The Portrait

"It's comin'."

"Least it's cool down there by the falls," I answered stupidly, not sure of what I should be saying to this guy. I knew one thing...I wanted him to do it, I wanted him to make her get naked while I was right there. I didn't know how he'd pull it...would he dare, would he take that chance on me freaking out, was I that easy of a read for him...but, I was praying he did.

"It's hot everywhere," Donner muttered back dully.

"So..."

The screen door creaked as Leanne came out on the porch. She was dressed simply, khaki pants and a worn blouse.

"Morning," Donner said, slowly lumbering to his feet.

Lea nodded, looking to me, then down at her feet.

"I guess I'm out of here," I spoke up.

"I told your wife that I want her to walk down through the woods naked today," Donner stated flatly, crossing his arms across his hairy chest. "I want her to feel that instinctual sense of danger that comes with being exposed like that."

"I..."

"I know she's nervous 'bout it. Isn't that right Mrs. Ellison?"

My wife didn't answer, but her face said that she was mortified-this wasn't bedroom talk between us anymore, it was reality.

"If she's nervous..."

"I want her to take off her clothes right now, walk down there on the path alone. You mind telling her it's okay?"

"I..."

"Go on, tell 'er."

"I..."

"Take off your clothes, Mrs. Ellison," he ordered quietly, taking a small step forward, almost as if he was going to do the job himself if she didn't get going. "...Do it now."

Lea froze there, looking up at me...the three of us exchanging stares like we were in a Sergio Leone movie.

"You gotta trust me on this. Part of you wants to take that walk. You know it and I know it."

Lea looked at me again, and I felt myself give a jerky nod. The blood was rushing through my head, a queasy flutter slithering through my stomach.

Then, with a weak sigh, she was actually doing it. Averting her eyes from me as she began to disrobe on our porch, the shirt and pants, then the brassiere and panties-standing there with only her sneakers on, angled away from me, as if more embarrassed to have me seeing her than fucking Donner.

He took his time looking at her, something close to a smirk twisting his mouth, catching my reaction with his peripheral vision, letting the seconds painfully tick away. When she bundled up the clothes to carry them with her, he made a sharp clucking sound and shook his head. "Leave 'em on the porch there."

Lea hesitated and then set them carefully on a rocking chair.

"Now take your hike," he said at last, a tilt of his head pointing the way.

I watched as she haltingly edged down the steps, glancing around as if to make sure no one could see her, this despite the fact that our house was pretty far up from the main road.

She was covering herself as best she could, crossing the lawn with a hitched, unnatural gait.

"The Lady of Godiva," Donner muttered absently as she put distance between us. "...It's a lotta baloney about how none of the townspeople looked at her. Every guy in Coventry scoped her tits out, you can bet your last King's shilling on that."

He turned to me and winked.

"Hope you didn't mind my doing that, but I thought you might enjoy it better close up. Hell, those rocks you've been hangin' out on must be about seventy-five yards away."

The words hit me like a sledgehammer in the chest...the bastard had seen me up there, he knew I was there looking and he...

"Don't be that embarrassed, Mr. Ellison," he went on quickly. "I think it's only natural for a husband to be curious as to what's going on, you know, with his wife being bare-assed naked out there with a strange man. ...So, have you been enjoying it?"

I didn't respond...he had caught me so flatfooted that I was unable to even nod...which of course would have been my only honest answer.

"I saw it in your eyes way back when we first set this up, back when I asked your wife to strip down for me. You were totally jazzed on it, no mistakin' it. I knew you'd be out there somewhere, just had to keep an eye peeled."

He offered up a sly, devilish smirk as he stepped off the porch.

"Don't tell her," I heard myself mutter, my mouth gone so dry that the words almost didn't get out. "Don't tell her that I was..."

"Our little secret, Mr. Ellison," he cut in, offering me another wink. "Our little secret."

That day and the one that followed were memorable only for the fact that Donner had cooked up a new torment to impose on my Leanne...he wanted her wet now for what he was supposedly doing on the canvas, a task accomplished by him wading out into the pool and flinging the icy water on her with an old Clorox jug that he'd sliced in half. That and the fact that he'd taken to fixing one of his massive hands on her shoulder to angle her just so.

