It's not my usual sort of story, which is probably why it was so much fun to write. Inspired by Morning, by Rodin. I'm no earthly good with links but you can find her at:

http://nga.gov/cgi-bin/pimage?1014+0+0

Alternatively, she's in the National Gallery of Art in DC...worth a visit for oh so many reasons.

And if I've put this in the wrong place....I do appologise. Shift it where it should've been.

G

“Don’t stare into the sun,” my mother told me. I didn’t believe her, it was so far away…how could it hurt me? But now, just the light through the window, shining into my eyes, dazzles me. I can’t see through it, or past it, I understand suddenly that while the sun is distant, its light is here, a strong and present force. Blinding, painful in a way that require no sensation. I close my eyes, and breath slowly, knowing that I mustn’t move my head. Nor my arms, nor any part of me. I must hold still as stone, becoming stone in truth. The light is to be allowed to play over my naked flesh, as are the eyes of the man who has undertaken my conversion. No others, he’d promised me. Only he would see me kneeling, bare and exposed in this room; and I’d felt relief when he’d told me that. I was no blushing virgin; men had looked on me before. But not like this. Stretched and turned, I was more than naked. I was displayed. I was glad it would only be him who saw me thus. The thousands of eyes that would feast on the skin of my marble sister-self seemed no more real to me than the sun did all those years ago.

“Head up,” I hear, in a cool, dispassionate voice. I pull back into the now too familiar angles, the sun again directly in my eyes. I see sparkles through my eyelids, I breathe slowly, accepting the sun into me, I mustn’t squint. He sees everything. My face must be smooth, my expression serene. I don’t see the leaves on the trees outside, nor the shadows that they cast…. I feel them on my skin. My stomach and breasts are caressed by a wind that never enters the room; my nipples harden at the chill when they loose the sun. I kneel on cushions on the floor, my back arched and turned just so, my arms raised, my hands behind my neck, my hair loose and trailing down my spine. I may rest my cheek on my forearm; he says my neck is perfect when I do. He has a temper, I was told. He asks for the impossible, for the unreasonable, for perfection. But he pays well, he pays up front. And, I knew in some back corner of my brain, he would make me immortal. I would be his not for an hour or a night, but for all time.

I hear the rustle of the curtains as he pulls them closed, then feel his hand on my elbow, pulling it further away from my face. I feel ashamed; I’d blocked the light again. I practice my breathing again, determined not to move. I feel my chest rise and fall with the air in my lungs; I feel my breasts shift ever so slightly with the motion. As I relax, I watch the sculptor work. Not in stone, I’ll be gone long before the marble that will become my reflection arrives. He’s working on a stage between, a caterpillar that will hold my image while the butterfly is made. It’s a third me, one only he and I will ever see. This third self is truculent, difficult. Where he barely touches my willing flesh, using words to bend and turn me, he handles my clay self with force. His hands are strong. Her he touches, pushing and pinching. Prodding her, fondling her. Forcing her, forming limbs into my image. His thumb digs into her creases and folds. His palms push her breasts, rounding them, shaping them. His fingers furrow her sides, showing the muscles across her ribs and the bones of her hips. He twists her cruelly, makes her into the form of his desire. And then, only then, is my sister rewarded. His hands grow gentle, he smoothes her skin. His hands glide over her curves, gently correcting her imperfections. He works her nipples between thumb and fingers until they are perfect points. My own grow hard, watching him handle my twin. I feel them aching but can do nothing to hide them or heal them. My arms must stay raised; my chest must stay bared to his view. I feel he’s cruel to lavish attention on her cold body, to endow her with perfection, to let her meet his needs…and to leave me kneeling here. I want his hands to smooth out my corners, to shape me, make me clean and cool and beautiful.

