Michel's Angel

As an artist, he wasn't supposed to touch his nude model, but I didn't exactly mind. Nor did I warn him against doing it in the future. It was much easier than trying to decipher a verbal description of where he wanted an extremity. Besides, his warm hand provided, albeit briefly, an infusion of heat as he repositioned my foot, which had been numbing in the ambient air.

Protocol was for models to be given a few moments of break for every twenty minutes of posing, but he seemed not to be the propriety type. I had to admit that enduring long gestures with my neck torqued, spine twisted, and legs splayed, thrilled me, if not only for the sake of art, then for whatever odd psychological reasons I didn't care to re-explore. And it didn't hurt that he filled me full of import, by grunting in his gravelly voice, every now and then, "Great gesture," or "What stamina!" Plus, he paid me well--twenty-five dollars an hour, and often he included a tip.

The spotlight on my side was just beginning to get uncomfortably hot. I had been in this pose now for almost an hour and my buttocks were sore from the wooden stool, the arch of my left foot seemed permanently indented by its rung, and my right wrist was burning from my left hand's grip. Just as I was about to request a brief reprieve, Michel stood back from his painting and said that that would be enough.

Awkwardly, I managed to slide off the stool and stiffly walk out my pains. He looked from his work to me, and although I had been naked before him for almost two hours and felt no embarrassment, his gaze on me now made me tremble when he spoke.

"I need you soon for a new painting. I've been commissioned to do a large piece by a very special client. He will pay me quite well, and because you have served me so perfectly for what's it been--these last five weeks--I feel I know you well enough to ask you to model for this new work. I will pay you much more, for I will ask you for things that may test your resolve."

He didn't specify, nor did I inquire further. There was something very intriguing about the vagueness, almost naughtiness, it seemed to me; I knew that feeling. And I had promised myself not to engage in such things. But this was different. It was art, not...so I dismissed it.

The fact that he asked me, of the many models available in this city, must have meant he felt I was really good. "The best," I said to myself, as I stepped into my panties and slid my jeans up my smooth legs to my waist and fastened them. I reached down for my bra, and thought I again caught his gaze upon my hanging fruit, his tongue wetting his lips, before he turned back to studying his canvas.

"Think about my offer," he rasped, as he handed me three twenties. "I'll call with the times I need you," he added as if I had already agreed. Well, in fact, by my silence, I probably had.

The studio had been transformed in the two weeks since I had last been there. Where there had been staging, with stools and ladder-backed chairs all around, now there was only a queen-sized futon covered in red satin, glinting in the single spotlight from above. All around this pliable platform were rich plum and grape colored velour floor-length draperies hung in an orderly, if not abstract way. Michel was not around. But his hand was.

On a solitary stool was a bottle, and, from the neck, dangling by a golden ribbon, was attached his penned note. It read: "Please shower with this soap, and when dry, don the robe hanging in the bathroom."

I picked up the bottle. It was a lavender rose body wash. Lavender rose. Did he know?

More startling was the garment in the bathroom: a kimono. I inhaled, letting my breath out twice as slowly while I pressed my palm against my chest to stifle the racing beats. "Don't go there, don't go there," I told myself.

I could leave and never come back. He wasn't here and would never know that I had been. I could call and tell him my aunt was in the hospital in Cincinnati, and that I had had to leave unexpectedly.

I felt queezy. A dizziness forced me to sit down on the toilet seat, and I leaned forward with my head between my knees. Little droplets of sweat emerged, like the morning dew, on my upper lip and forehead.

Initially a blur, my feet came into focus, and I stared at my long, thin digits, arrayed as a pair of little fans in pleasing scalloped arcs.. I ran my fingertips over their matted smoothness onto denim tight around my legs. Nice lines. Graceful curves. That's what all the artists had said about me.

Recovering a bit, I stood and looked into the mirror. From a curl behind my ear on the left, my naturally blonde hair dipped in a wave across my forehead and swirled over my right temple. My gaze flowed from there down a gently sloping neck, with its prominent sternal notch to my rather squared shoulders.

