Blushing, Blue Jeans, and Bloomers

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Gwen flipped the sizzling paneer cubes and stirred in pine nuts. She minced more mint for the tabbouli. A dash of lemon juice softened the bitterness of parsley. Batter for her special family recipe fig bars cooled in the refrigerator waiting for pizzas to relinquish the oven. After an absent minded wipe of the counter and a long sigh, Gwen turned off the stove and trudged to the shower. Most of the invited skipped dinner to arrive both early and hungry. They were Lloyd's problem now.

Unbearably hot water cascaded over Gwen's shoulders balanced by random puffs of chill swirling from an open window. Her shiver might be blamed on the wind instead of her anxiety. Legs wobbled and deep breaths lacked rhythm. Gwen dragged a fresh disposable razor to remove vestiges of pubic hair. Lloyd hadn't commented about her unshaven arm pits the last time, but he requested smooth skin everywhere for round two. From page-boy cut on top to the absent downy curls below, Gwen's honey blond hair nearly matched her complexion. She glanced again in the mirror. If she missed any strays, they couldn't be spotted.

"Three days ago, you wanted this," the woman in the mirror reminded. "Two days ago, you were sure it was worth it. You may even enjoy it." Gwen's body sent irrefutable evidence to her disbelieving mind. "You can do it," she said to herself, but it didn't sound convincing. "Why don't I have one of those long white terry cloth robes like in the movies?"

"Did you say something?" Lloyd called through the door.

"Just talking to myself." Gwen answered.

"Come out before the pizza gets cold."

An oversized towel wrapped Gwen three times. The knot she made between her breasts did not benefit from any cleavage to wedge it in place. Gwen observed her traitorous hand extend to turn the door knob. A select group of Lloyd's cronies awaited.

Five weeks earlier, Gwen rehearsed her apology for the rent. She was three months behind and unlikely to find enough cash by the next month either. "Always punctual," Gwen cursed at the sound of a knock. She opened the portal to a surprise. The expected building owner, a serious gray man with permanent frown, had sent a threatening letter foretelling confrontation at the appointed time. Instead, a tall dark and handsome man only a few years older than her framed the entry.

"I'm sorry to bother you," he said, "but there is a matter of the rent."

"Who are you?" Gwen asked in a meek tone.

"I'm uh, I own the building. I will own the building."

"What do you mean?"

"My father willed this building and another to my brother and sister and me, but they don't want to run things. I borrowed money to buy my siblings' shares, so I own the buildings - or, I will after I pay back the loan."

"I don't have the rent this month either," Gwen blurted.

"Listen, I'm sorry." The man seemed to mean it. "Nearly every penny of rent goes to pay the loan. I can't afford a tenant who doesn't pay rent. Your rent is the difference between me eating or not." He was skinny.

"I don't have the money. I have food though. I can feed you."

"I can't eat your food." The new landlord sounded glum. "I need you to move out, or I'll have to evict you."

"Oh, come in. I've already made dinner, and there's plenty."

The man shuffled across the threshold and peered around the apartment. "You keep it tidy," he observed.

"Thanks. The trick is not having enough stuff to make a mess."

A table for four occupied most of the "living room slash dining room" of the one bedroom apartment, but only two chairs were visible. The kitchen offered a couple of cabinets crowned by white granite between a sink and an electric oven/range. A blank patch of drywall revealed the absence of a refrigerator.

"Are you sure?" The man looked concerned.

"Sit down. Sit down." Gwen motioned to the nearest chair.

"Where is the refrigerator? All of the apartments should have a refrigerator. I think it's code or something."

"I moved it to the bedroom," Gwen confessed.

"Why? What?"

"The refrigerator pulls heat from the inside and dumps it on the outside." Gwen paraphrased her father. "It keeps the food cold and the bedroom warm."

"Yah. I don't think you're supposed to do that." The man still wasn't seated.

"I'll get you a drink," Gwen offered. "I have cold water and some flavor packets. I've got ginger, blackberry lemon, oh, and I think there may be a sour cherry left."

"No thank you." The man drifted toward the door.

