Читать книгу Naughty Paris - Jina Bacarr - Страница 8

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.

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.