Object of Beauty

He had expected to have to force the door open, but it was an old hotel with a simple key latch, and it didn't take him long. He turned the handle, pushed the door open, took a deep breath and walked in. In three strides he was in the centre of the room, his feet braced wide, looking around. She was curled up on the couch on the far side of the bed, her knees drawn up underneath her. She raised her head from the book she was reading and looked at him and he saw that she was naked. She showed no surprise at seeing him there. He stepped out through the double doors and checked the balcony. It was empty. The room was high enough to look out over the beach to where the sun was setting over the ocean. He walked past the couch and through the connecting door to check the bathroom. He saw the water pooled on the floor, the steamed mirrors and the wet towels draped over the edge of the bath.

When he came back into the room she was still looking at him over the top of the book. It was a large hardback folio, an art monograph of a Russian painter whose name he didn't recognize. The book rested on her thighs and reached almost to her chin, hiding most of her. Her short black hair was wet and slicked back behind her ears. She was sitting there reading, letting the breeze through the window dry her naked skin. She looked relaxed. Only the open suitcase on the bed and the clothes strewn around the room gave any clue that she might be leaving in a hurry. He could smell the bath oils on her, bergamot and sandalwood. The couch was red velvet, and her skin looked flushed and pink against it.

He turned slowly to check the room. The furniture matched the hotel, dated but elegant. He couldn't tell if it was original to the building, or antiques brought in to create an atmosphere of tired decadence. It suited her. The bed was a tall brass bedstead, solid polished frames at each end, piled high with pillows. A stripped oak bench was pushed up to the foot of the bed, strewn with clothes that spilled onto the bare floorboards. He saw the bottle of vodka and the empty glass on the carved wooden dresser. He walked over and poured a measure in the glass and drank. As he drank he looked at the tall wardrobe that filled the rest of the wall. It was ornate and scrolled, carved by hands long gone, and gave off a smell of beeswax. He turned the brass key and pulled open the door, and found a mini-bar and fridge fitted inside. He opened the other door and looked at the safe. For all the room's antique pretense, the modern comforts had been provided. He turned to her and smiled.

'Is it in there?'

She made no move to speak. She put the book down on the side table and stretched out her legs on the couch, putting one knee over the other and rolling slightly towards him. She stretched a hand out above her head, rested her head in the crook of her arm, and looked at him. He knew the pose was practiced. She'd done it many times before, on a different couch in a distant place, but she'd never done it for him. She gave him her smile, dipping her chin and looking up with those black eyes.

'You going to get dressed?' he said.

'Not until I'm dry.'

A gust of air ruffled the curtains and passed through the room. He watched the skin on her thighs rise in goosebumps, and his eyes followed the line of her legs up and over the curve of her hips, across her belly to her breasts, seeing her nipples harden as the breeze brushed over them. She closed her eyes.

'I hoped it might be you that found me,' she said.

'I didn't think you wanted to be found.'

'I thought I had a chance of getting out of the country, but I know how resourceful he can be. Did he only send you?'

'He sent all of us. I got to you first.'

'You know me better than they do.'

She opened her eyes and gave him that smile again.

'He wants you to come back,' he said. 'He wants you to bring the painting.'

'What about the money?'

'He didn't talk about that, just the painting.'

'I guess I'll always be a poor second.'

He poured himself another drink, and found ice in the bucket on the mini-bar. He dragged the chair from in front of the dresser and spun it round into the middle of the room and straddled it. He leaned over the back of the chair swirling the ice in his glass and looking at her. She rolled onto her stomach and reached over the arm of the couch to pick up her cigarettes from the table. She took one from the pack, put it to her lips and lit it, then looked over her shoulder at him.

'I don't think you came here with any idea of taking me back.'

'I do as I'm told.'

'Most of the time. What if I don't want to go back with you?'

'What you want isn't really the issue.'

'And if I refuse to return?'

'He's not giving you that option.'

She sat up and swung her legs around and put her feet into the discarded pair of red stilettos on the floor. She stood up and did her best catwalk pose, blowing smoke towards him. He liked the way she was working it for him.

