Naed Portraits

Notes from the author on part 8:

It was nice to see the return of the rough and tumble tita, Stephanie Santos. She is such a fun character to write. The archeological dig mention in the story is not far from the home of my friend on Maui. He went over to check it out. Apparently it's the real thing. My friend reports that archeologists uncovered a camp established by the Catholic church in the mid eighteen hundreds. I found a website dedicated to the dig. It seems that the fledgling little colony was abandoned after a brutal double homicide that went unsolved. Enough notes. Enjoy part 9.

Thanks.

Eagelwolf.

**********

Chapter 45 Beers, Coffee, Manapua and the Freak Wave

I lay like a boneless cat on my ratty loveseat sofa looking at my latest painting on my easel. It was a portrait of me, nude (of course) keeling on a nondescript rug in a nondescript dark room looking into a glowing orb in my lap. My face and upper torso is bathed in a greenish-yellow light from the orb. It looked like a scene right out of a Frank Frazetta painting. The glowing orb was designed after the glass net float I had found at the cove on Maui with the symbol of the goddess Li stamped into it. I held the very thing in my hands, absently stroking its barnacle spotted glass surface as I studied my painting.

The painting was inspired by my brief appearance in Meka's little movie a week ago.

"What the fuck is that background? And where the hell are you?" I asked.

My painted self didn't answer of course and just stared indifferently at her glowing globe.

"The male gaze," I whispered aloud although there were no men in the painting, just naked old me. But that's what the orb represented, Meka's camera and the thousands of men watching naked woman in movies, judging, reducing and consuming them with their eyes.

"Fucking male gaze," I whispered.

I felt a little guilty because I found the idea of men seeing me naked kind of thrilling lately. Explains all the fucking nudes I've been painting I guess.

My own gaze fell on my new mirror hanging on the back of my studio door. I had grown tired of hauling the big mirror from the drawing studio to my own private studio every time I wanted to do a self portrait—which seemed every other painting lately. My new mirror is the very same mirror that had hung on back of Hawk's dorm room door. Hawk had since moved to a spacious apartment off campus. Anyway, I had developed a fixation with that mirror and asked Hawk if I could have it. He thought me crazy for wanting it, and it had been a bitch to remove too. The cost of a replacement mirror was deducted from his deposit. I had to promise him a painting as payment.

I looked at the reflection of my current painting in the mirror and my heart lunged. The figure was looking out and not down! I twirled around to look at it but it was as I had painted it with the figure's eyes fixed on the globe in her lap.

"You are creeping yourself out Japanee girl," I said crawling all over with chicken skin.

The stupid, superstitious part of me blamed the mirror, sure that it was somehow enchanted ... or cursed.

I took the orb painting off my easel and put it in the drying rack. I fished around for a blank canvas but discovered I was out so I went to my reject stack of failed paintings for one to reuse. I fished out a twenty four by thirty six gray abstract from months ago. It was the one where I had slapped a red hand print at the center and then painted a black circle around it. It occurred to me that this was the last abstract I had worked on since moving on to the figurative. I put the old thing on my easel.

"Happy to recycle you," I said.

As I was about to pry open my bucket of gesso, my cell phone chirped, it was Hawk. I put it to my ear and before I could even say hello, he said, "I need to see you."

"My last class ends at two," I told him.

"Meet you at 2:30 at the gardens," he said and hung up.

Weird, I thought. I looked at the time on my phone. My class started in fifteen minutes so I put off white washing the hand painting and left my studio for my Asian art history class.

**********

I sat at the gardens killing the last of a pint of Adam's dark enjoying an early afternoon beer buzz. Hawk sat across from me with a beer of his own.

"Have a good day?" he asked.

I shrugged. "Finished a painting."

"You bet," Hawk said.

It was clear that he hadn't heard a thing I said so I added, "In a fit of passion, I set fire to my studio then ran naked to the dean's office screaming, I love lau lau and poi!"

"Huh?"

"Well at least a part of you is listening."

An odd expression clouded his face and he said, "Wanna take a walk?"

