As Christine's car slid into the road, turned and vanished behind the hedge, another car, a silver Chrysler, turned into the drive and parked in the spot the BMW had been only seconds before. As if invited, as if welcome, a short, obese, elderly gentleman with coiffured, silver hair insinuated himself from the car, his form bulging outwards like a balloon being inflated, then rising like a loaf of bread. As he approached the house I saw he was dressed in a beautifully tailored, grey pinstripe suit with a bow tie and expensive looking, brown, shiny shoes. His gait, though waddling, was not without some grace. He carried his considerable weight well, I thought, as if he had once, very long ago, been a dancer.

 

From the bedroom window I watched him ascend the steps to the veranda and I hoped he would decide the house was empty after he had rung the bell and received no answer, but he glanced to his right, saw me, waved and smiled. Unlike the rest of him, his dentition was not immaculate, in fact, it was in a state, with many of the teeth missing. I slouched to the door and opened.

 

"Mish Kirwan!" he beamed, holding out a hand that was home to a bright, diamond ring, "Bernie Shummersh." I stared at him nonplussed, took the hand, probably feeling to him like the proverbial wet fish, and shook my head vaguely. "Lamorna Gallery," he elaborated, raising his plucked brows. "We shpoke on the phone a couple of daysh ago."

 

"Oh, yes," I said, and managed a smile. "Sorry." I had met him briefly during the exhibition of my work. I looked around behind him, remembering some of the previous day's events and feeling a little nervous. A big dog with slavering jaws was indeed exactly what I needed.

 

"You mentioned you were working on shomething new and intereshting," said Bernie, "sho I thought I might take the liberty of having an early peep at it." His grin was reminiscent of the leer of ghosts in Japanese horror films.

 

"Y-yes," I stammered, then opened the door wider for him to step through. "I'm sorry I didn't recognise you," I said, leading him through to the studio.

 

"You dealt moshtly with Shushanne before, yesh?"

 

"That's right."

 

"I'm retired really, but I've taken over the running of the gallery for the moment while she hash her baby."

 

"That's good of you," I replied, trying to sound upbeat. Despite counting myself among Suzanne Harvey's friends it was the first I had heard of the pregnancy. I felt doubly sad, sad that she had not given me her good news and sad for myself.

 

Bernie and I had arrived in the studio and he was spinning around slowly on one heel with his brows raised again. The pictures I had painted that week were all locked away. I pulled them out and set them up on the three easels or just leaned them against the walls. I held my sketchbook, wondering if I should show him that too, though I felt a protectiveness towards it. My sketches were like a diary of the last three days and depicted some of things Stevie and I had done together, such as boating on the lake, swimming and drinking tea. I always felt a little trepidant about displaying my new work. I had trusted Suzanne with most of it, deeply personal though some of it was. She had loved my child portraits and also the ones of Christine, but we had agreed not to exhibit the latter, not because Christine objected, which she didn't, but because Suzanne could tell that I wasn't ready to have them shown. She had been able to gauge my feelings about them purely from my manner when showing them to her, not from anything I'd said. Despite feeling pleased with my brand new work, I felt deeply uncomfortable having this unfamiliar, strange man staring at them. He took a long time, fingering his chins, passing from one to the next with a faint smile on his face. He saw a beautiful woman, in three different outfits, perched on branches, logs and chairs or standing, sometimes holding a pure white, fluffy dog. Then he came to one where my muse displayed her buttocks through her underwear and he must have taken a good ten minutes over it. Seeing it all together for the first time, I was pleasantly surprised how consistent the work was and I even felt an unusual feeling for me, pride. He made little hums suggesting approval, then gasps of astonishment. After he finally managed to tear himself away from the bum and splayed legs I decided I would hand him the sketchbook after all as I felt flattered by his reactions. Neither of us said anything until he had thoroughly perused every little impression of my muse that I had recorded.

 

"Thish ish ekshepshional," he said quietly, apparently moved. "A sheraph brought to life by Modigliani and Margaret Keane'sh love child."

 

Despite my initial feeling of repulsion towards him I found myself warming to him a little. It was exactly the kind of compliment I loved to hear.

 

"Thank you," I said. "Would you care for some tea?"

 

He stared at one of the close up portraits I had made while standing in the lake and nodded a little absent mindedly, so I left him there and went to the kitchen. Despite the awful feeling of desolation earlier, first realising that this was my first day without my muse since meeting her, and then having to deal with Christine's hangover, sending her off to work dosed up with plenty of paracetamol and coffee, I now felt my mood lift a little. I took the tea into the studio as he was still thoroughly absorbed. When he saw me about to pour, his gentlemanly instincts took over and he poured for me.

 

"One lump or two?" he asked, laying on the charm.

