by Celia Styles
“Mr. Fisher.”
The man did not answer. It wasn’t a deliberate non-answer. It was as if he wasn’t even aware of Meena’s presence. Must be some weird genius recluse thing. Meena tried again.
“Mr. Fisher. My name is Meena. Meena Wazowski. I am an art student.” Meena gulped. Sounds so dumb. She forced herself to go on.
“I just love your work. I found out where you live from a friend of mine. I hope that’s OK. I just wanted to meet you in person, and I was wondering if….”
“I am not a recluse, you know. If that’s what you think.” The man behind the easel suddenly spoke up, cutting Meena sharply off. He stopped what he was doing and put his brush down. Wiping his paint-stained hands on a cloth, he emerged out from behind the rig. “It’s just that I hate people.”
It was the first time Meena had a clear view of Jett Fisher. He was much younger than what she had imagined, probably in his early thirties. But at the same time, his features spoke of a more matured and confident look than his age. He had a powerful, square-set jaw line and very sharp features. His thick, black matted hair fell carelessly over his forehead. With sleeves rolled up, his work shirt had spots of paint on it and his jeans were faded out. He was quite tall and Meena noticed some rogue grey hairs on his long sideburns, which she thought were very uncharacteristic of his young age. It was a mix of manly maturity and careless boyish charm. Meena couldn’t make out which of the two was more predominant.
She quickly gathered herself and continued,
“Mr. Fisher I hope you don’t mind me….” Jett fisher cut her off abruptly again. His attention had, somewhere down the line, gone back to the painting on the easel.
“You see this here.” He pointed to the canvas. “This is what we call a true paradox.”
“Meaning what?”
Meena walked behind him and turned to look at the canvas. It was evidently something he had been working on – it was a work in progress. A barge on a river; behind the barge dark clouds had gathered spelling an impending storm. It was breathtakingly good even in its incomplete form. He changed his pose abruptly and stood face-to-face with the painting, hands on his hips, legs apart, as if confronting it.
“Yes a true paradox – a painting which is really not a painting.” Meena lifted her brows. She had no idea what was going on. Jett Fisher continued,
“A painting which is not a painting…..” he ripped the canvas off the board, the tacks which held it in place popping out as he yanked hard. “……doesn’t really deserve to be a painting at all!” And with that he hurled the canvas out of the window behind him. It spun like a boomerang as it fell and landed amongst thickets in the overgrown garden in front. Visibly satisfied and now smiling, he looked back at Meena and asked.
“Who are you?”
A little shocked, but also slightly amused Meena went over the motions again. After having listened to what she had to say, Jett Fisher spoke in his calm voice.
“Be your mentor? You’ll be wasting your time.”
He pointed to the stacks of unfinished paintings strewn about the room. “As you can see from the garbage lying around in this room I think I need one myself. A mentor, that is.”
Then smiling as it was not rude in any way he said, “And as I told you, I hate people.”
All the while, through all the madness, Meena couldn’t help but stare at Jett Fisher. This was a handsome man, she thought. There was something unnerving about the unkempt hair, the dark black eyes. The way his deep voice had stayed calm and controlled, even during his profound actions a while ago gave off an aura of inner confidence. Meena found it strangely attractive. Not in the commonest of ways, though. This guy was different. Wanting to steer the conversation to something more constructive, she smiled sarcastically and said,
“Mind if I take a look around your garbage?”
Jett Fisher gestured with his hand, as if indicating that he had no problem if someone was foolish enough to sift through his garbage.
Meena walked around the perimeter of the room, slowly looking with her hands folded. She sometimes bent down to browse through the dust covered stacks of paintings kept on the floor. The garbage, simply put, was brilliant… by any standards. The style of the paintings was unapologetic, uncompromising and stayed true to what this man, Jett Fisher, was so well known for. Having completely made a round about the room, Meena was left standing near one of the corner entrances to one of the ante-rooms. She went in. Just like the main big room, this room was also filled with paintings. As Meena walked around she saw similar painting as she had seen in the main room, but it was on the left big wall that she saw something that glued her in. It was a series of seven paintings. They were of women, mostly in various states of undress. Some were stark nude and some were half dressed, but in a provocative manner, leaving little to the imagination. As Meena took a few steps forward and studied the paintings more closely she quickly realized the common theme. All of the women in the painting were in a state of sexual climax. Some had their heads back in ecstasy while some looked directly at the viewer while pleasing themselves. The looks on the faces ranged from looks of relief, heightened joy, to even lewd depravity. It was a captivating study of the female orgasm. And the way they were painted was amazing. The strokes, though minimal, captured the core essence of what the women in the pictures were expressing. The feel was so real that it made Meena involuntarily draw a deep breath - a deep breath that came along with a warm flushing feeling in her cheeks and a fluttering sensation in her belly. She almost froze, when she heard the calm voice behind her.
