He stayed up on the rail of the pier and became still, almost like he was praying. Kinsey dropped to one knee in the sand of the high dune and put her elbow on her knee to help her hold the camera steady as she looked through the viewfinder and waited for this beautiful man’s next move.
As to his timing? She had an intuition, and she waited for him to vouch-stamp what she knew was to be the synchronization of her camera, his artistic expression of himself, the rising sun, and God’s implicit approval – all in one heavenly moment.
And then…
There was an eruption of red light, far out to sea, Kinsey saw it in the corner of her viewfinder and she put her finger to the shutter button on her camera.
The air was cool, there was no breeze, and Tanner could smell the salt of the sea in every one of his breaths. He liked how the sea looked below him, off to his side, its strong waves rolling to shore, as he stepped, balancing along the pier’s rail, toward the end of the line – to where the pier stopped and the ocean began, its deep blue kingdom ruling before him for as far as his eye could see.
He felt like he was being watched and for some reason he liked it, like whoever it was with her eyes on him (He was sure it was a girl. Why? He had no idea.) was a part of him and a part of these transcendent moments. He was leaving himself and he wanted to take her with him. In his heart he intuited that she was gorgeous and brilliant, and, like himself, of a different wavelength (Like light striking seawater – blue, like sapphire, green, like emeralds, and brilliantly bright – came to his mind.) and so he opened his imagination to the possibilities of the moment and let the sacred event take care of itself. He became a part of it and didn’t fight the instincts that rose from his chest and manifested themselves as ideas in his mind.
Yes, he would do it, was his last thought as he extended his arms to the sky, flexed his knees and waited.
Kinsey heard her own voice call out soft, excited and almost desperate.
She saw through her telephoto lens that he had perfect muscle tone, each part of his body in geometric sync with all the other parts – perfect feet joining gorgeous legs, then the tightest core, a surfer’s chest and back, incredible wavy blond hair, perfect jawline, high cheeks. If it was just a bit brighter she could see him well enough to know him forever, but he was part silhouette and part camera image with not enough close proximity between them for her to paint him into her mind. She sighed, swallowed down on the heat within her loins, and got to work being an artist.
She prepared to take his picture – she knew he’d jump – but what he did next pulled the sexual woman within her back to front and center in all parts of her being.
He reached his arms to the sky as the sun rose, glorious, red, orange and brilliant from the sea and then he turned toward her, and, even though his face was shadowed, she was sure he was smiling at her and somehow aware that she was watching him from the dunes. He reached down and pulled of his board shorts. He held them tight in one hand and continued looking in her direction. He now stood naked, in the brilliant new light, of the rising sun.
This was too much for Kinsey – too much art, too much sensuality, too much man, way too much man, she realized, and she felt herself being overwhelmed by the moment. She lived for her art but this unknown masculine and artistic wonder had just ripped Kinsey open to the latent sensuality that was now beating in her heart, pounding through her body, and intoxicating her mind; she wanted him in the worst of ways and she wanted him in the best of ways – she wanted him, them, each other, to be together as one – she wanted to know him.
He was smiling, she had been right, she could see the white of his teeth now through her lens and he was laughing at the moment and pulling her into his world. He was giving her a raw, sexual, living art. He turned away from her, raised his arms to the rising sun again and dove out into the air. Kinsey clicked down on the shutter button of her camera as he reached the pause in his arc, where gravity asserted itself over his jump, and he was extended out in perfect symmetry, every muscle taut and gleaming in the dawn’s light, and she got her photo. Then she kept pressing her shutter button as he did a quarter twist and turn before making a perfect dive into the top of a passing swell in the water below, barely splashing, so clean was his entry into the water.
She knew she had taken the perfect photo and in her mind she was satisfied as an artist, but in her heart, her body and in her loins, she wanted so much more.
Kinsey came back to herself and she gasped at the sheer beauty, the transcendence, the humor, the primal sexuality of his great hello to the sunrise and to her, as Kinsey came to think it to be, and she dropped her camera to her side and waited for him to reappear on the surface of the water. Then, she found herself walking out from the dunes and onto the beach and waiting for him to come ashore.
Tanner hit the top of the passing swell and it felt like the purest moment – clean, like every part of him was being washed in a primordial bath – and he let the momentum of his dive carry him deep into the mystery that he, from the moment of his conception, rejoiced in, the holiest of all God’s elements – water. His world was now right again and the drive home later that day would be easy – of that, he had no doubt.
As he was still underwater, kicking his way back up to the surface, he found himself breaking out into another big smile. He was certain, as sure as the sun was now rising, that he had been watched by a beautiful girl and he hoped, no, he knew, he’d given her something – something that they could share forever. He’d invited her into to his world and he felt, somehow, in his bones, that she’d brought him into hers also, and he knew that the beauty of this new morning and of his dive into the sea, his revelation of himself, was both profound, and, privately, between the two of them, quite funny and very sexual as well. He wished he could see her but something told him she was hiding in the dunes for a reason and he didn’t want to break into her privacy – on this morning he understood very well the desire to be alone – and so he respected it.
