The Second Session.
I actually care about what I wear today. I don't usually give a damn about what I wear to the studio, since much of it will be stained by paints and charcoal anyway. Normally, I opt for the basic jeans and t-shirt, but today I wear a skirt with a semi-decent blouse that I can afford to mess up. The skirt is shorter than what I usually wear and I have only ever worn it on nights out in hopes to catch someone's interest. Today I not only hope, but aim to catch someone's interest.
It's chilly outside, so I snuggly wrap myself in a jacket that hides my figure because there's nothing I love more than keeping my shape a surprise. I look forward to my model's reaction in particular.
When I make it to the studio, Alex is already there. He waits by the front door with a book in one hand and a cigarette in the other.
"Hey," I call to him. "You're here early."
Alex looks up from his book and grins through a drag of his cigarette. "I got off work early."
That's bullshit and I know it, but I'm glad to see him nonetheless. I search my pockets for my keys, but I can feel his eyes on me. I pretend not to notice.
Once the door is open, he follows me inside and into the elevator like a dog.
"I came up with an idea for this project," I tell him. "Hades."
"Bless you," he says. "What's your idea?"
"I'll be painting you as Hades offering the pomegranate to Persephone."
Alex furrows his brow and shakes his head.
"You don't know the story?" I ask. I almost pity him.
"Not really," he says. "The names ring a bell, but my memory of Greek mythology is a bit rusty."
I smile weakly. I feel like a mother about to tell her child a bedtime story, but then I remember the story that I'm about to tell and it's far from any other bedtime story.
"Persephone was the goddess of spring," I begin. "Hades fell in love with her and took her from her garden so that she could stay in the Underworld with him. Then her mother, Demeter, found out about it and her sadness was so great that it brought winter to the world. Hades heard about what was happening and knew that he had to let Persephone go, but he didn't want to lose her, so he gave her a pomegranate to eat because he knew that anyone who ate or drank anything from the Underworld was bound to it forever. She ate three seeds from it, which bound her for three months of the year and that's why we have winter."
Alex is staring at me now. The smile creeping at the corner of his lips is different from the one I became familiar with yesterday.
"I'm pretty sure we have winter because of the tilt of the earth's axis," he says. "But I kinda like that version better."
I share his smile, holding his gaze for only a moment before we've made it to the studio floor. I shrug off my jacket within seconds of entering the door and hear a suppressed moan. Success!
"Shall we get started?" I ask. When I face him I notice him eyeing me and try not to bite my lip. He only nods and proceeds to undress.
Once Alex is naked, I instruct him to sit on a chair, wrapped in cloth with a ball in his left hand. The chair will be his throne, the cloth his toga and the ball the pomegranate offered freely to Persephone. When I give him these directions I see that wicked smile again and he jokingly asks me: "Does this make you Persephone?"
I don't answer. I don't want to give him any answers just yet.
Soon, my model is in place and I sit before him to sketch several different designs in my sketchbook before I'm satisfied enough to sketch one on canvas. Before long, I notice him studying me just as intently as I study him and for a while I say nothing about it, but at some point I have to say something. Anything.
"You're staring at me."
"Yeah," Alex says. "I am."
"Why?"
He shrugs. "Because it never occurred me to look anywhere else, because you're fucking sexy or because that skirt doesn't really leave much to the imagination."
