by Kai Lu
You can never show your face around this apartment building again…
Exhausted first from her day and now from her otherworldly climax, she drifted off to sleep, naked, quivering, yet warm and satisfied.
All traffic jams end, eventually. All dreams end, too.
And then new ones begin, except they’re real.
Amelia reiterated the same arguments with which she had beaten herself ad nauseum against coming to the stranger’s house when she was in the shower the next morning, and again when she was already on her way there, but in the warm reassurance of daylight the motherish arguments fell away, and the pragmatism of earning nearly as much in one day as she would normally earn in an entire week kept her foot on the accelerator and her heart racing faster still.
Amelia pulled her modest silver ‘06 Accord into an open metered spot at the curb of one twenty five Robertson Boulevard, in front of an antique furniture store that wasn’t even open until noon, counting herself lucky that she only had to walk a block or so. A quick check of the time—nine-fifty-two—fuck!
She quickly locked and left her car, tossing her keys into the brown hobo bag that she slung across her shoulder. She stretched her muscles, sore from her short but traffic-congested drive,
Most of the businesses in the area had only just opened for the day or were about to, and a short walk past some trendy fashion stores, with salesgirls that eyed her enviously from behind their doorways, soon found Amelia in front of a pretty, white, single-story commercial building with an ivy trellis climbing up its sides.
It wasn’t the biggest building in the neighborhood, nor was it the newest, but it spoke silently of the immense cost to build, buy, and rent to secure its position in its particular neighborhood, and in this way it was every bit as imposing as its neighbors, which in all directions were either expensive restaurants, salons, or boutiques. There was no storefront sign to indicate what kind of a business it was, and in fact it looked for all the world like a 1920s house stuck in the middle of a lot of shops.
Amelia wavered for a moment about proceeding, but the feeling of inexplicable cowardice passed, and, seeing the numerals one twenty five next to the front door, she decided she must have found the right place. The small East-West Gallery lettering on the front window, together with the by appointment only sign confirmed this. Amelia’s conservative heels clicked cheerily against the cobblestone walkway as she made her way to the front door, though she was very nervous. Surrounding the walkway on both sides were rose bushes in full bloom, with the flowers seeming to smile at her in pinks and reds and yellows, as if they had forgotten it was nearly winter. The sound of West Los Angeles at midmorning—the cars, the people, the hum of human existence—provided a calming musical accompaniment that reassured her she wasn’t about to do something foolish.
A few moments after she rang the bell, the door was answered by a very tall, young-looking man in expensive jeans and plain white V-neck undershirt, both considerably stained with different colored paint. His long, black hair, nearly coming to his shoulders, and his slenderness gave him an almost androgynous look, but he was extremely attractive, with large brown eyes and full, doll-like lips. He looked Asian—Japanese, it seemed—but Amelia couldn’t tell for sure. His skin was beautifully clear and even lighter than her own, though speckled slightly with dried paint. He would have been absolutely beautiful as a girl were it not for his height and broad shoulders. Amelia herself was very tall at five feet, ten inches. Her black heels made her even taller, but the young man before her was taller still, with defined muscles in his slim arms, and high cheekbones that gave his youthful face a sculpted, exotic countenance. Even his shoes, well-worn, black Converse sneakers, were stained with paint, so obviously this young, beautiful man was the rare artist who rose and got to work early. He seemed a little surprised to see her, but the look of minor bewilderment quickly left his face as he stepped aside and beckoned her to come in. Amelia hesitated for a moment—why, she didn’t know—but eventually followed him.
“You’re late,” he said, shutting the door behind them and giving Amelia a quick once-over that might have offended her had he not smiled and nodded with friendly approval. “And you’re not Asian.”
“Was I supposed to be?” Amelia replied, not quite sure how to respond to such a comment. His voice was as smooth and moderate as it had been over the telephone.
“I was expecting an Asian girl, you know, that’s why I put the flyer up in Korea Town. Otherwise I could have advertised on Craigslist and gotten anyone.”
