Mute Nudes

From Chapter 10. Scream

Reclined on the sofa, her naked body conjured up a painting she had seen at Prado Museum — La Maja Desnuda. Maja looked like nothing she had imagined painters at that epoch would choose to depict. Maja’s was too modern a body, too slim, too tight-fleshed. But too modern yet seemed to be Velázquez’s Venus, maybe Carola’s ideal of feminine beauty. Carola found herself ridiculous to lie sprawled like that, when she was neither a Venus nor a Danaë, that beautiful Danaë painted by Chantron. Another Danaë then came to her mind, to ease her choice, a Danaë unconsciously waiting to be impregnated. Thighs thick, eyes closed, Carola looked just like her.

Right in that very moment she felt the instrument of impregnation on her own flesh. Bulky and bold. Paul was above her, with one hand pressing against her copious hip.

She immediately woke up to mighty reality. “What are you doing?”

“Making, Carola — love to you.”

“I feel awkward.”

“It’s that music. Come back to me, please.”

“I will, Paul. But not now, I don’t feel myself like doing this.”

“I thought you were just doing this.”

“Your thought, and my thought, they are two different things.”

“I want us to be one again. Are you still mad with me?”

“Not at all, no. I think it’s myself. I need a little time by myself.”

He climbed off her body — thank God, she said inwardly — and sat on the next cushion. The darkness in the room had become eerily familiar. A sense of power came over her, although she was stark naked.

All of a sudden, Paul hauled his hips, tucked his shirt in his pants, and pulled them on, decent again. He then straightened his long frame pushing his nape against the back pillow and got busy with his hands on his crotch.

Carola sat bolt upright on her cushion. “What are you doing?” she asked flat on the spot.

“Zip up my fly.”

“Right. That you should do.”

“No, it’s not right. This is not what a man does.”

She felt a little at fault. It had been a night so fantastic, after all. Tame, she asked, “What does a man do?”

He turned to her, searched for her eyes, took her hand in his lap, and just as she suspected again he was up to some dirty male business, she felt her mouth kissed softly and short. Paul was keeping her hand between his hands. He gave her lips one more kiss. It was then when she wondered if she should let herself be a Venus again.

Still holding her hand, Paul rose to his feet, upper body bent forward. He pecked her on the cheek and said, “I must be going.”

“So soon? We can talk, if you want.”

“You need to rest. We’ll talk tomorrow, if that’s okay with you.”

“Tomorrow, yes.”

He said good night and left, leaving her nude mute on the settee. Danaë waiting.

• #beauty
• #Danae
• #female nudes
• #feminine
• #naked
• #novel
• #nudes
• #painting
• #Venus