#i’m coping by drinking coffee and singing show tunes to drown out all thoughts how about u lol

[ahappyphjl]

dawn of the final hour

[t-o-m-hollands]

Warnings: smoking, drinking and sex. Please don’t read if you are underage.

************************************************************

Paris, 1953 – artists loft.  

“Anything I should know about?” he asks, almost absentmindedly as he sets up the canvas and chooses his tubes of paint from wooden boxes filled with tube after tube of vibrant colours. Now, this would be the point where the model tells the painter that they don’t do nudes, or that they’ll need a 15-minute break between long poses, or that they’ll smoke.

“Don’t paint me in yellow”  

“You don’t want me to use yellow?”  

“That’s right, or gold.”  

He looks at you then, straight at you. Not a glance or a quick scan to see if you’ll do as the model for the day, but instead the kind of stare you imagine doctors gives a patient who shows vague symptoms when they suspect something malignant underneath. He sits down on his stool and picks up a cigarette case. With effortless grace he picks one for himself and offers another to you. Then, in true gentlemanly manners he lights you up before lighting his own.  

“Sit down” he orders, hand gesturing vaguely in the direction of the worn leather sofa. You do as you’re told and to avoid his eyes you take in the room. There’s parquet floor in oak and floor to ceiling windows standing ajar to let the fresh air in. Still, a faint smell of turpentine, oil paint and, of course, cigarette smoke lingers. Rays of the midday sun are making its way through the Parisienne rooftops outside and lights up the room. In the rays of sunlight, you can see little pieces of dust falling swiftly through the air.  

“You’d look good in yellow.”  

“I’d look good in any colour.” You puff out smoke.

A smile tugs the corner of his lips, “Yeah, I dare say you would." Then, "I thought I had met all the models of the agency, are you new in town?”.  

You nod, take another deep drag and keep avoiding his eyes, there’s an intensity in them that you can't cope with. Countless paintings are leaning against the walls, perhaps waiting to be redone, or put up, or sold. On one of them is a naked woman lounged on a divan, eyes looking directly at you. There’s an intensity to her stare, and although she is the one naked you feel strangely bare just looking at her. He’s a got talent, this painter. That much is for sure.  

“And why did you come to Paris?”  

“I didn’t know modelling involved this many questions.” You stump out your cigarette on the ashtray on the floor. “Now, how do you want me?” When he doesn’t answer, but keeps looking at you like you’re a puzzle he’d like to solve you nearly grow angry.  

“Naked? Clothed? On the sofa or standing? How do you want me Mr. Chalamet?”  

He gives you another long look before getting up and walking across the room. He pulls out a rug from a cupboard and drags it across the floor until it’s in front of you. “Get up” he orders, offering a hand to help you do so. Leading you to the middle of the carpet he then tells you to kneel. Spending some time adjusting your pose, making sure everything is just right before setting up the canvas behind you.  

“Now look at me” he directs. You obey, looking at him over your shoulder. “Yes, just like that” he confirms. “I’ll just get the shape of you, and I'll start on the face today. Next time you’ll get a robe to wear.” You nod, not knowing what to say.  

“Oh, and don’t worry” he says as he moves across the floor to the record player, “it’ll be a blue one” he adds as the first notes of ‘Stormy blues’ by Billie Holiday starts playing.    

***  

On your second session he makes you laugh. He hands you a whiskey and soda and you get undressed to change into a Cobalt blue robe. This time Sam Cooke is playing on the record player and a golden afternoon light fills the room. He paints you until the sun sets then he takes you out for dinner at the brasserie across the street. You discuss Hemingway at length, argue a little over your preference of Monet over Picasso, thought you both agree that Picasso is better than Matisse.  

It’s too early in the season to sit outdoors this late, so you’ve squeezed yourself into a corner table at the back of the brasserie. The room is buzzing, every table occupied and hurried servers are balancing trays of food and wine through the cigarette smoke filled room. Most guests are talking and laughing. Some are singing, loudly, cheerfully and out of tune.  

“You should listen more to classical music” you tell him in a mock stern voice as you sip your wine.

“Oh, should I now?” he leans back in his chair, looking as effortlessly careless and happy as you spent most your life pretending to be.  

“Yes, all this old jazz and then the modern music you’ve got going on, it’s like you’ve never even heard of Chopin”.  

He scrunches his nose in mock-disgust “Chopin?”  

