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Show 199 them surpressed, known through rumors. It was from her that I first heard of the Greek vases with Dionysus naked on them, his penis stiffly erect. With that strudel dissolving in my mouth, drinking my coffee, lighting a cigarette, I felt very sophisticated and mature. With the slightest change in nuance, we could be lovers intimately talking. "I might try it," I said, feeling blase. "Modeling sounds like a soft job." "Depends on what you're sitting on. I sat on a wicker chair once and the marks didn't go away for a week." "You were a model?" I was pleased. "For a while. I had a scholarship but Mark was taking classes too, without a scholarship-poor Mark, he couldn't get over that. Anyhow, we had to have some money coming in." "I thought most models were exhibitionists. Like Clara." "Well, who isn't, a little bit? It's fun to have an excuse to take off your clothes in public. What's wrong with exhibitionism? Like if we didn't have sadism, where would we find good surgeons?" "Did you enjoy it? Or were you scared? The first time?" "Both. And neither lasted more than a couple of minutes. Because there I was, stark naked, and nobody gave a damn." "I can't believe that." "True though." She smiled and I felt very intimate with her in our cosy booth, after the food and wine, with the coffee. I couldn't have wished for a better conversation. For the first time I was singularly aware of more than her smile, her face, her eyes; I was curious why she didn't sroke, how she felt about Mark Wells, what she thought of her future, everything. "I meant nobody gave a damn about me_," she went on. "There was this |