His gaze returns to me, his eyes wander over my body. He picks up a cloak and steps toward me, draping it around my shoulders. But I don’t move…not until he tells me to relax, to take a break. Only then do I lower my arms, pulling the cloak around myself. He goes to the kitchen, and brings me water. Then he throws a damp cloth over my clay sister, he will not work on her without me posing in front of him. We sit separately in silence. I wince at the pain in my limbs, my thighs are hard, almost cramping now that the tension has gone out of them. My arms are leaden. I’ve held the pose longer than he intended this time. He isn’t uncaring, he gets lost in his work. And I hadn’t complained. He gazes out one of the side windows, giving me time to recover, possibly offering me an odd sort of privacy as I do. I put down my glass and stretch my back. My breasts press against the rough wool of the cloak, scraping my them against the fabric. I breathe deeply, pulling the cloak tightly around myself, feeling it press against me, then I stop. It’s not right, it’s not what I want, it’s not enough. I finish stretching beneath the cloak, then drop it in the corner. “I’m ready,” I murmur as I kneel into my cushions, raising my arms, pulling my hair back off my shoulders. He’s surprised; models, I’m told, can ask for more money if they have to return for extra days. But he steps back to the table without a word and removes the cloth. But I’m not right. I know it’s not perfect. My shoulders should be straight across; I’m letting one sag. I’m doing it on purpose, but I don’t know why. I shouldn’t, I know better. He told me it was crucial to keep them straight…that the curve of my spine would be defined by how I held them. He frowns at me, and I look away. He has a temper, they say. “Lift your right arm,” he says, still patient. And I do, not looking up. “Too far,” he says, slightly aggravated now. It’s my third day, I’ve always gotten it right before. I lower my arm, but not enough. I hear him come towards me, the floor creaking beneath his steps. He pushes firmly down on my shoulder, putting me where he wants me. My breath catches as he moves me, then stops altogether as he lays his other hand against my ribs to correct the twist of my body. This is what I wanted…to be molded, to be moved. But it’s not what I’m here for. The form on the table is his focus, not me. I please him best by being still.

So still I am. Achingly, agonizingly still. Watching him shape her hips, smooth the curve of her ass, stroke her throat. I’m still as my skin tingles and my breasts ache. I’m frozen, watching his fingers stroke her thighs, defining the grove between them, watching her legs seem to part for him. I feel myself melt as he touches the reflection of my sex, leaving the clay there rough and textured, contrasting with her smooth belly. He glances back up at me and sees me watching him. He watches me as his hands glide over the figure on the table. My stomach muscles tighten as his hands move over her sides. My thighs clench as he cups her ass. He brings his hands up to her throat and shoulders, running across them, and I start breathing just a bit harder. He brings his palms forward to stroke her breasts and I finally have to close my eyes before the whimper caught in my throat escapes. I hear the floorboards creak again, and then nothing for a long moment. Then his voice, deeper, no longer cold or distant. “Hold still,” he says as he kneels before me, “hold perfectly still.” His fingers, cold from the clay, stroke my belly, and I want to laugh and cry all at once. He circles my waist with those big, strong hands, then pushes his palms down over my hips. His hands turn and come up the fronts of my thighs, then back down the sides of my legs. I want to gasp, to moan, to thrust my hips forward, to grab his hand and bury it between my legs, but I hold myself silent and motionless. I am his to mold…more than anything else.

