Eighty Days White (14 page)

He summoned one of the two assistants who seemed eternally on beck and call in one of the adjoining rooms to the actual studio space. She rushed in, washed-out denim skirt, knee-high boots, grey knitted woollen top and cropped auburn hair, a lean and businesslike vision of speed and efficiency, carrying an assortment of cameras and lenses. She also doubled as his make-up girl. She gave me a fleeting glance and suggested touching me up. Neither of the assistants had been present yesterday, which had me wondering whether the threesome that had happened had not been entirely planned by Dagur.

The make-up she was proposing might partly conceal the teardrop so Grayson insisted it should remain visible, that it made me special, and he wasn’t bothered by the fact that in
any photo of my face it would draw immediate attention, become a focal point for the viewer.

Tom, his male assistant, joined us then, pulling along a rail laden with a selection of outfits, but again Grayson dismissed the idea. He was intent on photographing me as I was, wearing my own clothes and with my own, imperfect face. This made me feel at ease. I was not a professional model and was keen for the results to represent me as I was, not like a painted clown clad in exotic plumage. Lily unadorned. Tom retreated, impassive, to the side room with the movable wardrobe before returning again to the main space empty-handed.

Following the photographer’s peremptory instructions, the two assistants ran around pulling screens, adjusting lights and setting up Grayson’s equipment.

‘First, I want to just capture your face, Lily,’ Grayson proclaimed and he waved the two assistants away.

It was just me and him.

‘Would you like some music?’

I nodded.

He connected an iPod to a set of small speakers.

From the little I knew of Grayson, I expected rock music, but the melodious strains of a classical melody emerged. I even recognised it from my distant cello lessons. Vivaldi’s
Four Seasons.

Reading my thoughts, Grayson remarked that he found classical music more soothing, that it established the right mood of intimacy. Maybe we could switch to rock ’n’ roll later, he suggested.

‘Do you want me to sit or stand?’ I felt different without Dagur there. Now it was just me in front of the lens and in
the absence of yesterday’s erotic energy. I felt stranded on a beach of lights, not knowing which way to go or look, as Grayson began observing me, weighing me up, his eyes analytically measuring the angle between my eyebrows, the configuration of my cheekbones, reading the sheen of my skin, pinning my features down like a butterfly in his mind before casting his photographic net over me and capturing me like a fly in amber.

‘Turn your head to the left a little. And stay still.’

He adjusted his lens and snapped a couple of shots.

‘OK, now the other way. That’s it.’

I blinked as the lights flashed brightly with each snap of his finger on the shutter.

‘Take half a step back. A little less. Now to the right just half a step … no … back … no. Relax. Let me move you.’

He clasped my chin in his hands and tilted my head upwards and then downwards, right and then left, each time stepping away and taking more shots of my face from every conceivable angle.

His manner was antonymous to his behaviour the previous evening when, along with Dagur, he had seemingly abdicated any sense of control and had abandoned himself to my direction and had spent the night obliging my every command.

Today he spoke like a dictator and moved me around as if he were a sculptor and I were a piece of clay.

I didn’t like it much. Having my every blink prescribed by another was not my cup of tea and I quickly became restless and struggled to stay still long enough for him to capture each image.

Soon he gave up on my face and began concentrating on my body.

‘Would you mind removing your T-shirt?’ he asked, and I laughed at the way he had so politely asked me to take off my clothes, considering that a few hours ago he’d seen me naked and stretched out in the most obscene positions imaginable. I pulled my T-shirt over my head and slipped my skirt off as well just to show him that I wasn’t any more afraid to show him my naked body today than I had been yesterday. I hadn’t expected to stay the night and my previous day’s underwear was stuffed in the pocket of my handbag. Today I was bare.

Grayson did not seem in the slightest surprised by my demonstration. He presumably saw naked bodies daily so mine was nothing to him.

‘Great. Now, arch your back a little more. No, less. Curve to the right,’ he instructed.

The lights were too warm on my skin and beneath them I became hot and irritable. I shifted my weight from one foot to another and Grayson let out an exasperated sigh and laid a hand on each of my arms, pinning them firmly to my sides and shifted me back again.

