Chapter 2 – Chapter 2

"Model for a painting and a sculpture?" I asked, confused and surprised. I thought we were meeting at the café—at least ostensibly—to talk about Master Ashen helping me with my painting technique.

"I wish to mentor your work, of course," Ashen said hurriedly, placing a hand on my arm. "But you are unusually young looking. I've been looking for the perfect face and form to represent the draw boy in my textile factory series. Come to my studio and sit for me for those works—and, certainly, I will mentor your painting. I will even take you to London with me so you can continue your studies in more advantageous circumstances."

"You would take me to London too?" I asked. "And mentor my studies. And all I have to do is sit for you to represent a draw boy at the loom in a textile factory?" I knew what a draw boy did. Like many of the local men, I had worked in the textile factories when I was a boy. And I had done it longer than most, because I was smaller than most. The job of perching above the loom and carrying the weft thread through in advance of the flying shuttle and thereby creating the pattern of different-colored threads in the cloth went to those with small, dexterous hands.

"I believe that you understand that there would be more required of you," Master Ashen said.

And I certainly did understand. The palm of his hand had centered between my thighs under the café table. He was making quite clear what he expected in return for his offer.

"I will pay you the regular fee, of course, for sitting for me. And I will take you to London with me and you will become a great artist—because of the mentoring I give you. But you must lie under me as well, willingly. I don't want you to misunderstand what the contract is."

What was that Howard had said—that I was not mature enough to take my opportunities when they came to me? I did want to go to London. I did want to become a great artist. As for the other, I felt I was ready for that too—although I thought it would be with Howard.

I sat for Master Ashen twice for the casting of the bronze statue and three times for the painting. I was posed by a loom, stripped to the waist, to show the heat and strenuous requirements of factory atmosphere, and with my fingers pushing threads into place below a descending shuttle, my close concentration on what I was doing a focus of the art work. He arranged the lighting so that a beam of light fell on my face and chest while, other than that, the scene was in shadows. The painting was rendered in sepia colors.

He concluded each of the "draw boy" sessions by coming between me and the loom, pulling my trousers off my legs, parting my thighs, hunching over me with just his hard cock exposed through the fly in his own trousers, and fucking me to his ejaculation.

"The Draw Boy" is what he titled both of the factory works, and you can visit the painting at London's Harrow Museum of art even today. Ashen kept the sculpture in his own collection after exhibiting it, and it has disappeared into a private collection.

After sex he would take up his sketch pad and do post-coital pencil sketches of me. When he ultimately was forced to depart London—and England altogether—under charges of pedophilia some ten years later, he caused quite a sensation in France by exhibiting these sketches—in a large collection of more young men he "mentored" than just me. By the end of the exhibit all of the sketches had been bought and disappeared into private collections.

On the eve of my own exhibition at the National Gallery in London some years later, I received one of these sketches of me after sex in the post. There was no indication it had been sent by Martin, but I knew it had been. It was his way of reminding me how I had gotten to where I was in the art world. I knew that it wasn't an expression of any desire to have me again because, by then, it was well established that it was only younger-looking lads he was interested in.

I had known that lying under him was part of the arrangement. But still, the first time he fucked me, I was surprised and taken aback. There was little preparation or warning. He just said that I could relax from my pose and came walking at me, his shirt unbuttoned to the waist and his hard cock, held in his hand, thrusting out of his trousers. He was a big man, giving the impression that he was heavier than average. I was to learn, though, that most of that was muscle and that it gave him the strength to do whatever he wanted with me.

I would have wished that the first time would be a little more tender and meaningful and less matter of fact than that. And I would have wished it from Howard.

Martin had the hands of an artist, long, slender, yet strong fingers. His cock was of greater than average size and that it curved up so that while he was fucking me from above, he would move with a pronounced dip and upward thrust. His complexion was florid; his hair the red of an Irishman, and his chest and arms pelted with curly hair.

He was not a handsome man, and while he was fucking me, he showed a visage of cruelty and anger, although after that first time, when I was in considerable pain and begged him to stop or at least to work me more slowly but he completely ignored me in deference to his own need and desire, I came to understand that he was just intense and focused in the act rather than angry.

He sometimes couldn't resist fucking me again after doing his post-coital sketch and when he did so, he took me more slowly and I received more enjoyment from the cocking.

After the second modeling session, Howard asked me to meet him in the park at our usual place and there, with little preliminary steps and with the assurance that I would lay under him too, Howard gently pushed me down on my back, first undressed me and then himself, pushed his knees under my buttocks, and gave me the long, slow, deep fucking that I had dreamed of.

After we had both come, I sobbed silently into his shoulder as he held me close, and still buried inside me, rocked me back and forth in his embrace.

"I didn't hurt you, did I?" he asked, the concern in his voice evident.

"No. This was how I dreamed it would be," I murmured. "Why didn't you give me this before I went to Martin Ashen? This was what I wanted the first time."

"I'm sorry, but it was part of the arrangement."

"The arrangement?"

"He wanted to be the first with you. He said he would take me to London too if he was first. I didn't think it would matter to you. It doesn't, does it, after all?"

"No, of course not," I whispered into his shoulder. But of course it did matter to me. It mattered very much. It just wasn't something that could be changed.

Ashen did take us both to London, just as he promised. And he did mentor my talent and skills into my becoming a renowned artist. His taking of me continued for a brief time in London—and I let him do whatever he wanted with me in exchange for the opportunities he was giving me in the art world. His interest was only brief, though, as I grew and matured. I no longer looked young to him, and his interests turned to ever-younger men—and then boys, before he was cornered and exposed for his proclivities and was forced to go abroad.

Howard was only with us for a month in London. As I feared, his talent was not up to the larger art community. And, having already gotten what he wanted from Howard, Ashen's interest in mentoring him was never complete.

I let Howard go more easily than he thought I would. His loving was good up to the end, but I never could be completely comfortable with the choice he had made for me.