Chapter 2 Within the Frame - 1

• 01 The Acquisition
• I had never really been one for paintings but something about this one spoke to me.
• It could've been the man's smokey gray eyes or the way he looked at you through hooded eyes with a lowered head. Like he knows something I don't...
• I'd ended up at the auction only because my boyfriend, Tim, had dragged me here.
• He enjoyed the sophistication of the events, dressing me up like a pretty doll, and wearing his own expertly tailored suits and perfectly tied cravats.
• Cravat. I almost giggled to myself. It seemed such a strange word for modern days.
• The auction was being held in some man's mansion. Tim knew him. I didn't. But it was quite lovely. White walls with a vaulted ceiling. Accompanied by a low hanging chandelier with diamond shaped bulbs illuminated the room in a warm glow.
• The tinkling of glasses echoed in the large room. Waiters walked around offering everyone more wine and expensive hors d'oeuvres. Music which seemed far too old for the time played from a speaker a distance away.
• The tables were covered in lavender laced cloths and everyone was beginning to sit down with their little numbered signs to begin the bidding.
• Men were adjusting their suits as though they were preparing for some sort of battle rather than readying to raise their sign a few inches.
• I nearly laughed. This wasn't my type of setting.
• But Tim liked to take me places like this to 'show me off' he called it.
• ***
• I listened to the jumble of murmured voices and masculine laughter. Women tossing little furs over their shoulders as they giggled in response.
• As if they had any idea what the men were discussing.
• I don't. I was willing to admit it.
• These were the items that a museum had acquired a few years ago. But during recent renovations they had found higher valued items so were willing to let these go.
• There were some shiny things that I barely paid attention to as I expected a roll of meat and cream cheese, assessing whether there might be some manner of fish eggs in there.
• But eventually they lifted the painting, and I felt my whole body stand to attention and my gaze was drawn to see what they were presenting.
• I was shocked at the stark colors of it. With a flat brown background, it made those gray eyes seem somehow brilliant. His black hair had a velvety sheen like a bird's underwing. I felt like I could walk up and reach through the painting to touch him.
• He had a square jaw and a somewhat pointed chin. With high cheekbones and darkly lashed eyes, his face looked angular in a way that seemed to express the intensity of the man. He was leaned forward in such a way that I almost felt like he was preparing to speak to me personally.
• “Tim…” I touched his forearm. Staring at the painting unable to look away.
• “You want it, Sweetheart?” He asked.
• I nodded dully.
• “Then of course it’s yours.” He lifted his number and the auctioneer pointed at him and called out an exorbitant number, but I barely heard the interchange as other men competed with Tim.
• If I’d managed to peel my gaze away, I might’ve noticed that nearly every woman in the room was staring at the painting the same as I was. Blatant lust on their faces.
• ***
• I’d hardly noticed that Tim had won the painting. Other men apologizing to their forlorn wives.
• “You’ll have your painting, Marissa.” Tim beamed at me.
• He was always trying to please me. It was rather touching how hard he tried. He had plenty of money and was fine enough to get many women, but he enjoyed having me on his arm. Like a trinket he’d found in a small town and polished to be shown off.
• I knew it was a matter of time before he’d lose interest in something shiny and new, but I’d enjoy the peek into the extravagancies for now.
• And his willingness to get me things I desired was certainly appealing enough. But these facts weren’t on my mind as the painting was brought out and handed over to Tim who took it and leaned it against my chair.
• I found myself grinning unstoppably as it was lowered next to me. And as my gaze returned to the auction, I found myself absentmindedly stroking the top of the frame like a woman would a lover’s hand.
• -
• 02 Home with Me
• Once back home I found it irresistible to hang the painting immediately. Taking it to my room and adjusting it along my wall.
• I had to take down paintings of an old ranch house and a sunrise, but they now seemed so inconsequential compared to the depth of this man’s face. And I wanted him lined up with my bed so, after adjusting it side to side a few times until it was perfect, I could return to my bed to look at it.
• I was still staring at it as I reached behind my back to awkwardly catch the zipper of my slitted black dress. Tugging it down made the shoulder straps dip forward. One of them sliding over my shoulder to dangle along my bicep. In a way I felt the heat of the painting’s silvery gaze as if he watched me undressing. Bidding me to do more.
