The Secret

Chapter 8

Chapter 8She couldn’t have missed the disappointment in my voice and on my face. “Don’t apologize. I’m the one who should be sorry. I’ve gotten so used to concealing certain facets of my life, I was reflexively guarded. But, I don’t ever want you to feel unwelcome with me. You’re not prying. Go ahead and poke around.”

“You sure?”

“Of course, I’m sure”

I turned back to the closet and took out the first canvas, holding it up for inspection. It was a portrait, in oils I think, of... me. It was a three quarter view, just the head and shoulders. “This is... positively radiant, Colleen - one of the best pieces you’ve ever done - and you had it stuffed in a closet!?”

“That wasn’t done for any other audience, but me, hon. But thank you for the praise.”

“Is this oil or acrylic?”

“Oil.”

“I don’t remember sitting for this one. Did you work from a photo?”

“Nope. From memory.”

“Jesus! Seriously? I didn’t realize you had that kind of recall.”

“I don’t... not really. I almost always have to have some kind of model or reference material. I mean, you’ve gotta have a pretty good understanding of how something is made in order to draw it. I usually take all kinds of liberties with that reference - artistic license, I guess - but I need something to go on. But, c’mon, Alejandra. How many times have you posed for me? You used to b***h and whine about it, but you were actually a pretty good sport... letting me have my way, pretty much every time I asked... and I asked a lot.”

“At this point,” Colleen stepped disconcertingly close and placed two fingers gently on my temple, “I could draw this face in my sleep. I’m acquainted with every curve and contour,” I closed my eyes, caught up in a spell cast by her voice and her touch. Her fingertips slowly moved down the side of my face, over my cheek, along the sweep of my jaw. Goosebumps spread like wildfire, radiating from where her fingers caressed me and quickly moved outward. “Every subtlety and nuance is burned into my memory. When the light moves across these features, I know the shape of the shadows they’ll cast.” I caught my breath with a faint hiss. The exquisite strokes descended the slopes of my throat until her fingers came to rest in the hollow at the base. They lingered there, as if considering going lower.

My eyes opened to see Colleen studying me, gauging my reaction. “Um... Are you trying to seduce me?”

“I’m still a virgin,” her lips widened into an incandescent smile, “so I definitely don’t meant to sound like some woman of the world, but, I promise you, if I ever get the chance to seduce you, you won’t have any doubt about what’s happening.”

“But, it’s nice to know,” she continued, eyes playful, “that if and when the time comes, I have some hope that my advances might not be entirely unwelcome.”

I knew I was blushing furiously and Colleen made no attempt to hide her amusement at my discomfort. I changed the subject in unsubtle fashion by turning back to the paintings in the closet. She stage whispered, “Chickenshit.”

Without turning to look at her, I extending my right arm in her direction with the back of my hand facing her and my middle finger raised. “Sit and spin, sweetheart... sit and spin.”

The next thing I knew, she had soundlessly come up behind me and placed her hands on my shoulders. Her voice was at my ear, intimate and brimming with mischief. “You haven’t had much time to process all that I’ve thrown at you today. Or you might have realized that raising your finger at me and telling me to ‘sit and spin’ might not sound like such an unappealing invitation to me.”

Once again, she had crawled inside my head and planted a stirring word-picture. I flashed on an image of Colleen and I, both naked, me with my finger inside her and she with a look of rapture on her face. This time I actually did shake my head to cast out the vision.

Looking over my shoulder at her, my mouth hung open in shock. If I had blushed before, God knows what color my complexion was now. Colleen threw her head back and laughed lustily at my embarrassment. When she subsided to a chuckle, she said, with seeming penitence, “Okay, okay. I’ll behave now. I promise. But, girl, you make it so easy. If I’d known I’d have this much fun, I’d have come out of the closet years ago.”

There was a mad tangle of emotions swirling inside me - fear, lust, curiosity, confusion - each competing for my attention and consideration. I was bound and determined to ignore them all... for the moment, at least.

So, I moved, once again, into the closet to see what other treasures she’d stashed away. The first canvas, the portrait in oil, had surprised me with its loveliness. The second painting, a much larger piece, took my breath away. It was me, again - a full length nude this time - reclining across Colleen’s bed in the other room. The rich, burgundy comforter on the bed set off my olive complexion like a jewel in a splendid setting. My face, my figure, they were very specific, not idealized. Anyone who’s ever met me would recognize this in an instant. And yet, at the same time, she made me look like... well, like a goddess.

The love the artist had for her subject informed every brushstroke. You had to be blind not to see it. It took me a moment before I found my voice. “Is this really how you see me?”

Colleen simply nodded and beamed with obvious and well-deserved pride. “Toldja. If you could see yourself the way I do, you’d be insufferably smug.”

“But, when...? I mean, how...? I know I didn’t sit for this and it can’t be from memory either. I’ve never posed nude for you.”

“Alejandra, how many times since junior high has one of us spent the night over the others house? How many times have we dressed and undressed in front of each other? You may not have been paying much attention, but whenever I thought you wouldn’t notice, I studied what I saw. I committed it to memory and later, at the first opportunity, I put it on paper. How many times? I can’t count that high, can you?”

“When I said earlier,” Colleen went on, “that every nuance and subtlety were burned into memory, I wasn’t referring to just your face. I know how your calf muscles shift as you walk. When you raise your arm, I know how it changes the shape of your breast and how the sinews stretch over your shoulder blade.”

