David Russell writes and paints

Art and Life

So many extremes of behaviour lie beyond the pale of the majority’s routines, confined to the realm of detached observation – just something to gloss over in a tabloid or a newsflash, or make intriguing small talk about – but some things do happen, and impinge directly on the most unsuspecting . . .

Sometimes it feels marvelous to escape from the stresses of life into art, and get recharged by turning away from life. But on occasion, the work of art can be invigorated by facing those stresses head-on. After all, fire was discovered through friction.

Which is the best – the experience itself, or its susceptibility to recall as a tale to tell – when it happens, or in retrospect? Some experiences shrink into memories, others expand into memories. Is one at one's best in the thick of things, or is a bit of distance desirable, enhancing quality? Should one, or should one not, see the woods for the trees? Absorption and detachment are two contrary ideals, universally shared. Most people want to perfect their balancing acts. One must be cool to have freedom to feel and generate heat.

**

Once there were two men and two women passing muster with the advertisers. All four were quite beautiful, with all the vulnerability of beauty. But they took good care of themselves, and so counterbalanced their vulnerability with strength. 

Of the men, Lysander, aged 22, had been seduced and ditched by someone very attractive, but vicious, with whom he got involved when modeling jeans. Her name was Zuleika, aquiline and smouldering. He would never forget that magical meeting at a trance disco – that heady combination of the strobe lights and her penetrating, fascinating gaze; she felt like the personification of magic. As they writhed sinuously together, he was sure he had hit it off with her; she, in turn, broke down his defenses by making him feel he was exquisitely iconic. Their movements felt perfectly synchronized. But she began crying towards the end of the evening, and seemed in desperate need to confide in him. When he brought her home, she told a significant tale of distress and persecution which sounded totally convincing; the tears felt really authentic. She ‘borrowed’ a large amount of money from him via his credit card, and vanished. What a cool customer – and she had given no favours in return, only a hint of inner glories in her provocative attire. He felt really humiliated, really taken for a ride – and desperately needed a male friend to confide in. 

There were two years between them, Lysander 20 and Ingmar 18. They met in the refreshments annexe of an Internet café. The sight of a sympathetic face outweighed the glamour of the images onscreen. “Hi” said Lysander, “you look as if you might need someone to talk to.” “That’s absolutely true,” replied Ingmar. “Nobody here seems to speak to anyone but the guy in charge; they all seem to be hermetically sealed in their private cells.” 

Ingmar was inordinately shy, traumatized in early life by the death of his parents and a callous stepmother, and later having suffered scathing censure, which almost amounted to mental rape, from one of the female lecturers in his first year at business school, who intimidated him into flunking out. Perhaps she secretly fancied him but did not want to compromise her career – look at all the gruesome tales of those who did . . . Hell hath no fury like . . . he had quite a long way to go before he could cultivate the ability to brush such things off. 

The two of them were scarred by their experiences, and resorted greatly to postures of defensiveness, but both yearned for rapprochements with the opposite sex, and to heal their wounds – without eliminating their affection for each other . . . and realized that they had to try, and to prove, themselves, monitoring each other’s progress as they went along. Lysander and Ingmar became quite close friends. Ingmar, for his part, felt that he had suffered less. The two of them were wounded but sound.

Silently, they sized up each other’s physiques. At all the places they went, they observed the women in the vicinity and compared notes. They both kept diaries, both hand-written and in the form of email and text messages. In the course of their visiting each other’s places, each, when left alone, surreptitiously looked at the other’s diary and messages. Each got a picture of the other’s secret fears and longings.

Lysander came to the conclusion that he had a mission to bring Ingmar out of his shell. With a bit of a lump in his throat, he told Ingmar what was on his mind: “I want to build up your confidence so that you can have your peak experience with that dream girl of yours; I know she’s inside your head. Effectively, while I’m doing this for you, you are doing the same for me.” Ingmar nodded. “Just give me some leads; I’m sure I can follow them.”

“That body of yours is quite athletic; I bet you like matching toned women.”

“I certainly do . . .” he blushed a little. “I collect retro bathing trunks. I like to see myself in a full-length mirror wearing them; I like to imagine a ravishingly beautiful girl seeing me wearing them on a beach, and boiling up, desperate to seduce me.”

