скачать книгу бесплатно
The world of the Black Arts.
The girl moaned. She was stirring.
“Oooh…” She crossed her arm over her chest, her hand pushing together the luscious swell of her breasts. He gasped. The sight of her white flesh delighted his eye, but his mind told him to cover her, lest she catch a chill. He was acquainted with the wardrobe of the mistress of the house in an intimate manner, so it didn’t take him long to retrieve a long, hooded red velvet cloak from the garderobe. He placed the cloak over the girl’s nude body, then picked her up in his arms, reveling in the lightness of her slim body when—
—her other hand opened and the object she’d been holding dropped onto the carpeted floor.
His throat tightened. No, it couldn’t be. But it was. His small statue of the Egyptian god Min. Had the girl sneaked into the town house to steal it? What other treasures did she seek? Jewels? Gold louis? Silks? Was she but a thief of the night and not a goddess as he believed?
He should toss her out into the street, be done with her. Such women, he knew, were sensual creatures who plied their trade with kisses and promises of forbidden sex. Naked young women in the throes of passion, kissing, sucking, restraining the man with silken bonds, blindfolds and cock rings to keep his erection until he satisfied each girl and she cried out in orgasmic bliss.
Was she such a girl? He looked down at her lovely face, the fullness and beauty of her breasts, the elegant curve of her heaving rib cage so white and pure against the lushness of the red velvet cape. He’d go mad if he couldn’t paint her, and so he would keep her. But he would be very careful with his feelings. Very.
He placed her upon a rose-colored meridienne, putting a red silk pillow under her head, then stroked her cheek, her straight nose, her full lips, her breasts. Then his fingers traveled down her sleek midriff to her flat belly and the insides of her thighs before tugging on the curly reddish hairs covering her mound. His dream was in his arms, an enchanting mademoiselle, but one thing still puzzled him. Why had she stolen his statue of Min? Why? Did she know its power?
Did she?
He did.
He became interested in the occult when the owner of the red velvet cloak, a beautiful and wealthy comtesse, presented him with the small statue as payment not only for his portrait of her, but for his performance in her boudoir. La comtesse claimed the statue was discovered in the pyramid of a powerful pharaoh known for his sexual prowess. The statue had magical, sensual powers she was only too happy to teach him as she lay upon the bed, waiting for him. He held her face between his hands, then lowered his mouth to kiss her deeply until she wrapped her legs around him and gripped him tightly around the waist, her ankles crossed above his back. Then he ground his hips, pushing his cock into her in slow rhythmic thrusts, then faster and faster until she climaxed with so many orgasms she lost consciousness.
Bedding the countess wasn’t the only game he indulged in. From time to time, sexual orgies occurred in the grand houses here in the Marais district and he eagerly took part, wearing only a long red cape over his nude muscular body. He hid his identity behind a fox mask, though many young women claimed to recognize him by what he couldn’t hide. His cock. Long, hard and perfectly shaped.
His favorite trick was making his cane disappear, then inviting the eager young women to duck under the wings of his cape and search for the missing cane in between his legs. They ran their fingers, their lips, even their melons, large breasts, all over his body until his penis found them, filling their connasses, cunts, between their legs with his magic.
“Hélas, tu es bien monté,” the women whispered, telling him he was well hung. Then he would sweep through the bevy of naked girls, pushing up against them, pumping, thrusting forward his cock, huge and fully aroused. He kept his handsome face hidden, his piercing, dark blue eyes watching the eager women through the holes in his mask, women all vying to be pleasured by him.
Not tonight. Passion for his art triggered a reflex action in his fingers, making him open, then close his fist. Slowly. A stimulating flash of inner heat, as though he’d reached through the arc of what was real now and what could be real beyond this moment, surged up in him.
Tonight he must paint.
Her. The redhead.
But first…he must get rid of the blonde.
“Do I not please you, monsieur?” a feminine voice asked, emphasizing the world please with a pretty lip pout. It had no effect on him.
“I’ve changed my mind, Lillie.” He buttoned the deep blue, paint-splashed jacket he wore and tightened his flowing neck scarf, the color of a velvety plum. It was his trademark, his style, and he guarded it carefully. Then he forced his eyes to look at the model, a pretty girl from Madame Chapet’s maison tolerée, brothel. Lillie de Pontier was the prettiest of all the girls at the House on rue des Moulins. He picked her out of three girls simulating sexual encounters with each other, writhing all over a large four-poster with abandon, touching, caressing, kissing and sucking on each other’s breasts.
She seemed pleased when he chose her, snuggling up to him, blowing in his ear, rubbing her firm derrière back and forth across his crotch, making gestures about the firmness of his buttocks. But he no longer needed her services. He was nervous. Edgy. The redhead would be conscious soon. He must sneak Lillie out the back way without the two girls seeing each other. He was frantic. He didn’t have much time.