You hold up a warning finger. “Not a bad word about Chopin, or you’ll finish this painting with another model. Chopin is off limits, Chopin is holy” You’re just playing with him and he knows it, he laughs and holds up his hands in defeat. “Alright, alright, I mean I guess he’s better than Liszt, but he’s no Mendelssohn.” 

“Oh, you cannot be serious, god damn Mendelssohn?”  

“What do you have against Mendelssohn?”  

“His music”  

He laughs. You laugh too. Somewhere in the city church bells are ringing.

***  

So, let’s take a second to examine the circumstances.  

Your great aunt Marguerite is, and according to your mother has always been, a true grande dame. The kind of women who has a string of lovers and admirers still at the respectable age of 85. Admirers who sends her flowers, gifts and love letters on a regular basis. Admirers who has dedicated books, paintings and even statues in her honour. She has a regular seat at the opera, only wears exquisite handmade clothing, drinks Champagne for lunch and has a bichon frisé called Coton. Her closest confidante is a perfumer who years ago created her a signature scent that only she has, which along with her bright red lipstick, she always wears. She can sing opera, speaks seven languages, danced ballet in her youth and referrers to everyone as ‘dahling”. She has been married four times. After her last husband died, (‘dahling Humphrey’) she settled down in a magnificent apartment at rue de châteaudun, Paris.

When your parents sent you to Paris, they sent you straight to aunt Marguerite, in hope that she could teach you a thing or two. Aunt Marguerite took you in with open arms and gave you a promise that Paris would teach you all there’s to know about love.  

“So, dahling” your aunt begins, throwing down her morning paper on the breakfast table. Coton is in her lap and she’s absentmindedly stroking him with one hand while the other picks up a coffee cup in the finest china from its saucer. On the table there’s steaming coffee, fresh fruit, brie cheese and just baked break from the boulangerie across the street. Everything presented on the finest of porcelain.  

“Yes, aunt?” Once when you were nine years old you had called her great-aunt and you had promptly been informed that if you ever were to call her that again you’d be stricken out of her will before you could say 'but’.  

“So, tell me about him.”

You stiffen. “What, about William?”

“No, no, no” she swats her hand in front of herself as if to get rid of a persistent fly. “Not that boy”. The amount of venom she manages to fit into a single word is truly impressive and you’re guessing it’s an ability that’s taken decades to master. Your shoulders relax, “but who then?”  

She leans over the table, a serious look in her old, sparkling eyes. “Dahling, don’t play coy, not with me”. But you still don’t understand so you just blink back at her. She sighs and leans back into her chair again. “You’ve had a flush in your cheek these last few days. You look – ” she goes quiet. “Dahling, when William left I -” but you stiffen again, decisively not wanting to talk about this. She leans closer again but this time she grasps your hand and looks at you with gentle eyes. “Dahling, I'm just saying, I had never seen you so hurt before. But I know, I know what it’s like to be burned by love and have everything you believed in ripped out of you, I know. I’ve been there too and it is a painful place to be.” She squeezes your hand gently in hers “All I'm saying is, if there’s someone out there who can put that blush back into your cheeks then I’m happy for you, cherie”.  

***

On the third session he finishes his first portrait of you. So far, you’ve not been allowed to take a single look at it. You have no idea of what to expect. He covers your eyes with his hand as he leads you to the painting.  

"Ready?"  

"No, please, I like to stand here in darkness for hours in suspension and wait." He pinches your cheek, "cheeky girl".

Then he removes his hand from your eyes and lets it settle on your shoulder instead.  

At first all you see is blue, your body covered by the Cobalt blue dressing gown against a marine background. Your skin vibrant against the abundance of the colour, eyes looking wild and fearful and full of mistrust. It looks as if you're drowning in all the blue around you, yet somehow holding yourself afloat. It's frightening, but mostly in the way he's managed to capture something inside you, something you thought you'd kept locked in, and put it on canvas for anyone to see. The only visible skin is your face and some of your shoulder, yet you've never felt more exposed.

He doesn't ask you if you like it, you don't tell him that you do, but as you both stand there and look at his creation his hand doesn't leave your shoulder.

***

A few days later he calls the agency and asks for you. He needs to paint another portrait and you’re just the model he has in mind. So, on a Wednesday afternoon with rain pouring down you rush to his apartment. In the elevator ride up to his floor you catch a glimpse of yourself in the dirty mirror on the wall. You look like a drowned cat, hair hanging in wet stripes against your face and you wonder if rushing over in such a hurry only make you look desperate.

