“When I fuck you, Gemma, I want your eyes open, looking right at me. I’ve never hidden who I am from anyone I’ve touched, and I won’t start with you.”
He lets go of the blindfold and walks around me to the drop cloth. “I need you to sit here,” he tells me, and I move to sit where he has instructed. Voice back to cool and aloof, he continues, “Face toward the back wall, curve your torso to the left, and raise your arms up over your head, so your hands come down to cross over by your hair. Angle this right arm, so it is bent up toward the ceiling. Yes, perfect. Just curve your legs out to the side. I’ll cover them with the cloth.” He looks down at me. “Do you think you can do that?”
I nod silently, feeling completely off balance.
“Good,” he replies, acting as though I’m not sitting here completely naked. “Now, do you want me to tie that around your eyes or would you prefer not to wear it?”
I look up at him, noticing his pupils have dilated. Phillipe is aroused, and all of a sudden, I can’t think of anything other than pleasing him.
I hold up the piece of material to him, and he takes it from me as he moves in close. Crouching down in front of me, he gently places it over my eyes, and his handsome and troubled face disappears from view. I feel his arms whisper past my ears as he moves closer to tie the ends at the back of my head.
“I’m sorry.”
“Sorry for what?” he asks, his warm breath floating across my mouth.
“I’m sorry that I didn’t trust you. I’m sorry I doubted your intentions.”
The silence seems thicker without my sight. I’m straining to hear him, but there’s nothing, and that’s when I feel a soft kiss against the corner of my lips.
“I think you’re sorry you got caught. Oh, and Gemma? You should always doubt my intentions.”
With that, he moves away from me, leaving me to find my pose.
Gemma is resplendent in her nakedness,Phillipe thinks as he situates himself behind the easel. He watches her closely where she is seated and in pose. Her hair is the exact opposite shade of Chantel’s. As Gemma holds herself in the mirror image he once so lovingly captured, he is struck by the differences in their bodies.
Gemma is curvier than Chantel—her breasts are rounder and her hips flare out more, creating a shadow of an hourglass on the wall opposite from where the spotlight is hitting her.
Her reaction to the blindfold is interesting. He knows that she immediately thought of everything atrocious she heard, causing her to rebel against her initial reaction of curiosity. The moment he firmly told her about his sexual proclivities, she seemed apologetic for allowing herself to go where her thoughts had taken her.Funny, really, considering the things I’m thinking about doing to her.
Blame can’t be placed upon her, though. After all, one of the most horrid stories he read about himself described him as a man who hadplucked the wings from a butterfly.
People are so fucking cruel.
“Why did you decide to paint Chantel in this series?” Gemma asks, breaking the silence.
Phillipe picks up a paintbrush and starts to outline her. He finds not having her look directly at him makes it easier to answer her questions.
“I was fascinated by her,” he explains. “Everything she did was always executed with so much grace and such poise.” He briefly pauses, reaching over to dip the tip of the brush into more paint before tracing it down the canvas to where her hip would be. “It seemed natural to paint her. Her ability to find beauty in everything was such an amazing quality. I wanted to capture that, so I could show the world beauty as I saw it.” He chuckles softly. “One of her favorite quotes wasEverything has beauty, but not everyone sees it.Nothing sums Chantel up better than that.”
“Wow,” Gemma mutters softly. “She sounds like an inspiring individual.”
Phillipe closes his eyes for a moment and sees Chantel as she was whensheposed for him, her black hair piled on top of her head and a few stray pieces escaping to flirt with her shoulders. He remembers the precise moment he fell, the moment his life changed. His whole reason for breathing was sitting in front of him, illuminated by a soft spotlight.
“Phillipe?” Gemma says.
He focuses back on the woman now seated before him. Other than the glaringly obvious physical differences, two major things alter this image from the original. That’s exactly what Gemma is now questioning.
“Were the violin and the music always part of your vision? Or did that come later?”
For someone who is sitting naked and vulnerable with a blindfold over her eyes, Gemma wavers only slightly.That impresses him immensely.
His eyes are drawn to the dip and sway of her lower back. That smooth expanse of skin is perfect in its unblemished state. Just like with Chantel, he finds himself wanting to mark it. Mark it with paint.
“It came later,” he replies vaguely. He strokes his paintbrush on the canvas, creating the sweet curve of her ass. “Chantel used to sit with me while I painted, and one day, I asked her if she’d play when she visited. She inspired me, making me think of things I hadn’t yet imagined. That was when I decided to paint her. It wasn’t until afterSolitarywas complete that I thought to add Diva to the mix. Before that I only added the marks I thought belonged on her skin. Quite simply, she moved me when she played. Sheownedme.”
The silence is so thick and tense that he can almost see it stretched across the softly illuminated space.
Breaking through the quiet moment, Gemma whispers, “She was beautiful.”
