Netta Thorbold made her way up the stairs to the studio. She had agreed to sit for a young artist.
'Sorry, I'm a bit late,' she said as she came in the door, 'but we've been busy at the shop.'
The studio, or rather Felix Appleby's bedsitter, was large and bare, with grey walls, on which were pinned the studies he had done. It was a pleasant room with two windows that reached to the floor.
'So you got here all right, Mrs Thorbold?' Felix was already at his easel working on a sketch of the beach and pier. 'Had no difficulty finding the place?'
Their conversation was stilted. Felix seemed a little shy, Netta thought and she could find nothing but commonplace things to say to him.
'If you'll stand squarely on the platform in front of the window,' he was saying, 'with your hands clasped behind your head, you'll find that the easiest pose.' It will also give him the best view of my breasts, she thought. 'That's right,' he said. She gave him an indifferent glance.
She looked at the youth preparing his charcoal and a new sheet of paper. He's far too quiet, reserved, she thought. Well, I suppose he has to concentrate. She let her mind wander vaguely while he stood outlining her figure. She wondered if he would ... well, he 'shows promise', she thought. A solid-looking athletic body, supple and muscular. And that boyish face!
And then he was asking her to sit on a chair he had placed under the window. He was wanting to measure her head and torso. Her blue eyes held his as he came near, offered a challenge. The slightest curve of a set smile was on her lips. Her throat was white in the shadow. She crossed her legs, tugged down her skirt.
She was a woman of forty, with a great deal of glossy dark red hair; it was handsome hair, he thought as he saw her close to. The wide white rise of her breasts beneath the raw-silk blouse. A proper Juno. Her eyes both met and avoided his. He was aware of a quickening of his heart. He was serious and silent working on his sketch.
I must be double his age, she told herself. But I will manage him all the better for it. Life can't be wasted in the waiting. Her smile was full of the old wisdom of woman.
She could feel his eyes on her. Was he enjoying the feast of her body, or did he think she was far too old? Felix was trying to look at her impersonally, as an artist, concentrating on flesh tones, colour values, getting the perspectives. But the maturity of her figure. And that enormous bosom!
He studied her like a physician, but he was teetering on a highwire without a net, he thought.
When it was the rest period, Netta came to see what he had done. She turned to him, 'How are you getting on, Felix?'
'I don't know why I'm having so much trouble,' he said. 'But I mean to get it right. I must take the measurements again. And square out my paper differently.' He set to work again.
In spite of himself she stirred him. The disturbing nearness of her body. At the beginning, an older woman is always best, he'd read somewhere. The boy is better for it. But I'd shrivel up like a winter apple, I suppose. She might be the key to the mysteries, he thought. But she'd devour me if I'd let her.
Felix recalled how he had been selecting material in Humphrey's Art Shoppe the previous Thursday afternoon when he saw the new shop-assistant behind the counter serving a customer. A full-blown woman absolutely beautiful. Red hair, white skin with an air of obvious sensuality.
Felix had stood mesmerized still holding the paint brushes that he had been selecting. He groaned almost out aloud. God, what would it be like to paint that figure! She would be superb as the model for his painting he was working on. She appeared to be in her early forties.
A fine web of lines under the eyes, some powder caking about her face. Her smiling lips with a lipstick that was too scarlet but on her was somehow permissible. A fading prettiness? Perhaps. But her breasts were deep and full with a large amount of cleavage. Her dress fit her form perfectly, tight but not too tight. He was finding her very attractive despite that fact that she was probably twenty years older than himself.
He kept on watching her. He could stand discreetly behind the acrylic display pretending to examine it. When she reached up for some wrapping=paper on a top shelf he could see how large and heavy her breast was and he almost gasped aloud. He just stood there holding those brushes watching the most striking woman he had ever seen. She resembles a Jean Racine heroine, he thought -Phedre perhaps, with that classic profile.
As Felix pretended to select another paint brush, he realised with a start that there was someone standing behind him.
'She's beautiful, isn't she? Humphrey French, the shopkeeper was saying. He was a pleasant little man with a black beard.
Felix was so surprised that he dropped a paint brush and it rolled under the stand. He looked at the shopkeeper in front of him. Felix had spoken to Humphrey a few times when he was ordering materials and Humphrey knew that Felix was an art student at the College of Arts. 'Um, w w-what do you mean?' Felix stammered.
'I saw you watching her. It's okay - I sometimes catch myself just watching her. She is beautiful.'
'Um, yeah, uh, she is nice looking,' Felix managed to say. He felt himself blushing, he was embarrassed. He didn't know why he found the older woman so alluring, he just did.
By now the red-haired lady was bringing some boxes over towards the two men. She asked, 'Who is your friend, Humphrey?' and smiled.
'Felix, meet Netta Thorbold. Netta, this is Felix Appleby and he's an artist,' said Humphrey.
'Art student,' Felix corrected.
'Yes,' said Humphrey, 'but he exhibits and has sold at the Esplanade railings on Sundays.'
He shook Netta's hand and it felt warm and smooth. 'Oh, how delightful, do you do figure studies? I was a model once.'
Netta Thorbold spoke with a slight accent. He could smell her perfume now that she was closer. She smelled wonderful. That scent mounting up.
