My leg is still shackled to the stool, but at least the blindfold is gone, and I can finally see my surroundings. It is much as I expected. I sit just within a square of light, perhaps six feet on a side. Outside the square there is only shadow. Beside me, a small table, with a bowl of water. In front of me, a potter's wheel, with a wet lump of clay, waiting to be formed. Beyond the wheel and to my left, just inside the other side of the square, an easel with a canvas. Beyond the wheel to my right, sitting on a tripod, the video camera, its little red light blinking as it silently records.

I first became aware of Anna's work through my participation in a community art project. I fear I paid more attention to her than my piece of pottery, watching her move through us, tracked by a remote controlled, tripod-mounted camera, asking questions, making suggestions, always in charge, clad head to toe in black, her long curly blond-to-silver hair bouncing on her shoulders, her breasts dominant, her eyes flashing dangerously, or with her sleeves rolled up, her hands in clay, dust in her hair, paint on her face, her eyes still flashing dangerously. There is a fine line between facilitator of individual expression and whip wielding overseer, and she stalked it, ever-conscious of the camera.

Behind me I hear the unmistakable sounds of brush, jar, paint, water, palette, and the padding of naked feet on a bare wood floor. I know better than to turn around.

I was sure to watch the film when it was shown on public television, and was struck by the brilliance of the filming, the contrast and collaboration between film and finished art. The finished art work is iconic, final, static, and yet left to the imagination, subject to reinterpretation as people age and cultures change. The film preserves the people, preserves the process, becomes a collective memory. But it is still her memory, just as it is really her art, no matter how many people actually do the work. Under the skillful touch of her editing, her domination of the group mind is only suggested. The film is not about her, but she is vaguely omnipresent, never completely off camera, even if represented only by the melodious Southern lilt of her questions.

The brush and paint are cold and wet on my bare back. I shiver.

After the film finished I was left with memories of the experience that at the time were mildly pleasurable, and yet suddenly seemed incredibly consequential: the motion of her leg as she walked, the strength of her hands in the clay, the swell of her breasts as she bent over to ask me a question.

She reaches around me, painting my chest from behind, large violent swaths of red, blue, and violet. She is pressed against my back, warming me with her body heat, comforting me with the weight of breasts, exciting me with the hardness of her nipples and her warm breath against my ear. Is that her tongue, gently flicking at my lobes as her left hand barely grazes my rapidly hardening cock?

I found myself obsessed with her work, taping the film the next time they showed it on television, watching it again and again, over and over, traveling around the city to look at her other large-scale works, finding her smaller works in galleries and museums. While her large-scale community works are iconic, her paintings are charged with motion, and her ceramics are organic, feminine, almost harshly so - sexually suggestive in ways I could not begin to explain.

Suddenly she is gone, no longer against my back. I hear the slap of hands in clay, and then she is back, reaching around me again, touching my face, molding the clay, building a mask, her hands stroking me roughly, and then down, around my cock, forming a ring of clay around the base, teasing the shaft with her fingertips. I want to explode. I need to take her, to take her now.

Finally, months later, I spotted her at a gallery show, lurking anonymously near her own works, looking completely delicious in black leather pants, a black turtleneck, and probably nothing else at all. She was watching the reactions of the patrons to her work with awesome intensity. There was no film there, not even paper or pen, but I could tell that she was taking notes, that this too was part of her creative process: a mental film, an interpretive dance, a piece of performance art with the patrons as unwitting performers.

She walks around me. Her hand never leaving me. She stands in front of me, naked, proud, beautiful, experienced, covered in swirls of paint, and very much in charge, carrying her age with grace and power. Her breasts are everything hinted at, everything dreamed of. I raise my hands to trace that line, the line of her neck, down her chest, across the magnificent slopes to the small pink caps and the large, hard nipples. She grabs my wrists with strong and messy hands, holding my fingertips agonizing inches from her painted skin.

I decided to play along, to play a part, to enlarge the stage. Assuming the role of serious art aficionado on the prowl, I circled around and approached her wall from her left, pausing before each piece in studied reverence, checking them from every angle, nodding thoughtfully when it seemed appropriate. Then seeming to notice her for the first time, and pretending not to know who she was, I smiled, and casually asked her what she thought of her own work. I strongly suspected that to her, the rest of humanity is merely raw material in the grand scheme of art, but there was still an anxious moment before she answered when I thought she might have recognized me.

"Now," she orders, delicately, harshly, liltingly, dangerously, "now you are going to throw a piece of pottery that expresses your impressions of me, and I am going to paint your innermost urges."

"I'm more interested in what you think" she replied, smiling back, those dangerous eyes not hinting one way or the other whether she knew we were playing.

She releases my wrists, and turns away, not waiting for an answer. I watch her walk, the turn of her leg, the sway of her hips, the muscles of her ass, as she pads to the easel. My free foot is pumping the pedal that spins the wheel, my hands are in the water, and then on the clay.

"Well," I responded carefully, "I've been fascinated by the group creative process of her larger works that she captured so masterfully on film. That extra dimension of the video camera really adds to the experience. These smaller works are much more intense and personal, but without the film, oddly less knowable. I find myself wishing she had filmed their creation as well."

She stands behind the easel. Watching me. And then she moves. A small swirl in the lower left, the stool? A great violent streak of red from lower left to upper right, quickly transformed into a leaping, multicolored man with the face of a tiger. She almost dances as she paints, her entire body following through on each brushstroke. The clay forms beneath my hands.

There was a moment's silence. Dangerous silence. Raked by dangerous eyes. Her smile moved, just a little. Suddenly it looked slightly less benign. "You like to watch?" she finally asked.

I am building a vase, vaguely hinting at her naked form, as though she is trapped within. It is tall and slender, swirling with motion, with dangerous loops, and violent slashing lines.

"Yes" I answered, doing my best to look her in the eye as I answered. Somehow I knew we'd left the playing field.

We finish, almost as one, admiring each other's work from across the square of light. The vase is the best pottery I have ever thrown. She turns the easel so I can see her painting fully. The square of yellow light, the midnight blue around it, the violet wheel, my leaping swirling form, have captured my spirit in ways I thought not possible.

"Do you like to get your hands dirty?" she asked.

We stare at each other, sweating, creative, swirled in paint, breathing heavily. She walks toward me, hips swaying, breasts swaying, eyes dangerous.

"Yes" I answered again.

She pulls the wheel aside, kneels before me, unshackles my leg from the stool, her mouth inches from my straining, clay-caked cock.

She held out her hand. "I'm Anna" she said simply.

I stand on the brink of insanity. No, I do not stand, I leap, as in the picture. On my feet, my hands behind her head, I pull her mouth onto my cock. She pulls back, dragging me with her, dragging me down, into the center of light.

I debated for a second whether to shake it or kiss it. I decided to shake. A more critical decision awaited however, and I hesitated again before taking the plunge. "I know." I answered, as I grasped her hand, her strong hand, firmly but lightly.

She is flat on her back, flat on her back in the center of light as I enter her. She is wet, she is ready, the colors swirl around us both as I take her, her legs around my back, her heels digging into me as if she has spurs on. Our faces are almost touching. She is breathing hard, turning even redder. I am still wearing the mask. The ring of clay is hard around the base of my erection. I must make her come. I must make her come hard. I must prove that I am in charge. I am in charge. I am in charge. "Come. Come now. Come hard" she screams. And I come, I come hard. I come as ordered.

"I know you know" she smiled. "I was just enjoying watching you play your little game."