Burn

by Michael Perkins

  So I called Midge from my studio by the sea and asked her to pack Lola in her old Mercedes and come for a visit.

  Perhaps he could not paint a new portrait of Rose until he could see Rose in all women.

  29

  “JUST TELL ME WHAT YOU WANT”

  HE’D RENTED THE studio near Wellfleet so he could escape Midge, as well as the flack over his exhibition at the Museum of Recent Art. Midge had made a deal with Boz Skeffington to show Boz’s drawings in her gallery, she had Manfred Damien cunt-crazy again, and she’d taken on Lola as a house pet; she should have been happy with her good fortune, but she wanted him more than ever. And more than ever, he evaded her.

  Seeing that I couldn’t shake her, I decided to put her in the middle of things, like the irritant in the oyster. She was pleased, and so agreeable with my directions to bring along a camcorder and a couple of her best cameras, that I knew she had something up her sleeve.

  He found out what that was when the old blue Mercedes pulled up in the sandy driveway. Manfred Damien bounded out of the passenger seat to hold the rear door for Lola. Manfred had dyed his spiky punk hair pink, and wore what Nick could only think of as German hot pants. Lola, by contrast, wore a full-length beach dress. Midge wore a blouse and slacks appropriate for an office on the day the I.R.S. visits. Nick welcomed them with the misgivings a terminally ill patient might have for the figure of Death as Assisted Suicide.

  “Midge,” he said to her when they kissed hello, “I asked you to bring Lola to model for me. Not Manfred the butcher boy.”

  “Well, Manfred I brought along for me, Nick. Since—” She gave him one of her reproachful looks, dropping her gaze to his crotch.

  “All right, all right. Come on in.” He greeted Manfred with a wave and offered to carry Lola’s bags. Lola, he was glad to see, no longer seemed pouty. Indeed, she looked pleased with herself. The three of them had settled into a suite in a Provincetown guest house, tucked into a good lunch, and were ready for an afternoon at the beach.

  After they’d inspected his studio, Midge and Manfred changed into beachwear. Lola sat on his couch watching him with murky anticipation. It made him nervous because it turned him on.

  “We’re going out to inspect the ocean, Nick. Maybe we’ll even get some sand in our crevices. I’ve already given Lola her instructions. She’ll do anything you say.” She waggled her prominent eyebrows like Groucho Marx. “She knows that if she’s not a good girl, she won’t get the spanking she wants.”

  Off they went, leaving him to set the tone for a working relationship that would last all summer and meet the challenge he’d set himself: to create erotic paintings to hang next to those of the masters.

  It was a hot day at the beach. The air was still. Except for the distant crash of breakers, there was only the buzz of a fly to disturb the silence. Nick thought for a moment about what to say to his model.

  He stood behind her, so she had to turn her head to see him. “You’re a lucky girl, Lola,” he began, adopting a faux fatherly tone with the twenty-something brunette. “I’m going to make you famous. All you have to do is exactly what I tell you. If you have any limits, let me know now.”

  She shook her head. “Midge told me what you need.”

  “Well, Midge thinks she knows what I need,” he said with more irritation in his voice than he felt. “Even I don’t know what I need until it happens. I’m going to take pictures, I’m going to draw you and paint you. What we do together will evolve naturally, I hope.”

  She looked ready, even eager. Midge had indeed prepared her.

  (What more could an artist ask of a wife?)

  “You understand, don’t you, that I’m going to be painting what most people think of as dirty pictures of you.”

  “I love it. You’ll see,” she assured him.

  “In a sense, I’ll be painting with my penis.”

  She giggled. “Whatever turns you on. You don’t have to convince me, Nick.”

  “Of course, I’ll pay you well.”

  “Just tell me what you want, and I’ll do it.”

  He cleared his throat. Lola’s willingness had given him an erection so swollen it was painful.

  “Take off your dress.”

  Lola stood up and slipped out of her dress, She was naked underneath, full copper-tipped breasts swaying, shaved bush a smudge at the bottom of her belly. She turned so he could see her generously proportioned ass. “I’m your slave,” she said.

