She sits tables down from me at the bistro, this woman.
Her harsh features jut out first. Stark black hair, pin-straight, with angular bangs drawing you to her face. Her eyes are cold blue, the piercing color of morning fog that presses against the windows before the sun has reached the horizon. Her eyelids are heavy and sunken, the kind that belong to dreamers or drug addicts. Her neckline is a strong beautiful curve that ensnares the eyes and forces them down to her slender shoulders.
Her softer features come next. A nose that broadens slightly and shale pink lips spread thinly in a smirk- her typical expression. Her dress and boots are black, fashionable but unremarkable. She's subconsciously chosen them to not divert attention from her face. A slender silver chain adorns her neck and dips down into her dress.
I imagine she works a job by day. A shopkeep in a bookshop or a florist perhaps. She lives above the shop in a dusty attic where she works on her true calling- art.
I can't say much concerning the man she is sitting with, her paramour, save for the fact that he is enraptured by her presence.
She has a simple name undoubtedly but it is irrelevant. In conversations she is often referred to as "her".
He insists they go to his place this time, but sure enough she persuades him to her raftered loft. It's a place where one never feels completely safe, perhaps she's chosen it for this reason. The odd smell of paint chipped off the walls and baked by the sun lingers in the air of the place.
A bare mattress on the floor is where they sleep and have sex. If he ever stated that they made love she would've shut him down with a shrill laugh. Sex was carnal for her, love was a spiritual feeling reserved for her and far beyond the reaches of human flesh.
Her urge to draw would come without warning, many nights he would wake to find she had moved to her easel, positioning it in the moonlight.
If whatever chaotic muse possessed her thoroughly, her art could be a days-long affair. A few crusts of bread would be the only evidence she had moved from her position at all.
Her appearance in this trance is simultaneously erotic and laughable. She wears only a flimsy pair of silk pants, nealy threadbare themselves. Her breasts are marred with charcoal dust, smudged in steaks. The corner of her mouth is mottled with ink from biting down on her markers; an unfortunate anxious tick she has developed. Her hair is a wild mess, having been pulled back when she needed focus and becoming stiff from cigarette smoke. He wouldn't dare touch her in this state of lunacy.
Her naked appearance does manage to make her more human, but never once more vulnerable. Several small stretch marks on her abdomen contrast her ghostly complexion. They validate that she's even real. There's something about her arched back that suggests malnourishment. She most assuredly was sent to bed many nights without supper; something easier for her mother to do than to admit she could not afford to feed her.
He excuses himself from the table and she grins when he is out of sight. It's the first time she's exposed her teeth. It becomes clear she takes delight in how captivated he is by her, she feels she has won some sort of game that only she is playing. Her aloof demeanor resumes when he returns.
Being both aware of her looks and the phallic nature of a cigarette lends to the attention-drawing way that she smokes.
I glance at my watch at last to find several hours have passed gazing at the woman in the bistro. I have been at her table, walked up to her attic, reached up to her frame while laying on the mattress, and seen her taken over by a creative spirit. As I fumble to put on my coat and leave, she gives me a slight smile as if to suggest that she is aware of my musings, and that they are all true.