"Sure," I agreed. But what I really wanted was another pint of Adams to build on my buzz, but his serious mood made me push aside my need. We left the Gardens and walked in the direction of the art building. The Manoa afternoon was mild and perfect. I slipped an arm around his waist, the feel of his solid body against me put me in the mood. We walked pass the art building, then the math department, then astronomy. Just ahead was the Eastern Pacific Building that marked the outer edge of campus. Exchange students from all over Asian and the Pacific were housed in that building. Lately, most of the exchange students were from China. Everyone called the building little Beijing now.

"Buy you a cup of coffee?" Hawk asked.

The coffee on campus comes mostly from vending machines and it was all notoriously bad. Hawk steered me to the backside of Little Beijing, I figured there was a vending machine back there somewhere. But to my surprise, the smell of rich gourmet coffee and baked food graced my senses. A green, red and white umbrella cart came into view, beyond it was a circle of concrete picnic tables.

"Hey sea hawk, howzit," the local guy manning the cart said in greeting.

"About to get bedda bra with two cups Sumatra," Hawk said in perfect local pidgin.

When haoles try to speak in pidgin they always sound forced and phony, but not Hawk. If you weren't looking right into his white man's face you would swear you were speaking to a local guy. It not that surprising I guess since the guy speaks five languages. Plus, he's a surfer. Surfers, as a breed, tend to go native wherever the waves are choice.

The coffee cart guy handed us two steaming cups of Sumatra, I added cream and sugar to mine. We sat at the fairy ring of concrete picnic tables that made me think of Stonehenge. The cart did a brisk business for more then a dozen people were scattered around the other tables, several more customers had lined up after us too.

"I didn't know that this place existed," I said.

"And you still don't," Hawk said with a wink. "The cart's not licensed. The security guard in this part of campus keeps quiet because the cart owner bribes him with free coffee and manapua."

"Manapua? I knew I smelled something good with all that coffee!" I said looking back at the coffee cart."

"Buy you one?" Hawk asked.

Having skipped lunch, I nodded emphatically.

Hawk got up and returned with two warm round white buns the size of a Burger King Whopper and put one before me on a paper napkin.

"Manapua is a local creation that translates literally into—a mountain of pork" Hawk said in his best David Attenborough imitation. "It is a meat pastry made with rice flower and pork filling. The filling is traditionally dyed a bright, sickly florescent red. The origins of the manapua is lost in time but is said to be a bastard mating of Chinese dumplings and Puerto Rican pasteles. The Manapua adapted to the local Hawaiian conditions and thrives to this day, where as other foods, such as the tripe musubi and frozen poi on a stick languished and went extinct."

Ignoring his stupid commentary, I wolfed down the savory-sweet meat filled bun ... and yes, the filling was a bright red. Hawk pushed the second one in front of me.

"It's all you girl."

I gleefully stuffed the second bun into my face.

Sated, sipping sweetened creamy rich coffee, I looked at Hawk. "What's up haole boy?" I asked. I could tell that he had something he wanted to tell me but was dancing around it.

He took a gulp of coffee and then said, "My day started out kind of off. I went to look for the little bronze figure Rubin had found at the dig but it wasn't in storage were it should have been. I looked everywhere but the thing was just plain old missing. I was really pissed. Losing an artifact is unthinkable and it's all on me since I'm in charge of the dig."

"You think someone stole it?" I asked.

"Never happen before," he said. "Most likely it just got misplaced. It'll turn up ... I hope."

"It's really weird how much it looks like the little fetishes Sally gave us," I said. "Is it possible it's one of statues she gave to the Kokuras?"

"Seems unlikely," he said, "They went back to Japan the day we said goodby. You could email Emiko and ask I guess. And we should ask Sally how many of those little fetishes she made too. Is yours accounted for?"

"Yeah, saw it on my shelf recently." Although it occurred to me that it has been days since I mentally last registered the little carving.

"And I got mine right here," Hawk said.

He pulled the four inch bronze figure out of his pocket and clumped it on the concrete table top. I thought it odd he was carrying it. Perhaps he meant to compare it to the one that went missing. He gazed at the thing for a long time. The quiet unnerved me for some reason. A feeling of dread pressed in and I pointlessly thought of my stupid haunted mirror back at my studio.

"Anyway," Hawk continued, "my whole morning was shot looking for the missing artifact. Thankfully, I didn't have any classes to teach today. Feeling totally off, I drove out to the point to surf away the blues and clear my head. The swells were mellow, nothing big or rough. After a couple of hours, I felt a bit more centered. I called it quits and steered myself to shore."

