That same evening I went to a store and bought groceries. I’d been planning to anyway, but when I got there the shelves were already mostly empty and the salesgirl said that there had been a lot of panic buying, so I bought enough to last a week. It would come in handy later, as I was to discover.
The next day was Friday. Yuri finished up his remaining work early, and the office sent around a memo to all employees that we would close early ahead of any “possible lockdown” to allow everyone to prepare. So we were all leaving the office by three in the afternoon.
“I’ll go to hotel and, uh, get fresh, then I will come to your house,” Yuri said.
“What for?” I asked. “Come home with me now. I have a bathroom you can shower and get freshened up in, don’t I?”
He didn’t need a lot of persuasion, and as I drove I pointed out things in the city he hadn’t seen before. In fact I took a detour to show him some of the sights because he’d been so focused on work during the day, and spending his time alone in his hotel room in the evenings, that he’d never really taken the opportunity to see any of it before in the two weeks he had been in town. By the time we got home the sun was far down in the west and golden light and purple shadows were jousting with each other on the buildings and the leaves of the trees.
“Is beautiful,” Yuri said with a smile. “But not as beautiful as you.” And then he blushed again.
When we got up to my flat he saw me taking off my shoes as soon as we’d entered – as I’ve mentioned before, I’m a barefoot girl – and began taking his off too. When I told him that he didn’t have to, he said that it was a custom in his country as well. And as I was feeding the goldfish he asked quite intelligent questions about them. Most people who visit me don’t bother, as though goldfish aren’t living creatures that need care and loving but just equivalent to part of the furniture.
“If you want to shower,” I said, “the bathroom’s over there. The water’s warm and you’ll find spare towels in the cabinet over the sink.”
“No, is all right,” he said. “I’m fine now.”
“Tell me whenever you want one. And here’s the art supplies you wanted.” He smiled delightedly when he saw the things I’d bought for him. “I’ll change, get you a beer, and make us something to eat.”
I changed quickly. Nothing fancy: a light loose summer dress I rarely wore, short-sleeved and knee-length, pale cream speckled with tiny blue and grey flowers, with no knickers underneath. I did keep on a bra, though, since otherwise my nipples would be poking through the fabric. I won’t lie, by this time I hadn’t had sex with another person for nearly a month and the very presence of a man, especially a nice man, in the house with me was sending urgent messages between my legs, so that I had to squeeze my thighs together. By the time I’d got a simple dinner ready, he’d spread out the art paper, brushes and paint on the living room table, borrowed a pencil, and when I looked over my shoulder I found him standing at the kitchen door, looking at me, busy drawing.
“What are you doing?”
He shrugged. “Just preliminary sketches. Gives me a…feeling for how you are, how you move. When I do final painting, it gives me guidelines.”
I was amused. “I didn’t know painting me was such a project. Better eat first before you start on it.” I took a look at his drawing. It showed me from the back, my head turned to look over my shoulder, one leg bent at the knee as I put a dish down on the dining table. It was amazingly good. Even the bulge of my ankle bone and the arch of my eyebrow was rendered clearly.
“Shub Niggurath,” I said, “if that’s what you call a preliminary sketch, I wonder what your panting will be like.”
“I am out of practice,” he said self-deprecatingly, “or else I would be much better than this. I thank you for chance to draw and paint.”
After dinner he, despite my protests, helped me to wash up. “Sure you don’t want a shower?” I asked.
“No, I want to start painting. Can I have some water in a mug? For the brushes.”
“Here you go.” I poured him more beer and got the water. “What do you want me to wear?”
He smiled and shook his head. “Depends on what you want. It’s you who get to choose.”
I grinned. “Well, then, that’s simple, isn’t it? If I can choose what to wear, I’ll choose the simplest thing. No clothes at all!”
“You mean?” He was blushing so much his face was bright red. He picked up his beer and swallowed it a gulp. “Naked?”
“I do mean naked. Do a nude of me. I’ve always wanted to be painted in the nude.” Without giving him time to think, I stepped into the bedroom, stripped off the dress, and stepped back into the living room while unhooking my bra. “There you go,” I said, dropping it into a chair. “Now where do you want me to be?”
His eyes were round as he looked me over, from my hair to my feet. “Uh,” he said, swallowing, “maybe next to aquarium?”
“Fine,” I said. “Now, can you tell me how you want me to pose?”
“Uh, one arm on aquarium, and…”
“No,” I said. “I don’t think I can understand your instructions well enough. Come and pose me. Put my arms and legs and head where you want them to be.”