“Look; I’d like to express my feminine side and imagine myself as that girl, feasting my eyes on you, yearning for your body.”

“Shall I change into them?”

 “Do just that; turn me on.”

Lysander had anticipated this scene; he wore trunks under his clothes, and stripped down to them while Ingmar was changing. Ingmar lit up to see his counterpart.

“OK” said Lysander, “now you can let out your feminine side and be that beach belle aching for me. Let’s bring our alter egos into play – I’m Alessandra, you’re Ingrid.”

“Aren’t we fabulous!”

They embraced, rubbed gently against each other, and then turned on the video to feast their eyes on the celebrities and the models. Their bodies were slender and boyish, shaven – almost androgynous. As they felt each other’s torsos, thighs and muscles, they could feel waves of pure sensuality melting down the barriers of gender. The essence of femininity was suffusing them with an ecstatic piece.

“Maybe we ought to find a matching twosome and engineer a foursome at some point” said Lysander. “That would certainly embrace all the orientation potential – and with external alter egos” replied Ingmar.

**

Of the two women, Hermione was an artist, graphic artist and dress designer. She had struggled to the top of her profession. But, under considerable family pressure, she was  faced with the quandary of being expected to accept a proposal of marriage – to one Pertinax Horley, a major architect, commissioned to design a mass of luxury health centres worldwide. Marrying him would give her total material security. But as he was such a domineering character, this would be at the cost of cramping and stifling her soul – unless she determinedly established her independent identity before entering into any personal commitment. Taking a long view of her future life potential, she realized that through success – without marriage – she would assert her full personality, and adjust the balance of power between her and her family. They would have subsidized the marriage without Hermione having established a profession.

Persephone, one year her junior, had achieved some recognition as an actress and soul singer, confident in public but shy in private because of bad experiences with her managers and promoters, and, to rub salt on the wounds, she was once brutally raped – in the course of a brilliantly successful tour. Though she suffered no major injury – only four bruises which quickly healed, the aftermath was protracted. She still felt ill at ease with her body, although her excellent audience rapport remained undiminished. She was well-paid, but her tastes were quite expensive – something of a shopaholic. So, in perpetual need to supplement her income, she came to Hermione in search of modeling work, both for sketches and directly for costumes and outfits, so she could combine her passion for clothes with economizing – curb her shopaholicism. She had a great inner struggle between her need for, and building-up of, a confident interface, and her reticence – though she realized that the latter had some charm. 

Hermione’s pen, pencil and brush strokes steadied her nerves as they captured the fleeting fluctuations of graceful bodies, in and out of their elegant outfits. The whole process had a highly meditative effect. Her sensations were enhanced by the facility she assiduously cultivated, to oscillate between male and female forms. Sometimes, when she got absorbed in a beautiful painting or drawing, she could feel she had spent a night of ecstasy – no matter whether her partner was physical or spiritual. That feeling was heightened by the ubiquitous presence of her work in galleries and magazines, and the multiple awards which decked her mantelpiece. She could sense the young ones in the hairdressers and the pilate centre waiting rooms, and those chic browsers in the internet cafés, obviously hypnotized by her work. The outfitters’ boutiques would be piled high with her designs, the pavements choked with shoppers eager to snaffle them up, the email catalogues bombarded with orders.

She was one of that rare breed of lucky entrepreneuses who didn’t need any pep pills to sustain their momentum. This supreme equilibrium often made her colleagues and contacts uneasy, but when they saw it coincided with her nimble mind and nailed down their own weaknesses, they respected it. Needless to say, she witnessed countless highs and hangovers. And she was always fully supplied with drinks to entertain her guests. Some of them were quite charming when under the influence . . . 