He paused and picked up the little bronze and looked at it with a frown.

"Then it happened, a wave started to form. I could tell it was gonna be a big one. In fact, way too big for the conditions. It was a freak wave no other way to describe it. The thing was tall like skyscraper high. At first I thought it was a tsunami but dumped that idea. I've seen tsunamis and this wave wasn't behaving like one. The gnarly thing was getting taller. On instinct, I made adjustments for the increasing sheerness."

Hawk paused to put down the little statue to take a drink of his coffee. I could tell that he wished it were something stronger. Should have stayed at the Gardens, I thought. He picked up the statue again and continued with an odd distance in his eyes.

"I knifed down that freak mountain of water. Higher and off to my left I spied another surfer. He saw me too and we both steered to get closer. He was probably thinking what I was thinking—I don't wanna die alone."

"You thought you were gonna die?" I asked a little shocked. I reached over and took both his hands in mine as he still held the little bronze statue.

"Yeah, I did," he said.

"What happened to that other surfer?" I asked, sure that it was nothing good.

"I kind of knew the guy, A.J. Opelo. He was one of those angry locals who hated haoles on principle. From day one, Opelo made it clear that the water belonged to locals like him and not outsiders like me. Anyway, we were near enough that I could clearly see the fear in his eyes. I bet my favorite board that I had the exact same expression on my face too. I flashed him a shaka sign then steered for the outer edge of the wave and he followed. We both knew this monster wave going to smash down and kill us, but weirdly, along with the fear was hot excitement. Opelo had a maniacal smile on his face, bet I did too. What surfer with honest love of the sport not take some pleasure in the moment, right?"

"Right," I agreed, but I doubt that I would have gotten any pleasure from such a horrid sounding experience.

"So there we were," Hawk continued, "two guys stripped of all social morays sliding down the side of a liquid cliff. I remember putting a hand out and lovingly brushed the crystal clear water. It was like brushing the smooth curve of your ass or caressing your tits when we make love ...

He trailed off and went quiet. I knew that surfing turned him on and I liked the fact that I was an an even keel with his affection with the ocean. He seem to find himself and continued speaking.

"Then the world went white, my body tumbled and rolled wildly, heinously dragged along the sandy bottom."

Hawk went quiet again.

"Did the A.J. Guy die?" I asked softly.

He blinked, composed himself and continued.

"I was under forever and just when I thought I was done, my head broke the surface. Miraculously, my board was just a few feet away. A.J.'s head broke the surface not too far from me. His board was nowhere in sight though. I swam to my board, clawed my way on it and paddled over to A.J.. He clung to my board as I paddled us in. I was heinously tired and it was slow going. It didn't help that a hot throbbing pain came from my right foot. I figuring I scraped it on some rocks when I hit bottom. Weirdly, the water was glassy smooth like nothing had happened. Ten miserable minutes later A.J and I dragged our bodies onto the beach totally whipped.

"Fuckin' unreal," A.J. rasped as we lay on our backs in the sand.

"That's one fuckin' understatement dude," I said to him almost too tired to talk.

A.J. laughed and said, "Saved by one haole ... fuckin' unreal."

"A crowed of people, most of them A.J.'s friends, came to our aid. Before he allowed his friends to take him away, A.J. gave me a hug. He probably still hates haoles but I might be okay in his book for a little while. The crowd dispersed with a shaky A.J. in tow."

"My injured foot reminded me of its existence. I sat in the sand and curled my foot up to see what was the matter. I noticed a shadow across my legs. I looked up and saw a woman looking down at me. She seemed to be wearing the sun like it was her own personal halo. I squinted to get a better look. She dropped to her knees beside me and gave my injured foot a once over. The woman was Asian and yet she had long blond hair. She looked unbelievably exotic. If Marilyn Monroe were an Asian chick, that is how she'd look I thought. She wore a black one-piece suit with light blue chevrons in strategic places."

He went quiet again and I stared at him dumfounded. "Um ... did she help you with you sore foot?" I asked.

"Physalia physalis," Hawk said with a far away glassy stare.

"Excuse me?" I asked.