Taken in by my reflection, I found myself slipping buttons from their holes, freeing limbs of their sleeves, and letting my blouse slide to the floor. Against the tan of my chest, the arcs of my bra displayed, like fabric pedestals, my generous breasts. Though slightly unequal in size, I had to admit, their cleavage was eye-catchingly in their voluptuousness.

I unfastened the clasp in front and let the two halves fall apart, then shook it off and stared. Free from distracting tan lines, how could one not want to paint me? Now fully resolute, I removed my jeans and undies and showered.

"...to test your resolve..." he had said. Though it was odd to be asked to shower--again--as I always showered before coming over. And his request for me to wear a garment that had all sorts of connections with my earlier life was spooky, for sure. But....yes, I was firmly resolved.

It was the "now" me whom he wanted. So I would indulge him. After all, this was my new calling. As a life model.

I dried, inhaling the lingering rose and lavender mist, as I slipped one arm, then the other into the ivory black kimono. I tied it inside and out. This one draped delicately over my shoulders and cooled, where it touched, my breasts, my forearms, and my thighs. Stunning. I was seductive and alluring and... I stopped myself, for I was getting a little too hot in the wrong places for modeling.

"Good morning, Ms. Lavornia Rosalba." It was a raspy coo. A blend of rivulet over gravel. "All set to go to work?"

Suddenly feeling reserved, again, I simply nodded as I awaited his instructions.

I did as I was told, taking up positions, in my kimono, on a large cube that had appeared on the futon while I had been showering. Sitting first chest forward, then draped over one thigh, then arching back with one knee up and arms stretched out behind me, then twisting my head to the right and my hips to the left.

As I relaxed into each gesture, I allowed the garment to gap and partially reveal my breasts, or the overlap to part, giving a glimpse of my gilded pubic hair. Michel was warming up with charcoal, and his strokes scritched more quickly across the paper as I re-positioned myself at each command, "New pose!"

We broke. Michel removed the cube and set up his easel. Out was wheeled the table with his oil paints and, with them, the wonderful aroma that I had been introduced to four years earlier when I began modeling.

I had been desperate to change careers, but there were few skills I had had to draw upon. My fashion merchandising degree was too ancient to be of any use. After a year at a big box store and another year waiting tables, an old college roommate, and my one and only best friend, Eleanora, had suggested it.

Although comfortable with my body in intimate settings, even with a stranger, the idea of displaying myself before a group of gazers and standing statue-still had frightened me. So for days before the first life-drawing class that I was to model for, I poured over classical art texts, studied postures, imitated poses, timed myself in positions that were easy to hold and then in ones more demanding. I wasn't sure what would be asked of me, but I wanted to be prepared for something.

On that evening, as I nervously changed into a flannel robe in the classroom's bathroom, before stepping out onto the platform, I ran fingers through my hair--on my head and in my groin--fluffing them both up. I sniffed my armpits to be assured that my deodorant was still working. Then I walked boldly out.

The space was nearly packed, with men and women, young and old, chatting, setting up their easels, laying out charcoal sticks, pencils, or pastels. The instructor intercepted me and briefed me on the protocol of warm-up gestures and longer poses.

He called the group's attention. In the silence, I disrobed, took a big step up, and with back delicately arched, tummy sucked in, chin up, upper limbs slightly toned at my side, one leg flexed ahead of the other, I faced the throng, heart a rat-a-tat-tatting. "Two minute gestures," he called out, and I began.

It was during the initial break, one and a half hours into the three-hour session, that exhilaration hit. While I walked around in my robe, from easel to easel, inspecting the sketches, I observed lithely rendered torsos, fluidly draped limbs, rounded breasts, perked nipples, soft bellies, and graceful thighs curving to calves. That was me? That was me! They were--I was--beautiful.

Filled with new purpose, during the remaining session, I reached for the most dynamic of gestures and the most complex of poses. And I was rewarded by being asked back for the following week. Plus, the instructor promised to give my contact information to other drawing groups, should I want him to.

Have you ever seen this?" Michel growled, holding up a plate from a large volume of twentieth century art.

I nodded. It was Picasso's Demoiselles d'Avignon.

"You know then what these women are?"

"Prostitutes." I whispered.

"That's right. I need you to play those roles? Can you do it?"

I hesitated. Was this all a twisted coincidence? Or...I fought to keep any paranoia at bay.