"Oh, is it raining outside?" he asks as he opens the door to let you in, his voice dripping with sarcasm.  

"Yes, it is" you confirm, unaffected "and unless you'd like me to die of pneumonia, I suggest you lend me something to wear, or warm myself with." He looks as if he's about to say something cheeky, but instead he hurries inside to look for a towel.  

Later, you're lay on the leather worn coach, wearing only his white button-down shirt. You've dried up now, and the studio is warm and the whiskey he offered you is burning nicely in your throat. You can still hear the storm outside, but he’s put on Chopin. That warms you too.

“Oh, so the great artist does listen to Chopin after all.” You try to keep the smugness out of your voice. You fail.  

“Yeah, well, found a record for cheap.” He’s sitting on the floor, right by the sofa, sketchpad and pencil in hand. He’s sketching your face, in great detail. He says it’s for a portrait study. “It’s been growing on me”. He admits.  

“I told you” you say, looking down at him. Outside it’s dark but the entire loft is lit up by candles, casting a golden glow over you both. “Chopin is holy.”

He smiles, but keep his gaze on the sketchpad, brows knitted in concentration. You sit there, listening to the rain crashing against the window and the tones of Chopin. He starts sketching your eyes and looks up at you with an intensity in his gaze that warms you more than the whiskey.  

“Why haven’t you’ve tried to fuck me? Isn’t that what great artists do with their muses?” Maybe it’s the whiskey giving you the courage to speak, or maybe the whiskey’s just an excuse.

“Oh, so you’re my muse now, are you?” It sounds like he’s buying himself time.  

“Yes, I’m your muse now.” You laugh, “I’m your Picassos blue period”.  

He stays silent but lay down his sketchpad and pencil and drags a hand through his hair.

"I know you want to touch me. I just don't know why you're holding back".

So, he doesn't.  

***  

“Why not yellow?” it’s a tender question, asked at last. He understands the weight of this.  

You’re in his bed and you can feel his heart beat under your hand.  

“Before I came to Paris I was engaged. Announced in the papers, letters of invitation sent out to family and friends' and all.”  You stop, humiliation rising like bile in your stomach. “You know, I was always a blue girl. Some people, they shine like the sun. They are golden, sun-soaked, care-free creatures. Happy and grateful just to be alive. The life of the party. They lift up everyone around them simply by being near, their happiness is so contagious. They are yellow and golden like sunshine. Others, like me, well...” You trail of and his hand start stroking your cheek. He’s looking at you with a serious gleam, but he doesn’t push you to continue. He’s letting you take the time to tell your story.

“I’ve never been carefree. Things feel heavy for me, everything feels heavy for me” You paus again, because here comes the heaviest part.

“He met someone else. Two weeks before the wedding he came over my place, told me that he’d married her. I had been a spur of the moment sort of thing. They’d known each other as children, you see. First loves and all that. He felt happy with her, not weighted down. Who was I to stand in the way of that?”

“He said you weighted him down?”  

“Like fucking anchor, apparently.” You sigh, and you swear you can feel the sea water in your lungs. "That's why I don't want you to paint me yellow.  I'm not one of those happy, carefree girls and I’ll never will be."

You remember it vividly. How William had come over, looking handsome as ever and you had excitedly thought he’d come to discuss details about the honeymoon. He had sat you down and in ever such a gentle tone of voice calmly explained that last week he had run into a girl from his past, and in an explosion of old feelings they had decided to wed, leaving you in the ruins of the aftermath while they sailed off to America to start a new life in New York. It's a strange thing to feel hope die in your chest. To have that flicker of light somewhere between your lungs distinguished. But that’s what it had felt like. Like breathing in water. Now here you were with ocean lungs and not a flicker of hope. The humiliation had been excruciating. Everyone knew what had happened, had to know when the wedding was cancelled and a picture of William and his blushing new bride appeared in the morning paper. Your mother had been devastated, wailing all over the house that your reputation was in ruins, because who would want you now that you’d been rejected in such a public way?

Timothée doesn’t say anything, but kisses you and kisses you and kisses you until the first rays of sun light up the small, cluttered bedroom. Kisses you so softly and so sweetly it feels like artificial breathing, like maybe he’s what's keeping you alive.