'I don't think you're serious about taking me back. If you were you wouldn't have come alone. I'll give short odds that you haven't even told the others you found me. Did you tell him?'

'I was waiting to see you.'

'Did you tell him about us?'

'I wouldn't be here if I had, and whoever else was sent to find you certainly wouldn't be taking you back home.'

'What do you think he'd do if I told him now?'

'I don't think you'd bring that much trouble on yourself just to spite me. You might do it to get at him, but I think you've done enough already.'

She walked out into the middle of the room, closer to him, making long strides to get the best from the shoes. He watched her breasts swing as she moved.

'Did you really think you and me were a thing?' she said.

'There was a chance, maybe. I didn't want to think I might have let that opportunity pass without stepping forward.'

'You came a long way to be disappointed.'

'Then I guess we're both on the return journey.'

'No,' she said. 'I'm not.'

He stood up and took a step towards her. He lifted a hand towards her face, and she flinched. He held his palm open to show no intent, and then gently took the cigarette from her mouth and put it to his own.

'He wants you back,' he said. 'He told me to hurt you if necessary. He doesn't care if I mark you, just not on the face.'

'You'd do that, would you? I think you'd like to hurt me if you couldn't have me. It'd give you the chance to put your mark on me. You daren't tell him that you fucked me, but you'd like to see a scar on me that showed you'd owned me for a while.'

'I think we know where we stand now. There's no point in talking. Open the safe and give me what's in there. I need the painting, the money, and whatever you copied off his computer.'

She looked him in the eye and gave him an exaggerated shrug.

'He's smarter than you and me,' he said. 'He knew you took the painting as a fuck-you, something to blindside him, make him too mad to see your real play. It didn't take him long to work out you'd been at his computer.'

'I figured it was good insurance to know his business. Better than cash or that precious painting.'

'Open the fucking safe,' he said, and backhanded her across the face.

She put her hand to her lips and looked at the blood on her fingers.

She walked to the safe, working the shoes. She stopped in front of the old wardrobe, and bent over from her hips, keeping her knees together, her ankles crossed, pushing out her ass. His eyes are fixed on what he could see between her legs as she keyed the code into the pad on the safe. In the angled mirror on the dresser he could see her breasts sway as she swung open the door and reached inside. She stretched out her arm and put three stacks of bills on the dresser.

'I thought he didn't care about the cash?' she said.

'He might not, but I do. Think of it as a finder's fee.'

She reached back in the safe and pulled out a dirty roll of canvas and put it next to the cash.

'What about the computer thing?' he said.

With her back still to him she raised her hand and showed him the memory stick, holding it between her finger and thumb, her pinkie in the air.

'Strange how something so small can be worth so much more than a masterpiece,' she said.

'Or a person,' he said.

She turned towards him, her hands behind her back to narrow her profile and push her chest forward. She looked down at the crease in his pants.

'What's making you hard,' she said, 'the money or the view?'

'Neither,' he said. 'It's the thrill of the chase. It took me longer than I expected to find you. Now it's like I can smell blood.'

'I don't think it's blood you smell,' she said. She brought her hand around from behind her back and showed him the gun. It was a small nickel-plated Beretta automatic, compact enough to be hidden it in the palm of her hand when she took it from the safe. He blew out his cheeks and shook his head that he had fallen for such a simple play.

'Take off your jacket,' she said

'That little .22 isn't much of a gun,' he said.

She held it steady and level. 'At this range I don't need much of a gun,' she said. 'Two in the heart, one in the head. One of the few things he ever taught me.'

She was close enough that he thought about stepping forward to take it off her, but he had seen her shoot a man before and he had seen the same look in her eye.

'Take off your jacket and throw it to me,' she said.

He took it off slowly, and then held it up for her in both his hands, spreading it wide like a cape. He threw it towards her head and stepped forward and raised his hand but she saw it coming and lowered the gun and shot him in the leg then raised it to his forehead. He cursed and stepped backwards in pain and sat down hard on the bench at the end of the bed.

