Ooh la-la.
“Ah, you found Paul Borquet.”
“Who is he?”
“He was considered a genius in his time, mademoiselle. The painting is a self-portrait he did in his studio in Montmartre.”
“I never heard of him.”
“After his strange disappearance in 1889, the art world forgot about him. I covered him up years ago.”
“Covered him up? Why?” I lean my hip against this lost artist. So close our thighs touch. I tingle. He has an electric charisma that transcends three-dimensional space. Or am I just horny?
“The models spend too much time looking at him—” the old artist laughs “—and arousing themselves.”
Even in the murky light, I can see why. The man is dark, dangerous looking, with a raw aura of lust about him that makes my skin crawl with ideas of back alley cafés, strong liqueur and sweat-drenched nights of passion. An erotic hero.
My eyes travel down to the big bulge between his legs, confirming my suspicions. No doubt he has an ego to match. He’s handsome with chiseled, though slightly misaligned features, giving him a cocky air. He stands with his legs apart, his longish dark hair swirling around his open collar and contrasting with the musculature of his chest, visible under his white ruffled shirt.
Looking at him starts a slow burn down in the unexplored area below my phony tan line. He makes me squirm. I remind myself he’s just a painting. Then a sneaky thought hits me. How would it feel to make love to him? Why not? After David gave me the heave-ho, a girl’s got to rev up her mojo even if he is a two-dimensional hunk in tight pants.
I drape the black velvet curtain around my shoulders in a provocative swirl, letting it slide down my bare back, and wiggle my butt. I wonder what it would feel like to run my fingers over his chest, touch his hot flesh, then grab on to the mauve-colored scarf wound around his neck in a graceful swirl and pull him close to me. So close I can inhale his musky scent, then lean my cheek against the deep satin blackness of his cape slung over one shoulder.
I feel my inhibitions rise up and escape from me like someone sucked the breath out of me with a long, deep kiss. French kissing. I can’t get the desire of wishing for a deep kiss from him out of my mind.
I shudder. Sweat trickles down my neck. What am I doing? Making love to an artist who died over a hundred years ago? I am losing it. I should run out into the rain and let a good soaking clear my head.
Flash! Lightning dances over the varnished ebony screen, making the surface shimmer. I flinch, turn my back to the painting. I won’t look at him. I won’t. Thunder echoes in my ears, as if Paul Borquet is daring me to look.
I ask, “Was he an Impressionist?”
“Paul Borquet was among the best, mademoiselle,” says the old artist. “Monet, Renoir, Toulouse-Lautrec, they all admired the young artist’s work. And his bravery.”
I cock my head and sneak a peek at Paul Borquet. I know I shouldn’t, but I can’t help myself.
“Bravery?” I ask. Okay, so he was a real alpha male. Interesting. Very interesting and just what I don’t need. Another stud who pops steroids like they’re purple M&Ms.
“He died in a fire, mademoiselle, trying to save the woman he loved.”
That’s cool, but I’ve had my fill of macho overkill. So why can’t I stop looking at Paul Borquet? I’ll tell you why. No cosmetic effect of darkness at play here. I know art. His work has energy. Vibration. He really understands color. His use of paint becomes a vehicle for the perception of light. He seems suspended, shimmering and vivacious within the frame of the portrait. There’s a snapshot quality to the work, a sense of immediacy and spontaneity as if he were here now in front of me, alive.
“Paul Borquet,” I mumble, putting my thumb to my lips and sucking on it, wondering if he was as good in bed as he was with a paintbrush. A sexual hunger awakens inside me and makes me reach down into myself, way down.
Wetting my lips, I imagine him naked. I slide the heated palms of my hands over my thighs, imagining the sticky, dewy liquid dripping from his penis, glistening. I savor this moment. The artist’s use of bold brushstrokes and harsh lines suggests a mad aggressiveness about his personality that excites me. Gives me chills, then makes me hot. Very hot.
I keep my eyes riveted on the painting as I wiggle my hips, dreaming about how it would feel to have the paintbrush of this lost Impressionist sliding down over my belly, down between my thighs, then tickling me with its soft bristles. Running his fingers up and down my torso, lingering here and there, taking his time. Then licking me with his tongue, drawing his finger in and out of my pussy. In and out. In and out.
I sway, shake, moan, barely keeping my urges under control. The strong smell of oil paint mixes with the sweet smell of my own desire as I move in time to music in my head. I swear Paul Borquet winks at me. I take one step backward, then a second. His eyes seem to follow me. A tremulous hunger swells up in me, aching to be satisfied.
