Trance-itivity for Paint & the Soul

Sadie wasn't really sure what made her decide to sign up for the stupid class, even as she walked in the front door. As she took in the wide, naturally-lit space, laid out with perhaps thirty or forty easels on stands, a few sections in the far corners variously accompanied by bobbing heads and stepping feet as their awaiting canvasses were adorned with fresh paint and imagined ideas. And yet, here she was - a first-timer in a "body wellness & positivity painting course", hosted by tagline-famous, morning show-product peddling, natural-lifestyle-just-don't-mind-the-fake-tits guru herself, Lisa Salone. There she was in the middle of the area, her hands outspread, arms cocked gayly at the elbows, rubber-puffed boobies round and firm in her pink floral coat and sequined black V-neck, and as she walked shyly in with a few other people, Sadie found herself wanting nothing more than to turn around and leave again before she had to put up with the advent of four long hours of gaudy peacocking and feminist fabulous-ness.

But, she reminded herself wryly, she had paid nearly $400 to be here, and she did want to find holistic, natural ways to improve her self-confidence - and short of naked beaches or vibrating stand pads or the goddamn GYM, this was it. It was an unconventional start, perhaps, but Sadie - a modest, average-height girl of nothing particularly striking - despite her stubborn tendency for self-destructiveness and negativity - was determined to turn her self-image around and start learning to love herself.

5'7" and mousey-brown, Sadie had a loose, unruly crop of wavy brown hair and she wore large square glasses that complimented her general face shape. She was white, and while not naturally pasty, she was whiter than her skin tone due to a tendency away from sunlight. She was a winter girl and a bookworm and rarely found reason to leave the house or work - and while she did try to walk to and from work and out to lunch, she rarely exercised for the sake of it. She wasn't overweight but did have a little extra across the board - her abdomen filled out a large shirt though did not stretch it far, and her thighs were round and tight in even loose jeans. She was constantly at war with her chest, and while it was natural and looked good in a bra, it did little to keep itself afloat, heavy enough to droop as all women invariably do.

At twenty-five, she was your average girl - but to her, in the mirror or a window, glanced at briefly on the street or stared at with hatred in the bathroom, she was a fat, ugly, disgusting lump. And THAT was what she was determined to change - not at the gym, where she would cry and curl up in shame, but here, at stupid Shake-It, Slap Chop and EasySqueezy bitch's very own self-love painting course. While she wanted to cringe at even the thought of it, Sadie had to admit to herself that she was excited at last by the prospect of changing herself for the better, and that kept her feet moving inwards as she approached the class that would be her home for the next four long hours.

'Come, come, come, gather around, you sexy little things! Ah, gorgeous, come here my girl - a devilish boy, ooh you are a treat - ah, your pants are to die for!' Lisa Slone chirped gratingly as men and women moved in around her and approached easels of their own. Lisa complimented every person she could and those that came close enough she reached out to touch, stroking arms or pointing at pants, touching hair or cheeks. Sadie did her best to stay on the far side of another warm touch-target at all times so that she would not be noticed by the annoyingly chipper woman. She approached a blank canvas and unslung her handbag, placing it down beside the wooden stand.

'Hello, darlings! Oh, you are the most gorgeous bunch I have ever laid my eyes on, God I could just - mmh - right here and now!' Lisa said, making a gesture that Sadie wasn't sure how to translate, but seemed to indicate something to do with a very particular kind of self-love near her crotch area. Sadie raised a dark eyebrow and kept as much of her head hidden behind the canvas as possible, hoping to just paint and go, so this weirdly sex-tastic woman did not have the chance to do something embarrassing like squeeze Sadie's tits and call them 'voluptuous woman-empowerment devices' or something similarly ridiculous.

