Chiarascuro

[ariosto]

OOC...This is a closed thread for Queen-Mab and myself. The vision is the Queen's, I'm but the artificer. It is a story of sexual awakening through Art. We hope you'll enjoy it.


http://www.ariosto.homestead.com/files/dh3.jpg

The Villa


The setting is somewhere on the coast of holland in the early Spring of 1928.
The Villa was large and of a pale yellow gray with a tile roof giving it an incongrous look in this chilly part of the world. It stands in some isolation not too far back from the sea and there are short trees of wind shaped trunks and twisted branches scattered around it. Tall and unkempt grasses fill the yard behind a low wall. A fountain with water trickling from a cupids bronze penis is in the center of the once well kept courtyard. The place has a feel of forgotten grandeur. It has been allowed to decay for the last ten years.

It had been purchased by a wealthy couple in Amsterdam in February as a summer home. An old gardener named Hans Jacobs and a young maid, Marguerite have been retained as live in domestics to clean and prepare the villa for the owners occupation later that summer. The rough restoration work has been done already, walls painted, masonry repair, plumbing, etc. The work now is light but ongoing.
There is little yet in the way of furniture , it will arrive next month. It's a house full of big, clean, empty rooms for now.
Only Marguerite's chamber and the gardeners give any sense of hominess to the echoing building.

A respected artist, Franz Gerrit Hedda has been employed by the family to paint a series of erotic works in various styles that will be hung on the walls of the master bedroom and bath, as well as the large parlor that faces the sea. In all nine paintings have been commissioned including two murals.

He drove over from Amsterdam ten days ago, set up a cot in a vacant upstairs room and began to work.
Only Hans was there when he arrived, Marguerite was absent, having gone to attend her sick Mother in a village not too far away.


When the pretty girl rode up and leaned her bicycle against the wall Old Hans was waiting for her.

"Shhh", He said holding his finger to his lips.
"Follow me...the painter is down at the beach I think."
"The painter...?"
Marguerite knew only of the painters who had finished work on the inside walls a month ago.

They came to a door on the second floor and Hans opened it.
"You should see what he is painting...
He said they wished him to paint these things."

"What things Hans?" Marguerite was trying to see around him into the room.
"You go look", The old man said."I can't go in with you. See if it's all right. You know the family, maybe they should be told..."

She pushed by him and stood in the door.
A cot with neatly folded bed clothes stood against one wall.
Next to it an opened valise with mens clothes piled on top.
Several canvases leaned against the wall their faces turned back.
An easel stood by the window, the painting on it lost in the backlightingfrom the morning sun.
Marguerite walked over to it, sniffing at the strong smell of oils, varnishes and turpentine that filled the air. Slowly and craefully, she turned the easel into the light...

 

[ariosto]

First Painting...The Embrace

The Embrace

 

[queen-mab]

Marguerite

In after years she would remember this as the first day. And yet it had begun like so many others of her life.

In the dark of early morning she had kissed her mother’s pale face and run her gentle fingers through the long white hair that spread out like a halo upon the sun-bleached linen of the pillow. Every time now she had to wonder, Is this the last kiss? The last farewell between us?

In the whitewashed house with a tall porcelain stove, her childhood home, she had descended the steep stairs to the kitchen. There was Hannelore, the hearty woman from the village, tying her apron as she prepared to start the week‘s work, the same as she did every Monday. Neither of them spoke too loudly when they parted at the door. Death was sleeping in that house, and neither wished to wake him.

Past the sleeping village, she had ridden her bicycle in the first flush of dawn. In her freshly-ironed skirt of grey linen and her kerchief with roses on it, she shivered a little and lifted her scrubbed, rosy face to the sky. The larks were awakening in the trees. She could hear them beginning to gossip amongst themselves, like so many goodwives in a market square. She was careful not to let her clean stockings become spattered with mud as she navigated her way up the hill towards the big house where she worked as a maid. It was true that no one there would see her – no one but old Hans-Jakob, of course – but these silk stockings, paid for by a month of hard labour, were her chief vanity and pride. They were finely knitted to fit the shape of her leg perfectly, and ended just below the tops of her thighs.

Hans-Jakob was waiting for her, as she had known he would be, expecting his little bag of tobacco from the village. But today his weathered face was alive with agitation. She dismounted from her bicycle and leaned it against the wall.

"Shhh", Hans-Jakob said, holding his finger to his lips.
"Follow me...the painter is down at the beach I think."
Marguerite gave him a puzzled look. "The painter...?"

Old Hans liked Marguerite, though his way of showing it was subtle. His affection was usually proclaimed by asking her to do favours for him: mending a shirt, posting a letter, buying tobacco or sweets in the village. Today he would share a secret.

"Come with me!" he commanded urgently, and she had no choice but to follow.

With every step up the newly polished stairs, Marguerite groaned inwardly, looking at the mud-caked boots that Old Hans wore. She thought to herself that it would be only just if God punished her for her vanity in wearing silk stockings by having Hans-Jakob smear them with manure. She flattened herself against the wall and held her skirt out of the way while he clumped onwards, breathing a sigh of relief only when the danger was past and he stood on the other side of a doorway at the top of the landing.

"You should see what he is painting...
He said they wished him to paint these things."
The old gardener gestured with a gnarled and sunburned hand towards a group of canvases that lined one wall of the room, and one which stood on an easel by the window.

He? Old Hans had been known to indulge in a running dialogue with Saint Michael, whose martial valour was regularly invoked in the ongoing battle against caterpillars in the garden. Marguerite might have suspected another such spectral interlocutor had she not seen with her own eyes the clear evidence that a third human being had now taken up residence in the house.

But who? Not a house painter...a painter of images. The smell of turpentine and linseed oil, mixed with the fresh draughts of crisp morning air that poured in through the open windows, made her feel strangely giddy. As though to step over that threshold into a room she had herself swept and scrubbed, whose grate she had oiled and blacked, whose windowpanes she had polished one by one...were to step into an entirely new world.

Who is he? she wanted to ask, but Hans-Jakob’s rheumy eyes were oddly determined.

"You go look", The old man said."I can't go in with you. See if it's all right. You know the family, maybe they should be told..."

His words made no sense to her, but she was compelled to do as he asked. The room before her was suddenly a place of mystery and of dread. Silently she went to the easel by the window, and turned it into the light.

On the canvas, in luminous oils, were two naked figures; a man and a woman. Marguerite’s face turned blood red, and she raised her eyes to Hans-Jakob swiftly to see if he was mocking her. He was not. The old man seemed genuinely troubled by the work the painter had done. Clearly he had never considered how inappropriate it was for him to show such a picture to a young girl like Marguerite. His fear for the honour of the family who employed them both took precedence.

"He said that they wanted to hang these pictures in their bedroom!" The old man said, in a whisper which could easily have been heard across two fields. "Can you believe that of our employers, Marguerite, that they would actually order such filth to be hung on their walls?"

