Author's notes: I have had to submit this piece in a hurry as I don't want the plot summary to be read. So it's incomplete.
*
Artist, photographer and pornographer, Archie Tennyson, frowned slightly. He nervously brushed his hand through his foppish blonde hair. Rachel Hobson, his dear, raven-haired model, stood before him, also frowning. Her dark expression was reminiscent of her Morgan le Fay series, brooding yet seductive. Her arms were firmly folded over her black maid's uniform. He failed to understand what he had done wrong. Rachel was the best model he had photographed since he lost Mary. Beneath the heavily starched fabric, her body was smooth like polished marble, as lustily curved as Venus herself. Archie had thought his artistic nature had left with his lover, but Rachel's presence had reignited the fiery, passionate flames of creation. He felt the urge to paint scratching his mind, desperate to escape and capture her upon canvas. A painting would leave a warm, glowing impression in a way a photograph never could.
"Please Rachel," Archie begged the pale beauty. "You're so beautiful, so lovely, the gentleman love your pictures. I want to paint you. Please come back to me. I'll up your cut to twenty percent. Come by the studio after you finish working here. I'll put on a nice tea and we can discuss this matter properly. Please, my dear." His overly wide smile and twinkling brown eyes promised his model more than a simple meal. The evening would end with her naked in his bed, but how he would make love to her was another issue entirely. Archie considered the tracing of a beautiful form onto paper, filling in the depths and shadows of her neck, her breasts and thighs, to be a form of making love, as if his pastel was his hand upon her delicate flesh.
The frowning beauty placed her hands on her black-clad hips. "I'm sorry, I really am, but I cannot do it anymore." Rachel was sorry. While her extra earnings had purchased her many luxury items, she would miss her employer more.
Archie was one of the few men who had treated her with the respect and dignity a richer woman would enjoy on a daily basis. He had constantly praised her body, sometimes kissing each part as he told her so. Archie had dressed her in transparent silks, ropes of pearls, roses and leaves, always careful to show her form in a beautiful, artistic manner, her pubis nearly always covered. Rachel had been Archie's Morgan le Fay, his Artemis and Ophelia. They had had fun together, she smiling for the lens, he beneath the cape of the camera, capturing her beauty forever on card. To top that all off, he wanted to paint her. Archie hadn't painted since he lost Mary; it was a great honour that he offered her the position as model. And Rachel had to turn him down.
Archie caught the maid's shoulders, pinning her to the wall as he studied her face. A white, anaemic skin enshrouded her feline-like bone structure. Her eyes were large, dark and expressive, a feature commented on by many who saw Archie's portfolio. She had a layer of thick eyelashes brimming her eyes. Her hair was long, black and wavy.
The blank slate of Rachel's pale skin and darkly defined features, was a good starting point for Archie's pornographic representations of a range of emotive characters. Seductresses like Morgan le Fay, Cleopatra and Medea, innocent beauties like Susannah, Iphigenia and various maidens tied to trees awaiting a chivalrous knight. Rachel's photographs always sold well.
"I don't understand why you cannot pose for me anymore. Why have you been avoiding me?" Archie asked. Rachel had recently left her lodgings without leaving a forwarding address. It had taken him a long time to discover the meeting house where she worked as a maid. "Are they whoring you here?"
Rachel was no prude. She laughed at his suggestion. "No. I just- cannot do it anymore... I'm engaged to be married, Archie. I cannot have my husband being humiliated and ridiculed because of them dirty pictures." Rachel smiled at her employer for a brief second, before lowering her eyes to disguise the tears. Archie had been very clear when she started to work for him that there was no hope of marriage. His heart belonged with Mary.
"Oh," Archie said. He instinctively knew not to push for any details. It would only make their parting moments more uncomfortable for them both. "I can understand your situation. Of course you do not want such smut circulating. I promise you, I shall not sell any more of your pictures," he lied. "And well, good luck for the future. I hope that you are happy."
Numbly, Rachel felt the kiss on her forehead. She closed her eyes. When she opened them, she was alone. Her back leant against the dark-panelled wall of a servant's hallway in the bowels of the meeting-house where she worked.
Archie had moved so quickly that he soon found himself lost. He would be faced by Rachel Hobson if he turned back, so he pressed forward, finally finding a wooden flight of stairs. He climbed up, two at a time, and emerged in an empty room. The walls were papered with deep, burgundy toned paper. There was a long, rich velvet drape in the same colour, covering some sort of doorway. He pushed through and emerged behind the desk in the entrance hall of the meeting house. For an instant, everything blurred and it was as if he and she were the only people in the room. Mary was as lovely as he remembered her.
Her hair was a lovely golden colour, glistening beneath the gas-lamps. It tumbled loosely down her back in natural ringlets, drawn elaborately up at the top by, he didn't doubt, ornate combs. Fashion dictated that this style was only worn by unmarried women. The silk dress she wore was a vivid green colour, striped with very thin black lines that attempted to mute its beauty. It was a colour that only she seemed able to suit, as a perfect complement to her hair and creamy skin. The neckline dipped low, displaying a brief hint of cleavage, but not so much as to be immodest. The dress would be perfectly acceptable at an upper-class tea party. As Archie watched her, he began to realise that it was not Mary before him. Mary was gone. It was another woman arguing with the fat woman in charge of the books. The resemblance of the woman to Mary was uncanny at first sight, but as Archie observed her, he noticed some obvious differences.
The woman's face rose to scrutinise Archie. He had never seen eyes that colour; they were a clear, slightly blue-toned grass green, as vivid as her dress. He was somewhat reminded of bohemian absinthe, an agreeable strain of the drink he had encountered in his travels of the region. The long lashes that decorated her brilliant eyes were the antithesis of her hair colour, black as night. They emphasised her beauty and drew his eye in to sample more. Above, thin, arched eyebrows mirrored the slightly angled curves of her eyes. Her cheekbones were perfectly padded; not fat, but not gaunt either. A dusting of red along their ridge enticed his sight down to her full, cupid's bow lips. They were an amazingly pure red colour, full and unwrinkled. She looked three-and-twenty if she was lucky. One year younger than Mary would be.
Arabella winked at the young man gawking at her from behind the counter. He had a thin frame, yet wasn't particularly feeble-looking. His dark suit was cut in the season's fashion, an indication that he had money at his disposal and he was not merely a servant of the establishment. His blonde hair was too long by most standards, but framed his face perfectly. It was a nice, deep colour, not faded like the hair of her husband, Peter Hawke. The young man's features were strong and angular, yet somehow boyish. She supposed that was due to the lack of facial hair upon his face. The absence of a moustache, beard or side-whiskers made him appear almost naked; she was accustomed to seeing hair on men's faces. The boy, she decided, had expressive, pink-toned lips, his mouth wide and friendly. His brown eyes returned her wink, but she was too angry to flirt. She turned her attention back to the ugly, pasty-faced hostess, Susannah Price; a woman who was trying her utmost to be difficult.
"I do not know why you cannot put the room's rental on the good doctor's account, as you normally do," Arabella snapped. As she spoke, the man slowly inched himself out from behind the desk, trying not to alert Susannah of his presence. Lord knows where he had sprung from.