“Something that I had worked on quite some time back.”
Meena looked behind her. Standing at the doorway to the ante-room stood Jett Fisher. Leaning on the door frame, he pulled on a cigarette. He was also looking at the paintings. Meena swallowed, slightly embarrassed. Turning her gaze back to the erotic masterpieces on the wall she said the most commonest thing that she could think of,
“They are amazing!”
“Human sexuality is one of the truest emotions and feelings we have. Unadulterated. Uncontrolled.” said Jett Fisher, as he came forward and stood just beside Meena.
“Do you paint these from your imagination or are they…..” Jett stopped her short.
“Imagination? How can I paint these from imagination?” Jett fisher asked with a incredulous expression between his thick brows. “How original would they be if these feelings didn’t belong to real people – real women? No, I painted real models.”
He blew out a cloud of smoky vapor as if letting off steam. The smoke whirled around and formed a capsule of mist around them, engulfing them both. Through the sheath Meena stared straight into the now blurry faces of those women in the painting. The open mouths. The look of pure indulgence in their eyes. Their surrender to erotic joy. Real models? That means these women were here…and in front of Jett Fisher… She dared not to think further. But her imagination would not let up so easily. She felt a strange sensation creep up her legs. Suddenly she felt herself breathing a bit faster than normal. The man beside her, unaffected, continued,
“These women you see here – and any model, for that matter – has almost an equal role in the making of a painting. No sorry, I’m wrong. They have the biggest role. Try not to think of it as a painter painting an object, but rather, an observer trying to pick up the nuances of a performance, a very special performance. Here…” he pointed at the paintings, “…I am the observer, and these women are the performers. I would say, if you think these painting are worth anything – anything at all - it’s due to what the models have done here. I just painted what I saw.”
Meena had understood by now that Jett Fisher was the kind of guy who would always be putting himself down. Never satisfied with what he did; he was himself, his biggest critic. There was no doubt in her mind, looking at the quality of the work that lay before her, that what he said might be true, but it definitely would take a virtuoso with unparalleled skills to bring those painti
ngs to life. And what life!
There was an awkward silence as they both looked at the nude women on the wall. Jett Fisher then turned to Meena and looked straight at her. He held his gaze for much longer than what Meena thought was appropriate. It startled her and suddenly she had the urge to run out of the room. But suddenly, Jett Fisher unhinged his stare and walked towards one of the open windows, his back towards her. As he walked, he spoke.
“Have you heard about the ‘Mouvement Lune’?”
Meena shook her head. She knew the individual words in French. ‘Mouvement’ meant movement and ‘Lune’ meant moon. But she was sure the implication of the phrase was not so simple as the individual meanings of the words which compromised it.
“It’s natural. Not many people have.” Jett Fisher turned around towards her and lit up another cigarette.
“The ‘Mouvement Lune’ was an underground movement in the very late 19th century in France. It started off in the dingy and dark parlors of Paris where most of the elite crowd would gawk at the idea of going. These parlors were mostly frequented by the common working men and women of Paris in those days. The movement started off in the form of a normal libertine’s club but soon morphed and changed into a full blown sexual movement which explored human desire. There were no boundaries. Members of the movement tested the thresholds of human lust. Nothing was forbidden. Nothing was ‘sin’. Anything that felt good physically, sexually was welcomed. All forms of social pretense and conditioning were discarded. It resulted in the most pure form of sexual pleasure for the participants and patrons.”
Here Jett Fisher stopped and walked to the wall with the paintings. He stood in front of a painting where a woman, completely nude, except for a thin gold chain around her neck, lay on a divan. She lay sideways, with her legs spread, her unshaven and unruly bush creating a semi-transparent veil over her crack. She was fingering herself to an orgasm. He looked at the painting for sometime and then turned around to look at Meena.
“The spectacular thing about this movement was that, unlike other movements of this kind, this was actually spearheaded by women. Liberated, confident women. Women who felt they had equal rights to sexual pleasure as men. Women who didn’t only want to be told how to enjoy sex, but also wanted to discover it for themselves. Truly free women.”
Meena listened with acute interest to this astounding scroll of history that Jett Fisher unfurled in front of her. The subject, however, being extremely provocative in nature, made her feel quite embarrassed. And the openness with which this man, whom she had just met a few minutes back, spoke of such things, made her feel off balance. But, his words held her in almost a hypnotic trance and she didn’t object. She didn’t want to. He stood at the wall with the paintings behind him. It made it look like he owned those women – as if somehow he had captured their souls in the art and he stood there in front, their master. He spoke again, with similar passion,
“All the women of the Mouvement Lune wore a special ring. It was shaped like a crescent and hence the ‘Lune’. Since it was a very closed and secret society, it was a way of identifying each other.”
Jett walked towards Meena and stopped a few feet away from her.