Things were brought to life, to match the ideal, the yearning for the real, organic, breathing pulsing – human thing. She was in a rather special situation as far as these things are concerned: for most people, the search for desirable involvements is separated from work pressures, to some extent opposed to them. But for her, they were vitally linked. Every costume she designed was suffused with desire – conflating the thrill of putting on with the thrill of taking off – zips feeling like caressing hands, and buttons like nipples. She felt she wielded implicit power over whole legions of wearers. Indeed, what made her creations live was a sense of desire for that beautiful, generic wearer. Every fabric has its special texture which relates to some level of sensation in putting the garment on and taking it off – from robust denim, to absorbing wool, to the most delicate lycra and satin. It was also really interesting to study the organic origins of the fabric materials – those beautiful silk moths for example. Hermione also enjoyed seeing the models en masse, at contests and fashion parades, showing the whole gamut of concealment, innuendo and exposure – bracing, swinging, swirling, in approximation to and aspiration to the ideal of beauty. Especially now: looking at one of her pieces gave her a vision of it turning three-dimensional, into a flesh and blood body beautiful.

Throughout history, the inscrutable, the out-of-reach has inspired great art. Great art can inspire one to extend one's reach. One should always be stretched. Feelings of failure have often engendered magnificent achievements.  

In thrall to her overweening obsession, Hermione’s agile brain harnessed its intensity; she was coolly professional in her interface, carefully controlling her stress-induced bouts of irritation. She had an unerring instinct for the repressed yearnings of her potential buying clientele, ever fired by the glossies. She was attuned to the teenagers discovering and exploring their sensations, and the ones a little older relishing them. Her design sense picked up the radiated body language of a whole array of Hollywood divas and pop stars, and did not flinch from any of those extremes. Her job gave her mind and reveries ample scope to explore all fabrics, all fashion designs and a huge variety of physiques, though the slender, toned ones tended to predominate. Persephone had an exquisite body, but her own wasn’t bad. Persephone must have worked so hard on toning it, and if she kept up the workouts to the same extent, she could make at the least an adequate comparison. She began to envisage them as a posing twosome. When one takes risks there can be wretched let-downs, but there can also be fabulous upliftings. Between them, there was a latent sense of rivalry, and a not-so-latent sense of affinity. It was good that there was sufficient contrast between their two spheres of activity.

Hermione felt more and more driven into a corner, desperate for her submerged feelings to find an outlet.  To channel her ambitions and her desires, she designed a seductive retro bathing suit, whose ideal wearer could topple Liz Hurley, and ached to see it encased in a body – and she knew whose body, way above anybody else’s. Some of the other models almost came close to the ideal form – but Hermione was in thrall to that one special physique. It was toned to just the right pitch, remaining safely this side of the bulk of body-builders and weight-lifters.

She saw Persephone in the cafeteria, and shyly beckoned her into her office. She served her with coffee, and then half-whispered, “I really need to talk to you.”

“That’s fine” said Persephone, a little quizzical, but feeling she had a momentary edge in self-assurance. She was in some awe of Hermione, but perhaps, when all factors were weighed up, there might be an even balance. A sense of mutual need was beginning to assert itself.

“Look: I’ve just done a new design – a bit of super-retro. But I’m trapped in a bit of a creative cul-de-sac about it, and you might just be able to help me out of that.”

“How so? Can I have a look?”

Hermione showed her the drawing; Persephone lit up with self-identification; Hermione had in fact been sketching her.

“That looks rather lovely – all the glory of St Tropez, with a delicious dash of Hollywood and Bollywood; I could see all the celebrities clamouring for it; have you completed the design now?”

“I think I have; I’ve gone as far as I can with it, but I’ve got to see it live, on the right body.” She took the costume out of the drawer, unfolded it, and held it in front of Persephone’s body. “I’d be so thrilled to see you in it.”

“Look, honey; that’s basically a great idea. But – because of what happened to me (I told you) I feel I have to hold back from showing myself. Though I’d love to do it, I can’t quite do it yet. I’m sure there are many more who would jump at the chance; what about that girl Clarissa who was here the other day? . . . I don’t blame you for asking, of course.”

“Please forgive me; I absolutely understand,” said Hermione nervously. “I’m so sorry; that was a bit presumptuous of me – just of those fleeting thoughts. Yes; I suppose I could try Clarissa.”

“No offence taken darling. But look, I think I’d better go; I’m sure it will all work out; thanks for the coffee.”

They waved and smiled at each other; Persephone tiptoed to the door and closed it ever so quietly.

