The Painter & the Ballerina Pt. 02

The Palais de l'Industrie glimmered in the Paris sun with a persistent, pompous modernity. A crowd of people milled about the entrance to this temple of industry, wearing their Sunday best, eating nuts and ice creams, and chatting with each other about the exhibits they had seen inside. Margot walked through the crowd, a note clutched tightly in her hand, scanning around her for the familiar sight of Edgar Degas's thin figure. She looked down at the note he had had delivered to her at the dancing company the day before. "Meet me at the Palais de l'Industrie at 10:00 tomorrow at the south entrance," it said. Here she was, at what she believed was the south entrance to the building, but where was he? She smoothed out her skirts and took another look around.

Margot felt someone tap her on the shoulder, and she turned around to see a stranger, broad shouldered, thick bearded, and gregarious, smiling at her broadly. Standing next to him, looking even smaller and thinner than usual by comparison, was Degas.

"Margot, meet Edouard Manet," Degas said. "One of Paris's most daring painters. He's exhibiting some scandalous new works at the Palais de l'Industrie right now. Edouard, this is my new model--a dancer."

The friend made a low, theatrical bow. "It is always a pleasure to make the acquaintance of a beautiful lady," he said. He winked at Margot playfully.

Margot knew that the gesture had been facetious. She was a dancer, one step up from a prostitute, if that. No one would have mistaken her for a lady. But she played along with Manet's game. "I'm no lady, Monsieur," she countered, "but I know a gentleman when I see one."

"Oho!" Manet responded, pleased. "She's a feisty one!" He took hold of Margot by the waist, and before she knew what was happening, kissed her deeply on the mouth.

His lips were wide and full. They curved around Margot's own lips with an easy, possessive mastery, and, for an instant, Margot was quite taken with them. Then she remembered her propriety, and pushed Manet away with an expression of feigned shock. "Monsieur!" she exclaimed. "That is hardly appropriate."

"What can I say? I'm no gentleman," Manet replied amiably.

Margot looked down at the ground and then up at Degas, as if to communicate to him with her eyes that she had not meant to display any disloyalty to him. Degas, however, did not seem upset. If anything, he looked amused. "I'm glad you two are getting acquainted," he said. "Margot has an excellent eye for beauty. I think she'll enjoy your paintings at the salon. Shall we?" He offered her his arm. She took it, and they walked together into the wide open exhibition space of the Palais de l'Industrie, followed closely by Monsieur Manet.

"Margot, have you heard of the Salon des Refuses?" Degas asked.

"No."

"It's what it sounds like. The salon of the rejects. Painters whose work isn't considered respectable enough by the academy. Work that's too daring, too modern, too real. This is the future of painting." He made this last statement not as conjecture but as fact, with such conviction that Margot would not have thought to question it.

What did the "future of painting" look like, Margot wondered? As they entered the salon, she examined the paintings on the walls. Even with her lack of experience, she could tell that there was something different about these paintings. There were asymmetries, subtle at times and all-too pronounced at others. There was awkwardness, and there was tenderness. A peasant's ramshackle house threatened to topple over in a painting on her left. A flower seller's ruddy, hungry face peered at her from another painting across the room. There were no gods or angels or heroic deeds--only the people and places of the modern world.

Margot shared her observations excitedly with Degas, who seemed impressed. "You understand these images better than I thought you would."

"I make beautiful things for a living, Monsieur. I inhabit beauty for a living. I know beauty when I see it."

When they entered the second room of the exhibition, Degas was pulled aside by a friend into a conversation about Gustav Courbet's recent paintings. Just as Degas disappeared into the crowd, Margot felt Edouard Manet's strong hands grip her shoulders and pull her over to a large painting in the center of the right hand wall. "From what Edgar has told me, I think you'll enjoy this one," Manet chuckled. "I painted it myself."

Margot examined the painting. It was an arcadian scene populated by four figures: two gentlemen, dressed from head to toe in fine, sophisticated clothing, and two women, fully nude. If the men had been undressed as well, the women might have been mistaken for wood nymphs in classical Greece. But the men's clothing betrayed the modernity of the scene, and it revealed what the women truly were: prostitutes. Margot gazed into the eyes of the woman at the fore of the painting, who gazed directly back at her with an expression of placid confidence.