“I was expecting an older white guy,” Amelia countered, “since we’re in Beverly Hills. Looks like we were both wrong. And advertising in Korea Town could have gotten you a Hispanic girl just as easily.”
“Touché,” he smiled, and held out his hand. “Daniel Sakura.”
“Amelia Fontaine,” she replied, taking it.
Daniel Sakura was one of those Asian men who, in Amelia’s view, somehow seemed completely Americanized, having almost no accent and carrying himself like any other native-born youth, yet still retaining an unmistakable aura of enticing otherness, chiefly, she decided, because of his mesmerizing eyes, porcelain complexion, and off-kilter, Tokyo-meets-Los-Angeles fashion sense.
Stereotypical, she knew, and she almost hated herself for it, and yet there it was. Most Asian men she came across where she lived—and even at school—weren’t always so Westernized, but those that were captivated her. She had a particular fetish for long, black Asian hair, styled in the way only hair salons east of Vine Street seemed able to.
“You know, you could have easily specified you wanted an Asian girl as a model in your ad.”
“I could have,” Daniel Sakura considered, “but would you have still called?”
“Probably not,” Amelia smiled.
Daniel Sakura’s studio was very sparsely furnished, with white silk curtains pulled over the front windows. It wasn’t large, either, Amelia observed, perhaps the same size as a big Starbucks, minus the tables, coffee smell, and hipsters that couldn’t find a chair at Intelligentsia. The walls were filled, however, with dozens of different-sized oil and watercolor paintings of various people, all young adults, some men, some women, all very well done. The smooth hardwood floor was flecked in places with old paint. About a third of the paintings had small signs taped to the frames, marked sold, with the buyers’ addresses and delivery schedules written beneath.
“Did you do all these?” she said somewhat breathlessly, turning around the room slowly, taking it all in like a child in a cathedral seeing stained glass windows for the first time.
“Of course,” Daniel replied modestly. He smiled broadly. “I’m sorry, can I get you anything to drink? I know it’s hot outside. Have you eaten breakfast yet? There’s a cafe two doors down. We can—”
“Oh, I’m fine thank you,” Amelia murmured, admiring a painting hanging over a doorway leading to a back room.
She walked toward it. It depicted a beautiful, light-skinned black girl lying naked on a couch, in front of a crystal flower vase that just barely concealed the area between her slender thighs. Looking closer Amelia could recognize the couch at the other end of the studio, beneath a skylight that bathed the room in brilliant morning sun.
“She’s beautiful…”
“I know,” Daniel replied, nodding with his hands on his sides. His tight white undershirt rose slightly to reveal his hips and a hint of muscular abdomen, and Amelia looked away, embarrassed. “Her name is Veronica. I’ve done her many times, as you can see.”
Amelia’s gaze followed Daniel’s arm to several other paintings featuring this same mesmerizing black girl. One watercolor depicted her alone, standing next to a window, her shapely buttocks indicating youth and exercise as she stared out from the canvas with welcoming eyes. Another showed her from above embracing a tall, statuesque blonde man as they lay together in bed, her perfect breasts pressed against his muscular, tanned body. Yet another showed her passionately kiss
ing an equally stunning ivory skinned red-haired girl whose long legs were wrapped around her slim, dark torso.
She was in other paintings, with other people, all sublimely attractive. In all of them she was completely naked, and though not all of her paintings revealed her pubic area, all revealed her breasts. In fact all the models were naked, all were in many paintings, all were of course beautiful, all were of course—
“Perfect,” Daniel smiled. Amelia gasped slightly as Daniel’s voice caught her off guard—she had been staring at one of the paintings that featured Veronica and Daniel himself, nude, sleek and muscular, inside each other. The look on Veronica’s face seemed to cry out in ecstasy itself from the canvas, reaching out to her, pulling her in.
How did he manage to paint that?
Next time you ask, Janice, I’ll come…I’ll come…
“Yes,” she replied finally, gulping quietly and regaining her composure, “she’s absolutely beautiful, perfect. They’re all so beautiful.”
