19 - Drawn to the Neighbor #2
I was about to say, “I know,” but I managed to stop myself in time. I didn’t want him to think that I was stalking him.
“I just thought I’d welcome you to the neighborhood. I thought it was about time,” I said and flashed a nervous smile at him.
He slanted his head and looked at me curiously. “Are you all right, Caitlin? You seem a little on edge?”
“I’m fine.” I smiled again. “It’s just that it’s my birthday and, well, I tend to think the older you get, the harder birthdays become, because you know you’re going to get fewer of them.”
This brought a grin to Rick’s face. Now that I was closer, I could see that his eyes were a deep brown, intense and alluring, almost as though I was staring into the face of eternity.
“I stopped paying attention to that sort of thing a long time ago. The only time I worry about my age is when I’m filling out official forms, and I try to do that as little as possible. Then again, I’ve never really paid much attention to age. I’ve always had an old soul.”
Spoken like a true artist, I thought.
“I suppose, since it’s your birthday, I should give you a present,” he said.
“Oh, you don’t have to do that,” I replied, but he was already tearing the drawing away and handing it to me.
“I’m afraid it’s not my best work, but I hope it will suffice.”
I held it in my hands, and tears stupidly came to my eyes, for it was the only birthday present that I had received. I did not tell him that, though, for he must have already thought I was a pitiful figure.
To my dismay, he was rising.
“It was a pleasure to meet you, Caitlin. I hope you enjoy the rest of your birthday, and I’m sure I’ll see you again soon.”
I was tempted to call out to him and ask him to stay, but the words lodged in my throat. I found myself unable to speak.
Not wishing to remain standing out there like a weirdo, I returned to my apartment and examined the drawing in more detail.
The pencilwork was intricate and elegant.
For such a monochrome picture, it burst with life.
I could hear the rustling of leaves when I looked at the trees, while the grass seemed to sway even though the picture was still.
My gaze drifted across, toward the building in the corner, to the small piece of my home that he had captured that crept into nature. As I looked deeper into the picture, I noticed a particular detail that caught my eye. Behind the net curtain, there was a figure.
I gasped and dropped the picture in shock.
He had seen me.
All this time, he had seen me standing there, looking at him. I wondered if he thought it had been only a matter of time before I had approached him.
***
It was a few days before I saw Rick again. Being around him had triggered something inside me, this bubbling, simmering energy that lanced through my body. I couldn’t quite keep it under control. I had no idea how it was going to express itself, only that I needed to be around him again.
I was trembling as I walked downstairs. He smiled when he greeted me, as he had before.
“I was wondering when I was going to see you again,” he said. I couldn’t tell if he was pleased or disappointed that I had turned up.
“What are you working on?”
“Just taking in the scenery,” he said. He made a gesture with his arm that swept around the horizon, but his gaze was locked on me. I felt the intensity of it boring into me, as though it was a drill that was getting to the molten core of my soul.
The way he looked at me made it feel as though he was peeling all the outer layers of me away, getting to the inner part that was most sensitive.
I had spent so many years protecting myself and keeping myself hidden, but this man was undoing all that work in such a short space of time.
I had no idea how he was capable of such a thing, and I wasn’t sure I wanted him to stop.
We chatted idly, mostly empty small talk to fill the silence. Then he turned to me abruptly, and the tone of his voice changed.
“Have you ever modeled for anyone before?”
“Modeled, as in for pictures?”
He nodded. “In art, we technically call it posing, or sitting.”
I blushed. “No, I can’t say that I have.”
“Would you like that to change?”
My heart caught in my throat. I couldn’t actually believe he was asking this of me.
“What? Really?”
“Yes. I think you have a kind of classical beauty that deserves to be captured. The proportions of your body are also aesthetically pleasing, in an artistic sense, of course,” he said. There was a teasing hint of a smile upon his face, and I felt a burning heat rushing through me.
I had never done anything like this before, and my natural instinct was to run away and burrow myself to safety like a scared rabbit, but I felt as though I couldn’t deny him what he wanted.
