Artistic Licence

Jenny looked around the crowded room, at those who sat or stood at their easels and gazed thoughtfully at their work in progress. She had retired early when still in her 'prime', and she had the means to attend Artistic Flair, an art club that met every Wednesday and took over the village hall for a morning and afternoon session. A wide range of artistic skills was deployed by all who attended, but for many that wasn't the point of being there.

Its members came from far and wide in search of company, to share in their passion for creating something of interest on what was a blank canvas, carving a lump of wood, sculpting a small piece in clay, or fashioning a jumble of items into a 3D mosaic, all of it colourful and inventive. Pursuing your craft, or art, could be a lonely pastime, so members came to chatter, encourage, offer advice, or simply be there and not be isolated, alone, with only the radio or music on a CD to break the silence. Some thrived on it, others did not.

She attended regularly, the village hall but a short drive away from her cottage that had been her home for more than ten years, most of them lived as a singleton, no one capturing her heart and, equally important, her mind. Marriage had eluded her, or the man to persuade her to take that step not chanced upon. Her many friends kept her active, their circumstances much like hers. Sometimes, they even took holidays together and the arty ones among them would learn something of famed artists whose work was often displayed in the larger galleries they visited.

'Is there anything you don't know?' she would often be asked about an artwork, the artist, or its history. Those that did so admired her for her widely read knowledge and encyclopaedic memory.

'I'm interested in learning about the artist and how he does it, or did, not that it does me any good in what I produce,' she would laugh and there was some truth in what she had confessed to, only too readily. She was competent, that was all that could be said of her landscapes and attempts at abstract art.

The same could never be said of a man she now looked at across the room. He was dressed so casually smart that you might be forgiven for thinking he had turned up at the wrong place. Malcolm Finlayson had reappeared like a ghost out of the mists, his absence explained but not to be talked of within his hearing.

There were some in the art group, women mostly, who regarded him warily. It was not difficult to believe that a good-looking man, with his mop of swept back greying hair and bearded face, furrowed brow and lively appraising eyes was a womaniser and that his stellar gifts as an artist, a member of the RA, set him apart from them all. But Malcolm did not behave arrogantly or haughtily; he passed on his knowledge to those who sought it of him. He even held an artist's hand, the paintbrush shaking because of his closeness to them, as he showed them how it could be done. Malcolm would then step away and his attention would again revert to his work, a frown of deep concentration to be seen.

His home and studio were some miles away, up on the escarpment and in a village smaller than where the group met, but he attended meetings every week and chatted amiably enough with those around him before they set to the task for their day.

Malcolm's marriage to Imogen Withers, an artist in ceramics, had withstood its strains on account of him, and everyone was surprised when he failed to attend meetings. They read of his attendance at a London exhibition in the art magazine many subscribed to, but the accompanying pictures of him showed more haggard features than before. And then the news came to them, by word of mouth and in the press, that Imogen had died quite suddenly, from a hitherto undiagnosed and virulent cancer.

From an ordered and creative life had sprung chaos and introspection, even doubts. They weren't the emotions to sustain the endeavours of less gifted artists for some time yet, but here he was again, back in the groove some would say, and she thought that painting and art, his ways of it, were the best route to his emotional recovery.

She gazed over the edge of her canvas and Malcolm sensed that she was looking at him, for he turned. A moment's smile creased his face and the slightest tilt of his head seemed to suggest that she joined him so that they could talk. Her interest in the man and artist, never to be denied and not made known or even hinted at, now prompted her to do as he suggested.

Perhaps she might play a part in his recovery and a gap in her life made good.

♥

'Tell me what you think, Jenny,' he asked as she stood by his shoulder and looked at a painting of a water pump, the three blades of the windmill at the top of a lattice mast rusty and deformed. It stood in a pasture, close to a water trough meant for livestock. The pasture was bounded by woodland. 'I intend to call it 'Redundant Technology'.

'It suggests so much to the viewer,' she marvelled. 'Do you take in the scene that you've painted or what lies behind it, the message it contains?'

'Both, I hope,' he smiled. 'I think it's done so I won't look for any flaws there may be...'

