A Spear of Summer Grass - By Deanna Raybourn Page 0,85
pattern of falling autumn leaves and I had wiped out the rest of that quarter’s allowance from the Colonel to pay for it. The black kept it from feeling too feminine and the falling leaves somehow evoked the warm colours of the African landscape. She had broken half her nails on an elderly sewing machine she’d unearthed before she found that Mr. Patel could run up anything in half the time for pennies an hour. It was a useful discovery considering the fact that we had each managed to ruin most of the clothes we had come with. Insects, stray nails, thornbushes—all had taken their toll, and Dora had finally resorted to having Mr. Patel make half a dozen housecoats to put over her own clothes while she worked. I hadn’t bothered. I had gotten into the habit of wearing riding breeches and Misha’s shirts every day, my fashionable Paris frocks packed away in cedar and lavender until an evening entertainment or trip to town presented itself.
Aside from Kit, we had seen little of our neighbours. I made a point of walking over to visit him a few times a week for obvious reasons. He had decided to paint me, and after he fed me lunch and took me to bed, he would get up and stand in front of his easel, the sunlight warming his bare skin. He committed me to the canvas, first with a soft pencil, then with a palette and paints, frowning from the image to me and back again. He had positioned me sitting up against the headboard, the sheet draped carelessly at my waist, a cigarette dangling from my fingertips. I was at an oblique angle, something like La Grande Odalisque, so there was nothing objectionable on display, although I knew objections would be made in any event. I didn’t much care. Kit was a talented artist, and I quite liked the idea of hanging on some collector’s wall, or better yet, in a museum, naked for the world to see. I turned my face so that my gaze would be directed at whoever viewed the painting, and Kit gave a little shout of exultation.
“Perfect, my darling! Hold that expression. Chin down just a fraction—there. Don’t move. And whatever you’re thinking about, don’t stop. That expression is precisely what I want. It dares the viewer to look away. It will make them feel as if they are naked instead of you.”
I couldn’t wait to see it, but Kit was superstitious. He always made me dress and leave straight after so I couldn’t peek. He was excited about it, more than the lovemaking itself. Most days he rushed the sex to get to the painting, and I should have been a little miffed. But I always made sure I got what I came for, and if he didn’t, well, he had the painting to console him. He said it was going to be the centrepiece of the Nairobi show, and he chattered like a monkey while he worked. Most artists liked silence while they painted, but not Kit. He wanted to talk so long as I listened and didn’t move too much. He twittered on about how small the art world was and how one successful show anywhere would be his ticket back in. He talked about the contacts he still had in Paris and New York, and how the Berlin art scene was beginning to hop. He talked about Barcelona and Chicago and Rome, all of his hopes and ambitions.
He talked about people, too, mostly our neighbours, and he gave me a wicked look as he began to catalogue the women he’d had since he’d arrived in Africa. I wasn’t surprised he’d bedded Jude and Bianca, but the fact that he’d slept with Helen came as a bit of a shock.
“I would have thought her a little old for you,” I said, careful not to move my mouth too much.
He gave a short bark of laughter, like a hyena. “If Helen likes to put it about, who am I to stop her? The trouble is that Rex isn’t enough for her. Oh, it’s not his fault. She said he’s enormous and very skilled with it. But our Helen likes variety.”
“So she is a nymphomaniac. Poor Rex. Do you think he knows?”
“Oh, he knows. And between you and me, I think he’s almost proud of it in a strange way. Rex likes to have the best and most beautiful and Helen’s little adventures prove that