“But that’s my bench. I always sit here. Mommy said I can read here whenever I want.” The child huffed, crossed arms in a single exaggerated movement, and straightened up to the point that her stringy blonde hair flopped against her chest.
Isaiah only grunted in response. Bony fingers rose to play with the thin staff of a sucker protruding from his mouth.
“I’ll sit on you.” She still stood beside him, glaring down in the best angry face she could manage, her golden Disney Princess book wadded up under one arm like her father must’ve often done with the morning newspaper. She looked serious, insofar as small children could.
Isaiah breathed an irritated sigh through his nose. No part of this would turn out well for me. The businessman started to rise, but a voice in the distance perturbed the child greatly. Faint parts of it sounded like come here, and something about not bothering strangers. Despite some ear-splitting objections by the child, she ultimately gave to her mother’s whim and trotted off in the opposite direction.
But since Isaiah now sat upright on the bench, he considered swapping the lollipop for a cigarette.
KD was walking through the park, trying to decide just what she should do to celebrate her newfound adulthood. Her parents hadn’t planned a party, nor had anyone else. Her boyfriend and she had plans for the weekend and her best friend/brother type person was busy at the bakery. Apparently some big baking emergency or something, she had no idea. He hadn’t really stayed on the phone long enough for her to figure it out but he promised to make it up to her. She was kind of happy that her parents were not making it a big deal. They gave her a car and made her promise to earn it by trying to get into a good art school after she graduated.
She had agreed, for all the good it would do. With her lack of attention span she hadn’t the grades to qualify and wasn’t sure talent alone, when she could manage to harness it, would be enough to get her into a decent program.
She was walking across town wondering what to do with the money that had come in the mail in the card Papa and Annie sent her.
She spied the altercation first, stopping at the little girl threw her fit. She was not usually one to notice things like that when there were other things to focus on but the male on the bench caught her eye. His redolent pose was what did it, reclined on the wood like some mis-dressed pale faun from another time and place. She blinked once but already her mind was moving on to what she could do with that vein of thought with her paints in hand. She hadn’t had much of a chance to do body painting except for occasional time spent face painting and such when she felt like earning a few dollars for however long her attention span held out.
She eeped as the teacup human was called away, realizing she was staring. But how to approach. Hey will you come let me take your clothes off and paint on you seemed, well, a little more direct and risque than she was used to. Not to mention much more creeper.
Isaiah retracted his legs to sit more fully upright on the bench, and tucked an arm over the side so that the backrest dug into his armpit. He pulled sucker from mouth, looked it over to survey the damage, and was about to retrieve a cigarette to replace it when he spotted a freckled brunette staring ceaselessly in his direction. HIs paranoia urged that she had witnessed the altercation between himself and the little girl and debated calling the police on him, but the more self-assured portion of his mind assuaged with much different motivations. If she stared in his direction, she did so because Isaiah placed meticulous effort on his appearance and rightfully looked enviously stunning for it. Naturally, she should covet him.
But realistically, it was probably neither. Isaiah ceased toying with himself over the variable reasoning behind her stare and simply chose to acknowledge it with a sealed smile before continuing to rifle the half-jacket for his cigarettes. The sucker was then transferred to another pair of fingers when he pulled a coffin nail from the flip-top box, and he tucked his latest vice between lips.
He thought, take a picture, it’ll last longer.
He thought, paint me like one of your french girls.
He thought, I taste just as good as I look.
After he lit his cigarette, he took a long draw to feel the smoke burn out his lungs. Exhaling from his nose produced a plume that curled capriciously before vanishing in the evening air.
“She’s not mine,” he called to the deer-in-headlights stranger, “so if you want to paint her, you’ll have to ask her mom.”
Paints?
She looked shocked that he should speak to her, scampering off the path behind a tree before realizing that she had paints under her arm and that he had caught her staring. And, well, there wasn’t anything to do for it now because, quite frankly, if she hadn’t completely blown her chance by hiding there wouldn’t be a better opening to actually talk to him. Elsewise, she might have spent the afternoon following him around, debating how to ask and what to say and second guessing herself into oblivion.
But here she was hiding behind a tree like a skittish kitten, peeking her head out at him and debating just running in the opposite direction and forgetting she had ever made this much of an a** of herself.
No, no, she was not a coward. Of the many bad qualities she possessed that was not one of them. So with a deep breath she came out from behind her tree and walked over to the bench, conveniently taking a seat in the space freed up by his change of position. KD turned her big, friendly emerald eyes on him, offering a smile in exchange for understanding that she could be a crazy person sometimes. Artist’s temperament, her mother called it. She just called it awkward.
“No, it wasn’t the little girl I wanted to paint.”
First she darted to a tree, which was a reaction that Isaiah had experienced before. Most often it occurred in bars, to a more spirit-of-the-phrase extent, when a man took a particular interest in him and Isaiah followed this interest with nods and smiles until he could not escape opening his mouth. And when they heard the much-too-masculine tone from the pretty girl before them, the most common response was to stutter out an excuse for their rash change in behavior and excuse themselves to the bathroom. Was this girl acting in a similar vein of thinking? Probably.
