I needed to adjust my paint palette.
What a glorious issue to have.
Pressing my lips together, I took a long, obvious inhale and almost let it go too soon from excitement when his broad chest expanded too. I managed to hold it for the entire three counts, then let it go for four.
With one more repetition of this, Cody’s posture indicated that he’d found comfort in his body and in this time and place.His legs fell open, and he rested his interlaced hands between them, braced on the seat of the stool.
I went through another seven-count breath, just for me, and then turned back toward the class to begin my instructions.
The first ten minutes or so were, as usual, filled with questions, indecision, and some hesitance, but once I’d made two circuits of the dozen or so participants, helping them select their mediums and implements as I guided them through the first steps, a hush fell over the class. Soon after, a collective hum of creative intention formed, making a beautiful duet with the jazz from the record player.
With one last sweep over the room, I felt confident enough to return to my station and fulfill my own long-held fantasy. My blank canvas loomed before me as I reached once more for that quiet space inside me. I floated into its embrace easily and picked up my paintbrush. Then I lifted my gaze to him.
The only one who existed now.
His posture was much the same as it was before, his gaze somewhere in the middle distance.
I looked and searched, analyzed and catalogued each piece of him.
The roundness of his ear, the slope of his shoulder, the wrinkle of my shirt pulled taut against his chest. His nipples, hardened and strained against the material.
The natural frown of his mouth in rest, the slight dimple in the middle of his upper lip. There was a slight dusky discoloration below his eyes.
Was he still not sleeping well?
My eyes trailed down to his hands, where his thumb, so slowly that it was almost imperceptible, turned the ring.
I paused at his wrist. Something was off there.
One of his bracelets was missing.
Without conscious permission, my brush found paint, and I made the first mark.
I stroked, smeared, and blotted, any understanding of my own body minimal as I stayed lost in his. The tiniest bit of awareness—enough to occasionally check in with the class—stayed with me, but no one seemed willing to pause their art for questions. To turn away from their observation of him.
Once I made it to his eyes, I utilized the five newly mixed shades of green and brown on my palette. I plucked up my smallest brush and leaned closer to my canvas.
The change in my posture must have caught his attention, because the man before me moved his eyes to me—only his eyes—and ensnared me.
My brush remained frozen in front of the canvas, and I fell into his eyes, his soul for a very, very long moment before I made another stroke on the canvas. An abrupt scratching sound cut through the room, and I broke our connection as I glanced over my shoulder. One of the younger class participants was changing out the record, a sheepish smile on her face. I gave her a reassuring simulation of a smile before getting up and revisiting each station.
They had questions, but each of them whispered them with something like reverence. For the atmosphere, for this moment in time.
For him.
A new energy had filled the room as the second record started. The songs were more modern but still graced by the timbre unique to vinyl.
I made it back to my station once everyone was taken care of and adjusted my seat so I could observe him from above the canvas.
Time passed, I assumed, but I wasn’t aware of it until Miss Lenny’s voice drifted into my space. “One hour wasn’t enough,Professor Liem.” I blinked hard and granted myself a moment to reorient before I sat down my brush.
She moved close behind me to look at my canvas, her signature gasp followed by a dramatic sigh. “I hope you don’t mind, but I may have convinced everyone to not interrupt you with more questions, which was easy to do. We all agreed we were desperate to see what you would create.” She sighed again. “It was worth it, Mr. Liem. Thank you for making this happen.”
Stupefied, I tried to assuage some of my guilt at shirking my teaching responsibilities by standing up and making a quick round of the class, noting by the clock on the wall that we only had seven minutes left.
I kept my gaze away from him and my canvas so I could keep my head to answer questions, making a few suggestions as I went down the line of easels.
But he was everywhere. And in every rendition, he was perfection.