Margot recognized the expression on the painted woman's face. She was intimately familiar with how it felt to wear such an expression on her own face. It was the look of a woman past embarrassment, a woman who had worn her nudity so often that she had ceased to feel any shame. It was a supreme confidence, calm and free but degrading in its very freedom. The woman's lips curved into an almost imperceptible half-smile. She, unlike any of the other figures in the painting, was looking at the audience--she was aware of her voyeurs and unabashed.

Manet studied Margot's reaction. "What do you see in this painting?"

"I see...well, to be quite honest, Monsieur, I see something of myself in the woman at the front."

"Is that so?"

"Her body is an object. It is there to be gawked at. But she knows all this; she knows how people perceive her. And in that knowledge there is power. There is pleasure."

Margot would not normally have been this candid about the nature of her relationships with men, but her intuition told her that this man would understand. How could he not, when he seemed to see into the woman in the painting so completely and so compassionately?

"Has he fucked you?" Manet's eyes gleamed with curiosity. It took a second for Margot to realize that Manet was asking about her relationship with Degas.

She feigned shock again. "Monsieur Manet! Such language!"

"Come on, you can cut the charade with me. We both know what being a 'dancer' means..."

Margot sighed. "No," she confided in Manet. "Monsieur Degas has not fucked me. And it's not because I don't want him to."

This was evidently the answer Manet had been expecting. "My friend is a strange creature. I've never known him to lie with a woman. Or a man. Most painters do it all the time with models. Perks of the job."

"How about you?"

"Me? I seize pleasure when it is given to me." He grinned at Margot. He reached out his hand and grazed Margot's cheek with a subtle but deliberate gesture. She felt his strong hand with its rough fingers make contact with her skin--so different from the nimble and precise touch of Degas's fingers. She drew in a sharp breath. She was Degas's (his model? his mistress? his friend?). She wanted above all to be touched and seen by him. But she could not deny that Manet's amiable forwardness had aroused her.

At that moment, Degas reappeared. Margot immediately cast her gaze downward, away from Manet's eyes. Manet, however, kept his hand on Margot's cheek for a poignant, deliberate moment, as if he wanted to make a point of showing Degas the advances he was making on Margot.

Degas smiled amiably and did not comment on the gesture. "Ah yes, Luncheon on the Grass!" He gestured to the painting that Manet had been showing Margot. "Leave it to Edouard to cause the biggest scandal in the history of the Paris Salons."

"I paint what I see," said Manet mildly, with a mischievous glint in his eye.

There was a pause. Margot looked from one man to the other, trying to ascertain each man's objective. She could not read the expressions on their faces as anything but camaraderie, so she waited for one of them to speak.

"Margot and I are going to look around the exhibition some more," Degas said finally. "Edouard, perhaps you'd like to join me in my studio the next time I paint Margot. I'm sure you'd like that, wouldn't you Margot?"

"Yes," Margot answered.

"Good. So it's settled. I'll see you at eleven next Sunday at my studio on Rue Thouin. Margot will be there at ten."

***

At precisely 10:00 the next Sunday, Margot knocked on the door of Degas's studio. He greeted her and beckoned her up the stairs. This time, he did not hesitate with his request.

"Take off your clothes."

"Yes, Monsieur." Margot obeyed. She removed her apron, unbuttoned her dress, and slipped off her underthings. Naked, she stood before the painter and smiled at him. He sat down, crossed his legs, and studied her. Margot was beginning to get used to Degas's piercing stare. His gaze undid her, peeling back all her facades and seeming to reach deep inside her, knowing her, utterly and thoroughly.

"Straighten your posture," he ordered. Margot obeyed. "Hands behind your back." Again, Margot did as he said, unquestioningly.

"Did you enjoy the Salon last weekend?" he asked, when he had at last positioned her body into the exact alignment he wanted to see.

"Yes, very much so!"

"How did you like Monsieur Manet?" She could not detect an emotion behind his question: was it accusatory, curious, or perhaps excited? It was impossible to tell.

"I thought he was very charming," Margot admitted.

"Would you have sex with him?"

"I..." Margot hesitated. "I am yours, Monsieur Degas. You are enough for me."

"Margot, you know that you do not need to tell me what you think I want to hear."

Margot could not lie to him; he saw into her too well. "I was attracted to him. And I think I would lie under him, if the right moment came. But I would not want to make advances on him if it would make you unhappy."