I bend forward, touching my breasts, squeezing my nipples, swaying my shoulders back and forth. Then I rub my pussy slowly, daring the man in the portrait to kiss me. I pretend I’m kneeling astride the lost artist, locking my legs slowly around his neck, his longish dark hair tickling the insides of my thighs as I press my soft mound on his mouth, brushing my body back and forth across his lips. A tingling vibrates between my legs. Melty, sweaty heat wiggles deliciously down to my pussy and a subtle, yet burning sensation flows through me as he tickles the sensitive button of my clitoris with his tongue.
I squeeze my pubic muscles together. My pussy is tight and hot, though I haven’t come. I want him to fuck me. I want to clamp down on his cock as if it were deep inside me. I want to keep it there forever. My mouth is dry. I lick my pink glossed lips, then give out a low moan.
Can I push the limits? Can I climax in my fantasy?
I smile. No one can see me behind the screen. No one but Paul Borquet with his broad shoulders, bulging biceps, narrow waist and hard lean thighs. And, oh yes, his squeezable butt.
My heart is pounding, pounding in my ears. I abandon all my sensibilities, grabbing the statue of the Egyptian god Min and holding it between my nude breasts, its firm erection nesting in my cleavage as I climax wildly, warm sweetness oozing in my cunt as melodic waves of pleasure hum through me, a seamless tapestry of buzzing and purring and sighs and moans weaving through the air, some breathy in tone, others louder, still others painfully ecstatic.
All of these sounds only make my climax more intense, more lasting than anything I’ve known in a long time. I don’t close my eyes, but continue staring at Paul Borquet, wishing I could feel his arms around me, his lips kissing me, his body pressed against mine.
“You wouldn’t stand a chance, monsieur, if I were young and beautiful,” I whisper in French, shifting my weight from side to side. The wooden platform bends, squeaking under my wet bare feet. Lightning flashes overhead through the skylight, stinging my eyes like a thousand-watt lightbulb slashing through the air. “I’d make you fall in love with me—”
I cry out when electricity jolts the bronze sculpture I’m holding between my breasts, sending a hot current through me and vibrating through my brain, raising the hair on my arms, and making my eyeballs bulge out.
Somewhere in the back of my mind I hear the old artist calling out that he’s going for help, but I can’t answer, can’t focus. All the muscles in my body tighten and I feel myself lifted up off my feet and zooming through space, as if something is flinging me skyward. An unexplained chill settles in me as if I’m in a swirling vortex as electricity flashes over my skin, racing in and out of my bod faster than I can blink.
What’s happening to me?
This isn’t my normal world. I want things dry and safe. Not wild and crazy. The electricity dances a choreography of darkness and light all over me, tracing the path of my sweat. I’m breathless and more than a little bewildered. Mix in bewitched and my trip to Paris is turning into the Rocky Horror Picture Show with French subtitles. This can’t be happening!
Thunder claps in my ears with a loud boom then—the lights go out.
Darkness. The humid air suddenly reeks of a strong musky scent. Male.
Coming closer…closer…yes…I hear that sexy laughter again as someone blows hot air into my ear, making me shiver. I twist my fingers on the statue until they burn, then my nipples harden into pointy peaks as if someone pinched them. Becoming aroused again, I let out a sigh when someone squeezes my breast and sucks on it, then moans. Who? Where is he? I can’t open my eyes, swallow or talk, or move my legs or hands, touch him, anything.
I can’t do more than make a desperate breathing sound as I lie—
Where?
Where am I?
CHAPTER TWO
Paris 1889
The Artist
I can’t paint, I can’t move. Alors, I can’t believe what I saw. A moment ago I swear the night was slashed open by a strange light and I saw a redhead stripped naked, teasing me, flirting with me, her bare shoulders swaying and dipping provocatively.
I continue to stare into the gauzy-thin darkness veiling a corner of the room, a rapturous chill shooting up the side of my face, then wiggling down my spine and meeting head-on with the slow burn pulsating in my groin. Ready to explode. No. I must be going mad. Delirious. What occurred stunned me, like lightning flashing through my body.
Exhaling slowly, blinking, trying to ease the strange headache that came upon him—brought on by too much absinthe, or so he wanted to believe—he regained control of himself. Barely. He tapped the tip of his cane against his leg, keeping time to a strange rhythm in his soul only he could feel. He gripped his cane tighter, trying to hold on to the moment. How was such a thing possible? No candle or lamp illuminated the corner where he’d seen the redhead, no moonlight drizzled through the open window. He’d heard no one enter through the thick wooden door. The only sound in his ears was a soft whisper.
“I’d make you fall in love with me,” she said, taunting him. A sensual giggle escaped her tinted lips, no pretense of innocence shading the moaning sounds coming from her throat. Then she slumped to the floor, the life gone from her, like the morning sunlight dissipating over the stacks of hay in the wheat fields, leaving behind only deep shadows. Cold. Lonely.
He moaned.
