Canvas Back

I love Ollie’s Bargain Outlet. I don’t go there with anything specific in mind, but I never know what I’ll find. Still, when I needed a Chilton’s manual for my twenty-year-old Swiss cheese Chevy Suburban I found one for two bucks.

They live up to their motto at Ollie’s. Good stuff Cheap.

Before I start sounding like a commercial, let me explain.

It was long after my red period. I was working big, deep gallery wrap canvases in bold colors. I was obsessed with an abstracted form that implied the motion of tall grass in a field on a windy day. I called it, rather pretentiously, my wheat period. My current high-relief impasto technique and taste for pricey Sennelier oils paints left little of my limited funds for anything else. It might have more aptly been called my ramen noodle period.

But every man has his limits. For the third morning in a row I’d woken up with a gouge in my ass from the spring that stretched through the cover of the fleabag queen bed I’d found two studios before. I was finally pissed enough to do something about it.

Enter Ollie’s. I decided to give it a shot. Maybe they’d have a queen mattress in my price range. Luckily they did.

“Can I get some help with it?”

“Pick up for customer.” The pimple faced teen’s voice echoed in distorted strains through the cavernous space. He pulled back from the microphone and looked out into the store. “Little Leeny will help you.”

Little Leeny was neither. She stood around six feet tall and had atlas shoulders. But her face was sort of pudgy and girlish with skinny lips atop a deep chin. Her eyes matched the dark sapphire posts through her left nostril and her long earlobes. She bound her bright red hair tight atop her skull so it splashed like a red gerbera daisy from its bright green band. She didn’t linger like the other employees though business was slow. She worked like a woman who had known how to go hungry.

Leeny didn’t say a word as I pointed out my new mattress. Her Secret powder fresh deodorant mingled with sweat and Irish Spring soap as she set it on the flat cart.

“Let me help you with that,” I said as the wheels fell silent by the back of my Suburban.

“I got it, hon.” Her voice was high and girlish. She tossed the mattress in like a throw pillow. She gave me a strangely sweet smile that seduced me to smile back.

****

“Fuck.” My voice came back in a long echo. “Fuck!” My most recent painting was a true piece of shit. I’d known it all along, but I worked on like it would somehow resolve itself. It didn’t. “Goddamn it!” I rubbed my fingers hard into my scalp.

I had a new mattress, but little else. I was out of canvases. I had a sale coming in another week, and just enough crap in the improvised kitchen I had set up at the end of the large main room for sustenance. The side effect of less important pursuits like buying mattresses and food was that sometimes there wasn’t enough left to do the important thing. Paint.

I started rifling through my stash of finished paintings in the hope that a blank canvas was mixed in. In the musty storeroom, I unearthed the remnants of my red period, back when I used pastels and large, toothy papers. Back then I obsessed with the figure and a classic technique. I smiled as I recalled the pleasure of having a model in front of me as soft waves of Technicolor dust rippled down the paper.

Little Leeny popped into my head. The nametag said “Colleen.” She wore loose navy coveralls and scuffed steel-toed boots. Her long hands sported chipped cherry red polish on stubby nails that punctuated long, strong hands. I figured her to be in her mid twenties. What skin I could see was porcelain pale, smooth with a satin shimmer.

Strong but girlish, sturdy but fair, contrasting eyes and hair. I still had a big box of pastels and a small stack of paper stashed somewhere. I decided to revive my red period.

Little Leeny grinned skeptically. “Are you serious? You want to paint me?”

“For real.” I forced one side of my mouth to curl into a neo realistic smile.

“How much?”

“Ten bucks an hour.”

“How many hours?”

“I dunno. At least three or four.”

Leeny’s eyes lifted up to the Spartan roof of Ollie’s. “This is a joke, right?”

“I don’t joke much.”

“Oh? How ‘bout fifteen bucks an hour.”

Up to this point I had assumed Little Leeny wasn’t terribly intelligent. I realized how wrong I was as I measured the depth of her eyes. “How about Twelve.”

“What the hell, you’ve got a deal. Where and when?” She shook my hand like a longshoreman.

As I recited directions, she pondered. “Near that old furniture factory?”

“In the old furniture factory.”

One of her red eyebrows lifted high.

****

“I forgot to ask one question. When do I get paid?” Leeny pushed away from the door jam as I opened up.

I measured my response. “Well—that’s another matter. I’m selling a piece in another week, so I’ll have the money then.”

