Picture: Dinner At Les Ambassadeurs by Jean Beraud 1880 (AN: the lady is smoking and drinking and that means... she's not actually a lady and not his wife, probably his mistress)
'White Canvas Operation' phase twenty-one: Le Procope.
Le Procope. 13 rue de l'Ancienne Comédie. Paris.
I look around quietly noticing the checkerboard stone tiles on the floor, the walls painted in a dark red colour and the doors and mirrors framed in golden, the white marble staircase, the crystal chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, the portraits of famous personalities on the walls and the carved wooden mouldings. I take a sip of my coffee and fidget on the bench upholstered in red leather while fixing my eyes on the spotless white tablecloth for a few seconds... then I look around again. Finally, I give up and take a deep breathe before speaking.
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"Stella, you're doing it again." My assistant blinks sitting in front of me and stops staring at me quietly like she's been doing for the last ten minutes.
"I'm sorry, princess. I can't help it... you facial bone structure is perfect and every one of your gestures is full of elegance even when you're mad at me. Please, promise me that you're going to pose for me in our studio when we get back to New York."
"We already talked about that..."
"Sun, I won't show the paintings to anyone if you ask me to do so, I swear, not even to André... please. I'll go crazy if you don't pose for me... You're so pretty, babe..." Stella leans her elbow on the table and her chin on her hand and stares at me intently again while I feel my cheeks burning. It's been 24 hours since I woke up in her bed but I'm not used to this new closeness yet, the pet names, the deliberate touch of her hand on my thigh when we're sitting in a taxi or on my lower back when she opens the door of a restaurant for me, her compliments... above all I'm not used to her compliments. I know Stella is a natural flirt and I don't how many of her words are real or if it's part of her Parisian charm.
