Work Text:
Michaela appraised the objects in front of her. They were:
1) A jug, brown, glazed, unadorned, containing within
2) Daisies, petals slightly wilting, beneath which
3) A stick, somewhat damp, bark intact, engulfed in green-white oak moss.
All had been chosen for their simplicity; for the imagined ease with which the artist could translate them into oil upon canvas. Not easy enough: the artist looked upon her work, and despaired.
“Are you finding creation sufficiently diverting, love?”
Michaela felt herself cringe at the sound of Fran’s voice behind her, and reflexively moved to block her view.
”I fear I don’t quite have the knack.”
It had been in a flurry of excitement that Michaela had sent servants out to purchase necessary supplies. Inspiration had struck during a visit to London, when the two had attended an exhibition of Benedict’s work. Michaela had found herself drawn to a painting of ship, moments from capsizing. How the waves had roared! How the crew had raced! She could almost hear the dreadful creak of the mast, the shouts, the crash. Even as she’d pitied them, there’d been something so thrilling in the danger of it all. Wasn’t it a wonder that something so still could contain so much movement?
“But we all have to start somewhere.”
As kind a word as could have been truthfully uttered. Michaela looked into Francesca’s wide chestnut eyes, and felt compelled to explain herself.
“The rub, well one of the rubs, is that I seem to be unable to apply myself. I start by trying to capture this detail exactly, and then I find myself in the next moment, moving the brush thoughtlessly. Wishing the whole thing over just as I’ve begun. I would that I could find painting as compelling as you find your piano.”
“Hmmm,” Francesca looked over the assembled subjects “perhaps you could paint something else….what better captures your attention?”
”Horses, rapiers, adventures, peril…. but I suppose what’s so exciting about them is that they’re all in motion, and I don’t think I’m quite at the level to paint something moving yet… but I find it hard to give focus to anything still.”
“How about when I lie still?” Francesca had moved quite close now, and was whispering into Michaela’s ear. “You apply yourself very well then.”
A smile spread across Michaela’s face. She felt all over warm suddenly, and she twisted round to catch Fran’s charming lips in her own. The kiss thrilled her, tingling her chest, and when she heard the other woman moan, she deepened it, tongues touching, intimate.
When they broke apart, Michaela caressed Fran’s face. “Whatever semblance of your likeness I managed, would surely be an insult.”
Fran wiggled against her “There’s sometimes a backwards pleasure in your insults.”
Ah. So that was the game.
“And in yours…” she whispered, kissing her ear, making her shudder “So you would that I make you my model?” She took her waist between her hands. “Positioned you as I please… bid you be still….”
“Yes…”
She drew her to the table, pushing aside the jugged flowers and mossy stick, and lay her over it, applying a little pressure, as though she were holding her down. Francesca felt cool air as her skirts were lifted, and gasped as she felt Michaela’s tongue move between her legs. She closed her eyes, losing herself in the sensation, in the darkness.
A day later, in the library: see the girls. Michaela stands in front of an easel, paintbrush balanced lightly in her hand. A fire burning in the hearth casts a golden glow over her skin, the flickering flames reflecting in her dress like the sunlight on gently rippling waters. Her black hair falls in perfect helixes around her sweet, smiling, well-formed face, and her gaze remains intent on the vision in front of her. By the fire, Francesca’s thin, graceful arms pull a heavy, brocaded red fabric around herself in an ineffectively modest gesture: Venus just out the bath. Though unlike in the sculptures of old, this Venus doesn’t hide her face, but instead meets her artist’s gaze.
Not long ago, Francesca would have found the idea of being so exposed unbearable. But as Michaela’s eyes swept over her, she couldn’t help but feel that it was just so right and natural to be seen by her this way. Right and natural as in proper, that is, in fact the positioning was neither, already causing her discomfort.
From where Michaela was standing, a nearly naked wife was proving an excellent subject. How fascinating the details of her soft breasts, long balletic legs, and those doe eyes that stared deep into hers.
And how inferior the figure on the canvas! A child’s impression of a goddess; she’d been right to assume it would be an insult. The arms were too short, her swanlike neck was rendered cartoonish, and, the worst crime of all, those beloved breasts were captured without any of their dimension or softness.
It was shaming, but as she looked up, she caught the smile on Fran’s face, and matched it. What a gift that Fran had given, posing for her, revealing her loveliness, enduring the strain. And there was some strain. Michaela felt a twisted pleasure as she watched Fran’s leg wobbling briefly, before being straightened out, perfected, stilled.
“You’re doing so well for me, my heart.” She cooed.
“Thank you.” Fran replied, quietly. She wanted to be the ideal muse for Michaela, keep those warm eyes fixed on her, that smile on her lips. So she ignored the soreness in her thighs and arms.
Of course Fran would be the only object that became more and more interesting to look at as time trickled on. Michaela shaded those ribs that she’d stroked along countless times; followed the line of those breasts that she had caressed, kissed, and whipped; traced the arms that pulled her closer. Oh how her hair tumbled down the length of her lovely neck, and came to pool at her perfect collarbones!