“I will show you for free, monsieur, what all Paris would pay to see.” Lillie pulled off her tight black garter and her rose-colored silk stocking slithered down her creamy thigh in a slow, serpentine crawl.
“Put your stocking back on, Lillie.”
The girl ignored him and leaned toward him. He noticed beads of sweat between her nude breasts. For a moment he couldn’t take his eyes off her. She wore only a corset in peacock-blue satin, tightly laced around her tiny waist and pushing up her exposed breasts. Her ample bosom swelled out in all directions in delicious curves, pleasing him. Full, bulbous cups of white flesh seduced his eye with the promise of delights to come. A crinkly pink ribbon tied in a neat bow around her neck completed the effect.
He reached out to untie the bow when—
He stopped, his hand raised in midair. A sound from downstairs caught his ear. Was that a moan he heard? The redhead?
“Your private show is about to begin, monsieur,” Lillie said in a husky voice, curling her lower lip and hissing the phrase with a deliberate purr. Her long white fingers pinched the end of her pink stocking as she pulled it off, then she wiggled her naked toes playfully before slowly spreading her legs to expose a gentleman’s peek at the yellow-gold triangle of pubic hair between her perfect thighs. Sa chatte. Her pussy. Well-groomed and beckoning him. He had not expected this. She tilted her head toward him, her eyes asking, What do you think?
“You tempt me, Lillie, but I—”
Did he hear someone moving about downstairs? Opening drawers? Banging them shut?
“I’m the best at Madame Chapet’s at chevaucher.” Lillie chewed on the end of her fingernail then touched the inside of her thigh, running her fingers up and down, ever so lightly, coming closer and closer to her soft pussy. “I can ride the stallion for as long as the gentleman desires.”
She slapped the air with an imaginary riding crop, and for a moment he was tempted. Very tempted. He was in need of release from the pent-up passion throbbing within him. He could imagine himself sitting on a chair with Lillie spread out over his lap, his cane sliding up and down her toned calves, her thighs. Then, slapping her firm, naked buttocks ever so lightly before turning her over, he would take her, her mouth wide open, his tongue licking her lips, his hands grabbing her all over, her breasts, her waist, her thighs, everywhere.
He ignored the bold desire in her eyes, eyes telling him what she wanted. Baiser. Make love. To her. Tonight. He shook his head. No, he couldn’t, though she was beautiful. Her angel-pale skin gleamed white with rice powder from China with skillfully applied brown pencil arching her brows. Deep blue shadows flowed across her eyelids and over her temples, enhancing the size and luminosity of her eyes. He could see where she had dabbed the color of a pink dawn over her cheeks with a hare’s foot, the lobes of her ears and her chin. The touch of artificial gold rinsed her hair. Garish but effective.
La belle fille possessed all the skills of a woman schooled in the art of illusion. And that was why she could never be his perfect model, why he could never paint her with the vigor of reality, because everything about her was an illusion.
Mais non, it was someone else who held him in rapture, someone more provocative, more alluring, more sexually exciting.
“I have no need of you tonight, Lillie,” he said, dismissing her. He should have known a woman with Lillie’s skills would not give up so easily.
“Watch me, monsieur,” she whispered, twisting her pubic hairs then inserting her fingers inside her pussy, “as I wind up my music box to play a tune that will please you.”
He wasn’t surprised when she began moaning, quite convincingly. He had no doubt she’d had much practice, but he had no time for love. It was a foolish emotion he refused to give in to; it drained his energy, his passion to paint. Art was his mistress. He could never love a woman as much as his art.
Never.
He ran his fingers over the ebony handle of his cane carved into the shape of a couple making love. His own penis was also hard, unbending, like the unique design of the male figurine hovering over the woman, lowering his erect outil, tool, into her. Lillie, moaning louder, also noticed his hard cock. She kept repeating what a strong, muscular body he had, and how she would find such delicious pleasure burying her face between his hard thighs, sucking on him. He tried to ignore her obvious overtures. He must get rid of her. He must. But how? Sweat slicked his grip as he slid his hand up and down the cane. Why was he so tormented, so affected by his passion to paint the redhead?
He knew why. She was the seductress chosen by the gods to be the perfect model for his masterpiece upon which he could stamp his art with an impulse of his true feelings, the inner emotion of his soul. He never would have believed it possible such a woman existed in his world.
A different urge settled in his groin. Primitive. Lusting. He couldn’t wait any longer.
“Put on your clothes, Lillie,” he ordered. “I can paint no more tonight.”
Her chemise lay on the floor, crumpled into a thousand fine little wrinkles, with one rose-colored stocking strewn carelessly on top, along with her violet two-piece taffeta dress and petticoats, violet button shoes and tiny matching hat with its long, curling veil.