Marguerite looked back at the painting. The face of the woman had an expression on it which she found more disturbing than any other element of the composition. Eyes half-closed but rapt – transported- as the hand of the man cupped her naked breast. Her posture was one of abandon, and yet there was tension in every muscle...even in the slender throat encircled with a collar like a slave's. The woman was dark-haired, and maybe this shamed Marguerite more than all the rest, for she herself had dark hair (though hers, to be sure, was neatly braided and coiled into a knot at the nape of her neck as befitted a modest girl).

"Better that I should sling manure on one of these canvases!" Hans-Jakob went on, tuned to a pitch of righteous indignation. "Such would be sweeter in the sight of the Lord than this filth!"

Marguerite could not turn her eyes away from the painting. She could not explain why, but her skin was prickling with heat. Her cheeks were so hot that she feared they would burst into flame.

"Maybe it is Adam and Eve," she ventured hesitantly. "Or Lilith, who was cast out of the Garden by God."

At that moment her heart stopped in her breast.

Downstairs she could hear footsteps approaching.

 

[Guest]

She turned quickly to Hans-Jakob but he had already slipped away. The footfalls were very close, they were on the landing!
Marguerite had no time to make it out the door and seeing the shadow of a man crossing the door sill, she grabbed up the pillow from the cot and began to furiously fluff it.

Franz Hedda knew that the maid was expected back today but had certainly had not imagined that she would be so young and so lovely...and so obviously distressed. Her face beneath her darkly shining hair was rosy with embarrassment .

"Hello." He said and held out his hand.
Marguerite looked at it, uncomprehending...long fingers lightly stained with residues of crimson, sienna, rose madder...

"Your hand is dirty." She stammered.

He laughed, showing fine even teeth.
"Yes, it is! but you should have seen it an hour ago."

"Now put my pillow down, and let me look at you."
He brushed back a strand of shoulder length black hair and put his hands on his hips.
"Well..."

She was used to taking orders from her employers but she wasn't sure exactly how to categorize a painter in the house.
She decided...
"No. I do not take my orders from you. You work here like me."

He looked at her a long few seconds...his eyes were blue grey like the sea outside...then turned away and walked over to the painting. He became a dark shadow moving across the streaming yellow light from the window.
Marguerite felt a loss, a quick emptiness...

"Wait!"
She tossed the pillow onto the bed.

He turned.

"There, now you see me." She crossed her wrists behind her back
and stood proudly.

Franz liked what he saw very, very much.

"My name is Marguerite and I work here."

He was about to introduce himself, when she brushed by him and walked up to the painting and said softly,

"Why do you paint pictures like this? Poor old Hans-Jakob is scandalized by it!"

And what about you, he wondered, what about you...

 

[ariosto]

I havn't done that in awhile!...The above is of course mine.

 

[queen-mab]

Marguerite

She did not wait to hear his answer to her question. She did not like the confusion she felt when she saw the expression of amusement in his eyes.

Hans-Jakob can get his own tobacco from now on, she told herself furiously, and was halfway down the stairs before Franz Hedda could so much as frame a word.

She marched down the steep stairway, glad that the shadowy darkness hid the crimson stain of her cheeks. She would not allow herself to look back, but she could distinctly feel a pair of bluish grey eyes fixed upon her retreating form. It made her walk all the faster.

Her mind was a muddle of disjointed thoughts, but she strove to keep her concentration on practicalities. Would this new addition to the household expect her to cook his meals too? Wash his clothes? The very thought made her clench her jaw with anger. But even as she seized the broom from its niche beside the door, she had to own to herself that a new thrill of excitement was hammering through her blood.

The painter did not look like any man she knew. Nor did he use his eyes the same way either. She could have sworn he had seen straight through her, and this was both unnerving and strangely exhilerating.

As she swept the hall, she tried not to remember the way he had said "Let me look at you." The brisk pressure of his fingers still seemed to be impressed upon the skin of her shoulders; she was wearing his touch like a pair of wings. Her feet, she felt sure, were hardly touching the ground.

"I will never speak to Hans-Jakob again," she muttered to herself, lifting her eyes to the door, "for showing me that picture, and for running off like a scared mouse!"

And just to demonstrate her resolve, she ran after the old gardener straightaway, to give him a piece of her mind.

From his upstairs window, Franz Hedda could not help smiling as he watched the girl skim across the front garden, ominously armed with the broom. The wind from the sea flirted with the hem of her grey linen skirt, moulding it against her long, finely muscled legs. Every line of her body was a delightful mixture of energy and unconscious grace. When she walked, it was like watching the passage of the wind through a field of long grass.

Her skin, he thought, her hair.... He found himself almost unconsciously selecting pigments in his mind.

The day had suddenly become much brighter.

 

[queen-mab]

Marguerite

She did not wait to hear his answer to her question. She did not like the confusion she felt when she saw the expression of amusement in his eyes.

Hans-Jakob can get his own tobacco from now on, she told herself furiously, and was halfway down the stairs before Franz Hedda could so much as frame a word.

She marched down the steep stairway, glad that the shadowy darkness hid the crimson stain of her cheeks. She would not allow herself to look back, but she could distinctly feel a pair of bluish grey eyes fixed upon her retreating form. It made her walk all the faster.

Her mind was a muddle of disjointed thoughts, but she strove to keep her concentration on practicalities. Would this new addition to the household expect her to cook his meals too? Wash his clothes? The very thought made her clench her jaw with anger. But even as she seized the broom from its niche beside the door, she had to own to herself that a new thrill of excitement was hammering through her blood.

The painter did not look like any man she knew. Nor did he use his eyes the same way either. She could have sworn he had seen straight through her, and this was both unnerving and strangely exhilerating.

As she swept the hall, she tried not to remember the way he had said "Let me look at you." The brisk pressure of his fingers still seemed to be impressed upon the skin of her shoulders; she was wearing his touch like a pair of wings. Her feet, she felt sure, were hardly touching the ground.

"I will never speak to Hans-Jakob again," she muttered to herself, lifting her eyes to the door, "for showing me that picture, and for running off like a scared mouse!"

And just to demonstrate her resolve, she ran after the old gardener straightaway, to give him a piece of her mind.

From his upstairs window, Franz Hedda could not help smiling as he watched the girl skim across the front garden, ominously armed with the broom. The wind from the sea flirted with the hem of her grey linen skirt, moulding it against her long, finely muscled legs. Every line of her body was a delightful mixture of energy and unconscious grace. When she walked, it was like watching the passage of the wind through a field of long grass.

Her skin, he thought, her hair.... He found himself almost unconsciously selecting pigments in his mind.

The day had suddenly become much brighter.


Last edited by queen-mab on 09-15-2001 at 11:50 AM


.

