Secrets Vol. 2(12)

Finally I say something. "She's different from your Le Femme models. This woman is unedited, imperfect." I notice that first. The majority of my time at Le Femme has been spent editing away cellulite and smoothing skin. I stare at the unedited piece. "But that imperfection makes her real. It makes me wonder who she is and why she feels so lost. The way the light falls across her naked body, the way she was moving, reminds me of - " I bite my tongue. It was a silly thought, a memory from an old story.

"Reminds you of what?" his voice is too sweet, too fragile, to not answer. I look over my shoulder at him and then lower my lashes, not able to look him in the eye when I say it.

"It reminds me of Bathsheba bathing on the roof in the moonlight, unaware of her effect on the king. She has no idea how beautiful she is, what she does to him, how she makes him feel... It's beautiful and tragic. Like this..." I turn and look up at him. Stubble lines his cheeks making his eyes appear bluer than this morning. I repress a shiver and turn back to the piece. "When did you make this?"

"A lifetime ago."

I press my lips together when I realize this piece fits my description of art. I don't want to admit it, but he's right. It is evocative. I close my eyes, realizing what I said, that I just proved his point for him. When I open my eyes I whisper, "I'm not a hypocrite. They can't all be like this. Every image can't portray emotions like that, Cole. It's not possible."

As I start speaking, he turns away and takes the next painting from the closet. He pulls the drape off and I gasp and turn away from it when I realize what I'm looking at. He sets the painting down and says, "You promised you'd look. Anna, this isn't something you've never seen before. Look at it and tell me what you see... why you looked away."

"Cole, she's! That's!" I'm sputtering like an idiot. The image was beautiful, but I feel my face growing hotter and hotter. I can't look at it.

"It's what? I don't understand you," he says, baffled. Cole steps in front of me and looks at the piece and back at my face. "How can you look at the first one and not this one?"

Suddenly, I don't know. They should be the same. But they're not. This one shows a woman with her back arched, her breasts thrust upward, her hand just below her navel. It's sexy, all lines, and curves, and shadows. A pale light source defines her curves in a creamy violet. The rest of her body is lost in inky shadows.

Nervously, I look at it again, "Because they're not the same."

"They are. I made them the same way. How are they different? I don't understand you. Is it evocative? Can you feel a strong emotion when you look at it?" His voice is soft. I remember that he doesn't show these to anyone, but I still can't hide my shock.

"That's not the point," my face is flushed and his eyes on me make it worse. Suddenly I feel like the room is too small and Cole is too close. I want to back out, but I can't.

"Anna?" he asks, almost pleading with me.

Looking at him, my voice catches in my throat. He looks so vulnerable, like a single word could crush him. The expression in his eyes makes me answer, "The first one was beautiful and sensual. This one is too graphic, too bold. You can't do that. You can't take pictures of women doing that. It's not right."

He glances at the painting and back at me, "Doing what?" He's serious. I look past him at the painting and blush. "Anna," he says, "Is it possible that your mind is much dirtier than the images you're seeing? Is there any chance that you think things happened there that didn't?"

Maybe. I hesitate. "She's not... touching herself?" I ask timidly. That's what I thought when I looked at it. The arch of her back, the way her breasts are thrust upward, and I can't see her other hand.

He laughs, "No. She was laying on a cold floor. It made her arch her back like that." He's watching me, his eyes study my face. He's not arrogant now. Uncertainty sits well on him, if anything it makes him sexier. Seeing this confident man care about what I think makes me wonder why.

He interrupts my thoughts, "Anna, I wish you could see what I see." The tone of Cole's voice is soft, wistful.

I can't be quiet. I glance at him out of the corner of my eye. "What do you see in that piece?" Now I want to know. If it's not what I thought, then I want to know what he thinks it is. I force myself to look at the piece of art again. It makes my stomach twist. The way her body is laying, the arch of her back, the tension in her arms - she looks like she's in ecstasy. I can't ignore it. The evocative nature of the image is too powerful.

Shaking my head, I breathe, "No one has ever touched me so that my body moved like that." Once the words are out, I wish they weren't.

Cole steps closer to me. His eyes are on the side of my face, drinking it in like he can't get enough. I can tell that he wants to say something - that he wants to answer me - but he doesn't. My heart races as he watches me. I can't breathe. He's too close. This is too intimate. It feels like I'm coming unglued and I don't know what to do, what to say. The effect he has on me is powerful, and I'm having trouble hiding it. If my heart pounds any harder, I swear to God, he'll hear it.

Cole tucks his chin. He puts his glass of wine down somewhere. His arms fold over his chest. That beautiful dark shiny hair falls over his eyes, making it impossible to see them in the dim glow. I wish I could read his face, his eyes, the same way he reads mine. I wish I was inside his head when he made this painting. Did he really see something else? Was it really not a depiction of ecstasy? And if it was, was it wrong? Was it pornographic? At this very moment, I don't feel like it is. It feels like sublime beauty, like the last canvas he showed me.