EXCERPT
‘Don’t you have a heater?’ Lily was lying naked on a worn chaise longue with a gossamer thin veil artistically draped over her.
‘Heat burns out creativity.’ Rainer was sitting on a stool with a large pad on his lap, drawing Lily with a stub of pencil.
‘Am I to freeze my nether regions just for a sketch? I thought I deserved oils.’
‘First, liebling, I make sure I have all the correct proportions in pencil before I commence with charcoal, unless you want to have große Brüste und fette Oberschenkel.’
‘I think I’ve been inoculated against that!’
‘You are very funny.’
‘My mother told me I have a queer sense of humour.’
Rainer got up from the stool and placed the pad and pencil on the seat. He looked at Lily and she felt a surge. Since that amazing night, she had acted upon many urges alone in her room, then had knelt by her bed to pray for forgiveness. In her former school, Miss Rooney had made it clear that self-gratification was against the teachings of Christ.
‘As for adultery and fornication,’ Miss Rooney had said, ‘they are an abomination and will send you straight to hell.’ She had slammed the palm of her hand down on her thigh as she paced about and eyed the young girls seated before her. Young girls who had yet to experience their first period and were still reading books by Enid Blyton.
Well, Lily thought, hell it shall be because she was hooked on the greatest drug of all and despite her belief in God, she would rather face His wrath than become a dried-up old prune like Miss Rooney.
Rainer knelt in front of her, and she felt his warm tobacco breath… so intoxicating. ‘You are beautiful,’ he said.
‘Make love to me,’ she whispered.
‘An artist sleeping with his model is a cliché, is it not?’
‘Call it the Spark effect.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Muriel Spark… she wrote The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. It’s a novella set in a girls’ school. If they ever make it into a film, I want to play Sandy.’
‘Sandy?’
‘She’s the smartest girl in the Brodie set and has an affair with the art master.’
‘Who is very handsome, no doubt.’
‘Of course. Unfortunately, Sandy ends their affair and becomes a Roman Catholic nun.’
He chuckled. ‘Is that your destiny?’
She shrugged. ‘Que sera, sera, whatever will be, will be.’ She let the veil slip, exposing a youthful breast. ‘My fate is in your hands.’
He repositioned the veil and stepped back.
She forced a smile. ‘So, it’s a nunnery for me then?’
He looked at her. ‘I cannot imagine loving anyone more than I do you.’
‘What about Sylvia?’
‘She saved my life and has given me a future out of reach of the Russian bear.’
Lily wrapped the gauze tightly around her and stood. ‘I’d better go.’
—
The 60's were fabulous for me.
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