The canvas had been drawn up in great detail. On the paint table beside the chair was the reference photo, the size of an A4 sheet of paper that had been computer printed on glossy paper. Connie looked back at the canvas and studied the outline carefully. “So what do you paint first?” she asked.
“The eyes,” Blake said without hesitation. “They’re the essence of your personality. If I can’t get those right, there’s no point painting anything else because no matter how perfect everything else is rendered, it still won’t be you.”
“Is that normal?” Connie wondered.
“Painting the eyes of a portrait?”
“Yes – painting the most critical part of a canvas first. I thought with oil painting – because the oils take so long to dry – that you would have to work around the canvas in a way that didn’t leave your hand smudging the areas you had completed.”
“Well, painting the critical part of a seascape first isn’t the way I ever approached a canvas,” Blake admitted. “But then a seascape is a composite of so many elements – sky, surf, waves, rocks… they all have their place. A portrait, I think, is different. I can create a seascape and change elements. I can make the sky different, or paint the rocks in a shade different to the reference photo, and no one will ever know. I think a portrait requires more precision – it’s not work for the incompetent or the fearful.”
Connie seemed to understand Blake’s explanation, but she lingered by the easel just to be near him for a few moments longer. The moment he kissed her had haunted her ever since. She still felt little flutters of her heart, like lingering tremors that follow a quake.
His fingers brushed against hers. She seized his hand and squeezed tight. “I have faith in you,” she smiled, and then began plucking at the buttons of her blouse.
Connie went to the window, carefully picked up the rose, and stood in position. The light was different now – the sun had long passed over the house and was slowly setting in the west. She took a deep breath to compose herself, then stood perfectly still.
Blake went across to the counter. There was an old paint-spattered radio on a shelf. He found a station playing classic rock and turned up the music.
“I’ll be doing some color mixing exercises for a while,” he explained. “I’ve never spent any time working with skin tones before – my palette has always been filled with cool colors. So feel free to move around if you like until I can get a handle on shades and shadows. Once I have the colors right I’ll set that all aside and begin on your eyes.”
Blake worked over the palette like an alchemist for an hour, squeezing thick swirls of paint from their tubes, mixing, and then dabbing little touches of the colors directly onto the photograph for comparison. As he worked, Connie gazed out of the window, humming contentedly along to the tunes until he was at last ready for her.
From amidst the rags on his paint table, Blake produced a pair of glasses. The frames were thick and black – the kind of spectacles worn by fashionable movie stars, or struggling authors. He set them on the end of his nose and came to stand close to Connie.
“Look at me,” he said softly.
She swung her eyes to his, lifted her face and gazed at him, her expression so open that he could see the secrets of her soul.
“You have the most beautiful eyes,” he breathed, leaning close enough to kiss her again. “They’re brown, flecked with tawny gold.”
He went back to the canvas then and snatched up the reference photo, studying it with all his attention. At last he grunted, selected a fine-pointed brush with bristles that were soft in his fingers, and began to melt paint onto the canvas.
Blake worked for three hours, absorbed in the challenge of subtly blending shades within the irises, so that time and space seemed to dissolve around him. At last when he looked up, the light through the window was no more than a soft memory of the day that had passed them by. He stood with a stiff groan and arched his aching back.
“I’m out of condition,” he grunted with a regrettable shake of his head.
Connie was impatient. “Can I see?”
She went to the canvas and stared at the eerie image – a pair of isolated eyes, painted to stunning completion, so that they looked as though they had been cut carefully from a photo and fixed to the canvas. She peered close, utterly fascinated, and then frowned. “Are the whites of my eyes really that… that grey-blue color?” there was an edge like horrified panic in her voice.
Blake laughed, and realized how much he enjoyed the sound of it in his own ears. “It’s relative, I assure you,” he grinned. “You’re seeing that color without any reference. When we look at color, our vision draws in all the surrounding shades and sort of blends them together – one tone affects those around it. So if you look at a shade of red in isolation, and then alongside, say blue, the red shade will appear different, even though it is exactly the same color.”
“Is that what’s happening here?” she pointed at the painting.
Blake nodded. “You’re seeing the whites of your eyes without any color around them. Once I get the skin tones painted in, it will make more sense.”
“And I have no eyelashes?”
“Not yet,” Blake explained. “That’s the type of fine detail added at the end of the painting when the flesh around your cheeks and brow are dry.”
Connie nodded thoughtfully and then once again looked up into his face as if now seeking some kind of assurance. “Are you happy with it?” she asked, because it was the most important question of all – the only one that mattered to her right then.
Blake considered the question gravely, narrowing his eyes and inspecting the afternoon’s work one last time with a critical glare. “Yes,” he said at last.
34.
The sunset was masked by dark boiling clouds that came in from the ocean, so that night fell early and thunder rumbled across the sky. A howling wind clawed along the exposed beach, bending the long grasses and shredding the leaves from the trees. Blake stood on the shore with his shirt flattened against his chest and the sand blasting like a thousand tiny needles against his exposed skin. He set the rose into the surf and came away from the churning waterline with the gusting gale pressing like a hand in the middle of his back. A flash of lightning tore the sky apart so that for a split-second he could see the silhouette of Connie and Ned, close together, waiting for him.
