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‘Mask Man?’ Susie’s voice startled him. The artist was standing right in front of him, her hand outstretched. Tentatively he shook it, praying she wouldn’t recognise him.
‘It’s an honour to have you in the image. It gives the work that extra bit of local subtext,’ she told him earnestly, seemingly still oblivious as to who was behind the mask.
Scared of discovery, he silently withdrew his hand. Luckily, Susie was distracted by one of the cherubs, who, bored, had started to pelt the other cherubs with grapes plucked from the bunches on the tray that was his prop.
‘Muriel! Can you control Cherub One?’ she yelled. She and the other woman both ran towards the child. After catching him and calming him down, Susie walked back to the original image that was sitting on an easel in the centre of the studio.
Alfie, clapping his hands to get the attention of the milling extras, indicated that Susie was about to address the room. Felix, now relishing the clandestine voyeurism of his position, hung back.
‘Okay, so you are all familiar with your positions within the image, and as you are all dancers except for Mask Man here, I’m going to assume you can all hold the poses for at least five minutes, during which we should be able to get plenty of shots. Then, if necessary, we will pause, so just keep holding the pose until we’re happy we have the image in the can. If you all would like to take one last look at the original painting and then take your positions up on the set? I will have some music played to put us all in the mood, but, please, do not move once the pose has been struck.’
The extras gathered around the easel, joking and talking, while Felix watched Susie from behind his mask. She was entirely absorbed, pacing backwards and forwards in front of the set, adjusting elements and props . It felt fantastically taboo to spy on her like this and it was fascinating to see the artist at work, the confidence and mastery with which she fine-tuned all the visual details arousing.
Mahler’s Fifth started to swell out of hidden speakers as the extras began moving towards the set.
‘Okay, can we now have everyone in position?’ Alfie directed, as Susie led the way to the stage. ‘Muriel, can you help the children?’
Each character took their place, mimicking the original painting. The nymph in the blue-and-white costume straddled the goat, then leaned back in the satyr’s arms
while reaching over to take a handful of fruit from the satyr behind, who – in Susie’s version – held a bugle in his mouth. In the background a nymph carried a dead lamb over her shoulder, only in this version she wore white instead of yellow.
Felix climbed carefully up behind the others to adopt his role as the statue of Bacchus, standing centrally and in profile in the background. Susie, the last character to take her position, draped one hand over his shoulder while glancing in the other direction at one of the cherubs – in this version a small African-American child – and plucking some grapes out of the basket he held up. Behind her, a nymph, breasts bared, held a tambourine, the red fabric of her robe stretched out like wings (pinned by Muriel), mirroring the original painting.
As Felix stood there he was aware of the sheer political audacity of the image, but he was also aware of the sensation that he was part of history in the making: not just of the revised contemporary image but also of something that had far more lineage, a history that stretched back centuries, an image made in 1635 that was in fact itself referencing older images from classical times themselves. But the other sensation that swept through him was the sheer exhilaration of being the central focus of the whole image, of finally actually being in one of Susie Thomas’s artworks. Work that he knew would grace art books and the pages of history for centuries to come. And now he, Felix Baum, would always be there, suspended, timeless beside her. It was the nearest thing to immortality that he knew.
*
One a.m. and Susie, still wound up by the adrenalin of the photo shoot, found herself standing outside Felix’s apartment block. She’d waited too long, and the stress and intensity of making the work had twisted her body into an aching knot. She needed release, she needed touch; she needed sex. I’m doomed, she thought, and pressed his buzzer.
*
They stood facing each other, completely naked, inches apart at the foot of his bed. It had been something he’d insisted upon; they hadn’t touched each other yet.
‘I can feel the heat of your skin, perhaps even your erection.’ She grinned cheekily; the tip of his hard cock was centimetres from her stomach. She wanted him so much it was as if every inch of her skin craved him. He didn’t move.
‘How much do you want me?’
‘A lot.’
‘How much? Tell me,’ he whispered, close to her ear, his breath hot on her face.
‘It’s not quantifiable.’
‘Everything is quantifiable.’
‘You’re wrong. Nothing is: not time, not lust, not love,’ she moaned.
He moved slightly closer to her but still they did not touch.
‘Close your eyes and open your legs – wider,’ he commanded.
Slowly, she parted them. A second later she felt the tip of his tongue on her erect clit, flicking backwards and forwards in exquisite pleasure. Simultaneously reaching up, he pushed his finger into her mouth as if he wanted to enter her somehow. Legs trembling, she tried to stay still and standing, her moans forming rings around his finger, the sensation creating circles of colour behind her eyes, her mind empty of everything except pleasure.
When he was sure she was close to coming, he withdrew, and she was left so close she could feel the ripples of an orgasm lap at the core of her but not quite. With her eyes closed every touch was heightened to painful intensity. When she felt the thick tip of his cock push against her wet lips and clit, she opened her eyes and found his face inches away, his eyes staring straight at her. Reaching for her, his mouth found hers and he kissed her deeply as he hoisted her high onto his hips and plunged into her.
*
Later, after they’d made love a few times, she rolled away from him, her face deliberately turned away.
