Chapter 8 - Art to Art
Margery had determined that Mohandas' art gallery would be an ideal place for Kat to begin this subjugation. So, after getting home after her unsuccessful afternoon with Bianca, she had left it too late for a full training session if she wanted any sleep tonight. So, she changed quickly for a brief seduction to keep Mohandas primed; threw on her black cloak and took the lift up to the helipad to get her hover-bike that Circe had already ordered-up from the garage concierge.
She'd hoped to have bewitched Bianca, in preparation for bringing her and Mohandas together this weekend. It would have been delicious to begin Bianca's dependence training using her boyfriend as bait. But that would have to wait until next weekend now.
Yet Mohandas was going very well indeed.
He was falling over himself when she arrived late. As she anticipated he'd been on tenterhooks, unable to confirm that she was coming. He jumped up and embraced her and she kissed him back passionately, removing his shirt as she did so: "We don't need this, do we?"
When she playfully undid the top button of her blouse; then another; and another, recalling last night, he became unsteady and she thought he might pass out.
"Have you been enjoying my gift in your Vidicube? Of course, you have. I can tell," she scolded, shaking her long index finger at him playfully.
Was that bad or good? He couldn't tell. Now all she seemed to want him to do was to revisit his art collection with her.
He hadn't thought she had much interest yesterday but now she insisted on going with him piece by piece around the gallery. He didn't mind. Her blouse now gaping provocatively; and when her nipple grazed his arm Mohandas could hardly contain his excitement and frustration.
They'd stopped in front Mohandas' reproduction of Jean-Honoré Fragonard's famous painting of young man fallen before a young woman.
"This one is very nice," Kat declared. It brings to mind the Olympic motto: Citius, Altius, Fortius: faster, higher, stronger."
"That's what she was demanding of him yesterday and in his VR vidi," Mohandas realised, he thought he'd heard it somewhere before.
"Although, in your case, faster, higher, harder might be more apropos, after your gold-medal performance last night, and your condition right now," Kat said, nudging him playfully.
"Look at that girl! Isn't she pretty? And the young man's gazing up her billowing skirt as she comes towards him on the swing; her white, stocking clad legs in disarray. Women didn't wear knickers back then. Her private parts must be open for him to see, like mine last night," she added, squeezing his arm.
"It's called, The Happy Accidents of the Swing," he explained haltingly, finding it hard to gather his thoughts.
"Oh really?" she responded with interest. "The plural, 'accidents', suggests another happy accident at each return of the swing. Do you imagine yourself as that young man, with her returning above you again and again?"
"Is that why you have this sexy picture? Because looking up a woman's skirt makes you hard? My god! That's what's made you so hard right now. You're a voyeur," she gasped.
She stepped away and examined him, as if seeing him afresh. "Look at you! You're hard as a rock. Looking up a woman's skirts turn you on, doesn't it?" She was no longer smiling: "That's a bit off, isn't it?"
Mohandas didn't know what to say. The way she'd said "a bit off" made him feel perverse, dirty. Obviously, he was aroused, as she'd said. He couldn't deny it. But he'd been in this state, that was starting to get painful, since Kat had arrived.
Yet, with her encouragement, he had imagined himself as the fellow in the painting. But he's never been fixated or voyeuristic like his friend Raj, who describes himself as a 'pants man'. Raj likes summer in the Gardens when young girls rest, legs apart, on the lawns or hitch up their skirts to sun their legs. The map of his lunchtime walks with Raj is more Miro than Mondrian, as they wander in circles around a lawn for Raj to get a better view; or make a sudden bee-line towards a distantly glimpsed opportunity, all the while chatting away earnestly about economics as if disinterested.
Once, when stood-up by Raj for lunch, Mohandas had gone to the Gardens alone. There he discovered Raj helping an attractive colleague out of a tree that he'd somehow, persuaded her to climb. Mohandas had guessed at an office dalliance. Her loose skirt billowed over his head as she descended into his arms. It was Raj's idea of getting a room.
To hide his present embarrassment Mohandas quickly began explaining that the painting had political overtones. The man pushing the swing had once been a bishop but Fragonard had had to change him to a servant. But Kat was so dismissive of this as a reason to own an 'up-skirt picture' that he quickly moved her along to the next painting.