"Oh sit down." Gwen seemed to scold, but it sounded more like a plea.

When Gwen returned with a pitcher and a wad of crumpled flavor packets, the seated man enquired, "What smells so good?"

"It's Libyan Pacman."

"What?"

"That's what we call it in my family. My dad creates drought tolerant crops. We lived all over the world. Libyan Pacman are potatoes. They're cut in Pacman shapes." Gwen pulled an oven mitt from the hook inside a cabinet and retrieved a casserole dish from the oven. An unusual spice aroma filled the room. "See," she said waving the evidence under the man's nose. "You cut a wedge shape out of the potato. You fill the gap with nuts and spices. Then you slice the potato into disks. Each one looks like a Pacman."

The man nodded. "Why Libyan?"

Gwen shrugged. "I don't actually know." She furrowed her brow. "I'll have to ask next time I have the chance. I don't think we ever lived in Libya."

The hot casserole landed on the table with a thunk. "I'll get some plates and forks." After a pause, she continued, "What's your name again?"

"Lloyd," he claimed.

"Have we met before?" Gwen didn't look like she thought it likely.

"No. I've been in San Francisco for school," Lloyd explained. "My father can't support his layabout son anymore, so I needed a real job."

"Did you have an unreal job?"

"I'm an Artist." Lloyd smiled for the first time.

"Wow. You're starving and an Artist. That checks out." Gwen returned his smile.

"This is good."

"Thanks. It only takes a bit of prep-time, and the ingredients are cheap. I make it at least twice a month as long as I have the spices."

"So, are you not working? How did you get so far behind in rent?"

"I work two jobs. I'm a waitress at "Twin Peaks" which is a joke." Gwen gestured to her less than ample bosoms. "I get the worst tips."

"And?"

"I'm an assistant music therapist. I help autistic kids and sometimes mentally disabled adults. Music soothes some of them, and others like playing the instruments." Gwen pointed to small wood and leather drums, some plastic recorders, and a toy xylophone all neatly stacked in a corner.

"Assistant?"

"Yah." Gwen shrugged. "A hundred thousand in debt, and I don't even have the degree."

Lloyd coughed on his Pacman. "A hundred thousand!"

"Well, it was." Gwen admitted. "I've paid about half."

"I see where the rent money goes," Lloyd grumbled.

"It's not like that! I was paying it back when I was earning more money. I haven't paid a dime while I've been trying to find rent."

"What happened?" Lloyd seemed sincerely interested.

"The county cut my hours - which wouldn't be a bad thing because waitressing pays better, but the timing doesn't work. I used to work all day with the kids and then evenings at the restaurant. Now I get a couple of mornings a week with the kids, but I can't pick up any more hours at the boob bar unless somebody calls in sick."

"Have you looked for a better day job?"

"No, Lloyd," she huffed with her hands on her hips. "I never thought of that!"

"Well?"

"I need to keep working therapy or I'll never claw my way back into the industry. I don't know when the county will schedule me, so I can't get another job if it means I'm not available when the county calls. I've applied everywhere without getting a single call-back."

"So, there is no hope you'll pay back rent."

"Probably not." She shrank into an even smaller volume of cosmos than she previously occupied. She looked at her feet.

Lloyd ate in silence for a while. He hedged, "So, you have food?"

"I buy cheap staples, and I can take some things home from work."

"OK. I'll forgive this month's rent if you promise to feed me twice a week for the next month. I still need you to pay the back rent."

"Is it a negotiation now? I counter: you forgive all the past rent, and I don't pay rent any more as long as you keep eating my food."

"No way! There aren't enough meals in a month to pay back what you owe."

"But, two meals a week is enough to forgive this month's rent," Gwen retorted.

"I'm trying to be nice about it!"

"I'm a very good cook." Gwen smiled.

"Can't you get a roommate or something to help with the rent?"

"Where would I put a roommate?" Gwen gestured around the room.

"A boyfriend?"

"Nope." Gwen's tone foreclosed that conversational direction.

"What if I move in?"

Gwen's mouth gaped. Her face clouded while the implications of the suggestion bloomed.