They went up through the narrow trail side by side and reached the shelter of the porch before the first drops of rain fell.
“This is just the start of what’s about to come. It will get worse,” Blake said ominously.
A jagged blue fork of lighting shredded the night, seeming to touch the far horizon, and beside him Blake felt Connie tremble with the sudden cold. He put his arm around her and they went inside, closing windows throughout the house as the rain became a constant drumming.
For hours the storm seemed to ebb and flow, crashing down with furious violence and then relenting to an eerie stillness, before coming back once more, with a roar like a wounded beast. Connie fried eggs in the kitchen, glancing out through the window as wind-whipped debris was dashed against the house and the rain at the glass sounded like flung gravel.
At nine o’clock, Ned rose from his bed and went out onto the porch, his eternal vigil begun for the night. Connie glimpsed him through the door, the big dog as docile and unmoving as a sphinx.
“Shouldn’t you call him inside,” Connie fretted. She went to a window and pressed her nose to the glass, watching the Great Dane as rain poured from the flooded guttering and spattered the dog until he was soaked and shivering.
“He won’t move,” Blake said simply and then felt compelled to explain to take the harshness from his words. “This isn’t the first storm we’ve had here, Connie. The dog is stubborn. His loyalty won’t allow him to forsake Chloe, not even on a night like this.”
He brought the old radio from the studio and they turned the music up to drown out the drumming roar of the rain, th
en sat on the couch together, discovering the novelty of their closeness. Connie’s hands rested in her lap, Blake’s arm relaxed around her shoulder. She was leaning against him, her cheek pressed to his chest, lulled by the steady sound of his breathing, while outside the world seemed torn apart by the terrible fury of nature.
An old rock song came on the radio and impulsively Connie leaped to her feet. Uninhibited, she began moving to the beat, swinging her hips and swishing the long mane of her hair with her eyes closed, as though she could feel the rhythm of the music flow through her body. Blake watched with dignified restraint, rejecting her invitations to join her, delighting in the liquid way her body moved and the free-spirited joy that showed in the smile on her face.
By the time the song ended, the storm seemed once again to have relented. The rain became steady and the wind across the beach faded to an undulating moan. Suddenly the music sounded painfully loud. Blake came up from the sofa, turned the radio off, and took Connie’s wrist. He pulled her close so that she gasped in surprise.
For an instant they stared into each other’s eyes, and then they kissed again.
Connie’s arms went around Blake and she ran her splayed fingers up his back. Blake cupped Connie’s face within the palms of his hands and felt the tantalizing flicker of her tongue across his lips. Their mouths opened and Connie whimpered deep in her throat. She dug her clawed nails into the broad of Blake’s shoulders like a cat responding to a caress.
“I want you,” Blake murmured, his mouth sliding down her throat so that she could feel the delicious rasp of his stubbled chin and cheeks against the soft exposed skin. She arched her spine with a voluptuous shudder, bent backwards by the sudden intensity of his desire, and she was panting with her own desperate need. Her eyes were closed, her lips parted. She gasped when Blake’s fiery kisses hunted down to the deep V of her collar. She felt his hands everywhere, exploring the curve of her breasts and the narrowness of her waist – and she wanted more.
Connie tore her eyes open, planted a hand in the middle of Blake’s chest. Over his shoulder she could see the long corridor leading to the bedroom.
“I want you too,” she groaned with a sound of torn frustration. “But not here, Blake. Not yet.”
He sobered suddenly, the mist clearing from his eyes. They were both still panting, but his arms about her slackened and Connie kissed him again in reassurance.
“When the house is a little less sad, I promise,” she whispered, her voice still hoarse and shaking with lust. “I just want our first time to be a new moment, not have the happiness of it tinged by the shreds of your sadness. Not the first time…”
He frowned, yet seemed to understand. Light and laughter were coming back into the house, yet still there were dark unfiltered corners. He set his jaw determinedly.
“I want you,” he said again.
“And I want you,” Connie whispered desperately. “But…”
He covered her mouth with a kiss so fierce and fiery that Connie felt her bones go soft, her body melt. The scorch of his lips seemed infused with an intensity that stole her breath away. Then, quite suddenly, Blake scooped her up in his arms and held her across his chest. Connie threw her hands around his neck, torn between her desire and her willingness to please him.
“Blake –”
He covered her mouth again, stifling her protest, until she fell silent into breathless pants. “Woman, you talk too much.”
Blake went to the door with Connie in his arms, swung it open with his foot and walked out into the storm-torn night. Ned was on the porch. He did not move. Blake went down the steps and strode broad-shouldered towards the beach. Lightning flashed again, brightening the shore with a flicker of dazzling glow so he could see the narrow path and the outlines of the trees.
Drizzle spattered their shoulders, then thunder rumbled and rolled across the sky. The heavens opened, soaking them so that their clothes clung drenched to their bodies and rain streamed from their faces.
