Instructed to Play

He begins to position me himself. He parts my legs as he did before and I feel myself grow damp with the exposure. With a gentle hand on my bottom he urges me up off my heels a few inches so that my thighs take my weight. Then he places my arms behind my back, my wrists crossed as if bound. Finally, he presses against my back, encouraging me to arch my spine. The position forces my small breasts forwards and I blush deeply at the powerful feeling of submission the pose evokes in me. He adjusts my head by tilting my chin up until my head is level with his chest. I gaze at the pattern of his tie, a passionate design of red and black swirls.

‘Eyes down,’ he tells me.

I obey.

He nods his approval and steps away. I hear his retreating footsteps and then the opening of a drawer from somewhere behind me. When he returns to me I see he has the little bronze plaque from the gallery, the one with my name on it. He fixes it into its setting at the base of the plinth and I am still. From this moment on I am his statue. An object he has purchased to decorate his beautiful library. I must hold this pose with absolute stillness until I am released.

Warmth courses through my body at the thought of the lovely pose he has created for me and I focus all my energy on maintaining it. It’s not as easy as it looks. My thighs are working the hardest, opened wide and angled forty-five degrees up and away from the plinth, supporting my weight. After a while I know they will be aching and possibly even trembling with the effort. But it wouldn’t be considered an art if it were easy or comfortable. And it wouldn’t be so erotic if it weren’t such a challenge.

Mr Villiers moves around the room, observing me from different angles and commenting favourably on what he sees. The maid returns when summoned and I am not surprised to learn from his conversation with her that guests will shortly be arriving. I wait until he has left the room for a moment to make a minute adjustment to my position. I won’t get another chance once the room is full of people scrutinising me. The thought warms me inside and I recall the silky touch of his finger between my legs at the gallery. I replay the moment again and again in my mind as I listen to the voices of the men and women entering the room and seeing their friend’s new acquisition.

‘How lovely!’ a lady exclaims. There is a flash of colour to my left as she comes closer and then she strokes the hollow of my hip with cool fingers.

A man beside her touches me in a similar fashion. Then another. Then another. The sensation of so many hands on me is powerfully erotic but I remember my training and keep my breathing slow and steady. I can’t help the gallop of my heart but I focus on being still, being obedient.

‘Isn’t she exquisite?’ someone says.

‘I must get one like her for my study.’

‘Perhaps I can find a matching pair for the garden.’

All around me words of praise float in the air and admiring hands roam over me as they might any decorative object. A lady draws her lacquered red nails down over my thighs. A man pinches my toes. Another tickles the tender crease between buttock and thigh. But I frustrate their attempts to make me react.

‘I do feel rather like Pygmalion.’

My master’s voice cuts through the chattering of the others and I time my breathing so that my next slow exhalation comes only after he has touched me again. I would recognise his touch even with all my other senses blocked, but I can smell his cologne and the musky warmth of his skin as he stands beside me. His fingertips tease my jutting pelvic bone as he slides his hand around to caress my bottom. The others fall silent while he strokes his possession. His touch is the hardest to resist responding to.

After a while a lady speaks. ‘But your Galatea hasn’t come to life yet.’

This is both the central irony and central beauty of my art, that I am most alive when pretending to be made of stone.

‘Oh, but I think she has,’ my master says. His hand slides up along the arch of my spine and then around to my left side. He gives my breast a little squeeze before pressing his hand up underneath it, hard against my ribs. I can feel my heart beating against his fingers, as though it’s trying to reach him. Heat floods my face and radiates through the rest of me, finding a home in the silky wet folds of my sex.

As though he can smell my arousal he laughs softly and then his hand is between my legs. ‘Very alive indeed,’ he murmurs.

And he’s right. I am more alive than I have ever been. More alive than at any other time in my life. My sex pulses feverishly in time with my pounding heart as his fingers probe and explore the soft wetness. And when he slips a finger deep inside me I can’t help it – I gasp. It’s only a tiny sound but it may as well be the shattering of glass. The shattering of an illusion.

I freeze again immediately but the damage is done. And now I can’t help the trembling in my legs as my master frowns.

‘Oh, dear,’ he says, and his disappointment is agony for me.

I daren’t speak, not even to apologise. The best I can hope for is that he’ll excuse my lapse. The curator explained that I was new, after all.

A man’s laugh rings out in the silent room, as jarring as a horn. ‘Well, it looks like your Galatea has a voice!’

The others laugh at that and one by one they slip away to the dining room. Someone calls out to my master, to ask if he is coming. But he shakes his head, standing before me as still as a statue himself.

‘It would seem,’ he says calmly, ‘that you are not yet fully trained after all.’

My trembling intensifies and I feel tears pricking my eyes. My very first private exhibition and I have failed. The shame threatens to overwhelm me.

‘But no matter. What’s done is done. We’re none of us perfect, are we?’

I know better than to deepen my disgrace by responding as though he had asked the question of a person. Flawed or not, I am still a statue and must hold on to as much of my role as I can.

‘No,’ he continues, his voice kind and forgiving. I sense his smile as he smoothes a strand of hair behind my ear. ‘Not perfect. Which means I have the pleasure of teaching you how to mimic perfection.’