He possessed an element of control that utterly ruined me, so I found myself agreeing.
I assumed that he would have wanted to do it at a later date, but he actually asked me to go up to his apartment immediately.
I was stunned, but I could not think of an excuse.
***
Rick’s apartment was clean and neat. An air freshener filled the room with a lavender fragrance. A plush couch sat in the corner of the room, while a soft throw rug was on the floor. He sat on the couch and then told me to sit in the middle of the room.
He commanded me in a few different positions. I was nervous at first, but I eased into it and, soon enough, it became natural to obey him. He kept glancing up at me, and I loved every moment when his gaze was upon me.
His hand worked furiously, marking the paper with his sketched lines.
I tilted my head to the side when he asked me to, allowing my hair to fall across my face like a golden veil.
I leaned forward, pressing my arms together to accentuate my cleavage.
I parted and pursed my lips, almost as though I was giving him a kiss.
He told me that he was going to do one drawing that was accurate to life, and one that was a flight of fancy.
I couldn’t wait to see what his imagination conjured.
An electric sensation surged through me as I posed for him. He had the strangest ability to put me at ease and set me on edge at the same time. I wasn’t sure how he did it. It was tempting to think that it was something that came with experience, but I could never see myself having the same talent.
I wasn’t sure how long I sat there for him.
As he drew, we spoke about all kinds of different things.
He told me how he had dropped out of school, much to his father’s disappointment, and struggled along until he managed to make a career out of art.
He was single-minded and determined, qualities that I could not help but admire.
He said that, at one point, he could never have imagined himself owning a place before.
I told him that I had only managed it thanks to the inheritance that my parents had left me. The conversation turned to them.
I spoke about how I felt I had disappointed them and how empty my life was.
He listened and made no judgments, and I kept talking.
It had been a long time since I had poured my heart out like this.
The last man I had trusted with all of these things had betrayed me, but once the words began flowing out, I could do nothing to stop them.
By the end of it, I ended up confessing that what I truly wanted was for a man to simply tell me what to do.
My cheeks flushed a deep crimson as I realized I had revealed something deeply personal.
I stammered and lost the small amount of poise that I possessed, and quickly tried to recover.
I asked him about his love life, hoping that he might in turn reveal something about himself that would put us on equal footing.
He did not.
But he did say that he wasn’t currently seeing anyone.
“I find it difficult to find someone who I can connect with. I find, as I get older, that my tastes are more … discerning.” He chose the word carefully and looked at me directly as he spoke.
I wondered if I fit his needs, or if I was just something to pass the time.
No, I told myself, he must have had a reason for asking me up here. He didn’t strike me as the type of man to waste his time on someone whom he had no intention of doing anything with.
Then I started to wonder what he would do with me. I imagined his strong hands tossing me onto the bed, the weight of his masculine body upon me, his hard hips thrusting and sending me to heaven as he fucked me.
It felt as though I was halfway there already.
Heat prickled all over my flesh, and something twitched inside me, as though it was coming alive.
There was nothing I could do to stop it.
There was nothing I could do to change what was happening.
He must have seen it on my face. He must have seen something, for what he said next was something that nobody would ever say unless they already knew what the response would be.
“Take off your clothes.”
***
My throat ran dry. The words rushed around me like a gale. Had I misheard him? I told myself not to be so foolish. Now was not the time to be shy. Now was simply the time to obey.
He looked at me expectantly.
With a trembling hand, I reached up and pushed the strap over my right shoulder.
Then I pushed the strap of the left one away.
My shoulders were exposed. I shrugged the dress off.
It fell to the floor. I stood up, and it continued to fall, as though a curtain was being dropped and a performance was going to be revealed.
I was left standing in white underwear, a lace pattern sewn into the soft fabric.
A line of freckles ran down the middle of my body, like a constellation of stars.
My round breasts rose dramatically as my breaths were deep.
The hammer beat of my heart rippled through my entire body, and in the shadows between my legs, a warm wetness simmered, as though a geyser was about to erupt.