And each night it was more of the same with us, a passion flaring that exceeded anything either of us had ever experienced...exhaustive lovemaking sessions that made even our earliest couplings seem pathetically vanilla by comparison. Lying there on the sweat damped sheets, I'd listen to this woman I'd known and loved for almost two decades discuss the deeply unsettling, almost aphrodisiacal, emotions that the painting sessions had aroused. I'd hear her muse that she must sound like a total slut for admitting to having enjoyed what she was doing, thinking that I had to be really bent to be jacked on this scenario like I was.

I listened to her talk on those nights, not comprehending how far the very fabric of our lives had really been stretched. Not sensing what dangerous chasms were tearing open beneath smooth surface that had been our lives. I pulled her close and felt her fall asleep in my arms that last night, trying to forget what I'd glimpsed in Donner's eyes out on our porch...only recognizing later that it was the glint of pure sadism. I didn't understand yet that he was our guide to a darker realm, a perfect teacher who'd arrived at our door to educate us both as to things we'd be better off not knowing.

I found myself shivering and carefully pulled a sheet over us. I held my wife and tried not to think what the next dawn would bring.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

I was out there earlier than usual, waiting in our drive before Donner even arrived. I glanced at my watch and realized he was actually running late. I was close to wondering aloud to myself why in the hell I was doing this shit, what type of sick compulsion had entwined my mind. I closed my eyes for a minute, my mind drifting to the things I'd been leaving slip in the office, the mountain of paperwork that my secretary was steadily building on my desk, the pink phone slips that were neatly stacked beside my computer.

The minutes ticked by like this, with my working mundane things through my head, planning on what I'd do first when I got in there that afternoon when he finally pulled in. He nodded at me as he unloaded the supplies, perking his head up when Lea came out on the porch.

"Strip," he said quietly.

I turned to watch Leanne looking back and forth between the two of us. Then without a word she stripped completely, and folded the clothes neatly atop the same rocker she'd used the other day. He gestured her to start moving with a dip of his head and we both watched her disappear down the trail.

"She's ready for anything, you know that," he mused, hefting the equipment under both arms.

"I..."

"You see it, you know you do," he went on in the flattest voice imaginable.

"Look, I..." I stopped, my tone quavering, my knees ready to sag.

"How's she been in the sack? I'm guessin' pretty goddamned crazy. ...Am I off the mark?"

I shook my head, unable to form a word.

"You're wonderin' exactly what I could pull with her, aren't you?"

"Look, Donner, I..."

"Hey, I'm a gentleman," he cut in with a sly chortle. "You tell me hands off the goods, and it is hands off the goods."

"My wife would never..."

"Mrs. Ellison doesn't have any inkling of what she'd ever do or not do. A week ago she would have sworn that she'd never do that..." He nodded up to where she'd only minutes ago stripped bare. "...Especially with you standing there watching her do it. Mr. Ellison, your delicious bride is like a piece of perfectly ripened fruit, and I intend on picking it...today. You don't want me to do it, you just say so, right now. You are after all my benefactor, and I will respect your wishes. I'm sure old Michelangelo never banged any of the Medici girls without a proper say so."

He waited and I said nothing. Then he started down the path after my wife...stopping after a few feet and looking back expectantly. "Last chance ...Like an auctioneer says, going once, going twice..."

I stood planted there and said nothing. After a long moment he turned and walked away, whistling a tune I could not place, and now, never could forget.

I sped out to where I parked and half staggered to my spot. Lea was already there, standing erect as a dancer as Donner trudged up to his usual spot.

"I'm not going to do that in front of my husband anymore," she said as he set his equipment in its usual place.

Donner turned his back to her without answering, an obvious dismissal.

"Did you hear what I said," she snapped, coming right up on him, her small hand jabbing at his chest as he finally pivoted to face her.

"You'll do what I say," he answered as if bored. "Now get out on your spot."

"And I'm done taking your..."

Donner turned and seized her hard around the waist and heaved her up, oblivious as she thrashed furiously, no words just the animal bleats of her struggles. He splashed out across the pool and dumped her rudely into her spot. She slapped at him, kicked at him...and then he did it, he raised his hand as if to slap her and she cringed into the rocks.

He let go of her and stepped away, but halted in the middle of the pool. I could hear my wife sobbing in fright. "...You like when I make you strip in front of him, don't you?"

Lea cringed even more and cast her eyes downward into the pools depths.

"You owe me an answer," he said, squaring his stance and crossing his arms across his bare chest as he waited.

"Just paint..."

"You like when I make you..."

