She didn’t say anything.
“You’re almost unbelievably beautiful,” he said. “I couldn’t help myself. It’ll be a pleasure to paint you.”
“Thank you.”
Suddenly he was all business. He moved the easy chair about twelve feet from the window and set up the easel midway between chair and window. He raised the shade all the way and flung the window open.
“Good light,” he said.
“Do you want me to sit in the chair?”
He nodded. “For one thing, I don’t want to give you a difficult pose. It’s hard enough to remain in a comfortable position for a long stretch and there’s no sense looking for trouble.”
“What’s the other thing?”
He looked at her.
“You said for one thing. What’s the other?”
“Oh.” He walked to the chair and showed her how to sit in it, facing the easel head-on with both feet on the floor and her legs spread slightly. He had her fold her hands and rest them over her groin.
“This is the other thing,” he explained. “This pose should be perfect for you.”
“How do you mean?”
“A pose is very important, Susan. It has a lot to do with the effect that the artist is trying to capture. Keep your back straight — that’s right. You see, whatever the painter is trying to get across in a portrait, that effect is either enhanced or destroyed by the way he poses his subject.”
“What effect are you trying to put across?”
He hesitated. “It’s an emotional thing, of course. It’s hard to translate it into a word.”
“Can you give me some idea?”
“Well — innocence.”
She smiled. “Really?”
He nodded.
“Is that how I impress you?”
“Yes,” he said. “Sort of an inner innocence, if you know what I mean. As if nothing has ever really touched you. A knowing innocence, but an innocence nevertheless.”
“Wow,” she said. “I feel as though I’ve taken off my skin as well as my clothes.”
He grinned. “That’s perfect,” he said. “Hold that pose. And don’t smile like that — I don’t want to make you look too knowing.”
Maria walked to Stella’s side. Hesitantly she reached out with one hand and touched Stella on the shoulder. Then she jerked her hand away, fearing that she had done something wrong.
Stella woke up at once.
For a moment she stared at Maria without recognizing her. Then she smiled.
“Oh,” she said. “It’s you.”
Maria nodded.
“What are you doing here?”
“Larry threw me out,” she said. “I was a bad girl and he threw me out.”
“What did you do that was so bad?”
“I don’t know.”
Stella considered. “Well, where are you going to live now?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you have any money?”
The girl shook her head.
“How about your family?”
“They would never let me come home,” Maria stated solemnly. “I’m a bad girl. My mother would never let me come home.”
“I see.”
“And I don’t have any place to go.”
Stella closed her eyes for a second, thinking. “There’s a vacant room in this building,” she said. “It’s just a room with no place to cook, just a single room. Would you like to live in it?”
“I would like that,” Maria said.
“It’s not very big.”
“That doesn’t matter.”
“And you’ll have to do whatever I tell you to do,” Stella went on. “I’ll be paying your rent and buying your meals, so you’ll have to obey me all the time.”
Maria nodded.
“Will you do that?”
Maria nodded again.
“You’ll have to try to be a good girl.”
“I’ll try.”
“And when you’re bad I’ll punish you.”
“I’m very bad,” Maria said. “All the time I’m bad. I’m a bad little girl.”
“If you’re bad I’ll punish you.”
“That’s what my mother said,” Maria said dreamily. “She always punished me when I was bad.”
“How?”
“She spanked me. She spanked me hard.”
“I see,” Stella said.
“My Mummy is very strong,” Maria said. “She spanks hard.”
“Sometimes that’s the best thing in the world for a bad little girl.”
Maria nodded, agreeing.
“Have you been bad lately?”
“Yes,” Maria said. “I was very bad last night. I was horrid.”
“Do you think I ought to give you a spanking?”
Maria nodded again.
“Then take off all your clothes.” Without a word Maria began to strip. She unbuttoned her blouse and removed it. She had left her bra at the apartment the night before, and Stella’s eyes fastened on the soft, beautifully formed breasts. Then she unzipped her skirt and stepped out of it. She pulled down her panties and kicked off her shoes.
“Come here,” Stella ordered. The girl obeyed.
Stella sat up in bed with her legs out in front of her. She, too, was nude.
“I want you to lie across my knees,” Stella said. “And then you will get your punishment.”
The girl did as she was told. “Can I call you Mummy?” she demanded suddenly.
“Of course,” Stella said. “I’m your Mummy and you’re my bad little girl.”
“That’s right,” Maria said. “That’s right, Mummy.”
Stella breathed quickly. Then she began to rain blows on the beautiful girl’s soft little backside, slapping with the palms of her hands, using first one hand and then the other. At first the spanking was fairly soft, but as she went on she began to slap harder and harder until she was putting all the force of her powerful arms into the blows.
“That hurts, Mummy!”
“It’s supposed to hurt,” Stella explained. “It’s your punishment.”
The girl accepted the explanation.
At last, when the little girl began to cry softly and steadily, Stella decided that she had had enough. Gently she rolled Maria over onto her back and stretched out beside her.
“It hurts,” Maria whimpered. “You hurt me, Mummy.”
“My poor little girl,” Stella murmured. She lowered her lips to Maria’s and kissed her gently on the mouth. Then she pecked softly at her cheek.
“I love you, Mummy.”
Unable to restrain herself any longer, Stella let out a little sob of passion and took the girl in her arms.
Chapter six
The days passed.
Times goes by everywhere, and in this case Greenwich Village is not an exception. By day the sun beat down hot and bright between the buildings and at night the buildings held the heat in close. It was summer in New York, and like every summer in New York it was thoroughly unbearable.
But Ralph didn’t find the heat too objectionable. He was settling down into what was for him a relatively comfortable routine. Every afternoon he mounted the stairs to Susan’s apartment and worked on the portrait. The work went slowly; Susan’s beauty had an elusive quality about it which was difficult to capture in oils. Every brushstroke was important and every shade lighter or darker made a tangible difference.
He left his painting supplies in Susan’s room each day when he finished his work. The partially completed canvas he covered with a white cloth, instructing the girl not to remove it to look at the painting.
“I want you to see it all at once,” he told her. “No sneak previews.”
She teased him, anxious for a look. But he was adamant.
And, as the days passed, Stella demanded less and less of his time. With Maria established permanently in a tiny room on the second floor Stella had found a ready and willing outlet for her sexual abnormalities, and the two women were together almost constantly.