She stepped away from the safe and stood by the window in front of him. She hung the jacket on the two fingers that were free below the gun, and put her hand in the right pocket. She took out a pair of handcuffs and a roll of duct tape.

'Looks like you came prepared to put me in the trunk of your car,' she said.

She went into the left pocket and found his keys, and from the inside pockets his phone and wallet. She dropped them all onto the floor and stepped on the phone, the steel tip of her heel stabbing through the plastic. He was hunched over on the bench, looking at the hole in his trousers and the patch of blood soaking through the fabric.

'I don't think you came here unarmed,' she said. 'Roll up your trousers.'

He leaned over and pulled up each trouser leg in turn. The bulge in his sock was obvious and she waved for him to roll it down and show her the knife strapped to his ankle.

'Slide it here,' she said. It skittered across the floorboards and came to rest by her foot. She dropped his jacket and picked up the cuffs and broke both bracelets open. She tossed them to him.

'Put one link round your right wrist and then close the other one around the side of the bedstead,' she said.

He picked up the cuffs and looked at her, tilted his head slightly and raised an eyebrow. She fired the gun again into the wood of the bench and he snapped the cuffs closed around the bed frame.

'Put your left hand out and grab the far side of the frame,' she said. He did as he was told and she went to the dresser and pulled a second pair of cuffs from her handbag.

'Not police issue like yours,' she said. 'Just a little something I keep in my purse.' She walked to the bed and cuffed his left wrist and stepped back to look at him crucified on the bed frame.

She picked up the knife and thumbed the release and watched the blade spring out. It was short and broad, a double-edged tactical issue. She stepped forward and grabbed him by the belt buckle and loosened it, then thrust the knife into the seam of his pants under his groin. He heard the fabric tear as she pulled up the knife, opening up his trousers. She pulled his shirt up out of his waistband and tore it apart, the buttons scattering across the floor. She dug the tip of the knife into the seam of the trouser leg and dragged it down his leg until she could peel it open to show where the bullet was in his thigh. She leaned over him to look at the wound.

'The bullet's still in there,' she said. 'I put it into the muscle. You're not going to bleed out, I aimed away from the artery. You've had worse, soldier.'

She cut a small square of cotton from his shirt and folded it into a wad, pressed it down onto the hole in his leg and secured it with a strip of duct tape. He watched her do it and was waiting for her to get in a position where he could kick her. She saw him looking and chopped her hand onto the dressing. He yelled out in pain.

'Don't get any ideas,' she said. 'You just relax. I'm going to show you what it feels like to be an object.'

She cut open his shorts until his whole torso was exposed from neck to ass, his cock and balls spilling free. She folded the knife and put it on the dresser with the gun, then knelt down in front of him and put both her hands on his cock. She moved them slowly until she felt him stiffen, then put her hands in front of her face and spat in her palms. She took a firm hold of him and started jerking his shaft in long strokes, kneading his balls with her other hand until he came erect. She looked into his eyes and purred.

'This what you came here for?' she said.

She sat back on her heels and looked at his cock, admiring its length, and then slapped it, swinging her hand in a wide arc that knocked it flat against his leg. He flinched and the cuffs rattled against the bed frame.

'Do you really want me now?' she said, 'with him not around? How long have you spent standing by his side, wishing for something you know you can't have. You only wanted me because I belonged to him, just another object of beauty. Without him you're nothing, you're just a piece of muscle. That's all you ever were to me, too.'

She went to the dresser and picked up the painting, holding it in her fist like a club.

'Did you envy him so much that you wanted to take what was his? Steal it, own it, fuck it? Did you want a bit of that? Did you want to own me? Well I'm through being owned.'

He didn't reply, but she didn't care what he thought now.

'If he wants the painting that bad, he can have it back,' she said. 'If you want it, I'll give it to you.'

She brought it down hard on his cock and he jerked sideways, straining against the cuffs. She took a step back, swung wide, put her weight into it, and sideswiped his balls. He threw his head back and bucked on the bench and she stood back and watched him squirm and listened to him groan and she smiled.