'There aren't, I assure you.'

Malcolm looked at her and then decided to stand up from his canvas-covered artist's stool. 'I haven't spoken to you for quite a while...'

'No, and I thought it best not to intrude, Malcolm.' She spoke in a low voice and looked about them in case others were listening in.

'Well, I must admit that I'm glad we can talk for a moment. I can't go on being the recluse some thought I'd turn into if I kept my head down. I've got to earn a living after all.'

'You had every reason to do that,' she smiled considerately, 'and to wait until you were ready.'

'Yes, thank you for putting it that way,' he replied with the faintest of sighs. 'Listen, can we talk as we grab a drink, coffee or juice? There's something that I have been meaning to ask you these last few days.'

He took the juice, in a plastic beaker, that she held out to him, a questioning look to be seen in her wonderful eyes and Jenny's eyebrows arched in enquiry.

'Well, what did you want to ask me?'

'Let's go outside for a moment, grab some air?' he suggested on a fleeting touch to her arm that prompted Jenny to look his way again, only this time deeply involved with what was at work between them. 'Sorry for doing that.'

'Don't be,' she answered, instinctively.

Jenny was only too easy on the eye, her seemingly natural blonde hair falling lazily on each side of her oval face and he had noticed her lightness of step as he followed her to the counter, her flouncy blouse and washed-out jeans looking uncommonly good on a woman of her age. Jenny's fingers, he noted were somewhat short, stubby even for a slender woman, but her fingernails were varnished a soft pearlescent pink, the colour matching the soft smear of lipstick she would have applied before coming to the art club. She smiled beautifully, restrained but engaging nonetheless, and her sculpted hourglass figure had not gone unnoticed, it never had been, but he had not given any sign of his engagement with the woman he now wanted to talk to.

'I've had an invitation to an RA event in London and...and I wondered if you would like to go? It's an invitation for members and a guest. I have two entries in an exhibition and received the invitation a day or so ago. We could make a day of it.' He paused on seeing her startled reaction to what had been said. 'It's out of the blue, I know...'

Her answering laugh conveyed both her delight and surprise.

'I'd love to do so. There are thousands of entries but only a fraction get chosen. I would be interested to see what gets through for others to pay and see.'

'True, and you know your stuff,' he smiled, his bearded face creasing as he did so. 'I've taken the two works down already so we could go by train...at my expense...avoid the hassle of driving in London now. I'm just glad that you've agreed. I need the company, truth be told...'

She was taken by his honesty, and also by the stilled look that Malcolm now gave her. Perhaps they were seeing each other in a new light, but she had not gone through the turmoil that Malcolm had done, so it was a harder decision for him to reach, that of moving on and to do so with someone else...if that was where his invitation might be taking them. It occurred to her that there were similarities between her and his late wife. Apart from a little thickening around her waist, she had retained a shapely hourglass figure for a fifty-three-year-old woman who might yet be seduced into taking and giving some loving attention once more. She hadn't given up on that happening again.

'Well?' he shrugged.

'Yes, well...we'd better go back in,' she smiled, her look upon him quite different now and she saw that in Malcolm's eyes too. 'Call me and tell me the arrangements, won't you?'

'Of course, I will. We'll make a day of it, Jenny.'

♥

He couldn't keep his eyes off her and she was pleased. Such a look had not been upon her for so long that she thought of it as a first time. Her wrap-around cream dress flattered her figure, clung to her hips and shaped her thighs. She had seen how her breasts were lifted and rounded by it and had wondered, as she waited for him to arrive and collect her, whether it wasn't a bit too provocative or revealing. But, she had decided on wearing a cream-coloured summer coat, little more than a shower coat of a similar colour to her dress, so he and anyone else, would get only a passing glimpse of her figure. She wore a little more makeup, a light brush of blusher to her cheeks and pearly pink lipstick. Her honey-blonde hair had been studiously plaited and Malcolm now looked on a different woman from the one usually seen dressed down for the art club.

She was going out, to London and the RA no less, and she would make a day of it and with a man whose reputation followed him around, both in his private life and in his art, in the creative circles that he moved in. But he was modest, and if he was lustful or desired her he had yet to give any overt sign of such an impulse.