 

"One, please," I told him, while I looked over the picture painted beneath the willow, with Stevie above me, her lip curled into the hint of a smile.

 

After a moment he said, "Sugar?"

 

"What?" I said, jolting myself away from Wonderland.

 

"My little joke," he said and handed me the cup and saucer. I felt confused. "Sho," he said, with his cup raised and his mouth pouting, about to take a sip, "what do you intend to do with thish new work?" And he slurped his tea noisily.

 

The inference I took from this question gave me a twinge of sadness and a little panic. Was this it, this little handful of pictures made over just three days? I had discovered someone, a being almost supernatural in her beauty, charm and power to inspire me, only to be abandoned, never to paint her ever again?

 

A little defiantly, I answered, "I feel like I've only just started on this."

 

He replace the cup in his saucer and looked into the light brown liquid.

 

"May I ashk who she ish, your model?"

 

"Her name's Stephanie," I said, guardedly.

 

He placed the cup and saucer on the painted-spattered table between us, linked his fingers together thoughtfully, and asked, "Shtephanie Bell?"

 

Astonished, and feeling slightly invaded, I nodded and asked, "You know her?" failing to keep the surprise from my voice.

 

He shrugged.

 

"Not pershonally, no." He frowned, then took up the tea again and resumed drinking for a minute while I attempted to process the news that someone like Bernie could be acquainted with my seraph.

 

Quietly, he asked, "Are you aware of the shtoriesh about her?"

 

"Stories?" My voice had risen considerably in pitch. "What do you mean?"

 

He frowned again.

 

"Oh, jusht shmall town goship. Nothing sherioush," he said dismissively, leaving me even more astonished and intrigued. "Do you know her well?"

 

I wanted to say I did. I wanted that to be true and almost told him I was, just to make it feel true.

 

"No," I said, looking down, "not really. What do you mean, 'stories'?"

 

He coughed and said, "It'sh none of my bushinesh."

 

At least that's true, I thought.

 

We finished drinking in silence, but as I placed everything back on the tray and stood, I could not help asking him what had happened to his teeth, though it was uncharacteristically forward of me to ask such a question. The old man actually blushed.

 

"I was shtruck by one of your fellow membersh of the fair sheksh," he said, smiling a little acidly. "By your friend, ash a matter of fact."

 

"Who? Christine?" I gawped.

 

"No," he winced. "Your model, Mish Bell."

 

I almost dropped the tray.

 

"By Stephanie?" I could not help shouting. "I thought you didn't know her!"

 

"I don't, thank goodnesh," he said, brushing imaginary dust from his trousers. "She was at the gallery a few daysh ago. Actually, she wash looking at the two picturesh we had bought from you and kept on dishplay." I tried to absorb this coincidence and remained rooted to the spot with the loaded tray in my hands, looking down at his semi-deflated football shape, with the old armchair crushed under his weight. "She sheemed to take offensh at shomething I shaid," he said, the indignation this event had clearly left him with still fresh in his mind.

 

"Which reminds me," he continued and, while shifting his enormous weight, he slowly squeezed his hand around his back. He shifted again and I wondered if he was suffering with haemorrhoids. When his hand finally returned from its intrepid mission it was clutching a leather wallet from which he pulled some notes. "She purchased one of your paintings," and he pressed the money into my fingers. "Er," he added, his broad smile revealing more black holes, "minus the gallery's commission, that is."

 

I was still trying to imagine my beautiful angel visiting physical violence on someone, but could not see her ever performing such a testosterone-charged, masculine, barbaric, act. I clamped my jaw shut, as it had been swinging wide open, cleared my throat politely and asked him, purely out of courtesy, if he wanted more tea.

 

"Er, no, thank you kindly," he replied, and began to heave himself out of the chair.

 

He followed me back to the kitchen and, as I was carefully placing everything in the dishwasher, I felt a pat on my rump. I tried to ignore it, but there it was again. I stood, turned and looked down at him. He barely came up to my chest. Now knowing that my feelings for him were shared by my muse I felt a little more empowered and, even though he winked at me, my glare seemed to sufficient to make him turn away. I saw him out, thanked him for his visit, but assured him that it could be a long time, a very long time, before I felt ready to exhibit my new work at Lamorna Gallery.

 

After watching him drive off, I took a turn around the house, looking far into the distance, especially down the valley to the lake. I was starting to realise how, since meeting Stevie, the feelings of vulnerability that would sometimes come over me had been completely forgotten, as if I had never had them, despite the events of the previous day. Now, as if I had woken from a dream, they returned. Still feeling wary of the lake and its immediate environs, I paused for a while in the garden looking down into the valley, feeling sad that, a place hitherto so beautiful to me, a place that I had felt strangely protected by the beauty of nature, was now a place to be scared of. As if sensing these thoughts I heard the approach of Leo, the German Shepherd, panting and clicking his nails on the road.