***

“The rain, the whiskey, the long nights. Chopin, aunt Marguerite. The opera, Monet, Casablanca lilies.”  

Timothée looks up from his canvas. “What?”

“Nothing” you respond, careful not to move from your intricate pose on the floor. Last time you’d move a little Timothée had thrown a small fit and told you that this was the most essential part, that he had to get your composition just right, that you were perfect right now and he couldn’t miss it, and the last rays of sunrays that were painting your body were rapidly passing outside.

“No, not nothing, what was that?”  

“Aunt Marguerite says that when I'm feeling uncomfortable, or sad, or bored or angry I should count to ten things I'm grateful for. She says this is a thing to practice at red traffic lights or queues. She says this will stop me from becoming ungrateful.”

Timothée’s quiet for a beat, then, “And what are you right now? Uncomfortable, sad, bored or angry?”

“Uncomfortable”.

“Because of the pose?”

“Yes, but I know it’s important, and it’s only a few more minutes left. It's what you sign up for as a life model after all. Last week, there was this artist who positioned me with my arms up in the air, that was not fun after 15 minutes”.  

“Oh” is all he says at first, but then, as in a rush to get all the words out “I didn’t know you were seeing other artists”.

“Well” you begin “it is my profession while I'm here”. Home in London you hadn’t work. It wasn’t necessary for you to do so, and you had never felt the need for it. Here in Paris however, it was just an opportune way of meeting new people.  

“Yeah, yeah I know.” He keeps painting, and maybe it’s all our imagination, but there seems to be a new velocity to his technique.

“Timothée?”

He hums a reply, brows furrowed and eyes on the canvas.

“I’m not, you know” you trail of, “well, I'm not their muse, or anything, you know? I just sit for them. They don’t even play me Chopin” you finish in a lame attempt at a joke.  

He breathes out, seems to relax his posture a little. “Yeah, well that’s good to know”.

“Do you have?" You look at him questiongly.

“Have what”  

“You know, do you have other muses?”

“No” he says, firmly. “Well, there’s other people I paint, that’s my profession after all. But no. No one like you”.  He lays down his brush and walks over to you, offering you a hand. “Finished for today, you can relax now.” You take his hand and he help you up. He leads you to his bedroom and lay you down on the soft mattress. “Better?” He asks. “Much” you all but moan and he smile, laying down next to you.  

“Tell me a story” you request, voice barely louder than a whisper.

“A story?”

“Yes, a bedtime story”.

“Alright, once upon a time - ” You interrupt him with your laughter and he tries not to smile when he sternly says “do you want a story or not?”

He begins again, “once upon a time there was a princess and a penniless painter”.

***  

Your soft feet are moving across the ground. Penché and développé and bourrée and arabesque and pirouette. Backward and forward you move, smiling and laughing along, your pink silk dress soft against your skin. You move in and out of the sunlight chasing something no one else can see.  

And then there's him. Eyes moving between your dancing body and the canvas in front of him, a brush in one hand and a palette in the other, brows knitted close in concentration. Painting you is a serious affair. He wants to capture your beauty on the canvas, the loveliness of your movements and the softness of your pink dress but he's not even sure he can take it all in, the breathtaking loveliness of you, never mind getting it down in the brutal finality of an unmoving picture. He wishes he could paint your laughter and the way your eyes gleam with happiness. In the end a painting is just colour on a canvas, that only make sense to us, only resemble familiar things, because of how you use those colours. Light and shadow. Lovely shades of blush and orchid pink, of lavender, and ballet slipper pink are all the tools he has to capture your likeness with. But you are much more than just colours. More than your dancing movements and gleaming eyes and he doesn’t know how to mimic any of it. Still, he tries.  

Specks of colour doesn’t just adorn his palette and canvas though, but dots of paint have made its way across his fingernails. It adorns his hands and his white shirt, and a fleck of vibrant crimson even embellish the tip of his nose where he must have absentmindedly scratched himself while deep in concentration.  

“Mind playing something else than Chopin, eh?” he requests, eyes not diverting from the canvas.  

“No” you laugh. “Chopin is holy”. And even with a frown on his face he can’t help his mouth from twitching, revealing his amusement.    

“Come here, little dancer” he calls for you some moments later.  

You laugh, “tiny dancer?”  

“Sure” he laughs too “come and watch what I made of you”.  