Half-hating herself for putting herself through this but determined to see it through, she looked to her sides and took in her neighbours as Lisa spoke. To her right stood a tall, curly-haired man with a freckled cheek. He seemed to be in decent shape, and while she couldn't see much below his plain jeans and loose T-shirt, he seemed hot enough. Not really a course for sexy guys, she thought half-absently as she turned to her left. There stood a round-faced Asian woman, about her height or slightly shorter. Her jet-black, ruler-straight hair hung uniformly around her round face and her tiny frame was encased in a plain but tight pink dress. She had capped the getup off with plain black heels, short but enough to prop her up slightly - three-inchers, by the looks of it. She looked more suited to be a lawyer's receptionist or an accountant's PA, and Sadie couldn't see what she had to dislike in herself enough to want to come to a course literally called "Learn to Love Yourself: YOU are Eternally Beautiful, with Lisa Slone".

'So!' Lisa chirped, pacing the centre of the circle. 'Together, you and I will go on a magical journey of self-discovery, learning the very deepest meaning behind being who you are, discovering your most intimate corners and shedding light on that which hides furthest inside you, sharing that darkness with others so that you may grow together into the self-loving hunks and hunk-ettes that I see standing before me!' She preened at her group, looking at each person. When she looked into Sadie's eyes, Sadie couldn't stop the tiny explosion of anxiety that burned up her throat. The look met her eyes, seemed to hang there for a moment, passing some unknown intelligence between them before... Gone, to the next person in the group, releasing Sadie from that strange stare. She blinked and hid her face again.

'Today we are using a very special type of paint, my precious darlings,' Lisa cooed, wandering the inside of the circle. 'This is a magical little concoction unique to my class and classes like it, though something very similar is used in tribal rituals in the far South and remote parts of the world - I hear a very reclusive tribe in the elevated Myanmar forests uses something similar during their Night Festivals, and a reclusive tribe somewhere south of Gabon inhales its aroma when heated, then applies it to the face and hands after bathing. Whatever it's uses there, our concoction here is very specially designed to assist in the freeing of the soul and unlocking of the body - it will elevate the heart and enrich the blood, and it will guide us all through the delicious troughs and peaks of our very skin.' Lisa crooned, passing Sadie as she spoke. Sadie glanced down at the pre-packaged container of multi-coloured paints, sealed in an airtight plastic bag a bit like meat at the supermarket. She could see yellows and pinks, blues and purples, and a lot of mixing room - the container looked a bit like a screw box, with a ring of smaller spaces holding paints on the outside, and eight or nine larger central ones in which she would no doubt mix her colours.

'Girls, boys, please first follow me in shaking out our concerns, so that we may paint our true colours without interruption,' Lisa said as she returned to the middle of the circle. 'Step to the right of your canvas and watch me.' Sighing internally, Sadie stepped to her right along with the rest of the group, and she watched as across from her, men and women appeared from behind their wooden frames. She reflected momentarily on how little she had even seen them until now and had to briefly admit that her presence here was as much to assist them in being seen and recognised as it was her. Though it shamed her, she tried not to react to the thought of other eyes being cast over her body - this was good, she had to tell herself. This is good.

'Follow me everyone,' Lisa sung loudly, 'as we breathe out our fears: I - am safe.' As she spoke, she raised her arms until her fingertips met above her head, pausing after the first word to inhale a deep breath, then exhaling as she spoke the rest, lowering her arms. Hating it already, Sadie lifted her arms and meekly repeated the words, trying not to feel her fat body moving as she did so. 'Come on! Better than that, we're expunging our negativity, not giving it a cup of tea and a sandwich! Here, I - am safe!' Lisa repeated loudly, her back taut as she repeated the motion. Sadie put some more effort into it and heard the rest of the group speak more loudly with her as she said the words. Hearing them made her glad, because it meant her voice could hide with theirs.

'I - am valid.' Lisa said, drawing in a huge breath and cascading it away.

'I am valid,' the group replied, inhaling and exhaling.

'I am worthy!' Lisa said, this time bending forwards and straightening as she spoke. Sadie repeated the motion, feeling her breasts pulling in her top as she did so but trying to stay on Lisa's words. Though she wanted to, she didn't adjust her bra when she straightened back up.

'I am going to love myself today,' Lisa said. The group repeated.

'I am going to love my neighbour today,' Lisa said. The group echoed the words.

'I am going to spread my love to the world,' Lisa chorused. The group followed along.