He did. His hands were warm but shaking a little. Then he took a deep breath. “You sure, you do not mind?”
“Why should I mind? I’m the one who wants to be painted in the nude.” He’d posed me turned to my left, with an arm draped over the aquarium, the other on my hip, my right leg bent at the knee. “If I might have a suggestion?”
“Yes?”
“In this position you can’t even see my vul…my vagina. If I’m going to be painted naked I want it to be in the painting as well. Can I face you, instead?”
He swallowed again, hard, and nodded. “If you want.”
“Oh yes, I do.” I turned so I was facing him, maintaining the same pose. “How’s that?”
He nodded rapidly. “Yes, very good.”
“Hey, take a deep breath,” I said. “I’m just a woman, I won’t bite. Well, not unless you ask me to.”
He didn’t say anything, bending instead to the paints. For a long time the only movement in the room was his hand and fingers with one brush after another in them, and his head as he looked to the pencil sketch, at me, and at what he was painting. As far as possible I tried not to move.
At last he raised his arms behind his head, stretched, and rose to his feet. “It’s done.”
“Can I have a look?”
“Yes, of course. It needs to dry, though.” As I stepped naked towards him he blinked in surprise.
“You do not want to put something on?”
“No, why should I? You’ve already seen all there is to see of me anyway.” I looked at the painting and gasped with awe. “Oh my.”
It was beautiful. It took me a moment to realise that the woman in the painting, despite her familiar features, was I. The play of light on the tops of her breasts, the way her hair hung over one shoulder, curling to kiss her collarbone, the deep pit of her navel and the shadows that grew below it, not deep enough to conceal the cleft that began between her thighs…she was beautiful, in a way I had never been beautiful, though every feature of hers, from her broad forehead to the silver glitter of her painted toenails, were mine.
“Oh, my,” I said again, and then I was suddenly pressed to him, one arm around his neck, pulling his mouth down on mine, my kisses mingling with tears that fell from my eyes unbidden.
“Why are you crying?” I heard Yuri ask, between kisses. “Is something wrong? I just painted you as I saw you. What is wrong?”
I shook my head. “Nothing wrong,” I said, as best I could. “Take off your clothes, my crying’s messing them up. Take them off and come to bed.”
I don’t believe I’ve cried so hard in a very long time as I did as I unbuttoned Yuri’s shirt, took off his belt, and slid his trousers down his legs. It was not just what he’d done for me, or what he’d seen in me that he’d translated into paint on paper. It was a catharsis, for all the years of dying hopes of fame, of the unsatisfying jobs that followed one after the other, the little and big disappointments. It was for the lovers who flitted through my life, gave and took a few moments of pleasure, and then disappeared into the veils of memory and regrets. It was even for my mother, who might have been a much nicer person if only my father had lived, and with whom I might have had a relationship like normal mothers and daughters have. And it was for Yuri, for the scar that began at the angle of his jaw and ended at his right shoulder in a twisted sunburst of pink and orange and red. I kissed that scar over and over again as I cried.
Once I’d regained composure to some extent I found myself lying on my beck in bed, Yuri looking down at me with concern in his face. “Are you all right? Should I get help?”
“No,” I said. “I’m fine.” I reached within myself and brought up a smile, and it was even a real smile. “You’re wonderful, you know that?”
“I am not, but is kind of you.” He smiled back. “Should I go back to hotel now?”
“Don’t you dare.” I raised my mouth to his, and my hand slid down his flat stomach to circle his penis. It throbbed, warm and alive, in my hand. I needed it inside me so much.
“You are very beautiful woman,” he said. “I will paint you again, if you promise not to cry.”
“You can paint me as often as you want,” I said. “But, right now, you need to fuck me.” I pumped his penis with my hand, feeling it throb as it erected even further. “Will you do that?”
In response he bent his head and kissed the side of my neck, and then his tongue flicked out and slid down my throat. An electric shock ran down my body all the way to my toes. I moaned and shuddered.
“Don’t stop,” I begged.
He didn’t stop. His tongue, tracing its way down my collarbone and over the slope of my breast, traced a circle around my right nipple. I shuddered and moaned again.
“Shh,” he said. “Just lie down and enjoy yourself.”
Still gripping his penis, which twitched and throbbed, I felt my breasts being pushed together. His head flicked across the nipples, licking and tickling, and then he took the right one in his mouth and rolled it between his teeth, nipping enough to push me right to the edge. Then he did the same with the left nipple.
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