Toy Soldier Pt. 02

I knew she would be washed and clean and ready so I drank half my beer and pushed her back and took my time knowing that she would be instantly paralyzed with pleasure.

What would happen if a delivery boy wandered in right now? I don't know why that occurred to me but when it did I knew for certain she wouldn't be able to break it off, she might not even see him and when he crawled on the bed to her there would just be two more hands and one more cock. It was an enormous turn on.

And what would happen if another woman did the same thing, got on the bed? Two more hands, two more lips. I just knew.

And what would happen when they zipped up and left. I knew this too: laughter ... no, more like chuckling, for laughter she would have had no strength left, she would be lying limp, pleasure radiating from her body. And afterwards? Laughter, oh, ya, there would be laughter.

She wore the negligée I bought as she cooked. She hummed as I tried not to over-think this. This is a transaction, I was paying for this. I could afford it. We talked about her studies while we ate. She would start in a month, it would take three or four years. Her eyes clouded over with that bit of news but I dealt with her uncertainty quickly: "Think of how much underwear you're going to have." This got her off her chair, around the table and she was squeezing me from behind, her cheek on mine. "If you ever wake me up from this I'm going to be supremely pissed off. Let's go in and kiss, nothing else, just kissing for an hour."

I opened up a bank account for her the next morning, salted it with a few grand, order her a credit card knowing my rewards would be immediate, overpowering and enduring. The car I would give her tonight was my wife's car, new and sporty, not a perfect fit to her somewhat frumpish look but it would appeal to her sense of humour.

Some people are made to be owned. I had just lucked in to one of them.

She had been off work more than a week when she met me at the door when I got home, demanding I close my eyes, walk with her inside, wait, wait, wait, light on, brilliance, squinting, adjusting ... a living train scene ... living, three dimensionally living, fabulous.

"What's he going to say?" Over the last few days, she had created scaled models of bridges, tunnels, mountain climbs — ascents, descents, curves through forested glens and islanded lakes then, today, rearranged the track to pass through the scenes.

It suddenly struck me. "I don't know, I don't have any idea ... but we should be prepared to take it down."

She was thinking the same thing but even so the challenge had enliven her, brought out her creativity, provided a convenient transition from 9 to 5er to stay-at-home artist.

She had her hand forced under my waist band as she answered my questions — I couldn't tell if she even knew her hand was there and when we were close together it usually was, like a habit. We relaxed with tea and waited for Murph to arrive, nervous, she really didn't want to upset him.

And she didn't, he barely noticed, emphasizing once again that to him it was all about the track and trains, all the other stuff, including my increasingly colourful characters — some of my women were positively flamboyant, which, to him, I'm now sure, he got me to make just to wave at the engineer.

So, drama over, one of them, the second was just about to begin. She is house bound, a shut-in, take her job away and gone is the reason for her to leave the house. I made her come with me for the food shopping, she never wanted to but she did, but that was pretty much the only time she'd ever leave. I was trying to dream up ways to get her out.

She has what can only be described as a ratty wardrobe, that had occurred to me when I first noticed her the day she showed up at work, noticed her like everyone else noticed her: the beauty, the body, sure, but the packaging was off and it never got better, or much different for that matter, she just didn't have many clothes and didn't seem to care.

I had planned to do something about that but couldn't find an opening ... I'm not a fashion plate myself, why would she take advise from me? She wouldn't but she might from a woman I met from the few I checked out on my lunch breaks. She works in a high end store about a 20 minute walk from work; she is highly personable and seems to know her stuff. I was looking into a full wardrobe make-over, the full range, if I brought in my subject, would she accommodate? She would, it's her job.

No, yes, no, yes, no ... you're going. Pout.

I left work early, fetched her, took her to the store like a toddler and plunked her down on a chair while the sales woman, after dealing with her shock — women like this were born for clothes like her's, although she didn't actually say that. But she did get busy. She didn't have anything for artists standing in front of easels, you can get jeans anywhere, but she did have ...