"I'll try," I said unflinchingly, or tried too, with the faintest crack to my voice.

"Good girl."

I turned and walked back toward the futon.

"One other thing."

I held my breath.

"I need you to glisten in the light. Like polished marble."

I turned around. Michel was holding a bottle of oil with those same words on it. Lavender rose. He had done it again, and now, it seemed, it was not without guile. What all did he know about me?

"You can apply this to your front, and, with your permission, I will apply it to your back."

Everything was new today, and yet it was old. Surprises, but really, familiarities. And boundaries being tested. Retested. Crossed and re-crossed.

My resolve was being tested too with every request--a little odder than the previous. Still, he was an artist. And I was necessary for his work. I untied the bows on my kimono, and let it slip limply off my shoulders, then flung it into an empty chair.

I cupped my hands to accept the warmed, silky fluid, rubbed my palms together, and smoothed it onto my forearms and then my shoulders. He poured another pool for me, and I began massaging it into my chest and breasts, then abdomen.

Meanwhile he started on my back. My reflex to tense up gave way to his firm pressure over my shoulders and shoulder blades. Thumbs dug into the spaces between my spine, and inadvertently, I moaned.

As I bent over to work the fragrant oil into my thighs and knees, I drunk in the aroma that I feared would eventually undo me. His hands moved slowly down my flanks, pressing into the muscles where they attached to the iliac bones, then returned to my spine. Down my backbone into my crevice trailed his fingers, gently brushing against the anus on their way to each of my fourth-floor-walk-up gluts.

I listed. He steadied me with one hand on my shoulder, the other on my buttock with that pinkie subtly resting against my anus. Old ashes were smoldering. I stood up, and waved him off. I was ready to start. I would need to put my mind into another mode or succumb to the old inferno.

His canvas was huge--twelve by eight feet. Roomy enough for a brothelful. I stood on the crimson futon, one hand on hip, the other behind my head, in the classic "I'm available" pose, as he worked on the under-painting of this figure.

"Now I need you over there," he gestured with his brush. He set it down, picked up a large pillow covered in mauve sateen, and carried it toward me. "Lay on your side on top of this," he instructed, "with your right knee bent and with your arms like so."

Taking my upper limbs, he placed one along my extended left thigh and the other he positioned for my head to rest upon. He stepped back to appraise the pose.

"With your permission..." he stated, and then without hesitating for my agreement, he poured some of the oil onto my chest and began working it into my clavicles and ribcage and then breasts, initially avoiding the areolae. I couldn't summon a protest. Eventually, though, each nipple was worked into a hardness, which not surprisingly resulted in a hardness in my clitoris. I squeezed my thighs together, which he must have noticed, for a trace of a smile appeared on his face.

"That's perfect!" he proclaimed and resumed his brushwork. He was composing his painting in a frenzy, placing each figure--my figure--all over the canvas. The only break I got was the time in between poses.

"Lie over this tall stool on your abdomen. Grab the rungs. Spread your thighs. Wider. Like this," and his thumbs were up high in my inner thighs, against my vulva, then the webbings of his hands brushed down my skin to behind my legs as he pushed my knees into a slightly bent position. "Now hold that pose," he added and his voice trailed off.

"With your permission...," he returned, and I braced for the next provocative application, which came seconds later as a pool of warmth grew on my lower back and ran ticklingly down my crack. His remarkably sensitive hands rubbed the liquid over my sacrum, onto my buttocks, outer thighs and calves, then up the inner aspects of each to my gluteal folds, not missing the anus.

As I arched in response--I couldn't help myself--the anointing continued, until I was blowing out repeatedly through pursed lips.

"Magnificent" he exclaimed, leaving me to hold the position, with another liquid pooling beneath me.

My past was blending dangerously with my present. Stoically or stupidly, I kept my resolve. He kept with his painting.

"New pose....How are you doing? Are you OK?"

"Yes, I'm fine," I answered.

What else could I say? I shouldn't really be allowing this. It was flouting ethics. It was too close to what I had done before. But modeling had been good for me, in many ways. Even financially. Not as good as what I was doing before, but with a roommate and small place, I was getting by.

