Chapter 19: The Artist's Eye
The late afternoon sun sliced through the blinds in Aidan’s office, painting the room in stripes of gold and shadow. It was quiet, the kind of deep weekday quiet the house held when the real world was supposedly happening elsewhere. Aidan was supposed to be reviewing structural schematics on his monitor. He was staring at a single line, reading it over and over, not absorbing a word.
The smell of lemon polish and, underneath it, the faint, clean scent of Jenny’s shampoo lingered. She’d cleaned in here an hour ago.
The soft click of the door latch broke his trance. Catriona stood there, backlit by the hall light, holding a large black case. She looked purposeful. Her eyes met his, and a slow, private smile touched her lips.
“I had an idea,” she said, her voice cutting the stillness. She walked in, setting the hard-shell case on his immaculate desk with a solid thunk. The latches popped with sharp, precise sounds.
“What’s this?” Aidan asked, swiveling his chair away from the screen.
“A project.” She lifted out a professional digital camera, its lens long and serious. Then a carbon fibre tripod, extending its legs with smooth whispers. “I was going through my old portfolio work. The lighting in here at this time of day is exceptional. Really… sculptural.”
Aidan’s stomach did a slow roll. This wasn’t about interior design. “Cat.”
“Don’t ‘Cat’ me.” Her tone was light, but it held a steel thread. “You’ve always said I have an eye for composition. I want to use it. For us.” She mounted the camera, peering through the viewfinder, aiming it at the leather chaise lounge in the corner. “Go get Jenny. She’s studying in her room.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“I’ve never been more serious.” She looked over the camera at him, her green eyes flat and certain. “The dining room was impulse. The bedroom was… necessity. This is art. A record. Now, please.”
It wasn’t a request. The same heat he felt in the dining room, the helpless surrender of the master bed, coiled in his gut again. He stood, his body already responding to the unspoken command. The fantasy was no longer being sprung on him; he was walking into it, eyes open. That somehow made it heavier, more real.
He found Jenny cross-legged on her bed, a massive medical textbook open in her lap. She wore tiny sleep shorts and a thin tank top. She looked up, a highlight in her hand.
“Catriona wants you in the office,” he said, his voice low.
Jenny’s brow furrowed for a second. Then, reading his face, her expression cleared, morphing into something curious and daring. She didn’t ask why. She dog-eared a page, closed the book, and swung her legs off the bed. “Okay.”
Back in the office, Catriona had adjusted the lighting, angling the blinds to soften the harsh stripes into a diffuse, warm glow. The camera on its tripod was a silent, judging presence.
“On the chaise, Jenny,” Catriona directed, her voice assuming a calm, professional timbre. “On your back, head towards the arm. Let your hair fall over the side.”
Jenny complied, stretching out on the dark leather. The material sighed under her. She looked both incredibly young and agelessly sensual, her dark eyes fixed on Catriona, not the lens.
Catriona peered through the viewfinder. “Aidan. Kneel on the floor facing her. Yes, there. Just… be there for now.”
He lowered himself to the Persian rug, the wool rough against his knees. He felt absurd, exposed, even fully clothed with Jenny lying bare-legged before him.
“Look at her, Aidan. Not at me. See her.”
He did. He saw the faint trace of a tan line on her thigh, the delicate arch of her foot, the quiet rise and fall of her stomach. His mouth went dry.
“Now, take off your shirt. Slowly.”
He pulled his polo shirt over his head, the cotton catching briefly. The afternoon air was cool on his skin.
“Good. Now your belt. Your trousers. Everything. Let me see you.”
The mechanical rasp of his zipper was the only sound. He pushed everything down, stepping out of them, kneeling again. The sun warmed his back. He was fully, dauntingly erect, the reality of his own body feeling alien under his wife’s clinical observation.
“Beautiful,” Catriona murmured, and he couldn’t tell if she meant the composition or him. The camera shutter clicked, a soft but definitive sound. It clicked again, and again. She moved the tripod, the legs scraping softly on the hardwood. “Jenny, lift your hips. Slide the shorts off. Yes. Perfect. Aidan, move in. Touch her. Just your hands first. Follow the light.”
His hands, usually so sure on a keyboard or a tool, felt clumsy. He placed them on Jenny’s knees, smoothing up her thighs. The shutter clicked incessantly, a rapid-fire chronicle of his fingertips on her skin.
“Now your mouth,” Catriona instructed, her voice dropping, losing its professional edge for something huskier. “Where you were last night. Show me.”
Aidan bent forward, the world narrowing to the scent and heat of Jenny. He heard the camera’s motor drive whir, capturing it all. He felt Catriona’s gaze as a physical weight, but also felt Jenny’s hands return to his hair, pulling him closer, guiding him. This wasn’t just performance. Jenny’s little gasps, the tensing of her stomach, were real. He lost himself in the act, the sound of the shutter fading into background noise.
“Stop.” Catriona’s voice cut through. “I want a different angle. Aidan, sit on the chaise. Jenny, on top of him. Face me. I want to see your eyes.”
They rearranged themselves, a clumsy, intimate ballet. Jenny straddled his lap, her back to his chest, his thick arousal pressing against her. She leaned back into him, her head on his shoulder, and looked directly at the camera, at Catriona behind it. Her expression was one of open, fearless possession.
The shutter clicked. Click-click-click.
“Now, Aidan,” Catriona said, her breath audible now. “Take her. Right there. Let me see it happen.”
He guided himself into her, the fit still breathtakingly tight. Jenny’s mouth opened in a silent ‘O’, her eyes fluttering shut before snapping back open to hold Catriona’s lens. Aidan’s arms wrapped around her waist, anchoring her as he began to move.
The office was filled with the sound of their breathing, the soft creak of leather, and the relentless, hungry click of the camera. Catriona moved around them like a phantom, circling, zooming in. On their joined bodies. On Jenny’s breasts swaying with the rhythm. On Aidan’s face, strained with a pleasure so deep it looked like pain.
“Don’t stop,” Catriona whispered, her own command breaking. “Don’t you dare stop. I want to catch the exact moment.”
Aidan was hurtling toward it, the coil pulled taut. The forbidden, documented reality of it—his wife watching, recording, as he came inside another woman—shattered his last remnants of control.
“Look at me, Jenny!” Catriona demanded, her voice rough.
Jenny’s dark eyes, glazed with pleasure, found the lens just as Aidan fractured. A guttural roar was torn from him, his body locking, driving up into her as he emptied himself. The camera clicked, a rapid staccato.
For a long moment, the only sound was their ragged breathing. Aidan slumped back, spent, Jenny a boneless weight in his arms.
Catriona lowered the camera. She walked forward, her steps quiet on the rug. She didn’t look at them. She looked at the camera’s preview screen. She zoomed in on the image.
There, in high definition, was the proof. The intimate, glistening connection where their bodies met, and the first, creamy trickle of his release escaping Jenny, stark against her skin and the dark leather.
Catriona let out a long, shuddering sigh. A visible tremor ran through her. The front of her silk robe was dark, soaked through.
She finally looked up from the screen, her eyes meeting Aidan’s over Jenny’s shoulder. There was no triumph there. Only a profound, unsettling hunger, and a dawning awareness of what she now possessed.
“I’m going to make copies,” she said softly, almost to herself. She turned and walked out, leaving the camera on its tripod, its red recording light blinking like a steady, accusing heart in the quiet, sun-drenched room.