 

[queen-mab]

Marguerite

In the evening, Marguerite retired to the kitchen and started to cook the evening’s soup for Hans-Jakob and herself. As she chopped fresh cabbage she could hear the creaking of boards overhead. She could imagine the painter pacing back and forth in his room, and she lifted her head.

"Hans-Jakob," she began, "How has the painter been taking his meals?“

"Don’t know," the old man said sourly.

"I thought you said your sister cooked for you while I was gone."

"So she did," he said, puffing at his pipe. "But not for him."

Marguerite sighed.


An hour later, the table by the fire was laid, and Hans-Jakob was noisily eating. Without a word, Marguerite filled a second bowl, and set it on a tray with cheese and new bread. She glanced at Hans-Jakob, and then surreptitiously looked at her reflection on the bottom of a polished copper pan.

I am a fool to care what he thinks of me, she told herself. But just the same, she paused to make sure that her stockings were without blemish, and she took off the apron she had worn.

Her heart was pounding so loudly that she was sure it could be heard all the way up the stairs. Now that she had actually made up her mind to face the painter again in his mysterious workroom, the image of the painting on the easel came back to haunt her.

What does he think of when he paints? Does he see a woman walking on the street and think of her, like that, naked?

Marguerite blushed darkly and nearly spilled a little of the soup onto the clean linen napkin spread beneath it on the tray. She remembered the way that the painter had looked at her, the way his eyes had seemed to capture some part of her that he would tuck away and look at again later. His appraisal of her had made her acutely conscious of the place where her skirt had been mended, and the chafed red skin of her hands. She had wanted somehow to be smaller, less sturdy, more delicate -- like the beautiful woman in the painting.

It occurred to her that she had never even found out the painter's name. But she remembered his hands. How could she explain to herself that something about them had made her shiver; that something about them had made her want to feel them on her skin? Dirty, she had called them. But they had seemed to her the most wonderful hands in the world. Slim and long-fingered, with skin that was stained but not roughened like hers. They were hands from another world...a world she wanted to know more about.

His door was open. She could see him now, standing near the window. She had not realised before how lean he was. There was an elegance to his form even in the well-worn clothes. His face had been slightly windburned from his time by the sea. His hair, unclipped and uncombed, made her want to run her fingers through it.

There was an apple in his hand, and he was half finished with eating it.

So that is how he has been eating. While that selfish Hans-Jakob had hot soup every night!

But the painter did not seem to care that his evening meal was only a windfall apple. His eyes were fixed on his painting again.

Maybe he loved her once, that woman.
The thought was unsettling. Marguerite could not help comparing the lush and satiny beauty of the woman in the painting with her own very common, very ordinary looks.

No wonder he looked at me so long, she told herself. He probably was making a list of everything about me that he wished was more like her!

She was just about to turn around and go back downstairs again when the floorboard beneath her creaked loudly. The painter looked across the room at her, and...

smiled.

 

[ariosto]

Apple...

"Oh, Marguerite...you have brought me supper! How wonderful!
You must've known I was starving.
Smelling the food cooking in the kitchen was driving me quite....mad!"
He leered at her on the last word and her heart skipped a beat, but then he laughed and she saw his white, even teeth against the sunbrowned face and her heart skipped another beat but in a very different way. He set the apple down on his polychromed palette and stepped around the painting he was working on. He was tall and slender, his black hair a wild shock of midnight. He looked like a pirate.
Marguerite laid the tray down on his cot and stood back.
"There. I guess it will do. Better than an apple anyway."

"Oh yes!"
He grabbed her around the waist, hugged her and gave her a brush of a kiss on the cheek. She turned crimson.
"Thank you, so much!"
Franz seemed oblivious to the effect of his carefree action as he sat and began to wolf the food down.

"You shouldn't eat so fast."
Her hand had gone to her cheek and was touching the place his lips had just grazed. It seemed hot. It tingled.

"This is delicious!....You are a fine cook as well as a pretty one."
She flushed again.
"I am not a cook, Mister Hedda, I..."

"Oh please PLEASE, don't call me Mister Hedda, I loath that. I am Franz, that's all. Call me Franz."
His look was warm, inviting and also appraising. Suddenly Marguerite felt as if she were quite naked.

"I need to go. Hans -Jakob probably can't find the pepper."

"Oh I doubt that, the old man pretty sharp I think."
He rose from the bed as she turned away.

"Wait."
He said and his hand closed on her arm.
She looked down and fixed the hand in her memory, long tapering fingers, a nail missing on one of them, a small scar across the base of his thumb, smudges of charcoal...
He released her.

"Marguerite, may I sketch you tomorrow?...Your face is so arresting. I've thought of it all day."

"You want just my face..."
There was almost a note of disapointment in her voice.

"Yes, I cannot get what I want on the new painting, I think your face would be perfect."
He was smiling again.

"My face on one of those...those..."
She pointed at the painting she'd held earlier in the day and suddenly could feel that warm hand squeezing her own breast.
"...paintings."
She finished in a quiet gasp.

He looked at her for a moment that mischivious smile on his lips.
"No, no not quite like that, there would be no man in it, only you and I can change your appearence a bit. So no one would scandalize Little Marguerite into it."

"I think not."
She turned to go.

"The painting is on the easel over there, I think I've made a terrible mess of it. Are you sure you won't help me out?"

 

[queen-mab]

Marguerite

It was too much. Too much! She could still feel her cheek burning in the place where he had kissed her. And the way he had grabbed her and lifted her clear off her feet! Her hands began furiously brushing at the waist of her linen skirt. She was sure he had managed to stain her with something. All that paint! The room fairly reeked of turpentine, and now she was sure she smelled of it too. The thought was oddly stirring.

She reached the bottom of the stairs and hurriedly tied her apron, hoping that Hans-Jakob had not noticed she was gone.

Suddenly the old man’s face was pressed up close to hers.

"I could not find the pepper," he said. "And you never answered me when I called you."

Marguerite was about to mutter some excuse about having stepped outside for water when Hans-Jakob’s gnarled hand suddenly closed around her wrist.

"You ought not to go up there alone," he told her. "That painter is an evil man. Anyone can tell that by looking at the filth he paints. I am going to complain to the priest this Sunday. Maybe he will come over and send Franz Hedda packing."

Marguerite’s jaw had slowly been dropping as she listened to the old gardener’s speech. Were the paintings really so evil as that? And Franz Hedda had told her he wanted one of them to have her face!

Hans-Jakob handed her the dish-towel, and she looked at him in consternation. "Wipe your face," he said.

Marguerite blinked, and then leaned over to study her reflection in the copper pot again. She did not care if Hans-Jakob thus learned of her private mirror. What she saw in the reflection was enough to put every other thought out of her mind. There was charcoal on her face.

"Marguerite," Hans-Jakob said wearily. The look in his eyes was so sorrowful, that she felt worse than if he had boxed her ears. "Marguerite, your mother has been ill for a very long time. I know you have made the best of things, coming here to work and earn enough to pay old Hannelore for her nursing. But there are things about the world that only a mother can rightly explain, and I am not sure that she had time to teach you all you must know."

