Chapter One

Was it the car or the way she drove it? Either way, it was a statement, an assertion of what she was. He didn’t really care about cars but he knew it was something European; bright green, the color of the leaves in early spring, low slung, with an open top; she said she liked the feel of the wind in her hair. He sat beside her in the passenger seat, seeing how her short white skirt rode up over her finely contoured knees, watching her strong knuckles gripping the stick shift. She drove with rapt concentration, her body at one with the machine. Conversation was impossible above the engine’s throaty roar.

She parked on the gravel outside his house, the car skidding a little before it came to a halt. She opened the door and got out, showing him even more of her bronzed thighs. Her heels clicked on the stone steps as she walked up to the door. He followed, watching the firm round buttocks tighten and relax as she strode forward.

She went ahead to his studio, opening the door and sauntering in, looking about her the way she did, her head tilted back.

“Can I see it?”

“I’m not sure,” he said. “You know how I feel about work in progress.”

“Please?” He was still surprised how she could do this, turn from a young woman confident in her authority, her money, her aura, to a little girl, coaxing, wheedling; as if she could flick a switch in her mind. She didn’t seem to see how disconcerting it was.

“Please, Matt?” She sidled up to him, offering her mouth to be kissed. He brushed her lips lightly, then turned away. She tried again, putting an arm round his neck, her legs parted, leaning in to him, offering herself.

“OK,” he said. “But I don’t want any comments, good or bad. Do you hear?”

“Yes, Sir,” she said in mock submission.

He pulled the cloth off the picture. Across the canvas was a splash of color, browns, purples, blacks, a touch of red. It was unmistakably the body of a naked woman, but the face was still indeterminate. She looked at it for several minutes, from this side and that. He stood with his back to her, gazing out of the window towards the trees.

“Who is she?” she asked.

“No one you know. Just a model.”

“Is she beautiful?”

“She’s a good subject,” he said in a tone of voice intended to discourage further questions.

“Have you had sex with her?”

He turned, prepared to be angry. She was giving him her little girl smile. He knew it was just a wind-up. He mustn’t fall for it.

“Do I ask you such questions?”

“No,” she said, “but you might.”

Did she mean, he could ask her if she wished, or that it was possible he would ask her in the future?

“I choose not to,” he replied. “You’re a free woman, remember?”

It was what she’d said to him when they first met. Introduced at a gallery opening, they’d talked for an hour, then she’d asked him to drive her home. At her invitation he went up to her apartment for a night-cap. He thought she was making it pretty clear she was willing to go to bed, and so first he’d asked her, in his old-fashioned way, if she was seeing anyone.

“Maybe,” she said, “but I’m a free woman.”

She’d surprised him in bed with her uncomplicated eagerness, her frank enjoyment of pleasure, and her willingness to give it. When she sucked his cock, it was as if she really wanted to, was feeding on it, drawing pleasure out of him. Later, when he was big again and had entered her, she called out in the dark for him to do it hard, do it harder.

Two days later they went out to dinner. Ever the gentleman, he suggested she