"Simon Hawke - Wizard 4 - The Wizard of Rue Morgue" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hawke Simon)

She had heard that Siegal often had torrid, passionate affairs with his models, but now
she was starting to think that he was interested only in her body.
Siegal rolled his eyes up in exasperation and ran a hand through his thick, dark,
curly hair. He poured her a small snifter of cognac. "How do you expect me to paint
you if you won't sit still?" he snapped at her in frustration. "You're squirming about
like a dog with fleas!"
"Why don't you come over here and squirm about with me?" she suggested coyly,
arching her back and stretching out her lovely legs.
Siegal sighed as he handed her the snifter. "For God's sake, Joelle, I've got
paintbrushes older than you are."
"You don't find me attractive?" she said, shifting around on the sofa, putting her
legs up and swirling the cognac around in the snifter. She dipped a fingertip into the
amber liquid and gently sucked it while gazing at him with a smoldering look.
"I find you very attractive, Joelle," he said, wearily. "That's why I wanted to paint
you. You're a beautiful girl, but I didn't pay you to come here and have sex with me, for
God's sake. In fact, I don't know why I'm paying you at all," he added in a surly tone.
"As an artist's model, you're an absolute disaster!"
"Do you really think I'm beautiful?" she said, slowly moistening her lips with her
tongue and taking a small sip from the snifter.
He made a low sound in his throat, halfway between a moan and a growl. It was
just impossible. Lately, every time he found a model who possessed all the right
physical qualities, a certain look he wanted to capture on canvas, the moment he got
her to the studio, all she wanted was to make love with him. It was probably his own
fault for having unrealistic expectations. He had thought that Joelle had a lovely,


7
waiflike innocence about her, but it seemed there was no such thing as an innocent
young girl in Paris. Even at sixteen, Joelle was already fully aware of her own lush
sexuality.
"Max," she said softly, "what's the matter? Don't you want me?"
"Yes, Joelle, I want you," he said in a tired voice. "I want you to put your clothes
on and go home. This isn't going to work. It's pointless."
"But MaxтАФ"
"Get dressed, Joelle," he said impatiently. He reached for his wallet. "I'll pay you
for your time, though Lord knows, you've wasted mine."
She stared at him and he saw the anger flare up in her eyes. He knew what was
coming and he braced himself for it with an air of resignation. The brandy snifter
shattered as she hurled it to the floor and launched into a torrent of scathing verbal
abuse, questioning his masculinity, his talent, calling him a tired old man . . . he'd heard
it all before. He simply sat there quietly, waiting for her to run out of steam and make
her dramatic exit. He had been through variations of this scene many times before and
it no longer angered or even surprised him very much. It just left him feeling sullen and
depressed.
Tomorrow, she would undoubtedly tell all her friends that the great "See-gal," as
they pronounced his name in Paris, had asked her to pose for him and that the moment
she got to his studio, the passion between them had been so overwhelming that they
had made love with wild abandon all through the night and he had raised her to new
heights of ecstasy. And the next time he asked someone to pose for him, chances were
he'd run into the same damn problem. There was a time when he had thoroughly