“Nothing up front?” She started to turn away. Her tight jeans framed a perfectly rounded butt.

“Wait, wait.” I went to the old bright blue cabinets I had found in an alley near a demolished house. I forced my stash drawer open and found my last drops of “emergency cash”: A ten and a five. “Fifteen now, the rest when I get paid? It’s going to be at least eight hours, so at the end that’ll be—” I started to calculate.

“Eighty-one bucks. One question. Why me?”

“You’re interesting. Your skin is amazing.”

As Leeny laughed her steamy breath vaporized. She shrugged, pulled her hand from the pocket of her cracked vintage leather flight jacket and took the two bills. She stuffed them in her jeans then blew in her hands. “Am I going to end up looking like something from a Picasso?” She scanned my wheat period paintings.

“I do realistic works too. You won’t have both eyes on one side of your nose.”

“Makes no difference to me. It’s your dime.” Leeny continued inside. She made a pretty O with her lips and blew as if to see if her breath was still visible. It wasn’t but she poked her finger in the trailing breeze of wintergreen anyway. “If you want me in anything less than a coat, you’ll have to warm it up in here.”

“This is about as warm as it gets in the winter, but you’ll be sitting under the lights.” I pointed to the spot in the middle of the factory, which was illuminated like a spotlight on a dark stage. Leeny’s mouth slowly curled to a frown. She finally shrugged and took off her coat.

“Shit.” I focused on her left arm. “I fuckin’ hate tattoos.”

****

Dad’s ’88 Buick hissed and I jumped out. The bump on my head had not yet begun to rise, but I could feel it coming. That didn’t bother me. The sound softly decayed, and I looked up and down the country road. There was a house a half-mile or so back. I walked slowly toward it, and paused from time to time to kick larger rocks along the way.

The suspicious man inside stood with his arms folded while I used the phone in the entryway. On the wall was a gallery of Navy photos. I scanned from them to the crudely rendered tattoos on his forearms. On one was an anchor. On the other was a nude woman drafted in thick, tasteless lines. It was much too crude to be a portrait. It was more symbolic, like the anchor. I finished the call and waited.

It was probably only ten minutes but it seemed like two hours, as I anticipated what I would receive when I got home. Dad was going through his black and blue period and had been for as long as I could recall. “Scott, this is going to hurt me more than it’s going to hurt you,” was his mantra. On this occasion he would be right. He broke two bones in his hand.

But before he drove me home for the inevitable, Dad paused to admire the gallery of Navy ships. The ex-sailor eyed dad’s upper arm. Dad proudly pulled his sleeve up to reveal a dark green and red dragon tattoo.

“That’s a beauty.” The sailor grinned.

Dad smiled, but his eyes glared at me. “Thanks.”

****

Leeny shrugged. Her hand disappeared in her pocket and she pulled out the ten. “I’ll keep the five for my trouble.” Her coat gave the soft groan of hardened old leather as one arm disappeared inside it. I looked at that sturdy but very feminine body and her pale skin. That hair and those eyes. Damn.

“No, wait.”

She turned back and waited. I nodded softly, and she set the coat back down on a rusty Samsonite chair. I pointed to the brightly lit chaise lounge. It was my models’ favorite platform back in the day. It had a pristine carved frame and its richly padded sangria red velvet covering was comfortable enough to sleep on. I was glad I’d decided not to sell it for noodles during one of my many “I’d eat cockroaches” periods.

Leeny kicked off her ratty tennis shoes and looked at the black fabric draped all around the chaise. She reached her hand under the lights, testing their warmth like the shallow end of a pool. She nodded then unbuttoned her jeans and let them fall. She hooked a prehensile big toe in one belt loop and ably tossed the jeans to the seat of the Samsonite. She peeled her tank top and tossed it atop the jeans. There was no hesitation to her stripping. There was a crude art to how she moved.

Unlike her left arm with the realistic bright red long stem rose that extended from elbow to shoulder, her right arm was bare. Contrasting the rose was a bright green and purple dragon who came into full view as her pale blue bra fell. He curled around on her broad back. The serrations of her spine were worked impressively
into the dragon’s form. She removed her panties displaying the bottom of the dragon’s tail, which curled like a fishhook around the curve of her butt. “How do you want me?”

“Huh?” My eyes fixed on the bright golden Jaguar that stalked in tall bright green grasses, perfectly fitted to the outside of her strong right thigh.

