An Artistic Endeavour

"I don't doubt that for a second, Jill."

"Good. Just so long as that's clear."

"So, are we on then?"

"Yes, I guess we are," I replied.

So arrangements were made for Sean and I to drive up to her studio in south London on the Saturday. It was to prove to be quite an enjoyable weekend - for both of us.

* * * * * *

"Are you nervous?" I asked Sean as I drove us north along the A23 towards London.

"A little, believe it or not," he replied. "Excited too, though. I mean, it's not every day your wife agrees to let another woman help you live out one of your all time greatest sexual fantasies."

"All I can say is you'll be getting me one hell of a Christmas present this year!" I said as I briefly looked across at him.

"Oh, of course!" he grinned back at me. "That goes without saying."

Our conversation throughout the rest of our journey was rather sparse - I guess we were both just lost to our own thoughts. The only real interruption came from the car's sat-nav.

"In five hundred yards, continue straight onto the M23," the electronic voice said as we approached the point where the A23 dual carriageway becomes the M23 motorway just south of Crawley.

"I'm curious," I said as the road passed by the services at Pease Pottage and under two bridges. "Was I in any of your fantasies when we were at teacher training college?"

"Do you really want to know?" Sean replied to me.

"Yes, I do."

"Well, I knew you were the girl of my dreams the moment I first set eyes on you," my husband answered. "So yes, I did fantasise about you - a lot."

"Did you, y'know, imagine what I looked like naked?"

"I wasn't the only one that did! Remember my mate Griff? He once told me how he wanted to be a fly on the wall in the gym changing rooms. Not to see all of the women naked - just you!"

"Yeah, well he never got the chance, did he?"

"Nope! And once he found out that I was going out with you the look on his face was a picture of disappointment that you'd been snatched away from him! Of course, he pestered me with questions like 'what are her tits like?' Or 'does her bum look as lovely as her face?' Of course, I never answered him, much to his annoyance. To be honest, I don't think he really knew anything about you."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, for starters he had no idea that you're Jewish," Sean replied. "And that your hobbies include horse riding and collecting pin badges - and it wouldn't have occurred to him to find out."

"Unlike you did," I said as I flicked on the indicators in order to overtake a particularly slow moving motor home.

"He just wanted to get into your knickers more than anything else," Sean chuckled. "And to chalk you up on his list of conquests. Not that he had any to begin with at the time!"

"What happened to him, do you know?"

"Got a job overseas - America, to be precise. Then married some gullible woman. Last I heard they'd divorced, he lost his job, she got the kids and the house and he now lives in a mobile home park on the outskirts of Bristol making a living as a car park attendant. Sad, really - he was a nice guy, he just thought of himself as a bit of a Casanova, which he most definitely wasn't."

* * * * * *

"In one hundred yards, you have reached your destination."

"Well, this is the place," I said just over an hour later as we drove along a street lined with what appeared to be old warehouses and small industrial buildings. It all looked a bit tatty, with the occasional scraps of litter being blown by the wind across the street ahead of us. It certainly didn't look like the sort of place you'd want to leave your car unattended in for any real length of time. Fortunately, Chaz had informed me that her studio had a small private courtyard where we could park out of sight. Just look for the blue gates, had been the instruction given to me by my friend.

"You have reached your destination," the sat-nav's voice informed me just as the gates came into view on our left.

A small and very discreet plate on the brick pier beside the gate informed us that this was the private studio of Chaz Davies. Well, this was definitely the right place. I got out of the car and pressed the call button just below the little sign.

"Hello?" came Chaz's crackly reply.

"Hi, Chaz, it's me - Jill," I replied.

"Jilly-bean! Hi! Thank you so much for coming, I'll just buzz you in," Chaz said.

A second or so later there was a buzzing sound and the gates began to open. I got back into the car and drove us in. Ahead of us was a two-storey building that had obviously been a warehouse, if the loading dock at the front was anything to go by, but was now converted into Chaz's home and studio. Where once there had been metal roller doors there were now large plate glass windows. It all looked very 'industrial chic' as it mixed industrial utilitarianism with domestic comfort.

Chaz herself appeared on the old loading dock, which was now clearly used as an outdoor terrace of sorts.