Tosh might have been interested, it was hard to tell. She did cooperate but never had anything to contribute, it was like dressing a manikin, a fabulous, other-worldly manikin. But she did try the clothes on when she was told to ... only to please me, that was abundantly clear, so the clothes quickly accumulated, a wide variety including some dresses the lady insisted on which needed some nips and tucks. Two hours later we piled the bags into a cab and promised to be back in three days for the dresses (and a few more tailored things).

A smashing success I told myself, particularly after I pulled her old things from her drawers and stuffed them in a bag — they weren't fit for recycling, only the trash can.

Indifference, she was feeling about her new clothes the same way she was feeling about leaving the house. She is into art, she could do that naked, particularly in her studio in the solarium which was often punishingly hot, so much so that she had taped up wrapping paper in places to block out the rays.

She wanted me to pick up the things at the store. Not a chance, I took every opportunity to get her out. We went as agreed and that's how and where it started.

I knew something was up before it happened. There were a few women in the store but two of them seemed to be more loitering than shopping, and seemed unusually attentive as Tosha tried on her new dresses. That took about half an hour — there were a few things, all well tailored but nothing that wasn't practical first, fashionable second, that she insisted on.

It says something about Tosha and me and our relationship, particularly the one on display in the store, that the women chose to speak to me and not Tosha. Their story soon came out. They owned the store and a couple of others, they were small-time designers who wanted to get into the big time, the excitement in their eyes told me how badly they wanted it. My eyes must have appeared bovine because I had no idea why I needed to hear this. They got to that.

A big show was coming up. They were looking for the one person to strut their stuff ... they didn't need to explain they wanted Tosha, I put the two and two together way before they made the offer: they didn't have a big budget; they would give Tosha a deep discount at their stores if she agreed to be the face and body of their line.

They were smart, they made the pitch out of ear-shot of the putative model and left it with me, needing a decision the next day, she would have to take a cram-course in how to model clothes and be constantly available for the next little while, she wasn't specific, for the fittings.

An acrophobe indifferent to clothes about to rock a runway, I had the story written in my head on the cab ride home.

"Why are you laughing?"

"You're going to laugh, too. Care for a glass of wine?"

Some things are best done with lips pressed to a nipple. She is never happier then when at my breasts, where she soothed and I stroked and the world seems peaceful and calm and controlled. That was the way we always start what sex we have, she'd be at her charging station, take the time for whatever had to happen inside her to get her yearning but then she would rise to the occasion and the glorious body would be mine.

I stopped the yearning in mid-yearn: "you're going to say yes to this because it will be fun, it will be a wonderful experience for you and because I'm going to withhold both mammaries if you don't."

It was the last bit that told her this was going to be serious.

No, yes, no, yes, it was like dealing with a child but the child knew she had no choice, mummy had spoken. She knows how to pout though and didn't mind showing her new bosses who weren't into pouting at all, they had their fill of it in the past and read her the riot act: this is what we need; this is what you will do; this is what you will get; "shit or get off the pot." One of them actually said that.

Tosha was unmoved. I took over with a line of attack that I thought might work. This is art, Tosh, the clothes, the creativity, the presentation, the interpretation, the appreciation — it has all the elements of art, just from a different perspective, like the train model was a different perspective. You like challenges, this is a new one. Throw yourself at it, like you did with the trains. Have fun. What have you got to lose?

This made an impression but it needed a coup de grace ... "I will be with you every step of the way."

"You have to work."

"I'll take holidays. This is important, to them," the two women were hanging onto every one of my words, they really, really wanted her, "and it's important to you ... you need to get out ... it'll be good for you."

The pout formed the two letters OK but not with any joy. The women noticed.

"You will have to be committed to this, it will take some real work getting you ready, you have to know that."

"She's not afraid of work. She'll be ready." Strangely, I didn't know Tosha well, didn't know yet what made her tick but when I said this I was surprised to note that I believed it, I believed in her and I told her that on the way home, told her how much I appreciated her, trusted her, loved her, something I really hadn't said before. Her hand went under my waistband, that was all but I could feel her resolve. I think I was giving the girl confidence, it wasn't my fat ass or big breasts, it was me, one of the world's really unconfident women was inspiring one of the world's truly beautiful people. This is fun.

