Getting Her Back

I sense a presence behind me, and realize that Mr. Prince is standing over me, watching me work. I drag my eyes back to my drawing, and I take a deep breath. It’s not where I want it to be.

“You’re frustrated,” Mr. Prince says softly.

“Yeah, a little.”

“Why?”

“I—” I stutter to a stop. I can’t exactly tell Alexander Prince that I’m unfocused because I’m lusting after the model I recommended, that I can’t wait to fuck him later and am having an internal crisis about being too involved with him. “A lot of reasons.”

He stands next to me, looking back and forth between my easel and Christian. “Drawing people you know can be harder than the average subject. You can’t break them down into parts because to you they’re already a whole.”

“What do you do then?”

“Draw their face first.”

Normally I would wait until I had everything else, since the face is the hardest to capture. “Why first?”

“Because then you’re not putting a stranger on paper. You’re filling in the whole person that you know.”

I look at the vague bubble where Christian’s face is meant to go. I suppose it can’t hurt to try, since I’m already having a hard time working on the rest of him. “Okay, I’ll give it a shot.”

“Regardless,” he says, patting me on the shoulder, “you’re doing lovely work.”

I go pink, and reflexively glance up at Christian. His eyes are already on me, and the corner of his mouth ticks up into a smile. I can read the words he’s putting into it. They’re all fire and heat and how he can’t wait to get me back to the apartment. I take another deep breath, and attempt to block him out. I look at the lines of his face, the way they come together to form an exquisite jawline. The actually delicate line of his eyebrows, and I put it onto the paper. The way I draw his face is stark. Stripped. I use as few movements with my pencil as possible. Because I want this picture to be mysterious, the barest version of him that I can manage. Something that isn’t steeped in my own feelings and hang-ups about him.

I draw, and hone, and fix the tiny creases by his eyes, until suddenly he’s there. Like magic, the way drawing often is, one tiny slip of my pencil has made it go from the face of a handsome man, to Christian. And Mr. Prince was right. There’s a feeling of relief when I look at the rest of the drawing. Suddenly I have a goal and a purpose to it, the rest of it being informed by his face.

I eagerly dive in to teasing the rest of his body from the paper, and Mr. Prince clears his throat just when I finally feel like I’m making decent progress. “That’s all for today. We’ll finish these up on Friday, and you can put them to bed. Dismissed.”

Christian doesn’t come and tease me in front of the class this time, he heads straight for the closet and his clothes. I think about going and meeting him in the closet again, but he emerges after just a couple minutes, fully clothed and approaches me. Without hesitation he pulls me against him, and for a second, I think he’s going to kiss me. And even though I’ve asked him not to, right this second I wouldn’t mind. I like the way he’s holding me—tightly, possessively. I’m growing damper by the second and I want something, anything, a taste of what’s to come.

But Christian doesn’t kiss me. He tangles his fingers in my hair, pulling back until I’m looking him in the eye. “Go to the apartment,” he says softly, fiercely. “I want you to be naked when I get there.”

“What am I? Your plaything?” I try to sound angry, but I’m unsuccessful. I can barely breathe.

“No,” he says, fingers tightening. “You’re my model.” He leans close to my ear so that I’m the only one who can hear his words. “And after I draw you, I’m going to take you until you’re screaming.”

I shiver, but I shake my head. “You’re going to have to work hard for that.”

Christian smirks. “We’ll see.”

“Where are you going?”

Releasing me suddenly, he’s still looking at me in a way that makes me want to rip off my clothes right here. “I’ll see you soon.” He turns and leaves the studio, taking more than a few gazes with him as he leaves.

Fuck, I’m shaking with lust and arousal. My pencils clatter as I try to put them away. This Christian, he reminds me of the man he was when we first met. It’s what attracted me to him in the first place, the sheer confidence that he could do anything, no matter the circumstances.

I thought he had changed, or that he wasn’t the same person. But I honestly think I was hating him so much for what he did, I didn’t see that all the parts I loved about him were still there. That, combined with the fact that I want nothing more than to be naked with him right now. I’m in so much trouble.