From that first life-drawing class, two women artists had asked me to model privately, and they kept me busy for months. Another woman artist asked me soon after, and I was in demand for years.

Sometimes, I posed with clothes on--quite fancy ones from Victorian England times, or, of the twentieth century in this country. Mostly, though, I was naked.

I hadn't been asked by a male artist to pose until a year ago. It had had its potential awkwardness, but it turned out not to be any problem. Artists seemed to have a code of ethics. Or else they feared a lascivious reputation would prevent them from securing future models.

We had big drawing marathons twice a year, and talking with other models, we could find out about artists and what they did, what they were like, what they paid. That helped us decide who was reputable.

Michel's name had come up. They referred to him as "Angel Mike." He was good, they said. Very successful. Had a funny voice and we all speculated what it was from. A couple models did say he was demanding, not very voluble, but he paid well.

However, everyone who had done a stint with him had only done one. No one had been asked back. He had asked me back. Several times. That meant something. Now, I wasn't sure just what.

"Over here. On your back. Legs up, next to your head," he commanded in a more excited tone. "This will be the last pose for the day. All my figures of you will be roughed in after this. It's going surprisingly well. I really like it, with you arrayed all across my canvas."

Succumbing, I couldn't wait to see it.

"Grab your ankles. Good. Hold that."

He headed for the oil, turned, and stepped with it onto the futon.

"With my permission..." I cooed coyly.

He smiled.

"With your permission..."

He worked like a mad man.

"The hues of arousal. I have to see them," he said as he hurriedly scratched the thinned pigments onto the canvas.

I lay with my ankles in my hands, my head swirling around like a girl on the tilt-a-whirl for a tenth straight time. I panted. I endeavored to stay in the moment, but all I could do was to dwell on the minutes just past--his lubricated hands down my inner thighs, sliding along the crease of my groin, his thumbs around my anus, then grazing my manicured vulva, the top of my mound, then down again, over my hood with a light flick of my clit, between my inner folds to my anus, and back up my outer thighs.

Over and over again. I had twitched, I had gasped. Groaned. But I did not come. I held myself back. As absurd as it seemed, I had to maintain some semblance of professionalism.

My legs were quivering when he announced that we were finished. I couldn't move. He sensed my petrification and came over to loosen my fingers from around my ankles and gently lowered my feet. He placed my arms around his neck and hoisted me up. I clung tightly to him until my lower limbs regained circulation and their feeling. I inhaled his manly smell, with fresh perspiration. He was oak-solid in his support.

"Take a look," he invited and led me to the canvas, his arm around my bare shoulders.

There, arrayed on the perimeter of the ninety-six square feet of linen were five women, all similar in physique, but each with a different skin color, coiffure and pubic hair. I gazed intently from one figure to the next. Yes, they were I, and we were beautiful.

In the center was an amorphous white, unpainted shape.

"What's going there?" I inquired.

"Tomorrow, you'll find out," was his amorphous explanation. He handed me six fifties for six hours of work.

"Tomorrow at nine." And he left the studio.

I stood naked before the enormous painting. He was making it hard not to return. Just the same, I would call Eleanora. There was so much I was in conflict about.

Of course, Eleanora was not at home. Her voice mail reminded me that she had gone to one of those Buddhist retreats and wouldn't be checking her messages for the next five days.

I lay awake much of the night, the massage oil fragrance lingering on my skin, arousing me to the point of temptation, but I refused to indulge myself. I tried to rationalize my responses to his improprieties. Somewhat delirious, I fell asleep and awoke hard, to my roommate shaking my shoulder and the alarm clock buzzing horribly from across the room.

On my arrival at the studio, the futon hadn't changed, nor had the draperies. The lone stool stood in the middle of the floor again, with another bottle of lavender rose body wash on it and another note. "I liked you in what you wore yesterday, but today is a new day. Please shower again in this brand of scented wash and put on the new wrap in the bathroom."

The scent was predictable. But not the wrap.

I viscerally remembered this one--or one like it. My knees buckled and I sat down hard on the toilet seat. Damn him. He was dangling my past in my face, and what I'd been trying to escape from these last four years. What all did he know and why was he doing this to me? And why did I keep returning to model for him? Was I so passively a woman? Had I given up my voice?