The Ghostwriter's Words

Sara: Secrets and Reflections

The morning before Sammy's thousandth birthday and half a world away, Sara's bare feet rhythmically pounded the studio floor with her hands clenched tightly enough for her fingernails to leave patterns of thin red crescents across each palm. Ropes of tension ran down her neck, radiating pain from the base of her skull out across both shoulders. It felt as if her brain swelled with each throbbing beat of her heart, and she was afraid her head might explode, that she'd have a stress-induced stroke. She suddenly stopped and bent at the waist, grabbing her knees, afraid she would be sick again, but nothing was left in her stomach for her to bring up. Her abdomen ached as if she'd been doing crunches non-stop for days.

"Why are you doing this to yourself?" she pleaded aloud, trying not to yell the words and bring running feet to discover what was wrong. She still had no idea what she'd say.

"It's time. It's time," Sara repeated, futilely trying to work up the courage to say what she needed. "You know you have no choice!" But there was too much to tell to know where to begin. The easy parts she should have confessed at the beginning of the relationship fifteen years earlier. Now, it would appear she'd been lying the entire time they'd been together. And she may well have been. As much to herself as well.

Her dressing gown billowed behind her when she straightened and spun to retrace her path across the studio. She was naked beneath it, and, had anyone been watching, there was little that mattered left to the imagination. Only the upper half of the elaborate tattoos that decorated her back were unexposed. Those were no less works of art themselves than anything else in the studio. As was the view of her walking away, according to a friend who claimed she might be the most magnificent beast to ever grace the Earth, long before her ink. He'd insisted; he'd meant that in the best possible way.

The studio was a vast echoing space, despite being filled throughout with paintings, plants, props, and staged scenes for backdrops. Many of the paintings were works in progress, draped on easels, none of which Sara had yet been allowed to view and possibly never would. The paintings she'd finally been permitted to see were all portraits of herself, which was no surprise. She'd been the artist's only subject since the day she'd first posed.

They'd been lovers only a few weeks at the time, so there'd been no presumption that she'd agree when asked. The expectation had been the exact opposite, especially when the request included occasionally posing provocatively in the nude. Her yelling out an emphatic "Yes," had been an unexpected, happy surprise that enflamed an already passionate relationship, delaying their first session until the following afternoon.

Posing nude was not a problem for Sara; they'd both gone without clothes for days at the time, as they still often did. What was the point of clothes when they'd only want to tear them from one another again before either had finished dressing? So, how else would she have posed? They spent most of each day as it was, laying about, admiring one another's naked bodies, making a game of having the restraint not to be the first to reach for the other again. Neither was particularly good at this game.

Then both were lost again in their passion, for hours, until their sweat glistened, depleted bodies finally rolled apart, watching one another's gasping efforts to catch their breath in the magnificent mirror on the ceiling above their bed. Then they slept or tried to summon the energy to get out of bed and find something to eat. Other than one another, they'd joked but often took that suggestion seriously, overcome again with the need for the pleasure, taste, and scent of one another's body.

They'd both lost weight, eating too little, while 'exercising' continuously and strenuously those first few months together. Both had been and remained as fit as they'd ever been. They'd gradually slowed down enough that neither died of starvation, exhaustion, or heart failure. Although, they still spent days when they barely left their room or strayed far from their bed.