"Jilly-bean!" Chaz greeted me warmly as we got out of the car.

Besides Sean, she was the only person I ever allowed to use my childhood nickname.

"Chaz, so good to see you again - it's been too long!" I reciprocated, and we took each other into a brief sororal embrace."

"And you must be Sean," she said as we disengaged. "Thank you so much for doing this."

"My pleasure," he replied as he kissed her cheeks in a continental style greeting.

"Hopefully it'll be your pleasure in more than one way!" Chaz said with a slight smirk.

The smile Sean returned to her indicated that he got her little joke.

"How was your drive up here? Not too much traffic, I hope?" Chaz asked me as she invited us inside.

"We hit a bit of traffic on the M25, but then that's pretty much normal," I replied.

Sean seemed rather quiet and somewhat reserved and just followed us inside without saying a word. I guessed the reality of what was about to happen over the course of that afternoon, and throughout the next day was beginning to hit him a bit. Out of concern for him I silently mouthed a quick 'are you okay?' to him, but I needn't have worried, as he smiled back at me as if to say 'I'm fine, darling.'

The ground floor of the old warehouse had been converted into a large open plan living space, with a lounge area at the front and an expansive kitchen and dining area to the rear. The walls were all of the original bare brickwork, albeit brightened with paintings of varying sizes that ranged from the fairly modest to the downright enormous. All of which were Chaz's own work, naturally.

Above, situated on a mezzanine that overlooked the open plan living space, was Chaz's bedroom. Just below it, back on the ground floor was a smaller guest suite that Sean and I would be spending the night in. It was all a far cry from the rather modest Victorian semi-detached house we lived in down on the coast at Westborough-on-sea, but I actually quite liked it.

"Wow, this place is amazing!" I enthused as Chaz invited us to take a seat in the lounge area.

"Thanks, it took me ages to get it Just how I like it," Chaz replied. "Can I get you some coffee before we go on up to the studio?"

"Ooh, Yes please," I answered.

"Er, yeah," Sean added quietly.

Chaz stepped over towards the kitchen and made a start on the coffee.

"Are you sure you're okay?" I whispered to my husband once Chaz was out of earshot.

"I'm fine," he assured me in equally hushed tones. "It's just that, well, this is the realisation of a dream I've had for years. It's just a little bit, y'know..."

"Overwhelming?" I hazarded a guess.

"Kind of," Sean replied. "Daunting, I guess you could say, but exciting too."

"You know, you can back out of this at any time if you want to," I told him quietly. "I won't think any less of you if you decide to bottle out of it. And neither will Chaz, for that matter. I mean, she'd be disappointed I guess, but she'd totally understand. Don't feel like you have to 'man-up' to do this or anything, you can always..."

"No, I'm totally going through with this," he interrupted firmly. "I promised your friend and I shall keep my word."

I couldn't help but smile at that.

"That's my boy!" I whispered back to him just as Chaz returned with a cafetière of freshly brewed coffee and three cups.

The conversation that followed was all rather civil, as Chaz and I caught up with what had happened in our lives since the last time we saw each other three years earlier. We regaled each other with anecdotes of our days as impoverished art students in the late 1980's, right at the very zenith of Margaret Thatcher's time as prime minister and the 'greed is good' culture of late 80's consumerism. We hated yuppies with an all-consuming passion - a recurring theme of our artwork back in those heady carefree days. After graduating we both went our separate ways, me to go to teacher training college where I met Sean and eventually became an art teacher at a secondary school down on the south coast, and Chaz to go on to study at the Royal Academy and to become one of the most celebrated British artists of her generation.

I never begrudged her the success she'd enjoyed - she deserved it all after the work she had put in, and she was always more talented than I ever was. The important thing as far as I was concerned was that I was happy, with a man I loved more than life itself, and who loved me in return with equal passion. And that, to me at least, was worth more than all the money and glamour and success in the world. If anything, I thought to myself, maybe it ought to be Chaz that should be envious of me. Still, I knew she was happy with her life - she was quite content living the life of a successful artist, and though she had made a conscious decision to live her life as a spinster, she was never in want of a man for the occasional fling with her 'friend with benefits'.