(“Hmm” thought Hermione. “That’s a classic case of ‘If you gotta go, go now’. Did I blow it? Was I too heavy handed? One must always have tact and patience. It’s fantastic when one's cool is benignly threatened.”)

Two minutes later, as the pain of the aching vacuum was just beginning to abate, Hermione’s void of suspense was filled; the doorbell rang again. There was Persephone, aquiver and almost blushing.

“I’ve had second thoughts – do bear with my hesitancy; you know the reason for it . . . look: I am recovering, but I need more time to get over that trauma completely, so that I can love myself again, love my body. I just needed a bit of a breathing space to pluck up my courage.”

Hermione was elated. “I knew you would! I have every confidence in you. I am determined to be your healer, for my every touch to be a healing balm, obliterate every trace of that abuser.”

“I’m just dying to emerge from my chrysalis, darling.” She took the costume from Hermione’s table, and her deep purple bathrobe from her door, and retired to a back cubicle.

Eyebeams met as she re-emerged; “Special presentation for you, darling! This is the first post-traumatic revelation, honey.” She slowly undid the sash, and eased the robe from her shoulders. The glorious bathing girl was revealed – watch out, next Miss World! “I’m free! I’m open, I’m purified.” She proclaimed herself to the full-length mirror, and to Hermione’s eyes. Its clingy tightness seemed to herald a tender lover’s hand – diving, sweeping strokes and the embrace of a body beautiful. The body of her admirer gave her a real-life embrace; for its duration reminiscences and yearnings buzzed through Persephone’s brain. How often could this be repeated, and with how many, or did one remain the ultimate ideal. “You leave me breathless!” said Hermione. 

“Now we’ve got the basis for a good working relationship” said Hermione, “soulmates and body admirers make top chemistry. You’re really going to make my designs zing!”  

They began to go to the gym together to relax after their intensive modeling sessions. Hermione watched the synchronized swimmers in the pool and almost yearned to have had a physical twin – though what she really wanted was a spiritual one – though with full acceptance of the physical. This also helped them to relate in the studio.

Some confidences emerged. “I’ve had a little celebratory foray” said Persephone.

Hermione’s ears pricked up at those words. “Ooh – that’s marvelous! I just want to hear all the details darling.”

“There was instant chemistry at the disco – an angel of the body under those heavenly lights! He was a perfect smouldering Latino; no need for verbal introduction; it was pure tactile chemistry. And it was so fulfilling. But I had a really strange sensation. When I was with this real lover, I was going through a screenplay of my other one, my fantasy one; and the two experiences seemed to be nourishing each other. He had such sensitivity; he washed me completely clean of my rapist.”

“I’m so proud of you, darling: consider that as a limbering-up exercise in the gymnasium of life and love!”

Concurrently, Hermione had arranged a trunks modeling session with Ingmar. He expressed a parallel initial reticence, but was eager to show off his slender form. With some prompting from Lysander, he presented himself. Hermione felt she should be more responsive to him then and there – but it would come.

Persephone: “When we’ve both proven our power over men, we’ll come back and be totally fulfilling to each other. But let’s be honest and open: some reverses and frustrations can be supremely enlightening – making for strength of character and the greatest art.”

“Tell me” said Hermione, a little tentatively, “do you sometimes feel that friendship and attraction pull in opposite directions, like reaching as high as you can and then bending down to touch your toes – and someone drop-dead gorgeous could be someone you’d really hate?”

“Both those factors are necessary for complete exercise, my dear – and complete experience; you’ve got to embrace the summits and the depths.”

“I guess one needs to be swept off one's feet, but still retain the ability to land on them.”

As their embrace tightened, as their lips and tongues melted into each other, visions of their past rough treatments loomed with menacing lucidity, then melted into benign experiences, until everything evaporated in explosions of exquisitely healing balm. 

“Just for a bit of limbering up, we’ll get a male stripper, and I’ll sketch him. Then we’ll reveal ourselves to him. He’ll get an extra charge by seeing us turned on by each other, and we can briefly place him between us. We’ll get someone young, a bit shy and virginal, and coax him into finding his sense of direction.”