“How do you want me?”

“Tattoos like that must cost a mint.”

“No, they were free. How do you want me?”

“Free?”

“Thought you hated Tattoos.”

“I do. Just go ahead and lie on your back. Cross your left leg over. No, turn your shoulders a bit more. Face toward me.” It wasn’t the best pose, but I had the damned tattoos obscured.

I sat on the old red barstool with the duct tape patch and pinned the first paper to a piece of ply in the jaws of my old easel. I took account of my soft pastel sticks carefully organized in their foam beds in shallow wooden trays.

She settled into the awkward position as if she were taking a nap.

I started drawing, and time stood still. She was so at ease as I filled in the outlines. Her small breasts and muscular stomach were so fair. Her nipples drew me to a stick of ruby red. Her hair made me tumble through cadmium yellow, red ochre and carmine. My left hand gathered the sticks between thumb and forefinger, then paused in passing to blend colors while my right skidded out fresh, bright streaks.

“I have to work in the morning.” Her voice broke my trance.

It was after 2 AM. “Oh shit. Is that the time?” My sandy hands and clothes were smudged in Leeny’s colors.

“Yup.” She didn’t move until I nodded. “Mind if I look?”

“It’s still pretty rough, but go ahead.”

She tilted her head as she put on her panties. “S’okay.”

“You’ll come back, right?”

“Yup.”

Leeny was good to her word. Slowly, I introduced her tattoos into the paintings.

When I got paid for my dwindling stock of wheat period paintings, I gave her what I could. Twenty here, fifty there. It could not have equaled the hours she was there, but I’d lost track. She never really pressed.

Leeny was far and away the best model I’d ever worked with. She could hold a position for hours and never complained.

One night, while she sat on a black barstool with her back to me and I tried to capture her dragon, she told a story. “I met this up and coming tattoo artist in college, and he thought my skin was perfect. He wanted to tattoo me. I told him I couldn’t afford it. He said he just wanted to work on my skin to add me to his portfolio. That’s how I got the tats for free.”

Turned out this tattoo artist became a maestro of his media. Even I knew his name.

My eyes settled on the unadorned flesh on her right butt cheek. Perfect skin indeed. “Well, that solves one.”

“One?” Her shoulder length hair hung free, still as Red Rocks.

“One mystery. Now tell me why you work at Ollie’s.”

“No mystery there. I love to work with my back. I like to lift things, use my muscles.”

“So go to a gym. It’s obvious you could get another job.”

“I don’t want another job. When I do, I’ll get one.”

The next position I had her hold was back on the chaise. It was a bit provocative, and gave me a perfect view of the vibrant red hair between her legs. Her vagina was particularly beautiful, with an inviting pucker that was wonderfully complex to paint. Her eyes locked on my crotch as I reached in my pants and lined my sudden hard-on up along the zipper, as if that might provide some camouflage. She opened her legs a bit more and rested her hand on the crease of her groin.

I’d only gone to bed with models twice before. Some artists claim not to be affected, but it had an undeniable Samson and Delilah effect on me. Perhaps it was the release of tension, succumbing to the inferior sense of touch, or simply a mutant synapse in my brain that sapped the creative flow.

Leeny grinned. “Ever paint in the nude?”

“What?

“You heard me.”

“Uh, yeah, on occasion.”

“With a model?”

“Well, no.” My chest throbbed and I took a deep breath.

“Go for it.” Her eyes were locked in mine. They drifted approvingly down my chest and took in the bulge. “Do it.”

I moved slowly at first, taking off my socks and shirt. I drew a deep breath then stripped off my jeans and underwear. She smiled as my boner popped free. I tried to cover, but I’ve always painted with both hands.

I fought my urge to join Leeny on the chaise. I continued to paint, my cock fitfully softened and hardened. I managed, somehow, to keep to my easel for the rest of the session.

At the next session, Leeny would not take off a garment until I had matched her, and again I painted her with artist and model in the nude. I finished the painting I was working on, and directed her to a new position on the chaise. For the first time, she just couldn’t seem to get it right.

I approached.

I touched her hip to turn her. She was like steel wrapped in silk. The almost cool blue tone of her flesh belied the radiant heat that poured from her. She smiled at me then let her mouth open just a little as she resisted my physical adjustment of her pose. I couldn’t help but taste. Her breath was laced with piquant, sweet cinnamon. She pushed her tongue deep inside my mouth, and the gold orb through her tongue plowed my taste buds. Leeny’s hot fingers squeezed my stiff rod almost too hard. I deluded myself that I might have some self-control left.