Marguerite wished that the earth would suddenly open to swallow her up. Anything would be better than having to stand here and listen to Hans-Jakob giving her a fatherly talk about the sins of the flesh.

"I won’t go up there again, Hans-Jakob," she said quietly.

At least not while the painter is up there, watching. But I want to see that painting, and no one is going to stop me. Not even the fear of Hell.

And she did not doubt, even as she thought this, that Hell was where it would all lead in the end.

 

[queen-mab]

It was with difficulty that she managed to persuade Hans-Jakob not to sleep that night with the old musket he kept for scaring away foxes from the chicken-house. Even so, the old man swore he would keep vigil in the hall, and took a mysterious metal flask with him, "to fortify his spirits". She had to step over his snoring form several times, on her way to and from her little room under the roof.

It was her habit to wash her silk stockings every night, along with herself. Now that it was summer, she could enjoy this luxury in the privacy of her own room, instead of having to bathe behind a screen next to the kitchen fire. She had left the window uncurtained, and the moonlight streamed in. Up here, beneath the eaves, no one could see her, she knew, except for the moon.

When her stockings had been carefully washed and hung from a rack to dry, she slipped off her skirt and blouse and hung each one up on its peg. She half-filled the tin bath from the can of steaming water she had carried up from the stove, and then added a little cold water from a second can. When at last she was sitting inside, with her knees drawn up and her head leaning back against the edge, she tried to make sense of the strange things that had happened that day.

Just then, she heard a door open and close downstairs. It was the painter’s door, she knew, and her heart seemed to stop with terror.

I should have let Hans-Jakob bring the musket! she thought wildly, and leaped from the bath, scrambling for her nightdress.

But the footsteps continued on down the stairs towards the kitchen, and then she heard the front door of the house being opened and closed, and locked with a key.

The thin nightdress of lawn stuck to her wet skin, and she sank down on her bed with a sigh. A cool wind was blowing through the window now, and she shivered as she leaned over to close the glass pane. Her nipples had risen up erect against the wet cotton, and she could feel her cheeks burning again as she remembered the woman in Franz’s painting. Her nipples had been hard like this too, but somehow Marguerite did not think it was because of a cold wind.

She sighed, and leaned her hot cheek against her cold hand. Where could he have gone? The obvious answer made her blush with shame. There were women in the village she knew, who.... Marguerite crossed herself piously and dismissed the thought as being unfair. Franz Hedda might be wicked, but to think of him being so depraved as that...well....

But if he had gone to the village....

She raised up on her knees and craned her neck to see the yard below. He was not there. He had really gone!

In a trice Marguerite was out of her room and scurrying down the stairs, a candle in her hand. She paused for only a moment, just outside the painter’s door, and listened. Sure enough, Hans-Jakob was snoring more loudly than ever. With her heart beating so hard against her ribs that she felt a little faint, Marguerite pushed open the painter’s door and tiptoed in.

The easel was where it had been earlier that day. He had not moved it. Borne onwards by some infernal power which had clearly taken hold of her soul, Marguerite reached the canvas in four long strides.

The full moon shone in brightly on the girl and on the picture which held her transfixed.

 

[ariosto]

When she entered Franz' room, her heart was beating fast and dark winged butterflies were raising up in her stomach. She half expected him to leap from behind his easel, or grab her by the ankle from a position hiding under the bed. But nothing happened. Nothing at all.
A clock ticked, the floor creaked, the sea wind moaned...

She crept past the first painting that had so shocked Hans-Jakob hardly daring to look. As she passed the bed and night table she saw his pipe in the ash tray. She touched it...still warm. She picked it up and put it in her mouth. Ykkkkk! what a horrid taste! But she kept it there and pretended she was the Great Painter himself.
She walked with a swagger across the floor and over to the easel.

The new painting was not large and smelled of fresh wet oils. This was the one he had said was giving him fits. At first she could see very little of it since the easel was turned facing a windowless wall. Gathering her courage she lifted it off and took it over to the window, angling it so the full effects of the moonlight could illuminate it.

Only one figure this time, a young woman, very young it seemed.
Her hands, her fingers, were...

Marguerites tender buds began to stiffen, spiking little tents in the thin night dress.

 

[ariosto]

In the village Franz Hedda was enjoying himself immensely.
Hekenner's was a freindly tavern with good food as well as beer and liquor. He was on his third genever and doing his best to spark a pretty young waitress named Anna whose hair was like a waterfall of pale gold.

"Anna your hair is like a waterfall of pale gold, you MUST let me paint you."
Franz reached out and grabbed her hand as she passed with a tray of drinks.

"Oh yes, I'm sure it is and I'm sure you've said it all before to poor country girls."
She withdrew her fingers but not to fast at all.

He smiled
"How late do you work?"

"That's for me to know!" And she flounced off to another table.

Hedda was reaching in his pocket for the gilders to pay his tab when Anna brushed by him again.
"Eleven, if it's any of your business."

She smiled brightly and so did he.

 

[queen-mab]

OOC

You dog!! LOLOLOLOL

 

[queen-mab]

In which we start to know the heart of our heroine

Marguerite

She lifted her head and looked out the window.

The light was blue and cold; the homely buildings in the yard sketched with clarity beneath a large and gleaming moon. She could see past the tangle of orchards and a long way down the road. But of Franz Hedda there was no sign.

Her heart sank and her cheeks burned. Nothing in the village was open so late. Nothing except Hekenner's, and that would be closing very shortly. It was almost eleven.

Marguerite sat on the little camp stool by the window, and stared out into the night forlornly. Her eyes shifted from the cold blue landscape to the heated ochre and umber of the painting. Who had been the model for it? Whose body had the painter called to mind as he sketched, line by line and shadow by shadow, the memory of a girl?

Maybe a recent memory. The painter had been in the house now for nearly two weeks. Maybe it was that Anna from Hekenner's, whose frequent confessions were said to be the high point of the priest’s week. But no. Anna looked nothing like the girl in the painting. Her hair was blonde, after all. And her body -- like an overripe melon.

Marguerite took the pipe out of her mouth with disgust and laid it on the windowsill. But her fingers stayed in contact with it, caressing its smooth bowl absently until the polished wood grew cold.

She felt restless. She could not say why. She had not even liked the painter when she met him. He seemed so disreputable. His whole disheveled appearance was deplorable. But thinking of him fastening his eyes that missed nothing on Anna the Tramp really was too much.

It was hard for her to admit that she was jealous. It was not as though she had any reason to be. He had never really singled her out, after all. She had only thought that he had. Hans-Jakob was right. She was an ignorant girl.

A single tear rolled down her cheek, and she instantly wiped it away, ashamed.

