New Yor Minutes

Though it could have been easily at his disposal, there was no limo awaiting her as she hauled her luggage from the conveyor belt into the strange streets into which she had found herself. She came to follow an artistic prophet, a man who could pull anything out of the air and make it real on canvas or paper or even a napkin, she guessed. A portion of his work was forever emblazoned onto her right shoulder, a piece of his genius that she carried with her wherever she went. Yes, he was a magician, perhaps born on a tarot card instead of screaming into this world that many have come to loathe yet still holds so much wonder and awe and majestic power.

He met her in the rain; he smiled, he spoke, but it was a blur as if in a dream. Her bags were loaded into a once pristine yellow cab and soon they were off. The cold New York rain scattered across the windows as she envisioned his paint might have on a night when he had loaded himself sufficiently with any given vice and thrown upon his inanimate victim a vast array of color. Would she also become a canvas? She hoped, she dreamed, all while studying his arms as he pointed out various landmarks that she knew she should have been memorizing profusely. But she was mesmerized. Here was this modern Rembrandt, this entirely real and living color Da Vinci beside her, face transformed by raindrops and streetlights. Here was an idol within her reach. Would she play the card of the star-struck harlot? Or would she spend every moment learning everything that she possibly could from this mortal deity? Only time would tell...

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We arrived at his studio and he carried my things through the door without speaking. I wandered wide-eyed into the the open space, hypnotized by the countless canvases of frozen emotion gleaming back at me. When he returned I looked across the seeming miles of polished hardwood to meet his gaze. He stood with those wicked arms folded over his chest, reading my every thought, invading my mind, observing my soul as I had his work. I was speechless. He floated over to me, eyes perpetually locked on mine, and I stood paralyzed as he undressed me. Effortlessly he undid buttons and released latches until I stood before him completely naked. Any other time I would have protested, I would have tried desperately to cover myself, but I could not move. I was no longer a human. I was a model, HIS model, and he was determined to immortalize me with his magic hands. He took one of my hands and twirled me around slowly like a ballerina, studying my attributes and imperfections. Inwardly I wanted to disappear, I felt hopelessly embarrassed, but as I whirled around to meet his eyes once again he raised a finger to his lips as if to silence my self-consciousness.

"You're lovely." He whispered, the first words I could remember having heard him say since we met that night. I felt a tremor creep through me. He lead me to a large white canvas in the center of the room that took up a good portion of the floor. He guided me to the middle and let go of my hand, walking around me once more. I could feel his eyes like some sort of astral caress slipping over my shoulders and down to the small of my back. I quivered. He smiled and walked over to a large table covered with what looked like hundreds of bottles of paint. He picked up a red one, looked it over, and then brought it to me. He opened the bottle and poured the paint straight into his left hand, so much that it ran and dripped and made pools on the canvas beneath us. "Open your hands." He said with a smile, and I obeyed. I cupped them together and he poured carelessly until they overflowed. "Are you ready?"

I could only nod. And so it began.

He rubbed his hands together and then cupped my breasts, massaging them gently and fingering my nipples. I bit my lip, and involuntarily threw my arms around him. I froze suddenly, realizing that I may have just ruined his shirt. I looked at him fearfully, but he only chuckled as he pulled it over his head and tossed it carelessly to the floor. Feeling more at ease, I began to fall into the groove. We smeared each other with the paint, stopping only to squeeze more from the bottle, and then for the first time our lips met. We kissed hungrily, savagely, and I bit his lip so hard at one point that for a moment I swear I could taste the sweet metallic essence of blood. His already throbbing erection swelled against my leg through his jeans and he pulled me closer. I turned my head and his lips caressed my neck briefly before he returned the favor and sank his teeth into my flesh. I cried out; slightly from pain but mostly from the incredible ecstasy this sensation produced. It was alien to me but not unwelcome, a pain that I relished. We tumbled onto the canvas, a mass of flesh and paint and blood.

Walking by the gallery one day I saw it suspended from the ceiling, a few ritzy prestigious types attempting to decipher the meaning of the abstract form before them. It was simply titled "Passion". I grinned, and kept moving. My mentor had shown me the true meaning of expression, and I still have the scars to prove it.