'What's going on behind those eyes of yours?' she murmured, the rush of the train on its tracks, and its swaying, making them bump together at times and for her to meet his look upon her.

'It comes along with what I do in my painting,' he answered, 'and I also see a different woman from the picture I have of you in my mind.'

'We're going out together and we're going to have fun,' she laughed softly and intent upon doing just that as she had given voice to.

♥

After the wonderfully chatty, engrossing and informative day that she had spent with him, she knew that she needed to feel a man's touch again. While the water was douching over her beautiful skin, Jenny pictured in her mind how last night could have gone if she had invited Malcolm into her home. Instead, she had sent him away after the briefest of kisses, a touch of her lips lacking any lustful intent. Her hand moved slowly over her breasts and she started caressing her hard nipples while thinking of him. She had never touched herself thinking of someone else other than in preparation for the lovers she had become involved with, but they had been few, Now, different and self-induced sensations were taking over. The water combined with the warm feelings of her lust was too much for her and she was ready to give in to her raging, desiring thoughts about a man who had been in her life but on the edge of it until the cruellest of misfortune had changed everything. Her hand was moving lower and lower, she could now feel the warmth between her legs and that's when she heard her iPhone's trill, the volume set to maximum so that she could hear it over the noise of the shower.

'Damn it, now of all times!' she cursed and stepped quickly from under the shower, grabbed a towel and dried her hand before reaching for her iPhone that she had left lying on the rustic, roughly fashioned bare wood bathroom stool. 'Hello?'

She did not recognise the number displayed on the screen, buts he knew the voice quickly enough.

'Hello, Jenny...god morning!' she heard said, lightly, on Malcolm's captivating laugh. He did not keep his interest in her secret. 'I hope you slept well. I certainly did and I wanted to thank you for being with me yesterday....'

She had heard him fall silent. 'No, thank you for your generosity.'

'It was done gladly.' He paused again. 'I...I hope I didn't offend you by kissing you goodnight?'

'No, but I was a bit surprised that you wanted to do so.'

'I don't make a habit of it, never have...'

'That's not what I meant, Malcolm!' she retorted and wrapped the towel around her body and tucked the end between her breasts, looking down at their swell. She had chosen to play it slow between them although, throughout the day spent with him, she had felt the urge to let go, to act on the impulses that being with him had aroused in her.

'I just wanted you to know,' he went on tersely. 'I'll see you at the next club meeting.'

'Yes, I'll look forward to it.' She knew that he had gone and closed the call as soon as she had given him her answer to that suggestion.

♥

There seemed to be a noticeable tension between them, whether to concede to what had been aroused between them on the trip to London and then afterwards. Was the feeling mutual, she wondered, even as the thought crept in that he was an interesting man and that he felt the loss of Imogen keenly, but needed to restore an emotional balance to his life once more? He seemed not to have the depth of emotional resources, nor the resolve, to work on his own and still produce paintings of undoubted quality and precision in the details put on the canvas.

'I'm glad to see you again,' he said, taking in again what she had chosen to wear for the gathering. 'I will admit that I have missed you...and how we could talk, as we did on the journey to and from London; also, over lunch.'

'I have thought about it all and of you.'

'Then don't keep the woman that you are a secret from me anymore,' he asked in a voice kept even but the look of his eyes intense and appraising. 'You are too attractive and clever to be living alone...with no one in your life as I understand your circumstances to be. Spend time with me, that's all I ask and we see where that takes us.'

Jenny felt weak and unsteady on her feet as she responded to the touch of his fingertips to her cheek, the gentle stroke to her throat as he lifted her chin and leaned in to kiss her. She felt the rush of anticipation and was possessed by the thought it would become so much more, and yet who the man would reveal himself to be in unguarded moments and they were alone as never before still coming to mind.

She would risk it as they had each gone too far to now turn back or stop, the storeroom with its chairs and tables an unlikely venue for their meeting. They had but seconds to share inasmuch moments of intimacy.