  The artist debated with the man where to start. The power of her submission was such that it forced him to reach deeply into himself for his own submission to passion. He unzipped and showed her his penis. They watched each other, waiting for the next move. He could hear her quickened breathing. He began to masturbate himself, and her hand went to her crotch, two fingers slipping inside her sex.

  “Bend over the couch so I can see your ass,” he ordered. When she complied, he spread her cheeks and spat on her anus. Without warning, he shoved himself inside the tight ring. She cried out. But she adjusted quickly as he started to fuck her, bringing her hand around behind her so she could circle his penis with two wettened fingers, increasing his pleasure as he came inside her. He didn’t withdraw, but held the moment while he thought about how to draw it.

  30

  ARTISTS AND MODELS

  PAINTERS AS DIVERSE as Utamaro, Toulouse-Lautrec, and George Grosz have turned to whores as models in their art. While not placing myself in their company, I can attest to the importance of Lola in the creation of the paintings I did on the Cape. If one might say that Rose awakened my passions and Veronique Aury educated me in how to submit to them, one might also say that Lola was the vehicle for my success. I’d challenged myself to create, over the summer, paintings etched with sun and sea about the varieties of love. Feverishly, I followed my passions, inventing with Lola an entire vocabulary of physical love. My lines were bold and my use of color was even bolder.

  I came to respect Lola not only for her willingness and her ability to submit to the passions we were enacting for my camera and brush, but for her native shrewdness about sexuality. Her naive ambition to be an “artist” seemed to me a denial of her own innate artistry of love.

  By Labor Day our work was finished, the lease on the studio was up, and I shipped twelve large incendiary paintings to Max at the Boatwright Gallery.

  31

  A DIAMOND IN THE ROUGH

  THE EXHIBITION MAX mounted looked great, and the advance publicity could not have been better. A cover story in The Blue Rider by Natalie Wray created a sensation— well, at least a tempest in a teapot—in the art world of Manhattan. In her profile of me, Natalie had been confessional. She described the sexual tension between us, and— to my relief and amazement—credited it with having given her an insight into my work she might not have had otherwise. She made an argument for me that would set the agenda for all the articles that followed. She said, essentially, “Here is a male artist who loves women and their sexuality. He is reclaiming territory long claimed by artists from Pompeii to Picasso.” It was hyperbole, of course, but I was very grateful in retrospect that nothing had happened between us on the beach, her focus was on the paintings.

  Max took a chance on my exhibition, because I insisted that none of them be sold. I wanted to freeze out the collectors and wait for my prices to rise and museums to come knocking at the Boatwright door. After all, now I was famous. Or notorious.

  I thought fame was something I wanted until I had a taste of it. Max had warned me that I would be branded a pornographer, but neither of us expected my work to arouse such fury in the right-wing tabloids that speak for the worst in the public mind. The brand on my ass was a symbol for me of my inner development. The brand on my work made me feel even more like a defiant pariah in the art world.

  I hid in my studio, unable to work, unable to sleep. I turned down all interviews. I seldom visited Midge in her new ménage à trois with Manfred and Lola, but I was coming home from an evenin
g with them late one night when I saw Rose on the street.

  I stopped in the middle of the crosswalk at Broadway and Houston, near my studio. She was standing in the service station on the corner there, leaning into a car window. It looked like she was selling something.

  My heart leapt. I felt dizzy, but I made it the rest of the way across the street and grabbed onto a lamp post for support. I watched as she shrugged, and turned to walk off east on Houston Street.

  I had to force my legs to move. I staggered, then set off after her as she hurried into the darkness of the East Village. I was able to stay close enough to her to confirm what I at first couldn’t believe: she was dressed like a cheap streetwalker, in a short, tight skirt and red vinyl jacket. She’d dyed her hair blonde, but I knew that it was Rose when she walked into the light and I saw the fire around her. The flames of hell couldn’t have been brighter.