"But you would if you had my express permission?"

"Yes"

He grunted in approval. "Good. Very good." He turned to his easel and began mixing his paints. She stood before him, waiting for further instructions. "I'd like to paint you in the same position I painted you last time," he said finally. "In the basin, doubled over." He gestured to the wide, round washbasin that lay in the center of the room as it had two weeks earlier.

"Yes, Monsieur." Margot walked over to it and took up position inside it, trying to align her body in the way she remembered aligning it last time he had painted her--doubled over, her hands around her feet, her hair dangling down. Degas, however, did not seem satisfied with Margot's attempt. He walked all around her body, making slight adjustments to her figure until he was satisfied that she looked enough like the figure he had painted two weeks ago. His touch was gentle but unyielding, molding Margot's body this way and that with only the slightest pressure. He took hold of the sponge that lay on the bottom of the basin, wet it in a pitcher of water, and ran it across her legs, waist, and back. With a final flourish, he poured the contents of a water pitcher over her head so as to wet her hair. The deluge was cold and invigorating; it made Margot feel alive, her skin tingling all over as she felt the water droplets gather across the surface of her skin.

Degas painted Margot in silence while the water on her skin dripped downward into the basin. Margot felt his eyes on her as he observed the water and light play with each other across the skin of her back. She thought about the alignment of her muscles, about which muscles were taut and which were relaxed, and wondered how each muscle would come across in Degas's final painting.

Presently, the painting session was interrupted by the sharp ring of a doorbell. "Stay where you are," Degas told Margot. He went downstairs to answer the door, and Margot heard two pairs of feet ascending the stairs to the studio. She stayed still, doubled over naked, her heart racing. She was no stranger to gawking eyes. At the dancing company, she had gotten used to constant scrutiny of her body, to the lustful eyes of men consuming her legs with their eyes. But with Degas, and now also with Manet, she did not merely tolerate their voyeurism; she actively reveled in it. She wanted to be seen by Manet as fully and completely as he had observed the prostitute in his painting.

Degas entered the room, followed by Manet. Margot allowed herself a glance upward at him, and she was greeted by a friendly wink and a grin of barely contained lust. "You tease!" she heard Manet exclaim. "You bend this poor girl over like that and don't even offer her the pleasure of a good fuck." Margot chuckled in response.

"I am a cruel master, aren't I?" said Degas amiably. "You can touch her if you like, while I'm painting. Just don't knock her out of position."

"You are very generous, sir!"

Margot heard him approach and felt two large hands begin to caress her body. Manet's hands were greedy. They had none of the precision of Degas's hands; instead, they touched and squeezed every inch of her indiscriminately. She felt as if Manet were consuming her with his hands, taking possession of her legs, her breasts, her rear end with each stroke of his rough fingers. She let out a sigh of pleasure.

"You like it when I touch you?" Manet asked her.

"Yes!" Margot exclaimed. "You have such good hands."

"Move out of the way," said Degas to Manet. "You're blocking the light."

Manet moved around to the back of Margot, leaving her front unblocked for Degas to paint. He continued touching and squeezing her from behind, while Degas continued to paint, and Margot continued to stand very very still. She felt Manet's hands wander all around her body, leaving no inch untouched. His fingers grazed the folds of her nether regions, feeling the moisture that swelled within.

"You can touch me there, if you like, Monsieur," Margot told him. "I'd like that very much."

"So would I," said Manet. He plunged two of his fingers into Margot's entrance, reaching all around the soft region within, as if trying to feel every texture, every crevice. Margot settled into the joy of being penetrated. She moaned audibly, and as she did so, she heard Manet let out an almost inaudible moan of his own. She recognized this sound in a man: it was a sound of of lust that could barely be contained, that threatened to overtake the speaker. He wanted her, badly.

She heard Degas set down his paintbrush. "I think that's enough painting for the day," he said. "Margot, you may stand up."

Margot did so, stretching her sore muscles. She waited for Degas's next instructions.

"Do you want to have sex with Margot?" Degas asked Manet.

"Of course!"

"Do it." Degas still sat on his chair, his legs crossed, looking up at Margot and Manet nonchalantly. He filled a pipe with tobacco and lit it. From this position, he gave his orders. "Edouard, go sit on the couch. Clear away the paintbrushes. Margot, sit on his cock, facing me."