“Pardon, monsieur?” she asked.
“You’re leaving.”
“But we haven’t played the game—”
“I have no time for games. I have another engagement.”
“At five o’clock in the morning?”
“Do as I order or Madame Chapet will hear about your insolence.”
“That old garce? Bitch. She cares only about making money, and I make plenty for her.” Lillie threw on her petticoats, then her shoes, though she didn’t button them.
A door slammed. Downstairs.
She laughed. “I believe your other engagement couldn’t wait, monsieur.”
He panicked. “No! She can’t leave. She can’t!”
Paul grabbed his cane, then his voluminous black cape and swirled it about himself like a creature of darkness about to take flight on the cloud of a dream. He raced downstairs, flung open the door, then ran outside, blending into the landscape of mendicants scouring the boulevards of Marais, their baskets on their backs but no names on their souls. The clean, dry air was still.
Where had the girl gone?
He stopped a poor chiffonnier, ragpicker, and asked her if she’d seen a young girl in a red velvet cape running from the townhouse. The old woman held out her hand and, after he folded a bank note into her palm, she pointed toward rue Saint-Merri. Joy raced through him, sharpening his eye to see the truth. Then she wasn’t an illusion. She was out there somewhere. But where?
Gripping his cane, twirling his cape, he raced out into the night with a quickening sense that he had no choice but to find her.
No matter what he had to do.
CHAPTER THREE
Jesus Christ, what the hell happened?
Zzz-zap. Zzz-zing. Bang.
Energy pulsated through me like a thunderbolt, giving me the wildest orgasm I’ve ever had. It started at the center of my vagina, way up inside me. Sizzling like a hot fireball, pulsating, increasing in size until it filled my pussy. Then my clitoris burst into flames, and dazzling fireworks exploded before my eyes. Silver, red, blue.
Hot, hot, hot.
I experienced the most exquisite, soul-melting ride: my whole bod jerking with each jolt, my legs thrashing in midair as I flew through space, an electrical shower falling around me, singeing my skin and making me yell out. I moaned so much, I sounded like I was crying. Long rhythmic shudders traveling up and down my body thrilled me, telling me the peak of my passion, my climax, was near. Then my pussy began a series of spasms, clamping so tightly on—
Hold it. How could all this happen with no penis filling me up? Plunging deep, totally possessing me? My pussy muscles tried to draw him in deeper and deeper.
No go. It was all in my mind.
Or was it?
Paul Borquet.
I swear I saw him through the slits of my eyes, leaning over me. His manly scent ignited my desire for sex all over again, and his arrogance at taking what he wanted set off my emotions in a frustrating state of upheaval. I felt his hands squeezing my breasts, then rubbing his thumb over my rigid nipples, sliding his palm down across my waist and digging his fingers through my pubic hairs. Oh, it was delicious.
Him. Moaning, gasping. His body tense, hot, slick with sweat.
Me. Tingling. Glowy. Trembling, aching for him to touch the soft mound between my legs, push aside my pussy lips, insert a finger—
Then he was gone.
Where?
And where the hell am I?
Isn’t it time we answered that question?
I walk with my arms swinging, bare thighs rubbing together sans panties, feet burning, striding up rue Saint-Merri, looking everywhere at once. I see a few electric lights glowing in the nest of small streets crowded together, mostly gaslights from the grand houses throwing a yellow tone upon the cobblestones and tossing eerie shadows everywhere. An exquisite haze, barely a mist, covers everything like a delicate veil. I see a man standing on the corner, tending to a big copper cauldron. He pulls down his black felt hat, then flips up his coat collar as he rattles the steaming-hot chestnuts roasting in the pan. The nutty fragrance floats across the square and tempts me to stop, ask the questions lingering on my lips. I don’t. I want to see more.
I’m not disappointed. I see horse-drawn carts, wagons, a horse cab, even a lone bicycle at this early hour, the traffic flow following no specific order. The clop-clopping sounds of horses’ hooves fill my ears. You’d think I’d get it, wouldn’t you? But I don’t. Can’t. It’s still too weird.
I keep walking, pulling the red velvet cape closer around me, shutting out the early-morning chill. I love this cape. Lined with a slippery red satin as soft as nude skin, I snuggle within its folds, lapping up its luxuriousness with a greedy hug. Sooo sinfully elegant. Where did it come from?
When I came to after the best orgasm I’ve had in years, the cloak covered me from head to toe, but my clothes, my waist pack with my money and passport, everything had disappeared. A girl needs more than red velvet to find her way back home.
Or back to the hotel. That’s where I’m headed. I intend to go to the police and find out what that old artist did with my stuff.
