1yulSVC

Elizabeth Oness
tall roll of butcher paper and black water-based paint. Along with me,
there were four other women at her apartment: two art students, Marina
and another poet. Marina pulled her shirt off over her head, and stood
in the middle of the room, naked from the waist up, slender-hipped, considering
the thick black paint. She shivered, her brown nipples growing
erect.
“Someone will have to paint it on me,” she said.
I reached for my glass of wine.
“Who’s going to do me” She smiled, reaching for a paintbrush about
the size of a ruler. She handed it to me. Trembling, I dipped the tip in
the paint then stepped toward her. I touched the delicate skin below her
collarbone. She shivered.
“It’s cold,” she laughed. “I should have let it sit out longer.”
Wet, shaking, I wanted her to myself. I was furious the others were
there. I would linger on her breasts, make her feel what I felt. I dipped
the brush in the paint and reached toward her again.
Later, I would dream it over and over: Marina painting me, the cold
black paint covering my breasts, lingering at my nipples. I woke each time,
aching between my legs, an aching that felt as if it would never be appeased.
Eleanor hears about the painting party later. The gossip filters down
through the poets and fiction writers as everyone tries to imagine it: five
women covering each other in paint, rolling their impressions onto paper
on the floor. How artistic.
When Otto comes in on Wednesday morning, the lavender circles
under his eyes are darker.
He takes papers from his mailbox, checks them carefully, then tucks
them under his arm.
“Hello, Eleanor, how are you”
“I’m fine, Otto.” It’s as if she’s running lines for a play, their words
spoken with only a semblance of emotion. She hands him his messages
and reminds him of a few departmental details.
When Katherine comes in, she’s wearing a long skirt with a slit in
the side, and through the slit, Eleanor glimpses pale goose-bumped flesh
above the knee. Knee socks. Katherine isn’t usually so inept.
“Eleanor, you haven’t heard from Marina, have you”
tahoma literary review 103