He came up to the surface with an explosive exhaling of air and a thankful prayer. His release from the uncomfortable situation of the night before now complete, he turned to begin his swim down the coast, back to his hotel and the long drive home. He slipped into his board shorts, and then as he swam, he kept wondering what the girl who had watched him might look like. That she was beautiful, he had no doubt, but perhaps she was even more. Might she even be the girl who he’d one day marry? Maybe they would meet again and find themselves both blown away by the other. That would be something he thought. He made sure to remember the warm and transcendent feelings he had for this unknown girl so that if he was to ever meet her, he’d know she was the one he was meant to love for the rest of his life.
Tanner couldn’t help it; he peaked back to the shore as he swam his way around the pier and he realized he should have looked her way much sooner. She was walking back from the water’s edge, a camera in her hand, and making for the walkway back through the dunes to the hotels that were arrayed behind them.
He watched her. He’d been right, she was gorgeous. He liked how her long brown hair cascaded down her back, and, as a man, he enjoyed the swaying of her hips and the movement of her long legs as she walked in the deep sand. And then she was gone.
He wished he could touch her and kiss her and tell her all about himself. He wanted to taste her breath and cup her face in his hands as learned about the curves and the softness of her lips and he wanted to hear her voice as she said her name. Who was she? He wanted to know her.
He began his long swim up the coast to his hotel with his heart full: full of regret, full of contentment and full of hope for meeting her on another beach on another beautiful day – perhaps this time with the sun setting behind them instead of rising before them.
He should have looked, Kinsey thought, smiling to herself, as she stepped back through the dunes. I would have done anything for him. He jumped, raw, beautiful and masculine off the end of a pier and when he hit the water he
exploded the universe and he exploded my heart. I’ll wait for that. I’ll always wait for him and the art and the love and the laughter that he brought into my world.
As Tanner swam up the coast and Kinsey walked back into the real world that lay beyond the dunes, they both were thinking that perhaps God was looking down from behind the rising sun at them, and that just maybe, he had them together one day soon in his grand and enigmatic plans.
Perhaps. Perhaps not.
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Book Two - The Naked Sunset
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Summer Evening in Charleston
Kinsey Appleton was an artist. She was a dreamer and she was a romantic. She perceived God in the light of his creation, and, as an artist, she thought of herself as a catcher of his light. Her mediums were photography and paint. Kinsey dreamed of the connection of all good things and she liked to imagine that some of heaven’s best moments found their way to earth in the blasts of the sun’s photons as they erupted from its core and shot into space, and, if an artist was attentive and watching, she could catch some of that beautiful heaven on her canvas and within her paint. Kinsey romanticized about and hoped for a soulmate, a man like herself, who wanted to search for the mystery of God and reflect it back toward one another and to their children and to the people of the world. God, in all his creative beauty, had swept Kinsey off her feet from an early age. Kinsey wanted to sweep the man of her dreams off of his feet in the same way and she hoped he’d do the same for her.
There was a moment soon coming, when the city, the light of the setting sun, her paint, her brush and canvas, her as yet unknown and future husband, she herself, and God himself, would all come together and touch. In her heart, Kinsey knew this beautiful moment was eminent and she was making sure that she was ready for it.
She stepped onto the balcony of her bedroom. It was a bedroom on the top floor in the home of the benefactor who had invited Kinsey and her roommate, Jessica Hart, down to Charleston to study art and to paint the city. Kinsey took one more look to the sun, now bright orange but shading to red and beautiful, as it fell slow and hot from the summer sky. She had to hurry or she would miss the opportunity to take the photograph, the moment that would transcend all of time and then be later transformed by her, forever, into paint on her canvas.
She stepped back into her room and went to her camera. It was mounted on a tripod and aimed across the room and out the window toward the sun and the city. She checked that she had set the shutter button timer to a 15 second delay. Then she stepped to the full length mirror and dropped her robe to the floor. She took a quick peek at her reflection to make sure her body was up to the standards she needed for the photo. She grabbed a brush and ran it quickly through her long brown hair hoping to bring out the blond highlights from her days in the summer sun. She turned her back to the mirror and stood on her toes for a different view – she looked as good as she knew to be – it would have to do.
She pulled both doors to the balcony fully open into the room so the camera could get the city, the sun, and all of her body into the shot. Then she waited for it, the right moment, and when it occurred, with the sun now dipping low enough to shine its rays directly into her room, flooding it with warm evening light, she stepped to the camera and pushed the shutter release button.
As the camera began its countdown, she stepped naked onto the balcony and crossed quickly to the rail. She spread her arms wide in the orange summer light, turned her head so that she was giving her profile to the camera lens and stood high on her toes to lengthen her athletic body and make sure its lines were long, lovely and feminine. As the camera ticked down to the shot, she let the sunlight enter her mind’s eye and she thought about the light, where it came from, then she opened her heart to love and tried to give back to the camera all the beauty that the sun was shining down onto her body and deep into her soul.
