Songs of Seduction - Silk and Skin

Francesca was indeed comfortable naked. Her stillness suited the act of extended modelling and she frequently sat for drawing classes, falling asleep during long poses. Her slender body lay exposed on many easels. But she'd never posed for a man like Bonnard. His passion and intensity aroused her. She suspected he adored women, desired them even, but would never touch them sexually, not of his own accord, anyway.

"No, nudity's fine." She chattered, to take her mind off her visceral response, which was sexual as well as intellectual. "Whatever you might need. I came here thinking paintings, after all. As long as it's warm, here in the sun, by your window." She stood by the skirt, the orange and white striped skirt, and stroked the cloth. "Can you work on it now, with me? As an audition?"

"That would be wonderful. Certainly, yes. Let's do it." Bonnard went to the dummy, and gently, reverently, lifted the skirt up from it, letting it drape between his hands. He held it as a priest would, holding the sacristy cloth.

Francesca undid the zip of her own black mini-skirt and stepped out of it. Her legs were bare, her bottom covered by a pair of brief bikini knickers. She shrugged, and slipped out of those too, placing them with the skirt on the small couch. She left her top on, tying the shirt-tails up under her breasts.

She stood facing the broad window, and the sunlight caught the little thatch below her belly, highlighting the soft hair into a spun golden shadow. "How would you like me to stand?"

"Contrapposto, my dear, that would be perfect."

"Heels or bare feet?"

"Ah girl, you see, this is what's missing! A woman who knows how to wear clothes. Ahh, tsk tsk, Bonnard, why didn't you see, with your wooden dummy and its horrible stiff curves?"

"Don't blame yourself, Bonnard," said Francesca. "You've got me now, so we can begin."

"Hold still then, my beauty. Let us adorn you."

Bonnard dropped the skirt over Francesca's head and placed it on her hips. With several pins he nipped it in for her waist, and the cut of it fell nicely around her derrière.

"Voilà," he said, there it is. "Now I can adjust the hem to get the right fall. That's what I couldn't get right before." He knelt down before her, a box of pins by his knee. "Hold still, Francesca, don't move."

For the next ten minutes, Bonnard pinned and fitted the skirt, caressing the cut of the cloth with his hands. He smoothed it down over her bottom, her belly, her thighs, making sure the fit was right, just so. His hands felt only the cloth, but Francesca felt the loving caress of his swift touch on her skin.

Slowly the attention, the constant presence of his hands, and the drowsy warmth of the sun combined into a dreaming place where Francesca felt the deep, heavy weight in her belly and sex that meant arousal. Her nipples hardened, and when Bonnard asked her to take off her blouse so he could try a top to match the skirt, she delighted in the cooler air on her breasts, making her nipples tighter still. She felt the glorious jab of the nerves between her nipples and her clitoris, that special triangle, and felt herself getting wet.

Bonnard must have sensed the arousal in her, for he looked up from his work and was as still as she was for a moment. Motes of dust drifted in the light. With a brief intake of breath, he continued.

Finally, the ensemble was finished. "A little cat-walk, my dear, so I can see how it flows when you walk."

Francesca found an area of vacant floor, long enough to walk for several paces and turn. Her sexy sway animated the skirt and it came alive. The cloth flowed around her thighs as she stepped across the floor.

"How does it feel when you move?" Bonnard asked.

"Like the wind," she replied, "like a breeze to walk home in, at dusk." She turned quickly to demonstrate and the skirt flared up high, revealing her thighs.

"Ah yes, a summer breeze. What better?"

"It's beautiful, Bonnard."

"It's a dress, my dear. You're the beauty," he replied.

"No," she insisted. "Your command of the cloth, it's extraordinary." She came up to him and placed both hands on his chest. "I think, Augustin, you might be a genius. Especially," she stepped back, becoming more serious, "if you have more designs like this."

"I do," he replied.

"How many?"

"About a dozen."

"A collection, then. Do they all need fitting?"

"Indeed they do, Francesca. When can you begin?"

* * * *

"So you started working with Bonnard that summer?" Sebastian asked, standing beside Francesca in the gallery. In the cabinet in front of them, the orange and white skirt was displayed on a mannequin, a white blouse tucked into the waistband.

Francesca contemplated the ensemble in front of them. "Yes. That was the first outfit he pinned on me, the very first." She paused. "It should be a white shirt, though, knotted below the breasts. That's how we completed that one. Very summery, with a band of bare flesh." She placed a hand on her belly, looking down at it. "My bare flesh," she said in a whisper - talking to herself, Sebastian thought, even though he was beside her.

