Special thanks go to Javagirl for her revision and editorial suggestions.
* * * * *
I found this little anecdote among the papers of the well-known American painter and illustrator, Neal Brockton. At the time, I hesitated to reveal it. After all, his family had commissioned me to do a biography of him, and they might have frowned to see this earthy side of the artist revealed. However, Neal Brockton has been gone for twenty-five years now and most of those who were close to him are gone as well. So I think it is possible to publish the story now without fear of recrimination or a libel suit. Here is Neal's story.
* * *
I should have known something was up right away. It was eight o'clock in the morning, and the house was quiet as a morgue. The woman who owned the house had friendly eyes. She was an ocean of a woman—all billowing waves of flesh, lapping at the shore of her skin, all roar and thunder of surf. She rolled like the deck of a ship as she walked with ponderous footfalls. The velvet purple robe she wore swayed like the curtain of a theater. She had once been beautiful, and indeed she still was. "Rubenesque," she probably was called once.
"I think you'll find the room more than satisfactory, young sir," she kept telling me over and over. "The last gent who had it had to leave sudden, debts or something; skedaddled to Nevada, so the rumor goes; he always paid his rent on time, though; you'll find the room more than satisfactory, young sir." On and on she droned in her deep gray voice.
Two of my fellow students at the Art Institute, Bryant and Colin, had told me about the vacant room that I could use as a studio. Incredibly cheap, they told me. They also had their own studios in the three-story house on Post.
Huffing and wheezing, Mrs. Dandridge lifted her ponderous frame up the stairs. We left behind the first floor and the second. Each floor presented a series of discreetly painted doors in sea green with cream trim. The hallway of the third story was no different. Bryant and Colin had two of the rooms, and Mrs. Dandridge opened a third door for me.
The room was perfect for a painter. It was large, and a wealth of light flowed, flooded, and cascaded into the room. I could already picture my canvas in the center—a model bathed in the light, and my paints next to the canvas. There was a couch in the corner and another chair for company.
I was startled when she quoted the rent for the room. Bryant and Colin were right—it was ridiculously low. Suspiciously low.
"You look like a nice quiet young man to me," she offered by way of explanation. "I don't want any trouble here."
I quickly snatched her offer for the room. I wouldn't find another nearly as good at twice the price in all of San Francisco. Although I normally didn't drink so early, Mrs. Dandridge insisted that we seal the deal with a glass of sherry.
As I left to go to school at the Art Institute, I was struck once again by how amazingly quiet it was in the house—like a funeral parlor.
Out on Post, I shrugged and walked the short distance to school to tell my two colleagues of my good fortune. They clapped me on the back, and like true bohemians (or so we thought), we had to celebrate with a bottle of red wine.
The next morning, not having any classes but only a headache, I lugged my artist's supplies up to my room—canvases, tins of turpentine, rags, brushes, pencils and paints, and my easel. I must have made a fair racket, for the doors of several of the rooms opened a crack. Girl after girl peeked out at me sleepily—blondes, brunettes, redheads, tall girls and short ones, voluptuous beauties and slender pixies. Some had green, almond eyes, others enticed me with smoldering grays. The one thing they had in common was that they were all attractive women—every single one of them.
Gazing at me curiously, they were all scantily dressed. They were all dressed in kimonos or short robes, displaying long, slender legs and a hint—and some times more than a hint—of lush, creamy breast.
I had to use a canvas to cover my erection.
Up in my room it dawned on me why the rent was so cheap. I had rented a studio in a bordello. By having our studios there, I, and my fellow artists, gave legitimacy to the house on Post Street.
As I worked on an illustration for a boy's magazine that day, I listened as the house gradually awakened. About noon, there were the first, faint stirrings, like birds awakening at dawn. I could hear the girls’ soft voices drifting through the air. I could hear their laughter wafting like cigarette smoke up the stairs. I listened to the sounds as they readied themselves for the evening's work. By the time I left my studio at five the house was a whirlwind of activity. A discreet piano began to tinkle behind me as I walked down Post Street.
I'm no prude. It didn’t matter in the least to me what went on in the house on Post Street. However, there
were
people in my family to whom it mattered a great deal.
That evening at dinner my father said, "Your mother has told me you obtained a studio."
I nodded.
"Where?" he asked.
An innocent enough question, but a clammy sweat broke out on my forehead. My stern father would never understand, I thought. His stolid gaze regarded me curiously.
"Over—over on Post Street," I told him vaguely.
He grunted, lifting a spoon of tomato soup to his bearded lips. "I'll have to see it."
For several days I managed to put him off with excuses of deadlines I had to meet for magazine covers. But I knew I couldn't stall him forever. I was resigned to his wrath and, eventually, to the inevitability of moving.
Although I paid the rent myself, at nineteen I was just beginning to make my way and earn money as a magazine illustrator. My art supplies and the studio were the only parts of my upkeep I took care of myself. My parents provided all the Art Institute tuition, not to mention the abundance of meals and wines. My stern, straight-laced father, with his gray hat and vest, his gold chain, and his austere salt-and-pepper beard would quickly put an end to my studio adventure.
My anxiety was made doubly taut when I made my first . . . acquaintance at the house.
Catching the stream of honey-colored light one morning, I was working diligently on an illustration for a local magazine when I heard a soft, tentative knock on the door. I opened it to see a beautiful young woman, not more than a year or two older than me, leaning against my doorframe.
She was dressed in a royal blue kimono that had a fiery dragon writhing around the hem. She had matching blue slippers. The deep and brilliant blue set off the porcelain white of her skin. Her hair matched the honey-color of the sunlight. Her smile was stunningly bright. The kimono came only to mid-thigh, so I had a marvelous look at her legs, her saucy knees and succulent, smooth thighs.
She smiled and said, "I had a late customer . . ."
"
Very
late," I said.
"Very late," she nodded, "and I heard that we had another young artist in our midst."
I nodded awkwardly.
She laughed—a light, silver, airy laugh. "Well, aren't you going to invite me in? Or are you going to leave me standing in the hall?"
"S—sure, sure, come in," I said, stepping back and sweeping my hand to offer her my room and anything else she wanted.
She entered, looking around regally as if for all the world she were Queen Victoria, at the very least.
"My name is Lisa, but professionally Mrs. Dandridge calls me Jade. She says—well, never mind what she says."
I swept turpentine-soaked rags from the chair for her to sit. She took her throne. She yawned and stretched and I caught a charming glimpse of her breast. It wasn't huge, but it was finely sculpted in alabaster. Her aureole was chocolate-colored.
She didn't notice her exposed breast. Or if she did, she wasn't self-conscious about it. She continued, "The girls appointed me to come up and see what you were like."
I asked, haughtily, "And do you like what you see?"
She gave a shrug. "You'll do. Your ears are too big and you have a huge Adam's apple, but you'll pass."
"That's good to know," I said, only slightly downcast.
"Some are real beasts," she said.
"You mean they are ugly?"
Lisa shook her head. "Not ugly. Beasts. They shout and rant and rave. I think you can be an artist and still be civilized, don't you?"
I nodded, slightly amused at a prostitute who could talk about being civilized. Looking back today, I have come to realize that she was perhaps the most civilized person I ever met.
"What's
