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“No! Why don’t I just give you a child’s coloring book? It’ll be just as much art as this is!”
Did he think his abuse would help anything? All this yelling? If possible, she cried even harder.
“But you said I was good!” If he really believed that, he wouldn’t be treating her this way. He just wanted a punching bag. What he needed was a fucking therapist.
“Youaregood. Technically. There is precious little I have left to teach you technically. I am genuinely impressed with how quickly you were able to switch to my methods, but you have to give up more of yourself if you don’t want to be forgotten. You have to give the work everything you give me and more. Great art isn’t made of stitched together rainbows and kittens. It’s born of anger and despair and frustration.”
“My life hasn’t been a cake walk! You know that!” It wasn’t even a cake walk now. Quill was making sure of that. How dare he with all his heaping piles of money tell her about what pain and struggle felt like. As if he could remember any of it.
“Then show me, Saskia! Put it on the motherfucking canvas before I have to bleed it out of you!”
He meant that quite literally. He seemed to itch to take her into the gallery to whip her. Maybe this was just an excuse. Her eyes narrowed as her tears ran their course. She felt she might snap the paintbrush in half; she squeezed it so tightly.
“You’re angry,” he remarked, his tone empty of inflection.
“No shit, I’m angry! I worked on that for five hours, and you’ve warped it!”
He picked up a new canvas from the ground and set it on the easel. “Put your anger on the canvas. I won’t ask you twice. Paint your anger, or you can paint the pain I’m about to deliver.”
“You don’t paintyouranger and despair and frustration,” she retorted, knowing how dangerously close she was to the threat he’d just issued. The gallery was filled with paintings of her. They were all brilliant, but it wasn’t something he could teach. He had to know that by now.
Quill ripped the brush from her hand and threw it on the ground. He stalked her across the studio until her back met the glass. His eyes bored into hers, drilling down into her soul with the smallest effort.
“No, I don’t paint that. That isn’t where my art comes from. I paint power and control and all the dark urges that live inside me. And you’ve been an endless source of inspiration forthat! But that’smymaterial. You’re living your material and you can’t even get it on the fucking canvas!”
His patience had reached an end. He grabbed her wrist and dragged her from the studio, down the hallway, and into the gallery where all his brilliance stared back at her.
His newest work mocked her from the corner. It was her in the high heels and long black opera gloves, blindfolded and suspended in the harem room with Phillip looming behind her with the crop in his hand. Quill hadn’t just been watching that night. He’d been capturing it on canvas. Just how large was the screen he monitored the video feeds on?
“I’m doing the best I can!”
“No, you aren’t!”
“Master, please. Don’t do this while you’re angry.” He was really scaring her this time. “Please.”
He dragged her to the cage and tossed her in and locked it. “I’ll be back for you when I’ve cooled down. But pain is coming, sweetheart. And then you’re going to paint it for me. And it will be fucking glorious.”
There was anor elsein there somewhere. He’d completely lost his mind.
Saskia let out a deep breath and stretched out on the giant plush pillow, relieved he’d listened to her plea. She just wasn’t sure how much he’d really cool off before he came back.
Maybe an hour passed before Quill returned. He’d changed out of painting clothes and into all black. Black pants, black shirt, black shoes, black gloves. His anger had dissipated—at least the surface of it had. In its place was a cold darkness that seemed to swirl around him like dramatic fog, cocooning all his emotions. Saskia wasn’t sure this was better.
He unlocked the cage without a word and helped her out.
“Just let me try one more time. I know I can paint something that pleases you.”
“Speak again and I’ll gag you.”
She closed her mouth and allowed him to drag her through the gallery. He stopped at each piece of BDSM furniture in turn, sizing it up, then sizing her up. His face was unreadable. Unhappy with his options in the gallery, he dragged her back into the studio, and he sat on one of the chaise lounges meant for his softer nudes. He hadn’t managed to paint Saskia even once that way.
With her it was all blood and pain and welts. Harsh, dangerous eroticism. Never anything sweet or languidly seductive. It was all work that screamed for your attention at the top of its lungs then held its breath until you looked for good measure.
Quill pulled her over his lap and shoved the artist smock up over her hips. For the past week or two, he’d insisted she wear nothing but the smock to paint. No pants or shirt or skirt underneath. No panties. No bra.
He wanted her in the right mental zone to create the work he’d said she was destined to create. If she shied away from the subject matter, he’d determined to turn her into the subject matter. This was another lesson in becoming the art. As if there weren’t enough canvases splashed with her image to drive that point home already.
He didn’t say anything, and she was afraid to. Instead, his gloved hand struck her bare flesh over and over. It didn’t matter how she cried out or begged. He would only stop when his hand was tired, then only to rub her heated skin for a few moments before he started up again.