• For him.
• I licked my lips. Looking back at him as I slid my shoes from my feet and tossed them along the wall. Then opened the part in the side of my dress to begin rolling down my stocking. Taking it off before hanging it over the back of the wooden chair. I did the same thing with the other. Stepping from the dress I folded it over the seat of the chair.
• I straightened in only my thin lacy braw and stringy underwear. I walked closer to the painting to peer at the insignia in the corner. One hand braced on the wall so I could look more closely at it.
• I couldn’t read the artist’s signature. But just above it he’d kindly printed ‘A Face of Gray.’
• Gray? I looked at the man again.
• He looked so life like, I’d almost felt like his penetrating gaze had moved to watch me rising from the corner of the painting to look at him levelly.
• I gasped somewhat startled but as my gaze roved the intricate detailing, I realized I was just being foolish. Overly fanciful.
• My mind returned to the mystery of the man. Why ‘A Face of Gray’?
• Because of his gray eyes? Or his gray clothes?
• Or had that been his name. I could picture him having a name like Baron Graystoke and being haughtily dubbed ‘Gray’. I fancied it. Imagining him as some grand lord who’d have left ladies swooning.
• I loved the idea of that time period.
• ***
• I finally turned my back to the painting to walk across the room, promising myself I could study him more once I was laid down. I passed the large black and gold shoe chest at the foot of my bed. As I walked, I found myself looking into the mirror above my bed and seeing my cloud of silky brown hair down in waves around my face. My large brown eyes seeming somehow hollow compared to the depth of Gray’s gaze.
• I slid under the blankets in my bra and underwear. Liking the feel of the cottony sheets under my back and up across my chest. I propped the pillows up so I could stare at the painting a long while. Wondering who he’d been and what he’d done and why the artist had decided he should be the subject of his fancy.
• Without meaning to, I was lulled into sleep. Sliding down the pillows and further beneath the coverlet.
• ***
• I never heard the sound of a haunting sigh feeling the room. Nor did I see the way the painting seemed to smear. Dragging down from the frame until the face of the man became a hollow shell. Looking more like rotting flesh barely hanging on the skull then like the man I had been so besotten with.
• As the colored oils reached the bottom of the gold frame they bowed out as if slipping over an invisible border to reach the floor. Outlining the form of a man before hardening into shape.
• I woke with a jolt. Immediately recognizing a presence in the room. I gasped and sat up. Clutching my blanket to my chest.
• “No need for that.” He rumbled. A black silhouette moving along the wall. He seemed tall and broad-shouldered. He stood just from the moonlight seeping into my room. Carefully evading the light.
• Purposely avoiding it. That made me even more leery. He doesn’t want me to see his face.
• I wondered if he’d followed me home from the auction to attack me. How’d he get in? I remembered locking my apartment door. And everyone had to have a specific four-digit code to get through the front door.
• He could’ve seen someone type it though. Could’ve followed me and seen me do it. I realized. Gut sinking.
• “Who are you?”
• “Does it matter who I am?”
• “It does when you’re in my room in the middle of the night.”
• “I’m here for the painting.” He said tonelessly. “I’ll take it and go.”
• “You can’t have it!” I screeched in panic. Leaning forward threateningly without even meaning to.
• Threateningly? What am I going to do? Throw a pillow at him?
• I chastised myself.
• “You could take something else. But not the painting.” I nodded toward several other valuable things strung across my bedroom.
• Things Tim gave me.
• “I don’t want those things.” I felt his gray gaze sliding over me. Memorizing the form, he could see outlined by the thin summer blanket. “What if I could offer you something better than the painting.” He moved along the wall in the utter darkness.
• “Like what?” I put my hands to the blanket so I could shift. Twisting to keep him in view. Growing slightly excited as he drew near the slash of moonlight from my window.
• I might get a glimpse of him.
• I could give a description to the cops if I got a good enough look at him.
• “Like the real flesh and blood man. Rather than his image.” He purposely slid his face into the silvery light. Revealing the stoney gray eyes and the sleek black hair smoothed back from his forehead and curling at his collar to ease over his shoulders.
