The Painter
WD February Flash Fiction Challenge — Day 5
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I looked up through my lashes at the young artist, bent over his palate, deftly blending one color with another until he’d found just the exact shade he needed. I smiled. My father had selected) him to paint this portrait commemorating my upcoming wedding to the Duke of Lexington, a middle-aged man of considerable wealth, who seemed nice enough but lacked passion.
This young man, blushing and shy, had fine features and a surprisingly athletic build for a painter. He’d come highly recommended by several other families, and the bishop, as well, whose portrait he had just completed.
He proved to be a very plodding painter — it had been six weeks already, and he still wasn’t finished with it. He insisted that he only wanted the painting to represent me well, and that such beauty was not easily captured, at which point I blushed and my father chuckled.
“Give it the time it requires, only don’t take forever. The wedding is coming soon and it must be ready by then.” With that, he left me there in his studio, alone with the painter.
I wondered why my father would leave me alone with a man, but the young man’s gentle manner must have put my father at ease — nothing to be concerned about here.
At first he’d come to our home, a sprawling manor on the edge of town, but soon the artist had complained that the light was terrible and he didn’t have all the supplies he required at hand. So my sittings transferred to his studio, and here we were, again, for the third week.
“Surely you’ll be done soon,” I complained, sighing.
He looked up at me and smiled, a dazzling smile that sent blood to tingle in my finger tips, and color my cheeks. “Alas,” he said, “I could paint you forever and never reach the end of your beauty.”
I blushed in earnest then.
“Then paint only a part and let it be enough,” I said playfully.
I hardly meant it, for I had come to enjoy out time together. Not that we spoke much. He would gaze upon me with his deep green eyes that saw me as though I wore nothing, and took in every nook and cranny of me, inside and out. I could hide nothing from his gaze and I didn’t want to. I wanted to bare my soul to him, though I wasn’t sure why. There was something about him that compelled me, that drew towards him. He set a fire in my bosom, something the Duke had yet to do.
When we did talk, it was always about mundane things — just small talk really, but every little innocent statement seemed laced with hidden meaning, hinting at something alluring, even scandalous. It thrilled me.
“I’m afraid my father is not going to endure much more of this. His patience is famously absent.”
“Are you unhappy then, to be here? Do I displease you?”
“Oh, no! No, it’s not like that! I find my time here with you refreshing and unstuffy. Everything at home is full of duty and obligation. Here, I just sit and am admired. At home, I am bartered and traded for position and prestige. Here I am just me, without demands or expectations.
“But I fear for you and my father’s wrath.”
“Your father will be anything but angry once he sees your portrait. Of that, I am certain. However, I would rather keep going until I am told I may not. But if that is not what you want, then we can finish today and be done with it. I will go away and seek another commission. Is that what you want?”
“I never said that! Let the painting remain forever unfinished, and I will grow old sitting with you as often as you’d like.”
Then I unbuttoned the top of my dress, and slid one shoulder off, revealing one delicate shoulder, and said, “Paint this.”
This is my Day Five entry to the Writer’s Digest February Flash Fiction Challenge. The prompt is “write a story about a project left half-finished.” I wrote it on the 12th, having taken the week end off. I’m behind, but fully intend to catch up.
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