Now like a twentieth century tourist proudly showing off his new slide projector to the neighbours, he'd accidently mixed a pornographic slide among the family holiday snaps. The next one was Rembrandt's portrait of his mistress Hendrickje Stoffels: Hendrickje Bathing in a River.
"Oh yes," Kat exclaimed, delighting in this apparent confirmation of her earlier accusation. "That's more like it isn't it? Look into the shadow below her bundled skirt and the way it's held in front of her legs and there's an even more intimate view reflected in the stream. But alas for deviants like you, her most interesting reflection is now below the bottom of the frame, cut off by some 18th century censor. You are a real pervert, aren't you? You're more turned on by these up-the-skirt suggestions than by all your secret pornographic nudes with their cunts fully on display, aren't you?"
She was being deliberately crude, bumping her hip against him and clinging to his arm firmly, with both hands, as she used that crude word; playing with his mind. He realised that the descriptions: 'pervert' and 'deviant' and even having his secret collection, how did she know (?), were not intended to be insults but in Kat's eyes are badges of honour.
Now they were both smiling at his Fragonard again.
Margery was pleased with Kat's progress. Mohandas had accepted the proposition that it was OK to be turned on by a woman's sexuality, and even to masturbate secretly or in front of one. Now it was time for Kat to introduce him to the central panel and sign him up to the deviants' club.
"Are you a compulsive voyeur?" she asked, still holding his arm against her breast. "I bet you're one of those deviants who choose to sit downstairs in a two level carriage on the platform side, gazing up in delight as women board the train. Should I check for equipment in or under the seat when I use your bathroom? Have you got a camera in a shoe too? You're one of those perverts who secretly spy on women's toilets and dressing rooms aren't you? Do you jerk-off in front of them like you did for me last night?" Her questions coming in rapid succession, enjoying his disappearing smile.
He was totally outraged. He shook himself free and stared at her, angry and wounded.
"How could you suggest such a thing? What do you think I am?" he shouted; his recent lust replaced by anger.
"I'm just playing with you," Kat told him, smiling broadly. "I find your up-skirt pictures very arousing too. I really do," she added unhelpfully, turning in front of him and taking him in her arms.
Her greater height, particularly in her shoes, allowed her to hold him as mother might hold a distressed child. He was still injured and struggled a little but she held him until he felt better and was becoming aroused yet again. She felt and smelt so sexy. Then, looking around ostentatiously, Kat gave him another playful pat or two with her metaphorical paw, claws out just a little:
"I love this blood red room, in the centre of your apartment like this, it's very Freudian. It's your mother's womb, isn't it? So, it must be confusing for you to come in here to enjoy your erotic paintings. I mean on a subconscious level. Can you get off in here? Or are you blocked by Oedipal confusion?"
He was appalled, things were going from bad to worse. What sort of person did she think he was? He'd never tried to 'get off' in here. These pictures aren't pornographic. They're great art.
From her observer's perspective Margery was enjoying this cat and mouse game. Mohandas was a lovely little brown mouse for her Kat's delight.
***
The last blow had hit home. Mohandas realised that she was right about the room, it is alarmingly Freudian. This had been his mother's gallery. So, maybe his desire to replace her art with his art is subconscious - evidence of a latent Oedipus complex. Perhaps his wish to deny his pictures' erotic content is Freudian. He decided that he needed to change the colour scheme, at the very least, but he would never accept that his beloved art collection is pornographic or edit that.
He was finding the whole gallery experience very disturbing yet at the same time, arousing. Mohandas had always dreamed of sharing his art collection with a responsive woman. She seemed to be very aroused. He'd been able to feel her firm breast and occasionally her hard nipple against his bare arm through the thin silk of her blouse, as she held him to her while flirtatiously going from painting to painting, particularly pausing and admiring the nudes. Yet by comparing them, in the most lascivious and intimately physical terms, to herself and to women in general, she had repeatedly pointed to a pornographic intent. Each time she drew attention to a 'nice cunt' or 'to a fuckable body' her ribald crudity felt like a blow to his artistic sensibilities and so to a central pillar of his existence, upon which he'd invested thousands of hours of work and a great part of his very being. She'd steadfastly refused to treat his paintings with the respect that great art is due. Instead, their alleged pornographic sexuality was apparently what she'd liked about them. And she was clearly aroused. He desperately wanted to deny that they were pornographic while at the same time growing more and more excited that her alleged motivation for liking them was pornographic. He was beginning to deliberately draw her attention to paintings that might arouse her more.