And fun to watch her blossom, slo-mo, ultra slo-mo for sure, more like a Darwinian evolution but right from the get-go she was attentive, cooperative and trying her best to be relaxed, live in the moment, breath evenly, using her rest breaks to mindfully turn inwards, usually with my hand in her's.

She felt ridiculous and frankly looked ridiculous but that was the runway walk and she had to practise, practise, practise and she did but didn't really get anywhere until she stopped laughing at it, the walk, and herself, that's when her grace and beauty shone, the clothes were just window dressing. The girl is a natural.

"Who the fuck is that?"

You don't expect crude obscenities at a haute couture fashion show ... or I didn't, but it was music to my ears.

The dude didn't wait for an answer. "Get her. Get up there and get her the moment she leaves the fucking stage — offer her 100 grand for the rights to speak with her exclusively ... find out if she has an agent, who she is."

The errand boy was just getting up when I turned. "I'm the agent."

The two women, Beth and Gloria, might have expected that the beautiful black girl and the girl with the big breasts and fat ass, an odd couple to be sure, would live in an odd place but walking across train tracks to be shoe-horned into a small sitting room seemed weird even by their expectation but they accepted the glasses of wine and the news ... with a shock and excitement that spilled both glasses. "No." The shock was etched on both faces, if there had been any doubt how much this meant to them, their eyes made it clear.

I had to check with Tosha first. She agreed. Immediately, which meant to me that she enjoyed the experience as much as it appeared she had enjoyed herself. Art is art, even if you're making a fool of yourself in front of a few hundred people.

The fat assed agent had struck a deal. The House, I couldn't remember the name, had agreed to study the two women's clothing line with the prospects of buying it, and even them as designers, the very reason they had the audacity and temerity to invest in the fashion show, and in return Tosha would do a show for them and maybe more, that would be negotiated separately (by someone who knows what she's doing).

A caboose got kicked over on the way out, the only proof the two women weren't walking on air and we were alone, it felt like for the first time in a couple of weeks.

"I'm so proud of you I could scream ... can we go out ... a restaurant ... to celebrate?"

"I'm not going to do any of this without you, just to be clear. I won't. Period."

"Let's go, I know a place."

"You're treating me like a pawn you're pushing around a board."

"Let's get dressed up ... wear that yellow outfit you got ..."

"I'm serious."

"So am I, the yellow one."

It was my pride in her that did it, all she had to do was take off her shirt and I couldn't resist. I took her from behind, squeezing her into me my hands around her waist travelling up to her bra.

"What are you doing?.

"What do you think?" I could understand her question, I never initiate, I always wait for her.

"It was the runway wasn't it, the walk, it turned you on."

I laughed as I was meant to, her fingers covered mine, caressing. I moved my pelvis into her ass, my fingers sneaking under her bra. "I'm so proud of you."

"That I can wear clothes and walk at the same time?"

"That you did something you really didn't want to do ... you did it for two strangers who need your help."

"Bullshit. I did it because you made me do it."

"I asked you."

"Same thing."

"Well I am ... I'm proud of you."

"You said you love me."

"I do."

"Then tell me, you never do."

"I did."

"Once ... about time you did this, I've always had to be the one."

"I was afraid to."

"No more of that."

Her pants were now undone, I ran my fingers down the slick slope.

"I'm not going to take one step on a runway for anyone without you there."

She tried to reach behind me to grope my ass but couldn't get that far which landed me on the bed, face down, her lying on top of me, humping. I tried to roll over, she stopped me with a slap on the ass. "You start it so this is what you get and I get. I want your ass." I could feel her stripping her pants.

"Can I take mine off?"

"If you stay there."

"Get the vibrator for me."

I struggled with my pants and when I kicked them away with my underwear I was reaching for the vibrator on the bed. She pulled it away.

"Take your bra off, too."

She undid it without asking, nudged the vibrator to me then climbed on, squirming, positioning her pussy in a certain way on my regrettable large cheek.