**

Meanwhile, Lysander’s mind was on the same track: “Look: you’ve got a gorgeous body and a lovely personality desperate to break out of its cocoon. Show yourself off a bit at the gym and the pool, and start thinking about those dames sizing you up. Go for it; I’m sure you’ll make it.”

**

The two women were in their slinkiest evening dresses, Hermione maroon, Persephone purple. They were delighted that he had taken the prompt given by handing him a business card. Ingmar entered the chamber nervous, full of apprehension. He sat down, until Hermione pulled him up. 

“Take your clothes off; all of them.”

It was such a delicious multiple turn on. The focus Hermione’s and Persephone’s eyes oscillated wildly between Ingmar and each other. He felt radiant in this physique, flared up by their admiration for him which in turn fueled their desire for each other. The whole chamber felt aflame. Hermione’s brush and felt-tip strokes were honed to throbbing perfection, capturing unprecedented nuances of shading.

They said, almost in unison, “We think you are fabulous; we feel you are charging us up with your electric golden energy.” Then Persephone took over. 

“This is two-way traffic, darling. I know you have your dreams of your ideal encounter with the ultimate beautiful woman. We would like to see ourselves as two beautiful women in one for you; each of us needs to be suffused with the other to bring herself to full fruition.”

He nodded, blushing, delighted.

“Do you like wearing women’s clothes?” Hermione asked, half-jokingly.

“No; I know a lot of guys do; but I have enough of an anima in me not to have to do that. I like to see women’s clothes on and off women.”

Hermione was over the moon about that response. “So you’ve passed the test. You can be instrumental to our consummation with each other. Undo our dresses.”

To his own surprise, but not really to theirs, Ingmar’s unpractised hands showed a complete instinctive dexterity as the delicate fabrics fluttered onto the carpet. He relished their toned forms, one in black underwear, one in white. He had a matching vision of an orbit of love, embracing the peak of daylight and the depth of night. He rubbed against each one in a chaste embrace.

They faced him proudly, then Hermione spoke. “We love you, and you have deepened our love for each other. But you are very young. You are not yet ready to witness our consummation. So you must leave us now. But you have laid a foundation for your experience. We will need you again soon, for something fairly special – we’ll be in touch.” 

He quiveringly put his clothes back on and tiptoed out, with a wave, still quivering but refreshed, assured. 

Hermione and Persephone experienced supreme euphoria. Their love ascended to giddy heights, charged by a dose of male energy. They both entered that paradaisal hinterland between sleep and wakefulness. The gender of their half-dream lovers was modulated, phasing in and out of solidity and liquidity.

**

Now was the time for the foursome revelation. After a long struggle, Hermione had perfected her design for a seductive one-piece bathing suit, working with Persephone as the model. She designed a matching one for herself. This could be the great promotional breakthrough: that lovely twosome should be seen and photographed in the pool together, and who better to photograph them than Lysander and Ingmar?

What suspense they both felt when they saw the two girls’ garments appearing over the curtain rail of the changing cubicles! What a revelation when the bathing belle duo emerged. Lysander and Ingmar each had a video camera, which captured in perfect focus all the splashes and eddies, all the lithe body movements, all the embraces, all the laughter, all the uninhibited smiles. The video operators were transfixed; like anyone else, they generally had to be more discreet in their observations.

Hermione and Persephone were delighted. “We’ll soon do a little role reversal.”

Hermione got the boys to model some retro trunks. Soon it was their turn to be videoed by the two girls. Then a pool foursome, with goggles for visibility. 

What a delicious modulation of sensuality – each coupling spicing up the next, broadening the spectrum of expectation and fulfilment – Hermione and Persephone, Lysander and Ingmar, Hermione and Ingmar, Hermione and Lysander, Persephone and Ingmar, Persephone and Lysander! The video camera was passed round to sustain total overlap and continuity. 

“We’re on the right track darling,” said Hermione. “We’ve started with someone young, whom we could break in. Now we’ve got a progression before us – going through the more experienced, the hardened, the toughened, and the well-preserved oldies. Finally we can tackle our bosses, and take over the nerve centres of power!”

