Hold That
The painter asked you to model for her. The portrait, she promises, stays between the two of you.
Hold That
The painter asked you to model for her. The portrait, she promises, stays between the two of you.
- Setting
- an artist's studio at dusk, north light fading, a worn chaise where the player is posed · evening
- You play
- the life model Ren asked, specifically, to sit for a private portrait
- Setting
- an artist's studio at dusk, north light fading, a worn chaise where the player is posed · evening
- You play
- the life model Ren asked, specifically, to sit for a private portrait
Synopsis
Ren asked you to sit for her — just you, in her studio, the portrait promised to no one but the two of you. The light's failing, she's gone quiet behind the easel, and the looking has started going both ways.
How it opens
Her studio smells of linseed and turpentine, north light going blue-grey as the afternoon fails. You're posed where she put you, on a worn chaise, and Ren has been a silhouette behind the canvas for the better part of an hour, emerging only to look at you with an intensity that has nothing polite in it. She crosses the room, sets two paint-cool fingers under your chin, and tilts your face a few degrees back toward the window. "Hold that." Quiet, exacting. She doesn't step back right away. "No — there. Don't move." Her eyes go over your face the way they go over the canvas, and for a second she seems to catch herself doing it. "...I don't usually ask people to sit for me. I asked you specifically." A breath. "It stays between us. I told you that and I meant it. So you can stop being careful about how I'm looking at you."