And so, he led her to his Balthus.
Mohandas' Balthus reproduction depicts a nude pubescent girl with a cat. The girl is uncomfortably posed over a chair with her head back and eyes closed and is wearing nothing but red slippers. Her right knee is raised; her left leg extended; and her left arm stretches up towards the cat; that's lying on its side on a high credenza behind her; its eyes almost closed. In the background a woman, with her back to us, looks out of a bright window.
Original in the National Gallery of Victoria - Melbourne Australia
When Margery saw the Balthus she was reminded of her of herself at that age. Her mother is in the background gazing out of a window, waiting for Uncle Ron to arrive. What a rush of mixed emotions she experienced! After her initial shock she decided to have Kat make Mohandas give her the painting on the spot. After training it would be easy for Kat to make him do anything. So, this would be an early overture.
***
Mohandas' choice of the Balthus immediately paid dividends. The effect his picture had on his Kat was extraordinary. She seemed to be transfixed and actually began to purr, apparently mimicking the cat. After her initial contemplation she moved behind him and pressed herself to his back; so that he could feel her hard nipples; her arms embracing his bare chest. Then he felt her hot breath as she began to nibble his ear and pinch one of his nipples. He progressively became firmly erect. Her hand descended and unzipped his pants; freeing his member and taking him in hand.
"Oh yes, this one makes you very hard!" she murmured seductively, her moving hand ensuring it was a fait accompli. "You're a latent paedophile too!" she suddenly declared, apparently outraged. "Do you, furtively lust after children? Do you have an overcoat? Do you hang around school yards? I knew you were deviant but this filthy picture definitely defines you. Look what it's done to you!"
He'd been so distracted by her sudden blatant sexuality, expecting it to lead to one of her demands for sex right here on his red carpet, that when her barrage of outrageous questions exploded, he was slow to insist that his excitement had nothing to do with the "filthy" painting.
Yet before he could assemble the required series of denial's her sharp fingernails dug into his member 'til he cried out in pain. And her voice became accusatory: "Don't you try to deny it! Look at the cat's eyes, even it knows that you are looking lustfully at that girl."
So, he didn't try.
In response to this tacit admission Kat's voice began purring in his ear again as she rocked him from side to side in a sort of dream.
She obviously didn't mind, instead, she was complicit: "Oh yes, I see, looking at the girl more closely. Her bare legs; her breasts. This painting is wonderfully erotic," as she spoke her fingers caressed him to illustrate each observation.
Margery was delighted Mohandas had fallen for Kat's 'bad is good' trick yet again.
Kat's hands were like magic. And indeed, with her soft crooning and her manual adroitness, the painting did seem increasingly sexy. Kat seemed to be leading him libidinously through the image, inch by inch, whispering admiringly that she could understand what an admitted pervert, like he, must like about this or that. "No wonder you love this dirty painting so much!" The girl was still a child she repeatedly observed: "Feel how excited the little girl's made you!"
But now she embarked on a new, far less exciting scenario, recalling Margery's experience of being hurt by Uncle Ron when she was very young.
"Given your taste in pornography, I can tell that you would love to do something like that," she added.
Mohandas was totally outraged and attempted to break away. But again, Kat was surprisingly strong and held him firmly: "Oh don't be like that," she said as he struggled: "I know you're not that depraved. No one could be. But what have you imagined about the woman as you looked on? You would like her to pay you more attention, wouldn't you? Or perhaps assist you in some way? She could hold the girl down."
He struggled against her implications that his art was pornography but could sense her growing excitement with each elaboration. Soon she was rocking him again and he gave up the struggle.
As Kat's rhythm built, her purring deepened and became an increasingly melodic and seductive sing-song about his imagined sexual adventures within "his dirty painting", now involving the woman and even the cat. Despite the depraved scenarios she was conjuring up, using the dirtiest, forbidden, words, he was no longer quite listening to their meaning. Hers was like a song in an opera, in a language he didn't fully understand, glorifying forbidden love.
***
Margery was admiring her alter-ego's skill at controlling men like this. She'd led Mohandas into the second panel of Earthly Delights and he was now wandering enraptured among Kat's perversely aberrant scenarios, mostly recalled from Margery's own abused childhood.