Click went the camera and she made sure to hold the pose a second longer. There was a whistle and a catcall from two men in the street below her. Kinsey came back to herself and looked down at them, their mouths agape, and gave them the slightest of smiles before turning and stepping back into her room.
She put her arms back into her robe, wrapped and tied it around herself, and went to her camera. She knew it would be the photo she was looking for –there was no real need to see it now – but she had to look anyway. The moment had felt pure, clean and effortless, like all of her best paintings did as they came to life on the canvas. If she was struggling, the photo or the painting she was working on looked to be struggling also and when that happened she would stop the process and try again later. That wouldn’t happen this time.
Standing naked on a balcony in the sunlight of a perfect Charleston evening felt easy and right, the catcalls of the men below notwithstanding, and Kinsey felt like she had touched the universe and possibly even God himself in that moment. She couldn’t wait to get the shot downloaded to her laptop.
It took her about three minutes total to download it and then she was standing in the darkening room, as the sun fell still lower in the sky outside, looking at her photo on the computer screen. She couldn’t help herself; she went to her easel and put a canvas on it and began to look at the photo on her screen and then to the canvas itself, trying to picture the light captured in the photo becoming paint on her canvas.
There was a call from downstairs, “Kinsey? Are you ready? We leave in five for the museum party.” It was Ms. Lester, the owner of the home and a wonderful lady who loved both Kinsey’s and her friend, Jessica’s, art work.
Kinsey knew her painting would have to wait but when they returned from the party she would invite Jessica to her room and she would begin her outlines. She’d go deep into the night, all night if she must, to get the painting started. It was how she was born. She felt art inside her like a golfer intuited a putt or a chef knew when his dish was perfect in the oven and she knew to work when the muse was dancing hand to hand with her soul. A muse dancing solo never did anything for her; she had to connect her paintbrush with her canvas when the mysteries of life called to her.
This painting would be for him. For the man that understood her; the man that loved her from the moment she was born. She hadn’t met him yet, but she was only twenty, and she would know him when she did and one way she’d know is that he would be moved by this painting. It would speak to him as much as the evening sun and the city of Charleston had spoken to her as she posed, raw, in the Holy City itself, letting the light of the moment reflect into the lens of her camera and be recorded forever and for him. She knew this would be her finest work and she decided that she’d only sign the painting when she met the man for whom it was meant to be gifted.
She stepped to her closet and quickly dressed in a light colored miniskirt and a dark shoulder strap top that showed her beautiful skin. It was not shocking in its appearance for the art museum party but it would definitely catch the eyes of any young men she decided as she stepped into her heals and made for the door and the night in the lighted city beyond.
She had felt love burning in her heart, love for the city, love for the earth, for the sun and the stars, for God, for the mysteries of life and mostly, she felt love for a man that she had yet to meet. A man she could share herself with, a man she could talk to about anything as he held her through the night, a man she could have children with and care for them together with and watch and help them grow into fine adults with, a man she could give her body to and love him as hard and as best as she knew how so that he could do the same and when they were exhausted from their passions they could fall asleep as one. She felt that love and she wanted to express it. Her painting, The Naked Sunset, as she was thinking to calling it, would be that expression and it would be her gift to the man that would love her back as hard as she would most certainly love him.
Kinsey stepped to the bottom of the long staircase and met Jessica and Ms. Lester at the front door of the great Charleston home.
“I must say Kinsey, you look
radiant tonight. Like you’ve fallen in love and been swept off your feet by a fine and handsome man,” Ms. Lester said. She was a romantic at heart. She’d met the man of her dreams and married him many long years before. He had been a sculptor and a painter. A gentle and fine man. They spent ten beautiful years together before he was killed as he saved a woman from a mugger just a few blocks up the street from their home.
He’d died a hero but Ms. Lester had been left alone, with no children, and far too in love with the memories of her deceased husband to ever consider marrying again. She’d turned her attention to the arts and instead of raising children, she’d made it her life’s work to help young, aspiring artists. She loved all the arts – the performing, the musical, the visual and the written. If it moved hearts to beat stronger, Ms. Lester was there to provide for the young artists that were creating it.
Kinsey and Jessica were this year’s project for her. Ms. Lester had a passion for the truth and for love and she leaned to the classic art periods for her inspiration. She made it her mission to give her young students a solid background in the history of the arts and to make sure that their works were supported by the history of the great artists of all the ages. Tonight they were going to see a new exhibit of regional artists that would be followed by a reception at the Charleston Place hotel.
Kinsey answered Ms. Lester as they stepped through the door and into the Charleston evening waiting outside, “I do feel wonderful. Did either of you see the sunset? I took a photo that I will try to paint. I think it will be my best work. I feel inspired, and, as usual, I have no idea where the inspiration is coming from.”
Lights on the Far Horizon Trilogy Page 2