There was so much she did not understand. So much that was hinted at but never fully exposed to the light. The disturbing feelings she got when she looked at the paintings or imagined Franz Hedda with Anna the Tramp. The unexplained way her body reacted, soft tissues swelling...hot moisture seeping down to wet her most private places. What did it all mean? Who would ever teach her?

Somehow she knew the solemn talking to she could expect from Hans-Jakob was not the answer she sought.


I feel like my heart is a bird in a cage. It wants to sing. But not alone.

 

[ariosto]

Sleeping beauty

Franz Hedda left Anna at the door of the flat she shared with another working girl, Wilhemina Coyens who was visiting relatives in Rotterdam. He had entertained a wild hope that she would invite him in and allow herself with a few protestations to be seduced, but instead she had kissed him prettily on the cheek and asked if he were 'really serious about painting her picture.'
"Most certainly Anna, such a beautiful girl MUST be immortalised. Perhaps we could do a bit of sketching tonight?" He tapped the leather bound pad he always carried.
She laughed merrily, brushed his lips with hers and shut the door, with a
"Tomorrow Franz, let's see about doing it tomorrow."

It could have been worse.
The walk back to the beach house was over a kilometer and he wished he'd brought his pipe to keep him company. He chased several dogs away and tried to hush them up. The town had been asleep for several hours now. As he crested the last rise before the ocean he saw the shadowed bulk of the house loom up before him and beyond it the sea, a near full moon silvered the water, but far out lightening flashed through a blanket of black clouds. He smelled the wind and knew that tomorrow would bring rain in all liklihood.

"Damn!" he cursed under his breath when he stumbled over a paving stone. Hans-Jakob was much to frugal to burn even one light in the courtyard after dark. He looked up guiltily but the big house was dark and there was no sign that his outburst had awakened anyone at all.

Margueritte stirred in her sleep, but did not wake. The soft old chair in the painters room, where she had sat
looking at the dark canvases had proved too deliciously comfortable. She fell asleep with his pipe once again in her hands.
At first Franz did not know where the soft breathing was coming from, her chair was partially hidden behind an easel.
He smiled when he saw her in the moonlight, her legs were thrown over one big sagging arm and her head rested on the other, her dark hair spread out all around her. The pipe was held in her cupped palms that lay upon her stomach. The thin shift she wore reached well beyond her knees but in the angled quicksilver light of the moon, he could easily see the contours of her body, etched in deep chiarascuro.
Such a small body, a small supple body, he had seen her run! He looked down at her graceful calves, slender ankles, the delicate arch of her feet. His gaze swept upwards along her thighs, and the shadowed depression between them. The shift pooled in around her navel and rose to tented points above her breasts. They seemed larger than they had in the plain dresses she worked in around the house.
He reached out and touched one point with his fingertip, she stirred and muttered something.

Franz you are a very bad man. She is little more than a child. Why let her arouse you so?"

He was aroused, there was a deep stirring in his loins. He withdrew his hand and touched himself...hard.
He was hard. This pretty girl, sleeping in the old arm chair was causing an erection..
He walked away and thought of calling Hans-Jakob. He thought of waking her and ordering her out. He thought of carrying her to his bed, lifting her shift and...

He did none of those. Instead he walked to the table and picked up his sketch book and charcoal.
He sat down beside her and began to draw.
The hours ticked away...Sometime before dawn he fell asleep on the floor by her feet and that's where she found him when she awoke.

 

[queen-mab]

In which Franz Hedda redeems himself in our heroine's eyes

Marguerite

She could not say what had awakened her. When she opened her eyes, the whole house was silent. She shifted her weight slightly, wondering why her bed was so uncomfortable this night. One small hand reached down to pull up the feather quilt. She was shivering.

There was no feather quilt.

Marguerite was wide awake in an instant, sitting bolt upright in the chair.

Oh no. Oh no!

The moonlight streamed in through the large window, and she saw, all around her, the canvases. Her heart began to pound in her chest, as her horrible suspicions were confirmed. She was still in Franz Hedda’s room.

Everything came back to her in a flood. She remembered how he had left the house, most certainly to spend the night with Anna the Tramp. (Once again, the thought sent a stab of jealousy through her.) Thank God the moon had yet to set. Almost certainly he would not be back until morning.

She leaped from the chair and suddenly froze.

He was there.

Stunned, her heart jumping wildly, she stared down at the man who was so inexplicably stretched out on the floor at her feet. Nothing made sense. What was he doing there? When had he come in? Why hadn't he awakened her? Why had he not gotten into his own bed at least? She shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts. The room was freezing cold, and she shivered, wrapping her arms tightly around herself.

She sniffed, sure that she would catch a whiff of the noxiously sweet perfume that Anna the Tramp liked to drench herself in. But no. Oddly there was nothing of the kind. If there was a smell of anything at all in the room (beyond turpentine) it was the freshness of the sea, clinging to the painter’s jacket.

Marguerite tried to calm herself. Every plank in the floor would creak, she knew, at the least pressure of her foot. It was like standing in the middle of a minefield.

But she could hardly stay where she was.

There was something on the floor beside him. Holding her breath, she leaned over him and picked it up. It was a pad of artist’s paper; the same leatherbound one he always seemed to be carrying around with him. And there was something drawn upon it, but in this bad light....

Marguerite edged cautiously towards the window, holding up the paper and trying to see the image sketched upon it by the light of the moon. She was almost afraid to look at it, certain that it would be some extravagantly nude portrait of Anna the Tramp in a suitably lascivious pose.

But it was not Anna the Tramp at all. He had drawn her, Marguerite. It was the portrait he had asked her for earlier, and which she had refused him. She should have been furious with him now for taking such liberties while she slept. But...

Marguerite furrowed her brows. This was not a picture like the others. This one was...why, it was something her own mother would have liked to see. She had not thought Franz Hedda was capable of drawing anything so innocent. All kinds of strange thoughts began to go through her mind. Maybe he really was not as wicked as Hans-Jakob thought. Maybe he had at least one decent bone in his body.

Her breathing slowed, and she found herself simply staring at the image on the paper. It had been very swiftly sketched in charcoal, but every familiar detail of her face was there; even the single dark freckle below her mouth. She tried to imagine him staring at her as she slept, and a high flush rose in her cheeks. She was acutely conscious of her nightdress, worn so thin by repeated washings that it was scarcely more substantial than gossamer. And the way she had been lying across the chair, in a posture of almost indecent abandon, her head cast back and one shoulder completely bare....

What if Hans-Jakob had awakened from his drunken stupour and come to investigate the light in the painter’s room? Marguerite crossed herself, thankful that he had not. Now if only a prayer would be sufficient to get her out of this room without waking Franz Hedda up. It was bad enough that he had seen her like this when she was asleep. If she had to endure his penetrating stare when she was awake, she felt sure she would never be able to endure it. As for tomorrow...well...maybe the beguines would take her in.