 

I turned to see him and Ken approaching, out for the morning stroll, waved and said, "Good morning, Kenny." Our neighbor preferred 'Ken' but allowed me to call him by this affectionate version of his name. He was tall, with distinguished blonde hair turning silver. He stopped by the hedge, asked me how I was and could obviously see the concern in my face. I told him of the incident the day before and his brows drew together into a black frown.

 

"I've seen them two," he said. "They set fire to one of the benches down there, or I think it was them. There was a big, black hole in it and the thing had to be torn up and thrown away."

 

I remembered seeing the partially burned bench before the logs had appeared.

 

"Best not to go down there for a bit," he said, scratching behind his ear. He pulled the dog closer to him and changed direction. "I'll take a little wander down there now, just in case." With another wave he strode off down our drive and took the little footpath to the side, down to the lake.

 

"Thank you, Kenny!" I called after him, smiling and feeling a little relieved.

 

Back inside I made straight for the studio, had another look over my sketches, then prepared a canvas. The door bell went again and, after freezing for a moment, I ran to the bedroom and cautiously poked my face around the side to see the postman standing there impatiently. I had not even heard his van.

 

Signing for the rectangular box, I fumbled with the pen and the postman steadied the clipboard for me, smiling unctuously. I grabbed the cardboard box and quickly closed the door on him, wondering how many more unwanted visitations from strange men I would have before the day was through. I had anticipated that I might feel a little lonely today, not having the company of Stevie. Chance would be a fine thing, I thought to myself.

 

From the well-packaged box I pulled out the item I had ordered on the Internet, a beautiful new edition of Gustav Klimt. I took it into the living room and spent the rest of the morning leafing through its sumptuous pages. The pictures were all reproduced stunningly, especially the gold which shone dazzlingly. Full page reproductions were interspersed with interesting text and also sketches, including his 'Frau bei der Selbstbefriedigung' which I had not seen before. Initially my response was to laugh at this, knowing the kind of man old Gustav was, but I spent a good while studying it, loving the smile on the subject's face and the shape of her pudenda, almost lost in a mess of undergarments and skirts.

 

I lunched on a few improvised sandwiches, then returned to the studio feeling inspired and unusually confident in my abilities. I took up my brush, mixed a number of pink shades, and also varying ones of gold and I thought back to the day before when she had sat just a few feet away on the chaise, one beautiful foot hanging in the air, her toes pointed towards me, one hand at her ear, merely resting against her cheek, and the other pushing her damp lion's mane back. I concentrated on the hands and feet, remembering how pink and soft their cushioned surfaces would look under the hot sun. Once I had delineated this fragile-looking form, I gave her a gown of white, draping it across her, letting its folds conceal, and other points reveal, the subtle curves of her limbs and hips. I disregarded the room around me and placed her in a dappled bower, with walls of ivy and wisteria forming the backdrop. I sat back for a minute, considering something that had occurred to me the day before, wondered briefly if it was a step too far, then again took up my brush. Half an hour later, I felt that I had depicted her in her true form. A large pair of dove wings sprouted from her back, just below her slim shoulders. The feathers curled inwards at the bottom, and it seemed as if she was resting against a throne of a million white quills.

 

I did not pause to admire this, happy though I was with it, but put it aside and prepared another canvas. I had painted her as a seraph and now I made her into a cherub with baby-soft and tiny limbs. I made her face rounder, though it was already a little round, but the the likeness remained intact despite this distortion. I did not paint just one of these fantastical creatures. A host of them spread across the picture from one corner to another, a string of naked, pink flesh and little fluttering wings, until there were so many it had become a thick cloud of cherubs, all with the same beautiful face, the same pale green eyes, the same pouting lower lip, the same little knob of a nose. I had even preserved, in one or two of them, the little gap in her teeth, which I felt was such an integral aspect of her beauty.

 

For a moment I considered the damage she had allegedly done to Bernie and dismissed him as an old fool. But why on earth would he have made up such a story? Was he jealous? For a moment I wondered if he had come here hoping I might paint him and I had to put my brush down while I spent two minutes straight convulsed with laughter.

 

Once I had finished with this painting I sat back from it and wondered if it was a little excessive. I started another on a similar theme, but with the intention of making it a little more composed, a little less hallucinatory. But again I painted cherub after cherub, then seraph after seraph, until I had produced something even more crazy. I stood up and went for a little walk around the house to cleanse my vision. After looking around again a little nervously I raised my eyes to the sky and saw that I had been foolish to stay in that day. The clouds sliding overhead were spectacular. I brought all my stuff out onto the lawn, set myself up quickly and began to paint the skyscape, the heavenly, bulging, fluffy, billowing white shapes tinted gold by the sun. But, perhaps inevitably, the angels intruded and soon the clouds were mere furniture for countless winged beings of light.