“Hold your head back a little bit, love, I’d like to draw your neck.” Michaela requested, brightly. “A little more than that… that’s right… now pull the fabric a bit higher…”
Fran flushed, but obeyed, wincing. She knew the game Michaela was playing, it was written all over her face. If she wanted her to hurt; Fran would hurt. It was intoxicating, those pretty eyes on her, drinking in her suffering.
“Aren’t you good?”
Pleasing and embarrassing in equal measure. Praise always implies a height from which one can fall. How long could she sustain this?
Wasn’t it a delight to have someone willingly suffer for you? Those eyes, so eager to please, but so baleful. Michaela endeavoured in vain to capture the expression. Poor Francesca! Always trying so hard to be perfect, meet the bar that was set, endure whatever she thought she ought. Wasn’t she having such a hard time of it?
Not hard enough.
”Darling, if you could just cross your legs a little, shift your weight to your left foot a bit… that’s it, you’re doing so well for me love.”
Trembling arms weighed down, hips hurting, legs sore…. then, ever so quietly…
“ow….”
See the girls, in the library. Both are near to panting, though Michaela has undergone no obvious exertion. Michaela’s brush has paused on it’s canvas. Francesca is really starting to shake, her hand slips, and the fabric falls heavily to the ground revealing dark hair, and a lovely quim beneath. A moment passes between them, as Michaela drinks in the sight.
”I worry darling, about you falling from that height. Would you kneel down for me?”
“Of course love.” Francesca followed the fabric down, sliding to her knees. She waited expectantly as Michaela stepped away from the easel, and felt some disappointment as she watched her fetch charcoal and paper from the side table.
“Stretch out your legs for me a little.” Michaela commanded, Francesca obliged, squirming inside.
”Good girl, now lift a little off your legs, so that your buttocks aren’t resting on your heels.” Francesca obeyed, realising immediately the effort this pose would take to sustain.
Michaela got to work quickly, knowing Francesca would be unable to maintain that positioned for long. Charcoal was somewhat easier than paint, and she made some progress in capturing Fran’s shape, and the light and shadow that played on her skin. But when she got to the details, to her wet pink cunt trembling between her exhausted thighs, she wished she were still using the canvas, just so she could give her a lick of paint.
”Oh…. Oh… please Michaela, I don’t think I can hold on…. Oh!”
Fran collapsed back to the ground, still trembling, the muscles at her stomach twitching with exertion. Michaela dropped the charcoal, picked up a spare paintbrush (!) and came over to her.
”What are you doing?”
”Giving you your licks”
She pushed Francesca until she was lying flat on the ground, and brought the wooden end down across Fran’s lips.
”Oh! I’m sorry!”
But there was no need to be sorry, she realised, catching the wicked grin on Michaela’s lips. She’d done just as she wanted.
Michaela painted her pink lips red, delighting in how her stomach twitched in anticipation every time she lifted the brush. When Fran tried to close her thighs to end her torment, Michaela simply opened them again, there being little resistance Fran could muster now, exhausted and vulnerable to villains and bullies. She wasn’t hearing their signal word to stop, and Francesca’s twisting and gasping were familiar indicators of pleasured pain. The wood was coming up wet, slapping back with a squelch.
It was only when Fran’s cries raised to yelps and sobs that she stopped. Michaela twisted the brush around in her hand, and began gently stroking the fibres over her soreness.
Settling into the feeling, Fran took a steadying breath. She felt the brush hairs gently caress her lips, and then climb up, closer and closer, until they were circling around her clit. Nearly touching, but not quite: cruel torture.
”Please….”
”Not yet.”
Fran lifted her hips and ground herself against the brush fibres, and was immediately rewarded with a sharp smack.
This was Michaela’s favourite part, when Fran was so overwhelmed that she forgot to be good, forgot everything but her own pleasure, let herself give in to selfishness. She drew Fran in, hooking her legs over her shoulders, and brought her tongue to her clit.
Pure bliss. Fran thought of Michaela’s eyes on her as she’d suffered, her smile as she’d squealed, imagined her satisfaction as her cunt deepened in colour. A sudden bizarre thought of Michaela comparing the colour of her beaten mound against paint samples, and she found herself contracting, gasping, shuddering against Michaela’s face.
Michaela drew back, watching Fran collapse bonelessly on the floor, utterly spent. Perhaps she ought to let her sleep now, after all, she had been through a lot.
But the heat between her thighs begged otherwise, so she lay down and drew Fran under her skirts. She dreamt of how Fran had struggled to keep herself upright, the cries and struggles as she’d beaten her. The idea of displaying Fran as a model, before a class, and beating her cunt whenever she began to wobble struck her, and she climaxed, gasping into the night.
The fire was now dwindling in the hearth, and Francesca emerged, wrapping her arms around Michaela’s waist. Michaela reached out, and grabbed the brocaded throw, drawing it over her naked lover.
“You know I’ll have to get you back, right?” Fran warned.
Michaela smiled, letting out her breath in a long exhale. ”Ha! I look forward to it.”
At the feeling of Fran shifting beneath the sheet, Michaela instinctively tightened her arms around her.
”Don’t go anywhere!” She ordered.
”It’s alright” Fran reassured, “I’ll stay where you can see me.”