She turned to him. "Bonnard was so young, and I was just a girl, really. But my goodness, the brilliance of those first designs, when he didn't know he wasn't meant to do those things. Not with cloth, not the way he handled fabric. But he went ahead and did it."

Her eyes shone. "But you know, Sebastian, you know what it's like. You've held those clothes in your hands."

Francesca looked up at him. "You've touched the cloth that's been next to my naked skin, did you know that?" She gave him a soft smile. "Even after all these years I still remember his words: 'My clothes, they must embrace you like a lover, like a caress, like your darling's hands.'"

She touched Sebastian's hand. "And do you know, in all the time I knew him, in all those years, all the times I stood nude before him, Bonnard never once touched my skin, not unless there was cloth between his fingertips and me. Not once. He was like a monk, when it came to flesh."

She linked her arm through his. "You're not a monk, are you, Sebastian?"

* * * *

Yellow

"The Yellow Dress. This one isn't the first. Would you like to see the first yellow dress?"

"Do you have it?" Sebastian asked. "Here?"

"Yes, I have it. Would you like to see?" Francesca looked at the young man, who was being swept away with her whole back story, all this insight he'd missed. He was studying the exhibit and didn't catch the long gaze of contemplation she gave him, or perhaps it was speculation.

"God, yes, that would be wonderful. I found some records, but I couldn't unravel the trail. It... it went silent, after fifteen years." He knew that Francesca had moved to this country, but he'd completely missed that she'd moved to this city. "You live here?"

She laughed. "Yes, I live here. I told you it was easier, being dead."

She turned away from the display. "Come, dear boy. I'll show you."

Sebastian escorted her from the gallery, but really, it was Francesca leading the way. She took him to the big car and slid into the back seat, moving across behind the driver. She gestured to Sebastian to get in.

"Where to, Miss Ward?" the driver asked.

"Straight home, Jeremy, that will be fine. This is Sebastian, he curated this exhibition."

"A pleasure to meet you, Sebastian," the driver replied, with a quick glance over his shoulder, before returning his eyes to the road. "Miss Ward, she's talked about it."

"I've tried for years to get Jeremy to drop this 'Miss Ward' nonsense, but he won't do it," Francesca said. "He could, but refuses." She was affectionate towards her driver, her eyes creased in a smile.

Jeremy looked back at Sebastian and winked. Sebastian wasn't sure who was conspiring with whom, but thought there was a long intimacy between them.

Francesca took his hand, simply linking her fingers through his. Nothing was said, no words needed. Sebastian craved her desire and hoped he could constrain his and not do something foolish.

She looked out the car window and the flicker of shadows reflected on the glass, on-off, on-off. Sebastian looked across at her and momentarily felt a strange sense of the unreal, as if the view outside was a rear projection in an Alfred Hitchcock movie, silently moving, the colour not quite real, not quite in focus. She turned to look back at him, her eyes closing then opening in her slow turning way, appraising him with a deliberate look. She looked down at their hands, linked in the space between them.

"I hope you don't mind that I'm old," she said in a soft voice. "But I do so much want a young man."

Sebastian said nothing, knowing now that he had her desire. He hoped he was old enough to know what to do with it. He looked back at her, and for a long moment they studied each other. Then, with a long sigh, Francesca relaxed back into the seat and closed her eyes. Sebastian looked at her mouth, at her dark red lips, and wondered what they would taste like to kiss.

The car wheels crunched on a gravel path and the car stopped. "Miss Ward," the driver said, as if to wake her quietly from a doze. Sebastian thought it might be a regular thing, Francesca driven by her trusted man on long car rides, and sleeping.

"Don't fuss, Jeremy, I can manage. I have a young man to hold on to."

Sebastian wondered how much care Francesca really needed, and how much care she gave. He thought of his sister Jude and realised he and she were no different. Love didn't need to be loud to be heard.

He slid from the car and nodded to Jeremy, as if to say it's okay, I can look after her too. But Francesca avoided any competition by getting out on the driver's side and touching Jeremy's cheek. "Thank you again, Jeremy." But for what, she didn't say.

"Good afternoon, my lady. Call if you need me." He bowed, ever so slightly, his eyes following her as she walked around the rear of the car to Sebastian.