***
Now it was time to get the painting. Redoubling Kat's previous manipulations she stroked, pinched and explored. While breathing erotically on his neck she sang to him in explicit detail, explaining what he really wanted to do with this, to the child in his dirty picture. After last night's activities the next five minutes of Mohandas' life were child's-play for Kat. His body shattering consummation was confirmation of her: 'competence and expertise in man management'. Exactly as Margery's professional resume, in her other guise, proclaims.
As soon as he could think rationally again, Mohandas was mortified. As he built to his climax, with Kat describing the scene, he was actually imagining raping the seductive young girl in "his dirty picture", as her mother held her down. And all the while a cat, which/witch (?) one, was demanding: "faster, higher, stronger."
"Oh, look what you've done just thinking about ravaging that little girl. You dirty little man!" she exclaimed, with a smile in her voice, pointing to his soiled carpet. "You really enjoyed that. And she's only a child! I knew you were a paedophile!"
Mohandas was overcome with shame and self-loathing. It wasn't possible! He'd imagined raping a child. And in his soul, he knew that he'd enjoyed it!
"I am an unknowing deviant! That's why I spent so much loving care, perfectly reproducing, framing and hanging this vile painting," he realised.
Bile rose in his throat. He felt physically ill just looking at his shame. He took the painting down; and faced it to the wall. He couldn't look at it anymore. It was the cat's evil awareness, pretending aloofness but looking out into his now troubled soul. Both cats had ruined the Balthus for him.
"Oh, don't do that," Kat insisted: "She's so beautiful! If you don't want her, can I have her?"
In his confusion and anger Mohandas picked the frame up, back towards him, and handed it to her like a petulant little boy.
She smiled exultantly. She'd taken both his painting and his manhood - both ways.
***
Margery was slightly disappointed at how quickly it had worked. She'd hoped that Kat's exquisite delight in his growing discomfort would last longer. She was barely trembling and hardly into recalling a typical session with Uncle Ron. But it had been stimulating. She would revisit this with Mohandas once she had no other use for him.
At less than a metre wide the Balthus will be easy to wrap and carry away on her hover-bike.
Kat kissed him cheek to cheek for the gift: "It's so lovely, thank you. Now have you got something to wrap it in, you know that bubbly stuff? and maybe some big sheets of paper? And some twine, so I can carry it on my bike?"
Rather petulantly, she thought, he took it away to his workroom and brought it back all wrapped up for the flight. He wasn't a happy boy as he carried it up for her and strapped it safely on her bike. That would soon change.
The Fragonard and Rembrandt have suggested a plan for the next stage in his training tomorrow and very soon Kat will be taking Mohandas further into the central panel of her Garden of Earthly Delights.
Margery's favourite, The Garden of Earthly Delights, is far too big to carry now. Kat will make him give her that too, after she's organised a courier to take it away, along with the Fragonard and maybe some others. Mohandas will soon be Kat's, to do with as she wants.
He watched her, still angry, as she swung her black flying cape over her shoulders and mounted her bike to carry off his picture. Yet when she beckoned him with her long index finger, he instantly obeyed. The proper, deep, sensual kiss, that was his reward for obedience, warmed him like a double shot of Benedictine. "It's Saturday tomorrow. I'll see you in the morning then?" she whispered kissing him again. A thrill of excited anticipation gripped him. How could he stay mad at her? "Yes," he nodded enthusiastically.
As he watched her fly away, slowly gaining height, her black hair streamed back and her cape formed a black triangle over her bike. There was a full moon and as she passed across it he had the sudden impression of a storybook witch and imagined he heard a witches cackle. Of course, that's ridiculous. He's a modern man and doesn't believe in witches.
Then the impression was gone when she accelerated away to? He realised he has no idea where she lives. Yet he has to admit he is becoming bewitched by her.
***
At home Margery stripped out of her dress and knickers and stepped back into her shoes. Popping a bottle of her favourite vintage bubbly she poured herself a glass, holding it up to her reflection as she posed in her living room mirror-wall to congratulate herself. Who was that irresistible seductress over there in her reflection? Over thirty years of doing this and she was getting better and better at it. Mohandas' second day traversing The Garden of Earthly Delights had been a triumph. She'd achieved his excursion well into the central panel of perverse delights within two days of their first meeting. A personal best.