Every day for weeks, Anne had gone to the Peyrot museum near the Parc Monceau. The artist's former house, now a small and little known museum, showed his enigmatic work - paintings and pastels in which ordinary objects and settings acquired a strange eroticism; portraits that seemed to reveal inner secrets. Some said the young Hockney had drawn from this work. But Peyrot remained obscure, and Anne was often the only visitor.

Some mystery beneath the surfaces attracted her, some ineffable quality she felt she shared with the artist. Just beyond the edges of consciousness, it stirred deep within her. Alone in bed, she would visualize the canvasses and suddenly feel the dampness and longing between her thighs.

Still, her research proved difficult. Peyrot had died in 1985, barely into his fifties, leaving few biographical traces beyond the obvious. Laurent, the curator was polite but knew little. Or was he hiding something? Mlle. Fournier, Peyrot's young mistress in the last few years of his life, declined repeated requests. "We really have nothing to discuss," she told Anne each time she phoned.

Many afternoons, Anne sat with her sketch pad, alone in one of the rooms, as though by learning to reproduce Peyrot's line she would capture his secret as well. Sometimes, if she was still sketching, Laurent let her stay past the closing hour.

"Mademoiselle," he said late one day. He motioned for her to follow him. In a part of the house she had never seen, Anne found herself in a large furnished room with a skylight. Peyrot's studio? His bedroom? Laurent opened the broad drawer of a cabinet. "Most are pastels. A few oils."

Anne looked. They were all of the same woman - nude, with long dark hair. In most, she was bent gracefully over a chair, a couch. Or she knelt, hair flowing forward over her lowered head. Anne gasped to see the upthrust bottom. It bore the unmistakable marks of punishment - the deep red of spanking, the sharp lines and marks of some instrument. In other pictures, the woman submissively awaited her punishment, her face and posture conveying both fear and desire.

Anne too, dizzy with realization, felt the fear in her stomach, the desire in her loins. Laurent opened another drawer, and Anne, mesmerized, saw the straps and paddles, the canes. Laurent picked up a martinet, and looked deeply into her eyes. Anne nodded silently. She knelt over the settee, raised her skirt, and lowered her panties. Her heart was racing, her palms wet, her sex wetter. Laurent did not disappoint her.

When it was over, he left. Alone, Anne slipped the martinet in her purse.

* * * *

Mlle. Fournier answered her door when Anne rang. Twenty years older but still obviously the beautiful woman in the pictures. She was about to slam the door when Anne held out her open purse. Mlle. Fournier saw the martinet and smiled.

"Come in," she said. "We have much to discuss."