 

I was working myself up, growing more and more agitated as my brush darted around the paper. I felt a warm trickle between my legs and only then realised how aroused I had become. I stood, tore the canvas from the board and ran to the house with it, and the friction of my shorts rubbing between my legs was like the rubbing of two sticks to start a fire. In the bedroom I quickly stripped, overcome with lust, my body aching and crying out to be touched by a lover who wasn't there.

 

I saw myself in the dressing table mirror, my hanging, full boobs, my broad hips which had so often been called 'motherly'. I took a lipstick of Christine's, a bright red one which she rarely wore and which I would normally never even touch, and applied it to my full lips. Then, taking the torn picture up from the floor where I'd dropped it, I began kissing each and every seraphic and cherubic face, every blonde head, every pair of shining, emerald eyes, until the entire canvas was smothered in red butterflies, lepidopterous symbols of my love. I squeezed the paper to my chest, loving the sensual feel of its roughness on my nipples and belly. When I placed it on the bed I saw how a little flow of my milk had smeared some of the kisses and mingled with the lipstick, leaving swirls of pink on the paper and across my breasts.

 

I climbed onto the mattress and knelt with my legs apart, caressing myself everywhere, on my thighs, my hips, my face, longing for the touch of a soft, pale pink hand. Then I drew my fingers gently across my pussy lips and found how wet I had become. With one hand I squeezed and pulled on a moist, hard nipple and with the other, gently flicked the hardening nub of my clitty. I closed my eyes, sighed and began rubbing myself a little harder, imagining my hands were her hands, the hands of my angel, stroking me and loving every inch of me. She was kneeling beside me, laying under me, kissing me, tonguing me, covering me with passionate kisses, leaving her wet crimson butterfly imprints like spots of blood glistening on my dark skin. I leaned back, keeping my legs bent, until my bottom rested on my heels and my head rested on the painting. With my back arched almost painfully, I inserted my middle finger inside myself and ground my hips hard against my feet and my hand. Then I slipped my index finger in too while fluttering my other hand across my love button. I gasped, moaned and writhed with pleasure, knowing how dirty I was being and loving it so much. The paper crunched under my head as I pressed it back hard. I opened my mouth wide, squeezed my eyes shut and let out a long, deep moan. When I came, my love liquid poured out, down my taint and onto the creases in the soles of my bare feet to moisten my fingers and toes.

 

Then I rolled onto my front, wailing with longing and, with my moistening pinky finger, I teased the opening to my anus until the puckering skin rose against the fingertip. My face was pressed against the paper, my boobs were flattened beneath me and my other hand was squeezed tight between my sweaty body and the bed. I opened my legs as wide as they'd go and simultaneously poked my fingers into my pussy and anus. I kissed the paper again and again, though the lipstick had by now all worn off my lips. Across cotton wool clouds, silken stretches of blue sky and white wings, all adorned with repeated images of my angel, I left little wet prints of spittle. I came again and my feet shook uncontrollably, one of them hanging over the edge of the bed and fluttering like a flag in mid air. I rolled onto my back, feeling some relief at finding myself in this new, more comfortable position, squeezed my legs together and relished the post-orgasmic glow.

 

I took from the draw in the bedside table a long box and from that the pink dildo which Chris and I had been using less and less and a tube of lubricant. I raised my legs until my toes rested on the bed above my head and looked at my little red gash, shining in the afternoon sunlight from the window. I bit my lip and started rubbing myself again, knowing that, in my present state, too much could never be enough, not until I had left myself drained. I played with myself for hours like this, plunging the phallus into both holes, drawing the juice from my pussy to moisten my anus. As one was filled with the dildo so the other was stimulated with my fingers. I used all of my fingers in turn. I loved seeing them and the dildo dipping in and out of me, poking around, filling me. Time and again I felt I could not take any more and time and again, after cumming so hard, so many times, I went on and on until I was alternately screaming in ecstasy and moaning from the soreness. Every time I climaxed I saw that face above me, shining with a halo of gold cast by the sun on her hair.

 

As I lay like a heap of jelly with the picture crumpled under me, I longed for her so much I began to cry. Why had she not left her phone number? Would she return tomorrow? I had not even remembered to ask.

 

That evening I joined Christine in her drinking, no longer caring that we didn't talk. But the drinking brought us together, in an unspoken way, and I wondered if she really understood how I was feeling. She had always accepted me in spite of my childishness, my shyness and my confused demands for a baby. My growing love for Stevie scared me and I wondered how Christine would react if she knew. Strangely, something told me she did and that it was alright.

 

Copyright © Irma Cerrutti 2015