Ceramic Art by Cassandra Jean Capra.
Cassie read it again. The review was good. Really good for the very conservative Observer, which often lauded traditional art forms like painting and sculpture, but rarely anything else. After years of meticulously applying the glazes to her originally designed tiles, and sweating in anticipation every week upon opening the kiln, and tirelessly marketing her work to high-end craft stores and galleries across the nation, she was finally getting some recognition from a big city art publication about her first-ever big city art show.
Who should she call, she pondered, to tell about the article and to invite to the opening of her show? Her friends and colleagues, of course. And her two children. But that one special person--that one soul who would share the joy of her accomplishment--who would that be? She could think of one person...Marcos...but she hardly dared to admit it to herself.
Overall, her intimate relationships were foundering. Two marriages had ended in divorces from unfaithful husbands. She had seen a few men in the last seven years, but for various reasons, things hadn't worked out, and she had broken them off. She was sure that she wasn't ever getting married again, but the daily closeness of another being--the touch, the tight hugging, the soft caresses...she missed them all terribly.
Thankfully, she sighed, she had her art.
Almost against her will, her mind, once more, lighted upon Marcos, the model in her drawing group. She had fantasized about him some months ago, after the first time he had posed. In fact, in the heat of that first evening, she had herself so mentally enwrapped in his sinewy arms as she encircled his muscled torso, and became so obsessed with how it would feel for her slickening nether-lips to descend upon his deliciously hanging penis--virtually engorged in her fevered imagination--that she couldn't draw him at all. During the succeeding times he had modeled, sketching had come easier, but she had so many questions for this attractive middle-aged man, that she vowed to approach him if ever they should meet alone. Her opportunity had come one afternoon at the local gallery.
He, too, she discovered, was an artist. But he also shared with her his love for the kinesthetic, for movement, for dance. Cassie revealed her latent desire to tango, then told him of her repeated trips to Altamira, Spain to study the awe-inspiring cave paintings there. Marcos enthusiastically queried her, before describing the Anasazi rock carvings he had seen in New Mexico.
They had exchanged business cards. He must have seen the fire in her gaze, for he promised to look up her tile work on the Internet. But, if he ever did go to her website, he must have quickly lost interest, she concluded, because he never contacted her.
On a fateful evening in September, he arrived once again at her life drawing group, informing the artists that it was his custom to rehearse his modeling in the mirror for the hour before, as they were arrayed in a semicircle around him and he wanted to make sure everyone had an aesthetically pleasing pose to render. After his second short one--a coiled, seated posture--she had let slip, "Great pose!" He looked to identify this rare exclaiming appreciator and locked eyes with Cassie. Once the session concluded, they made a plan to get together the next evening.
Their conviviality from two months earlier resumed and expanded. They began weekly rendezvous. Conversations flowed into one another:
"I'll eat anything you want to cook for me."
"I brought a bottle of Malbec to have with our chili."
"After dinner, will you teach me to dance--I've always wanted to learn."
"We dance well together. You pick up things quickly."
"You weren't always a dancing artist, were you? You are very interesting."
"Your paintings are so playful. They make me happy to look at them."
"I'm a romantic at heart."
"I love being in love."
"I do some of my best work when I'm in love."
"So do I."
"I don't think I ever want to get married again, though."
"I've been married for twenty years, now, but for most of that time I've had a spiritual wife as well; she died three years ago."
And with that remark, her burner flame extinguished and the hot air balloon ride ended on the ground in a heap of silks and nylon. Any future with this man was fraught with duplicity, secrecy, and travel restrictions. Thus, forget about sex.
She couldn't do that--betray another woman--she confessed to herself. And yet, every week, she found herself lingering over each kiss, returning his powerful hug with one of her own, and permitting him to run his long fingers through her tawny red hair, closing her eyes as the scalp tingles percolated down through her neck and shoulders to saturate the parched earth of her sensuality.
She returned to the moment. She would consider asking him to attend her opening--but now, she had to ready the house for tonight, which, perhaps not coincidently, involved Marcos.
Their drawing group was to meet in a few hours at the usual place, for an unusual event. For a decade, they had drawn the nude figure, either a man or a woman, for two hours, with everyone being satisfied. But Marcos wanted to stir the pot, so to speak, and proposed having two models, a practice he had been using for his own work for years. A few artists had cocked an interested eyebrow, some murmured tepid enthusiasm, but a vocal minority had quickly rejected it, for cost reasons, they declared; Cassie knew the real reason ran deeper than that. With her encouragement, the minority had capitulated, and the date was set--for tonight. Marcos and his chosen co-model, Tara, were arriving at her house an hour early, at 7:00 p.m., "to rehearse." She was to evaluate the poses and adjust them for visual interest. Then the three of them would go together to meet the rest of the drawing group.
As he had requested, she opened the living room futon, tilting her head in puzzlement, since there was no such accommodation at their drawing place. She stoked the wood stove to get the room balmy for nude modeling, and then she showered and dried, throwing on her flannel robe as she sprinted to the kitchen to answer the phone. Wrong number.
Turning to another detail--although she really should be getting dressed first--the refreshments, she selected a bottle of Cabernet from the lower cabinet. The clock hands on her antique Seth Thomas hung straight down. She scored the foil and peeled off the seal, wound the corkscrew into the top, and liberated the bottleneck from its cork, the fragrance from its confines. She too, took in a deep breath.
Bang! Bang! Bang! The back door opened and in strode Marcos and Tara, excitedly jabbering.
"Going to join us, are you?" quipped Marcos as he appraised her appearance in the plaid robe, which revealed only her feet, her face, and a triangle of pink at the neck.
"We'll shock them with a trio," Tara remarked.
"You're way early. I was about to get..."