“Well, that too,” Daniel laughed mildly, revealing perfect white teeth. “My models offer me a perfection I can only hope to approach capturing on the canvas, but I was referring to you.”
“Me?”
“Of course, you,” he stated matter-of-factly. “You know, most people who actually come here claiming to be models aren’t really what I’m looking for. They’re usually good-looking, of course, but they just—forgive my use of a tired phrase—don’t have the aura. And I have to tell them that I can’t use them, though of course I pay them for their time. You, of course, have that aura.”
“An aura…” Amelia murmured, somewhat incredulously, skeptically.
Daniel smiled again, as though having some hidden suspicion confirmed.
“You do, but you don’t believe me, because you don’t believe in yourself. You are probably the most beautiful person who ever walked through that door—even more so than Veronica, or Chloe, the red-haired girl you seemed to be interested in—yet you carry yourself like you’re afraid to get hit by stray lightning. I knew it from the moment I opened the door and saw you standing there. Beautiful, but burned-out, and cynical. Tell me if I’m wrong—you were so scared you almost didn’t come in. I look at and think about all the paintings I’ve done… All the bodies, all the faces, all the human perfection that I’ve tried to put on canvas but will never do because no artist is as perfect as the human shape. And you know what? You’re probably more beautiful than any I’ve painted yet.
“I want to paint you; you’re perfect. And you’re probably thinking I’m some kind of con-artist who’s making a play to get you into bed right now, because it’s probably happened before when you’ve heard a speech like the one I’m giving you.”
“I…I…Daniel,” she stuttered, a bit overwhelmed, “I don’t think you’re trying to get me into—”
“It’s okay,” he cut her off, “maybe you don’t think that I’m actually that way, but you’re afraid that I am, aren’t you.” He said it more like a statement than a question.
Amelia stood there slightly dumbstruck.
“I knew you didn’t have any confidence from the way you spoke over the telephone,” he continued, “the way you stammer, stumble over your words even though you know exactly what you want to say, as if you’re afraid to offend someone or open yourself to the possibility that the only way you’ll get burned is if you let yourself get burned. You come off, if you’ll forgive my assumption, like a girl who makes promises to herself that she doesn’t keep. That’s why I was surprised you even showed up today. Though, I must say I’m glad that you did.”
Amelia’s knees nearly buckled beneath her as she took in Daniel’s words, though she remained standing before his youthful, exotic eyes, as if in a trance. He didn’t know her, yet he read her thoughts as if her life-script was written on her shirt. Was she that transparent? The open, near nakedness of her secret feelings frightened her. She felt warm with unplanned embarrassment—like sneezing too loudly in a library—and yet she felt a chilling rush of adrenaline course through her arms, making her shiver imperceptibly. She could almost see herself collapsing to her knees to admit to Daniel that he was right, that she didn’t have any confidence and that she had been burned too many times before and she no longer had the guts to be a model, that she was just a struggling waitress who fantasized about her English professor when she masturbated, and was a year away from graduating with a degree she had no idea how to use…that she and her former roommate had had a brief but utterly sublime affair, and had agreed to live apart so that the friendship could survive, even though she couldn’t stop thinking about fucking—and getting fucked by—her, and burned with silent jealousy whenever she saw Janice flirt with Cyril…
Anyone but him, Janice, please…
About Ian, the too-young-for-her photojournalism major whom she just couldn’t get over, who might or might not have put a compromising photograph of her on the Internet, but whom she forgave so long as he made her cum her brains out whenever he went down on her… About how even he—Daniel—had been in her dreams last night…
She wanted to tell Daniel everything, just to explode once and get rid of it all.
Instead, she smiled weakly at him, her lips trembling bravely with the effort at composure.