So, you stand before his canvas and the air gets caught in your lungs and it takes you a few heartbeats to calm yourself. Pictured on the canvas is a woman. You think she’s prettier than you, loose and unbound. Yet you see yourself in the way she holds her neck and in the pretty silk dress and particularly in the eyes. For even though the overall impression of the dancing girl is a much prettier than you are, or at least much prettier than you see yourself, you recognize your eyes in the portrait. The colours are lovely and bright. It is you as he sees you.  

“So?” and you swear you can hear the tension in the short syllable. This is the first time he has asked your opinion on his craft.  

“I love it”  

***  

“Tell me that story again”.  

“What story?”  

“You know which one, the one with the painter and the princess”.  

It’s sometime later but the record player still plays Chopin. You are straddled over his lap as he lounges back in his chair. You’re sharing a glass of whiskey and ginger ale. Well, he poured one for himself and you take in from his hands to take a sip, so you’re basically sharing.  

“Again?” He asks, but he’s smiling. “Alright then, once upon a time there was a penniless painter.”  

“A very handsome penniless painter” you interrupt, taking a sip from your – his – drink. He continues, “one day he was summoned by the mighty king.” Again, you interrupt him, “and what did the king want?”  

“Quiet, my little dancer, or I won’t tell you my story” he mock-scolds, hand cupping your face, thumb stroking your cheek, staring at you in adoration. You smile even wider though you keep quiet this time.  

“The king and queen were organizing a tournament in the princess, their only child's, honour. Knights and noblemen from all of Europe were to travel long and far for even a glimpse of the princess, for they had heard of her beauty. The grand price of the tournament was the princess hand in marriage. But no one asked what the princess wanted. What she wanted was to laugh and dance and drink and to love someone and hold them close to her chest like a secret love letter. The penniless painter was supposed to capture the princess beauty, but he himself had never seen her. You see, she had been kept far from the common folk and locked in her ivory tower. She had no one, not really”.

He stops then, perhaps distracted by your hands playing with the buttons off his shirt. Perhaps distracted by your eyes and how every time you blink it reminds him of the fluttering wings of a butterfly.  

“And then what happened?”    

“And then the princess met the painter.”  

***

Next morning as you come in to the breakfast table aunt Marguerite hands you a letter and a pat on the shoulder. “I’ll be on the balcony if you need me, dahling”.

It’s addressed from home. Your parents' home. With shaky fingers and a sense of dread in your stomach you rip it open.

Dearest,

I was glad to hear from aunt Marguerite about your progress in Paris. She says your French has become quite perfect and that you are making great improvements overall. Time has flown by so quickly and February is, as I'm sure you know, just around the corner. It is, as you surely must understand, vital that you are back in London in time for the Cheltenham festival, and preferably some time before that so we can have some new frocks fitted for you. It is of utmost importance that you make a good match this year, as I'm sure you’re aware.

Your loving mother

P.S. Your father ran into Earl of Abingdon last week when he was with his son Freddie. Young Freddie asked about you. Let this be an encouragement, all hope is not yet lost.  

Let’s now examine the season.

The social season, or season, refers to the traditional annual period when it is customary for members of a social elite of society to hold balls, dinner parties and charity events. The most active part of the season is the period between Easter and when parliament adjourned for the summer, in July or August

It is a long string of gatherings which are deemed the opportune occasions to meet one's future husband or wife. It is common knowledge that if one has not made a romantic match during the season, ones hope of finding a spouse are at best none existing, and one will just have to wait until the following year. During that wait, one should work on improving oneself so that next year one will seem a good catch.  

The season is upon you.  

***

You lay in bed, wearing only the sunlight on your skin as its beaming through the open window. Outside you hear the birds. Outside you hear the traffic. Outside you hear Paris in all its roaring glory. Beneath your fingertips you can feel the stable hum of his heartbeat, and when you put your head against his chest you can hear its steady beat. A reassuring sound. A holy sound, holier than Chopin even.  

“What are you listening for?” he asks, voice amused but somnolent.  

“I was wondering, if I put your heart against my ear, could I hear the ocean?”  

“You want the ocean?” he asks, hand playing with strands of your hair, slowly combing his fingers through the tangled mess he’d created earlier.  

