“The Time Of Heroes” by Paul Silverman
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The guard frowned and coughed sternly, and Alessandra rushed away from him and out of the hall. She was finally ready for a little food and drink. At this hour—well past lunch—they seated her promptly in the café, where she ordered a nicoise salad and tea. She slipped her toes out of the tight part of her shoes and attacked the food lustily, feeling her energy ramp up for everything that was to come, the rest of her museum day.
Over the years, she had become so taken with sculpture she had finally joined a basic sculpting class. It was taught in the basement of the museum, by a credible artist, a man who was good enough to place work in the better second-tier galleries. Today’s class was themed directly to the exhibit, “The Time of Heroes.” The students were to work from a live male model posing as an ancient Greek athlete. Ten minutes before class-time, the woman was outside the locked door, so eager to get her fingers into the wet clay she felt shock-waves running through them. And when the teacher ambled up the corridor and unlocked the door, she charged to the front and center, setting herself up as close as she could to the modeling stand.
The teacher made a few introductory remarks and brought him in, the human centerpiece - a young man with a discus thrower’s body but a back-alley swagger. He also had a strip-club smirk, which a glare from the teacher wiped away. The ripped young man knew how to stand like a statue, though, in perfect contraposto, torso twisted just so far to suggest explosive tension restrained by an even more muscular spirit. Alessandra worked feverishly, this time capturing her images in earthy handfuls of clay as well as camera flashes of her own mind. The cup supporter the model wore beneath his thong, the kind of jock used by modern athletes, left something to the imagination. But to the woman with three breasts this was not a problem. Anything male that was imaginary would not be squandered by her; her mind, bursting with pictures from “The Time of Heroes,” could fill in all gaps.
What the live model fed into her imagination, however, were properties that no piece of marble possessed. The glow of living skin, the sheen of sweat, and a scent so compelling the word that shot into her mind was something from the Greek myths: ambrosia, the liquid of the gods. The longer he posed the more it poured out of him, a reek that was half him and half the spray he had doused himself with. Alessandra found herself breathing faster just to get more of it into herself. At one point she even felt her nostrils had turned into a new form of eyes. Without realizing it, she was getting all her impressions from the air around her, applying the clay with the lids of her real eyes shut tight.
~
Seven months after the class, the woman with three breasts stood up from her sewing machine and sat down at her computer. The smell of the model was as alive for her as it was on the day of the class, and it haunted her. Her business had begun to stumble from the effects. That powerful tool of hers - imagination - was so absorbed in the model it was running wild, with precious little left over for stitching and designing. Something had to be done, and finally she had acted. Unable to sleep or work, she had phoned the teacher of the sculpture class. She spoke in the coolest, most objective business voice she could muster, asking for the model’s name and contact information. It was all about opportunity, she said, opportunity for him. As a fashion designer, she said, she had thoughts now and then about a men’s line—a few choice pieces that fit the name Narcissus: a pocket scarf, a neckband, something bold on the wrist, whatever. For some reason, encountering the model had sharpened her focus on these musings. There was something about him, a je ne sais qua, that made her begin to see the finished pieces, their rhythm and flow. At any rate, she needed to see him again and have a personal session - for which she would pay well.
The teacher gave up the goods, and Alessandra began an email exchange with the model at once. His first name was Tom, which she assumed explained the first part of his email address - TMWFT - which was followed by the usual @ sign and internet provider name.
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