“But…” she finally managed, “Daniel, why would you want someone like me to model for you, if you think I don’t have confidence? Maybe I—”
“Because you have something that’s every bit as beautiful in art—beautiful vulnerability. You won’t have it long, because someday, especially after I’m finished with you, you’re not going to be a scared little mouse anymore. You’re going to realize how unbelievably gorgeous you are, how, if you were to step outside right now, traffic would actually slow down a little. I have to admit I’m a bit of a bigot—I put that ad out in Korea town assuming that a beautiful, vulnerable person without confidence would be easier to find there. I know because I was the same way. But not now.”
“H-how did you do it?” Amelia sighed, overwhelmed and scared, but fascinated and intrigued, too. She found herself unconsciously, inevitably leaning toward him so that they were barely two feet apart in the empty studio.
“I learned to speak English, and I learned to paint,” Daniel replied, putting his hands inside his jeans pockets. “Both extremely well, if I do say so myself, though a bit too formally, some say—the English, not the painting, I mean. I’m thirty-two years old and secure. I make my living doing only what I love. I’m not rich—sometimes days go by without a sale—but here I am, not leaving.”
He smiled at her, and the young Japanese artist’s attractive face seemed to radiate light and reassurance. He scratched at a speck of blue paint that had dried on his smooth cheek and waited for Amelia to speak.
“About the job…” Amelia murmured, clasping her bare arms in her hands as she felt another flush of warmth course through her body—she noticed in shame that her nipples had began to harden—”what do I have to do? I don’t know if I…”
“Come here,” Daniel said softly, almost in a whisper. He beckoned her to him with a curled finger. With his other hand he reached into his pocket.
She came to him, slightly confused but willing, the vivid paintings all around her seeming to watch her from hundreds of dreamy eyes.
“You’ve seen the paintings I do,” he said softly, almost imperceptibly, so close to her that she nearly felt his warm breath caress her earlobe. He pressed his slim artist’s hand into hers. “Here’s two hundred dollars, as I promised. I’m going to go into the back room to work on a painting I had already started before you came today. If you think I’m disgusting, that all of this is disgusting, then please, by all means, the money is yours, and I apologize for wasting your time. But if you can use me, if you think you can work with me, then please stay. Every time we work together I will pay you when you arrive.”
With that, Daniel turned around and disappeared behind an open door leading to a separate room�
�apparently where he did his painting—and Amelia watched him as he left, noting with detached amusement the two wooden paintbrushes that protruded from his back pocket. A ray of sunlight caught the defined muscles in his sleek, slender shoulder blades as he walked, visible through the thin material of his undershirt.
Amelia stood for a moment in the middle of the studio, surrounded by painting after painting of beautiful young bodies, alone and together, seeming to ask her what now, what now… It was all so unabashedly erotic, yet it wasn’t pornography. It was as though Daniel’s art walked the thin nether-region separating the two, sometimes dipping one toe in, sometimes pulling out, all of it depending on the person standing in front of it at any given moment. She stared at the small bundle of twenties in her trembling palm, knowing what she wanted to do, but not knowing if it was what she should do.
I don’t keep my promises, she berated herself in the silence.
She gasped for a moment as if a jolt of reality had awakened her from a mesmerizing dream, and quickly left the studio.
Only to return, after five minutes had passed, realizing for the first time that she was slave to no one.
Through an open door, reflected in the mirror above a sink she saw a newly familiar face, staring at her as the figure pressed a towel against his cheek.
“I’m sorry I took so long,” Amelia said softly, apologetically, with a faint air of breathlessness.
“I thought you left,” Daniel said softly, wiping his hands on his pants as he made his way to her, astonished. Although most of the paint had been washed away, some errant yellow and green flecks remained, contrasting to the lightness of his complexion. “I looked back, and you were gone. I thought, you know, that you decided this wasn’t for you…”
“I… I had to put money in the meter,” she replied, nearly whispering. “I’m parked a block away.”
“You could have asked me,” Daniel said with a warm smile, “I have plenty of change. He jingled his pockets as proof, and Amelia smiled, laughing in spite of herself. “And there’s parking right here behind the building.” He pointed through the back window at a small asphalt lot where a two-door Lexus was parked beneath a large maple tree.
