At the art gallery. (day, paintings, American, work)

[Angel Calzadilla]

I was in the city on business. I travel a lot out of the country and, while the spectre of airports and airplanes no longer excites me, I confess to enjoying being in a place far from home, staying alone in a hotel, having my choice restaurants at which to eat, and being responsible only to myself for my time once the work day (and sometimes work night) is finished. I like the freedom, the sense of possibility, and, yes, the erotic feeling of a city at night.
My hotel of choice in this particular city is very elegant, stylish, yet on the edge of the more respectable side of town. Not more than a couple of blocks in the other direction, there is an edginess to life after dark, a feeling of vague menace combined with a kind of bohemian sexuality in the sights and sounds of the streets. It is perhaps a little dangerous but not so much that I don't always venture into this part of time at the end of the day, looking for a new place to eat and just letting myself slip into the demimonde, the shadowy embrace of the "other side of town".
That is why at just after 10 that night, I was coming out of a small tavern. I had had dinner there, a fusion meal of European and Asian cooking whose smell as I walked by the open door and windows had been too overpoweringly delicious to resist. I decided to walk for a few blocks along that particular street before swinging back in the direction of my hotel. Tomorrow morning would come early and so would the business meetings I had to attend. I didn't intend to be out late but as I arrived at the corner of two small side streets, I saw that on the kitty corner, there was a low yellow glow in a small place at street level I had never seen before. I thought it must be a new bar or restaurant and went diagonally across without there being any traffic at all at this hour. The windows were drawn with curtains so that I couldn't see inside, but the door was open, even at this late hour, and I stepped into the space beyond it. It was not a restaurant, or bar, or shop. It was a small art gallery of a kind I had never seen before. It occupied a space of perhaps 6 metres by 6 metres (or as I translated in my own mind by force of habit after many years of doing business around the world, 20 feet by 20 feet for my American friends).
On its plain bare walls were perhaps 20 paintings, typically large canvases though a couple of them were smaller and paired in a couple of places on the wall. The first thing that struck me was the vibrancy of the colour palette and the insanely bold brush strokes that turned a white background into a portait that was almost too much to take in with one look. The second thing that struck me was that they were all paintings of the same subject.
A woman, a striking woman of exotic look and a burning sensuality that threatened to set the place on fire just by me looking at it. I began in the corner to my left and made my way around the square room, one painting at a time. No one else was there, which I found strange because I wondered what there was to stop me from simply taking a painting off the wall and walking out the door with it. And every one of the paintings was worth an art theft.
There was not doubt that every piece was, in its own way and by at least someone's definition, pornographic. The woman in each painting, that same woman, was captured in oil or acrylic in primary colours, bold and bright yet dark and ominous like a gothic image of a vampire in black and indigo with a bright red drop of blood on her lips. Each painting portrayed her in the throes of sexual pleasures of different kinds. Oral sex. Breasts being devoured or used as instruments of tease and flirtation. Her being taken in every way, and taking in every way. Her with men, with women, with both. Her dressed in lingerie so lusciously alluring that I could imagine a man or woman experiencing orgasm while standing there looking. I had made it about 3/4 of the way around the gallery when I stopped at the one painting that I knew would be the one I remembered more than any other. It was the last explicit of any in the gallery. She was standing by a window looking out onto the street. She was dressed only slightly in a sheer black negligee that covered little, revealed much, and was the perfect combination of mystery and nudity. She had turned from her gaze out the window to look at the viewer of th painting. Her hair was long and flowing, her body one that a goddess would be envious of, and her eyes were perfectly soft and feminine yet darkly filled with the power to mesmerize and control. I stared. Moving slightly to the right, then to the left, then a little closer, then a little farther.
The painting drew me to the woman in it, to the shameless way she stood by the window for anyone to see, yet caring not at all, focused only on the viewer of the painting. I must have stood there for ten minutes taking it in. I had long lost any sense of being in a gallery, perhaps one in which I shouldn't be at all at this late hour. The voice behind me was low and sensual. The accent was unrecognizable, perhaps Spanish, perhaps Italian or Romanian, perhaps none of those. The voice asked,"Do you think she is beautiful?". I didn't turn around. It was as if the voice didn't surprise me when it broke the perfect silence of the gallery. I thought about the question and eventually I said, "No, I dont think so".
There was more silence. The voice did not respond to what was perhaps an unexpected answer. And then I said, "Not beautiful. Exquisite. Undefinable."
The voice gave a soft laugh, as if a smile had been made audible. I turned to see whose voice it was. She held out her hand and said, "I am Danielle". I took her hand and said, "I was right. You ARE exquisite."; "Shall I tell you more about my self portraits?", she asked. I knew I would not be back at my hotel as early as I had imagined.