‘Yes’ you think to yourself. ‘Yes, I want the ocean. I want to live by the ocean with you and play Chopin every day and I want your paint-covered hands all over me repeatedly, and endlessly. I want to live like this forever, you and I, in a small loft with no musts, no trains to catch or letters burning holes in your pocket. I never want to hear a ticking clock reminding me of time wasted ever again. I just want to hear the waves crashing against the shoreline and Chopin on the record player and your voice and the things you whisper to me in the dark. I want the smell of the sea, of rum and of you. I want to live on nothing but wine and bread and fresh fruit. But most of all I want you to paint me as I am, not as you see me, I don’t care if it’s impossible’.

“I want the ocean” you confirm.

“Then I’ll give you the ocean”. He looks at you, eyes heavy with sleep and perhaps a fair share of adoration.  

You want to ask him ‘Do you see me as I really am, or have you made me up?’ You don’t. Instead you say, “Actually, I was listening to your heartbeat and thought what a blessing it is that you’re real”.

He looks at you and you can see that he doesn’t understand.  

Then he says, “I know your scared that you’ll weight me down, but if you do, it’ll be in the way a siren makes her claim on a sailor lost at sea. I don’t care, don’t you understand that? Drown me with your love, I'm lost at sea”.

When he’s asleep you untangle yourself from him, carefully so not to wake him, and make your way across the room. You take another look at him. The bed is too small really for the both of you and when he’s alone in it he can spread out, and so he does. Torso twisted so he’s laying partly on his side and partly on his stomach, arm spread out, as if he’s holding onto someone who isn’t there anymore. You close the door behind yourself when you leave.  

‘He should have painted me blue instead’ you think, exanimating the canvas. The vivid colours forming your shape are lovely, but they belong on someone else. A lively, carefree creature who don’t have ocean lungs heaving for air and a heavy heart. ‘Or better yet, he should love someone that isn’t blue’. And with all your heart you wish that person was you.  

You pick up your dress from where it lays discarded on the floor and you put it on. His cream-coloured knitted sweater lay on the floor too and you remember desperately removing it from him in order to get to the naked skin underneath. You put it on as well. It feels strangely like wearing armor. Then you put on your boots and you leave.

In the taxi the scent of Timothée surrounds you, oil paint, tobacco, rum and cashmere. The taxi stops at a traffic light and you begin counting things of which you are grateful.

Taxi drivers, Billie Holiday, warm cashmere sweaters. Cigarettes and rum. Timothée, Timothée, Timothée, Timothée, Timothée.

***

“This is the part where you tell me, isn’t it?”

“Tell you what?”

“That you’re leaving.”

You don’t say anything. Taken aback. “You are, aren’t you?” He doesn’t sound angry, doesn’t sound sad, though it’s like you can feel the weariness coming off of him in waves.

“I have to be home for the season” you explain, but it seems ridiculously inadequate and he’s just standing there, painting and not looking at you. “My parents insist, I have to make a good match, find a good husband”.  

“A rich husband, you mean”. He says it without judgment, but with a fair share of bitterness in his voice and you don’t know how to reply him because yes, that is what you mean.  

“My parents, I'm their only child. It’s on me to, to - ” but you falter.  

He sighs then, so deeply your lungs begin to ache for air as well, as if you both been under water for far too long. “I know” he says, then in another sigh “I know”.

“So, do they have anyone in mind?”

You swallow, feeling a sudden need to shuffle your feet, but you hold your pose. “Well, the earl of Abington's son, Freddie, has been mentioned as a suitable fit. We’ve known each other for years, and I know he’s always had a thing but there was always William.”

He drags a hand through his hair and sights again. Then all is quiet for a long while.

Then, as your body has begun to ache from standing in the same position for too long, he suddenly says.

“It’s just-” and he waves his hands in front of himself, as if he thinks he can catch the words that will explain how he feels from the air around him. “I just wish I didn’t know what it feels like to love you., you know? Right now, it feels like I'll carry the weight of loving you around with me for a long time to come. For a very long time to come.”  

Silence. The record comes to an end and everything goes quiet, even the birds outside has stopped singing, the traffic has gone quiet. The whole of Paris has come to a stop. Only your shallow, panic-stricken breaths and the scrape of his paint-covered brush against the canvas can be heard.

One last sigh and then,  

“and what a heavy love it is”.  

(‘He said you weighted him down?’

‘Like a fucking anchor, apparently’)

That night he fucks you with a kind a fever. He fucks you fast and hard and after you’ve cum with a half-strangled scream, one fist in his hair, he fucks you deep and slow. Both your hands are gentler with each other this time, but his eyes just as intense. Later, he kisses every part of you. Like he’s trying to memorize each inch of your body. Like he thinks you’ll disappear in front of his eyes, like sand slipping through fingers.