"Yes!" she blurted.

"...I see it in your eyes you know. You imagine me doin' the strippin'. ...You imagine me ripping those clothes off your ass while Mr. Ellison watches."

"Just paint..." my wife sobbed, wiping at her eyes. Donner watched her for a long moment and then without another word walked back to his easel and started to work.

Today I stayed there, the ground painful under my body. Neither of them said another word for the next hour, other than Donner's occasional command for a slight shift in her positioning.

"Be done tomorrow probably," he said finally, putting the brush aside.

"Good," Lea whispered.

"Out," he said, gesturing her toward him with a wag of his hand.

My wife didn't move.

"Okay," he laughed and without any preamble started wading out towards her. I watched as Lea stood, absolutely vulnerable in her nudity, and made a flitting move to the side. Donner was on her in a heart-beat and simply grappled her around the waist and hefted her to the nearest shore, dumping her out across the stony ground like a sack of trash.

"...stopstopstop...

Donner straddled her easily pinning her arms above her head, just savoring the helpless, futile way my wife writhed beneath him.

Leanne's pleas dissolved into a thin keening, her struggles ebbing.

"You get that pretty mouth to work now," Donner said, standing at last and unfastening his belt. "C'mon, on your knees."

Lea crawled up on all fours, her gaze shifting like a terrified animal. Donner ran the zipper on his jeans and pulled them down, a huge erection springing upward. Lea looked at it and then bowed her head and wretched.

"C'mon suck it!" Donner snapped. When Lea looked towards the path to our house, he laughed. "You wanna run, go 'head. I won't fucking chase you. Go ahead."

Lea got up and edged wide of him, angling space between them, her legs tucking as if to sprint.

"Run!"

Lea darted in one fast move, staggering on the rocks in her bare feet. He watched her...maybe fifty feet and she stopped. She turned slowly after a very long time.

"You know what you are. Maybe you didn't before me, but now you know." Donner said and stepped out of the jeans. "Now c'mon, get to work."

I wanted to scream "no" as Leanne took that first tentative step back towards Donner, then the next, then the next...to scream "no" as she stopped in front of him, shaking visibly, his crude had reaching out to twist one of her nipples...the nipples that had been mine, that had suckled our kids.

"I wish...I wish none of this had ever..."

Donner grabbed her hair and trundled her down onto her knees, the words cut off and buried in a panicked gurgle as he shoved his thick cock into her mouth, grabbing hold of her skull and beginning a manic thrusting, her small hands trying to pry his massive paws free. He looked up where he knew I'd be watching with the purest look of animal triumph that I could ever imagine, drawing his cock out almost completely before shunting it back down her throat.

"You like that," he wheezed as he pulled free of her and dumped her over on her side. My wife gagged and spit and at first I thought he'd come, but then I saw the still hardened penis, an angry purple, an obscene upward bow to it. Even from my distance I could see it as huge.

"Now that sweet pussy," he said and squatted behind her. My wife made a panicked lunge away from him but he easily yanked her back, hiking her hips upwards.

...no...no...no...no...

"You don't want it, just fucking crawl away?" he queried, tugging her head backwards so viciously that I expected her hair to come out. "So, Mrs. Ellison, yes or no?"

Lea let her head sag to the wet ground and wept softly, her back quaking with each sob.

"Yes or..."

"Yes," she said, her eyes lifting up towards where I lay.

Donner grabbed her hips and penetrated her in one savage thrust...fucking her in a frenzy of hard, shunting thrusts that brought her knees up off the ground each time. It was so fast, I felt myself starting to get up when she orgasmed for the first time, writhing as he pumped her at a murderous pace, humping his heavy body down atop hers, the carpet of grizzled hair on his back lending the scene a surreal, near beastial aspect. "...Just what you fuckin' wanted."

He reached around and suddenly grabbed hold of her graceful throat, his thick meaty fingers clawing in painfully, throttling down on her and squeezed, jacking her head up, her face suddenly scarlet as he cut off her air, riding himself into her with the full weight of his body, reaching his free hand down to anchor her hips in place, pounding his outsized organ into her over and over as she scratched at his pinioned hand,

"Think this'll be a new treat for you, bitch," he taunted, his mouth right at her ear. And then it was there...this rumbling, smothered wail, a choked-off shriek of pleasure so intense that I cringed. Leanne seemed to be convulsing beneath him now, spasms rippling through her entire body, her tiny feet curled into balls as her hands slipped from Donner's arm and began clawing up clumps of leaves and dirt...her next scream came clearer as he'd obviously eased his grip a bit, Leanne in the thralls of a shattering orgasm, her pelvis rising up to furiously buck against his continued thrusts, the shrieks coming one after another, just noise now, gasps of ecstasy so frenzied as to be indescribable if one wasn't there to witness them personally.