Who are we as a couple? It hadn't yet revealed itself. I had an outsized influence on her, that seemed impossible but increasingly impossibly clear. She ... the beauty, the talent ... the lust I have for her has created in us a lover and a mother — a sexually alive lesbian and a fervently caring guardian. I was a writer when she came to me; now, with her impossible partnership, I feel free to travel in my mind to places not yet imagined, and with the impossible knowledge that she will be with me on all my journeys.

"Your tits are erasing my tat," I said after a long time ... of her edging, I could tell.

"That isn't like my beauty, it isn't skin deep. That's there forever ... hold on."

Add to that amazing beauty her fabulous sounds, her sweet breath and her ringing laughter.

I turned the vibrator off, she let me turn over and we held on long enough for me to re-play the events of the entire day, as she did, all the time counting our blessings.

I was plucking at her pubic hair that she refused the women's request she shave, it wasn't a demand, I had subtly shaken my head. She had to spit out my nipple to talk. "Where are we going together?" This was a question, the first really profound question she has ever asked me.

"I don't know, that's up to you, to us."

"Yes, but where do you want us to go? Write a story about us. Tell me."

"No, that's unfair."

"It's unfair that I had to be the one to track you down, I still did it. Write the story."

"If I write a story you'll use it against me, I know you will."

"I'm going to paint you, you're going to write about me, fair trade." She went back on my nipple as if the matter had been settled. I dug two fingers into her and yanked. She laughed.

The painting started the next day, not the painting but the posing positions part; that took a long time; I got some idea of what an actual model goes through. I was nude of course, she wanted my breasts front and centre as if they couldn't be. But there was a problem. My aureoles are uninteresting: they are flesh coloured so it's like they aren't actually there. She used cosmetics on them, not just a single application but a series of them — dark, darker, darker, darkest, to see what looked best.

"That's too dark," I protested, "go with the one before."

She got a plastic colour guide that I guess painters use and matched the tone I wanted. "We'll go in tomorrow."

"Go where?"

"There's a treatment for this, it's like a tattoo."

"No, really?"

"If you argue about it I've walked my last runway ... I will, don't push me ... anyway, they're gonna look spectacular." She laughed.

They did, fabulous, exquisite definition. Where before there appeared to be no definition at all now they are wonderfully dark and slightly expanded to be more symmetrical with the enormity — but unsuckable for the next few days, we both wanted at them but they had to heal.

I was thinking of my story about her all day at work. I didn't want to talk about her beauty, I knew she has distain for that. I couldn't talk about her colour that shouldn't be relevant. I couldn't talk about her fears, she wouldn't let me and anyway I didn't yet really know what they were. I couldn't talk about why she was with me, I simply didn't understand that. I couldn't talk about her social life, she didn't have one. Or her professional life, it was just beginning. There wasn't much left. I tried thinking through her goodness but there wasn't a lot of that that I could see; her ambition was barely recognizable; her creative talent, yes, but so far only in dealing with a train model. So what was there to write about?

Me, the way she makes me feel, sure, but I'm not a good enough writer to make a story out of that. I would include that for sure, maybe as the conclusion but I needed to write about her.

I have a load of money but never think to use it. I'd use a little now. I used the Yellow Pages to find a private detective whom I met, liked and gave a simple assignment: find out as much about Tosha Harcourt as you can.

She wanted me to write about her because I had made the mistake of telling her that I believe we all live in a story we create for ourselves, largely unconsciously. Who do we think we are and how do we fit in or conflict with others and with the surrounding culture? How do we see ourself?

Take style for instance, the one we choose for ourself, the one we shaped from our best friends or from people we admire or people we don't know. This style becomes our straight jacket. We don't do what we don't see ourself doing: we won't wear a certain sweater because it 'just isn't me.' We won't go to a club or a museum or drink a beer or smoke a joint or ... we don't do what is inconsistent with the image we create for ourself. We use our impressionable years to start building up our story and then everything we do conforms with and reinforces that story, how we see ourselves in the greater world.