I’m still groggy and drained from climaxing like I was the star attraction in a ménage à trois, but here’s what happened when I woke up. Darkness invaded the studio except for an electric light with an opaque, fluted shade. One electric light? I questioned, noting someone hung a pink chiffon scarf over it, giving the room a soft glow. That should have been a dead giveaway, but I didn’t let it sink in. I was more fascinated with the wardrobe of costumes I found. Petticoats, stockings, garters, button-up shoes. No underwear. But in my present state of undress, I couldn’t be choosy.
I wiggled into a soft white petticoat with layers and layers of frilly lacy ruffles and pert pink bows, then slipped on a silky apricot-hue dressing gown so thin it was transparent. I let out a girlish giggle when I saw my breasts standing up and not sagging and my hard nipples popping through the silk like I was nineteen again.
Isn’t that what expensive lingerie does for you? Makes you feel sensual and thin?
Or was it something else? Something black magical?
After tying a silver cord around my waist—which seemed smaller—I laced up a pair of tight-fitting pearl-gray leather button shoes with stubby two-inch heels and threw on the gorgeous red velvet cloak. No mirrors, so I couldn’t see how I looked, but everything fit perfectly, as if I’d lost a few pounds. Very strange. I wanted to believe the statue had worked its magic on me, but I couldn’t. Not yet.
My calf muscles pull, legs tighten in the morning chill, and I walk stiffly across the boulevard toward what I hope is the rue Saint-Honoré. Up in the sky the fading moon ignores me, along with the dark clouds trying to blot out its glow. No storm clouds. No thunder, and God help me, no lightning. No rain puddles, either. But it’s cold, much too cold for an early summer dawn breaking over the elegant edifices of the pink-brick and white-stone mansions. A cool breeze plays with the heavy velvet whipping around my ankles, as if it knows I’m pantyless and wants a peek. I pay it no attention. I have to get some answers, and fast.
Why did the Marais studio look so different when I came to? Where was the old artist? How long was I unconscious?
And what about Paul Borquet?
He couldn’t have been real. I only imagined him.
I exhale deep lungfuls of air that puff in front of me like smoke. Yet I’m sweating despite the chill. I hear only my own panting, the swoosh of my long cape hitting the pavement as I plod along the cobblestone streets in two-inch-high button shoes with squared-off toes that wouldn’t know a Blahnik from a Choo. I don’t want to accept the crazy notion skirting through my orgasmic-maxed-out brain. Nothing I’ve seen is real, I tell myself. Can’t be. The reality is I’m lying in a Paris hospital, tubes coming out of my nose, my mouth, everywhere, my mother hovering over me while she flirts with the handsome French doctor who assures her I’ll wake up soon.
Only a bump on the head when she slipped on the floor during an electrical storm, he tells her.
My mother reacts. You said she was nude? And holding on to the erection of an Egyptian statue? My daughter?
Yes, Mother. Your daughter, who’s having the sexiest wet dream of a lifetime and I have no intention of waking up just yet. So, let’s get on with it! I want to see what happens next…
I look to the pavements. A soft sigh escapes from my lips, frustration following, as if my breath catches on a feather and hangs there a moment. I see construction, houses the color of milky limestone going up, streets being widened, as if the city of Paris is getting a facelift.
I can’t put into words my fascination, but I feel it down to the core of female sexuality. As if I’m the city of Paris and my body, my spirit, my fucking sex life, is reawakening and filling me up with so much energy, so much furiosity I feel my body regaining its suppleness, its curves. I’m lethal, baby. A sex pistol.
This sensual feeling takes possession of me and won’t let go. I breathe it in. Suck it in, dammit. Power is a thrill ride. Sexual power is a thrill ride in overdrive. So, power up, because here I go.
I cross the street, the intoxicating floral scent of nature in an aroused state—ask any bee—seducing me. Moisture glistens on the canvas awning of a flower stand. Underneath I see an old woman wearing a tattered black shawl and a long, heavy dark skirt lovingly arrange her roses, lilies and violets. The woman pulls the shawl back from her face and smiles at me. I’m so absorbed in watching her I don’t see the man come up behind me—
“Pardon, mademoiselle,” drawls the young dandy, bumping up against me. Wearing a polished black hat and evening tails, he weaves past me in complete bewilderment of either me or his surroundings. I wrinkle my nose. The strong smell of alcohol lingers in the air. I assume the slender shape of a wine bottle holds more appeal for him than the curves of a woman. The young man dawdles down the boulevard, muttering to himself, when from out of nowhere a ragged creature with a wicker basket strapped to its back shuffles closely behind him.
I turn my head, sniffing. Did the air just get heavier with a foul scent? Unpleasant, as if they haven’t washed in weeks.
Carrying a lantern in one hand and a sharply pointed hook in the other, I watch in amazement as the creature picks several items out of the young man’s coat pocket with its hook then tosses them into the basket.