She could not say why she did what she did next. It was an impulse so swift that she did not even think. Bending down silently, she pressed her lips chastely against the painter’s cheek. It was in thanks for the delicacy of the portrait. For the way in which he had captured her so faithfully, but taken nothing from her that she could not have given with a pure and untroubled heart.

His long hair had captured the scent of the sea-wind, and fresh green leaves, and smoke. No trace of Anna the Tramp at all. Marguerite smiled, oddly comforted by this last.

She straightened up and took one last look at herself as seen through the painter’s eyes. She laid the sketchbook down on the worn old chair and took her first agonizingly careful step, willing the floor not to squeak.

And it was at this unfortunate moment that Franz Hedda’s pipe rolled from the sagging cushion and hit the planking with a resounding CRACK.

 

[queen-mab]

In which Anna the Tramp makes a more flesh and blood appearance

Anna the Tramp

Anna closed the door on Franz, laughing to herself softly. Men were as transparent as water. Pretty words masking ugly intentions. Well. Maybe not so ugly. But evil just the same.

She turned her key in the lock, and stood with her back against the door, smiling for a moment. At least Franz Hedda did not smell of sweat or farm animals. His shoes were not caked with mud. True, he was unkempt in an attractive sort of way, but she guessed that was because he was an artist. Outside the normal run of men. And he had made it very plain that he was interested in her.

Anna tossed her head. She knew a lot more about Franz Hedda than he would ever have suspected. Nothing of what happened at the villa by the sea was beyond her powers of knowing. After all, she had been born and raised there. She was Hans-Jakob’s daughter. Though of course her prudish old father would not acknowledge her now.

She had her spies. There was not a boy in the village, or working on the fishing boats, who did not scramble to do favours for Anna. She knew every scrap that gossip could glean about the painter, his habits, and his obvious want of female companionship.

After all, there was no female at the villa besides stupid Marguerite, and she was no woman at all. Anna snorted, calling to mind the sanctimonious little virgin with her shapeless grey dress and her damnable white stockings. Nineteen years old, and never so much as a kiss, Anna would wager. Well, with nothing better than that to look at in the villa, no one could blame Franz Hedda for sniffing after her, Anna, like a hungry dog.

Anna walked to the wooden table in the corner and took a small, paper-wrapped parcel from her bag. It was greasy, and she licked her lips. Working at the only tavern in town had its benefits. An endless string of men, and access to all the leftover food she could persuade the cook (by various means) to give her. Tonight it was several slices cut from a baked ham. Her mouth watered at the very thought. Too bad Mina was not at home. They could have had a regular feast.

Just then she heard a door open and close, and looked up to see Mina, eyes somewhat pink from sleep, standing there in an old wrapper of Oriental cotton, patterned with orchids and birds.

“Wilhelmina Magdalena, you goose! Why didn’t you come out when I first got home? There was a man I wanted you to see.”

The girl in the doorway smiled sleepily and came forward to kiss Anna on both cheeks in greeting; then slowly and passionately on the mouth for other reasons.

“How could I come out dressed like this? I heard his voice. He wanted to paint you.”

Mina was taller than Anna was, but thinner and less womanly in form. Her breasts were small and high, perfect handfuls. Anna had her hands full of them now. For long moments they kissed, Mina sighing as Anna backed her against the wall.

“I am...so glad...you came back early,” Anna whispered, breathless now, her hands pushing the flowered cotton from Mina’s pale shoulders. “That painter stirred me up something terrible.” Mina was naked now, her one and only garment pooled in a crumpled heap at her feet. Anna kissed her again, and then lowered her head to take one of Mina’s stiffening pink nipples into her mouth.

Mina’s hair was the reddish gold that hovers at the edges of a flame. Unbound, it sprang up around her small face like masses and trailing garlands of some strange flower, so wild that no combs or pins could ever hold it for long. If Anna was sunshine, then Mina was the fecund earth itself. Her skin breathed a cool, mossy scent; kissing her was like drinking water from a mountain stream. Her body was dusted with constellations of gold freckles. Her skin was so translucent that her veins could be seen like pale blue rivers, running through a white velvet land. Anna’s hands lost themselves on the warm contours of that secret country. It was a country whose every path and slope and rivulet she knew intimately; one whose exploration had been a work of years.

“The whole night,” Mina whispered, as Anna’s soft lips suckled, and her breath was like that of a runner, ascending a long slope, “The whole night as you carried trays and counted coins, your thighs were wet. You were thinking of the painter’s cock, swelling for you beneath the pitted wood of his table. Naughty thing...I wonder you did not rub your hand against it when he stood with you here, and begged you in his pretty language to let him split you open on the bed.”

Mina broke the kiss, laughing at her friend; though her eyes were gleaming in a way that showed she also had been hungry for this reunion. She slipped one long, smooth thigh between Anna’s legs and started to unbutton her friend’s blouse, grinning at the long sigh that came from the blonde girl’s lips...and the very obvious weakening of her knees as she pressed herself forward against Mina’s mound.

“You should have invited him in, Anna. Don’t you wish that you had?”

Anna’s teeth closed on Mina’s nipple, and wetness began to flow like a river over Mina’s thigh.

“Tonight,” Anna gasped, “it is you who will split me open.”

“And we will both,” whispered Mina, “die of love...many times.”

 

[ariosto]

In which something 'dawns' on Marguerite

"What!..."
He lept up like he'd been shot. Marguerite would have bolted for the door but there was no time. She froze, wondering if he could somehow remember her kiss on his cheek.

Franz seemed dazed, not yet fully awake.

She started to babble,
"I was looking for my broom. I left it here...I... I saw your filthy pipe and I was going to throw it...clean it up for you. Hans-Jajob says it stinks...it'll cause the house to reek...the owners will smell It!
I sat down and fell asleep...I..."

He held up his hand to silence the torrent of words that he'd only half heard.

"Please Marguerite...stop. I'm not awake...I need some coffee...
My Lord ! look out there, it's not even daylight yet!"
Indeed the sun still lay a score of minutes below the eastern horizon but the air was fresh with the new day's beginnings and a wind set by the cool sea was blowing at the draperies around the windows.

"Not awake!...Oh no I guess not. Out all night...out at Hennekers getting drunk...being with...with...
Anna the slut!" The last words were uttered almost with rage.

"Anna the slut?...Oh you mean Anna the waitress at..."
Franz had risen to his feet and seemed to tower over her. Suddenly her irrational anger melted away.

"That's what Old Hans calls her. He says she is a damned woman."

"I know many damned women."
The painter laughed and crossed to the window . He yawned and stretched. She saw his shirt pull across the muscles of his broad shoulders. Her heart skipped.

"It's going to rain. A proper blow is coming up."

"It's very nice."

Hedda turned back into the room.
"What the rain?...the storm? Do you love storms as well as I Marguerite?"

"Unh..NO." she was flustered,
"No not rain...I mean it's fine...rain.
I meant the...the picture. Your drawing."
Her voice dropped and she stared at the sketchbook on the floor.

