Luc photographs Yvette (Part 2)

(Continued from Part 1)

“Pardon the mess,” Yvette said as she led Luc up the stairway. The steps were cluttered with buckets and aluminum ladders. “The plasterers are getting ready to start on the walls.”

She lived a few blocks from the museum in an apartment tucked above Calix Books. The cozy, sunlit store was an institution downtown, hosting intimate readings and sourcing hard-to-find titles for local readers. The window featured a display of books by Ioana, the celebrated Romanian stylist who blended magical realism and erotica. Janie had been hounding Luc to read one of her short stories.

Inside Yvette’s apartment, Luc surveyed the scene. High ceilings, white walls, tall windows framed by long linen curtains. The furniture was modern but well-loved, the overall aesthetic minimal and confident. The space spoke to an appreciation for quality over quantity, like the woman’s informal daily uniform, he thought. Through the windows, the dome of the museum glittered a few blocks away. The gilded statue of Venus shone in the afternoon light.

“So,” Yvette said, pulling the boy’s attention back to their photoshoot. “You’re still completely comfortable with nudity?”

Luc sat on the firm, beige sofa and loaded a fresh roll of film into his camera. Yvette’s first playful subversion of her uniform, in the name of performance art, had involved strolling around the museum’s airy lobby completely bottomless. What next? he wondered.

Beside him on the sofa sat Yvette’s canvas bag, which she had tossed down before stepping off into the bedroom to change. From the rumpled opening, draped diagonally with a soft vermilion strap, poked the tip of Asami’s sage green ceramic wand. Luc felt himself swell against his thigh, aroused simultaneously by the secret of the wand’s origin — his own erection — and by the prospect of seeing Yvette handle it again. She had pointedly brought the object back from the museum, presumably to use.

Just then, the woman emerged from her bedroom. She was completely naked save for a pair of chunky tortoiseshell glasses, which to Luc lent her the studious air of a librarian. Or a museum curator, for that matter. A fresh application of aubergine lipstick matched her painted nails. Yvette walked barefoot around the sofa and tentatively struck a pose in front of the window mirroring the museum’s golden statue.

“What do you think?”

“It’s a bold look,” Luc said, raising the camera to his eye. He brought her nude form into focus. “You look absolutely fantastic.”

She responded by tipping her hips to the side and raising her arms above her head. “Why thank you.” Her movements were more relaxed than they had been at the museum, but still had a hint of the amorous clumsiness that Luc found so arousing.

Yvette leaned back on the wide windowsill so sunlight spilled over a shoulder to light her bare breasts. “Can you see the museum behind me?”

Luc moved so the dome rose beneath her raised arm. He released the shutter. “Yes.”

“Good,” she said in a low voice, looking directly into the lens. She lowered her right hand so the glossy surfaces of her dark painted nails skimmed first over her stiff right nipple, then the taut undercurve of her breast, her belly, pubic hair, and finally her delicate pink labia. Snap.

“I’m going to touch myself, OK?”

Snap. “OK.”

“It’s part of the performance.”

Yvette leaned back and spread her thighs atop the windowsill, steadying herself with an ivory curtain clutched in her right hand. The other turned so her fingertips pressed just above where her lips met beneath the triangle of neatly-trimmed hair. Luc focused on the way her soft skin yielded to the light pressure.

She slipped her index finger forward so the glossy nail disappeared. “I’m touching myself within sight of the museum,” she whispered with a tiny shiver. “Someone with binoculars could watch me from the gallery windows.”

Luc continued shooting. He framed the shots simply around the bright window, which itself framed Yvette’s naked body. Afternoon light spilled around her shoulder, around the swaying outer curve of her breast as she caressed herself tentatively. His mind wandered to the canvas bag on the sofa behind him.

“Will you try a few with Asami’s wand?”

She looked at the bag on the sofa and back to Luc, who had positioned himself behind the coffee table to hide his erection. “Full circle, hmm?”

He nodded. You have no idea, he thought.

“Give it to me.” Yvette lifted her right hand and extended it like a classical statue. It was the most graceful gesture Luc had seen from her. After pulling the bag within reach, he wrapped his hand around the cool glazed wand and lifted it toward the woman. The two of them looked at it between them for a moment.

Yvette cracked a smile, “I wish we had a photo of this. It’s like The Creation of Adam.”

“Or Yvette,” Luc said before thinking.

She grasped the tip of the wand and pulled it from the boy’s hand, smiling curiously. “Is this your rib then?”

“It’s —” Luc blushed deeply and raised the camera to hide his face.

Yvette flipped the object deftly end for end, looking at it as if for the first time. She looked back into the lens and brought the wand to her mouth, running her tongue in a circle around the tip. Slick with saliva, she lowered it to her flushed labia and inserted the tip with practiced smoothness. She closed her eyes and sighed softly as the shutter snapped.

From behind the camera, Luc watched her slide the tip of the sage green wand up and down the length of her glistening wetness, never inserting more than an inch inside herself. He felt his own tip throb against his thigh. Full circle, he thought. Through his lens, Asami’s handiwork moved against Yvette’s body — his own art and Asami’s mingled, with Yvette radiant in the middle.

She turned her face to the warm sunlight, eyes closed behind the round tortoiseshell frames, the corner of a plump aubergine lip held between bright teeth. She hummed a breathy moan as Luc saw a tiny shiver travel through her body. Venus watched from atop the museum’s dome through the window. Snap.

After a quiet moment, Yvette opened her eyes and set the wand on the windowsill, appearing suddenly aware of her nakedness. “Those won’t to be part of the piece,” she said, shaking her head with a smile. “I got a little carried away.”

“It was beautiful.” He rose to sit on the edge of the sofa.

“Thank you.” She brought her thighs together and folded her hands over top. “It’s the first time I’ve done that one-on-one. It felt different than being in front of everyone at the Come-In.”

“You were lovely then too,” Luc said, remembering fleeting glimpses of the curator naked and masturbating with abandon atop the stone steps between Maaike & Peter. He shifted to discretely adjust his aching erection.

“Asami hinted that you took part in her little project.”

“I —” Luc didn’t know how to respond.

She looked down at the conspicuous bulge in the boy’s lap, then to the wand glittering in the sunlight beside her, the one she had chosen from among a dozen beautiful others at Asami’s studio. Her eyes widened as she looked back to him. “It isn’t, is it?”