Page 27 of The Muse
“What do you know about spanking?”
“Nothing.” She turns and wiggles her arse at me. “Yet.”
I chuckle, considering showing her all about spanking. “Now you're not helpingmeconcentrate.”
She's really not. What she's actually doing is making me want to get straight out of here and back to a bed. However, instead of stooping to schoolgirl antics, I twist her chin back to facing forward and carry on with the plan. For whatever reason, this is relevant to me. Important. Maybe I've been thinking about sharing myself with her, giving her some of me that doesn't involve my cock.
“Think about every step,” I muse, pushing her onward. “The texture under your feet, the vision in front of your eyes. How they meld together. What does it create for you?”
She straightens her shoulders and shakes them, as if preparing for a dance. I suppose she is in a way, and I watch on as she starts to navigate the pieces and surfaces in front of her. Differing ground undulates under us as we make our way through. Textures, colours, gradients and pitches. It’s clever, making us both look towards angles one wouldn’t normally aim at.
Bright pink blossom drapes a modernistic sculpture first, the angles sharp and distinct against the backdrop of soft trailing leaves. She ponders it for a few minutes and then keeps her eyes at that level before yelping slightly. It isn’t until I push my own feet onto the harsh gravel that cuts in that I realise why.
Both our gazes swing downwards to it, and we’re met by another radical piece. It’s looser this time, all curves and swirls that create a pair of eyes looking up from the water. She laughs, tiptoeing graciously across the gravel until she’s over it, and then grabs hold of the bridge.
“So, what sort of art?” she asks.
“What?”
“Yours. What's it like?”
“Google is your friend. I don't discuss it.”
“Don't or won't?”
“Don't. Other people talk about it. Once I've created it, I'm done with conversation about it.”
She looks back at me on the bridge, her arms outstretched both ways, and does some ballet move that involves rising a few inches. “That seems sad.”
Not to me. To me, I've done my bit. I don't influence or push words into mouths about my own work.
“I don’t think such a handsome man should be sad. The two dynamics don't sit quite right with each other.” She goes up higher on her toes, one arm swirling gracefully. “I'd prefer them not to, anyway.”
My lips quirk, the flattery, for once, settling somewhere comfortably. “Keep moving, young lady. You should be critiquing this piece, not me.”
A sudden twirl on the spot, a laugh, and she carries on over the wooden slats and intricate carvings. We're drawn through more and more sculpture, some on sand, others on bark, until eventually we're walking into sludge and dirt. It oozes through our toes, squelching and churning beneath us.
“Not very romantic,” she calls, looking at her feet.
“You expected romance? I didn't realise.”
She even laughs at that, her face continuously looking back at me as if I should be laughing as well. I am, annoyingly. In fact, just the sound of her as we move around the art in its whole form is astounding to me. It changes the dynamic completely, leaving me with nothing but a smile on my face most of the way.
After a while, I couldn’t give a damn about the art. I’m too busy looking at my own muse, at the way she’s moving and laughing and smiling with me. What is that?
Why?
I stop, ignoring the piece she’s leaning down to look at, and imagine her naked rather than dressed. Naked in nature. We should do that. Fuck outdoors. A summer evening. Corn fields maybe. Picnic and wine. Spring showers. Wet skin.
“Hey?” she says, breaking me of my imagination. “What does this mean?” she asks, pointing at the harsh, black statue under a dark recess. “The rest I got, happiness and hope, imagination, joy even, but this is … a little creepy frankly.”
“Death.”
“Lovely.”
Grinning, I spin my finger around. “Full circle. We must be nearly at the end.”
I move her forward, hand on her hip to guide her through the overhang of trees.