His hands explore my body, every inch of posed and displayed flesh. A stifled cry escapes me as his fingers find my nipple. He brings a finger up to shush me, laying it across my lips as he pinches me hard. It hurts, oh god it hurts, but the pain gets mixed up in the pleasure, inflating it, pushing it out through my entire body. “Be still,” he repeats, and starts rolling my other nipple through his fingers…just as he did with my clay double earlier…making it harder, forming it to the shape he desires. My body shivers uncontrollably under his touch, and he tightens his grip on my breast, almost enough to hurt. He lowers his head to me, takes that flesh he’s made diamond hard between his teeth, making it harder yet. He suckles at me, every muscle in my body clenching in response; his hands cup my ass, then grab at me as, no longer content with teasing my tips, he opens his mouth to consume as much of my breast as he can. All the while, I kneel silently before him, arms rigidly over my head….vulnerable, available, barely capable of absorbing the sensations he’s wringing out of my body. This body. The one that holds my mind, the one that craves and needs. Fingers probe behind me, tunnelling into the cleft of my ass. I want to relax, to spread my legs and let those fingers find whatever they’re seeking, but somehow he senses my desire and he pulls away from me, reminding me to hold still. Not to move. He circles behind me, one hand caressing my neck, the other still exploring, still probing, still stroking. I want to fall forward, present myself to him on hands and knees, but I hold still. He can’t see my face, so he can’t see me biting my lip as he tells me how beautiful I am. How the first time he saw me he couldn’t take his eyes off my perfect breasts. How he wants to take me, invade me, know me inside and out. He feels a wetness on his fingers, and is surprised at my tears. This is all I’ve wanted, and more. Overwhelmed, overjoyed, and denied any other method of expression, how could I not cry? “You don’t want me to stop, do you. Say so and I will. One word,” he grabs my breast, “and I’ll stop. Any word,” his fingers slip from behind into my wetness, probe into me suddenly, penetrating, shaping my cunt around themselves. “I’ll stop if you speak. But you don’t want me to stop. I can feel it. You’ll be good, you won’t say a word.” I bite my lips together, lest any sound escape me…his fingers press against my stomach as his hand drops over my mound and into my slit, holding me front and back, his chin resting against my neck, his words falling into my ear.

When he withdraws his fingers, I almost collapse. The tension in my muscles was all that was holding me up. I feel his hands again, one at my hip, the other at my side, pulling me, moving me, pressing against me. I don’t resist, not precisely, but I don’t move until he forces me to ground, his hip on top of mine, his arm across my chest, his weight pressing me into the pillows. Without willing it, I lower my arms to break my fall. He catches my wrists, raising my arms straight over my head. And leave them there, I don’t need to be told not to move them. I don’t want to move them anywhere he hadn’t put them. They are right where they were supposed to be. His hands grab my hips, tugging roughly, straightening them out, then gently stroking their curves before suddenly pulling my legs apart. His fingers dig into my sex again, exploring me, spreading me. I feel crushed by his weight as he moves over me, his mouth devouring my neck and collarbone, his thighs wedging my legs further apart. His hands clutch my sides, holding me still as his cock pushes into me in one long drive, my body stretching inside to admit him. I expect more, I want more. I think that now he’ll take his pleasure in me. I want to feel him move, opening me again and again, pressing into me. But he holds still, as still as I am, laying atop me, laying inside me, as firm and immobile as stone. I think I can read his heartbeats by the small twitching movements of his dick as the blood courses through it. Long seconds or short minutes later he moans into my shoulder. His hands come to life first, stroking my sides; then he lifts himself on one arm, his free hand taking possession of my breast again, working it like clay in his hand. His eyes devoure me, from my fingers far above my head, to my belly, to where his cock lay buried beneath my skin. His eyes are so focused, so hungry, I can’t watch them without reacting. I close my eyes, but can’t close my ears to his words. He tells me I am beautiful, that I am perfect, his muse, his art….that he wants to sculpt me just like this, legs open in eager welcome, arms lifted in surrender. Traitor muscles inside me hear the words and tightened around his dick, squeezing him, daring him to pull away. He laughs, calls me his beautiful whore, tells me that he knows how much I wanted to be fucked, that I can’t hide any need so powerful. He moves his free hand down to my belly, pinning me just below my navel, showing me his strength as he pulls free of my clutching sex. He never stops talking except when his mouth covers one of my breasts, and I never open my eyes. He slides back into me, slowly at first, caressing me, smoothing me, preparing me for what he intends. His hands give me a moment of warning, pulling me toward him as he takes me as he pleases, splitting me to my core, urging me onto him with his hands. I feel his wet heat explode into me, and it throws me over the edge. Inside, my body spasms in pleasure. Outside, I am still as stone, spread before the artist, naked and displayed, letting him create these perfect sensations from my willing body. Art entirely mortal and transient, to be enjoyed by me alone.