  She stopped at Allen Street and crossed Houston into hooker heaven, a park that crack whores used; but without stopping she continued walking south, wobbling tiredly on her high heels. She was headed for a dark building that looked abandoned, and as I watched from across the street, she disappeared into it.

  Soon a light flared, and then another. She was lighting candles. Through a dirty broken window the mounting glow was like a fire. I saw her burning herself alive, as she did in my nightmares. I saw her in her smoking grave.

  I ran into the building and fumbled for a match to allow me to climb the rotting stairs of the abandoned tenement. On what I thought was the right floor I banged on one door and then the one next to it.

  “What do you want, motherfucker? Don’t you think I know you’ve been following my ass? Get away from my door.”

  Her voice was high-pitched, roughened by fear.

  It wasn’t Rose’s voice. Maybe she was with someone.

  “Rose?”

  “Nobody by that name here. Go away, I said.”

  “Rose, it’s me, Nick. I won’t hurt you. I just want to talk.” My pleading worked. She opened the door and stood half in the shadow, the glow of candlelight behind her.

  It wasn’t Rose. I saw that immediately. This woman was Rose’s age, but her face had been shellacked by street life. Her eyes were swollen and inky blue, not emerald. There was a small scar on her nose. I could smell beer on her breath. We stared at each other.

  “I’m sorry. . . .” I mumbled to her. I was about to turn, to leave her alone, when I saw the nimbus of flame about her head.

  She started to close the door, but I stopped her.

  “What do you want?”

  “Just to talk.”

  “That’s not what I do.”

  “I’ll give you money.” I pulled out my wallet and let her see how well padded it was. Her greedy look was a For Sale sign.

  “You want to fuck me? You want some good pussy? I’ll give you the best you ever had, baby. Or maybe you want my asshole? You can have that, too. Jesus, yes. My asshole is incredible, guys say. Even dudes with real big dicks say they’re amazed at how much I can take . . . “

  I put my hand up, holding a twenty. “Let me in, okay?”

  She backed into the room, tucking the bill into her jacket pocket. I closed the door behind me.

  “So you’re a hooker?”

  “What does it look like, baby? I ain’t no call girl, am I? I’m just squatting here till I can get some money and then I’m out of here.”

  She spoke rapidly with what he thought was a Queens accent.

  “What’s your name?” he asked, when she paused for breath.

  “Call me anything you like, baby. You want to call me Rose, that’s hunky-dory by me.”

  “No. I want to know your name.”

  “Okay. My name is Jewel. That’s because I’m a diamond in the rough, everybody says.”

  He looked around the scarred room. Fallen plaster and broken boards, candles on the floor. A nest of newspapers and old blankets in one corner. Jewel lived like a rat. He thought of Rose’s immaculate loft, with its white piano. Could he have summoned up another incarnation of Rose through his portraits of her? Was Jewel the punishment for his pursuit of a ghost? The resemblance was uncanny.

  He made up his mind. “Jewel, I want you to come to my place with me.”

  She was suspicious. “Uh huh. No thanks. You want my pussy, have it right here.” Pulling up her skirt, she showed him that she wasn’t wearing underpants.

  “I’ll pay you to come home with me.”

  “How much?”

  “Hundred now, hundred when we get there. If you do what I want, I’ll give you a lot more.”

  “What kind of kinky are you?”

  “I want to paint you.”

  32

  A MOTH TO FLAME

  WHEN HE SAW Jewel naked, standing in his shower washing her hair, he trembled with excitement and recognition. Her breasts were larger, but her nipples were as pink; her flanks were longer, her hips wider, her pubic thatch blonde and thick; but if he blinked, it was Rose’s body that glistened with soap. She moaned with pleasure as the hot water stung her skin with its needles. She even grinned at him sitting on the toilet seat, holding a towel, watching her like a father bathing his grown-up daughter—and embarrassed by the awkwardness of the situation.