The fashion studio provided an abundance of models, so they could be really choosy – and they exercised their freedom of choice. .

**

Hermione proudly showed the videos to Algernon, her director. Choice still shots were duly taken, earmarked for the next glossies. His face was radiant with delight. Hermione looked him straight in the eye. “I’ve got something to cap that!”

“What do you mean?”

“Just close your eyes.” He obeyed.

Off came the dark executive suit to proclaim the bathing belle in all her radiant splendor. In turn, she honed in on his buttons and zips. There was an ample couch in his office. Now Algernon was completely in her power. Having had such a fulfilling experience with a woman, it was now so easy to take a strong man in her stride.

**

Persephone asked her agent Theodore round. She wore her maroon dressing gown. The same video, the same stills of the pool scene made Theodore breathlessly vibrant. “Would you like a little extension?” she asked. Theodore made a nervous nod. Off came the dressing gown, with all the flourish of a matador’s cloak. “Great to take the plunge,” she said. Once again, the sublime bathing beauty stepped forward, stretching out her arms – the memory vision of the delighted Hermione throbbing through her consciousness as she proclaimed herself to her desired man. Fingers were skilled with buttons and zips, revealing his slim, muscular physique. Once again adoration of the self and the other in a full length mirror. She took him by the hand and cast him down on an ample bed. Now he was under her control! Through him she could prevail against the Alpha machos!

**

Pertinax had designed a super solarium complex, now nearing completion. The set-up would include huge video screens, which would show, live, the bathers in motion, punctuated by stills. But the shots of Hermione and Persephone could introduce and punctuate the other live footage, and they would be the supreme icons, fulfilling participants’ dreams and drawing a massive clientele. 

*

Lysander put his hand on Ingmar’s shoulders. “I see you as the mirror image of myself. When you are fully grown and strengthened, you’ll hold your own out there and, physically, we two shall part company. You know I’ve got to go to my new job in the States. But spiritually we will always be linked; so stay in contact.”

**

His reappearance before Hermione and Persephone was so gratifying. He had truly mellowed and matured, but retained a vibrant youthfulness within. “Hello Ingmar; I can see you’ve faced the world and proved yourself.” It emerged that he had become a mountaineering coach – while Lysander, as he had heard, became a deep-sea diver. When one plunges to the depths, the other rises to the heights!

Ingmar had a double elation. He received a glowing email from Lysander celebrating great success at work, and happiness at finding lovers of both sexes. His elation was to be capped by meeting the two girls again in the bar of a state-of-the-art health complex. The two of them looked impeccably preserved. 

There was mega-progress in Hermione’s career; the boardrooms, the galleries were penetrated, the bed-chambers acquired, furnished and honoured. The funds, the investments mushroomed – from all parts of the globe. 

The long-term memory meandered through a kaleidoscopic maze of lovely forms, which melted and evaporated into the perfume of perfection. Ageing gracefully could be managed, including thoughts of being posthumous legends – prime of life looks captured on photo, film or video; paintings, fictionalisations in literary works . . .    

This is an expression of wishful thinking. Maybe the whole truth is revealed in the hinterland between sleep and wakefulness. Pertinax was rather upset about the engagement being broken off, particularly as work had started on the wedding dress and the lavish reception. But he was not broken-hearted; after all, there were many more fish in the sea. Anyway, in spite of all his cajoling and browbeatings, she had never made any unqualified declaration of love or fidelity. There was a high degree of honesty in declaring the mercenary nature of the projected match. Her parents could provide the equivalent of a hefty old-fashioned dowry. On reflection, it might do him good to find a male confident and overcome his prejudices. Or maybe he’d bump into the two dames who had messed Lysander and Ingmar around. The solarium was completed and ran at full blast, with Hermione in control. Her stature, and Persephone’s, were confirmed on the giant screen. The crowds flocked in from all over the world . . . 

Personalities tend to assert themselves over many decades, straddling generational barriers . . . 

Hermione was beginning to feel some attraction for Clarissa. She had to be true to her feelings, but also had to keep up appearances. She felt like a yoyo, constantly going back and forth between denial and avowal of her orientations and desires. Perhaps she could direct Clarissa towards Pertinax.