"I will." Francesca turned with her slow hooded look, knowing his gaze would be on her. She smiled.

After moment, she turned back to Sebastian. "Careful. The gravel can be loose." She took his arm, and Sebastian knew once again he was the one being led.

She took him indoors, saying, "Make yourself comfortable, while I get changed." She ushered him into a small day room on the ground floor, simply furnished with a bed by the window and a small table with two chairs. It was intimate, easily closed off from the rest of the house with curtains. In winter, a small fire could be lit, but in this season the lay in the grate was decorative only.

Five minutes later Francesca called out to him, "Would you like a drink? Wine, spirits, something hot or cold? I don't mind."

Sebastian thought of Bonnard with his ceremony. "Tea, is that okay? Tea?"

"Some things are worth doing..." she replied, from down the corridor.

"...and others, not worth doing at all," Sebastian responded, recalling her words from the story she'd told.

"You wonderful boy, you remembered. Tea it shall be."

Sebastian wandered slowly around the room, taking in the art work, all originals, that hung on the walls. He recognised a common style and wondered who the artist was - the name rang a vague bell and if he waited, the details would come to him. He spotted a small nude, drawn in pencil with delicate highlights of colour. Looking closer, he saw it must be Francesca, for the artist had perfectly caught the gesture of her slow turning look.

"I see you have found me revealed, quite naked." She'd entered the room silently.

Sebastian turned, and was momentarily lost for words. Francesca stood there in a form-fitting yellow dress, simply cut, clinging to the contours of her body. The tea-tray she carried was an anomaly, but it didn't matter, for she looked exquisite, classically chic. The dress was ageless.

"I... it's... my god, he was clever. Bonnard. How on earth did he do that?"

"Yes, he was clever, he most certainly was." She placed the tray down on the table and turned slowly in a full circle, so that Sebastian could see her with his curator's eyes.

"Why didn't this version go into production?" he asked, admiring the dress and Francesca in it.

"I managed to rip it one day, but Bonnard never fixed it. 'Oh, Francesca,' he said, 'what have you done, silly girl?'" She showed Sebastian the rip, all up one side of the skirt, revealing as she did so the top of a stocking and a pale band of thigh. "'Now you'll just have to stand still, all over again, you silly thing.' He didn't seem to mind. The next one was cut even better.

"He told me I'd have to repair it myself. I never did, to remind myself to be more careful."

"And now you've worn it for me." Sebastian was honoured.

"I have. I thought you might want to take it off me. Later on."

I hope you don't mind that I'm old. But I do so much want a young man.

Being of a theatrical bent himself, Sebastian knew this was most likely a three act play, pre-ordained, loosely scripted. Provided there was no stumbling in the wings, or stage fright, or props lost when he needed them, the evening should unravel with delight.

Human simplicity with a cast of two: human desire between a man and woman, nothing more was needed than a room. Hamlet could stay home, unannounced, and Lady Macbeth stay asleep, never dreaming, no spots before her eyes. Viola might be pretty, but she's got a twin.

Sebastian thought immediately of Jude and knew he'd do this twice, once with Francesca, the second time telling his sister.

* * * *

"What did you do, Sebastian? Did you kiss her?"

Jude felt his lips with her fingers and they were like soft velvet. She imagined those lips with a faint trace of red, and brushed the vision onto her own fingertips.

"More like, she kissed me."

Jude clambered onto the couch, hugging up close to her brother. She pulled his arm around her and lay her head on his shoulder. "Tell me, Sebastian, tell me what she was like. Tell me everything.

"Did you fuck her?" she teased, knowing that if he had, she'd have to wait to find out.

Sebastian laughed. "Eager, eager, darling sister!"

As he began to tell Jude everything, he gently stroked her hair, calming her but at the same feeding her more sensation. Sometimes, he'd brush her hair for a very long time and she'd crinkle paper in her hand, for the sound.

"My god, Jude, the whole tea thing! It became agonising expectation, both of us forcing ourselves to wait. I can see why the Japanese made it such a ceremony, the whole floating world ukiyo thing. I've never been seduced so slowly, and of course I had no idea what to do, so I followed her lead.

"Everything, Jude, everything, the tiniest detail. It all becomes something else..."

* * * *

Francesca sat beside Sebastian on the couch, breathing him in. She could smell on him a faint body cologne and beneath it, subtle and deep, the healthy scent of a young man thick with testosterone, heady and plum red, slightly spicy.