  “Hey, Pops,” she called to him. “What’s your thing? You like golden showers, maybe?” He shook his head and handed her the bath towel he’d been holding. “You like to watch girls in the shower, then? I mean, man, if that’s it, I’ll take all the showers you want. I like to be clean!” She wiggled herself as she dried off.

  “That’s a start,” he said dourly, wounded by her calling him “Pops.” He suddenly felt old and dirty, and—handing her a fresh toothbrush—he left, closing the door behind him.

  He made tea for them, but when she emerged, looking younger, her features softer, she laughed at the tea pot and cups he’d put out. Her body made his old bathrobe beautifully bumpy.

  She snickered with the contempt only the young can summon up for the ceremonies they consider irrelevant. “No, no, no, Pops. I don’t hold up my pinky and drink tea. Don’t you have something real? I mean, like something a little stronger?”

  He poured her a glass of tequila.

  “Don’t call me ‘pops,’ okay?”

  He said it through clenched teeth, and sipped his tea, watching her big eyes flare up as she downed the strong liquor.

  “Okay. No Pops. What should I call you, baby? And what am I doing here? Isn’t it about time we cut a deal?”

  “You can call me Nick. I am a painter. I want you to model for me.”

  “Now, tell me, why is that? I’m a banged-up scuzz bucket, frankly, Nick. Nobody wants a picture of that.”

  “You look like somebody I used to know. Somebody I used to paint.”

  It sounded feeble, and she looked puzzled.

  “All kinds of people look like all kinds of people. That’s show business. But you know what? I’m a whore. That is spelled w-h-o-r-e, you know?”

  “I’ll pay you better than you’ve ever been paid.”

  “To do what?”

  “To stay here, while I paint you. I’ll take care of you.”

  “Shit. I can take care of myself. Always have, always will.”

  She looked around my loft, stuffed with markers of the past.

  “I’ll make you up a bed. We can start in the morning.”

  “You got a television?”

  “Does it look like it? You didn’t have a television in that rat hole I found you in.”

  “You got a cigarette, then?” He lit one for her and she squinted at him through the smoke just as Rose had. “Okay. Two hundred a day, and you get me a television. I can’t sit still without nothing to watch. I’d be twittering like Tweety Bird after a day.”

  “Deal. But I want you to dye your hair. Red.”

  “What the hell for? Red’s not my color. How about blue?”

  “Red.”

  “Right.” She blew a smoke
ring at him. He sipped his tea.

  “How old are you?” she asked suddenly.

  “Fifty-one. Does that bother you?”

  “Nah. I like it. Young guys are idiotic. Old foxes like you know how to take care of a girl’s needs.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Old enough to know better, but I’m bound for hell anyhow. Don’t worry, I’m legal.”

  “How long have you been on the street?”

  “This time? I guess it’s been about a month since I got locked out of my crib in Queens.”

  “Is that where you’re from?”

  “There, here, everywhere. I get around. I’ve even been to Los Angeles.” She blew more smoke rings, then straightened up and pulled open the robe, revealing her breasts. “Don’t you like me?”

  “Oh, I like you very much.” The dirty old man licked his dry lips.

  “Then why don’t you want to fuck me? Hey, you’re not weird or anything, are you? Because if you are, our deal’s off. I need a good hard screwing on a regular basis. I guess I’m just a nympho, but I can’t get enough dick in me. You know what I mean? Guess that’s why I’m not very good at my profession. I like to give it away.”

  He cleared his throat, feeling like he was about to dive into a very deep, black well. His voice was thick when he spoke.

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “I want you to eat me, old man.”

  She squirmed on her chair and spread her legs wide, reaching between them to hold her wet pink lips open for him.

  He stuck his tongue inside and flickered it, his nose tight against the big button of her clitoris, inhaling and licking her juices, straining to get his tongue as deep in her as he could.

  “Bite me! Bite my pussy!” He sucked and used his teeth, reaching up to cup her breasts and squeeze them. “That’s good, that’s good!” she moaned. “Squeeze my tits. I’m going to come in your mouth, you dirty old man!”