She unrolled the canvas and held it up for him to see. He had seen the Modigliani before, seen it hanging in the house over the couch. He had listened too many times to the story of how it was stolen, its long journey from Italy through the Balkans and the Middle East until it came into his employer's possession. He knew that the one left hanging in the Milan collection was a copy. He had heard how she used to stretch out on the couch, reclining beneath the painting, a flesh and blood reproduction of the artist's muse. Now that it had been taken from its frame it looked less than before, but somehow more, familiar yet strange. He could see the thickness of the paint and the brushstrokes. He could see the raw edge of the canvas, where the base coats had bled out over the edge, the rough brush work, and the holes where it had been pinned to the stretcher. He could see the imperfections, and that somehow only increased its beauty. He could see the hand of the artist at work.

'You think she looks like me?' she said.

He shrugged. 'There were times you made yourself look more like her, when you were playing an angle on him.'

She shook her head. 'I think I've heard enough from you.'

She picked up the duct tape and cut a length, and then climbed on the bed behind him. She put her arm round his neck and pulled him to her in a choke hold. He tried to speak and she tightened the pressure on his windpipe until she heard him struggle for breath.

'Hush now, baby,' she said, and put the duct tape over his mouth.

She walked around in front of him again. He turned his head to follow her, his eyes so wide she could see the whites below the iris. She grabbed his legs behind his knees and dragged him forward until he was lying almost flat, his hips on the edge of the bench, his prick pointing up. She leaned over him ran her hands over his chest, raked her painted nails across his nipples and dug them in until she drew blood. She scratched eight parallel lines across his belly and grabbed his cock in both hands. She curled her fingers into a claw and sunk her nails under the rim and then raked them backwards till he screamed behind the duct tape. When he moaned she cupped his balls in her other hand, squeezed and twisted, pulling them down hard, looking at the pain in his eyes.

'For the last three years I've been waiting to be told what to do, how to look, how to behave. Just a living oil painting, another piece in his collection.'

She got up of her knees and stepped up onto the bench, standing over him. He looked at her silhouetted by the light from the setting sun streaming through the window, forming a frame around her. She lifted a foot and put the sole of her foot flat on his prick, pushing it flat against his belly, then put weight on her heel and drove the stiletto into his balls. She leaned in close and spoke softly in his ear.

'Not any more,' she said. 'From today I am going to say if, I am going to say when, and I am going to say how much.'

She turned around, one foot either side of him, and lowered her ass towards his face. He strained his neck forward, but she rocked her hips forward, keeping herself just out of reach.

'Can you smell me?' she said. 'Is this the scent you've been following all week?'

She sat backwards, smothering his face, grinding herself into his covered mouth, and then pulled away, leaving his face wet.

She reached down and grabbed his cock again, stroking it until it was hard again, then held it vertical while she lowered herself down until it nudged against her. She found her balance on the heels, the palms of her hands on her knees, sank down his full length and gasped. She raised herself up again, and gently bobbed up and down, knowing the view she was giving him. When she heard his breath quicken she stood upright, letting him fall out of her, and stepped off the bench.

She pushed his knees apart and stood between them, bending slightly away from him so her ass pushed towards him and brushed against his cock. She grabbed it and guided it between her cheeks and back inside her. With her hands on his knees she rocked forward and back, letting him glide in and out of her, building a rhythm. She increased the pace, listening to his breath get shorter as she tightened her grip on him. She knew that he had been chasing her these weeks thinking only of this moment, and he would not take long now. She sensed him grow in side her, the muscles in his legs tensed under her hands and then she felt him twitch inside her and groan as he came.

She stood up off him and turned to look at him, her eyes cold. She dragged the painting onto the floor, stepped over it, and dropped her hips until she squatted above the canvas. He saw the muscles in her belly contract and her hips roll forward and a narrow trail of his come trickled from her and dripped onto the painting. She put two fingers inside herself, pulled them out glistening, and flicked more onto the canvas. She leaned over and with the tip of her finger gently rubbed it across the surface of the oil paint, tracing circles around the nude's breasts and stroking a line down the body to the dark triangle beneath the belly.