Tonight, working in his studio, he had the unnerving feeling someone had been watching him. Lusting after him. Undressing him. He grinned. It was the redhead. A familiar tingling inside him made him squirm with frenzied energy as if thousands of carmine-red lips, wet lips, her lips, kissed and sucked the long shaft of his penis. Up and down, circling around it with her tongue.
A spasm of anticipation within him caused his hard cock to press against his tight pants. He was excited, stimulated by this redhead. He felt his penis bulging and swollen with a great need he couldn’t conceal.
But first he must find out if she was real.
Paul Borquet approached the dark corner with fear in his heart. Fear of discovering she was but an illusion. What else could she be? The whisper he’d heard in his ear came from a long way off, fading so slowly, like the long sigh of a young girl as she peaked during her first sexual climax.
He drew in a long, deep breath.
The beautiful girl lay on the floor, not moving. She was flesh and blood.
And she was nude. The pale sheen of her skin enchanted him, her face bewitched him, her breasts thrust forward with one hand lying lightly between her thighs, as if daring him to peek and savor her pussy. Her slim hips, long legs, all delighted his artist eye with a sensual harmony so perfect he could do nothing but stare at her.
Strangely, as if in the grip of an unseen hand, he couldn’t concentrate on anything but the redhead. Not the model waiting for him in the small studio upstairs, not his unfinished drawing, not his need for more absinthe. He’d raced down to the study to indulge his thirst for the green liqueur when a sudden lightning shower drew him to this room. Then he’d seen her.
And nothing else mattered.
He breathed in deeply, and the shadow of her erotic perfume descended over him, holding him in a sensual moment so real his hand shook when he felt for a pulse on the side of her neck. His dark blue eyes widened. Yes, blood beat in her veins, but her skin was hot, as if a fiery flame danced over her body without burning it. He couldn’t stop himself from reaching out to touch her face, her lips. Her breasts. The desire to twist the pointed nubs of her breasts with his eager fingers heated his groin. He yearned to lick them with his red-hot tongue, then nibble on them. He moaned, wishing he could bury his face in her creamy white flesh and smell the aroma of her female sex. Sweet and pungent. Erotic.
He must paint her. He must.
He closed his eyes in ecstatic torture. Touching the beautiful redhead raised him out of his deep depressive mood. He had been melancholy earlier, sitting silent and withdrawn in his studio, his head sunken to his chest, his hair hanging in his face as he drank absinthe. Night after night he sat, condemning the art world for not recognizing his genius.
In the late afternoon he had roused himself out of his drunken stupor and gone to the Louvre to study the works of Delacroix, Poussin and the Dutch masters of the seventeenth century. It provided him with the perfect release when the headaches and dreams crowded his brain with such pain he could no longer hold his brush steady.
Then he had come to his small studio in the Marais district in the town home of la comtesse, his one-time mistress, and prepared his paints, but nothing happened. Nothing. His creative urges were stalled. He could no longer reach into the most remote parts of his mind and explore the vast universe of his imagination, that mystique of sensation he knew he could achieve, allowing him to put his feelings into art. Yet he wouldn’t give up. Couldn’t.
He drew in his breath, a sudden longing for the smell of paint under his nose and the sound of short, quick brushstrokes whispering in his ears. With a haunting clarity, he conjured up in his mind a dazzling painting of this redhead, already seeing his bold colors on canvas. Red. Blue. Yellow. Shocking colors, passionate colors. Colors that lived, that captured the moment.
His heart raced faster, a thin veil descending over his sense of reasoning, the veil of madness that was often a companion to his art. Always striving to sell just enough of his work to buy more paints, while at the same time he struggled to express a feeling, a thought, a human need in his painting.
Could not hope be expressed by a star in the heavens? The hunger of a soul looking for love by the brilliance of a sunset? The beauty of all women by the luminous eyes of one woman?
He was certain the redhead was that woman.
How had she come to him? She was here in the room with him, this seductive creature of the night. And if so, she must be skilled in black magic and a follower of the occult. He exulted in the idea she would be a fitting partner to join him in his ongoing journey of mystic and sexual exploration into the Paris underworld of hedonism and excess, where women danced naked, titillating the madly decadent men.
He called it his cirque érotique, where beautiful, young mesdemoiselles rode from room to room in sumptuous private mansions on bicycles sans pantaloons, naked below the waist, giving the gentlemen an exquisite view of their nude buttocks; or where women offered themselves as love slaves, willingly partaking of strong intoxicants to increase their pleasure as they did their masters’ bidding; or where they engaged in salacious threesomes, making certain the gentleman always had twice the fun.
He embraced this world, watching women performing and arousing, seducing and being seduced. A world where there was magic in every kiss and every kiss was magic, a world he found strangely evocative and compelling.