“Sadly in those days, there were no photographs of such things. And what we know today is by word of mouth. But what remains is an idea, a concept.” He pointed to his temple.
“You asked me about my work when you came here - if I could mentor you. I don’t believe in all that.” He gestured back at the paintings.
“What I believe in is participation.”
Meena throat felt dry. A lump had formed in her throat. Jett Fisher continued unabashed, as if he was talking about apples and oranges.
“Watching you move around, I felt there could be something here.”
He looked down the full length of her body. Meena had worn a t-shirt and tight hip-hugging jeans with heels that day. She felt conscious being checked out in that fashion. Jett moved in closer just inches from her now. She could feel his breath on her shoulders as his eyes pierced hers.
“How would you like to be painted? To be the performer, in front of me, the observer. Together we would recreate the ‘Mouvement Lune’ on canvas.”
By the next ten minutes, Meena was sitting in the back seat of a taxi. She rolled the windows down and let the cold wind hit her flushed face. The familiar streets she was now passing as she headed home seemed unknown. Everything glided in front of her like a blur and the loud thumping in her chest drowned out all the noise. She remembered only one thing. Jett Fisher’s voice,
“If you’re interested, be here tomorrow in the morning. And you can call me Jett. Just Jett.”
*****************
Meena reached home, put down her things and flopped on to the bed. The morning had been exhausting and much more than she had bargained for. The wild beating in her chest had subsided but restlessness remained. After composing herself somewhat, she kicked off her heels and got up. She picked up an apple which was lying on the bedside table and bit in. The sweet juices swirled in her mouth. Enjoying the sweet treat she walked over to the other side of the room and faced the wall. She stood silently looking at her reflection in the full-length Cheval mirror. She took another bite. What have I got myself into? She undid her hair and it cascaded down over her shoulders. She had deep reddish-brown hair and it accented her cream-ish complexion fairly well. Taking off her t-shirt and unclasping her bra, she stood there in her tight jeans, topless. Her big natural breasts heaved as she started breathing heavily, suddenly conscious of her own body. What the fuck. Why am I feeling so weird? She bent down and slid her jeans off, now fully naked. A patch of brown silky hair between her thighs stood testament to her womanhood. She eyed herself from top to bottom, starting from her slender shoulders, down across her big breasts to the thin curve of her waist which again blossomed into wide womanly hips. She put her hands on her hips and stood on her tiptoes, swiveling herself around. Her sizeable rear protruded out from her hips and as she ran her eyes down its fleshy curves, and below, she could see her furry womanly part peek out from in between her thighs. It made her blush.
Meena had always been confident about her body. She liked that she had ‘meat’. In university she was aware of how boys would look at her, especially as she walked away. But the same body that she was so used to made her uncannily uncomfortable now. It was as if somebody else was watching her and she was somehow ashamed of her own womanliness, of her femininity. She stood there naked, with just the apple in her hand. Her heart started thumping again and her breath quickened. Snap out of it. It’s just work. It’s just art. There is nothing wrong. You’re getting a chance to work with the Jett Fisher. Throwing the rest of the apple in the dustbin, Meena entered the shower. The cold water hit her body with force. And as the water streamed down her face and shoulders she felt it cool her flushed skin. But deep inside Meena still felt herself burning up.
The next morning, Meena woke up a more reassured person. She had convinced herself that there was absolutely nothing wrong in what she was about to do and how thinking like a professional was the correct way to go about it. Hundreds of people posed as models for paintings, she told herself, so many of them in the nude. And she should be the last person uncomfortable with the concept, because as an art student herself, she had been in numerous drawing sessions where she was required to draw a person who was posing in the nude. Stepping out of her house, forcing herself to feel strong, Meena thought she would make a quick visit to her Mum’s. It was on the way to her actual destination and today she hadn’t had the time to make breakfast.
She took the bus and alighted twenty minutes later in a picturesque suburb of the city and quickly ambled down to a yellow house in one of the lanes. Her mother had remarried after her father had passed away and stayed with her step-dad, Garrett. Meena liked Garrett, and she was happy for her mother, who seemed comfortable with him. Garrett could never replace her dad, but he was nice to her mother and even to her – and t
hat’s what mattered most. Garrett was divorced from his first wife and he and Meena’s mother lived alone. Meena had also chosen to live on her own after she had graduated and found a job, so she had her privacy while her mother had hers. She used to visit her mother occasionally and vice-versa. It was a good situation for everybody. Meena had worked for six years before she decided to leave her job and dedicate time to her long-time passion - art. She enrolled in an art college and now with more time on her hands, her visits to the mother and Garrett’s house had become more frequent. Today as she entered through the back kitchen door, she found her mother making breakfast. They hugged and she sat herself down in the kitchen table. Perfect Timing. She picked up a piece of toast with jam and started munching. Her mother turned back from the counter and asked,