"Oh...OH! ...You saw it then?...Was it good? Did you like it really?"
Suddenly he seemed more like a little boy then the tall frightening stranger who painted sinful pictures.

Franz bent to retreive the pad and thumbed through it till he found the sketch. He held it up and compared it to the girl.
"Yes...yes it's pretty good. But the light, you know only moonlight...hard to work by.
You are very beautiful when you sleep."

Marguerite's face suddenly flushed and her cheeks tingled, she realised she'd been standing in front of him quite unabashed...in her night shift! ...and the cool wind was blowing against it...and her breasts...her nipples!
Her arm shot up across her chest...
"I...I hear Hans-Jakob downstairs!...I have to go!"
She turned on her bare foot and hurried out the door.

"Wait...Wait! I need you little one. I want your face on my new painting....PLEASE!"

But all he heard were her footsteps as she raced down the stairs and away.

 

[queen-mab]

In which Marguerite discovers she is lost

Marguerite

It occured to Marguerite, as she raced down the hall, that nothing she had said to Franz Hedda made the slightest bit of sense. Looking for my broom? In the wee hours of the night? She felt like strangling herself for coming up with such a ludicrous excuse. Thank God the painter had only been half awake. If he had been his usual sharp-sighted and teasing self, she did not doubt that she would have had to endure a very long ordeal of questioning and laughter. She sailed into her room and closed the door behind her, her thoughts all suddenly tumbling towards one glorious fact.

He had not been with Anna the Tramp! He hadn’t been! He had been in his room, drawing her, Marguerite!

She did not really want to examine too closely why exactly that made her so happy. But it did. And like a silly little fool, she held up the skirts of her nightdress in her hands and twirled around in circles, her head thrown back and gurgles of laughter pouring from her little mouth that was more like a rosebud than anything else.

Every pore of her body seemed to be tingling with some strange electricity. She could not explain the tumult of her heart, or the dizzying racing of her pulse. The way birds felt in the morning when they first saw the sun. That was how she felt. Although she doubted that the sun made the sparrows blush the way she was blushing now.

She knelt upon her narrow white bed and leaned her elbows on the windowsill. As she did so, the tip of her breast brushed against the wooden frame, and without knowing why, she uttered a little moan.

In the pit of her belly something was knotted and squirming. She did not think she was ill. It felt too good for that. But her restlessness was beyond explanation. She would never be able to sleep. She kept looking over her shoulder at the door, as though willing it to open and reveal the disheveled painter standing there. She wanted to be near him again. She wanted him to look at her, and she wanted to touch him. She wanted to kneel down on the floor at his feet, and fill his hands with kisses. How on earth could such a thing have happened to her? What did it mean?

She closed her eyes and pressed closer to the windowsill, feeling again the aching tenderness in her nipples as they brushed against the wood; and the strange, hot, surging wonder that had gathered at the apex of her thighs.

Marguerite knew nothing. And at the same time, she knew everything. It was imprinted in her blood as it was imprinted in the blood of every living female thing. She could not have given it words, but on some level she was conscious that she and Anna the Tramp were not so very different from each other. Not at their core.

Such knowledge, while disturbing in the extreme, was also heady and exciting. Marguerite lay back amongst her pillows and lifted the hem of her nightdress to her waist. Her fingers drifted upwards over her thighs, feeling the smooth warmth of the skin there...tracing over the inner softness...eyes closed...imagining they were Franz Hedda’s hands.

Would he touch her like this if she asked him to?

She arched her back and slid her heels over the cool white linen sheets until her cleft was open like a flower. Something inside of her tightened. One hand slid up over her belly and tentatively touched a nipple. It was hard and distended, a perfect little berry. As her fingers continued to caress it gently, her lips parted in a long sigh, and the quivering little opening between her thighs expelled a rush of moisture like a long, sweet surge of ocean tide.

Suddenly she was cold and frightened and ashamed. She knew there was more. She knew that she could find it if she did not stop. And yet....

She curled up in a ball and turned on her side, hiding her face in her hands.

I am more wicked than anyone in the world.

It was the very heart of the night. Hours and hours of darkness yet remained. Marguerite listened for a step in the hall until she was sure it would never come.

 

[ariosto]

In which Marguerite gets an anatomy lesson...

The lamp cast a soft yellow light on the picture of the young girl whose face he was not happy with.
She had a virginal body, very much like Marguerite's, at least in so far as he could tell. He looked down at the sketches he'd made, especially the one he hadn't shown her. He had to guess a good bit at the shape of her breasts, the size of her nipples and the dark area around them but he was satisfied that he'd come close. Franz looked from one to another and back again. He wondered if Marguerite played with herself as this girl was doing, pulling at her tender buds this way. He wondered if her face would look as the girl's in the painting did...the face, he had to change it.

upstairs in her room the little maid was doing precisely what the painter was imagining and the expression on her face was...
'Beautiful, he thought, Marguerite is just lovely. I must have her as my model. I must.'

He turned from the pictures, surprised to find himself erect and with a warm yearning ache spreading upwards from his groin.
He thought of a bath to calm himself , but realised the hot water heater had been turned off last night, another of Hans-Jakobs economy measures, and would not come back on until the old retainer rose at his customary 4:30 (!) and then it would take time to warm up. Franz looked at his watch. Hot water was still four or five hours away.

He lay down on the narrow cot not bothering to turn out the light. The night was warm and humid and he'd stripped off everthing. It didn't help.

He looked at his first painting. The woman was lush and sensuous, her breasts large and full. He imagined Anna was like that...
He reached down and idly began to stroke himself as he thought of the terribly sexy bar maid.
He knew that she was attracted to him and hoped that before long he would be caressing her and squeezing her just as the man in his painting was doing. He reached into his shorts and gripped his thickening cock in his hand, slowly stroking it...

Marguerite sat on her haunches silent as a mouse, peering in through the big key hole at Franz on his bed. Her own innocent frustration had left her restless and unable to sleep. She'd slipped downstairs thinking she might get some fresh milk and a sweet bun from the larder but stopped when she saw light still spilling from beneath his door. Curiosity had done the rest. She thought he looked like a bronzed god in the golden light and in her immature imagination. She watched mesmerized as he reached into his shorts and began...began to touch himself!
Marguerite felt the same twisting knot in her belly that she had felt earlier. Her fingers went to her nipples which were already stiff with ...desire?
NO! surely not, not with...him. It was just..****, this spying on Franz Hedda.

As his visions grew more fevered, the painter sat up and slid off his underwear. He sat on the side of his cot with his legs spread wide and stroked himself to full erection. His long fingers squeezed and played with his curving staff and he imagined himself between Anna's soft thighs, pressing against the lips of her sex...