• My mouth gaped as I stared in awe. Leaning forward to peer at him. “H-how?”
• -
• 03 What I’d Agreed To
• “Don’t worry about how.” He directed harshly. I saw the moonlight glint of something which shimmered as he whirled it in his hand before slamming it to the floor and holding it near his hip.
• A cane? I registered that it had a strange narrow diamond grip.
• “What are you going to do?”
• “Hmm…” He rumbled. “I’m offering you something I’m very good at in exchange for what belongs to me to be returned to me.”
• “What do you mean returned?”
• “You take my painting to this address.” He’d somehow drawn close enough to me that he now stood at the side of my bed. Offering me a faded address scribbled on a bit of parchment between his fingers.
• I reached up and hesitantly took it feeling the finality of it. Understanding I was making some sort of exchange I didn’t completely understand the significance of yet. But from the moment I took that parchment I’d agreed to take what he offered and deliver his painting to whomever was at that address.
• What have I done?
• ***
• As the scrap slid from his fingers into my hand. He seemed to grin in a way that made his lips part too far back along his cheeks. Baring more teeth than he should have. His eyes became hooded with knowing and he purposefully licked his lips. “Good, Girl.”
• “What are you?” I whispered.
• He quirked the corner of his mouth and twitched his fingers in a motion away from me.
• Making my blanket jerk off me so fast I yelped as it piled at the foot of my bed. Revealing me lying in only my scanty undergarments. I crossed my legs to better conceal myself from his view. Draping my arms across my chest and hooking the opposite elbows.
• “Immortal.” He answered simply. “Is all you need know.”
• He stared down at me from next to my bed, like I was some naïve little animal, eying him. He drew a long breath and the moonlight dumped into the room. Brightening my taupe carpet and making the cream-colored walls seem inexplicably white. Making my skin luminesce.
• “Who are you?”
• “Ah, Little Sweet. Now that is the question you should’ve been asking all along…I am Dorian Gray. And I’m here to fuck you.”
• ***
• “I don’t…” I was shaking my head. “I don’t know-I think…I wasn’t…”
• “You do want me to.” He responded as though I was wasting his time with all my blustering.
• And damn him, he’s right. I could already feel my juices flowing in my soft pussy. And my body was begging to feel him.
• There was such knowledge in those gray eyes that I knew he could satisfy me. Take me to new heights of pleasure.
• And I was eager to let him stuff inside me. To feel him all over me.
• “Now, first.” He made some small hand gesture that was too fast for me to catch. I heard the creaking of my bed posts and looked at the one nearest me. Seeing the winding bits of wood representing vines untangling from around the large post. It rose like a serpent and stretched over to me. Weaving and bobbing as it seemed to float before snatching one of my wrists. Spinning around it before I could react.
• I squawked and clawed at it with my other hand. Yanking my arm in a desperate attempt to free it but the wood was unrelenting.
• In moments, I felt the jerk of another catching my other wrist and yanking it back at the same time one snatched my ankle and began pulling me down the bed. They both retracted and tightened until I was stretched taut over my sheet. The final one catching my other ankle until I was well and fully pinned down.
• I was gasping. My small breasts straining against my bra as I panted for air. My brown eyes huge as they stared back up at Dorian’s satisfied gray ones.
• “Now,” He said decisively, spinning his cane so the flat end was pointed at me. He hit a button and a small, curved blade snapped free from the side and folded straight out.
• He’s going to kill me. I began twisting and dragging my heels across the bedding in truth.
• I opened my mouth to scream, but he shot a hand out sideways and my black nylon stockings flew across the room from the chair, into his empty hand. His fingers locked around them and he shoved one in my mouth behind my teeth. Pinning my tongue down and making it so I could make no sound.
• I flailed and tossed resisting being silenced while he stabbed me.
• But he simply stood there with the pointed tip of his cane facing me. And my stocking draped over the fingers of his other hand like a casual wine glass. He lifted it to his face and took in the scent of my skin.
• “Your aroma is…tantalizing…” He purred. “I can’t wait to fill you. Stretch you until you writhe in pleasure and scream with the agony of overwhelming sensations. For tonight, Sweet Thing…You’re well and truly mine…