So when she disappeared, he thought little of it. Destiny City was known for its welcoming and understanding views toward alternative relationships, so it wasn’t terribly difficult to imagine that this shy brunette was far more interested in women than men. And, if his experiences in bars were any consolation, Isaiah made for a pretty girl at times. But with the way his jacket conformed to his body, it offered no illusion of tits, and the evening certainly lacked the low lighting of bars. Artist types, from his memory of college days, were constantly and consistently drunk so he imagined she had at least that point going in her favor.
But she emerged, and claimed seat behind him. It seemed a bizarre change of pace; he imagined she must’ve decided that mistaking him for a girl was no excuse against company and elected to have a seat. Isaiah glanced over shoulder lazily, regretting that his eyes held such a distinctively bitchy shape, and muttered his own response.
“Oh. Landscape type, then.” There’s more than a few flowers around here.
She looked dumbfounded when he suggested the landscape. Pretty as it was, these were not watercolors or oils in the case she held. She wasn’t drunk, hadn’t mistaken him for a girl, and wasn’t interested in anything other than the person she was looking at. She continued to look at him, hoping that he might understand his blunder given a few moment’s pause. When he didn’t seem to she sighed soflty.
“It wasn’t the landscape, either. I wanted to paint...you.”
And not in the conventional canvas sense. She flicked the locks on the case and opened it, revealing a stunningly expensive Kryloan body painting kit. The brushes were fine bristled and the array of colors was stunning. She was almost giddy when she looked at it again, wishing she had the airbrush compressor she had seen in the store as well. It was much too expensive and for a little dabbled in art her parents had basically vetoed that piece of equipment.
They did not want it sitting in the garage collecting dust, they said, while she turned her attention to sculpture or mime or whatever had her interest that week. She had taken offense at the implication, but knew that it was probably with a grain of truth.
“Do you mind? I mean, your body is perfect for the idea I had.”
She reached out and ran a light hand down his jacket without asking permission, measuring his body in her mind for the angular quality of the faun she had in mind.
”Hmm?” An eyebrow cocked, and Isaiah was taken aback by her statement. Was heroin chic making a comeback? Was the greek adonis falling out of favor? Normally he’d be quite flattered to model for someone by choice, and certainly he would’ve done so without hesitation, but the myriad bruising from an incident he preferred to never reference again still mottled his body.
Secondly, though, it sounded like she hadn’t quite planned to just paint him.
Perfect for your idea? Was she asking him to be a reference point for a piece from imagination? “Sure, if that’s what you want. Traditional figure drawing or something else? I’m not terribly fond of getting arrested for public nudity, so if you’re wanting me to drop trow for this we might have to move elsewhere.” Not that he minded - isaiah considered a handful of locations perfect for nude painting and hopeful followups. Isaiah straightened and sat at the bench more traditionally, which afforded him a better look at the brunette and her chosen weaponry.
No, that’s professional make up. That’s human canvas material. Oh, this could be fun. “Now I’m interested. So this idea of yours… Will I be painted mostly naked or totally naked? And will I be walking around the streets of Destiny City in as little as possible to show it off?” He’d always envied the beautiful models who managed to get away with that.
Sherwood had a type and it was called farm boy. Westley was thin but strong in his own way, muscles built by laboring on his family’s farm. She wasn’t after Isaiah for herself, that was for sure, even considering now she was legally an adult. Her affection was concretely placed with Westley.
She grinned as he seemed to warm to the idea, closing the case and trying to figure out how to go about it. She blushed, unsure really. She was very new to body painting.
“I don’t...I mean, I hadn’t thought. Maybe we should think of somewhere to do it first.”
A blush colored her cheeks a pale pink, and she looked up.
“Do you think you’d wanna come with me? I have studio space across town that I rent.”
How he wanted to show off her work was entirely up to him. She just wanted to paint him to see if she could bring her ideas to life. A faun, he’d make an attractive faun. She was excited to try and make it so.
“I’m Caydence, but my friends call me KD.”
”If you’re just painting me shirtless, I think the only objections would be to my pasty whiteness and not the legality of it. It’s a warm enough day that I don’t think it’ll matter.” Stranger arrangements have occurred in this park - of that, he was certain. Smoking, birdhouse building, and sculpture construction came to mind as most recent encounters. Senshi fights earned a close second, though those would receive no mention.
Isaiah weighed the option of the studio space mentally. There was no fear of it - mostly consideration for the condition of the space. College experiences dictated that artist spaces were often dirty and a gamble to visit. Other experiences indicated that the artist performing the work often got distracted and engaged in less socially acceptable etiquette - and models often knew what they were getting into. As an artist himself, he was not deluded to this. The whole consideration actually benefitted her offer, as the promise of ‘extracurricular activities’ from past experiences gave him more reason to accept.
“Sure, it sounds interesting.” I’ve got nothing better to do, either. “Lead the way.
“And call me David Brenner.” I’ll probably never see her again regardless.
ZaiaFantasy
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