'Very good!' Lisa applauded, encouraging them immediately when some started clapping back, until everyone was putting their hands together. Sadie panted a little and blew a strand from her face as she clapped. She had to admit that there was something more to doing this in the group than alone, and she already felt something she couldn't quite describe. She was hardly about to strip naked in front of them, but it was a good start to feel accepted like this. As Lisa encouraged them, dishing out compliments like a charity, Sadie glanced around and caught one or two people looking at her and smiling. One, a rather cute guy across the circle, kept Sadie's eye a lot longer than normal, and she blushed as his stayed on her. She thought - just maybe - she saw those pupils tilt ever so slightly as he looked at her, and though she wanted to run to her canvas, she stayed put, a tiny part of her hoping that he had just glanced down her length and that he maybe he was into women like her.

Half an hour later, Lisa directed them back to their canvases, having guided them through a fairly rudimentary but still pretty decent motion routine. Bends and stretches done and the group sufficiently warmed up, they gathered up their brushes and at Lisa's command were allowed to tear their sealed bags and remove their paints. Sadie's had a strong, musky aroma that reminded her of wood smoke and cinnamon, and she found it rather delightful and quite sweet as she popped the lid and placed it on her easel. 'Be sure to smell your paints,' Lisa had said as they opened their bags, 'this all-natural set is said to smell of home and safety no matter who you are.' And while Sadie couldn't be sure that wood smoke and cinnamon were particularly homely for her, she did admit that they brought a rather powerful sense of something akin to... Security, to her.

Shortly afterwards, brush in hand, the group dipped in for the first time. The instructions were very loose on what to paint - "paint the soul" Lisa had said, only adding that each should try to paint something personal to them. Excited to finally be starting and happier now that she had an objective, Sadie raised her yellow-doused brush to her nose once more and inhaled, smelling woody pastry and winter cabins in its aroma. Then, she placed brush to page and began to paint.

There was something oddly therapeutic in the action, and as Sadie painted, she started to drop into the zone, losing track of her surroundings and even Lisa, letting the show host drone on and on as something started to come to life beneath her fingertips. Sadie found herself warming up as she painted, at first from excitement, then from happiness as her brush slithered across the white space before her. She forgot about her neighbours and didn't hear what Lisa was saying as she took off her jacket, so focussed was she on what she was doing. It was just starting to come into focus - a blurry, wavy image of, what? A cabin perhaps, the one she could smell when she put red or yellow to her nose, something she did frequently to reaffirm the scent in her mind, or - perhaps a soft seat, or a comfortable shoe? Sadie stepped out of her shoes as she dipped the brush back into the mixture of brown and pink she had in one of her mixing pots, seeing in her mentally-projected overlay where a few deft strokes needed to go. She moved the brush as if in a trance, watching almost on a delay as the pink and brown morphed into view before her, her mouth creasing into a smile as she saw her desired picture coming to life.

In the distance, Lisa continued to drone on, but Sadie didn't hear her, content now in her own private world, surrounded by blurry colour and dulled sound. She stared at the canvas, transfixed by the soft prickle of lavender and fiction books that came to her from the blue now on her brush, quickly shrugging her shirt aside so that she could get back to painting. When the blue strokes appeared in place on her canvas, Sadie practically shivered with pleasure. A few moments later, the brush reappeared beneath her nose and this time the wet grass made her shudder from head to toe when it slipped through her nostrils, so strong and accurate was it to her mental image. The brush leapt forward as if on its own in her hand, and Sadie hardly noticed when it detoured from the canvas, placing itself down paint-up in her easel's brush holder so that her hand could assist it's partner in unclasping the belt around her waist and sliding the two ends apart, hooking both thumbs over it so that her jeans slid almost of their own design from her body, popping over her ass and pooling moments later around her ankles. The green brush jumped back into her grasp and a second later, it was at home on the page, dashes of colour exactly where they needed to be.

Blinking, Sadie's vision seemed to waiver, as if she were staring through a thick, unmoving heat haze. She glanced up and looked out into the circle to her left - someone stood there, pink beside their white canvas, two black blobs at roughly equal distances over their body. She frowned uncomprehendingly, unsure of something but not aware of what - pink was normal, right? Pink body. Lisa had said pink was a good starting colour for the body. But black - black was... Black was...

