Pigmalion

A painter sat, brush hanging still in the void between his eye and his canvas, alert, waiting. His tool did not move, did not even waver with the trembling of his arm, so long inert. The upheld wrist seemed frail, silhoetted against the fading daylight that ebbed through the gray drapery. To remain so perfectly immobile seemed a feat of practiced strength, indeed, a talent born of forced necessity. For a long time, the man remained thus, back straight, neck arched, head cocked, chin held aloft, stolidly eyeing the canvas before him and anticipating his move. Some industrial shadow crawled across the bridge of his nose as the moments slid by, tracing the solid lines framing his mouth, festooning his bare upper lip with an obscure, impermanent moustache. Maroons and deep golds swooped across the background in a dark maelstrom of color; the painting could be finished in a matter of minutes, should the proper muse inspire him. He quelled his frustration, stilled himself, willed it to be; the focus yet eluded him. The man reached into his memories, grasped at his hardest emotions, reached inwardly for anything, anything—

As instantaneous as a camera flash, as quickly as the wait had been slow, an image of the fully satisfied painting exposed itself before him. Within half a second his brush swiped at a pot of color and transcribed furious scrawling lines to the bereft canvas. Madness filled him. Mere lines elongated into legs, arms; slabs of color formed themselves into a face, a crown, a hand, a shock of hair. Pinpricks of red and white blushed into cheeks, while grays and mud-browns striped slack calves. Slower strokes curved into breasts and thighs, slight hips and round shoulders, while swifter ones stabbed into being the elbows, knees, pointed feet, and sharp ankles. The flames of creation consumed him.

There came a time when the heat of fervor fled his body, when he allowed himself to yet again feel hunger gnaw at his belly and the breeze chill old sweat upon his brow, a time when the brush slipped from his spent fingers and he slumped back into his creaking chair, heaving a breath, staring out from under heavy-lidded eyes at that which creative fever had accomplished.

She was perfect. Her head lolled against her chest in supine comfort, cradled at an angle by her stark collarbone and pillowed by the shrug of one breast. As though it had tired of its eternal pin-up position, the right arm had relaxed, and in doing so caused the body to lean towards it and its leftwards partner to strain with the burden. Her bramble coronet pricked gently at her forehead, too gently to break skin, and her nakedness was eclipsed by the pastoral innocence of her character. She looked in a state of divine repose, a woman caught sleeping in midair. She was seraphic, she was pristine, she was terrible in her acquiescent torture. She invoked a sickened feeling in the throat, an ache that remained long after the gaze turned upon a more fortunate scene. All of this the man saw in his painting. The briefest twitch of a smile, the likes of which had taken leave from his face long before, creased the corners of his mouth, though he quickly resigned it into an expression of pursed lips. Deep satisfaction blossomed from his core, warming him; ignoring the earthly demands of his body, the old painter pressed his chin to his chest and abruptly sank into sleep.

The following weeks proved both hearty and harrowing for the man. He forsook his human needs and tended urgently to those of his creation. Gallery after gallery he called upon, his words insistent, his utter commitment persuasive. “You must, you must,” he insisted again and again, describing in detail his masterpiece. The answer remained consistent: a single painting did not constitute a show. The impetus grew stronger with each rejection, and following every disappointment, a credulous canvas met a violent end. He parodied The Last Supper, his woman generously buttering Peter’s bread and pouring goblets of burgundy wine. His modification of Michelangelo’s The Creation featured a voluptuous she-God, clad in mere scraps and being borne up by a troupe of lewd harlots, stretching an earnest bejeweled finger towards his reclining woman’s limp hand. Systematically, the old man wrought the works of old and integrated his original woman into each, and following each exhausting session, he fell into a state of physical depletion. His collection grew, and as such, the clamor for his pieces became a deafening roar.

His calumnious assault upon the Renaissance earned him the nomenclature of “Degeneraissance Man,” a title he sanctioned with an inclination of his frangible skull and a small frown. Women reviled him, branding him as a sexist, while older connoisseurs shook their heads at the man’s blatant disregard for sanctity. And despite the outcry against his erstwhile creations, his paintings sold, and sold well. Though rarely accepted, commissions flew at him daily. He could now afford an honest studio, rather than a dusty corner in a decrepit gray apartment; should he desire them, he could acquire new, quality paints, brushes of sable and oak, gallery-grade canvases, a fine, sturdy easel. For the first time, ease tickled at his fingertips, awaiting his beckoning call. He wanted for nothing, nothing. The old painter was fulfilled in a manner that few artists know in a lifetime: he was recognized, he was well-off, he was, in fact, living a dream.

All things awaited him, save one. And so it was that a certain evening, after barring his studio door and shrugging an elbow-patched cardigan over his shoulders, his wayward feet carried him away from the well-worn direction of home and towards the darker, damper city innards.

Streetlights dappled the old painter with their wan glow as he made his way down the puddled avenues. Though he had never before frequented these parts, he had caught snippets of conversation from the younger men in his circles, implications of sin for sale and the insinuation of a very enjoyable time for a price that, yes, even a starving artist could afford. The whorehouse loomed suddenly to affront him, and he coughed the rattling cough of an old man as he knocked twice and gained entry.

Women, dozens of women lounged haphazardly about the interior. Some rested their ample bosoms upon drear cherrywood banisters, hanging disinterestedly; some leaned lazily on worn couches and loveseats, idly twining greasy pieces of hair or fingering drab ribbons; still others were seated at tables, playing at cards in the dim light or downing shots of liquor as they sank into their nocturnal stupor. It was perhaps the unfortunate side effect of a life spent in solitude and creative contemplation that the old man had little experience in such matters. He could wield a brush with far more skill than he could wield himself, and his throat was as tight with panic as his trousers were with expectancy. His gaze spanned the room and fell upon a petite, rather plump young lady perched upon the arm of a chair. Her body and manner of dress was not so inviting to him as the amiable expression she wore, and with a maladroit nod, he allowed her to lead him into a room.

Perfunctorily, the woman requested her payment—politely, almost businesslike, he thought to himself—and proceeded to disrobe unceremoniously. She arranged herself on the slight bed provided and as he fumbled with his buttons he wondered at what was about to occur. His trousers fell to his ankles and, with an abashed expression, he glanced to see if she had noticed his inelegance.

Her body spread before him like a ready palette. A mound of fleshy hip drew his immediate gaze, and the old painter’s eyes wandered over the cellulite-dimpled thighs that tapered into a concave knee, only to triumphantly rise again into a long, smooth calf with a swollen bump of an ankle. Her feet were square and wide and pleasantly geometric. Taking in the whole of her, he noticed that her abdomen, though round, was a nearly perfect sphere, her navel a mere satellite caught in the orbit of her wondrous girth. She was the manifested daydream of any surrealist, and as he gazed upon her in the delighted awe of an old man realizing his last great life’s work, she glared at him. Even her porcine eyes, dark cut slits in the soft moon of her face, were splendid. The old painter smiled, a true smile now that made use of the deep lines around his mouth, and reached for the brush in the back pocket of the trousers heaped about his skinny ankles.