Who Names The Colors

The Scream

December 2014
The sun had risen, just- it was a new day, perhaps a new world. Jo was just as unfamiliar with it as a 16th century Spaniard in a jungle. She just didn't know how to navigate this and had no compass to help, not that she was even sure of what direction she wanted to go. The night had been a fever dream, but dreams unwound, and as undone as Jo had come with them, repeatedly, she was now in an even more complicated situation than before.

She was no longer lusting after a student, she had slept with one, her advisee to boot. The provider in her felt like she needed to immediately call this off. She didn't think Harry would go to the University if she did that, but she knew rejected men often acted in ways that could surprise you, hurt you.

It hadn't felt like he had any wish to hurt her. He'd been sweet and considerate and solicitous.

After they realized it was morning, he had located his phone. "It's 7:30. What time's Zoe get up?" He was still naked, and it was distracting. He was covered in more markings, from her hands and mouth, and he was splotched with gold, except his hand, which revealed him as the Midas who had turned her to gold. If he looked that messy....

"Soon." It was unpredictable when they had nothing going on for the day and as the Christmas holidays dawned schedules were loose. Shit! Ethan.

"Harry, where's Ethan?" Jo had asked as she stood up abruptly and tried to find her clothes. Her shirt she had taken off by where they, well where they were, but Harry had shucked her like a corn before they got into the paint. God, he was so distracting. Thinking about the night before doubly so. She was staring at him, because he was watching her intensely while she panicked.

"Harry?" She whisper shouted.

"Sorry, you look, really," And he was fumbling with the phone in his hand. "Can I take a picture of you?"

"Are you mental?" had been her immediate response. "You want evidence?"

"No, no," his voice went up a little then. "Course not, you just look like a piece of art? Like living and breathing creation." The wonder on his face made her ache. She wanted to go back to night with him. He still seemed to be existing there or had moved to basking in golden dawn where she was definitely standing in the cold of a December morning. She even had gooseflesh, from the cool air in her studio, her nudity, and mostly from reality. "I won't get your face. Just your torso. Want you to see yourself this way too. Please Jo?"

She surprised herself, again, with her response. It seemed to be her continual mood in his presence, "Yeah, go ahead Harry." And she let him stand her behind a painting stool so her lady bits were covered but her shape was revealed. She stood still and rather than curling into herself in embarrassment or shame she found her back straightening and her confidence growing through the lens of his camera, his eye

"Here, look. I'll delete anything that makes you nervous." He handed over his phone, but came to stand behind her and when he breathed she could feel his pebbled nipples on her shoulder blades. The sensation was pleasant and his heat sent the gooseflesh away and Jo forgot what they were doing other than being close for a moment until Harry started to scan through the photos. He had taken about 10 of them. And he hadn't gotten her face like he promised. But he had captured something else. Jo knew she was conventionally attractive, was reminded of it often enough, but she had never felt exquisite. In Harry's pictures, she was just that. In some, the turn of her body was soft and she looked like a nymph, in others, an Amazon. Always otherworldly, mythological. She was breathing heavy when he put the phone in her hand.

"Thank you, for trusting me. Scan through and make sure, so you feel safe." He put his hands on her shoulders and slowly ran them down to her elbows, and his nose came to smell her hair.