"Physalia physalis. Portuguese man o' war stung my foot she told me. She administered to me as best she could there on the beach. She told me she had something in her car that might take some of the sting away. She helped me to my feet and walked me to the parking lot. She let me lean on her as I limped to her car. The chick was tall. My height I think. Can you believe that? A six-foot tall blonde Asian chick? As she gave me her treatment for a man o' war sting, we got to talking, she's a lecturer here in the biology department. She's not local, her accent sounded Midwest."

Hawk went quiet and stared at his little bronze Venus. I couldn't help but notice how his thumbs brushed the thing's tiny breasts. "Did this vision have a name?" I asked doing my best to keep my growing jealousy in check.

"Alyson Reese." He said. He cleared his throat and spoke with less wonder as he finally caught my mood. "We just talked."

"What did you talk about?" I asked stiffly.

"Us, me you, Matt. You know ... our three way thing."

"And how the hell did that come up in a conversation?" I asked not bothering to hide my growing anger anymore.

"It just did," he said with a shrug. "We talked about surfing and risky behavior and the freak wave that nearly killed me and A.J." He saw that his near death experience was clearly overshadowed by him flirting with the Asian blond chick. He cleared his throat and lumbered on. "She related some of the wild things she had done and I brought up you and Matt." After a pause, he said, "She seemed intrigued and asked a lot of questions."

"How much did you tell?"

"Enough," he said and sat back to sip his coffee. With his eyes on his paper cup he said, "She seemed really interested in our three way thing." After a long pause he said, "I think she may be more than just curious. I really like what we did with Emiko and Kira. Wanna try something new?" He looked at me gauging my reaction.

My mind raced. A sense of betrayal threatened to overwhelm me, but quickly following on its heels was a hot thrill of excitement. I look into Hawk's face. A microscopic smile barely played at the edges of his mouth. He knew that I'd be interested. And that totally pissed me off.

Chapter 46 Another Woman Another Offering

"You have to go away right now, "I said.

Without a word, he snatched up his little Venus and cup of coffee, got up and left the makeshift outdoor coffee house.

I sat mindlessly fuming for a few minutes. Then I decided I needed to talk to an other woman. I pulled out my cell and hit Meka Okuda's number. She answered after four rings.

"Hey, it's Gwen. Can you put up with my miserable company tonight?" I asked.

"Sure," Meka said. "Where are you?"

"On campus."

"Me too. I'm finishing something at the Commons Gallery. Why don't you meet me there?"

"Sure." I hung up and made my way back to the art department.

The Common's Gallery is a small display area across form the main art gallery. Unlike the shows in the main gallery that sit for months, the shows in the Common's change every two to three weeks. One side of the Commons is all glass and I stood outside looking in at the wedge shaped space that got wider at the other end away from the door.

The first thing that caught my eye were four five foot tall bronze replicas of the Venus of Willendorf standing in a neat row resting on low white pedestals. They had to be Sally Higgin's pieces. It was so odd the way her fetishes keep popping in my life lately.

The four statues, like the little futility figure they were based on, had no arms or legs with the heads almost nonexistent. Buttocks, breasts, abdomens, and thighs were abundant with prominent V's in the vaginal areas. Sally had added her own personal touches with swirling shapes and grooves emanating from strategic areas like nipples, bellybuttons and crotches. The original Willendorf statue that Sally had based her bronzes on was pudgy. Sally used a lot of artistic license and had based her figures around her own sexy shape. As if to prove that point, Sally stood nearby in her signature daisy duke cutoffs and over strained t-shirt. She saw me looking in, smiled and waved. Meka Okuda stood on a short ladder nearby pounding a nail in the wall. I walked into the gallery.

"I still need to properly thank you for sending the Japanese couple my way," Sally said to me. "The money I got from them financed theses gals." She pointed at the second bronze statue in the line. "That belongs to Emiko. After the show I ship her off to Tokyo."

"They're beautiful," I said. "How many of the little ones did you make?"

She pondered and then said, "Five. Two went to the Japanese couple, one to you and one to your hot boyfriend and the last one I gave to Paul."

I made a mental note to ask Paul about his little bronze when next I saw him.

Unexpectedly, Sally gave me a huge hug of thanks.

Despite my mood, her unguarded enthusiasm made me smile. At that moment I decided to stop hating the chick.

"Still going the way of the postmodern nude?" Meka asked me from the top of her ladder.