Manet obeyed unquestioningly. "Yes, boss," he said with a wink. Somehow, it seemed self-evident that the two of them should obey Degas's orders. Calm, collected, and utterly unmoved, Degas seemed the natural authority to which Margot and Manet, with their hot passion, their weakness for each other, must defer.

Margot saw that Manet had undone his suspenders, unbuttoned his trousers, and produced from within them an impressive erection. He grinned at Margot, stroking his staff. Her heart fluttering, Margot walked over to him, positioned herself so that he was primed to enter her, and brought herself down onto his cock.

***

Degas watched with fascination as Edouard's engorged penis entered Margot. He took note of the way that her muscles tensed as he entered her; he saw her gasp with the intensity of the sensation, then relax into the pleasure of penetration. He saw the muscles strain on Edouard's hairy legs as he moved his member in and out and listened to his low, satisfied grunts.

"Look at me," he ordered Margot. "I want you to keep your eyes on me the whole time."

"Yes, Monsieur!" Margot panted. She looked up at Degas, her eyes wide. Degas's eyes traveled across her naked body, taking in the up and down motion of her hips, the trembling in her arms, the wild look in her eyes.

"Pull her hair," Degas told Manet. In response, Edouard reached his hand up and took a firm grip on Margot's hair, pulling her head back. She gasped in arousal, and Edouard growled with pleasure behind her. "Very good," Degas continued, "now kiss her neck." Again, Manet obeyed unquestioningly, burying his face in Margot's neck and eliciting a squeal from Margot. She moved her hips up and down with increasing fervor, taking in short little breaths and exhaling on short little moans. He could see the sweat begin to gather on her legs, the strain visible across her round face. She was so dutiful, gazing at Degas just as he had told her to do. He wanted to watch her lose control.

"You can slap her a little," he continued. "I want to see her thighs get red."

Keeping a grasp on Margot's hair with one fist, Edouard gave Margot's thigh a rousing slap. She flinched as his hand came down, then gasped. Edouard delivered another steady blow to Margot's thigh, and she whimpered. Yes, a red patch was beginning to appear on her leg where Edouard had struck her. She gazed at Degas pleadingly.

"Again," he said. "She can take it." Two more slaps from Manet, coupled with two deep pumps of his pelvis, elicited a guttural cry from Margot. She looked up at the ceiling, but Degas immediately called her eyes back to him. "Don't stop looking at me, Margot. I want to see every expression on your face."

"Yes, Monsieur!" she cried with desperate fervor as another slap from Degas brought her close to tears.

Degas realized that he was on the edge of his seat. He had begun his voyeurism leaning back, holding his pipe with an expression of deliberate nonchalance. Now the facade of nonchalance had fallen to the wayside. He was caught up in the enthralling scene unfolding before him--moved by Margot's body, her pleasure, her pain, her obedience.

Edouard looked at Degas, as if to ask what should come next. He thought about it for a second, then decided. "Stand her up, Edouard. Fuck her from behind."

"Right on," grunted Edouard, tugging Margot to a standing position by her hair. She yelped in pain, then sighed in pleasure as he penetrated her again. He bent her over slightly, then continued pounding her from behind, with such ferocity that it shook every inch of her body every time his hips made contact with hers. Margot had submitted totally, her arms flopping at her sides, but her eyes still focused determinedly on Degas. She moaned and whimpered at the totality of the taking.

"Grab her hands, Edouard," Degas ordered. "Keep them behind her back." Edouard did so, further ensnaring Margot's body in his grasp. "Are you doing alright, Margot?" he asked.

"Yes!" She gasped. "Yes! Yes! Thank you!" She thanked him with such primal, guttural fervor that Degas's heart fluttered. He saw it--something deep within her swelling up, threatening to possess her, strip her of any last semblance of self control. Yes, the potential of an orgasm that lingered in the air like an electric field, so close to breaking the surface...

"I'm so close," Edouard exclaimed.

"Don't come yet," Degas told him. He found that he was standing up and walking toward the pair. "Slow down, Edouard. That's it, slowly, in and out, savor each moment." Degas put his hand on Margot's chin and tilted her head up toward his. Her face gleamed with exertion, and her eyes were wide. "I want Margot to come for me first."