My heart seems to stumble in my chest as I realise he isn’t going to send me back. Immediately I regain control of myself, will my eyes to stop welling with tears, will my body to stop shaking. I focus on the red and black swirls in his tie and lose myself in the pattern as I try to disengage from my body. I think of Natasha and the other girls, so silent and still, so perfect. How can I ever hope to be as good as they are?

‘You will have to earn your submissive pose again,’ he says. Then he paces away across the room and when he returns he is holding a riding crop.

If my eyes widen slightly he doesn’t notice, as he is inspecting the looped leather tongue at the end of the crop. He slaps it against his palm a few times. Then he slices the crop through the air before me and I can’t help it: I flinch.

He tuts and shakes his head. ‘Statues do not react,’ he says, and his tone is inscrutable. ‘Not to noises or touches. Not to pleasure or pain. Not to any stimuli at all.’

I still the trembling that threatens to overwhelm me and he holds the crop out, pressing the tongue firmly against my left nipple. The leather is cool and I immediately stiffen beneath its touch. He does the same on the other side and I suppress a shiver. My focus is completely gone and I can’t seem to regain it. Quite apart from my horror at having failed him, I’m both frightened and aroused by his authority. I desperately want to please him, to earn my pose back and to be touched again like before.

He raises the crop a few inches and then flicks it down onto the hard peak of my nipple. Not enough to hurt, just enough to send a flash of stimulation through me. It’s all I can do not to react but I hold myself still for him as he moves to the other side and repeats the stroke. He watches my face closely as he positions the crop again and taps me gently. This time he brings it down with a little more force.

The sensation is intense on such a delicate part of me and I can’t fully process what I’m feeling. The smack of leather is impossible to ignore. It awakens all the sensitive nerve endings, sending a confusing blend of signals through me. Pleasure, pain and something in between.

He moves the crop back and forth, bringing it down in a brisk motion on first one nipple, then the other. A little harder each time now. I force myself to stay still, to resist the urge to cry out, gasp or whimper. When I realise I’m not breathing I make myself inhale slowly and hold the breath for several seconds before letting it out just as slowly.

The crop descends smartly, again and again, daring me to defy the man inflicting the torment. But I breathe through the strokes, determined to pass his test, determined to make him proud of me. My nipples tingle from the strange stimulation and the burning flows through my body like waves until my sex is throbbing in response.

When he finally stops I feel strangely bereft. Then my master tucks the crop under his arm to free both his hands. He cups my aching breasts, and the warmth of his palms against the burning skin of my nipples is both soothing and agonising. Even then, I don’t allow myself to react. He’ll be able to feel the wild pounding of my heart but I hope I have borne the punishment to his satisfaction.

‘Very good,’ he says.

Before I can relax, however, he takes up the crop again and this time places the leather tongue up against my sex. Tingling with fear and excitement, I brace myself.

The first stroke is gentle, just a little tap. But my sex is even more sensitive than my breasts and the smack of leather is like a jolt of electricity. The next stroke is harder and the next is harder still. I feel each one deep inside me, penetrating me as his finger did earlier.

Although I hold perfectly still for him, there is no doubt that he can see how much his actions are arousing me. Each smack of the crop against my wetness floods me with sensation and when he flicks the tip back and forth across my clit I realise with sudden alarm that he intends to make me come. My eyes must reflect some fear over this because he gives a low chuckle and the crop ceases its relentless assault for a moment. My sex tingles along with my breasts, burning and pulsing at the sensory onslaught, wanting more.

But he teases me. He steps around to my side and now he rests the crop against the smooth curve of my bottom. I hold my breath as I feel it lift away and then connect with a sharp smack. He is less forgiving here, laying on the strokes smartly and giving me less time to recover in between. It’s all I can do not to yelp and flinch.

Then the leather tongue, warmer now that it has tasted so much of my tender flesh, taps against the delicate soles of my feet. I wait, every muscle tensed in anticipation, until he raises the crop again and it strikes in earnest. The pain is astonishing. But it’s also exhilarating. As it rises and falls against my feet I feel a surge of euphoria. I have crossed a line where pain becomes pleasure and all sensation is welcome.

As though sensing the change in me, my master returns to stand in front of me. He caresses my face, cups my chin and slips his thumb into my mouth, teasing my tongue with it like the promise of a kiss. Through it all I remain perfectly still although every nerve in my body is screaming for release.

He steps back and presses the end of the crop between my legs again. My nether lips are burning and swollen from the punishment they have taken but they still want more. I want more.

He doesn’t make me wait long. I feel the crop tap gently against my inner thighs, peppering them with light little smacks before returning for a more vigorous assault on my sex. The leather strikes me hard, harder, harder, and the wave begins to build inside me. He adjusts the angle just enough to catch my clit and each sharp stroke drives me closer and closer. When the rush overtakes me I lose all sense of control, crying out with complete abandon as a pleasure more intense than I ever thought possible threatens to consume me.

He catches me before I can fall and my body assaults me from within as I gasp and pant and tremble in his arms.

After a while he releases me and it takes some effort to stand upright after what I’ve just endured. I blush fiercely as he forces me to meet his eyes. He is smiling.