I hissed at him and shook his weight off. ‘All right, already! No need to shove.’

He dropped his hands from my side immediately and snatched up his camera.

‘That’s great, Lily,’ he breathed. ‘Do that again.’

‘Do what again?’ I could feel my lip curling up in anger. Celebrity photographer or not, I was well and truly tired of posing for him.

‘Exactly like that. Be yourself. Show me Lily. Let it all out.’

I leaned forward and snarled into the camera lens.

‘Fuck yes,’ he cried. ‘Do it again. Louder.’

The next time I clenched my hands into fists and I roared. I howled. It was as if I had opened my mouth and released every word that I had never spoken and every thought that I had ever locked away inside and let it fly from my belly through my throat and out into the universe where my cry could surely be heard across half of London.

I was invigorated.

‘Push me,’ he said.

‘What?’

‘Shove me. Scratch me. Beat me.’

At first I was tentative. He was holding a camera and the lens alone was probably worth thousands. The room was cramped with all the lights in it and filled with cords and the legs of tripods that could easily be tripped over. Also, I had no wish to actually hurt him or to be violent. Or did I? The thought of shoving a man – of being allowed to – gave me a thrill.

I reached my hands about to his chest and gripped his shirt and dragged him towards me.

‘That’s it. Great. Now push me away.’

He stumbled and quickly found his footing again as I pushed him backwards lightly.

‘Harder,’ he cried. His breathing had quickened. Grayson the professional was finally losing his cool.

His response excited me and I grabbed his shirt again and wrestled him down onto the ground. He flipped onto his back and continued shooting. With each movement I
was careful to pause and let him capture my pose, realising that the pictures he was now taking were increasingly intimate. My breasts dangling over his face. My legs spread over his body. My pussy wettening in response to the heat of his gaze.

‘Yes, yes, angrier, harder, come on, Lily,’ he sputtered, encouraging me.

‘Like this?’

I bent over, straddling him, holding his torso between the vice of my thighs, my pussy lips just tantalising inches away from his face, my fingers now digging into the soft skin of his shoulders.

‘Try and look fiercer,’ he whispered.

I shifted backwards a little to improve my angle of attack and tightened my lips in an expression of wrath and my buttocks bounced across his crotch. He was hard, his cock straining against the black denim of his jeans. I deliberately ground down on him, feeling overcome by the exhilarating sense of control this gave me over him.

His mouth opened and a soft moan rose to his throat. Throughout this time, he was clicking away, the lens now fixed on my face. I leaned closer, the pressure in my fingers increasing.

He squirmed briefly.

‘Did that hurt?’ I softened the pressure.

‘It did,’ he said breathlessly. ‘But go on. Continue, Lily, it’s good.’

I leaned over so that my breasts would move into focus from his perspective, my nipples grazing against the edges of his open shirt, enjoying the rough feel of the cotton brushing against their sensitive tips. I was also becoming
aroused by the situation, but in an odd way, it didn’t feel primarily sexual this time. It was the sensation of power I was holding over him that went to my head, making me feel intensely alive.

I don’t know what came over me, but I lifted my hands away from his shoulders, briefly tempted by the idea of pressing my fingers into the delicate skin of his neck, but instead, almost instinctively I slapped his right cheek with the flat of my hand, summoning all the force I could muster. He was taken by surprise, allowed the camera he was holding to drop to his side and winced. But he didn’t protest.

His eyes rolled back in an expression of pure pleasure. ‘Oh fuck,’ he said. ‘Do that again.’

I did.

A tremor raced through his prone body beneath me, and I even suspected he might have come.

I took a deep breath. I was shocked by how much I was enjoying this, but didn’t quite know what to do next.

My thoughts were interrupted by She’s voice.

‘Wow,’ I heard her say behind me. ‘You’ve quickly got the feel of him just right, haven’t you?’

My face flushed.

‘I … I …’ I was hoping to explain that Grayson had encouraged me all along, that this was what he wanted. But I was speechless, trying to imagine how compromising the whole situation must look like to her. Me, stark naked, squatting over him, wantonly displayed and angrily slapping him in the face.

‘If I didn’t know better, I’d say I have a younger rival,’ She said in a jocular manner. ‘It’s a good thing I’m not the jealous type,’ she added.