She spread her strong thighs. “Taste me.”

“Oh God, yes.” I knelt between her legs and traced up and down her opening slowly, then cradled her clit. Leeny’s moans grew as she anchored her arms to the top of the chaise and ground her hips to my face. I pushed my tongue in her. She was delectable inside. Not perfumed, real and a bit meaty. My voice was muffled in her crotch, a series of incoherent exclamations of the beauty while I combed her fiery pubic hair with my thumbs.

She waved insistently for me to climb her. I rushed my cash stash drawer and found a strip of rubbers and tore one packet open. Leeny made a wide O with her mouth and positioned the curled rubber on it. She slowly covered the tip then down the shaft. She retreated, tracing her steps with post in her tongue tracing the thick bottom vein.

She laid back and spread her body again. “Give it to me, Scott.”

Some cunts kiss. Some cunts stroke and some caress. Leeny’s swallowed greedily. I drew my fingers along the lines of the rose tattoo, then the jaguar as I savored her ripples. I focused on the artistry of her adornment to hold the floodwaters behind the feeble dam. Yes, they were tattoos, but the artist was a master.

I told myself that a sensation of this depth could only lead to even finer paintings of Leeny. She turned me over and straddled me. She read my responses masterfully and stopped the powerful swinging of her hips each time my orgasm came close to resolution.

She pulled off of me, then turned over on all fours and patted her pussy in an invitation. I entered her from behind and traced the colorful dragon with my index finger. Leeny’s girlish voice became louder. Choral gasps and moans reverberated through the cavernous room. She screamed an orgasm and her pussy gripped me. I exploded a desperate shot toward Leeny’s womb, only to be repelled by the rubber. I collapsed to her back, as if an iron trying to affect transfer of her dragon tattoo.

Leeny’s strong limbs supported my weight like a suspension bridge.

****

Despite my rationalizations as we made love, we were never the same. I spent nine sheets of paper trying. I began to miss the smell of oil paints. For some reason I never could execute a good portrait with the brush.

Leeny and I became cordial, then quiet. There came a time when she simply stopped coming by, and I stopped going to Ollie’s.

****

On a late spring day, I could no longer resist the mysteries of my favorite store or a glimpse of my favorite model. I wandered the aisles taking in the new stock. I paused at strategic points to see if I could spot Leeny. I just needed to hear her voice, maybe smell her fading deodorant, honest sweat and cheap shampoo.

I finally took a couple of books and a bottle of habanero sauce to the register. “Is Leeny off today?”

“Leeny?” The stale cigarette scented older woman said.

“Colleen.”

“No idea.” She rang up the next book.

The kid at the service desk called over his shoulder. “Little Leeny quit last month.”

“Where’d she go?”

He shrugged without looking back.

****

It became evident that my wheat period had passed its twilight. It was time to stop naming things. I resisted the urge to try to paint dragons, roses or jaguars, but there was no denying their shapes and colors infused themselves on the abstracted forms I now painted.

One late summer day the UPS truck showed up just in time. I was finishing my last canvas. My heart hammered when the edge of a woman’s tattooed thigh poked through the open door. A brightly colored Jaguar stalked in the grasses.

Leeny grinned as she easily hefted two large boxes to my door. “Hiya, Scott.”

“Let me help you,” I said.

“Got it covered, hon.” She set the boxes down inside the hot building. She tilted her head and looked at my right thigh. She wiped her brow on her wrist then reached for the cuff of my shorts. A strong women’s jaguar-adorned thigh came into view. Leeny pulled the fabric up further to expose a nude red-haired woman on a black stool. Her back displayed a dragon.
Her arm, turned out slightly, hinted at the top of a rose. “I thought you hated tattoos.”

“I do, but I got a good deal. When I showed the artist the portrait I wanted him to work from, he said he’d do it free if he could keep the painting, even though he’s a big name in the business.”

She grinned. “Good stuff cheap.”

“Look, I feel bad, Leeny. I can’t have paid you all I owe you.”

“I’ve been the canvas and I’ve been the model. Now I’m the inspiration. Paid in full.” She stroked my stubble coated chin softly then gave my cheek a firm pat. She turned around and her daisy hair bounded as she trotted to the big brown van to drive to her next delivery.