She imagined his hair: the way she'd cup her hands in his armpits, then around his balls to scent herself and breathe him in, inhaling deeply. She'd rub her palms over her breasts to mark herself with his smell. Her nipples would tighten and the fleshy areola crinkle. She'd press her palm up against the hot dark cloy of his perineum to hold the heat of his body; she'd grip the hot shaft of his cock.

Francesca turned to him with her slow hooded eyes. "Sugar, Sebastian, or are you sweet enough as it is?"

Sebastian saw how the knuckles and extremities of her ring finger and the little finger of her right hand, poised above the spoon in the sugar bowl, were slightly swollen and inwardly curved, and how the skin seemed translucent and thin. He saw a tiny pulse on her wrist and the faint blue of her veins, and thought her skin must be incredibly soft like a baby's, almost too delicate to touch.

The gold of three bangles slid on her arms and he looked for their clasps to figure out how not to fumble when he took them off, to place the three circles on a dressing table. He'd place his hot mouth where they'd been.

"No, thank you. A little milk will be fine."

Francesca handed him a cup on its saucer. Her hand was steady, but his rattled the cup a little when he took it from her. He quickly took a sip, testing the heat on his lip before he did so. She tilted a flat spoon of sugar into her own cup and stirred it. The little whirlpool spiralled and stopped before she took her first taste. She gazed at his mouth as she swallowed.

Time slowed and Sebastian's senses sharpened. The scent of the tea enhanced its delicate taste, but a little further away the dark presence of her perfume was dark purple on velvet, opium smoke. He wanted to taste the red metallic taste of her sex, tangy at the back of his mouth.

"How long have you lived here?" he asked, not really wanting to know.

"Just over fourteen years," she replied, but the next fifteen minutes would be longer.

She leaned towards him, her ankles crossed and her legs angled away to the floor. Sebastian looked down and through the rip in her dress he could see the garter strap at the top of a black stocking and the pale cream of her thigh. He felt himself begin to thicken.

"I'm not really thirsty," Francesca said, placing her cup and saucer on the small table beside her. Without a word she took his too, putting them side by side on the table. The saucers chinked together like china bells.

She moved towards him, her hand reaching for his cheek. At the same time, she took his hand and placed it on her throat, his fingers just inside the collar of her dress. Her skin was soft and warm; he'd thought she might be porcelain cold, perfect and smooth to touch. But she wasn't like a doll at all.

"Undo me," she said in a low voice, husky with her heating desire. Sebastian knew she meant more than the dress. But then she changed the direction of her lust. "No, not yet. You. You first. I want to see you first." She licked her lips. "Stand up, Sebastian."

Francesca leaned back against the cushions on the couch and took up her saucer and cup again. She looked at him, her lips slightly apart. Sebastian thought of mice and cats, and her stillness in the gallery came back to him. "Undress for me, Sebastian?" It was an uncertain command, but he was willing.

He stood before her, then took three steps back. He remembered his theatre and turned away, facing towards a floor length window looking out over a garden. He saw his own image hovering amongst the red roses and further out he saw Francesca's reflection, ghost-like against some flowering shrubs. She was looking at his back. He smiled to himself. She didn't know he could see her watching.

He started to sway, only a few inches each way, a slow movement. He undid the buttons of his shirt, still watching Francesca's faint reflection. She put the cup down and this time it rattled. Her fingers went where his had been, resting on her throat. He pulled the shirt-tails up from the waist of his pants. Her fingers stopped still. He slowly turned, pulling wide the front of his shirt as he faced her.

His cock was thickening and he saw the flush on her neck. Her eyes shifted down his body, narrowing to see him more clearly. Sebastian was deliberately slow as he eased the shirt from his shoulders. He let the shirt drop to the floor and Francesca's eyes followed it down. "You're teasing me," she whispered, looking up to his eyes.

"I know," he replied quietly, turning away from her again.

"You're..." she paused, and Sebastian saw her eyes focus past him. Her face lit up with a wide smile as she realised what he could see. "You were watching me all along. Clever boy."

He turned around. "Ha, my secret is gone. No point hiding any more, then." He took a step towards her and, looking into her eyes, slowly and deliberately undid his belt buckle, daring her to look down. She couldn't resist. Her eyes dropped and widened when she saw his satisfying bulge. He unzipped the fly, but to tease her some more, rubbed his hand over the mound of his constrained cock.