She walked past us and faced me, towering over the tangle of our bodies on the studio floor.

‘Very tasty,’ she remarked.

There was no way I could cover up or conceal any part of my anatomy. Beneath me, Grayson just smiled at his companion, not looking in the slightest guilty.

‘You’re a natural, Lily,’ she stated.

‘A natural?’

‘The way domination and control come to you instinctively. I’d bet the house on it.’

A less strained demeanour had returned to Grayson’s features, following the excitable pink hue his face had adopted at the peak of our interaction.

‘I’d agree with that,’ he said.

And then, noting the puzzled look of interest on She’s face, ‘You’d never think it, eh? Such an innocent-looking young woman, but given a chance she would have flogged me in a shot.’

At the mere thought of the image this brought up in my mind, I turned scarlet but felt a quiet fire lighting up inside me. I had seen dominatrixes at play some evenings in the club and, however much I had found their rituals fascinating, they hadn’t struck a deep chord. They were part of another world. But I now realised this was because I had not thought of myself in their situation, in their skin, controlling a man, firmly, roughly, decisively.

I disentangled myself from Grayson and rose to full height, still a head shorter than She who was looking at me with increasing interest. I hunted around for the clothes I had left on the sofa in the far corner of the studio. Grayson also lifted himself from the floor and brushed himself off.
He and She exchanged knowing looks and he then picked up the three cameras he had been using during our session and carried them to the sideroom.

‘I want to see what we got,’ he said.

Leaving me with She, who was carrying a bunch of shopping bags, all with designer names: Prada, Burberry, Agent Provocateur, Coco de Mer, as well as a couple of blank, anonymous carriers, which hinted at more secret purchases.

‘Come and have a coffee with me,’ She suggested, waving in the direction of the door.

I knew that if I consumed more coffee today, I would be unable to sleep for ages – the stimulus of the caffeine together with the realisation of the pleasure I had taken from dominating Grayson would keep my mind in a state of blissful effervescence – but I obediently followed her.

She switched on a gleaming, stainless-steel espresso machine and tuned to face me. Her eyes were surprisingly pale, a jigsaw of grey and emerald swirls. I wondered whether she used contact lenses as I didn’t recall them being so striking before, not that I had ever been this close to her at the club.

‘Tell me, Lily, how did it feel when Gray was under you? Try and explain your feelings, how it affected you. What went through your mind, what else you wanted to do to him, to hear him say? How did it turn you on?’

I paused for a long while before replying, and She didn’t hurry me.

‘It was a rush,’ I said at last, though that didn’t capture even half of the feelings that had flooded through me as Grayson had fallen to his knees in front of me and his
expression had turned so ecstatic, so intoxicated, after I had slapped his face. And then the tone in his voice as he had begged me to do it again.

She nodded and then turned away from me, busying herself in the kitchen cupboards pulling out brightly coloured coffee cups and saucers, a sugar bowl and a box of chocolate biscuits. Her long, thin fingers were like spiders creeping into the box and when she removed a chocolate finger and placed it between her lips as if she were about to light a cigarette, I noticed that her fingernails were painted the same colour as her eyes, a luminous greyish green, the colour of the ocean on a cloudy day. She bit down hard on the biscuit and then licked her lip, catching the fragments of chocolate that had broken off and stuck to her lipstick with the tip of her tongue.

Finally she slid a piping-hot espresso in front of me on a saucer and I took a swift gulp to regain my equilibrium, burning my mouth in the process. She pulled out a barstool, indicating that I should sit down.

I pulled myself up onto the stool and with my legs now dangling off the side in mid-air, felt even more childish in the presence of her cool air of authority. She remained standing, and made no move to respond. Faced with her silence, I continued speaking.

‘It was as if I had set something free. Like opening a cage and letting the real me fly out. And not being afraid of the consequences. As if I could do anything. I could break the rules. And it wouldn’t be wrong. I wouldn’t hurt anyone. Grayson would appreciate me, no matter what I did. No, more than that. It was like he was worshipping me. He
loved it. I felt invincible. And so alive. Like I had him in the palm of my hand.’