The way he leans in suggests that he wants to breathe in her scent, so lightly sprayed but noticeable, nonetheless. She would like to do the same, to know the rare combination of a body scent and the unmistakable aroma of paint.

'Put your easel close to mine, please...I'd like to know that you're near me. I won't bother you and you won't interfere in what I am set on painting...'

'I couldn't bear the responsibility!' she laughed and he did so too. She now feels as if she's held herself back from flirting with a man until a moment ago. She wants more, feels its gnaw deep within her, the not forgotten feeling of lust and anticipation of how it will be settled between them, just like any man and woman taking slow steps in the pursuit of an affair.

And then she hears the voice come to her, that of conscience. 'He's a widower and he feels lost...hold back, don't get involved!' But, should that be not at all or not yet?

She steps slowly away from him and wants the tension to ease but she still feels the flow and eddy of her emotions, what she wants to concede to and share with him. 'I'll be closer but not next to you. I'm not ready for that, yet,' she murmurs and on offering a considerate smile.

He nods. 'That's understood...I think.'

She wishes it was 'understood', what she is feeling about him and what he seems to need from her even with art club members all around them, jostling for their preferred place in the hall.

What has arisen between them remains unresolved and no plans are made.

♥

He behaves as if nothing has happened, that they have not been to London and enjoyed each other's company, nor does he make anything of her refusal to stay a while longer with him, for them to love or, probably more likely, to have tempestuous sex and for him to be physically satisfied after months of denial.

Finally, finally, she senses his closeness as her easel is being set up.

'I've missed you, as text or two are no substitute for seeing you in the flesh, Jenny. I'm trying not to rush you.'

'And I need the time to understand what is happening between us.'

his eyes drift over her in an unmistakably suggestive way. He's desiring her with only a few words and a look being used. 'Come to lunch afterwards?'

He's as cool as can be, his voice kept low. And what he asks of her is so suggestive that she feels a gnawing longing for him in her body, down in her belly and the uncommon tingle in her nipples. And she feels them here, in the art room and with others all around them, noisy greeting, the scrape of chairs and art materials trolleys a cover for what they have to tell each other.

She can only look back at him, like a deer caught in the headlights. How crazy for her to feel like a pubescent girl with her new beau. 'I must set up. Perhaps we can talk later?'

'And so much more,' he answers, a slow touch to her arm all that is needed to admit what he is after.

'Go, just go, Malcolm...please.'

She's amazed at what has just happened, but his words and actions have kept her awake at night, the thought of him and what she wants from their times together so far. She will let him in and have him become her lover. The man, his words and the look of his eyes keep on arousing her. Need, unequal in them, perhaps, will overcome reason and any scruples about surrendering to him, the man she sees looking at her for another instant, across the room; a man in his washed-out dark blue shirt and white summer jeans, his greying black hair ruffled, studiously unkempt. There remains a wildness in his eyes that she sees whenever they catch the other's look across the space between them. It is a look maintained as people shuffle past and interrupt that silent, but unmistakable communication between them; a silent expression of intent on his part and her submission.

He has woven his web and she is caught up in it, every denial only tightening his grip upon her, every look of his boring into her and she knows what lies within them, the wish to undress her, the dress worn to the RA Open Day leaving him in no doubt of the woman she is, at least on the outside. She wants to kiss him again, only this time to mean it and to lose all control over what happens.

Art club be damned, she wants him.

♥

'I've put your things in the car,' he tells her as she exits from the hall's kitchen, her offer to wash and tidy up gladly accepted. 'I'd like you to be with me...today.'

'Do I get a say in that?'

He smiles, not put off by her sharp tone. 'Only that you'll say 'yes'.'

She nods and walks beside him. Malcolm wants her and he wants her now. It's crazy; it's also wonderfully exhilarating after the famine of no man's attention upon her. She wants his hands all over her, through her hair, over her skin, to touch her back and trail caresses down to her buttocks and between them, over her belly and between her thighs, to feel him pull her to his hard penis, in whatever state it is in. She wants to lose herself in what they share and what he does for her. Malcolm would push her against the wall, his restraint thrown to the winds.