Blake carried Connie down to the beach. The sand was hard under his feet. The wind had died to a whisper and in the darkness he could hear the pounding rumble of the waves as they burst upon the shore. The ground seemed to hum with the vibration of the surf’s fury.
Blake peeled off his sodden shirt and laid it on the ground. Connie sank to the sand and Blake stood over her for an instant, bare-chested. He lifted his face to the stormy sky and let the rain wash over his face and chest, and Connie caught her breath. He looked like a Norse god, risen from the sea, born of the storm. His body was glistening as if oiled, the muscles in his shoulders and arms standing in proud relief while the clouds swirled about him and the sky was lit with its awesome wrath.
He dropped into the sand beside her and suddenly she was alive and passionate within the strong embrace of his arms. He tore at her blouse and Connie encouraged him with feverish pants of breath. She arched her back, lifted her mouth up to his, and pulled him down onto her with a kiss that seemed filled with a passion and emotion that had been wrenched from her very soul.
They made love in the crashing tempest, and each erotic moment seemed lit by a flash of lightning that seared the images forever into Blake’s mind. He saw the curve of Connie’s throat, her head thrown back and her eyes screwed tightly shut with delight. He saw the sway of her breasts and the delicate hardened nubs of her nipples as the downpour spilled in glistening rivulets across her undulating body. He saw the wanting in her eyes, burning as fierce as his own – and then he felt the urgency in her, and the welcoming warmth of her when at last there was nothing between them. She lunged with her hips to meet him as they rocked together in a timeless rhythm that was as old as the crashing sea, as urgent as the beat of the universe.
The rain drummed on Blake’s back, and the storm roared its fury across the sky until at last the night began to clear and the first stars hung bright overhead. Their cries lapped and eddied together, rising and falling, until the thunder crashed one final rumbling time, so loud as to cover their strangled groans of ragged release.
For long moments afterwards they lay still under the stars. Connie turned her face slowly to Blake’s and he could feel the lingering shudders of her breath on his cheek. He kissed her tenderly, and she curled up in his arms. He kneaded her back with strong fingers and then she rolled away again, one hand thrown languidly across her naked belly. She had never felt such intensity of emotion before and she lay there floating dreamily in astonishment and wonder. She could still feel the press of his body, her flesh still smoldered from the flames of his touch and not even the spattering rain could extinguish the burn. She closed her eyes, savoring the sensations as though it were a moment to be cherished.
Blake propped himself up onto one elbow and stared at Connie with dark contemplative eyes.
She sensed the heat of his gaze and turned her eyes toward him. She tried to smile, but her lips were trembling and shaky. “What do you see?” she asked softly, her voice a low self-conscious husk.
“I see beauty,” Blake’s voice was raw. He traced his finger delicately along her eyebrow. “The most beautiful woman I have ever laid eyes on.”
She smiled but it was a shy little thing that she could not hold on her lips because she did not believe him. She glanced away, but he cupped her cheek in his palm and turned her face back.
“I have spent endless hours studying your face and taking photos of you,” Blake said solemnly “and yet I don’t think I ever saw you quite as clearly, or as perfectly as I see you right now.”
35.
For the next fourteen days Blake worked on the portrait and each brush stroke bled with his passion and skill. Slowly the image began to take form and substance before his eyes, and after the first few days of methodical plodding, his skills came back, honed and sharp, and the deftness of his touch returned. He began covering the canvas after each session in the studio, sensing the magic of emotion that seemed to infuse the work, and Connie pouted and pleaded, then gave up with a petulant h
uff, accepting that she would not see the painting again until it was complete.
He worked at the easel during the day, when the sun was bright and warm through the window, and then in the afternoon Connie would coax him from the studio, out into the afternoon. They ran on the beach, splashing in the surf, and then fell to the hot sand gasping and laughing with Ned circling, happy to share in their joy.
They explored the rocky cliffs at both ends of the beach, scrambling over the craggy outcrops until Connie’s skin colored to honey and the soft freckles across her nose glowed like flakes of gold.
One afternoon they found a secluded rock pool with the water as deep as their waists, and they waded into the sun-warmed ripples and embraced beneath the afternoon sky. Connie peeled off her t-shirt and the soft skin of her breasts, untouched by the sun, was a stark contrast to the polished amber of the rest of her body. Blake bowed his head to her nipple and she guided him down with her hands, a husky moan of contentment humming in her throat. He wrapped his arms around her and traced his fingertips down the arch of her spine, his touch fluttering at first and then bolder. Connie felt her legs tremble and her whole body began to undulate and thrust against him.
They made love in the long grass of the headland and then lay in the shade when the sun became too hot, lazy and loving and watching on in idyllic bliss while the sunshine glinted the horizon line into a string of sparkling diamonds.
On another day they went walking with a picnic basket into the dense pine forest that backed onto the house, and Blake led Connie to a secluded glade. The sun sprinkled light though the canopy of the trees and the air was thick and humid. Faint on the air they could hear the distant drum of the ocean, but it seemed and sounded a million miles away.