"Cunt, you fucking...fucking cheap cunt," he groaned, his face pressed to her ear, eyes blazing with primitive triumph as he ejaculated deep inside my wife's body.

The air seemed very still afterwards, Donner pacing in circles as his erection flagged, my wife, my beautiful Leanne laying there, jerking with minute tics and spasms as the orgasm drained from her. He looked up at where I lay and smiled, then back to Lea.

"Ain't ever gonna be the same for you after that," he laughed, tipping her over onto her back with his foot so she looked up at him.

"I'm sorry," she whispered in a barely audible voice.

"...Ain't we all, sister" Donner answered and started to piss on my wife's breasts.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Almost a year's gone by since that day, summer playing into winter, then back to the sweltering days of late spring. You can ask me if I'm the same man I was back then, and I'd have to confess that I wasn't. Not anymore that Leanne is the same girl who naively walked down our path on that fateful first day.

I'd lain there as he had her wash in the cold waters at the base of the falls, her legs tottering beneath her like a crippled foals as he led her back in the direction of the house.

That night I had climbed in bed with my wife and held her. She didn't talk. In the dark hours I woke and found her staring sadly at me. The next morning I wanted to say don't go...don't go, don't go. But Donner arrived and my wife simply stripped naked again and walked down the path.

"I'll have it done today, Mr. Ellison." Donner had said.

"You fucker, you."

He grinned. "You or your pretty wife could've pulled the plug anytime. But you liked watching her get naked for me, and she really liked doing it. Now, don't be kidding yourself on the fact that a big part of her wanted this, wanted it for a long time. All that shit about nice girls is just that. Shit! On some level, they all want it like this, but our societal rules say it isn't right, that they should constrain themselves within some bullshit moral straitjacket. Well I set her fucking free. I lit a scalding hot fire under her ass that she don't fully understand yet. One thing I can promise you is that she ain't ever going back to being a perfect little June Cleever wife for you, no fucking way on that. She might wanna, but it will not happen. It's an impossibility after havin' me use her like that and finding that she liked it. Every time you're sparking her from here on out, you know she's gonna want your hand on her throat, and that there's no way she can ever ask for it."

He took a few steps off to the side and then turned back towards me. "You gonna come out today?"

"No."

"Well, I'd be very surprised at that."

I'd gone to the office...watched the minutes die slowly...and then driven back...crawled back on my belly through the brush. I heard her shrieks before I got there...and saw Kyle Donner roughly sodomizing my shy and wonderfully demur wife. ...And saw how she came just before he filled her ass with his sperm.

Today I have the painting in my study, a beautifully rendered work, my wife's body lovely and delicate against the wet rocks, her face timid and vulnerable. I often slip into the room late at night and open the hand-carved cabinet that the Amish guy made for us. I look at the swirls of egg and pigment and think of how our lives became upended during that hot July week. My wife has never spoken to me of what happened up there, though our sex life has fairly sizzled ever since, fueled no doubt by our own respective memories of what transpired out by the glens. I realize to that extent that a wall now exists between us. It was only two months ago that I stood with her in the bathroom and noticed fresh bruising on her throat, the slight flush of ruptured blood vessels on her cheeks. I knew what had happened, though I didn't know the particulars. Some stranger with a mean streak, some hard-ass who'd spied her out grocery shopping in her tennis whites, the little pom-poms bouncing on her sneakers. It didn't matter. I made love to my wife that night, and found that the thought of her being taken like that again electrifying. As I lowered my mouth to her sodden cunt, I fantasized about the crawly rivulets of another man's sperm running down the insides of her legs. My wife purred as I continued to probe her with my tongue, and I knew I was lost forever, that neither of us could ever go back to the safe shore where we'd happily spent our first seventeen years together. I licked into her deeply and knew Donner had torn our lives from their moorings...that he'd waltzed through our house and poured gasoline over it all, striking a match at the instant that he shoved his cock into my wife's vagina. I didn't know where it would take us, didn't know if we could hold on for much longer.