When he took IT out, Marguerite thought of bolting back upstairs but she was glued to the spot, transfixed by what she saw. She had never seen a grown mans penis before. Her father had been a very modest person . She had seen her brothers when they were very young and once Piet Dinker had exposed himself to her at a picnic last year but she had covered her eyes and run away.
But this was...was unbeleivable. She could see everything. His legs were opened towards her and she gazed in fascination at the entire length of him from his round pouch at the bottom all the way up to the wide purpled tip.
Up and down, up and down, went the painters hands. Marguerite began to breath very fast and her fingers slid under her nightdress to touch the bud and cleft that had given her such unexpectedly delicious feelings an hour ago.

Franz could not concentrate on his imaginary rutting with the sumptuous Anna. His eyes kept straying to the second painting, the young girl, discovering herself . He looked at the sketch he'd made of Marguerite and kept transposing them, Wondering if the young woman touched herself this way too.
The idea excited him tremendously. He wanted to be there watching her as she played those sensual games of exploration...he wanted...
His strokes became faster, shuddering waves of itching, aching need, consumed him, he shut his eyes and lay his broad shoulders back against the wall.
Then he heard a distinct intake of breath and a soft moan come from the hallway outside his door.

 

[queen-mab]

***

 

[ariosto]

In which Marguerite finds a safe harbor

He held her tight in his arms while she continued to shudder in a frenzy compounded of sexual release, fear of Hans-Jakob and the unthinkable fact that the painter had discovered her.
Her breath was fast and shallow, her young body was crushed against his naked skin. Her slender legs compressed his thigh between them, and she seemed powerless to stop the fevered movements of her innocent sex against him. Her eyes were full of shock and seemed to be pleading.

"Shhhhhhhh. Marguerite, we musn't let him see us together, eh.
we'll both be out of work."
He chuckled quietly but made no move to release her. His hands and arms became a refuge where her heart could stop hammering it's way out of her chest, where the all consuming yearning between her legs could slowly ease away. His body was hard and strong and no one had ever held her this way before...

Franz had a fluttering bird in his hands, he tried, not very succesfully to distance himself from the bizarre situation but her body was warm and firm, her breasts were tight against him, her thigh was pressed against his leg and his still rampant erection was standing against her belly making any distancing very problematical.
She must feel it, he thought.

She did. Her eyes opened wide as it finally dawned on her where she was, the state she was in and that Franz Hedda's penis, which she had looked on with such fascination a few moments ago, was now pressing and pulsing against her skin.

She lept back like a scalded cat! But that didn't help. Now she could see his total nakedness with that huge...'thing' at it's center.
She spun around and faced the wall, but the lamplight cast his shadow on it... a shadow from which the 'thing' seemed to protrude in grotesque size.

She sat heavily on the floor and closed her eyes. Her face was burning and big crocodile tears began to roll down her cheeks.
Franz watched her assume a fetal postion and begin rocking back and forth on her haunches.

This will never do he thought.
Crossing over to the table he poured two glasses of red wine and came back to the girl. he wasn't sure how to approach her and finally just sat down crosslegged before her.

"Here" He said tapping her arm with the glass.
"Marguerite, please drink this, it's not the end of the world."

"OH yes!...she moaned,
"YESYESYESYES...YES! I'll go to Hell now for sure!"
Hedda smiled. "Well then if your damned anyway a drink with a naked man shouldn't hurt, should it?"

"Naked!"
She looked up and immediately buried her head in her arms again.
"You...you go get some clothes on ...right now!"

"Hmmmmm...well I think not. It's my room and it's very hot.
Besides you may as well be naked with what you're wearing."
Marguerite then realized she was clad only in the flimsiest light shift she had, it was worn thin and sheer. Not only were her nipples clearly defined but the dark disk around them and the shadowy place between her legs were all clear to see.
"Oh No...oh... my god!"

"Marguerite please drink this."
He again offered the wine. This time though still crimson faced she took it and drank it all in one swallow.
It burned all the way down, the heat had a calming effect.

"You saw me...." She began.
"And you saw me." He finished.

"yes..."
She held out her glass for another and Franz poured half of his own into it.

"Marguerite you know what I think?"
She looked at him and shook her head.

"I think we should be terribly wicked and both finish what we started."

Reaching forward Franz began to softly stroke the smooth skin of her thigh.

 

[queen-mab]

***

 

[ariosto]

Her lips were not as full and sensuous as Anna's, they seemed however at that moment to be the most erotic things Franz had ever laid eyes on. Small soft crescents of rosey flesh glistening with his warm secretions. He watched her pale pink tongue dart from between them to lap his moisture from her fingers.
He had to kiss them...he had too.

The painter leaned forward and brushed Margot's cheek. She closed her eyes and her hands strayed up to his naked chest tracing the rise and fall of taught muscles. His lips traveled to hers and began a butterfly exploration of their shapes, their contours, their textures...

"Open your lips for me Marguerite", he whispered and she did so without question.
She felt his tongue slip into her mouth and reacted by sliding her hands to his cock once again.
It took a moment to realize that a resonse in kind was something he would welcome and when she did find his mouth he began to softly suck her in, trying it seemed to swallow her.

It was a delicious game they played with that first kiss. It engendered a more assured and stronger caress from Margot and a further tightening and hardening of Franz under her eager hands.
His own hand was sliding lightly up the girl's creamy thigh and came to rest against the swell of her gently mounded sex. When he laid his finger on the hood of her tiny pearl, she gave a start and drew back. He moved his finger tip in small ovals over the sheltered bead, wanting to coax it out...and succeeding.

"What are you doing to me." she spoke softly, her hands now still, one around his neck, the other grasping his erection.

"The same that you are doing to me little one. I move my fingers on you like this..."
He began to rub, to tease, to lightly pinch . Margot shut her eyes and moaned softly.
"...Like this. And it does the same for you that your hand is doing for me."

His strong fingers closed over hers and started them moving again, long slow strokes that carried her from the twisting hair at the thick base, right up to and over the weeping purpled glans.
"Don't stop." he said,
"Don't stop."

His fingers had left her clitoris now and she echoed inside with the aching reverberations they had caused. She could feel the rough pads of his fingertips now, sliding the length of the soft pink lips nestled within the cleft of her mons.
She tried to push forward, to raise up.

Franz said, "Wait."
She watched him stand and in the shadowed light he seemed a giant.
He took the pillows from his cot and laid them on the floor behind her. He started to raise her shift over her head, but she grasped it and crossed her arms over her chest, holding it chastly there.
Franz grinned at her.

"Modest still, are you?...Maybe I should get dressed too then."
He made as if to rise again, but she grabbed his arm tightly and tugged him against her.
"No."
she said, kissing him full on the lips.

Together they fell back onto the pillows. Margot's knees were bent and her legs were opened. Franz reached between them and cupped her entire mound within one hot hand.

Two floors down, answering an internal clock which had not failed in 40 years, Hans-Jakob opened groggy eyes and felt the pillow beside him for his own Marguerite, dead these last twelve years.