I made my way to the far end of the Memorial library to my favourite waiting place, down on the ground floor. Along the west side of the library there are a series of floor to ceiling windows looking out over a wide expanse of grass and then down to the band of trees by the river.
The windows catch the afternoon sun, which streamed in on this beginning of winter day, warming each bay. Inside, the windows are separated by tall stacks, double sided, mostly filled with older reference books but also some of the library's collection of art folios. Within each private space there is a single high backed chair which can be moved around and angled for the best motes of sunlight.
I would often come down to this place at the end of a long day in the upstairs stacks, researching or writing for course work. Today was no different: I had a bundle of books I intended to borrow, a mind buzzing from study, but an hour or so before the library shut to watch the sun go down and the shadows lengthen, so this would be a quiet time before the long walk up the avenue to the halls.
I made myself comfortable in the chair, angled it slightly to catch the sun. Outside I could see the shadows and light shift and move - a quick sun-shower threw some splashes of rain against the window and then passed by, golden light shining onto the carpet before me.
I reached to the shelves and found an art folio - a collection of art deco prints and paintings, objects and curios. The colours of the paintings had the strong block colours of the 1920s and 1930s, and the figures were stylised and futuristic. The men and women stylish and svelte, women wearing low cut backless dresses, short bobs and jewellery.
Here's a painting named Le Modele - a nude girl facing away from the viewer, creamy white skin sinuous down the centre of the painting, her left leg pushed slightly forward tilting her lovely rounded ass down to the left. The minx, she's wearing just a pair of silver shoes - clearly getting dressed or undressed slowly and in an unusual order.
She's leaning forward on her boudoir table, hand held mirror lying on its top surface, a vase of calla lilies, white and phallic and pudenda both at the same time. She's got just a string of pearls around her neck and some large stone rings on her left hand, nude and naked together, accessories only. Someone has just entered the room and she is lazily turning her head over her shoulder to see who it is. Her eyes are closed as if she is dreaming, and I can see her bright red lips and a single loop of hair on her cheek.
We have just come in from a long night partying and she has gone to make herself comfortable for bed, and has got most of the way through undressing and then just lost herself in a dream. She's delectable. I want her to keep her hands where they are on the table, but to take a step back with both feet, spread them apart a pace, so I can see the dark cleft between her legs, dark hair, shadows.
And here's another painting, The Perfume of Ecstasy. Wow, this girl is getting off on something, she's kneeling in front of a burning byre, fumes wafting up and swirling all around her. She's a slave girl or servant, or maybe the youngest daughter of the vizir, bare feet, loose purple pants tied with a flowing green coil of cloth around her hips.
Large bangles on her ankles and wrists, she's arching her back in desire, thrusting her firm breasts high, nipples pink and rosy and erect, both breasts cupped in her hands as if offered up to a god. Her head is thrown back, eyes closed, red lips pulled back in a sigh of desire, white teeth showing, her neck long and proud.
I'm roused from my own reverie by another spray of rain on the glass in front of me, but it's as if time has slowed. The rain slowly patterns on the glass, and I realise the whole building is really quiet, a preternatural hush in the air. I hear a tap tap tap and it is a currawong out on the lawn, tapping on the glass. That's strange, I've not seen that before - the glossy black and snowy white bird, trying to get my attention? Tap tap tap.