Sean seemed content to simply sit back and listen to us women chatting as he sipped his coffee and contemplated the works of art that adorned the walls. I guess he had a lot on his mind at that moment - despite his bravado that he was okay with everything and that he was about to fulfill one of his all-time greatest fantasies, he was still feeling nervous about it all. I could certainly tell by the way he was shaking his right leg - he always does that when he's nervous.

"Well, I guess we ought to make a start," Chaz announced as she drank the last of her coffee.

"Yes, I guess there's no time like the present," Sean said, clearly still nervously apprehensive about what was going to happen to him.

"Follow me up to the studio, I've already got everything set up there," Chaz added.

She showed us to a flight of stairs that led up into the roof space where her studio was located. It was a large and airy space dominated by lofty steel roof trusses and illuminated from above by large skylights. Dotted around were numerous examples of Chaz's work - some finished, others clearly still work in progress. I was drawn to one particular example - a statue that was almost exactly like one of those statues of naked Ancient Greek athletes. I'm sure you know the kind of thing I mean. This particular one was of the classic discus thrower, except that rather than fine white marble it was made of some kind of dull grey cast concrete, and instead of a discus, the nude male figure appeared to be throwing a laptop.

"You like it?" Chaz asked me.

"Yeah, I love the juxtaposition of the ancient meeting the modern like that," I replied. "That and the fact that it's a gorgeously handsome naked man!"

Chaz returned my brief fit of girlish giggling while Sean simply rolled his eyes.

"I haven't actually decided on a title for it yet," Chaz said once we'd collected ourselves. "I'm torn between 'take that, Microsoft!', or 'here's what I think of your so-called tech support!' Needless to say, it was inspired by a rather stressful experience I had a while back trying to get my laptop serviced!"

The human body, and the sexual organs in particular, was a recurring theme of Chaz's work, both on canvas and in sculpture. Another work in progress was a series of small sculptures of human heads that didn't make sense to begin with. They were all male - you could tell by the shape of them that they weren't female, but in lieu of a mouth, each one had a vagina instead. Stood nearby was another full statue, this time of a female dressed in classical flowing robes and holding some kind of wine jug. Once again it looked fairly innocuous until I inspected it a little closer to see that instead of fingers on her hands she appeared to have penises. I was about to ask Chaz what the meaning of these sculptures were but I kept quiet - it was probably pretty complicated.

Chaz then led us towards the far corner of the studio where she had set up her easel and a large canvas. This was to be the canvas upon which her newest painting was to be worked on. Judging by the numerous sheets of paper with various charcoal scribblings on them pinned to the nearby wall, she had already begun her preliminary sketches. Just like the original artwork that was its inspiration, it depicted Chaz in the nude and in an equally suggestive pose as the first. The main difference this time, other than the fact that she was now clearly older and not as slim as she once was, was that she was posed on all fours, wantonly displaying her most intimate parts as if inviting someone to penetrate her from behind.

Next to the easel stood a simple wooden chair, albeit one that she'd customised for today's activity. Sean eyed the chair a little nervously - Chaz had screwed what looked like customised dog collars to the legs and back of the chair to make a set of improvised restraints. Clearly she intended to use them to hold him in place, which I don't think Sean had factored in to his fantasy. I thought it more likely that it was actually part of one of her fantasies.

"I hope you don't mind, Sean, but I thought it might be a bit of fun to have you strapped onto the chair," Chaz said as soon as she noticed the apprehensive look on his face. "We don't have to use them if you don't want to though."

"Er, no, that's okay," Sean replied. "Yeah, it umm, sounds like fun."

Bless him, I knew he didn't mean that, and that he clearly found the thought of being strapped down more than a little disconcerting, but his masculine bravado clearly wouldn't let him voice his concern. He was my husband after all, and I could read him like a book.

"Right then, how about we make a start?" Chaz announced as she clapped her hands together. "Care to get undressed, Sean?"

"No," Sean answered, which clearly caught Chaz a little off guard.

For a moment I too thought he was about to bottle out of it, but the sudden grin on his face soon said otherwise.