"Not like that." Lloyd added. "I'll take the bedroom, and you can sleep on a futon or something out here. It makes sense. I'll be here to be fed in lieu of rent."

"No."

"What will happen if you're evicted?" Lloyd sounded both concerned and threatening at the same time.

Gwen countered: "I get the bedroom, and you sleep on a futon."

"No. You have my terms. Take it or leave it."

"I don't have a futon."

Lloyd grinned. "I can supply the futon."

Lloyd proved to be an easy roommate most of the time. When he wasn't bothered by his buildings, he hid in the bedroom with the door closed. Lloyd supplied a futon, new sheets, blankets, pillows, a couple of lamps, and two more chairs for the table. He helped Gwen strip the bed and make up the futon as much as possible with Gwen's linens. He moved her scant belongings from the bedroom to the main room and suggested an armoire to store clothes. He didn't seem to have an armoire laying around though, so it would have to wait. He cleaned and maintained the bathroom. He slept most mornings, and Gwen worked every evening. They only met for dinner a couple of times a week, but leftovers from the meals he missed routinely vanished while Gwen worked, so he wasn't starving.

Lloyd left his touch on her habitat. The first change was a peep-hole in the front door. Gwen noticed a week into the roommate experiment and wasn't sure when it appeared. The refrigerator returned to the kitchen. Gwen had removed the door to the bedroom and the doors on the refrigerator to force the thing into the bedroom. When she reassembled the unit, she stripped all of the screws. It must have taken a miracle for Lloyd to move it back. Lloyd's visitors produced the biggest change to Gwen's routine. They were young, tall, thin, female, never the same twice, and in a hurry to leave whenever Gwen arrived.

When Gwen noted the pattern repeating enough times, she asked, "Where do you find these women?"

"The agents send them."

"What?" Gwen looked perplexed.

"They're models for my art. I tell an agency how many I'll hire, and the agency sends candidates until I hire enough."

"What do you hire them to do?"

"They're canvases."

"What?"

"It's my art. I paint on their bodies, photograph them, and sell the photo prints."

"What do you paint on them?"

"It all depends. Sometimes I paint landscapes or floral scenes or Op Art, but mostly I paint clothes."

"So, they're naked? Is it pornography?"

"Meh. I guess it's in the eye of the beholder. I've had gallery shows. Doesn't that qualify as art?"

"Are you doing all that here?"

"Yup." Lloyd smiled.

"That's all you have to say?"

"I haven't disturbed you. What are you complaining about?"

Gwen's voice remained level. "I don't know. I'm in a mood to stomp to my room and slam the door, except you took my room! Get out of here for a while and let me think."

Lloyd backed away with his arms raised in a warding gesture. "What do you need to think about?"

"I'm not sure how I feel about this in my home. Are you exploiting these women? I don't even know what I want to know. That's why I need you out of my hair - so I can think."

Lloyd tip-toed the three paces to his bedroom and closed the door with a barely audible click.

In the morning, the front door swung open startling Gwen where she sat sipping coffee with her back to the door. She jumped from her chair to discover Lloyd with his arms full of grocery bags. He unloaded onto the floor before Gwen had a chance to help. "You're up early! What's all this?"

"I've eaten so much of your food. It's time to replenish."

"This isn't going to add to my rent - is it?"

"Of course not," Lloyd assured.

"Why do you have so many boxes of breakfast cereal?"

"The store doesn't always carry them, so when they're in stock, I buy them all."

"Where are you going to put them?" Gwen asked over her shoulder as she squeezed the new gallon of milk into a crevasse within the refrigerator.

"I'll put a couple on the counter and the others somewhere in my room. You're welcome to try some."

"What sort of Op Art do you paint?"

"Huh. What? Where did that come from?"

"I was thinking about it last night. You said you painted Op Art on the nude women."

"It's probably easiest to show you. I'll text a link to the page for my show last year. I'm curious to hear your opinion about whether I'm exploiting anyone."

Gwen frowned. "Where do you want this?" She held a leaking bundle of butcher paper at arms length.