As you’re about to drift off to sleep, safely in his arms, you hear him whisper words into your hair, so softly you’re almost certain you’re not supposed to hear them,

“Oil paint, cigarettes and rum. Paris, Picasso, jazz. Chopin. Blue. The ocean”  

Then, in a voice so soft it might as well have been a sight,  

“you”.

***  

“I have a suggestion” he begins a couple of days later. “If you don’t like it, just tell me”.

“What?”

“I’d like to paint a portrait of you nude.”

You smile and start to unwrap your dress, “alright, where do you want me?”  

He clears his throat and looks away, shy all of a sudden “on the divan, just, you know, lie how you’d normally would lie. Normally”.

You do, trying not to smile at his uncharacteristically unsmooth self. “Like this?” you ask after you’ve positioned yourself. He looks up, bites his bottom lip and walks over to you. He rearranges you slightly, placing your hand in front of your cunt, as to cover you up. “How modest” you tease and look up at him. His cheeks are blushed but he says nothing, just sets up his canvas and paints and goes to work. Before he starts painting, he puts on the old, familiar Chopin record.

He paints in silence for a while, in deep concentration and you study him as he does. You want to remember him like this, paint splattered and in concentration, and with a hunger in his eyes every time he looks at you.

"Do you have any buyers for them?"  

"For what?"

"The portraits? Well, the ones of me"

He doesn't answer, just keep on mixing paint to get that precise shade of red he's had on his mind all day to paint your lips. You wonder if he doesn't want to answer, or if his mind is just occupied on the task at hand. Or perhaps it's rude to ask an artist about money, like asking the pope about evolution. But in the end, he does answer. Hours later while you lay on the carpet together, your head resting on his chest and his hand in your hair, his heartbeat under your hand.

"They're gonna go up for an exhibition later this month. I'm selling all of them" his thumb strokes your cheek "Well, except this one, I'll be keeping that".  

You want to ask him if he keeps portraits of all his models, if he's keeping it because he’s proud of the painting or as a reminder of the sitter. But your courage fails you and his thumb keeps stroking your cheek as you lay there in silence. There’re specks of red paint all over his hands and you find yourself wishing they’d stain you too.  

***

“I’m leaving tomorrow” you whisper out into the dark. He’s above you and you can still feel him inside you. The words have been on the tip of your tongue all evening and now they’re finally free. He doesn’t say anything but you can feel his hand gripping your hand tighter. And maybe there isn’t anything left to say. He rolls off of you and lay beside you instead, still holding your hand tightly in his, as if you were a balloon that would otherwise drift away. As if you were a lifeline out at sea.

***

In the early hours of the morning he walks you home. It’s Sunday, and the whole of Paris seem to be asleep apart from you. You are wearing his cream coloured knitted sweater and he has a painting tied up in brown paper and string under his arm. His hand is holding yours. When you’re just around the corner to aunt Marguerite’s home you panic, not wanting this to end so in a rush you request,  

“tell me that story again”  

He smiles, but its strained and his eyes are sad. “Again?”  

You nod. “Yes, give it a happy ending”.  

“Painters aren’t good with words. That’s why we paint, to express what we can’t find the words to say”. He hands you your portrait, leans in to gently kiss your cheek and whispers in your ear “keep it somewhere special, won’t you?”. Then he’s gone.

Later you unwrap the painting and place it on your bed. It’s a portrait you haven’t seen before. Shades of lemon yellow, amber, cream, topaz, bronze, sunflower yellow and gold make up your face. Around your head is something that looks alarmingly alike a halo made of yellow tulips.

When aunt Marguerite sees it, she sighs. “Yellow tulips, I see.”

“Yes” you say, suddenly feeling defensive “a cheerful colour, is it not?”

She gives you a long look. Almost apprehensively she says “perhaps so, dahling. But in the olden days it used to represent jealousy, and unrequited love.”  

You don’t know what to say, perhaps she doesn’t either, for she pats you gently on the shoulder and leaves.

It’s only later, much later, when you’re on the train back to London that you examine the back of the painting. In the corner he has written something in his signature scrappy handwriting. It takes a moment before you can make out what it says. When you do you swear the whole train can hear your heart break.

“I’ll think of you at every red light and I'll be grateful – T. C.”.  

***