Eyes of a Goddess

She stretched her neck in a wriggling swan motion. It was a feast for hungry eyes. Her flawless alabaster skin shimmered in the afternoon sun like a multicoloured mosaic, mesmerising and mystical. Her long, slim arms wrapped around her body like morning mist.

The delicate indentations on her neck and shoulders matched perfectly with my bold brush strokes on the canvas. I found the long-awaited salvation in penetrating the curves of her divine body with my shy eyes. She glared back at me with a sharp, cold glare, turning me into a block of ice. There was a trick to this line of beauty.

The position she took was spectacular. Like the most important bird in a pond, always occupying its distinctive and dignified place in the middle, with the only possible goal of devouring others with its intimidating power. Her grace was unsolicited and unculled.

Every time she changed position, my brush strokes become uncertain. Her patience was interrupted by the stretching of her cornflower blue eyes, ready to penetrate the boundaries of her surroundings. First, they focused on the plaster bust of a man. She studied him intently until suddenly her intrusive eyes landed on my face and she smiled. My defences weakened and my grip on the brush loosened. A blush appeared on my face, covering everything in red paint. Then she hung her gaze on the palette draped carelessly on the wall. Her dilated pupils, which saw the depths of my psyche, froze still, waiting to see what would happen next. I was Eros who fell under her spell unbeknownst.

She blended into the background like a native, still alive here, but soon she would become immortal like the others. Her perfect body composed itself to reflect the figures enveloping her in a tight embrace. Two girls en sous-vêtements in a room primping in front of a white-framed mirror and a chiaroscuro couple conversing in a static indoor entourage.

In my mind's eye I heard words of eternal affection whispered to her, waiting: “Is she still here? Poor girl. It will be over soon, I promise. And then you will join us, my dear, for better or for worse!”

Stunned was my head. My untrained amateur hands had wanted to touch this obscure object of desire ever since she entered the studio, but at the time she was a stranger. Her confused eyes wandered wearily around the novelty of a place and its props. I wanted to introduce them to her, but I knew she wouldn't understand. The language she spoke was of foreign origin. I was told she was Asian, but I wasn't really sure where she was from.

As I closed the massive white wooden studio door with the transom, the smell of turpentine entered our nostrils like a blow from a dragon's mouth. She must have gotten the hang of it as she started dancing in front of me, floating in her flared beige dress that she still had on like the masts of a ship in the wind. I was merely a sailor subject to her secret spells. When the tamer dance was over, she undressed obediently, and for a moment I felt a sense of victory.

I tried to put her on the table like on a bed. The silk provided the perfect setting. Suddenly she stood up and waved her finger at me, denying it. That's when I got her cue. A faultless femme fatale.

Now it all seemed like a vague history. The curves of her cunning, unattainable body fine-tuned into the drapery in which knots it bore an offspring. The wayward child of our love for art. I don't know if she fully realised it, fascinated by the milieu, not me, a humble artist. But what is the usual end of an encounter with a goddess? Heartbreak at best. In my case there is still something left. The painting.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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