Lloyd bounded to Gwen's side with two strides of his long legs. "Ah. Let me get that for you. Grab some paper towels and one of the empty bags."

Gwen followed directions and watched Lloyd wipe the outside wrapping, deposit the bundle in a bag, and shove the whole bag into the freezer after extracting a package of frozen vegetables to make room. The vegetables landed with a thunk on the counter.

"We'll have to eat those today." Lloyd indicated the refugee package. Then, he collected cleaning supplies from under the sink and commenced wiping drips from the wood floor. He crawled on hands and knobby knees.

Gwen stared with astonishment at the revealed plumber's crack and the extension of long muscles. "Make sure you get all the drops. Then wash your hands."

"Of course."

Lloyd texted the link hours later when Gwen was changing into her uniform bustier for a shift. She didn't take time to study the images until her fifteen minute break at 10:00. The first few images showed clothed models, or the illusion of clothing was complete at the size and resolution of the photos on her phone. The give-away that the models were painted was not what anyone might expect. It was the mix of fashion with absurdity. One model appeared to wear a skin tight "flapper" dress from the 1920s, except her lower legs and feet were from a long legged bird. Another model appeared to wear an extremely short summer dress, except there was a head sized apple topped with auburn hair where her head should be. Studying the image revealed the painting and simulated lighting to be so exquisite that contours of a face faded and the illusion of an apple was complete.

Gwen invested nine minutes of her break studying a sequence of animal paintings. She saw an image of a lioness about to pounce. The model posed on all fours with her back arched and tail curled between the legs. Her hands and feet looked like paws. To create the illusion, Lloyd had painted a portion of wooden floor extending from reality onto the model's feet. It was difficult to spot the borders from the vantage of the camera. There was a white screen behind the model, and bright lights cast her feminine human silhouette. It didn't look possible that the figure in the foreground could have cast that shadow. The image of a lion was so convincing.

Gwen ran out of time trying to understand one of the last images. The view presented looked out from the porch of a rustic cabin into a tranquil meadow and pond. The only human figure in sight was a distant man who appeared to pee into the pond. Gwen's mouth fell open when her mind adjusted and her perception expanded to realize there was a model in the foreground. The paint and perspective deftly blended the nature scene across the body. Gwen grinned when she realized that figure in the distance covered the model's pelvis. The juxtaposition of illustrated male anatomy over the model's vulva shocked.

The bus ride home at 2:30 in the morning offered the next opportunity to explore Lloyd's work. A series showed tasteful yet sexy nudes with breasts covered by arms and hips turned to conceal genitals. Closer inspection revealed the true models posed in bland full frontal stances with shoulders and hips square to the camera. The demure images were deceptions. Again, the background seamlessly spread over then models' skin hiding any boundary with the foreground.

Gwen knocked on Lloyd's bedroom door at 3:00 but obtained no answer. The knob didn't yield to her attempted turn. Lloyd made no appearance in the morning. At least, he didn't appear before Gwen departed for an 11:00AM therapy appointment across town. At dinner, Gwen bounced out of her chair at the sound of Lloyd's door opening. By then, the photos were etched into her memory, and the lioness served as the wallpaper on her phone. Before Gwen could ask any questions burning on her lips, a statuesque nude model flowed out of the room in the artist's wake.

The model presented a tall boyish figure reinforced by a severe short hair cut. She was definitely female though. Lloyd disappeared back into his room without speaking, and Gwen introduced herself.

The model reciprocated with an insincere smile and hand shake.

Lloyd returned with a bundle of the model's street clothes which he draped over the back of a chair. "Turn around so she can see," he directed.

The model's back from the bottom her buttocks to neck displayed a scene of men playing soccer. Then, the model reached behind her back with one arm, and the scene changed into one where a ball could be seen passing just out of reach of the goal keeper. The model switched arms, and the goal keeper was shown intercepting the ball. Lloyd grinned. "I call it 'choose your own adventure'"

The model appeared bored and asked if she was done for the day.

Lloyd thanked the model and addressed Gwen while the model dressed herself. "What do you think? It's part of a new series about sports physiques."