"Like I said," he continued after a moment's suspense. "I'll gladly let you have my sperm, but if you want it you have to get it from me yourself. And that includes taking my clothes off. This is your artwork after all - so it's up to you to put in all the work, right?"

Chaz looked at me as if seeking my permission to continue. I nodded in return slightly and she smiled back at me.

"Okay," she shrugged, and then kneeled down on the floor to untie his shoes.

Sean looked down at Chaz as she removed his shoes and socks. After a few moments she stood and unfastened his belt, unzipped his flies, unbuttoned the waistband and then took down his trousers. Just as he'd said, Sean did not help her in any way, and she had to lift his legs up herself in order to get them fully off. Once she'd taken his trousers off, Chaz stood and took his sweater off, closely followed by the white shirt he wore underneath, until he stood before the two of us in only his underwear. I smiled as I saw which pair of pants Sean had chosen to wear that day - they were boxer briefs, which he normally favoured, and on the front was a popular cartoon tiger stood in a comically 'fierce' pose baring his claws and his teeth. Beside the tiger in a large font was the legend 'caution: wild animal!' That was Sean all over - on the outside he comes across as a dependable and rather unassuming man, but on the inside he's just a big kid really.

"Nice undies!" Chaz giggled.

"Er, thanks," Sean replied a little bashfully.

I guess that now that he was down to just his underwear, he was beginning to feel more ill at ease.

"They've gotta come off though!" Chaz chuckled as she placed her hands on the elasticated waistband in preparation of finishing off the process of undressing my husband. "As nice as they are, I can't get what I need from you if you're still in your pants!"

In a matter of moments he would be totally naked, and I would no longer be the only woman to have seen him naked. Well, that I'm aware of, anyway - I suppose his mum saw him naked when he was little, but apart from that I don't know of anyone else. Like I said, we were each other's first and only loves.

"And they're off!" Chaz exclaimed gleefully as she yanked Sean's underwear down in one swift movement.

As Sean stepped out of his underwear, Chaz casually tossed his pants to the join the rest of his clothes draped over a nearby chair. She took a step back to admire the sight of my now totally naked husband.

"Well I can see why he's the only man you've ever wanted, Jilly-bean!" Chaz grinned broadly. "He's gorgeous!"

I had to smile at that, I guess I had to take it as a compliment of my good taste. Sean simply smiled, probably feeling a little embarrassed about Chaz's comment about his nakedness. It wasn't as though he had anything to be ashamed of - Sean was a regular down at the gym back home in Sussex, and though he was no athlete he was reasonably fit and maintained a decent figure. He wasn't massively muscular, but neither was he fat - he was just a well-proportioned man. And as for his, you know what, he had nothing to be ashamed of there either. He was the right size for me, at least, and that was all that mattered as far as I was concerned. But you know how men are, they constantly need assurance that they measure up 'down there'. Well, I can safely say that although his six and a half inches when fully hard puts him firmly in the middle of 'average', it's plenty enough for me to enjoy!

"Now then, let's get you on this chair, shall we?" Chaz said, gesturing towards the chair she'd customised.

Sean nodded and turned to sit on the chair.

"Give us a hand here, Jilly-bean," Chaz said as she began applying one of the restraints around his left ankle.

I got up and took hold of Sean's wrists and guided them into the restraints Chaz had screwed into the back legs of the chair. Once I'd done that, Chaz had already finished, and so we both took a step back to look at the sight of Sean helplessly strapped onto the chair, unable to escape his bonds however much he wanted to. It made me feel a sense of empowerment that came from some deep recess of my psyche. To be two women with a naked and physically restrained man at our mercy made both of us feel just a little bit of a thrill inside that caused our hearts to flutter.

Well, it certainly made my heart flutter at least, but I'm pretty sure Chaz felt the same thing.

"Er, before we begin, I er, just need a quick word with Jill," Chaz said as she took me by the arm and led me towards the other end of the studio.

"Is there a problem, Chaz?" I asked her, uncertain as to why she'd suddenly dragged me away from where my husband currently sat.

"I thought you said that Sean isn't Jewish," she whispered to me.

"He isn't," I replied. "He's C of E, why do you ask?"

"Well, If he's C of E why is he circumcised then?" Chaz countered.