“I suppose that what I’ve done could easily be construed as obsessive or creepy. But, I’m hoping you’ll understand. I’m an artist. And a good one, too. Beauty moves me. It excites me, thrills me, inspires me. And you...” She caressed my cheek with the back of her fingers, “you’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

“Back in eleventh grade, when I first started to get really serious about my art, one of my goals was to be able to not just record that loveliness. I also wanted to infuse my work with some of how I felt about you. I wanted to communicate that clearly and immediately to anyone who saw it.” Colleen’s voice grew uncharacteristically reticent, “I, um... well, I felt like, um,” her eyes were closed, as if she were looking inward to find the right words, “I felt like I was so fortunate. I knew this amazing girl... and then, later... this amazing woman. And I thought that if I worked really hard... learned my craft well... that someday, I would be able to introduce this woman to the rest of the world.” Colleen’s lashes lifted and her sapphire eyes seemed to pierce me. Her words were almost a whisper now, but clear in the stillness of the room. “I had seen an honest-to-God miracle, and sooner or later, I would find a way to translate that miracle with my art.”

“I failed at first, but the willingness to try it over and over and over... eventually forced me to become a better artist.”

“You were my muse, Alejandra.”

Turning back to the closet, Colleen reached onto an overhead shelf, pulled down a large, cardboard box and removed the lid. “You were perpetually scolding me for being greedy when it came to asking you to pose. Yet, you were always eager to see the art that you modeled for.” Flipping the box over, she dumped a sizable stack of paper upside down onto the chair at her drawing table. “So, I guess it’s long past time that you saw these. They’re an important part of my progress. A part that you were never aware of.”

When I looked at her with obvious curiosity, she said simply, “Go ahead. Take a look, silly.”

I turned over the top sheet of yellowing newsprint, which had been at the bottom of the box. On it, was a quick, but lovely pencil sketch of a younger version of me. It wasn’t as accomplished as her work now, but it was still a good likeness. It was fairly close-up, done apparently while I was sleeping. My face was on its side, pressed into a pillow. My dark hair spread out on the pillow, making a perfect frame for my features. Colleen said, “It’s in a rough sort of chronological order. Keep going.”

As I flipped the pages, I discovered image after image of me... sleeping. In a hundred different positions and from a hundred different angles. It was amazing. As I advanced, it was like a diary of my coming to physical maturity at the same time Colleen developed artistically. Most were in pencil, some were charcoal pieces and there were even a couple in watercolor! “Watercolor!? You had time to do a watercolor!?”

“Well, sweetie, fortunately for me, once you’re out, you could probably sleep through an earthquake. And, those aren’t exactly super-refined watercolors. I actually did them fairly quickly.”

I continued making my way through the pile, witnessing the steady progress in her skills and sensibilities. “When in the world did you do all these?”

Colleen’s smile was tinged with a blush. “As I asked you before, how many times have we spent the night with each other? You sleep the sleep of the dead and I’m an insomniac. It was pretty easy, really. I always waited until you’d been in dreamland for at least twenty minutes so I could be pretty sure you wouldn’t stir. And, believe it or not, in all those occasions of you posing unknowingly, you only woke up once.”

“I did? I don’t remember that at all.”

“About three years ago, you were over here on a Friday night. We’d stayed up late watching an old movie and by one in the morning, you were knocked out. I had pulled up a chair on your side of the bed, put a small drawing board in my lap and was sketching away to my heart’s content. Suddenly, you raised your head, looked right at me and asked, ‘Whatcha doin’?’ I held my breath for a second, then answered, ‘Nothin’. I couldn’t sleep.’ You eyed me for another moment, then said, ‘Kay.’ and let your head drop back onto the pillow. You were unconscious again, almost instantly and I happily returned to my drawing. The next day, I hinted around to see if you recalled any of it, but it was pretty obvious you didn’t.”

“So,” Colleen chuckled, “my career as a clandestine artist continued uninterrupted. Jesus! Now that I’ve admitted all this out loud, it’s sounds like I was stalking you. Can you forgive the invasion of your privacy?”

“Forgive? Colleen, I know these are just sketches to you... practice, I guess... but some of these... especially the later pieces,,, belong in a gallery. When I think that I might have provided inspiration for this remarkable work... I can’t tell you how proud that makes me. In fact,” I grinned impishly, “you may have been right earlier. I may just have to become insufferably smug.”

A sudden look of consternation swept across Colleen’s features. “Oh, s**t!”

“What’s wrong?”

“Do you have to work tomorrow?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Do you realize how late it’s gotten?” She held her wrist up to my eye level. Her watch asserted that we had talked until half past midnight. “Have we really been gabbing for that long?” I asked in disbelief.

“Fraid so.” Colleen seemed to be considering something before she asked me, “Why don’t you stay here tonight? It’ll save you the drive time and you can get to bed that much sooner. I don’t think either of us has changed our dress sizes, so I’m sure I’ve got something in my closet you can wear to work tomorrow.”

As Colleen mentioned before, we’ve spent the night with each other countless times. But, of course, In all those instances, I was unaware of how she felt about me. Did that matter now? I mean, did she... that is, would she...? Dammit. I’d hesitated too long to answer Colleen and she must’ve mistaken that pause for reluctance on my part.

She tried to let me off the hook graciously, “Honey, I realize I’ve dumped quite a bit of information in your lap today. You’ve had no chance to consider what we’ve been talking about. It’s perfectly understandable if...”