She turned, her wide eyes unfocussed. To her right the tall man stood, himself a large pink length. Something dark - not black, but what? Blue? - covered his lower half, or rather seemed to cover his lower torso. It seemed oddly shaped, round on one side and pointed on the other.

Suddenly aware of the temperature in the room, Sadie bent, her hands doing something around her waist and down to her knees - she looked away for a moment to check on it before looking back up to him again. He was standing back up again too, which was strange, but now the blue mass was gone, replaced only with pink softness. Something thin and curving was present in front of his generally pink mass of a body, and Sadie looked at it for a while, trying to figure out what it was. She turned to her canvas, made to step away, to put down her brush - but the brush did not want to leave, and kept itself - and her hand - in front of the canvas. Frowning, Sadie suddenly felt a shuddering tingle that washed down from head to toe, and quickly gave up trying to leave her canvas again, feeling the tingling rush pooling in a mass down in her body, somewhere beneath her waistline, as if just atop her legs. She shuddered again.

By now, Lisa's training group was an hour and a half into their session, which meant the fun was about to really begin. Still speaking in a sing-song voice, Lisa chirped to her captive audience, cooing soft commands that they immediately obeyed. 'You're growing warmer, but also growing more carefree,' she told her flock of attentive people as they all stroked away hypnotically at their canvases. 'You will remove your shirt.' Ten seconds later, forty shirts plopped softly to the floor, and Lisa smiled with satisfaction as she took in the wide array of bras and nipples in her tranced crowd, all of them subdued by the concoction of hallucinogenics, inhibiters, stimulants, depressants and a few other more specialised drugs in her special paint, noting with satisfaction that one woman here hadn't worn a bra today - though no doubt she barely owned any, given her complete lack of bosom, Lisa thought as she took in the ironing-board body type of the somewhat unfortunate Asian girl. Lisa looked at her, took in the modest nipples and soft, petite shape - she should not be ashamed of herself, but rather in love, Lisa thought. She'd fix her as she fixed all her subjects.

Continuing to command her tranced crowd, each tied to their canvas and drawn further and further into a hypnotic stupor by Lisa's voice, the sound over the speakers and the painting itself, Lisa continued to expertly work her subjects until they all stood naked before their canvas. She gazed around at them, patrolling between the rows, glancing at free-hanging breasts and round backsides, pointed erections and many, many stomachs. It was time for a little sharing, she thought.

'Subjects,' she cooed, sliding her fingertip along the jawline of one youthful little girl who probably thought that modest plumpness in her chest and stomach made her look like a monster, inhaling the air around her as she walked back past Sadie into the middle of the circle. 'It is clear to you that your true desires need fulfilling. Self-love must come with self-satisfaction, and we must all love ourselves and give ourselves love,' she said. 'Love comes in all forms - including arousal. And as I speak you are now realising that this is something your body has been crying out to you for - something it has needed for a very long time. Not masturbation, but love - arousal, desire, attention and orgasm, necessary for us all to love ourselves.' Lisa looked around her crowd. They were ready.

'You are aroused.' Have to start them off low, make sure they're all on the same page. 'And pointing it out, you've come to realise it. Deeply aroused - full of desire. Your body is calling to you for pleasure, and you must answer it now, not with porn or toys but with love. Look down - look between your legs. See its sign? It's telling you what it needs - you must simply listen and respond. You need pleasure.' Anyone who hadn't been visibly there before was now, Lisa saw - a couple of the men hadn't been properly raised, but now, not one man stood without a stiff, curving erection. Several of the women were breathing a little harder, their breasts rising and falling below erect nipples that stiffened only more as Lisa drove them into an erotic desire. 'Reach for yourself, place your hand over your sex - grasp yourself, touch yourself. Feel how good even this simple, attentive touch makes you feel, the shudder as this tells your body that you are completely and totally focussed on it and only it's needs. Move your hand, gently, slightly - asking it if it welcomes us deeper. Feel how it responds - it wants your pleasure, to be pleasured by you. It finds no one more attractive than you, because only you know how best to please it. Only you know where to touch, how to move - so tell it you're here for it. Move your hand, stroke your body - pleasure yourself.'